Home

The Government Department I’m Not Hating On

January 31, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Government Department I’m Not Hating On

Department Of Realization/Appreciation Of The Day
Sub-Department Of The Calm Before The Complaints

The juices from a roasting butternut squash, when they spill onto the roasting tray and caramelize, produce an absolutely, mouth-liquidingly, soothing, delicious aroma.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Phrases Religious And/Or
Other Well-Meaning People ® Folks Need To Retire

Dateline:  last Thursday; sushi lunch with friend CC.

After discussing and solving the problems of the universe (which we are wont to do   [1]  ), CC and moiself  shared Going To The DMV After Not Having Had To Do So In Ages stories.  My sojourn to the infamous Department Most Vilified  was to get my Real ID driver’s license; hers was to have the name of her recently deceased husband, SC, removed from the title to her car.  Her story won.   [2]

The DMV clerk asked CC why she was having SC’s name removed from her car’s title.  CC told her that SC had died, and the clerk replied,

 “Oh, I’m so sorry – there but for the grace of god go I.”

 

 

Oh my, Ms. Clerky McClerkface. Your reaction to someone telling you her husband is dead is, essentially, expressing relief that it wasn’t your husband who had died? 

Yeah, sure – the difference between your two circumstances is “grace” – i.e., the benevolence (or..er…not) of a capricious god. That’s probably it: an all-powerful, all-knowing   [3] deity said to its deity self, back in November, “Hmm, whose husband shall I kill today – the DMV clerk’s, or CC’s?”

There but for the grace of god go I.   How was CC – how is anyone –  supposed to respond to crap  a-perhaps-well-intended-but-still-ham-fisted-banality  like that?. 

 Yeah…that must be it…um…thanks.?

My friend appended her story with the strong suggestion that  “Christians need to retire” those tone-deaf aphorisms.  Yep.

There but for the grace of god go I.  That trite, emotionally lame proverb is likely meant, by its utterer, to express humility and gratitude, and acknowledgment that one’s circumstances could be different and that outside factors –  like a god’s “grace” ( ?!?!?! ) – play a role in one’s successes and losses.

Achtung, religious believers and/or anyone who’s ever slung  There but for the grace of god go I  to a fellow human being:  Is that how you respond to and/or think about tragedies and misfortunes – that shit falls on some people and not on others due to the whims (“grace”) of a deity?  And if you *don’t* mean that, please stop saying, There but for the grace of god go I  and other, equally so-not-comforting “comfort phrases” without thinking about the meanings and implications behind those clichés. 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking Of The DMV….

When speaking of the DMV most people add a bit of cursing, as well.  It’s an easy gripe – a cheap dig – really, to rag on the DMV, which frequently tops the list of American’s most vilified government services.  But there is a case made for us to chill out regarding (at least some of) our complaints, via recognizing the egalitarianism of DMV inconveniences.

 

 

Think about it, Mr. Spock.  In nearly every other aspect of life the wheels of bureaucracy can be greased – or bypassed altogether for a sci-fi worthy transporter – if you have enough money and/or status and/or connections.  Food, housing, education, entertainment, defense attorneys – the more $$ you have, the better ___ (y’all name it) you get.  The DMV is a shining (if admittedly, sloth-like    [4]  )  exception.

“We are living in one of the most unequal periods in modern history…. Wealthy interests have an outsize influence on our politics and our lawmaking. Corporations can buy more political influence than voters can demand for regular people. Whenever you see a radically unfit candidate running for office, you can usually find a wealthy donor making that person’s campaign viable….

This stratification is everywhere — fast passes on toll roads, exclusive access at amusement parks, so-called black car premiums on ride-share apps, private dining clubs, fast lanes for loyal customers. Americans increasingly act like public spaces are for suckers because they can pay for exclusivity instead.

The D.M.V. is so hated because it does not make status distinctions. You can’t pay to separate yourself from the masses.  Everyone has to search the same cumbersome websites for the right forms. You have to compete for an appointment or show up early, whether you have a high net worth or a negative bank balance.  Best of all, everybody has to wait her turn.  It is inconvenient, but everyone is equally inconvenienced….

Hating on the D.M.V. is also socially acceptable because of who often works at the D.M.V.  Women and people of color disproportionately work in the public sector. The D.M.V. is one of the few places where privileged people — especially privileged white people — will ever encounter a woman of color with unquestionable authority.

The D.M.V. is a beacon of equality in this country.  Celebrate the place where you can watch a celebrity fill out the same forms that you do.  We should revel in the fact that there is no express lane for beautiful, rich people to renew their licenses.  When you sit in those hard chairs waiting for your number to appear on a screen, you should be delighted that no one else is sitting in a cushier chair.”

( excerpts, my emphases, from UNC professor and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom’s article,
People Hate on the DMV.  But It’s Great.  [5] )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Musings While Taking The Train Up To Seattle
To Visit My Swenadian Friends   [6] 

My reflections had nothing to do with either my Swenadian friends or Seattle, but were sparked by the sight of a train employee in his Amtrak uniform, walking down the aisle of the train car, escorting a man in a suit and tie to his seat in another train car.  This was not long after I had visited the Seattle Asian Art Museum, where I enjoyed, among many other exhibits, the paintings of the regalia of ancient emperors and soldiers.

For some reason moiself  began thinking about how our clothing (including footwear and hats) simultaneously covers what we are, yet also displays who we are…or, often, rather, indicates who we seem to be or aspire to be, including what cultural groups (cultural, religious, political, professional) we wish to be identified with.

Uniforms are not worn only by those in the military, or in certain occupations where attire is specified, e.g., hospital workers; restaurant waitstaff, Mormon missionaries …

 

 “Even if our skin isn’t ‘white and delightsome’     [7]
we can still wear these delightsome white shirts!”    [8]

 

We civilians often have our own uniforms of choice, but because we (think we) have a choice of what we wear we don’t consider what we wear to be our uniform, or costume.  Some of us pay more attention to being put together, whether for work or play; others do the humble brag of ,  “I don’t care about what I wear. I just throw on the nearest clean jeans and T-shirt,” discounting the fact that the white lie claim of nonchalantly donning jeans and tees is just as much our own uniform as that of our coworker who wears the designer outfit with meticulously matched accessories.

 

“This old thang?  Somethin’ I jes threw on.”

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thoughts Of The Week     [9]

“Atheism     [10]   offers us the comfort of knowing that we can shape our own lives, and don’t have to rest our fate in the hands of a god whose ways can at best be described as ‘mysterious.’  It offers the comfort of not having to wonder what we did wrong, or why we’re being punished or tested, every time something bad happens.  It offers the comfort of experiencing the world as shaped by a stable and potentially comprehensible set of physical laws, rather than by the capricious whim of a creator who’s theoretically loving but in practice is moody, short-tempered, and wildly unpredictable.”
( American author, blogger, speaker Greta Christina,
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God )

“You have two lives – the second begins when you realize you only have one.”
(Attributed to Confucius)

“What happens when you die?  I believe in Frisbeetarianism –
your soul flies up on the roof and gets stuck there.”
( Anonymous)

 

Another flying disc on its way to the afterlife.

 

*   *   *

May you remember that There without the grace of god goes…nothing;
May you appreciate the ultimate equality of your DMV inconveniences;
May you begin living your second life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] If only the universe would listen.

[2] It wasn’t a competition, but had it been, hands down, she wins.

[3] By deity definition.

[4] But then, so are the lines at any store’s or business’s customer service/complaint/return centers.

[5] From the Don’t Tell My Friends, But…  series, in which the NYT asked their columnists to write about what everyone else is wrong about.

[6] My Canadian-Swedish friends had traveled from Sweden to Seattle to see their daughter and SIL and their first grandbaby.

[7] “ As of Friday, Dec. 6, the Mormon Church has officially renounced the doctrine that brown skin is a punishment from God.  In the Book of Mormon, (not the musical but the actual sacred text) dark skin is a sign of God’s curse, while white skin is a sign of his blessing. The book tells of a conflict between two lost tribes of Israel, the Lamanites and Nephites, who journeyed to the New World and made their home in Mesoamerica. The Lamanites sinned against God, and “because of their iniquity. …the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5:21). Later, when Lamanites became Christians, “their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites” (3 Nephi 2:15)….  Over the years, ordinary Mormons and church leaders have struggled with their (scripture’s) racist heritage. One racist passage in the scripture—2 Nephi 30:6 —has simply been fixed by Mormon authorities. Originally reading that conversion to Christianity creates a “white and delightsome people,” in 1981 the Church adopted a variant that now reads, “a pure and delightsome people.”   (  “Mormon Church finally says dark skin is not a sign of God’s curse “  12-12-13 Valeria Terico, alternet )

[8] Righteous Black people will become white (excerpts, my emphases “Black People and Mormonism, Wikipedia)

Early church leaders taught that after death and resurrection everyone in the celestial kingdom (the highest tier of heaven) would be “white in eternity.”[42][43] They often equated whiteness with righteousness, and taught that God made his children white in his own image.[44]: 231 [45][43] Smith reported that in his vision, Jesus had a “white complexion” and “blue eyes” – a description confirmed in another reported vision by follower Anson Call.[46][47] A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed that “by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become white and delightsome.”[48] The church also taught that the skin of white apostates would darken, and in the temple endowment ceremony (until at least the 1960s) Satan was said to have black skin.[17]: 28 [49]

Several Black Mormons were told that they would become white. Hyrum Smith told Jane Manning James that God could give her a new lineage, and promised her in his patriarchal blessing that she would become “white and delightsome”.[38]: 148  In 1836, Elijah Abel was similarly promised that he would “be made … white in eternity”.[2]: 38  Darius Gray, a prominent Black Mormon, was told that his skin color would lighten.[50] In 1978, apostle LeGrand Richards said that the curse of dark skin for wickedness and the promise of white skin through righteousness applied only to Native Americans, and not to Black people.[1]: 115 

[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

[10] I like GC’s sentiments, but differ re the use of atheist with the ism.  There is no ism, as in, a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory, in being identified as an atheist.  There are no atheist creeds or tenets or rites. Atheists may be conservative and liberal and progressive and socialists; they may be peaceniks or war hawks, love/hate sports, the arts….  All atheists have in common is a lack of belief in theism, which is “belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures.” (Oxford Languages dictionary). 

The Black Armband I’m Not Wearing

January 24, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Black Armband I’m Not Wearing

Can I get a size to fit the entire country?

 

The title of this blog refers to the events of four days past.  This year Monday January 20 was also Inauguration Day, which stole the spotlight from the day which should have been solely devoted to an American hero, Martin Luther King Jr.  Instead, that martyred champion of human rights had to share his legacy’s attention with a traitor to democracy and decency, who, as longtime readers know, cannot be referred to by name in this space.

Several weeks ago I had put a reminder on my calendar, to ask/remind civilized Americans like-minded friends to wear a black armband on 1/20/25.  I’ve donned that symbol of bereavement when my father died, when John Lennon was murdered, and on a few select occasions when I thought a visible sign of mourning was appropriate  [1]

Instead, moiself  tried to channel a variation of the adage  (likely Persian in origin but variants are found across historical/cultural wisdomb literature) which I used to reassure my (now deceased) mother during hard times:   This too shall pass.

 

I did not assure my mother with the kidney stone variation of the adage.

 

This doesn’t mean that I think all will be hunky dory.  The Cheetos Mussolini and his minions will put on a massive shit show for US all, US capitalized as in, the United States.  I know that other countries have survived a range of despots, but doing so comes at a great price, especially to the less powerful.  I also know that such survival will require diligence and vigilance… But then, doesn’t it always?

