Home

The Better Person Travel Is Not Making Me

July 25, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, sports, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , 2 Comments

 

Department of The Retrievals is Back…

…and this second season is also riveting.  Have you ever been pregnant, known anyone who was pregnant, or are yourself the result of your mother’s pregnancy?  Yeah, I’m saying everyone should listen to this.

The Retrievals second season was inspired by the podcast’s first season,    [1]   which dealt with the broad (sorry) issue of women’s pain being ignored during medical procedures as seen through the lens of a specific scandal: a nurse was stealing painkillers from the Yale Fertility Center, and the saline substitute some patients received instead of a painkillers meant they were in agony during the procedures they were undergoing…and the medical professionals performing the procedures didn’t believe them.

Season 2 is a new story. It’s not about Yale medical clinics or fertility treatments, but it’s definitely a related subject. Susan Burton, the producer of the first season, goes behind the scenes at a Chicago hospital as a group of doctors and nurses struggles to address this issue of women’s pain after one of their own nurses undergoes an excruciating C-section.

 

 

After The Retrievals season one, Burton received many, many letters from women sharing their stories of medical nightmares due to anesthesia failure.  Burton was compelled to focus season two of The Retrievals on a persistent problem with the most common surgical procedure performed in the US:  the inexcusably high rate   [2]  of inadequate anesthesia and/or anesthesia failure during cesarean sections.  As in, the patient can *feel* the operation, and too often (too often means even once – this should NEVER happen) is ignored or pooh-poohed by her doctor and/or anesthesiologist and/or nurse, with no acknowledgement of her suffering or investigation as to what went wrong.

This teaser excerpt, from episode three, is a conversation between podcast host Burton and one of her guests, Susanna Stanford, a British woman who undertook a graduate’s degree study into this issue after she endured agonizing pain during her own C-section.  And, yes, that quote from the doctor you will be reading was taken from this century, and not the 1800s.

 

 

Susanna Stanford, podcast guest:
…Just to give you a sense of how accepted this was, this is an editorial from 2006 in the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia.

Susan Burton, host:
The editorial, by a British doctor, was about the necessity of keeping good records in case you ever got sued by a woman who complained of pain during her Cesarean.

Susanna Stanford:
“Let me read to you the opening section:
‘It was all so simple in the old days. You simply injected the local anesthetic down the epidural, warned her that she’d feel a bit of pain, and told the obstetrician to get on with it. And then things began to become more complicated.
First, women began to complain more, no doubt fueled by general changes in patients’ attitudes as they made the transition from passive recipients of health care to consumers.’
Doesn’t that just tell you so much?”

Susan Burton:
“I mean, it’s just like, well, the women started speaking up.”

Susanna Stanford:
“Damn it. Those wretched women started complaining about pain.”

Susan Burton:
“I cannot believe this. This is 2007, 2006?”

Susanna Stanford:
“ ‘06. 2006. It’s not the 1950s.”

 

 

The Dowager is shocked.

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of A Different Kind Of Shock

“Culture shock is the growing pains of a broader perspective.”

Moiself  could summarize a recent Rick Steves podcast interview with that quote of his.  Travel guru Steves (whose recent book, On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer,  I highly enjoyed and recommend,) is known for his enthusiastic advocacy of cross-cultural travel as a political as well as recreational act.  And although I’ve been on three RS tours    [3]   (and, if I’m lucky, will undertake at least three more), one of Steves’  most treasured travel tenets is one moiself  disagrees with…slightly.

This precept is that travel changes a person – travel makes you a better person, in that the exposure to different people and cultures helps us celebrate differences and overcome misunderstandings and question prejudices and presumptions, large and small.

 

 

I think that *can* happen, but only if you are the type of person prone to introspection and open to change…and if you are, perhaps you wouldn’t have needed, ultimately or eventually, to go to Bosnia or Turkey or Greece to have discovered this (maybe just watching a Rick Steves Europe Travel Videos from the comfort of your den would do).

I think that instead of experiencing eye-opening, mind-altering change when they travel to foreign lands, more often than not, people take who they are and what they think with them – most folks pack their opinions and biases along with their toiletries and passports. For some travelers the opinions/biases can fit into a TSA-approved ziplock sack; while others will need to check at least one full-sized suitcase to accommodate their assumptions and expectations.  [4]

 

 

Whenever I hear someone repeat any variation of that optimistic cliché platitude – that travel makes you a better person – I immediately, unfortunately, picture (even if only for a moment) several people I’ve met who didn’t get that memo along with their passports, including  One Of The More Racist People I’ve Ever Known ® .

