Department Of Things I Love To Say ( Or Even Think )
This one came to me after returning from an early morning walk and passing the fruit tree in our front yard: “It’s time to pare the pears.”
Gotta make sure the branches stay healthy and will be able to do their holiday duty, supporting the Partridges we host in our pear tree every Yuletide.
* * *
Department Of What Would Sir Paul Do?
If it had been anyone else’s post, I might’ve sent a private message along the lines of,
“Check your account. I think you’ve been hacked. Someone posing as you posted an embarrassing, cringe-worthy, face-palmingly clueless, humble-brag-of-a-tone-deaf…”
Why did I keep reading after the first sentence, of theyou’ve-gotta-be-fucking-joking-but-no-apparently-it’s-serious post I saw on a friend’s social media page? I’m still asking moiself that question: Department Of Why Didn’t I Just Scroll Past After The First Line… Like I’ve Done 1000 Times Before?
As for the post’s last sentence/request: “I would love to hear what others have experienced!”
Really. I really doubt it.
I loathe that which makes me experience one of my least favorite states of mind: being embarrassed on behalf of someone else (if you know what I mean and I think you do)…
…regardless of how strong, or so-weak-as-to-be-essentially-nonexistent their connection is to moiself .
Readers of this blog, and anyone spending a modicum of time on Social Media Sites, likely have at least one acquaintance among their group of SMS friends fitting this criteria: they are someone whose friend request you accepted on behalf of a childhood/long-ago friendship you had with them, even though your present relationship is for all intents and purposes nonexistent, or merely social media functional…. [1]
So, why not, Department Of I Should Just Let It Go, Right?
Instead…
Department Of Yep, I’m Gonna Do It
A burning bridge is perhaps not the best, or most apt, idiom for the situation. But for someone whom I (used to) respect, who posts such claptrap and then solicits responses…are they to get off Scott-free?
BTW: why is the expression Scott free, and not Andrew-free, or Thomas-free or Ian-free? A brief bit o ‘web research shows me that, first of all, the phrase is actually “scot-free” (one “t; not capitalized”), and is used to imply that one had escaped punishment, blame, or penalty for a wrongdoing. The idiom goes way back; it refers to medieval European financial penalties and has no relation to, say, a tax cheat named Scott.
Yet again, I digress.
Here is the claptrap post that frosted my butt:
“I thought it might be kind of cool to share some of the wonderful things that God has done for me in my life. Here’s one of my favorites:
Several years ago, at a very challenging point in my life, the upper hinge of a frequently used kitchen cupboard broke in half when I went to open it. Not knowing what to do and feeling utterly overwhelmed, I asked God to please send me some help for it. I assumed He would soon bring across my path someone who could fix it, a common enough answer to prayer. But a few minutes later, as I went about my tasks in the kitchen, I gingerly went to open the broken cupboard, only to find that the metal hinge was now completely fixed and restored to an unbroken state. My Miracle of the Hinge 💖
I would love to hear what others have experienced!”
Yep. That’s it.
Again, regarding that last sentence: Unless the what others have experienced would be self-delusional -reinforcing, along the lines of the proverbial choir singing to itself ( “Jesus found my lost car keys when I was late for the PTA meeting *and* removed that pesky grass stain from my husband’s trousers!” ), it’s strongly likely the poster really doesn’t want know what others are experiencing.
The poster is someone I knew from…
…and our current relationship/only point of contact for the past decade plus is that we’re social media friends in, as I earlier mentioned, The Way That One Often Does® with old friends who have morphed into acquaintances. It’s because of posting like the above that I’ve had to silence this person’s posts every once in a while. But this one….it felt patronizing to *not* respond in some way.
But Paul’s currently on tour and doesn’t return my texts. So, here’s the reply [2] I wanted to make, but didn’t:
Are you fucking kidding me?
* All over the planet, sincere and desperate people are appealing to their god(s).
* Many (if not the majority) of these prayers for intercession/assistance are directed to the deity whose belief in/worship of they share with you (aka Yaweh; “The Christian” god; Jesus Christ ).
* Many (if not the majority) of these prayers for intercession/assistance are asking for help in situations far more dire and consequential than that of malfunctioning kitchen hardware. They’re asking for help in surviving/preventing/healing from
– chronic, fatal, debilitating, painful and humiliating illnesses; – horrendous, disfiguring and disabling accidents; – vicious physical and sexual assaults; – persecutions based on religious, gender, sexual orientation and civil rights identities; – soul-crushing betrayals by loved ones; – death and destruction from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters; – school children gunned down in their classroom; – the devastation caused by wars, armed conflicts, and acts of terrorism
There are recordings of terrified passengers on the Sept 11 United Airlines flight 93, praying with a 911 operator, a family member, and even telephone answering machines…. Despite those prayers for help – as heartfelt and sincere as ever such a plea could be, considering the circumstances – their hijacked plane plummeted down, killing all aboard.
Your god, [3] whom you believe has the ability to act in the natural world (which you believe it has created), has dropped the ball on countless of these and other “please send me help for…” requests – requests which so many of my friends and family and neighbors and coworkers have shared with me. These people are/were true believers in your same god, and had to/have to juggle and justify the devastating silence from that same god, as they, their loved ones, and the entire world continue to suffer.
Your fellow Christians call out for help to your god, both alone and in groups, as the false comfort of scriptural promises lie flaccid on the pages of their holy book. [4] Their god, your god, idly stands by, effectively deaf when it comes to rescuing the displaced Nigerian Christian woman, who screams Someone help me! Help me Jesus! as she is beaten and gang-raped in the refugee camp…and yet this god somehow found time to save you from the hassle of your allegedly broken cabinet hinge.
‘Twas interesting to do a bit of self-analysis on my reaction to this post, on why moiself ultimately decided I needed to write about it. Is it because I used to be a part of that world – or, at least I let everyone think that I was – and I carry guilt over not speaking up sooner/more often at the ultimately harmful (even if surface-seemingly silly) ideas that were propagated by it?
Translation: I should’ve called bullshit more often than I did, and I didn’t.
May you examine your criteria for what constitutes a miracle; May you take Sir Paul’s advice better than I did; May you remember that it’s never too early to prep a soft landing spot
for any partridges that may want to nest in your pear tree; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] As in, every now and then they do post some adorable animal videos.
[2] language toned down, if you can fucking believe that.
[3] Whom you believe exists so I will write as if it does…but I do not capitalize the name god, seeing as how it is not a proper name…and even if your deity existed its name would not likely be, god.
[4] “Whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:13; World English Bible; ) “Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth concerning anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 18:19 KJV )
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
( review excerpt ):“The 1970s were thick with New Age spiritual fads and movements, from the benign (crystals) to the unspeakably toxic and cultic (Jonestown). Somewhere in the middle of that woo-woo spectrum lies the work of Carlos Castaneda. A UCLA anthropology grad student turned self-appointed guru, Castaneda became a counterculture icon with the publication of his first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, in 1968, purporting to find enlightenment via psychedelic mushrooms, peyote and the cryptic musings of Don Juan, an Indigenous spirit guide.
That book (…and those that followed) seduced millions of readers….That Castaneda’s books were largely flimflam isn’t in dispute. But Ru Marshall’s hefty biography, American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Casteneda, reveals the depth of his deception — and…how easily people can be taken in by it.
‘He didn’t lie out of convenience or opportunism,’ Marshall writes. ‘He lied because he loved to. Lying was, for him, an art, and he did it exceptionally well.’…
Born in Peru (not Brazil, as he often claimed) in 1925 (not a decade later, as he often claimed), Castaneda demonstrated no particular intellectual promise. But in the mid-1950s…he developed an affection for writing, philosophy and history. While pursuing a graduate degree in anthropology in the ’60s, he grew enchanted with Buddhism, Theosophy, existentialism and Native American spirituality — all key elements of the spiritualist goulash he would eventually cook up for his books.
His timing was impeccable: From Timothy Leary’s LSD experiments to transcendental meditation, non-Christian religion and drugs fueled the zeitgeist. And Castaneda’s manuscript of The Teachings spoke effervescently about both.
It hardly seemed to matter that the book also demonstrated his ignorance of both: He had little understanding of psychoactive drugs (you don’t smoke shrooms, dude), and there was nothing meaningfully Yaqui about Don Juan. Still, the book — and their follow-ups… were massive bestsellers.”
The writings of trained [1] anthropologist Castaneda, in particular his Don Juan series, were all the rage during my early college years. If often seemed that, when walking down the residence hall hallways, you couldn’t spit (and I did try) without encountering a fellow student, slumped outside their dorm room, taking a break from cramming for their chemistry midterm by searching for some stoner wisdom from the mythical [2] Yaqui “Man of Knowledge” Don Juan Matus. Castaneda’s books portrayed Don Juan as a shaman (of the indigenous Yaqui people) who imparted his wisdom to Castenada via a purported apprenticeship Casteneda had with Don Juan in the early 1960s.
I tried to understand the appeal by reading [3] the first and some of the second of what would eventually be a series of quasi-spiritual drivel nine books. [4] My reaction to what I read was further evidence to moiself that I would never be as hip as my comrades…and I was relieved to be so.
I only said, You realize he made up all that shit?!?! a few times to Castenada/Don Juan true believers. The reactions my skepticism received made me realize that if the reason for my lack of mystical illumination after reading the books – the reason moiself couldn’t understand the deep spiritual enlightenment wisdom of the books’ teachings – was that I wasn’t stoned while reading them (as one devoted Castenda follower informed me), then that was a burden I was willing to shoulder. I got more enlightenment, and a better use of my time, via playing a game of racquetball with friends.
* * *
Department Of Sometimes The Analogy Can’t Be Stretched
The third segment had some key insights into why some sports develop and maintain a loyal audience while others – e.g., women’s sports – have a harder time doing so. Obstacles include good old-fashioned sexism…
…coupled with cultural traditions, familiarity, and generational inheritance.
Journalist Kate Fagan:
“When I worked at ESPN…I was always pitching women’s sports stories.