We have had leaders of decency, integrity, intelligence, equanimity; still, even during the terms of “No Drama Obama”  there could be, ultimately, no relaxing.  The festering turds of racism and Right Wing Fuckery were stewing in their resentment, fermenting and fomenting their schemes, throwing up obstacles wherever they could, waiting for their chance to crawl out from under their rocks. What was that quote, “The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance’?   [2]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Started Off Somewhat Okay….

But not so far under the skin moiself  is mad mad mad mad angry-ass mad, at this debacle of denial from so many US citizens.  I can’t adequately portray my rage and dejection without the use of repetitive, explicit, scatological references…so pictures will have to do, for now.  Pictures, and an excerpt from my blog post from four years ago,  wherein my despair at that time not long after the 2020 presidential election was that, although the Biden-Harris team won, it shouldn’t have been as close as it was.

( excerpts, The Reasons I’m Not Fully Getting Into ):

You must be familiar with how political and human rights leaders call for unity and try to appeal to our so-called better natures when the latest incidents of police brutality, sexism and misogyny, and the country’s history of systemic racism are revealed:

“This is not who we are.”
“We are better than this.”

You’ve heard those phrases before; you’ll hear them again. You may even believe them. But I’m gonna shove my elbow down the throat of the next person who says that within earshot of moiself.  Because, guess what?  This *is* who we are – at least, nearly half of the voting “we.”

At least 73 million of us are not “better than this,” because 73 million Americans were able and willing to set aside, ignore, or explain away the actions, rhetoric and policies of #45 which have fostered an unprecedented rise in displays of hatred, bigotry, and violence.

  “Hate crimes have surged nearly 20 percent during the administration of President Donald Trump, according to a new FBI report on hate crime statistics. The report also shows that hate-motivated murders, largely committed by white supremacists, spiked to their highest number in 28 years.”
( “Hate Crimes Under Trump Surged Nearly 20 Percent Says FBI Report,”
Newsweek, 11-16-20 )

…It haunts me – the voice of an Otherwise Nice-Sounding Man I heard being interviewed (on a radio show) before the election, who said he struggled with his decision.  Despite ONSM‘s misgiving about the “other stuff,” ONSM chose #45 because ONSM‘s stock portfolio had risen.

Other stuff.  As in, #45’s history of sexual harassment and bullying, encouraging and abetting racial and social inequity, white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, & xenophobia; coddling (and imitating) dictators; collusion with Russia & obstruction of Justice, corruption and nepotism and ‘birtherism’ lies and lies lies and more lies…   [3]

If you’ve a strong stomach, you can view (or download a pdf of) the unfortunately-not-yet-complete, “Listing of Trump’s Atrocities,” compiled via years of diligence of the non-profit publisher, McSweeney’s:

 Early in President Trump’s term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, and crimes, and it felt urgent then to track them, to ensure these horrors — happening almost daily — would not be forgotten. This election year, amid a harrowing global health, civil rights, humanitarian, and economic crisis, we know it’s never been more critical to note these horrors, to remember them, and to do all in our power to reverse them.
Various writers have compiled this list during the course of the Trump administration. Their work has been guided by invaluable journalistic resources, including WTFJHT, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other sources….

Other stuff.  That #45 supporter, and millions like him, claim “This is not who we are,” yet vote for someone  Who  Is  Exactly  That.  And that’s just as bad – no, it’s worse.

The leaders aren’t the problem; they rarely are.  Leaders can do nothing without followers, plus those who claim not to be followers, but are Bystanders and Overlookers.

Leaders can do nothing without followers.

We don’t give that fact the consideration and responsibility it merits.

Charles Manson personally killed no one at the Tate-LaBianca murder scenes; he got his followers to butcher those seven people for him.

Leaders can do nothing without followers.  Perhaps you’ve read about the protestations post-WWII from Italians who claimed not to have supported the policies of their Prime minister, Benito Mussolini, and who thus objected to being called fascists?

“The concentration camps and mass killings of civilians in Yugoslavia and Greece – those happened outside our borders; we don’t really know about that.  And, yeah, we, like, kinda, sorta, maybe knew that here, in our own country, Mussolini suppressed his opponents, dissenters, and social outsiders via physical assaults, imprisonment, economic deprivation, yada yada yada…. But, he made the trains run on time.”   [4]

“This is not who we are.”

It sucks, massively, to realize the contrary.

And so my thoughts still go to dark places, dragged down by the reality of the complicity of millions of my citizens, plus this HOLY CRAP realization:

Joe and Kamala are stand-up, intelligent, competent, compassionate people, but yikes – look at how many problems they have to fix.  What looms largest, exacerbated by #45, are the worldwide effects of global warming.  Biden and Harris accept the obvious, hard truths laid out by science, but without a change in the hearts and minds of Republicans in congress, will we have a repeat of the Obama years, when Republicans’ only policy mandate was to counter everything he tried to do?  Will they continue to stamp their metaphorical toddlers’ feet and tantrum their way through Biden’s term: “NO,  I  WON’T  WON’T  WON’T  WON’T  PLAY  WITH  YOU  AND  YOU  CAN’T  MAKE  ME.”
*   *   *

End of excerpt.  And as for the excerpt’s closing question…it wasn’t meant to be rhetorical, but yeah and of course, that’s just what the GOP did.  And here we are.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Back To The Graphics Of Primal Screams

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Quote Of The Week…

…and hopefully not quote of the century:    [5]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why History Sucks

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of More Primal Screams Via Graphics

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Simple Pleasures Amidst The Impending Calamities

Moiself  gets an almost inexplicably blissful pleasure from the ivy lights around our kitchen window.  MH hung them up and put them on a timer, so that they turn on without me thinking to turn them on/plug them in…I know I’ll get used to it at some point, but for now, for the past two weeks, whenever they do, it makes me feel…that some things will continue to be a source of tranquility in the world.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Other Things That Give Me Hope

 

attributed to “Childless Cat Lady”

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

*   *   *

May you be able to identify the most dangerous parasite by sight;
May you find your own version of an ivy lights beacon of hope;
May you remember that when you are a follower you empower your leader;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] If only to clue in strangers as to why moiself  might be in a bad mood and/or snap at them for seemingly non- sequitur-ial or inappropriate reasons.

[2] Generally attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but probably a variant on another utterance by another of the Founding Fathers peers, Wendell Phillips, who was quoting an Irish lawyer.  The Price of Liberty?  Eternal Vigilance.

[3] An extensive list may be found at McSweeney’s: The Complete Listing So Far of Trump’s Atrocities,

[4] Except that, he didn’t.  Like many dictators, Mussolini “…liked to take credit for everything that went right in Italy, even when it didn’t go that well at all. He was particularly fond of saying he was responsible for successful, large-scale public works projects, such as the railroad system.”  (Did Mussolini Really Keep the Trains Running on Time? history.howstuffworks.com  )

[5] Although, what did Katniss do?  She fought on; she did not give up.

[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 Guest Blog I’m Not De-Publishing

January 3, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Guest Blog I’m Not De-Publishing

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

This will be the last week, until late November, when the next solstice season begins.  Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of New Year, New Questions

Is it doofuses, or doofi?

 

*   *   *

Department Of New Year’s Day Menu

* Black-eyed peas
* Cornbread
* Collard greens

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

 

It’s all a lie.

 

Despite consuming black-eyed peas every New Year’s day, my father’s family remained dirt-poor sharecroppers.    [2]   Every year, as I bring whatever black-eyed pea dish I’m making to my family table, I can’t help but wonder: just once, did a brave soul in my father’s family (possibly his adored, spunky younger sister, Lucile), when presented with yet another bowl of black-eyed peas and the directive to, Eat up, y’all, it’ll bring us good luck in the coming year!, look around at the ramshackle farmhouse and her barefooted siblings  [3]  and mutter,  It still ain’t workin.’

Since the eat-these-things-every-year-for-prosperity thing didn’t do diddly squat, I feel free to mess with the menu.  This year my black-eyed peas were blinged with curry-ish spices, the collards tarted up with with golden raisins/cider vinegar, and instead of cornbread there was a freshly baked sourdough boule (courtesy of MH), the latter pictured in larval form below.

 

 

Oh yeah, and as for the accompanying beverage: go big or go home, before observing Dry January.    [4]

*   *   *

Department Of The Last Great Disappointment For The Old Year…

…which I hope does not turn out to be an ongoing disappointment in the new year…except that it already has.

Moiself  wears her big girl pants most days; I understand that even though organizations are not people   [5]   they *are* composed of people –  human beings who are flawed and make mistakes.  Still, I cringe to think that one of my favorite organizations – one that gets a weekly shout-out from moiself ( in my Freethinkers Thought of the Week ) – has fallen down the you-must-tow-this-ideological-line-or-be-cancelled  rabbit hole…

This ideology-eclipses-all mentality is one of the reasons, in my strong opinion, that otherwise trying-to-be-decent political fence-sitting folk opted for the dark side in the 2024 presidential election.  As I wrote in a previous, post-election keen of anguish blog, ( The Country I’m Not Loving ):

I loathe the use of wedge issues and exploitation of those on the lower end of the power totem to provoke the fear response.   I despise the fact that such tactics are often effective, which is why the ethically-deficient Right uses them.  And as I watched that MAGA ad which ran during the World Series,  [6]   thinking of the wide audience it was playing to, I thought to moiself, re the election:  if Harris (and therefore the USA)  loses, it will be because of things like this.

Things as in, not necessarily that particular issue, but because too many of my well-meaning liberal brethren and sisterthren have shot themselves in the foot with their psychological tone-deafness…and Those People ® who feel lectured to and put upon are exacting some kind of social revenge….

How many times have people felt silenced or intimidated because they didn’t toe the “progressive” political and cultural lines?  Maybe they have questions on certain social issues; maybe there are things they just don’t understand and therefore, instinctively, tend to fear.

Maybe they don’t actually *hate* people of different genders and sexual orientations and ethnicities and religions and social classes and political opinions.  But that’s what they get labeled as ( haters; ____ -phobics ), and then they don’t feel as if they can even voice their questions and concerns in certain situations and when speaking with certain people, because if they don’t use the *correct* terminology of the moment, the focus will be on *how* they asked their questions/offered their opinions, rather than on the content of those questions and opinions.  They will be shamed and lectured to if they “misgender” or “dead-name” or “mis-pronoun”….

And if the actions and attitudes of aggressive Lefties pushes some centrists or moderates more to the Right, then those Lefties dismiss the migration with their purity-testing mantra:  “Well, it’s no loss, they weren’t really allies in the first place.”….

 

 

Dateline:12-27-24.  The day started on an upbeat note: my email inbox contained one of the most thoughtful and well-reasoned guest blog posts from the FFRF (Freedom from Religion Foundation) I’ve recently read.  The article, “Biology is Not Bigotry,” was by evolutionary biologist, pseudoscience critic and FFRF Honorary Board Member Jerry Coyne.  After reading Coyne’s article,  I posted a link to it on FB.

Coyne’s “Biology is Not Bigoty,”,as per his intro which I’ve excerpted here, was written in part to address issues raised and opinions expressed in a previous FFRF Freethought Now article: 

“In the Freethought Now article ‘What is a woman?’, author Kat Grant struggles at length to define the word, rejecting one definition after another as flawed or incomplete. Grant finally settles on a definition based on self-identity: ‘A woman is whoever she says she is. This of course is a tautology….” [7]

Several hours later, my email inbox contained another FFRF blog post, this one attributed to the co-presidents of the FFRF and titled, “Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights.”  And gawd-dammit, I hate to say it, but the woke shit hit the fan.

