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The Home I’m Not Going Back To

October 10, 2025

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Department Of You Can’t Go Home Again

Perhaps not.  But – with all apologies to novelist Thomas Wolfe, who perhaps didn’t realize this – you *can* go to your high school reunion, in your hometown.

Some of us may remember Wolfe’s admonition/advice, from discussing the themes of his novel Look Homeward, Angel in our high school or college literature classes:

The house, the town, the schools, even the people you remember from your youth and then left in your adulthood – they’ll never be the same, or make you feel the same, as you did when you were young.   [1]   They have all changed…as (of course), have you.  Life moves forward; the only constant is change; the home you left behind can never be reclaimed…but it can constantly be remade in the present.

So yeah, well then.  Dateline:  Saturday October 4.  My high school reunion.

 

Second semester Senior Class Officers:  President AG, Secretary GR, and VEEP (yours truly) in the middle…apparently goosing AG (where is my other hand?).

 

Moiself’s  pre-reunion fears:  That I might be unable to stifle my kneejerk exclamation/observation upon entering the reunion venue ( “Holy déjà vu-ew – who are all these old/gray/fat/balding people – oh, that’s right, they are *us*!” )

Moiself’s  Reality:  “Who are all these happy, well-adjusted, warmhearted, engaging, kind, generous, witty people – oh, how lovely, they’re *us*!”

*   *   *

Department Of The Morning After The Reunion Reflections

This person is so warm, kind,  funny, observant – why didn’t I know him/her better,
and/or hang around her/him more in high school?

Well, simply and most likely because it was a large high school (some 550+ in our senior class) and we were in different classes/activities/friend groups.  Also, people change. Perhaps our respective personalities wouldn’t have been a good fit at the time, like the proverbial clashing combinations of oil and water, cats and dogs, pickled herring and crème fraîche…

 

 

Reunion activities included a tour of the high school campus Friday afternoon followed by dinner at a BBQ joint; the “official” reunion  Saturday evening; an anyone-who’s still-in-town-and-would-like-to-do-so lunch meet-up at a downtown foodcourt mall on Sunday.

My flight arrived Friday eve, too late for the tour…which I’d no interest in, anyway.   [2]   I’d last checked out the campus seven years ago, when I went down to So Cal after my mother died.  While it was nice to see that the school had some kind a sign up referencing one of its name-drop-worthy alums ( Diane Keaton…street?  Sidewalk? Lamppost? Library book return drop? ), I only recognized one or two of the buildings, and felt no positive – or negative – connection.  Which seemed logical, to moiself.  After all, the school (to me) was the people, not the buildings.  It just…wasn’t my school anymore.  Such is The Nature of Things®.  

 

 

I’d left much free time in my trip planning, by both design and circumstances ( I was going to meet up with family who, due to ongoing health issues, could not say when they were available until last minute).  Thus it turned out that I had plenty o’ free time on Saturday before the reunion, and decided to check out some old hangouts:  the Santa Ana Zoo, Norm’s restaurant, and Bowers Museum.

The Santa Ana Zoo – initially known as Prentice Park, was vastly different than I’d remembered, which was a good thing, as the zoo’s animal enclosures from decades ago were PETA-protest worthy.   Although much-improved (and, like most if not all zoological parks today, very conservation-focused), the SAZ is still not an AZA member.  [3]  Even so, I had a good time observing the wildlife.  And the animals were interesting, as well.

 

I had a nice interaction with this ocelot, who seemed to like looking at my hat.

Three of my visit’s highlights included what surrounded me after I’d ordered lunch at the zoo’s café and ate it on a table by the children’s play area/sandpit:

* A tiny boy, picking up pinecones under the trees by an outdoor eating area, toddled over to my table and solemnly presented me with one of his treasures.  His mother was both proud of and astonished by her son’s generosity: “Oh, this is a first!” she gushed.  “He’s so shy, he *never* approaches or even makes eye contact with strangers!”  I reassured her, “Yes, well, I have that effect on men.”

* I overheard (then watched) two different parents – each trying to remain The Reasonable One ® despite their respective, escalating irritation – discussing what had happened and what then should happen re an altercation between their children. Dad A wanted Mom B’s son to apologize to Dad A’s toddler daughter, whom Mom B’s toddler son had pushed over in the sand pit by the swings.  Mom B’s boy wandered off after the encounter (with Dad B chasing after him);  Dad A was not pleased with Mom & Dad Bs’ reluctance to get their toddler to apologize.  “Oh, he’s very young,” was their excuse, which Dad A countered with, “This is how they learn…“, adding,  “Good luck with that,” when Mom B indicated that no apology would be forthcoming ( “They’re just kids; you don’t have to be snippy about it…”  [4]   )

* A family of four – two young men and two older women – sitting two tables away from me, played a game of Uno while they waited for their café food order.  They conversed loud enough so that I didn’t have to eavesdrop to hear the some of the details.  Moiself  surmised that the two young men were, patiently and with good humor, “defending” their sister (yay!), who was somehow a concern for the two older women (who didn’t like the young woman’s…boyfriend?  Job? General life direction?).  Also of interest  to moiself  was how smoothly all four family members switched from Spanish to English and back again, sometimes two or three times within the same sentence.  Not being bilingual moiself   [5],   I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the cause/trigger for them to switch?

 

 

And what a surprise the Bowers Museum turned out to be.  One of the city’s few “cultural” attractions, I remembered Bowers as the bane of Santa Ana schoolchildren, who had to do the obligatory (read: eyeball-evisceratingly boring) field trip to Bowers at least once in their elementary school career.   [6]    While Bower’s original (and beautiful) Spanish mission-style main building was still there, the museum had expanded.  I remembered a few of the old/permanent exhibits, but there were many more, including the featured World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century, an impressive traveling exhibit I’d actually read about  [7]  before making the trip to SoCal.

 

 

Alas, I never made it to Norm’s  (I got hungry and lunched at the zoo before heading to Bowers)  I’d intended to send photographic proof of my being there to my older sister and her high school bestie, for whom  Norm’s was a personal/in-joke, involving the less-than-stellar meals (with regard to the food’s taste and quality ) we’d had at that SoCal institution.  The restaurant’s motto was, “Norm’s – We Never Close” ( which I appended with, “No Matter What The Health Department says!” ).

 

“Okay, so the food is meh, but you can get it 24/7!”

 

All of these (and more) trips involved moiself  taking Uber or Lyft , as I’d decided to forgo the hassle of car rental (and navigation of SoCal freeways).  And that was entertainment in its own right.  Really and truly, as I told several friends and family members, for my next trip I might be satisfied just booking different Uber or Lyft rides all day, to…wherever.  Moiself  so enjoyed the conversations I had with the drivers, all of whom were from a variety of different backgrounds and life experiences and who were friendly and eager to share their stories with me and hear mine in return, and who included:

* Jose and Raymundo, both of whom are getting married next week!      [8]

* John, who’s off to Colorado to visit his daughter, who is expecting baby#1 next month!

* Zheng, who lives at the beach even though he can’t afford to, but it’s the beach!

* Michael, who is retired ( “big mistake”) and misses having something to do!

* Abdul, who’s only getting $4 for this fare (so he says) and wants me to know!  [9]

 

Not one of my Uber drivers (but just as friendly).

*   *   *

Department Of Priorities

Dateline: Sunday, 8:15 am, the 61 Hundred Bread bakery in Santa Ana. I arrive early as advised and snagged a couple of loaves of their blue masa sourdough ( “Best sourdough in the universe” ), one to take to my older sister and her husband when I visit them later this afternoon, and one to take back with on the plane, for MH, when I return to Oregon.

 

 

Later in the morning, as I’m doing some prepacking for tomorrow’s flight, I realize I don’t have enough room in my carryon luggage to add the bread, unless I make some sacrifices.  And so, the sparkly black *bling* sneakers I wore to the reunion will stay behind in the hotel room.   [10]

 

*   *   *

The reunion committee, as wonderful as they were for all the details they had to plan and juggle, got my name wrong on the preprinted name tag they provided for attendees.  They had me as “Robyn Parnell Wagnell,” which was one surname too many.  The latter surname belongs to MH’s and my offspring (and is part of my email address; thus, the nametag mixup, I’m assuming).  Not to worry; due to the facts that…

(a) this has happened before with nametags; and
(b) I don’t like premade nametags,

…I’d brought along my own, custom name badge.

There is a story behind why I decided to have my own name tag made.