OOTMRPIEK, the father of a junior high friend of mine, was the first person I heard use the slur  jigaboo to refer to a Black person.  He did this openly, in front of me, when I was at my friend’s home and peeked into their TV room to say hi to her dad. OOTMRPIEK was watching an LA Lakers game, and after some spectacular play which brought the crowd to a roar he giggled and said to me,  “Those jigaboos sure can jump!”  I had no idea what he meant; I’d never heard the word.   [5]   But since that tittering comment of his was soon followed by another in which he (still giggling) used the N-word,  [6]  I knew it was not a complimentary term, no matter how happy he looked when he said it.

OOTMRPIEK was always nice to me and (as far as I know) to his daughter’s other (white) friends.  And OOTMRPIEK  was a world vagabond – the most well-traveled person I’ve ever met, then or now. Travel was his hobby, his passion.  His daughter and I used to speculate about how her dad must be a CIA operative, and his cover was that of a mild-mannered suburbanite – how else to explain why an otherwise meek-seeming husband and father and insurance agent was always heading off for exotic locations?

 

“I’m here to check if you have adequate coverage via your homeowner’s policy.”

 

Over the years when I asked OOTMRPIEK  to tell me stories about his travels, it became evident to moiself  that he traveled for his interest in the history, the geography, the scenery of places “exotic” to him.  I tried to elicit stories about the people he encountered and noticed the commonality among the nations about whose inhabitants he spoke disparagingly (African; Middle Eastern; Asian).  Even for the countries about which he spoke positively  (European), he honestly seemed, to me, to have had no great (nor even small) concern for the *people* living in the countries he traveled to. Therefore, he could enjoy a trip to the exotic Egypt and the intriguing Middle East and witness a spectacular Sub-Saharan sunset, and return home to joke about niggers and  jigaboos.

 

 

Sub-Department Of Speaking Of Perspectives…

Y’all may have noticed that with my first usage of that YOU  SHALL  NEVER  USE  THIS  WORD  word   [7],  I used the culturally-sensitive currently acceptable stunt double (“the N-word”).    Now, by not doing so with the second usage, moiself  is wondering if this post will somehow get flagged.  When on the rare occasion I’ve had cause to use that word – which is always quoting someone else who said it – I usually (when in the presence of those with delicate sensibilities) employ the euphemistic contraction.  But it seems rather juvenile to do so when quoting what another person actually said (and there is, to my knowledge, no  J-word substitute for jigaboo).  So maybe I’ll throw in some other words and see which one gets the most censorious reaction.

How’s about cocksucker?

 

 

“It is remarkable to me that people can travel
and not be impacted by what they see.”

That statement came from the person who interviewed     [8]   Rick Steves, when he mentioned to Steves about how he was once sitting at the foot of a melting glacier, next to a fellow traveler who announced that he doesn’t believe in climate change.

OK, so that was remarkable to Mr. Interviewer, but guess what?  For a significant amount of people, no amount of foreign travel –

– which BTW increases the amount of carbon into the air, which even We-Who-Are-Open-To-Change-And-Concerned-About-Working-For-Solutions-To-Global-Warming®  nevertheless contribute to the problem by taking jet planes to Europe or wherever –

– will likely change their perspective.  It’s not that simple.  People often come to such opinions via a complicated jumble of religious and cultural and political influences.  I think by the time Mr. Interviewer met the What Melting Glacier? Guy, WMGG had already, consciously or otherwise, decided not to see what he didn’t want to see.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

*   *   *

May you listen to The Retrievals;
May you carefully employ your euphemistic contractions;
May your travels be respectful and bring perspective;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] The series, reported and hosted by Susan Burton, won a buttload of “best podcast” awards and a Peabody Award.

[2] Also inexcusably high is the USA’s rate of C-sections – one in three births.

[3] Three two weeks+  trips to the Adriatic (Slovenia; Bosnia; Croatia), Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark; Norway) and Ireland.

[4] So much for the suitcase metaphors.

[5] Really – later after I’d gone home, I asked my parents what it meant. Their first response: “Where did you hear that?!?!?”

[6] And that would not be the first time I head that word from my friend’s father.

[7] Unless you’re a Black rap star.

[8] Damned if I can’t remember which interview – I’ve head so many with RS, especially since his new book’s release.

