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The Narcissists I’m Not Labeling

September 29, 2023

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

Department Of Why You Don’t Want Me To Fill Out Your Survey

Dear, ____ (name of artistic group whose events I patronize),

I know that you-who-sent-moiself-this-survey – or the consultants which convinced you to do so, to justify their services – hope that having me fill out your survey will help you to  “gain insights into the kind of audience” you are attracting, or wish to attract.    [1]

 

 

However, I am slightly annoyed/somewhat mystified by the myriad of (what I consider to be) none-of-your-business/how-does-this-matter? questions.  Checking “prefer not to disclose” was not satisfying, to moiself…then, my annoyance morphed into delight, when I came upon this question in your survey:

Please select any of the following sexual identities/orientations that describe you.

Aromantic
Asexual
Bisexual
Fluid
Gay
Heterosexual or straight
Lesbian
Pansexual
Queer
Questioning or unsure
Prefer not to disclose
Other:

At first glance I thought the first option was “Aromatic.”  Which I decided to disclose to you, under “other.”  I also thought about checking “pansexual” (I have this thing for cast iron skillets)…but…nah.

Anyway, thanks for the entertainment.

 

Are those your grill ridges, or are you just happy to see me?

 

*   *   *

Department Of These Labels Violate My Boundaries

Sometimes moiself  wonders if social media has amplified the tendency we all have toward practicing amateur psychiatry.  We scoff at our social media friend who barks, “Don’t poison your body – do your own research!” and sends us a link to a 15 minute video hosted by a dubiously-credentialed Guy In A Lab Coat®  who spouts conspiracy theories contradicting 15 years of medical research on RNA vaccines.  Then we turn around and employ (and misuse) psychological concepts and diagnoses, such as boundaries and narcissist.

In psychology jargon, boundaries are rules and guidelines we set for *ourselves,* to help us set realistic limits on activities and relationships.  We choose and set these boundaries; thus, it is we who are in charge of enforcing them.  Yet, those   [2]   I hear (or read about) who use the term boundaries emphasize the actions of *other* people – extended family; coworkers; friends and neighbors – whom they accused of ignoring or violating their boundaries.  They forget the crucial point of boundaries (or perhaps never understood it in the first place): boundaries are rules that *they* set for *themselves,* not for others.

 

 

” Yet even as ‘boundaries‘ have taken off, the concept has become misunderstood, joining gaslit and narcissist in the pantheon of misused psychology jargon. When you want someone to do something, throwing in the word boundary can lend the request a patina of therapeutic legitimacy.

When imposed on us, boundaries can feel upsetting. Because many people view happy relationships as problem-free, a request to behave differently can feel like a rejection. Some people—out of trauma or other wounds—interpret a ‘no’ from a loved one as the end of a relationship. But boundaries are supposed to help preserve relationships, not destroy them. ‘People typically believe that boundaries are to control people, and in actuality, they are safeguards for yourself and for peace and comfort in your relationships,’ says the therapist and Drama Free author Nedra Glover Tawwab.”

(  “The Most Misunderstood Concept in Psychology: What are boundaries?”
By Olga Khazan” The Atlantic 8/23 , my emphases )

That article got me to thinking about more misuse/misunderstandings of the other two psychology terms the article mentions – terms that but get diluted with mis- and over-use.

Narcissist.  How many times have y’all heard that term, used as a pejorative and also as an analysis of a difficult spouse/coworker/person/family member, despite the fact that the person being labeled a narcissist has not received a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis from a mental health professional, nor has ever even visited a counselor?  [3]

” ‘One of the internet’s favorite diagnoses is that someone is a narcissist—which has become shorthand for anyone who appears self-centered or entitled. The term is ‘thrown around so carelessly,’ says Jacquelyn Tenaglia, a licensed mental health counselor based in Boston. ‘I see narcissism being especially misapplied when it’s used to label someone who exhibits qualities that someone might not like.’

While it might feel good to call your frenemy who only talks about herself a narcissist, mental-health experts suggest refraining. Narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis….”

( “Gaslighting, Narcissist, and More Psychology Terms You’re Misusing,”
health/psychology, Time.com, )

 

 

And gaslit – I’m hearing that term more and more, to describe the allegedly nefarious actions and/or motivations of someone we don’t trust and/or just don’t like…but, are we really using it correctly?

The term is derived from the 1944 movie,   [4]   Gaslight.  Gaslight tells the story of a late 19th century woman who is whirlwind-romanced into marriage, by a man who wants to gain access to her wealthy aunt’s estate, in which, he’s discovered, many valuable jewels are hidden.  The husband tries to convince his wife that their house’s gas lights, which flicker and fade (but only when she is in a room, alone) are not in fact actually dimming, and that she is imagining the sounds she hears coming from the attic. The husband himself is the one behind both the noises and the dimming lights, in a strategy to drive his wife mad and have her institutionalized.

 

 

Someone can treat you poorly, even lie to you, without “gaslighting” you.

“Although in most cases the word serves to expose implicit power dynamics and level the playing field, it can also be used to do the exact opposite. That’s thanks to a process called ‘semantic bleaching,’ where a word’s true meaning gets diluted through imprecise and bad-faith usage…. woke—a word that originally meant ‘socially and politically aware,’ but now can be used to mean ‘sensitive’ and ‘irrational about social and political issues’ because of semantic bleaching by right-leaning media.”

( “Are you using gaslight correctly? ”  The Atlantic, 4-11-22 )

Moiself  highly recommends these articles I’ve cited (and hope I’m not violating any of your boundaries with this suggestion).

*   *   *

Department Of And One More Thing We’re Overusing/Doing Wrong:

Can we please stop referring to people as toxic?

“One of my most important rules as a therapist: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, or cold, or hot-tempered, it doesn’t tell me much about the problem. Adjectives aren’t facts.

That’s especially true of ‘toxic,’ an adjective that’s become increasingly popular in and outside of my office (it was even the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2018). It’s also easily overused — a way of reframing a difficult relationship as one not worth having.

So, when I have a therapy client who uses ‘toxic’ to describe someone, I don’t ask them to clarify, or to reconsider the word. Instead, I focus on the facts of the challenging situation they’re telling me about….

When you feel anxious around another person, your brain will begin to take emotional shortcuts that usually involve fighting, fleeing, or complaining to others. You quickly label the person as ‘toxic,’ declare their toxicity as the cause of your anxiety, and assume that escaping them will fix your distress…

When one of my clients starts getting into adjective-heavy territory, I redirect them with questions like, ‘What did they do?’…and ‘Where and when did this happen?’ and  ‘How did you respond?’  Notice that none of these questions have the word ‘why.’ This is because ‘why’ usually requires you to guess a person’s motivation, or label them as a certain kind of person….”

(“Why Therapists Avoid Using the Word ‘Toxic’ –
Labeling others can stunt your own growth,”
Forge.medium.com ; my emphases )

 

Hey, I enjoy petty name calling as much as the next guy.  But do I really think the person who annoys me – or even the who has treated me poorly  [5]   for years – has venom running through his veins, and that touching him would set off an anaphylactic or neurological reaction?  Or is it that he does ____, and ____, and ____, and thus I believe it is ultimately unhealthy for me to be around him?

Delineate, please.  Be specific; calling someone toxic tells me nothing, except that you don’t like them.

“Toxins are poisonous substances produced within living cells or organisms and can include various classes of small molecules or proteins that cause disease on contact. The severity and type of diseases caused by toxins can range from minor effects to deadly effects. The organisms which are capable of producing toxins include bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants. Some of the major types of toxins include, but are not limited to, environmental, marine, and microbial toxins. Microbial toxins may include those produced by the microorganisms bacteria (i.e. bacterial toxins) and fungi (i.e. mycotoxins).”
( 14.4A; Toxins, Biology Libre Texts )

 

Is your boss doing any of this?  He may be a brazenly manipulative asshat, but he’s probably not toxic.

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Affirmations Gone Astray

Moiself  received yet another solicitation to purchase “anti-aging” products.  The misogyny and (ultimate) futility of the concept behind the term “anti-aging” I have railed articulately commented about, many times, in this space.

 

“Viral on TikTok” and “proven by science” – such a deal!

 

This time I had a minor epiphany as to the appropriateness of the term.  Anti-aging: it is, indeed, anti– aging…which therefore makes it anti-life.  Because if you’re not aging, you’re not alive.  The only people who do not (who cannot) age are dead.

Feeling rather smug, I briefly meditated upon another embrace-the reality-maxim:

Today I am as old as I have ever been,
and, as young as I will ever be.

That didn’t go so well.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

“I realized early on that it is detailed scientific knowledge which makes certain religious beliefs untenable. A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically? . . .
What could be more foolish than to base one’s entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at the time, now appear to be quite erroneous?  And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?”

 ( my emphases, Francis Crick,   [7]   from his memoir,
What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery )

 

 

*   *   *

May you always identify as the Best-Smelling Orientation;
May you remove unfortunate vestiges of earlier erroneous beliefs;
May you enforce boundaries with the narcissistic gaslighters, real or imagined, in your life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I know this because it says so on the survey’s intro.

[2] These folks are not mental-health care professionals.

[3] Oh, but that would be typical of a narcissist, right?

[4] Adapted from the 1938 play of the same name.

[5] Maybe, even gaslit me!

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

[7]   British physicist and biologist Crick, along with James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins, helped decipher the structure and replication scheme of DNA, for which he (and others) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.

The Existential Concepts I’m Not Debating

September 15, 2023

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

Department Of My Work Here Is Done
Exhibit A.9995

Can anything match the parental pride such as that experienced by moiself, when son K’s first reaction upon reading the name of the offender in the news article, Serial flasher gets long sentence for exposing himself… was, “It’s the role he was born to play.”

“Washington County Circuit Judge…handed down a sentence…to Michael G. Dick, who pleaded guilty to two counts of felony public indecency…”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Spending Too Much Time Thinking About
An Existentially Inconsequential Concept.

As heard on a commercial for Saatva dog beds ( the ad was in a recent Hidden Brain podcast, “Be kind to Yourself “):

.”…these dogs beds are not your typical slabs of foam covered in polyester.  They are true inner spring mattresses that provide unparalleled back support and proper spine alignment for dogs of all sizes….”

I can’t remember if it was on an earlier HB episode or a different podcast where I also heard an ad for Saatva dog beds, in which it was claimed that a Saatva dog bed is the mattress “your dog deserves.”

This sterling example of the sentimentally manipulative capacity of marketing got me to wondering: How can a dog *deserve* a certain kind of dog bed?

 

 

deserve
transitive verb: to be worthy of : MERIT
(“deserves another chance”)
intransitive verb: to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward or requital
( from Merriam-webster online dictionary )

I can understand a dog wanting something (a tummy rub) or needing something (a drink of water); I can understand a person wanting or needing something for their dog (a trip to the dog park; a leash).  I can understand a person rewarding their dog for a specific act – with the reward directly connected to the act so that the dog understands that it did what was asked of it (e.g., giving the dog a treat for obeying a command to sit or heel…), and thus you can say the dog “earned” or merited the treat.

But how does a dog merit a piece of furniture that will be given to it – *must* be given to it (it’s not like the dog can take its Mastercard and go to Petsmart) –  by its human?

 

 

I don’t know about that superlative.  A dog meriting a bed is perhaps not the greatest mystery.  But it does get me to wondering, about other mysteries of life and human behavior (this dog bed thing has everything to do with human motivations and almost nothing to do with dogs),  including….

 

*   *   *

Department Of Existentially Consequential Concepts Which Deserve All The Time In The World To Contemplate…
Despite My Doing So Not Making A Damn Bit Of Difference

Sub-Department Of I Blame Vladimir Putin,
For Everything…

…including the fact that beloved friends are going through a grueling Something which has afflicted them, for reasons unrelated to them personally and/or anything they may have done.  Like Putin vis-à-vis the Ukrainians, there is this Something out there which is trying to torment and kill them, for no rational reason.

The cosmos is full of beauty and wonder and misfortune and pain, all of it unevenly and randomly distributed.  Understanding this phenomenon is the key to equanimity…along with being able to tell the truth in all circumstances.  Say, this is dreadful, when it is dreadful; cry when you have to and laugh when you can. 

 

 

Moiself  knows that disease organisms, like all primitive of life forms, just do what they do: try to survive and replicate.  Got it.  But, dammit it, you flaming asshole tumors, pretend for one nanosecond that you have sentience.  Get some self-awareness here:  if you kill the host, you die, too, HELLO !?!?!?.

We humanist/religion-free folk know that such afflictions are not personal: we know we’re not being punished when illness and injury occur, nor are we being rewarded when we somehow avoid or recover from the same calamities which afflict others.  Still, as human beings; we suffer when hurt.  At least we are spared the suffering from cognitive dissonance and the mental gymnastics that come with trying to live with and justify concepts such as karma and fate and believing the existence of deities which are supposedly all-powerful and thus *could* choose to alter the Something…but simply *don’t.* 

So, we can admit upfront that contending with lethal illnesses et al sucks, as in,
“This is massively, putridly, ginormously, donkey-dong sucking….”

 

“Hey! I thought you weren’t going to get personal?”

 

….even as we live in a world where, come yet another day, there will also be the mixture of the profound and the mundane to be appreciated, in, say, the sight of the morning dew sparkling on the araneus diadematus’s web, which she’s anchored between the raspberry bushes and the recycling bin. And neither phenomenon – the simple but stunning example of the splendor of the natural world, and the specific ordeal of the illness we battle in that same world – is one we either caused or merited.

 

 

The late great Roger Ebert, noted film critic and freethinker,   [1]    shared his thoughts about his then-imminent death in his blog post, Go Gentle Into That Good Night.  This was during a time when Ebert’s mental faculties were as sharp as ever despite his body having been ravaged by both his disease and the treatments for that disease.  His perspective is one that is shared by many humanist/religion-free thinkers.  It is a lovely meditation (excerpted here), the entirety of which is worth reading and rereading, no matter what your worldview is regarding your own mortality or that of a loved one. 

“I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear… I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris…

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.
To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Because I Was Trying To Avoid Something I Need To Work On,
And For Some Reason Had A Flash Back To This Topic

That topic, broadly speaking, would be co-worker relationships.  Most of us have had a combination of ups and downs in that category, but have you ever had a coworker for whom your mere presence was apparently so annoying that it motivated them to play a petty (but delightfully so) prank on you?

Last week my remembrance of one such “relationship” resulted in a FB post from moiself.  And now, my social media secret is revealed: the main reason for almost any story I post (or tell at the dinner table) is related to what inspires 5-year-olds to play doctor:  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.  I love to hear and read the stories of others, so I share one of mine, as a prompt.

