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The British Church I’m Not Attending

December 26, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, exercise & fitness, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The British Church I’m Not Attending

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

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

 

*   *   *

Happy Boxing Day, y’all.

 

 

Chill, dude. Not that kind of boxing.

Commonly celebrated in England, and countries with substantial ties to/former territories of the Brits (referred to as commonwealth nations   [2] ), Boxing Day has many competing attributed origin stories.  Some say it is a day set aside for giving alms to the poor…

 

 

…but more likely it has to do with the British economic class system – giving the servants one measly day off during the holiday season (they had to work on Christmas Day, preparing their masters’ employers feasts, etc., and could take home the leftovers and receive Christmas Boxes with giftts from their employers on the 26th).

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking Of The Brits
Sub-Department Of Visual Double Takes

Dateline: Saturday; 3 pm-ish, headed home after grocery shopping with MH.  We took a scenic detour, and on a street a half mile or so from our ‘hood we passed a blue road sign on the right.  In this state, blue street signs typically indicate a business or service or other facility, from a hospital or gas station to a winery or store or church or B & B….

The sign read ARISE CHURCH, with an arrow pointing to the right.  But the words were in skinny capital letters, and at the speed we drove by moiself  missed the I, and for a brief moment my mind registered the sign as indicating

ARSE
CHURCH
→

 

Moiself  likes the idea of my city hosting a local chapter of The British Church of the Bum.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of One More Thing To Be Happy About

That would be, the week between Christmas and New Year’s day.

Happy Twixmas, y’all.

 

 

The guidelines for Twixmas sound a lot like recovery from foot surgery.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Real Estate Obfuscate-Speak

They’re not calling them trailer parks anymore, or even manufactured home parks. It’s land lease communities.

The reason I have become familiar with this slight-of-tongue terminology is that I’m keeping up with the real estate market in the vicinity of where daughter Belle lives.    [3]    And while a well-built manufactured home can be attractive in that it’s another option in the overpriced real estate market, it comes with a financial gotcha in that, in the vast majority of the situations, you are buying the manufactured home only, yet paying the lease price for the site it sits on – a price that can be as high or even higher than the mortgage itself (double or triple, in many cases I’ve seen).  You can be fooled into thinking that you are a solely a homeowner, when you are still, in a crucial way, a renter, accruing no equity in the property upon which your home sits.  If the landlord raises that rent, you gotta pay it.

Here is how they try to sell you a scam a pro-land lease community site describes it ( my emphases ):

Land lease communities allow residents to own their homes while leasing the land, offering the best of both worlds: affordability and a community atmosphere. You can find land lease communities across the U.S., and they are especially appealing in areas where high land costs might make property ownership particularly expensive.|
By choosing a land lease community, residents can enjoy the benefits of homeownership without the hefty price tag.
( excerpt, Inspire Community, “What is a Land Lease” )

 

 

 

…the benefits of homeownership without the hefty price tag.  That’s a new way to shovel it.  If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.  Lovely view of Brooklyn, for only $1300/month, for just the dirt under your feet.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of News From The Recovery Front

Moiself’s  exercise routine needs (temporary) modifications post-foot surgery.  I found a variety of chair exercise videos online:  [4]  cardio, strength, even yoga.   After trying them out I mostly don’t use them, and just modify my regular routines.  But I tune into one chair cardio/weights online video to use as a warmup, because I have developed a certain fondness for the Shiny Happy, over enthusiastic exercise leader.  It’s been six weeks, and so far, hearing her perky malapropisms never gets old: they include her pronouncing muscles as musk skulls, and enthusing about how chair workouts can still be vigorous, especially for those who have some “fiscal limitations.”   [5]

What was (is?) that Reader’s Digest  trope?

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Working Your Brain During The Holiday Season

One of my favorite podcasts, People I Mostly Admire (aka  PIMA) is being retired by its host.  PIMA is/was hosted by economist and author  [6]   Steve Levitt.  His PIMA interview with astrophysicist, author and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson was one of my favorites, despite    [7]   the fact that, to moiself, Levitt seemed somewhat intimidated by interviewing a “real” scientist.

 

 

 

The most intriguing part of the interview for moiself  was when Levitt and Tyson discussed hypothesis theory, something that both fascinates and frustrates me. The frustration comes from the fact that, IMO, the ignorance re and/or misinterpretations of the definitions of hypotheses and theories account for a great deal of the misunderstandings laypersons have about science.  Non-scientists tend to think of theories and hypotheses in terms of how the words are used socially and culturally – they see those terms as more akin to opinions and hunches.  Thus, to  Biff The Non-Scientist Who Nevertheless Loves Ranting About Science, the theory of evolution carries about as much weight as does Biff’s Uncle Anus’s pontifications about why his neighbors decorate their lawn with statues of Nordic trolls and Japanese anime characters:   “I have a theory about that….”

 

 

During the interview Levitt was self-critical re the fact that, as he sees it, his discipline –  economics – is not “truly scientific” (despite there being a Nobel prize category for it 😉 ).  By that he meant, economists use different data gathering methods than those working in the so-called hard sciences, and that there is a certain “stickiness” about working with/trying to explain that try to explain things that are often unquantifiable, such as human behavior.

Steve Levitt:
“…it’s not the scientific method, it’s a sensible method, in a data-driven world, you try to figure out what’s going on.  To me what is so disturbing in economics is that everybody knows it’s completely fake, what we do.  And no one talks about it, and everybody pretends to follow the scientific method, when in fact we’re doing nothing like it.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson:
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.  Let me first tighten up some of your vocabulary.   If you have an idea about how something works, it’s not a theory, it’s a hypothesis.    [8]

A theory, in science, is an understanding of how things work that not only explains all that it has confronted but that makes *predictions* that have been shown to be accurate going forward. That’s a theory.  Until you have experimental verification you have a hypothesis.

So, you put forth a hypothesis, some of the data don’t quite fit it, and you go back and readjust the hypothesis, that’s just fine.  You readjust the hypothesis, and now it fits the data.  I don’t have a problem with that.  But don’t elevate it to a theory of human behavior until *that* hypothesis makes a prediction you then test.

 I don’t care what you do with your hypothesis; I don’t care how much stitchery and remending you have to do to it – once you present it, and it accounts for the data you have available, that is the *beginning,* that’s not the end. Now, let’s test it.  Can you make a prediction?  Now we’re onto something.  If, after you’ve retooled it, it makes more predictions than you’‘ve ever imagined, bada-bing, let’s call it a new economic theory.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

 

*   *   *

May you exercise your brain musk skulls during the holidays;
May that same brain entertain you with visual double-takes;
|May you be able to form hypotheses about your theories;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago.

[2] e.g. Canada, Australia.

[3] She hopes to become a homeowner, within the next couple of years.  A pipe dream, is how so many of her peers view the housing market.

[4] As in…wait for it…exercises that can be done while sitting on a chair and thus keeping weight of the affected foot.

[5] Which might impact you even more than your, ahem, physical limitations, as you cold only afford to watch her free tape, rather than join a gym?

[6] Levitt, with his fellow Steve (Steven Dubner) , is the author of the ground breaking ITAL Freakonomics books, and Dubner hosts the Freakonomics podcast.

[7] or maybe, partially due to?

[8] NdGT deserves a footnote, don’t you think?

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

The Sun Salutations I’m Not Performing

December 19, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, movies, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Sun Salutations I’m Not Performing

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

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

*   *   *

Department Of ( the upcoming )  Happy Winter Solstice To All

And to my fellow yogis, if this tradition is in your practice, moiself  hopes you have a memorable 108 sun salutations.  Since I am recovering from a surgery which requires that I put *no* weight on my left foot, throw in a few sun salutations for me, if you will.