[9] “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 Psychologists I’m Not Disagreeing With

July 18, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Isms (religion), movies, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Psychologists I’m Not Disagreeing With

Department of Nine Out of Ten Psychologists Agree…

…that turning to familiar (“comfort”) activities in stressful times is an adaptive behavior.  Which partially explains why moiself  recently rewatched one of my favorite movies, Tootsie.  But really – who needs an excuse to watch that classic – which is perennially near the top of the American Film Institute’s list of best comedies – about a neurotic, out-of-work actor who becomes a better man after putting himself, figuratively and literally, in a woman’s shoes?

For y’all who haven’t seen the movie WTF is wrong with you ?!?!?!. ,  here’s a brief recap of what has led up to the movie’s final scene, which has one of the best ever, IMO, dialog endings of a movie.

 

 

(Jessi Lange as Julie, with Dustin Hoffman as Dorothy Michaels/Michael Dorsey )

 

Michael Dorsey is speaking with Julie Nichols, his fellow actor on a popular TV soap opera, where he pretended to be a female actor (“Dorothy Michaels”) playing a female character on the show.  Michael left the show after his dramatic, on-air revelation that he, a man, was in fact playing Dorothy Michaels.  Several weeks later, Michael has caught up with Julie outside the TV studio and tries to make small talk with her.  She blows him off until he drops his guard about why he did what he did.  Michael has fallen in love with Julie, while Julie, believing Dorothy was a woman, befriended Dorothy and came to deeply care for her as a friend and mentor, confidant, and even a mother figure.

Michael:
I just did it for the work; I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.
Especially you.

Julie (after a long pause, whispers):
I miss Dorothy.

Michael:
You don’t have to.  She’s right here, and she misses you.

Look, you don’t know me from Adam, but…I was a better man with you, as a woman… than I ever was with a woman, as a man.  You know what I mean?
I just gotta learn to do it without the dress.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Questions With No Simple Answers

A little while back, moiself  read a post on a community social media bulletin board (the post in its entirety can be read in my longest blog footnote ever     [1]).   The poster wrote about her child’s school district’s proposal to bus children from one grade school to another one, to create a Life Skills classroom for special needs children. The poster adamantly insisted that all students be mainstreamed and was strongly against the proposal (as in, if you hold a different opinion, to quote her directly,  you are wrong!).

After reading the post my first thought was rapidly followed by a bajillion others, all of which kept coming back to this:  I have a feeling that this issue is more complicated than the poster made it out to be.  [2]   Will the well-meaning people on all sides of this issue be able to listen to one another with open hearts and minds?

Moiself  is no longer a parent with children in primary schools; thus, I’m not familiar with the current educational strategies for students with special needs/cognitive and emotional disabilities.  I *am* familiar with human nature, and so I’m crossing my fingers (but not holding my breath) that reason and compassion and open minds will prevail over Possibly Misguided-But-Good-Hearted-Intentions ®.

 

 

This issue is often referred to as mainstreaming vs. special or adaptive education.  Probably not a good idea to phrase it adversarial terms; it’s a not one size fits all subject, and each Special Needs Child ( acronym-ed here as SNC – I will be using the vocabulary used by others, although I’m not fond of that term ) is an individual, not part of some apocryphal, Special Needs Child Community® .  But, society being what it is, students can seemingly be pitted against one another when it comes to funding educational programs.

Both MH and I volunteered in our offsprings’ classrooms in their K-8 years (and MH in high school).  [3]   I’ve some opinions on this issue based on (1) what I saw/dealt with in the classrooms, (2) what my offspring shared with me, and (3) what some concerned (and sometimes frustrated) teachers confided to me.

First of all, there’s the poster’s lofty proclamation that “…your children learn compassion, kindness, and acceptance” by being in a class with SNC  (“who struggle to fit into the educational environment due to their unique and personal disability needs”) kids.  Yeah…maybe…sometimes.  But why do some adults seem to forget or discount how downright nasty children can be to other children?

 

 

 

In Belle’s kindergarten class there were two SNC children who were mainstreamed at their respective parents’ insistence.  My heart broke for one in particular, when, after repeatedly seeing his inappropriate behavior during recess,   [4]   I (privately and discretely) asked The Teacher®  about him.  TT®  had tried to get him help, but was dealing with the fact that he, along with another SNC child, was taking up so much of her class time…she knew it was unfair to the other kids, but even though it was “just” kindergarten, he was behind in so many areas….

