Home

The Rapists I’m Not (Yet) Advocating Killing

October 9, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, school, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Department Of Who Said,
The More Things Change The More They Remain The Same

Apparently, it was a French journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.  And what he said, in French (surprise!) and in 1849, was,

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”


Historians say Karr was expressing his cynicism about the likelihood that the recent French Revolution (1848), or any political disruption or reform, might be able to change human behavior and social structures.

In choosing that department title, moiself  doesn’t mean to imply there’s been no social progress since the mid-nineteenth century.  But the chilling story of the so-called Cornell Seven has a heart breaking, odiferous stench of familiarity to it.  It has given moiself  the ____ – I don’t know the right word; the impetus?  The permission? – to write about my own memorable encounter with the pack animal mentality that can be nurtured and even protected in our misogynous and sexist culture…and in particular, in all-male “bro” environments such as fraternities.

 

 

For those readers living under the proverbial rock, [1]  here’s a (very, very) brief summary of what has come to be called the Cornell Seven story – a criminal incident which was mishandled by the Cornell police and only came to light recently when the victim filed a civil complaint. Do your own research for more of the disturbing details (which include Snapchat messages the rapists sent to other fraternity members inviting them to join in the assault)…but if you do so,  I’d advise having an emesis basin handy:

“The 101-page complaint states that (Jane Doe) ‘was plied with alcohol and drugs to the point of intoxication’ at the fraternity house, and alleges in graphic detail that she was sexually assaulted and raped by members of the fraternity over the course of about seven hours….
 (excerpt, The Washington Post, “What to know about
the Cornell University rape allegations”)

 

 

I’d been saving (?) this story, my own story of facing frat misogyny (don’t worry; I was not assaulted, physically).  There have been times over the decades where it has come back to me, and I knew I’d write about it, eventually.  But the when eluded moiself, until….

 

*   *   *

Department Of Notes I Wrote To Moiself  in 2015

The notes were prompted by news of the SAE-OU racist chant incident:

The University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon racist incident…occurred on March 7, 2015, when members of the University of Oklahoma (OU) chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) were filmed performing a racist song that used the word ‘nigger’ and referenced Jim Crow….

On March 7, 2015, two videos were recorded of SAE members and their dates riding on a chartered bus to the Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club, where an event celebrating the national organization’s Founder’s Day was being held. In the video the students are heard singing a chant to the tune of the nursery rhyme “If You’re Happy and You Know It“. Below is how the chant was sung:

‘There will never be a nigger at SAE/There will never be a nigger at SAE
You can hang ’em from a tree/But they’ll never sign with me,
There will never be a nigger at SAE.’ “
(excerpts Wikipeda, 2015 U. of Oklahoma SAE racism incident )

 

SAE’s website’s home page lists SAE’s motto as,
“The true gentleman starts here.”

*   *   *

The notes I wrote to moiself  (in my file of possible blog subjects):

“the thing w/the SAE chant; my experiences w/UCD frat…how much detail go into? So not surprising about the SAE thing – the big ruckus when it’s racism, not sexism. Someday, tell. details/how much to tell…haven’t decided yet. The vile songs/chants – I unfortunately have the original “sheet music.” The names…anonymous or anagram-ized.”

*   *   *

Department Of Background To The Details

Even back in the late 1970s-early 1980s, other fraternities were using the  “But we’re not as bad as SAE” defense  [2]  whenever they got in trouble. And frats were always getting in trouble.  And you do realize that frat is an anagram for fart.

 

 

Once again, I digress.

Dateline: University of California at Davis, late 1970s. The Greek Life was not especially big at my alma mater, with less than 10% of students belonging to fraternities.  Not being the “type” to be interested in that culture, I didn’t have many friends – well, any friends – who were frat members,   [3] and didn’t pay much attention to their goings-on, until The Lupe Incident was all over the local news.

The Aggie, UCD’s student newspaper, broke the story.   [4]  Background:  Fraternities each had their own songbooks, which they distributed to their pledges.  The books consisted of lyrics to songs and chants which the pledges were required to learn and which the frat members would drunkenly howl recite at parties and meetings, from frat-only events to gatherings where one fraternity made fun of/insulted its rival fraternities.  Late in 1975, a Latino frat pledge objected to a certain song in his fraternity’s (Alpha Gamma Rho – AGR) songbook.  The pledge leaked a copy of the song to the campus Chicano/Latino organizations and community members, and “The Lupe Incident” was born.

The lyrics of “Lupe” sing the…uh…praises…   [5]  of a goodtime Latina  ( “…my fun-loving/cock-sucking Mexican whore,” who, among her many  sexual attributes, “tastes better than blueberry pie” ).  The Latino pledge and the wider Chicano community held that the song specifically degraded Mexican women.  [6]   By early 1976 hundreds of Latino students and allies organized and staged protests and presented a list of demands to AGR and to UCD administrators.  AGR officially apologized and…I’m not sure of the other consequences. But the incident left a sour taste in my mouth, one that had little to do with a vulgar, racist and sexist song referencing performing oral sex on a Latina named for a beloved figure in Mexican Catholicism.

 

 

Forward to late 1979.  [7]   One of my apartment mates, Yanny, was a personal friend of mine.  [8]  Yanny was also a friend of my boyfriend, Jay; both were seniors.  Jay had surprised me when, as a junior, he’d joined a fraternity (“SEF”  [9] ), and also when he ran for the vice-presidency of SEF during his senior year.  He’d defended joining his particular fraternity by saying that SEF was the “nerd” fraternity – composed of engineering majors (like him), and that they were good guys….  We’d been around the block with that issue, and I had even gone to a couple of frat parties with him, to be a good sport.   [10]  Jay had parental urging (read: pressure) re how joining a frat would provide him with post-graduate networking opportunities, and besides, he said, he could eat at the frat for free several times a week    [11]….and SEF wasn’t a *real* frat, more of a social club….

Also, by being SEF’s vice president, Jay said that he could have some positive influence should stereotypical frat behavior creep into the SEF ranks.  So.  Jay knew my opinion of fraternities (one step above pit toilets re their contribution to civilization); he’d heard my arguments that research shows frat members have a higher risk for subjecting women to sexual coercion/assault, and that the culture’s structure/social events often treat women as sexual commodities, or at least reinforce outdated models of patriarchal masculinity, and that frats are exclusivist and elitist institutions which still practice segregation and hazing and promote conformity to groupthink and are frequently linked to dangerous consumption of alcohol and “recreational” drugs and promote so-called brotherhood (protection of their membership from consequences of their wrongdoing) over accountability….

 

 

I’d said my piece.  Jay disagreed with some of my points, agreed with others, and joined SEF.  As did Yanny, early in his senior year, when Jay and another friend invited him to do so.   It was funny to me, now and then, that Yanny came to me seeking my opinion – absolution ? – re his decision.  I’m sure he’d already decided to join SEF; nevertheless, I heard his confession, which was almost word-for-word the reasons/excuses offered by Jay (some mumbling the party line about how frats raise money for charity and promote leadership and fellowship and organizational skills; he could eat for free at the frat several times a week; his father said it would be a good networking opportunity….).

 

 

One weekday afternoon, a few weeks after Yanny joined SEF, he and I were home in our apartment, chatting in the living room.  Knowing he’d recently attended a SEF event, I asked Yanny about how his frat life was going. Was it as dull as he’d reassured me?  Probably nothing along the Lupe lines, eh?  Yanny laughed…kinda sorta.  A  there’s-something-I-gotta-tell-you  can be communicated via an uncomfortable laugh, and it was definitely communiucated in Yanny’s.  We briefly discussed the Lupe incident, and I brought up the fact that I’d been cynical about the Latino pledgeboy’s righteous indignation about the so-called insult to his heritage:

“What if the girl’s name in the song had been ‘raceless,’ or sans ethnic identity?  If it were ‘Sally‘ being debased in song, would he have protested the song’s demeaning sexual references, or joined in singing it with gusto? ‘Racism, well, okay boys, I guess we can’t get away with that anymore, but degrading women is fine…. ‘ “

Oh, you have no idea; you were right, Yanny said.  I was confused; I asked Yanny what idea I should have, and what was I right about?  Yanny kept repeating that phrase, in several different ways, saying that I was right, that “really bad stuff” still abounds in the frat culture, even in the “better” ones.  He said he’d received SEF’s songbook, and, “Boy, if you saw that…well, you really should see that.  There’s several… one really bad…. No, really; you should see that.”  Why should I see…what?  I asked him.  What would I see?  He repeated several times that I would be shocked by what I’d see in the songbook – which was on top of his desk – but I really should see it…but he has to go to class…but, yeah, I should see that songbook, …and it’s on his desk, and he has to go to class….

 

 

Yanny darted into his bedroom. I heard paper-shuffling sounds; he returned to the living room with his bookbag and announced that he was off to class. All alone in the apartment, I remained on the couch for a minute, bemused by the fact that Yanny had just spent several minutes essentially telling me that I should go to his room and look at the SEF songbook.  So, I did.

Yanny’s bedroom door was wide open. I took the songbook from atop his desk (it was the only object on his desk, angled in a way that practically bellowed, HERE I AM. [12]  I took it with me to the living room, sat down on the couch, and thumbed through it.  The book consisted of pages of mimeographed chants and songs, ranging in content from silly/stupid to vulgar to inuendo-and-scatological reference-filled.  Several of the chants touted SEF’s superiority to other fraternities. The one about Sigma Nu, a rival frat, was particularly, graphically memorable:

Butt fuck, Butt fuck
Gonorrhea goo
Lift up the cow’s tail
Out comes Sigma Nu

Ah yes, lads:  enlighten me once again about how fraternities promote leadership, brotherhood, community service, gentlemanly behavior, and social maturation.

Then there was The Song.  The one I assumed Yanny had wanted me to see.  It had music accompanying the lyrics, which were set to the tune of “When the Caissons Go Rolling Along.”  The song’s title was, “When The End Of The Month Rolls Along.”

Summary:  the song’s many, many verses lament how you – as a guy – aren’t going to “get any” when the end of the month rolls around; that is, when your targeted female sex partner is having her menstrual period:

“You can tell by her waddle there’s a tampon up her twaddle” …
“You can tell by her fanny that you won’t be getting any…”

Feeble rhyme schemes along with vulgar misogyny – what a surprise.

Those are a the milder lyrics; I’ll spare y’all all of the verses and chorus.

