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The Moral Consideration I’m Not Granting

February 27, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, exercise & fitness, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, music, nature, politics, radio & podcasts, sports, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Moral Consideration I’m Not Granting

Department Of Now That The Winter Olympics Are Over I Can Get Back To
Considering Issues Of Profound Ethical And Existential Importance®

Host David Marchese:
“What do you think we should *do* with the increasing awareness that more animals might be conscious than we previously thought?  ….we *know* human beings are conscious and we exploit the hell out of other humans all the time.”

Guest Michael Pollan:
“…there’s this whole conversation…that if A.I. is conscious, then we’re going to have to give it moral consideration.  Well, really:  have we given moral consideration to one another?  Have we given moral consideration to the chickens and the cattle that we eat?  The answer is no.  It doesn’t automatically follow.  So, we’re going to have to sort out the ethics.”

 


Michael Pollan:
“Maybe it’s around the ability to suffer.  Maybe that’s where you draw the line…but it’s not as easy as:  Ital you’re conscious, therefore you have all these rights…. Who we grant personhood to is a very subjective human decision.  We give it to corporations, oddly enough, which are not conscious, but there are all sorts of creatures we don’t give it to.  I don’t think we’re entirely rational or consistent in our granting of moral consideration.”
( excerpt from journalist and professor Michael Pollan’s interview with David Marchese,
“Michael Pollan says humanity is about to undergo a revolutionary change,” 2-7-26, NY Times podcast The Interview )

So yeah, there’s that.  Or….

 

 

 I could search the incredible volume of available videos online and perhaps find an entire channel devoted to showing a continuous loop of All Races Won By Norwegian XC Skiing Æsir-god  Johannes Høsflot Klæbo® . 

 

You know what you need to do.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Five Words You Don’t Hear Me
 (Or Anyone) Saying Very Often…Or At All

  “This Norwegian salad dressing rocks!”

Holy Hel   [2] and Herring Heritage – it seems moiself  is producing a (unintended) Norski theme blog.   [3]

Dateline:  last week.  I finally got around to making this salad dressing, from the innovative mind of Norwegian chef Andreas Viestad.  I’d been intending to do so for some time; now, I want this dressing on every lettuce-based salad I eat, for the rest of my life.

Viestad, who also hosts the PBS show  New Scandinavian Cooking,  pissed off impressed the European gastronomic world by when his cookbook on Norwegian food was selected the “Best Foreign Cookbook in the World” and also was awarded Special Prize Of The Jury at the 2008-2009 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.  

 

 

Norwegian Salad Dressing
(moiself’s  adaptation of Andreas Viestad’s recipe; serves 2-3)

Viestad’s recipe uses juice from the lettuce offcuts to make a dressing with an intense lettuce flavor. Use your best lettuce for the salad, and the dressing (which will be an intriguing dark green color).

  • 2 to 3 small heads of your favorite/most flavorful lettuce
    – one small head of radicchio or other bitter salad green  [4]
    – 1 t Dijon mustard
    – neutral oil (I use avocado)
    – splash of lemon juice or any vinegar (optional)
    – ground black pepper; and a pinch of fresh or dried dill
    – sea salt to serve

(1) Rinse and tear the greens into bite-sized pieces; dry them in a salad spinner. Set aside the “cutoffs” (inner stems, core, and outer leaves) of the greens.
(2) Juice cutoffs in a juicer; strain juice ( you want  ~ ¼ c ).  [5]
(3)  Add juice to a jar along an equal amount of oil as juice (or less, as moiself  prefers) the Dijon, the spices, and lemon juice/vinegar; shake well to combine.  Mix dressing into the salad leaves, serve w/sea salt sprinkled atop greens.

 

 

Many people who eat salad don’t tend to care about (or even notice) the flavor of the lettuce – it’s all about the dressing.   [6]  Viestad came up with a dressing that uses the bits and pieces of the lettuce that we tend to throw away but where the lettuce flavor is concentrated – almost more lettuce-flavored than the lettuce itself – which is why the greens you use should be your favorites.  Y’all foodies may be thinking, Why would you *trust* any salad recipe from a Norwegian?  Growing lettuce in the high north might sound like a bad idea, but as one Norski “salad farmer” explained to Andreas,   [7]  the far northern farms of Norway have good soil, good water, good light, and the cold night temperatures help the salad greens to grow  “strong, crispy, and tasty.”

The only reason our household now has a juicer is because moiself  wanted to properly make this dressing  [1]  .  I *love love love* this dressing; please try it out, and I must emphasize again that you should do so using the best, flavorful lettuce you can find.  On that subject, I hope I don’t have to remind anyone that storebought   [8]  iceberg “lettuce” is anything other than nasty and flavorless.  My favorite description of iceberg lettuce came from an anonymous post on a food-related bulletin board, from a former restaurant worker:   “…with the experience I got being an employee I can tell you that iceberg lettuce tastes as poor as my life’s decisions….at the end of the day it’s just water with a cell structure.”