I saw a similar dynamic in Belle’s first grade classroom.  Again, as a classroom volunteer, I discretely asked The Teacher®  for tips as to how to deal with a certain student during the reading groups I was leading.    [5]  He was disruptive to say the least, and the other students’ frustration with him was growing – it was *their* time he was disrupting, as well as his own.  And TT®, sadly and discretely, told me that she had at least five students who needed their own (as in, one-on-one monitoring) classroom aide, but only one of those students had an aide.  She then surprised me by apologizing to me for what, given the realities of the classroom, my daughter Belle was missing out on.  She explained it to me thusly:  by being one of the “smart” students (as in, hardworking, able to stay on task, eager to learn),  Belle didn’t get the attention *she* deserved – and still needed no matter how smart she was, by virtue of being a first grader – because of all the time that the teacher had to spend trying to keep the SNC students on track (or at least to try and quell the disruptions).

The teacher shared this privately, but it was no secret.  Even at age six the students had more social awareness than many adults gave them credit for – and their resentment (of their share of their teacher’s time and attention being spent on SNCs ) was palpable.

 

 

You know the thing that adults do with (so many issues, but in particular) regard to SNC – the trying-not-to-say-what-they-are-saying?  The euphemisms change every five years or so, but I saw that what was true when I was in second grade was still the case when my kids were:

  You can call the reading Groups A, B or C,
or The Red Group and The Green Group and The Blue Group,
or The Eagles and The Hawks and The Ospreys, or whatever….

Pick your code of choice, it doesn’t matter.  You and other adults may never use the words  (“the smart/advanced/gifted” groups and the “slower/special/challenged” groups); you may even banish such terms and labels from your classroom, but guess what?  The kids still figure it out.  And they don’t necessarily apply the terms in a negative way, but simply as another way of noticing who does and who is what.  Kids will do the seemingly instinctive, self-descriptive, sorting that kids do:

* I have blue eyes like my mom; I’m allergic to nuts;
I suck at jump rope; I’m in the advanced math group;

* I like kittens and puppies; I don’t like spelling tests;
I’m good at kickball; I’m a middle reader;

* I’m tallest in my class, I like reptiles and parrots;
I’m a fast runner; I’m in the slow math group…

 

 

There is an unintentionally cruel side to mainstreaming, that Belle’s kindergarten teacher described in a way that almost broke my heart, when she talked to me about the disruptive child I previously mentioned.  The child was frustrated; he was soooo much slower (in every way – speech; vocabulary, physical coordination; emotional self-regulation…)  than the other kids.  And his developmental delays were obvious to him, as well as to his classmates.

If the boy could have been in a class with other students at the same skills and maturity level he could, on some days and in some situations, excel, and maybe even have a turn at being on top.  He might learn to enjoy school and learning.  But by mainstreaming him, at least at his particular age, he was always going to be at the bottom of the heap, and school (and by extension, academics and learning) was going to be a painful reminder of that, for him.

 

 

Oy vey…I don’t know.  What a dilemma.

I have been fortunate. Through an inscrutable combination of luck…

* The genetic lottery?
Our kids’ respective,  “natural” or inborn temperaments and interests?

…and intention

* Mindful parenting? The history, on both sides of MH’s and moiself’s’ families,
of education being cherished, valued, and enjoyed?

…navigating the world of SNC has not been my parental row to hoe.

And I have felt the shame of resenting the SNC whose overwhelming needs/deficits took time away from other students; I have justified my resentment about the time and resources taken away from the others – aren’t all kids supposed to be *special* ?!?! –  when I saw how my own and other supposedly “gifted” kids didn’t have enough to challenge them, when they were given busy-work that bored them…or were given the label “gifted” with no accompanying programs or opportunities because, as one teacher told me, they didn’t have the resources ( several other parents of a child who’d tested gifted told me that they’d been told by their child’s teachers that getting SNC students up to grade level was prioritized over keeping the “higher level” students engaged)….    [6] 

I have seen and felt the teachers’ genuine devotion to and concern for their SNC students, when it seemed obvious to me that the kids were not only falling behind the rest of the class, but, worst of all, seemed genuinely *miserable.*  How could that kind of mainstreaming be in those children’s best interest?   [7]   

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 

My favorite part of the bible is when, after the flood, the ark landed, and all the carnivores waited until their prey reproduced before eating them.

 

*   *   *

May you menfolk “learn to do it without the dress”
(or hey, with the dress, if that floats your boat);
May we mindfully navigate the pitfalls of educational good intentions;
May we rejoice in knowing there’s less than 17 weeks until Exploding Whale Day ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1]  “Local Friends and neighbors…. Please read and share my thoughts on this important change coming to our grade school! I am so mad, so sad and so very disappointed in this proposed change….

