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The Earthquake My Immodest Attire Is Not Causing

May 30, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, category-free rants, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Earthquake My Immodest Attire Is Not Causing

Does anyone remember Boobquake ?  Reading the current news headlines (moiself  handles it by glancing at them and shrieking), I feel like the world could use many more rounds of guerilla activism and mocking-the-mock-worthy.

 

 

Boobquake, a rally to protest (read: mock) an Islamic cleric’s proclamation attributing earthquakes to women’s immodest attire, took place on April 26, 2010.  It was inspired and co-organized by (then) grad student and blogger, Jen McCreight.    [1]

“In early 2010, there came news reports that an Iranian Islamic cleric, Kazem Seddiqi, had blamed earthquakes on God‘s wrath because of women who dressed immodestly and advised ‘Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.’ and Iranians should ‘adapt their lives to Islam’s moral codes’ to avoid being ‘buried under the rubble.’  The day that this was reported, (genetics grad student and activist/blogger  ) Jen McCreight  [2]  comically encouraged her readers (via Facebook) to dress ‘in your immodest clothing to represent Boobquake,’ which they referred to as a scientific experiment. The actual event took place on April 26, with McCreight carefully avoiding hateful, anti-Islamic, or anti-Iranian messages.

The center of the event (the ‘epicenter’) was at Purdue University, with participants dressed in appropriate attire and carrying signs saying things like Cleavage for Science, and God hates boobs….

An estimated 200,000 people participated in Boobquake…..true to the, um, scientific nature of the event, McCreight ran a rigorous statistical analysis of seismic activity during Boobquake and figured out that world-wide incidence of earthquakes on April 26 was actually below average. Conclusion: boobs stop earthquakes!”
( excerpts, rationalwiki, McCreight )

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why Do We Forget This?

We hear so much about PTSD – so much that some people are under the mistaken impression that every traumatic event will bring PTSD  to those who experience trauma – and we hear relatively little about the other effects of living through or with trauma.  One of the most important effects is a positive:  PTG, as in, Post Traumatic Growth.   PTG is not about denying or repressing one’s suffering, but about recognizing that living through trauma can also lead to developing resiliency and insightfulness, to having changes in perspective and increasing compassion for one’s self as well as for others.  But PTG rarely seems to be addressed or even acknowledged, along with the fact that it’s possible to experience both PTSD and PTG  from the same traumatic circumstances.

“There is research showing that, in the aftermath of a traumatic stress, some people – probably not immediately – actually end up better off.  They develop resources, friendships, social networks, insights into themselves, a sense of purpose….so many people, for example, who receive a terminal diagnosis of cancer at least will *say* that it *really* put things in perspective, and they valued their last days much more than they probably would have in any other scenario.  So, it’s possible, for example, that there is some benefit for having been through something terrible.”

( ecerpts, No Stupid Questions, Episode 23, “Is It Wrong To Crave Praise? ”
originally aired 10-18-20 )

Well someone knows enough about it to turn it into a list.

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Name I Can Live With

As regular/longtime readers may know, moiself  cannot even bear to type the name of that international sign of shame that is our current occupant of the White House; thus, I must resort to aliases (e.g., the Mandarin Mussolini) when mentioning him.  But, leave it to science – specifically, taxonomic classification – to provide an alternative.

This nomenclature suggestion comes from (I assume) an ornithologist, or someone in the birding community:

The Common North American Trump ( anus tangerinus ).

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Finding An Unexpected Use For A Often Troubling Technology

As much as I have grave doubts about AI usage  (except for certain applications, e.g., to medical and scientific research), there is one thing which recently gave me a favorable feeling toward these technologies:  their mere existence has given me the almost perfect framework with which to understand, or at least classify, a phenomenon which has both bemused and saddened moiself  for decades.

I have Religious Friends And Family Members ® whose correspondence and interpersonal interactions   [3]   have long struck moiself  as…pamphlet-like, ya know? I’ve struggled with ways to describe it; after last weekend, I shall struggle no more.

Dateline: Saturday; 7:45 AM; morning walk. Apropos of almost nothing ( but perhaps a recent article I’d read about professors despairing of reading the all-sound-alike, AI-assisted essays from their students? ) I had a click moment which provided me with a more contemporary description for my impressions:

It’s like these  RFAFM’s  lives are guided by Christian AI.

 

 

There are many, many Christian denominations – over 200 in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity – a head-scratching number for a religion that, according to most of its adherents, is just so obviously the only true faith/pathway to salvation/god.   [4]

Ah, yet again, I digress.

These RFAFMs of whom I write are typically aligned with the conservative/evangelical brands of the religion.  Over the years, when I listen to the things they say/read the things they write/watch the things they do, I’ve often found moiself  wondering, Is there an individual in there?  It all sounds so…scripted.  I can’t distinguish what she said or wrote from what her sister or that cousin/friend/coworker said or wrote.  In conversations with RFAFM’s  that might actually (and would likely, with other people) steer toward the substantive, there is little of anything uniquely personal – little of *them* present – other than their discernable desire to fulfill an obligation to be looking for any moment, in every situation (particularly when they are in the company of us happy heathens), to say or show how their lives are a “witness” to their religion.

It’s as if they are reading from a Christian AI script.   [5]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sound Advice For The…
Day… Week… Month…Your Entire Life.

This is advice  (usually but not always solicited) which moiself  has given – and heeded – many, many times:

Write it down.  Then put it away.
Come back to it in a few days ( or better yet, weeks),
and read it with the mindset, Is this still what I want to say?
Edit, then send…
or not (maybe it’s no longer necessary?)

Context:  moiself’s  favorite advice columnist, The WaPo’s Carolyn Hax, writing to an advice seeker who’d been zinged at her mother’s funeral, by her mother’s sister.  The advice seeker was wondering how to respond to her aunt, as the zing – and the feelings it brought – still linger.  Hax listed several possible options, including

*  write off your aunt’s words as the rantings of a grieving mess;
* two variations on the do-nothing/let it go response;
* handwrite a note to your aunt.

