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The Patient I’m Not Taking

March 1, 2024

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, politics, reproductive rights, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Patient I’m Not Taking

Department Of Another Great Moment In Inclusion/Diversity

The story behind the story:  The Inclusion/Diversity story moiself  is about to share came to my mind when MH and I were recently talking about the respective rhinoviruses…

 

“Yeah baby!”

 

…sorry, dude, I refer to the virus most responsible for what we call the “common cold.”

I’ll begin again.

A week or so ago MH and I were talking about the colds we’d each had at the end of last year.  When we were comparing how long each of us had had symptoms, I snickered (to moiself , or so I thought) to recall The Great Cold Debate®  which I inadvertently became a part of, during my time working at a Planned Parenthood clinic.  MH asked what I was snickering about, and thus I shared this memory, which was entagled with another….

 

 

As mentioned previously in this space (e.g., here, and more specifically, here) I worked as a Family Planning Specialist for Planned Parenthood, including several shifts per week in their Bay Area clinics which offered abortion services.  Dateline: one morning in one such clinic, when I was doing intake procedures with a patient, who was accompanied by her husband.  [1]    I’d reached the point during the intake where I would ask them about the contraceptive method(s) the patient had been using and bring up birth control options with them, if they were open to discussing the issue.

Important Background Detail ®, for both this story (and the one which follows): the patient and her husband were from India.  They had come to the USA a year earlier, for the husband to pursue his graduate studies at Stanford University.  

After we’d discussed what had worked, or not (ahem…   [2] )  for them re contraception, and the different options available, I asked if either of them had any questions.  The wife said no; her husband looked at me and asked:

“What is it about American colds?”

 

 

He phrased his non sequitur of a query in tones which seemed more accusatory than questioning.  “Excuse me; *American* colds?” was all I could muster for a response.

His wife glanced at me, rolled her eyes without really doing so, and excused herself to use the restroom.

So: the husband began to whine tell me that he’d had several colds since coming to the USA, and in fact he had a cold right now, at the present time, a cold which was going on two weeks now, and this had never happened in India.

Ummm,  ooookkkkaaaayyyy….

Now, this was a (supposedly) educated person; I can’t remember the exact name of his graduate program, but it was in the biological sciences.  As briefly as possible I mentioned that the viruses which cause what we call “a cold” can typically last from 7 to 14 days…

“No; not in India.”

…and that being ill in a new/different country can seem like a different experience, and when you travel you will be exposed to different cold viruses….  I tried to steer the conversation to the subject at hand, but he would not be deterred.  I realized he really didn’t want an answer.  He just wanted to complain, and found it necessary to repeat himself several times:

“There’s something wrong with American viruses!
Colds in India *never* last this long.”

 

 

It was bizarre; I got the feeling he wanted me to apologize, to him, on behalf of those disrespectful, persistent, American microbes.

The patient returned from her pee break and the three of us settled the contraception issue.  I asked, again, if either of them had any questions about the procedure.  The wife said no; the husband said, “Can you tell if it…

During his micro-pause I could feel moiself’s  arteries icing over — he’s not going to ask me that, is he?  Yep.  

“Can you tell if it is a boy fetus or a girl fetus?”

“No,” I replied, gritting my teeth.  I managed to restrain moiself  from adding,

…but I can tell if its father is an asshole.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of And Now For The Story In Front Of The Story
Behind The Story….  Or Something.

The Planned Parenthood clinics where I worked had many student-couple patients from other countries, who were in the Bay Area for either their and/or their husbands’ college and graduate educations.  Several of my fellow PP clinicians who’d been working for PP much longer than moiself  had noticed certain patterns with – and thus had developed certain opinions about –  patients from certain countries and cultures.   [3] 

Dateline:  Another morning (circa 1989); another clinic.  After finishing my first intake of the day, I escorted the patient to the waiting room, then headed for the lab to chart her hematocrit results.  Hanging on a wall outside the entrance to the lab was the file holder which held the charts of patients who had checked in to the clinic and who were in the reception area, awaiting intake.  When a Family Planning Specialist had finished with her intake she began the next intake, taking whichever chart was on top in the file holder.  Which is what I was going to do, after charting the lab results for my previous patient.

CR, DD, and ML, the other Family Planning Specialists who were working at that morning’s clinic, were gathered around the file holder, quietly but passionately discussing a chart DD was holding in her hands. 

 

 

More IBD ® (just to be clear, that’s Important Background Details, not…er…the other acronym) for this story:

 (1) my fellow FPS’s respective ethnic backgrounds:  CR (the lead for the morning’s clinic) was White; DD was Black; ML was Latina;

(2) Our clinic personnel had recently undergone our first of what would be several days of (not well-planned or executed, IMO    [4]  )  Diversity Awareness training seminars;

(3) There is no background detail #3.

 

 

CR, DD, and ML were gathered around the file holder, quietly but passionately discussing a chart DD was holding in her hands.  So intent were the three of them that they did not notice my approach.  They seemed oblivious to my presence, even when I was standing three feet behind them, listening to their discussion (recalled here to the best of my ability, but not verbatim…duh).

CR:
“Nope, it’s yours.”
(CR shook her head and put her hands out, as if to push away the chart DD had thrust in her direction)
“I know what you mean, I’ve had the same experiences,
but that’s the chart on top, DD, and you’re up.”

DD:
“Please, I  can’t.  I had the last one – I’m serious.  ML, would you take this?”

ML:
“No, oh no, I just don’t – I know this sounds bad, it’s nothing personal, but that culture is so – well you know how the women can’t say anything direct, so they whimper and cry to punish their husbands and make them feel bad….”

DD:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I get woozy with the odor – I’m not prejudiced, I’m serious.  It’s from their diet, the curry or whatever, and it comes out of the skin and the breath and the last Indian patient I had, it was so strong, I thought I was gonna pass out in the procedure room….”

ML (changing her tone from pleading to teasing):
“CR, you’re the lead, you should set a good example, and help out DD….”

CR:
“No way.”

My snort-laughter caused them to turn around, and their collective expressions changed in a flash, from obstinacy to hope (“Maybe Robyn will take this patient?!?!)…a hope which crashed and burned as I declared,

“Oh, how I wish I had a recording of this moment!
My faith in the equality of humanity is restored, with this prime example of diversity before me:  a White woman, a Black woman, a Latina woman, all arguing about not wanting to help an Indian woman.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

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

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

“Religion is man-made.
Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.”

(  Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything )

 

 

*   *   *

Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when men mansplain teach about sexism and misogyny to captive audiences.

 

 

*   *   *

May your colds (caused by proud, American viruses) last less than two weeks;
May you never have to explain sexism and misogyny to captive audiences;
May you never have cause to wish, maybe someone else will help this patient;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] At some point during the intake, if a client seeking an abortion was accompanied by another person – whether their partner, or friend, or parent or family member –  we made sure to speak to the patient *alone,* to make sure she wasn’t being pressured into any decision.

[2] Considering where they were (a Family Planning clinic, for an abortion), the husband’s idea of birth control – “I’ll wear a condom when I feel like it” was infuriating…but, unfortunately, not uncommon, as I learned.  I was to witness, during my time at PP, the disturbing phenomenon wherein couples from countries/cultures where The Husband Is In Charge Of Such Things ® often had a dynamic where the wife was subject to her husband’s whims of whether or not he wanted to wear a condom every time they had sexual intercourse (even if he was adamant about *not* wanting his wife to get pregnant, he would not consistently use protection!).  But, he didn’t want her to use oral contraceptives (“The Pill”), or an IUD, or a diaphragm. To have her be the one using and choosing birth control would take her out from under *his* control.  And her option of saying no to sex if he refused (“no glove; no love”) – ha!  Not an option, for her, or for far too many women (and any woman who does not have that option is far too many).

[3] I never, never, ever, saw any instance of them allowing their opinions to affect their care of their patients.  That said, working in such a stressful environment, yep, they would discretely blow off steam by commiserating with their fellow clinicians.

[4] That kind of employee education/seminar was in its developmental stages, and not A Thing®  like it is now, and it seemed obvious to moiself  that those leading the training were well-intentioned but didn’t exactly know what they were doing.

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

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

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. 

No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Acclaimed Grammy Performance I’m Not Watching

February 16, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holidays, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, music, politics, reproductive rights, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Acclaimed Grammy Performance I’m Not Watching

Department of Holiday Gifts

Dateline: February 13, 4 pm-ish.  Moiself  suddenly remembers what the next day will be, and that I’ve neither a gift nor a card for MH – damn!  What do you get the man who has everything?  Besides, of course, a good dose of antibiotics.   [1]

 

 

I decided instead to go for the practical, but heartfelt.  MH’s father worked for General Mills, and there is a certain cereal which MH not only loves but is the only commercial cereal MH will eat. 

 

 

*   *   *

The Fast Car I’m Not Driving

“Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs pulled out all the stops with a performance of four-time Grammy winner and 13-time nominee Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car at the 2024 Grammys.”
( Grammy Awards site )

Regarding Chapman’s performance at the Grammys, I’m sure all that or most, of “the stops” were pulled out during her performance of her masterpiece song, although I didn’t see this year’s Grammy awards telecast.  Moiself  will probably wait for a bit before finding a video of the Chapman-Combs cover of Fast Car, due to the emotions that Chapman’s staggeringly evocative song stirs up in me.

When that song first came out, I found it both memorizing and depressing. Memorizing as in it was – and still is, IMO –  one of the prime examples as how a song can be the most perfect short story.  The depressing part was how, whenever that song came on the radio, I thought to moiself,  “Ah, it’s the Planned Parenthood song.”

 

 

…in another life it sometimes seemed, I worked in women’s reproductive health care, with jobs in different Planned Parenthood clinics bracketing 5+ years in a private OB/GYN practice.  As stressful and challenging as the job could be, I mostly enjoyed my stints working at Planned Parenthood, and considered it an honor to have been able to serve their clientele.

Chapman’s song, with its skillfully sparse instrumentation and haunting narrative, reminded me of many patients I encountered at PP:  well-meaning if emotionally immature women and girls, scrapping by in poverty, hoping desperately for something more in their lives besides what they have, which is getting involved with the wrong man and being dragged down with him….

At least the protagonist in Chapman’s song finally realizes what she has to do, and tells her once beloved partner – whom she now sees as the ultimately and utterly useless baggage he has become –  to “take your fast car and keep on driving.”  All these years later, the song takes me back, and I wonder about certain patients:  What happened to her?  Whatever became of those women, and girls who grew into women?

And still, after all these years, when I hear Fast Car I ache for the protagonist’s naive humanity, for her wanting something more than a life of caretaking, first for her drunk, ill and incompetent father, and then for the family her incompetent partner saddles her with…

That break/catch in Chapman’s voice, with the lyric, “I’d always hoped for better…”   Slays me, still.  Every time.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Don’t Know

Is there an age after which a person should not be able to run for public office?

Moiself  doesn’t know.

Our country’s constitution has a minimum age requirement for federal office,   [2]   but no maximum.  According to the Pew Research Center, most Americans favor maximum age limits for federal elected officials and Supreme Court justices.  I have been among the plethora of Americans on all sides of the political divide who have been grumbling about the age of the two major party likely candidates for president. 

Then, after a recent conversation with a neighbor whom I’ve admired for years – a conversation wherein he revealed his age to me – I felt the surprising sting of my own ageism.

After our wide-ranging discussion I was thinking about what an asset he is, not only to his family and friends and neighborhood, but the community at large, the co-workers he served with….  And this kind, compassionate, intelligent, clear-eyed person, even at this late stage in life, felt called to enter public service, making use of his years of experience and a variety of fields, what would be the point in denying that?

I don’t know.

Then I started thinking about my other/older friends and family, colleagues and neighbors, whose exact ages I sometimes don’t know,  [3]   whose intellectual acuity is heightened by their years of experience and shows no signs of abating, and whom I’ve seen outwitting and out-reasoning people decades younger than themselves.  And yep, I’ve had/seen aging friends and family members whose decision-making facilities and memories translate into shouldn’t leave the house without an escort or intellectual guardian of some kind – but I’ve also seen that in far too many people under the age of forty.

 

 

Should there be some kind of a means test, as in cognitive function, to run for public office after say, age 70?  But why that age – why not 57, or 75?  And who will be the ones to design and test for and then implement such limits?

I don’t know.

I do know that the current presidential candidates’ ages, along with the average of a US Senator being 64   [4]    (!!)  are adding more fuel to the fire in the minds of many young voters.  Unfortunately, the fires being fueled are those of dissuasion, and not activism.   It is further proof to many young people that the country is run by and for the old (mainly white and mainly men), who know little and care less about the world that these younger voters have inherited and are navigating.

 

I do want the opportunity to vote for Dolly Parton (age 78).  For something.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Looking For A Good Article On Identity And Cultural Appropriation,
And …”Its Relationship To Concepts Of Authority And Ownership”?

 

 

If your answer is well duh yes, then Mexican-American, gender queer writer and artist John Paul Brammer has writen the story for y’all.   How’s this for a teaser:

“The rise of social media has profoundly impacted cultural identity. Optimistically, it has served as an equalizer of sorts, allowing historically marginalized voices a platform to be heard. But it has also cultivated an ecosystem where there’s incentive to gate-keep, where identity is its own form of capital. In an influencer age crowded with voices, it’s shrewd to find a lane and to thin the herd in terms of who gets to talk about certain topics.

Over the last decade or so, ethnic identity, at least among the internet literati, has been governed by a certain essentialism that holds that culture is biologically ordained by blood. It is a solemn, sacred, fragile affair that must be protected with utmost care by those qualified to handle it, by individuals appointed to this role by virtue of their birth….

The concept of cultural appropriation has been a handy tool to such ends, serving as a broad category of crime that covers everything from genuine grievances, such as the pilfering of Black American musical trends by an industry that consistently neglects and disrespects them, and truly absurd claims about who is ‘allowed’ to ‘make sushi.’….

I’m not trying to make a blanket dismissal of people’s concerns over how their cultures are handled by those unfamiliar with the nuances. But a problem I do have with ‘cultural appropriation’ as a concept is how it flattens everything down to a simple narrative of theft and is more of an end to a conversation than a springboard for one….

Culture is messy, and in an increasingly globalized world, dictating how and where it spreads is incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible….”

(  excerpts from “De Los: In defense of Vietnam’s love of pachucos,”
by JP Brammer, LA Times, 1-22-24 , emphases mine )

 

 

I didn’t know that “who is allowed to make sushi” is a thing.  Which is good, ’cause moiself  enjoys making sushi (or what passes as my version of it).  But I’ve no worries in the matter, as I’m sure if the Cultural Appropriation Police ® ever raided my kitchen while I was making sushi they would leave soon thereafter, smug in their assessment that my pathetic, non-Japanese, gaijin attempts at “cold rice dressed with vinegar, formed into any of various shapes, and garnished especially with bits of raw seafood or vegetables”    [5]    is no threat to anyone’s cultural authenticity.