Our grade school is planning some really big changes that you may think does not impact you or your children, but you are wrong! The benefits that your children gain by having their friends and neighbors who struggle to fit into the educational environment due to their unique and personal disability needs are enormous. Your children learn compassion, kindness, and acceptance by just including those who do not learn as they do. We all have differences, and we need to learn to live together and accept one another. Not to exclude those who are different but to include them. Our society pushes those who do not fit into the traditional learning model out of society because they have been taught to do so by school programs such as these. This is not necessary! Please come to the meeting and say “NO!” Not at our school.

They are proposing bussing children in from ______(location redacted) grade school to _____(location redacted) to create a “Life Skills” classroom. I can tell you from experience that no life skills will be taught here, this is a place to put our children who are different so that they do not impact the learning of those around them. This is happening because our district has hired a Special Education Director who has absolutely zero experience with anyone who has special needs. This Director was head of a high school TAG program with no experience on how to support someone with high sensory needs so that they can learn alongside their peers and not be segregated and separate. I have heard rumors that they have allowed the placement of a 4th grade student to the preschool classroom to “hang out” for the day because they do not know how to support this individual. We need to hire someone who can support our children so that they can be accepted and included into society, not shoved into a separate room and forgotten about by their friends and neighbors.

Please come with me and help me tell the school district that we do not want this change! Keep our children at their local community schools. All children deserve an education alongside their peers regardless of their disability. Ask them instead to please hire experts who can teach from experience how best to support our children where they are because their lives are valuable too. Children with disabilities deserve an education alongside their peers at their local community schools and the other children deserve to know them, to be friends with them. This is a disservice to our entire community, not just the few children that are bussed in and forgotten about. This impacts all of us.”

[2] and I confess that I have not seen any follow-up reporting (nor read the comments) on the issue.

[3] With the exception of K’s first grade teacher, who made it clear that she did *not* want parent volunteers in her classroom.  She told me that, in her experience, she ended up spending too much time tutoring certain parents – and she couldn’t tell who were the quick learners and self-starters among them and it was difficult, once you had a parent volunteer and realized, “I’m going to have to hold this one’s hand,” to find a genteel way to “fire” them…so she found it easier not to have any at all and thus not have to make those distinctions and be accused of favoritism, etc.

[4] Read:  out of the blue/apropos-of -nothing, * violence* toward a classmate.

[5]  Reading select books to students, five students per group.

[6] Some administrators in our local school district apparently thought that parents would be placated by the Gifted label, even though there was no corresponding change in instruction or programs or opportunities offered for the gifted.  When I discovered that reality, I told son K’s teacher I didn’t want him tested for the program if there was no point to it – they weren’t going to pacify us with a feel-good label (and she told me, in confidence, that she fully agreed…then went ahead and had him tested anyway.)

[7] One of those kids was a girl in my son’s 3rd grade class.  I knew some particulars of her family life, and saw how lost and spacy she seemed  (her bio dad, along with a series of “mommy’s boyfriends,” passed through a revolving door between jail and her mother’s house, and her mother had been doing drugs while pregnant with her).  I was a math aide in that class; after noting the girl’s consistently abysmal worksheets and test results on the most basic of arithmetic skills, I asked the teacher if I might offer to tutor the girl after class.  I think the girl trusted me; after noticing how her classmates scorned and/or ignored her, I’d made it a point to always greet her during my volunteer shifts and find something nice to say to her.  The only time I saw a light in her eyes, which were consistently dull and glazed,  was when I complimented her (ratty, faced) red high-top sneakers.  The teacher had tears in her eyes when she told me that she so appreciated my volunteering to tutor the girl, but that the suggestion had already been offered, *several times* by both the teacher herself and other teachers and classroom volunteers.  The girl’s mother had vehemently refused (and seemed to resent) all offers:  Her daughter was going to be in the age-appropriate grade, and that was that.

[8] “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 Weather I’m Not Changing

July 11, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Weather I’m Not Changing

Department Of Why Didn’t I Think Of That Comeback?

“When a man says to you, ‘You’re prettier when you smile,’ tell him,
‘I’m prettiest when I’m dismantling the patriarchy which made you think
hat my face owes you anything.’  ”

More smash the patriarchy tips from Rev. Karla.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of An Extraordinary Quote From An Extraordinary Interview

That interview can be found on the recent Hidden Brain podcast, wherein host Shankar Vedantam speaks with U of Michigan School of Public Health researcher Victor Stretcher.  Stretcher explains how he strives to understand the connections between the changes he made in his own life after his daughter’s death, and the things he is studying as a scientist, including looking into the science of purpose, transcending values,   [1]  and emotional regulation strategies.

