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The Resume I’m Not Updating

January 9, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Isms (religion), politics, school, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Resume I’m Not Updating

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]  One last week for this, and then the holiday is officially over (in our front yard, at least).

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Buh-Bye, Betty

 

Happy BLD (Boot Liberation Day) to moiself!

 

 

*   *   *

 

Department Of No Chairs Were Flung Harmed By The Making Of This Rant

 

 

When moiself  has heard the “But, not all men…” line – spoken when someone attempts to derail the subject when I have been pointing out misogynist behavior and culture – I have somehow managed not give into my gut reaction, which is to fling a chair at the face of the  “But, not all men…” (corollary, “But I’m a good Guy® … )”, spewer.  [2]

Now I have another option.  I can refer the misguided defenders of Good Men® to this explains-it-all essay by the astute Dawn Villines.  Read it all after you enjoy this excerpt.

 

 

“Good men care about oppression. They care about the lived experiences of women. They understand that, without listening to women, they cannot learn what women experience. They believe women. When women share their experiences and your responses is, ‘But not all men!’ you undermine those experiences. You show no concern for oppression. You are not behaving as a good guy.

Imagine a friend was sharing with you that they had cancer. You wouldn’t jump in and proclaim that not all people have cancer, now, would you?

There’s also the now-infamous thought exercise of not all snakes. Imagine being put into a box with snakes. Only a few are venomous. ‘It’s not all snakes! What are you so worried about?!’

This is what life is like as a woman. It is irrelevant that there are some nice guys out there. It’s irrelevant even in a world where most guys are decent, because so many guys are not decent. So we have to act as if all men are a danger, because we know also that when men victimize us, society won’t believe us—and that random people will pop into the discussion to tell us that our suffering doesn’t matter because it’s not all men.”

( excerpt, Hello You’ve Reached Not All Men hotline, by Dawn Villines, )

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of An Appropriate Container

Christian theology in a nutshell:

A Short History of God   [3]

  1. Creates Adam and Eve
  2. Creates Evil
  3. Populates the world through incest
  4. Surprised that the evil exists
  5. Clueless about how to deal with evil
  6. Drowns the entire planet, saving one small family of very skilled ship builders
  7. Populates the world through incest…again
  8. Surprised the evil exists…again
  9. Sends diseases, starvation, plagues, tsunamis, etc.
  10. Still bewildered by the existence of evil
  11. Blames the devil…that he created
  12. Rapes a girl so she’ll give birth to himself as his own son so that we can torture and kill him/his son so that he can forgive us for being so evil
  13. Says “just joking” three days later and brings his son back to life
  14. Claims omniscience and omnipotence
  15. Expects to be worshipped for his wisdom

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January, last year. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  It turned out that moiself  liked this enough that it was a regular blog feature for 2025.  Will it continue throughout 2026?  Time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [4]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [5]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

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

 

 

Here’s an excerpt from my January 8, 2016 blog (The Dr. Seuss Book I’m Not Reading).  I spun the wheel, picked a January ten years ago…and now I’m reminded of why I write this blog.  I’d forgotten this poignant memory, which wiped me out for the rest of the day, after I reread it:

My Mother’s Resumé

Last week my older sister forwarded a text she’d received from CG, one of our mother’s caregivers. The subject was, “Mom wants to pitch in.”

(It was a ) Good day here. Your mom was making her resumé for a while in her office. She feels that she should be working. I didn’t want to dampen her hopes but we talked about being a volunteer which of course would be too much….

I got a kick out of it…for a moment. The image of my mother making her resumé – is cute, funny, sweet – make that, bittersweet. And now a part of me wants to know: did mom follow through, and what would be on it if she did? What would this 87-year-old woman (who is not always cognizant of her own age   [6]  ) list on her resumé?

 

 

My mother was the youngest of four daughters – her parents’ midlife, “oops” baby.    [7]

Like most women of her generation, my mother had little hope for independence as an adult and was, essentially, sentenced to life with her parents until/unless she married.

She moved with her mother and father to Santa Ana (CA) after her father retired from his job in Cass Lake (MN), an event which coincided with Mom’s high school graduation.

Mom enrolled in the local community college, got an A.A. degree, and managed to land a job with the Post Office.

I gathered from the stories she told me over the years that she loved her job. Although she still lived with her parents,   [8]  she was thrilled by the promise of even a modicum of independence that arose from earning her own money – she was saving up to buy her very own car; she really liked the styling on the Chevy Bel Aire! – even as she was less than thrilled (read: downright resentful) to be privy to the status and higher salaries of her fellow Post Office employees, all older than her and male, whom she described as slack-off, ineffectual, Civil-Service-for-life “geezers” whose jobs she felt she could do so much better (and sometimes did, but without credit) but would never be hired for or promoted to.

And then she got married.

She transferred her savings into the account of he-who-would-be-my-father, and their joint monies went for the deposit for their apartment, and a couple of years later, after my older sister was born, the down payment for their first house.

Oh, and she had to quit her one and only “real” job after she got married.

 

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds…but married women give ’em the willies.

 

What do you mean, you had to quit your job when you got married? Why?

No matter how many times I asked that question   [9]  I never received a satisfactory answer. This was because

(a) there can be no satisfactory answer to a rational question about an absurd situation;
(b) my mother, hardly the bastion of feminist consciousness and one of the least
introspective and politically conscious persons I’ve ever known,
didn’t understand the why herself.

When I’d press her, she’d say that she didn’t know if it was codified Post Office policy, but it was common knowledge that only single women were hired for such clerical work.  Her supervisor informed her, when she told him she was engaged, that she could remain at her position “until that time,” but that she’d have to quit her job when she got married.

 

It’s been 60 –  sixty!? – years since my mother had worked for pay. She worked nonetheless and of course for all those years, in a job of total dependency – a job which wasn’t even called a job, and for which there was little-to-no recognition outside that from the family which “employed” her.  She played by the rules; she heeded the porous platitudes from the male-worshipping culture which spawned, formed, defined and limited her: 

We won’t let you be a scientist   [10]   but you will have
the-most-important-job-in-the-world-as-wife-and-mother!

That same ManSociety neglected to mention that, lofty rhetoric aside, it placed little value in that “most important” of jobs, which by the way and don’t you worry your pretty little head about this  will leave you completely financially dependent upon your husband and without translatable, marketable experience and skills.

 


And now, ’tis 2016.  Seemingly apropos of nothing, a sweet, memory-addled, elderly widow-woman wants to update her resumé.  If she were physically and mentally able to seek employment, what would she be qualified to do?   [11]  

I won’t ask, in my next phone call with her, how her resumé is shaping up.  It would only confuse and upset her; she’ll have no memory that she mentioned her project to CG.  She will have forgotten; I can’t.  It’s gnawing at me, in a wistful way that makes me think about the last book Dr. Seuss never wrote: Oh, the Places You Could Have Gone.

I’d like to think that, if only for a moment, when my mother was thinking about writing her resumé she was reaching for the proverbial stars, and genuinely if only fleetingly thought she had a chance at applying for something important and exciting.  Astronaut camp counselor?  Postmaster general?  Chevrolet design engineer?  Hell’s bells, what good is a stalling memory if you can’t jump start it and take a joy ride every now and then?

 

1954 Chevrolet BelAire

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

 

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

 

*   *   *

May you never need a referral to the  Not All Men hotline;
May you reach for the proverbial stars when updating your life’s resumé;
May we all go bowling instead
( and ride to the bowling alley in 1954 Chevrolet BelAire! );
…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] Lest you think me superior in my self-control, fact is there are rarely fling-worthy chairs in my vicinity.

[3] Would love to give attribution…but can’t find it.

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

[5] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[6] My mother suffers from a variety of age-related ailments, including memory impairments.

[7] And the fact that she knows the history of her “embarrassing” birth – that she was told by her parents that her “arrival” was an embarrassment to them – explains a lot, IMHO, about many aspects of her personality.

[8] Apartment complexes/landlords would not rent units to unmarried women.