Moiself  strongly favors that last option.  I have seen too many friends and family estrangements come from slights and resentments left unspoken.  Brushing things under the rug gets you nothing but a houseful of lumpy rugs.  Don’t leave it to others to assume how/why you are feeling what you are feeling…

BUT, and this is a big but…

 

almost as big as this one?

BUT:

 * choose your battles, and
* use the perspective which can only come from deliberation,
as opposed to the instantaneous reactivity of texting, or emailing,
or (gasp) using social media IN ANY WAY.

Write it down; then, sit on it, so to speak.

“The purpose of paper is to encourage slow reactions. You write it and set it aside, in case just writing it is enough; if you want to send it, then you rewrite it as needed until all venom is out; then you snail-mail it so she can’t hit “reply” and react. Etc. Cooler heads.”

( excerpt, “Aunt’s vicious jab at funeral tarnishes a late mother’s gift,”
Carolyn Hax,  The Washington Post, 5-6-25 )

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

*   *   *

May you never attribute temblors to tatas;
May your birding binoculars never be soiled by the image of an anus tangerinus;
May your interactions never sound as if they are AI-scripted ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Jen McCreight goes by the name Jey McCreight now and uses different pronouns, but at the time of Boobquake and her other feminist activisms other she identified as Jen/female; thus I am using the names/pronouns which she used at that time and was identified as in news reports, etc.

[2] who described herself on her blog (at the time)  as “a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana.”

[3] both of which are becoming increasingly infrequent, given the years and physical and emotional distance between us.

[4] So “obvious” in its theologies and tenets that there is a need for all those denominations, as these followers of the One True God ® can’t agree on how that god wants them to eat, live, sing, worship, dress, pray, love, play music….

[5] Move along; no footnote to read here.

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Plans I’m Not 86-ing

May 23, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Isms (religion), movies, music, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science, theatre, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Taking A Break For Art

Is it art? Or is it engineering?
Either way, I will appreciate it while I can,
until the next high tide brings its own critique.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Making A Java Junkie’s Day

Or, morning at least…

Dateline Tuesday; Manzanita (Oregon), 7:35 AM-ish;  walking past Manzanita Coffee Co. A car pulls over driver stays with it as a passenger gets out color.  I saw her reading the sign on the door which listed the shop hours – closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays  [1]   – and her countenance fell, in the way that only other coffee addicts (which I think of to moiself  as, Coff-Dicts, which is too easy to mistake for Coff-*dicks, so perhaps another nickname I should create?) can understand.

Coffee Seeking Woman turned around and looked plaintively at the driver in the car.  Without breaking my stride I approached CSW, waved hello and pointed up the street, and said, “Manzanita News and Espresso is open.”  The beam in her eyes nearly outshone her profusion of gratitude: “Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you!“

 

*   *   *

Department Of She Sells Seashells By The Seashore…Oops

I allude to the recent kerfuffle   [2]    about former FBI director James Comey, whose sharing of a social media post (a picture of the numbers 86 and 47 formed by an arrangement of seashells that he and his wife saw while at a beach) caused an uproar:

“We stood over it and I said, ‘I think it’s some kind of political message.’ She said, ‘86, when I was a server it meant to remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients,’ Comey said. ‘To me, as a kid, it always meant to leave a place, to ditch a place.’

“47″ was also understood to represent Trump’s current term as 47th president of the United States.

Comey added that it was his wife’s idea to post a photo of the message, a decision that sent Trump’s White House allies into a frenzy.

“She said, ‘You should take a picture of that,’ Comey said. ‘And I did, I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it.’

Many within Trump’s orbit interpreted the “86” as a threat to the president—with some even suggesting that it was a call for his assassination.

Comey strenuously denied these claims, and said he is “not afraid” of the Trump administration’s retribution. ”

( Excerpts, “James Comey Blames His Wife for Cryptic Post That Set MAGA Off,”
The Daily Beast, 5-20-25 )

 

 

I hadn’t heard the term *86* in some time.  Like Comey, I grew up with the idea that it meant to ditch, quash, or get rid of something (e.g., “At the cafe we 86’d our plans to go to the movies after dinner.” ).  I also sympathize with the *nasty* possible meaning behind the two numbers together, although I try to restrain such thoughts.  I keep hoping that #47 will die of natural causes…until I remember what we’re dealing with and remind moiself , Oh yeah, there’s nothing about that man that’s natural….

 

“If you weren’t an atheist I’d smite him for you.”

*   *   *

Department Of The New Podcast I’m Not Listening To

That would be Proxy with Yowei Shaw.  Shaw is a former host of the podcast Invisibilia, which is in my podcast feed.  I enjoy Invisibilia’s use of narrative storytelling to report scientific issues, so I decided to give Proxy a listen when a sample episode of the podcast showed up in my podcast feed.

A description from Proxy’s NPR link:

“ Proxy investigates niche emotional conundrums through conversations with
strangers who have relevant experience.”

The host describes herself as an “emotional investigative journalist.”  Okay; I’ll give it a go.  The sample episode (original airdate 4-22-25) in my feed was titled “Bisexual Wife Guy.”  Preview on the site (which I did not have access to when I began listening to it):

“The case of the bisexual wife guy who got dumped. In this episode, we find a proxy
to stand in for a listener’s ex – another queer woman who left her straight relationship….”

So, the podcast host is talking with “George,”    [3]  (the bisexual-wife-guy-who-got-dumped).  The episode opens with Shaw giving a few specifics about the case, then speaking with George, who says about his decade-plus relationship ending in divorce:

“…it gets really complicated and kind of pricky to talk about, but bottom line, two years ago my partner said, ‘Hey I think I’m bisexual.’….
ultimately, the elephant in the room is…‘Hey, actually, I’m queer and I’m not interested in being with a cis dude anymore.’ “

Then Shaw reads from an email supposedly written by George (which led to her inviting him on the show):

“I’ve not found any support groups or the like for people in my situation, and I’m not saying that should be the priority either.  I just want to better understand in what ways I’ve been perpetuating a system that oppresses LGBTQ people and how I can grow and be better in the future, and ultimately be a human who loves everyone, including myself.”