Yep.  Apparently, someone(s) got offended…

…and Coyne’s article was removed from the FFRF site.   Within a few hours on the same day, Coyne’s article was posted, then removed, then the “apology” response was posted.  It seems that the FFRF, or at least the co-presidents (their bylines are on the apology) fell into the social media trap of instant panic/instant response, instead of taking time for reflection and…consultation (as in, who made the decision to de-publish Coyne’s article?  Was the FFRF Board consulted, and if not, why not?  If the co-presidents unilaterally made the decision, can the Board reverse the decision?).   [8]

I fear the FFRF is sliding down the path which makes it impossible to dialog on controversial issues such as “gender identity,” wherein one side claims there is only one correct position to hold, and that all others who question them – not even oppose, but just have questions – are bigots or ____ (insert the ad hominin attack of the moment).  Ironically, that tactic, which used to be the prime province of religion   [9] – blasphemy! – is now being refined by the Left, to the point of it now is being used by an organization that claims it is  free from religion.  It is batshit crazy makes no sense that the FFRF, whose main mission is fighting to reduce the intrusion into/influence of religion in government, is now censoring science and scientists.  And three scientists  (Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Pinker) have already resigned as FFRF Honorary Board Members. 

The fucked-up regretful decision to pull Coyne’s article (which was done without notifying him!     [10]  ) and then publish the apology is having WTF ?!?!?! repercussions among freethinkers and humanists.  Moiself  can’t put it better than this freethinker did in her letter to Barker & Gaylor (full text of letter can be found here, in the comments section;  my emphases):

“I’m not sure which disheartens me more: your treatment of Jerry Coyne or your indulgence in religious theatrics. By retracting Coyne’s rebuttal and issuing a public mea culpa embracing trans ideology, you modeled confession and repentance, signaling your virtue at his expense. You also prioritized subjective experience over objective reality—the very problem with religion itself.  This undermines your mission to uphold the separation of church and state.”

 

 

Here is my email response to the FFRF, re their “apology” post:

I had a bad feeling when I saw, in my email inbox, that the second FFRF blog post (first of all, two is unusual; one per day seems to be the norm) was titled, “Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights.”   Ummm, yeah?  As if that was ever in question?  Why the need to repeat the obvious?

Then I read the almost desperate-sounding post.  Oh, dear.

“Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values or principles.”

Wait, seriously?  Since when are your values – since when are *our values* (I’m a “lifetime” FFRF member) – not evidence- and science-based?

I take it you refer to Jerry Coyne’s “Biology is Not Bigotry” post?  If so, this action (removing an FFRF Guest Blog from the FFRF site) is highly disappointing, to say the least, and makes me wonder what kind of pressure was exerted to get Coyne’s post “cancelled.”

I am familiar with Coyne’s work, and find it refreshing to have the science behind such a controversial issue addressed, for laypersons, from a rational (as opposed to religious/hysterical) POV – particularly Coyne’s elucidation of gametes and the repeated conflation of sex and gender.   Why was it necessary to remove his post, after you’d posted it with a disclaimer – which, BTW, I’ve always assumed holds true for any guest post- namely, that any one FFRF member does not speak, or think, for all FFRF members?

This makes me fear that the FFRF is letting ideology and politics trump science (and as one of those liberal feminist atheists, I hate to have a reason to use the word “trump” in any form), or will censor any presentation on science on issues that do not toe the line with some activists’ misguided notions of ideological purity.   I too am now concerned about the FFRF diluting its “…its historically twofold mission: educating the public about nontheism and keeping religion out of government and social policies,” and straying into “mission creep.”

Sincerely (and sadly),  Robyn Parnell

 

 

Department Of Make Up Your Own Mind

Here is a link to Coyne’s post, reprinted on the weekly publication Reality’s Last Stand,   [11] with this intro/summary of the brouhaha:

At Reality’s Last Stand, we are deeply committed to fostering free speech, scientific discourse, and intellectual courage—values that are increasingly under siege in today’s polarized climate. It is in this spirit that we are republishing Jerry Coyne’s essay, “Biology is Not Bigotry,” which was originally published on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) website before being abruptly unpublished.

Coyne, an emeritus professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, critically responded to an article by an FFRF intern that argued, “A woman is whoever she says she is.” Despite receiving approval for publication, Coyne’s scientifically grounded critique was unpublished after the FFRF deemed it inconsistent with their values and worried it may cause readers “distress.” Following this decision, both Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins also resigned  [12]   from the FFRF’s Honorary Board in protest.

By republishing this essay (with the author’s permission), Reality’s Last Stand reaffirms our commitment to upholding rigorous science, free inquiry, and respectful dialogue. Coyne’s essay stands as a critical defense of biology against pseudoscience and as a reminder of the dangers posed by ideological gatekeeping in science and public discourse.
 (Colin Wright, CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Reality’s Last Stand )

And here is the link to the FFRF’s misguided, IMO, excuse article as to why they de-published Coyne’s article:
(“Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights.”). 

 

 

*   *   *  

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

It’s now very common to hear people say, “I’m rather offended by that.”
As if that gives them certain rights. It’s simply a whine,
just no more than a whine. “I find that offensive”: it has no meaning;
it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase.
( Stephen Fry, British comedian, actor, writer, humanist activist )

 

 

*   *   *

May you look forward to new questions in the new year;
May you use caution when judging what does – or doesn’t –
reflect your “values and principles;”
May you be mindful of “the dangers posed by ideological gatekeeping
in science and public discourse;”
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

[2] They did not use that term; sharecroppers was considered pejorative.  They were “tenant farmers.”

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

[4] Or “Damp January,” if you still have things to toast now and then.

[5] No matter what the SCOTUS rules.

[6] The ad showed an edited interview between Harris and…(?), with Harris explaining an answer re whether a prisoner, while imprisoned, could have sex change/affirming surgery, which would of course be at taxpayer expense.  Harris seemed to be fumbling – I have no idea of the context of the interview, and of course it was edited by and for the MAGA ad – but she answered yes)  The ad’s voiceover went on to say how Harris “…is for they/them, while tR___ is for *you.*

[7]   A tautology is a rhetorical repetition, as in phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice using different words (e.g., ‘always and forever;” “a beginner who has just started”),

[8] …or fire the co-presidents, like a “real” organization’s board can do?  Does the FFRF Board actually have any power, or is the FFRF essentially a family organization? For as long as I can remember, Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor (who are also husband and wife) have been FFRF’s co-presidents.

[9] “Those who question our beliefs are tools of the devil; heretics; apostates, blasphemers….”

[10]  From Coyne’s site(whyevolutionistrue) :  “When some readers pointed out…that Biology is not bigotry was no longer online, I had no idea what happened, and assumed they had relocated the post. I was unable to believe that they would actually remove my post, especially because FFRF co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor had given me permission to write it and approved the final published version.  I emailed Annie Laurie inquiring what had happened to my piece. I never got a response—or rather, they didn’t have the human decency to write me back personally.”  Instead Coyne received what I and apparently all FFRF members received: Barker & Gaylor’s “apology blog.”  In which, as he noted, “… they refer to my piece, they mention neither who wrote the piece or what it was about. If I’m to be cancelled for what I wrote, dammit, I want my NAME and TOPIC mentioned!”

[11] “Reality’s Last Stand is a publication by evolutionary biologist Dr. Colin Wright dedicated to providing weekly news, analysis, and opinion on topics related to free speech, science, and reality.” (from the site).

[12] Dawkin’s “very civil” resignation letter can be read here.

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

The Month I’m Not Mourning

December 6, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, politics, TV , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Month I’m Not Mourning

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

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Maybe Next Year….

As in, maybe next year November will return to being one of my favorite months.  But for now, good riddance.

 

 

November was a trying month, in many ways and for many reasons.  Its devastations included the death of a friend, a lovely, the-world-was-a-better-place-with-him-in-it  person, followed by the election of a the-world-will-be-a-wretched-place-with-him-and-his-henchmen-in power, despicable excuse for an arrangement of DNA.  The latter event contributed to my continuing disenchantment with the apparent values, cognitive abilities and perceptions of a good deal of my fellow Americans.

Still, there are good people still willing to fight the good fights, and there are Santa hats on the flamingoes.  What were those wise words of…who was it, Epicurus?  Paul McCartney?  Obladi; obladah; life goes on, brah.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Overheard Foolishness

I thought moiself  was done for the year, when it comes to explaining the holiday season to those whose certainty about their religion being the reason for the season is directly proportional to their ignorance of the historical facts behind what came to be known as Christmas.  But, nooooooooo, I had to overhear a couple of  Happy Holidays-Hating Halfwits carping about the subject at a grocery store.   [2]

 

 

The HHHH most likely don’t read my blog (poor deprived dears).  If they did, they’d know that I run moiself’s  annual blog post re the winter/fall holiday season origins on the Friday before Halloween, which was October 25 this year.  On the chance you have even a mosquito’s bunion’s amount of interest in being prepared should you encounter a HHHH, you can refresh (or repulse, or another re- reaction) yourself, here ( “The Holiday War I’m (Still) Not Declaring” ).  Or, for another rational take on the subject, treat yourself to journalist/religious studies graduate/author David G. McAfee’s entertaining and informative article on the subject – teasers to follow.

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [3]

“Contrary to what you might believe if you’ve been fed a steady diet of right wing
propaganda over the last few decades, atheists don’t spend the holiday season
eagerly waiting for someone to wish them a “Merry Christmas!” so that they can
pounce on them insult their faith or file a lawsuit.
In other words, there is no “war on Christmas“….
… I and many other atheists enjoy celebrating as much as anyone else does
on December 25.  We might visit family, exchange gifts, overeat and do all the
other Christmas things…
In fact, a Pew Research Center study from 2013 showed that more than 80%
of non-Christians in the U.S. also celebrated Christmas….
So…why do atheists and other non-Christians want to celebrate
the birth of Jesus Christ, whom they don’t believe is divine?
The quick answer is that we don’t.

 

 

The fact is that the date of December 25 has about as much to do with Jesus as any
other date on the calendar, and that date is most certainly not the actual birthdate
of Jesus of Nazareth.   [4]

So, if the source isn’t biblical, how was December 25 first linked to Jesus’ birth?

Prior to the existence of Christmas…Romans already had multiple celebrations
around that same time of the year, as did many others around the world….
First, there was Saturnalia, which included feasting and gift exchange and
preceded a December 25 celebration of Sol Invictus, a Roman sun god.
December 25 also became associated with the god Mithra….

During the fourth century, during emperor Constantine’s reign, it was the
Catholic Church that decided to make Jesus’ birthday a formal holiday and set
that date for December 25, centuries after Jesus was said to have lived….

In modern times, Christmas is often treated as the sole December 25 holiday,
with some Christiansrefusing to acknowledge those that came prior to their holy
celebration – or that some Christian groups mark Christmas on a different date,
such as January 6, 7 or 19.”

( read the rest of the article here:
“Atheists aren’t fighting a ‘war on Christmas’ – many of us even celebrate it.
Christians don’t own the idea of a winter celebration.”
By David G. McAfee, Salon, 12- 2022 )

  

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

What turned out to be the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!   [5]   friend gave me (was it really over a dozen years ago?) for writing a blog was that the blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  As in, I would have a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind during a certain period of time.  And now, that’s what I have.

 

 

I was feeling curious this week, about what was on my mind a year ago, early December.  Here is a sample from my blog of 12-8-23 ( The Oracles I’m Not Consulting ):

Department Am I So Lucky To Have Raised A Science *And* Film Nerd?

Dateline: last Saturday, circa 8:50 am.  The following IM message chat ensued between daughter Belle and moiself, after she’d IM’d me the previous evening to let me know she was going to see the new Godzilla movie.

Belle:
Okay Godzilla Minus One was AWESOME….
I know I recommend a lot of movies but I RECOMMEND this one.

Moiself:
I will see it for sure…We’ll see if I can drag MH to it.   