 

 

My post:

“Okay, it’s another thinly disguised story prompt (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours): please share any similar stories you may have re a really poor relationship you had with a petty, nasty, bigoted, misogynist, and/or just plain stupid coworker, which led to an amusing incident.
Here’s mine: On my first day back on at second season of a summer job (Disneyland; The Hungry Bear Restaurant), one of the kitchen crew clicked the play button on a mini-cassette recorder he had in his pocket, and serenaded me with Elton John’s, ‘The Bitch is Back.’ “

And dammit, although I got comments, for the first time no one shared a similar story.    [2]

As you can imagine, this workplace incident didn’t happen out of nowhere.  A friend requested the backstory; and so:   [3]

 

 

At the end of my senior year in high school, anticipating the need to earn college tuition money, I began working weekends at Disneyland.  I obtained “seasonal” worker status, which was the status of the majority of my male and female coworkers with whom I shared summer shifts at  Disneyland’s Hungry Bear Restaurant (HBR).   [4]   Once we were hired by The Happiest Place on Earth®, if we seasonals worked the entire summer season and at least one other holiday season (winter or spring breaks; Thanksgiving…) we were guaranteed a job for the following summer. 

The serenader in question – moiself  will refer to him as Kid Rock  [5]  ( who wasn’t a thing then, but if he had been, I think my serenader would have been a *big* fan ).

Kid was a boor from the moment I met him.  His square-jawed face’s limited repertoire of expressions were all variations of a smirk, and he oozed dumb jock attitudes and mannerisms.  Moiself  initially experienced a wee bit o’ guilt for judging him at first glance, until my second, and third, and one hundred seventeenth glances and encounters (as well as my observations of his interactions with others) confirmed my stereotyping assessment astute perception of who and what he was.

With his male coworkers, Kid was constantly jockeying for position, ingratiating himself with his kitchen shift managers, and attempting metaphorical pissing matches with the other kitchen guys.  [6]   He considered himself to be above his peers (although they were all doing the same job, at the same pay scale), even as he courted their respect (or fear) for being a “player,” with an edgy (read: mean and stupid) sense of humor.  The nice guys in the kitchen crew (and there were several) earned Kid’s contempt, because being a nice guy meant being well thought of by the HBR females (we were “the girls,” of course).

 

“I can smell that creep from here.”

 

No surprise, Kid also had a binary way of relating to the HBR females: they were either objects of his sexual desire or not worthy of it.  His preferred mode of communication with female co-workers was a combination of peacock preening, barely-masked sexual come-ons, and furtive insults (aka, “jokes”).  He got giggles from some of the girls, but, as I observed, those girls seemed to be giggling to mask their unease, and trying to prove that they could “take a joke” and weren’t prudes.  If Kid’s thinly disguised sexual banter was rejected by a girl, he’d let it be known that he hadn’t really wanted her at all – he’d just been trying to make her feel better, because she was unattractive.  I saw him behave this way with *every* female at HBR, with the exception of one of the counter area managers, whose slight but noticeable physical disability effectively neutered her in his eyes.

And, as was typical of many guys of the time (even the not-so-loathsome ones), when Kid complained about his male coworkers he was able to do so using specific language re what bothered him about their actions:  they’d been slow on the grill, had been late to their shift, had burned a batch of onion rings, had neglected key steps in their closing shift, had acted too passively, or aggressively…..  Any complaints he had about a female coworker came under the cover-all of critiquing her very essence, with no particulars as to behavior:  “She’s just a bitch.”

 

 

Kid’s attempts at titillating braggadocio didn’t impress moiself  (SURPRISE !), and I limited our interactions as much as possible.  Whenever possible, I ignored him.  Therefore, of course (and, yay!), he had to announce to one and all that he didn’t find me appealing.  But that wasn’t the end of it.  It took me awhile to figure out the source of his irritation with moiself  because I didn’t spend much time considering it – which was, for him, the issue.  He seemed continually annoyed by my lack of interest in what he had to say, about anything.  

 

 

In Kid’s eyes, I had committed the worst sin possible for a female:  I’d indicated, not by saying so but by merely not engaging with him, that I had no interest in his opinion of me.  I did not wear his taunts and insults as a badge of honor (as did a couple of my bad ass, feminist HBR colleagues), I simply stopped hearing them.  I realized for the first time what it meant to hold someone beneath contempt.  Strong emotions, including contempt, require effort and time to maintain.  To moiself, Kid was just…macho flotsam.

I did not engage Kid in the repartee – playful, and with occasional double-entendre overtones –  that I did with the “nice guys” and my female colleagues. We were all mostly within three years of one another, age-wise; naturally, there was workplace banter and casual flirtation and good-natured kidding bordering on insults.  With regard to the latter I punched up, never down, with both male and female colleagues.  The few guys who harbored a nasty streak stayed clear of me, after one of them, the Assistant Shift “Chef,”   [7]   tested my limits on my first week on the job.  He did this with (what I later found out was) his standard routine with which he teased the new counter girls:

Assistant Shift Chef summoned me to the kitchen area, informing me that it was SOP to give counter girls a tour of the kitchen facility, even though they’d be working out front (later I was told that he always did this “tour” with others present, as having an audience was a key component of his routine.)  Under the pretense of wanting my opinion about a possible flaw in Disneyland’s chef’s apron design, which seemed to have pockets and a seam or something no one could quite figure out, he reached down, fingered the outline of his crotch, and ask Newby Counter Girl ® moiself, “Do you know what this is?”

I’d been informed re the HBR hierarchy on my first day at work.  Despite his title, Assistant Shift Chef had no authority over me (or any female HBR female), so I decided to go for it.

“Hmmm.” I assumed a wide stance, one hand on my hip and the other slowly stroking my chin in a gesture of solemn deliberation.  “Wait; don’t tell me, this is familiar…Oh!  I know!  It looks like it a penis, only smaller.”   [8]

Assistant Shift Chef guffawed heartily, as if he had collaborated with me on the joke.  Still, I noticed (and savored) the nanosecond of terror and humiliation which flashed across his eyes, just after my line sunk in and before his crew began to whoop it up.

Once again, I digress.

The first day I returned to HBG for my second summer season (after my freshman year of college), I was delighted to see that several of my favorite seasonal employees had also returned…oh yeah, and there was also the Kid.  Although, maybe he’d been there all year?  I can’t remember if Kid had been a year-round employee or was another seasonal worker (all of whom were college students – the idea of Kid in any institution of higher learning never occurred to moiself).

Anyway, Kid had obviously been alerted to my return.  He waited at the rear of the pack welcoming me back, and after the rest of us had exchanged greetings, he removed the mini cassette player from his pocket and pressed play.  This time, I was the one with the genuine smirk on my face.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Entertaining The Donations Dude

Dateline:  Monday; 1:30 pm-ish; Goodwill donations center.  The guy helping me unload the donations from my car engages me in small talk about the current mugginess and upcoming weather forecast.  I hand him a bag full of books; he points to a book at the top of the bag, whose title is something like, Staying Sane In An Irrational World.

“Well now, what’s that about?” he asks.

“Who knows,” moiself  shrugs.  “It’s a book of empty pages.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [9]

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
( Christopher Hitchens,  God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything )

 

 

*   *   *

May your pets somehow obtain the furniture (you think) they deserve;
May the book of your life not be filled with empty pages;
May you live long enough to find out that which makes you happy;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Ebert, who grew up Catholic, chose not to define his religious beliefs, saying he is not an atheist and not a believer. He clarified his religious views in a blog post called “How I believe in God.” He said, “I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist — which I am. If I were to say I don’t believe God exists, that wouldn’t mean I believe God doesn’t exist. Nor does it mean I don’t know, which implies that I could know.”  (from Roger Ebert entry, ffrf.org  )

[2] Perhaps there were none to share; perhaps all of my FB friends have been beloved (or at least tolerated) by even the most neanderthal of their colleagues.

[3] Thanks, RU, although I’d already considered sharing more of the details.

[4] Which, as more than one dissatisfied patron told me (as if I were responsible for the name or had any influence in *any* Disneyland policy) : “Shee-it, girl, this ain’t no restaurant, this is a burger and fries joint.”  Or a glorified fast food place, with no table service…aka, in Disney-speak, a “quick service eatery.”

[5] I am happy to report that although I’ll never forget his face I cannot recall that co-worker’s name (nor would I used it in this space, even if I did remember it).

[6] At that time, D-Land’s various food attractions staff were sex-segregated with respect to responsibilities: males in the kitchen, running the fryers and grills and stocking the food wells, and females upfront – the “counter girls”, taking the guest’s orders, receiving payment, and “boxing” and giving to guests the food and drinks.

[7] I can’t believe that title (chef?) was given to the dude who was in charge of the run-the burgers-through-the-grill machine line.

[8] A thousand thanks to seventh grade PE teacher Mrs. Ewing, who suggested a version of that response to flashers and other harassers.

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

The Trash I’m Not Being Paid To Pick Up

September 1, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, exercise & fitness, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, Recreation, sports, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , 2 Comments

 

Department Of What Is It?

 

 

The HTC: The Hood To Coast relay race, that’s what it is.

Hood To Coast is a long-distance relay race that starts at Mount Hood and continues nearly 200 miles to the Oregon Coast. Known as “the mother of all relays”, it is the largest running and walking relay in the world….
The race is held annually in late August, traditionally on the Friday and Saturday before the Labor Day weekend. The course runs approximately 200 miles…from Timberline Lodge on the slopes of Mount Hood, the tallest peak in Oregon, through the Portland metropolitan area, and over the Oregon Coast Range to the beach town of Seaside on the Oregon Coast. Teams of 12 runners take turns running legs along the course.
( from “Hood to Coast” Wikipedia entry )

The Hood to Coast Relay is so popular, it sells out every year within minutes on the day when it opens for team registrations.   [1]    HTC begins at Mount Hood, with staggered start times on Friday from 3 am to 2 pm (teams have 36 hours to complete the course).    [2]   This year there were 1,000 teams participating, and 12,000 runners.   Teams come from all US states and 40 other countries, including our neighbors to the north:

 

 

Y’all impressed?  You should be.  For all the years we’ve been coming to the Oregon coast, the last weekend in August is one of the more fun times to be there (almost   [3]  fun enough to make me want to take up running again, just to participate in the HTC).  MH and I hang in Manzanita, 22 miles south of the HTC finish point (Seaside).  During the HTC weekend, almost about anywhere on the north Oregon coast you’ll spot the HTC team vans with their colorful names and mottos painted on the sides and doors, and encounter the enthusiastically exhilarated (and exhausted and sleep-deprived) HTC team members looking for food and drink, massages, blister relief, or just wanting to hang out.

 

 

Moiself  knows many people who’ve participated in the HTC.  This year son K joined a team for the first time, and asked me to be a HTC volunteer.  All local   [4]   HTC teams are required to provide three volunteers or one exchange leader,  [5]   or they’ll be disqualified from the race.  As you might imagine, with so many runners, a 200 mile race stretching from a mountain to an ocean needs a lot of people helping with logistics along the way,   [6]  including at the start and at the exchange points, to keep track of participants and vans (each team must provide two vans to transport members; each race member must run three legs of the race), and particularly at the end of the race, where the teams check in to a large, roped off section of the beach at Seaside, and have ceremonies and parties and eat and take official pictures…and did I mention parties?

I signed up for the 9:45a – 2:45p Saturday volunteer shift at Seaside.  There were many of us volunteers at that shift time, and we were (most unscientifically) chosen for a variety of tasks.  Moiself  ended up in Trash and Recycling.  T/R involved constant movement: for the next five hours (with lunch and hydration breaks at the volunteers’ discretion) we T/R crew walked a snaking/looping pattern throughout the various sections of the finish line area, from the perimeters to the zones within the zone, checking the I-lost-count-of-how-many trash and recycling receptacles.  T/R volunteers duties included “pre-cycling” as much as possible (invariably, people dump the wrong items in the receptacles, despite the bins being clearly marked for trash v. recycling and having picture labels showing what items go where; thus, we had to move items from one bag to another), and changing the bags when they were 75% full.

 

*   *   *

Department Of People Are Fun

It was fun, even while digging through the icky T/R receptacles,  [7]  to see the teams arrive.  There was so much sheer joy to be witnessed, on the part of the runners and the friends and family cheering them on. And the team names – I wish moiself  could remember them all. I had a job to do, but tried to pay attention as the teams’ arrivals were announced over the loudspeaker (which you could hear from any part of the finish zone).  Most teams go for a funny/punny name; e.g., one that satirizes their workplace and/or sponsors, or is a play on words with common situations and ailments faced by distance runners in general or HTC racers in particular (e.g., team “My Third Leg is Harder Than Yours”).

 

 

Most teams had custom shirts for their runners, and sometimes hats and other accessories.  Teams decorate their vans, too.  A popular team name motif is the slightly naughty/double entendre.  Years ago, I saw a van with this motto painted on its rear door:

” Go Nads!
(National Association of Distance Sprinters)”

Atop the van, attached to its luggage rack, was a large set of paper mâché…any guesses?

Another van’s display of their team name made me consider whether or not I would want to park (or walk) behind a van labeled, “Twelve Sticky Buns.”

A few intrepid teams run in full costume – moiself  spotted members of one all male team which seemed to have a Barbie theme going on –  or regalia related to their names.  I never found out the name of the team whose every runner, male and female, was clad in red prom dresses, but they were a jolly group to behold.

 

Some team names I remember from years past:

* Run Like a Mother
*199 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
* Get in the Van!
* Where’s the Beach?
* Hauling Ass-prin
* 12 Drummers Drumming
* Cheap Hills
* Forrest Stump   [8]

* Endorphiends
* Toenails Are For Sissies
* It’s Cute You Run Marathons
* Tektronic Megahurtz
* Hoodwinked
* Van You Catch Us?
* The Team Formerly Known As Class Act    [9]

* Grateful (We’re Not) Dead
* 70 Rocks    [10]

* Chafing the Dream
* Blister Sisters
* PNW, WTF?
* Saturday Night Dead
* Ducks for a Husky-Free Northwest

This year’s team names included:

* Pick it up Princess   [11]

* Back Fat
* The Young and the Breathless
* The Young and The Rest Of Us
* Premature Acceleration
* Monty Crython and the Hilly Trail
* Oreo Speedwagon
* Electrolyte Orchestra
* Turd Herders
* I-Be-Pro-FUN
* Worst. Wine. Tour. Ever.
* Obi-Run Kenobi
* Cirque du Sore Legs
* Last Place Legends
* Team Questionable Life Choices
* The Island of Misfit Toys
* Married Up
* Pace Cadets
* Kids, Get Your Shoes On
* Resisting A Rest
* Seven Deadly Shins
* Tequila Mockingbird
* Another Run Bites the Dust
* We’ve Got the Runs
* The Kind Of Dirty Dozen
* Lactic Acid Trip
* Two Dozen Scrambled Legs   [12]

Now: who’d want to be a member of team Back Fat?  When I saw several BF team runners hanging around by one of the finish area T/R receptacles, moiself  had to ask.   I did my T/R checking job, then prefaced my query by pointing to my shirt (as I did several times afterward, when I realized that people would answer *anything* I asked when they saw my shirt). “So,” I said, “in my ‘Race Official capacity, ‘ I must ask you: Why would anyone want to run under the team name, Back Fat?”