It almost never worked. Every once in a while, it would work. But this thing would happen when we would do a women’s sports segment. Many of the other men on the segment – they didn’t really do their homework. So they were kind of blah, then the segment would be kind of blah. There’s actually a term for this. It’s called gender bland. And then the segment would end, and the producer would be like, ‘See, this is why we never do women’s sports, ’cause they’re boring.
When a men’s segment fell flat, the problem was us. We would redo it. All right, come on, do your homework. Pick it up. We’re doing that again. When a segment on women’s sports fell flat, the problem was women’s sports. The reality is that, just existing in our culture, you will know a dozen men’s storylines… these things are literally push-notified to your phone. Or you’re at a bar or a doctor’s office, and the talking heads are giving you the latest NBA drama. In America, osmosis will have you knowing men’s sports storylines…”
Fagan:
“There’s so many veins of generational inheritance in sports. There’s the one that does take time and literal family generations where you can actually say, Why am I a New York Met fan? Well, ’cause my grandpa was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And then they left for LA. And then the next team that we got was the New York Mets…. And there’s something bigger than yourself about that. I think why we love sports at its core is for the culture and community of it. And whether it’s your literal community, it’s like your city team, or you live out of state, and it’s your grandmother’s favorite team…That’s all part of community as well.
And then pair that – and they often go hand in hand – with cultural value….We want to be in on what culture is talking about.”
Fagan and other podcast guest spoke of factors that get people interested in more obscure/not-so-popular-in-our-culture sports – factors such as when we understand the stakes to the games and the storylines within them (e.g., the underdog USA ice hockey team battling the heavily favored USSR team; the Romanian gymnast struggling in poverty…). Then Fagan shared a story of how her father, who taught her basketball, guided her with two pieces of advice about the game, which she applies to life today:
” ‘Always make your last dribble the hardest’….
The other one I loved was…‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ And that’s a standard basketball one, but…my wife and I will say it to each other all the time when we want to do something we’re not sure we should. It’s like, ‘Well, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ “
Moiself’s mind immediately began trying to analogize that shot-taking adage to other sports and activities. For some reason, rock climbing was the first one I thought of:
“You survive 100 percent of the cliffs you don’t fall off of from the mountains you don’t climb….”
Hmmmm? Needs more work to reach pithy aphorism status.
* * *
Department Of Why AI Sucks
Moiself looks forward to AI applications that can assist doctors to more quickly distinguish between benign and malignant tumors, and which can also help medical researchers fine-tune existing/invent new treatments and for illnesses from cancer to tuberculosis…and help scientists discover non-toxic ways to eliminate air- and waterborne pollutants and develop non-toxic, renewable energy sources…
As for the rest, this sums up my feelings and fears. When it comes to writing (both fiction and nonfiction/journalism) and the creative arts, don’t be fooled by a seemingly bland term like, Artificial Intelligence. It’s counterfeit coding ; it’s plagiarism software.
BTW, that ingestion of written output…without consent, compensation, and credit…? It’s happened to moiself.
BTW 2.0: for any other published writers out there, whether or not you are involved in one of the many class action lawsuits re AI-enabled pirating, [5] AI-enabled pirating of your work has already happened or will happen to you, whether or not you are aware of it.
May you be able to spot spiritual flim-flam; May you not be the easiest person to fool; May you not fall off of the cliffs you do not climb; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] But never professionally employed as an anthropologist.
[2] As in, Casteneda pulled Don Juan (and their encounters) out of his ass.
[3] By the second book, it was more like skimming, as I found it so uninteresting I couldn’t concentrate on paying actual attention to the twaddle.
[4] The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power, The Second Ring of Power, The Eagle’s Gift, The Fire From Within, The Power of Silence, The Art of Dreaming.
[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
Department Of Yep, This Is It: Succinctly Brilliant Life Advice (Before The Inevitable Snark)
“You’ll regret it if you get married. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
You’ll regret it if you have kids, and you’ll regret it if you don’t.”
The following is attributed to Kierkegaard [1] (my emphases):
“Regret is inevitable because the human mind
will always romanticize the life it didn’t live.
It’s not about making the ‘perfect’ choice;
it’s choosing which regret you are willing to make peace with.”
So. Choose your path.
* * *
Department Of, And Now, On To The Snark: Could This Be The Sign; Is This The End Of The World?
Dateline: Monday morning; 7:54 AM; watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding III[2] while doing an elliptical workout. During the commercial break I behold an advertisement moiself has never see before – it’s from [3] a series of ads for Cottonelle toilet paper known as the Come Clean campaign.[4] The ad begins with a discreet shot of some guy sitting on a toilet, then we see him (after he has presumably done his business and hiked up his trousers) [5] walking into a family/TV room in a (his?) house, where friends and family wearing team jerseys and eating copious amounts of snacks are watching a football game on the room’s wide screen TV. The man has a beatific smile on his face, as if he’s just received enlightenment from a guru or had another kind of spiritual experience. Apparently, after having used Cottonelle toilet paper to wipe himself post-deuce-dropping he has the cleanest hindquarters he’s ever had. [6] He is so overcome with the bliss of butt cleanliness he decides to “come clean” with his friends, confessing, among other things, the fact that he doesn’t really “get” football….
* * *
The Saga Continues: Department Of Bodily Functions Sell Products, The Neverending Story
Back to moiself on the elliptical, continuing to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding III (which primarily takes place in – surprise! – Greece). [7] After fifteen minutes, there is another commercial break: three ads in a row featuring products related to those pesky bodily functions:
* #1: [8] It’s one more Cottonelle come clean ad, this one featuring a woman, who, after having the tush mop of her life, comes clean to her homework-doing child about the fact that she never “got” algebra;
* #2: Yet another ad for that [9] ( “doctor-developed!” ) whole body deodorant, Lumē. And by whole body, the Lumē folk mean your entire body – including parts you maybe didn’t realize you had, much less had to worry about being…reekified.
“Anywhere you have odor but wish you didn’t….just a pea-sized amount rubbed in like a lotion…all over your body: “pits, privates, underboob, belly buttons, tummy folds, thigh creases, feet….”
Underboob?
You name it, if it’s a body part, Lumē wants to you to be concerned that it might stink.
feet; tummy folds; thigh crease…. I think they left out that space between your fingers – for which there should be a name. Actually, there is: the interdigital folds. But, moiself suspects there’s a better word for it in German, like FingerSchlitzen….
Ahem. That omission aside, the not-so-subtle message these Lumē advertisements convey is that your entire body is an odiferous swamp in need of aroma-masking. As for the bemused skeptics who ask, “Um, why not just take a shower?”
Silly geese! If you feel felt cleaner after taking a shower, they can’t sell you anything. Check here if you’d like An Expert® to explain why you’re so stupid as to think that bathing is better than using Lumē products. [10]
Just in case you’re not sure how the product should be applied to someone’s, er, privates, here are the handy instructions (found here; my emphases):
“For privates – the short story: A little goes a long way. Using fingertips, swipe onto thigh folds, undercarriage,
and sweep up between the butt cheeks to the tailbone.
For privates – the full story: Working front to back (never work back to front due to increased risk for urinary tract infections), apply to the clitoral hood & labia majora (not inside the vagina or around the urethra), continue back further to the perineum (the space between the rectum and vaginal opening), and sweep up between the butt cheeks to the tailbone.
Apply around the base of the penis and between the folds of the legs, work back to the space between the scrotum and rectum, and finally sweep back between the butt cheeks and up to the tailbone.”
Undercarriage. In all my years in health care…
… moiself never heard the word at word undercarriage – heretofore used for the structural and mechanical foundation supporting the body of an automobile or truck – to refer to human anatomy.
Listening to this insulting shill ad, moiself be getting my undergarments in a knot ( this could be a job for Lumē! ) as I consider the commercial’s underlying premise: your entire body is a stinkpit. Yeah, thanks for the empowering message, brought to us by a woman OB/GYN ( a fact much touted in the product’s various ads).
Ah; once again, moiself digresses. On to Advertisement #3, which was concerned with infant and baby number two – specifically, with the idea that not all baby BMs are manageable ( as in, containable ) – via the average disposable diaper. And this certain brand of diaper – damned if I can’t remember the name, [11] is for “…people who’ve seen some sh*t.”[12] Translation: it can handle your biggest baby’s biggest poop!
Now then: although moiself wasn’t paying close attention to My Big Fat Greek Wedding III, I’m fairly certain it contained no overt nor clandestine themes of cleaning up after defecation and/or malodorous body parts. Thus, I’m forced to conclude that the clustering of these particular ads during MBFGWIII commercial breaks was just a happy coincidence.
Notes I wrote to myself a few years ago after someone, who’d discovered my “unbelief,” tried the What-you-need-is-a-personal-relationship-with-Jesus crap on me:
What I do not need is a “personal relationship” with Jesus,
or the Christian god, or any deity.
What religious believers need is a personal relationship with reality – the same reality to which they appeal when they critique the tenets and validity of Scientology, Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism – of any faith but their own. The same reality they use when they evaluate evidence to make any important decision in their life: such as, which investments are sound, which physician to see for an illness, etc.
Oh and by the way: How is it that, for all their much-touted (but in reality, scantily practiced [14] ) reading of their scriptures, Christian fundies never seem to recognize that their “personal relationship with their personal savior” rhetoric never occurs in the Bible. Jesus is never quoted as speaking this way in the gospels, nor does the founder of Christianity, Paul, do so in his epistles. This “personal savior” piety is no older than 18th century Lutheran Pietist movement in Germany.
* * *
May we all have a personal relationship with reality; May you not romanticize the path you didn’t take; May we give our respective undercarriages the honor they are due; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2][2] It was either that, or some May Day Airline disaster show…which I actually like – the parts about the investigations and the problem solving involved (not the crash reenactment).