As I sat trembling on the couch, I wish I’d spared moiself  from the  “ditty” of sexism, from the girls-are-really-disgusting-and-unclean-but-at-least-some-times-we-can-fuck-them  sentiments, all set to the tune of a patriotic marching anthem.

 

 

I knew I had to do something.

I had Jay’s class schedule written down; he had classes for the entire afternoon. I wanted to “warn” him what I was going to do, but there was no way to do so (this was pre-cellphones/home phone answering machines; there was no way to contact him).  As I biked to campus, the songbook in my backpack, I thought that perhaps it was best that there was no way to tell him, lest he might somehow convince me to ignore what I’d seen.

I made two photocopies of the songbook, and took them to the campus Women’s Resource and Research Center.

 

 

You might thing that a counselor (read: righteous feminist advocate) at a campus Women’s Center would have urged me to go public no matter what, but she didn’t.  The concern she showed for *me,* re the possible personal blowback to moiself, was the one good thing to come out of that mess.  I will never forget her kindness, the look of concern on her face, when I’d presented her with the material and asked her assistance in…in doing what, exactly?  What was the right thing to do?  She didn’t seem to think I was a coward for hesitating even for a second to pursue having this festering turd of woman-hating filth brought into the open. This was decades before the MeToo movement, but the reality of what could happen when a woman spoke up about such things… She said that *she* understood the cost of doing so, but, did I? 

After discussing the situation with me and consulting with other Women’s Center staff, she said she would not (immediately) contact the press or the school administration, but would first talk to the SEF president, and get back to me.  The campus phone system had the capability of doing multiple line calls, and the next day she arranged a call between herself, moiself, and the SEF president.

The SEF president – what a piece of work.  I could practically smell his fear over the phone line, and his groveling mendacity made me want to wash my hands after hanging up from the call.  He repeatedly, gushingly assured me that he was not angry with me, that those chants and songs were not a true reflection of the “mission” of dignity and brotherhood promoted by of the Greek system…

(The more he touted the virtues of fraternities, the more I heard…
 Butt fuck, Butt fuck /Gonorrhea goo…)

…and that he was really, truly, sorry for my distress; and that this was a wakeup call, this was actually for the good of the fraternity, a chance for them to live up to their goals of good citizenship and character development and maturation and….

( Butt fuck, Butt fuck /Gonorrhea goo… )

…why, this incident might even, ultimately, make them better people!  He was almost glad they got “caught.”

 

 

Message received, dude.  Like all clandestinely braying racist/gay-bashing/misogynist vampires who wither under the light of exposure, the only thing SEF Prezboy was sorry for was for getting caught.  And he was so creepily smooth about it.  At any moment during the call I half-expected him to inform the counselor and moiself  that we all, in fact, saw eye-to-eye, and could he count on our vote in November?

Nevertheless, the three of us agreed on a course of action.  SEF Prezboy promised he would instruct all frat members to destroy their copies of the songbook, and he personally would sweep the frathouse to make sure every last copy was accounted for.  The counselor agreed to destroy the copy I’d given her, and I agreed to destroy my copy.  [13]

And, with no evidence, he is free to later turn around and deny the content, I thought, even as I was agreeing to destroy my copy.   So of course I lied. I kept my copy.

I lied ( “Yes, believe me, I don’t want to keep such filth around” ) and felt good about it.   I lied to that needledick fraudster, who only said what he said as he felt the knife of exposure at his neck.  Of course I kept the evidence.  I remember thinking, This weasel-butted snakeoil salesman is going to run for office one day, and I need to be prepared to take him down, if necessary.  [14]

 

 

But that was the next day.  That night, after I’d returned from the Women’s Center, I phoned Jay.  I asked him to please come to my apartment – I had something to tell him, but not over the phone. I told Yanny what I’d done, and he didn’t bat the proverbial eyelash.  He said it was probably best if he were not in the apartment when Jay came over, and left to go study in the library.

The frustration, outrage, and ultimately the sadness that I felt on so many levels – culturally, politically, personally – I tried to articulate them to Jay. To his credit, my boyfriend didn’t try to defend…anything.  He was obviously (to me) unhappy that I hadn’t told him what I’d planned to do ( as if I’d planned anything, I said – I’d acted, reacted, on gut-wrenching instinct).  But he said very little.  He listened to me; he wisely chose not to defend the indefensible. At one point he mumbled some mealy-mouthed comment about working from the inside to change things, then dropped that.  And as I was listening to him trying to find a way to sincerely apologize, I realized that we – he and I – had no future.

 

Actually, no Martha, it wasn’t.

 

Department Of The Aftermath

I didn’t break up with Jay, not right then.  Yet I knew that I would, eventually, because I’d realized that I no longer respected him.  Maybe it’s not even respect.  I was disappointed that Jay didn’t seem to see how important it was, the issues behind the When The End Of The Month Rolls Around lyrics – how important it was and *should* be, for all humans, not only women.  I was disappointed that he didn’t feel the same way as I did about such poison, despite him being One Of The Good Guys®, a guy who (thought he) would never knowingly participate in promoting misogyny, hatred, or vitriol of any kind….

In a way, that was unfair of moiself.  Of course, Jay couldn’t feel the same way that I did.  How could he, in the world of upper-class white male privilege from whence he came and in which he lived?  The word *privilege,* when referring to the isms (e.g., racism/ sexism/classism), has been accused of being overused, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable or applicable.  We didn’t have the term then, but, looking back, that’s what it was. Jay’s privilege prevented him from understanding my simmering rage, and also that which was even more important to the future of our relationship: my spirit-enervating disheartenment.

 

 

If there was any harassment or blowback to Jay, he never mentioned it to me (nor did Yanny).  I got the strong impression that SEF Prezboy was determined to keep what had happened on the down low; he wanted to act as if the songbook never existed, and did not want it getting out to anyone, even/especially the other SEF bros, that their veep’s bitch girlfriend had ratted them out.  I remember considering that possibility – of blowback to Jay –  then thinking, Actually, I’m not a bitch, but consequences are….  Jay was their effin’ veep; he had to have known what was in SEF’s “songbook.”

I felt no satisfaction in doing (what to this day I still consider) the right thing.  For a long time afterward, I just felt…numb.  There was no great victory; just disappointment at yet another revelation of organized, institutionalized, male ass-hattery/sexism and woman-hating disguised as boys-will-be-boys hijinks, the reaction to which the frat president probably/privately considering overreacting by two radical militant feminist man-haters.  And the relationship with the boy I loved, whom I broke up with a few months later and whom I still consider to be one of the more decent, well-meaning people I have ever known, was collateral damage.

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [15]

 

 

*   *   *

May you do the right thing, no matter how it feels;
May it eventually feel good when you do the right thing;
even if at first it feels so awful;
May every frat boy someday be required to have the
How To Avoid Sexual Assault guide tattooed on his chest;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] a preferred residence, I can understand, given the news as of late…and a place I tried to hide under when I first heard of the story.

[2] and the “joke” was that SAE stood for, Sexual Assault Expected

[3] What little contact I had with the Greek system was with frats; sororities were new to UCD (not on campus until 1973) and I’m not writing about them here.

[4] But their current website, I was unable to find a reference…don’t know how far back their online archives go, and I wasn’t interested in spending hours searching.

[5] In horny fratboy terms

[6] “Lupe,” a common name for Guadalupe, references the sacred cultural and spiritual figure of Mexico’s Virgen de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe). 

[7] I’d graduated that June, traveled the summer after graduation and returned to the apartment I shared with three other students.  I stayed for several months, seeking a job related to my major, before heading to the Bay Area in early 1980.

[8] All names (except Lupe) are nicknames/pseudonyms

[9] “Stupid Engineer Frat” – yes, even (some) organizations get pen names here.

[10] I did attend two parties held at his fraternity; not all that memorable (in fact kinda boring) , certainly not the high raunch other frats were known for

[11] He wouldn’t be living at the fraternity; not all frat houses had living or dorm like capacities, and most of the members of his fraternity did not live at the house.

[12] Which was usually a mess, piled high with papers and notebooks and texts, but which he’d cleared off – that was the paper shuffling I’d heard.

[13] There would be no press contacted re this (although he and the counselor were going to work out something with the administration…I’m not sure if the reported him or his fraternity).

[14] To this day have some of the evidence (copies of the songs/chants) in my files, but I (mercifully) don’t remember the SEF president’s name.

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

The Beer I’m Not Worshipping

October 2, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, music, nature, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Department Of The Cannily Observant Runner

Dateline: last Thursday, 12:35 pm,; walking to the Manzanita Post Office to mail a couple of letters.  A jogger runs past me and gasps what sounds like, “Like the purple.”   [1]  I  reflexively thank him, although I’m not really sure what he is referring…. Then I get a load of what moiself  is wearing: a black t shirt under a purple long-sleeved shirt; purple pants, purple jacket, purple shoulder bag; purple hat….  

 

*   *   *

Department Of Perhaps I Should’ve Rephrase That

Dateline #2: Sunday evening ;7 pm-ish; driving back from Rock Creek Tavern, where MH and I had enjoyed our usual date night (for their Sunday Irish Music night)…which turned out to be somewhat less enjoyable than usual because, for the first time either of us can recall, the scheduled musical act did not show up.

MH is driving; moiself  is making a mental inventory of the unused items from our weekly CSA produce share, thinking of how I might use them for the next day’s dinner. I have a few ideas, and ask MH if he has any preferences:

“So, what would you like to see me do with the broccoli tomorrow?
And don’t be rude….”

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Don’t Do This Intentionally…

…but moiself’s  mind just goes there.

Dateline #3:  Monday;10 am; the beginning of yoga class.  The yoga teacher asks us yogis to set an intention   [2]    for the class.  She offers these words for us to silently repeat to ourselves several times during the class, synchronizing it with our inhalations and exhalations:

(Inhale) I am here.
(Exhale) l Here I am

Here is what moiself’s  mind silently repeated instead:

(Inhale) I am Sam.
(Exhale) Sam I am.

*   *   *

Department Of Autumnal References
Sub-Department Of Time for The Clear Fingernail Polish

Harbingers of the Fall:  cooler, crisp morning temps; geese flying south in V-formations; hot apple cider; crunchy maple leaves underfoot; pumpkin-spiced everything; the fingernail on my right pinkie splitting…

Yeah, about the latter omen:

 

 

My sister N, who was three years old, was playing chase with her 18-month-old sister   [3]   (moiself).  When it was moiself’s turn to chase my sister, N fled into the bathroom.  N slammed the bathroom door and locked it, failing to realize, despite my ensuing, bone-chilling shrieks, that I had reached out to N at the last minute, and that my right little finger from the top joint up was crushed between the door and the door jamb.