 

 

The BF-ers exchanged knowing glances.  “Well, look at us,” one of them said, and he pivoted to show me his back.  Yep, in their green polyester, clingy running shirts (mostly) covering their squatty, chunky physiques….I’ll concede that their team’s name was a first-rate example of truth in advertising.

“We’re just running for fun…we’re not the elites,” the BFer said, as he hoisted a beer with one hand and with the other hand, pointed behind moiself , to the Nike area (Nike had its own roped off zone within the finish zone, with complimentary food and beverages for Nike-sponsored teams, as well as their own set of gleaming white, porta-pottie trailers.  Bouncers checked IDs at the entrance to the Nike zone, ensuring no plebes – except for those wearing Race Official ® shirts – got inside.)  “We know we’re not the team that’s in the best shape…” BF guy snickered.

“But you’re the team having the best time,” I offered.  He laughed heartily, and he and his fellow BFers toasted me with their beers.

Moiself  moved on to the next set of T/R bins, where another group of racing men stood (hanging around the T/R bins seemed to be a thing). There were six of them, all wearing their race shirts and, from the waist down, colorful batik, sarong-type wraps.  They were quite the contrast to the BFers:  they were all tall, slender, in their 40s – 50s, in great shape, with that lanky, distance runner’s physique.  And the way they were groomed: even after having just finished a two-day race, their hair was neatly styled and none of them looked the least bit sweaty.  Distinguished-looking, you might say.  Something about their aura and the way they carried themselves radiated, “well-kept” (read: money).

I asked about the team’s name on their shirts (a word which sounded Hawaiian to moiself); also, noting their sarongs, I asked if the team had some Polynesian connection (although the men were all haoles).  One of the men began to explain: “A few years ago, a friend of mine bought a small island in Fiji…” To which I interjected, “As one does.”

 

 

Well-Groomed Man didn’t miss a beat; he continued to tell me about how their team name was a word his Fijian-island-owning friend had introduced them to.  The word had a few variants among the Fiji Islands and was similar to the Hawaiian aloha in that it had no one translation, and could be used as word of greeting and departure, or as a way of wishing someone well, etc.

My next T/R stop took me to the Nike area – my Race Official ® shirt was my entry ticket.  It was quite the nice setup.  About twenty minutes later, I encountered a T/R volunteer in a (non-Nike) area by the finish lines, and she told me that although there were not long lines of people waiting to use the porta-potties which lined the perimeter of the finish zone, the facilities always seemed to be occupied.  I told her that if she needed a bathroom break, she should go to the Nike area and use their pristine facilities.  “But, isn’t that for Nike people only?” she asked.  “Who cares?” I snorted.  “I didn’t see anyone checking IDs once they let you in their zone.  Besides, if someone questions you, give them a WTF look, show ’em your shirt and your trash bags, then ask them if they’re saying that you’re good enough to pick up their trash but not good enough to use their porta potties?”

*   *   *

Department Of People Are Pigs

Oh, but it wasn’t all fun and games. As a member of the T/R crew, I had more than enough job security.  As my shift wore on I became lip-curlingly disgusted with my fellow human beings, too many of whom left their discards in the strangest places – as in, obviously and deliberately misplaced, not just dropped in carelessness.

 

Yeah, clever, dude!  Because that’s where recycling goes.

 

Besides the Nike teams’ area there was another restricted/ID required zone: The VIP tent. There was a guy seated at one entrance to the tent, whose job was to check people’s…. status, I guess?…before he let them into the tent.  Moiself  never found out what qualifications were needed to enter the VIP tent (I saw several people – non-VIPs, I assume – turned away).  However, Those Of Us Wearing Race Official® shirts were allowed inside the tent, to do our T/R duties. The first time I approached the VIP tent, I saw Entry Checker Guy eye my volunteer shirt and the extra T/R bags I was carrying. I told him I was there for a VID – a Very Important Duty.  “Ah, yes,” he said.  In a tone both flip and friendly, he added, “But, are you a VIP?”  To which I replied, “I am a Very *Impudent* Person.  Is that VIP enough for you?”  Turns out it was.

When I came back on my third run-through in the VIP tent, its T/R receptacles, while not yet full, needed changing. I was disgusted by the behavior of the VIP tent occupants, who’d left their trash *everywhere.*  A couple of VIPs were seated less than two feet from the T/R containers, and when they saw me, they nodded in acknowledgement (as if to say, “Ah, here comes the help”) and then just  – I couldn’t believe it – set their plates of partially eaten food and their half-empty beer cans down, on the sand, nudging the items toward the T/R receptacles but not bothering to get off of their Very Imperious Posteriors and properly dispose of said trash.  Something in me snapped, a wee bit. T/R volunteers had been told (at the beginning of our shift, by the volunteer coordinator who did our T/R duty training) not to berate or even correct people who discarded their trash improperly, but to just “fix it.”  So, I did pick up the VIP refuse and sort them into the proper bins, but decided to leave the tent with full T/R bins, and did not return to check on them later.

 

 

My HTC volunteer experience brought to mind the gentle…warning, for lack of a better word, which I received many years ago from someone who was quite the dedicated volunteer.  She had volunteered across a variety of fields and for a variety of events and services, for decades, and she told me that when you volunteer, for anything,

“…be prepared to be disappointed in your species.”

As the hours went by it began to bother me, more and more:  the amazing amount of trash, and waste.  T/R receptacle liners bulged with utensils, non-recyclable cups, and plates loaded with food – plates of food from which someone had taken a couple of bites, from hot dogs to burgers and noodle dishes/stir frys, and then thrown aways the rest.  Why do people even bother?  Did it taste bad?  And the food – apart from that served in the VIP and Nike areas, was not free – it had to be purchased from various booths.  Were the people who bought it even hungry; did they get a burrito, then realize, Oh, I don’t really want/need this?  You don’t have to eat every time there is food around, (perhaps the food wasters fell prey to that American Mindset®: “Look, food! Must be time to eat.”)

I just didn’t get it; I didn’t want to get it…

There were many booths in the finish zone, some with sponsors/vendors giving out free cans and bottles of various beverages (kombucha and flavored/”energy” waters). We T/R crew would find many of those cans and bottles cracked open but half full, buried in the sand, or leaning against the recycling receptacles (which had notices asking people to please empty cans and bottles before recycling them).  What’s the deal, of not taking five seconds to empty it? Were they just waiting for/assuming someone else to do it?

 

 

When checking in volunteers were given a Race Official shirt, which we were told we must wear over whatever other shirts we had on, during our shift. After check-in we were directed to move away from the check-in line and wait for a volunteer coordinator to assign us to task groups.  As I stood in the waiting-group, I looked noted that most of that group, plus those in the volunteer check-in line, were female.  One young man, who looked to be in his late teens-early twenties, was standing at the periphery of my waiting group. I pulled on my RO shirt, sidled over to him and asked if he was or had been a HTC runner.  He shook his volunteer shirt (he was holding a Race Official shirt but had not yet donned it) and mumbled, “No; I’m just doing this for a friend.”  Another volunteer also greeted him, and by the look on the young man’s face I couldn’t tell his reaction:  was he mortified, or disgusted, to be surrounded by middle-aged women, some of whom were actually attempting to talk with him.

Once I was on my T/R shift, I continued to note (anecdotally; this was not a scientific survey, but I saw what I saw) how the volunteers were overwhelmingly skewed, gender-wise.  Particularly, those who were chosen for T/R duty – I saw only one man doing T/R.  And while moiself recalls being thanked by four (yes, I counted) men during the five hours of my shift, I lost track of the number of female race participants who, when they saw my Race Official shirt (and noticed me picking through the trash), thanked me for doing so.

That’s women for you, I groused to moiself.  We are the world’s garbage collectors.  I was reminded of a quote I read, decades ago, from a woman who was part of a lawsuit against a local (So Cal) municipality which refused to even consider hiring women to work on refuse collection crews:  men don’t object to the fact that women pick up/deal with the world’s physical and metaphorical garbage, as long as we aren’t paid to do so. 

Stop getting all existentially bummed, I castigated moiself.   If K runs the HTC again next year and asks me to volunteer, I probably will.  I can select a different shift and locale – maybe somewhere midrace, at an exchange point?  Oh, but there’ll be trash duty there as well.  Will I just be removing moiself  from seeing the majority of the waste produced by this event…. This is way too much ruminating on yet another example of how we continue to literally trash our environment, which is our home, our VIP zone.   So, after my shift  ended I went home and washed out the reusable containers in which I’d brought my lunch – yeah, that’ll save the planet….

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time again, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself .  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [13] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [14]

 

*   *   *

May you respect the person who picks up your trash;
May you be the person who picks up your trash;
May we all have the means to buy a (trash-free) island in Fiji;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

[1] Beginning in the 1990s, Hood to Coast implemented a lottery system to select participating teams.

[2] Some elite teams, often corporate (read: Nike) sponsored, have run the course in half that time.

[3] Ah…but only almost.

[4] As in, from within Oregon, not those flying in from, say, Costa Rica.

[5] Exchange leaders work in the exchange zones, where a race participant passes off to the next participant in rotation to run the next leg.  Each leg of the race varies in distance, from approximately 4 – 7 miles.

[6] …and an estimated 500 port-a-potties are staged along the route.

[7] I insisted on the thickest pair of gloves they had at the volunteer check-in booth.  Some T/R volunteers just wore thin vinyl gloves.

[8] All Forrest Stump team members were adaptive athletes: all team members had some physical challenges, including prosthetic legs and/or use wheelchairs due to spinal cord injuries….

[9] The story behind this name: One year a team called themselves, “Class Act.” The next year they were, “Class Act Is Back.” During that second year one of their vans was pulled over and reprimanded by a Sheriff’s deputy when the riders were shooting Super Soakers out the window on the highway.  Thus, the third year’s Prince-inspired moniker, to allow for how their “classy” reputation had been tarnished.

[10] All team members are age 70 or over.

[11] They were young (I think the minimum age for runners is 13) and female, and they were running fast – picking up the pace! – when I saw them cross the finish line.

[12] Son K’s team’s name.

[13] 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.

[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

The Godzilla I’m Not Colorizing

August 18, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, politics, radio & podcasts, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Let Me Say This About That

Dateline: Tuesday morning 6:59 AM listening to the Fresh Air interview with Christopher Nolan, director of Oppenheimer.  FA  host Terry Gross began her interview with a “getting something out of the way” question (  [my notes]  ):

TG:
“Before we talk about the film, let’s talk about the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which have shut down TV and film production….”

CN:
“……it’s an important moment in our business
[Nolan is both a director and a writer and a member of the Writer’s Guild] ….
The ways in which we’re compensated have to be updated
to reflect the current world….”

 

 

Moiself’s reaction:  what took them (the writers and actors) so long?

The issues involved ( including AI and streaming ) can seem complicated, at first.   They’re not.   Consider what’s at stake; it’s fairly basic.  There is a central issue:

The ways in which writers and actors
are compensated have to be updated to reflect the current world.

I’ve been on strike for years – as in, not writing for publication – for (many of) the same reasons.    [1]   Only in my case, no one powerful cares enough to rectify the situation.

 

 

The ways in which ______
(writers and actors…or insert waitstaff, teachers…almost any profession)
are compensated have to be updated to reflect reality.

That’s it.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of And Now, On A Totally Unrelated Note…

…except, maybe not.  This anecdote moiself  is about to share *is* related, in that it also was prompted by listening to the afore-mentioned Fresh Air interview.

Later in the interview, Terry Gross and Christopher Nolan were talking about dreams, as in, the dream-like narrative and/or pictorial quality of many films (including Nolan’s), and one of them (TG?) brought up the age-old question of whether or not people dream in color or in black-and-white.

 

 

One night when I was in high school I had a dream which started out to follow the usual pattern for my dreams: it was a colorful (I always dreamed in color), intricate, adventure saga, with a cast worthy of a Cecil B. DeMille film.    [2]   What made that particular dream noteworthy was that it used a chronological narrative (the plotlines in my dream world tended to vault around in time) until the middle of the dream, which suddenly switched to…something else  (“We now pause our regular programming for this important digression”). This center piece was an approximately three-minute segment wherein Godzilla made a cameo appearance.  When Godzilla was terrorizing people on a raft in the ocean, my dream switched from color to black and white; after the Godzilla short feature, my dream resumed its original setting and story, in color.

The next day I told a couple of school friends about my dream.  Their reaction was almost identical to mine:  they were fascinated by my subconscious mind’s ability to construct some sort of cinematographic cohesion within the total fantasy that is a dream: up to that point, Godzilla movies were filmed in black and white. I’d never seen a “color” Godzilla.

However, I’d also never seen a full-grown man, dressed in a vaudevillian striped shirt and straw boater hat and carrying a cane, jump out of a jar of peanut butter and start doing a song and dance routine – yet my mind inserted that scenario in one of my dreams.

 

It was my dream to be in one of her dreams.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Enough About How Moiself  Dreams;
Let’s Carp About How Some Other People Want To Change How Everyone Talks   [3]

Have y’all heard about “equity language”  (aka what moiself  thinks of as “compulsory euphemisms”)?  You probably have, even if you haven’t thought of it in those terms.  Either way, I highly recommend George Packer’s recent article in The Atlantic: The Moral Case Against Equity Language.  Here are excerpts from the article ( my emphases ), which makes this case: although the point of language is to clarify, well-meaning attempts to cleanse language “of any trace of privilege, hierarchy, bias, or exclusion” tends to obfuscate, and can also have the unintended consequence of dulling rather than sharpening awareness and empathy.

“The Sierra Club’s Equity Language Guide discourages using the words stand, Americans, blind, and crazy. The first two fail at inclusion, because not everyone can stand and not everyone living in this country is a citizen. The third…even as a figure of speech (‘Legislators are blind to climate change‘), is insulting to the disabled….

In its zeal, the Sierra Club has clear-cut a whole national park of words. Urban, vibrant, hardworking, and brown bag all crash to earth for subtle racism. Y’all  supplants the patriarchal you guys, and elevate voices replaces empower, which used to be uplifting but is now condescending. The poor is classist; battle and minefield disrespect veterans; depressing appropriates a disability; migrant—no explanation, it just has to go.

Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the country’s leading institutions, particularly nonprofits….  The guides also cite one another. The total number of people behind this project of linguistic purification is relatively small, but their power is potentially immense….

 

 

Which is more euphemistic, mentally ill or person living with a mental-health condition? Which is more vague, ballsy or risk-taker? What are diversity, equity, and inclusion but abstractions with uncertain meanings whose repetition creates an artificial consensus and muddies clear thought? When a university administrator refers to an individual student as “diverse,” the word has lost contact with anything tangible—which is the point.

The whole tendency of equity language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts. This aversion to reality is its main appeal. Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption, leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion. The second is rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad. Imprecise language is less likely to offend. Good writing—vivid imagery, strong statements—will hurt, because it’s bound to convey painful truths.

The liturgy changes without public discussion….  A ban which seemed ludicrous yesterday will be unquestionable by tomorrow…. in the National Recreation and Park Association’s guide, marginalized now acquires ‘negative connotations when used in a broad way. However, it may be necessary and appropriate in context. If you do use it, avoid ‘the marginalized,’ and don’t use marginalized as an adjective.’  Historically marginalized is sometimes okay; marginalized people is not. The most devoted student of the National Recreation and Park Association guide can’t possibly know when and when not to say marginalized….

But this confused guidance is inevitable, because with repeated use, the taint of negative meaning rubs off on even the most anodyne language, until it has to be scrubbed clean. The erasures will continue indefinitely, because the thing itself—injustice—will always exist. “

 

 

I encountered a pertinent example of the smokescreen effects of using equity language in a recent episode of Serial’s The Retrievals podcast (summarized below   [4]. )  Episode four deals with the aftermath of patients’ lawsuits against the Yale hospital fertility clinic, where a clinic nurse had stolen drugs meant for fertility procedures.  The hospital, in its papers addressing the issue, used the term drug “diversion” instead of theft.  Oh gee, that doesn’t sound so bad –  a diversion.  Like, the drug was merely diverted – relocated – from this clinic to another one, or one patient to another?

What a cheap and insulting diversion in and of itself: to rebrand the theft of a vital medicine; to divert attention away from the horrific pain patients experienced during a procedure involving having a long needle inserted into their most private body cavities and through their abdominal walls.   [5]

Diversion; schmersion – patient’s pain medication was *stolen.*

These and other examples of equity language raise my hackles, both personally and professionally via my “AS A” credentials.  As a writer (and a reader), I esteem communication which uses words and phrases that illustrate, elucidate, and clarify, rather than those which attempt to soften or divert or confuse or disguise. 

(Confession: moiself  also likes words and phrases that provide a visually evocative substitute for the normative term – such as

* for vomiting:
calling the dinosaurs; de-fooding; feeding the fish; whistling carrots; driving the porcelain bus; inspecting the chowder; barking at the ants….

* for fart and/or the act of emitting flatulence:
cheek sneak; breaking dawn; carpet creeper; deviled egg; duck stepping….

All of these are, of course, euphemistic…and are also just plain fun.)

 

 

As Packer notes, the term the poor is “rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad,” while people with limited financial resources…leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion.”  I think the provocation of emotion is good, particularly when it spurs action to address what caused the provocation.  Y’all ever been poor?  “Poor” should provoke emotion, because Being. Poor. Sucks.

Certainly (read: IMO), all linguistic rebranding needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis.  There are words and phrases which could use a good makeover if they originated from and reflect times of ignorance and prejudice.  Here’s one of the best examples (again, IMO) of a renaming which could (and I think, does) help reframe the way we view a fellow human being:  “She is confined to a wheelchair,” vs. “She uses (or rides) a wheelchair.”  The first is a rather patronizing description, painting a picture of dependency and pathos…but most of all, it is simply inaccurate.  For someone whose physical condition requires it, a wheelchair is *liberating* – it provides the ability to move about when one’s legs, whether on a temporary or permanent basis, cannot.

Then, there are the others:  the dreadful, weasel-word-filled, furtively-trying-to-slip-one-past-us euphemisms.  Trying to rebrand “He served a prison sentence” into “He had an encounter with the criminal justice system” makes me think you’re trying to hide something.  A person using such a circumlocution may intend to be helpful, but that kind of window re-dressing does nothing to reform, acknowledge, or even address the reality of the brutality of the American penal system and the obstacles faced by parolees.

Some of the most well-meaning folk never seem to get it.  Calling bullshit “bovine ejecta” does not make it smell like morning at the bakery.

 

Preach it, sister!

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stuff That Is Out Of My Control,
And Keeps Me From Having A Good Night’s Sleep

It was almost two decades ago, I think,    [6]   that the actor Susan Sarandon expressed what turned out to be some rather prescient concerns re what was to come in her field. Although she didn’t use the term AI, her a particular concern is at the heart of the current writers/actors strike.  Sarandon gave this example:  Let’s say a producer likes her face, her voice, her overall presence, whatever they find distinctive and/or appealing about her as an actor, and wants to hire her to act in their movie…but she doesn’t want to do that role.  Perhaps she doesn’t like the script or the politics conveyed via the plot; maybe she doesn’t trust the director’s experience or intent, or she just thinks it’s a stupid storyline.  And, Sarandon noted, she had turned down acting jobs for all of those reasons – she just said, “No thank you” to the offers.  However, she knew that there were people working on technologies which would allow them to essentially replicate her and use whichever of her qualities they wanted – they could make “her” do things that she didn’t want to or never would choose to do.

No doubt some folk dismissed or pooh-poohed her concerns. Yeah, what does a mere actor know – she probably one of those anti-tech, Luddite types, right?

 

 

More and more, I come across warnings, from People Who Know What They’re Talking About ®, re what is to come with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its many applications.  One of these PWKWTTA has articulated his warnings in a way that made me think he’d been inside my head, when he used the exact term that keeps coming to my mind:

AI = Counterfeiting

This person is American cognitive scientist, writer, and philosopher Daniel Dennett, whose recent guest turn on Alan Alda’s Clear + Vivid podcast is as fascinating as the topic they discussed is foreboding.  As per the podcast’s summary:

“Counterfeit people, the seductively appealing Deep Fakes made possible by AI, are just the beginning of what the distinguished philosopher Dan Dennett says is a threat to humanity. This spring, he joined hundreds of other thought leaders in signing a starkly scary statement:
AI threatens to make us extinct.”
( excerpt from “Dan Dennett: Fake People Aren’t Funny”
Clear + Vivid, July 24, 2023 )

Dennett was so concisely articulate that I had to stop listening for a while – it was too much to take in.  In particular, his comments about the people who are involved in AI development and research made me squirm.  I know such people.  And I know that they are (or seem to be) good people.  And I know how seductive it can be, to think of yourself as working on the cutting edge while also thinking of yourself as a good person with good intentions…which leads to rationalizing away any critique of your work:

* Well, if I don’t/we don’t do it, someone else will….

* At least this way I know that *I* am involved, and I am a good person with good intentions…”

These are the go-to justifications of people involved in, for example, designing and building assault weapons, chemical weapons, nuclear bombs….  And the agencies and businesses making such products rely on their employee’s instinctive, defensive, self-justification.  Or, both the businesses and their employees may dismiss any criticism with, “This is just what people have always said with every new idea;” or, “People who say that are anti-technology,” and other deflections.

 

 

We all tend to rationalize away such threats.  *I* know I’m not a lil old lady who’s gonna be conned into sending her savings to Nigerian prince to save her kidnapped grandson – they tried it with email and it didn’t work on me!     [7]

But that’s the point Daniel Dennett makes:  we *know* AI *is* going to be used for nasty purposes, because of what already happens *without* AI.  Counterfeiters and scammers have always used the latest technologies; now, here comes AI, something that is so far above, so much more sophisticated than the usual techniques, that soon nothing will be able to be trusted except for face-to-face interactions   [8]…which are simply not possible for many of us in this world of globalization and mobility.  A phone call or Zoom message from my child, who is in obvious distress – how will I know that it isn’t a fake?

I’m not saying y’all working on developing anything AI-related should exit the business. I’m saying, with all the conviction my non-AI heart and mind can portray, that:

* You should summon the guts and hearts to realize that what you are doing, no matter your original intent,
is enabling the counterfeiting of human beings; thus…

* You should be advocating for the strongest possible watermarks (to continue the counterfeiting analogy Dennett used).  The least you can do is to also develop legitimate technologies and strategies which will allow us humans to recognize the counterfeit.

 

 

This is yet another thing over which moiself  feels like I have so little personal control (thus, the “department” title of this segment).  And how do I know it’s even me who is writing this – that is indeed moiself  who is thinking these thoughts?   Maybe I am an AI human prototype which was released years ago…

 

This might explain her taste in t-shirts.

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [9]

 

*   *   *

 

May our work and compensation reflect the current world;
May we weight the pitfalls and benefits of equity language;
May we consistently be able to recognize the counterfeit;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Non-Hollywood writers – members of the Authors Guild (movies and TV writers are Writers Guild members) have a few similar and many different concerns with their contracts, including publishers eschewing the traditional/basic functions of a publisher (editing, design, distribution, marketing [e.g., publishers are increasingly demanding authors do the bulk of publicity] ) and not modifying royalty percentages and otherwise updating contracts to reflect the realities of the internet and e-books.

[2] The term used to describe DeMilles’ epics was “A cast of thousands.”

[3] But am I somehow dissing those oily freshwater fish by using carp as a verb?

[4] “ The Retrievals is a is a five-part series about the patients who say their pain was dismissed, a nurse who was hiding something, and the institution that failed to protect its patients.  It tells the story of a dozen women who underwent egg retrieval procedures at the Yale Fertility Center. For months they complained of severe pain. But nobody caught on to exactly what was wrong, until one day…the truth was revealed: A nurse at the clinic had been stealing the pain medication and replacing it with saline. Eventually the nurse has her own story, about her own pain, that she tells to the court. And then there is the story of how this all could have happened at the Yale clinic in the first place.” (excerpts from “Introducing ‘The Retrievals,’ a New Podcast From Serial Productions.” NY Times, )

[5] I try not to pass out and/or vomit (or, bark at the ants) just thinking about it.

[6] This interview I read (heard?) was not with a large organization or prominent reporter, and was pre-internet; thus, I didn’t bother searching for a link. 

[7] Or whatever the latest scam is.

[8] Until the replicant technology takes over.

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

The Standard Of Care I’m Not Upholding

August 11, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Standard Of Care I’m Not Upholding

Department Of Before I Get To The Complaining Thoughtful Expositions On Topics Of Importance To All Humankind…

First, this observation of appreciation:

I’m not a coffee drinker,    [1]   but I would like to thank the person who, somewhere on Necarney Boulevard (Manzanita, OR)  at approximately 7:30 am Tuesday morning, was either out on their porch or deck with their morning cuppa Joe, or brewing it in a nearby kitchen with the windows open.  Whatever grind or blend they were using, its enticing aroma wafted onto the bicycle/pedestrian path as I walked by.  In combination with the morning mist, which carried the scent of the salty ocean…Aaaahhh.  What a delightful sensory experience.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Gut-Wrenchingly Devastating, Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing Thing To Hear…
And Yet Also, Ultimately, Am I Surprised?

Unfortunately, the answer is, fuck no.

This  Gut-Wrenchingly-Devastating-Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing-Thing-To-Hear  can be heard in the latest Serial podcast, the capper to their five-part narrative series, The Retrievals.  Moiself  has written in this space about this podcast, which I can’t recommend strongly enough.  In Episode 5: The Outcomes, former patients talk about the lasting effects of their experiences at Yale’s fertility clinic, wherein an IVF procedure caused them excruciating pain, both during the procedure and for hours and even days afterword (…and for “good reason” – it turns out a narcotics-addicted clinic nurse had been stealing the analgesic used for the procedure and replacing it with saline).  But the patients’ reports of pain, even to the doctors and clinic staff who heard the patients screaming during the procedure, were discounted and/or minimized.

 

 

The following podcast excerpts (Episode 5: The Outcomes, transcript) are from conversations between Serial producer/investigator Susan Barton, and Kelly Fitzpatrick, one of the attorneys representing the patients in their malpractice lawsuits against the Yale clinic,   [2]  and Barton and Cecelia Plaza, an attorney who wrote a paper cited in the conversation (my emphases):

Fitzpatrick:
“These women were repeatedly ignored….that sets it apart from a regular medical malpractice case. These women were gaslighted. They weren’t believed. …And that makes it different.”

Burton:
“…So how do you do that? How do you sue for ignoring pain?… It’s not like that, another one of the (patients’ lawsuit) attorneys told me. You can sue because they should have investigated reports of pain…


And then I came across the perfect paper. It was called, ‘Miss Diagnosis – gendered injustice and medical malpractice law.’ ….
The paper…(didn’t say) ‘Here’s how you sue for ignoring pain.’ What it did do is explore how this issue of women not being believed in medical settings plays out in court….


The (paper’s) author was a young attorney named Cecilia Plaza… She set out to answer a specific question about the gender gap in medical malpractice outcomes, which essentially is a question about whether women can be fairly compensated in the medical malpractice system. And what she found is that women likely cannot.


Because the foundation of this system is, did what happened to you meet the standard of care? If it did, you’re out of luck. Like, you’re a woman, you think you’re having a heart attack. You go to the ER.  The doctor says, ‘it’s just your anxiety,’ and sends you home. Then it turns out that you really were having a heart attack. Can you successfully win a case against this doctor in court?


Maybe not. Because doctors misdiagnose so many women’s heart attacks as anxiety that sending a woman home could actually be interpreted as a reasonable choice that an ordinary doctor would make.

Just to be clear, Cecilia’s paper is not a work of opinion. It is an empirical analysis based on a ton of data. And what Cecilia found is that women cannot expect to get as much money as men in this system.
Because dismissing women doesn’t necessarily fall below the standard of care.”

Plaza:
“You would have to basically make the argument that not believing your patient’s report of symptoms or of pain is de facto below the standard of care. That’s not currently the case, which is a little bit mind boggling. But you would have to make that argument, and the court would have to agree with you.”

 

 

Got that, amid the legalese?

* Because so many doctors misdiagnose women and have done for so long and for so often, it is considered to be routine.

* Because discounting, minimizing, ignoring women’s pain, and *not believing them when they report severe pain,* is so common in the medical field, it is considered to be the standard of care.

 

 ( Here Are 29 Stories From Women Whose Doctors Did Not Take Their Pain Seriously )

*   *   *

Department Of While I’m Getting Uppity….