 

 

In moiself’s  opinion, it was the preponderance of iceberg lettuce in the Titanic’s food storage holds that actually sank the ship (there was a miscommunication when the first mate radioed for help…and the rest is history).

*   *   *

Department Of Every Senior Person Should Be Taking This Class-
Dang, That Means Me As Well…

Moiself  is having a hard time identifying with that label, as, according to the various demographics (depending on which ones you consult), you enter senior territory at age 55, or not until 60, or 65, or 70, or 75….  I recently took a Zumba class labeled for that (“senior”) demographic.  And now I’m thinking that every person, regardless of age, should also be doing so, if only to provide reason/excuse to get up and shake it instead of sitting on your ass all day  commune with your fellow human beings.

I was trying to think of some activity something to stretch or even test my foot recovery.   [9]   At my most recent postop check (two weeks ago) I asked my doctor if a Zumba class might be good; I’d been searching for something other than what I do at home (neighborhood walking; elliptical and treadmill workouts; yoga; weights and core routines) to give my foot some new challenges.  He asked if I’ve done any Zumba before my surgery.  No; but I used to do a lot of Jane Fonda workout tapes back in 1990s.

 

I did the tapes, but not the spandex.

I told the doc that the classes were held at the local community/senior center, so it’s unlikely they’d include ski jump landing preps or ice-skating quadruple jumps or extreme…whatever.  Thus, I told him, unless he said no, I was planning on checking out the Zumba class.  After briefly examining my foot he gave me his thumbs up–  “Feel free to resume normal activities but don’t push till it hurts/do anything stupid.”

So:  moiself  had my first class on Monday.    [10]   What can I say?  I found it to be so delightful and stimulating that it’s probably banned in countries that frown on people of any age (read: females) moving in ways that distinguish them from infrastructure.

 

“Now, move to the music…can you even hear the music?”


And by moiself  thinking that everyone should take the classes, I don’t mean only the specific brand of class called, Zumba – I’m referring to any exercise class incorporating movement/choreography/what might be called dancing.

Most of us have heard and/or read about how dancing is “good for us;” and most of us don’t have the time or inclination to take formal dance classes, often because we think that you must have a dance partner to do so.  And the latter is not the case in a dance fitness class.

Research on multiple levels of study (involving brain health, psychological and social well-being ) suggests that dance-based workouts help protect against the cognitive decline that can happen as people age.  From what I’ve read, learning dance/choreography workouts (I’m going to invent the acronym DCW   [11]  ) reduces stress by boosting your mood through the release of endorphins, providing an outlet for emotional expression, and, when it’s done in a class with other participants,  [12] creates and strengthens social connections and a sense of belonging.  DCW require focus as you listen to the beat, follow steps, and feel the rhythm – DCW require you to be mindful, as in, putting your mind in the present moment, or more colloquially, paying attention to what you are doing. 

So, DCW aren’t just good for your mood – they’re also also great for your brain and your physical coordination. DW enhance cognitive functions, such as memory and spatial awareness and concentration…and yeah, all that’s fantastic, but it’s also just plain fun.

 

This move is not done in Zumba; still, I challenge you to be in a bad mood when you’re imitating a dog about to pee on a fire hydrant.


Oh yes, the class itself:  the instructor (who was a sub for the usual class teacher) was excellent – both chill and enthusiastic.  Also, it turns out she has a really great name (even though she spells it wrong   [13]  ).   After the first two dance sections, in the five or so seconds of pause before the instructor queued up the next music, moiself  inadvertently blurted out,  “Oh, this is fun!” Apparently, in-class out-bursts are not the norm, as the teacher immediately assured the rest of the class, “She’s new.”   [14]

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [15]

 

( Emma Goldman was Russian-born, radical anarchist activist and lecturer who opposed capitalism and fascism and promoted equality for women, workers’ rights, and free education during the Progressive Era. )

*   *   *

May your lettuce (or your life) be more than just water with a cell structure;
May you find make room for both Issues Of Profound Ethical And Existential Importance® *and* Norwegian sports videos;
May your revolution (and exercise) always encourage dancing;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I tried it with a high-speed blender – nope.

[2] In the Norse pantheon, Hel is the god (female – let’s do away with this “ess” notation, as if the male gender is the default and the female is the decorative afterthought) of death and the netherworld.  Just in case you’re thinking of getting on her good side, Hel’s favorite offerings are tea, chocolate, dried meats, preserved flowers, mead, and raw honey.

[3] Just for a couple of issues.