 

 

Or maybe moiself  will just engage in some adaptive yoga to mark the occasion.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Our Window Is In Solidarity With Jewish Neighbors
And Friends And Coworkers…

and in this sad year, the Australians on Bondi Beach, and a certain, gone-way-before-his-time  filmmaker….

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of There Goes Another Piece Of My Heart

Rob Reiner was one of those artists whose name would not immediately spring to mind if I were asked to name either my personal favorite or the most influential contemporary  movie directors….  Then, I heard the heart-twisting news re his death, began to consider his body of work, and realized that Reiner had directed many of the gems on my 100 Favorite Films List ® ,   [2]   including

  * When Harry Met Sally
* Spinal Tap
* The Princess Bride
* The American President

 

Reiner on the set of “The Princess Bride”

 

As is the case when a Famous Artist® dies, every news story about the demise includes a rundown of the artist’s résumé.  But something is missing/is in error in all of the encapsulations I’ve seen (so far) of Reiner’s professional life:  he did *not* get his “start” (however one calculates that) by co-starring in TV show, All In The Family.  Before that, Reiner was a writer on the subversive, cutting-edge-at-the-time, comedy-variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.     [3]

“Steve (Martin) and I wrote the first fart joke ever done on national TV.”
( Rob Reiner, ” ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ at 50: The Rise and Fall of a Groundbreaking Variety Show: Steve Martin, Rob Reiner, brothers Tommy and Dickie Smothers and more look back on their experiences transforming TV comedy with the innovative and controversial series,” The Hollywood Reporter,  11-25-17 )

 

 

Moiself  found  much to respect about the man.   [4]   Besides the excellent and varied films Reiner wrote/produced/acted in/directed –  and it’s mind-boggling to fathom that the same guy who directed  This is Spinal Tap  also helmed  Misery and Ghosts Of Mississippi  – I admired Reiner’s political and community involvement, and what seemed to be his general sense of decency, kindness, perspective and humility.  In all the interviews I heard/read about with Reiner over the years, he seemed well aware of the leg-up advantages/entry to showbiz *he* had, that others equally (or more) talented and driven lacked, via the connections that came from being the son of Hollywood icon Carl Reiner (and thus he counted among his family friends such comedy legends as Mel Brooks and Normal Lear).

Bravo, Rob Reiner.  When it comes to your contributions to the cinematic arts, on a scale from one to ten, you go to eleven.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Nailing the Reason Why In Eighteen Words…

Dateline: 12-9-25; The Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax, responding to a Letter Writer’s dilemma.  LW seeks Hax’s perspective in a why-do-does-he-do-this-and-what-can-I-do-about-it  situation:

The LW’s father-in-law does not like the name the LW and her husband chose for their daughter, and he keeps insulting LW’s toddler daughter’s name ( yes, this child is the FIL’s granddaughter!), in front of the LW *and* the little girl.  FIL continues to do this, even after LW asked him to stop.  However, FIL no longer taunts his granddaughter about her name when his son is present, after his son (LW’s husband) asked his father to back off. 

“…. But that’s why misogyny is so persistent and so insidious:
You get nose-blind to an everyday stench.”
( Carolyn Hax, from Father-in-law isn’t subtle about hating his granddaughter’s name )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of It’s So Difficult To Choose….

…but this might be my favorite of the Edward Sorel drawings in my FFRF 2026 calendar.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

 

 

*   *   *

May you not go nose-blind to the everyday stench of prejudice;
May you treat yourself to a Rob Reiner film retrospective;|
May you take the opportunity to go to eleven;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago

[2] Which is something list makers list, and although I’m a list maker I haven’t done that one yet, but it does seem to deserve some kind of special notation….

[3] Whose other writing alum included comic/actor/author/banjoist/perennial SNL host Steve Martin and musician Mason Williams.

[4] Including that ground-breaking fart joke, for which I will be forever grateful.

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

The Life I’m Not Gamifying

December 5, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), category-free rants, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, games & puzzles, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Life I’m Not Gamifying

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

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Proof That We Are Doomed

Dateline:  Tuesday; circa 8:15 am; breakfast table talk.  MH and I are discussing the “gamifying” of the apps we both use –e.g.,  the New York Times games – apps which keep score for you, even if you don’t/never asked them to do so and that’s not why you play them (  How long did it take you to solve this morning’s mini crossword?  Ten seconds longer than your average solve time…how many days in a row did you play and win….).

MH uses the term gamifying, which I haven’t heard before but immediately “get.”    Moiself  understands gamifying as –

the incorporating of game design principles (accruing points, keeping score, applying rules, competing with others and/or yourself)  and features into non-game activities and circumstances

– as a marketing/behavioral design feature to cultivate commitments to products and services.  Translation:  yet another design feature to get you to use more/buy more.

 

 

I told MH that I’d experienced the gamifying creep in other apps, such as my meditation apps and yoga streaming classes, which note how many times per week/days in a row I’ve used their daily meditation and/or yoga practice.  Perhaps the fact that I find this irksome means I need more meditation/yoga/mindfulness in my life, but when, for example, the Calm app   [2]   shows me a weekly calendar with the days marked when I did their guided daily mediation (and thus when I didn’t), I feel like talking back to the app ( “Stop belying your name!  It doesn’t make me feel calm when you point out the days you think I missed or skipped.  I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but just because I didn’t meditate/do yoga with *you* today doesn’t mean I didn’t do it at all….Sorry, but you’re not the only fish in the sea app on my phone….” ).

 

 

Perhaps some folks find these reminders/trackers helpful, even motivating. Great; whatever levitates your zafu cushion floats your boat.  But, why not have them be elective, as in, you must opt in to such features instead of having them be the default.  For moiself, such reminders/trackers erase that fine line between encouraging and nagging.

Once again, I digress: this (the gamifying of everything) is not the proof that We are doomed.  That came when MH reached across the table to show me what had just popped up on his cellphone screen.   “Do you get these ads?” he asked, indicating the Anti Flatbutt technology ad (featuring a man’s buttocks clad in a tight pair of pants) on his screen.  Sighing with world-weary commiseration, I said, yes, I’d noticed that ad popping up at least once on my phone.  And while moiself  appreciates seeing such a make-believe “problem” being marketed to men for a change, with all of the actual problems going on in the world – compelling problems which we need technology to solve or at least acknowledge and address – the existence of this particular ad may be the tipping point:  there is no (or at least, little) hope.  Is it time for us to buy the Doomsday RV®?    [3]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sometimes A Lousy Book Has A Lousy Cover

We’ve all heard the aphorism:

Never/Don’t/You Can’t/You shouldn’t:
judge a book by its cover.

I recently (over) heard it used, in a public place, where Person #1 was chiding another person for making what Person #1 thought was an incorrect or rash assessment.  I often find that trite, book-cover-judging, non-trusim to be dismissive and erroneous when it used to advise or admonish someone else for doing…simply what people do. So often in life that’s exactly what we have to do, when we have incomplete or partial information, or simply not enough time, but have to make a choice or decision.

Everyone is a judge, in and of their own life.  And most everyone is accused at some point, when practicing the fine art of judging, as being judgmental.  

 

 

That term gets a bad rap if I do say so moiself.    [4]  Every time I choose this and not that –  from the significant decision of voting for a presidential candidate to the relatively minor but necessary-at-the-time decision of which dressing I want the waiter to bring for my salad… and all choices above and beyond and in between – unless I’m flipping a coin, I’m making a judgment that one choice is “better” – for me, my circumstances, my family, the planet…name your variable.