 

 

I was turned off immediately – which is why I included the modifier supposedly written by George from the email Shaw read.  My gut reaction was, What am I hearing – a pamphlet?  Where are the emotions, motivations, and sincere responses of an actual person?  At first (and second and third and fourth…) listen I thought it might’ve been AI-generated.

Moiself  did listen a bit more, but could not sustain an interest in the podcast episode after the initial setup of some guy claiming he “just wants to understand …” followed by what sounds like phrases he’d get from a cis-dude-reeducation camp.  Where is the anguish, the anger, the despair, of being dumped, out of the blue, by the partner you loved, for whatever reason?

It’s not fair to write something off so soon; I know this on an abstract, intellectual level.  But, in the here and now, I barely have time to keep up with the podcasts moiself  already subscribes to.  Although getting through the backlog is quicker than it used to be, what with my post-election policy of deleting episodes with such angst -inducing titles and/or subject matter descriptions as,

* How Our Democracy Is Going Down The Toilet;

* Fear and Fascism: How America Reached a Political Breaking Point;  [4]

* The Rise Of American Nazism;

*Why The USA’s (Former) Allies Now Despise Us…

I figure moiself’s  incapacitation from a bleeding ulcer is not going to help the cause.

 

 

*  *   *

Department Of One Of My Favorites Ethical Dilemmas…

Favorite because, unlike so many dilemmas, there are more than two or three or five sides to this issue, and no one compelling, *it MUST be this* answer….  Thus, it’s fun (and revealing) to discuss it with others.

This is from a podcast moiself  *is* listening to.    No Stupid Questions, which ended last year, has been replaying some of their favorite episodes.  NSQ’s  Should We Separate The Art From The Artist? episode, hosted by Angela Duckworth and Stephen Dubner, is as relevant as it was when it first ran (9-27-20).  Certainly, a consensus on the question has not been reached.    [5]

Moiself  tends to think of the question as an octopus-ical ethical dilemma, in that it has multiple tentacles of interpretation and application.

Do you have the right (or the obligation) to separate the art from the artist?

 

 

DUCKWORTH:
“Did you know that the Rhodes Scholarship was founded on blood money?”

DUBNER:
“Did you know that *everything* was founded on blood money,
if you go back far enough?”

“Today on the show: In the era of cancel culture, should we still be able to enjoy the art of
problematic artists?”   (excerpt from NSQ episode transcript )

Re historically great works produced by artists  [6]  whom we later discovered led ethically sketchy (or downright reprehensible) lives:  I am comfortable with people making their own decisions as to whether they will honor/enjoy or boycott the work of such artists.  This holds true (for moiself ) even if such artists’ work would be judged today as subtly or even openly promoting racism, imperialism, sexism, classism, nihilism, poor dental hygiene….

The past is…wait for the Zen-like profundity…the past.  That was then; this is now.  I’m not convinced of the value of spending time, money and emotional energy judging the centuries-dead by their descendants’ twenty-first century values.

That said, if you think you should never again read any book by Charles Dickens because you learned that the man who wrote so eloquently about the plight of the poor and downtrodden in Victorian England was a SOB to his own family, then…don’t.  Let that conviction float your boat, but don’t try to sell moiself  on the notion that I cannot be A Good Person ® if I enjoy re-reading A Christmas Carol during the yuletide season.

When it comes to the art of the present, I am more comfortable drawing harder lines. Some hip-hopper rapping about what he’s going to do to his bitches and hos – nope, sorry, he’s not getting any of my business.   [7]

Harry Sanborn:
“Hey, some people see rap as poetry.”

Erica Barry:
“Yeah, but c’mon, how many words can you rhyme with bitch?”

 

 

Doobie-drenched rapper Snoop Dogg is now more known for his commercial ventures – e.g., , his unlikely friendship with Martha Stewart and his amusing gig as the USA’s Olympic Games ultimate fan – than for his rap career of decades ago.   And he refuses to disavow his earlier work for its sexism and misogyny and violent imagery – he says that the existence of such in his lyrics is evidence of how much he’s changed and grown.

I’ve no idea whether Mr. Dogg is truly repent-ive, or just cannily re-inventive.  Since he doesn’t seem to run from the controversy, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Even if I were not so inclined, it’s not as if moiself  boycotting misogynistic and homophobic hip-hop songs would have any influence whatsoever.

 

 

Something closer to my intellectual and artistic home is the work of a comedian, writer and filmmaker whose books and movies I read and watched…until I didn’t.

I enjoyed much of Woody Allen’s work in the past, but there were always aspects about his movies that bothered me – recurrent themes and scenes (which were pooh-poohed by two boyfriends of mine, when I brought it up) which came to a stunning, forehead-slapping, AHA moment when Allen’s abuse of his biological daughter and his affair with his de facto stepdaughter were revealed. It was a no brainer – no more, for me.

But…damn.

There was – is – so much I loved about the movie Hannah And Her Sisters, including the fact that when I saw it in the theater  [8]   for the first time  the entire audience gasped – in astonishment, appreciation, and approval – as Allen’s character found love and unexpected joy, with a woman who was his equal on many levels (age, artistic talent, neuroticism…). It’s one of my favorite movie endings ever, and it used to be one of my favorite movies. And occasionally, I do want to watch it, again…. [9]

 

 

Many years ago a high school friend confessed to me ( as in, “Don’t tell anybody, but….”) that he liked the Frito-Lay commercials featuring the cartoon mascot, The Frito Bandito, despite having had many of his fellow Chicanos lecture him as to why he shouldn’t.  They warned him: if he said anything positive about the bandidto, or any other representation of Latino culture that could be seen as (read: that those self-appointed gatekeepers had interpreted as ) racist, or promoting ethnic stereotypes, that meant he was a coconut.   [10]

 

 

I’ll leave it to my Jewish friends to decide for themselves whether or not to listen to Ride of the Valkyries (or any works of the German composer Wagner ), or whether or not to enjoy or boycott the entire bibliography of William Shakespeare because among the works of that brilliant poet and playwright is the widely (but not exclusively) held as antisemitic play, The Merchant of Venice.