 

( Daniel Goleman is American psychologist and science journalist   [2]  )

 

From the HB website, the intro to Hidden Brain: What Is Your Life For?:

“…At every age and every stage, many of us are intimidated by the question of what we should do with the remaining days we have left….A lifespan of a few decades is but a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of the planet to say nothing of the universe. How can we spend this time meaningfully?
This week on Hidden Brain…we explore the science of finding a life that is meaningful. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for everyone. But there are scientifically tested ideas about how we can feel more in harmony with ourselves and the world….”

Excerpts from the podcast:

Victor Strecher:
“People with transcending values have less activation in a part of the brain that relates to fear and aggression called the amygdala. They have more activation in a part of the brain that relates to long-term orientation, a future orientation, and that’s called the ventral medial prefrontal cortex….”

Shankar Vedantam:
“…Your research has found that people with a greater sense of purpose employ different emotion regulation strategies than people who have a weaker sense of purpose….why are they [emotion regulation strategies] important?

Strecher:
“…we all have stressors in our lives, right? All of us.
And the question really is, how do you cope with those stressors?
Turns out that of 16 coping strategies that we looked at, strategies like drinking alcohol or eating too much or venting, were negatively associated with sense of purpose. Whereas seeing a big picture, knowing this won’t last forever, taking walks in nature…were strongly associated with a sense of purpose. And along with that, emotional self-regulation….”

 

 

Stretcher illustrates emotional self-regulation by sharing a story told to him by a colleague, whose son has a five-year old child who attends a Montessori school.  [3]   One day the child comes home from school, and for whatever reasons, he and his father start getting in a big argument…

Stretcher:
“…and they’re almost yelling at each other…finally, the five-year-old child says, ‘You know what?  I’m gonna change my own weather.’   And suddenly they have an adult conversation.
And I was thinking, I wish a lot of senior leaders had that ability to change their own weather, going from cloudy to sunny….what that requires…is a sense of understanding what your emotion is, and also having the agency to be able to change it.”

 

Yeah, all of the above, to get to that (quote from a child).  But, what a  that  is that.   

“I’m gonna change my own weather.”

What a remarkable metaphor, image, strategy – for anyone, let alone a five-year old child.

 


( Pema Chodron is American Buddhist teacher and author. )
 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January. 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?!?!?!  [4]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [5]   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 July to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

The blast is going to the way back – to when the blog was but ten months old.  Here is an excerpt from my blog of 7-12-13 ( The Phrase I’m Not Saving ).

RESCUE 911
 “We’re lost in the woods, and need an extra large with mushrooms and double cheese…and a helicopter, please.”

Join our thrilling, reality-based series, during which MH and I discover our son’s true concerns should we ever end up lost or injured in the wilderness.

Dateline:  Sunday, July 7.  MH and I planned on driving up to Vancouver, WA to go hiking on a new (to us) trail. We invited son K, who declined.    [6]

As I was lacing up my boots I informed K of our destination, and told him I was leaving a map of the trail on my computer.  I decided to test his hiking/outdoor recreation, Buddy system safety awareness   [7]    by asking him,

“So, what would you do if we did not return by a certain time?”

“What time?” K asked.

“Absolutely, by dinner time,” I clarified. “But we should be back way before that.”

“Well…” K steepled his fingers in front of his face in a Mr. Spock-like pose of thoughtfulness.  “I haven’t been to Pizza Schmizza in a while….

 

 

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

  “ ‘Life doesn’t need purpose, purpose needs life.’
 A religious believer acting as a slave to her deity isn’t actually purpose-driven in any sense we should admire, because the purpose is someone else’s and is often taken up under threat or by bribery. A mind free of superstition and servility is necessary for a fulfilling life…. as a non-believer, your purpose resides in yourself; it is yours alone to discover and develop. It’s about choosing to live your own life for your own reasons. No one can dictate your purpose. You decide.
Freely choosing to help and cooperate with others is the true path to finding purpose. Life does not need purpose: Purpose needs life.”