Our parents convinced N to unlock the door.  They rushed me to the doctor, who examined my pulverized pinkie and pronounced, “It’ll probably need to be amputated.”  He took a second and third look, then mused, “Well, maybe….”

In a Nobel-Prize-worthy moment of medical inspiration, the doctor reached for his miracle salve (Vaseline), dabbed it on the top of my smooshed finger, and wrapped the damaged digit with gauze.  Doc advised my parents to keep the bandaged finger dry – no peeking! – and return in two weeks, or sooner if the finger started to smell like last year’s ham sandwich.  [4]

Two weeks later, at the unveiling, the tip of my finger had partially re-formed itself, and was thus spared its date with the guillotine.

So: I grew up with a funny finger.  While admittedly un-decorative in appearance, it is largely functional.

 

 

Besides my pinky’s misshapen profile, its Fun Finger Facts include the following, most of which are true:

  1. teeny sub-dermal bone fragments are palpable on the underside of the finger.
  1. the fingernail grows cleft from the nail bed to the edge, with the split running bottom to top in the left side of the nail, and curving down at the edge. The fingernail’s growth is self-limiting; it tends to disintegrate (for lack of a better term) at a certain length, and split on the left side.

 

( See that little bit of split fingernail, on the left, jutting upward? 

  1. the tip of the finger, from the second joint up, has reduced sensation (as compared to that of other fingers) and is prone to bouts of numbness.
  1. during one such numbness bout I discovered that Icould stick a pin in the top of that finger, sans pain. Besides giving me that certain, je ne sais quoi cachet among eighth graders, this ability proved to be a helpful form of pest control.  Waving my impaled pinkie was an effective gross-out/shoo-away to a certain cheerleader-type who’d attempted to make me feel self-conscious several times by loudly broadcasting, “Ew, what’s wrong with your finger?!  That is SO DISGUSTING!” in the classroom and at the lunch tables.
  1. There is no fifth Fun Finger Fact.
  1. The tip of the finger is an effective dowser implement, and twitches when in the proximity of an underground water supply.  [5]

The Fun Finger Fact #2 is the subject of the omen of fall.  During the decreasing humidity of autumn, the fingernail gets more dry/brittle and split.  The first time moiself  notices it doing so I start applying several (at least three) coast of clear fingernail polish to the nail a couple of times per week, which helps hold the cracked nail together.

 

 

*   *   *

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]

Ten Reasons Why Beer is Better Than God

10. No one will kill you for not drinking Beer.
9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex.
8. “In the name of Beer…” has never caused a major war.
7. Adults don’t force Beer on minors who can’t think for themselves
6.  When you have a Beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.
5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged or tortured over his brand of Beer
4. You don’t have to wait 2000+ years for a second Beer.
3. There are laws saying Beer labels can’t lie to you.
2. You can prove you have a Beer.
1. If you’ve devoted your life to Beer, there are groups to help you stop.   [8]

 

 

*   *   *

May you discoveryour own Dr. Seuss-inspired exercise mantra;
May you have a stranger compliment your color choices;
May you know what you’d like to see done with the broccoli;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Not many other words that rhyme with urple, which was the last word he said.

[2] In yoga practice, to “set an intention” is to choose a focus or attitude for your practice to ground you in the present (instead of, say, like working out at a gym with a future goal in mind – e.g., “I’m gonna lose five pounds/tone those abdominals”).  Variations of “I am here, now,” are commonly used intentions to help your mind focus when you are feeling busy or distracted.

[3] I’ve no memory of this incident – for which I’m grateful – only the finger to remind me

[4] Not his exact phrasing, but you get the idea.

[5] This is such a lie.  Please don’t tell me if you fell for it.

[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]  Moiself’s compilation,  adapted from many, many sources, including the FFRF Freethought Today’s  “The Top Ten Reasons Why Beer is Better Than Jesus”

The Magic Pill I’m Not Taking

September 25, 2026

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

Happy (Belated  [1])  Bisexual Visibility Day Y’all

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Seven Words That Should Give People Hope
But That People Mostly Ignore

 

Your magic pill is how you live.   [2]

 

 

Those seven words are from a Clear + Vivid podcast moiself  heard several weeks back.  The subject was…many subjects.  It’s an episode I can’t find now –  which I findironic in that one of the episode’s topics was discerning regular/age-related forgetting v. dementia-type forgetting.  The podcast’s guest explained why, for example, I can tell you what I had for dinner eight *years* ago on a warm summer evening with my daughter in Paris bistro, but I likely can’t remember what I had for dinner eight weeks (or even days) ago.

There is a science (as in, cognitive strategies) to make meaningful memories at any age.  However, as C+V host Alan Alda and his guess discussed, people would rather have the science behind such discoveries lead to a Magic Pill®  to boost memory (or anything else).  This is because – surprise! –  we evolved to be…well…effing lazy.   [3]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Mark Your Calendars:

“You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time,
but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.”

( Dan Barker, former evangelical Christian minister turned atheist activist,
in his 1992 book Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist )

 

 

Wednesday 9-30 is International Blasphemy Day.  Why not write a blasphemous  [4]   haiku to celebrate?   [5]

Here’s a sample of my past contributions.

First things first:  get the silly Old Testament proscriptions out of the way:

Eli, Saul – y ‘all heard?
Life is great; nothing’s unclean!
Shrimp rolls, anyone?

In the spirit of ecumenicism, a gentle dig at those gentle Zen Buddhists:

Get real, Grasshopper
The sound of one hand clapping
Sounds just like one clap

I’ll kill two birds with one stone in this swipe at a tenet of many forms of Hinduism
and Buddhism and – wait, make that three birds! – the New Age/past lives crowd:

Reincarnation?
Right – get a life!  But next time
Come back with some proof

And of course, no Blasphemy Day contest would be complete without a California surfer’s
take on the Christian sacrilege that was heliocentric theory:

Telescope; awesome.
So, like, we spin around them?
Copernicus, dude!

For several years there have been Blasphemy Day t-shirt slogan contests,  inspired in part by a United Nations resolution meant to pacify uber-sensitive Islamists.  But that resolution was the very reason I took a  “why bother/what’s the point?”  attitude toward composing a Blasphemy Day slogan (or even haiku) for Islam.  I mean, considering the possible reactions, who is going to wear a shirt poking fun at something that mandates death to fun-pokers?

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

The oft-quoted  [7]  Robert Ingersoll   was one of the most notable orators and speechmakers and civil rights activists of his time (post-Civil War America)…yet few remember him today.  Trained as an attorney, ’twas his oratory tours – speaking on topics as wide-ranging as Reconstruction period to Shakespearean literature to religion to science – that made him famous. He was…”the friend of Presidents, literary giants like Mark Twain, captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie, and leading figures in the arts. He was also beloved of reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other Americans considered themselves his enemies, (as he bitterly opposed the Religious Right of his day. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate of science and reason. More, he argued for the rights of women and African-Americans.  Ingersoll also praised the virtues of family and fireside. And he practiced what he preached. Contemporary sources say Ingersoll enjoyed almost idyllic contentment in family life. Opponents frequently despaired of finding anything to disparage in his personal life.”    [8]

*   *   *

May you value your daily habits more than your magic pills;
May you prize making memories over conserving energy;
May your opponents despair of finding anything to disparage
in your personal life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Bi-lated?

[2]  Translation:   Nurture once again trumps nature, in that your lifestyle – your daily habits, from what you eat, how much you sleep, how you move through the world) are more impactful on your health and longevity than any magic pill ever will or could.

[3] “We evolved to conserve energy” – sounds more respectable, doesn’t it?

[4] From Mirriam-Webster:  blasphemous, adjective, : impiously irreverent : profane

[5] And if you do, please share it with moiself.

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

[7] At least, in my blog

[8]  excerpt, Free Inquiry, Robert Green Ingersoll biography. 

The Perfection I’m Not Ordering

September 18, 2026

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), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, politics , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Perfection I’m Not Ordering

Department Of I’m Not The First Person To Notice This

Lately it seems as if every interaction with business employees – e.g., someone helping me out at a store, or when I’m ordering at a restaurant – the employee comments on my order and/or choice, in superlative terms.  Excellent and perfect seem to be the semantic pinnacles du jour.

Client: “I’d like the sides a little shorter than usual.”
Hair Stylist: “Awesome!”

Customer: “I’ll have the soup of the day, no croutons, please.”
Waiter:  “Excellent!”

Customer:  “Would you please add a gingersnap cookie to my order?”
Deli clerk:  “Perfect!”

It doesn’t frost my butt the way some other verbal tics do, although moiself  has the usual complaints re how overusing and/or misapplying words dilutes their significance.  But since there isn’t much in my life right now wherein, say, a committee is going to award me certificates for excellence in anything, I’ll gladly sit with the knowledge that the barista apparently considered my pomegranate tea choice to be impeccable.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Almost Bought The Book….

A just-released cookbook, that is.  Then I read the book author’s introduction ( I’m so glad online booksellers have this option ):

“Let’s get one thing out of the way.  I’m not a vegetarian.
No, no!  Don’t go anywhere.  If you’re looking for labels, I can give you a few.  I’m Tanya, an editor for Cooking and Foods at the The New York Times.  I’m a Leo (Aries rising, Libra moon)….”

 

 

Hi Tanya, I’m Robyn, a reader of your The Veggie newsletter.  As per your mythological bullshit astrology identity, I’m a Stradivarius whose gorge rises    [1]  at the mere hint that asentient being with an IQ larger than her bra size would give enough to credence to astrology so as to state her zodiac sign as an identifying characteristic.  And my moon is…well, that’s me at the monitor, figuratively mooning your amiable idiocy.