Moiself  highly recommends this informative and entertaining article, especially to find out the hitherto unknown (well, to moiself ) cultural exchange between Vietnam and pachuco culture, and also between Yugoslavia and Mexico in a style called Yu-Mex.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when I feel a part of the totality of the human experience while surrounded by strangers, as when at 5:10pm on 2/13/2024 I found moiself  standing in one of three very long checkout lines at The Dollar Tree.  Although the lines were very long they were moving quickly because, as I saw (glancing at each person in line, ahead of/behind/beside me, to confirm my suspicious), each person in line had at most two items, one of which was the distinctive red-enveloped greeting card. “You too?” I asked knowingly of the elderly gent in front of me.   He smiled conspiratorially and whispered to me, in heavily-accented but understandable English,

“I almost forget what tomorrow is.”

 

 

*   *   *

May you always hope – and more importantly, work – for better;
May you find a way to enjoy the last minute greeting card shopping;
May you never have to defend your right to make sushi;    [7]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I actually said that once, to a patient in the medical practice where I worked, when she wondered aloud about what to get for her husband for his upcoming birthday, as he had few hobbies and “…we want for nothing – what do you get the man who has everything?”  “Penicillin?”  I suggested.  She stared blankly at moiself. 

[2] Minimum age of 35 for President, 30 for the Senate, 25 for serving in the House.  No minimum or maximum specified for Supreme Court justices.

[3] Except for a certain range (“He’s in his mid-70s, I think….”  “No way – she can’t be 82?!?!” )

[4]  Yep, an *average* of 64.  Even more shocking to me, over two thirds of them – 34 out of the 50 – are aged 70 or older.

[5] Sushi, noun, as defined by Merriam- Webster dictionary.

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

[7] Unless, of course, your sushi really sucks.

The Possible Hazards I’m Not Avoiding

January 12, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, hiking, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Possible Hazards I’m Not Avoiding

Department Of Imagine My Surprise

It’s been a while since I received any income from my writing; thus, when I received the yearly royalty statement from the publishing company that publishes the play I’ve written, moiself  was expecting the usual statement showing me the royalty I am owed.  Brief explanation for the folks who are how-publishing-works–impaired:   [1]    depending on the contract, publishing houses/companies, particularly those specializing in plays for off-off-off-off Broadway (as in, for schools, church groups, community theaters), may keep payments in escrow and may not issue a royalty check until the royalties earned are above a certain amount (usually a very, very, small amount).

I’ve had a piddling royalty rollover with that publishing company for years, since the last time someone bought the script for my play.  On December 28 my yearly statement informed me that a check for the June – December 2023 reporting period would be issued, and I received it in early January.  So, although I have writing income to report for 2023, the amount…well, I’m sure if there were actual humans involved in reading my e-filing tax returns, the response I might receive when said reader(s) come across lines 1-9 on my 1040  form might be akin to

 

*   *   *

Department Of This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

After not having been to the coast for several weeks,  [2]  MH and I returned to see several “No Access” signs, posted at places which seemed to us to be bafflingly random.

I checked out some local news (social media) groups to find out more about the signs.  Amidst all of the  Seriously?/you’ve got to be kidding posts, someone noted

“(the signs) might have something to do with the lawsuit in Newport…
 Municipalities/counties/state had an injury lawsuit exemption for recreational trails. Someone was hurt on a bridge, sued and won on appeal. The closures are happening in other places as well.”

 

 

Now, this first no access sign we saw was on nothing we’d previously considered to be a trail; rather, it was by a path, at the end of a street about four blocks from our house, which leads ~ 50 feet through dune grass to the beach.

That FB poster is (was?) correct, moiself  thought: there’s a state law declaring that people who hike or bike or walk their dogs along the beach or prance through the forest or otherwise engage in recreational activities (“recreate”) do so at their own risk…I think? I found the statute:

ORS 105.682

Liabilities of owner of land used by public for recreational purposes….

(1) Except as provided by subsection (2) of this section, and subject to the provisions of ORS 105.688 (Applicability of immunities from liability for owner of land), an owner of land is not liable in contract or tort for any personal injury, death or property damage that arises out of the use of the land for recreational purposes,….

when the owner of land either directly or indirectly permits any person to use the land for recreational purposes,…. The limitation on liability provided by this section applies if the principal purpose for entry upon the land is for recreational purposes…

and is not affected if the injury, death or damage occurs while the person entering land is engaging in activities other than the use of the land for recreational purposes….

(2) This section does not limit the liability of an owner of land for intentional injury or damage to a person coming onto land for recreational purposes….

( excerpts; my emphases;  Oregon public statutes )

Another local news group commentor wrote,

“The change came about after someone in Newport got hurt on a city-maintained bridge that was on the WAY to the recreational area and sued.  This has had a huge ripple effect up and down the Coast (and probably throughout the state). Tillamook County closed two access roads to Oceanside, and at next week’s City Council meeting in Rockaway Beach, one of the key agenda items is whether to close all beach access….”

We looked for more information about this lawsuit and its effects in several news outlets.  Here’s the scoop as per the city newsletter, Manzanita Today (1-8-24):

Manzanita Avoids Most Beach Access And Other Trail Closures After Court Decision

“A 2022 decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals and affirmed by the state’s Supreme Court, has forced some coastal cities to close all beach access trails….
The consequences of the court case will likely lead to a legislative fix in the upcoming short session of the Oregon Legislature, but many coastal residents
and visitors may wonder how things got this far.
Here are the facts of the case.
Nicole Fields  [3]  regularly walked her dogs on Agate Beach in Newport and used a city-maintained access trail to reach the beach. One day, as Ms. Fields returned from the beach with her dogs and a friend, she slipped on a bridge and seriously injured her leg. She sued Newport for damages. Newport tried to assert ‘recreational immunity’ under an Oregon law intended to encourage landowners to allow recreational use of their land. Ms. Fields argued that walking on the beach access trail to engage in recreational walking on the beach was not itself recreational. She was just crossing the city’s property to start or finish her recreational activity of walking on the beach. The court decided that a trial court must, in effect, determine what Ms. Fields intended while walking on the trail. Was that part of her recreational activity or did she intend merely to use the trail to get back and forth to the beach?
Thus, whether the City of Newport (and its insurer, CIS Oregon) ultimately prevailed, they would still incur the substantial expense of a jury trial. CIS provides liability insurance to many cities and counties, including Manzanita and Tillamook County. Because of that potential liability, CIS has recommended closure of all improved trails used to access any recreational area….”

 

 

WTF, if only.

“The consequences of the court case will likely lead to a legislative fix in the upcoming short session of the Oregon Legislature.”  Yes, of course.  Unfortunately, human nature being what it is…

 

“It’s your fault I tripped over my own feet!”

 

… that won’t prevent someone from suing when they fall-down-go-boom.  Moiself  understands the no-access signs from a liability point of view (one such lawsuit could wipe out funds for coastal towns and villages).  Still, signs – and apparently, existing laws – mean nothing if someone is determined to sue others for their life choices and/or the random accidents that we are all at risk, from the moment we rise out of bed until we return to said bed at the end of the day.

That dog walker could have slipped on her own rain-slicked driveway, tripped over her shoelaces or down her own front porch stairs, or gotten tangled up in her dog’s leash…..  But, whatever caused her fall, she did it on the pedestrian bridge, and then got around the law by claiming that she was not *yet* recreating, but using the bridge as a passageway to get to where she was *going* to recreate…

 

 

Artful, isn’t it?  Congratulations to her scum-sucking ambulance chasing lawyer attorney for the legal and cognitive gymnastics on that one!

The city newsletter article went on to note that Manzanita’s Public Works Director attempted to limit the number of trail closures by inspecting and rating the condition of every trail within city limits.  He made a chart of city trails, which he ranked in five numerical categories:

1. Poor (many hazards noted);
2. fair (some hazards noted);
3. average (few hazards noted);
4. good (no hazards noted);
5. excellent (no hazards noted)

MH and I were familiar with them all, and know that many of the “trails” on this list are just beach access points and undeveloped road crossings, rather than actual hiking trails.  The chart showed “…the trails that will be closed and signed to warn users to walk at their own risk because of “possible hazards.”

MH beat me to the suggestion:

“Let’s find the most ‘dangerous’ trails and walk on all of them!”

And so we did. We girded our loins and, at our own risk, did all seven trails on the #1 and #2 (Poor and Fair) lists.  Barely escaped with our lives, lemme tell ya.

Possible hazards.

It’s a world of danger out there.  Some people should just never leave their house.

 

Be sure to have your lawyer’s number on speed dial the next time you leave your abode – something like this might be hiding behind the city trash can by the bridge on the way to the trail to the beach….

 

*   *   *

Department Of Things We Probably Will Not See Changed In The New Year,
But It Would Be Nice To Try, If Only To Please Miss Manners

(  excerpts from “Miss Manners: What topic most grinds Miss Manners’ gears? Self-philanthropy.”  Oregonlive.com  1-1-24  )

DEAR MISS MANNERS: You must receive a lot of the same, or similar, questions. I’m just wondering: What are the most-asked ones?

GENTLE READER: Well, they are not, as may be supposed, about which fork to use. That is a question posed only by people wanting to declare that manners are trivial. Such people tend to be consistent in not having any….

There is also a topic that always shocks Miss Manners but has become increasing prevalent: blatant greed.

People have gotten shameless about demanding money from family, friends and strangers alike. Even the ubiquitous gift registry, with its transparent whitewash, is giving way to the outright demand for money. Any occasion will do –  birth, death and anything in between –  as an excuse for begging.

It seems to Miss Manners that there are enough serious causes that need addressing before solvent people are justified in engaging in self-philanthropy.”   [4]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Past Regrets Which Live In The Present

Moiself, after hearing a podcast in which a gay person spoke about not being out in high school due to a fear of being teased and/or bullied, had the following memory flash.

Dateline:

That would be my senior year in high school.  I can’t remember which pep squad member asked me to participate in a short skit the cheerleaders were planning for an end-of-year, Senior class only, school assembly.  I do remember being recruited with the we-need-someone-who’s-not-afraid-to-be-ridiculous-and-that’s-YOU enticement.  I was told that, along with the cheerleaders, the cast of the skit would be three students:  moiself; the school’s best drama student (male), and another male student.  There would be no rehearsal, but we could get out of class early to prepare and thus, since the assembly itself took up one class period, we could skip two classes – sign me up, I said.

We three students were given “costume” guidelines and the skit scenario/outline.  [5]  Within the scenario we could ad lib the rest (we had no dialogue).

Brief skit summary:  The curtain rose to reveal the auditorium stage, empty but for a bench at center stage, upon which sat a Dorky Boy.  Dorky Boy (the drama student) was tall and skinny, clad in highwater pants, a short sleeved, plaid shirt and bow tie, wore thick horn-rimmed eyeglasses and clutched a lunch box to his stomach.  A provocatively sleazily dressed girl (that’s moiself’s  cue) entered from stage right.

 

My costume was a slit-up-the-side cancan skirt and fishnet stockings, tight fitting sleeveless top (comically stuffed brassiere), too much makeup…similar to this on the classy scale.

 

Sleazy girl strutted across the stage, past the DB.  She turned back and begins to flirt with DB, but he was embarrassed/appalled and tried to ignore her.  She sat down on the bench, he scooted away from her, she scooted toward him…after a few seconds when it looked as if she might end up chasing him around the bench, a Sexy Stoner Surfer Dude®  swaggers in from stage left. SSS Dude had shoulder length, sun-streaked blond-red hair, wore mirror sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, a puka shell necklace, low-slung cutoff shorts which reveal his toned abs, and flip-flop sandals   [6]    SSSD did his own laidback stage strut toward the occupants of the bench.  Sleazy Girl immediately turned her attentions toward the SSSD who, after giving her the once-over, exchanged looks with DB, and the two boys linked arms and pranced off stage.  Sleazy Girl was flabbergasted, and flounced off stage in an indignant huff while the cheerleaders broke into a chorus of…I can’t remember the exact words, but the cheer ended with something like,

“gimme a Q and a U and a E-E-R,
Q-U-E-E-R is what you are.”

 

 

Really.

Yep.  Of course, that was then and this is now.  Still, doesn’t that count, as even a relatively mild case, of high school homophobia, no matter how unintentional (“it’s just supposed to be funny”)?  I knew of at least four teachers at our school, and several students, who were gay (and not out, in the case of the teachers, of course), and later would know of other students I went to school with who were gay but who were not out at the time (even to themselves, in some cases).  But I never thought of how they might react: I never considered that they might think the skit in any way was about targeting or even referring to them.  Here’s how clueless about Such Things®  I was, back then:  I thought the joke was on the character *I* was playing!  As in, she considered herself to be hot stuff, but the cool surfer dude found her so repulsively skanky he’d rather run off with the nerd.

Back to the future: I would like to ask one of those students what they thought of the skit.   [7]   Were they aware of their own sexual orientation at the time, and if so, did the skit make them uncomfortable, or hurt their feelings?  Perhaps they don’t even remember it (it was three minutes out of four years of school), and if so, will it be *my* bringing it up that causes the discomfort?  I have rarely recalled that skit in the decades since high school (I’ve rarely had reasons to do so); still, every ten years or so something sparks that memory, along with my regret for participating in something “comedic” that essentially amounted to punching down.

I don’t know who was responsible for the skit – was it a sketch the cheerleaders had been taught at cheer camp, or did they hear about it from another school’s pep squad?  The head cheerleader was a girl I’d known since junior high, although not well – I knew “of” her more than I knew her (we hung with different academic and friend groups).  We became better acquainted two+ decades after high school, and I was delighted to discover that she is one of the most life-positive, human rights-affirming, feminist, pro-woman, pro-people people I know – a person who would now renounce that skit (if she’d even remember it). Yet another example of how anyone can get caught up in the moment, in a “joke” that might not be so funny….   [8]

 

 

While such an organization was unimaginable when I was in high school, I did a search on the subject and, yee haw!, there is a GSA club in the Santa Ana school district (although, this is not their logo, and the club is now the QSA ).

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

“Religion tries to give us maps of sexuality that are no better than
 a 2,000-year-old map of my hometown.”

( Darrel Ray, Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality )

 

 

*   *   *

May you make it a goal to avoid self-philanthropy;
May you update both the physical and emotional maps of your hometown;
May you accept the fact that life is composed of possible hazards;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Which is most anyone with an EQ greater than their inseam.