[9] I stopped asking around the time when I was in high school, when, thanks to the Second Wave of Feminism, I “got it.”

[10] My mother’s high school physics teacher announced on the first day of class that he would not teach science to female students and fhe wanted them to leave the classroom. My mother’s mother intervened with the principal, and the teacher begrudgingly let the girls stay in his classroom but continued to slight them (including my mother, who would go on to be her class valedictorian). He never looked at them during his lectures and ignored their raised hands when he asked for questions…with one exception. He agreed to teach my mother’s best friend, Dorothy, because “It is obvious Dorothy will never marry,” and thus she’d need to be educated to support herself (Dorothy had been facially disfigured at birth by the inept, forceps-wielding doctor who delivered her).  This story was first told to me when I was taking physics in high school. I’d commented on something we’d learned in class, and my mother told me she’d never found physics very interesting. Imagine that.

[11] Please don’t say, Walmart greeter. Gawdammit, I heard ya.

[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 Resolutions I’m Still Not Making

January 2, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Resolutions I’m Still Not Making

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?

 

 

*   *   *

New Year’s Reflections   [2]

I’ve come full circle, and perhaps another 45 degrees, on the whole New Year’s Resolutions Thing ®.  As an adolescent I was intrigued by the idea of making New Year’s Resolutions – or at least I was the first time I heard an adult talking about it. Then in young adulthood   [3]   I thought, oh puhleeeease, what a crock. Whenever I was asked about my NYR‘s I’d reply that I had already, several years ago, made the only resolution I’d ever kept: to never make another NYR ( moiself’s  past failed resolutions included, “Be taller,” and “Do not engage in audible eye-rolling when someone mentions their detox cleanse.” ).

 

 

Now, I think NYR are a fine idea. Yeah, resolve to “do better,” however and whenever you can and whatever that entails for you.  Of course, you don’t have to wait for the start of a new year to do so, but after all, the world is full of arbitrary limits, guidelines and restrictions,    [4]    so what the heck.

Some of my resolutions for this year are more profound than others; all shall remain private, save for this seemingly hackneyed one which, if kept, has a good chance of turning out to be the most nourishing to body and psyche:   Have more fun.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of It is Too Early To Tell, But I Still Don’t Think It’s Working.

That  it’s would be my father’s family tradition to ring in the new year.

☼  Hoppin’ John Spicy Collards and Black-eyed Peas Scramble   [5]
☼  Green Chilie Corn bread

Yesterday moiself’s  New Year’s Day menu (listed above) once again included a dish featuring black-eyed peas. I have done this for…decades, I guess. I do this in honor of my father and his heritage: specifically, his family’s tradition of eating black-eyed peas, collards and cornbread on New Year’s Day – an act of culinary optimism which was supposed to bring good luck for the coming year.

 

 

Despite consuming black-eyed peas every New Year’s day, my father’s family remained dirt-poor sharecroppers.    [6]   Every year, as I bring whatever black-eyed pea dish I’m making to my family table, I can’t help but wonder: just once, did a brave soul in my father’s family– possibly his adored, spunky younger sister, Lucile – when presented with yet another bowl of black-eyed peas and the directive to, Eat up, y’all, it’ll bring us good luck in the coming year!, look around at the ramshackle farmhouse and her barefooted siblings  [7]  and mutter, “It still ain’t workin.’ “

*   *   *

Department Of A Thing I Have Just Now Learned
Sub-Department Of WTF Is Wrong With Me,   [8]  Adjacent
To The Department Of Starting The Year With A Clean Slate

Dateline: last weekend; listening to one of Fresh Air’s year -end shows, when they replay some of their favorites of the year’s interviews/shows. This one was on the making of the now-iconic Bruce Springsteen song, “Born to Run.”

At the point in the show when FA host Terry Gross quoted some of the song’s evocative lyrics, I snickered to moiself, “That’s so funny – has Terry misheard that line, all these years, or is she being censored?”

I decided to look up the lyrics, for gloating purposes…and…

* apparently, someone was mishearing the line, all these years;
*  apparently, that someone wasn’t Terry Gross;
* apparently, the line is indeed, as TG quoted,
“…baby this town rips the bones from your back,”
and not, as moiself  has been hearing,
“…baby this town rips the balls from your back…”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of May The New Year Educate These Abominable Twits

On 12-28 Suzanne Mathis McQueen, my right-on-sister friend who is also an author, entrepreneur, and feminist inspirational leader,  [9]    posted a most concisely articulate takedown of the right’s miseducation and hysteria re immigration.  She was moved to do so in response to recent remarks made by Vice President J.D. “Jeering Doofus” Vance and top White House aide and racist policy formatter Stephen Miller – and oh please, ye deities who do not exist, ease the pain from having  Vice President accompany the name of such a festering turd of political, spiritual, and educational fraudulence….

Once again, I digress.

 


Veep J. D. “Judgmental Dickhead” Vance, speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona on 12/21, hyped up the slavering crowd of religious and racial bigots attending the event by claiming that, thanks to the current administration’s war on DEI, “You don’t have to apologize for being White anymore.”  A few days later, top White House aide Stephen Miller, after chugging too much bootleg eggnog,    [10]   posted a batshit crazy anti-immigrant rant after watching a 1967 TV ( The Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas ), featuring two of the USA’s favorite entertainers at the time and – heads up Miller – both sons of first generation immigrant parents.

 

 

Really.  I can’t make up this shit.

Here is SMM’s post ( my emphases ).   The fact that those whom SMM addresses evidently lack the introspection and cognitive flexibility to consider (much less understand, or agree with) her lucid presentation in no way negates the observable truths she so forthrightly states. 

Dear JD Vance:
No one’s asking you to apologize for being white.
I’m asking you to apologize for being so appallingly stupid about being white. 

Dear Stephen Miller:
My guess is that you have zero percent indigenous (to this landmass) in you
– ya know, the folks who were on this continent for 23-30 THOUSAND years –
which includes the Mexicans.

Whenever your white family came to this land, from wherever they came, they did so to find a better life, which was no more than 400-ish years ago, or less.

Which means, like me, you are a descendant of immigrants.

And…if you came from these first immigrants, your family, as part of a societal group of immigrants, did not assimilate into the local culture. They took resources, were a burden on the local society, nearly wiped them all out, and cruelly forced them out of their lush homelands onto desolate land.

And if your family doesn’t come from these first immigrants, your immigrant family benefitted from what had been set up for them by the first ones.

Stephen, again, you come from immigrants.

Perhaps this is why you’re afraid of not-white people or other immigrants. Perhaps you’re afraid they’ll take back the land of their people, or not assimilate and instead conquer – physically or intellectually. Your fear lives steeped within your cellular memory of history – of not wanting the same to happen to you.

While we can’t change that history, humans are designed to grow and learn if they want to. We can create win-win immigration standards that serve, protect, and respect all.

Repeating history that caused harm is dangerously ignorant.

Repeating history that caused harm and claiming to love Jesus
all in the same philosophy, is blasphemous.

Jesus wasn’t a bigot.  End of story.  Let’s move on.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Maybe Next Year We’ll Tweak This Holiday Tradition

Background: Over the years several of moiself’s  Jewish friends, acquaintances and/or coworkers/co-travelers, who told me that they were convinced that I was Jewish but “didn’t know it,” recommended that I go out for Chinese food on Christmas day.  I decided that this was the year…so…where to go?  When MH and I moved to Hillsboro  [11]   we were profoundly disappointed in the quality of the Chinese eateries available.   [12]  Eventually we stopped asking for recommendations from friends and neighbors, so as to not have to disappoint them later when they asked for our reviews.  We’d moved up from the San Francisco Bay Area, and had taken for granted the plethora of outstanding Chinese restaurants (not, ahem, Chinese American restaurants ) available…and in our experiences/opinions, none of what Hillsboro (or even Portland) had to offer measured up to Jing Jing.   [13]

 

 

Dateline: Christmas Day, 12:20 pm; getting ready for our 12:30p lunch reservations; donning my Yule season sock and shoe (singular this year – only my right foot can accommodate festive hosiery as the other is in a surgical boot).