While I was cautiously (as in, with reservations   [2] ),  looking forward to your book it’s highly unlikely I’m going to spend $ on it now.  Instead, let me recommend a good read to you:  Carl Sagan‘s  The Demon Haunted World:  Science as a Candle in the Dark.   [3]  The entire book is a must-read, but if you’re pressed for time (or just lazy), check the index and read the pages dealing with astrology.  Here’s a sneak preview:

“Astronomy is a science—the study of the universe as it is.
Astrology is a pseudoscience—a claim, in the absence of good evidence, that the other planets affect our everyday lives.”
( This quote is from Sagan’s book,  Cosmos.
Those that follow are from The Demon-Haunted World )

“[Horoscopes] are consciously designed to be so vague
that they could apply to anybody …”

“Astrologers cannot even agree among themselves what a given horoscope means.”  [4]

“Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many real cases like this: one twin is killed in childhood in, say, a riding accident or struck by lightning, while the other one lives to a prosperous old age. Supposed that had happened to me. My twin and I would have been born in exactly the same place and within minutes of each other, exactly the same planets would be rising at our births. If astrology were valid, how would we have such profoundly different fates?…”

“How could the rising of Mars at the moment of my birth affect me, then or now? I was born in a closed room. Light from Mars couldn’t get in. The only influence of Mars which could affect me was its gravity. But the gravitational pull of the obstetrician was much larger than the gravitational influence of Mars. Mars is a lot more massive, but the obstetrician was much closer.” 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Editing Mishaps That Make Me Feel Better
Sub-Department Of I’ve Never Tried That Recipe Before….

This oopsie is from our CSA’s weekly newsletter,   [5]   in which the farmers let us know what veggies will be in our weekly portion and share other farm-related news:

The tomatoes made a comeback only to be sprinkled with rain and dew again….
We roasted a good chunk of the peppers which can now be frozen and fucked away for stews and sauces during the winter.

Um…well…ok.  Always looking for a way to liven up those stews and sauces.

 

“Don’t even think about it, lady.”

*   *   *

Dateline:  last Wednesday, circa 1:30p.  I did some grocery shopping on my way to pick up our produce share (from the afore-mentioned CSA), and treated moiself  to a copy of Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I do this every once in a while, even though over half of the recipes in the magazine are of little use to me since I don’t eat meat or dairy.  It’s the cover illustrations that get me.  The magazine’s current (number 202; Sept/Oct) cover makes okra, both whole and sliced, look like exotic flora from another galaxy.

 

 

One of my favorite sections in the magazine is Quick Tips, wherein readers send in their innovative and easy ways to perform cooking-related tasks.   [6]   Examples from the current issue include a home cook who repurposes used plastic gift cards as nonstick dish cleaners (“Gift Card Turned Pan Scrubber”); another who found that a clean fine-mesh laundry bag can be used for squeezing water from thawed frozen veggies (“A Tip for Squeezing Excess Water From Spinach); another who uses a vegetable peel to shave a piece of a celery stock to serve as a tie for a bouquet garni  (“An Edible Substitute for Kitchen Twine”)….

Before heading to the farm I got a lunch at a local café, where I opened the magazine and turned to the Quick Tips section.  I tried to explain to the servers why I was chuckling to moiself, after reading a QT with the caption, Keep Burritos Warm.

Keep Burritos Warm.

I guess that’s an issue for some folks, but, really…keep burritos warm.? This may be the first time in my life I have encountered that phrase.  Here’s the QT in its entirety:

“Keep Burritos Warm
When ____ (reader name) wants to take a burrito on the go, she keeps it warm and intact by sliding it into her thermal travel mug.  The burrito fits neatly inside for easy carrying, and the insulated walls keep it warm until she is ready to eat.”

Indeed, it is a handy tip, if keeping burritos warm is a concern of yours,  But for some reason it struck me as…silly, and profoundly funny.  Later that day, when I tried to explain to MH what I found so amusing about that particular QT, it took me several minutes before I could speak without giggling. Finally, I was able to choke out that “…it reminds of Three Word Slogan! Three Word Slogan! What you put on a protest sign and/or chant at a political rally.”

No More Kings!
Yes We Can!
No Nukes Now!
Stop the War!
Keep Burritos Warm!

A mere three words brought me to my knees (translation: brought my forehead to the table).  And now, how many paragraphs did I just write about a three word caption?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Be Careful What You Ask, Even Rhetorically

Writer and commentator Molly Jong-Fast recently published a New York Times Opinion essay ( “I’m Not Going to Lie About My Neck” ) wherein she revealed and defended her decision to undergo plastic surgery shortly after she turned 47.

According to Jong-Fast, her physical appearance is directly tied to her livelihood, and she felt pressured by our youth-obsessed culture   [7]  to either conform to beauty standards to prolong her career or step back from “the arena” and face her inevitable marginalization. In her essay she rhetorically asked if opting for cosmetic surgery is “cheating” and if it makes her a “bad feminist” by reinforcing patriarchal beauty norms.  Then she  chickens out advocates for a revised definition of feminism that does not heap “hostility” on those who have plastic surgery and which “respects individual autonomy and survival choices under a male-gaze-oriented culture.”

 

 

It was one of the odder versions of “you go girl/whatever makes you feel good about yourself, “ written by a herself *for* herself, that I’ve ever run across.  A good portion of the comments to Jong-Fast re the article (sampled below) revealed that many if not most of the article’s readers had similar feelings as moiself:

“Does it make you a bad feminist? Of course it does! We succumb to our own insecurities first, and then the ever-present male gaze, and even fiercer female gaze. As long as we keep succumbing to the cultural expectation of youth, there will be no way out….”

“Curious if you feel similarly about operations/treatments that aren’t as normalized, such as skin bleaching? Colorism is still alive and well in this country, but I very much doubt anyone would attempt to defend such a treatment…”

“It’s not that women who have plastic surgery are cheating. I don’t care what other women do to try to change themselves (though I do feel bad for women who believe that they aren’t good enough as is). The problem is that the more people who do ‘cheat’, the greater the price is for those of us who don’t. The more conformity there is to impossible ideals, the greater the momentum is toward impossible ideals. That harms us all.”

 

 

“As the mother of two daughters…I do not want to send them the message that it’s not ok to age because it’s happening to all of us…when I’m 70, I’m not going to fool anyone into thinking I’m 40 – no matter what I do….
I can’t agree with you that your choice was to conform to the standards of beauty or reject them and lose your career. There are examples of women in the public eye who aren’t doing this… At 63, I am still on Zoom calls most days and no, I don’t like the way my neck looks or the wrinkles around my eyes and mouth. But I’m never going to be 43, 33 or 23 again. Instead of trying to be, why not be an example for my daughters so they know aging is natural and ok?”

“Does that make you a bad person or a bad feminist?  No.  But it is a sad commentary on our culture that women feel that need at all.  I hope by the time your daughter reaches your age she feels more confident in the world.”

“It is not ‘hostility.’ That is reframing to tell a narrative. You are buying in, and it is depressing.  It is your choice to give your power away to ‘men’ and ‘society’s’ obsession with youth. For what, smoke and mirrors and a media ecosystem that promotes what exactly? Anything positive? Or just more of the same darkness?

*Molly, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist, it makes you a selective one.  (and I, Robyn, would add here, and it makes you a cowardly one ).
Succumbing to the misogyny but cloaking it in professional demands is a cop out.
You say that one’s level of perceived attractiveness or unattractiveness drives inequality in the workplace and society, but don’t note that plastic surgery worth tens of thousands of dollars is completely out of reach for the majority of women, driving further inequality.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

“If our lives are controlled by a set of traffic signals in the sky,
why try to change anything?”
( American scientist, professor, author, science educator Carl Sagan )

 

*   *   *

May you read The Demon Haunted World if you haven’t already;
May you find a better use for your peppers than f***ing them away;
May you remember that you no longer have any excuse *not* to
Keep Burritos Warm®;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Reference for you young’uns unfamiliar with the idiom: One is disgusted or sickened by something. (The “gorge” is the stomach: “I could never be a doctor. Blood, vomit, open wounds—the gorge rises at it.”  Definition from The Free dictionary ).

[2] Wondering how many of the recipes I’d actually be interested in, as her newsletter contains many with egg and dairy ingredients (vegetarian, but not entirely plant-based)

[3] Actually, there is nothing about this book that would make me recommend it solely to Tonya; I think *every* person should read it, as a good guide to evaluating evidence, learning skeptical and critical thinking, and thus developing your own “baloney detection kit”.

[4] The book describes examples of scientists testing astrology by, for example, having contradicting horoscopes given to astrology believers and printed in newspapers and testing the believer’s reactions….it’s worth the read just for these entertaining examples of human gullibility.

[5] What is a CSA and why should you sign up for one?

[6] They receive a complimentary one-year subscription to the magazine for each tip CI decides to publish.

[7] : Jong-Fast is a political commentator who appears frequently on television and digital video screens.

[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 Emotions I’m Not Second-Guessing

September 11, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Isms (religion), movies, music, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Emotions I’m Not Second-Guessing

Department Of This Date In History

Yep. Twenty-five years ago.

*   *   *

Department Of  Yep #2:  This.  Yep; This.

As a longtime reader of (select) advice columns, moiself  has come to think that they can open an interesting window into human motivations and behaviors.  Over the years I have noticed an irritating pattern to many of the letters sent by advice-seekers:  ( trigger alert:  massive generalization ahead)

* A man will report his emotions sans even the slightest modicum of introspection
( “Why doesn’t she understand how she’s annoying me?!?!?” );

* A woman will report her emotions and second-guess herself ( she reports an astoundingly annoying thing – a thing that would even piss off Mr. Rogers or the Dali Llama – which was said or done to her, yet asks,
“Am I right to be annoyed by ___?” )

 

“Yes, you can stop second-guessing yourself, sweetie, your boss really is a flaming asshat.”

 

Aside from the indisputable entertainment value of kitten-bops-enormous-dog’s-nose  videos, social media ‘s worth goes up a few notches when you consider how it can be an effective way of transmitting insightful observations and analyses about the politics of personal relationships.  One such analysis which I recently came across online (from “The Inner Pattern” ) addressed and partially explained the roots behind the complicated advice-column-letter-dynamic moiself  mentions above.

What’s the most damaging thing patriarchy ever pulled off? Convincing everyone that male anger counts as objective reality, but female emotions get filed under subjective instability.

Watch how differently the same emotion gets treated depending on who’s feeling it. He slams a door and it’s “he had a rough day.” She raises her voice once and it’s “she needs to calm down.”

His frustration gets a cause.  Hers gets a diagnosis.