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

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

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

*   *   *

May your life be free from gamifying;
May you be considerate with the judgements you need to make
(and be free to change them when they prove incorrect/unsuitable);
May you have a sympathetic jury when you are brought to trial for bitch-slapping the obsequious dude who rang your doorbell, ignoring your no soliciting sign, and tried to sell you his anti-flat butt technology;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago.

[2] Which I’ve mentioned before in this space and which I used on a regular basis.

[3] MH and I can never get an RV, because I have informed our offspring that if they ever discover that we have bought one it will be a signal that we have given up on humanity and plan to hit the road and see everything we can see because the climate change/MAGA-idiocracy-induced apocalypse is just around the corner.

[4] And I just did.

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

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

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

The Professional Title I’m Not Respecting

November 28, 2025

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

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

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Random Realizations That I Can’t Blame On The Post-Foot Surgery
Narcotics Since I’m Not Taking Them Anymore, But I’m Much Housebound,
And These Thoughts…Arise

I know – or, since I’m telling y’all, should that be, You Oughta Know – that, had moiself  been a freshman in college in 1995, my dormmates would have heard a lot of Alanis Morrisette blasting from my room.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Random Thoughts/Observation/Realizations That
I Can’t Blame On….  Chapter Two.

I was reading a newspaper article which contained an interview with a clergyman (who was quoted as some sort of expert on some sort of religious subject).  The clergyman’s title was given as, “The Very Rev. Nutsack.”       [2]

*Very* Reverend?  Since my stitches are in my foot, my ensuing belly laugh didn’t threaten to rip them out.

Excuze-moi; I know that Reverend is a professional title conferred upon someone who has ordered and paid for their degree certificate via the classified ads section of the Billy Graham Association’s  Decision magazine and/or The National Enquirer studied/met the requirements of certain theological institutions.  Still, I’ve little respect for anyone who has obtained the title (and sees fit to use it), Reverend.

What is a degree in theology, other than a degree in mythology and apologetics?  Theology is a field of “study” which, instead of employing the verifiable modalities of the sciences, is based on unproven, unverifiable assumptions (e.g. faith, and the existence of specific deities).

And how does one get the Very prefixed to one’s title?  Is there a contest, like Jeopardy or American Ninja Warriors, to determine the most Very of Reverends?

 

That’s *very* Reverend, to you!

*   *   *

Department Of More Notes From Recovery

Dateline: Monday; 6 am-ish.  After working from home last week, MH is going back to his non-virtual office.  I know he’s a bit concerned re how moiself  will manage on my own ( translation: Will she try to do too much and overdo it/hurt her foot?   [3]   )

Meanwhile, in our small, pocket-doored, downstairs half-bathroom, I’m feeling proud of moiself  as I begin the morning routine I’ve established:

* Step 1: Move from sleeping spot (family room couch) to bathroom. Crutches resting against the wall, kneeling on the padded-with-a-folded-towel  footstool in front of the sink, I remove my nightshirt, hang it on the koi painting, and wash my face and neck.

 

 

* Step 2: Balancing on my right foot, I wet two of the three clean hand towels (which I’d set out the night before, by the sink) with warm water.

* Step 3: I put the toilet seat lid down; place a dry folded towel atop the lid, sit on the lid and use first wet hand towel to sponge bathe my back, torso, arms, right leg and foot, and as much of the left leg as I can reach (the boot goes from toes to just below the knee).  I use the second towel to sponge bathe my groin and towel #3 to dry off, then slather my skin with lotion.

* Step 4: I don my underpants, carefully, over the booted leg first and then the right leg; I follow the same procedure with my flared capri yoga pants (chosen for their relative ease in slipping over my booted foot).  As I pull on my bra and shirt, I’m feeling rather smug about being able to craft and maintain this routine given my temporary limitations and in a usable space of 32 x 36 inches…until I realize that moiself  has put her bra on backwards.  [4]

Okay, back down to earth, Supercrip, Ms. Smartypants/Dumbassbra.  I appreciate my momentary humility before recalling one of my favorite quotes, from former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meyer:

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Latest Publishing Scam Marketing Opportunity

“As creative artists, we not only have to worry about our work being stolen… now we need to anticipate being assaulted with AI-generated scams, marketing pitches, publication offers….  This is an incredibly prolific scam that is aggressively targeting writers… It has spun up extremely fast.”
(author Victoria Strauss, whose Writer Beware website provides information and warnings on writing related scams.  Excerpt From her Wikipedia page  )

Like many writers, marketing publishing strategies (read: scams) have occasionally infested my email inbox.  But there is something more disturbing, even malevolent – yet also dystopian-ly entertaining, IMO – about these new ones.

The emails are similarly formatted.  They open by complementing me on my writing and listing several of my publication titles, indicating at least a cursory knowledge of my work.   [5]   The various setups all employ similar complements in their intro, then give the pitch for hiring them to “maximize your ___(blah blah blah consultant speech ).”

Nowhere is there a mention of their fees – surprise!  But since fewer publishers (even the legit, traditional publishers) are doing the actual work of publishing, this is a con that I can see novice/wannabe authors falling for.  World-weary sigh: one more way to separate authors from increasing dwindling royalties while, of course, proposing to maximize those royalties.  To adapt an infamous, curmudgeonly maxim, it is an unfortunate truism that no one ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of writers.   [6]

The most recent MSE (marketing scam email) I received purported to be from someone with a new (to me) title: a Professional Amazon Marketer Therapist.   

 

Tell me about zis marketing content platform, and about your dreams of trains going through tunnels and how your parents ruined your life….

 

Dear Robyn Parnell,
Congratulations on your outstanding literary career and creative versatility. Your works, from The Mighty Quinn ( Scarletta Press  [7] ) to This Here and Now and My Closet Threw a Party, reflect a rare blend of wit, heart, and depth that connects with both adult and young audiences alike. Your clever humor, inventive storytelling, and wide range of published pieces across anthologies and journals showcase a voice that is both distinctive and resonant.   [8]

As a member of the Authors Guild and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), with a bibliography spanning multiple genres and age groups, your dedication to the craft is unmistakable. However, even the most talented and prolific authors often face challenges in ensuring that their books gain the global reach and visibility they *deserve* on Amazon….

This is where I come in.  My name is (redacted), a Professional Amazon Marketer Therapist with years of ___ (Six bullet points of blah blah sales BS blah blah  ensue ).

Through this structured and proven process, I’ve helped authors regain traction, achieve top-category rankings, and sustain lasting success in competitive markets. Your creative achievements and literary voice *deserve* that same global recognition and reach….
Amazon Professional Marketer Therapist.
( excerpt from email; *emphases* mine )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Marketing Therapy, The Prequel

The first such email moiself  received (several months ago) began thusly:

“Hi Robyn,
First, let me say how much I admire your work. From your short fiction collection This Here and Now to your children’s book My Closet Threw a Party, you display a rare combination of humor, imagination, and literary skill. Your writing captures both the whimsy and the profound, creating stories that resonate with adult and young readers alike. Your playful yet insightful approach to storytelling makes your work memorable, engaging, and timeless….”

It was, almost word for word, a preview of the other emails I would be receiving, from “people” I don’t know/have never met who greet me by my first name and proceed with the kind of flattery a younger and/or less experienced writer might be impressed by ( “Wow, they really know and like my work!” ).

 

 

Swept up in the Sally Field-esque moment, you might neglect to notice that the complementary adjectives and descriptions of your work are either AI-generated and/or taken from reviews about your book ( if you were lucky enough to get any   [9]   ) or your book jacket’s description and promos provided by your book’s publisher.    [10]

Then, there’s one more booster before getting down to business:

“Your versatility as a writer navigating adult fiction, juvenile novels, and children’s literature positions you to connect with multiple audiences. With a targeted marketing strategy, we can expand your readership, amplify your visibility, and drive meaningful engagement across the literary community.
As a book marketing consultant, I specialize in helping authors like you….”