 

 

Story Dateline: many, many years ago; attending an event wherein people were provided with sharpie pens and those HELLO  MY  NAME  IS stickers.  I am gob smacked by the number of people (and by people I mean, men) who have written their professional credentials after their name, and who are introducing themselves to me ala:

Introduction:
“Hello, I’m Dr. Austin Tayshus.”
 ( Name tag reads:  Austin Tayshus, Ph.D. or M.D. )

This event is neither a medical nor scientific conference, nor a professional gathering of any sort; it’s purely social.  After the fifth or sixth time I encounter what moiself  considers to be this boorish, status-signalling behavior,   [11]   I return to the party check-in table, grab a sharpie, and append my nametag to read,  Robyn Parnell, N.a.D.

Which I have to explain to the next please-be-impressed-by-me Doc who introduces himself, then pretends, for a moment, that he recognizes my credential.

Pretensious Party Person:
“Hello, I’m Dr. Igor Maniac.
And I see you are……uh…’Na.D.”  Yes, oh…Naturo…Allopathic….?

Moiself:
“Robyn Parnell; Not A Doctor.”

Just want to make sure there’s no confusion about that.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

 

Harold: “You sure have a way with people.”
Maude: “Well, they’re my species.”

 

*   *   *

May you have entertaining encounters with ride service drivers;
May you make any sacrifice necessary to include the sourdough;
May you not need to have the Harold and Maude reference explained to you ; [13]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And sometimes, that’s a really good thing.

[2] And as for the bbq joint meetup, by the time I’d Ubered to my hotel and checked in, I could have shown up later, but I checked out its menu on line.  Yikes.  Nothing a plant-eater such as moiself  would be interested in eating.  Or even smelling.

[3] I wonder if that’s due to it’s size, or quality of animal exhibits/care, or….?

[4] Oh, the joy of watching that interaction and thinking about how I don’t have to navigate that world anymore.

[5] Being able to curse, insult, and critique the bathroom supplies in several languages doesn’t count as language fluency…I think.

[6] Or whenever we had the city and/or county history/social studies blocks.

[7] But didn’t know it would be at the Bowers Museum.

[8] Not to each other.

[9] His sympathy trolling for a bigger tip – which he didn’t get – was obvious.

[10] Not to worry; they were quite inexpensive.

[11] It’s okay to be proud of your profession, and/or the education you received to get it, but other people also work hard and take pride in their professions sans trumpet-blaring – I couldn’t think of a reason why a person would do that at a social gathering, other than they wanted to accrue some kind of special treatment/elevated status points for being “a doctor” of…whatever.

[12] “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

[13] And if you do, may the first thing you do after reading this is find some way to see that movie.

The Intentions I’m Not Setting

September 26, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Intentions I’m Not Setting

Moiself  was merely one of the thousands of people who informed certain media and entertainment outlets that their kowtowing to a DICKtatorship cowardice in the face of First Amendment threats has consequences.  This is the email I sent last week to ABC national and local affiliates:

We are saddened to have to cancel our ABC-related accounts (Hulu, Disney) – I am a fan of Grey’s Anatomy and had eagerly awaited the new season – but we feel we have no ethical choice.  We are appalled by the cowardice and submissiveness ABC is broadcasting by its decision to suspend the Jimmy Kimmel Live show.

ABC did this after the Trump administration – which complains about every news and media outlet which does not kiss their a**es bend the knee to their ideological whims – complained about the contents of Kimmel’s comments re Charlie Kirk’s killing.  Yet Kimmel said nothing to disrespect the death of Kirk; rather – and we cannot emphasize this enough – Kimmel did his job.  What Kimmel disrespected was the Trump administration’s frenzied usage of this tragedy for their political gains and aims.  Kimmel did what comics and truth-tellers are *supposed* to do: tell the truth to power.  The purpose of the court jester is to use humor to criticize the (in Trump’s case, would-be) king, something the commoners have neither the power nor the platform to do.

We are cancelling our household Hulu subscription.  Our family will no longer purchase Disney products or services or visit its parks ( We don’t do this lightly; I am a former Disneyland Employee – Hungry Bear Restaurant), and will no longer watch our local ABC affiliate (Portland’s KATU) or any other ABC station.
As is the case with all authoritarian regimes, Trump’s attempts to silence his critics will eventually fail.  But ABC will be left with the legacy of its capitulation to – and thus collaboration with – the censorious would-be dictator and his corrupt courtiers.  ABC has betrayed its trust as a public media outlet; unless ABC reverses (and publicly repudiates) its capitulation, it is no longer trustworthy as either a source of news *or* entertainment.

Regretfully but firmly yours,

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Just Wondering:
Question 497 In The Unending Series

Soon I’ll be traveling to Southern California to attend moiself’s  high school reunion.   [1]   In preparation for the trip, I checked my ride service apps to make sure they still remember me (I don’t use them often; I will not be renting a car).  I’ve discovered I’ve apparently either chosen    [2]  ( or been assigned? ) Lyft’s WOMEN+ CONNECT service:

“WOMEN+ CONNECT
Rides for women, by women
We’re driving change one ride at a time. Now, women and nonbinary drivers can turn on Women+ Connect to increase their chances of matching with more women and nonbinary riders.”

Oh; okay; sure.

When using the Lyft and  Uber services I’ve had both women and men drivers (where they registered on any binary scale, I have no idea).  I’ve yet to notice a difference in service that I’d attribute to gender.   [3]

And then I got to thinking…

…yeah, always a dangerous endeavor.

Ahem.

I never got the memo re what makes a person want to identify as binary or non-binary, nor have I felt any pressure/had even a dash of desire to claim either…uh…( one of the two..therefore, a binary choice? ) label.

One of the cool (or frustrating, depending on where you are on the linguistic stick-in-the-mud  scale ) things about language is that it expands and evolves:   words take on new and additional – and sometimes *really* entertaining  [4]  – meanings.  Still, moiself  must confess that when I hear the word  binary my default thinking steers me toward the word’s original definition, as an adjective typically applied to mathematical systems and computer programming     [5]  consisting of or identified by two things or parts, as in a system of numbers ( the binary digits 0 and 1) or a formula incorporating a choice of two alternatives (e.g., on-off or  yes-no ).

 And then I got to thinking: if you identify as non-binary (however you define the criteria), does that mean that you in turn identify everyone who does *not* identify as non-binary as binary?

 

*   *   *

Department Of Empirical Question Of The Year

Are yellowjackets helpful pollinators/vital members of the pollinator ecosystem,  [6] or just the bellicose bullies of the wasp world – heartless bastards who swarm and sting for no apparent reason?

Moiself  knows what ecologists and entomologists want me to think.  But really, yellowjackets are *so* obnoxious.  And the fact that they can sting multiple times without paying the ultimate price, as honeybees must do, only adds to their predilection for arrogance, IMO.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Remedy I Hope To Never Use

Dateline:  9-19-25, 3pm-ish; at a local pharmacy checking in to receive my COVID vaccine.  Moiself  sees a sign at the pharmacy check-in window informing clients that Naloxone may be obtained there.  MH shows up for his vaccines ( COVID and influenza   [7] )  not long after I check in, and in addition to our vaccines we end up getting two packages of Naloxone, one to for my car and one for his.

I thought of the practicality having a dose of Naloxone – which rapidly reverses an opioid overdose – several years ago, after I first read of its availability to the general public.  But my second thought at the time was one informed by…to put it delicately, compassion fatigue.  As in, after reading/hearing paramedics’ and police officers’ and hospital emergency room staff’s stories of doing multiple, serial revivals on the same person, (sometimes more than once a day), only to have that same person they’d revived three times come in the next day or week dead from an opioid overdose, moiself  thought,  If someone is stupid enough to use that shit I’m not going to waste time and resources “saving” them today so that they can kill themselves tomorrow.

 

 

Well, maybe not, Martha.  After encountering more/recent stories of how many people have OD’d on fentanyl (and other opioids) completely unintentionally…

– they intentionally ingested something, from an illicit drug to a totally benign medication or substance that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with, say fentanyl, or
– they unintentionally were dosed with fentanyl or another opioid ( read; they were, essentially, poisoned ) by having, e.g., a beverage that was spiked, by someone they knew (who thought it would be a funny joke to play on them,  har de har har! ) or a total stranger  

 

 

…I thought it prudent to be prepared to help out, no matter the circumstances.  I think of it (having Naloxone in my car) as another insurance policy:  it’s good to have, and I hope to never have cause to use it.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Another Small Step Toward Understanding

Y’all have that friend, family member, coworker, who seems (mostly) otherwise rational but who can drive you face-palm-slapping batty with their persistent denial of evolution or other processes and principles of science?  Here is some understanding – not for them to understand science, but for you to understand them.

