That would be, Nobody Wants This, a Netflix comedy series. Summary: romantic, professional, cultural, and family shenanigans ensue as a relationship develops between an opinionated, religion-free podcaster and a progressive Jewish rabbi who needs his new love to convert to his religion if he is to become head rabbi of his temple.
Nobody Wants This was recommended to me, and has an actor in it whose previous work I’d enjoyed, [1] so moiself gave the series a go. As I struggled through episode 8 (out of 10) I realized how apt the title was…for me. Nobody (or at least, moiself ) wants this – that is, to feel what I am feeling, as I am watching the show, which is…
Is it me, or is it the show?
Yep, a silly romcom made me feel something I have never, ever, felt: if I’d grown up under a cultural rock and knew nothing about Judaism and had never had any Jewish friends or neighbors or classmates or coworkers, and NWT was my introduction to Jewish culture – this show might be a stealth primer on antisemitism.
The actors are all competent and good-looking…but holy Hadlakat Hanerot, [2] the majority of the Jewish females are written as alarmingly unattractively characters. They are bigoted (very anti-shiksa, an epithet freely and frequently employed in the show) and stereotyped (concerned with money, getting married, and keeping up appearances, and if they are married they are tempermental princesses who run roughshod over their husbands).
“Let’s practice the kicking-the-shiksa polka!”
And the conversion plotline I found to be ick, as in, creepy. Sure, it’s played for comic effect, but I found it insulting to both sides – to believers and to those who are religion-free – as in this case, to the shiksa and the Jew-who-wants-his-non-Jewish girlfriend to convert. Yeah, let’s have the atheist character be so flip that she considers “converting”– after all, since she doesn’t believe in anyone’s gods she can just as well not believe in a Jewish god to please her hot boyfriend! And besides, those Jews have such nice rituals and throw such great parties (which is how the rabbi and his brother plot to get the rabbi’s GF to consider converting: “Show her the fun stuff first!”). It’s not like anyone might seriously consider that this *fun* stuff is based on ancient/primitive stories and superstitions which some folk nevertheless take seriously and therefore it might be just a tad respectful to ponder whether or not the convert-ee even wants to pretend that those things are true or at least relevant to her life and/or this century….
One of the side plotsin Nobody Wants This, about preparations for the rabbi’s niece’s bat mitzvah, was equally stomach-curdling for me to watch. I didn’t see that the ritual meant anything to anyone participating/planning it, aside from the pressure to throw a really big party ($$$) and impress your friends ($$$) and have the right dress ($$$) and a “theme” (Seriously? Like a Halloween party?), and you have to make sure it isn’t a theme someone else has done or is doing….
Watching Nobody Wants This reminded me of how queasy/uncomfortable I felt, several years ago, when I was reading about another person’s less-than-flattering perspective re her father’s culture. It was the memoir of a bicultural writer and actor, the daughter of a Black, non-religious mother and White, Jewish father. She spent alternating years with each parent after they divorced when she was seven years old; she felt estranged from both parents, for different reasons. [3] After the birth of her own child she had a nasty, public falling out with her mother. Her father’s family, while seemingly welcoming to (or at least tolerant of) her, left her with a bad taste in her mouth re their Jewish religion (or perhaps their culture, would be a better word), which, in her observation and interpretation, consisted of being very little concerned with spirituality and overly concerned with financial success.
Moiself doesn’t know anything about Nobody Wants This‘s creator(s) or writer(s) or director(s), but I’m thinking that they have to be Jewish in order to get away with the stereotypes. Could a goy write such material and not get called out on it? No matter the source, and despite some witty dialogue and truly comic situations, I just got more and more creeped out by the material as a whole. I gave it a try, but in the end – the end of the series I didn’t make it to – yeah, *this* nobody doesn’t want this.
* * *
Department Of And Then, There Is This….
Possibly the best Meaning of Life ® metaphor moiself has heard, can be found in definitely one of the best podcast episodes I’ve listened to: from the NY Times Modern Love’s, “Andrew Garfield Wants to Crack Open Your Heart.”