[4] Soak radicchio or other bitter greens in ice water (helps tame the bitterness) for at least 15m  while you prepare the rest of the recipe, or scroll online for cat videos .

[5] You could also use a heavy duty/high speed blender, like I did the first few times, but this takes some time and it doesn’t work as well, IMO.

[6] Except for MH, who, much to many people’s bewilderment, has always preferred his green salads sans dressing ( he thinks that dressings are or can be a cover for less-than-tasty-greens/other salad ingredients.

[7] In this episode of New Scandinavian Cooking (for which you need a PBS account, I think)

[8] Some home veggie gardeners say that there are varietals that are more palatable.  I think they lie, or at least, exaggerate.

[9] I had surgery on my left foot in Mid-November.

[10] The second today.

[11] For Cance Choreography Workouts…but perhaps for a catchier acronym, Damn Cute Wiggling?

[12] As opposed to doing it alone in your home, to a dvd or online class.

[13] Robin.

[14] Her explanation was probably not necessary, as, from what I could see, all I got was enthusiastic smiles, and no Debbie-Downer Stop Having Fun looks from the other participants.

[15] “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 Documentary I’m Not Inspired By

February 20, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, politics, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of The Lunar New Year

Happy Year of the Fire Horse, to my SIL and to all who celebrate the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year).   [1]

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Things You’re Not Supposed To Say Or Even Think About When Watching A Supposedly Inspiring Documentary;
Specifically, Netflix’s Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart
Sub-Department Of, Why Isn’t She Pissed Off?

And by “pissed off” moiself  means filled with white-hot rage, the throwing-chairs-out-of-the-windows-of-a-high-rise-building  kind of fury.

The Elizabeth Smart documentary came recommended for me on my Netflix feed last week, and I started watching it one morning as I did my elliptical workout.  It took me several days to get through it; I could only take 15 m or so at a time.  As the days went by, moiself  got more and more angry.  Angry as in, Why Did I Watch This Shit®?  Not that the subject of the documentary was shit; I refer to the integral bullshit contained within the story – the bullshit of religion and religious theology lurking behind the tragedy, the bullshit that is and was, IMO, responsible for it.

Look up the story if you have been living under a rock are one of the few American adults who does not know it.  The basics: Elizabeth Smart was fourteen years old, one of six children in a prosperous and respected Mormon family, when she was kidnapped from her family’s Salt Lake City home.  Her abductors, a self-described religious prophet and his wife,  [2]  held Smart captive for nine months.  Smart was sexually assaulted by “the prophet,” and subjected to emotional assaults and physical deprivations by her abductors.  She endured nine months of this until she was rescued by police (after receiving a citizen’s tip) when she and her captors were walking down a street in Sandy, Utah.

At one point in the documentary, after Smart was rescued and returned to her family, there is footage of Smart being referred to as  “… the most prayed-for person in America.”  And that just wrenched my stomach.  I had to turn the documentary off at that point, and returned to it another day. 

 

 

 “… the most prayed for person in America.”  Fat lotta good those hyper-abundant prayers did.  I’m sure Smart herself was the most prayer-ful person in American during her captivity, praying at least fifty bajillion times a day to be delivered from her anguish, each and every time “the prophet” was assaulting her.

People who engage in intercessory prayer seem to do so with the assumptions that (a) their god is listening to them, and (b) their god is capable of acting in our world.   And yet it took their god nine months to get off his holy ass, while a 14-year-old girl was daily – daily – raped by an adult man.  Prayers didn’t stop that.    [3]

BTW: Questions were raised, both in the documentary and in news articles at the time of Smart’s release, about the adult woman (the wife of the “prophet”) complicit in Smart’s kidnapping and abuse.  And I’m thinking, Really? You find this surprising?  The woman was the product of abuse herself – she was a captive within a paranoid, patriarchal religious mindset, where the man is in charge and his word and will ultimately prevails…. Yeah, there’s always the question of one’s own internal sense of right or wrong.  But what happened to that woman, and to Elizabeth Smart, was not a *perversion * of conservative, patriarchal religion, but a sadly logical (if appalling) part of the spectrum.

 

 

Of all the frustratingly heartbreaking situations detailed in the documentary, the “near” rescue got to me the most.  This happened when Smart’s abductors had taken her into a small town   [4]  with them when they needed to purchase supplies.  Smart and the prophet’s wife were always shrouded in Burqa-like garments the few times they were in public, and on this outing, the three of them were stopped and questioned on the street – by a police officer looking for Smart (! ).  The “prophet” abductor answered the officer’s questions about why he refused to let Smart show her face by telling the officer that the girl was his daughter, and that their religion decreed that his daughter must not show her face to any man save for her father and her future husband.

!! The officer accepted that answer, and left without questioning Smart !!