[2] due to finishing up with The Kitchen Remo That Ate Our Brains®

[3] The person suing was not mentioned in all of the reports I read, but it is part of the public record now, and I must confess that a part of me wants her to be shamed for this.  I’m sorry she injured her leg; I’m sorry for any person who inures themselves in any way, but sorry does not equal, “someone else’s fault/someone else pays.”

[4] My vote for term of the year…the year is young, I realize.

[5] To call it a plot would be too ambitious.

[6] The student they recruited for that role basically played himself.  No wardrobe changes for him; he even had the puka shells.

[7] I’m thinking of privately messaging him, and asking for his feedback, which I will include in next week’s post, anonymously and if I have his permission.

[8] Sorry; no footnote here.

[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 Dead Man I’m Not Praising

December 1, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, politics, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Dead Man I’m Not Praising

Department Of The Partridge Of The Week

It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself  is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard.   [1]

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Dissing Remembering The Dead

Dateline:  11-21-23.  Longtime friend and college apartment-mate SB posted a link (on social media) to an obituary:  HG, a fiction writer and one of our college’s part-time professors, had died at age 99.

SB’s post sent me on the express train to memory-ville, and I commented with the first thought that came to mind when I read the news:

“Didn’t know he was still alive.”

But I’d edited moiself’s  reaction, which was, in its entirety:

“Didn’t know he was still alive…
I’d assumed he’d died decades ago,
crushed under the massive weight of his own self-regard.”

If I’d read HG’s obituary (I didn’t), I’m sure I’d have run across the compliments from those who liked HG and/or his work.  Still, I doubt that any of the praise and adoration typically cast upon the departed would have equaled or exceeded HG’s own high opinion of himself.

I’d not taken a class from HG, but two of my college apartment mates (SB, and GG) did, during Winter quarter of SB’s and my sophomore year.  During that quarter moiself  heard their stories of HG’s class.  Then, one oh-so-memorable night, I met HG when he came to dinner at our apartment, after which I thanked the gods and my lucky stars – none of which I believed in   [2]   ­– that I was not in his class.

Y’all may be thinking, Wait a minute: a professor came to his student’s apartment, for dinner – for any reason?  How did that happen?

 

 

Yep, he did.  And there’s a wee bit o’ backstory to the how did that happen  part.

 

 

Fall quarter of my sophomore year I took a beginning Creative Writing class.  During the last weeks of class its professor, FT, encouraged me to sign up for another CW course, this one taught by HG:  You have to apply for this class, by submitting a sample of your writing – check with the English department but really, any of your stories that you submitted in my class will get you in.    HG’s class was considered the next step up for those interested in writing fiction, FT told me, and he thought that that was the class for me (It’s obvious you’re no beginner).  I thanked FT for his compliment and encouragement, but told him that although his CW class satisfied a requirement and had fit into my schedule – not that I didn’t enjoy every moment! – I didn’t have room in my schedule for another class that either wasn’t required for my major or didn’t satisfy another degree requirement.

But you will have room for it – this class will be taught in the evening, FT countered.  He asked me about my major.  When I told FT that I was pre-law,   [3]   he affably ribbed me (You’re a writer, not a lawyer).   During the next couple of weeks FT kept asking me if I’d signed up for HG’s class.  I knew his persistence in the matter was in fact a compliment, but I didn’t like revealing my financial situation to those whose business it wasn’t.  The fourth or fifth time FT asked me if I needed a suggestion as to which story to submit for HG’s class application, I told him the truth.  It wasn’t just the class time I had to juggle; I was working to put myself through school.  My days were busy with classes and with my two jobs: my official job at the library, at which I worked both day and evening shifts, and my “unofficial” (read: under the table) job, typing term and research papers for other students   [4]  .  And I needed time for my own homework and papers and a sanity-preserving social life….

My teacher’s persistence hit a nerve.  I loved writing fiction, and he knew it – what better excuse to take the time to do so than to have a class where it was required?  A day or two before the deadline I went to the English department, filled out the very brief application for HG’s class, and gave The Secretary In Charge Of Such Things my sample story.  The secretary told me that HG would read the applicants’ stories by a certain date, and that I should check back on that day for the return of my story and the enrollment decision.

 

My interest in writing was as strong as my dislike of my own typos, as demonstrated in my high school’s journalism class office.

 

I had not asked FT which of my stories he thought I should use.  I decided to submit the one both FT and my CW classmates had voted as “the best,” in a class contest organized by FT.  Years later I would look back upon that contest win (which I found somewhat flattering and mostly embarrassing) as my introduction to that most ubiquitous and vile literary publishing practice: contests, for any and everything, on any and every subject (even on the personal and/or demographic characteristic of the writer), so that you – along with any and every writer, it seems – can, eventually, declare yourself to be “an award winning writer.”   [5]

Once again, I digress.

Two of my apartment mates, SB and GG, also applied to HG’s class.  I assumed that the majority of the applicants would be the Serious Writer® wannabes: pale young men in black turtlenecks who would be submitting their imitative, Cheever/Roth/Updike-styled novel excerpts in which their descriptions of suburban angst, vacant sexual encounters, and hipster misogyny would be mistaken for edgy, clear-eyed commentary on contemporary American mores.  I decided to go for something different.  Figuring HG would like a reprieve from all the derivative, Great American Novel aspirational prose, I submitted something shorter, and humorous (the story which had won my class’s contest).

When I returned to the English department on the appointed day the secretary flipped through the stack of students’ stories on her desk, handed me my mine, and said that I had not been chosen for the class.  I quickly flipped through the pages; my story was unmarked.  “Did HG give a note – any feedback, about why he didn’t like my story?” I asked.  “No,” she said, “it’s not that he didn’t like it.  He didn’t read it.”

“He didn’t even *read* it?” I sputtered.  The secretary’s eyes radiated equal parts pity and frustration as she pointed to several other stories in the pile, stories whose paper clips were stretched much further apart than the one holding my manuscript pages together.  “He didn’t read those stories, either.  All of these” – she gestured at the manuscript in my hand, then at the bulging tomes on her desk – “violated the guidelines.”  She reached into a manilla folder on her desk from which she withdrew the guidelines for HG’s class’s story submissions.  She placed the paper in front of me and tapped her index finger over the second line of the guidelines, as if trying to gain the attention of a third grader with ADHD.  I saw that the guidelines, which I’d not bothered to check, were that stories had to be between 1500 and 4000 words.    [6]   My story, as per the word count listed in the upper right corner of the title page, was 200 words short.

 

 

Part of me was embarrassed that I had been so careless and cavalier; part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t have to do even more time/schedule juggling. Another part of me was soon to become amused beyond expectation, when SB and GG both made it into HG’s class and began relating their experiences therein.     

After the first meeting of HG’s class, when SB shared her rundown of her classmates, it turned out I was right about the guys in black turtlenecks.  By week two of HG’s class, I’d noticed something else about the attire of another of HG’s students – a something else which both amused and confused me, as it was GG’s…outfits.

As GG left that evening for HG’s class I stopped moiself  from asking if she was skipping class and going to a party instead.  Week three, there it was again.  If this had been happening in modern times the present, I would’ve been surreptitiously taking pictures of her with my cell phone and having a petty giggle about it later with my boyfriend.  Instead, by weeks three and four I made sure to invite “witnesses” – select male friends who also knew GG –  over to our apartment, 30 minutes or so before GG left for class.  Their observations confirmed that it wasn’t just my imagination:  no matter what GG had been wearing during the day, she, uh, pimped her ride, as those wacky kids of today say.  Translation: she upscaled her clothing and makeup for HG’s class.

 

 

I tried to come up with a defense for GG to counter my friends’ snickered theories – which were all variations on the theme that either HG was flirting with/hitting on GG and she was responding to his attentions, or that *she* was the one soliciting her professor’s attention.    [7]   Maybe it’s…subconscious?  But soft-fuzzy, form-fitting sweaters, perfectly coiffed hair, makeup and *lipstick* (this was the late 70s; students didn’t dress up for anything, certainly not for class, and although GG had always spent a lot of time on her hair, there was no other class for which she wore *lipstick*)?  Such frills do not unintentionally adorn a person.  Subconscious?

 

Nice try. 

When SB would leave for HG’s class she’d look like her normal self (attractive, casually attired, jeans-and-tee student), while GG looked as if she were going to an audition for a glamour camp counselor.  And the more stories SB and GG told about HG’s class, the more I squirmed to consider that my witness-friends’ observations might be spot on.

The winter quarter rolled on; then one weekend GG announced that professor HG would be coming to our apartment for dinner later that week.  She would make dinner, and she wanted all four of us (SB, moiself, and our fourth apartment mate, LM) to be there.  Ummm…okay…?  GG was obviously eager to host HG; I tried to be supportive, and feigned enthusiasm even as I wondered why, after full day’s work  (or maybe not; I didn’t know HG’s schedule), a grown-ass professor would want to spend time (and have to eat an amateurishly cooked dinner) with four undergraduates….  Ah, yes.  Make that, four twenty-year-old *female* undergraduates.

 

 

Moiself’s  curiosity was stoked; I no longer needed to feign interest in meeting SB’s and GG’s professor.  Assuming my cultural anthropologist mode throughout the before/during/after dinner banter, I spent the evening taking mental notes more than I participated in the conversation.  [8]    Oh, did I mistakenly type, conversation?  It was more of a presentation, just short of a lecture, from HG.  HG was obviously used to and expectant of female adoration.  He evidently and thoroughly enjoyed holding court, attempting to impart his…what was he attempting to impart?  Yeah, okay, he’s been to so many Esalen Institute and other Big Sur retreats he’s lost count, but how indiscreet can he be to think that we are interested in his opinion of Joan Baez’s sexual preferences?  Every story he told practically megaphoned,

Can you believe how cool I am, who I’ve rubbed shoulders
(and other body parts) with; what I have seen and done…
and here I am, in *your* apartment, you lucky lasses !

HG was SB’s and GG’s teacher.  What did he teach that night?  Although I found HG’s demeanor and anecdotes jaw-droppingly pretentious at the time, my recollection of them did serve me, eventually.  Many years later I modeled a character in one of my stories after HG: “Patrick Glasson,” a professor of creative writing.  The story’s protagonist, Colleen Kiernan, a student in Glasson’s Advanced Fiction Seminar, incurs Glasson’s thinly disguised wrath by challenging his critiques, not being deferential to him, and mostly by being different from the rest of the graduate students in his class, the “pretty young things and scowling young men” who either worshipped Glasson or feared him.  In this excerpt, Colleen approaches Glasson at the end of the class to discuss one of her stories.

…. Glasson tossed Colleen’s manuscript on top of his desk. “What is this?”

Colleen Kiernan fingered the hollow between her collarbones. “The title is on the first page.”

The professor snorted. “So it is.”

Pretty young things and scowling young men gathered their papers and book packs. Colleen’s Seminar in Advanced Fiction comrades scuttled off to their three o’clock classes, pretending not to notice that, once again, their guru and his apostate were at his desk, at odds.

“It’s unfinished, obviously. You said initial drafts were acceptable if…”

“I should have chosen a smaller facility.  A class of thirteen hardly fills this cavernous hall, which might explain the echo. I hear myself reiterating our group’s paradigm — our mantra, if you will.  If you want to be ordinary, write ordinary.”  Professor Glasson exhaled lustily. “No academic preparation is needed for mainstream publication. There are a plethora of How to Write A Damn Fine Novel tutorials.  Check the trade magazines.”

“Check the trades.”  Colleen feigned writing a memo to herself.  “Almost forgot that one.” She set her briefcase on Glasson’s desk, and caught the glint in his bleary eyes. He made no attempt to mask his disdain for the tatty brown canvas attaché Colleen favored over the jewel-toned, Gore Tex shoulder bags that were the totes of choice for pretty young things.

“As I was saying, you said drafts were…”

“This is no class for the conventional. What I have been saying, what they are saying…” Glasson tapped his hirsute finger on the stack of books atop his desk, “is as profound as it is simple. Tell the stories that need telling.” Glasson steepled his fingertips in front of his nose. “If you’d been paying attention you’d have picked up at least the concept of narrative nuance. Post-Joycean streams of interior monologue do not a nuance make.”

Narrative nuance? Hard to discern these past weeks, over the thunderous crash of names dropping from lofty, literary heights. The adventures of Patrick Glasson, erstwhile Swingin’ Sixties Author and B-list celebrity. How many names fell from the Big Sur retreat, where our hero encountered a celebrated folk singer from yon times, and discovered that the angelic soprano was a lesbian predator who pursued pretty young things with banshee-like ferocity?…. We mustn’t forget our hero’s dialogue with the bards frequenting a Bay Area pub notorious for its clientele of IRA sympathizers, said pub having been named for an exploit of his, recorded in his first novel, in which he, his third wife, and a gaggle of second generation Beats revitalized San Francisco’s waning sex-for-poetry scene.

Reverent gazes, front and center. Imagine the thrill of being Him, back then.

 

 

Cutting to the chase:  moiself  found HG to be the most pompous, preening, gossipy, arrogant, name-dropping lech I’d ever met.  He was blatantly “after” GG; his practiced air of seduction gave me the impression that he’d pursued other females in his CW classes and would continue to do so.  The charm and panache he oozed seemed habitual; thus, he even (if ever-so-briefly) focused his powers of seduction on LM and moiself   [9]    after he caught LM shooting me a sympathetic eye roll when I failed to sufficiently mute my WTF  snort at the end of one of HG’s I-did-this-really-cool-thing/know-these-really-cool-people stories.  And by trying to win LM and I over, HG revealed his cards:  he was one of *those* kind of men.  Those Kind Of Men generally view and deal with womenfolk in one of three ways.  There are women they want to fuck, women they don’t want to fuck, and women who remind them of their (or other people’s) mothers.  HG wasn’t sexually interested in LM or moiself ; still, we were females, and had presented him with a challenge by indicating that we were in not in awe of his mere presence nor dazzled by his attentions.

What better way to secure the attentions of Pretty Young Things® who have an honest interest in creative writing than by telling them that he, a Published Author ® , thought that they had potential as a writer?  HG essentially broadcasted that modus operandi.  My feminist sensibilities were both annoyed and embarrassed by GG’s evident hero-worship…and a part of my heart ached for her.  GG had asked me to read several of the stories she’d written for HG’s class assignments.  I honestly liked the majority of what she showed me, even as I cringed on her behalf to imagine what HG was saying to her – how, in so many words and/or gestures and body language, he was giving her the impression that it was getting into her prose, and not into her pants, which interested him the most.

 

 

I hadn’t thought of that HG story in some time.  Today we have more information regarding gender exploitation and what in people’s backgrounds and circumstances makes them vulnerable to abuse (or to being the abuser).  I wish I’d had a more nuanced understanding of the situation, other than what went through my mind at the time, when I was concurrently concerned for and judgmental of a friend (“HG is a lecherous douchebag; why doesn’t GG see it?!”).