 We grew up watching men’s reactions get treated as data — something to analyze, respond to, take seriously. Meanwhile women’s reactions got treated as noise — something to soothe, dismiss, or wait out. So, we learned early to run our own feelings through a filter before anyone else even heard them. Is this reasonable enough? Am I being too sensitive? Will this get taken seriously or will it just get me labeled?

That filter isn’t caution. It’s conditioning. It’s decades of being taught that our inner world needs to justify itself before it’s allowed to exist.

Your anger was never irrational. It was just never given the same benefit of the doubt his got by default.
(my emphases, FB, first seen by moiself  on  9-5-26)

 

*   *   *

Department Of There Goes The Neighborhood

Dateline:  The morning of August 5; SeaTac airport; Alaska Airline’s first-class lounge; waiting to board our flight to Iceland.  Checking out the massive, multi-buffet table breakfast spread set out for the lounge passengers I see that, on the end buffet table, there is a contraption that look like a 3-D printer.  This machine is labeled, “pancake printer,” and moiself  alerts my family to its presence.  None of us actually want a pancake, but we have to see how it works, and so I press its start button.

Five seconds after I start the pancake printer a woman walks past the side of the buffet table and eyes my family with confusion.  She is dressed in that casual money style   [1]  and holds a plate of pastries which looked like they’d have French-sounding names.  Meanwhile, my family – MH in his tie-dye tee, son K in his black leather jacket /death metal band shirt, daughter Belle in her in Pacific NW/Columbia lumberjack gear, and me in my CatZilla t-shirt – is crowded around the pancake printer. 

 

 

I remain standing while the rest of my family bends forward, practically down on their knees, as they watch a blob of (ostensibly) pancake batter make its way down a series of the printer’s criss-crossing cooking treadmills.  I make eye contact with the woman, and with widened eyes and a knowing nod of my head, I project (or so I intend) an amiable, joking,  yeah right – like we’ve never seen a pancake before  vibe.  In return, her facial expression and body language…

Oh, how can I put it?  So much attitude is succinctly and clearly expressed in the rolling/stink eye stare she flings toward me and mine:

“OMG, who let the Beverly Hillbillies into the first class lounge !?!”

 

Y’all come back now for the pancake breakfast, y’ hear?

*   *   *

Department Of Yeah, The Date…
September 11 Memories

Twenty-five years ago, since those horrific ( and/yet mesmerizingly cinematic  [2]  ) terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.  So much has changed in our nation; so much of that change is not for the better, and so much of this not-for-better change has been and is attributed to needing to Get Tough On Terrorism®.

I remember the unscripted eloquence of British PM Tony Blair, who interrupted his planned speech on a domestic issue to express his profound shock and sympathy for the American people and pledge his and his country’s full support for his allies.

 

 

I remember the stark contrast of Blair’s heartfelt articulateness with the glassy-eyed,  aardvark-caught-in-the-headlights expression of the clearly-not-up-to-the-gravity-of-what-lies-ahead “leader” which was George W. Bush.  The only solace I had been able to take from GWB’s mistaken ascendency to the presidency was that, up until 9-11, he had seemed destined to be a one-term president.

 

“Uh, Dad?  Dick Cheney?  Somebody, tell me what to do…”

 

But I’ll let the pundits and historians elaborate on that.  After all these years, moiself  is more interested in the personal stories – select memories, from those at Ground Zero and those of us across the country and out of the country  [3] – of we who were affected by the attacks.  It is the stories of our reactions, the memories of that impactful, holy-shit-am-I-watching-a-movie-or-is-this-real ?!?!?!  day, which we will impart to our children who were too young to remember (or who were born after) the 9-11 attacks.

Moiself  will always know that September 11, 2001 was on a Tuesday, because I was in my home office that morning, getting ready to leave for my Tuesday 7 am book club.  I gathered my book club items – coffee mug,   [4]  purse, jacket, the book the group was currently discussing – and stepped out of the office.  Before I could head down the hallway to the garage, I looked up at the sound of MH’s voice.

MH was standing in the upstairs hallway, leading against the stairway railing, a confused look on his face.  He said he’d been listening to NPR’s  Morning Edition,   [5]   which had just reported that an airplane had hit one of New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers.  I replied that I remembered reading, several years ago, that a small/private plane had collided with a large sky scraper in some big city – I found that to be an odd and accident, as you’d think the pilot could see such an enormous building in his path…

MH, still confused, said, no, this was a commercial-sized jet, and the report was that less than a half hour later another jet hit the second tower, and “…what kind of air traffic control mixup or other accident could account for…”

I gasped as I interrupted him: “TWO jets? That’s no accident.”

 

 

After listening to a few news reports I grimly drove to book group, which met in the pastor’s office of our local UCC church.   [6]   Every member of the book group showed up, despite or because of having heard the news.  We all had the same feeling: we wanted to be together.  I was one of the last to arrive, and made my entrance feelings-first:

“Well, we are ALL  FUCKED.  This is how wars start.”

I forget the name of the book we were discussing.  The leader of the group, the pastor, obviously felt some obligation to try to steer us toward the book, even as she was glassy eyed with shock and worry (her beloved sister-in-law was a flight attendant who often worked the American Airlines route from Boston to LAX) . [7]   But (of course) we spent most of the morning discussing the attacks, speculating about all that we knew and did not know, and what might happen in the days to come.

Two weeks later, when details of the terrorist plot were being revealed, the book group again set aside our book for the day and mostly discussed the attacks.  One of the group members brought in an article he’d been reading, written by a foreign correspondent who’d been researching the recruiting process for Islamist terrorist groups.  The article addressed a seemingly unfathomable question:  given the human instinct for preserving one’s own life,  how do you recruit young men for a suicide mission?  The book club member began reading the article’s list of commonalities found among the terrorist recruits:

“…strong ties to hard-core religious beliefs; weak ties to their own families; political idealism; religious and cultural conservatism – and while not necessarily virgins themselves, the young men were attracted by the enticement that their martyrdom would be a righteous deed which would earn them a shortcut to heaven, where they would enjoy the sexual attentions of 72 dark-eyed virgins….”

I heard my own snorting-with-ridicule interruption as if it were coming from somewhere other than my own mouth:

“Yeah, right – that shows you what kind of mindset fanaticism appeals to.  What kind of sexually ignorant, inexperienced idiots want – I mean, seventy-two *virgins*?  That’s an enticement?  Give them just one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing…”

I looked around the circle at my book comrades’ wide-eyed, Is that so? expressions, and thought, maybe middle-aged moiself  should have kept that to moiself?

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Not One Damn Recipe

I recently got a new cookbook, which is one of my favorite things to get.  Cookbooks – moiself  tends to read livres de cuisine like novels, as in, getting inspiration from more than actually following a recipe step by step.  After reading through this new book I found moiself  wondering, Why did I order this?

The book’s recipes concentrate on a culture whose cuisine is mostly unfamiliar to me – as do several cookbooks in my collection, so it’s not that.  Sourcing many of the key ingredients would be difficult, but…see previous comment.  It’s just that there was not one recipe that stood out, not one recipe that made me think, I’d like to try that, or work up a variant moiself.  My get a new one get rid of an old one policy,  [8]   has kept my cookbook supply steady at seventy-four. And it will remain at 74 as this new book goes into the list of sixty cookbooks I have recycled.  [9]

 

Woe to anyone who recycles one of my cookbooks.

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [10]

A cigarette pack is one of the few consumer products…that practically insults its own customer. Buy a pack and you are greeted by…blunt declarations that your habit may kill you. Governments force tobacco companies to confess the danger directly on the packaging because the evidence is overwhelming: smoking causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and millions of deaths annually….

Yet the satirical image asks a deeply uncomfortable question: if cigarettes require warning labels because they can harm human beings, why do religions—whose histories include crusades, inquisitions, sectarian wars, terrorism, witch hunts, executions for heresy, honor killings, forced conversions, and systematic oppression—escape similar scrutiny?

The meme…exposes an asymmetry in moral outrage.
Society treats physical harm as measurable and ideological harm as sacred.

The irony is brutal. A cigarette company cannot advertise without legal constraints, but a preacher can tell children they deserve eternal torture for doubting a doctrine and still be called a moral authority. Tobacco executives are condemned for manipulating fear and addiction, while some religious institutions have built entire civilizations around fear of invisible punishment….

Imagine if holy books carried labels modeled after cigarette warnings:

WARNING: This ideology has been linked to violence, intolerance, and persecution when interpreted literally.

WARNING: Excessive exposure may impair critical thinking and increase susceptibility to authoritarianism.

( excerpts, Religion: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly )

 

(from my supply of stickers I carry with me when I travel, in case the hotel room has a Gideon bible or other religious book in the dresser drawer.)

 

*   *   *

May you see your emotional reactions as data, not noise;
May you practice the get a new one get rid of an old  one policy;
May you benefit from the experience of even one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Like pornography, I know it when I see it, even if I can’t describe it…and so can you.

[2] I watched footage of the two places crashing into the towers, over and over, in a way trying to convince myself that it was real – it seemed like something out of a movie…but CGI was in its infancy then, and a Hollywood special effects crew couldn’t possibly have pulled off such an epic job.

[3] LS, in the Netherlands, are you there?

[4] That was the one day a week that I drank coffee in the morning.

[5] Which was his Monday – Friday morning routine, before he got out of bed and we got our kids breakfast and ready for school.

[6] The church MH and I were members of for years, until we came out of the Happy Heathens® closet.

[7] She had no news about her SIL at that time, but later that day was assured that her SIL was not working that day.

[8] Which I apply to most “things,” from cookbooks to household items to clothing….

[9] As in given away to friends and/or family and/or Goodwill.

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

The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On

August 21, 2026

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, Oregon, reproductive rights, school, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On

It’s time for a…

 

 

Moiself  sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.

 

 

*   *   *

The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On
( 8-21-20 )

Department Of Yet Another Silver Lining

The Democratic convention’s pandemic-mindful/physical distancing states’ roll call (in its entirety, here ) – how delightful was that?   The usual political party convention roll call, with the delegates dressed basically the same (we can wear three colors – can you guess what they are?) and wearing those ridiculous straw boater hats, some of which look to be made of styrofoam….it’s beyond boring.

 

Well hellooooo, ladies.

 

Moiself sez let’s do it this way from now on, pandemic or not. We got a brief glimpse into the states’ – and US territories’ – terrain as well as character,  [1]  with a few surprises, too.  Rhode Island calamari – that’s even a thing? Who knew?