The metaphor comes not from Mr. Garfield, but from the NY Times essay he reads for the podcast: “Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss,” by Chris Huntington. Perhaps you’d rather not listen to the podcast; that’s okay. Read the essay, if only so that you can understand that when we acknowledge the ultimate Human Problem® – which is that we can’t hold on to anything; life is all a letting go, and therefore the wisest, most heartfelt, and compassionate [4] approach to life we can take is,
Be the best prisoner you can be.
* * *
Department Of Just Wondering, #389 in A Never-Ending Series:
Why Do Human Beings Do This?
KC is telling her friend (or spouse or parent or coworker or…) JP about how KC is feeling down about something negative that has happened to her. Why does JP reply, “Oh, don’t be so so sad – there are plenty of people out there who are worse off,” or “C’mon, it’s not like you have a cancer, or are losing your home and will be living on the streets,” or use another comparison which brings up the hypothetical or actual troubles of other people?
Why do we essentially imply that there is a hierarchy of woe in the world, and if what’s troubling you is not at the top of the list ( Are you a starving child in war torn Somalia? Do you have a brain tumor? ) then whatever is troubling you is not that awful. Why the comparison to outside situations? Why is your particular trouble not worthy, to you, and to your situation, of the sadness it evokes in you? Why the need for comparison – it is a ham-fisted intent to supposedly lift you up (or shut you up)?
And why do people *not* do that in situations which evoke opposite – as in, positive – emotions?
Imagine KC telling JP how happy she is about something new and great in her life (her job promotion, new romantic interest, the Siamese kitten she has always wanted, or other good fortune that has come to her), and JP replying, “Now, don’t be so happy – there are plenty of people out there far better off than you….”
“The place to be happy is here; The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to help make others so.”
( Robert Ingersoll, [1833-1899]
American writer, attorney, orater, civil and women’s and freethought activist,
“the most noted of American infidels.” )
Not a picture of Ingersoll, but a baby sloth playing peek-a-boo makes me happy, right now.
* * *
May we be happy in the here and now;
May we think twice before sharing our things-could-be-worse perspective;
May we strive to be “the best prisoners” we can be;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
[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
From 1-12-2018, to be precise. Moiself was searching through past blog posts, looking for a certain reference, when I came upon this:
* * *
Department Of I Have Her Permission To Post About This
The joys of listening to your children babble in a post-surgical, [1] pain-medicated, happy voice are not to be underestimated. How MH and I wish we’d thought to record son K on his ride home from the oral surgeon’s office, those many years ago. We remembered to do so when it came Belle’s turn to have her wisdom teeth removed, and although she had some random non sequiturs of note, at least (to our knowledge) she did not propose to her nurse:
We’ve discovered that opportunities for the gathering of anesthesia-induced babbling memories do not fade with age, and are perhaps even more enjoyable when your children are young adults. Last Friday afternoon, Belle underwent a procedure which required general anesthesia. After MH and I were allowed to see her in the post-op recovery room, I did not record her ramblings (Belle was with it enough to object to that), but did manage to take a few notes. There are some gems I know I missed, mostly because, I just wanted to be present to enjoy the stream of conscious moments caused by her brain only partially connecting with her mouth.
* “Is there boob PT? (After MH and I told Belle that the upper floors of the building she was in were dominated by orthopedic surgeons and PTs – psychical therapists.)
* “It stays on for THREE DAYS.” Belle pointed to the anti-nausea patch the anesthesiologist had placed on the side of her neck, then lowered her voice to a solemn whisper. “That’s a lotta days!”
* Belle said the nurses told her she was talking about bear heads
( “Let me tell you about the grizzly bear head…” ),
and that they don’t get many people who talk about bear heads. [2]
* “Do you remember when people were, like, in the future,
everything will be chrome?
It didn’t happen. I think they meant stainless steel.”
“I’d like to be Spider-Man.”
Moiself: “But you don’t like spiders.”
“No sir, I do not. But, I appreciate spiders.”
* “Seth Meyers is like a marshmallow, with good hair.”[3]
While waiting for the nurse to remove her IV, Belle began to describe to MH and I, with great seriousness, how the cycle of banana mitosis and meiosis indicates that bananas can tell time. The morning after her surgery, I asked Belle if she remembered doing that. She said she didn’t, but that it’s no surprise because,
Why carry a watch when you can just ask the banana on your head what time it is?