 

 

My phone beeps; friend JWW texts me her season’s greetings, which I return.

Moiself:
“And Merry Christmas to you!
MH and K and I are about to celebrate our inner Jew and
go have Chinese food for lunch.”

JWW:
“Great idea.  Where are you going to eat?”

Moiself:
” ( restaurant name redacted ).  Haven’t been there in years.”

JWW:
“American Chinese.  Let me know how it is.  I miss American Chinese.”

One hour later, at the restaurant waiting for the check, I let her know.

Moiself (texting) to JWW:

“You *miss* American Chinese?  Seriously?
I could make food just as bland and never leave home….
Actually, it’s pretty funny.
I ate all of my dish ( aptly described on the menu as tofu and vegetables with brown sauce, and although there was no discernible flavor, the sauce was indeed brown) because I was very hungry…
but this is some of the most boring food I have ever had.
I guess it’s a good sign when you’re at the type of restaurant where the server never bothers to ask you how things are, because then you don’t have to lie about the food, or say something like, “Well, it’s in my stomach….”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [14] 

 

 

One of the many things moiself  dares to hope that, in the new year, scientists like the late greats Rosalind Franklin and Jane Goodall will experience less of the “damage of gender harassment”  and The Matilda Effect   [15]     (note that I am not wishing for a complete elimination of the gender bias – I’m not that naïve).

*   *   *

May you decide what kind of difference you want to make;
May that difference be the “luck” you make for the New Year;
May you have good luck no matter what you ate on January 1;
…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] As in, from the beginning of my blog of seven years ago.

[3] I think that should encompass ages 20 – 56.

[4] e.g. you are no more capable of making discerning political choices the day before your 18th birthday than you are the day of your 18th birthday; still, you can’t register to vote when you are age 17 years 364 days….

[5] What made John hoppin’ was the addition of black-eyed peas.

[6] Make that, “tenant farmers,” as sharecroppers was considered a pejorative label.

[7] My father’s parents couldn’t afford shoes for all six of their children, so as the elder kids got shoes they handed them down to the younger siblings. You got to wear shoes if there were a pair that happened to fit you. My father went to his proverbial grave not knowing that my mother had shared the story, with my sisters and I, of how our dad was embarrassed as a child when he showed up barefoot at school and was teased by the townie kids, who called him a dumb barefoot farm boy.  And the shack house he was raised in literally had dirt floors in some of the rooms.

[8] Don’t answer that.

[9] As per her Wikipedia page, so there!

[10] Can you think of any other reason he made the connection?

[11] Thirty five years ago as of next month.  Yikes.

[12] And not just in Hillsboro, even in Portland.

[13] Which closed after 38 years of business – they got priced out of downtown Palo Alto.  DAMN.

[14] “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

[15] “Gender harassment…defined as disrespecting, demeaning, and deprecating women and their work, abilities, and accomplishments, simply because they are women…is by far the most prevalent form of sexual harassment in academic science…. (Rosalind) Franklin…is among history’s most prominent subjects of…the Matilda Effect: the practice of ascribing women’s accomplishments to men. An expert in x-ray crystallography, Franklin led the team that created what has been called ‘arguably the most important photo ever taken,’ the celebrated Photo 51, which revealed the helical structure of DNA.  When the structure was published in 1953, however, Franklin…was not among the authors. Her crucial contribution was mentioned cursorily at the end of the article as having ‘stimulated’ the authors, James Watson and Francis Crick…who, with their paper, gained priority as discoverers…. Comments from Watson and Crick reveal the gender harassment that Franklin endured in the lab. Throughout The Double Helix, Watson’s famous 1968 book recounting the race to the famous structure, Watson condescendingly refers to Franklin as ‘Rosy,’ a nickname never used to her face. ‘There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents,’ he writes, though neglecting to critique his male colleagues’ cosmetic or sartorial choices…. He adds that her ‘belligerent moods’ interfered with Wilkins’ ability to ‘maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA.’ For that reason, ‘[c]learly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person’s lab.’ In the 1993 book Nobel Prize Women in Science, Crick was quoted as saying, ‘I’m afraid we always used to adopt—let’s say, a patronizing attitude towards her.’ ”  ( Excerpts from ITAL Rosalind Franklin and the damage of gender harassment, by Beryl Lieff Benderly,  science.org 8-1-18 )

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 Surgical Ordeal I’m Not Recounting

November 14, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, exercise & fitness, extended family, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Surgical Ordeal I’m Not Recounting

That’s because this post was written a day ago.  When it goes live moiself  will be in the hospital, waiting for my foot surgery to begin.

 

Something along these lines.

The Foot Doctor ®, while performing his presurgical assessment, told me I had a strong heart, and robust foot and leg muscles and joint flexibility ( without using the qualifier, “for someone over fifty,”   [1]   which I appreciated ).  I told him that’s likely because I’ve been active/a regular exerciser all my life; thus, my major concerns about the surgery    [2]   involve post-operative restriction of activities.

When discussing post operative care, FD confirmed what I’d read:  much to people’s surprise, recovery from knee and hip replacement surgeries are, in many ways, easier than recovery from foot surgeries.  This is because in the latter case you must keep *all* weight off of the foot for some time post-surgery.  In the joint replacement surgeries, within a few days you are up on your feet – which carry the majority of your weight load – working toward assuming unassisted walking.  Depending on the type of foot surgery, you cannot put *any* weight on your foot for 6-8 weeks.

 

Meet Bertha, my BBB (Big Beautiful Boot).  She’ll be my constant companion for 6-8 weeks.  Yep, I blinged her.

 

 

I told FD that what has kept me in good health pre-surgery will be  (moiself  is guessing) vexing to me post-surgery, in that it will be difficult for me to be only partially ambulatory.

Moiself:
“I assume at my first post-op appointment we’ll go over what exercises and activities I can do to prevent muscular atrophy – I can sit in a chair and do upper body weights?  Chair yoga, and abdominal workouts?  Maybe resistance exercises on the one weight-bearing leg, and…”

FD, giving me a shrewd look:
 “Now, don’t do anything stupid.”

MH’s reaction, when I told him that story:
 “You’ve only seen him a few times, and he knows you already.”

 


*   *   *

Department Of More Considerations

Recovering from surgery during the holiday season.

 

 

Yeah, that sucks.  Is there ever a good time for enforced/limited mobility?   [3]   Only times that are a wee bit less – or more – sucky/inconvenient, right?

So, why not put the surgery off until the new year?  Deciding factor: I want to be well over a half year’s recovery from the surgery for our once-in-a-lifetime, family trip to Iceland next summer, to be in the zone of totality for the 2026 solar eclipse.   [4]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Star Trek Moments When You Least Expect Them

Dateline:  last Friday, 11 a.m.-ish, doing a streaming/online yoga class.  Midway through the practice the instructor refers to a certain movement she’s adding into the sequence, advising her students to “assimilate that” into their vinyasa flow.

Any Star Trek: The Next Generation fan can guess what immediately popped into moiself’s  mind.

 

 

*    *   *

Department Of Passion, Schmassion – Careful What You “Follow”

Moiself  is not only irritated by but actually opposed to the concept/advice that when it comes to jobs/career paths, people must follow their passion ( there are many variations, including do what you love and the money will follow ).  This is because moiself  sees this tripe-passing-as-wisdom  as exceptionally first/white world privileged and tone deaf – for many reasons, including that it downplays and/or completely misses the fact that any work can have meaning without being what outsiders (or even you) might call meaningful.  [5]

As A Writer ®, along with other folk working in fields considered artistic/passion-following, I’ve often had that tired trope presented as a compliment wrapped up in advice ( “Oh, you’re a writer – you followed your passion!  You’ll never retire/a true artist will always keep creating/you’re so lucky to have been able to pursue your passion….” ).

 

 

Once I became aware of that scenario I tried to follow a healthier path, and for years  [6]  have held on to this perspective:

Be a verb; not a noun.

Don’t be defined by what you do, because you can do other things.
I write, but I may not always be writing.
I don’t have to be a writer for the rest of my life.