This opinion piece recently appeared in the Washington Post.  Moiself  is a WaPo  subscriber; if you hit a paywall for this article, it’s worth it, to gain a modicum of consideration from the experiences and perspectives of someone who once fit into that (science-denier) category.

 

 

I highly, highly recommend this read.  The author is a former religious missionary  [8]  turned scientist, with a valuable, first-hand view of how just “following the facts” of science is a difficult thing to do for so many people, in part because of another fact of science: how we evolved, as humans, to view the world and the places we and other people fit into it.

“The moment I finally admitted that evolution was real didn’t feel liberating. It felt like grief. I had spent years running up against hard evidence that, despite my best efforts, I simply couldn’t refute. I was in the shower, and I cried inconsolably. Accepting evolution meant more than just accepting a scientific theory. It meant leaving my community and almost every friend I had ever known, and it was the final nail in the coffin of my arranged marriage.
Those tears were a response forged in the Paleolithic era. We are not meant to find it easy to leave our tribe because, back when caves were prime real estate, leaving your tribe was a death sentence. My anguish was biologically ingrained over hundreds of thousands of years. That ancient biology explains why so many people still reject ‘the science.’ ””

( excerpt, “I’m a former creationist.  Here’s why ‘Follow the science’ failed.”
  by Ella Al-Shamahi )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Setting Your Intentions

It is a common practice at the beginning of a yoga class – whether the class is live (in a yoga studio), or streaming, or in a yoga workout tape or DVD – for the teacher to suggest that you  “set your intention” for the class.

Intention as in, asking yourself a question, from the purely logistical to the profound ( e.g., Why did I come to this class today?  Why do I do yoga in the first place? ) or consciously choosing a purpose or affirmation to focus on during your practice, as a way to stay present ( aka mindful ) beyond just performing another set of physical exercises.  

Sometimes I do this — set an intention.  Sometimes I don’t.   And one time recently at the beginning of a yoga class, when the teacher mentioned (amid a soundtrack of soothing background music) that yogis might want to take a brief moment to set an intention, moiself  had a most un-yoga thought:

My intention is to kick some Yoga ass.

Which, once again, reminded me of how my thoughts and attitudes often affirm another yoga truism:

“It’s yoga practice, not yoga perfect.”

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

*   *   *

May you avoid being bullied by yellowjackets;
May you never have a reason to use administer opioid overdose reversal medicine;
May you enjoy reading the blog posts you read (mine, or someone else’s),
whether or not you set an intention to do so;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Yikes.

[2] I don’t remember doing so.

[3] Anyone of any gender can overdo the personal scents, as did one driver whose cologne was so overwhelming I rolled down both backseat windows and stifled the urge to tell him, “Whatever you’re trying to cover up, I’m sure your natural body odor is far better than this perfumed stink bomb.”

[4] I refer, of course, to all the euphemisms for farting.

[5] You can get an idea of my age from my using that term, instead of “coding.”

[6] I recently posed the question to two certified Master Gardeners ® at a farmer’s market, and their answer was no, not really.  Yellowjackets are primarily predators and scavengers…which does help to clean up their surrounding by consuming dead and decaying animals (think of them as tiny vultures).  Yellowjackets are neither efficient nor intentional pollinators, but do transfer some pollen as they fly about, bumping into plants while looking for other insects and animals to harass and torture….  These were not the Master Gardeners’ exact words.

[7] I had had the influenzas vaccine three days earlier; at the time, due to the dickheads “in charge” of health misinformation, I could not yet get this year’s COVID vaccine.

[8] “I’ll show ’em – I’ll study their evidence and find all the flaws and refute their theories!”

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

The Political Karma I’m Not Mourning

September 19, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Political Karma I’m Not Mourning

Let’s get this out of the way.

Department Of He Who Lives  Like A Dick Shall Die By Another Dick  By The Sword
Shall Die By The Sword   [1]

Sub-Department Of Poetic Justice

“So we need to be very clear:  we are not going to get gun deaths to zero.  It will not happen.  You can significantly reduce them, by having more fathers in the home….”

 

 

“…or having armed guards in front of schools.
We should have an honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should not have a utopian one.  You will never live in a society where you have an armed citizenry and you don’t have a single gun death.  That is nonsense; it’s drivel.

But I am – I think it’s worth it.  I think it’s worth to have a cost, unfortunately, of some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other   [2]  god-given rights.  That is a prudent deal.”

( Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder,
speaking in April 2023 during a TPUSA Faith event.  [3]  )

Sure, Charlie, let’s make a (prudent?) deal. 

Sounds like Charlie Kirk would have approved of his own death’s cost-worthiness.

Oh yeah, re having fathers in the home reducing gun violence?

 

 

Kirk’s alleged shooter had a father in the home.

And it is from their fathers/their homes that most young shooters get their guns.  [4]   [5]

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Death Moiself  Would Have Mourned    [6]
Sub-Department Of A Weak-In-The-Knees Moment

Dateline:  Monday, 8:14 am; in my car on the way to pick up MH after he’d taken his car to the dealer for service.  I pull up to a stop sign and wait to turn left, onto a busy east-west street.  The cross traffic has the right of way and does not stop, except for a pedestrian crosswalk with a blinking light which is activated when its button is pushed by a pedestrian.

 

Kinda like this.

 

This crosswalk is activated frequently in the mornings and again in the afternoons, by kids going to/returning from two schools in our neighborhood (one elementary and one middle school).   A girl who looks like she is in the middle-school-age range is on the other side of the busy street; she has pushed the crosswalk activation button, and the crosswalk’s lights begin to blink.  Traffic coming from the east stops; traffic from the west does not.

Moiself  counts westbound four cars – WTF ?!?!? –  which, one by one, and with plenty of space inbetween them, cruise through the crosswalk, ignoring the flashing lights.  I gesture (futilely) to the cars’ drivers as they do so; after the fourth car-which-doesn’t-stop, the girl, still waiting by the crosswalk, looks across the street at me – we make eye contact – and gives me a shoulder-shrugging, What can I do?  expression.   Finally, a fifth car stops, and the girl is able to cross the street safely…and that is my weak-in-the-knees moment.

I feel my knees getting weak, even though I’m not standing, I’m sitting in the car.  My wobbly-knees moment is because I’m thinking of all of the times I’ve been at that same crossing:  I’ve seen how kids hit the button, watch for the crosswalk lights, and as soon as the lights start flashing the kids cross the street.  They do not look to see if cars have paid attention and are actually stopping; they looking down at their phones (unfortunately, the most common scenario) or chat with their friends. I’m so glad that girl was paying attention when so many cars were not – I’m so glad that when the lights begin to flash she waited and looked both ways to discover if it was indeed safe to cross the street….

And I am trying to understand – definitely not excuse – the four drivers coming from the west who did not stop when they had plenty of time to do so.  Okay; they’re heading east; maybe the morning sun is in their eyes?  But after girl crosses safely and I am able to turn east, onto the same road and into the same sun, I notice that it’s bright but not *blinding* bright, and I can see everything ahead of moiself  just fine.

What could have been so important that those drivers zoned out or….aaaarrrrgggghhh.  And where’s a traffic cop when you need one?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of An Unexpected Source of Life Wisdom

Dateline: Tuesday; 6:25 am, listening to the daily meditation in my Calm app. It’s a different meditation every day; thus, I had no expectations for what the subject would be, but certainly among the expectations I did not have was to hear a quote from  Kung Fu Panda – specifically, from Turtle Master® Oogway    [7]    :

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift, which is why it is called the present.”

I *have* encountered this motivational quote several times, but never heard it attributed to a turtle master.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Post- US Open Tennis Championships Thoughts

“Years ago, I was watching a women’s Grand Slam tennis match with a friend who isn’t a sports fan. My friend appreciated the skills of the players — the shots, the gets, the athleticism — but she liked the tennis couture more. The match was a two-setter, rather quick and seemingly effortless.

The next time we watched a match together, it happened to be the 2012 Australian Open final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. As the slugfest of a five-setter ended, both of us drained and exhilarated, my friend commented: ‘I guess five sets would be too much, physically, for the women.’  Flabbergasted, I turned to her and said, ‘You’re saying this to me?’

Alas, my friend is not alone in her assumptions about the endurance of female athletes. Consider: In Thursday’s women’s U.S. Open semifinal, Amanda Anisimova beat Naomi Osaka in the third set, but could Osaka have come back in a fourth? After taking in the four-set dogfight between Djokovic and Taylor Fritz, I was thirsty to see Anisimova and Osaka scrap further. The unsubtle message of professional tennis is that women don’t have what it takes for that.