My feminist sisters are welcome to listen and even sing along to last century’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside,“ despite the fact that when I listen to it with contemporary ears, there’s no way around it, that holiday classic is…uh…kinda rapey.  But there are bigger feminist fish to fry, and many people listen to that song because it reminds them of their grandparents’ generation. Now, were a contemporary singer to record a holiday tune about a man insistently inviting (pressuring?) his reluctant date to spend the night with him, to the point of intimating that he was spiking her drink? Yep, that would raise my cancellation hackles.

 

 

John Lennon created some of my favorite music on the planet.  Lennon was also – by many accounts of those who loved and admired him – prone to bouts of jealous, narcissistic, violent rages (primarily expressed emotionally, but also physically).  Knowing this about him, can I still enjoy his great body of work, during and after The Beatles? The same musician who wrote the spiteful, Run For Your Life –  with lyrics ( “Well I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man…” ) I recognized as creepy/controlling/stalker-y even when I was a third-grader –   later wrote the beautiful/haunting/yearning/evocative songs In My Life, Imagine, Across The Universe….

If moiself  demanded total ethical and human rights purity from people working in any art form, I could never again watch any movie or TV show, listen to a song, appreciate live theater, or read a book, because until these art forms have all been taken over/supplanted by AI, they will continue to be produced by flawed human beings. It’s a line I think all people with EQs and IQs greater than their shoe size should endeavor to carefully discern and not write in stone.

Yes, that means constant…vigilance, or maybe, mindfulness?  Or maybe just the simple dictum of paying attention to what, by your patronage, you implicitly or explicitly support.

DUBNER:
“…it’s the slippery-slope argument….a philosopher named Janna Thompson….

made an argument against cancel culture: ‘If the character of the artist becomes a criterion for judging art, then the door is open to the exclusion of artists because they belong to a despised group, or because they’ve said or done things that many people do not like.’ So, going back to the Nazis — because all roads seem to lead to the Nazis today — that’s what the labeling of ‘degenerate art’ was all about. Some of it was based on aesthetic principles, but it was also based on the ethnicity or politics of the artists who created it. So, do you want that too?”

…I will make one last argument against canceling, just generally. Let’s go back to politics for a second. So, one thing I personally find suboptimal about the American two-party duopoly is that it essentially forces people to go all in on either the red team or the blue team. If you want to be blue, you’ve gotta be all blue. If you want to be red, you gotta be all red.” 

DUCKWORTH:
“No purple.”

DUBNER:
“No mixing and matching of policy—”

DUCKWORTH:
“No plaid.” 

DUBNER:
“…Yeah. No plaid….

that’s the kind of doctrinaire cancelation that, in my view, harms the political process more than anything. This deep, deep, deep self-siloing. So I would say that, yes, we probably should learn to separate the politician from the policy and the art from the artist. I would take it as a sign of maturity, a sign of thoughtfulness and consideration. And I’m in favor of all of those things, for the record.”

( transcript excerpts my emphases, Should we separate the art from the artist?
NSQ Episode 20 )

 

What if you’re self-siloing, but in a purple silo?

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

“What is wanted is not the will to believe but the will to find out,
which is the exact opposite.”

( Bertrand Russell, 1872 – 1970, British pro-pacifism anti-religion philosopher, logician, mathematician, politician, author. )

*   *   *

May we all, when it comes to politics and art, learn to accept the purple;
May we see art in engineering and engineering in art;
May we express ourselves in ways that do make us not sound lik
AI-produced pamphlets;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] This is often the case with coastal businesses.  They are open on the weekends and on Mondays (for the spillover tourist business), but closed Tues & Wed.

[2] What a great word.  I’d like to think it’s Irish in origin.  Let’s all strive to use it in a sentence today, shall we, class?

[3] The usual disclaimer:  not his real name.

[4] Actual title of this Institute For New Economic Thinking podcast.

[5] I’ve blogged about it in the past, and doing so surprisingly (to no one) did not settle the matter.

[6] painters; composers; authors; playwrights…

[7] An I’m sure he’s losing sleep over that.  Middle aged white ladies don’t like my shit – I’d better change.

[8] an “arty” cinema in Palo Alto, where everyone in the audience gave off the vibe of being familiar with all of Allen’s movies

[9] If there’s some way to do so without funneling any money to Allen, I mean, not even a 5₵ cent royalty.

[10]  Pejorative for a Mexican-American who by not conforming to ethnic stereotypes was also somehow seen as ashamed of their heritage: “brown on the outside, white on the inside.“

[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Consciousness I’m Not Lowering

May 16, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, science, travel, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Consciousness I’m Not Lowering

“Keep our nation on the track/one step forward two steps back!”
( Ladies Against Women slogan )

 

 

I love Stephen Colbert’s work wherein he used his conservative commentator alter ego ( a “well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot”) to lampoon conservative politics.  However, Colbert was no pioneer in that strategy.  Almost three decades before The Colbert Report, The Plutonium Players, a feminist guerilla theatre troupe, used satire to illuminate and mock the anti-feminist politics of Reagan-era conservatives.   [1]

Do any of my older (ahem) readers remember the Bay Area comedy group, Ladies Against Women (LAW)?  I attended several of their rallies and performances during LAW’s heyday in the 1980s.  The LAW (an offshoot of The Plutonium Players) riffed on the sexist, anti-gay and anti-civil rights values espoused by the Right Wing, holding “Evenings of Consciousness-Lowering” events, which included cooking demonstrations (to encourage Ladies to make Twinkies ® from scratch), exercise routines to help Ladies look and feel helpless,  [2]   lessons on how Ladies could reduce stress via apathy, presentations on the insidious truth behind the ERA ( “the Equal *Restrooms* Amendment” ), and a wimp test for males in the audience.