Belle:
It’s a pretty low budget film, but the combination of practical and special effects is really well done, and the story is really solid.
I also really like the Godzilla design.

Moiself :
He doesn’t have a peewee head, I hope.
In some past ones his head was out of proportion to his body, IMO.

Belle:
Sorry, his head is tiny haha.

Moiself:
😵‍💫

Belle:
… the tiny head had never really bothered me. It makes sense for a lizard that lives in land and water. It’s an aerodynamic shape; and, I think the canon is that he feeds off of radiation, so he technically doesn’t need a big mouth to eat anything

Moiself:
This conversation is so going in my next blog post.

You are right, of course. I think I’m reacting to having been imprinted on the original Godzilla, in which he had a much bigger head, more like a T-rex, but your commentary on the design makes sense.

Belle:
Because of course the anatomy of a giant radiation-consuming lizard has to make evolutionary sense!

Moiself:
Doesn’t the radiation trump evolution here?

Belle:
Exactly lol, I’m saying it’s kinda silly to assume the small head is because he doesn’t need to eat things when it’s a totally made-up monster.
But I like the case of evolution gone totally haywire.  That’s more fun.

 

*   *   *

May you enjoy serious discussions re the size of a movie monster’s head
with someone you love;
May you be the good people still willing to fight the good fights;
May you convert to pacifism anyone foolish enough to declare
that people are declaring a war on any holiday;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

[2] Commiserating over being wished “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

[3] “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

[4]  “In fact, according to Luke 2:8, there were “shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” on the date of Jesus’ birth, which would indicate a day more closely tied to springtime (due to weather conditions), according to the story. Other clues, including the biblical description of the alignment of the stars on the night that Jesus was born, back up that Jesus was likely born sometime in the spring, not winter.”

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

The Music Lessons I’m Not Taking

November 29, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of The Partridge Of The Week

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

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Reason It’s Time For The Partridge Of The Week
Is Because It’s The Day After That Most Problematic of Holidays   [2]

That holiday would be Thanksgiving.  So, you can enjoy a heartfelt rant thoughtful narrative about how we non-indigenous Americans grew up with a preposterous narrative, as summarized by moiself  in the Department Of The Big Day Next Week, segment of this blog.  Or, take it from the professionals:

 So, what exactly is the harm in this school-sanctioned account of history? Understandably, the untrained eye may not notice the harm in such a myth, as most Americans are victim to the same whitewashed lie as the rest, and dismantling a centuries-old myth certainly does prove challenging.

But the first lesson for educators and adults to digest is the fact that this narrative is egregiously whitewashed and Eurocentric on many levels. Moreover, it is a lie, which serves to rob American children of valuable historical lessons.

Truth be told, this beloved lie was packaged solely for nationalistic consumption when, following the bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Back then, Americans were desperately in need of unity and inspiration. Hence, the myth of the first Thanksgiving was born to inspire and unite.

Beyond the myth, and the seemingly good intentions of Abraham Lincoln (who actually despised Indians) the actual story of pilgrims and indigenous people went down much differently.

( The Thanksgiving Myth: Reflecting on Land Theft, Betrayal and Genocide
Colonialism is great for the colonizer, and disastrous for the colonized. )

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of ‘Tis The Season…

…to take your brain cells for granted.  Thus, moiself  has been sampling Netflix’s steaming pile of treacly feces plethora of Christmas movies, as the perfect diversion while I’m doing my morning treadmill or elliptical warmup.

I find the formula – and there is a formula, even if it isn’t a Hallmark  production – amusing in a way that’s hard to describe.

 

 

On Monday I called out to MH as he walked past my office, “The Meet Cute ® in this one is the fastest so far – in the first five minutes!”

I forget the title of whatever one I had on my computer screen; something to do with a male dance revue.    [3]     The one I’m currently…watching (I don’t know if that is the correct word, as I never seem to finish them) is titled, Christmas in Notting Hill.  In a rip-off nod to the actual movie, Notting Hill, there is a Meet Cute ® in which the has-been English soccer player bumps into the visiting American teacher, spilling her orange juice all over her blouse crushing the Christmas ornament against her chest, the ornament which reminds her of her deceased mother and which she’d just found at a Notting Hill market.  Will the perky, idealistic American, who is the kind of person who has always done the right/sane/responsible/staid thing, take the scholarship offered to her by an American college, or will she accept the offer to travel around the world teaching special ed to…special ed kids around the world?  You’d need a mosquito’s dental floss  chainsaw to slice through the plot tension!

 

 

*   *   *

The Department Of Yes, Sometimes It’s That Simple

Exhibits A through Z, of why the elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church (or any religion, for that matter) is where he is due to church traditions and theologies – read: politics – and not because of any special anointment by a deity:

The existence of the Popemobile.

 

 

If the pope truly is the representative of (someone’s) god, why does he need to ride in an armored vehicle with “…bulletproof glass windows and roof, both able to withstand explosions, and reinforced, armored side panels and undercarriage designed to resist bomb blasts…” and other security enhancements to protect him from assassination? If the pope were truly doing his god’s work, wouldn’t his god protect him?

*   *   *

Department Of Blog Title Explanation

Those music lessons I’m not taking are for learning to play the ukulele.

Moiself  has a ukulele.  Quite a nice one – a Kamaka, size 26″ (tenor), with a koa wood body and a mahogany neck.  It was a gift from my father, three decades ago.  He got it for me for my birthday, not long after we’d joked about our family’s checkered history in terms of music lessons (all of us Parnell kids had at least one session at some point; none of us stuck with it for long).

A series of school music teachers    [4]   told me I had smaller than average hands for a person my size, and due to an almost-needed-amputation accident as a child (recently blogged about here), I have a differently-abled pinkie finger on my right hand.

 

 

Maybe, my father suggested, an instrument for me should be smaller, and one that can be played with less than five fingers?

Once considered a quirky or niche instrument, the ukulele has had a surge in popularity in recent years.  But at the time my father gifted me with mine, there were no uke teachers around,   [5]    and I knew I wasn’t naturally gifted enough to have the discipline for self-taught lessons.  So I stored the instrument…and forgot about it. 

 

 

Several recent events conspired to jog my memory (including cleaning out a closet), and I found the uke.  I had it restrung by the local music shop proprietor and signed up for beginning ukulele lessons given through the Parks & Rec Department.  As the first day of the class approached, I got out my uke, practiced tuning it and attempting basic/beginning chords…then had an epiphany.

 

 

After said epiphany I phoned in my cancellation for the class.  I’d realized I had less than zero interest in wanting to practice – in wanting to devote even a mere 10 minutes per day to practicing.  I realized that I didn’t really want to take ukulele lessons, or music lessons of any kind – what I wanted was to *want to* take music lessons.

 

 

I think I wanted to *want to* take music lessons in part because playing a musical instrument is supposedly something well-rounded, intelligent, creative, cultured, curious persons should want to do.  We’ve all read that script:

“In no particular order, learning to play an instrument:
* Reduces Stress
* Produces Patience and Perseverance
* Develops Music Appreciation
* Cultivates Creativity
* Uses Almost Every Part Of The Brain
* Strengthens Your Immune System
* Increases Time-Management Skills
* Increases Memory Capability
* Allows You To Share With Others
* Increases Emotional Perception
* Increases Personal Discipline
* Enlarges The Brain
* Breeds Confidence….”
(excerpts, Sixteen Benefits of Playing an Instrument )

I’ve a lifelong love of listening to music and hearing musicians perform live.  Perhaps my role in the music world is to be that of the appreciative audience.  Perhaps someday I will feel more motivated to try music lessons again.

And yes, I understand you can get better at anything via persistence, and that hard work trumps innate or “natural” talent any day….  Nevertheless, you could tattoo a description of moiself’s  natural aptitude for music on the tip of my pinky finger and still have room for the Declaration of Independence. 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

*   *   *

May you find your own version of frothy, formulaic diversions
to lighten repetitive endeavors;
May you want to (and not just want to want to)
do things that are good for you….and fun;
May you have everything to live for
because you’ve nothing to die for;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

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

[2] MH and I typically put up our Solstice/Christmas decorations on the day after Thanksgiving.

[3] *not* strippers, they’d have you know. 

[4] As well as school PE teachers and my high school volleyball coach

[5] I searched  high and low for group lessons; a few guitar teachers offered individual lessons, at exorbitant (to moiself’s  budget) fees.

[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 This I’m Not Better Than

November 15, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, travel , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The This I’m Not Better Than

Department Of Breaking Medical News

I’ve learned something about moiself.   Turns out what has been variously diagnosed through the years ( via certain relatives, a couple of employers, and one ex-BF ) – as simply my “bad attitude” is actually a medical condition.  It’s immune system-related: I am  craptose intolerant – i.e., unable to tolerate other people’s bullshit.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Know It Never Was Entirely True,
But Now, It’s Even More *Not True*

That would be the appeals to our (supposed) better natures.  There are a plethora of examples; I’ll just pick just two.  As in, when some semiautomatic-gun-fellating fella opens fire on a schoolyard, and another cretin spews sexist, racist, anti-LGBTQ screeds, which prompts another person (often but not always a politician) to say something along the lines of how those actions and/or sentiments are not indicative of Americans:

“We are not like that; we are better than that.”

 

 

Except, guess what?  Last week’s presidential election results gave a flying middle digit salute to that pathetic platitude.  We aren’t better than that; we *are* that.

The  We are not like that thing?  Yeah; maybe not me, maybe not you, but we as in we the people.  We are the selfish, shortsighted, Who-cares-about-anyone-else-as-long-as-I-got-mine-and-Jesus  people.

It sucks to observe this, to have to admit this.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Terms To Avoid Overusing

How do you identify a narcissist?  That is the tantalizing title of the latest episode of the No Stupid Questions podcast.

Narcissist, that categorization du jour which is an actual clinical psychiatric identification, has become applied to others by lay people with increasing familiarity, and often (read: almost always) absent professional diagnosis.  As in: this person seems selfish and/or self-centered; I find them cold, manipulative, and I am annoyed by them; they are a narcissist.

Any term or concept used too abundantly loses its value ( ala, the Everyone gets a trophy and other excesses of the well-meaning, but ultimately cringe-inducing and psyche-retarding , self-esteem movement ).   Also, clinical psychologists tell us that there are two forms of presentation for narcissism: grandiose and vulnerable.  Can y’all distinguish between them?

Moiself  only lurks on one social media platform; even so, it seems I can’t spit    [1]    on that platform without hitting someone’s claims that someone else is a narcissist.   [2]    A certain politician who ( absent the effects of reaping his karma, which might save us all ) will assume the presidency on January 20, is one of the public figures who has most received this label – from not only his opponents, but from those in his inner circle.  His is one case where I believe the label narcissist accurately applies, and were there to be a professional psychiatric analysis of him he would almost certainly be diagnosed as such.  But can you imagine that man – or any true narcissist for that matter – having the curiosity and/or self-awareness to seek out such an examination?

 

 

Anyway, like all diagnoses that we tend to fling with impunity, as roll call Sgt. Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues used to say,

 

 

And let’s carefully listen to this podcast, to make sure that when we use the term we actually know what we’re talking about.

 

*   *   *

Department Of An Odd Thing To Be “Proud” Of?

Dateline:  October 16; Portland Airport (PDX); notes to moiself:  I dropped MH off at the airport, to catch a ride south for his college reunion trip.  Now I’m exploring the new terminal here…and I am gob smacked. It is stunning; I haven’t been here since they’ve completed most of the remodeling.   [3]   It has a lovely flow to it – reminds me of European airports.