[13] “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
[14] The bible is a huge collection of writings; still, it’s mind-boggling how many Christians cherry pick their readings to “the happy” or familiar, G-rated stories stuff. Most of them seemingly have no idea what is in their scriptures, from the three different version of The Ten Commandments ( Version 1: Deuteronomy 5:6-21; Version 2: Exodus 20:1-17, differs slightly from the Deuteronomy version; Version 3: Exodus 34: 14-28 – Hmmm, these commandments are wildly different than the first two versions, although the writing claims it is the LORD speaking. Guess he’d forgotten what he’d said the first two times? Also, although this list is never referred to when religious leaders and politicians talk of the Ten Commandments, this version – in verse 27- is the only version referred to in scripture as the “ten commandments” ) ,to the passages where Jesus contradicts himself, to the scriptural guidelines for killing and raping women….
I’ve always been careful with/skeptical of the label, SBNR( “I’m spiritual but not religious.”) Describing one’s self (or others) as SBNRin answer to questions about one’s religion and/or worldview can be seen – and often is, IMO – as an intellectual cop-out” by people on all sides of the question.
Those who are religious can be annoyed by the term, for several reasons, including:
* It is the pinnacle of cherry picking. “The ‘I’m SBNR folks take the warm and fuzzy ideas of their god/religion while not actually following anything…”
* Those who claim they are spiritual-but-not-religiousare trying to sell the notion that they are somehow in a deeper, more profound relationship with their ‘higher power’ instead of working within the theologies and traditions of an established church.
* “This idea of being ‘spiritual’ without being ‘religious’ sounds like an attempt at superiority, being that religion (in American society) is often looked upon as a bastion for the ignorant. But being ‘spiritual,’, well, that’s just totally cool, dude.” [1]
You SBNRs are numerous enough to have people marketing your very own religious – excuse me, spiritual – accessories to you!
Humanists/Freethinkers/Skeptics/Atheists/otherwise Religion-Free folk’s critiques of SBNRinclude:
* The mealy-mouth SBNRacronym stems from not wishing to come out of the atheist closet. There is a social stigma of irreligion, particularly for those who have devout family and friends (or even coworkers) who view any total “rejection” of religion ( “I am not religious” ) as a betrayal and/or criticism of *their* beliefs and values. The claim of SBNRis conflict avoidance strategy, so as not to admit to a complete loss or rejection of faith. Openly declaring oneself as atheist risks alienating friends and family who view the transition as a moral loss rather than an intellectual one.
* The “Spiritual” Buffer: Using the SBNR label often serves as a safe stepping stone. SBNRers believe the label distances them from rigid doctrine while retaining a connection to awe, mindfulness, or the unknown, without having to do the hard-but-necessary work of confronting and refuting the harsh stereotypes religious folk often associate with atheism.
* The SBNRpeople are being smug and/or provocative and/or cowardly. Responding to a question about one’s religious beliefs by claiming to be ‘spiritual’ isn’t an answer; rather, it’s a cop out – an attempt to avoid the question while sounding like one has put some thought into it, and to avoid the judgement that might come their way by declaring that they are, in fact, religion free ( “What!? You don’t believe in anything?!?!?” ) .
And there are those who simply have questions about the SBNRphrase’s semantic employment (translation: there is no coherent definition of SBNR):
” Spiritualis such a useless non-word; I’ve never heard from a believer what spiritual encompasses – no two people can agree on how to define it.”
“Yeah, I’m not into organized religion, but I’m very spiritual.”
Moiself recently (re) listened to a podcast related to the SBNRissue: A PIMA ( People I Mostly Admire ) podcast rerun, specifically, Steve Levitt’s interview with Sam Harris: Spirituality Unveiled.
From the PIMA episode website: He’s a cognitive neuroscientist and philosopher who has written five best-selling books. Sam Harris also hosts the Making Sense podcast and helps people discover meditation through his Waking Up app. Sam explains to Steve how to become spiritual as a skeptic….
LEVITT: I’d love to talk about your book, Waking Up, and I’m going to say something that I literally have never said before about any book, and that is that I think Waking Up is important. And it’s important in the sense that I think it can have a large and a positive impact on many people’s lives…. And while there are, I’m sure, thousands of books on meditation and mindfulness, your book, Waking Up, is the only one I’ve ever run into that I could read through my scientific mind and not feel embarrassed about thinking that I could pursue spirituality. Does that reading of your book resonate with you at all?
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah. That is certainly its purpose.
HARRIS: Spirituality is a loaded term. We don’t have a great term for what the most positive end of human psychology should be called, right? But we want to explore this range of human experience. We want to understand it scientifically. We want to access it personally. On the most basic level, as a matter of experience, all we have is our minds, right? Happiness and suffering are mental events and that opens the door to various possibilities. One is that the changes you make in the way you pay attention to the world and to the content of your own experience and the contents of consciousness — that it’s possible to make real changes in your relationship to experience itself, and to suffer less, and even not at all in circumstances that would have otherwise caused you an immense amount of pain. And to find joy and beauty and connection in places that you were unable to even notice before. And there’s a training that allows for that. And meditation is sort of the generic term for that…. And so, my goal in writing the book and subsequently releasing the meditation app by the same name, is to convey that. We should have a 21st century conversation about the deepest possibilities of human well-being.
LEVITT: And if I try to dumb down what you said, I think your main point is that there’s a lot of evidence for practicing various techniques like meditation, which will then lead you to experience the world in a way which is more fulfilling and gratifying and less troubling and disturbing than if you don’t do it. Is that a fair summary of your view of the world?
HARRIS: Yeah, and I would just point out that 150 years ago, the only person lifting weights was the crazy guy in the circus with the handlebar mustache and leopard skin singlet…. And yet, we all now know that physical exercise is one of the best things you can do. And most of us have found a way to not just tolerate it, but actually love it. But the notion of mental training is fairly esoteric and has to be argued for…
…one difference is that you can’t see the results in quite the same way. The body admits an immense plasticity, and given commitment and native talent and good luck, you can make some serious changes in your physical body. But most people feel like their minds are more or less whatever they wound up with when they stumbled into adulthood, right? They understand that they can get educated and they can learn new facts. But the idea that through training, you could really change your mind, that’s not understood. And it’s not helpful, frankly, that the people who’ve done this work traditionally have always done it explicitly in a religious context. We do have to break it out of these traditional framings because we should be able to use all of the world’s literature and the millennia of conversations that have been had about the mind or anything else, about what works and what makes sense.”
Department Of A Blast From The Past Dateline: January 2025. A new year; a new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month). My thought at the time: Perhaps moiself will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature. So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.
This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?![2] friend gave me, all those years ago, [3] as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. Thus, journal/diary-resistant moiself would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.
Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago June to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )
i is my favorite vowel, in part because two of my favorite words begin with it. [4]
There is the word I itself, the personal pronoun. Although I am not fond of the first-person narrative in fiction and rarely employ it in my stories, I am fond of I for more personal reasons, having to do with action and momentum. I is an indicator of agency and responsibility ( I will do ___; I think that ___).
My other favorite i-word is if. I love that word. For me, it is the key to answering the question non-writers of fiction often ask of writers of fiction; specifically, How do you get your story ideas? The closest I can come to answering that question truthfully [5] is to say that the What ifquestion is always involved.
Story ideas, from the mundane to the profound, center around possible answers to the question, What if…
* a couple used their argument over whose turn it was to bring in the garbage can as a distraction from their crumbling relationship, mental health issues, and employment insecurity…
* a husband betrayed his wife by posting bail for her sister who was in jail for abetting a cult leader…
* a bereaved mother enlisted the help of a sympathetic stranger she met in a university library to avenge her daughter’s death…
* a teen-aged/elderly/mentally challenged skate boarder/retired cracker salter quality assurance manager/grocery bagger stumbled upon the body of a former teacher/complete stranger/notorious serial flasher in the hall closet/supermarket parking lot/Grand Canyon gift shop restroom…
Also, if can be used to denote the hope of things to come and the rationalization of things that fail in the here and now ( “If ___, then ___” ). It is a word of both promise and regret ( “If only…” ). A mere two letters, a thousand possibilities. I like that.
May you have a favorite vowel, or consonant and know why it’s your favorite; May you learn how to change your mind; May you never have to beseech the gods of clogged toilets;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1]My Take: ‘I’m spiritual but not religious’ is a cop-out,Sharper Iron (a self-described fundamental Christian forum) 10-1-12.
[2] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.
[4] Uh, that is, they begin with the letter “i,” not “it.”
[5] Yep, I’ve lied or mislead on many occasions. “How do I get my ideas? Well, there’s this guy in a trench coat who hangs around NE Burnside, and if you slip him a twenty he’ll flash you a plot and character outline….”
[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] Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer (“The Art of War“) who lived during the Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC) (Wikipedia entry.)
Moiself changed that from, “As I age,” when I remembered that As We Age was the name of a mail order catalog with which the-gods-I-don’t-believe-in pranked me, by sending said catalog to me a on a quarterly basis. The catalog’s pages were filled with pictures of women (in their late twenties-early thirties pretending to be in their fifties and sixties) alternatively modeling sensible beach coverups, loud floral-patterned loungewear and the like.
Moiself was mildly intrigued by receiving this publication, and flipped through the first issue I received. Doing so provided me with several minutes of petty satisfactions, as in, getting all snarky re the catalog’s, Oh crap you’re getting older, “be your best“ products, all counting on proving their worthiness for purchase by magnifying the cultural current/subtext of Celebrate Yourself ® Because You’re Going Downhill And You’ll Slide Even Further Unless You Use This Rejuvenation Cream/Powder/Supplement/Slimming regimen/Thigh Tightener….
Then, in the very middle of the catalog, I stumbled upon two pages of…well, dildos. Some of them were described euphemistically as “massage wands” while the other Bobs [1] and selfie sticks were more wink-wink-nudge-nudge about it.
Yet again, I digress (which, BTW, happens as we age to everyone).
As I live my life, as I observe myself and my fellow members of my species – what (IMO) “works” and what doesn’t; what I admire and what I frown upon; what I think is helpful, both personally and society, and what I think is no fucking way are you serious? – I have developed an OSITY file.
Clarification: The OSITY file isn’t a material folder of any kind. Rather, it is a mental accounting of the characteristics I find essential to Being A Good Person® – characteristics I hope to maintain and hone…most of which I think can be broadly classified into two categories: curiosity, and generosity.
Yep; I think that covers just about everything.