Marketing hype ensues.

There are slight changes in the wording – excuse me, the content   [11]  – but once you’ve read one of them, the template is easily recognizable.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Points Worth Remembering About Charlie Kirk
( excerpts from The Guardian  article:“Charlie Kirk in his own words.” )

“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
( The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024 )

“Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.”
( The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023 )

“If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?”
( The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024 )

“Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.”
( Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement,
 on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025 )

“America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.”
( The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025 )

“The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”
( The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024 )

“The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.”
( The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024 )

“Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”
( Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025 )

 

 

The following quotes are curated in the 11/25  Freethought Today  (my emphases).

 “Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated. But I am overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff, calling this nation to honor…a man who was an unapologetic racist, and spent all of his life to sew seeds of division and hate into this land…. How you die does not redeem how you lived.”
( Rev. Howard–John Wesley, of Alexandria, Virginia, in a sermon in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, Associated Press 9-24-25 )

“What Cardinal Dolan may not have known is that many of Mr. Kirk’s words were marked by racist, homophobic, trans, phobic, and anti-immigration rhetoric, by violent, pro-gun advocacy, and by the promotion of Christian nationalism. These prejudicial words do not reflect the qualities of a saint. It is giving undo sanction to words and actions that hurt the very people Jesus calls us to love.”
( The Sisters of Charity of New York, rebuffing comments made about Charlie Kirk by Cardinal Dolan, who said, “this guy is a modern day Saint Paul” and a “hero.”
Religion News Service, 9–28–25 )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Publishing Scams Ain’t Got Nothing On
The Oldest Scam In The World…Which Brings Us To

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

It’s an incredible con job when you think of it, to believe something now
in exchange for life after death. Even corporations
with all their reward systems don’t try to make it posthumous.
( Gloria Steinem )

 

 

*   *   *

May you know how special you are without
scammers telling you how special you are;
May you fall for neither the newest nor oldest scam;
May you live in a way so that no one tries to redeem your
legacy via the manner of your death;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago

[2] Not the Reverend’s real surname.

[3] Turns out I did, overdo it that is, and hurt something else, BUT  NOT  MY  FOOT.

[4] Note for men and or non-brassiere wearers, who might wonder how this can be possible: The bra in question is a pullover style, not one with the hook and eye backstrap thingamajiggy.  And now you know.

[5] that any 10-year-old with the knowledge of search engines could do.

[6] “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” – variants attributed to showman PT Barnum and Baltimore journalist H.L. Mencken.

[7] Well, they got that only partly right – Scarletta Press changed its name to Mighty Media Press.

[8] Another such email used its AI thesaurus to describe my work as both unique and vibrant….

[9] The majority of published books never receive even one professional review.  These stats have only worsened since the Authors Guild Bulletin noted in 2008: “from Publisher’s Weekly: ‘Three thousand books are published daily (1,095,000 per year) in the U.S.  Six thousand were reviewed in 2007,  less than one percent of the total published. ‘ “

[10] or your parents and friends, if your book was self-published ( rim shot! )

[11] as I have learned, all writers now are “content providers“ who should be concerned with, as much or not more than the quality of their work, establishing and maintaining their “platform.“

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

The Friday Letter Limerick I’m Not Sending

November 21, 2025

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

…that’s because I sent it last week.

Background: every Friday moiself  sends a letters to each of my two offspring.  [1]  I begin their letters with either a haiku or a limerick, the subject matter having (loosely) to do with the past week’s news, personal or otherwise.  One week ago today, their respective letters began thusly:

A Limerick For Finally Fixing This Fucking Foot
If under oath, I’d commit perjury
If I said that I don’t dread foot surgery.
Except for childbirth
I’ve a hospital dearth…
Just a wee medical dramaturgery.    [2]

As far as I can tell,   [3]  the surgery went well.  I’ll know more after the first post-op appointment, which will have been yesterday.  This post is being written earlier in the week; I’m using my recovery time to somewhat crib the blog  – as in using the words of other and moiself  so as not to tax my painkiller-addled brain with too much new material.

Crib #1: Here is a version of what my gradually-becoming-less-addled brain reported on Tuesday to a California buddy:

I am now on my fourth day post bunion surgery, which was Friday afternoon. Unlike me, Betty (my post-surgery boot) is photogenic and not at all camera-shy. Here she is taking a respite from our morning project: helping me hobble (crutches) to the kitchen where I do five minutes of prep work, then return to the couch and watch an episode of “New Scandinavian Cooking.”  It’s good rehab viewing.  I figure if those Norwegians can make wild berry pancakes on a snow-covered mountain promontory, then I can take six hours to make a 30-minute casserole in my indoor kitchen.

 

 

I’m off the narcotics today…. Extra strength Tylenol (no autism symptoms to report, yee haw!)  and constant foot elevation are my friends. I’ve discovered that even the non-narcotic pain relievers make me quite tired, or perhaps that’s an effect of the surgery as well, and so I spent a lot of the day looping in and out, mentally.

I’m looking forward to the first postop exam on Thursday: the great unveiling. The doctor is going to unwrap the dressing, inspect his handiwork, then change the dressing… hopefully without passing out from the smell (I must keep the dressing dry and thus am unable to wash the lower leg and foot, although I’m going to have a sponge bath this afternoon – which I’m sure you’ll read about on your favorite social media outlet).  At least I’ll get a glimpse of my toes, which I haven’t seen since before the surgery.

The main issue for me, besides boredom, is the enforced lack of daily exercise until I get the all clear from my surgeon, who has already warned me,  “Now don’t do anything stupid.”  I am trying to be all chill and mindful, just enjoying what comes up on the screen. MH and I are already almost done with, The Good Wife,   [4]   yet another critically acclaimed series that we never watched. I can see why it was acclaimed; also, I like shows that reinforce my decision to *not* go to law school.

I hope things are well and dry in your part of California, which, if I believe the headlines, is washing into the ocean due to heavy rainfall.  We in the Portland metro area remain steadfast in our determination not to let anything rain on our parade, which nowadays includes dressing up in various unicorn, frog, and dinosaur outfits and parading around the Portland ICE center. Life is good.

 

 

*   *   *

Crib #2: Department Of Filling Space With A Right-On Article
About Getting Rid Of Your Crap Precious Stuff

This writer of this article – book summary, really, about Nobody Wants Your Sh*t: The Art of Decluttering Before You Die – was spot on…I found moiself  wanting to underline everything, and I haven’t even read the book.  But this summary nails the experience my siblings and I had, nine years ago, when our mother died and we returned to So Cal to go through the lifetime of STUFF she (and our father) had accumulated…it now gives me PTSD symptoms when I am around clutter and hoarding.

(these are excerpts from the article I refer to,  Nobody Wants Your Sh*t: The Art of Decluttering Before You Die,  which I saw on a FB link 11-12-25 ).

The author’s premise is simple and devastating: you think your collections – whether they are perfectly organized and carefully curated or just jammed into rooms and boxes – will matter to someone after you’re gone. They won’t.

This isn’t another gentle guide to organizing your home or finding joy in your possessions. This is a wake-up call about what happens to all your stuff after you die, narrated by someone who clearly has zero patience for sentimental attachment to junk.

 

 

(the book’s author) isn’t being cruel. She’s being honest about what she’s watched happen countless times—families forced to deal with a lifetime of accumulated possessions, feeling guilty with every item they throw away or donate, wishing their loved one had handled this themselves.