 

 

The gorgeous ceiling is crafted from reclaimed wood from the Columbia Gorge Fire ( aka the Eagle Creek fire ), and there are projection screens on several sides of the terminal that respond to the external weather and the amount of people in the terminal and vary the projections of scenes of the mountains and forests in our beautiful Cascades region.   There are still some areas under construction; I’ve been walking around, looking and appreciating, and talking to the workers and the people in the shops (a shout out to “Andreas” in the RX Missionary Chocolates, handcrafted vegan truffle shop), and I find out that it’s not only me – every person I speak with is delighted with their new airport space.  I tell several of them that I want to invite my friends and family from around the country to come to Portland, just to check out our beautiful airport.     [4]

I text my friend CC with pictures and my impressions.  She replies, “Such an amazing example of what we humans can do and be.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Missing A Lovely Man

 

 

 

Truer words were never uttered, Mr. Wilde.  The man I am missing was in the former category.   [5]

There are never enough kind, genial, loving, talented, gentle men (not gentlemen) in this world, and now there is one less.

The world’s loss in this matter is nothing compared to that experienced by his wife and sons.  Even though this was “expected,” (he had metastatic cancer; he and his family had known for over a year that he would not survive it), you still think the end is further down the road – “in the future,” as we say.  Then, one day, one moment, that future is here.

He now inhabits the only afterlife that moiself  (and his family) believes in, the only one that matters.  Because he *mattered,*  we are assured that he lives on, in the hearts and memories of those who had the privilege to know and love him – those he cared for, befriended, laughed with, mentored, inspired, helped, and adored.

 

And I’ll always remember his smile – even beats that of a sloth, if you can believe it.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Plebian Culinary Confessions

Moiself loves casseroles.

 

 

Yep, those a one-dish meal concoctions, named after the container they’re baked and served in; those exemplars of comfort food, consisting of a variety of ingredients, mixed or layered, with starchy binders and/or sauces, baked in and served from a sturdy, deep, handled dish, the exemplar of a food gift brought to celebrate birthdays, family reunion dinners and other occasions, and to support those dealing with illness and grief.   

My love extends to not just any old casserole.  For years I turned moiself’s  nose up at the Campbells-Cream-of-whatever/throw-a-bunch-of-“convenience”-food-products-together variations that defined the dish when I was a child.  And, for a time, starting in the early 1980s around the rise of foodie culture, casseroles were considered a mock-worthy dish, a vestige of 1950s – 70s kitchen kitsch.

 

 

Those concoctions have their place, and hold fond memories for many.    [6]    The casseroles I love are not the kind I grew up with, but the kind moiself  occasionally whips up.   Like the curried green tomatoes with chickpeas, hot dish thingy I devised a couple of weeks ago, when I had a bunch of green tomatoes from our  CSA     [7]    and wanted to do something other than fried green tomatoes.

Casseroles can be cool.  I think the concept just needs better, updated PR (other than calling them  rustic gratins or artisanal ragouts ).    [8]

 

Haiku in Praise of Casseroles
Embrace the mélange;
it’s not just your parent’s glop –
it’s artisanal.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

“The mere fact there is a field referred to as apologetics should be a far bigger problem for theists than it is.
Apologetics    [10]    is, in itself, a compelling case for atheism.”

( Pat Simons )

 

 

*   *   *

May you appreciate the gentle men of this world;
May you book yourself a flight to PDX;
May you appreciate whatever dish is set before you
( or make your own damn dinner );

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Something I am often tempted to do, instead of scroll.

[2] This podcast I’m citing was, btw, recorded before the recent election.

[3] A two billion$, four year project…still in progress but mostly completed.

[4] No footnote here.  But please do come and see our airport.

[5] He was the husband of the friend I quoted above.

[6] Including moiself,  on at least one count:  my mother’s salmon loaf, made from, yep, canned salmon.

[7] A local farm where we buy into a “share” and get a weekly assortment of fresh seasonal vegetables.

[8] Which also works for moiself.

[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

[10] Apologetics (derived from the ancient Greek apologia ) is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines.   Although the term apologetics has Western, primarily Christian origins and is most frequently associated with the defense of Christianity, the term is sometimes used when referring to the defense of any religion, in a formal debate involving religion. (excerpts, Apologetics, Wikipedia. )

The Country I’m Not Loving

November 6, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics , , , , , 1 Comment

The horror; the horror.

After a restless sleep, after a 4:59 am checking of the headlines, I keep hearing dying words of Kurtz from  The Heart of Darkness.  I am feeling the despair which comes from the realization that the civilized shell of human behavior is just that – a shell, which thinly and ineffectively cloaks our capacity for barbarism.

Anguished thoughts, racing through my brain.  I am filled with rage…and also, with nothing.  Hollow, and numb.  Is this what being in shock feels like? 

 

 

Tuesday night I went to bed, determined not to check the election results (and believing that it might take days for the final counts to be tallied).  One of the meditation apps I have on my phone is called Calm, which moiself  needed more than ever this morning.  But it’s gonna take way more than an app to fix my feelings of isolation and dread, and visceral disgust with so many of my… I can’t bear to use the word “fellow”… Americans.

Too many Americans were willing to put aside any notions of personal integrity; Americans who, by their vote, condoned a candidate’s vile and bizarre behavior and hate-filled, despotic rhetoric; behavior and rhetoric which they would not tolerate from friends, family, and coworkers – indeed, they’d likely report it to the police or a psychiatric institution or both.  And for what reasons? What justifies making a literal deal with the devil?  Because they think it may benefit them personally, as in, financially?  Or is it the puerile, stick-it-to-“the man”/to the status quo?   [1]

 

 

There are no good answers to these questions.

I don’t know which is worse, hating the motivations of so many other Americans, or hating the fact that I am filled with loathing for so many other Americans.

I am trying to remember, as MH is reminding his distraught wife and daughter,    [2]   that the blue and red electoral maps do not accurately represent the votes.  The winner-take-all, electoral college debacle is one of the U.S. constitution’s (relatively) few but most pernicious evils.    [3]

My immediate circle is composed of rational, intelligent, long-term thinking, compassionate people.  I despair venturing out of this circle.  What do I say to those others?  How do I pretend not to seethe?  How do I handle the lip-curling revulsion that makes me want to spew,  You did this ?!?!?!?!??????      [4]

 

 

*   *   *

Here is what I was going to write, earlier this week, when I thought we might not have the election results before my blog publication deadline:   [5]

Department Of Waiting For The You-Know-What Results
Sub Department Of If The Cheetos Mussolini Wins We Are All Fucked

We, all of us.  Even, and especially, those who think that their guy “won.”

Since as of this writing we don’t know the outcome for certain, here is a bit o’ my fears, if it comes to pass, of why Harris lost:

Dateline: 10-25, watching the first game of the Dodgers-Yankees World Series.  A MAGA ad came on between innings, the ad showing an edited interview between Harris and…(?), with Harris explaining an answer re whether a prisoner could have sex change/affirming surgery, which would of course be at taxpayer expense, if performed while they were imprisoned (Harris seemed to be fumbling – I have no idea of the context of the interview, and of course it was edited by and for the MAGA ad – but she answered yes.)  The ad’s voiceover went on to say how Harris

“…is for they/them, while tR___ is for *you.*

I loathe the use of wedge issues and exploitation of those on the lower end of the power totem to provoke the fear response.   I despise the fact that such tactics are often effective, which is why the ethically-deficient Right uses them.  And as I watched that ad, thinking of the wide audience it was playing to, I thought to moiself, re the election:  if Harris (and therefore the USA)    [6]   loses, it will be because of things like this.

 

 

Things  as in, not necessarily that particular issue, but because too many of my well-meaning liberal brethren and sisterthren have shot themselves in the foot with their psychological tone-deafness…and Those People ® who feel lectured to and put upon are exacting some kind of social revenge.

It’s the only theory moiself  can think of to explain (not to excuse – there is no excuse for voting such an openly vile and dangerous, totalitarian-doctrine-proclaiming creature into office) the behavior of someone who would vote for such a man.  Yes of course, it is a poor reflection upon human motivation and behavior, ( Here’s your machete, cut off your nose/spite your face ) but pay attention: there it is.

 

 

How many times have people (usually but not always from the lower economic and education strata) felt silenced or intimidated because they didn’t toe the “progressive” political and cultural lines?  Maybe they have questions on certain social issues; maybe there are things they just don’t understand and therefore, instinctively, tend to fear. 

Maybe they don’t actually *hate* people of different genders and sexual orientations and ethnicities and religions and social classes and political opinions.  But that’s what they get labeled as (  haters; ____ -phobics ), and then they don’t feel as if they can even voice their questions and concerns in certain situations and when speaking with certain people, because if they don’t use the *correct* terminology of the moment, the focus will be on *how* they asked their questions/offered their opinions, rather than on the content of those questions and opinions.  They will be shamed and lectured to if they “misgender” or “dead-name” or “mis-pronoun;” they will be condescended to and corrected when they reference a person’s “race” or ethnicity and use the terms black and white instead of Black and White, or Latino/Latina instead of Latinx….   [7]

And if the actions and attitudes of aggressive Lefties pushes some centrists or moderates more to the Right, then those Lefties dismiss the migration with their purity-testing mantra:  “Well, it’s no loss, they weren’t really allies in the first place.”

Sadly, as our species has proven time and time again, humans are petty enough to have things like that serve as motivation:  Yeah, it’s possible that, maybe, ultimately, I will be voting against my own self-interest, but that is then…and this is NOW, and watching those self-righteous liberals squirm in the NOW will be worth it.

 

 

*   *   *

 

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 

 

*   *   *

May you call your allies in, and not out;
May you join me in hoping that Melania takes poisoning tips from Putin
nature takes care of this before Inauguration Day;
May…oh, what the bucket of slimy, festering herring farts do I know?
May we all, somehow, hang on….

…and, some day, may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Daughter Belle notes that a large amount of people in her age group refused to vote for Harris, “…because both her and Biden have been refusing to stop assisting/arming Israel, let alone acknowledge that they are actively committing genocide in Gaza.” She also speculates that which I have heard from/about other young(er) people, that they have no faith in the Democratic party, as they anticipate that the Democratic leadership is going to look at this and think that they need to swing even further center/right to win votes from the Republican side, when one of the big the reasons Dems are losing is because they’re swinging center and leftists are rightfully losing faith in them and either refusing to vote, or protest voting for ridiculous 3rd parties.

[2] Commiserating on our family chat site; we have yet to hear from son K, whom I imagine is as angry and confused as the rest of us.

[3] And, more happy news, here is someisappointing historical information about Senator Joe Biden’s complicity in this http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/the-unpopular-vote/

[4] No footnote here, except to pause to utter the kind of curses that would knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.

[5] There will be no Friday blog post this week.  Because…This.

[6] And the rest of the world – no one wins when a hateful, megalomaniacal, racist and sexist ignoramus holds power.

[7] Despite the fact that the majority of Latinos do *not* use Latinx, and are even bothered and/or offended by that label of generalization.

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

The Tournament I’m Not Attending

November 1, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, radio & podcasts, Recreation, sports, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Tournament I’m Not Attending

What would ushering in the holiday season be without The Dropkick Murphys?

 

 

Speaking of holidays….

*   *   *

Department Of Trying Not To Snarl At Children…

…who nevertheless deserved it.  Dateline: last night.   We had a great group of Halloween visitors to our porch, with four notable exceptions.