After Djokovic and Nadal’s epic 2012 down under final, the exhausted players couldn’t even remain standing all the way through the trophy ceremony….”

  (excerpts, from “Grand Slam tennis tells women they lack stamina of men.
I know something about endurance: If the men can play five sets, so can the women.”
 (Opinion by Diana Nyad, The Washington Post 9-6-25 )

 

Moiself  is an occasional watcher of televised tennis matches. I understand the point that Nyad ( arguably the greatest endurance athlete ever ) is making…but, hell no. I do *not* want the women’s tennis matches to be the best three of five.

 

 

Yes, really.  And that’s because I also do not want the *men’s* tennis matches to be best of five – it’s too damn long.  For every Djokovic/Nadal five set epic there are a hundred interminable, someone, please-oh-please-can-someone-just-lose-or-win-and-get-this-over-with?!?!  matches.

If it’s a test of stamina (as well as tennis skills,) which seems to be is the point for the best three of five, then why not have the contestant play the best five of seven games?  Or the best seven of nine?

 

I believe that would be me.

 

Or why not determine the true champion via the best of nine games played every day over three days?

 

Do. Not. Listen To. Her.

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Know…But I Don’t Understand

How do some words take on, or rather get assigned, politically loaded meanings? When did someone send out a memo to like-minded racist sexist homophobic conservative paranoiacs political partisans that they needed to make being *woke* a bad thing?

Moiself  gets how words and meanings drift and evolve and acquire additional meanings, from the entertaining to the politically and culturally loaded.  But for so long (decades, even centuries) the primary definitions of woke (a slang or contraction of awoke) had to do with it being the past tense of awake –  as in, to wake up from sleeping.

It became a shorthand adjective for someone who paid attention because that’s what you would tell someone who wasn’t paying attention, either literally, or metaphorically:  wake up, pay attention, snap out of it!

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

A Simple Question Which Is Never Answered

To religious friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, or anyone who believes that their faith commands them to witness to those who are either religion-free or who hold different religious beliefs:

 

 

*   *   *

May you not trust the blinking lights to protect you from
your own or other’s inattention;
May you be content with the best two out of three sets;
May you wake up!  Pay Attention!  Snap Out of It!
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Matthew 26:52

[2] Yeah, and the right to guns is listed where in Charlie Kirk’s scriptures?

[3] I had no idea re this organization, their aims or even their existance, but the sniff of theocracy is in the air when you look at their spooky website:  “America Needs A Strong Church.  TPUSA Faith exists to unite the Church around primary doctrine and to eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit.”

[4] Including “our” own major exhibit in the school shooting hall of infamy:  Oregon’s 1998 Thurston High shooting.

[5] “Most school shooters get their guns from home – and during the pandemic, the number of firearms in households with teenagers went up.”  ( Institute Of Firearm Injury Prevention, University Of Michigan )

[6] It didn’t happen – very glad about that.

[7] I’ve not seen the movie; I trust there is some kind of zen turtle master character.

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

The Thoughts And Prayers I’m Not Sending

September 5, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Thoughts And Prayers I’m Not Sending

Department Of Just Another Day In The US of A:
( Translation: Another Church/School Shooting )

 

 

“…yet again the same stale ritual has unfolded: politicians sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ instead of offering solutions.

But this time, some prominent figures are refusing to let that go unchallenged.

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki cut through the platitudes, posting on X: ‘Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayer does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.’

She’s right. Prayer doesn’t stop bullets. It doesn’t heal wounds. It doesn’t change laws. It doesn’t keep parents from burying their children.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey made the point even more starkly: ‘Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying.’

The victims of this atrocity were in church, being led in prayer, when the shooter opened fire. If ever there were a test of the supposed ‘power of prayer,’ this was it. And it failed in the most heartbreaking way imaginable.

Instead of reckoning with that reality, White House officials have attacked Psaki and Frey for being ‘disrespectful.’  White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance both accused ‘the left’ of mocking faith. But nobody is mocking grieving families. What’s being called out is the political cowardice that hides behind prayer as a substitute for policy.

During a press briefing, Leavitt said: ‘I saw the comments of Ms. Psaki and frankly I think they’re incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works.’

Even more outrageously, Leavitt shared a post blaming ‘demonic forces’ for the Minneapolis shooting.

It doesn’t matter how many people ‘believe’ in the power of prayer (or demons) — belief doesn’t make it real….    [1]

…Politicians pray publicly (or at least tell us they’re praying ad nauseam), then do nothing. The cycle repeats, and children keep dying.

It’s not ‘disrespectful’ to point out the obvious — it’s disrespectful to the victims to pretend prayer is the answer.”

( Excerpts, my emphases, “If prayer worked,
the Minneapolis children would still be alive,” Chris Line, FFRF blog, 8-29-25 )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Parrot Sums Up The Only Rational Reaction
To The Latest White House Blatherings Statements

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Interesting People   [2]

Herman Pontzer, researcher and professor of evolutionary anthropology and Global Health at Duke University, studies the interesting (IMO) traits and behaviors of his (and our    [3] ) species.  He shares many of those observations in the latest Clear + Vivid podcast

“Unlike most other land animals, we can live almost anywhere: from deserts, to mountains, rain forests, even the arctic. We are supremely adaptable, and that adaptability has led to our diversity – not only in our biology, but also in our cultures.”
( Episode description, Clear + Vivid podcast,
Herman Pontzer: Diversity: Humanity’s Superpower )

That seems like a simple enough observation.  But that fact – that human beings, like news about the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce engagement, can be found all over the planet – is something moiself  hasn’t often considered.

And speaking of planet-wide infestation, don’t the two lovebirds deserve the obligatory, celebrity name mash up?  Traylor?  Swiftce?

 

 

Once again, I digress.

Other than insects, homo sapiens is arguably the most adaptable life form on the planet.   [4]  .  Check out Pontzer’s interview, for human being trait tidbits such as….

  (  C + V podcast host) Alan Alda:
“What about the notion of race?  Does race exist,
or is a phrase that’s used when it’s convenient?”

Herman Ponzer:
“The answer is it’s a socially constructed grouping…we like to put people in groups, and use them as a sort of in-group out-group way of dividing up our world.

  So, race means different things around the globe. And people divide up their world into different races or categories using different criteria. That just goes to show you how flexible and cultural it is.  There’s no real hard edges around human groups at all.  In fact, we’re such a recent species that all humans around the globe are 99.99% similar genetically.  There aren’t any kind of genetic boxes you can put people in easily.  In the U.S., we use skin color historically, as a sort of racial categorization.  And it’s true that skin color is a biological trait, right?

I mean, it has to do with how much melanin your skin makes.  So, in that sense, skin color is a biological trait.

But even there, as I like to tell my students, until the late 1800s – early 1900s, having white skin wasn’t enough to make you white.

If you were Irish or Italian, an immigrant in the States,
you were still considered black.”

Alda:
” I remember almost dropping your book out of my hand when I read that.
You can hardly get whiter than Irish people.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of  “No Shit?!” Titles

From  Fresh Air interview, 8-21-25, Robert Reich: The Baby Boomers Fell Short

“Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich…opens his new memoir, Coming Up Short,
with an apology on behalf of the Baby Boom generation
for failing to build a more just society.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Nothing Like A Walk In The Fresh Air To Begin Your Day

Dateline: Thursday; 7:41 AM; morning walk. My nose detects it before I see it, and I look around for the carcass of a dead Mephitis mephitis, which moiself  has on at least three occasions spotted while walking past the fields near the Fairgrounds light rail station.  Instead, as I turn the bend in the pathway parallelling the fields I see a man and a dog walking toward me.  The man puffs on a spliff and his dog huffs and strains against its leash.  As the man nears me the stench increases.

I feel my shoulders slump, as I consider the fetid fact that there are people in this world who like to – or feel like they have to    [5] – begin their day polluting their pulmonary packets with the aroma of skunk roadkill.

 

 

*    *   *

Department Of Right Now It’s Like This

“Early one morning an intrepid traveler started down a long and dusty road.  Before long, he came upon a shepherd tending to his flock.  The traveler asked, ‘What kind of weather are we going to have today?’ The shepherd answered, “The kind of weather I like.’  The traveler asked, ‘But how do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?’  The shepherd answered, ‘Having found out, sir, that I cannot always get what I like, I have learned to always like what I get.  So, I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like.’

The shepherd chose to be open and flexible to what life gave him. By accepting what he could not change, the shepherd practiced non-resistance. It was as though his personal mantra was, ‘Right now, it’s like this.’  So the next time life throws you a curveball…try recalling on that phrase:

 ‘Right now, it’s like this.”