* * *
Department Of I Don’t Mind…
That when I’m looking for something on youtube, somehow – most likely because The Internet ® knows that I have the heart and soul of a 11-year-old – my search window defaults to this:
* * *
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. [2]
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” ( François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name, Voltaire [4] )
“If something does not look odd, it is less likely to be investigated.
That is precisely why ‘normalcy’ serves as such a protective covering for so many patriarchal institutions.” ( Cynthia Enloe, American author, political theorist, and professor, quote from her book,
Seriously!: Investigating Crashes and Crises as If Women Mattered )
* * *
May you cultivate your own osityfile; May you maintain (or at least appreciate) the heart and soul of an eleven year old; May you judge people by their questions and not (necessarily) their answers; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] 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.
[3] “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
[4] Voltaire was “… a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially of the Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.” (Wikipedia entry)
I do support The Oregonian, [1] but since we subscribe online only now, I rarely see any of it stories. That’s because, although I have not surveyed the websites of every newspaper in the country, I will nonetheless and confidently assert that The Oregonian has the Worst. Website. Ever.
Listen up, The Oregonian media poobah or whomever is in charge of such things: your Oregon Live website sucks. And it’s not merely because seemingly 50% of the “news” coverage is devoted to local sports national sports international sports interplanetary sports (although that does frost my butt). [2]
It’s because moiself can only see three or four (or sometimes even only two) story headline links before I am assaulted by headline after headline of advertisements for prescription meds, OTC anti-aging products, or other Things You MUST Buy Now ® to treat a plethora of conditions (real and/or manufactured/imaginary) related to aging. These ad teasers are accompanied by extreme, exaggerated, AI-generated [3] pictures of older people – not the Senior Super Models walking hand in hand along the seashore while a robust male voice talks about erectile dysfunction. These oldsters are scared, confused, cranky, incredibly (almost comically) wrinkled, and yikes, do they look unhappy.
We’re so miserable – if only there were products to help us oldsters separate our foreheads when our wrinkles get tangled up at night….
All together now: Times-are-the-worst-ever-for-newspapers-they-need-whatever-revenue-streams-they-can-get…. Yeah yeah yeah.
But, is this what they think I am? Is this what they think I, their reader, wants, and/or what concerns me? This culture is laden with negative images of aging – and therefore negative images of life, for what else is aging? These ads try to frighten/horrify/embarrass you into purchasing anti-aging products. With every monthly subscription charge I feel as if I’m paying to be insulted. I keep threatening to cancel our Oregonian subscription; when I do so, MH reminds moiself (a writer, of all people who shouldn’t need such a reminder…yeah yeah yeah) of the importance of supporting local/independent journalism. But I don’t see how “independence” fits with being dependent upon scare tactic ad revenues. And when I click on a story, thinking I am clicking *through* to a story (as in, past the ads), I get maybe three short paragraphs of the story before I have to scroll past more – sometimes six or more – ads to see if the story does in fact continue.
Just a sampling of the lovely images and copy assaulting my eyeballs:
* ALZHEIMER’S BEGINS WHEN YOU CAN’T SAY THIS WORD…
* THIS DRUGSTORE ITEM IS ALL YOU NEED TO TIGHTEN WRINKLES…
* 63-YEAR-OLD SWAPPED A $18,000 FACELIFT FOR THIS DRUGSTORE FIND…
* CARDIOLOGISTS SAY THIS ONE HABIT IS WHY SENIORS KEEP….
* CHICAGO DOCTOR WARNS: STOP USING YOUR NON-STICK PAN IF IT….
* RETIRED MAN GOT 88 SCAM CALLS…
* MEMORY LOSS HAD BEEN TIED TO THIS COMMON BREAKFAST ITEM…
“I’m so old and forgetful I can’t even remember what breakfast is.”
* * *
Department Of While We’re On The Subject
Dateline: Wednesday afternoon; in the checkout line at my favorite local grocery store. [4] As I unload my cart items I peruse the magazines in the racks to the left of the checkout belt. The cover of the current issue of Harper’s Magazine gets my attention. Translation: it makes me stifle a shriek, pick up the issue and wave it to the checker and the one person ahead of my in line. Moiself sputters indignantly as I point to the photo of an older man, which comprises almost the entire magazine cover: “I want to show you something that really gets me – not your fault, of course” (I nod at the cashier, with whom I am on a first name basis), “but, look at this?!?!
The checker and customer wrinkle their respective noses. Harpers Mag, y’all gave three technically-senior-but-definitely-not-ruling-class women some moments of umbrage and laughter…and you have also inspired me to give you an award I haven’t bestowed in some time: The Golden Turd Trophy ®.
Moiself: “The cover story headline is, ‘How Seniors Became America’s Ruling Class.’ Did they tell the model what he was posing for? Is this even a real person, a model, or is the image AI generated or ‘enhanced’ to make him look as old and wrinkled and cranky as possible?Seniors are soon to be the largest demographic –what is Harper’s thinking? ‘Let’s show them the worst stereotype ever – that’ll get ’em to buy a copy!’ And what’s he supposed to be so angry about ( ‘Dagnabbit, everyone is younger and has smoother skin than I do!’). If he’s truly part of the ‘ruling class,” what’s he so upset about… This cover photo should be illustrating an article about the negative images of aging in our society….”
The checker and the other customer are both women who, like moiself, qualify for the store’s Senior discount day. [5] They each express their respective surprise and disgust re the magazine’s cover photo, and the three of us trade stories about how everyone tries to sell us “anti-aging” products. Then the other customer, a beautiful woman with black-and-silver streaked, straight, shoulder-length hair and perfect posture (I’m thinking, *she* should be on a magazine cover), laughs and says, in a melodious, lightly-accented (Italian?) voice, “It gets worse.”
Signora continues: “I’m telling you this so you won’t be surprised. Deodorant.”
Checker, and Moiself: “Deodorant?”
Signora: “Deodorant, for seniors.”
Moiself: “Seriously?”
Signora, nodding gravely: “I saw it. Last week.”
Checker: “What could possibly….
Moiself: “Oh, so you don’t smell…old?!”
“You’d be cranky too if some young whippersnapper stole your senior deodorant and now you smell geezer-ripe.”
* * *
Department Of Please, Someone Else Write This Story
After recently listening to a Curiosity Weekly podcast on the gut biome, which focused on the fecal transplants that are used now in curing C. Diff. and are being explored for other uses diseases across the board ( Why are people getting poop transplants? ) a story premise dropped anchor (sorry) in a little recess of my mind.
Story premise:
A new disease, merdemortel ( aka M&M ), is threatening to wipe out humanity. M&M spreads easily and rapidly, infects *everyone* who comes within casual contact of victims, but produces no symptoms after infection for its 7-10 days of incubation, during which time the disease carriers infect everyone they come in contact with. M&M kills 87% of its hosts within two weeks of the onset of symptoms, and it does not respond to any of the conventional ( or “alternative”) drugs or treatments.
Scientists have discovered 17 people worldwide who have not contracted M&M after having verifiably been exposed to it. These 17 people have a very specific gut biome which not only makes them immune to M&M but also cures those infected if this gut biome is transplanted to M&M victims. While scientist rush to synthesize a form of this super gut biome, these 17 people are forced into being super poopers: they are secreted away to an underground, sterile holding area, fed a high fiber diet [6] where their feces are collected, processed into capsules ( aka, crapsules) and used to treat humanity….
Calling all would-be novelists and screenwriters: this premise is yours for the taking. [7]
Everyone’s a critic.
* * *
Department Of Asking The Same Question, But For Different Reasons Sub Department Of Still Asking The Same Questions(s), Six Years Later ( this rant originally ran 4-1-20 )
“What is wrong with people?”
The photo, which you can see here if you are so perversely inclined, was of the decapitated head of an enormous bull elk. The head rested atop a bloodied blanket in the bed of a pickup truck. The post asked for help in returning this pathetic souvenir of macho death lust trophy to the hunter who’d killed the elk:
“These antlers were stolen from a man in his 70’s who has never killed a bull this big with a bow. It was taken from his property….”
These antlers.
No mention of the rest of the animal; no mention of the head to which those antlers were attached – the head which showed the elk’s tongue protruding from its mouth, a mute testimony to the elk’s agonizing death throes; [9] no mention of concern for the remaining 600 lbs of the animal. A magnificent creature was slaughtered, not for sustenance or in self-defense, but so that some old dude could hang a part of that creature’s body on his wall as a testimony to the fact that he’d previously “never killed a bull this big.”
What is wrong with people?
As posed by the FB poster(s), the question speculates as to what kind of person would steal an elderly hunter’s booty. As posed by moiself, the question wonders what kind of person of any age enjoys killing any creature for “sport.”
If you consider trophy hunting to be a legitimate sport, I obviously disagree with your assessment, although I respect our difference of opinion on this matter.
And by I respect our difference of opinion on this matter I sincerely mean, Go fuck yourself.
“My hunter buddy tells me, ‘Don’t worry, when I hunt I use every part of the animal.’ You know who also uses every part of the animal? THE ANIMAL.” –Deepak Sethi, writer/comedian
* * *
May you be free from any affliction which is cured by ingesting crapsules; May you (still) support your local independent newspapers; May you never hear from me that I respect our difference of opinion on this matter; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[5] Which, in another nod to aging hassles, the store changed to, “wisdom discount day,” as per complaints of a few customers who didn’t like being asked about their age and/or assuming they qualified to be…gasp…seniors).
[6] Specifically formulated to increase their gut biome production without altering its microbial composition.
[7] But have some self-respect and give attribution, please.
[8] Rather than wimpy, anti-hunting target shooters like moiself.
[9] Death by arrow is not instantaneous, not matter how expert the marksman.
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Because moiself be doing a rerun. Similar to the monthly Blast From The Past® feature, [1] this is a blog segment I ran across while looking for something else. Specifically, one from ten years ago last month, found while I was lamenting this year’s lack of April Fool’s Day pranks:
Department Of Fun With Student Drivers
Dateline: Tuesday, early a.m., out for my morning walk, waiting to cross a street. As I watched the cross traffic’s stoplight and saw the green-changing-to-yellow light – the pedestrian’s rewarding indicator that it will soon be your turn to cross the street – I noticed a white sedan slowing down much more deliberately than is usual yet still not managing to come to a complete stop until the car’s front bumper was just a tad into the crosswalk.