We had seventy-one trick-or-treaters.  I know this because I keep track, every year, which helps us estimate how much we may need for the next year’s Halloween stash.  It’s fairly easy to do: instead of counting the trick-or-treaters, we count the remaining candy/snacks, as we know how much we start with and we give one to each kid.  And it’s a pretty good “one” – e.g. an assortment of full size candy bars or mini boxes of animal crackers, single serving bags of pretzels and potato chips.  This year the count would have been 75 if I’d just counted the remaining treats but it was actually 71, as a group of four were double-dippers.   The DDs were two girls and two boys, approximate ages…8-11(?).  A girl in a green sequined dress (“Ilsa” from Frozen…I ask each trick-or-treater to identify their costume if I can’t guess it outright), a blonde girl in a pink…something (“A unicorn,” she said, although I never would have guessed),  two masked boys, one a transformer and another who was some kind of…storm trooper?

They returned to our house a mere 10 minutes after their first visit (not a good strategy if you’re trying to cheat the system).  They tried to blend in among another group of trick-or-treaters.  I held out the bowl for the first group, who, like all the others kids up until then, were cute and enthusiastic and kind and thankful as they chose their treats.  Then the DDers pushed their way to the front, and I recognized them. “Uh…you’ve already been here,” I said to Ilsa.  “No, we haven’t,“ she lied.  “Yes, you have – I recognize your costume, you’re Isla,” I said.  The unicorn also denied she’d been to our house earlier, even as I also identified her costume…even as stormtrooper boy grabbed a bag of chips and quickly backed off our porch.  “No, you’re the unicorn, and your group was here earlier,” I said.  The second boy (transformer) hesitated; I could sense his embarrassment from behind his mask as he whispered to the two girls, “She’s right; c’mon, let’s go.” Ilsa averted her eyes as she spouted her second denial, and grabbed another candy bar.   “That’s rude; it’s one per person,” I said.  The unicorn also grabbed a treat from the bowl, sassily proclaiming as she skipped away, “Well, we’re getting another one no matter what.”

Unicorn, my ass.  Greedy little bitch.

(Oh, and after that, moiself  reached and and put a bag of pretzels in transformer’s hands as he stood there, looking chagrined.  “Here,” I said. “At least you were honest about it.”)

 

 

*   *   *

 

Department Of Fun With Radio Ads

With two ads, to be specific.

Dateline: last Monday, circa 11 am, driving to  Trader Joe’s.  Ad#1:  My car’s radio was on but the volume was quite low; I missed the first few seconds of the spot, which was from a company supporting a sporting tournament.  What I made out was the ad’s narrator proudly announcing that his company was sponsoring “…a fecal tournament…”

 

 

… Which, I discovered when I immediately cranked up the volume, turned out to be a  FIFA   [1]   tournament.

Ad #2:  Driving on to TJ’s, with the volume at normal listening level, I did not miss the next ad.   It was a PSA, actually, for a group whose goal was to raise awareness for prostate cancer screening.   I am aware that one of the obstacles in getting men to see their doctor for a prostate exam is because of their fear that, should cancer be discovered, prostate surgery is known to cause of a variety of unpleasant side effects.  Perhaps the most common side effect is the nerve damage during a prostatectomy which can cause incontinence.    [2]   Which is why moiself  thought, at the end of the PSA where the sponsor’s name was given, that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to announce that the prostate cancer testing sponsor was Depends.

 

 

Just sayin.’

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of They’re Forgetting A Really Important Factor

Moiself  was reading an article (source forgotten, as I got caught up in the subject matter) about why many young(er) Americans – labeled as Millennials, Gen Z and Y, et al – say they do not plan to have children.  This caught my attention, for both broader cultural and also personal reasons.

A close friend of mine has noticed, and discussed with moiself, how rare it is that the offspring of our particular peers are having children.  This concerns us both, particularly when we consider how the having-no-kids reasoners are thoughtful, empathetic, politically and scientifically aware, intelligent, well-educated, and otherwise just the kind of people you *want* to be raising the next generations.

Are y’all worried about Armageddon, in whatever form you imagine it?   [3]    Have a stake in the future; raise your child “right” – raise her to cultivate curiousity about the way things work, and to be compassionate and involved and with a sense of perspective, and she just may be one of the ones to solve global warming, renewable energy, the pollution of forever chemicals – there is no shortage of good to be done.

Besides, if you and your peers don’t reproduce, guess what kind of breeders the world is left with?  Those who have little to no concern for their fellow human beings and especially for the planet, which they view as their deity’s gift for them, and a gift which their theologies tell them is not their ultimate destination, so who cares about a little trash in the rest area ( e.g. Jesus is going to rescue them, so why give a holy fuck about Pacific Islanders’ disappearing lands or starving polar bears ) ?

 

 

Aside from the practical (not being able to find a compatible and stable life partner; simply never having wanted to be a parent), the reasons many young Gens give for not planning on having kids vary.  From concern for the world in general to themselves in particular, their reasons include:

* financial insecurity (i.e., the high costs of childcare and housing);

* self-awareness about physical and mental health issues ( depression, anxiety and other stress-related issues are documented as being higher in Millennials Gen Y & Z, some of whom wonder if it is right for them to raise a child when they see themselves as not emotionally secure );

* worries about the increasing world-wide population (despite the fact that many so-called “first world” nations currently have a negative growth, as in, low reproductive rates which will not sustain their population );

* worries about climate change and what kind of world their children would inherit;

* for women especially, the realization of broader options/ feeling free from constricting social and gender roles of past generations ( no longer being “required” or relegated to having mother/wife as your primary role in life );

* worries that the sacrifices required for parenthood don’t align with their personal and/or career goals.

 

 

When I read this article, and others like it, I’ve found moiself  fidgeting at what the author(s) are leaving out, in terms of addressing the many factors involved in raising a family.  Who speaks for the positives, for the rewards – both personal and societal – and for the adventure of being part of (cue Elton John) The Circle of Life ?

By saying that, I am not *at all* dismissing or explaining away those legitimate concerns which lead some people to choose not to have children – concerns I moiself  had at one time, and still due to an extent.  I was one of those Not Gonna Do It ® people; I changed my mind as the circumstances of my life changed.  I later realized that my stance – I’m never getting married/having children – was based on false, or at least inadequate, information (as in, I’d made that declaration by moiself, not as part of a life partnership, and was thus imagining myself as a single parent, which is something I’d never choose ).

I’m just sayin’ that there’s one thing, one Really. Big. Thing.  that the naysayers are leaving out, when it comes to having children and raising a family:

How  much  fun  it  can be.

 

Found a compatible partner….

 

….and was still joyfully surprised by what fun was in store.

 

*   *   *

 

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself .  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [4]

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

“Along with the usual secular values (such as appropriate tolerance/intolerance, morality, critical thinking, appreciation for reason and science), don’t forget to impart social graces, playfulness, and humor. Those go far in our short existences.”

( Dale McGowan, professor and author of Parenting Beyond Belief:
On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion )

 

*   *   *

May you appreciate the season that is upon us;
May you remember how much fun difficult things can be;
May you be joyfully surprised by what’s in store;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] The acronym is for Federation Internationale de Football Association, the world’s professional soccer governing body.

[2] Usually temporary but sometimes…not.

[3] Hopefully with regards to global warming and how we are trashing our only home (planet This), as in, visible and tangible, and not silly religious apocalyptic scenarios.opefully

[4] 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.

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

The Holiday War I’m (Still) Not Declaring

October 25, 2024

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, community, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Holiday War I’m (Still) Not Declaring

Department Of But First, This Public Service Announcement

Moiself  was on a podcast! Or, at least my voice was.

As longtime or even new readers of this blog have surmised, I regularly listen to a variety of podcasts.  Most of them may be categorized, as per subject matter, as having to do with the incredibly broad topics of science, the brain, and human behavior as seen and analyzed through a variety of perspectives.    [1]

One of my favorites of these podcasts is No Stupid Questions.  Near the end of each NSQ episode the hosts ask for listener feedback, via sending a voice recording to the show’s email address. At the end of each episode two or three listener comments regarding previous episodes are played.

Dateline:  Sunday morning walk; circa 7:50 am; listening to the latest NSQ podcast ( #216: Why Do We Make Excuses? ) I was surprised to hear *my* voice memo played at the end of the show, proving feedback to the previous week’s episode ( #215: Is It Okay To Do The Right Thing For The Wrong Reason? ).

I shouldn’t have been surprised – after all, *I* made the memo and emailed it to the show – but within a week I’d forgotten that I’d done so.  As is often par for the course when it comes to hearing your own voice on tape, at first moiself  didn’t even realize that it was my voice, until a couple of sentences in when I recognized the content ( Oh yeah, that’s me…yikes, that’s me?  Crap, I can hear the remnants of the slight lisp I had as a child [addressed in this blog], which resurfaces when I’m tired or need a glass of water…and danged if I don’t hear the echo of my family tones – specifically, my two sisters’ – in my own voice….).

 

 

 
You’d have to listen to this podcast episode (or scroll forward to approx.. 38:09, or read the transcript here) to get to the listener comments regarding the previous episode.  As previously mentioned, the episode I commented upon addressed the subject of “Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons,” as in, does that somehow negate the good deed or the right thing that you did?  I also liked the perspective of the comment which played after mine, from “Ian,” (a fellow Oregonian!), who pointed out the hidden problems and unexpected consequences in doing the right thing for the right reasons.

 

 

On to the main event.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Here They Come

Halloween (aka All Hallow’s Eve); Samhain; All Saint’s Day; El Dia de los Muertos; Mischief Night, Diwali…

In the USA and in northern hemisphere countries around the world, there are multiple holidays with a relationship to “our” Halloween.  The relationship is as per the time of year and/or the theme, underlying beliefs, customs or origins of the various celebrations.

Many of these holidays originated as dual celebrations – acknowledgments of times of both death and rebirth – as celebrants marked the end of the harvest season and acknowledged the cold, dark winter to come.

And after Halloween, the holiday season really gets going.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Life Is Tough But It’s Even Tougher If You’re Stupid
Chapter 22467 in a (never-ending) series

 “The idea of a “War on Christmas” has turned things like holiday greetings and decorations into potentially divisive political statements. People who believe Christmas is under attack point to inclusive phrases like “Happy Holidays” as (liberal) insults to Christianity….
Christmas is a federal holiday celebrated widely by the country’s Christian majority. So where did the idea that it is threatened come from?
The most organized attack on Christmas came from the Puritans, who banned celebrations of the holiday in the 17th century because it did not accord with their interpretation of the Bible….”
(“How the ‘War on Christmas’ Controversy Was Created,” NY Times, 12-19-16)

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of If Something Seems Familiar, That’s Because It’s Time For
My Annual Holiday Traditions Explained ® Post

What do we vegetarians, vegans, non-meat and/or plant-based eaters
do on Thanksgiving?
( Other than, according to your Aunt Erva, RUIN  IT  FOR  EVERYONE  ELSE.   [2]  )

The above question is an existential dilemma worthy of Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who wrote eloquent discourses on the subjective and objective truths one must juggle when choosing between a cinnamon roll and a chocolate swirl.   [3]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I’ll Take Those Segues Where I Can Find Them

Four weeks from today will be the day-after feasting, for many of us. Then, just when you’re recovering from the last leftover turkey sandwich/quiche/casserole/enchilada-induced salmonella crisis and really, really, need to get outside for some fresh air, here comes the Yule season. You dare not even venture to the mall, lest your eardrums be assaulted from all sides by Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, Feliz Navidad, ad nauseum.

This observation provides a convenient segue to my annual, sincere, family-friendly,  [4]

Heathens Declare War On Christmas © post.

 

 

As to those Henny Penny/Chicken Little hysterics proclaiming a so-called “war” on Christmas, a rational person can only assume that they are not LGBTQ, or Jewish or a member of another minority religion, or an ethnic minority – in other words, they’ve never experienced actual bigotry (or actual combat).  If they had, it’s likely they would not have trivialized discrimination (or war) with their whining.