Do your best to bring a spirit of non-resistance to the situations you can’t change, and challenge yourself to accept what is.  In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘The best thing one can do when it’s raining is let it rain.’ “

( excerpt, Daily Calm meditation app, 8-26-25, It’s Like 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.   [6] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 

( Doug Stanhope is an American comedian, author, and activist  [8]   )

*   *   *

May you not categorize people because it is convenient for you to do so;
May you understand that believing in something doesn’t make it real;
May you let it rain when it’s raining;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Amen, sez the atheist.

[2] Why would interesting people need a footnoate?

[3] Okay; moiself  is assuming a commonality of species among readers of this blog.

[4] Much to the detriment of other species whom we’ve wiped out due to hunting and habitat destruction….

[5] Oh, yeah dude, weed is so *not* not addictive. 

[6] 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.

[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

[8] And there is no footnote for him here.

The Haiku I’m No Longer Sending

August 8, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , Comments Off on The Haiku I’m No Longer Sending

Department Of A Blast From The Past

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

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

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago August to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

Since I’ve been writing my blog there has been only one other August 8 which fell on a Friday. Reading through it, I can see the presumptive value of my blog (serving as “a journal of sorts”) that I was optimistic about when I started, even though I had no idea moiself  would look back 11 years later, read an entry, and marvel about how I’d forgotten about (most of) those daily correspondences I sent to my mother…and also how my concerns for my offspring’s generation – regarding the world we are making for and leaving to them – have only increased…which is something I wish I could forget.

So.  Here is an excerpt from my blog of 8-8-14 (  The Generation I’m Not talkin’ ’bout ).  Wait a minute – here’s the whole damn blog.  Moiself  be entitled to take a vacation on my father’s birthday.

 

 

 *   *   *

The PG (Parental Guidance) Post 

 

 

Dateline: Monday evening, doing my own sous chef preparation before sautéing shallots and Swiss chard.  As I strip the ruby red chard leaves from their stalks, I remember how much my father loved Swiss chard.

*   *   *

 Band of Memories

 

Chet cira 1953, on his beloved palomino stallion, Stardust.  “These are the good times”

 

I think of my father every day, and mention him often (an easy thing to do, as he was a special character), in part to keep his memory alive for K and Belle.  But when my family sees that I’ve brought out the Band of Brothers DVD box set, they know something extra is in the air.

Today would have been Chester “Chet-the-Jet” Parnell’s 90th birthday.  It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that number.  I’ll let my heart do the binding.

 

 

When Chet wanted to relax he would haul out his old Martin guitar. He loved to serenade his kids.  Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes, a traditional country tune covered by singers from Roy Acuff to Rosemary Clooney, was one of the songs Chet used to sing to me at night.

 

 

 *   *   *

 My mother is frail;
“I am winding down,” she says.
She is eighty-six.

Widowed five years now;
Her eldest child lives nearby.
I am second-born.

My two other sibs
Live in the Bay Area;
Mom is in So Cal.

 

 

Mom loathed to travel,
even when she was healthy.
And, now she cannot.

Twenty-three years plus
I’ve lived one thousand miles north,
with my family.

Mom doesn’t do much;
there’s little to talk about.
Calls can be awkward

She always refused
to learn to use computers.
Her children conspired…

We got a gadget:
“technically un-inclined”
is its user base.

 

 

A “one-way device,”
it receives and prints email
from select sources.

Pro: she gets no spam;
Con: she gets but can’t send mail
(which is fine by her).

I send her brief notes –
a small something for the day,
in her morning mail

Mondays are for jokes.
Who wouldn’t like a giggle
To begin the week?

 

 

Tuesdays I phone her.
Her moods and health are falling.
Tuesdays make me sad.

Each Wednesday I send
a Word of the Day feature.
(I choose cheerful words).

Thoughts For the Day
from minds famous and obscure,
are Thursday’s items.

Fridays are for Quotes:
adages and citations
to spark mind and heart.

Saturday, poems:
I send different verse styles,
From Browning to Lear.

Every Sunday
I send my mother haiku,
Two verses, or more.

I write them moiself;
thus, they are not quote-worthy.
Silly, but heartfelt.

 

*   *   *

 A Brief Meditation On Ways To Fail Your Children

Is that a buzz kill subject heading, or what?  If you’re looking for the feel-good post of the week, I suggest returning to the picture of the Swiss chard and using it for a gratitude meditation focal point.

I’m thinking about the many ways my father and mother succeeded, as parents…also, about those ways in which they, and parents in general, failed.

This digression is courtesy of one of my recent morning walk podcast sessions.  [3]   I was listening to the Freethought Radio interview with the president of a N.O.W. chapter, re activism resulting from the SCOTUS  [4]   Hobby Lobby decision. This topic was antithetical to the purpose of my morning walks, which are supposed to be somewhat meditative as well as invigorating.  The former purpose took a back seat to ruminative rage as I considered the seemingly unending, fact-free, conservative political and social balloon juice about a woman’s right to right to personal jurisdiction, and other issues that should have been settled so, so, long ago….

And I find myself thinking,

We failed.

We, as in, talkin’ ’bout my generation.

 

 

We have failed in so many ways, including imagination.

Thirty years ago, I couldn’t imagine we’d be fighting the same fights.   [5]   Sure, a few dinosaur fossils would remain, but I’d hoped that the battle for equality and against sexism and misogyny (at least, in this country) would be history, as in, my son and daughter would learn about it the same way they learned about women’s suffrage ( There was a time when women couldn’t vote?!  And it was less than one hundred years ago?! )

I realize that historical milestones are almost never confined to a single day or week…or even era. The campaign for women’s suffrage was not waged and won on August 18, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.  Nor was the amendment a one-time antidote to the festering, cyclic, boil-on-the-ass-of-human rights that is the tendency for groups of people to oppress those they view as The Other.

 

 

*   *   *

 Power shared = power diminished.

According to one Wise Old White Guy © I had the pleasure of knowing,   [6]   there is a widely held but false axiom behind bigotry and discrimination. That was the gist of what he tried to explain, one day in our Tuesday morning book group of yore. The group stumbled onto the continuing struggle for civil and women’s rights vis-à-vis religious institutions – a provocative topic for anyone who hasn’t downed their first cup of coffee by 7 am.

I brought up what I saw as the ultimate butt-frosting, teeth-grinding, bloomer-bunching irony: in order to acquire the rights and opportunities that you, say, a woman or African-American, are denied, you have to convince a majority of those in power – the very people who have been denying you those rights – to grant them.   [7]

This prompted WOWG to share his “unfortunate observation” regarding human nature:

Few people anywhere have ever easily agreed to share power.

I knew what WOWG meant, but asked him to elaborate.  What follows is my (paraphrased) recollection of his simple but profound Walter Cronkite-ism:   [8]

 Power shared = power diminished – this is what people in power believe. But power does not diminish when shared, it multiplies.  Small, stingy, fearful minds don’t understand that – they think power is finite, or is in limited supply, and therefore sharing power with you means there is less of it for them.  This is especially true for those who are (or who see themselves as being) on the lower rungs of the power and status ladders; e.g., some of the fiercest, most vicious criticism of the civil rights movement came from poor white southern men.

He ended with:

We failed. Our generation didn’t fix that.
Maybe it can’t be fixed; but now, it’s your turn.

 *   *   *

And now, a segue to make us all feel better.    [9]

I Am A Bad Person
#359 in a never-ending series

Making travel arrangements for an upcoming family wedding, my brain did that thing it does, and conjured up a memory from a friend’s wedding, several years ago.  I was talking to a teenager at the wedding reception. When I asked her about the rather sour look on her face, she complained to me about how  “Old people at weddings always poke me in the ribs and say, ‘You’re next!’ ”

I told her she could get revenge by saying the same to them at funerals.

 

I’m sure she means next as in next in line at the buffet.

 

*   *   *

Spam Subject Line Of The Week:

IF  YOU  DON’T  READ  THIS  NOW  YOU’LL  HATE  YOURSELF  LATER !!!

I didn’t read it “now” (or at all).

It is later.

I don’t hate moiself.

Ergo, it must be my turn for an all-caps-three-exclam-attack:

VICTORY IS MINE !!!

 

Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahaha

 

*   *   *

May you always be next in line for life’s buffet, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[3] During my morning walks I listen to podcasts of some of my favorite radio shows, including Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Freakonomics, RadioLab, This American Life, TED Talks, Fresh Air, and Freethought Radio.

[4] Which, yes, oft times seems as if it should be the acronym for Sexist Codgers (and not Supreme Court) of the United States.

[5] Only with different, and often troll-enabling – technologies.