The Plutonium Players gained notoriety for their Reagan For Shah campaign, and for showing up dressed as their LAW characters at airports and political rallies, where they greeted political VIPs – from POTUS Reagan to anti-feminist campaigner Phyllis Schlafly ( who also was parodied by LAW as the character, Phyllis LeShaft ), to televangelist Jerry Falwell, et al –  holding posters which read, “Ban Books Not Bombs”, Poverty Is So Tasteless,” “Born To Clean,” “Ban the Poor, ” “Push Us Back, Push Us Back, Waaaay Back.”

 

Two of the LAW Ladies, “Virginia Cholesterol” and “Mrs. T. “Bill” Banks,” demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, 1988 (Photo by Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

 

LAW worked tirelessly to “keep women safe from the 20th century,” as evidenced by excerpts from their  Ladies Against Women’s manifesto Ladyfesto:

We Truly Tasteful Ladies Do Hereby Demand Request:

 Repeal the Ladies’ vote. It is suffering and not suffrage that keeps us up on our pedestals.  And if God hadn’t wanted us up on pedestals, He wouldn’t have made us shorter than our husbands.

 Abolish the environment. It takes up too much space,
and is almost impossible to keep clean!

 Free Ladies from wage slavery. The 70-odd cents we earn for every manly dollar
is entirely too much. It is unladylike to accept money for your work.

 Maintain illiteracy as a high school graduation requirement. An uninformed populace
is an obedient populace, and a self-censoring one, too. After all, ignorance is a virtue: what you can’t read, can’t hurt you!

Procreation, not recreation. Where did so many gals get the idea that s_x is supposed
to be f_n?  True ladies, it’s time to close your eyes and do your duty!

 

 

LAW’s perspective is sorely needed in these times (and, sadly, sorely applicable as to the targets of their satire).  On a related note….

*   *   *

Department Of You Can’t Make Up This Shit

I refer to the POTUS and his festering turd allies/advisors minions wanting to offer a $5000 bait bribe  Baby bonus offer to entice women (read: young white women) to be fruitful and multiply.

 

Speaking as someone who was once a young white woman, had I been in my mid-20s and such an offer was made to me by anyone connected with a governmental agency, the only enticement it would have provided would have been to get moiself  to the nearest medical facility and lie about my age/medical condition to fit the criteria for having a hysterectomy.

I’m not the only woman of a certain age who had that gut response.  For one example, read WaPo opinion columnist Kathleen Parker’s take on the subject.  She starts out expressing similar sentiments (pokes fun at the baby bonus).  However, in a refreshing sidenote on the demographic concern re declining birthrates in the “developed world,” Parker goes on to express something which is not often mentioned when the talk turns to why women choose to have or not have children.  Parker, who like moiself   chose to become a mother later in life,   [3]    discovered something for herself when she did so –  something which isn’t mentioned as much as it might be, but which is described by a word that should be used more often in conjunction with the experience of voluntary parenthood:

JOY.

 

Circa 20 years ago, son K and daughter Belle, bringing moiself  much delight in their interpretation of their parents’ request to pose for “A nice picture we can send to your grandparents for Christmas…”

 

*   *   *

Department Of, As Opposed To Live Shorter, Worser?

Moiself  was bemused to hear the title of a recent Clear + Vivid Podcast: Eric Topol: Live Longer, Better.  I got past that and was treated to yet another thought-provoking C+V dialog between host Alan Alda and an interesting, articulate and intelligent guest.

Eric Topol is an American is an American doctor (cardiology), scientist, professor of  Molecular Medicine and the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.  Their discussion revolved around the captivating concept of how can you live, what can you do, to increase your odds of being one of the wellderly and not one of the illderly (i.e., the elderly set by chronic conditions and diseases).

“While promises of extending the human lifespan to 125 and beyond are premature, recent breakthroughs in the early detection of killer diseases of the major organs and brain offer a healthier old age – especially when paired with behavioral changes that Dr Topol calls Lifestyle+ .”
( episode summary, Clear + Vivid Podcast: Eric Topol: Live Longer, Better. )

 

 

Episode content poiler alert:  you are not a prisoner of your genes:

Alda:
“A lot of people live by the joke, ‘If you want to live a long time, choose old parents.’  How much of healthy, long living is attributed to the genome and how much to things like nutrition and exercise?”

Topol:
“Yeah, and this is I think one of the most important things we’ve learned, and all the evidence backs it up: The genes are *far less* important than we had suspected….”

Topol notes that far more important factors are not just the familiar pair,  diet-and-exercise, but “all these other lifestyle factors,” including

* quality (and quantity) of sleep

* physical activity (“absolutely vital”)

* environmental exposures (air pollution; microplastics)

* social interactions/loneliness/isolation   [4]

* Nature – as in, how much time do you spend in nature/outdoors

The one (and in some cases, seeminngly the only) thing we as humans have in common is that unless we die RIGHT NOW we are going to continue to age.  Moiself  sez it’s a two-hamster-thumbs-up subject, so check it out.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

“People who are most strongly attached to a belief in an afterlife are more likely to try to delay death when it’s clearly imminent. That doesn’t make any logical sense.
If people believe in a blissful afterlife, then logically, you’d think they’d accept their death gracefully, and would even welcome it. But it makes perfect sense when you think of religion, not as a way of genuinely coping with the fear of death, but as a way of putting it on the back burner.”

( Greta Christina, American author and activist, from her book,
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God )

 

 

*   *   *

May you consider composing your own Ladyfesto list;
May never be on the receiving end of a bribery to reproduce;
May you aim to be one of the wellderly;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Ronald Reagan supported the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) when he was governor of California, and even offered to help women’s groups achieve its ratification.  Then when he ran for POTUS he withdrew his support for the ERA.

[2] And thus increase their appeal to manly men.

[3] In obstetrical terms, that is. ( You are labeled “advanced maternal age” when you are pregnant at age 35 or older).  It’s not like we waited until we were 52 and said, “Hey, might be time to have kids!”

[4] Isn’t it time for another footnote?

[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Letter I’m Not Sending

May 9, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, TV, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Letter I’m Not Sending

Department Of A Blast From The Past

New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!   [1]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [2]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago May to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? ).  But this time, I’m making an exception.