My light changed to green, I began to cross the street, and saw the telltale red and yellow logo for a local driving academy on the car’s driver’s door. A student driver?
Excellent.
I looked inside the car: the student in the driver’s seat sat ramrod straight, an expression of nervous anticipation drenching her face. Her white-knuckled hands gripped the steering wheel and her gaze was fixed ahead. Her instructor was looking down at a clipboard he held; neither of them seemed aware of my approaching presence.
My instinctive reaction was to throw myself onto the hood of the car and scare the living pee-pee out of both of them.
How I managed to restrain myself, I’ll never know.
But, I did. Okay?
Had I gone through with my whimsical notion, ‘twould have made a good – dare I say, even legendary? – April Fool’s Day prank.
You gotta love a day that is devoted to honoring and encouraging practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks both well- and feebly-played.
The origins of April Fools Day’s are not completely agreed upon by historians, and have been variously attributed. What is agreed upon is that many cultures, going back to the ancient Romans and Egyptians, have set aside days for celebrating jokes and pranksters. Perhaps, as some people have speculated, there’s just something about the day’s timing – the fading of winter and the blooming of spring, which lends itself to the observance of light-hearted frivolity.
I can recall only a few of the pranks I’ve played on friends, family and co-workers over the years. The memories are silly but fond, and include:
* Sneaking a package of Hydrox cookies [2] from the family snack drawer and replacing all the cream fillings in the second row of cookies with toothpaste.
* Showing two positive pregnancy test dipsticks to a newbie Planned Parenthood co-worker and telling her I was pregnant with twins.
* Adding just a couple of drops of blue food coloring to the carton of nonfat milk in my parent’s refrigerator.
* Calling my father at his office and convincing him (if only temporarily) that someone had bought a raffle ticket in his name for the local animal shelter’s fundraising event, he’d won the raffle, and could he please let the shelter know when he was coming to claim his prize: an English Mastiff and a week’s supply – a 100 lb. bag of kibble – of the dog’s food. [3]
“I don’t get it. Why would that be funny?”
* Swapping my and my siblings’ framed high school graduation pictures, which hung in my parent’s hallway, with pictures of the members of Led Zeppelin.
* Replacing the hard-boiled egg in my sister’s school lunch bag with a raw egg.
* Cutting my finger, smearing my blood on the scissors in co-worker Roger’s cubicle, leaving a note on my computer saying I had been threatened by Roger and feared for my life, then faking my own death and leaving town.
Oops, that’s right – I never got around to implementing the last one.
As pleasurable as it is to pull off an epic prank, it can be equally fun, IMHO, to have a great prank played on your own self. I hope y’all have a Happy April Fools’ Day…and I hope that I do not regret having made that previous declaration. ( excerpts; 4-1-2016;The Instinct I’m Not Obeying)
* * *
* * *
Department Of Seeing Yourself Through Other Eyes…Or, Not?
Dateline: Monday morning; scrolling through the previous night’s Nehalem BBQ posts. The BBQ is an online bulletin board of sorts. As per its mission statement:
The BBQ is a free public service provided to the citizens of the Oregon North Coast. It is dedicated to the promotion of community building by establishing a website forum whereon citizens may announce important matters and events, offer goods and services, express needs and provide information of general interest. [4]
Moiself clicks on the post that catches my eye – the one titled, North Coast Pinball Updates May 2026. North Coast Pinball is arguably my favorite beach business. I always spend a couple of hours there at least once a week. [5] I adore the owner’s community spirit, his generous, welcoming personality, his freethinking/humanist, feminist politics…and has NCP really been open for five years? Here is how the post begins:
“Fun fact: we’ve been doing this thing for five years now. Sold 562 used pinballs and 1272 stickers. Rebuilt more flippers than I quite know how to count. Gave away *so* many mystery tokens. Maybe you’ve seen our chess set in the corner; guess how many pieces have gone missing in five years?
None! Well, there was that knight who wandered off one day but it came back before I noticed it was gone. [6] Y’all are the best. Thanks for making NCP NCP.
Oh! Also in those five years I wrote a book about the place, which should be out later this month. You can learn more about that at www.mysterytoken.pub.”
I assume the post was written by NCP’s owner, with whom I am on a friendly/first name basis (moiself also assumes (1) he is writing the book; (2) trhe book will be self-published).
Wondering how/if he will write about those of us who might be considered regulars of NCP, I follow that link, which leads to this teaser/excerpt: (my emphases):
Can You Feel It?
stories from North Coast Pinball
“…another day, you may write in your journal that three people, who did not know each other a month ago, who live in three different towns, and who met each other playing pinball in your place, are now out on a hike together. Your journal will reflect a feeling that the purpose of your life has been fulfilled.”
“…five years later you’ll write a weird little book. A book that’s not so much about pinball as it is about how it feels at North Coast Pinball in Nehalem, Oregon….
“A book about what it’s like for the five-year-old peering through the window as you prepare to open. What it’s like for your ten-year-old regular, back once again to improve on his high score. What it’s like for the sullen teenager, dragged against their will on an obligatory family trip….
What it’s like for the sixty-something beach bum who comes in weekly for $20 in tokens, plays each game exactly once, and leaves her leftovers in the community donation jar….
“Holy crap, that’s me,” I blurt out, first to moiself, then to MH. I read the underlined section of the post to him, then wonder how the book’s author can accurately write a *nonfiction* book about “what it’s like” for the five-year-old, or the sullen teenager, or the beach bum, without interviewing said characters. [7]
My reaction surprises moiself. That (underlined) pretty much describes what I do when I’m there. I am sixty-something; I do frequent NCP weekly (when in town); I do get $20 in tokens; I do play the games once…but sometimes twice (and not all of them – I avoid the easy ones/the one-token-per-game ones…and when I win a free game I don’t play it again – I like to leave the free game available for a kid to discover); I do make sure to not use up all my tokens so that I may leave the leftoversin the community donation jar.
“But,” I confess to MH, “I don’t know how I feel about being described as a ‘beach bum.’ ” ( Although I realize that my ubiquitous attire – yoga pants and t- shirts and OR rain/sun hat – are casual to the max and could tilt perceptions of moiself toward the latter category.)
MH points out to me that the description could fit many people at the coast. [8] Nice try, honey. I’m not a vain person (what would be the point?). [9] Still…. Beach bum is one of those phrases that could mean colorful character to some people, or one-step-above-a-grungy/homeless person-and/or-those-men-in-their-eighties-with-their-pants-hiked-up-to-their-nipples-who-patrol-the-beach-with-metal-detectors to other folks. [10]
Beach bum. Okay; it’s two words. Until I have evidence otherwise I’ll take the description to be one that is meant with fondness. And although I’ll maintain my smugness re self-published books, I will buy a copy when it comes out.
My high score in one of my fave pinball machines, which I rented from NCP and got to have in our home (terrorizing/entertaining the neighbors) for three months a couple of years ago.
May you have unending patience with apprentice drivers; May you be entertained by how you might be described by others; May your you enjoy religion-free casseroles; and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Wherein yours truly posts a segment from a blog of the second Friday of years ago….which I just did last week. Lazy ass writer that I am.
[2] Anyone else remember the precursor (and competitor) to Oreos?
[3] My sisters making muffled barking sounds to approximate background animal shelter noise was a great help in pulling off this prank.
[4] To post on this BBQ you must be a subscriber or non-subscriber who operates a business on, lives on or has a second home on the Oregon North Coast.
[5] …when I’m at the coast. That time has been rare since my November foot surgery and now since MH and I cannot easily get to Manzanita unless we can arrange the complicated care for our elderly, kidney-disease stricken cat…
[6] Okay…there is some missing info here. How did you know it was gone, if you didn’t notice it was gone, and then it was back and so it wasn’t gone?
[8] Perhaps…but how many of them play pinball at the NCP place and in the manner described?
[9] (that would be an exercise in futility – in vain?)
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Seriously, Chef? Sub-Department of Something Light (The Calm Before The Storm)
Dateline: late last week; perusing my latest copy of VegNews: The Best of Vegan issue. Moiself is happy to note the good travel news about Iceland, which the magazine selected for their category of Best Countries To Travel To for being the country with the highest percentage of restaurants that include vegan options on their menus. [1] Then I come upon the Best Restaurant awards, which has many, many categories. I’m looking for the local winners – Portland is renowned for its many plant-eater-friendly restaurants and cafes – and in the Best Mexican restaurant category I find…this listing.
Would you like a side of identity politics with your salsa?
This is too special, even for Portland.
* * *
Department Of And Now, The Storm Department Of This Is How Easily It Can Happen Department Of What Do You Call Something That Almost Happened,
That Makes You Realize How Easily It Could Have Happened? Department Of Not All Men But Yeah…A Lot Of Men Department Of Not All Men, But Even Men Who Are “Nice Guys®” Department Of How Many Departments Will One Blog Department Get?
I’m not 100% sure what sparked my recollection of the story moiself will share here, but it’s likely related to certain news story that has been much in the headlines. I had been trying to do the seemingly impossible: avoid the news about CNN’s investigation of a “Rape Academy“ – a global network of online forums and chat groups where men advise, encourage and even teach other men how to drug, sexually assault and then film women and girls, including their own wives and girlfriends.
How I wish I were making this up. How I wish that the news of the existence of this global network of How To Become A Sexual Predator shocked moiself.
I snorted the third time I scrolled past a reference to the “Rape Academy” I saw on several friends’ FB posts, then heard a voice – which turned out to be my own – thinking loudly and derisively,
“Like this is anything new – no need for an ‘academy’
or any type of school, what with
the tried-and-true methods guys have been using for years….”