[6] WOWG lost a brief but fierce battle with leukemia ~ 10 years ago.

[7] I remember, a long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, trying to explain to my kids, who were dealing with fledgling democracy concepts in school, how women couldn’t vote to give themselves the vote.

[8] “And that’s the way it is.”

[9] Wait a minute…there is no ninth footnote.

 

The Big D**k I’m Not Swinging

June 20, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Department Of Thoughts While Walking Around A Farmers’ Market

Dateline:  Last Sunday, with MH, Orenco Farmers’ Market; ~ 11:45a. Moiself  is noticing a long line for one of the market’s food carts.   We approach the cart to see what it is selling, then exchange knowing snickers.  As MH puts it,

“… it is so strange to see a long line for a place serving food
you’d have to pay me to eat.”

That particular cart specialized in biscuits and gravy/biscuits and sausage and gravy.  Even way back when moiself  was the occasional meat eater, I disdained the dish – confession: I find its appearance so repulsive I’ve never even tried it.

To the minority (I’m being optimistic) of y’all who claim to actually like biscuits and gravy:   [1]   that homey dish, which may remind you of family comfort food, has always looked to me to be the result of feeding sausage to Grandma’s dog which then vomits all over a plate of Grandma‘s biscuits.

 

*   *   *

Department Of More Thoughts, These Which Occurred To Moiself @ 5:57a
  On A Father’s Day Sunday Morning

Who “invented” shaving?

Shaving was, for centuries, an already well-established torture grooming option for men before the Roaring 20s and flapper fashions revealed that adult female humans also grow hair on their legs and armpits.  Seeing as how there are few things more frightening to patriarchy – and the “feminine” ideal it created –  than recognizing the natural, biological commonalities of male and female bodies, razors and depilatories became marketed to (read: mandated for) women.

 

 

But Who was the ambitious Phoenician dignitary (or other post-caveman ancestor) to figure out that you could take a blade or hone a stone or another sharp surface and scrape it along certain parts of a man’s skin, to remove the hair growing on the skin   [2]  without removing the skin itself?  And why did that Who think that that – selective body hair removal – would be a worthwhile activity for human men to pursue?

And why were Certain Parts ® chosen for hair removal, while others were left alone?  Shaving targets a man’s face – chin, cheeks, upper lip…not his eyebrows for some reason,   [3] –  but not the hair atop his head.  Why, in most cultures, do men shave their facial hair, but not their forearm or leg hair?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of You Had Me At “We Don’t Understand Yogurt”

Moiself  has no idea what this “We Don’t Understand Yogurt” quote is supposed to reference.  But I had it set for today’s blog, and so it shall stand. Let your imagination run wild.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Big Swinging Dicks

Not my terminology, but that used by the OceanGate     [4]    CEO and founder Stockton Rush ( I don’t know about big or swinging, but that’s a dick name if I ever heard one).  Rush used the BSD term to describe the cadre of egotistical entrepreneurs ( alaJeff Bezos and Elon Musk) which, he told several of his employees, he aspired to join.  No doubt Rush imagined that he would one day be the exemplar of the ITAL Big Swinging Dicks he admired.  And now he is….although not exactly in the way he’d hoped.

In June 2023 Rush, and four passengers who’d paid OceanGate $250,000 each to ride in an OceanGate submersible to see the wreck of the Titanic died when OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded about 90 minutes into its descent, instantly goo-ifying/squashing killing all five people on board.   [5]   Investigations into the disaster   [6]  revealed that warnings had been raised by experts inside and outside of the company, from deep sea explorers to engineers and former OceanGate employees, about Titan’s unique carbon fiber design not being suitable for Titanic-style depths   [7]  – a design which ignored over 60 years of submersible design research and which was described by one former OceanGate employee as an “abomination” and an “inevitable disaster.”

 

Titan submersible, before….

 

Dateline:  last Wednesday, 7:30 am.  Moiself  is watching the Netflix documentary Titan: The Ocean Gates Submersible Disaster.  I’m not sure why I chose it; its near the top of my you-may-find-this-interesting list, and was something to watch while on my morning elliptical workout.  As it began with the recap of the disaster, I wondered to moiself , Other than being appalled by the public resources used (read: money and equipment and manpower wasted) trying to rescue a bunch of privileged multimillionaires from their ill-advised, thrill-seeking adventure, am I really interested in this story?

The answer proved to be yes, yes, and yes.  The film’s documenting of the rise and fall of OceanGate and its CEO is Shakespearean in its themes of ego and hubris, power and ambition, inevitable fate and coveted glory.   

The submersible Titan was made of a material (carbon fiber) that no other submersible – either in Rush’s own company or other companies that produce submersibles – had used, a fact which, to moiself,  screams the question, IF  NO  ONE  ELSE IS  USING  THIS  MATERIAL  TO  GO  THAT  DEEP  IN  THE  OCEAN, MAYBE  THERE’S  A  REALLY  GOOD  REASON  WHY ?!?!?  When Rush was interviewed by a newscaster who raised this fact, Rush actually said, on camera, that once they got through testing the Titan the submersible would be  “ invulnerable.”  The newscaster quickly reminded Rush, “Isn’t that what they said about the Titanic?”

 

“Come home to mama, little Titan.”

 

If you were fictionalizing this story you couldn’t concoct a more classic, almost stereotypical, self-aggrandizing, bullying, grandiose, and ultimately ignorant elitist lead character, whose background of privilege and wealth and money and connections got him a Princeton University degree   [8]  and seed money for his projects.  During the US Coast Guard’s investigation of the disaster, one former OceanGate engineer testified under oath that he quit the company after he asked Rush what would happen if the Titan failed a neutral/third party inspection, and Rush replied that he would “buy myself a congressman.”

 

 

Moiself  found the documentary both fascinating and unnerving.  It reminded me of Werner Herzog’s acclaimed 2005 documentary, Grizzly Man.     [9]    In both films you see a narcissistic megalomaniac unraveling on screen – making rash choices and brazenly overconfident assumptions which lead to their (and other people’s) deaths.  In Stockton Rush’s case, in the end he would literally rather get in a sub that’s going to implode than admit failure (or do what he really needed to do – get some therapy).

Rush’s conceit and aspirational insecurities are vividly on display.  He’d sunk his company’s money and his ego and reputation on this new design that would show all the naysayers what a BSD he was.  He ignored everyone and everything he’d used to help him on the project – his engineers, the test results, even his own monitoring system.  The filmmakers obtained footage of one of Rush’s solo test dives on Titan, which Rush filmed. When the hull began cracking you could see, you could *feel,* his anxiety.  It was all over his face, and he didn’t do another dive for four months after that, until he…until he what?  Just said, WTF?!?!?  He ignored the evidence that the hull would break.  He couldn’t deal with the failure; he pushed his luck…and when that luck ultimately and inevitably ran out, he took other human beings with him.

BSD.  Big Swinging Dick, indeed, that’s what Rush finally was.  But not in the way he’d envisioned.

 

Titan submersible…after.

 

*   *   *

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Recent Bingo!  Moment

Dateline: last Tuesday, 8:02 am, walking on the beach at Manzanita, listening to a Fresh Air podcast about stand-up comic and American immigrant,  [10]  Atsuko Okatsuka.  Don’t you love it when someone else, at least for a moment, has thought your same thoughts and/or has experienced your same experiences, and comes up with a pithy way to describe it – a phrase or explanation that you can use, then blame it on/attribute it to someone else, if anyone finds the description unpleasant or insulting?

As a standup comic Okatsuka puts herself at the center of attention when she is working, and thus by definition, is “on stage.”  Still, in the interview she showed a unique understanding in answering certain questions or prescriptions often posed to writers, artists and other “creatives” by folks not in those fields, folks and who conflate an artist’s wanting to do the creative work with wanting fame and acclaim for that work:

“Why do you do *___*” or, Why don’t you do *____*?

 

 

My response (often unuttered) has always been on the tip of my snarky little tongue when, over the years, people who’ve judged me amusing and/or clever felt the need to give me unsolicited career advice.  This advice, always phrased in ways to seem complimentary, comes out as some version of

* You should be (should’ve been) a stand-up comic!
*  You should be (should’ve been) an actor, or someone on stage!

Fact is, if or when y’all would truly pay attention and/or look beneath the surface (as did some editors and publishers, who were less than pleased with the results), you would surmise that although I’m one of the more genial people you will meet and am generally fine in one-on-one and very small group situations,  being “on stage“ (or even the idea of it) is something I truly abhor.

 

Yeah, kinda like this.