 

 

Smart’s captor’s excuse answer was accepted because he phrased it in terms of “our religion says…”  And in Utah, it’s likely that religious excuses are allowed even more privilege (read:  religion is allowed to excuse a multitude of “sins” and abuses)  than in society as a whole, given the state’s history as a Mormon stronghold and the Mormon religion’s history of polygamy and patriarchy.

Although Smart was eventually freed from almost a year of horrific fear and abuse, I would argue that the cognitive abuse still lingers.  I don’t think Smart has left either her religion in specific or religion in general; thus, IMO, she continues to participate in the system that ultimately spawned and tolerated her abuse in the first place.

I was reminded of a quote by Butterfly McQueen, the actor and civil rights and Freethought activist.  I wish Smart a similar epiphany.   

 

 

Back to the praying for Elizabeth Smart thing.  I recall reading news stories, after Smart was found, reporting that thanks were being “….given to God” by people around the country.  This god was being credited for Smart finally being found.  Now, if you attribute agency to the deity for somehow enabling Smart to be found, you should also acknowledge that that same god set aside its agency to act – that same god sat on its pedophile-observing ass for nine months – while a fourteen-year-old-girl was being tormented, and while her family endured the torment of not knowing where their child was nor what she was going through.

If Smart’s abduction happened today our social media pages would be filled with requests to “pray for Elizabeth and her family.”  Meanwhile, we Freethinkers, atheists, skeptics, and other rational, religion-free folk metaphorically bang our foreheads against the walls of ignorance and superstition as we ponder why, for nine months after Smart was abducted, so many people pled for assistance from their omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, every-caring/ever loving deity who was either absent or stood by  (translation: who did *nothing*) when he was truly needed – when a child was being dragged from her bedroom, her atttacker holding a knife to her neck, at 2 am.   [5]

 

 

Years later, as an adult, Smart became an advocate for survivors of sexual violence.  I kept waiting for the mention of her advocacy work – there was just a sliver of it at the end of the documentary.  Moiself  was not surprised by this; still, I was infuriatingly disappointed that there was not even a cursory forensic analysis, or mention, of why Smart needed to do such advocacy work in the first place.   [6]

I was disappointed that Smart’s feelings of guilt and shame, and of being  “dirty” due to being raped, were only briefly mentioned in the documentary, and that there was little mention of either the specific or general cultural influences of Smart’s – of any person’s – patriarchal conservative religion that is related to – or as moiself  would put it,  directly responsible for – Smart having those feelings.  IMO, almost as sickening as Smart’s abduction/rape is the culture of religiously ordained male dominance which allows such acts to occur in the first place.

Years after her rescue,  [7]   Smart has critiqued the purity culture she was raised in, and which surrounds girls in conservative/evangelical religious families.   This culture implies (read: overtly teaches) that a woman’s/girl’s ultimate worth is not what’s in her heart and head, but between her legs.

“In 2014, during a poignant and emotional speech at Johns Hopkins University, Elizabeth Smart revealed she had received this abstinence-only sex education lesson prior to her being kidnapped from her room as a child. While in captivity, she was then repeatedly raped by her captor. And that lesson – that teacher who told her that she would be a worthless, old piece of gum if she engaged in premarital sex – not only stayed with her, but it also made her wonder whether there was any point in trying to escape.

‘For me, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m that chewed up piece of gum,’ Smart told the audience of gathered listeners. ‘Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued, if your life still has no value?’ ”    [8]

” Even though male students are encouraged to take these (purity) pledges too, the lessons often focus on young women. For example, a way in which purity pledges are done is where gold rose pins are handed out at Christian youth group events, with a small card attached that says: ‘You are like a beautiful rose. Each time you engage in premarital sex, a precious petal is stripped away. Don’t leave your future husband holding a bare stem. Abstain.’ ”
 (excerpt, “The Negative Implications of the Purity Movement on Young Women.” The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research 15 (2014): 9-18. Paul, Amanda )

 

 

-” ‘ If you have premarital sex you become a ‘chewed up piece of gum.’  ”
Anyone else hear this rhetoric growing up? As a guy I even remember hearing this shit. My poor wife has so much emotional baggage to work through because of the whole impurity bullshit.”

-“Yeah. Just imagine being gang raped as a little girl and then hearing this. And yes, I was dumped by someone who couldn’t stand ‘thinking about the men who already used me’ when he found out about my childhood.”   [9]

– “I got the ‘chewed up piece of gum,’ ‘duct tape that loses its stickiness,’ and was told that as a woman, I start with a jar of M&Ms. Every person I have sex with gets some of my M&Ms. If I’m not careful, I’ll run out of M&Ms and have none left to give my future husband.
I think the one that disgusts me the most is when people talk about women dressing ‘provocatively’ and being assaulted, and make the statement ‘well you wouldn’t expect a dog to stay away from a raw piece of steak.’ So…Women are objects and men are animals. Thanks.”