( Dan Barker, musician, composer, former evangelical Christian minister, co-president of
Freedom From Religion Foundation; excerpts from his book, The Good Atheist )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have the self-awareness to change your own weather;
May your purpose be your life;
May you look absolutely fabulous while dismantling the patriarchy;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Transcending values are core principles which move beyond self-interest and personal desires and needs, and are typified by a concern for the welfare of people other than our selves or our inner circle (family/neighbors/friends/co-workers).  Transcending values focus on broader ideals, such as seeking the well-being of all people (and non-human species, for ethical vegans, for example) contributing to the betterment of the human condition, casting aside tribal beliefs and concerns to focus on the larger ideals of truth, justice, (and the American way  calm down, Superman ), compassion and altruism.

[2] Goleman is best known for popularizing the concept of emotional intelligence.

[3] Montessori schools are known for teaching children emotional regulation skills. 

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

[5] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[6] There were, as always, aliens to be battled in cyberspace. (at the time of the post K was age 20, home from college for the summer).

[7] Always inform friends and family about your trip itinerary, ideally include a map and tell someone where you are going and when you expect to return….

[8] “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 TV Show Theme Songs I’m Not Singing Along To

July 4, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, nature, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The TV Show Theme Songs I’m Not Singing Along To

Department Of Let’s Get This Out Of The Way

Uh…Happy Birthday, USA?

 

 

‘Twould be the under-est of understatements to say that, this year, moiself  doesn’t really feel much like hailing Independence Day.  The holiday, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, rings hollow this year, what with His Royal Orangeness – He Who Puts The Dick In Dictator (along with the vile Vance, traitorous Dick #2 ) – determined to send this nation tumbling ass-over-tit down the slope of authoritarianism.  Meanwhile, #47’s butt-snogging, morally-deluded followers seek to replace the independence celebrated on July 4 for the slavish insurrection he instigated on January 6.

Thus, moiself  be looking to the past for some wisdom…or just a moment’s diversion.  I think the last time July 4 fell on a Friday was in 2014; searching through my blog post of that day for a #47-free excerpt, I see that I had other things on my mind:

Excerpts from The (made-in-China) Flag I’m Not Waving (7-4-14 ),

I can think of few better ways to celebrate our nation’s independence from hierarchical hegemony than to kick a hallowed institution.  But, first….

 *   *   *

White People Problems – #568 In An Unending Series
The Warning That Ruins Lives

Don’t you, kinda yeah maybe well sure, want to know things?  As in, when a certain variation of A Good Thing to Do has a deleterious or dangerous side effect, and there is a better version of or way to do The Good Thing ®, wouldn’t you want to know about it?

 

Another helpful hint – it’s too much to handle! Let the little #$&!s get melanoma!

 

Dateline: A Sunday morning, at the Oregon Zoo’s Cascade Grill.  Two Mommy Friends ©, each accompanied by one ambulatory toddler and one infant in a stroller, are chatting outside the entrance doors to the café.  One of the women is pregnant.  Preggers Woman reaches into her stroller’s storage bag for an aerosol can of sunscreen and begins to spray her toddler’s legs.  As the sunscreen mist envelops her child from toes to torso she complains to her friend about how she just read somewhere that pediatricians are advising parents to refrain from using spray sunscreen on their children, because

(a) spray-on sunscreens are not effective as the rub-in lotions, and
(b) children can inhale the sunscreen mist, which is harmful to their lungs.

 “And I thought, really?”
PW rolls her eyes and snorts with disgust as she snaps the cap back on the spray bottle and tosses it in the stroller bag.
“I mean, really – it’s just so frustrating!  So now what else can’t I give my kids?!”

What else can’t you give your kids?

How about lead paint?

Or an overdose of Tylenol, or….?

*   *   *

And now, let the kicking begin.

The Honeymoon Is Over

Although the relationship was doomed from the start, I’m surprised more friends didn’t intervene and say, “He’s just not that into you.”

I refer to the liberal religiositati’s  [1]  high hopes for the latest head of the Catholic church, Pope Francis.  He threw them a few bones about caring more about the poor than about divisive social issues and they were practically tripping all over themselves, using their ACLU membership cards to mop up their deferential drool.

It may be true that, as one friend put it, P. Francis is “better than the Nazi,”   [2]  but talk about damning with faint praise.

PF has consistently dodged questions about raising the status of women in his church, and last week responded to a journalist’s query about the underlying misogyny in the Catholic church by making a “joke” :

Francis replied: “The fact is that woman was taken from a rib.”
PF then laughed “heartily” before saying: “I’m joking. That was a joke.”

 That’s one wacky dude!  Hard to believe he traded in a promising stand-up comedy career for vows of celibacy and poverty.