What you are doing – whether for more or less lofty career aspirations, or the just-a-job-to-pay-the-bills – or the recreations and hobbies you pursue ( you may run, but are you “a runner”? ) do not necessarily define you.

You can do other things.  Lather; rinse; repeat.

 You.  Can.  Do.  Other.  Things.

A wise perspective on the subject can be found in this excerpt from one of my favorite podcasts ( Hidden Brain, Love 2.0:How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 1;  my emphases ):

 HB host Shankar Vedantam:
” ‘Having a job that pays the bills is great, but even better is doing work that builds on your passions, one that challenges you, that drives you to innovate and excel.’

This message, that the ideal career is one where our work and our passions are neatly aligned, is widespread in American culture. For better or for worse, many of us want our work to do more than just keep a roof over our heads. We want it to reflect who we are.
Our guest…is Jon Jachimowicz, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School.  Jon, a lot of your work seems to be about stepping back from the pursuit of passion to see it more clearly and accurately. You say that one obstacle to doing this lies in the way that we have moralized passion. What do you mean by that?”

Jon Jachimowicz:
“I think that we have elevated the pursuit of passion to such a high moral level where we are good people for pursuing our passion and vice versa. We’re seen as morally bad people if we don’t pursue our passion. And I think that that is a wrong expectation to have. At best, I think it’s unhelpful….
Amy Wzefsiewski has this really wonderful distinction between meaning and meaningful. Work can have a meaning without in and of itself being meaningful. I can think of my work as having a really important role in my life. It can empower me to do other things. It might allow me to support my family. But in and of itself, that work might not necessarily be meaningful….the reality is that for many people, pursuing work that is meaningful is a luxury…

I think we as a society need to embrace that that is a perfectly great justification to do what it is that we’re doing. I think we would do better by highlighting that for some people, given their life circumstances at some time points, it might actually be more meaningful if they focused on work that isn’t in and of itself something that they’re passionate about, but that might empower them either to pursue their passion later on in life, or to pursue their passion outside of work – which is an equally noble, or in my mind at least, an equally noble way of doing something that we deeply care about.”

SV:
“One other unfortunate consequence of moralizing passion is that passionate people can sometimes be reluctant to give up their passions, even when they should, because they’re afraid that others will think less of them.  I want to play you a clip of a man named Simone Stolzow, who left a traditional career in journalism to become a speaker and a consultant.”

Clip of SS:
“I felt guilty. I felt that I was sort of abandoning a calling, and democracy dies in darkness, and what am I doing – turning off one more light in the room? And will my colleagues and my coworkers ever forgive me? Will I ever be able to publish ever again?”

 

And whatever you do, think twice about following a passion that involves clowns.

 

SV:
“Jon, would you say this is another way in which moralizing passions ends up hurting people who decide to take a different route in their lives?”

JJ:
“Absolutely.  I think part of the challenge is that when we moralize passion in that way, we also worry about how other people might think of us if we were to quit or give up on one passion pursuit. The implication being,  ‘If I am a good person for pursuing a passion, then what must be wrong with me that I’m now giving up on that thing? There must be something inherently morally wrong with me. I must be a bad person for choosing to give up on what it is that I’m passionate about.’

Or at least that’s the belief that people themselves have. What we actually find in the research…is that other people understand that sometimes you need to give up on one passion in order to pursue another, that that’s just what life is like, that you don’t give up on passion pursuit altogether. But from that person’s perspective who’s pursuing a passion, they might really worry, ‘Are other people going to think of me as a lesser person because I’ve given up on that passion?’

And we find that that worry can keep people in jobs that they perhaps initially were really passionate about or where the working conditions perhaps initially were a really good fit, but where for whatever reason, it’s no longer a fit where they’re now having troubles and challenges maintaining that passion or they’re incurring negative outcomes that can harm them in the long run. But they keep on persevering because they worry so much about what other people will say if they were to give up.”

 


*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

Christian apologetics   [8] in a nutshell:      [9]

“My book is true, because it says so right here in my book.”

 

 

*   *   *

May you strive to be a verb;
May you remember that you can do other things;
May you assimilate what needs assimilating;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.   [10]   Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Which, for some reason, I’ve been reading a lot, lately.  Seems medical & exercise gurus have enshrined age 50 as some kind of natural divider. As in, life before and after.

[2] Besides, of course, that it works….

[3] As opposed to say, recovering from an accident…this surgery is, technically, elective.

[4] Family, as in, our young adult children actually seem to want to take a trip with their parents.  Us footing the bill helps.

[5] And in most countries/cultures for most of history that meaning has been that your work keeps you and your family alive.

[6] If not decades…but who’s counting?

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

[8] From “apología” a Greek word that means “defense.” Christian apologetics means giving a defense of the Christian faith and theologies.  The problem with Christian apologists is that instead of looking at the available evidence and then drawing conclusions from the evidence, they start out with the conclusion, then look for whatever supports their position while ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

[9] An appropriate container.

[10] And thanks for reading this tenth footnote.

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 Advice I’m Not Giving

September 12, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, exercise & fitness, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, politics, radio & podcasts, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Advice I’m Not Giving

Department Of This Advice Is Worth What She Paid For It

Dateline: September 4; early morning walk; listening to a recent Fresh Air podcast with guest host Tonya Mosley interviewing Jane Fonda.

At age 87 Fonda is perhaps even more interesting than she’s ever been. I’ve long admired Fonda for her acting and her activism, even during the times when I was shaking my metaphorical fist and saying to her, Stop working out your daddy issues by marrying controlling men!  [1]  I’ve admired her quest for knowledge in general as well as self-knowledge, and her willingness to fight for important causes.  Even when I felt she was naive/mistaken in her methods and/or style (as in her trip to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War), she was correct about the substance of those causes.

And it’s about the latter issue that, were moiself  ever to have a privilege to meet her, I might spoil that privilege (read: send her running from the room) with my statement, May I give you some unsolicited advice?  And the advice would be:

 Please don’t ever apologize again for what you did and said
during your anti-Vietnam war activism.

 

 

Notice the key word in the phrase:  apologize again.  That’s because Fonda has apologized, many times during the past decades, with sincerity and in great length and specificity.

The cause for anti-Vietnam-war activism was just and right.  And as the years passed, with the help of the Freedom Of Information Act, as well people higher up in the decision-making – and as it turns out, deception-making – echelons of government being willing to confess and confront the “sins” of our nation’s foreign policy, we found out just how right the anti-war activists were.  They were right to oppose a war we never should’ve been in the first place; they were right about how our government was lying to us ( anyone remember The Pentagon Papers? ); they were right to criticize a government which dug in its heels and kept sending our soldiers to kill and be killed by Vietnamese people both north and south, for *years* after their own research and analysis brought them to the conclusion that the war was unwinnable.

But, back to my advice. I would say:

“Ms. Fonda, please never apologize again when someone asks you about the mistakes both you and they think you made.  Acknowledge their concerns if you must, with that prickly attorney’s rejoinder:  Ask and answered.  Then drop it.”

Because, this:  at this point, anyone who is still holding a grudge re your anti-war activism (on behalf of himself personally or by taking it upon himself –  mistakenly, I believe –  to defend his country or the honor of US soldiers ) is either completely oblivious to and/or refuses to acknowledge the fact that you have, indeed, apologized.  It’s a fact that he won’t accept.  And he’s never going to…because he doesn’t *want* to.   [2]

 

 

There are people who do not want to give up their anger against Fonda re her anti-Vietnam war activism.  It’s part of their identity.  There’s this guy in his 70s, and an important part of his self-perception is

* he wears his Ohio State University football shirt every Thanksgiving;
*  his favorite music, which he listens to almost exclusively, is his collection of
Otis Redding and Glen Campbell albums;
* he’s an avid duck hunter, likes to ski and play backgammon with his wife and take his grandkids bowling
(even though the kids would rather play computer games with him);
*  he describes his politics as middle of the road;
* he hates/will never forgive Jane Fonda …..