1. Your Treasures Are Someone Else’s Burden
(the author) gets brutally specific about this: those family heirlooms you’ve been preserving?  The collections you’ve spent decades building? The perfectly good stuff you’re saving “in case someone needs it”? Nobody wants it badly enough to come get it. What feels like leaving an inheritance is actually leaving a massive chore for people who are already grieving.

2. “Someday” Is Code for Never
All those items you’re keeping for  someday—when you lose weight, when you have time for that hobby, when you get around to fixing it—that someday isn’t coming…. Keeping things for someday is just refusing to admit that this day, right now, is the only one you actually have.

3. Downsizing Now Is a Gift to Everyone, Including You
Getting rid of excess isn’t losing something. It’s gaining space, time, and clarity.

4. Sentimental Value Doesn’t Transfer
This might be the hardest truth: just because something means everything to you doesn’t mean it will mean *anything* to anyone else….
Do not expect others to preserve your memories for you.

5. Decluttering Before You Die Is Your Last Act of Consideration
The book’s ultimate message: dealing with your stuff while you’re alive is one of the most loving things you can do for the people you’ll leave behind. They’ll be grieving. The last thing they need is weeks of sorting through your garage, your attic, your closets….
Leave them with memories, not mountains of stuff.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Having Empathetic Support At Home Is The Key To
Successful Post-Surgical Recovery

MH pimped enhanced my temporary accommodations.

 

How long have I been stuck on this couch/behind this TV tray?

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

People of all faiths need to remember these Four Great Religious Truths:

1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God’s chosen people.
2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world.
4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters or the liquor store.

( attributed to WHOA   [6] )

 

*   *   *

May you declutter now, and regularly;
May you never burden others with the expectation that they will
preserve your memories for you;
May someone pimp your surgical recovery space;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] The snail mail/in an envelope kind of correspondence.

[2] Yeah, poetic license, re me being a writer who used to work in the medical field.  I’m not sure that dramaturgery is a word, but if I were to advise a playwright on my experiences in either writing or, say, working at Planned Parenthood, I’d be practicing being a dramaturge…so, there.

[3] Translation: from what the doctor told me.

[4] “network television’s last great drama.”

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

[6] We Happy Observant Atheists

The Sandwich I’m Not Eating

November 7, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, radio & podcasts, school , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Sandwich I’m Not Eating

Department Of Sober Memories

Dateline:  Monday, November 3; 5 a.m.-ish; playing my morning wakeup/online games, one of which informs me    [1] that it is National Sandwich Day.

Which assumes the question, What’s your favorite sandwich?

Sandwiches formed the bulk of my daily lunch items during my (pre-college) school years; however, moiself  isn’t much of a sandwich eater these days.  Thus, no name of a favorite sandwich pops into my mind.  But I do have a favorite sandwich story.

 

 

Dateline:  High school; my senior year, if memory serves.   [2]   Moiself  is driving my friend MB and I back from the Long Beach Arena, where we ‘ve seen Led Zeppelin in concert.  We arrive at her house, realize that we are both famished, and head for her kitchen.  MB rustles up a loaf of bread, two plates, and various utensils while I empty the contents of her refrigerator onto her kitchen table.  We proceed to construct sandwiches of…yeah…of things I would never consume in combination today. I cannot recall every ingredient we used, but the point was that we used almost every available ingredient.  What sticks in my mind is three kinds of mustard, mayo, pickle relish, cottage cheese, raisins, peanut butter, olives, marmalade, some kind of roasted or peppers…..  We called our creations – which we consumed with I-can’t-believe-we’re-eating-this?!?!?  gusto – Led Zeppelin sandwiches.

 

And if any of these items had been available that evening
we would have put them between two slices of bread.

 

Moiself  has never been a toker, not even in my younger days (nor, to my knowledge, was MB).  So, although I was not a conscious (as in intentional) imbiber, unlike Bill Clinton I  did  inhale.  It was either that or suffocate at most of the rock concerts of that era.  And the “air” at Zeppelin concerts set the EPA record    [3]  for particulate matter (read: wafting weed fumes).

I can’t believe   [4]  that it took moiself  *years* [5]  to realize that the only logical explanation for post-Zeppelin concert sandwiches MB and I made and scarfed down with the last-meal desperation of death row prisoners was that we must have gotten a contact case of the munchies.

 

This was pretty much the scene at the Long beach Arena balcony seats.  [6]

 

I can’t remember having been that hungry since the time I gave our cat Nova an enthusiastic, several minutes long head rub, forgetting that MH had previously applied a transdermal appetite stimulant gel to her ear.   [7]   Apparently, the medication works on all mammals – or at least cats *and* humans – as I discovered during the ensuing 24 hours when I emptied our kitchen cupboards and tried to eat everything in the house.

 

Yeah, blame the old sick kitty.

*   *   *

Department Of Name Your 15 Minutes – Shame, Or Fame?

Last week, due to several current events prompts, moiself  relistened to Monica Lewinski’s TED talk.     The Price of Shame  is one of the best TED talks, or public service presentations of any kind, I’ve ever heard.  If you haven’t listened to it and/or you think you know what you think about Lewinsky, listen to her recount her unique situation (read: ordeal) of being one of the first cases of the internet being used as a forum for public shaming and cyber-bullying.

 

 

I relistened to her talk after reading about a recent public incident which brought to mind Andy Warhol’s   [8]   famous proclamation, that in the future “…everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

Moiself  thinks that not only are we’re heading for (if not already occupying) Warhol’s prediction, our present is morphing into a future where “…everyone will be shamed for 15 minutes.”  The particular example I’m thinking of is the already infamous Milwaukee Brewers Karen  incident at a baseball playoff game last month:

“A Milwaukee Brewers ‘Karen’ who went viral after threatening to call ICE on a rival Los Angeles Dodgers fan has reportedly been fired from her job.

The spectator, named online as Shannon Kobylarczyk, was seen in a racist rant towards Ricardo Fosado – a US citizen and war veteran – in footage that has been viewed more than a million times on X.

During Dodgers’ 5-1 win in the MLB playoffs…Fosado can initially be heard saying to the home fans around him in the stands: ‘Why’s everybody so quiet? What is this?’

His remark appeared to clearly irk the ‘Brewers Karen’, who fired back with a jibe about Donald Trump‘s immigration agents, saying: ‘Let’s call ICE.’

Fosado replied: ‘Call ICE! Call ICE! I’m a US citizen, war veteran baby girl. Two wars. ICE cannot do anything to me.’ At one stage of the video she seemingly tried to slap Fosado’s phone out of his hand while also calling him a ‘p***y’….

it took less than 24 hours for the woman in question to be fired by her employers….”

 ( excerpt, “Milwaukee Brewers ‘Karen’ fired from job after disgraceful racist rant towards war veteran at Dodgers game,”  Daily Mail, 10-16-25 )

 

 

As repulsed as I was when I read about MB Karen’s  bigoted bluster, I didn’t think she should necessarily lose her job due to her public display of drunken    [9]  asshattery.  And apparently, neither did the target of her racist rave.

“An American citizen of Mexican descent who was on a business trip to Chicago when he decided to attend the game, Fosado said he thinks Kobylarczyk ‘made a mistake….
I feel bad for her…..We cannot be judged on one mistake and a lot of emotions were involved. It was just hurt feelings, nobody physically hurt anybody.’ ”
( excerpt, “MLB Fan Reportedly Loses Job For Terrible Remark During Playoff Game,”
 yahoo sports, 10-16-25 )

Certainly, MB Karen  earned her moment in the Shame Spotlight®.  And she’s going to live with the consequences of her revelatory rant for at least the internet equivalent of 15 minutes (and it will be Google-able for much longer), until the internet shame/lynch mob moves the spotlight to yet another guano-for-brains  loudmouth.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Giving The Annoying Thing Another Chance…

That annoying thing would be a certain part of the podcast Ologies, 95% of which I genuinely enjoy and find informative…but it’s that 5% that frosts my butt.   I’ve whined written about this before: the 5% annoyance involves one of The Reasons The Good Guys Lost The Election ®  issues ( namely,  the Left’s obsession with pronouns and labels, and with critiquing how someone says or asks something vs. focusing on the content of what someone is actually trying to say or ask).