The MeToo movement brought the HG story to mind, and had me briefly wondering: if HG were still alive, would he be subject to scrutiny and outing from former students?  Or maybe…whether or not HG offered grades/privileges for sexual attention, maybe he was just a run of the mill/par for the course, approaching middle-age, narcissistic skirt-chaser, unaware of and/or unconcerned with the power imbalance dynamics and ethical violations inherent in pursuing his female students?

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [10]

 

( Taslima Nasrin, Bangladeshi author, physician, civil rights and freethought and  feminist activist, living in exile since 1994,
after receiving repeated death threats from Islamists and Al Qaeda-linked extremists. )

 

*   *   *

May you be able to speak your mind sans death threats;
May you have no heroes to worship;
May you always remember to check the *#!?%#* guidelines (geesh!);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Specifically, in our pear tree.

[2] Although it would be years until I was “out” as being religion-free, I was always openly “lucky star” free.

[3] Specifically, a Criminal Justice major.

[4] Looking back, I should have charged so much more for typing the papers for those students whose handwriting was practically illegible (surprisingly, they were mostly engineering majors, not pre-med).

[5] I lampooned the phenomena in one of the few non-fiction pieces I’ve published, the essay, “You Can Be (Or Already Are) An Award-Winning Writer!”  One editor to whom I submitted the essay said he liked it very much and wanted to publish it, but was overruled by his fellow journal editors, and because of that he felt he should warn me that “this will be impossible to publish — everyone (as in, literary journals and magazines) has a contest !!!  and they do not have a sense of humor about that…or themselves….”  Despite his warning I kept submitting the piece, and it was published twice, once heavily edited to remove much of the contest-related snark, and the second time in its original form.

[6] Or the range may have been 1200 – 4500… I can’t remember the exact numbers, only that in my rush to be concise and clever I’d forgotten to check the guidelines.

[7] One of them “asked around,” he told me, and had heard that HG had a reputation for…that.

[8] Yes, it can and has happened.

[9] Although not for a second did I think he would have been interested in us.

[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 Narcissists I’m Not Labeling

September 29, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, nature, science, theatre, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Narcissists I’m Not Labeling

Department Of Why You Don’t Want Me To Fill Out Your Survey

Dear, ____ (name of artistic group whose events I patronize),

I know that you-who-sent-moiself-this-survey – or the consultants which convinced you to do so, to justify their services – hope that having me fill out your survey will help you to  “gain insights into the kind of audience” you are attracting, or wish to attract.    [1]

 

 

However, I am slightly annoyed/somewhat mystified by the myriad of (what I consider to be) none-of-your-business/how-does-this-matter? questions.  Checking “prefer not to disclose” was not satisfying, to moiself…then, my annoyance morphed into delight, when I came upon this question in your survey:

Please select any of the following sexual identities/orientations that describe you.

Aromantic
Asexual
Bisexual
Fluid
Gay
Heterosexual or straight
Lesbian
Pansexual
Queer
Questioning or unsure
Prefer not to disclose
Other:

At first glance I thought the first option was “Aromatic.”  Which I decided to disclose to you, under “other.”  I also thought about checking “pansexual” (I have this thing for cast iron skillets)…but…nah.

Anyway, thanks for the entertainment.

 

Are those your grill ridges, or are you just happy to see me?

 

*   *   *

Department Of These Labels Violate My Boundaries

Sometimes moiself  wonders if social media has amplified the tendency we all have toward practicing amateur psychiatry.  We scoff at our social media friend who barks, “Don’t poison your body – do your own research!” and sends us a link to a 15 minute video hosted by a dubiously-credentialed Guy In A Lab Coat®  who spouts conspiracy theories contradicting 15 years of medical research on RNA vaccines.  Then we turn around and employ (and misuse) psychological concepts and diagnoses, such as boundaries and narcissist.

In psychology jargon, boundaries are rules and guidelines we set for *ourselves,* to help us set realistic limits on activities and relationships.  We choose and set these boundaries; thus, it is we who are in charge of enforcing them.  Yet, those   [2]   I hear (or read about) who use the term boundaries emphasize the actions of *other* people – extended family; coworkers; friends and neighbors – whom they accused of ignoring or violating their boundaries.  They forget the crucial point of boundaries (or perhaps never understood it in the first place): boundaries are rules that *they* set for *themselves,* not for others.

 

 

” Yet even as ‘boundaries‘ have taken off, the concept has become misunderstood, joining gaslit and narcissist in the pantheon of misused psychology jargon. When you want someone to do something, throwing in the word boundary can lend the request a patina of therapeutic legitimacy.

When imposed on us, boundaries can feel upsetting. Because many people view happy relationships as problem-free, a request to behave differently can feel like a rejection. Some people—out of trauma or other wounds—interpret a ‘no’ from a loved one as the end of a relationship. But boundaries are supposed to help preserve relationships, not destroy them. ‘People typically believe that boundaries are to control people, and in actuality, they are safeguards for yourself and for peace and comfort in your relationships,’ says the therapist and Drama Free author Nedra Glover Tawwab.”

(  “The Most Misunderstood Concept in Psychology: What are boundaries?”
By Olga Khazan” The Atlantic 8/23 , my emphases )

That article got me to thinking about more misuse/misunderstandings of the other two psychology terms the article mentions – terms that but get diluted with mis- and over-use.

Narcissist.  How many times have y’all heard that term, used as a pejorative and also as an analysis of a difficult spouse/coworker/person/family member, despite the fact that the person being labeled a narcissist has not received a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis from a mental health professional, nor has ever even visited a counselor?  [3]

” ‘One of the internet’s favorite diagnoses is that someone is a narcissist—which has become shorthand for anyone who appears self-centered or entitled. The term is ‘thrown around so carelessly,’ says Jacquelyn Tenaglia, a licensed mental health counselor based in Boston. ‘I see narcissism being especially misapplied when it’s used to label someone who exhibits qualities that someone might not like.’

While it might feel good to call your frenemy who only talks about herself a narcissist, mental-health experts suggest refraining. Narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis….”

( “Gaslighting, Narcissist, and More Psychology Terms You’re Misusing,”
health/psychology, Time.com, )

 

 

And gaslit – I’m hearing that term more and more, to describe the allegedly nefarious actions and/or motivations of someone we don’t trust and/or just don’t like…but, are we really using it correctly?

The term is derived from the 1944 movie,   [4]   Gaslight.  Gaslight tells the story of a late 19th century woman who is whirlwind-romanced into marriage, by a man who wants to gain access to her wealthy aunt’s estate, in which, he’s discovered, many valuable jewels are hidden.  The husband tries to convince his wife that their house’s gas lights, which flicker and fade (but only when she is in a room, alone) are not in fact actually dimming, and that she is imagining the sounds she hears coming from the attic. The husband himself is the one behind both the noises and the dimming lights, in a strategy to drive his wife mad and have her institutionalized.

 

 

Someone can treat you poorly, even lie to you, without “gaslighting” you.

“Although in most cases the word serves to expose implicit power dynamics and level the playing field, it can also be used to do the exact opposite. That’s thanks to a process called ‘semantic bleaching,’ where a word’s true meaning gets diluted through imprecise and bad-faith usage…. woke—a word that originally meant ‘socially and politically aware,’ but now can be used to mean ‘sensitive’ and ‘irrational about social and political issues’ because of semantic bleaching by right-leaning media.”

( “Are you using gaslight correctly? ”  The Atlantic, 4-11-22 )

Moiself  highly recommends these articles I’ve cited (and hope I’m not violating any of your boundaries with this suggestion).

*   *   *

Department Of And One More Thing We’re Overusing/Doing Wrong:

Can we please stop referring to people as toxic?

“One of my most important rules as a therapist: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, or cold, or hot-tempered, it doesn’t tell me much about the problem. Adjectives aren’t facts.

That’s especially true of ‘toxic,’ an adjective that’s become increasingly popular in and outside of my office (it was even the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2018). It’s also easily overused — a way of reframing a difficult relationship as one not worth having.

So, when I have a therapy client who uses ‘toxic’ to describe someone, I don’t ask them to clarify, or to reconsider the word. Instead, I focus on the facts of the challenging situation they’re telling me about….

When you feel anxious around another person, your brain will begin to take emotional shortcuts that usually involve fighting, fleeing, or complaining to others. You quickly label the person as ‘toxic,’ declare their toxicity as the cause of your anxiety, and assume that escaping them will fix your distress…

When one of my clients starts getting into adjective-heavy territory, I redirect them with questions like, ‘What did they do?’…and ‘Where and when did this happen?’ and  ‘How did you respond?’  Notice that none of these questions have the word ‘why.’ This is because ‘why’ usually requires you to guess a person’s motivation, or label them as a certain kind of person….”

(“Why Therapists Avoid Using the Word ‘Toxic’ –
Labeling others can stunt your own growth,”
Forge.medium.com ; my emphases )

 

Hey, I enjoy petty name calling as much as the next guy.  But do I really think the person who annoys me – or even the who has treated me poorly  [5]   for years – has venom running through his veins, and that touching him would set off an anaphylactic or neurological reaction?  Or is it that he does ____, and ____, and ____, and thus I believe it is ultimately unhealthy for me to be around him?

Delineate, please.  Be specific; calling someone toxic tells me nothing, except that you don’t like them.

“Toxins are poisonous substances produced within living cells or organisms and can include various classes of small molecules or proteins that cause disease on contact. The severity and type of diseases caused by toxins can range from minor effects to deadly effects. The organisms which are capable of producing toxins include bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants. Some of the major types of toxins include, but are not limited to, environmental, marine, and microbial toxins. Microbial toxins may include those produced by the microorganisms bacteria (i.e. bacterial toxins) and fungi (i.e. mycotoxins).”
( 14.4A; Toxins, Biology Libre Texts )

 

Is your boss doing any of this?  He may be a brazenly manipulative asshat, but he’s probably not toxic.

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Affirmations Gone Astray

Moiself  received yet another solicitation to purchase “anti-aging” products.  The misogyny and (ultimate) futility of the concept behind the term “anti-aging” I have railed articulately commented about, many times, in this space.

 

“Viral on TikTok” and “proven by science” – such a deal!

 

This time I had a minor epiphany as to the appropriateness of the term.  Anti-aging: it is, indeed, anti– aging…which therefore makes it anti-life.  Because if you’re not aging, you’re not alive.  The only people who do not (who cannot) age are dead.

Feeling rather smug, I briefly meditated upon another embrace-the reality-maxim:

Today I am as old as I have ever been,
and, as young as I will ever be.

That didn’t go so well.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

“I realized early on that it is detailed scientific knowledge which makes certain religious beliefs untenable. A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically? . . .
What could be more foolish than to base one’s entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at the time, now appear to be quite erroneous?  And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?”

 ( my emphases, Francis Crick,   [7]   from his memoir,
What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery )

 

 

*   *   *

May you always identify as the Best-Smelling Orientation;
May you remove unfortunate vestiges of earlier erroneous beliefs;
May you enforce boundaries with the narcissistic gaslighters, real or imagined, in your life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I know this because it says so on the survey’s intro.

[2] These folks are not mental-health care professionals.

[3] Oh, but that would be typical of a narcissist, right?

[4] Adapted from the 1938 play of the same name.

[5] Maybe, even gaslit me!

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

[7]   British physicist and biologist Crick, along with James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins, helped decipher the structure and replication scheme of DNA, for which he (and others) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.

The Existential Concepts I’m Not Debating

September 15, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Existential Concepts I’m Not Debating

Department Of My Work Here Is Done
Exhibit A.9995

Can anything match the parental pride such as that experienced by moiself, when son K’s first reaction upon reading the name of the offender in the news article, Serial flasher gets long sentence for exposing himself… was, “It’s the role he was born to play.”

“Washington County Circuit Judge…handed down a sentence…to Michael G. Dick, who pleaded guilty to two counts of felony public indecency…”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Spending Too Much Time Thinking About
An Existentially Inconsequential Concept.

As heard on a commercial for Saatva dog beds ( the ad was in a recent Hidden Brain podcast, “Be kind to Yourself “):

.”…these dogs beds are not your typical slabs of foam covered in polyester.  They are true inner spring mattresses that provide unparalleled back support and proper spine alignment for dogs of all sizes….”

I can’t remember if it was on an earlier HB episode or a different podcast where I also heard an ad for Saatva dog beds, in which it was claimed that a Saatva dog bed is the mattress “your dog deserves.”

This sterling example of the sentimentally manipulative capacity of marketing got me to wondering: How can a dog *deserve* a certain kind of dog bed?

 

 

deserve
transitive verb: to be worthy of : MERIT
(“deserves another chance”)
intransitive verb: to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward or requital
( from Merriam-webster online dictionary )

I can understand a dog wanting something (a tummy rub) or needing something (a drink of water); I can understand a person wanting or needing something for their dog (a trip to the dog park; a leash).  I can understand a person rewarding their dog for a specific act – with the reward directly connected to the act so that the dog understands that it did what was asked of it (e.g., giving the dog a treat for obeying a command to sit or heel…), and thus you can say the dog “earned” or merited the treat.

But how does a dog merit a piece of furniture that will be given to it – *must* be given to it (it’s not like the dog can take its Mastercard and go to Petsmart) –  by its human?

 

 

I don’t know about that superlative.  A dog meriting a bed is perhaps not the greatest mystery.  But it does get me to wondering, about other mysteries of life and human behavior (this dog bed thing has everything to do with human motivations and almost nothing to do with dogs),  including….

 

*   *   *

Department Of Existentially Consequential Concepts Which Deserve All The Time In The World To Contemplate…
Despite My Doing So Not Making A Damn Bit Of Difference

Sub-Department Of I Blame Vladimir Putin,
For Everything…

…including the fact that beloved friends are going through a grueling Something which has afflicted them, for reasons unrelated to them personally and/or anything they may have done.  Like Putin vis-à-vis the Ukrainians, there is this Something out there which is trying to torment and kill them, for no rational reason.

The cosmos is full of beauty and wonder and misfortune and pain, all of it unevenly and randomly distributed.  Understanding this phenomenon is the key to equanimity…along with being able to tell the truth in all circumstances.  Say, this is dreadful, when it is dreadful; cry when you have to and laugh when you can. 

 

 

Moiself  knows that disease organisms, like all primitive of life forms, just do what they do: try to survive and replicate.  Got it.  But, dammit it, you flaming asshole tumors, pretend for one nanosecond that you have sentience.  Get some self-awareness here:  if you kill the host, you die, too, HELLO !?!?!?.