For all of the complicated reasons which only the-therapist-he-will-never-see could unravel, the grudge he is holding against Fonda is part of his identity.  To give that up, to accept the fact that Fonda *has* apologized, would oblige a rational person to let go of that grudge – to let go of a piece of himself that, after all these years, he would feel incomplete without.

I admire Fonda’s never-say-never spirit, but the people who matter   [3]   are people who will listen to opinions other than their own and try to understand and their fellow human beings, whether or not they agree with them.

You can’t change the others.  The precious time Fonda (and all of us) have remaining will be lost and can never be regained by repeating sincere apologies to insincere ears. 

Thank you for listening, Ms. Fonda.  And thank you for…

Cat Ballou; They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Klute; Coming Home; Julia;
The China Syndrome; Nine to Five; On Golden Pond; Agnes of God;
The Morning After; all those workout tapes     [4];  Grace and Frankie;
Book Club; This is Where I Leave You; Our Souls At Night….

 

One of my faves: Two old pros reunited: Fonda and Redford in Our Souls at Night.

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

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

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [5]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [6]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

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

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 9-13-13, The Keys I’m Not Losing.  (Twelve years ago, ay y iyi.   The segment I’m excerpting begins with a reflection on writing the next book I was thinking of writing, at the time….):

 

…And I have to choose the characters’ names as soon as I think of the character.  I use baby naming books and other resources, to identify characters with names that hold special meaning, even if only to myself.  Hmmm, how can I denote this character’s total prick-osity without actually calling him a dick?

*  *  *
Speaking of dicks (and thanking moiself for that segue)….



 

Dateline:  last Sunday am (9-8-13); MH and I in bed;    [7]  listening to NPR’s Weekend Edition.  My attention was caught and hackles were raised during Rachael Martin’s interview with author Norman Rush re his new novel:

“On the surface, Norman Rush’s new novel is about a middle-aged man, Ned, who reunites with a group of college friends after one member of the group dies unexpectedly. But what transpires over the next few days ahead of the memorial service is less about Ned’s relationship with these men and the heady, self-absorbed days of yore, and more about how Ned sees himself.
In his third, much anticipated novel, Rush takes the reader inside the most intimate parts of relationships — between Ned and his wife, between Ned and his deceased friend, and between Ned and his own expectations.”

 Imagine that!, the cynical author part of  moiself  snickered to moiself  while MH breathed deeply   [8]   beside me.  A novel written by a middle-aged author that purports to take a reader “…inside the most intimate parts of relationships;” a novel that is, the author says (further into the interview), “about friendship.”  Ah, that relationship-y thing again.  And the novel is “much anticipated” and taken seriously, and is also described merely as what it is:  a novel. There is no limiting modifier.

Now, change the gender (for both author and characters) in Martin’s commentary:

On the surface, Nora Rush’s new novel is about a middle-aged woman, Nell, who reunites with a group of college friends after one member of the group dies unexpectedly. But what transpires over the next few days ahead of the memorial service is less about Nell’s relationship with these women and the heady, self-absorbed days of yore, and more about how Nell sees herself.
In her third, much anticipated novel, Rush takes the reader inside the most intimate parts of relationships — between Nell and her husband, between Nell and her deceased friend, and between Nell and her own expectations.

It’s strange, having a flashback on a Sunday morning in bed, when I’ve never taken an acid trip (in or out of bed).  But that’s what happened as I listened to the interview – I was back to a conversation with friend and fellow fiction author SCM  about an unfortunate, ongoing, literary dirty laundry issue which, thanks to uppity female authors with more clout than moiself, has received some airing in the past few years:

* Novels dealing with (what literary critics perceive to be) ” relationships” are often
critically acclaimed when the author is male, and when the author is female, such books are dismissed as “domestic/family dramas”…if they are reviewed at all.

 

Not germane to the rant, but a cute picture

 

Warning: domestic drama ranting  [9]  ensues (via excerpts from an email, sent approx.  two years ago re this topic, to SCM):

“I think it’s a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it’s romance, or a beach book – in short, it’s something unworthy of serious critic’s attention.   [10]

On my way back from an errand this afternoon I caught the tail end of a rerun of NPR’s Fresh Air 2010 interview with author Jonathan Franzen, recorded not long after the release of his latest novel, Freedom.  I felt an almost overwhelming urge to pull the car over to the side of the road, get out and find somebody’s yippie dog and give it a good kick.

The ways Franzen’s novels have been presented and marketed by publishers, and reviewed by the critics, have had me (and many other writers, almost all – surprise! – women) reflecting on the sexism and even misogyny that still pervades the wacky world o’ contemporary literature (well, the world in general).  What sent me into Pomeranian-punting mode were several of Franzen’s ruminations, including  [11] :

“I wanted in this book to write about my parents’ marriage and their parental experiences as I observed them … but I…wanted to set it in times contemporaneous with my own. So in that way, too, I turned my parents into people my age; into people I might be or I might know. And that was the real engine. It was something that came from inside.
“…much of the work on a novel for me consists in the kind of work you might do in a paid professional’s office of trying to walk back from your stuck, conflicted, miserable place to a point of a little bit more distance, from which you can begin to fashion some meaningful narrative of how you got to the stuck place.”

What frosted my butt was not Franzen himself – don’t know him, personally – but the fact that when he, a male author, chooses to fictionalize the subject matter of family, feelings and relationships, the resulting work is touted as a “masterpiece of American fiction” (Time Magazine) and “an indelible portrait of our times” (The New York Times).

 The Fresh Air site acknowledged the controversy:

“So many terrific contemporary female novelists cover the same terrain, yet their work receives a fraction of the highbrow fanfare that greets Franzen. It’s like how men still get praised for doing housework and taking care of their own kids: Any male involvement in the domestic realm still merits applause.”

In the interview Franzen spoke extensively about how his own feelings, experiences, family relationships and background influenced his writing.  I was reminded of an excerpt I read many months ago, from article in  New York magazine, in which a novelist noted that if a woman writes about herself or acknowledges using material from her own life in her writing, she’s a narcissist, and has no wider interest in or focus outside of   [12]   the domestic sphere.  If a male novelist does the same, he’s describing universal truths or chronicling the human condition.

Of course, such inequities almost always sound better when put into the mouths of fictional characters.  I love this observation, from the novel, Commencement:

“When a woman writes a book that has anything to do with feelings or relationships, it’s either called chick lit or women’s fiction, right?” one of the characters asks.  “But look at Updike or Irving.  Imagine if they’d been women.  Just imagine.  Someone would have slapped a pink cover onto ‘Rabbit at Rest,’ and poof, there goes the Pulitzer.”

Here is something the non-fictional character moiself  wrote over a year ago, right around the time of the release of Freedom (it’s from one of the documents in my Things I Hate About The Publishing World file.  Oy vey, it’s less expensive than therapy):

Freedom is being hailed as “a domestic drama about marriage and family.”  Effusive, serious praise…for a domestic drama.  Since it is a Jonathan and not a Joanna Franzen who wrote it, the book isn’t being consigned to the “women’s fiction” bin of commentary.  When a female novelist writes about herself, or her protagonists’ ethnicity, age, social and economic circumstances are thinly disguised versions of herself or her peers, she’s a neurotic narcissist.  When a female novelist tackles subjects related to family, feelings or relationships, her work risks being labeled  “Chick Lit” (or the faintly more reputable, “women’s fiction”).

A (usually white) male author (e.g. Franzen, Updike, Irving, Cheever, Roth….) does the same thing, writes about the same “territory.”  Do the literary critics – whose ranks are still overwhelmingly white and male – review his book in the category of…what?  ITAL “Dick lit?”  Noooooooo.   He’s illustrating and critiquing the human condition!  He’s doing some serious ITAL  Li’t-ra-chure!

*   *   *

By the way, if you want to borrow the  Dick Lit descriptor, feel free to do so.
Attribution would be nice (or, failing that, cash).”