 

Translation: book fairs, book signings, author readings and appearances – while highly (and often desperately) sought by aspiring/newbie writers, and (usually) highly appreciated or desired by other, established authors –  were anathema to me.  And I’m fine with that.

Thus, my answer to the Why did you never pursue being a stand-up comic/more public speaking/presentation opportunities to sign books and bask in attention and acclaim…?”   [11]   question:

“Because I don’t have this hole in my heart that I have to fill
with the validation of strangers.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

(Reason # 68). I’m angry that when people run for political office in the Unites States, it’s considered legitimate to grill them about their employment background, their positions on legislation, their positions on social issues, the taxes they’ve paid, even their sexual history… but, it’s considered invasive and intolerant to ask if they believe in talking snakes, demonic possession, magic underwear, magic crackers that turn into the flesh of their god, an earth that was created 6,000 years ago, or a god who put himself on Earth in human form and then sacrificed himself to himself to atone for sins that other people committed and to save humanity from the punishment he himself was planning to dole out.
If someone is going to make decisions about science funding, emerging medical technology, our educational system, and so on… I think it matters if they believe any of that shit, and I bloody well want to know.

( excerpt, Greta Christina’s informative, entertaining, passionately logical, both ferocious and calm, scathing and compassionate analysis of religion, Why Are You Atheists So Angry: 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless  )

 

*   *   *

May your life be free from BSD’s;
May your comfort food never look as though it’s been regurgitated;
May you, for whatever reasons, understand yogurt;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And if this is you, you have my sympathy.

[2] Or so they thought, primitive humans not understanding how hair follicles function.

[3] Except for the occasional unibrow correction.

[4] OceanGate Inc. was a privately-owned company, co-founded by Stockton Rush, based in Washington state’s Puget Sound.  OceanGate manufactured and provided crewed submersibles for tourism, research, and exploration. It ceased operations after the Titan disaster.

[5] The five were Oceangate’s CEO Stockton Rush (who piloted the submersible), British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.

[6] From the US Coast Guard, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, even the US Department of Justice (which was concerned about the company’s financial practices).

[7] The wreck of the Titanic lies some 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface.

[8] Even though his grades – the documentary shows his Princeton report cards – were hardly Ivy League bragging material (they ranged from B – to D’s and even Fs). 

[9] Focuses on the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a self-proclaimed grizzley bear “expert,” who descends into grandiosity and manic delusion in his quest to “save the bear” and also get himself attention and jump-start his aspiring actor career.  Among Treadwell’s many peculiarities included him faking an Australian accent (he told some people he was from Australia; he was from New York state) or telling people that he was a British orphan (both of his parents survived him).  Moiself  highly recommends you watch this movie…but only once.

[10] technically an “illegal alien” – as a child she was brought to the US from Japan, without proper papers, by her grandmother.

[11] Translation:  I was the worst self-promoter, ever.

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

The Plans I’m Not 86-ing

May 23, 2025

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

Department Of Taking A Break For Art

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Making A Java Junkie’s Day

Or, morning at least…

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

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of She Sells Seashells By The Seashore…Oops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

*   *   *

Department Of The New Podcast I’m Not Listening To

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

A description from Proxy’s NPR link:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

* How Our Democracy Is Going Down The Toilet;

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

* The Rise Of American Nazism;

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

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

 

 

*  *   *

Department Of One Of My Favorites Ethical Dilemmas…

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

But…damn.

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

DUCKWORTH:
“No purple.”

DUBNER:
“No mixing and matching of policy—”

DUCKWORTH:
“No plaid.” 

DUBNER:
“…Yeah. No plaid….

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

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

 

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

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

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

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

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

[6] painters; composers; authors; playwrights…

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

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

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

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

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

The Computer My Brain Is Not Interfacing With

May 2, 2025

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

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

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

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

I don’t know how not to do this.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Cautious Indoor Kitty Steps Out

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

 

 

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

 

Ok; you can shame me now.

 

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

YEAH WOW…BUT….

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

Whether it messes up one minor thought…

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

or mistranslates her attempt to convey a symptom…

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

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

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] “The Little Farm of the Owl”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The End-Stage Capitalism I’m Not Practicing

April 18, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, politics , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The End-Stage Capitalism I’m Not Practicing

Department Of They Nailed It, Again (damn!)

Once again, a well-researched, well-written, well-postulated, intriguing, provocative article from The Atlantic … And, once again, because said article observes the truth about our society, it is also well-effin’ depressin’ in some ways.

“The internet’s biggest by-product is loneliness; porn isn’t special in that regard. You and I weren’t made to live this way; we barely are living this way. Many of the traits that make us human—our compassion, our ability to devote sustained thought to a problem, our capacity to fall in love and to sacrifice for the people we love—are meaningless to the algorithms that rule us. They’ve deformed us.
Every time I hear a middle-class young woman make the utilitarian argument for why she makes sexual videos on OnlyFans—because she can make in two hours of work what would take her 40 hours to earn waitressing—I think, Here it is at last: end-stage capitalism. The phase in which nothing has any value or meaning other than its sale price.”

 ( Excerpt, “Sex Without Women – What happens when men prefer porn?”
The Atlantic, by Caitlin Flanagan )

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Things That Never Get Old   [1]

Welcome to yet another new feature of the new year, which may continue on the third Friday of each month.  Or…not.

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Holy …

Cow?   Mackerel?  Matrimony?  Shit?
Holy Uncanny Photographic Mental Processes, Batman!   [2]    

 

 

Ahem – make that, Holy Week, ®  which, in the Christian tradition (or most of them  [3]  )
is this week.

“During Holy Week, Christians recall the events leading up to Jesus’ death by crucifixion and, according to their faith, his Resurrection.
The week includes five days of special significance. The first is Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ humble entry (on a donkey) into Jerusalem to observe Passover….Maundy Thursday marks Jesus’ institution at the Last Supper of the Eucharist, thereafter a central element of Christian worship  [4]  …. Good Friday commemorates Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross….Holy Saturday, also called Easter Vigil, is the traditional end of Lent….Easter Sunday is the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, according to the Gospels, on the third day after his crucifixion….”

( excerpts; Brittannica: What is Holy Week? )

 

 

“The Easter celebration is a bit of a strange holiday. Is it about bunnies and eggs? Is it Pagan, or Christian, or Jewish? Why does the date move?…

What is Easter?

Easter is a Christian holiday celebrating the day Christians believe that Jesus returned from the dead after being killed.

So why does the date of Easter move?
And where did the eggs and bunnies come from?

In early Christianity, the Christian church moved the celebration of Easter to coincide with an existing pagan festival on the first full moon after the spring equinox, which is why Easter moves every year. In old pagan customs, eggs were a symbol of new life, and rabbits a symbol of fertility. These ‘Easter eggs’ became ways for Christians to talk about the “resurrection” (when Jesus Christ came back to life) they celebrated.”

( excerpts, “What is Easter:  A Timeline of Holy Week,” Westminster Chapel )

We (MH and moiself ) are heading up to visit daughter Belle for the weekend.  Weeks ago, when moiself  began looking at lodging and restaurants for the trip, I wondered why venues seemed to be so crowded or unavailable…oh yeah, it’s a holiday weekend.  MH and I had to be reminded that this week, for many, is Holy Week.   We’ve often remarked to each other that it’s funny how, once you’re out of religion and your kids are out of their school cycles, the breaks/holidays at this time of year (Spring Break;  Easter, which sometimes coincide but not this year) just aren’t on your radar.

So, Happy Holy Week to those of you who observe it.  [5]   Just please remember   [6]  where your observances come from  (  moiself’s  primer follows; you’re welcome ) before y’all go around proclaiming holy this and holy that.

 

 

As with almost all “Christian” holidays, Easter was originally a festival of another religion, and derives from a variety of pagan celebrations When early Christian missionaries encountered the Northern European tribes they attempted to convert them to Christianity and, of course, alter the peoples’ existing religious observations.  They did so somewhat stealthily, 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 ban outright the native customs and beliefs, the pope had his missionaries incorporate them (e.g., if people worshipped a tree at Yule time, rather than cut it down, Greg I advised missionaries to consecrate the tree to Christ – thus, the Christmas tree).

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-bitty bunnies – uncomfortable, in that most adult Christians have only a vague clue about the connection.  [7]

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 a Christian theologian, “The Venerable Bede” (672-735 CE, in his book De Ratione Temporum).  The name Easter  has many variations (Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Ester, Eastra, Eastur, Astarte, etc.) but all of these come from the same Roman deity, the goddess of the dawn, named “Eos” or “Easter.”