*   *   *

Department Of Which Is The More Accurate Adjective?

What the radio podcast host said:
” (name)…is a board-licensed professional counselor.”

What moiself heard;
“(name) …is a bored, licensed professional counselor.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of If Given My Druthers, I’d Like To
Leave The Civics Lesson To Someone Else

What, BTW, are druthers?  In the various idiomatic expressions which use the word, it does seem to be a positive thing. Do I have to wait to be given them, by someone else, or can I get or earn them on my own?   [2]

If it were in my power, I would give all of you your druthers. Wouldn’t it be great if druthers turned out to be something like this:

 

 

Once again, I digress.

Moiself  is thrilled with Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate.  During the Democratic debates, a California friend (MM) and I were exchanging ideas/compliments about the various candidates. In MM’s opinion Sen. Harris, besides being experienced and intelligent and a razor-sharp questioner during Senate hearings, was also not the kind to put up with crap or betrayal – “She’ll put a shiv in you,” MM wrote admiringly.  We both agreed that was a talent sorely needed when dealing with the petty viciousness and mendacity of the Republican congress.  [3]

One of the many, many other things I like about Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is that I don’t know a thing about her religious/spiritual and/or worldview beliefs.  And I’d like to keep it that way.

Except of course, the Republicans will not stand for that. Even the (secretly) religion-free among them must grovel to the altar of right-wing Jayyy-suuuus  lovers.   #45 figured this out when he was laughing all the way to the bank (or golf course), passing church after church along the way, metaphorically thumbing his nose at them even as he was snickering about how easy it was to bamboozle the congregants.

 

The Republicans will look for every opportunity, during the election and debates,  [4]  to play their piety cards and jab Biden and Harris about their beliefs.  Biden has already fallen into that trap –of talking about his own faith rather than telling those who ask that it’s none of their business as the USA is not a theocracy, and let’s get back to the issues….

Thus, I humbly offer my advice to Ms. Harris – the advice she didn’t solicit from me  [5]  but which I hope she takes:

Don’t fall for Pence’s religious rhetoric claptrap, and make him sorry if he even asks. I know you’re capable of going all prosecutorial on his ass…even though that tactic, if you employed it, would make your advisors reach for the smelling salts as the white evangelicals would clutch their pearls and gasp in horror at The Angry Black Bitch Atheist (whether you are or are not the fourth, you’d definitely be pegged as the first three).  So, yes, I understand how you must go for discretion.

I also hope you don’t mumble platitudes about respecting everyone’s faith journey (although I understand there will be pressure to do so). When – not *if,* as religion will definitely be an issue – the subject of a paticular candidate’s religious beliefs are brought up, don’t ignore it.  Instead, candidly and assertively steer away from the subject, every time it happens, and every time reminding us of why you are doing so:

We are electing presidents and vice presidents here,
not popes and pastors and vicars and decans – or rabbis, imams or mullahs, Zen masters or Lamas, pujaris or gurus….

 

I know, this is important…I’ll ty to stay alert.

 

American citizens hold a diversity of religious opinions. The candidates elected will be the President and Vice President for all the people, including the growing percentage of atheists, agnostics, humanists, Freethinkers Brights – aka, to pollsters and scientists, as the “Nones,” as in, we Americans who are religion-free and/or claim no religious affiliation.

Polls and studies reveal that 23 to 26 % of the US population – approaching one out of every four people – claim “none” for their religion, despite facing open hostility and discrimination from religious believers (and incurring a political liability as well, if they run for office).  And scientists note that these 23-26% figures are conservative estimates.

 “…psychologists…contend that there may be far more atheists than pollsters report because “social pressures favoring religiosity, coupled with stigma against religious disbelief…, might cause people who privately disbelieve in (god[s])  to nonetheless self-present as believers, even in anonymous questionnaires.
To work around this problem of self-reported data, the psychologists employed what is called an unmatched count technique, which has been previously validated for estimating the size of other underreported cohorts…. (Using a) Bayesian probability estimation to compare their results with similar Gallup and Pew polls of 2,000 American adults each…they estimated, with 93 percent certainty, that somewhere between 17 and 35 percent of Americans are atheists, with a “most credible indirect estimate” of 26 percent.
(“The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising,”
Scientific American, 4-1-18 )

As a former prosecutor you, Senator Harris, are aware of the average person’s cognitive capacities, so I’ll trust you to condense those statistics into something debate-attention-span appropriate.

After doing so, please give a brief reminder – more like a civics lesson, considering how many Americans know next to nothing about the history of our country’s secular roots – that the USA was the first country to have a totally god-free constitution.  “God” – anyone’s god  – is not mentioned in the US Constitution (nor is Jesus, nor Christianity), not even once.  Religion is only mentioned twice, and then in exclusionary terms: in the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”), and in Article VI, which declares that “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

And do this – remind folks of the facts – Every. Time.

 

 

There will be some ignoramuses (most likely your debate opponent), even among otherwise seemingly articulate members of the press, who will confuse the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution, and will quote the former:

“But wait, what about the part where it says,
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’….”

Here is, yet again, another opportunity for education. Remind the populace of the difference between the two: The Declaration of Independence (an ‘apology’ and call to arms for the American revolution);  and the Constitution of the United States (the new nation’s governing document).

You may also want to be prepared for when some idiot sputters about how his dollar bills say, “In God We Trust”…which he probably doesn’t know was not added to our currency until 1957, during the Commie/Red Scare era, and then he may continue on as how the Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase, “Under God”…except that until relatively recently, it didn’t:

 The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy… (who) had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.  In its original form it read:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1923, the words, “the Flag of the United States of America” were added:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” creating the 31-word pledge we say today.
Bellamy’s daughter objected to this alteration.
(“The Pledge of Allegiance,” Historic Documents, usdocuments.org)

You will likely also encounter shade from the historical yahoos who will crow about how the USA was formed as a “Christian nation.” Not only does Constitution make no such claims, we have the confirmation to the opposite, declared and signed by the very founding fathers of our country and the framers of the constitution, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoly – which was sent to the Senate (by President John Adams).  The entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor (including the (in)famous words in Article 11; copies were printed for every Senator; the treaty was ratified by a unanimous vote of all 23 Senators. They knew what they were doing:

Treaty of Tripoli, article 11
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”   [6]

All this history should be enough.  Of course, it won’t be.

So, please, get the message across…in your own astute, succinct way.  Perhaps, a more prime time-palatable version of the following?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Fun With Nature’s Wacky Reproductive Scenarios

“Some sharks give live birth from two uteruses — and that’s not the weirdest part.”

Dateline: earlier this week, listening to a Curiosity Daily podcast. CD is one of my favorite podcasts.  As per their website:

The award-winning Curiosity Daily podcast will help you get smarter about the world around you — every day.
In less than 10 minutes, you’ll get a unique mix of research-based life hacks, the latest science and technology news, and more.

I’m not sure how much smarter CD has helped moiself  to get, but I’m certainly entertained, and armed with interesting trivia facts, by each episode.

A recent segment on sharks which have dual uteri caught my eye (ear?).  The takeaway: many shark species have multiple uteri and give birth to live baby sharks, which hatch from eggs in the uteri.  Before being expelled, the baby sharks which hatch first swim between the uteri, and eat the eggs of their un-hatched siblings, so they can grow faster. In one species, multiple free-swimming baby sharks hatch at the same time and fight to the death inside their shark mom’s uterus.

 

“Congrats, Mom, it’s a boy…I mean, a girl…uh, make that, a cannibal.”


For some petty reason, I enjoy the idea of anti-choicers – most of whom hold a conservative religious dogma which says that their god creates and directs all life (so guess who’s responsible for this preborn carnage?) –  cringing at these facts…even though sibling predation – “siblicide” –  is not unknown in other animals (e.g. the newly hatched chicks of some bird species will attack and eat their smaller siblings, or push them or any unhatched eggs out of the nest).

As with every CD episode, at the end of this one the two hosts recapped what they’d learned.  The male host, whose wife is pregnant, said that he’s been feeling his wife’s belly when the fetus kicks her, and now he’s thinking how “…that is really mild, compared to what sharks do.”  He then declared, “I’m glad I didn’t marry a shark.”

 

“Oh, honey, can you feel them fighting to the death?”

*   *   *

Pun For The Day

Presidential candidate Scissors was forced to withdraw from the race
after failing to find anyone who would run with him.

 

“Do you see what humor they have to put up with, in a so-called ‘free’ society?”

 

*   *   *

May you support politicians in remembering and upholding our country’s secular foundation/roots;
May you have yet another reason to detest that insipid “Baby Sharks” song;
May someone surprise you with the gift of druthers;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

[1] But California should have had a surfer boy standing between those two women.

[2] I could Google this, I know, but sometimes, it’s just more fun to wonder.

[3] Then added that, as much as he admired President Obama, “that was a talent Obama lacked.”  (moiself  ageed).

[4] Are we even going to have debates, this year?

[5] Or, maybe she *did* and her email got caught in the spam folder.

[6] At the time of the Treat, Mediterranean Sea traffic was largely controlled by pirates from the North African Muslim states of the Barbary Coast.  Many European seafaring countries paid a tribute to the Barbary Sultans in exchange for safe passage through the Mediterranean. After the American Revolution, the US was no longer covered by British tribute treaties. The U.S. decided to form tribute treaties with the Barbary States, and given the history of The Crusades, assure the sultans that the US was not going to use the excuse of Christianity vs. Islam to go to war with them.

The Yoga Pose I’m Not Practicing

August 7, 2026

Robyn Parnell community, current events, exercise & fitness, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, movies, nature, Oregon, Recreation , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Yoga Pose I’m Not Practicing

It’s time for a…

 

Moiself  sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.

 

 

*   *   *

The Yoga Pose I’m Not Practicing
( August 7, 2020 )

Department Of Even Yoga Teachers Need To Be Careful What They Ask For

Backstory: A couple of months ago, when we were all new to this streaming business, my 9 am yoga class teacher held a pre-class video chat for us streamers. She told us a “yoga joke,” then said that if anyone else knew any yoga jokes, she’d love to hear them.  

Dateline: Monday; circa 9:30 am; doing a vinyasa (yoga) class via streaming. The regular teacher is on vacation.  As the substitute yoga teacher leads the class into Triangle Pose, my mind wanders – which *not* the point of a yoga class, I realize…

 

 

“Bad yogi!”  [1]

Ahem.