The usage of  “Happy Holidays” as an “attack on Christianity” is an invention of right-wing radio talk show hosts.  Happy Holidays  is nothing more nor less than an encompassing shorthand greeting – an acknowledgement of the incredible number of celebratory days, religious and otherwise, which in the U.S. is considered to start in October with Halloween, moving on to November with Thanksgiving (although our Canadian neighbors and friends celebrate their Thanksgiving in October) and extending into and through January, with the various New Year’s celebrations.

It is worthwhile to note that while many if not most Americans, Christian or not, celebrate Christmas, there are also some Christians who, on their own or as part of their denomination’s practice or decree (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Worldwide Church of God), do *not* celebrate Christmas   [5]   (nor did our much-ballyhooed forebears, the Pilgrims).  Also, the various Orthodox Christian denominations use calendars which differ from most Protestant and Catholic calendars (a biggie for them at this time of the year is the Nativity of Christ, which occurs on or around January 7).

Happy Holidays — it’s plural, and for good reason.  It denotes the many celebrations that happen during these months.  People in the northern hemisphere countries, from North, Central and South Americans and Egyptians to the Celts and Norskis, have marked the Winter Solstice for thousands of years, and many still do.  And some Americans, including our friends, neighbors and co-workers, celebrate holidays that although unconnected with the winter solstice occur near it, such as Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.

 

In 2024 the Chinese (lunar) New Year began on on February10; in 2025 it will begin on January 29

 

Most folks are familiar with the “biggies”- Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day. But don’t forget the following holidays, many of which my family has learned about (or celebrated with) via our children’s teachers and fellow students, and our neighbors and co-workers.

* The Birth of the Prophet (Nov. 12) and Day of the Covenant (Nov. 26) are both Baha’i holy days  (our family has had Baha’i teachers, childcare providers, and neighbors).

* St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6).

* Bodhi Day.  Our Buddhist friends and neighbors celebrate Bodhi Day on December 8 (or on the Sunday immediately preceding).

* Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec 12).

* St. Lucia Day (Dec. 13) Our Swedish neighbors and friends celebrate St. Lucia Day, as did one of our daughter Belle’s and son K’s schools, when they were in grade school (Belle, as the oldest 3rd grade girl, got to play St. Lucia).

* Bill of Rights Day (Dec 15).

* Pancha Ganapati Festival (one of the most important Hindu festivals, Dec. 21st through the 25th,  celebrated by many of MH’s coworkers).

* The Winter Solstice (varies, Dec.  21 or 22, this year on the 21st ).

* Little Christmas Eve (Dec.  23) Celebrated by my family, LCE was a custom of the small Norwegian village of my paternal grandfather’s ancestors.

* Boxing Day (Dec. 26), celebrated by our Canadian-American and British-American neighbors and friends.

*Ramadan and/or Eid, the Islamic New Year (as Islam uses a lunar calendar the dates of their holidays varies, but these holidays aresometimes during November-December)

* The Chinese New Year.  I always look forward to wishing my sister-in-law, a naturalized American citizen who is Cantonese by birth, a Gung Hay Fat Choy.  (The Chinese Lunar calendar is the longest chronological record in history, dating from 2600 BCE.  The New Year is celebrated on second new moon after the winter solstice, and so can occur in January or February).

This is not a complete list. See why it’s easier to say, “Happy Holidays”?

The USA is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world.  To insist on using the term “Merry Christmas” as the all-encompassing seasonal greeting could easily be seen as an attack on the religious beliefs of all of the Americans who celebrate the *other* holidays and festivals.  At the least, it denotes the users’ ignorance of their fellow citizens’ beliefs and practices.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Did You Know…

…that the Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that, “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”   [6]

…that because of its known pagan origins, Christmas was banned by the Puritans, and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts until 1681.   [7]

 

 

 “Do you celebrate Christmas?”

We Heretics/apostates non-Christians Happy Heathens ®  often hear this question at this time of year.  The inquiry is sometimes presented in ways that imply our celebration (or even acknowledgement) of Christmas is hypocritical.  This implication is the epitome of cheek, when you consider the fact that it is the early Christians who stole a festival from our humanist (pagan) forebears, and not the other way around.

Who doesn’t like a party, for any reason?  We who are religion-free don’t mind sharing seasonal celebrations with religious folk – sans the superstition and government/church mumbo-jumbo –  as long as they accept the fact that the ways we all celebrate this “festive season” predate Christianity by hundreds of years.

 

 

Early Roman Catholic missionaries tried to convert northern Europeans to the RC brand of Christianity, and part of the conversion process was to alter the pagan’s existing religious festivals. The indigenous folk, whom the RC church labeled “barbarians,” quickly discovered that when it came to dealing with missionaries, resistance is futile. The pagans intuitively grasped the concept of natural selection and converted to Christianity to avoid the price (persecution, torture, execution) of staying true to their original beliefs.  But they refused to totally relinquish their traditional celebrations, and so the church, eventually and effectively, simply renamed most of them.    [8]

Pagan practices were given a Christian meaning to wipe out “heathen” revelry.  This was made official church policy in 601 A.D., when Pope Gregory the First issued the now infamous edict to his missionaries regarding the traditions of the peoples they wanted to convert. Rather than try to banish native customs and beliefs, missionaries were directed to assimilate them. You find a group of people decorating and/or worshiping a tree? Don’t chop it down or burn it; rather, bless it in the name of the Church.  Allow its continued worship, only tell the people that, instead of celebrating the return of the sun-god in the spring, they are now worshiping the rising from the dead of the Son of God.

( Easter is the one/odd exception, where a pagan celebration was adapted by Christians without a name change. Easter is a word found nowhere in the Bible. It comes from the many variants (Eostra, Ester, Eastra, Eastur….) of a Roman deity, goddess of the dawn “Eos” or “Easter,” whose festival was in the Spring.)

The fir boughs and wreaths; the Yule log; plum pudding; gift exchanges; feasting; the holly and the ivy and the evergreen tree….It is hard to think of a “Christmas” tradition that does not originate from Teutonic (German), Viking, Celtic and Druid paganism.   [9]   A celebration in the depths of winter – at the time when, to those living in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun appears to stop its southerly descent before gradually ascending north – is a natural instinct. For thousands of years our Northern Hemisphere ancestors greeted the “reason for the season” – the winter solstice – with festivals of light and gift exchanges and parties.  The Winter Solstice was noted and celebrated long before the Roman Jesus groupies pinched the party.

But, isn’t “Jesus is the reason for the season”?

The reason for the season?  Cool story, bro.  Since you asked; actually, axial tilt is the reason for the season.  For *all* seasons.

 

 

And Woden is the reason the middle of the week is named Wednesday.   [10]   My calling Wednesday “Wednesday” doesn’t mean I celebrate, worship, or “believe in” Woden.  I don’t insist on renaming either Christmas or Wednesday.

 

“Now, go fetch me the brazen little sheisskopfs who took the Woden out of Woden’s Day!”

 

The Winter Solstice is the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, and the longest night. In the northern hemisphere it falls on what we now mark as December 21 or 22.  However, it took place on December 25th at the time when the Julian calendar was used.  [11]   The early Romans celebrated the Saturnalia on the Solstice, holding days of feasting and gift exchanges in honor of their god Saturn ( Other major deities whose birthdays were celebrated on or about the week of December 25   [12]   included Horis, Huitzilopochtli, Isis, Mithras, Marduk, Osiris, Serapis and Sol ).  The Celebration of the Saturnalia was too popular with the Roman pagans for the new Christian church to outlaw it, so the new church renamed the day and reassigned meanings to the traditions.    [13]

In other words, why are some folk concerned with “keeping the Christ in Christmas”  [14]  when we should be keeping the Saturn in Saturnalia?

 

 

*   *   *

Whatever your favorite seasonal celebrations may be, moiself  wishes you all the best.

May you have the occasion to (with good humor) ruin it for everyone else;
May you find it within yourself to ignore the Black Friday mindset;
May you remember to keep the Saturn in Saturnalia;
…and may the fruitcake-free hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I will dump them all the first time I catch wind (no, not intended) of the first all elephant/fart joke podcast.

[2] You have an Aunt Erva, somewhere.  We all do.

[3] Damn right I’m proud of that one.

[4] Well, yeah, as compared to the usual shit I write.

[5] And a grade school friend of mine, whose family were Jehovah’s Witnesses, considered being told, “Merry Christmas” to be an attack on *her* beliefs.

[6] “Increase Mather, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England” (London, 1687).  See also Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday,” New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

[7] Stephen Nissenbaum, “The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday.”

[8] “Paganism in Christianity.”

[9]  “Learn not the way of the heathen…their customs are vain, for one cuts a tree out of the forest…they deck it with silver and gold…” Jeremiah 10:2-5

[10] Wednesday comes from the Old English Wōdnesdæg, the day of the Germanic god Wodan (aka Odin, highest god in Norse mythology and a big cheese god of the Anglo-Saxons until the seventh century.)

[11] The Julian calendar, adopted by Julius Caesar ~ 46 B.C.E., was off by 11 min/year, and when the Gregorian calendar was established by Pope – wait for it – Gregory,  the solstice was established on 12/22.

[12] The Winter Solstice and the Origins of Christmas, Lee Carter.

[13] In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory I issued a now famous edict to his missionaries regarding wooing potential converts: don’t banish peoples’ customs, incorporate them. If the locals venerate a tree, don’t cut it down; rather, consecrate the tree to JC and allow its continued worship.

[14] And nothing in the various conflicting biblical references to the birth of JC has the nativity occurring in wintertime.

The Personality Test I’m Not Taking

October 18, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Personality Test I’m Not Taking

Department Of Sometimes It Takes Me Some Time To Get Back To Something…

Something like this:

 “Moiself  could (and may, eventually) share more stories re my encounters with Scientology adherents at UCD. “

This teaser was from one department of my May 3 blog post ( The Czechoslovakian Freedom Fighter I’m Not Housing ).  This department shall be repeated here before I go on to share the more stories:

Department Of All-Time Great Pranks

This slice o’ life story is courtesy of the six degrees of separation principle vis-à-vis my   [1]   neurons making the connections that they…just make, sometimes.

Dateline: last Saturday 7:45 AM-ish; walking.  The podcast I was listening to reminded me of some actor,    [2]  who reminded me of another actor, which reminded me that one of those actors is either currently or formerly a Scientologist, which brought to mind one of the greatest pranks ever played on me, which occurred when I was in college at UC Davis.

Way back then the town of Davis had a very active Scientology Center.  I use the term  Center deliberately – there was no “Church of Scientology” at that time,  [3]    a fact that Scientologists boastfully emphasized in their recruitment efforts.  When a Scientology proselytizer knocked on your door or approached you on the campus quad, and you as the average student/citizen had no interest in taking the time to challenge Scientology bullshit beliefs, it’s likely you’d use some version of the customary brushoff:

 “No thanks/not interested, I have my own religion.”

The eager beaver Scientologist would scoff, “Religion?!? Scientology is *not* a religion!” The Scientology recruiter would use that as an entryway into assuring their target that there’d be no conflict in learning about Scientology – “which, *not* being a religion, would not require any renouncing of your personal religious beliefs – which is a proven/effective method/philosophy combining spirituality and Science ®, to handle stress and show pathways to healthy and successful lives….”

 

 

Moiself  could (and may, eventually) share more stories re my encounters with Scientology adherents at UCD.  Instead, the afore-mentioned prank, which discerning readers will surmise has something to do with Scientology, will now take center stage.

My college boyfriend “Scott,”   [4]  no fan of any supernatural beliefs (including the religions of the dominant culture, one of which I pretended to believe in, at the time), considered Scientology to be the most egregious example of spiritual and intellectual quackery.  As a student who would go on to get undergraduate and graduate degrees in several scientific disciplines, Scott particularly objected to the cult’s organization using the word science in any way shape or form.