Ologies podcast host Alie Ward, in her intro to each episode, talks about her guest using they/them pronouns.  Okay; fine; whatever floats her (their?) boat…except that she records this intro *after* she’s already done the interview.  And she begins each interview with the annoying-to-moiself  part, where she asks her guests to introduce themselves by stating their names and pronouns.  The majority of the time, when Ward’s guest is female, that guest says she uses she/her pronouns, and if the guest is male, he says he uses he/him pronouns.  Thus, Ward already knows what pronouns her guest prefers.  Yet, when Ward is in post-production for the episode, doing the intro, she refers to her guest using  they/them  pronouns.

 

 

Yep.  She asks her guests to state their preferences, then later ignores their stated preferences, which I find incredibly patronizing and  WTF-ing-point-is-there-in-asking?,  face-palm-worthy.

A recent example of that was in the episode Critical Ponerology (WHAT IS “EVIL”?) with Dr. Kenneth MacKendrick. 

Once I got over the irritation (Ward referred to the he/him -self-identified  Dr. Ken as they), I was intrigued by the episode’s subject.  What a topic for study – what is ‘evil’!?  It is a word – a concept – that is exceedingly difficult to define, and perhapss even trickier to understand the history of the word, and who has been allowed to define it.  And that sent me on a flashback…

 

 

…this once-upon-a-time  was some 30 years ago.  Pre-social media; pre-Twitter, X, Reddit, et al, for a period of about four or five weeks I used to check a certain message board.   [10]   Moiself  had found this message board via a reference from MH about a colleague of his who’d made commentson the board, on a subject MH thought I might find interesting.  After several weeks of checking the board twice a week (I suppose that qualified me as a lurker?), I was moved to make my first (which turned out to be my last) comments on it.

I posted said comments one day when the message board topic focused on what one of the posters termed the “evil” of natural disasters.  This One Particular Poster®  was getting all hot under his metaphorical collar, referring to a recent hurricane which had brought extensive wind and flooding damage to the southeastern seaboard of the USA.  He did this – called the storm, *evil,* – several times, which brought out the Let’s all be clear about our terminology cop in moiself.  I felt moved to offer that I found the use of the word evil, when applied to an explainable phenomenon of the natural world (e.g.,  earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes), problematic, as in, factually incorrect.

 

 

I gave my brief definition of evil as that which involves the motivations and intents of sentient beings.  As devastating as the effects of, say, a tornado can be for humans, tornadoes have neither the agency nor the intent to deliberately and maliciously cause harm.  The hurricane has no ill will toward the coastline residents who live in its path; it simply forms due to the particular physics of wind, ocean temperatures, currents, et al.

Before making the above fairly innocuous (IMO) comments, I had looked up records of other recent storms.  I found several other major hurricanes and typhoons which had formed and then dissipated in open waters, either never making landfall or doing so on the shorelines of deserted islands, thus causing no damage to humans or human structures.  I referenced those storms in my comments, and wondered if OPP would consider those storms *not* evil?

OPP’s response was a hurricane of vitriol, as he blew his hot air into me: “LADY, you don’t think that the hurricane was evil?!?!?!?  Just ask the people whose homes got smashed, whose lives have been destroyed – LADY, *you* think the storm was not evil?  Just ask the people who experienced….”

Yada yada yada.  OPP  kept on with his emphasis of how wrong LADY was.  He had clearly misread or did not understand my point… Which other message board commentators quickly noted on my behalf.

Those others also noted  OPP’s repeated use of the term LADY to address me, as if he were flinging a pejorative.  And BTW, there was nothing my comments nor in my online posting name which would indicate my gender identification…which caused the other message board commentors to speculate if there was more than a wee bit o’ misogyny in OPP’s LADY assumption?

 

 

PP’s switched his LADY  tempest tantrum to my defenders.  Meanwhile, moiself  lost interest in the silliness of it all.  So much for my one foray into the online chatroom world.

One more thing, re the podcast’s subject matter of what is evil.  Whatever you might hold the definition of evil to be, moiself  thinks there are plenty of sufficient synonyms for that which is intentionally malicious and/or harmful.  Evil is a word I’ll use hyperbolically or sarcastically but never seriously, as, IMO, evil, like sin, is one of the conceptual stones around humanities’ neck with which religious thought has burdened us.

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

“Faith is the process of granting assent without proof, especially to supernatural claims.   Faith is what you use to oppress, to justify, to judge in the name of (your) god – faith is the means to rationalize more evil in this world than anything in history.  If there were a devil, faith would be his greatest invention.”
( attribution…unsure? )

 

*   *   *

May you remember that nothing in the natural world is inherently evil
May you have a favorite sandwich (or sandwich story);
May you never cross paths with anyone (including Jerry Lewis)
who would call you LADY;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I don’t know why…but, why not?

[2] And it does, although sometimes the serve is an ace, and other times it’s a foot fault.

[3] In moiself’s  not-so-scientific estimation.

[4] But I have to, since it’s true.

[5] Really.  Like, two decades.

[6] Actually, it’s a still from the 1938 movie, Reefer Madness.

[7] Nova was experiencing loss of appetite and weight due to kidney disease, and was prescribed an appetite stimulant by her vet. 

[8] Warhol, according to his Wikipedia bio, is “generally considered among the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century.”  Well, certainly he was one of the most self-important, self-proclaimed artists, surpassed by none when it came to promoting himself. 

[9] I’m assuming.

[10] Message board?  Chat room?  I can’t remember what it was called…I think MH alerted me to it, thinking I might find the discussions therein “interesting.”

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

The Contraption I’m Not Underestimating

October 31, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, movies, music, radio & podcasts , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Contraption I’m Not Underestimating

It’s time for The Dropkick Murphys to usher in the holidays.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Can’t Believe I Just Figured This Out

This would be the appeal of the actor Jennifer Coolidge, who sashayed ( Tottered? Shuffled?  Stumbled?   [1]  ) to stardom, or at least notoriety, in supporting roles such as the awkward manicurist Paulette in Legally Blonde.

Watch the Netflix movie Single All The Way ,    [2]   and you’ll get it the attraction.   Coolidge, although female, is the quintessential Drag Queen With A Heart Of Gold ®.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Good Fortune

Last Friday daughter Belle and her coworkers took a company “field trip” to another Washington state cidery.  [3]   Belle wanted to make some treats for the bus ride    [4]   up the Olympic Peninsula and made fortune cookies for the occasion.  She sent me a picture of the fortunes she inserted into the cookies. With her permission, I’ve listed some of my favorites below.

Belle:
“These are the fortunes I’m using; ___ (friend from work) and I brainstormed them together.  We wanted most of them to be vague/ominous, with a few nice ones, too.  And some straight up silly.  Like the winning Powerball numbers from a month ago.”