…my mind wanders to ponder the many different yoga pose names, both their English “nickname” and the Sanskrit names and translations, and as I do this, a joke begins to develop in moiself ‘s  un-mindfulness-practicing mind.  There are a few twisting yoga poses which are notorious for producing, in certain people, a certain bodily response – in fact, the Sanskrit name for one such pose translates as:

 

My joke is a play on the Sanskrit name for Triangle Pose, which is Trikonasa (TREE- kone-ah-sauna).  I will ask my yoga teacher if there is a yoga pose known for inducing bladder leakage, and if so, would that pose be called, Trickle-asana?

 

My guess is that Trickleasana would look something like this.

*   *   *

Department Of Extending The Metaphor

Yeah, hipster, since you obviously don’t care about trashing your own lungs, go right ahead and give no thought to trashing your small portion of the planet, which happens to be shared by everyone else.  That’s the true American Spirit.    [2]

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Actually, not. Not something *completely* different, that is.

Instead, a smooth segue into….

Department Of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes… And Nowhere Else, If You’re Lucky

MH and I have two fireplaces in our house.  One has never been used; the other has been used once, not long after we moved in (~ 26 years ago), and never since.  This is because of moiself’s  killjoy spirit  high livability standards.

I have been the family spoilsport when it comes to wood fires, be they fireplace fires or beach bonfires or campfires.  When on vacation, burning wood is “permissible” only if necessary – e.g., if your accommodations have a wood-fire stove as the only heating source.  You see, I am one of those annoying,   I-can’t-pretend-to-not-know-something-once-I-know-it  kinda people, and cannot justify sitting around a pollution source sans a more compelling reason than my personal entertainment.

 

 

And yes, I have fun, sitting-around-the-campfire  memories from childhood.  And yes, I have been pooh-poohed for my anti-wood fire attitude (  “Oh, c’mon, it’s not really that bad…” ).  And yes, I am thanking someone else for doing the legwork on the It Really Is That Bad ® statistics I once knew but have forgotten and was too lazy to look up.

That info via Someone Else ®  was provided in yesterday’s Ask Amy column, wherein Amy dealt with a woman’s am-I-right-to-be-disturbed-by-this question. This (nonsmoking) woman has been accused by her (non-smoking) husband’s “big smoker” sisters of over-reacting because of the woman’s concerns about the fact that when she and hubby go for “chats and s’mores” to the sisters’ place, the sisters toss their butts and partially smoked cigarettes into the fire pit: 

“…since we don’t smell any cigarette smoke as the fire burns, (the sisters claim that) second-hand smoke isn’t an issue.
I feel this is second-hand smoke and a very real health concern.”

Amy lays it on the line (my emphases):

 “Cigarettes aside, the backyard fire pit itself presents risks to lung health. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov), ‘In addition to particle pollution, wood smoke contains several toxic harmful air pollutants, including: benzene, formaldehyde, acrolein, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).’
Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which is a finely spun plastic (not cotton, as I had always assumed). Burning plastic sends off toxic fumes. The leftover tobacco on the spent cigarettes will also release ‘second-hand’ smoke.
So yes – this bonfire is basically a flaming pit of toxins.”

 

“The Scoutmaster says we’re only two requirements shy of earning our Flaming Pit of Toxins merit badges!”

Are you lost in the forest in the dead of winter? Ok; build a fire. You and your friends just wanna sit beside a pile of wood and watch it burn for…oh, that warm, glowy-feeling, or whatever?  There are other ways to enjoy each other’s company that don’t involve needless production of toxic waste.  How about playing charades, or that game where you find clever ways to trash your hypocritical friends who make you feel guilty about, say, things like polluting for your own pleasure?

Or how about this: re-purpose some old holiday lights, and if you put them on twinkly-mode you can pretend it’s flickering flames.  Imagination is good for the body and spirit.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Could The Editor Have Cut The Movie To Give You
All At Least Five Minutes Before Contradicting Yourselves?

Dateline: a week ago, this evening; watching The Go-Go’s documentary with MH.  One of the Go-Gos was doing a voice over about the early 1980s Los Angeles punk scene (from whence the Go-Gos was spawned); specifically, about how accepting the punks were:  it didn’t matter if you were gay or straight, white or black, male or female etc. you were welcomed for however you were/whatever you were.

 

This kumbaya declaration was made literally seconds before the band went on to recall how the other Go-Gos demanded that their new drummer, Gina Schock, an import to LA from Baltimore, undergo a makeover when she arrived – they cut and dyed her frizzy blonde hair to short and dark, to be more suitable to the punk scene.

Confession:  the picture of Gina’s “Baltimore” hairstyle that flashed onscreen during that recollection…it *was* really, clownishy, wretched, even by 1980’s hair standards.  [3]    Open and accepting only goes so far; I guess even punk rockers have standards.

 

Yep; it was worse than this.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stopping Moiself  In The Nick Of Time

Dateline: Tuesday, circa 7 am, walking north along the beach at Manzanita. There are few people on the misty beach.  About 200 yards ahead of me I see three creatures walking south – a man, a woman, and their dog. The man and the woman each hold a large takeout coffee cup in their respective right hands.  The dog, walking between the two, is looking up at the man.  Dog pays the woman no attention; dog’s eyes stare up at the man.

As the trio gets closer I notice that the dog’s laser focus is on the man’s left arm, which the man has tightly clenched to his left side, and I get a glimpse of the halves of two brightly colored orbs the man is carrying between his upper arm and armpit/chest.

As our two groups (well, moiself  is a group of one) we both do the polite, COVID-appropriate thing, moving to the side and smiling in acknowledgement and greeting. The woman says a few words to the dog, which gives no indication it has heard her – it never tears its gaze from the man and the toys he has “hidden” under his arm…and the woman sees that I have noticed this.  As she gives me a What-am-chopped-liver? look and shrug of her shoulders, I stop myself at the last minute from pointing to the dog and to the man and saying to the man,  “Oh, I get it – you’re the one with the balls!”

 

“In a just world, I’m the one with *all* the balls.”

 

*   *   *

Pun For The Day

I can’t believe I got fired from the calendar factory – all I did was take a day off!

 

 

*   *   *

May you enjoy the simple pleasure of wasting precious brain wattage
on composing a bad joke about your favorite form of exercise;
May you be the coveted one with the…uh…balls;
May we all hope that the nostalgia for pre-pandemic times does not presage
a return to 1980s hair;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] No no no – not *that* kind. A yogi is anyone who practices yoga.

[2] Can you make out the cigarette carton brand?  Do ya get it, huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?

[3] I can provide no still picture of that hair, from the documentary – I think it would have burned the camera lens to even attempt it.

The Ephemera I’m Not Minimizing

July 31, 2026

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

Department Of Be Aware Of Mono No Aware

“There’s a wonderful Japanese term, for which there isn’t a precise English translation.  The term is Mono No Aware  ( mo no no a- war -ey ) loosely means, a sensitivity to ephemera; the bittersweet feeling of seeing things change.  Mono no aware is a wistful awareness of the transitory nature of existence.  Since everything we see all around us will one day be gone, we must appreciate every millisecond.  According to this idea, cherry blossoms are not only beautiful despite only blossoming for two weeks once a year, they are beautiful *because* they only blossom for two weeks once a year.

When you notice yourself fearing or resisting change, perhaps you can remember the concept of mono no aware, and find harmony with the impermanent nature of all things.   As Jack Kornfield   [1] said, ‘Like a sandcastle, all is temporary.  Build it; tend it; enjoy it. And when the time comes, let it go.’ ”
( from Daily Calm morning meditation, 7-22-26 )

 

*   *   *

Department Of Apropos Of Nothing…

…or at least the nothing that now seems so important, or at least, memorable.  Recently, both a book I was reading and a podcast I was listening to, on the subject of the history of the radical undergrounds  [2]   in the 1970s-1980s, mentioned an incident in Chicago where the boxer Muhammed Ali ( “the most recognizable man in the world” ) joined in on an action to disrupt the eviction of a poor Black family living in a Chicago tenement.   I didn’t know about that incident; while I admired his acting on behalf of that family, hearing about it got me to thinking of the impressions I carried of Ali, and still do, to this day.

My parents were not very interested in boxing.  Moiself  actively opposed and was confused by its very existence:  why were select men given money and medals for doing something that, if they did it in the streets instead of in a sporting arena, they’d be arrested ?  [3]   I refused to watch any boxing matches as a matter of principle, but when it came to the Ali-Frazier competitions I –  like the entire country, it seemed – was well aware of the pre-matches hype and the post-matches analysis.

 

When it came to that classic rivalry –  the three Frazier-Ali matches known as The Fight of The Century (1971) and the rematches Super Fight II  (1974) and the Thrilla in Manila –  my parents, like most Whites of that era (so it was assumed), supported Joe Frazier.  Joe Frazier was shy, respectful, softspoken, and humble;  those traits of his were ridiculed by Ali and his supporters as being more palatable to White people whom, they sneered, saw Frazier as a Good Negro®.

I admired Ali for how he stood up for himself and was willing to go to jail for his principles.  I’d never heard of a Black man talking back to White people like Ali did.  It wasn’t so much that Ali talked back, it was that he unapologetically stood up for himself.  I loved that.  And I hate hate hated the way Ali talked about, and to, Joe Frazier.

Joe Frazier supported Ali ( both publicly and financially ) after Ali refused induction into the US Army and was subsequently stripped of his title, banned from boxing, and threatened with jail.  Frazier even lobbied the boxing powers that were ( and President Nixon! ) for Ali’s being able to return to the sport. Here is what Frazier got in return:  Ali boasted about how “pretty” he himself was, and contrasted his own handsome visage  [4]  with the features of Frazier,  called Frazier “ignorant” and “dumb” and “ugly,” and actually compared Frazier to a gorilla.

 

 

Those astoundingly racist epithets would’ve been called out as being just that if they had been uttered by a White person instead of being brashly spewed by the self-proclaimed   [5]   “Greatest.”  You could try to excuse Ali’s taunting by saying it was part of the boxing culture’s pre-match hype; but Frazier didn’t, and never forgave Ali for the taunting and bullying he (and his family) endured from Ali supporters.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was the celebrated agnostic orator of the 19th century, sparking what became known as The Golden Age Of Freethought.  A Civil War officer, abolitionist, civil rights and women’s rights advocate, author, and skilled orater, Ingersoll’s lectures attracted thousands, and he was the person most responsible for the flowering of Freethought in the USA.