( excerpts, social media threads on ex-Christians and their experiences
with the purity movement )

 

 

“Where does a woman’s value lie? In her brain? Her heart? Her spirit?

According to right-wing culture warriors, ‘between her legs.’  That’s what underlies the emphasis on virginity as ‘purity,’ and the push for abstinence-only education.  And it has very real consequences, most recently articulated by Elizabeth Smart.

Smart, who was kidnapped and held for months while her captor repeatedly raped her, recently discussed how her religious background made her feel worthless after the first rape – how she understands why others wouldn’t even try to escape, if, like her, they were taught that a sexually ‘impure’ woman had nothing to offer.

“I think it goes even beyond fear, for so many children, especially in sex trafficking. It’s feelings of self-worth. It’s feeling like, ‘Who would ever want me now? I’m worthless.’

That is what it was for me the first time I was raped. I was raised in a very religious household, one that taught that sex was something special that only happened between a husband and a wife who loved each other. And that’s how I’d been raised, that’s what I’d always been determined to follow: that when I got married, then and only then would I engage in sex.

After that first rape, I felt crushed. Who could want me now? I felt so dirty and so filthy. I understand so easily all too well why someone wouldn’t run because of that alone.”

(  excerpts, “‘Purity’ culture: bad for women, worse for survivors of sexual assault,”
The Guardian, May 2014, by Jill Filipovic )

*   *   *

Department Of Quote Of The Week

“I saw a guy walking down the street, wearing a football jersey.
So I tackled him, because he was asking for it.”
 ( Anonymous )

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [10]

“I’m an atheist, and Christianity appears to me to be the most absurd imposture of all the religions, and I’m puzzled that so many people can’t see through a religion that encourages irresponsibility and bigotry.”

(  Butterfly McQueen, quoted in Warren Allen Smith’s
Celebrities in Hell. Barricade Books. p. 75. )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have a favorite Celebrity in Hell;
May your life’s worth never be compared to a piece of chewing gum;
May you fight the good fight against patriarchal religion everything;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Except, of course, there are many more countries/cultures that also celebrate the Lunar New Year, primarily but not exclusively Southeast Asian, including Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia….

[2] Whose names are not worthy of taking up column space in this blog.

[3] Perhaps they weren’t specific enough.

[4] They moved frequently, but mostly stayed in an encampment not far from where Smart was abducted.

[5] Exact time unknown; generally referred to as “in the early morning.”

[6] Well, duh/of course not.  This documentary was made with her cooperation, and it needed/wanted a “feel good” ending.

[7] E.g., in speeches during her sexual assault survivors advocacy work.

[8] Exact Reference lost…there were so many, from stories of her speeches…

[9] The poster had been sexually abused.

[10] “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 Olympics I’m Not Continually Trying To Reference

February 13, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, Oregon, radio & podcasts, Recreation, sports, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Olympics I’m Not Continually Trying To Reference

Department Of More Ways To Make Olympic Connections:
Best Name Ever (For Star Trek Fans) For A Ski Jumper

I can’t tell y’all how much I love love love this.

 

 Japanese ski jumper Ryōyū Kobayashi

 

Let me guess: is his signature style called the Maru?

*   *   *

Department Of Nominations For Worst Name
For A Game Or A Sport,
Entry 22 In A Continuing Series

 

 

In this moment of Olympic fervor,  [1]  let us pause for a moment to ponder perhaps one of the most unfortunate names that has ever bestowed upon a non-Olympic sport   [2]   in the English-speaking countries.

Among the many sports beloved in Ireland which have ancient Gaelic origins  [3]  is a game where the objective is for players to use a wooden stick (called a hurley) to hit a cork-cored, leather-covered ball (called a sliotar) either between the opponent’s goalposts or under the goal’s crossbar into a net guarded by a goalkeeper.

This sport is called Hurling.

 

 

I find it to be a joyously unfortunate name for the sport, in its inappropriate/stereotypical appropriateness, given the reputation of the Irish for…how you say…prodigious consumption of alcoholic beverages.  Moiself  supposes that, when it came time to name the game my Irish forbears enjoyed, one of the players suggested,  Why don’t we name it after the stick?  And no one thought to consult their Gaelic crystal ball to realize what the term hurling would come to mean to the euphemism-disposed English language speakers of the future.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of  Nothing To Do With Sports:
When Did It Come To Be That Instead Of Simply Reporting The News,
We Expect Officials To Editorialize About It?

” ‘My heart is with the victims, their families, and all who were impacted by the deadly crash,’ Bass said in a statement thanking first responders and asking the public to avoid the area.”