Recently, while re-reading Roxane Gay‘s collection of essays,  Bad Feminist,  moiself was reminded of my conflicted feelings on whether or not people ultimately care about, or learn from, the lives and stories of others.

RG’s essays – specifically, Blurred Lines, Indeed –  took me back to last summer, when moi-blog-self  mulled over issues of freedom/personal liberty after the SCOTUS Roe V. Wade ruling.  We religion-free folk have taken a page from the LGBTQ playbook; thus, many of us so-called atheists, Freethinkers, Skeptics, Brights, et al, encourage “outing” ourselves as such, and not only for reasons of truth-telling (religion-free folk tend to be fans of reality), but also with the thought/hope that that increased visibility helps to break down barriers, open minds, increase participation in the civic arena, and counter stereotypes.  Thus I outed moiself, in one sense,   [3]   by briefly mentioning my reproductive history:

(excerpt from The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting, 7-29-22):
So.  A dimwitted busybody curious person may wonder, If it’s personal/no one else’s business, why am I making it yours by writing about it here? Moiself  does this for reasons that are not so original and yet are nonetheless pertinent. 

“In 1972—when abortion was illegal throughout most of the country—53 well-known U.S. women courageously declared ‘We Have Had Abortions’ in the pages of the preview issue of Ms. magazine.
‘To many American women and men it seems absurd, that in this allegedly enlightened age, that we should still be arguing for a simple principle: that a woman has the right to sovereignty over her own body,’ they declared.
Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, Susan Sontag, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Judy Collins were among the signers. The women spoke out ‘to save lives and to spare other women the pain of socially imposed guilt’ and ‘to repeal archaic and inhuman laws.’ They invited all women to sign in order to ‘help eliminate the stigma’ of abortion.”
(  ” ‘We Have Had Abortions’ Petition Relaunches 50 Years Later—With Support From Original Signatories.”
Msmagazine.com 1-20-22 )

It can be easy to ignore or discount issues that are critical for other people, if you think the issue doesn’t affect you or anyone you know.  If you (mistakenly) think that you don’t know anyone who’s gay/atheist/has had an abortion, then LGBTQ rights/religious discrimination/reproductive freedom may be an abstraction to you.  You can allow yourself to be on the fence about the issue – or even on the compassionate side of the fence but not really involved – if you think it doesn’t affect you or anyone that you know.

I’m not sure about my mother’s stance on abortion, but I know she went to her grave not knowing about her older sister‘s harrowing experience.   [4]  My parents were as loving and considerate as could be to all of my different friends, and they knew of (and even occasionally discussed with me) my political opinions.  However and sadly, judging from the publications and mailers I espied on their coffee table during my infrequent visits to their house, it is likely that they could have fallen prey to fear-mongering politics of The Billy Graham Association and other conservative religious organizations.

During one of my visits, California had an “anti-homosexual” proposition on the ballot (I can’t remember which proposition, nor exactly when– there’ve been several, over the years), and I saw a GAY  TEACHERS  ARE  AFTER  YOUR  KIDS -type flyer on their kitchen table.

 

 

I asked them if they took such hyperbole seriously.  One of them (can’t remember if it was Mom or Dad) said they realized it was over-the-top, then said, “Actually, we don’t know anyone who is gay.”

“No,” I said, “Actually, you *do* know gay people.  You just don’t know that they are gay because you don’t know them well enough to be privy to their personal lives, or they have chosen not to reveal this to you…” – I indicated the flyer atop the mail pile – “…because of crap like that.”  (My mother later assured me that that the flyer had just come in the mail, and that they hadn’t “requested it”).

I proceeded to give them the names of friends and teachers of mine, whom they’d met and liked, who were gay.  They seemed genuinely surprised.  “Mr. Haffner is gay?  He was one of your and your sister’s favorite teachers….” (Still is, Dad.)  “That nice friend of yours from college – he’s so sweet and smart and funny, he was a premed student, I think – he’s gay?” (Yes, Mom.  He’s still the nice young man – nice doctor, now – who impressed you.  You simply know something about him that you didn’t know before).

Did it make a difference in how they thought, or voted?  No idea.

*   *   *

I’m still wondering: when it comes to knowing the personal stories of others, what does and doesn’t make a difference?  Still wondering after reading these excerpts from RG’s essay, Blurred Lines, Indeed  (my emphases):

“On June 30 2013 in the Room for Debate section, the NYT asked, ‘Would support for abortion rights grow if more women discussed their abortions?’  When I first saw the question, I bristled. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their personal histories to enlighten those who are probably uninterested in enlightenment.

…what if she doesn’t want to tell her story?  What if it’s too personal, too painful?  What do these confessions really do?  Some people will be moved, but those are rarely the same people who support legislation to erode reproductive freedom.  Immovable people will not be moved by testimony.”

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Different As In, And now For Something More Light Hearted:
We’ll Always Have Paris…

A classic line from a classic movie.  [5]   There are lists of such – “best” or “most memorable” movie lines – compiled by the American Film Institute, et al.  Last week moiself  overheard two people discussing classic movie lines.   [6]   I got to thinking about those lists, which, if I remembers correctly, tend to be skewed toward films released before the mid-1970s.  So, off the top of moiself’s  pointy little head…

 

Not *this* pointy.

 

…I started my own list of memorable lines or dialogue from films released since 1975.  I’m not claiming these are the “best” lines; they’re just, IMO, marvelous.

In no particular order, I present you with the lines, in this format:

“Line/dialogue “
characters/actors who speak the lines
( movie in which the lines appear )

“You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”
Matty/Kathleen Turner
( Body Heat )

“I have been and always shall be your friend.”
Spock/Leonard Nimoy
( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )

“KKKKHHHHAAAANNNN !!!!”
James T. Kirk/William Shatner
( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )

“Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?”
Soldier #1/Michael Palin
( Monty Python & the Holy Grail )

“You sit on a throne of lies!”
Buddy/Will Ferrell
( Elf )

“Louise, I don’t know how to fish.”
“Neither do I, Thelma, but Daryl does it – how hard can it be?”
Thelma & Louise /Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon
( Thelma and Louise )

“That is one big pile of shit.”
Ian Malcolm/Jeff Goldblum
( Jurassic Park )

 

 

Look, I have ONE job on this lousy ship.
It’s STUPID, but I’m gonna do it, OKAY?”
Gwen DeMarco/Sigourney Weaver
( Galaxy Quest )

“Fuck you Mars.”
Mark Watney/Matt Damon
( The Martian )

“Into the garbage chute, flyboy!”
Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher
( Star Wars: A New Hope )

“Better get a bucket.”
Mr. Creosote/Terry Jones
( Monty Python: The Meaning of Life )

“How do you like your eggs?”
Emma/Sally Field
( Murphy’s Romance )

“It’s comin’ outta me like lava!”
Megan/Melissa McCarthy
( Bridesmaids )

 

Before 1975; still one of my favorites of the classic movie lines:

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [7]

 

 Actually, there are hundred of reasons…
but all you need is one, and this is a good one.

*   *   *

May you not be an immovable person/uninterested in enlightenment;
May you find a way to incorporate a classic movie line
into at least one comment of yours during the upcoming week;
May you be pleasantly surprised by enticing aromas;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Moiself  will occasionally treat myself to a latte-dah type drink, but tea is my hot beverage of choice.

[2] Fitzpatrick herself has been through an IVF procedure.

[3] The other sense – my religion-free status – has been out for some time.

[4] A few years before her death, at the request of one of her nieces (who suspected, correctly, that there were family stories to be told), my mother’s eldest sister revealed that the reason she and her husband never had children was that she was unable to, after having undergone an illegal abortion (that almost killed her) .

[5] Casablanca.  Please don’t tell me if you didn’t know that.

[6] As in debating which were the best, or most-overrated or under-rated lines or dialog couplets….

[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 Proscription I’m Not Following

July 21, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors , , , , , Comments Off on The Proscription I’m Not Following

Department Of If Only People Understood This Basic Statement Of Reality
Ninety Percent Of Interpersonal and International Conflict Would Disappear

 

 

Your religion does not prohibit *me* from anything.

It prohibits *you.*

Learn the difference.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Awwwwwww

Just sat down – well, metaphorically speaking, as I have a sit/stand desk and happened to be standing – when MH walked into my office and showed me what he’d found.  It was, as he put it, “…a reminder of Crow”…and there went the rest of my plans for my post.

The reminder was a bag which holds vacuum cleaner attachments.  Our late great cat Crow was obsessed with chewing on plastic bags.  If you look carefully, you can see her toothmarks all over it.

 

 

I found the timing of this reminder somewhat bittersweet. It was almost exactly a year ago that we said goodbye to Crow, as noted in my post of 7-15-22…which I am going to revisit in its entirety here.  Moiself  be getting too sentimental now to write about other topics, as I’m thinking of Crow…and also our remaining Cat, Nova, who is not much longer for this world (she has stage 3 kidney disease) :

7-15-22

The Multicolored Overpass I’m Not Traversing

Something moiself   has been thinking this week:  it’s been over 29 years since we (MH and I) have been a less-than-two-felines household.

We’re down to one, the all-white Nova , as we said goodbye to Crow this week.

It had been a challenging past 18+ months for Crow, with a possible “vascular incident” (stroke?), the progression of her painful arthritis, and finally, diabetes.   After veterinary appointments, blood tests, and consultations, we made an appointment with a veterinary euthanasia service who came to our home to do the deed.

As difficult a decision as it was, we were also much relieved, once having made it.  Crow spent her last days at home, lazing on the carpet in the sun, eating and drinking whenever she pleased.   [1]    We were at her beck and call; I told her she was at a kitty spa.

At the time we adopted Crow (fifteen years ago), all-black cats were the most likely to not find a placement.   [2]    Instead of adopting a rescue greyhound, which was the original plan to add another pet to our family, we went to Bonnie Hayes Animal Shelter,  [3]  opened our house and our hearts, and Crow made herself at home.  Crow had a good life, and she was spared a lingering death.

After the phone call with our veterinarian wherein we discussed treatment and care options, MH and I had a calm, rational discussion.  We considered all the angles – plus the fact, particularly important to moiself,  that Crow (like any pet) cannot consent to nor “understand” any course of treatment.  After the phone call, we decided upon euthanasia.  When we agreed that this is what we agreeing to, I asked MH if perhaps we might take Crow on one last trip to the beach, because she seemed to enjoy lying on the deck in the sun.  And we both lost it.

 

A much younger Crow and Nova, circa 2008, playing with Nova’s favorite toy (a Lego helmet).

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Downside Of Loving Them

Dang, these critters tug at our hearts.  And because we care for them properly, they just don‘t die like they used to:  they get good medical treatment;    [4]   they live inside and thus don’t get killed by coyotes or run over by a car or contract illness and/or injuries and/or infection from other animals….  And if they refuse to die in their sleep in their old age, the combination of aging and chronic illness takes their toll, then *we* have to make the life-and-death decisions.

MH’s astute observation:  for all but one of the cats we’ve had who’ve died, there came that awful time when we had to opt for euthanasia for them.  Odds are that, with our remaining cat, the same will (eventually) be the case.  Each time, we knew we were doing the right thing. Each time, it was still heartbreaking.

 

 

Observant readers may notice that moiself  is *not* is reporting that “Crow has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.”  Nor am I using similar euphemisms to describe the fact of her death.  Although some pet owners seem to find such metaphors comforting, they make me…well…emotionally retch.  Moiself  is not a believer in – as in, I’ve seen no evidence for – any kind of “heaven,” for any kind of creatures.  And since I hold no such ideas for humans I see no need to burden our recollections of our animal companions with similar mythologies.

I don’t mean to come off stony-hearted.  Grief is complicated; expressing it, even more so.  I promise not to slap you if you use the RB term around  moiself, and I hear or read about “the RB” often enough to know that it makes some pet owners feel good. The only afterlife I give credence to is the only one we can know for sure exists:  that which resides in our hearts and minds.  In that way and in those places, our loved ones truly do continue to live “after” they are gone.

BTW: The Rainbow Bridge, for those of you who are fortunate enough not to have encountered the treacle-ism, is a mythical overpass (apparently based on imagery from some cheesy sentimental poems from the 1980s) which serves as a kind of transit for pets.  For example, upon the death of their friend’s chihuahua, RB fans will say that Sparky has “passed over the Rainbow Bridge,” into a verdant meadow (or other Nature Setting ®  ) where Sparky will frolic carefree until the time Sparky will be reunited with his “human parents.”

 

While I don’t believe in Rainbow Bridges, I do believe that pictures of baby sloths in pajamas are comforting to everyone.

 

*   *   *

Department Of There’s Always Something

After we made the decision to euthanize Crow, moiself  thought, once again, about the many rational discussions which can be had as to whether people do or should treat or view their pets as their “children” – a perspective which, I believe, diminishes and misunderstands the reality of and relationships with both animals and children.

Also (as mentioned in a previous footnote), many people, including animal lovers/pet owners and those who are pet-free, hold strong opinions as to the ethics of using advances in veterinary medicine to treat conditions considered fatal just a few years ago – treatments which cost pet owners thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars…and the outcome is, eventually and ultimately, the same.

Pets, like their human owners, are mortal. They’re gonna die. Are you keeping your pet alive – in some cases, using tortuous treatments that humans with the same diagnoses can (and often do) eventually opt out of – because it’s in the animal’s best interest?  Or are you prolonging its life (read: extending its dying) because (you tell yourself) you love it and want to keep it around for as long as possible/can’t deal with its absence…or want to assuage the guilt laid upon you, whether purposely or inadvertently, by yourself or by well-meaning friends and family (or even your veterinarian)?

 

 

“Leigh K—…found herself facing a five-figure bill when her dog, Rutherford, was diagnosed with a brain tumor…. Leigh knew Rutherford needed help when the large-breed coonhound mix struggled to walk a straight line and keep his head up. But you can’t treat without a diagnosis, which meant brain scans, which meant $2,500 down before the technicians would warm up the machine.

Then the real bills started. Radiation therapy was projected to cost between $12,000 and $15,000, which, for perspective’s sake, is a quarter of the average American household’s annual earnings. It’s a sum weighty enough to give even relatively affluent Americans a lightbulb moment on how drastically their lives might be rerouted.”

( excerpts from “My dying dog’s vet bill put me in debt. It could happen to you.” 
Vox, 7-25-19 )

If my father had lived to see the age of  $3k MRIs for pets,   [5]   he would have scoffed at the very notion.  It’s not that he didn’t like animals, or was one of Those Pet Haters ® .  Growing up in the Parnell family, moiself   cannot remember a time when we didn’t have pets.  My siblings and I were allowed to acquire a variety of critters, from dogs and cats to hamsters and reptiles.  While my parents appreciated their children’s emotional bond with their pets, my father never seemed to have much of an attachment to them.  When I look back via an adult’s perspective, I consider this pet-bonding detachment of his to be due, in part, to his impoverished childhood.