 

 

Although I knew *of* Ingersoll I did not encounter Ingersoll’s vow until after my own coming out as religion-free.  Moiself  got goosebumps, the first time I read this essay of his, to think of how the experiences of a someone of over 100 years ago so paralleled those of my own.  It’s as if he was emptying my thoughts onto his pages.

The *news,* was not what Ingersoll realized he was convinced of ( e.g., the natural, not supernatural, origins of our world; the fact that religions are mythologies ) but rather of his ability – his*need,* his obligation, even –  to express this openly.

 

 

Ingersoll’s Vow ( emphases mine  [7] )

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths –  there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust.
I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free –

* free to think, to express my thoughts;
* free to live to my own ideal;
* free to live for myself and those I loved;
* free to use all my faculties, all my senses;
* free to spread imagination’s wings;
* free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope;
* free to judge and determine for myself;
* free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books
that savages have produced,
and all the barbarous legends of the past;
* free from popes and priests;
* free from all the “called” and ‘set apart;’
* free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies;
* free from the fear of eternal pain;
* free from the winged monsters of the night;
* free from devils, ghosts, and gods;
for the first time, I was free.

There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain – for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell in the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.”

 

*   *   *

May you remember, or soon discover, the first time you realized that you are free;
May you know the wistful joy of appreciating ephemera;
May you feel free to spread imagination’s wings;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Jack Kornfield  is a Jewish-American writer and teacher of the Vipassana style of Theravada Buddhism.  He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, and has been teaching mindfulness meditation since 1974.

[2] The Weather Underground, The Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army. 

[3] I still don’t get it.

[4] Which, as more than one White and Black pundit pointed out, was the result of having some European ancestry in his lineage – specifically, an Irish ancestor from County Clare.

[5] “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.” “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”  Muhammed Ali In His Own Words.

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

[7] As well as some punctuation

The Energy Crisis I’m (Still) Not Solving

July 24, 2026

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

Department Of Things That Hold Up Overtime

MH and I have been re-watching the TV series ER.   Aside from some older technology artifacts – the hospital records and procedures are not fully computer-integrated (e.g.,  the staff keeps index card files on certain patients! ) – the issues, both medical and personal, remain, IMO, compelling and contemporary. Except for wanting an old-fashioned schoolmarm’s stick to whack George Clooney’s character on the back (  “Stand up straight!  Look people in the eye!  You’re a doctor, FFS!” ), the performances are spot-on.  Although (for moiself  at least) Clooney’s hangdog/horndog, mannered performance as Dr. Doug Ross takes some getting used to, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how… fresh… everything seems.  It’s fun to rewatch a great episode I haven’t thought of in years, and turn to MH and say, “Oh, wait, I think I remember this…no I don’t/no, wait – something weird is gonna happen here….”

 

Someone who’s on the cusp of being a ginormous movie star and making an obscene amount of money should have better posture.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why Isn’t This A Thing Yet?

Percussive energy is the thing that isn’t, yet.  And it should be.  After all, moiself  blogged about it four years ago ( The Clean Energy Source I’m Not Yet Inventing ). And yet the eyes and ears of the scientific community remain blind and deaf to my far-fetched ranting well-thought proposals?

I wrote about percussive energy as the counterpart, or rather compliment, to solar and wind energy. Short recap:  utilizing all that  tap, tap tap  [1]  of raindrops – as in, designing a surface, which could capture that energy find a way to use or store it (an answer to the old school people who decry “clean” energy by saying,  “Yeah well solar only works when it’s sunny/wind power only works when it’s windy….” ).

The world is still waiting for, still needing, youth science fairs and contests to challenge and/or incentivize their entrants to…basically…save us from ourselves.   Or at least help us out with our existing problems, rather than translate their budding scientific and entrepreneurial skills into designing yet another mind-numbing gaming/entertainment app.

 

Lilly Downs, eighth grader from Osteen, Florida, wins Lemelson Early Inventor Prize winner at her 2025 science fair.   [2]

 

*   *   *

Department Of Gems Discovered While Seeking Something Else

That would be a blog segment from five years ago, specifically 8-20-21 ( The Butt I’m Not Kicking ) where in moiself  wrote about MH’s colonoscopy:

Department Of Post-Procedural Updates

Background info: MH has never been able to roll his rs, which is the main reason, he told me many years ago, that he took German as a foreign language in high school.  He’d thought Spanish would be more useful/practical, but he simply could not roll his rs as is required for the correct pronunciation of many Spanish words, and he was somewhat intimidated/embarrassed by his lack of being able to perform that particular linguistic feat.  And it’s true: over the years, I’ve tried to get him to do it (or trick him into it), and he simple cannot roll his rs.

Dateline: Thursday, 10:50 am. MH is back home after his colonoscopy.  He thinks he’s fine, but it’s obvious to moiself  that the effects of the Versed (the sedative used during the procedure) are still reigning.    [3]    He’s… goofy

He stands at the kitchen counter, looking at the color printout he was given at the hospital, which includes a map of the lower intestines. He begins reading off the “map sites” to me:

MH (in a voice much higher than his usual range):
“The ilium!
The cecum!
The rrrrrrrrrrrectum…”

Moiself:
What?!?!?!  Holy crap; did you hear yourself?!  You rolled your rs!

MH (in miffed toddler mode):
“No I didn’t.”

Moiself:
“Oh yes you did!”

MH proceeds to say “rectum” over and over, drawing out the r sound without rolling it.  But for one glorious, Versed-induced moment, them rs were rolling like a river.

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Not Completely Different
But Similar, As In, Involving A Memory

 

MH and I met in a Lutheran Church.  Yep; yours truly the flaming atheist, Humanist, Freethinker, Skeptic, religion-free apostate/heretic was raised by Lutheran parents and was herself, like her now equally religion-free (  but less flaming  [4]   ) spouse was once an active church member.  But that’s a story for another day (preferably, a day involving cosumption of gin and tonics by both the storetellers and story listeners ).

A momentary digression for Educational Purposes®:  moiself  has been referred to, by other active and former Christians, as both a heretic and an apostate.  Neither word is one I consider pejorative; both are arguable as to their applicability as labels for my beliefs and experiences.  [5].  In general, both labels refer to someone’s rejection of the religion they are/were “in” and/or were raised in.  The difference is in the degree of rejection.  Apostates totally reject or renounce their religion; heretics stay (or attempt to stay) within their religion and/or religious community but openly hold and assert beliefs that contradict their religions’ theologies and doctrines. [6]   (interesting factoid: at some point in time, every new religion/demonization has been accused of heresy/apostasy by their onetime co-religionists).

 

 

Moiself  recently overheard a tidbit of a conversation in which one person was relaying to another their experience of being challenged as to their worthiness of ascending to a certain position in their work. This reminded me of a story shared with moiself  by one of the pastors at Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, the church where MH and I met.

Grace Lutheran was a congregation in the ELCA synod, the most liberal synod or wing of the American Lutheran churches.  At that time (when MH and I were attending) Grace Lutheran had two co-pastors, one male and one female.  I became friendly with both of them, in particular the female pastor, SK.  This was in 1986, and although the ELCA had been ordaining women pastors since 1970, their acceptance was a slow process, and women pastors were not automatically welcomed with open arms.  One afternoon a few months after I’d joined the church SK and I met for tea in downtown Hillsboro.  During our wide-ranging conversation the subject of her being called    [7]  to Grace Lutheran came up.  Specifically, I asked her how smooth the process had been:  did she feel accepted by all of the congregation, or at least the majority?

SK told me that her call to Grace Lutheran went smoothly, although she was aware that the final vote of the congregation (to accept her call to be one of their pastors) was not unanimous.  On her first Sunday at Grace Lutheran, the leaders of the congregation held a reception for SK in the church’s Fellowship Hall, after the worship service.  The reception wound down after about two hours, which was a relief to SK, who, although grateful for the warm greetings she’d received, was beginning to think her petit frame could not bear another well-meaning handshake or congratulatory hug from the throngs of parishioners who introduced themselves to and welcomed her.

SK headed to the Fellowship Hall kitchen, intent upon helping the staff with KP duty, when one of the few parishioners remaining in the Fellowship Hall approached her.  A Tall Elegantly Dressed Older Woman (TEDOW) smiled broadly at SK, introduced herself as a “long-time” Grace Lutheran member, and said, in a friendly tone of voice that belied the rebuffing sentiment she was about to utter, that she would like to take SK to lunch to tell SK why she had “voted against your call, as I don’t think you belong here.”

SK kept her composure, smiling in return as she thanked TEDOW for the lunch invitation…which SK declined.

Moiself  was impressed by SK’s graciousness under fire, so to speak, and even more so by the rational simplicity of her response:

“No, thank you.  I *am* here; I don’t have to defend my being here.”   [8]

 

“Someone hand me the mic so I can drop it.”

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

*   *   *

May you have fond memories of a loved one’s post-colonoscopy rantings;
May you enjoy binging an old favorite TV series;
May you never have to defend your being where are you;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And oft times, stomp stomp stomp.

[2] Society for science; Courtesy photo from Lilly Downs.

[3] I suggested he go upstairs and sit or lie down, as he was rather wobbly standing.  He wanted to go up the stairs by himself; I insisted he hold on to the handrail, which he did, while vaulting up the stairs two at a time.  When I snapped at him to slow down he said, “It feels better this way!”

[4] Except when he’s high on Versed and flamboyantly rolling his r’s….

[5] But, I’ll take ’em!

[6] For example, some Unitarians consider themselves Christian, but were/are rejected by other Christian denominations because Unitarians affirm the “unity” of the “one god” and reject the Christian doctrine of the trinity established by the apostle Paul.  Thus they are (in Christian eyes) heretics, not apostates.

[7] Being called refers to the process by which churches find and employ their pastors.  It varies between denomination and churches; here’s the link to ELCA call processes.

[8] I never met TEDOW.  She (and her husband) left the congregation before I began attending.  According to another congregant whom I quizzed about the incident, TEDOW and her husband were opposed to female ordination and also had problems with the other ways in which they felt their church was embracing heresy/leaning more liberal, and when they left Grace Lutheran they made sure that certain people knew they were leaving and were “taking their money” with them (implying that they were generous financial supporters of the church, which, that person I spoke with said, they were *not.*).

[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

Older Entries