Tha’s from an LA Times article from last week, quoting LA mayor Karen Bass. who waswas commenting on an accident wherein an elderly driver, who reportedly suffered a medical incident, plowed into a popular area in Westwood, killing and injuring several pedestrians.

Now then: yours truly has been reading the news since I was eight years old, and it seems to moiself  that at a Certain Point In Time®  I cannot definitively mark, a line was crossed.  Where public officials used to merely be the conveyors of  This Something Has Happened, now these officials are also/seemingly obligated to be the public face of mourning and/or personalizing the incident (if it is tragic), for lack of a better term.

“My thoughts are with all of the blah blah blah
who have been impacted by the blah blah blah…”

Which leads me to think…

 

 

Just tell us what happened; don’t think you can make us to feel better about it because of what you say you feel about it.  You’re an elected official with serious responsibilities; I hope you are mostly thinking about those responsibilities, and get on with solving what you could be solving.  Fix the damn potholes; let your heart hurt, if it truly does, in private.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

 

“Yes, you are.  Drop and gimme fifty, you heartless bastard.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January, last year.  A new year; a new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  My thought at the time: Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature.  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.  Thus, 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 February to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 2-8-13 ( The Awards I’m Not Winning ):

Women in combat. No, I’m not referring to the battles women face in trying to get standard, life-saving treatment at Catholic hospitals.  It’s the military thing, courtesy of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s lifting the military ban on women in combat.

I still can’t wrap my mind around the phrasing: “lifting the ban on women in combat.” Women have been participating – and dying – in wars, in combat, ever since the sorry concept was constructed by some pissed off Neanderthal.  Only now, they can get credit? Lifting the obliviousness about the reality is more like it.

The old saw about protecting the women and children flies and spits and shakes its impertinent ass in the face of the fact that, during wartime, civilian deaths always outnumber military casualties.  And who are the civilians?  The much-vaunted “women and children,” whose protection from the evil, encroaching ___ (insert enemy of choice) is cited as justification for combat.

Objective consideration of a person’s ability to do a job, any job, should be gender-blind.  Most of us civilians – and even a few former and active soldiers, it seems – forget that the majority of those in the armed services never set foot on what used to be called the front or battle lines;   [6]  the majority comprise the support staff, on which the “warriors” depend. Every soldier has to be prepared to fight, but most contribute to the fight through transport, medic, food, equipment procurement, distribution and maintenance positions. Or, as Napoleon Bonaparte, famous military leader and infamous sufferer of Short Man’s Syndrome put it, “An army marches on its stomach.”

Not every male soldier makes the cut (or desires to) for combat positions, and the wash-out rate for the so-called elite combat units is high (the all-volunteer paratroopers units, in which my father served during WWII, had a wash-out rate of over 80%).  Review the standards for the job. Keep the physical and mental standards truly appropriate to the job, and have only those who meet the standards, men and women, young and old, gay and straight, qualify for those positions.

One bubagoo the silly voices raise:  okay then, all of you miss smarty-panties, if all military positions are open to women, what about women registering for the draft?  Well, what about it?

The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8) authorizes Congress “To raise and support Armies…” and goes on to permit the regulation and training of such armies.   [7]   Nowhere is the gender (or age or ethnicity) of these Armies mentioned.  Of course, we can assume that the framers assumed an all-male (and Caucasian) army; nevertheless, but all it says is Congress has the power to raise Armies.

If it served Congress to do so, I have no doubt that women would be drafted in a heartbeat.  Or so was my argument in the late 1970s-early 1980s, when some of us were still trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed.   Register for the draft?  Pass the frigging ERA and I’ll register for your friggin’ draft.

About the appropriate standards.  Police academies used to have minimum height standards which effectively screened out most female – and Asian and Hispanic male – applicants. Thirty-plus years ago I remember reading an article in The Orange County Register about a Vietnamese-American man who desperately wanted to be a cop.  This was at the time when police and fire agencies in California were desperate to increase the number Asian and Hispanic officers.  The man was intelligent and independent   [8]  and eager to serve, kept himself in awesome physical shape – he did everything he could to qualify, and he would have, except that he was ~ an inch shorter than the minimum height requirement.  And, okay, so maybe this part of the story tempers the previous remark about his intelligence, but he decided to re-apply to the academy, and before taking the next physical exam he had his wife repeatedly bonk him on the head with a wooden plank, to try and raise a bump that would get him to the minimum height level.

I don’t know what happened to the bonkers-for-cops dude, but it wasn’t long before anti-height discrimination lawsuits provided the nudge for the police to evaluate their policies, and most agencies subsequently, eventually, eliminated the minimum height requirements.  Unlike the cinematic shoot-’em-up image, the majority of police work involves negotiation skills, keeping cool under pressure, the ability to quickly evaluate and de-escalate dangerous situations…and, yes, kick ass if and when necessary. As police departments around the nation have discovered, if you can pass the police academy training, assessment and examinations (including lifting and dragging a 160 lb dummy, weapons and marksmanship training, tolerate getting pepper-sprayed and tasered), the fact that you’re lacking an inch doesn’t matter.