* You will be evidence in the trial

* Remember the importance of load bearing walls

* You will face a life-or-death decision in February

* You would look great with bangs…if you dare

* You have forgotten something important – tomorrow you must remember

* In three days’ time, you will experience a fish

* You are being deceived

* Profit = revenue – costs

* Sat. Sept 6 Powerball:  11, 23, 44, 61, 62, 17

* Your anxiety is the gift of precognition, trust it

* You will encounter your next cat in a Fred Meyer parking lot

* Luck is coming your way! Remember to share it with rats

* Follow the next crab you see to receive a rare blessing

* Never underestimate contraptions

* Do: experiment with new fonts; Don’t: eye contact with mannequins

* You must atone in a bog for the offenses committed in a fen

* Your fears are well-founded

* The naked man fears no pickpocket

* Amphibians have no scruples, proceed with caution

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Finalist For Best Euphemism Ever

Dateline: October 21; 5:30 am; reading the Carolyn Hax advice column.  The woman writing to CH has a husband, who was raised by a “deeply spiritual” mother who forbade his childhood participation in Halloween activities.  Not only has her husband left those childhood superstitions and beliefs behind, as an adult he *loves* Halloween.  However, as a new parent, and he has had a sudden, panicked change of heart:  he is asking his wife to hide from his mother pictures of their 11-month-old old son dressed up in a lion outfit for Halloween.  This is because he fears it will distress his deeply spiritual mother:  “He says he thinks it will so profoundly upset his mom that she seriously could have a heart attack because she is very afraid of the devil.”   

 

 

Yep, really.  That’s what the LW wrote.

The source for Best Euphemism Ever came from one astute CH commentator, who noted:

“…’deeply spiritual’ is a euphemism for bat guano crazy. “

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Whatever Happened To….?

“…a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations, and the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an ‘anarchic‘, digitized ‘global brain‘ or ‘hivemind‘. Anonymous members (known as anons) can sometimes be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks in the style portrayed in the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta….
( excerpts, Wikipedia entry for Anonymous [hacker group] )

 

 

Starting in 2003, The Anonymous collective became known for DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.  A few of their more (in)famous attacks were on the Syrian Ministry of Defense,  Scientology, the Westboro Baptist Church,  the KKK, and Operation Avenge Assange.  According to a timeline of events attributed to Anonymous, it looks as if they’ve been “silent” since 2024.

Are Anonymous freedom fighters or cyber mob terrorists?  Hmmm, that might depend on your POV.   A loose collective with no top-down organization (or organization of any kind, some say), Anonymous hasn’t been heard from since…well, since the world has *really* needed them, IMO.  There are so many causes to which I wish they would apply their skills – could it be that our democracy will be “saved” by an anarchist collective? – as long as they agree with moiself  re what those causes are.  [5]

 

 

Translation:  I realize that if the genie granted me such a wish, it should come with the caveat that Anonymous might apply their skills to causes I’d disapprove of.

Perhaps a general rise in their areas of expertise (hacking) means Anonymous are now more likely to be caught (and indeed, dozens people around the world have been arrested, prosecuted, and even jailed for their supposed participation in Anonymous activities) than when they first became active on the world stage, and thus…my pipe dream…they are still around but are temporarily keeping a low profile while calculating how to best save the world from the Frito-Faced Fascist.

*   *   *

Department Of Just Wondering
Chapter 103 In A Never-Ending Series

Can I be just…whelmed?  I think it’s an actual word – one with archaic origins, and nobody uses it anymore, although we do employ the modified versions.  As in, I know that at times I have felt overwhelmed or underwhelmed.  But moiself  cannot recall the state of being or experiencing an average amount of whelm.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Ghost Of Halloween Memories Past

The entrance to the now-defunct bar was in an alley between Bryant and Ramona in downtown Palo Alto.  42nd Street was a popular hangout in the 1980s.  It attracted a mostly young, college age/new worker bee crowd, although patrons ranged from big-haired, spandex-clad new wave/metal fans to pretentious grad students from nearby Stanford University to businessmen and tech entrepreneurs and soon-to-be/self-described “creatives,” the latter group fond of snarkily commenting on how the bar was *nothing* like the New York saloons it so earnestly wanted to imitate.

42nd Street did have its distinctive ambience, with an abundance of standing and hanging plants and ferns, dark wood paneling, an overhanging second floor and a system of ceiling fans propelled by pulleys, a small dance floor – at that time it was one of the more unique bars in Palo Alto.   [6]

 

 

Dateline:  Palo Alto CA; October 31, 6 pm-ish; 42nd Street.  Moiself, in full Halloween regalia – dark dress and tights, black clod-hopping boots, green face makeup, bridal veil, hair with a white streak running from forehead to the back of teased hair – is seated in a booth with a colleague who had not worn a costume to work.  We are engaged in an earnest discussion about the virtues of the so-called classic works of American literature,   [7]  including whether or not The Great American Novel®   [8]  was a thing, or just a promotional scam.

I notice that every now and then my work friend taps his pipe against the table’s ashtray  [9]  (that was back when you could still smoke in bars) and stifles a smirk.  The fourth time he performs his pipe-tapping ritual I catch the bemused look in his eyes.

“What?” I ask him.

“It’s just…” he shakes his head, “I’m having a serious discussion about the merits of The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick with The Bride of Frankenstein.”

 

“And your point would be?!?!?!”

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [10]

 

Hannibal Buress is an American comic, writer, producer, actor, musician and businessman.

*   *   *

May you never be the evidence in anyone’s trial;
May you remember the euphemism if anyone calls you, “deeply spiritual;”
May you make someone a sandwich when they’re struggling;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] It wasn’t leapt; she’s been a working actor for years. 

[2] It’s like a (Canadian) Hallmark Christmas movie.  Don’t ask how/why I know this.

[3] Belle is QA manager for Schilling Cider.

[4] Every field trip should have a bus ride, no matter how old you are.

[5] And, most importantly, what the solutions should – and shouldn’t – include.

[6] “Michael Patrick Partners, a nationally recognized design studio, announced today that its two founding partners…are retiring before year’s end…Communication Arts published a story that featured the creative chops of the local advertising, design, illustration and photography tribes of Palo Alto, California, being fueled by the early high-technology startups of Silicon Valley.  Within the story was a photograph of the 40 or so independent creatives at their favorite watering hole, a bar called 42nd Street. ”  (excerpt and picture from “Michael Patrick Partners: Last Men Standing, 43 Years and 500 Awards Later, San Francisco design studio looks back on surviving earthquakes, financial meltdowns, global pandemics and recessions.”   EIN Presswire, Feb 27, 2023 )

[7] We were both fiction writers, both working in “civilian” publishing jobs, both a few years shy of having our respective first books published.

[8] “In 1868, a little-known writer by the name of John William DeForest proposed a new type of literature, a collective artistic project for a nation just emerging from an existential conflict: a work of fiction that accomplished “the task of painting the American soul.” It would be called the Great American Novel, and no one had written it yet, DeForest admitted. Maybe soon.”  (excerpt, “The Great American Novel,” The Atlantic, March 14, 2024 )

[9] Yes, he smoked a pipe – fully admitting that he took it up because (1) it was different, and (2) he thought that it made him somehow seem more “literary.”

[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 Home I’m Not Going Back To

October 10, 2025

Robyn Parnell community, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, Oregon, Recreation, school, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes!, Zoo , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Department Of You Can’t Go Home Again

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

*   *   *

Department Of The Morning After The Reunion Reflections

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

*   *   *

Department Of Priorities

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

 

 

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

 

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

Moiself:
“Robyn Parnell; Not A Doctor.”

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

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

 

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

 

*   *   *

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

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[8] Not to each other.

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

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

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

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

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

The Everything I’m Not Knowing

October 3, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Everything I’m Not Knowing

Department Of The Argument I Didn’t Win.

This memory flashback is courtesy of the latest episode of the Clear + Vivid podcast, featuring guest Canadian psychologist and author Steven Pinker:

“Steven Pinker: When You Know That I Know That You Know…
It then becomes ‘common knowledge,’ and can be both beneficial – like cementing friendships or empowering peaceful protests – or destructive, causing a run on toilet paper or splitting society into silos, each with their own common knowledge.”