 

 

Chet Parnell grew up poor, on a farm, in a place and time when animals were utilitarian.  His family’s infinitely patient and tolerant farm horse, who would let Chet and his siblings climb all over him, was a plough horse.  A succession of family dogs had “jobs” to do – they kept the crows out of the corn and chased the neighboring farms’ dogs and roaming strays away from the chickens, and the barn cats earned a roof over their heads by keeping the mice and rats at bay.  With the exception of the horse, the other “pets” had to hunt for and feed themselves (although my dad’s mother occasionally snuck table scraps to the barn cats, much to her husband’s dismay).

My father’s heart rose to the occasion when our family cat, Mia, died.  Mia, a stray kitten adopted by my family when I was in grade school, had been “my” cat,   [6]   but stayed with my family when I went off to school.  After graduating college and joining the working world, my parents and I agreed that, considering both my inability to pay my apartment rent if I also had to buy pet food and litter, and Mia being an old lady kitty and attached to her home, it was best if Mia stayed with them.  I saw Mia two to three times a year, when visiting my parents, and noted Mia’s increasing frailty with the passage of time.  Pay attention, I pleaded with them.  If there is something wrong with her, take her to a vet, don’t just let it slide.[7]   I was determined to be dispassionate about it – if Mia was dying, I did not want her to suffer.

One day when I was in my mid-twenties I received an early afternoon phone call from my mother.  She called the private line in the medical practice where I worked, which was a red flag.   [8]   She apologized for calling me at work, said she thought I’d like to know about Mia, and told me the following story.

In the past few weeks Mia, age 20, had grown weaker, lost weight, and developed a tumor on her head.  My parents found a veterinarian who would do house calls; after speaking with my parents over the phone, the vet came to their house with the assumption that he would likely euthanize the cat.  After briefly examining Mia he told them that that would be the most humane option.  My younger sister, by then in college, happened to be at my parents’ house for a visit, and she and my mother became so distraught re Mia’s situation that Chet banished them from the scene.  He shooed his wife and daughter into the house, while he stayed on the back porch with the veterinarian.

After Mia had been euthanized and the vet had left, Chet got a legal pad and a pencil, and a shoebox for the body (Mia would be buried in my parents’ backyard, by the rose bushes where she would nap in the summer shade).  He wrapped Mia’s body in a towel, placed her in the box, then composed a poem, on the spot, about Mia.

Mom read the poem to me.  I found it overwhelmingly touching then, and still do, after all these years – to think about what my father wrote to comfort his grieving wife and daughter, and also the mere fact that he did so.  The poem’s theme was how gentle and sweet Mia was; how she’d had a good life….   I can remember only parts of it,   [9]    but its closing stanza is etched on my heart:

Mia was loved by the Parnells all;
As there is a time to rise, there is a time to fall.
To be loved by a family is why she was made,
And now our dear Mia will rest in the shade.

As I hung up the phone, my employer noticed the distraught look on my face.  Dr. B asked me what was up.  With all the detachment and professionalism I could muster – which turned out to be none at all – I blubbered, “My family kitty died!” and tried to tell him how my father had written a poem….

I was a hot mess.  Dr. B placed his hand on my shoulder.  Compassionately, yet firmly, he said to me, GO HOME.

And now for dear Crow, I say, with gratitude for years of love and “tummy time,” Go home.

 

Crow was a gentle spirit and a good sport.  Here is one of moiself’s  favorite pictures of her, one I called, for obvious reasons, *rumpcat.

*   *   *

Department Of The Supporting Cast And Crew

I cannot say enough good things about the doctors and staff of our family’s long-time veterinary clinic, the (surprise!) feline-exclusive  All About Cats Clinic.  Also deserving of high praise is Compassionate Care, the in-home euthanasia service we used, as per ABCC’s recommendation.  CC’s vet was kind, empathetic, sweet, and competent – she gave MH and I (and Crow, I imagine), a sense of tranquility in an emotionally taxing situation.

“She had a good life,“ was son K’s post on our family chat site, when MH informed our offspring about Crow’s death.  My reply:

“Yes, she did…and though it may sound strange, I dare to say that her death was good, as well.
She was comfy on the carpet, enjoying lots of pets from us, and she just ‘went to sleep,’ as they say. It was one of the more peaceful things I have ever seen.”

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Dead Catz Edition

Hmmmmm.  On second thought….

 

When face palm cat just won’t cover it.

 

*   *   *

May you experience the distinctive love of, and for, a pet companion;
May the inevitable loss of that love help you to appreciate it all the more;
May you be strong enough to lather, rinse, and repeat;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

[1] But not, oddly, wanting “tummy time” with MH, which, until the diabetes, was her favorite activity.  She seemingly became uncomfortable sitting in laps or being held during her last two weeks – one more piece of the puzzle which help us make the decision.

[2] Fortunately, thanks to deliberate and innovative strategizing on the part of regional animal shelters, almost *all* healthy cats and dogs at shelters who do not have  “behavioral issues” (read: biters) now find homes.

[3] Where I would later volunteer, in cat care.

[4] Too much, some critics say, in that using “human” treatments for cancers and other mortal illnesses – treatments previously unavailable to animals and to which they cannot consent – are essentially torturing pets in order to assuage our guilt….and speaking of the latter, many people on fixed incomes cannot afford the substantial vet bills but feel pressured, if the procedure/treatment is available, to do so, lest they be considered a heartless person who doesn’t really love their pet.

[5] Which was one of the quotes we got for what a brain scan would cost, when we were trying to figure out the “neurological incident” our cat Crow seemed to have suffered.

[6] And was so named to indicate that – mia is Spanish for mine.

[7] This post needs more upbeat footnotes.  Nah.

[8] My mother was not one to instigate phone calls – that was my father’s purview – and she never called me at work, before or after Mia’s death.

[9] I have a copy of it, somewhere in my file cabinet….

The Regrets I’m Not Regretting

July 14, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), kayak, making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Regrets I’m Not Regretting

Department Of Oh. My. Gaaaaawwwwwwwd.

This American Life podcast:  The Retrievals.  Words fail moiself  but will have to do, as I’m not much of an artist and don’t know how to render a primal scream.

If you are a fan of the Serial podcasts, or just human being interested in an astounding, compelling and – warning – gruesome story. This intro, from the podcast website (my emphases):

At a Yale fertility clinic, dozens of women began their I.V.F. cycles full of expectation and hope. Then a surgical procedure caused them excruciating pain. In the hours that followed, some of the women called the clinic to report their pain — but most of the staff members who fielded the patients’ reports did not know the real reason for the pain, which was that a nurse at the clinic was stealing fentanyl and replacing it with saline. What happened at that clinic? What are the stories we tell about women’s pain and what happens when we minimize or dismiss it?

Do y’all know what the procedure for IVF “retrieval” involves?  Most women and no men have *not* undergone it; for all of us who fit into that category, imagine a series of long and sharp needles inserted into your most private and sensitive body areas —  like your vagina if you’re a woman, and your urethra (yep, up your penis), if you’re a man —  and then through the side abdominal wall tissue and probing into another part of the body, without anesthesia.

 

 

Perhaps equal to (or arguably worse) than what happened to these women is what all woman face: of having their reality – from social and workplace and harassment, patronization and lowered expectations, to gut-wrenching, making-you-pass-out, physical pain ­– minimized and/or dismissed.

Acts one through three are available.  Act 3 adds another fascinating layer to the drama:  the forthright deliberations of the judge –  who is essentially thinking aloud – at the nurse’s sentencing hearing, and what is and what isn’t considered as “relevant” to the hearing.

*   *   *

Department Of Yet Another Tragedy That Didn’t Have To Happen

 

 

Excerpts from a press release from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s office (the article was also posted on Facebook in the North County News group):

“On Friday, July 7, 2023, at about 7:23 pm, Tillamook 911 dispatched….  [1]  to a reported water rescue at the mouth of Nestucca Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

A 12-foot boat had been crabbing in the area with one 40-year-old male adult, one 17-year-old male and one 15-year-old male on board. The boat capsized and all occupants were thrown into the water. The older male and 17-year-old were able to make it to shore, but the 15-year-boy disappeared in the water….

…the missing boy has not been recovered and is presumed deceased….

… The missing 15-year-old boy was not wearing a life jacket when the boat capsized, and he was thrown in the water.”

 

 

This is the not infrequent scenario, on Oregon’s coastal waters, rivers, and lakes: a boat of some kind – whether a commercial fishing boat or a pleasure craft – capsizes, and its occupants are thrown into the water and some of them drown.  [2]   And all too often – and by all too often I mean, every effin’ time it happens it’s too often –  those who died were not wearing Personal Flotation Devices, aka PFDs, aka life preserver jackets.  Thus the request, at the end of the Facebook post, from the deputy investigating the accident:

“…please be kind with your comments below,   [3]  this could just as easily have been people you love.”

Moiself  felt no need to comment. Certainly, that 15-year-old boy’s father is beating himself up over that decision – and yes, it was a decision, whether passive or active – to not insist that all occupants of the boat wear a PFD.

MH read the article to me over breakfast; we looked at each other, our eyes wide with WTF?!?!? sorrow and disbelief. When we go kayaking, or go out on our friend’s crabbing boat, or do any other water/boating activity, we don’t even step on the dock without wearing our PFDs.

 

 

I can’t remember the exact context of this decades-old anecdote moiself  is about to share, but I’ll always remember the particular conversational exchange. MH’s parents were out for a summer visit with us on the Oregon coast.  Some Person®  who was with us, listening to us plan a kayaking adventure, made a startling (to moiself  ) admission:

Some Person:
“I *never* wear a life jacket when I’m in a boat.”

MH’s father:
“Really?  Why?”

Some Person:
“Because I can swim.”

MH’s Father:
“Even when you’re unconscious?”

 

 

As the Tillamook County Deputy investigating the boy’s drowning noted, accidents happen “in the blink of an eye.”  People just don’t anticipate – well, that’s the reason accidents are called accidents, right? You weren’t planning for the boat to capsize or hit a swell or a rock or whatever happened which caused you to go overboard; you don’t think about the fact that, at a certain rate of speed (a rate which is much lower than most people estimate), when you fall from a moving object and hit the water it’s like hitting concrete. Or, the boat capsizes at a much slower pace, or you leaned too far over the gunwales – whatever you did to end up in the water, and you’re conscious and an excellent swimmer and the water is calm…but the water is *cold,* much much colder than you realized, and hypothermia sets in, and all of a sudden you can’t move your limbs to even do a dog paddle to keep your head above water….

Several weeks ago moiself  spoke with a family member of one of the crew members of a crab fishing boat which capsized.   [4]     She told me that even the so-called professionals, the crab and salmon fishers, generally don’t wear PFDs.  We both agreed that that was insane, but, “It’s their culture,” she said.  And then a big wave upends the boat and the crew scrambles to put on their survival suits….and another aspect of their culture survives: attending the funerals of drowned comrades.

 

 

And so, there will be another such story, and another, and another request for “thoughts and prayers“ and to “go easy“ on the survivors in the comments section…and another sad opportunity for a Coast Guard or sheriff’s department representative to remind people of the obvious:

“These types of incidents happen in the blink of an eye. It is important to be wearing life jackets, or have them readily available immediately,” said Deputy Greiner. “Oregon law requires children 12 and under to be wearing a properly fitted USCG approved PFD while on a boat that is underway. All non-swimmers, regardless of age, should be wearing PFD’s when on the water.

Even in the summer, our bays and rivers have dangerous currents present during tidal events and recreating on the water near the mouth of a bay or a river where it meets the ocean is particularly dangerous. When you need a life jacket, it’s often too late to put one on.

Tragedies like this are often avoidable by simply wearing a PFD. You should also avoid crabbing, fishing, paddling or swimming on an outgoing tide anywhere near the mouth of a bay or river. Your survival in a boating accident greatly increase if you are wearing a PFD, no matter what your age. No family should have to go through something like this.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thought® Of The Week

Dateline: Monday, circa 11:30 am; driving to Hillsboro from the coast, listening to a No Stupid Questions podcast,  What is the Worst Kind of Regret?  Early on in the podcast, this question was posed, “What do you most regret:  the things you’ve done, or not done?”  When I first heard the question moiself  thought that I couldn’t answer it, at least not right away.  That question is the kind which requires some serious self-reflection.  The podcast hosts approached the issue from a variety of angles and possibilities while I ruminated on the kindness aspect.  Do I most regret times when I, intentionally or not, had been unkind to someone, or do I most regret not intervening when I witnessed someone being treated unkindly?

Later in the podcast one of the hosts was talking about the fear of rejection – from personal relationships to business ventures – which keeps people from saying or doing or pursuing ____ (fill in the blank with just about anything).  The host quoted from Trevor Noah’s memoir, “Born a Crime” a book which moiself  has read and which I highly recommend…even as I cannot recall this quote from it, which I now think is one of the more tantalizing assertions I’ve read in some time  (my emphases):

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in my life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say.  We spend so much time afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, but regret is the thing we should fear the most.  Because failure is an answer; rejection is an answer.  Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.”

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of The Philosophy You Didn’t Know (Or Care) That I Have

Someone asked me once about how I wanted “…to be remembered, as a writer.”   Which felt rather odd, to moiself,  seeing as how I don’t know or even care.   [5]   

It seems I have a kindred spirit in the devilishly delightful Tim Minchin, the Australian composer/singer/actor/comedian/writer.  The chorus of his song Talked Too Much, Stayed Too Long  I’ve adopted as my own anthem in such matters:

♫  Don’t wanna be in your club if you take me as a member

I’m not even slightly interested in whether I’m remembered

I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Get me a tombstone if you feel you must

Saying, “Here lies the clown who wrote some songs

He talked too much and stayed too long.”  ♫

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

 

*   *   *

May you talk too much and stay too long;
May you pay attention to both kinds of regrets;
May you always wear a PFD whenever you’re in a boat;    [7]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Five different rescue groups, including the Coast Guard.

[2] Time for another footnote?  No; not yet.

[3] The temptation to spout “Why the hell were they not wearing life jackets ?!?!?!” is understandable, if cruel…and too late.

[4] A relative of hers was killed in the accident.

[5] …which is why I likely won’t be remembered, as I’ve done a good job of keeping out of the limelight, much to the dismay of editors who chastised me re my lack of interest in self-promotion. 

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

[7] Or safe at home, on the couch, just thinking about getting in a boat….