*   *   *

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

 

A simple question, which is never satisfactorily answered:

*   *   *

May you stop holding decades-old grudges against…anyone;
May you never feel guilty for enjoying a book about relationship-y subjects;
May you check out some of Fonda’s recent work ( Our Souls at Night is quite touching) ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Fonda has talked and written about her strained relationship with her cold, distant, hair-trigger-tempered father, actor Henry Fonda.  And her husbands were French film director Roger Vadim, American activist and California senator Tom Hayden, and multimillionaire business entrepreneur Ted Turner.

[2] I’m using “he” because although I’m sure there’s some nasty grudge-loving old ladies out there, the fanatical Fonda-haters I’ve met have all been male.

[3] Yep, I’m treading into dangerous/judgmental, territory here, and that’s fine ’cause I got my combat boots on.

[4] Really!  They were fun.

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

[6] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[7] Shame on (or, good for) you, but sorry, not that kind of dick reference segue.

[8] Notice I did not type, “snored.”

[9] Still awaiting its critical acclamation. Yes, I’ve mentioned this topic before, and will doubtless do so again.

[10] author unremembered – at least, by me.

[11]  I checked the program’s website transcript to make sure I was recalling them correctly.

[12] No, there is no footnote in the middle of my email. How silly would that be?

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

The Thoughts And Prayers I’m Not Sending

September 5, 2025

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Interesting People   [2]

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

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

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

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

 

 

Once again, I digress.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of  “No Shit?!” Titles

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

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

 

 

*    *   *

Department Of Right Now It’s Like This

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

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

 ‘Right now, it’s like this.”

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

( excerpt, Daily Calm meditation app, 8-26-25, It’s Like This )

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself.  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [6] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 

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

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Amen, sez the atheist.

[2] Why would interesting people need a footnoate?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The “Ultimate Writers’ Guide” I’m Not Writing

August 29, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The “Ultimate Writers’ Guide” I’m Not Writing

This story, attributed to Jewish-Austrian philosopher Martin Buber, (“Tales of the Hasidim”),  is making the rounds on FB.  As one commenter noted, Buber’s tale is a convoluted way of admitting that the concept of a divine deity should be unnecessary….

 ( Buber story post; my emphases )
A rabbi was asked by one of his students “Why did God create atheists?” After a long pause, the rabbi finally responded with a soft but sincere voice. “God created atheists,” he said, “to teach us the most important lesson of them all – the lesson of true compassion.

You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his actions are based on his sense of morality. Look at the kindness he bestows on others simply because he feels it to be right.

When someone reaches out to you for help. You should never say ‘I’ll pray that God will help you.’ Instead, for that moment, you should become an atheist – imagine there is no God who could help, and say ‘I will help you’.”

 

 

For that moment?  No; You should “become an atheist”   [1]  for all the moments when you have helped other people; for all the times when other people help people, without “miraculous”/deistic intervention, which is – no matter what you have been taught to think, is you, a person, acting, not your god – always. Always.

How’s about y’all who are religious just skip the middle layer of bureaucracy and leave out the unnecessary and functionally impotent deity – whom you believe parted the Red Sea and performed other “miracles” but who can’t mow your neighbor Fred’s lawn when Fred is recovering from chemotherapy, and so you do it?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Wholesome Family Games Night
Wheel of Fortune, Public Service Edition

 

“I’d like to solve the puzzle.”

*    *   *

Department Of You Know You Need This
Sub-Department Of, Only 129 nicknames for the Tangerine Terrorist?

Select goodies from the website, 129 Insulting tR***   [2]  Nicknames You Must Know— Choose Your Favorite!

Cheeto Satan
Trumpoleon
The Incontinental Divider
Vladdy’s Boy
Mango Mussolini
Our Fondling Father
Tsar Trumplingrad
Sweet Potato Hitler
Pumpkin Spiced Stalin
Kim Don Un
President Donald McDonald’s
The Lyin’ King
Don the Con
Cheetolini

Comedian and late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel also weighed in with his and his writers’ collection:Don Whoreleon

Napoleon Bone-Aspur
Nostra-Dumbass
All Caps-Tain Kangaroo
Founding Farter
Teddy Dozevelt
Gaseous Clay
Dopey McGropey
Lepre-Con Man
Al Ca-Porn
The Shart of the Deal
Nelson Tandela
Greedy McGolfy
Yabba Dabba Doofus
His MAGA-Sty
Donald Duck the Draft
The Notorious P.I.G.
Hair Mussolini
Con-Mander-In-Chief
Phony Soprano
The Ayatollah Complaini
Presidementia
Stable McGenius
The Tanchurian Candidate
Tannibal Lecter
Scammy Davis Jr.
The MAGA-Lorian
Vladimir Gluten
HippoPOTUS
Darth Tax Evader
The Tan of La Mancha
MAGATHA Christie
Grab-Ass Grandpa
Orange Julius Caesar
Dictator Tot
Quid Pro Combover
The Lock-Her-Up-Ness Monster
General Lie-Senhower
Alexander Scamilton
Jabba The Pizza Hut
and Pumpkin McPornhumper

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Meet Your Brain
 Part 391 in A Never-Ending Series

We neurological layfolk – as well as the writers of popular psychology/medicine articles – tend to separate realms when we talk about how the human brain (supposedly) functions.  We speak and write about some people who have great cognitive skills and people who are stronger with emotional skills ( using terms like IQ and EQ, for example ), often in binary or at least separate terms. Let’s all stop doing that, right now.

 

 

Yes; really.  Bonk yourself on the head if you find yourself doing that.   [3]

“I think our traditional Western philosophies too often separate cognition and emotion; we think that there are cognitive skills and that there are emotional skills…and that maybe those two things impact on each other, right?  But actually, that’s the wrong way to think about it.

They are two differ dimensions of the same thing.  Thinking is inherently cognitive and emotional, *always,* at the same time.  And we can look at thinking from a cognitive lens and analyze the cognitive dimensions of what’s going on – and it’s important to do that – and we can look at thinking from an affective lens, and analyze the emotional engagement that’s going on, but actually both of those things are simultaneously happening, in an integrative way, *always*, when people are alive – when they’re moving through the world, adapting and engaging with things around them.”

(  Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, USC professor of neuroscience; director
of the Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education.
Excerpt from her interview on the Hidden Brain podcast, “How Our Brains Learn.” )

 

 

 

*   *   *

Depart Of WTF Is Going On
Sub-Department Of A Writer’s Life

Chapter 952 In The Never-Ending Series, The Rights To Which
Have Yet To Be Optioned For A Major Motion Picture ®

After years of the proverbial radio silence since my juvenile novel  The Mighty Quinn went out of print, in the past couple of weeks moiself  has received several complimentary emails from who-the-heck-are-these-people  who  apparently   [4]  want to show me how they can maximize my book sales and impact my presence on social media, ad nauseum ad scam-eum, etc.  One example:

From: redacted <redacted@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2025 7:42 AM
To: ( moiself’s  main email address    [5]  )
Subject: The Mighty Quinn

Dear Robyn Parnell,
“The Mighty Quinn is a delightful mix of humor, heart, and clever storytelling. Quinn’s journey through school struggles, bullies, and unexpected friendships is both relatable and entertaining. The way you balance lighthearted moments with real challenges makes this story shine for young readers and adults alike. Katie DeYoe’s illustrations   [6]  also add a wonderful layer that brings Quinn’s world vividly to life. I’d love to hear what inspired you to create Quinn’s character and the whimsical yet meaningful adventures he experiences.”

Moiself’s  reply:
Dear Mr. Redacted,
Who are you and what are you selling?

Here is my favorite one (so far).
The email’s subject line: “Show Don’t Tell – The Ultimate Writers’ Guide

“Hi Robyn, your guide feels like a true gift to writers at every stage. By breaking down ‘show, don’t tell’ into practical, achievable steps with clear examples, you demystify one of the most essential and misunderstood craft elements. What drew you to make this guide so hands-on, with exercises that invite writers to immediately apply what they learn?”

 

 

Spoiler:  I have written no such guide.

Nor do I ever recommend that one-dimensional sop – show; don’t tell – which unfortunately passes as classical (and simplistic and therefore bad, IMO) advice.   Show and tell; good writing does both.