We humanist/religion-free folk know that such afflictions are not personal: we know we’re not being punished when illness and injury occur, nor are we being rewarded when we somehow avoid or recover from the same calamities which afflict others.  Still, as human beings; we suffer when hurt.  At least we are spared the suffering from cognitive dissonance and the mental gymnastics that come with trying to live with and justify concepts such as karma and fate and believing the existence of deities which are supposedly all-powerful and thus *could* choose to alter the Something…but simply *don’t.* 

So, we can admit upfront that contending with lethal illnesses et al sucks, as in,
“This is massively, putridly, ginormously, donkey-dong sucking….”

 

“Hey! I thought you weren’t going to get personal?”

 

….even as we live in a world where, come yet another day, there will also be the mixture of the profound and the mundane to be appreciated, in, say, the sight of the morning dew sparkling on the araneus diadematus’s web, which she’s anchored between the raspberry bushes and the recycling bin. And neither phenomenon – the simple but stunning example of the splendor of the natural world, and the specific ordeal of the illness we battle in that same world – is one we either caused or merited.

 

 

The late great Roger Ebert, noted film critic and freethinker,   [1]    shared his thoughts about his then-imminent death in his blog post, Go Gentle Into That Good Night.  This was during a time when Ebert’s mental faculties were as sharp as ever despite his body having been ravaged by both his disease and the treatments for that disease.  His perspective is one that is shared by many humanist/religion-free thinkers.  It is a lovely meditation (excerpted here), the entirety of which is worth reading and rereading, no matter what your worldview is regarding your own mortality or that of a loved one. 

“I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear… I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris…

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.
To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Because I Was Trying To Avoid Something I Need To Work On,
And For Some Reason Had A Flash Back To This Topic

That topic, broadly speaking, would be co-worker relationships.  Most of us have had a combination of ups and downs in that category, but have you ever had a coworker for whom your mere presence was apparently so annoying that it motivated them to play a petty (but delightfully so) prank on you?

Last week my remembrance of one such “relationship” resulted in a FB post from moiself.  And now, my social media secret is revealed: the main reason for almost any story I post (or tell at the dinner table) is related to what inspires 5-year-olds to play doctor:  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.  I love to hear and read the stories of others, so I share one of mine, as a prompt.

 

 

My post:

“Okay, it’s another thinly disguised story prompt (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours): please share any similar stories you may have re a really poor relationship you had with a petty, nasty, bigoted, misogynist, and/or just plain stupid coworker, which led to an amusing incident.
Here’s mine: On my first day back on at second season of a summer job (Disneyland; The Hungry Bear Restaurant), one of the kitchen crew clicked the play button on a mini-cassette recorder he had in his pocket, and serenaded me with Elton John’s, ‘The Bitch is Back.’ “

And dammit, although I got comments, for the first time no one shared a similar story.    [2]

As you can imagine, this workplace incident didn’t happen out of nowhere.  A friend requested the backstory; and so:   [3]

 

 

At the end of my senior year in high school, anticipating the need to earn college tuition money, I began working weekends at Disneyland.  I obtained “seasonal” worker status, which was the status of the majority of my male and female coworkers with whom I shared summer shifts at  Disneyland’s Hungry Bear Restaurant (HBR).   [4]   Once we were hired by The Happiest Place on Earth®, if we seasonals worked the entire summer season and at least one other holiday season (winter or spring breaks; Thanksgiving…) we were guaranteed a job for the following summer. 

The serenader in question – moiself  will refer to him as Kid Rock  [5]  ( who wasn’t a thing then, but if he had been, I think my serenader would have been a *big* fan ).

Kid was a boor from the moment I met him.  His square-jawed face’s limited repertoire of expressions were all variations of a smirk, and he oozed dumb jock attitudes and mannerisms.  Moiself  initially experienced a wee bit o’ guilt for judging him at first glance, until my second, and third, and one hundred seventeenth glances and encounters (as well as my observations of his interactions with others) confirmed my stereotyping assessment astute perception of who and what he was.

With his male coworkers, Kid was constantly jockeying for position, ingratiating himself with his kitchen shift managers, and attempting metaphorical pissing matches with the other kitchen guys.  [6]   He considered himself to be above his peers (although they were all doing the same job, at the same pay scale), even as he courted their respect (or fear) for being a “player,” with an edgy (read: mean and stupid) sense of humor.  The nice guys in the kitchen crew (and there were several) earned Kid’s contempt, because being a nice guy meant being well thought of by the HBR females (we were “the girls,” of course).

 

“I can smell that creep from here.”

 

No surprise, Kid also had a binary way of relating to the HBR females: they were either objects of his sexual desire or not worthy of it.  His preferred mode of communication with female co-workers was a combination of peacock preening, barely-masked sexual come-ons, and furtive insults (aka, “jokes”).  He got giggles from some of the girls, but, as I observed, those girls seemed to be giggling to mask their unease, and trying to prove that they could “take a joke” and weren’t prudes.  If Kid’s thinly disguised sexual banter was rejected by a girl, he’d let it be known that he hadn’t really wanted her at all – he’d just been trying to make her feel better, because she was unattractive.  I saw him behave this way with *every* female at HBR, with the exception of one of the counter area managers, whose slight but noticeable physical disability effectively neutered her in his eyes.

And, as was typical of many guys of the time (even the not-so-loathsome ones), when Kid complained about his male coworkers he was able to do so using specific language re what bothered him about their actions:  they’d been slow on the grill, had been late to their shift, had burned a batch of onion rings, had neglected key steps in their closing shift, had acted too passively, or aggressively…..  Any complaints he had about a female coworker came under the cover-all of critiquing her very essence, with no particulars as to behavior:  “She’s just a bitch.”

 

 

Kid’s attempts at titillating braggadocio didn’t impress moiself  (SURPRISE !), and I limited our interactions as much as possible.  Whenever possible, I ignored him.  Therefore, of course (and, yay!), he had to announce to one and all that he didn’t find me appealing.  But that wasn’t the end of it.  It took me awhile to figure out the source of his irritation with moiself  because I didn’t spend much time considering it – which was, for him, the issue.  He seemed continually annoyed by my lack of interest in what he had to say, about anything.  

 

 

In Kid’s eyes, I had committed the worst sin possible for a female:  I’d indicated, not by saying so but by merely not engaging with him, that I had no interest in his opinion of me.  I did not wear his taunts and insults as a badge of honor (as did a couple of my bad ass, feminist HBR colleagues), I simply stopped hearing them.  I realized for the first time what it meant to hold someone beneath contempt.  Strong emotions, including contempt, require effort and time to maintain.  To moiself, Kid was just…macho flotsam.

I did not engage Kid in the repartee – playful, and with occasional double-entendre overtones –  that I did with the “nice guys” and my female colleagues. We were all mostly within three years of one another, age-wise; naturally, there was workplace banter and casual flirtation and good-natured kidding bordering on insults.  With regard to the latter I punched up, never down, with both male and female colleagues.  The few guys who harbored a nasty streak stayed clear of me, after one of them, the Assistant Shift “Chef,”   [7]   tested my limits on my first week on the job.  He did this with (what I later found out was) his standard routine with which he teased the new counter girls:

Assistant Shift Chef summoned me to the kitchen area, informing me that it was SOP to give counter girls a tour of the kitchen facility, even though they’d be working out front (later I was told that he always did this “tour” with others present, as having an audience was a key component of his routine.)  Under the pretense of wanting my opinion about a possible flaw in Disneyland’s chef’s apron design, which seemed to have pockets and a seam or something no one could quite figure out, he reached down, fingered the outline of his crotch, and ask Newby Counter Girl ® moiself, “Do you know what this is?”

I’d been informed re the HBR hierarchy on my first day at work.  Despite his title, Assistant Shift Chef had no authority over me (or any female HBR female), so I decided to go for it.

“Hmmm.” I assumed a wide stance, one hand on my hip and the other slowly stroking my chin in a gesture of solemn deliberation.  “Wait; don’t tell me, this is familiar…Oh!  I know!  It looks like it a penis, only smaller.”   [8]

Assistant Shift Chef guffawed heartily, as if he had collaborated with me on the joke.  Still, I noticed (and savored) the nanosecond of terror and humiliation which flashed across his eyes, just after my line sunk in and before his crew began to whoop it up.

Once again, I digress.

The first day I returned to HBG for my second summer season (after my freshman year of college), I was delighted to see that several of my favorite seasonal employees had also returned…oh yeah, and there was also the Kid.  Although, maybe he’d been there all year?  I can’t remember if Kid had been a year-round employee or was another seasonal worker (all of whom were college students – the idea of Kid in any institution of higher learning never occurred to moiself).

Anyway, Kid had obviously been alerted to my return.  He waited at the rear of the pack welcoming me back, and after the rest of us had exchanged greetings, he removed the mini cassette player from his pocket and pressed play.  This time, I was the one with the genuine smirk on my face.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Entertaining The Donations Dude

Dateline:  Monday; 1:30 pm-ish; Goodwill donations center.  The guy helping me unload the donations from my car engages me in small talk about the current mugginess and upcoming weather forecast.  I hand him a bag full of books; he points to a book at the top of the bag, whose title is something like, Staying Sane In An Irrational World.

“Well now, what’s that about?” he asks.

“Who knows,” moiself  shrugs.  “It’s a book of empty pages.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [9]

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
( Christopher Hitchens,  God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything )

 

 

*   *   *

May your pets somehow obtain the furniture (you think) they deserve;
May the book of your life not be filled with empty pages;
May you live long enough to find out that which makes you happy;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Ebert, who grew up Catholic, chose not to define his religious beliefs, saying he is not an atheist and not a believer. He clarified his religious views in a blog post called “How I believe in God.” He said, “I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist — which I am. If I were to say I don’t believe God exists, that wouldn’t mean I believe God doesn’t exist. Nor does it mean I don’t know, which implies that I could know.”  (from Roger Ebert entry, ffrf.org  )

[2] Perhaps there were none to share; perhaps all of my FB friends have been beloved (or at least tolerated) by even the most neanderthal of their colleagues.

[3] Thanks, RU, although I’d already considered sharing more of the details.

[4] Which, as more than one dissatisfied patron told me (as if I were responsible for the name or had any influence in *any* Disneyland policy) : “Shee-it, girl, this ain’t no restaurant, this is a burger and fries joint.”  Or a glorified fast food place, with no table service…aka, in Disney-speak, a “quick service eatery.”

[5] I am happy to report that although I’ll never forget his face I cannot recall that co-worker’s name (nor would I used it in this space, even if I did remember it).

[6] At that time, D-Land’s various food attractions staff were sex-segregated with respect to responsibilities: males in the kitchen, running the fryers and grills and stocking the food wells, and females upfront – the “counter girls”, taking the guest’s orders, receiving payment, and “boxing” and giving to guests the food and drinks.

[7] I can’t believe that title (chef?) was given to the dude who was in charge of the run-the burgers-through-the-grill machine line.

[8] A thousand thanks to seventh grade PE teacher Mrs. Ewing, who suggested a version of that response to flashers and other harassers.

[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 Godzilla I’m Not Colorizing

August 18, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, politics, radio & podcasts, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Let Me Say This About That

Dateline: Tuesday morning 6:59 AM listening to the Fresh Air interview with Christopher Nolan, director of Oppenheimer.  FA  host Terry Gross began her interview with a “getting something out of the way” question (  [my notes]  ):

TG:
“Before we talk about the film, let’s talk about the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which have shut down TV and film production….”

CN:
“……it’s an important moment in our business
[Nolan is both a director and a writer and a member of the Writer’s Guild] ….
The ways in which we’re compensated have to be updated
to reflect the current world….”

 

 

Moiself’s reaction:  what took them (the writers and actors) so long?

The issues involved ( including AI and streaming ) can seem complicated, at first.   They’re not.   Consider what’s at stake; it’s fairly basic.  There is a central issue:

The ways in which writers and actors
are compensated have to be updated to reflect the current world.

I’ve been on strike for years – as in, not writing for publication – for (many of) the same reasons.    [1]   Only in my case, no one powerful cares enough to rectify the situation.

 

 

The ways in which ______
(writers and actors…or insert waitstaff, teachers…almost any profession)
are compensated have to be updated to reflect reality.

That’s it.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of And Now, On A Totally Unrelated Note…

…except, maybe not.  This anecdote moiself  is about to share *is* related, in that it also was prompted by listening to the afore-mentioned Fresh Air interview.

Later in the interview, Terry Gross and Christopher Nolan were talking about dreams, as in, the dream-like narrative and/or pictorial quality of many films (including Nolan’s), and one of them (TG?) brought up the age-old question of whether or not people dream in color or in black-and-white.

 

 

One night when I was in high school I had a dream which started out to follow the usual pattern for my dreams: it was a colorful (I always dreamed in color), intricate, adventure saga, with a cast worthy of a Cecil B. DeMille film.    [2]   What made that particular dream noteworthy was that it used a chronological narrative (the plotlines in my dream world tended to vault around in time) until the middle of the dream, which suddenly switched to…something else  (“We now pause our regular programming for this important digression”). This center piece was an approximately three-minute segment wherein Godzilla made a cameo appearance.  When Godzilla was terrorizing people on a raft in the ocean, my dream switched from color to black and white; after the Godzilla short feature, my dream resumed its original setting and story, in color.

The next day I told a couple of school friends about my dream.  Their reaction was almost identical to mine:  they were fascinated by my subconscious mind’s ability to construct some sort of cinematographic cohesion within the total fantasy that is a dream: up to that point, Godzilla movies were filmed in black and white. I’d never seen a “color” Godzilla.

However, I’d also never seen a full-grown man, dressed in a vaudevillian striped shirt and straw boater hat and carrying a cane, jump out of a jar of peanut butter and start doing a song and dance routine – yet my mind inserted that scenario in one of my dreams.

 

It was my dream to be in one of her dreams.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Enough About How Moiself  Dreams;
Let’s Carp About How Some Other People Want To Change How Everyone Talks   [3]

Have y’all heard about “equity language”  (aka what moiself  thinks of as “compulsory euphemisms”)?  You probably have, even if you haven’t thought of it in those terms.  Either way, I highly recommend George Packer’s recent article in The Atlantic: The Moral Case Against Equity Language.  Here are excerpts from the article ( my emphases ), which makes this case: although the point of language is to clarify, well-meaning attempts to cleanse language “of any trace of privilege, hierarchy, bias, or exclusion” tends to obfuscate, and can also have the unintended consequence of dulling rather than sharpening awareness and empathy.

“The Sierra Club’s Equity Language Guide discourages using the words stand, Americans, blind, and crazy. The first two fail at inclusion, because not everyone can stand and not everyone living in this country is a citizen. The third…even as a figure of speech (‘Legislators are blind to climate change‘), is insulting to the disabled….