The Incomplete List Of Summer Entertainment I’m Not Recommending

July 7, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, radio & podcasts, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Incomplete List Of Summer Entertainment I’m Not Recommending

Department Of Not That You Asked…

But if you did, perchance, query moiself  thusly – “Robyn, what’s a song with an inspiringly aspirational and quirky chorus to sing along to?” I’d recommend Ingrid Michaelson’s You and I:

♫  Oh, let’s get rich
And buy our parents homes in the South of France
Let’s get rich
And give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance
Let’s get rich
And build a house on a mountain, making everybody look like ants
From way up there
You and I, you and I  ♫

 

But let’s not give everybody sweaters like this.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Not That You Asked, The Sequel

It also didn’t occur to you to ask me for a what-to-watch-on-a-streaming-service recommendation.  But since you were so pleased with my sing-along recommendation, now you’re on to, “And what’s your recommendation for a good stand up comedy performance to give me the summer giggles?”  To which I enthusiastically reply:

Wanda Sykes‘ latest standup special, “I’m An Entertainer.”

 

 

Worth the price of admission   [1]  alone are Syke’s bits where she incorporates her gift for physical comedy/pantomime along with her sharp observational wit.  There are too many such sketches to list here, but they include what really goes on in women’s restrooms, fantasizing about men’s men-o-pause afflictions, and where the frightened senators and representatives should have hidden on January 6 for maximum protection (suggestion: underneath Mitch McConnell‘s chin). Other Syke’s stories/observations range from the political to the personal and often a combination of the two, as in explaining white supremacy and privilege to her white family (her wife and two kids).

As for the latter, Sykes employs her ongoing, subtly hilarious (to moiself , at least) imitation of her French wife, which includes an ever-present “air cigarette.”   And as for the voice she assumes when pretending to speak as her wife…well…as Sykes herself might put it, Sykes cannot do a French accent to save her black ass.

Sidenote: Sykes has admitted  [2]    that her wife has un petit problème  with the way Sykes portrays her on stage.  She knows it’s for comic effect and mining the stereotype, but she (Sykes’ wife), in fact, does *not* smoke cigarettes.

About the black ass comment: you’ll hear a lot of strong, “adult” language in Syke’s routines.   If you’re not a fan of such…colloquialisms…moiself  hopes you can listen to what she is saying, instead of how she is saying it.    [3]  

 

French, oui; Wanda’s wife, non.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Not That You Asked, The Sequel To The Sequel

Ah, summer, the season of sun and fun and light entertainment.  And since you’ve been over the proverbial moon with my previous two recommendations, now you’re begging me for something a little more brain-stretching, such as:  “How’s about one of those sciency-type podcasts you listen to?”  Well, moiself  aims to please.

 

 

Ahem.

Get your ears and brains to the Hidden Brain podcast.  A recent episode, which I highly recommend, is titled, The Best Years of Your Life:

” Aging isn’t just a biological process. Our outlooks and emotions also change as we age, often in ways that boost our well-being. Psychologist Laura Carstensen unpacks the science behind this surprising finding, and shares what all of us can learn from older people.”

Early in the episode Carstensen tells the story of what led to her spending time with older people in care facilities, which caused her to realize her commonality with them and which also provided her with an aha moment:

“…the insight I had about aging…is that aging is a *biological* process, but it is driven and shaped by the *social* world.”

Moiself  has written, previously and more extensively, about the social prejudice against aging which is, as I see it, the most universal and illogical of prejudices.  Gender; economic class; nationality; ethnic background; worldview and/or religion – we will all be Old People® someday (unless we die when we’re younger. or, RIGHT NOW).  But this particular podcast episode isn’t so much about the prejudices re aging –  although of course, they are mentioned, as, for example, in the episode’s intro:

“Movies, tv shows, and the fashion industry, still worship at the altar of youth.  People around the word spend billions of dollars on potions, injections, and surgical interventions, to keep the signs of age at bay.  Clickbait ads on many websites show you what the stars of yesteryears look like today.  The message couldn’t be clearer:  Aging is a terrible thing; growing old is a horror show. “

 

( AARP image )

 

Like podcast guest Carstensen, the much-younger version of moiself  rarely considered the ramifications of aging.  Unlike the younger version of moiself , the younger Carstensen was in a horrific car crash at age 21.  In the months following the accident, when she was in hospital and rehab wards with very elderly women, Carstensen started to realize what she and they had in common and began to think about her future, as in, thinking about getting older. Later on, when Carstensen completed her education and began to do research, what she learned surprised her –  and others in her field –  when comprehensive studies began to contradict the myths of aging.

Eventually Carstensen became part of investigative teams involved in the largest study ever done on the psychopathology of aging.  Subsequent studies reaffirmed the surprising results – surprising as in, given the prejudices we’ve all been sold on what happends to aging minds.  The data overwhelmingly and repeatedly flew in the face of prejudice, intuition, and cultural beliefs, and showed that which came to be referred to as “the paradox of aging.”  Which is that, absent debilitating illness:

The older years are the happiest and most stable and psychopathology free for most people.    [4]

 

Carstensen:
“Increasingly, older people had less negative emotions – less fear; less anger; less disgust, and just as much happiness and joy and calm…. older people were happier in their day to day lives than younger people were….

The paradox really was that aging entails a lot of bad things: cognitively, people often do change, or feel their memory isn’t as good…not to mention the physical changes with age – most of us experience more aches and pains. And then we’re in the societal context: people aren’t taking us as seriously as they used to; there’s an invisibility people talk about, when they get old, that people walk almost right through them, and they just aren’t noticed…and so with all of that happening with aging…how can it be that older people, emotionally, are doing well?….”

Podcast host Shankar Vidantam:
“Social status; physical health…if all those things  (decline)…you would predict that the people would then have worse psychological health, and yet (the studies showed) that psychological well-being seemed to be improving.”

That’s enough of a preview – listen for y’alls selves, if the subject interests you.  Really, it’s great news for everyone…well, almost everyone.

This fact –  that as people age they become happier with their day to day lives than younger people – is not going to sell many anti-aging medications or procedures.  Unless, of course, the fear of living mongers geniuses in advertising reverse their strategy.  Instead of concentrating their efforts to convince ever-younger groups – people in their 30s and even 20s – that they need anti-aging procedures, they can start marketing *maturing* procedures:

“Everyone knows that the senior years are the best years of your life.  Don’t let the visible limitations of your youth determine how you and others see yourself.  Want to look years happier than you actually are?  Let us add a few laugh and smile lines to your sullen, immature, angst-ridden visage…”

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

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

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

“…. (Ricky Gervais) explained how he became an atheist, recounting an afternoon at home when he was about 8. His mother was ironing and he was drawing Jesus on the cross as part of his bible studies homework.  His brother, Bob, 11 years older than Ricky, asked him why he believed in God, a question which mortified their mother. Gervais remembered thinking,

‘Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a god and my faith was strong, it didn’t matter what people thought. Oh … hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour I was an atheist.’ “

(from FFRF’s Freethinker of the Day, Richy Gervais  )

 

 

 

*   *   *

May your peers (or your own self) recognize you as Employee of the Month;
May you be entertained by the art of Wanda Sykes and Ingrid Michaelson;
May we all aspire to “give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance;”
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Which is free, if you’re a Netflix subscriber.  Still…worth it.

[2] In previous standup specials or interviews, I can’t remember which.

[3] A practice we should all aspire to in our dealings with anyone, oui ?

[4] The surprising results only helped to affirm the results – as in, more scientists wanted to check the studies and do their own, because what the data showed refuted the “common wisdom.”  Which was, the guest noted, “the best thing for a scientist,” because having others check your work and do their own work is the best way to confirm data.

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

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

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

The History I’m Not Finding Surprising

June 23, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The History I’m Not Finding Surprising

Happy Summer Solstice to all!  And to my fellow yogis, if this tradition is in your practice, I hope you had a memorable 108 Sun Salutations.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Hearing What Is Arguably The Understatement Of The Millenia
While Listening To A Fresh Air Podcast

“There is a very dark part of the Catholic church’s history…”

“No shit, Sherlock,” moiself  snorted, before FA host Terry Gross could finish her opening sentence.  Nevertheless, Terry persisted…with her interview of journalist and professor Rachel Swarns.

“There is a very dark part of the Catholic church’s history, that has only recently come to the attention of the public. For more than a century, the church financed its expansion and its institutions with the profits from the enslaved people the church bought and sold.  Without the enslaved, the Catholic church in the United States as we know it today would not exist…

‘…the priests prayed for the salvation of the souls of the people they owned, even as they bought and sold their bodies.’ “

( “How the Catholic Church Profited from Slavery – the ‘272’ explains how,”
Fresh Air, 6-13-23 )

 

 

For anyone shocked by the idea that religious folk and/or those under their sway would do such a thing, may I remind y’all that we’ve been warned about this for centuries:

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities.”
(Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer and philosopher, who somehow managed to escape the guillotine despite his anti-religion pronouncements.     [1]  )

Subdepartment Of An Excerpt From The FA Podcast Which Demonstrates Why I Am Not Terry Gross Nor Am I The Host Of Any Other Interview Show:

Terry Gross:
“You’re Catholic and you’re Black. When you first found out about the church’s role in slavery…you certainly didn’t learn that in school. What was your reaction?”

Rachel Swarns:
“I was astounded…. I have a better than average familiarity with the 19th century and slavery….This history was certainly familiar to historians, but it is not well-known…. I am Black and Catholic. I had no idea. And the reason why is that…enslaved people have been largely left out of the origin story that is traditionally told about the Catholic Church….”

TG:
“Has it changed your relationship to the Catholic Church?”

RS:
“…it has, but perhaps not in the way that you might expect. I am…a practicing Catholic.”

Moiself , in my dreams, standing in for TG:
WHY  ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

RS (my emphases):
“…in a lot of ways, it has actually deepened my connection to the church…. as a Black Catholic, I didn’t always see myself in the church. I think I saw the church as it’s often portrayed, as kind of a northern church, an immigrant church. But now I see myself in the church. And these families who were so determined to hold onto their faith and to make the church true to what it said it was – a universal church, a church that welcomed and accepted everyone….”

 

 

Swarns’ phrasing, re (Black) people “determined to hold on to their faith,” both frosts my butt and breaks my heart.  The basic idea – clinging to the religion you’ve been taught – is understandable with regard to desperation and survival instincts.  But to hold on to a faith that was not theirs to begin with – a faith forced upon enslaved Africans after they’d been kidnapped, forcibly shipped across an ocean and stripped of their own faiths and spiritual traditions? This is not, IMO, something to admire, but to lament.

 

 

Again, the human instinct to survive, and the psychological phenomenon known as The Stockholm Syndrome – a coping mechanism wherein people in a captive or abusive situation develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time –  make such choices understandable.  But it is this very same, naïve, survivalist, WTF ?!?!? mindset which allows myth and superstition (and the resulting abuses that accompany such beliefs) to also survive, and even flourish.  Teaching those they enslaved to lean upon Christianity –  with its scriptures authorizing, rationalizing, and even promoting slavery  [2]  and its admonitions for slaves to obey their masters   [3]  –   proved to be a most effective antidote to that which slaveholders feared most: a slave rebellion.

 

 

*   *   *

Yet Another Illustration Of The Reasons Why…

…in this “everyone is offended” literary atmosphere, moiself  considers it a wise marshalling of my mental health faculties, to no longer be submitting work for publication.  Witness what has just happened to author Elizabeth Gilbert, she of White Women Whine  Eat Pray Love renown.

” US author Elizabeth Gilbert is pulling her novel The Snow Forest from publication, in response to a backlash from Ukrainian readers unhappy about the book being set in Russia….”
( “Gilbert withdraws Russia-set novel from publication,” Books+publishing 6-14-23 )

Worse than what happened to Gilbert is her reaction to it.  She fell into the ultimate trap for a writer: she didn’t wait for publishers to censor her; she censored herself.

 

 

“The chief danger to freedom of thought and speech… is not the direct interference of any official body. Intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face.…
The sinister fact about literary censorship… is that it is largely voluntary.”
( George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984 )

 

The ALA’s trendy button may soon have a companion: “I write books and ban them myself before anyone else can.”

 

Excerpt from a PEN America’s town hall-style discussion on writers and self-censorship (described on their website as “…a sprawling, impassioned but overwhelmingly civil conversation among four prominent writers about art, identity, appropriation and the state of free expression…”):

“John McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University and author of the new book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, opened the discussion…on a blunt note. ‘To be a writer today, in the current climate, is to be someone who certainly probably censors themselves in some way,‘ he said.

…he recalled an academic talk he gave in the mid-1990s, about Creole languages and women, which some in the audience chose to interpret as offensive and sexist.

Listening to their criticisms, he said, ‘I thought, I don’t deserve this. And I decided I would never again say or write anything about issues having to do with women or sexism.’ “

(“Is Self-censorship a problem for writers?”  NYtimes 12-9-21 )

And another rational voice is silenced…or at least diverted.

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Is Zen Enlightenment for Real?

A Freethought Today blog post, Is Zen Enlightenment for Real?, caught my attention with its provocative title.  I’ve been reading about Buddhism for many years – not for the sake of personal practice (although I do use Buddhist-informed techniques via mindfulness meditation) but for the same reasons I read about Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant forms of Christianity, and other religions and/or spiritual traditions:  to try to comprehend how fear/ignorance superstition have ruled the world for so long my fellow human beings.

As I understand it, the answer to the oft-posed question, Is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion?  is, *yes.*  Buddhism can be – and is – practiced as both, around the world.   [4]

Many years ago, I attended an annual convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation at the FFRF’s headquarter city, Madison WI.  I was attending solo, and struck up conversations with another “solos,” one of whom I’ll call Dan.  I can’t remember how we got on the topic, but Dan told me that his wife, Evelyn, who was from China, and that Evelyn was raised, as she put it, “both Buddhist and (nominally) Christian,” as were her family and neighbors.

Evelyn had said this when she and Dan were first dating and had begun sharing their respective family stories.  When Dan asked her how that was possible – to be both Buddhist and Christian – she told him how.  Her story caused Dan to look at missionary “conversion” statistics with a keen, if jaundiced, eye:  Evelyn and her family, and many people from their village, were “Rice Christians.”  The RC term is something I’d heard before; nevertheless, my foreknowledge of the phenomenon did not lessen the impact of what Dan told me.

Evelyn’s family, like most families in her rural Chinese village, were very poor.  In the early through mid-1900s, Christian missionaries came to her village.  The villagers, many of whom were closet skeptics as to their own culture’s spiritual traditions, were not impressed by the missionaries’ proselytizing; thus, once their curiosity re the strange Americans had been slaked, they avoided the church services the missionaries invited them to attend.  However, the villagers ended up signing the missionaries’ religious enrollment forms, because if they did so the missionaries would give them huge sacks of rice (and send pictures of the enrollment forms – proof of success in converting Chinese heathens! –  back to the American churches and individuals funding the missions).