 

 

Dateline: one afternoon in the late 1970s; UC Davis, during moiself’s…junior or senior year?; in most likely an upper-level sociology class (my pre-law major, criminal justice, was offered through the department of sociology).  It was a smaller ( ~ 20-30 students ) class; we were discussing a certain chapter of one of the class’s assigned textbooks.

The discussion began with the professor expressing his distaste regarding the phrases common knowledge and common sense, which the textbook author had used several times in the chapters.  Professor professed that he found those phrases assumptive and reductive: he asserted that there were no such things, and that if common sense and common knowledge truly existed then everyone would have them, and we would not have the scornful descriptors describing their lack; e.g.:

* “You think what? Oh, c’mon; it’s common knowledge that…”

* “What an idiot – he has no common sense…”

Everyone else in the class nodded and uh-huh-ed their assents with the professor’s observation.  But his argument struck me as…insufficient.  I had to disagree, and offered the following, with the intention of encouraging further discussion:

The definition of the adjective common does not mean mandatory, or ever-present.   Something can be common, as in widespread, but that doesn’t mean that *everyone* *everywhere* possesses this “common” thing, or trait.  [1]

 

 

Now it was moiself’s  turn to be the recipient of my classmates’ nods and good point uh-hus…which quickly dissipated as it became obvious that the professor had become somewhat irritated.  He had meant to drop what he’d considered to be a brillante déduction, and then move on.

And so, the discussion…moved on, if you know what I mean.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Good Advice To Remember

The way you walk the path is just as important as where it leads.
( Anonymous  [2]  )

True, that.  Especially if you work for The Ministry of Silly Walks.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Previews

RROTB (Regular Readers Of This Blog ®)  may surmise that Clear + Vivid is one of my favorite podcasts.  But two mentions in one post is, moiself  thinks, a new record.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago  C+V host Alan Alda and the show’s producer had the show’s season premier, wherein they discussed/played excerpts from the upcoming season’s episodes.  Here was one of my favorite previews, [3], from Alda’s conversation with science and writer and climate researcher Kate Marvel, whose new book is titled, Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet ( my emphases ):

C+V host Alan Alda:
“…You take a really unusual approach to communication in this book, Kate. When scientists write about science, they almost always avoid emotion every way they can. But you built your book on nine emotions, and under each emotion you tell the powerful stories that led you to have those emotions. It’s so unusual. How did you come to think of doing it that way?

Kate Marvel:
“Yeah, I resisted having emotions for a very long time because I’m a scientist, right? And we’re supposed to be neutral, we’re supposed to be objective…. Just the facts. And that’s how we maintain our credibility by pretending we feel nothing, but that doesn’t make us more believable. That makes us liars. And I realized that I don’t wanna lie.
And I don’t actually…there’s no gulf between getting the facts right and telling good stories about the facts. There’s no conflict between knowing things and feeling things.
And when that clicked for me, that’s when the idea for the book came in.”

Alda:
“Kate Marvel’s opening chapter is on Wonder. Wonder at the power of science to explain why the world is warming. After that she turns to anger.”

Marvel:
“…anger was the easiest chapter for me to write. And you know, I’m angry for the same reason that most people are angry when you think about climate change –  the lack of action and the telling of lies….

One of the things that makes me the most angry is the weaponization of uncertainty. Hmm. The fact that they say, ‘Oh, we don’t know everything” as an excuse to not do anything. And of course we don’t know everything. That’s why I still have a job. That’s why I go to work every day.

If science knew everything, science would be over. And so the fact that there are still things to find out about this planet does not mean that we know nothing. We are sure that greenhouse gases are causing climate change. We’re more sure about that than we are that smoking causes cancer. And the fact that there are still things that we don’t know about the planet, there’s still things we don’t know about how climate change will progress, what it will mean – that absolutely doesn’t mean that we’re not sure that climate change is real. It’s us, it’s happening, it’s dangerous. “

 

This sounds like a job for Science Captain Marvel.

 

Later in the conversation with the same scientist I heard one of the best metaphors (IMO) for our ultimately deadliest   [4]   planetary problem.  This could be helpful to y’all – which includes moiself –  the next time we’re discussing the topic with a person whose comments indicate that they don’t understand the difference between weather and climate.

Alda:
“I wanted to ask Kate about the difference between climate and weather. Years ago I noticed it wasn’t accurate to say that a weather event was an example of climate change because they seemed to be two different realms. But now I see weather events referred to as examples of climate change. So I asked Kate if she could explain that to me.”

Marvel:
“The way that I like to think about weather and climate is you can think of weather as a play that happens every day, but climate is the stage. And so weather is happening against this backdrop that’s set by the climate. And when you change the stage, you change the things that can happen on that stage. You change the stories that can be told, and that’s what’s happening now.
There is no weather that is happening, that’s not happening, against the backdrop of a changed climate. And we know from kind of basic physics what happens when the earth gets warmer…”

 

*   *   *

Department Of Oh And By The Way….

It irritates moiself  when I hear people say “climate change” when they should be saying, “global warming.” And that’s because I remember that there was a concerted effort, over twenty years ago, by conservative Republicans to change the vocabulary in an effort to change hearts and minds.

What conservative spinmeisters/climate change deniers want you to think:

“Climate change, that’s just the way of things – change is normal…
we’ve had lots of changes over the earth’s history….”

 

 

The fact that a more neutral term ( climate change) has become the go-to phrase, replacing the true, more descriptive phrase of *what is actually happening* (global warming – our climate is warming, not cooling ) – is a deliberate, obfuscatory, head-in-the-sand or-up-the-butt tactic.

“In 2002, a memo was written by Frank Luntz for the Republican Party on how to address environmental issues (Luntz, 2002). Luntz suggested that Republicans should update their terminology when discussing the environment, by describing themselves as conservationists, rather than preservationists or environmentalists….
Secondly, he suggested Republicans use the term climate change instead of global warming, as the latter was deemed less controllable, more catastrophic, and more emotionally challenging. It was suggested that these simple changes in terminology would assist the Republicans in winning the environmental debate. “  [5]

( excerpt, ” ‘Global warming’ versus ‘climate change’ “: A replication on the association between political self-identification, question wording, and environmental beliefs,” from ITAL Science Direct: Journal of Environmental Psychology, V. 69, June 2020 )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Question Moiself   [6]
Thinks I Know The Answer To

Which is humanity’s biggest roadblock to progress in fixing our current problems:
opposition (to the solutions), or indifference?

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 

 

*   *   *

May you personally avoid (and enlighten others who, knowingly or naïvely use)
the weaponization of uncertainty;
May you remember that the fact that we don’t know everything
doesn’t mean that we know nothing;
May you feel free to insert a silly walk as you walk your path;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Obviously not moiself’s  verbatim recollection of what I said.

[2] From a recent guided meditation, so I’m thinking some Buddhist-type anonymous.

[3] which I share here in hopes of enticing some of y’all to tune in to Clear + Vivid.

[4] For humans.  Cockroaches will carry on just fine.

[5] Why aren’t there more footnotes in this post?

[6] unfortunately

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

The Intentions I’m Not Setting

September 26, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

Regretfully but firmly yours,

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Just Wondering:
Question 497 In The Unending Series

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

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

Oh; okay; sure.

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

And then I got to thinking…

…yeah, always a dangerous endeavor.

Ahem.

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

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

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of Empirical Question Of The Year

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Remedy I Hope To Never Use

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of Another Small Step Toward Understanding

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Setting Your Intentions

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

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

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

My intention is to kick some Yoga ass.

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

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

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

*   *   *

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

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Yikes.

[2] I don’t remember doing so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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