In its zeal, the Sierra Club has clear-cut a whole national park of words. Urban, vibrant, hardworking, and brown bag all crash to earth for subtle racism. Y’all  supplants the patriarchal you guys, and elevate voices replaces empower, which used to be uplifting but is now condescending. The poor is classist; battle and minefield disrespect veterans; depressing appropriates a disability; migrant—no explanation, it just has to go.

Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the country’s leading institutions, particularly nonprofits….  The guides also cite one another. The total number of people behind this project of linguistic purification is relatively small, but their power is potentially immense….

 

 

Which is more euphemistic, mentally ill or person living with a mental-health condition? Which is more vague, ballsy or risk-taker? What are diversity, equity, and inclusion but abstractions with uncertain meanings whose repetition creates an artificial consensus and muddies clear thought? When a university administrator refers to an individual student as “diverse,” the word has lost contact with anything tangible—which is the point.

The whole tendency of equity language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts. This aversion to reality is its main appeal. Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption, leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion. The second is rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad. Imprecise language is less likely to offend. Good writing—vivid imagery, strong statements—will hurt, because it’s bound to convey painful truths.

The liturgy changes without public discussion….  A ban which seemed ludicrous yesterday will be unquestionable by tomorrow…. in the National Recreation and Park Association’s guide, marginalized now acquires ‘negative connotations when used in a broad way. However, it may be necessary and appropriate in context. If you do use it, avoid ‘the marginalized,’ and don’t use marginalized as an adjective.’  Historically marginalized is sometimes okay; marginalized people is not. The most devoted student of the National Recreation and Park Association guide can’t possibly know when and when not to say marginalized….

But this confused guidance is inevitable, because with repeated use, the taint of negative meaning rubs off on even the most anodyne language, until it has to be scrubbed clean. The erasures will continue indefinitely, because the thing itself—injustice—will always exist. “

 

 

I encountered a pertinent example of the smokescreen effects of using equity language in a recent episode of Serial’s The Retrievals podcast (summarized below   [4]. )  Episode four deals with the aftermath of patients’ lawsuits against the Yale hospital fertility clinic, where a clinic nurse had stolen drugs meant for fertility procedures.  The hospital, in its papers addressing the issue, used the term drug “diversion” instead of theft.  Oh gee, that doesn’t sound so bad –  a diversion.  Like, the drug was merely diverted – relocated – from this clinic to another one, or one patient to another?

What a cheap and insulting diversion in and of itself: to rebrand the theft of a vital medicine; to divert attention away from the horrific pain patients experienced during a procedure involving having a long needle inserted into their most private body cavities and through their abdominal walls.   [5]

Diversion; schmersion – patient’s pain medication was *stolen.*

These and other examples of equity language raise my hackles, both personally and professionally via my “AS A” credentials.  As a writer (and a reader), I esteem communication which uses words and phrases that illustrate, elucidate, and clarify, rather than those which attempt to soften or divert or confuse or disguise. 

(Confession: moiself  also likes words and phrases that provide a visually evocative substitute for the normative term – such as

* for vomiting:
calling the dinosaurs; de-fooding; feeding the fish; whistling carrots; driving the porcelain bus; inspecting the chowder; barking at the ants….

* for fart and/or the act of emitting flatulence:
cheek sneak; breaking dawn; carpet creeper; deviled egg; duck stepping….

All of these are, of course, euphemistic…and are also just plain fun.)

 

 

As Packer notes, the term the poor is “rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad,” while people with limited financial resources…leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion.”  I think the provocation of emotion is good, particularly when it spurs action to address what caused the provocation.  Y’all ever been poor?  “Poor” should provoke emotion, because Being. Poor. Sucks.

Certainly (read: IMO), all linguistic rebranding needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis.  There are words and phrases which could use a good makeover if they originated from and reflect times of ignorance and prejudice.  Here’s one of the best examples (again, IMO) of a renaming which could (and I think, does) help reframe the way we view a fellow human being:  “She is confined to a wheelchair,” vs. “She uses (or rides) a wheelchair.”  The first is a rather patronizing description, painting a picture of dependency and pathos…but most of all, it is simply inaccurate.  For someone whose physical condition requires it, a wheelchair is *liberating* – it provides the ability to move about when one’s legs, whether on a temporary or permanent basis, cannot.

Then, there are the others:  the dreadful, weasel-word-filled, furtively-trying-to-slip-one-past-us euphemisms.  Trying to rebrand “He served a prison sentence” into “He had an encounter with the criminal justice system” makes me think you’re trying to hide something.  A person using such a circumlocution may intend to be helpful, but that kind of window re-dressing does nothing to reform, acknowledge, or even address the reality of the brutality of the American penal system and the obstacles faced by parolees.

Some of the most well-meaning folk never seem to get it.  Calling bullshit “bovine ejecta” does not make it smell like morning at the bakery.

 

Preach it, sister!

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stuff That Is Out Of My Control,
And Keeps Me From Having A Good Night’s Sleep

It was almost two decades ago, I think,    [6]   that the actor Susan Sarandon expressed what turned out to be some rather prescient concerns re what was to come in her field. Although she didn’t use the term AI, her a particular concern is at the heart of the current writers/actors strike.  Sarandon gave this example:  Let’s say a producer likes her face, her voice, her overall presence, whatever they find distinctive and/or appealing about her as an actor, and wants to hire her to act in their movie…but she doesn’t want to do that role.  Perhaps she doesn’t like the script or the politics conveyed via the plot; maybe she doesn’t trust the director’s experience or intent, or she just thinks it’s a stupid storyline.  And, Sarandon noted, she had turned down acting jobs for all of those reasons – she just said, “No thank you” to the offers.  However, she knew that there were people working on technologies which would allow them to essentially replicate her and use whichever of her qualities they wanted – they could make “her” do things that she didn’t want to or never would choose to do.

No doubt some folk dismissed or pooh-poohed her concerns. Yeah, what does a mere actor know – she probably one of those anti-tech, Luddite types, right?

 

 

More and more, I come across warnings, from People Who Know What They’re Talking About ®, re what is to come with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its many applications.  One of these PWKWTTA has articulated his warnings in a way that made me think he’d been inside my head, when he used the exact term that keeps coming to my mind:

AI = Counterfeiting

This person is American cognitive scientist, writer, and philosopher Daniel Dennett, whose recent guest turn on Alan Alda’s Clear + Vivid podcast is as fascinating as the topic they discussed is foreboding.  As per the podcast’s summary:

“Counterfeit people, the seductively appealing Deep Fakes made possible by AI, are just the beginning of what the distinguished philosopher Dan Dennett says is a threat to humanity. This spring, he joined hundreds of other thought leaders in signing a starkly scary statement:
AI threatens to make us extinct.”
( excerpt from “Dan Dennett: Fake People Aren’t Funny”
Clear + Vivid, July 24, 2023 )

Dennett was so concisely articulate that I had to stop listening for a while – it was too much to take in.  In particular, his comments about the people who are involved in AI development and research made me squirm.  I know such people.  And I know that they are (or seem to be) good people.  And I know how seductive it can be, to think of yourself as working on the cutting edge while also thinking of yourself as a good person with good intentions…which leads to rationalizing away any critique of your work:

* Well, if I don’t/we don’t do it, someone else will….

* At least this way I know that *I* am involved, and I am a good person with good intentions…”

These are the go-to justifications of people involved in, for example, designing and building assault weapons, chemical weapons, nuclear bombs….  And the agencies and businesses making such products rely on their employee’s instinctive, defensive, self-justification.  Or, both the businesses and their employees may dismiss any criticism with, “This is just what people have always said with every new idea;” or, “People who say that are anti-technology,” and other deflections.

 

 

We all tend to rationalize away such threats.  *I* know I’m not a lil old lady who’s gonna be conned into sending her savings to Nigerian prince to save her kidnapped grandson – they tried it with email and it didn’t work on me!     [7]

But that’s the point Daniel Dennett makes:  we *know* AI *is* going to be used for nasty purposes, because of what already happens *without* AI.  Counterfeiters and scammers have always used the latest technologies; now, here comes AI, something that is so far above, so much more sophisticated than the usual techniques, that soon nothing will be able to be trusted except for face-to-face interactions   [8]…which are simply not possible for many of us in this world of globalization and mobility.  A phone call or Zoom message from my child, who is in obvious distress – how will I know that it isn’t a fake?

I’m not saying y’all working on developing anything AI-related should exit the business. I’m saying, with all the conviction my non-AI heart and mind can portray, that:

* You should summon the guts and hearts to realize that what you are doing, no matter your original intent,
is enabling the counterfeiting of human beings; thus…

* You should be advocating for the strongest possible watermarks (to continue the counterfeiting analogy Dennett used).  The least you can do is to also develop legitimate technologies and strategies which will allow us humans to recognize the counterfeit.

 

 

This is yet another thing over which moiself  feels like I have so little personal control (thus, the “department” title of this segment).  And how do I know it’s even me who is writing this – that is indeed moiself  who is thinking these thoughts?   Maybe I am an AI human prototype which was released years ago…

 

This might explain her taste in t-shirts.

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [9]

 

*   *   *

 

May our work and compensation reflect the current world;
May we weight the pitfalls and benefits of equity language;
May we consistently be able to recognize the counterfeit;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Non-Hollywood writers – members of the Authors Guild (movies and TV writers are Writers Guild members) have a few similar and many different concerns with their contracts, including publishers eschewing the traditional/basic functions of a publisher (editing, design, distribution, marketing [e.g., publishers are increasingly demanding authors do the bulk of publicity] ) and not modifying royalty percentages and otherwise updating contracts to reflect the realities of the internet and e-books.

[2] The term used to describe DeMilles’ epics was “A cast of thousands.”

[3] But am I somehow dissing those oily freshwater fish by using carp as a verb?

[4] “ The Retrievals is a is a five-part series about the patients who say their pain was dismissed, a nurse who was hiding something, and the institution that failed to protect its patients.  It tells the story of a dozen women who underwent egg retrieval procedures at the Yale Fertility Center. For months they complained of severe pain. But nobody caught on to exactly what was wrong, until one day…the truth was revealed: A nurse at the clinic had been stealing the pain medication and replacing it with saline. Eventually the nurse has her own story, about her own pain, that she tells to the court. And then there is the story of how this all could have happened at the Yale clinic in the first place.” (excerpts from “Introducing ‘The Retrievals,’ a New Podcast From Serial Productions.” NY Times, )

[5] I try not to pass out and/or vomit (or, bark at the ants) just thinking about it.

[6] This interview I read (heard?) was not with a large organization or prominent reporter, and was pre-internet; thus, I didn’t bother searching for a link. 

[7] Or whatever the latest scam is.

[8] Until the replicant technology takes over.

[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 Standard Of Care I’m Not Upholding

August 11, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Standard Of Care I’m Not Upholding

Department Of Before I Get To The Complaining Thoughtful Expositions On Topics Of Importance To All Humankind…

First, this observation of appreciation:

I’m not a coffee drinker,    [1]   but I would like to thank the person who, somewhere on Necarney Boulevard (Manzanita, OR)  at approximately 7:30 am Tuesday morning, was either out on their porch or deck with their morning cuppa Joe, or brewing it in a nearby kitchen with the windows open.  Whatever grind or blend they were using, its enticing aroma wafted onto the bicycle/pedestrian path as I walked by.  In combination with the morning mist, which carried the scent of the salty ocean…Aaaahhh.  What a delightful sensory experience.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Gut-Wrenchingly Devastating, Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing Thing To Hear…
And Yet Also, Ultimately, Am I Surprised?

Unfortunately, the answer is, fuck no.

This  Gut-Wrenchingly-Devastating-Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing-Thing-To-Hear  can be heard in the latest Serial podcast, the capper to their five-part narrative series, The Retrievals.  Moiself  has written in this space about this podcast, which I can’t recommend strongly enough.  In Episode 5: The Outcomes, former patients talk about the lasting effects of their experiences at Yale’s fertility clinic, wherein an IVF procedure caused them excruciating pain, both during the procedure and for hours and even days afterword (…and for “good reason” – it turns out a narcotics-addicted clinic nurse had been stealing the analgesic used for the procedure and replacing it with saline).  But the patients’ reports of pain, even to the doctors and clinic staff who heard the patients screaming during the procedure, were discounted and/or minimized.

 

 

The following podcast excerpts (Episode 5: The Outcomes, transcript) are from conversations between Serial producer/investigator Susan Barton, and Kelly Fitzpatrick, one of the attorneys representing the patients in their malpractice lawsuits against the Yale clinic,   [2]  and Barton and Cecelia Plaza, an attorney who wrote a paper cited in the conversation (my emphases):

Fitzpatrick:
“These women were repeatedly ignored….that sets it apart from a regular medical malpractice case. These women were gaslighted. They weren’t believed. …And that makes it different.”

Burton:
“…So how do you do that? How do you sue for ignoring pain?… It’s not like that, another one of the (patients’ lawsuit) attorneys told me. You can sue because they should have investigated reports of pain…


And then I came across the perfect paper. It was called, ‘Miss Diagnosis – gendered injustice and medical malpractice law.’ ….
The paper…(didn’t say) ‘Here’s how you sue for ignoring pain.’ What it did do is explore how this issue of women not being believed in medical settings plays out in court….


The (paper’s) author was a young attorney named Cecilia Plaza… She set out to answer a specific question about the gender gap in medical malpractice outcomes, which essentially is a question about whether women can be fairly compensated in the medical malpractice system. And what she found is that women likely cannot.


Because the foundation of this system is, did what happened to you meet the standard of care? If it did, you’re out of luck. Like, you’re a woman, you think you’re having a heart attack. You go to the ER.  The doctor says, ‘it’s just your anxiety,’ and sends you home. Then it turns out that you really were having a heart attack. Can you successfully win a case against this doctor in court?


Maybe not. Because doctors misdiagnose so many women’s heart attacks as anxiety that sending a woman home could actually be interpreted as a reasonable choice that an ordinary doctor would make.

Just to be clear, Cecilia’s paper is not a work of opinion. It is an empirical analysis based on a ton of data. And what Cecilia found is that women cannot expect to get as much money as men in this system.
Because dismissing women doesn’t necessarily fall below the standard of care.”

Plaza:
“You would have to basically make the argument that not believing your patient’s report of symptoms or of pain is de facto below the standard of care. That’s not currently the case, which is a little bit mind boggling. But you would have to make that argument, and the court would have to agree with you.”

 

 

Got that, amid the legalese?

* Because so many doctors misdiagnose women and have done for so long and for so often, it is considered to be routine.

* Because discounting, minimizing, ignoring women’s pain, and *not believing them when they report severe pain,* is so common in the medical field, it is considered to be the standard of care.