 

How many pounds of rice?  Hell yeah – I mean, Hallelujah! – I believe!

 

Dan attended FFRF events solo because Evelyn was not interested in any organization which had even a remote connection to religion.  She was dismissive of “American religions,” and held her greatest scorn for Americans who, while not born into a Buddhist culture, claimed to be Buddhist and/or revere the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist teachers.  Dan said Evelyn cringed whenever she encountered non-Asian Buddhist Americans (“Amerboos“ she called them).  In Evelyn’s experience, such people knew nothing but “Buddhism light:” a Westernized version of Buddhism which had little relation to the superstition-laden, reality-denying religion of her homeland.  Evelyn said Amerboos had no idea that, beyond the mindfulness techniques which have been scientifically demonstrated to be useful, Buddhism is just another religion/superstition in many places around the world.  For example, in the rural China where Evelyn was from, upon the death of family members and for other major life events, villagers felt pressured into paying Buddhist priests to perform ritual house cleansings and/or blessings.

Dan and moiself  had an interesting discussion about the subject, including the idea that yes, Buddhism can be just another superstition/religion exploiting the poor and ignorant…but can’t it also be practiced in a more modern way, ala those who claim to follow Buddhist teachings as a secular philosophy?

 

“But those westernized Buddhists always want to put me on a carb-free diet.”

 

And after that long-winded introduction, on to that Freethought Now blog post, which provoked this portion of moiself’s  post.  The author wrote “please share this article,” and I shall do so in its entirety (my emphases):

“I’m intrigued by Zen meditation as a supposed path to enlightenment.

I’ve tried repeatedly — lying silent in bed, blanking out my mind, hearing nothing but the rhythm of my breath, seeing nothing but dark blurs behind my eyelids. But all it does is put me to sleep. In the end, I never get a smidgeon of enlightenment. I’m still just the same old me.

I wonder whether anyone finds enlightenment — or whether the quest is self-deceptive, a fantasy leading nowhere.

American Buddhism is a mushrooming field with many gurus. It’s followed by intellectuals such as brilliant atheist Sam Harris. Researcher John Horgan wrote some years ago: ‘The number of Buddhist centers in the United States has more than doubled to well over 1,000. As many as 4 million Americans now practice Buddhism, surpassing the total of Episcopalians. Of these Buddhists, half have post-graduate degrees.’

Horgan wrote in Slate that he plunged ardently into the exotic pursuit, but … ‘Eventually, and regretfully, I concluded that Buddhism is not much more rational than the Catholicism I lapsed from in my youth. Buddhism’s moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with science — or more generally, with modern humanistic values.’

Buddhism’s insistence that suffering is an illusion theoretically could make followers less concerned when bigoted police kill unarmed Black men, or women are victimized by predators, or other outrages occur.     [5]

Horgan added that supposedly enlightened gurus can be unappetizing: ‘Chogyam Trungpa, who helped introduce Tibetan Buddhism to the United States in the 1970s, was a promiscuous drunk and bully, and he died of alcohol-related illness in 1987.’

Robert Fuller, former president of Oberlin College, made an intense study of meditation gurus and their adoring followers. Writing in Psychology Today, he summed up: ‘Getting a close look at several individuals who were advertised as enlightened led me to conclude that there’s a lot of hype and hypocrisy in the business. A good many of them, not unlike a fair number of academics I’d known, seemed to be in it primarily for the lifestyle. Many gurus are treated like deities and hold absolute power over their devotees. As ‘enlightened beings,’ they’re accountable to no one, and their foibles, appetites and excesses are given a pass.’

‘The language of enlightenment tended to be esoteric, obscurantist and elitist, and the teachings attracted more credulous dabblers than credible seekers,’ he continued. ‘In my quest, I did not come across anyone who could be said to dwell in a state of permanent enlightenment.’

I’ve never known any meditator who seemed enlightened. Have you? Have you ever seen amazing insights or remarkable creative output by an enlightenee?

( “Is Zen Enlightenment for Real?” By James A. Haught, Freethought Now blog, 6-8-23.  Longtime editor at the Charleston Gazette, Haught is a senior editor of Free Inquiry. )

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

“When you’re black there’s like no religion to turn to. Christianity? I don’t think so. White people justified slavery and segregation through Christianity, so a black Christian is like a black person with no fucking memory.”
(Comedian Cris Rock )

 

 

*   *   *

May you examine those mindsets with which you may have
a Stockholm Syndrome-relationship;
May you never be described as a person “with no f****** memory;”
May you smack upside the noggin any literary lunkheads who conflate setting a book in a particular country with supporting that particular country’s politics;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Which included sharing his opinion that priests of every sect are those who. “…rise from an incestuous bed, manufacture a hundred versions of God, then eat and drink God, then piss and shit God.”

[2] Numbers 31 tells the particularly galling story of sex slavery: how the taking of female captives is encouraged by Moses, who, after being instructed by Yahweh to take vengeance upon the Midianites, tells the Israelites to kill Midianite male children and nonvirgin females but take the young virgins for themselves.

[3]    “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.”  (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

    “Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.  Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them.”  (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

   ( Using the following parable, Jesus approves of beating slaves even if they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong):

     “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  (Luke 12:47-48 NIV)

[4] To relate one personal experience, years ago I attended a Buddhist “church” service in Portland (with a friend who had practiced Buddhist meditation for years and wanted to check out the church).  The structure of the service was very reminiscent to me of various Protestant services…perhaps, to match the comfort or familiarity level of (non-Asian )white attendees, who comprised ~ 50% of the attendees, I wondered?

[5] I have those same thoughts myself, and have heard them from people born into a culture that held some belief in “karma,” and/or reincarnation, such as a man from India who said that he rejected his family’s hindu beliefs when he saw saw how practicing Hindus justified their not helping fellow citizens out of poverty because their suffering wasn’t real, or was brought on by their own deeds and if they live a good life they can be reincarnated under better circumstances….

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

The Babies I’m Not Sleep-Training

June 2, 2023

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

 

Department Of Two Words, Which Bother Me, To The Same Degree

Those would be: selfie, and panties.

Selfie.  Why is that necessary, when you have perfectly good words like narcissist?

Panties. Seriously? Grown ass females, even little girls, do not wear panties; they wear underpants or underwear.  Fetishists and pedos   [1]   want women and girls to wear panties.

*   *   *

Department Of Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned

To maintain a pretense of sanity, moiself  has been trying to stay away from the news.  But some gems still sneak on through.  Attention, all ye Book Banning Cretins, especially the ones in Florida: isn’t there some other classic Florida Man® thing you need to do, maybe throw an alligator through a fast food franchise’s window, to protest…something?

Apparently, among the books the BBCs have banned from their own narrow minds are anything involving the history of

* freethought and expression

* the exchange of information

* the kind of people who ban books and what happens to them and their society afterward.

 

 

And the bans are being defended by Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis.

I know; y’all will need the smelling salts to believe that an elected official who took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution would support banning books.

 

 

If requested to offer sage counsel, moiself  would advise that DeSantis and his ilk should avoid pissing off us cranky, feminist authors.  The older we get, the less the phrase “life-in-prison” is a deterrent.

*   *   *

Department Of Belated Yet Timely Information

“…an anthropologist from Utah State University, David Lancy, performed (an) analysis on parenting. The conclusion was….clear-cut: When you look around the world and throughout human history, the Western style of parenting is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies..). We are outliers.

In many instances, what we think is ‘necessary’ or ‘critical’ for childhood is actually not present in any other cultures around the world or throughout time.

‘The list of differences is really, really long,’ says Lancy…. ‘There may be 40 to 50 things that we do that you don’t see in indigenous cultures.’

Here in the U.S., many parents don’t have…firsthand experience before having children themselves. Instead, we often learn…through parenting books, Google searches and YouTube videos. But this information comes with two big caveats….

For starters, parenting advice can give the impression that the recommendations are based on science. But a deep look at some studies reveals that the science is more like smoke and mirrors. Sometimes the studies don’t even test what the parenting expert is purporting they do.

… Ben Bradley argues…: ‘Scientific observations about babies are more like mirrors which reflect back the preoccupations and visions of those who study them than like windows opening directly on the foundations of the mind.’…

And sometimes the data supporting the recommendation are so flimsy that another study in a few years will come along and not only overturn the first study but completely flip the advice 180 degrees…”

( Excerpts from “Secrets Of A Maya Supermom: What Parenting Books Don’t Tell You,”
Reprint of an NPR story from 5-18 )

 

 

‘Twas a wee bit past Mother’s Day is when I saw this article, and Father’s Day is just around the proverbial bend.  After attending a family wedding this past weekend, wherein with two of my nephews were new and/or about-to-be fathers, I found this article most noteworthy. [2]

Reading the article made me think about way back when,   [3]  to the baby books MH and I were given/bought, and how eventually I set them all aside (in one case, I threw one across the room, yelling, “Oh seriously, fuck this!”) in dissent and frustration).

The book that became a frisbee was one of those dreadful, “how to get your baby to sleep” screeds books (which had been either recommended by or gifted to us by a family member).  Several of the parenting books contained “advice” and “expertise” which didn’t sit well with either MH or moiself  and which seemed contrary to both logic and the reality of our babies.  I began to look up information about the authors of those books, and when moiself  did so I found that they were penned by – surprise! – stealth conservative evangelical Christians.  [4]  This explained much of which I found questionable about their advice:  *control* was the overriding and underlying issue.

William and Martha Sears, just two of the stealthers, have co-authored several books peddling their attachment-style parenting theories, and one of them was given to me by a friend.  Guess what the Sears’ also wrote:  The Complete Book of Christian Parenting and Child Care: A Medical and Moral Guide to Raising Happy Healthy Children.  The word “medical” being included in the title both cracks me up and disturbs me.    [5] 

 

 

Once again, I digress.

The sleep advice books were the worst of the parenting manuals authored by conservative evangelicals. In the Conservagels    [6]   world, there is a supposed, divinely ordained, patriarchal hierarchy:  On top of the pyramid is a (male pronoun-using) deity, followed by a father, followed by a mother, then children.  Parents *must* be “in control” of their children, from birth to young adulthood.  The takeaway was that your children, yes, even that six-week-old infant, are sneaky little buggers trying to control their parents, and will manipulate you unless you set the rules and routines *from the get-go.*

Creepy. That’s the word which comes to my mind as I recall the gist of those books: You must set a routine early on for sleep-training and other despicable concepts  practices to let the little pea brain precious gift from above know that just because he cries it doesn’t mean he’s going to get a response from you if, in your opinion (which you will form using the criteria in the book), his vocalizations are not for a legitimate need (e.g., he’s hungry, or has a wet/poopy diaper).  He needs to learn self-control; he needs to learn to self/soothe cry it out, and not have his parents (read: the female one) at his beck and call.

 

 

*From the get-go,* from the moment we escaped from the hospital,  [7]   K wanted to eat, lightly, around the clock (every three hours, for many, many months).  That was just how he was – eat a little, sleep a little.  Three years later, on the evening when his newborn sister Belle and I came home from the hospital, I had to go in to wake Belle up to nurse, after she’d slept for five straight hours and I feared she’d succumbed to SIDS or something.  [8]  *From the get-go,* Belle was a different infant.  She would nurse heartily, then sleep heartily.  After Belle was weaned, she and K seemed to switch sleeping patterns for a little over a year – she became the night owl and he in turn liked a good 8-10 hours.   [9]

 

 

After two weeks (ha!) paternity leave, when MH was home from work he did the lion’s share of our babes’ care, except for feeding them.  We figured it made no sense for *both* parents to be sleep-deprived, and since I was the one with the human milk glands, I was the one getting up to feed them.   [10]    Several months into a brutal sleep deprivation, I tried a sleep training book’s advice: after feeding K and changing his diaper and rocking him for a bit, I’d put him down in his crib, and let him cry and cry.  It did not set well with either of K’s parents, to put it mildly.   I usually went back to K’s room after an hour, fed him/changed him/rocked him again, and he’d go back to sleep.

One night, the third or fourth in a row when we were trying the sleep training advice, MH and I were in bed, attempting to read our respective books, while K was wailing away in his bedroom.  MH, frustrated with the “let him cry” advice, announced that he couldn’t take it anymore. He got up and headed to K’s room, with moiself  trailing behind.  “He’s a baby,” MH said, as he picked up and cuddled our son, who immediately stopped his wails. “He’s just trying to tell us…something…in the only way he knows how.”

I came to the conclusion that my son may have been channeling the spirit of one of the bajillion pet hamsters I had as a child (K seemed to be nocturnal)…or maybe he was just bored and/or lonely, and guess what – he doesn’t speak yet.  Other than that, no, this 3-month-old infant who doesn’t even know his top from his bottom is not trying to manipulate me, and no thank you – and by no thank you I mean, F-off –  to the rigid asshats who are trying to convince me that he is.    [11]

 

Eventually, both K and Belle learned to speak English.

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month  

 

 

It’s that time again, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself.  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [12] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [13]

 

*   *   *

May your pictures of yourself be just that, and not selfies;
May you shun panties: go commando, or put on underwear;
May you ban book banning and read banned books;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Hum these three words to the tune of Winnie-the Pooh’s “Heffalumps and Woozles.” You won’t regret it.

[2] The story would be interesting even if I had no kinfolk on the cusp of parenthood; the timing of my seeing the article merely coincided.

[3] Okay; thirty years ago, anticipating/after the arrival of our first born, son K.

[4] Stealth as in, they were attempting to fly under the radar by not identifying themselves as such.

[5]  Because, as we know from SCIENCE, babies born to Christian parents will have different physiologies (digestive tracts;  REM patterns…) than babies born to Humanist, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and Jain parents.

[6] Forget selfie; here’s a neologism which begs to be coined.

[7] That’s kind of how we viewed it – a concept shared by many new parents, as we discovered later when we compared notes.  We left the hospital, where we and our baby were being cared for by professionals…and they’re going to just let us get in the car and take our baby home, when we’ve never done this before?!?!

[8] Plus, by then, *I* needed her to nurse. Nursing mothers understands the old farm idiom of why the  cows come home.

[9] Which translates as nothing resembling a regular sleep pattern for moiself.  For the first five years of motherhood, I often felt like I’d fallen out of the zombie tree and hit every branch on the way down.

[10] K and Belle were breast fed exclusively – no bottles – when it came to liquid nourishment. They went from me to a sippy cup, which had its advantages when we saw other parents deal with the fight to get their kids to give up the bottle.

[11] K later became a fine sleeper, thank you very much.

[12] 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.

[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

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