What’s going on?  Can I blame AI for this?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Sensitivity Of Things

The Sensitivity of Things – Mono no Aware 物の哀れ   – is variously described as an awareness for the fragility of the existence, of life in all forms, and appreciation for its beauty while acknowledging the gentle sadness of its passing.  Moiself  had heard of the concept in passing,  then recently it was the subject of one of my Calm app morning meditations.

“It’s natural to seek a sense of stability and forever-ness.  Change and uncertainty can feel stressful and scary.  To recognize that everything that begins is to acknowledge our mortality, which isn’t a warm and fuzzy prospect.  But there’s great wisdom in the view that everything is changing and ephemeral.  Nothing is permanent.  Today, the tallest tree in the woods.  Tomorrow, a log of carbon lying on the forest floor.  Today, a massive glowing star; tomorrow, a disparate cloud of cooling elements.

 


 Webb Space Telescope images

 

It’s understandable to fear change, but there’s so much to be gained by accepting impermanence, rolling with it, even seeing the beauty in it.  For it’s only because life ends that our years on this earth are so precious.  Only because of the harsh winds of winter that we drink up every sun-drenched moment of summer.

Mindfulness encourages us to see that it’s not the nature of impermanence that causes us to suffer, it’s our desire for things to be permanent that causes us to suffer.  By accepting impermanence, we open to reality and find deeper fulfillment in our lives.

There’s a wonderful Japanese term, for which there isn’t a precise English translation – a term, mono no aware, loosely means a sensitivity to ephemera.   The bittersweet feeling of seeing things change is the wistful awareness of the transitory nature of existence.

Since everything we see all around us will one day be gone ,we must appreciate every millisecond.  According to this idea, cheery blossoms are not only beautiful despite only blossoming for two weeks a year, they are beautiful *because* they only blossom for two weeks once a year. 

As Jack Kornfield     [7]   said, ‘Like a sandcastle, all is temporary.
Build it.  Tend it.  Enjoy it.  And when the time comes, let it go.’ “

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 


( Becky Vollmer )

 

*   *   *

May you cultivate and appreciate a sensitivity to ephemera;
May you “act like an atheist” when someone needs help;
May you be reassured by the knowledge of the impermanence of the influence
of Genghis Don, and bask in the never-ending satisfaction achieved by
engaging in petty derision of that Commander-In-Thief;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Which is not actually a thing and there is no ism or credos to adopt – it’s just one term for being religion-free, which unfortunately defines you in terms of religion (a-theism – without theism).

[2] Moiself  cannot bear to have his unredacted name in my blog, even when quoting others.

[3] And note that you will experience the bonk in several realms, including the cognitive, emotional, and physical realms: ouch.

[4] They offer little-to-nothing in the way of identification and/or professional credentials.

[5] I have several.

[6] Actually, the illustrations were done by a wife-husband team, Katie De Yoe  and Aaron DeYoe. 

[7] American writer and teacher, who trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand.

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

The Man I’m Not Keeping

August 22, 2025

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

Department Of Another Spot-on Neologism

Mankeeping.

 

Actually, Mr. Bean, you probably don’t.

Mankeeping may sound funny, or, if you’re a socially-and-politically-conservative-inclined man you might feel a twinge of, Why they do keep picking on us?!?!

Except that it’s not nit-picking, or even picking.  The term describes a real problem.

Republicans and religious/cultural conservatives and their women-should-be-breeders-not-leaders  allies decry the USA’s falling fertility rates.  They wonder aloud why younger women in particular are avoiding marriage and children; they – surprise! – don’t see/won’t acknowledge the reasons that are literally staring them in the face (or ghosting them online)…because, you know, men figuring out the reasons for social/cultural/romance-and-family-related trends?

 

“My girlfriend takes care of that kinda stuff.”

 

Y’all seen any of these headlines/read any of these articles lately?  Perhaps moiself  should alter my intro:  lately.  Because the thing is, although it’s new to media attention, this is not a lately phenomenon.  This is something I’ve heard/read about from women of all ages (now, younger women  [1]  in particular), for years.  Somebody finally named it.

” Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of ‘Mankeeping.’
As male social circles shrink, female partners say they have to meet more social and emotional needs.” ( The New York Times )

* ” Mankeeping is ruining dating for women who are tired of relationship burnout:
‘I’m not your therapist’.”   ( NY Post )

*  “Some women are reportedly opting out of dating or ending relationships due to
the exhaustion and frustration associated with Mankeeping.”

 *  Mankeeping: Why single women are giving up dating. ( The Guardian ) 

Mankeeping is a first cousin to the term kinkeeping, which describes how when women marry they are essentially delegated the role of Emotional Connections Manager ® within and between families – their own family of origin, sure, but also their husbands’.  This is for-most-part-invisible labor that women do in their romantic relationships with men.  This highly unequal distribution of labor – wherein women are expected to carry a disproportionate share of the emotional and social burden in heterosexual relationships – has been going on for decades.  But studies show that it is increasing…and younger women are noticing the dynamic, and going on labor strike.

 

 

Two of the best encapsulation of the problem:

“This trend isn’t about losing interest in love; it’s about women walking away from the role of unpaid emotional caregivers….
Think of it as emotional housekeeping:  women are acting as therapists, mood managers, event planners, and emotional sounding boards, all while rarely receiving the same support in return.
( from ” What is ‘Mankeeping’, the latest (sic) trend that’s making women quit dating,”  Times of India  )

“Researchers at Stanford have finally given a name to something many women have been dealing with for years. It’s called mankeeping. And it’s helping explain why so many women are stepping away from dating altogether….
Mankeeping describes the emotional labor women end up doing in heterosexual relationships. It goes beyond remembering birthdays or coordinating social plans. It means being your partner’s one-man support system. Managing his stress. Interpreting his moods. Holding his hand through feelings he won’t share with anyone else. All of it unpaid, unacknowledged, and often unreciprocated.
The root of the issue is tied to what experts are calling the male loneliness epidemic. As more men report having fewer close friendships, romantic partners are expected to pick up the slack. Instead of processing with friends, many men offload everything onto the woman they’re dating. She becomes his entire emotional infrastructure.”
( Excerpts, my emphases,
“Mankeeping is why women are done with dating.” “Vice )

Our social connections with fellow human beings are crucial indicators of our overall mental and physical well-being.  There is a vital link between social bonds/friendship and mental and physical health.  Whether the blame is technology/screen addiction, career priorities, increased geographic mobility or whatever, the fact that men’s social circles are shrinking and men are struggling to form close kinship bonds is a growing and well-documented issue.    [2] 

And then there’s this:

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of All The Life Advice You Need In 117 Pages
(Plus Illustrations)

That may be found in Tim Minchin’s You Don’t Have To Have A Dream, and other life lessons.  Although, as per the previous topic, I don’t think Minchin offers a direct solution to mankeeping, he’s the kind of man who would notice the problem and neither pooh-pooh its existence nor delegate the solution to the women in his life.

I think I’ll just keep reading this book, over and over.  It is – well, Minchin’s website does such a good job of describing it I tossed the summary I was writing and cribbed theirs:

“…a beautifully idiosyncratic celebration of life, art, success, love, and thriving in a meaningless universe, drawn from three iconic speeches from Tim Minchin… his most beloved university commencement addresses, which have amassed over 100 million views online…it is a rallying cry for creativity, critical thinking, and compassion in our daily lives.”