Then came another thought: thetried-and-truemethods…does that include what was tried on me which, fortunately, was not ultimately true? I will never know for sure. But I will also never forget. [2]
Dateline: last Saturday night. MH and I are getting dinner at a small café/bar in Manzanita. We’re enjoying a comfortable, slightly breezy night on the café’s outside porch, playing card games with the mini card deck I always carry in my purse, and talking about various subjects (to distract from the fact that the cards seemingly favor MH, and he is winning EVERY HAND).
The subject of dates comes up, and I share a story about four amusing dates I had, way back before I met MH, with a Stanford MBA student. Our fourth date was my first (and so far, only) time at a professional ice hockey game. It turned out to be our last date because of something that struck a sour note for me. Nothing “bad” happened, but I was irritated that Mr. MBA seemed at first mystified, then annoyed, at my asking him about the rules of the game. Ice hockey was a sport with which I was unfamiliar, and I wanted to watch it more perceptively: those different colored lines on the ice must mean something, and the ref keeps blowing his whistle for reasons I can’t discern; I played field hockey in high school, and perhaps there are some analogous rules….? His reply to all of my questions was some variant of, Nobody knows the rules of ice hockey, and nobody cares.
After he’d said that for the fourth time, I got the translation: Mr. MBA, you mean, *you* don’t know and/or don’t care about the rules. And that’s not a good look, blaming it on nobody. By date #4 I’d already figured out that we were a mismatch, what with him majoring in “MONEY” (his word and emphasis, not mine). Looking back, I felt fortunate, I told MH, in not having had many bad dates. “But there *was* one….”
It came to mind; I took a couple of yoga breaths and told MH about it.
In the mid-1980s I had a job at Vendtech, [3] a company whose core workforce was people around my age (early through late twenties), most of whom also socialized after work. One early night I was visiting friend and Vendtech coworker Ann, [4] whose apartment was directly across the street from a condo I rented with my friend Marie. [5] Ann and I were shooting the shit about whatever, when her phone rang. It was Ray, [6] a fellow Vendtecher. Ray had tickets to a concert at a local club and was calling to invite Ann to go with him. She amiably declined, briefly chatting with him before hanging up. When she told me why Ray had called we both laughed and I said, “Well then, I better hurry back home to answer the phone.”
Ray had a (well-known, among Vendtechers) crush on Ann. Ann, like most of our female Vendtech coworkers, considered Ray a Nice Guy®, and a friend. She had socialized with him in the small work group gatherings, and also one-on-one (e.g. a couple of movie dates), but had no romantic interest in him. I also got along with Ray, [7] and had been to the movies with him and to a couple of other outings which, when Ann and I had shared What-did-you-do-this-weekend?stories, always coincided with him having first asked Ann to see that particular movie, or whatever.
It never bothered me to be his second (or third, or…who knows?) choice. Ray was not a romantic choice of mine, nor I of him, I’d assumed, due to his frequently confiding in me re his interest in Ann (and also in another woman at Vendtech). Ray and I got along well, had overlapping taste in movies and music. Other than his always insisting on paying no matter what the outing (which I appreciated, as his salary was *way* higher than I mine), Ray was easy to be around.
Sure enough, it wasn’t five seconds after I entered my condo when the phone rang. It was Ray, asking if I’d like to go to the concert, which was this coming Friday night. The show started early (8 pm, early for a rock concert) and probably wouldn’t run that late, what with only one band on the bill. Sure, I said.
The concert venue was in a large hall set up to resemble nightclub, where the attendees were seated at small tables. The club had waiter/table service, and there was a snack bar at the back of the club.
Contextual info: I wasn’t much of a drinker. More than one Vendtecher had “accused” me (really; it was said in an accusatory tone of voice) of being a “teetotaler,” which I found bemusing and baffling. Apparently, this was because at work-related parties or events where alcohol beverages were offered, [8] over the course of the events (which often lasted four or more hours) I would have one or at most two drinks, while my hard-partying comrades downed five or six (or more).
Meanwhile, back at the club: as soon as we were seated a waiter came to our table. Ray ordered some chips for us and a pint of beer for himself, and asked me what’d I’d like to drink. I’d been to the club and knew that their vino selection was limited to three corky-tasting house wines, in shades of white, red, or pink. I didn’t drink beer and had limited experience with the so-called hard spirits. Gin and tonic was my go-to order, but I thought I’d try something different. I really liked the taste of tonic water with lime…hmm, what else to try? I ordered a vodka tonic.
The concert began; the band was good (and loud); the server returned to our table. Ray asked for a glass of water and another beer, but a half instead of a full pint. I declined Ray’s offer of another vodka tonic, and told our server that I’d like a glass of tonic water with lime only – no vodka – and a glass of water…I remember seeing Ray out of the corner of my eye making some kind of gesture to our server after I had ordered. This sequence repeated itself several times (however, I never got my glass of plain water, even though Ray got his), with Ray drinking smaller and smaller amounts of beer and me specifying plain tonic water and lime.
As the concert got to the obligatory, band-pretends-to-play-their-last-number-but-is-really-just-waiting-offstage-for-the-audience-to-call-them-back-for-an-encore, it hit me. Borrowing poetic license from Miley Cyrus, it came in like a wrecking ball. All-of-the-proverbial-sudden, I was blurry. The room was swirling; I told Ray I didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. He stood up, said he needed to use the bathroom, and that I should stay put and he’d be right back and take me right home.
I didn’t understand. How could I be…intoxicated, was it?…via one cocktail that I’d had almost two and a half hours ago? I looked at what was left of my fourth (or fifth…or sixth?) glass of tonic water, which was mostly ice cubes at that point. I sniffed it just as our server arrived, and I asked her ( I remember trying to *not* sound like an idiot, and forming my words carefully, as I felt my tongue was too big for my mouth ) What was this drink? Was there something else in my tonic water and lime? It was so loud in the hall — had she misunderstood me, or had she gotten my order mixed up with someone else’s?
She gave me an odd look, and told me that at our first drink refill, my “friend” had told her that I’d changed my mind, and wanted the full vodka tonic(s). Which is what she’d been bringing out to me.
I was too fuzzy to be angry…I was mostly confused. Huh? Why would he do that – why would he “override” my order?
I don’t remember walking to Ray’s car, or the drive to my place. I remember him helping me up the stairs of the condo I shared with Marie, who was not home yet (Marie managed a retail store, and worked a late closing shift on Fridays). He helped me to my bed, where I collapsed, face up…and then, he was kissing me.
I remember laughing at him – what was he doing? It’s not like we were… “What are you doing?” I giggled aloud. He pulled back and looked down at me; I remember my upper lip and chin feeling ragged, almost burned, as though instead of kissing me he had dragged a rasp over my skin (the Miami Vice stubble was a popular look for guys at that time, and Ray had a two-three days’ worth of beard growth.) “No,” he said softly, and stood up. He said he’d let himself out, and left my bedroom. I fell asleep (blacked out?), and didn’t hear the sound of the front door closing.
The next morning I awoke, fully clothed, shoes still on. Marie said she’d noticed that I’d forgotten to lock the front door when I’d come home. I said I didn’t remember that, and apologized. Ann came over later in the day, and asked me about the concert. I told her what I remembered of it; I was still confused about the mysterious (to me) drink situation. She wrinkled her nose and exclaimed, “That’s like…attempted rape!”
Ray and I never spoke with one another about what had happened. I ended up working for Vendtech for a few more months, [9] and continued to attend group activities with other Vendtech employees, which sometimes included Ray, but never went to another movie or one-on-one activity with him.
* * *
As I finished telling MH the story, it dawned upon me that I’d never really reckoned with what almost/could have happened: That someone I considered a friend – someone whom everyone knew as a good guy – had, essentially, poisoned me. This man didn’t (as far as I know) slip a mickey into my drink, but he might as well have. And this is how many women are raped.
MH listened quietly and thoughtfully to my story, and said, “I’m glad it didn’t happen,” when I was finished telling it. “Me, too,” I replied, and wondered why I hadn’t told him the story before. It had just faded into background history
I’d almost told K and Belle about it years ago, when they started going out with friends. MH and I had talked with both of our offspring about the existence of Rohypnol® and other so-called “date rape” drugs, and cautioned them to never accept a beverage at a party or any venue, from someone else, unless it was an unopened can of, say, soda, or unless you could be sure of what was in (or not in) the drink. I thought perhaps I should personalize that advice for Belle, about how this is not theoretical and it is not something that just happens “to *other* people…” But I didn’t.
I don’t know what stopped me. I don’t like thinking of moiself as a victim, of anything, in any situation – was that it? Was I protecting my daughter and my son, or me, or MH, from having the opportunity to have even a fleeting thought that I’d been naïve, or stupid, or….? I didn’t blame moiself, then or now, and it isn’t something that haunts my existence. [10] And again, it happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away…which, unfortunately, when it comes to male predatory sexual behavior, resembles a lower tech version of the galaxy we’re still living in today.
I don’t know about y’all, but I’d like some sloth peekaboo therapy right now.
( Katha Pollitt is an American author, activist, poetic, social critic )
* * *
May you never get a free meal due to your ethnicity or gender expression; May you never have someone override your food or drink order; May you use your bare hands to rip the spleen out of anyone you see who
poisons the food or beverage of his “friend,” or anyone else; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Which bodes well for our upcoming trip there, this summer, to watch the eclipse…and eat good food (including non-vegan Icelandic cod).
[2] And by, I will never forget, I do not mean that I constantly remember what happened. I have lived my life for years, decades even, without thinking about it. I am not scarred; just aware.
[10] Or didn’t, until I had reason to think of it and told MH… then I realized I was going to have to write about it, because that is how I process things.
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Reasons For That Take A Deep Breath Truism
“The way we breathe has a direct and immediate impact on the state of our mind, emotions, and nervous system. When we’re agitated or anxious, our breath is often quick and shallow. When we’re calm, and grounded, it tends to be long and deep. So, it’s helpful to remember that we can deliberately alter our breath when we want to soften stress or anxiety.…
we can always call on this tool, lengthening our inhales and exhales, in order to regulate our stress response, and gain a sense of calm.” ( Calmmeditation, app, “Breath in Three Acts,” 4-6-26 )
* * *
Department Of Powerful People Have The Privilege Of Ignorance Sub-Department Of Reasons To Use The Calming Breath Tools
“It is an old truism that knowledge is power. The inverse — that power is often ignorance — is rarely discussed.