Which, of course, women have been telling men for years.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

 

*   *   *

May the sports you play have no direct or euphemistic references to puking;
May your work never involve public statements about bad news;
May you enjoy finding obscure connections between the names of Olympic athletes
and your favorite TV shows;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] At least – or only – in my household.

[2] Although, “distance plunging” and “live pigeon shooting” were once Olympic sports, so who knows what the future holds?

[3] Others include Gaelic football, Rounders, and Gaelic handball.

[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 thirteen years ago?

[6] with today’s increasing use of kill-from-afar technologies, and wars of terrorism and insurgencies, “front line”-style warfare may soon be an exhibit in the Smithsonian.

[7] Interestingly, it also states that “no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;” which seems to make our maintaining of our standing armed forces unconstitutional.

[8] He defied his relative’s wishes by wanting to become a cop, a profession seen as dishonorable by many Asian immigrants, who came from countries where the police forces were corrupt.

[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 Hidden Power I’m Not Doubting

February 6, 2026

Robyn Parnell family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, Me so happy, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Department Of First Things First

One of my favorite dates is today.  Happy Birthday, She-Who-Was-Not-Intimidated-By-The-Rope-Swing-On-The-Treehouse-Deck.   [1]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why I Will Be A Couch Potato (Luger?) For The Next Three Weeks

The Winter Olympics begin today.

 

Bring on the Norwegians!

 

*   *   *

Department Of Human Interaction Is Sometimes Disguised As
– or Enhanced By – a Non Sequitur

Dateline:  Tuesday morning; circa 10 am; The Dollar Tree Store‘s Birthday greeting cards section.  [2]   Moiself  is picking out birthday cards, a lot of ’em. To an uninformed observer it might seem that I am choosing them at random, dumping them in my handbasket…but this is not so.  There is method to my madness.  As I grab one card two envelopes come with it, and the extra envelope flutters to the floor.  Only when I reach down to retrieve it do I realize that a woman is standing next to me, in front of the Valentine’s Day card section.

“Excuse me,” I say, as I lean over to pick up the miscreant envelope, which has landed just to the right of her right foot.  “I didn’t mean to fling an empty envelope in your direction.”

She smiles, looks at my handbasket, and I expect her to remark on the number of cards in it (which will eventually total 30).  Instead, she replies, “My daughter was unable to have children, so she adopted four dogs.  I get them all cards for every holiday and special occasion.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Few People Say It Better Than Greta Christina   [3]

“Dear Republicans,

Apparently some of you are having second thoughts. Recent events have led you to question your commitment to Trumpism, and even move away from it. A line has been crossed for you, and you can no longer accept the direction the country is going in.

Am I glad about this? Yes. Do I want you to step away from Trump and the Republican Party, to rethink the path you’ve been on and walk it back? Yes….

But as you walk back this path, you need to realize that it’s not going to be covered with rose petals. A lot of people are extremely angry with you, and we have every right to be. You have done a great deal of harm. The Republican Party has done a great deal of harm — not just in the last month, it’s been doing great harm for a long time — and you’ve been part of that. When you’ve hurt people badly, you need to do more than just say “Oops” and expect to be forgiven. You need to work to fix the harm you’ve done. And the greater the harm, the more work you have to do….

 

 

We warned you this was coming. Even the Republican Party warned you this was coming: the Project 2025 document spelled out their plans in detail. You chose not to listen. Moving forward, you need to be willing to listen. You need to do the kind of listening that involves not talking. You need to not get defensive, not try to justify your actions. You need to stop saying, ‘I didn’t vote for this!’  You absolutely voted for this.”

( excerpts from author, activist, blogger Greta Christina’s
Dear Republicans 1-28-26, my emphases )

*   *   *

Department Of The Hidden Power Of Doubt

“What do you do when you’re not sure?”
( from opening monologue, Doubt:  A Parable, a play by John Patrick Shanley )

 

Last week the podcast Hidden Brain concluded their You 2.0 series   [4]  with, as per the podcast website’s intro,  “…a look at the hidden power of doubt — not as weakness or indecision, but as a tool that helps us make better choices and navigate an uncertain world.”

The episode opens with the story of the little known letter General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of the allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, aka, D-Day. There were so many factors at play – including the weather – and an allied victory was far from certain.  Eisenhower drafted what he dreaded, should he have to announce that the mission had failed.  When it became apparent that Operation Overlord was succeeding, Eisenhower crumpled the letter and tossed it in his office trash can.  His military secretary retrieved the letter and kept it, allowing history to see what (IMO) was the true leadership of the man.