 

 

I adore Minchin’s work.  Minchin, an Australian, writes that the thing he is best in the world at is “…being a science-obsessed uber-rhymey polemicist pianist singer-satirist wanker.”  He’s one of those damn, much-more-creative-than-you’ll-ever-be polymaths:  musician, singer, composer, author, actor.  See him perform live if and whenever you can; if not, or in addition to that, read the book.  His take on the have a dream/follow your passion trope, which has always seemed ludicrous/first-world-privileged nonsense/insulting-and-missing-the-point  to moiself, is pithily and wittily spot-on.  Here’s a couple of teasers, from his humorous and heartfelt Nine Life Lessons commencement address to the University of Western Australia, 2013 ( you can listen to the speech here ):

 

 

“Americans on talent shows always talk about their dreams.  Fine, if you have something that you’ve always dreamed of, like in your heart, go for it!  After all, it’s something to do with your time…chasing a dream.  And if it’s a big enough one, it’ll take you most of your life to achieve, so by the time you get to it and are staring into the abyss of the meaninglessness of our achievement you’ll be almost dead, so it won’t matter.
I never really had one of these big dreams.  I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals.  Be micro-ambitious.  Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you…You never know where you might end up.  Just be aware that the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery.  Which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams.  If you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out the corner of your eye.”

“A valuable idea is usually one that has been carefully considered.  Our feelings are not virtuous purely by virtue of how keenly we feel them.  Take time to hone your opinions, then take pride in how you express them.”

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Religious Folks Frustrated
By And With Their Fellow Religious Folks

I hear, I read, about the righteous (ahem) anger and frustration of Christians who believe that the message of their faith is being ignored or warped or hijacked by The Cheetos Satan   [3] and his minions. These frustrated believers cite scriptures which indicate that the actions of far-right Christians either ignore or contradict what Jesus taught and instructed his followers to do.  I’m sure moiself  has even shared some of those posts.

The thing is, I think they’re wrong.  Their religion is not being hijacked.  Their religion is doing what it –  what any religion –  has always done: illustrate the dangers of religion.

Throughout Christianity’s history its adherents have argued, split into factions and denominations, shunned and oppressed and harassed and derided and killed other adherents over interpretations of what Christians are supposed to be doing and what they are supposed to believe in, and what are the justifications for these actions and beliefs. The same religion that, according to the adherents, spurs them toward “good works” also spurs their fellow believers toward discrimination of all kinds: sexism and racism and all of the anti-other-isms.  All this is done in the name of what their god supposedly wants or doesn’t want, what their deity forbids or prescribes. Anything can and is justified via the quoting of ancient texts.

 

Of course, y’all can have similar results with any application of any extremist ideology. But with religion, you have the added inducement ( meaning, no other choice, for some believers) of appealing to what a supposed all-powerful deity wants you to do, with the added impetus of punishment or reward, both in the here-and-now and in some future life/afterlife.  Here’s just one of 12,967 (estimated) examples:

Tell some poor tenant farmers that there are opportunities for them if they undertake a monumental task:

“Land – free land, as a matter of fact!  You will be your own man, no longer beholden to the landlord.  And yeah, so, the land is currently, er, somewhat…occupied.  But you can – and should, as a loyal, god-fearin’ American – just go there and take it. It’s gonna be good for both you and for your country…”

Ummm…yeah?  That sounds sketchy, not to mention dangerous. No thanks.

But promote the same actions with the holy cause of Manifest Destiny – and it’s,  Praise de Lawd and which way to the Oregon Trail!?

 

“American Progress,” (1872, by John Gast).  American Progress was a symbol of and synonym for Manifest Destiny.

 

“… expansion represented ‘the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.’…

‘Manifest Destiny’…claimed that America had a destiny manifest, i.e., self-evident, from God to occupy the North American continent….

But Manifest Destiny was not simply a cloak for American imperialism and a justification for America’s territorial ambitions. It also was firmly anchored in a…belief that ‘America is a nation called to a special destiny by God.’ ”
( “The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny,”
National Humanities Center, Religion in American History )

” Advocates (of Manifest Destiny) drew parallels between America’s territorial expansion and biblical narratives, using key scriptures to legitimize national destiny, territorial conquest, and cultural superiority.

Supporters frequently cited the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3), interpreting America’s westward expansion as analogous to the Israelites’ divine mandate to occupy the Promised Land. Genesis provided a framework to suggest Americans were God’s chosen people, destined for territorial growth. Similarly, Deuteronomy 1:8 (‘See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession…’) further validated claims of divine entitlement, reinforcing moral justification for displacement and colonization.

The theme of dominion and stewardship (Genesis 1:28) was another critical justification, encouraging Americans to ‘subdue’ the land…. Manifest Destiny also positioned America as uniquely chosen to propagate democracy, liberty, and Christianity, rooted in biblical passages like Matthew 5:14-16 (‘You are the light of the world…’) and Acts 13:47 (‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles…’). These scriptures reinforced America’s self-perception as a divinely sanctioned nation tasked with civilizing and evangelizing indigenous and other non-European peoples. ”
( “The Biblical Basis for Manifest Destiny, ” The Times of Israel blog )

If your god wants you to have a certain parcel of land, what other justification do you need for your occupation of it (or resistance, if you become the ones occupied)?  And such religious motivations and justifications are not pre-twentieth century relics – they are still as relevant as ever in the 21st-century.  Israel meet Gaza; pot meet kettle.

 

 

 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad that the more liberal, kinder, gentler, peacemaking Christians exist (even as I wish they would act more forcefully to counter their conservative & Fundy brethren’s rhetoric and actions).  But they’re fighting a never-ending battle against history, against the very nature of religion, by using religious precepts to try and mold the hearts and minds of their fellow believers (or at least those who use the language and trappings of their religion to promote their social and political agenda).  [4]

And what do we on the religion-free ( and hopefully, extremist ideology-free ) side use for our motivation?  Humanism.  As in, our humanity.  As in, realizing that every human being has something in common that transcends gender and worldview and religion and ethnic origin and all other other-nesses:  we are the same species.

We humanists/skeptics/Freethinkers/atheists know that people must care for and look out for one another; we do not outsource our motivations for doing so.  I don’t have to hate you – or love you – because you hold a different or the same worldview.  We know that acts of good, or “evil,” or the ultimate evil (indifference) are done by ourselves and for ourselves; there are no deities to command or absolve us, no devils to blame or tempt us.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

“Like a good student of post-modernism, I think culture is ALL narrative: we are built of the stories we choose to tell about ourselves.  And yet, like a good student of science, I don’t think we need these narratives to rob from reality.  I don’t think stories that require people to fool themselves serve us so well in the long run.  At the root of my atheism – and my writing style – is a natural tendency to try to beautify ugly truths rather than swallow beautiful lies.”  [6]

( Tim Minchin, introduction to his graduation speech,
“You’ve Always Wanted To Be An Actor,”
You Don’t Have To Have A Dream, p. 87 )

 

*   *   *

May you think carefully about the stories
you choose to tell about yourself;
May you never delegate your emotional housekeeping to someone else;
May you-who-are-too-young-to-remember-him Google Flip Wilson
and Geraldine “The devil made me buy this dress” Jones;

…and may the hijinks ensue.   [7]

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Meaning:  any women younger than moiself.

[2] In a 2021 survey, 15 percent of men said they didn’t have any close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. In 1990, nearly half of young men said they would reach out to friends when facing a personal issue; three decades later, just over 20 percent said the same.  (NY Times )

[3] See next week’s post for more spot-on decriptives for #47.

[4] Which is what is said about any fellow believers with whom you stridently disagree:  “They are not *true* Christians; they misunderstand the *true* meaning of____”

[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] This would be the last footnote, except that it isn’t.

[7] This is the last footnote.  So noted.

The Haiku I’m No Longer Sending

August 8, 2025

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

Department Of A Blast From The Past

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

 *   *   *

The PG (Parental Guidance) Post 

 

 

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

*   *   *

 Band of Memories

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

 *   *   *

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

*   *   *

 A Brief Meditation On Ways To Fail Your Children

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

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

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

And I find myself thinking,

We failed.

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

 

 

We have failed in so many ways, including imagination.

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

 Power shared = power diminished.

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

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

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

Few people anywhere have ever easily agreed to share power.

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

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

He ended with:

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

 *   *   *

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

*   *   *

Spam Subject Line Of The Week:

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

I didn’t read it “now” (or at all).

It is later.

I don’t hate moiself.

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

VICTORY IS MINE !!!

 

Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahaha

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

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

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

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

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

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

[8] “And that’s the way it is.”

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

 

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