The powerful swathe themselves in obliviousness in order to avoid the pain of others and their own relationship to that pain. There’s a large category of acts hidden from people with standing: the more you are, the less you know….” ( excerpt, Rebecca Solnit, “Nobody Knows,” Harpers Magazine )
A few days ago, when moiself ran across Rebecca Solnit‘s above cited article, I was reminded of SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor’s recent and right-on critique of her colleagues’ obliviousness to the realities in daily lives of non-one-percenters such as themselves.
( excerpts, my emphases/additions, “Supreme Court’s Sotomayor slams colleague Kavanaugh for ICE ruling,” USAToday, 4-9-26 ):
Sotomayor spoke about the court’s divided decision in September 2025 that allowed the Trump administration to resume indiscriminate immigration-related stops….
Over the objections of the court’s three liberal justices, including Sotomayor’s, the court blocked a lower court ruling that said federal agents need to have reasonable suspicion that the person they’re questioning is in the country illegally…. [1]
‘I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,’ Sotomayor said, referencing Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion…. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.’
Sotomayor added, ‘Those hours that they took you away, nobody’s paying that person,’ she said of those detained. ‘And that makes a difference between a meal for him and his kids that night and maybe just cold supper.’ ….
In his opinion for the court, Kavanaugh liedblew smoke out of his prep school Ivy League ass made up crap about something he knows nothing about said that legal residents’ encounters with immigration agents are ‘typically brief,’ and impacted individuals ‘promptly go free.’
* * *
Department Of New Great Term From A Book I Might Read
*Might read,* as in, Get in line with the 158 books ahead of you on my list. But, as is often the case with my reading list, the lastest, newest/shiny entry kicks the others to the rear. Sigh. There’s no fighting evolution.
Oh yes the term: safetyism. Before I even read the definition I suspected what it was;…moiself knew it was a name for something I’d previously had no name for – a phenomenon that both alarmed and infuriated me when I saw it creeping into my children’s college experiences. [2]
The Coddling of the … reviewer admitted being skeptical about a book whose title could have heralded a tirade from middle-aged professors about how “today’s students are too soft and whiny.” Instead, the reviewer noted, the book’s authors point out the disturbing data of what is happening on college campuses: the rise of trigger warnings, safe spaces, disinvited speakers, student protests shutting down debate – linked with the dramatic and documented rise in anxiety and depression among young people. The book does not blame young people for these particular problems; rather, it lays responsibility on the bad ideas that youth are being taught by well-meaning adults.
“…despite their theoretical benefits, protected educational experiences [safe spaces] often fail to instill the most important attributes of a liberal education: critical thinking, persuasive argumentation, close reading, and cultural understanding. Indeed, students’ desire for safe spaces can limit their ability to traverse the real world—where strong disagreements and challenging experiences are part of life…. I know my campus is not a protective bubble that can shield students from reality. Rather, it’s a microcosm of the real world—and I’m not doing my job as an educator if I perpetuate the illusion of safety at the expense of challenging students’ ideas and beliefs.
As a Black man who teaches Shakespeare at a predominantly white institution, I realized years ago that the classroom can never be a safe space. When I teach Othello, a tragedy replete with anti-Black racism and misogyny, am I safe from silent criticisms that I’m an assimilated Black person with a ‘white voice’ teaching a white author? If there is only one Black female student in the class, is she safe? Rather than asking a non-Black colleague to teach the play for me, I lean into discomfort and use it to my pedagogical advantage. I carefully address whatever arises from the class’s collective exposure to the text and its racist moments, because that is my job as a professor.
In my classroom, I eschew safe space rhetoric—such as the truism that all opinions are equally valid—in favor of a pedagogical practice I call ‘productive discomfort.’ This practice leans into difficult discourses on a variety of contentious topics and fearlessly engages students’ personal backgrounds, identities, and experiences. It uses the learning process to expand the boundaries of students’ comfort zones by challenging their existing assumptions and biases.”
“Education should disrupt the status quo and promote critical thinking.”
Yet again, I digress.
What follows are excerpts from the The Coddling of the American Mind review, with my emphases. I have not yet read the book; thus, my emphases of the reviewer’s statements mark *my* concerns – ones I’ve amassed over the past decade, from my offsprings’ experiences as well as from my own readings and observations. One example: although content/trigger warnings and attempts to establish colleges as safe spaceswhere students are promised refuge from being “offended” may feel like a kindness in the moment, IMO these policies impinge on free speech, suppress open discussion of complex issues, throttle academic and intellectual diversity, and ultimately (and perhaps most importantly) hinder young people in building resilience.
“Lukianoff and Haidt [the books’ two authors] are not conservatives….both lean left politically. That matters, because this book is not a right-wing attack on campus culture. It’s a liberal critique of things that have gone wrong inside liberal spaces….
The central argument is simple: three bad ideas have spread through American universities (and increasingly through K-12 schools, workplaces, and families). These ideas sound good on the surface. But they are toxic. They make students more anxious, more depressed, and less prepared for adult life.
The three bad ideas are:
‘What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.’ This is the opposite of the old saying. It teaches that discomfort, emotional pain, and offense are dangerous. So, we must protect people from them. The problem is that avoidance makes anxiety worse, not better. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), one of the most evidence-based treatments for anxiety, teaches the exact opposite: you have to face your fears to overcome them.
‘Always trust your feelings.’ This sounds empowering. But your feelings are not always reliable guides to reality. Anxiety tells you there’s a threat when there isn’t. Anger can be based on a misinterpretation. If you always trust your feelings without questioning them, you become a prisoner of your own emotional reactions.
‘Life is a battle between good people and evil people.’ This is the us-versus-them mindset. It divides the world into oppressors and victims. It leaves no room for nuance, context, or good-faith disagreement. And it makes every conflict into a moral crusade where compromise is betrayal….
Here are four things the reviewer learned from the book ( again, excerpts from the review, my emphases ):
“1. Safetyismis not the same as safety.
The authors coin the term “safetyism” to describe a culture where emotional safety is treated as more important than intellectual freedom. Actual safety protects you from physical harm. Safetyismprotects you from ideas that might make you uncomfortable. The problem is that you can’t learn in a discomfort-free environment. Learning requires challenge.
2. The rise in anxiety and depression is real and alarming. [5]
3. Antifragility is a real thing.
The book borrows Nassim Taleb’s concept of ‘antifragile’ things [6] that get stronger when they’re stressed (e.g. bones, muscles, immune systems) Minds can be antifragile too. But only if they’re exposed to manageable challenges. Protecting kids from every stressor makes them fragile, not safe.
4. You can be compassionate and still allow discomfort.
One of the book’s most important distinctions. Compassion does not mean removing every obstacle. Sometimes compassion means letting someone struggle, fail, and figure it out.
The book ends with a line that has stuck with me: ‘Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.’
That’s it. That’s the whole argument. We have been so focused on smoothing the road, removing every bump, every uncomfortable idea, every moment of potential distress, that we forgot to prepare the child. And now we have a generation that is more anxious, more depressed, and less resilient than any in recent memory.”
May you remember that discomfort is the point of learning; May you call out mind-coddling when you see it; May you always have room for nuance, context, and good-faith disagreement; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] I don’t know if it went as far back as high school – I don’t recall K or Belle mentioning “safe spaces” or “trigger/content warnings” then – but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was already there.
[3] I copied/wrote down portions, so it must have been online…Facebook? One of my many newspaper online subscriptions? ACVATTWAFNB (All Cat Videos All The Time With A Few News Breaks)?
[5] Most of us have heard about the skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression; the book presents data linking this to social media, the decline of free play, and the rise of safetyism.
[6] Nassim Taleb is a Lebanese-American author, professor, mathematician. His book cited here is Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder,
[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
Department Of But First, Set Aside The Skepticism For: More Proof That Everything Circles Around
Dateline: Tuesday 4:29p, reading a blurb in The Weekmagazine’s “guide to what’s worth watching.” I come upon a blurb that makes me shriek with joy, and search my blog history for the story I know is there. Here, from 10-27-17 ( The Studio I’m Not Touring ), is an excerpt of my relating a Parnell family story to my family
Remember the story I’ve told you, when I was in grade school, and one night at the dinner table my dad was teasing my mom about her name….
For the benefit of those not related to me or who haven’t heard the story, [1] a wee bit o’ background info: my mother’s birth surname was Hole. [2] Yes, Hole. I sometimes teased her, about why her own mother didn’t keep her surname Moran but instead was willing to take on her husband’s…unique…family name: It really must have been love, or desperation….
Yeah, so, the story. At the family dinner table, occupied as per usual by my parents and their four children (on this particular night oh-so-many years ago, my older sister, younger sister and I were all in grade school, and our brother was an infant):
After my father’s customary So, tell me about your day? query, we dove into yet another round of thematic banter. Our family dinner table dialogues tended to focus on one subject, which was never (or rarely) intentional or pre-planned, but rather tangential from something which had happened to one of the Parnell siblings [3] at school. On that evening, I shared a story about a kid who had been teased on the playground about his name: the combination of his first name and last name made for some tease-worthy rhyme schemes. [4]
Marion Parnell said she felt sorry for the poor boy. Growing up with her particular last name, she knew exactly how he felt:
“My father was always telling my sisters and I how, in Norway, Hole was a respectable, upper class, landowners’ name. I lost track of how many times he told us we should be proud of our name. He just couldn’t understand how it was for us, because in America, it was just HOLE. Oh, I heard it all the time, the jokes: ‘Look, here comes Marion Hole, hole-in-the-ground…don’t fall into a hole!’ “
(I had also lost count of how many times I’d heard about Hole-is-a-proud-Norwegian-name assurances, and had come to think that our maternal grandfather had made that up to make our mother feel better. I’d never heard of anyone, of anyethnic background, with that name.)
Still with me? You deserve The Order of the Pretty Purple Toe ® award.