While Searching for something else,  moiself came upon a post from the second Friday of October, seven years ago, that eerily (read: sadly) resonated with (too) many issues of the here and now.  So I’m running it in its entirety.

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 10-12-18 ( The Letter I’m Not Sending ).

*   *   *

[1] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

 

*   *   *

The Letter I’m Not Sending

That letter would be to orthopedic surgeon and Oregon State representative Knute Buehler (R-Bend), the Republican party’s candidate in the Oregon governor’s race.  [1] The subject matter of the letter would be the why behind the fact that although there are reasons I might consider voting for him, I cannot vote for him.

And the reasons have nothing to do with the fact that Oregon has elected only one Republican governor in the past 43 years.

I gotta have some respect for a Republican who receives the following critiques:

…Buehler frequently found himself getting into hot water with party activists who didn’t think he was conservative enough. They particularly criticized him for refusing to embrace President Donald Trump and for describing himself as pro-choice on abortion. Buehler’s recent vote in favor of a gun-control bill related to domestic abuse also rankled many gun-rights activists.
(“Republican Buehler Nominated To Face Brown
In Oregon Governor’s Race,” OPB 5-18-18)

After reading about some of Buehler’s positions on various issues, MH wondered aloud, something along the lines of,

How/why is this man was even a Republican?

 

I have no logical answer at this moment.

 

I have found the incumbent governor who is running for reelection, Democrat Kate Brown, to be…. mostly acceptable. What I find unacceptable is her campaign’s advertising campaign  [2] against Buehler.  I am particularly disappointed with the way the Democrats are trying to smear Buehler re his claims of being prochoice, despite his repeated public proclamations as such.

“I’m going to vote for you, but I sure wish you were pro-life,” (a Republican voter tells Buehler at the Oregon state fair).
(The Republican voter) says he finds abortion offensive and posits that Buehler’s position is just an appeal to the liberal western portion of the state. Buehler sympathizes with his perspective, but confirms he supports abortion rights. Efforts should be made to make abortion as rare as possible, Buehler says, but the decision to have an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor.
(“Buehler’s ‘pro-choice’ stance: Disliked by conservatives, discredited by Democrats,”
Salem Statesman Journal 9-6-18)

That seems straightforward to me, and expresses sentiments similar to those I’ve heard from both prochoice conservatives and liberals. But many Oregon Democrats don’t like the fact that Buehler disagrees with them on related issues – “it’s my way or the highway” seems to be the attitude they are taking. He must agree with every issue they, or the Oregon chapters of NARAL or Planned Parenthood – organizations which I support, both philosophically and financially – deem to be related to abortion and/or reproductive health care, or they feel entitled to take away his prochoice label.

Example: there was an Oregon House Bill, signed last year by Gov. Brown, which required insurance companies to cover abortions and other reproductive health services at no cost to the patient. (I favored that bill, BTW). Buehler opposed the bill because he considered it “fiscally irresponsible to fund a new program as others were losing funding.” So, Those Who Think They Own The Label ® declare he “really isn’t pro choice.”  Which means I am seeing and hearing political ads featuring Concerned Women ®  saying, “We just can’t trust Knute Buehler,”  and implying that Buehler would somehow do away with women’s rights. And that just frosts my butt.

 

While this picture is in no way illustrative of the issue addressed in the previous paragraph, wouldn’’ you rather see a cute sloth than the writer’s frosty butt?

 

In 1969, Oregon was one of the first states to legalize abortion, even before Roe v. Wade hit the law books. “Our policies are borne out of Oregon exceptionalism,” says (the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon). “We are progressive and libertarian. Voters on the east side of the Cascades may or may not agree with a woman’s right to access abortion, but they sure as heck agree that the government has no place in that decision.”
(“Why Oregon is the Only State that Doesn’t Limit Legal Access to Abortion,”
Portland Monthly)

Oregon’s long record as a prochoice state makes us the envy of many other states; thus, the issue of abortion in this particular political race is not a “biggie” for a staunch prochoice advocate such as moiself. And although he crosses his party’s line in his prochoice stance, I know there are other issues about which Buehler likely toes the Republican party line. But he is willing to tackle what is one of the most important state political issues for me, and one that the Democrats have repeatedly failed to address: the fact that Oregon’s growing public pension obligations are crowding out the rest of the state budget – what the NY Times refers to as a severe, “self-inflicted crisis.”

Oregon…is caught in a fiscal squeeze of its own making. Its economy is growing, but the cost of its state-run pension system is growing faster. … its spiraling costs are notable in part because Oregon enjoys a reputation for fiscal discipline. Its experience shows how faulty financial decisions by states can eventually swamp local communities….
Oregon’s costs are inflated by the way in which it calculates pension benefits for public employees. Some of the pensions include income that employees earned on the side. Other retirees benefit from long-ago stock market rallies that inflated the current value of their payouts.
The bill is borne by taxpayers. Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System has told cities, counties, school districts and other local entities to contribute more to keep the system afloat. They can neither negotiate nor raise local taxes fast enough to keep up. As a result, pensions are crowding out other spending. Essential services are slashed.
 (“A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash,”
NY Times, 4-14-18)

I like Buehler’s willingness to address Oregon’s need for PERS ( Public Employees Retirement System) reform. The PERS as it stands, IMHO as well as the opinions of financially astute people on all sides of the political aisles, is a disaster in the making. The system is unsustainable as currently calculated and implemented, and yessiree Bob, it will be a complicated and a “dirty” fight to reform it.  The spineless Democrats haven’t done a @#$?! thing about it, except to criticize Buehler (or anyone who has a plan to reform PERS), as being anti ____ (teacher, firefighter, or other public employees    [3]  ).  Thus, every four years when it’s time to elect a governor, here come the ads showing Concerned Teachers ® – mostly female, from what I’ve seen – talking about how ____ (insert name of non-Democratic candidate…this year, it’s Buehler) is “against” them.

My butt grows frostier by the minute.