I knew that Scott had visited the Scientology Center at least once, to check it out, after I’d amused him with my tales of encountering Scientology recruiters on campus.  Scott and his best friend “Bruce” returned the favor, amusing moiself  and a couple of my apartment mates one evening when they showed up at our apartment, pulled out a small tape recorder from Bruce’s book bag, and played back Scott’s session with a Scientology auditor which, unbeknownst to the auditor, they had surreptitiously recorded with the tape recorder hidden in Bruce’s book bag.

The tape’s audio wasn’t all that great, but we could hear enough to be both flabbergasted and highly entertained, as the auditor asked Scott a series of questions while Scott grasped both handholds of the infamous Scientology E-Meter.

 

 

The  E-meter is (was? Are they still using that batshit crazy thang?) a crude electronic device meant to mimic a polygraph, and was used by Scientology auditors (“counselors”) to purportedly “examine a person’s mental state.”   [5]   In terms of sophisticated electronic devices, Scott described the E-meter as perhaps one or two steps above using a “telephone” consisting of two tin cans connected by kite string.

One evening about a week after Scott entertained us with the E-meter tape, I heard a knock at my apartment door.  My three roommates and I had a lot of regular visitors to our apartment, most of whom just opened the door and announced their arrival – so, someone who actually bothered to knock was something different, maybe even special.  When I opened the door I beheld a young man standing on our welcome mat.  He was carrying some kind of satchel and a piece of paper with a name and address on it.  He looked at me, then past me to my three (all-female) roommates who were in the living room, then down at his paper, then his eyes traveled back up to our apartment door.  He asked if this was 224 A St. apartment 16?  When I replied in the affirmative, he said that he was here at the behest of a man named “Victor Lazlo, who visited the Scientology Center and expressed a desire to  ‘get clear.’ “

VICTOR LAZLO ?!?!?!   [6]

Had I been sipping a beverage there’s no way I could have avoided a classic spit take.

 

 

Young Scientology Man seemed undeterred by my and my roommates’ scarcely muffled guffaws.  I got rid of him by throwing him a bone, something ala, “Oh, yeah, Victor – he moved back on campus,” and giving him the dorm address of a male friend of mine.   [7]

 

 

*   *   *

And Now, The More/Eventually Story To Be Shared

Moiself  was fairly adept at deflecting the various proselytizers that you’d typically find on a college campus in the late 1970s.  The usual suspects included Christian evangelicals, Hare Krishnas, survivors acolytes of EST (the devotees of which were referred to as ESTholes by the rest of us), even Rolfing.

 

 

Yes, really.  Strange, how something which started out as a kind of massage/physical therapy devolved into claiming it could provide physical and mental health benefits by balancing the human body’s “energy field”…stranger still was the number of rabid Rolfers moiself  encountered at UCD.

Once again, I digress.

As entertaining as Rolfers and ESTholes could be (for EST, read: annoying over entertaining), after my first encounter with a L. Ron Hubbard patsy devotee, shaming and/or battling Scientologist recruiters was, for a brief but glorious time, my forte.

That first encounter occurred on one late autumn night during my freshman year, when moiself  decided to take a study break outside.  Reveling in the briskness of a chilly but non-rainy, non-cloudy evening, I sat on a small grassy knoll outside of my dorm, and enjoyed the peace of looking up at the stars twinkling (they really do that) in the crystal clear sky.  I enjoyed the solitude; save for some guy on the patio by the dorm entrance ( he was fiddling with his bicycle – changing a tire? ) I had the grounds to moiself.

 

 

After about five minutes I noticed two people walking on one of the paved paths which led from the central campus to the student living complexes (which included my dorm).  They saw me, exchanged brief words with each other, and the guy headed toward me while the girl headed for the guy on the dorm patio.

This, I was later to learn, was the MO  for Scientology recruiters:  establishing an “in” with the possibility of heterosexual flirting.  Translation: if you were female, a male Scientologist would seek you out, and if you were male, a female Scientologist would be your initial “encounter.” Of course, I didn’t know he was a Scientologist at first glance, but he soon revealed his motives.

My Scientology would-be boytoy was handsome, friendly, and persistent in trying to establish a rapport with me.  He began a (one-way) conversation in which he tried to elicit from moiself  some hidden reasons as to why I was outside at night, sitting on the grass, alone.  Perhaps there was something troubling me, with school, or my life?  He used to feel alone, even confused, until he found something that made a huge difference…and he’d like to share that with me.

 

 

Moiself  found him amusing (which was not his intent), but basically harmless; he was only slightly nonplussed when I told him that, sorry to disappoint him, but there was nothing ulterior about my mood or motives – I’d just come outside for a study break, to be alone (AHEM) and savor a few moments of non-academic peace before heading back to finish a paper.

When I returned to my dorm I told several friends and dormmates about the encounter.  I found out that what to me was a new experience – being “hit on” by a Scientologist – was a common thing for many students.  Upon hearing their stories, I became genuinely curious about those wacky Xenu   [8]  fans, and sought out the opinions/experiences of resident advisors, professors, local journalists, and journalism students.  One of my journalism-crowd friends (MJCF) interned with and later wrote for the LA Times, where he established a relationship with an older LAT  reporter who’d known L. Ron Hubbard, the sci fi writer who founded Scientology.  The older writer is one of several people who’d heard Hubbard’s declaration, “You don’t get rich writing science fiction.  If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”  MJCF also told me how Scientologists used threats and intimidation and aggressive lawyering, against journalists and civilians, to quell investigations into their organization.  Eventually I went to the university library to expand my research, further developing my interest –  “interest” as in the kind of morbid curiosity which makes you turn your head to look at a gruesome traffic accident as you drive past the carnage – in the organization.

During my sophomore year I moved from the dorms to an off-campus apartment.  My apartment mates and I subscribed to the local Davis newspaper.  The Scientology Center in Davis bought advertisements in the paper, which consisted of a questionnaire ( “personality test”) which was inserted, along with ads for the local grocery stores and other advertising inserts.

 

 

The Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA), also known as the American Personality Analysis, is a list of questions which is advertised as being a personality test and that is administered for free by the Church of Scientology as part of its recruitment process….It has no relation to the University of Oxford, although the name may have been chosen to imply a link.
The test is an important part of Scientology recruitment and is used worldwide by the Church of Scientology to attract new members. However, it is not a scientifically recognized test and has been criticized by numerous psychology organizations, who point out that it is not a genuine personality test and that Scientology recruiters use it in a highly manipulative and unethical fashion.
( Wikipedia entry for OCA )

 

 

That insert, along with the other ad flyers, usually got tossed by whichever apartment mate picked up the newspaper.  One night a friend and I read through the questionnaire before tossing it.  It was hilarious.  We joked about actually filling it out, turning it in to the Scientology Center, and seeing what would happen.  But I had another idea.

I was taking a required class for my major – the name of the class escapes me, but it had to do with statistical/data gathering and data analysis, including survey and questionnaire design.  [9]    One day I stayed after class and presented the professor with the Scientology personality test.  He literally squealed with joy as he read through it, and begged to keep my copy – he said he wanted to use it in his next class session, as the ultimate example of a poorly designed questionnaire.  It was filled with at least a dozen examples of questionnaire design no-nos, including double- and even triple-ended questions; questions that require presumptive or unknown knowledge; questions framed as yes or no questions but which could not be truthfully answered with a yes or no….

The professor thanked me profusely for providing him with what he said was hard to come by – a real life example of shoddy questionnaire design.  He said that typically, when he’d get to the vital topic of questionnaire and survey composition, students were bored by the subject, particularly if they only had theoretical examples to discuss.  Sure enough, one day the following week he devoted a good deal of his class lecture time to presenting and discussing that epitome of an excruciatingly poorly designed questionnaire, which, he crowed, contained within it every example he’d been teaching us re the type of substandard and misleading questions which would give you faulty data.

 

 

During my years years living in off-campus apartments, while spurning the other religious proselytizers who’d occasionally darken my doorstep, I maintained a soft spot in my heart for the pathetic Lost Boys of Scientology.  I learned as much as I could stomach about the cult, and actually invited a few newbies (who were fulfilling some kind of mission duty by doing the door-to-door thing, which they readily admitted to when I questioned them about it) into my apartment.  After charming/disarming them with my  joi de ivre and seeming interest, I peppered them with info they didn’t know, including Scientology history, the whereabouts of L. Ron ( who at that point in time had seemingly disappeared     [10]  ), and questions and critiques about and of the cult that they could not counter.  At that point most of them left skid marks getting away from me and out the apartment door, although one memorable, forlorn soul meekly and gratefully accepted my referral to the UCD student mental health center ( for help in getting clear of Scientology ).

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

My children know how to distinguish fact from fiction — which is harder for children raised religious. They don’t assume conventional wisdom is true and they do expect arguments to be based on evidence. Which means they have the skills to be engaged, informed and savvy citizens.

(  excerpt from “America doesn’t need more God. It needs more atheists.”
Opinion, Washington Post 10-3-23, by Kate Cohen, columnist and author of
We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe [and maybe you should, too] )

 

 

 

*   *   *

May we stop pretending to believe what we don’t think is true;
May we stay clear of cult recruitment;
 May we remember that cults are just religions
with less money/influence/effective public relations;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] In olden days referred to as “the six handshakes” principle, Six degrees of separation is the theory the idea that anyone can be connected to any other person via six or fewer social connections – that is, a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.  For example, let’s say that, despite having never been to China or having met him, moiself  claims to have a connection to Chairman Mao Zedong, to whom I am connected, six-degrees style, via my sister-in-law who is from Canton, whose great uncle was an aide to a vice president of the Chinese communist party who served under Mao.  (BTW, my SIL is from Canton, but that’s the only part of that example that is true….I think).

[2] An actor who was not mentioned in the podcast…but, there it is.

[3] The Internal Revenue Service did not recognize Scientology as a “charitable and religious organization” until 1993, after a 37-year dispute and controversial negotiations.

[4] Not his real name.

[5] As in, if used by a properly trained (ahem) auditor, the device can allow the operator to “see a thought”  and uncover hidden lies and other thought “crimes. “

[6] A key character in the movie Casablanca, Victor Lazlo (played by Paul Heinreid) was the heroic Czechoslovakian resistance leader, and unintended rival to (Humphrey Bogart’s) Rick Blaine for the affections of Ilsa Lund, Lazlo’s wife (played by Ingrid Bergman).

[7] Damn! All these years later, I think I’d forgotten to ask them if the guy ever showed up.

[8] Xenu is a figure in the secretive “Advanced Technology” teaching.  The story of Xenu is normally/only revealed to members who have completed a lengthy  and expensive sequence of courses – Scientology avoids mentions of Xenu in public statements and has tried to maintain the story’s confidentiality…but, hello, internet and ex-Scientologists spilling the beans.

[9] The class was as hair-pullingly boring exciting as it sounds, but vitally important for budding grad students in the social sciences (I was prelaw, majoring in Criminal Justice major). 

[10] (excerpt from Wikipedia Life of L. Ron Hubbard from 1975 to 1986: “….Hubbard went into hiding while his wife Mary Sue ran the Guardian’s Office. During this period, his second son committed suicide, two (Scientology) agents were caught in the act of theft at IRS headquarters as part of the Church’s Operation Snow White, the FBI simultaneously raided two Scientology compounds on opposite sides of the USA, discovering 90,000 incriminating documents and tools of burglary and espionage. The criminal trial of 11 high-ranking Scientologists resulted in prison sentences for all, including Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue. Hubbard was an unindicted co-conspirator and remained in hiding until his death in 1986.

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

Older Entries Newer Entries