 

Living the vow of poverty, Vatican-style.

 

Not only is the latest high priestess of Isis/RC witch doctor/holy chicken bone mumbler pope maintaining his church’s separate and unequal gender wall, he seems prone to reinforcing it, as when he spoke a few weeks back about, the need for “… fertility in maintaining a Christian marriage.”

Frankie baby blamed a “culture of well-being” and comfort for convincing married couples that a carefree life of world travel and summer homes was better than having children.  He said married couples should look at how Jesus loves his church to learn how to be faithful, perseverant and fruitful in their vocation.

 

 

Pay attention to whatever the man in the dunce cap pointy hat – surely a signifier of supreme intellectual aptitude if there ever was one – tells y’all.

 

 

Yo, Catholic married couples: Your Jesus (according to RC doctrine) never married and was childless; therefore; it logically follows that to be faithful to this Jesus and his church you should marry and must have children.  If it breeds, it leads!  Or…something.    [3]

Why anyone heeds the admonitions of a childless celibate who presumes to lecture other people on the supposed virtues – and strictures – of a breeding marriage….  RCs, get your heads out of those orifices. 

 

 

Or perhaps Francis the talking mule O’Pope was trying to divert attention from the latest Catholic business as usual scandal. “Our own little Holocaust,” is what an Irish Mirror writer called the discovery of the bodies of ~ 800 toddlers and babies who died of disease and malnutrition in the Irish institutions that housed their unmarried mothers, who were shamed and damned by the cultural stigma against sexually active females and “bastard” babies – a stigma invented, promoted, and implemented by the church.

On the really, really dim bright side, will yet another set of these latest revelations finally help to break the RC stranglehold on Irish culture, law and politics?

“After the revelations that Irish priests raped countless little boys and Irish nuns beat and starved countless little girls forced to work in the Magdalene laundries, we can’t take any more. The children in the homes were even used as guinea pigs for pharmaceutical companies to test vaccines… Never again should the Catholic Church dare to point the finger at any young woman contemplating abortion, or lecture on the sanctity of human life.”
The Week (6-20-2014)

 

*   *   *

That was fun, wasn’t it?

 

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To

Television show theme songs, that is.

 

 

They still make TV shows; however, it seems to have become more common in the “contemporary classic” era to repurpose existing songs – e.g., The Rembrandts’ I’ll Be There For You, which was used as the theme song for Friends .

But according to a study I just made up, you couldn’t do better than those Golden Years Of TV Theme Songs, ®  when composers were paid to come up with original instrumentals – such as the thundering, surf’s-up vibe of film composer Morton Stevens theme to Hawaii Five-0, (later a hit for The Ventures  [4]), and Jerry Goldsmith’s eerie psych-out theme for The Twilight Zone; Alexander Courage’s theme to the original Star Trek series.

Or you had actual, narrative,  songs-with-annoyingly-catchy-tunes-whose-lyrics-explained-the-show, ala the themes to Gilligan’s Island or The Brady Bunch or The Addams Family.   [5]

But that melodious passage which awakened moiself  at 2:05 AM Tuesday morning – I figure if you’re going to have a bout of classic TV show theme song induced insomnia, you can’t do better than having arguably the best television main theme ever, with its urgent, hypnotic syncopation (notable for being in 5/4 time), Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin’s Grammy-winning  Theme to Mission:  Impossible.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Pondering Life Choices

Dateline: Thursday, circa 1 pm.  Enjoying my sushi lunch at Happy Elephant restaurant    [6] in Manzanita, which now serves sushi as well as Thai food.

Sometimes, when I’m having a good meal in a restaurant, moiself  wishes I’d followed up on going to medical school, so when the server stops by after I’ve had a chance to sample my food and asked me how everything is, I can honestly say, “It’s just what the doctor ordered!”

 

 

*   *   *

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.   [7] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 

 

*   *   *

May you have the odd (and hopefully, rare) pleasure of classic TV theme song insomnia;
May you never take family planning advice from celibate men wearing pointy hats;
May you find reasons to be hopeful on July 4;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Yeah, not an OED-recognized word. But it should be.

[2] The always observant SCM was referring to Joseph Ratzinger, better known by his slave name, Pope Benedict.

[3] No footnote here. Move along folks; there’s nothing to see.

[4] Pride of the Pacific northwest, an instrumental band out of Tacoma!

[5] Just try *not* to snap your fingers.

[6] Formerly, A Mighty Thai.

[7] 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.

[8] “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