 

Oh, no! Don’t worry; we’ll save you from the pictorial representation of her wrath.

 

No no no no no – and did I say, no? Teacher Ma’am, those who point out that your purse is leaking dollar bills and that you need to either get a new purse or fix the existing one – or at least stop walking down the street with your purse hanging upside down – are not “against” you, or your profession. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Someone who is trying to save you from inevitable bankruptcy is not out to get you (boys and girls, can you ask your economics teacher to explain what happened in Detroit, or Greece ?). But the critics of those who offer PERS reform, time and time again, year after year, offer nothing substantial in response, except for the occasional mealy mouthed admission that “something” needs to be done…eventually…by someone….

Buehler has proposed a sound beginning approach to PERS reform, and the response is ad homimen criticism from Democrats and teachers’ unions: “Why does Buehler hate teachers/public employees!?!?!?  Their distract-from-the-real-issue hysteria reminds me of the rabid, irrational criticism from conservatives leveled at football players who take a knee to protest racial injustice. Instead of actually listening to and considering the grievances which inspired the players’ actions, it’s,  WHY DO YOU DISRESPECT OUR FLAG AND OUR SOLDIERS ?!?!?!?!?

 

But everyone respects a picture of a lovely cowfish, so let’s all take a deep breath and think before we yell.

 

There is a sad truth I am getting back to, in the letter I am currently not sending to you, Rep. Buehler. Despite just having expressed disgust with the black/white, you-must-agree-with-me-on-every-thing-or-you’re-against-me attitude and despite admiring you for your ideas on an issue that is of paramount importance to all Oregonians, I cannot seriously consider voting for you as long as you are willing to remain affiliated with the Republican party.

People who know most of my political positions probably assume I usually vote “for the Democrat,” and that is (usually) correct. For most of my voting life  [4] I have been registered as independent or decline to state for political party affiliation.  [5]  I have, at times, temporarily registered  in a variety of parties – mostly in the two “biggies” (Democrat or Republican), depending on how I wanted to vote in a primary election (or in a couple of cases due to my curiosity as to what kind of political mailers I would receive by being on, say, the Peace and Freedom Party’s membership roll  [6]).  In each case, after the primary election was over, I left skidmarks switching my status back to Independent.

I have never felt a strong affiliation for a political party, in any personal or “loyalty oath” kind of way, and have always loathed (what I view as) the kneejerk, no-thought required tendency of many people to always vote for their party’s candidates, no matter what.  I have voted for Republican candidates who, like you, Mr. Buehler, seemed willing to tackle difficult issues in a meaningful way and “reach across the aisle” to do so. But, as I have previously stated in this space, I will never vote for a Republican again, as long as your party continues to support/does nothing to oust #45.  [7] 

Now, you may point out that the governorship to which you aspire is a state office, not Federal.  It doesn’t matter; I will not vote for a Republican for any political office. If you claim the party affiliation, you share that affiliation with those who support the affront to human decency and civilization that is The Current Occupant of The White House. Your Republican brethren at the top seem impervious to criticism from the top, so I’m holding all of y’all down the totem pole responsible.

I’m sorry, Mr. Buehler, because you seem like a thoughtful, intelligent, just plain good person in many ways, and one who is trying to do his best for the state he loves. But the continued presence of #45 shows, to me, that those who support him have turned a blind eye to their country and their humanity – as particularly and abhorrently illustrated by the events of recent weeks  [8]  – which leaves me ethically unable to support anyone at any governmental level who is willing to remain on the Republican team.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Possible Exception To The Previous Proclamation

I could vote for a Republican who was actively and publicly working to remove #45 from office via impeachment or by invoking the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

*   *   *

Department Of Oh And One More Thing

The above political cartoon, by Bruce MacKinnon for The Halifax Chronicle Herald, should be a shoo-in, IMHO, for the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

*   *   *

May you carefully weigh the costs of your affiliations;
May you accept my thanks for abiding with me through one-issue rants posts;
May pictures of sloths warm your frosty butts;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Notice I did not use the term, Gubernatorial, and when you’re around me, please don’t you use it, either. I find the word offensive, as in unnecessarily fancy…and just plain nasty.

[2] An objectionable political advertising campaign – what a surprise!

[3] Which include some OHSU physicians and Oregon University football coaches, some drawing grotesquely inflated pensions of more than $76,000…per MONTH.

[4] Since I register to vote at age 18 I’ve never missed an election for which I was qualified to vote.

[5] The label has varied from state and county, etc.

[6] The mailers were never as interesting – or out and out loony tunes – as I’d hoped they’d be.

[7] Whose name is not spoken in my house.

[8] I of course refer to the SCOTUS nomination and confirmation of Judge “I love beer so much I can’t remember the women I tried to rape when I was drunk but I love beer don’t you love beer and nothing’s gonna happen to privileged white preppie boys like me, boy ya gotta love beer!” Kavanaugh.

The Computer My Brain Is Not Interfacing With

May 2, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Computer My Brain Is Not Interfacing With

Department Of Simple Pleasures
# 4582 In A Never-Ending Series

Dateline: Wednesday; 2pm-ish; picking up the week’s share of produce from The Farm ®  (our CSA, La Finquita del Bujo  [1]  ).  This is only the third pickup of the season, and the first one in which there has been bok choy.  As I pick out my bok choy stalks I find moiself   talking to them, an interaction which did not occur to me when I picked up the bundles of kale, lettuce, mustard greens, radishes, cilantro, shallots, and mushrooms:

Bok, bok bok bok bok bok bok bok…choy!

I don’t know how not to do this.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Cautious Indoor Kitty Steps Out

We’re trying out a new harness/leash arrangement with our elderly cat, Nova – who officially is 18 years old, as of yesterday (!) – as part of our ongoing effort to make car transport easier for her…and, okay, also (read: mostly) for us.  Nova goes to and from the coast with us on a regular basis; the aim is to have Nova in an open carrier (which is belted into the seat belt) in the back seat of the car, with her harness/leash device clipped to that carrier so that she’ll be able to roam from the carrier to her travel litterbox and back to the carrier – but with the least short enough so that she cannot get into the front seats with us and get underfoot/carjack us/otherwise get into trouble, in an effort to reduce “accidents”   [2]  she’s been having in her other carrier.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of What Is Wrong With Me, That Even For A Moment,
I Wanted This

 

 

Stop wringing your wimple, sister, I didn’t even post what “this” is.