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”   [5]

 

 

Time machine to the present:  can you imagine the so-called leader we have today ( The Tantrum-Throwing-Toddler-in-Chief ) writing something like that – taking responsibility so succinctly and directly?  #47 will go to his corpulent casket carping and whining and kicking, blaming others for the political, moral, financial and cultural devastation he leaves in his wake.

Yet again, I digress.

HB podcast host Shankar Vedantam and his guest go on to talk about the power of doubt, which is something we tend not to associate with the stereotype of leadership (confident; decisive; never wavering; unwilling to back down).

“We don’t think of strong leaders as hesitant, doubtful, or unsure of the right answers.   Confidence and determination are admirable traits.  But they also have drawbacks.  Confidence can lead to overconfidence; decisiveness can make leaders less likely to be tolerant of dissent; determination can blind us to risks.
At the University of Virginia’s Darden College of Business, [Bobby] Parmar studies the value of doubt.  He says that by avoiding uncertainty, we miss out on opportunities for growth.”
(excerpts, You 2.0: Trusting Your Doubt,  Hidden Brain Staff / January 26, 2026  )

It’s a thought-provoking presentation of a compelling subject.  Two thumbs up for podcast listeners.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Learning To Lie In Another Language

 Ég  skil  íslensku.

Funny how one of the first phrases I learned in my Plimsleur language app, which I’ve been struggling through like a stuttering pig using daily since last Wednesday, is a total lie:   I understand Icelandic.

 

Yeah, fluency is just around the corner.

 

Adding to the hoax is that five minutes after learning how to say,  I do not understand Icelandic, I have forgotten how to say, I do not understand Icelandic.

Just about every Icelander speaks English ( Ninety-eight plus %! English is a compulsory subject in Icelandic schools ), but still, I want to be a gracious visitor when we go there this summer.  I think this trying-to-learn-some-conversational-Icelandic is going to be one of those things where I have to repeat lesson one seven times before moving on. 

About speaking Icelandic. Knowing that fact (that Icelanders speak English), then bothering to learn to say in Icelandic, Excuse me, do you speak English?  while perhaps respectful in intent, could easily come off as, to an Icelander, Why is this doofus butchering my language when it is totally unnessary to do so?  Obviously, if I’ve bothered to learn anything about the country (including from when MH and I were there three summers ago), I should know that any Icelander whom I address will speak far better English than I speak Icelandic. 

I wish the language course would start off by teaching Icelandic cusswords.  That would be more inspiring.  Of course, there is the internet, where I discovered, farðu í rassgat, which you would hurl as an insult when you are in the kind of situation where you want to advise someone to crawl up your own asshole.  Perhaps I’ll save that one for the United States customs agents.

 

“May your urine burn, you cowardly goat,” will be my backup curse.

*   *   *

Department Of Cool Story, Bro…    [6]

When I recently saw this spot-on summation of Christian theology I was reminded of an acquaintance who, when I came out decades ago as religion-free, resorted to the believers’ last tactic:  when you can’t counter facts and logic and rationality, use fear ( of something only the religious believe in – hellfire/damnation  [7]  ).  He was not amused when moiself, using the following synopsis to do so, laughingly confirmed that I was indeed rejecting his god’s plan for “salvation.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

“Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?   [9]
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad
has made the world ugly and bad.
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.”

(  Friedrich Nietzsche , as quoted in  The Very Best of Friedrich Nietzsche: Quotes from a Great Thinker, by David Graham,)

 

 

*   *   *

May you remember to fix the harm you’ve done when you realize you’ve done harm;
May you, as much as possible, not find yourself in farðu í rassgat situations;
May you resolve not to find the world ugly and bad;
…and may the hijinks ensue.    [10]

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Belle can still give you the badass, stinkeye look, should the occasion call for it.

[2] Two for $1!

[3] GC is an author, blogger, speaker, LGBTQ and atheist activist.

[4] The podcast does an annual series, at the end of the old/beginning of the new year, exploring the latest in evidence-based understandings offered by behavioral scientists – understandings which may help people improve their lives via establishing good habits/getting rid of bad habits, overcoming emotional, romantic, career-related, and cognitive challenges, etc.

[5] Note that the draft was dated July 5th. In 1966, when the question about this date was put to him, Einsenhower indicated that it was a minor mistake on his part and that he had actually written it on June 5, 1944.  (from D-Day Overlord, Encyclopaedia of the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy )

[6] Not.

[7] It’s a knee slapper, when you think about it:  they try to make *you* afraid of something  that is in fact *their* greatest fear, something which you don’t thing about at all, like pissing off Santa claus.

[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

[9] This is serious stuff; no need for a footnote.

[10] See previous footnote.