My mother took little comfort from me telling her that her peers had been pretty lame in the joke department: ” ‘Marion Hole-in-the-ground’? I can think of a lot worse things to do with a name like…”
Chester Parnell jumped in, to save me from embarrassing my mother. Or so I thought.
“Well, Robbie Doll, you know what your mom’s middle name is?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “Alberta?”
“That’s right,” Chet nodded enthusiastically. “But you know, she was so beautiful, I never had any second thoughts about marrying an A. Hole.”
This produced shrieks of delight from the three Parnell daughters – first from me (my shriek decibel count was boosted by my pride in being the first one to “get it”), followed a few seconds later by my older sister, and then by my younger sister, who probably didn’t get the reference but knew something hilarious must have been said by the way her older sisters and father were reacting.
Mom had that tense/amused, try-to-be-a-good-sport look on her face. Dad gazed across the table at her with impish affection – I knew something even better was coming up.
Chester B. Parnell: “Tell them about your cousin.”
Marion A. Hole Parnell (baring her teeth): “I don’t want to tell them about my cousin.”
Chet: “Tell them about your cousin. What was his name?”
Marion: (muttering) “His name was Harry.”
Chet: “And it wasn’t a nickname – his real name wasn’t Harold? And he didn’t have a middle name – just a first and last name?”
Marion: “That’s right.”
Mom, of course, knew where this was heading. She tried to act as if she were miffed, but I could see the corners of her mouth beginning to twitch.
Chet: “And so his name was…?”
Marion (deep breath): “Harry Hole.”
Professional stand-up comics would kill to get an audience response akin to that which erupted that evening, in the smallest of venues, the Parnell kitchen dining nook.
* * *
Back to the present; specifically, Tuesday, when moiself comes across the blurb in The Week magazine and shrieks aloud, My mom’s cousin!!
* * *
Department Of Post Easter Reflections
It’s the week after the weekend of the most holy Christian festival that ironically [5] has the most un-Christian name. What we call Easter, as with most Christian holidays, consists in large part of the ancient rites and myths of paganism and other spiritualities which were incorporated into the Christian myths (see this Longest Blog Footnote So Far ® for details, should that float your boat. [6] )
Three years ago, around this time of year, this was included in my blog:
Department Of Uh, Since You’ve Asked, That Would Be, “No”
Last Sunday a FBF (Facebook Friend) began her post thusly:
Happy Easter, everyone! Can I share what it means to me?
FBF went on to – surprise! – offer her testimony for Jesus, without waiting for an answer to her question.
Moiself remembered that post on Monday, when I saw a different post on social media – a post which, if I had a different relationship with that FBF, I would forward to her, and possibly even ask for her reaction/opinion.
For my Christian readers, family and friends – and yessirreeebobsurprise! I do have them – I assume they call themselves Christian because they go to a Christian church and/or believe they have committed to “follow Jesus.”
Having been raised in that background, it has always – and especially around this time of year – been a source of forehead-bonking wonder to moiself that there seems to be little understanding by Christians that their Jesus is never quoted in their scriptures as saying, “Oh, yeah, along with the teachings and good deed admonitions I’m leaving y’all with, here’s the most important thing: please remember to start a new religion, and name it after me.”
Former Christian evangelical divinity student Jim Palmer’s new ministry seems to be to “minister” to former literalists such as himself ( from Palmer’s writings moiself has seen so far, I gather Palmer would still claim to follow [some] words/example of Jesus, but not Christianity). For the sake of relative brevity, moiself will assume that most Christians accept their Biblical scriptures as reliable. [7] It is to those Christians that I’d like to direct to one of Palmer’s writings, which contain some abundant food for thought (an entire life’s rations, I’d say) about how Christianity ≠ Jesus ≠ Christianity:
It still surprises people who haven’t looked closely that Jesus and Christianity are not the same thing. Not even close. Jesus was not a Christian. He didn’t start Christianity. He didn’t write a creed, build an institution, or outline a belief system that would later dominate empires. You can’t blame Christian nationalism on Jesus. You can’t even cleanly blame Christianity on him. What exists today under his name is something that formed after him, around him, and in many ways, in spite of him.
What we call Christianity is largely shaped by the Apostle Paul and later by the political machinery of the early church. Most of the New Testament isn’t Jesus talking, it’s Paul interpreting. Then you have centuries of councils, debates, and power plays where theology gets hammered into place by people trying to stabilize a movement that was never meant to be stabilized. Read the creeds. They are packed with metaphysical claims about Jesus, yet strangely quiet about the actual things he taught. It’s a lot of doctrine, very little Jesus.
Then Constantine shows up and everything shifts. After the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Christianity goes from a grassroots, disruptive movement to a state-sanctioned tool. Legalized, institutionalized, and eventually weaponized. What began as something subversive becomes something that props up empires. By the time you get to Nicaea, Jesus is being defined in ways that would likely leave him scratching his head. The question isn’t just who Jesus was. It’s who needed him to be what they said he was.
Christianity didn’t just elevate Jesus. It insulated people from him. Turning him into God conveniently removes the pressure of actually following him. If he’s divine in a way you can never be, then you don’t have to wrestle with his humanity or your own. You can worship instead of embody. You can believe instead of live. It’s a brilliant move if your goal is control. Not so great if your goal is transformation.
Strip away the layers of theology, politics, and institutional spin, and you find something far more dangerous than what Christianity preserved. Jesus wasn’t executed for starting a religion. He was executed for disrupting one. He challenged the alliance between religious authority and political power, and he did it without holding any official position himself. That’s what made him dangerous. He didn’t oppose the system by building a rival system. He made the existing one look unnecessary.
The Romans didn’t crucify nobodies. Jesus mattered. Not because he held power, but because he exposed it. His message stirred hope, and hope is not harmless. Hope destabilizes systems that rely on resignation. It wakes people up. It makes them harder to control. Jesus told people to stop outsourcing their authority, to stop deferring to religious gatekeepers, and to trust what was alive and true within themselves. That’s not religion. That’s a direct threat to anyone who benefits from people staying dependent.
Every time Jesus spoke, he was pulling another block out of the structure holding everything in place. He didn’t need an army. He didn’t need a platform. His clarity did the damage. He revealed that the system people thought they needed wasn’t necessary in the way they had been told. And once people start to see that, the whole thing begins to wobble.
What’s ironic is that the religion built in his name ended up doing the opposite of what he did. It rebuilt the very structures he exposed. It reintroduced authority, hierarchy, and dependency, then stamped his name on it for legitimacy. And now, two thousand years later, Jesus is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Talked about endlessly, but rarely recognized.
Jesus might be the most famous missing person in history. Not because he disappeared, but because the institution built around him made sure you wouldn’t find him.
Dateline: January 2025. A new year; a new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month). My thought at the time: Perhaps moiself will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature. So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.
This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?![8] friend gave me, all those years ago, [9] as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. Thus, journal/diary-resistant moiself would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.
Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago April to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )
“I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.
Believers should eagerly take up this challenge, since without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, ‘And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain…. ‘ (I Corinthians 15:14-15)
The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul’s tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened….”
Protestants and Catholics seem to have no trouble applying healthy skepticism to the miracles of Islam, or to the ‘historical’ visit between Joseph Smith and the angel Moroni. Why should Christians treat their own outrageous claims any differently?…
[Thomas] Paine points out that everything in the bible is hearsay. For example, the message at the tomb (if it happened at all) took this path, at minimum, before it got to our eyes: God, angel(s), Mary, disciples, Gospel writers, copyists, translators. (The Gospels are all anonymous and we have no original versions.)
But first things first: Christians, either tell me exactly what happened on Easter Sunday, or let’s leave the Jesus myth buried next to Eastre (Ishtar, Astarte), the pagan Goddess of Spring after whom your holiday was named.
Then, like now, you’d think somebody at the time would have noticed zombies walking around….
* * *
May you enjoy the rites of spring, no matter what natural processes and/or mythical beings you attribute them to; May you apply a healthy skepticism to all supernatural claims; May you always notice when zombies are walking around; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] The latter group would not include anyone within a twenty mile radius of my dining table.
[2] Which is why, once my feminist worldview began to develop, I told her it was completely understandable that she never even considering retaining her birth name upon marriage
[3] Which translates into, usually moiself. Things were always happening to moiself.
[4] And although I remember with vivid clarity the conversation that ensued from me sharing that story about the kid being teased re his name, to this day I cannot recall what the kid’s name was – something along the lines of Bart Katz, which of course got turned into Barfing Cats or Fart Cats or the like.
[6] When early Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north, they attempted to convert them to Christianity and, of course, alter their existing religious observations. They did so in a clandestine manner, as suggested by church authorities and finally “officialized” in 601 A.D., when Pope Gregory I issued an edict to his missionaries regarding the customs of peoples they wanted to convert. Rather than banish native customs and beliefs, the pope had his missionaries incorporate them (e.g., if people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, Greg I advised missionaries to consecrate the tree to Christ).
Early Christians holy day observances coincided with celebrations that already existed. And as with almost all “Christian” holidays, Easter was originally a festival of another religion, and derives from a variety of pagan celebrations. It made sense to Christians to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration. Still, every Easter, many Christian parents are put in the uncomfortable position of having to explain to the kiddies why the torture, execution, and supposed resurrection of Jesus is celebrated with colored eggs and cute widdle bunnies. Uncomfortable, in that most adult Christians have only a vague clue about the connection. Some grant that Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover celebration. However, seeing as how Yahweh didn’t send a plague of egg-hiding rabbits into Egypt, the link seems rather feeble.
The name of the holiday, “Easter,” is the name of a pagan goddess, and was identified as the source of the holiday’s name by “The Venerable Bede” (672-735 CE), a Christian theologian (in his book De Ratione Temporum.) The name “Easter” has many variations (Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Ester, Eastra, Eastur, Austron, etc.) but all of these come from the same Roman deity, the goddess of the dawn, named “Eos” or “Easter.”
[7] The refutations of that assumption, along with the problems which come from assuming such veracity and/or the reliability of scriptural sources, are just a google search away.
[8] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.
[10] For those not familiar with churchy stuff, this is the traditional Paschal greeting.
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