 

Ok; you can shame me now.

 

*   *   *

Department Of A New Thing To For My Brain To Wake Me Up
In The Middle Of The Night Wondering: “What About This?”

Moiself  looks forward to the day when I read a headline about how, with the help of AI technologies that could understand and synthesize every available piece of research and information, medical researchers have found the causes of – and therefore the cures for – Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and other devastating, progressive afflictions.

Regular readers of my blog may know that I tend to be very critical of AI across the board, both the emerging technology itself and its applications.  Moiself  is holding hope (despite what I know of human tendencies and capacities), that for all of the downsides of AI – read: the counterfeiting of almost everything – there are scientists and engineers working on identity/detecting technologies, as in, solutions/warning/watermarks two warnings of the “bad” or counterfeit usage of AI.

A recent episode of the science podcast Curiosity Weekly had me wondering about another AI downside, mere seconds after the episode had me marveling over the same AI application.  I left skidmarks going from, This is incredible!!, to Yikes – how will we recognize the counterfeit or be able to identify mistakes?!?

 

 

The last part of the episode Indigenous Climate Solutions, Virus Thaw, AI Brain Implant deals with a new AI-powered brain implant.  This device aims to translate thought into speech for a person who survived a stroke which left her a quadriplegic who had also lost the power to speak.

“A new AI powered brain implant was able to translate thoughts to speech in an instant for patients with paralysis like the studies participant, and this is the closest to naturalistic speech, a communication device has come yet, a brain computer interface or BCI is a system that lets the brain talk directly to a computer. It works by detecting the electrical signals your brain naturally produces when you think, move, or even just imagine speaking, and then translates those signals into commands that a computer can understand….

‘Anne’ had a stroke in her brain stem, which left her quadriplegic and unable to speak even though she knows what she wants to say.  The hope is that BCI  can decode what she intends to say and turn those thoughts into real-time audible speech….

…currently, most patients with severe speech impairments rely on devices ranging from simple picture boards to computer programs that synthesize speech from text….  Scientists are still developing these brain computer interfaces, but a new system from researchers at UCSF and Berkeley…was able to simultaneously detect words and thought and turn them into speech within just three seconds….

They trained the deep learning model on data to interpret the patterns of neural activity. Because the system was designed to capture activity in tiny windows of time every 80 milliseconds. It didn’t have to wait for Anne to finish a whole sentence. It could start interpreting what she was trying to say while she was still saying it…

So far Anne has been the only patient to test the device, so there’s a long way to go before a device like this is available to the masses. But as a proof of concept,    [3]   it’s such a great start. And for an added touch per Anne’s request, they train the system on recordings from her wedding video. So the computer speech sounded like her voice from before her paralysis….”
(excerpts, transcript for Curiosity Weekly 4-23-25 )

 

 

YEAH WOW…BUT….

What if the AI device is seemingly working fine – as in, accurately translating Anne’s thoughts into speech, for days, weeks, months – then suddenly mistranslates something?  What if the AI/BCI somehow gets it wrong, about what Anne was thinking, what she meant to imply, what she wanted the technology to say for her?   What if, from that point on, her AI voice is wrong, every time…or maybe one out of three times, or…?

Whether it messes up one minor thought…

* Anne’s I’d like a lemonade is mistranslated as, Please bring me orange juice,

or mistranslates her attempt to convey a symptom…

* Anne’s  I taste blood in my throat translates as,  My scalp itches.

Instantaneous or verification of precision or inaccuracy of translation is vital.

 

 

Anne can hear what her BCI is saying, as “herself” (Anne).  But because she is quadriplegic with no power of speech, she can’t say, immediately or otherwise,  Whoa there, that’s not what I meant to say.  How can she indicate to  friends, family, coworkers, her medical attendants around her, that,  No, the BCI/AI voice, which is uncannily mimicking (“speaking in“) her voice, got it wrong:

*  She was not asking for an enema; she was asking about her Aunt Emma;

* She was not asking you to mark her ballot for the Republican candidate; she was thinking as strongly as she could that it will be a cold day in Death Valley before she will ever vote for a Republican again…

* Her BCI/AI voice says to  Please help me redo my will, when she was thinking ,Will you please redo my rickety wheelchair ramp?

When – not, if – Anne’s BCI-AI translator misinterprets her brain waves, she will (hopefully) know that it has done so,   [4]   because she hears what other people think she is saying or requesting, via her BCI-AI.  How would Anne then communicate this error in communication?

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself.  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [5] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

“Religion…asks us to deliberately deceive ourselves – to replace reason with its opposite, faith, and when men operate on faith, they can no longer be reasoned with, which makes them more dangerous than any sane man, good or evil.”
( James L. Sutter, American author & game designer )

 

 

*   *   *

May you make a sizeable donation to the ASPCA should you ever
purchase a classic car stroller for your pet;
May you never had the need for a brain implant to speak for you;
May you enjoy making chicken noises to your bok choy or other produce items
(try clucking to kohlrabi for a real change of pace!);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] “The Little Farm of the Owl”

[2] Read:  barfing and/or peeing and/or pooping. Sometimes she goes for the trifecta.

[3] A proof of concept (POC) is a demonstration of a product in which work is focused on determining whether an idea can be turned into a reality. A POC’s goal is not to seek market demand for the concept or choose the best way to produce it. Rather than focusing on building or developing the idea, it tests whether the idea is feasible and viable. In addition, it enables those involved in the proof-of-concept exercise to explore its financial potential.  From techtarget, definition, POC

[4] As long as her hearing remains intact…or her eyesight, if the technology allowed for  printout of every thing the AI voice says for her.

[5] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg.  Until I did.

One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens.  No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.  No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org