The Saxons also celebrated the return of spring with a festival commemorating their goddess of offspring, fertility and springtime renewal, Eastre, and other ancient peoples had similar celebrations.  The Scandinavian deity was “Ostra” and the Teutonic “Ostern” — both goddesses signifying spring and fertility, and their festivals were celebrated on the vernal equinox.  Christian apologists often insist that the name of the goddess Easter is just a coincidence, and that the name actually came from the Germanic word “ostern.”  Cool story, bros, but this doesn’t explain all those bunnies and eggs.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

Special Easter Edition

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you strive to see the value or meaning of everything other than its sale price;
May you appreciate the origins of rites and rituals and their variants;
May you celebrate Spring, no matter what you call it;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] At least, to ever-youthful moiself.

[2] Robin’s 20 Weirdest ‘Holy Batman’ Lines From the TV Show

[3] Easter is celebrated on two different dates depending on which church you belong to.  The Great Schism of 1054 caused “The Church” to be divided into the Catholic and Orthodox Church.  Later, the Catholics switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, while the Orthodox Church followed the original calendar system of the Julian calendar.

[4] Which most Christian churches refer to as Communion; which most non-Christian religions view as a bizarre, ritualistic quasi-cannibalism.

[5] And if you do celebrate Holy Week, what the holy hell are you doing reading THIS blog?

[6] Or learn, for the first time, if you’re like the majority of Christians who have no little idea of the histories of their holidays.

[7] Some remember that Easter is somehow 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…tenuous.

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

The Pranks I’m No Longer Playing

March 14, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, foodie, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

 

Happy Pi Day, Y’all

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Things For Tomorrow’s To-Do List

Beware the….

Tides that arch?  Brides that parch?  Sides of starch?  What was that…thing?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

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

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

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago March to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 3-10-17 ( The History I’m Not Reading ).

 “For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.”[3] 

MH and I are traveling ’round Ireland in the late spring.

 

 

Thank you! We’re excited, too.

I try to read up on the history of places I’m going to visit, and also sample the destination’s contemporary art (in the form of fiction and films). As per the former endeavor, I am currently and once again reminded of why I loathe reading history: because war and religion, two of the most despicable human enterprises, IMHO, almost always figure so prominently. And in Irish history, the combination of the two is a feckin’ load of ballsch to curl your clackers.   [4]

I cannot recall the source of the nailed-it!  quote I ran across, several years ago (I believe it was from an Irish novelist, not a historian), which went something along the lines of this:  Ireland’s cultural and political woes can be attributed to the fact that the Irish are

“a twice colonized people – first by the Catholics and then by the British.”

There are many ways to interpret history, and two “sides” I keep encountering, each which urges the reader to keep in mind either (1) “History is written by the winners,” or (2) “History is written by the literate, whether or not they were the ultimate winners.”

 

And your point would be?

 

Whatever.  In either case, and especially with regards to reading Irish and European history, it’s the nomenclature, for lack of a better term, that gets to me. Consider the many, many, many – and did I mention a whole lotta? – pages devoted to the various invasions of “The barbarians.”  Some of these pages are contained in a book I recently finished, the presumptuously titled, How The Irish Saved Civilization.

HTISC, by its very title, presents a (dubious, in some critics’ eyes) supposition as fact. The book essentially argues for the elevation of the importance of the Irish Catholic clergy in preserving Western culture after the collapse of the Roman Empire, when western Europe was “…being overrun by barbarians” (aka Huns, Visigoths, and other Germanic tribes).

So. We have the entrenched residents, whose beliefs and actions I would not hesitate to call barbaric, whose priests waged wars and inquisitions to subjugate, torture and kill “heretics” (defined however they chose, from those who simply disagreed with official policy, to philosophers, Jews, “Witches,” Protestant reformers, and other fellow Catholics – the various factions who slaughtered each other over nuances in theology)…  But it’s these guys coming over the hill,  they are the barbarians, because….uh…because they are illiterate and thus can’t cite their magic holy books to justify their atrocities.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

 

My impression and subsequent summation of centuries of Irish history, after reading 600+ pages (and more to come!) in various books, is almost Tweetable     [5]   in its brevity:

The _______(civil articles; treaty; king; bishop) promised religious toleration;
the _______ (king; landlord; bishop) saw no advantage in a peace now that victory was secure;
the Gaelic infantry was slaughtered.

Lather; rinse; repeat.

 

 

Department Of And Then There’s This

Slogging through the pages of history, I am occasionally rewarded with a gem hidden in the festering bog. Such as this sentence, from a passage about kinship ties between Gael lords and the Catholic clergy:

“One sixteenth-century bishop of Clogher was eulogized on his death as ‘a very gem of purity and a turtle dove of chastity,’
this despite his leaving behind at least fifteen children.”

(Ireland: Land, People, History, by Richard Killeen)

 

Not tonight, dear, I’m the turtle dove of chastity.

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of You’re No Fun Anymore

Moiself  still gets a great idea,    [6]    every now and then, about pranks to play.   Such as the one that often returns through my twisted wistful little mind when I’m returning from a morning constitutional and, depending on the route I take, walk past a house near my ‘hood that fills me with pranks-that-were-not-to-be-realized  regret.

Said house has a three-car garage.  The third garage door, when open, reveals the setup of a home electronics/wood shop and sometimes the shop dude, either working on a project or, on a warm, late summer day, sitting in a lawn chair in the driveway, in front of his shop, working on a brewski.  Also…

 

 

….make that, up until a couple of years ago, when that third garage door was down you could see a metal plaque affixed to the middle of it which read:  MEN ONLY.

Moiself  actually looked into the cost of getting a stick-on plaque, made of the same material and using the same font as the one on Shop Man’s garage door, which would have one word on it: GIRLY.  My fantasy prank was to (can you guess where this is headed?), one day at the end of one of my early morning walks, stick that plaque above the MEN ONLY one.

I woulda done it, except for this Sad Fact Of Modern Life ® : from more elaborate ventures (such as my plaque-trolling) to the simple/youthful pleasures of playing dingdong ditch or planting gnome statues or other tacky knickknacks in a friend’s Sunset magazine-worthy landscaping, ‘tis almost impossible to “get away with” playing tricks on anyone, anymore. 

 

 

Seriously, you need to ask that?  Because:  from elaborate, motion-activated porch and yard security devices to cell phone cameras, every person, every house or apartment or dwelling, has recording devices.

A couple of years ago the owners of the MEN ONLY garage shop house had the entire exterior of the house painted.  The plaque was taken down as part of the paint prep, and has yet to be reinstalled.  Perhaps (presumption or fantasy on moiself’s  part) the girly occupants of said house took that opportunity to ask the manly shop man to leave it down.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

“There is no good evidence that gods do exist, and lots of good evidence that the idea of gods was invented by human beings. It was realising this that enabled me to feel comfortable describing myself primarily as an atheist rather than an agnostic.

Atheism is also a better basis for investigating morality. Right and wrong are ultimately about how we affect the suffering and wellbeing of other sentient beings. Helping other sentient beings to flourish is good, and causing other sentient beings to suffer unnecessarily is bad. It is complicated to figure out what is right and wrong in any given situation, because there are so many permutations of the effects of your actions.

However, religion distracts us from identifying what is right and wrong by adding in answers that are unrelated to suffering and wellbeing in the real world, but are based on imaginary souls and imaginary consequences in imaginary afterlives. And so you get contradictory messages in books like the bible, which tell us to love our neighbour but stone him to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. We know that this last command is morally wrong, and so we ignore it. This shows that we do not get morality from the bible, but apply our morality to what we read in it.”

( excerpt from “How And Why I became an Atheist,” by Michael Nugent.
Nugent, a writer and Dubliner, is chairperson of the advocacy group Atheist Ireland,
which promotes atheism, reason and ethical secularism in Ireland and around the world. )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have a tasty Pi Day celebration;   [8]

May you be on the lookout for Ides  mischief after that, and then…
May you have a happy
day-of-celebrating-being-Irish-in-America (aka St. Patrick’s Day);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

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

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[3] From The Ballad of the White Horse, by G. K. Chesterton, English Critic, Essayist, Novelist and Poet, 1874-1936.

[4] For the Irish slang impaired, feckin’ = fucking; ballsch = rubbish; clackers = testicles.

[5] If I were a Twitter kind of person, which I am not.

[6] Well, great to moiself.

[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

[8] If you don’t celebrate Pi Day, why not?  Where would we be without this fundamental mathematical concept of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, which helps us set up equations to understand circles, and objects which oscillate/repeat, and thus allows us to, for example, get precise measurements (via geometry) for construction.  Add it to your calendar  – and it’s a great excuse to make savory and or sweet pies.

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