 

 ( Here Are 29 Stories From Women Whose Doctors Did Not Take Their Pain Seriously )

*   *   *

Department Of While I’m Getting Uppity….

Recently, while re-reading Roxane Gay‘s collection of essays,  Bad Feminist,  moiself was reminded of my conflicted feelings on whether or not people ultimately care about, or learn from, the lives and stories of others.

RG’s essays – specifically, Blurred Lines, Indeed –  took me back to last summer, when moi-blog-self  mulled over issues of freedom/personal liberty after the SCOTUS Roe V. Wade ruling.  We religion-free folk have taken a page from the LGBTQ playbook; thus, many of us so-called atheists, Freethinkers, Skeptics, Brights, et al, encourage “outing” ourselves as such, and not only for reasons of truth-telling (religion-free folk tend to be fans of reality), but also with the thought/hope that that increased visibility helps to break down barriers, open minds, increase participation in the civic arena, and counter stereotypes.  Thus I outed moiself, in one sense,   [3]   by briefly mentioning my reproductive history:

(excerpt from The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting, 7-29-22):
So.  A dimwitted busybody curious person may wonder, If it’s personal/no one else’s business, why am I making it yours by writing about it here? Moiself  does this for reasons that are not so original and yet are nonetheless pertinent. 

“In 1972—when abortion was illegal throughout most of the country—53 well-known U.S. women courageously declared ‘We Have Had Abortions’ in the pages of the preview issue of Ms. magazine.
‘To many American women and men it seems absurd, that in this allegedly enlightened age, that we should still be arguing for a simple principle: that a woman has the right to sovereignty over her own body,’ they declared.
Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, Susan Sontag, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Judy Collins were among the signers. The women spoke out ‘to save lives and to spare other women the pain of socially imposed guilt’ and ‘to repeal archaic and inhuman laws.’ They invited all women to sign in order to ‘help eliminate the stigma’ of abortion.”
(  ” ‘We Have Had Abortions’ Petition Relaunches 50 Years Later—With Support From Original Signatories.”
Msmagazine.com 1-20-22 )

It can be easy to ignore or discount issues that are critical for other people, if you think the issue doesn’t affect you or anyone you know.  If you (mistakenly) think that you don’t know anyone who’s gay/atheist/has had an abortion, then LGBTQ rights/religious discrimination/reproductive freedom may be an abstraction to you.  You can allow yourself to be on the fence about the issue – or even on the compassionate side of the fence but not really involved – if you think it doesn’t affect you or anyone that you know.

I’m not sure about my mother’s stance on abortion, but I know she went to her grave not knowing about her older sister‘s harrowing experience.   [4]  My parents were as loving and considerate as could be to all of my different friends, and they knew of (and even occasionally discussed with me) my political opinions.  However and sadly, judging from the publications and mailers I espied on their coffee table during my infrequent visits to their house, it is likely that they could have fallen prey to fear-mongering politics of The Billy Graham Association and other conservative religious organizations.

During one of my visits, California had an “anti-homosexual” proposition on the ballot (I can’t remember which proposition, nor exactly when– there’ve been several, over the years), and I saw a GAY  TEACHERS  ARE  AFTER  YOUR  KIDS -type flyer on their kitchen table.

 

 

I asked them if they took such hyperbole seriously.  One of them (can’t remember if it was Mom or Dad) said they realized it was over-the-top, then said, “Actually, we don’t know anyone who is gay.”

“No,” I said, “Actually, you *do* know gay people.  You just don’t know that they are gay because you don’t know them well enough to be privy to their personal lives, or they have chosen not to reveal this to you…” – I indicated the flyer atop the mail pile – “…because of crap like that.”  (My mother later assured me that that the flyer had just come in the mail, and that they hadn’t “requested it”).

I proceeded to give them the names of friends and teachers of mine, whom they’d met and liked, who were gay.  They seemed genuinely surprised.  “Mr. Haffner is gay?  He was one of your and your sister’s favorite teachers….” (Still is, Dad.)  “That nice friend of yours from college – he’s so sweet and smart and funny, he was a premed student, I think – he’s gay?” (Yes, Mom.  He’s still the nice young man – nice doctor, now – who impressed you.  You simply know something about him that you didn’t know before).

Did it make a difference in how they thought, or voted?  No idea.

*   *   *

I’m still wondering: when it comes to knowing the personal stories of others, what does and doesn’t make a difference?  Still wondering after reading these excerpts from RG’s essay, Blurred Lines, Indeed  (my emphases):

“On June 30 2013 in the Room for Debate section, the NYT asked, ‘Would support for abortion rights grow if more women discussed their abortions?’  When I first saw the question, I bristled. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their personal histories to enlighten those who are probably uninterested in enlightenment.

…what if she doesn’t want to tell her story?  What if it’s too personal, too painful?  What do these confessions really do?  Some people will be moved, but those are rarely the same people who support legislation to erode reproductive freedom.  Immovable people will not be moved by testimony.”

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Different As In, And now For Something More Light Hearted:
We’ll Always Have Paris…

A classic line from a classic movie.  [5]   There are lists of such – “best” or “most memorable” movie lines – compiled by the American Film Institute, et al.  Last week moiself  overheard two people discussing classic movie lines.   [6]   I got to thinking about those lists, which, if I remembers correctly, tend to be skewed toward films released before the mid-1970s.  So, off the top of moiself’s  pointy little head…

 

Not *this* pointy.

 

…I started my own list of memorable lines or dialogue from films released since 1975.  I’m not claiming these are the “best” lines; they’re just, IMO, marvelous.

In no particular order, I present you with the lines, in this format:

“Line/dialogue “
characters/actors who speak the lines
( movie in which the lines appear )

“You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”
Matty/Kathleen Turner
( Body Heat )

“I have been and always shall be your friend.”
Spock/Leonard Nimoy
( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )

“KKKKHHHHAAAANNNN !!!!”
James T. Kirk/William Shatner
( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )

“Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?”
Soldier #1/Michael Palin
( Monty Python & the Holy Grail )

“You sit on a throne of lies!”
Buddy/Will Ferrell
( Elf )

“Louise, I don’t know how to fish.”
“Neither do I, Thelma, but Daryl does it – how hard can it be?”
Thelma & Louise /Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon
( Thelma and Louise )

“That is one big pile of shit.”
Ian Malcolm/Jeff Goldblum
( Jurassic Park )

 

 

Look, I have ONE job on this lousy ship.
It’s STUPID, but I’m gonna do it, OKAY?”
Gwen DeMarco/Sigourney Weaver
( Galaxy Quest )

“Fuck you Mars.”
Mark Watney/Matt Damon
( The Martian )

“Into the garbage chute, flyboy!”
Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher
( Star Wars: A New Hope )

“Better get a bucket.”
Mr. Creosote/Terry Jones
( Monty Python: The Meaning of Life )

“How do you like your eggs?”
Emma/Sally Field
( Murphy’s Romance )

“It’s comin’ outta me like lava!”
Megan/Melissa McCarthy
( Bridesmaids )

 

Before 1975; still one of my favorites of the classic movie lines:

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [7]

 

 Actually, there are hundred of reasons…
but all you need is one, and this is a good one.

*   *   *

May you not be an immovable person/uninterested in enlightenment;
May you find a way to incorporate a classic movie line
into at least one comment of yours during the upcoming week;
May you be pleasantly surprised by enticing aromas;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Moiself  will occasionally treat myself to a latte-dah type drink, but tea is my hot beverage of choice.

[2] Fitzpatrick herself has been through an IVF procedure.

[3] The other sense – my religion-free status – has been out for some time.

[4] A few years before her death, at the request of one of her nieces (who suspected, correctly, that there were family stories to be told), my mother’s eldest sister revealed that the reason she and her husband never had children was that she was unable to, after having undergone an illegal abortion (that almost killed her) .

[5] Casablanca.  Please don’t tell me if you didn’t know that.

[6] As in debating which were the best, or most-overrated or under-rated lines or dialog couplets….

[7] “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 Proscription I’m Not Following

July 21, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors , , , , , Comments Off on The Proscription I’m Not Following

Department Of If Only People Understood This Basic Statement Of Reality
Ninety Percent Of Interpersonal and International Conflict Would Disappear

 

 

Your religion does not prohibit *me* from anything.

It prohibits *you.*

Learn the difference.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Awwwwwww

Just sat down – well, metaphorically speaking, as I have a sit/stand desk and happened to be standing – when MH walked into my office and showed me what he’d found.  It was, as he put it, “…a reminder of Crow”…and there went the rest of my plans for my post.

The reminder was a bag which holds vacuum cleaner attachments.  Our late great cat Crow was obsessed with chewing on plastic bags.  If you look carefully, you can see her toothmarks all over it.

 

 

I found the timing of this reminder somewhat bittersweet. It was almost exactly a year ago that we said goodbye to Crow, as noted in my post of 7-15-22…which I am going to revisit in its entirety here.  Moiself  be getting too sentimental now to write about other topics, as I’m thinking of Crow…and also our remaining Cat, Nova, who is not much longer for this world (she has stage 3 kidney disease) :

7-15-22

The Multicolored Overpass I’m Not Traversing

Something moiself   has been thinking this week:  it’s been over 29 years since we (MH and I) have been a less-than-two-felines household.

We’re down to one, the all-white Nova , as we said goodbye to Crow this week.

It had been a challenging past 18+ months for Crow, with a possible “vascular incident” (stroke?), the progression of her painful arthritis, and finally, diabetes.   After veterinary appointments, blood tests, and consultations, we made an appointment with a veterinary euthanasia service who came to our home to do the deed.

As difficult a decision as it was, we were also much relieved, once having made it.  Crow spent her last days at home, lazing on the carpet in the sun, eating and drinking whenever she pleased.   [1]    We were at her beck and call; I told her she was at a kitty spa.

At the time we adopted Crow (fifteen years ago), all-black cats were the most likely to not find a placement.   [2]    Instead of adopting a rescue greyhound, which was the original plan to add another pet to our family, we went to Bonnie Hayes Animal Shelter,  [3]  opened our house and our hearts, and Crow made herself at home.  Crow had a good life, and she was spared a lingering death.

After the phone call with our veterinarian wherein we discussed treatment and care options, MH and I had a calm, rational discussion.  We considered all the angles – plus the fact, particularly important to moiself,  that Crow (like any pet) cannot consent to nor “understand” any course of treatment.  After the phone call, we decided upon euthanasia.  When we agreed that this is what we agreeing to, I asked MH if perhaps we might take Crow on one last trip to the beach, because she seemed to enjoy lying on the deck in the sun.  And we both lost it.

 

A much younger Crow and Nova, circa 2008, playing with Nova’s favorite toy (a Lego helmet).

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Downside Of Loving Them

Dang, these critters tug at our hearts.  And because we care for them properly, they just don‘t die like they used to:  they get good medical treatment;    [4]   they live inside and thus don’t get killed by coyotes or run over by a car or contract illness and/or injuries and/or infection from other animals….  And if they refuse to die in their sleep in their old age, the combination of aging and chronic illness takes their toll, then *we* have to make the life-and-death decisions.

MH’s astute observation:  for all but one of the cats we’ve had who’ve died, there came that awful time when we had to opt for euthanasia for them.  Odds are that, with our remaining cat, the same will (eventually) be the case.  Each time, we knew we were doing the right thing. Each time, it was still heartbreaking.

 

 

Observant readers may notice that moiself  is *not* is reporting that “Crow has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.”  Nor am I using similar euphemisms to describe the fact of her death.  Although some pet owners seem to find such metaphors comforting, they make me…well…emotionally retch.  Moiself  is not a believer in – as in, I’ve seen no evidence for – any kind of “heaven,” for any kind of creatures.  And since I hold no such ideas for humans I see no need to burden our recollections of our animal companions with similar mythologies.

I don’t mean to come off stony-hearted.  Grief is complicated; expressing it, even more so.  I promise not to slap you if you use the RB term around  moiself, and I hear or read about “the RB” often enough to know that it makes some pet owners feel good. The only afterlife I give credence to is the only one we can know for sure exists:  that which resides in our hearts and minds.  In that way and in those places, our loved ones truly do continue to live “after” they are gone.

BTW: The Rainbow Bridge, for those of you who are fortunate enough not to have encountered the treacle-ism, is a mythical overpass (apparently based on imagery from some cheesy sentimental poems from the 1980s) which serves as a kind of transit for pets.  For example, upon the death of their friend’s chihuahua, RB fans will say that Sparky has “passed over the Rainbow Bridge,” into a verdant meadow (or other Nature Setting ®  ) where Sparky will frolic carefree until the time Sparky will be reunited with his “human parents.”

 

While I don’t believe in Rainbow Bridges, I do believe that pictures of baby sloths in pajamas are comforting to everyone.

 

*   *   *

Department Of There’s Always Something

After we made the decision to euthanize Crow, moiself  thought, once again, about the many rational discussions which can be had as to whether people do or should treat or view their pets as their “children” – a perspective which, I believe, diminishes and misunderstands the reality of and relationships with both animals and children.

Also (as mentioned in a previous footnote), many people, including animal lovers/pet owners and those who are pet-free, hold strong opinions as to the ethics of using advances in veterinary medicine to treat conditions considered fatal just a few years ago – treatments which cost pet owners thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars…and the outcome is, eventually and ultimately, the same.

Pets, like their human owners, are mortal. They’re gonna die. Are you keeping your pet alive – in some cases, using tortuous treatments that humans with the same diagnoses can (and often do) eventually opt out of – because it’s in the animal’s best interest?  Or are you prolonging its life (read: extending its dying) because (you tell yourself) you love it and want to keep it around for as long as possible/can’t deal with its absence…or want to assuage the guilt laid upon you, whether purposely or inadvertently, by yourself or by well-meaning friends and family (or even your veterinarian)?

 

 

“Leigh K—…found herself facing a five-figure bill when her dog, Rutherford, was diagnosed with a brain tumor…. Leigh knew Rutherford needed help when the large-breed coonhound mix struggled to walk a straight line and keep his head up. But you can’t treat without a diagnosis, which meant brain scans, which meant $2,500 down before the technicians would warm up the machine.

Then the real bills started. Radiation therapy was projected to cost between $12,000 and $15,000, which, for perspective’s sake, is a quarter of the average American household’s annual earnings. It’s a sum weighty enough to give even relatively affluent Americans a lightbulb moment on how drastically their lives might be rerouted.”

( excerpts from “My dying dog’s vet bill put me in debt. It could happen to you.” 
Vox, 7-25-19 )

If my father had lived to see the age of  $3k MRIs for pets,   [5]   he would have scoffed at the very notion.  It’s not that he didn’t like animals, or was one of Those Pet Haters ® .  Growing up in the Parnell family, moiself   cannot remember a time when we didn’t have pets.  My siblings and I were allowed to acquire a variety of critters, from dogs and cats to hamsters and reptiles.  While my parents appreciated their children’s emotional bond with their pets, my father never seemed to have much of an attachment to them.  When I look back via an adult’s perspective, I consider this pet-bonding detachment of his to be due, in part, to his impoverished childhood.

 

 

Chet Parnell grew up poor, on a farm, in a place and time when animals were utilitarian.  His family’s infinitely patient and tolerant farm horse, who would let Chet and his siblings climb all over him, was a plough horse.  A succession of family dogs had “jobs” to do – they kept the crows out of the corn and chased the neighboring farms’ dogs and roaming strays away from the chickens, and the barn cats earned a roof over their heads by keeping the mice and rats at bay.  With the exception of the horse, the other “pets” had to hunt for and feed themselves (although my dad’s mother occasionally snuck table scraps to the barn cats, much to her husband’s dismay).

My father’s heart rose to the occasion when our family cat, Mia, died.  Mia, a stray kitten adopted by my family when I was in grade school, had been “my” cat,   [6]   but stayed with my family when I went off to school.  After graduating college and joining the working world, my parents and I agreed that, considering both my inability to pay my apartment rent if I also had to buy pet food and litter, and Mia being an old lady kitty and attached to her home, it was best if Mia stayed with them.  I saw Mia two to three times a year, when visiting my parents, and noted Mia’s increasing frailty with the passage of time.  Pay attention, I pleaded with them.  If there is something wrong with her, take her to a vet, don’t just let it slide.[7]   I was determined to be dispassionate about it – if Mia was dying, I did not want her to suffer.

One day when I was in my mid-twenties I received an early afternoon phone call from my mother.  She called the private line in the medical practice where I worked, which was a red flag.   [8]   She apologized for calling me at work, said she thought I’d like to know about Mia, and told me the following story.

In the past few weeks Mia, age 20, had grown weaker, lost weight, and developed a tumor on her head.  My parents found a veterinarian who would do house calls; after speaking with my parents over the phone, the vet came to their house with the assumption that he would likely euthanize the cat.  After briefly examining Mia he told them that that would be the most humane option.  My younger sister, by then in college, happened to be at my parents’ house for a visit, and she and my mother became so distraught re Mia’s situation that Chet banished them from the scene.  He shooed his wife and daughter into the house, while he stayed on the back porch with the veterinarian.

After Mia had been euthanized and the vet had left, Chet got a legal pad and a pencil, and a shoebox for the body (Mia would be buried in my parents’ backyard, by the rose bushes where she would nap in the summer shade).  He wrapped Mia’s body in a towel, placed her in the box, then composed a poem, on the spot, about Mia.

Mom read the poem to me.  I found it overwhelmingly touching then, and still do, after all these years – to think about what my father wrote to comfort his grieving wife and daughter, and also the mere fact that he did so.  The poem’s theme was how gentle and sweet Mia was; how she’d had a good life….   I can remember only parts of it,   [9]    but its closing stanza is etched on my heart:

Mia was loved by the Parnells all;
As there is a time to rise, there is a time to fall.
To be loved by a family is why she was made,
And now our dear Mia will rest in the shade.

As I hung up the phone, my employer noticed the distraught look on my face.  Dr. B asked me what was up.  With all the detachment and professionalism I could muster – which turned out to be none at all – I blubbered, “My family kitty died!” and tried to tell him how my father had written a poem….

I was a hot mess.  Dr. B placed his hand on my shoulder.  Compassionately, yet firmly, he said to me, GO HOME.

And now for dear Crow, I say, with gratitude for years of love and “tummy time,” Go home.

 

Crow was a gentle spirit and a good sport.  Here is one of moiself’s  favorite pictures of her, one I called, for obvious reasons, *rumpcat.

*   *   *

Department Of The Supporting Cast And Crew

I cannot say enough good things about the doctors and staff of our family’s long-time veterinary clinic, the (surprise!) feline-exclusive  All About Cats Clinic.  Also deserving of high praise is Compassionate Care, the in-home euthanasia service we used, as per ABCC’s recommendation.  CC’s vet was kind, empathetic, sweet, and competent – she gave MH and I (and Crow, I imagine), a sense of tranquility in an emotionally taxing situation.

“She had a good life,“ was son K’s post on our family chat site, when MH informed our offspring about Crow’s death.  My reply:

“Yes, she did…and though it may sound strange, I dare to say that her death was good, as well.
She was comfy on the carpet, enjoying lots of pets from us, and she just ‘went to sleep,’ as they say. It was one of the more peaceful things I have ever seen.”

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Dead Catz Edition

Hmmmmm.  On second thought….

 

When face palm cat just won’t cover it.

 

*   *   *

May you experience the distinctive love of, and for, a pet companion;
May the inevitable loss of that love help you to appreciate it all the more;
May you be strong enough to lather, rinse, and repeat;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

[1] But not, oddly, wanting “tummy time” with MH, which, until the diabetes, was her favorite activity.  She seemingly became uncomfortable sitting in laps or being held during her last two weeks – one more piece of the puzzle which help us make the decision.

[2] Fortunately, thanks to deliberate and innovative strategizing on the part of regional animal shelters, almost *all* healthy cats and dogs at shelters who do not have  “behavioral issues” (read: biters) now find homes.

[3] Where I would later volunteer, in cat care.

[4] Too much, some critics say, in that using “human” treatments for cancers and other mortal illnesses – treatments previously unavailable to animals and to which they cannot consent – are essentially torturing pets in order to assuage our guilt….and speaking of the latter, many people on fixed incomes cannot afford the substantial vet bills but feel pressured, if the procedure/treatment is available, to do so, lest they be considered a heartless person who doesn’t really love their pet.

[5] Which was one of the quotes we got for what a brain scan would cost, when we were trying to figure out the “neurological incident” our cat Crow seemed to have suffered.

[6] And was so named to indicate that – mia is Spanish for mine.

[7] This post needs more upbeat footnotes.  Nah.

[8] My mother was not one to instigate phone calls – that was my father’s purview – and she never called me at work, before or after Mia’s death.

[9] I have a copy of it, somewhere in my file cabinet….

The Regrets I’m Not Regretting

July 14, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), kayak, making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Regrets I’m Not Regretting

Department Of Oh. My. Gaaaaawwwwwwwd.

This American Life podcast:  The Retrievals.  Words fail moiself  but will have to do, as I’m not much of an artist and don’t know how to render a primal scream.

If you are a fan of the Serial podcasts, or just human being interested in an astounding, compelling and – warning – gruesome story. This intro, from the podcast website (my emphases):

At a Yale fertility clinic, dozens of women began their I.V.F. cycles full of expectation and hope. Then a surgical procedure caused them excruciating pain. In the hours that followed, some of the women called the clinic to report their pain — but most of the staff members who fielded the patients’ reports did not know the real reason for the pain, which was that a nurse at the clinic was stealing fentanyl and replacing it with saline. What happened at that clinic? What are the stories we tell about women’s pain and what happens when we minimize or dismiss it?

Do y’all know what the procedure for IVF “retrieval” involves?  Most women and no men have *not* undergone it; for all of us who fit into that category, imagine a series of long and sharp needles inserted into your most private and sensitive body areas —  like your vagina if you’re a woman, and your urethra (yep, up your penis), if you’re a man —  and then through the side abdominal wall tissue and probing into another part of the body, without anesthesia.

 

 

Perhaps equal to (or arguably worse) than what happened to these women is what all woman face: of having their reality – from social and workplace and harassment, patronization and lowered expectations, to gut-wrenching, making-you-pass-out, physical pain ­– minimized and/or dismissed.

Acts one through three are available.  Act 3 adds another fascinating layer to the drama:  the forthright deliberations of the judge –  who is essentially thinking aloud – at the nurse’s sentencing hearing, and what is and what isn’t considered as “relevant” to the hearing.

*   *   *

Department Of Yet Another Tragedy That Didn’t Have To Happen

 

 

Excerpts from a press release from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s office (the article was also posted on Facebook in the North County News group):

“On Friday, July 7, 2023, at about 7:23 pm, Tillamook 911 dispatched….  [1]  to a reported water rescue at the mouth of Nestucca Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

A 12-foot boat had been crabbing in the area with one 40-year-old male adult, one 17-year-old male and one 15-year-old male on board. The boat capsized and all occupants were thrown into the water. The older male and 17-year-old were able to make it to shore, but the 15-year-boy disappeared in the water….

…the missing boy has not been recovered and is presumed deceased….

… The missing 15-year-old boy was not wearing a life jacket when the boat capsized, and he was thrown in the water.”

 

 

This is the not infrequent scenario, on Oregon’s coastal waters, rivers, and lakes: a boat of some kind – whether a commercial fishing boat or a pleasure craft – capsizes, and its occupants are thrown into the water and some of them drown.  [2]   And all too often – and by all too often I mean, every effin’ time it happens it’s too often –  those who died were not wearing Personal Flotation Devices, aka PFDs, aka life preserver jackets.  Thus the request, at the end of the Facebook post, from the deputy investigating the accident:

“…please be kind with your comments below,   [3]  this could just as easily have been people you love.”

Moiself  felt no need to comment. Certainly, that 15-year-old boy’s father is beating himself up over that decision – and yes, it was a decision, whether passive or active – to not insist that all occupants of the boat wear a PFD.

MH read the article to me over breakfast; we looked at each other, our eyes wide with WTF?!?!? sorrow and disbelief. When we go kayaking, or go out on our friend’s crabbing boat, or do any other water/boating activity, we don’t even step on the dock without wearing our PFDs.

 

 

I can’t remember the exact context of this decades-old anecdote moiself  is about to share, but I’ll always remember the particular conversational exchange. MH’s parents were out for a summer visit with us on the Oregon coast.  Some Person®  who was with us, listening to us plan a kayaking adventure, made a startling (to moiself  ) admission:

Some Person:
“I *never* wear a life jacket when I’m in a boat.”

MH’s father:
“Really?  Why?”

Some Person:
“Because I can swim.”

MH’s Father:
“Even when you’re unconscious?”

 

 

As the Tillamook County Deputy investigating the boy’s drowning noted, accidents happen “in the blink of an eye.”  People just don’t anticipate – well, that’s the reason accidents are called accidents, right? You weren’t planning for the boat to capsize or hit a swell or a rock or whatever happened which caused you to go overboard; you don’t think about the fact that, at a certain rate of speed (a rate which is much lower than most people estimate), when you fall from a moving object and hit the water it’s like hitting concrete. Or, the boat capsizes at a much slower pace, or you leaned too far over the gunwales – whatever you did to end up in the water, and you’re conscious and an excellent swimmer and the water is calm…but the water is *cold,* much much colder than you realized, and hypothermia sets in, and all of a sudden you can’t move your limbs to even do a dog paddle to keep your head above water….

Several weeks ago moiself  spoke with a family member of one of the crew members of a crab fishing boat which capsized.   [4]     She told me that even the so-called professionals, the crab and salmon fishers, generally don’t wear PFDs.  We both agreed that that was insane, but, “It’s their culture,” she said.  And then a big wave upends the boat and the crew scrambles to put on their survival suits….and another aspect of their culture survives: attending the funerals of drowned comrades.

 

 

And so, there will be another such story, and another, and another request for “thoughts and prayers“ and to “go easy“ on the survivors in the comments section…and another sad opportunity for a Coast Guard or sheriff’s department representative to remind people of the obvious:

“These types of incidents happen in the blink of an eye. It is important to be wearing life jackets, or have them readily available immediately,” said Deputy Greiner. “Oregon law requires children 12 and under to be wearing a properly fitted USCG approved PFD while on a boat that is underway. All non-swimmers, regardless of age, should be wearing PFD’s when on the water.

Even in the summer, our bays and rivers have dangerous currents present during tidal events and recreating on the water near the mouth of a bay or a river where it meets the ocean is particularly dangerous. When you need a life jacket, it’s often too late to put one on.

Tragedies like this are often avoidable by simply wearing a PFD. You should also avoid crabbing, fishing, paddling or swimming on an outgoing tide anywhere near the mouth of a bay or river. Your survival in a boating accident greatly increase if you are wearing a PFD, no matter what your age. No family should have to go through something like this.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thought® Of The Week

Dateline: Monday, circa 11:30 am; driving to Hillsboro from the coast, listening to a No Stupid Questions podcast,  What is the Worst Kind of Regret?  Early on in the podcast, this question was posed, “What do you most regret:  the things you’ve done, or not done?”  When I first heard the question moiself  thought that I couldn’t answer it, at least not right away.  That question is the kind which requires some serious self-reflection.  The podcast hosts approached the issue from a variety of angles and possibilities while I ruminated on the kindness aspect.  Do I most regret times when I, intentionally or not, had been unkind to someone, or do I most regret not intervening when I witnessed someone being treated unkindly?

Later in the podcast one of the hosts was talking about the fear of rejection – from personal relationships to business ventures – which keeps people from saying or doing or pursuing ____ (fill in the blank with just about anything).  The host quoted from Trevor Noah’s memoir, “Born a Crime” a book which moiself  has read and which I highly recommend…even as I cannot recall this quote from it, which I now think is one of the more tantalizing assertions I’ve read in some time  (my emphases):

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in my life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say.  We spend so much time afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, but regret is the thing we should fear the most.  Because failure is an answer; rejection is an answer.  Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.”

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of The Philosophy You Didn’t Know (Or Care) That I Have

Someone asked me once about how I wanted “…to be remembered, as a writer.”   Which felt rather odd, to moiself,  seeing as how I don’t know or even care.   [5]   

It seems I have a kindred spirit in the devilishly delightful Tim Minchin, the Australian composer/singer/actor/comedian/writer.  The chorus of his song Talked Too Much, Stayed Too Long  I’ve adopted as my own anthem in such matters:

♫  Don’t wanna be in your club if you take me as a member

I’m not even slightly interested in whether I’m remembered

I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Get me a tombstone if you feel you must

Saying, “Here lies the clown who wrote some songs

He talked too much and stayed too long.”  ♫

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

 

*   *   *

May you talk too much and stay too long;
May you pay attention to both kinds of regrets;
May you always wear a PFD whenever you’re in a boat;    [7]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Five different rescue groups, including the Coast Guard.

[2] Time for another footnote?  No; not yet.

[3] The temptation to spout “Why the hell were they not wearing life jackets ?!?!?!” is understandable, if cruel…and too late.

[4] A relative of hers was killed in the accident.

[5] …which is why I likely won’t be remembered, as I’ve done a good job of keeping out of the limelight, much to the dismay of editors who chastised me re my lack of interest in self-promotion. 

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

[7] Or safe at home, on the couch, just thinking about getting in a boat….

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