( blog excerpt from The Bullet List I’m Not Embracing, 1-12-2018 )
* * *
Department Of The Rituals Of Autumn
Raking leaves; pressing cider; going to the U-pick pumpkin farm and then a corn maze; hiking through Hoyt Arboretum trails to see the brilliant red-orange-golden fall foliage; attending an Oktoberfest or Harvest celebration; watching “When Harry Met Sally“; finding a coven of witches to cast spells on GOP vice presidential candidates….
These are all beautiful and beloved) traditions in their own way, but somewhat pedestrian compared to the I-bet-you-that-moiself-is-the-only-person-with-this-particular-ritual:
The Getting Out Of The The Clear/Strengthening Nail Polish From Last Year
(Hoping It Hasn’t Congealed), And Beginning Weekly Applications Of Polish
To My Right Hand’s Pinkie Fingernail ® .
This particular finger of mine even has its own Facebook page [5] Please remember: I’m showing you my finger, not giving you the finger.
Hard to tell in the light, even with the profile and “headshot,” but the tip of my right pinkie finger is angled right about 20 degrees to the left, and the fingernail is split vertically about two centimeters left of center. How did that happen, inquiring minds want to know?
My older sister NL and I were playing a game of chase inside our Santa Ana house. NL was almost twice as tall as me, and was twice as old (three years to my 18 months); nevertheless, I was the chaser. NL fled down the hallway and into the bathroom. She slammed the bathroom door and locked it, failing to realize,that I had reached out to try and grab her at the last minute, and when she slammed the door shut she’d inadvertently crushed my right little finger, from the top joint to the tip, between the door and the door jamb.
My ensuing, bone-chilling shrieks [6] attracted the attention of our parents, who convinced NL to unlock the door. They rushed me to the doctor, who examined the pulverized pinkie and pronounced, “It’ll need to be amputated….hmm. Well, maybe….” In a Nobel-Prize worthy moment of inspiration, the doctor reached for his miracle salve (Vaseline), [7] dabbed it on the top of moiself’s smooshed finger, and wrapped the damaged digit with gauze. Doc advised my parents to keep the bandaged finger dry – no peeking! – and return in two weeks, or sooner if the finger started to smell like last year’s ham sandwich.
Two weeks later the unveiling revealed that the tip of my finger had partially re-formed itself, and thus was spared its date with the guillotine.
So, I grew up with a Funny Finger ® . While admittedly un-decorative in appearance, it is largely functional, with a few exceptions (it isn’t as mobile as the other fingers, and sometimes goes into spasms or freezes up when I tightly grip something with my right hand). Besides the misshapen profile, my Six Funny Finger Facts include the following, all of which five out of six of which are true:
* Teensy, sub-dermal bone fragments are palpable on the underside of the finger
* The fingernail grows cleft from the nail bed to the edge, with the split running bottom to top in the left side of the nail, and curving down at the edge.
The fingernail’s growth is self-limiting; it tends to disintegrate (for lack of a better term) at a certain length and split on the left side.
* The tip of the finger, from the second joint up, has reduced sensation
(as compared to that of other fingers) and is prone to bouts of numbness
* During one such numbness bout, a junior high school-aged moiself discovered
that she could stick a pin in the top of that finger, sans pain. Besides giving her that certain, je ne sais quoi cachet among eighth graders. This ability
proved to be a helpful form of pest control. Waving my impaled pinkie was an effective gross-out/shoo-away to a certain cheerleader-type
who’d attempted to make me feel self-conscious by loudly broadcasting, “Ew, what’s wrong with your finger?! That is SO DISGUSTING!” in the classroom and at the lunch table.
* The tip of the finger is an effective dowser device: it pulses and emits
a series of high frequency beeps when in the proximity of an underground water supply.
* Come the dryness of the Fall and Winter seasons, the funny finger’s nail cracks,
at the top and along the split, sometimes painfully. Moiself found this solution:
I apply a couple of layers of clear polish to the nail on a weekly basis,
which seems to minimize the cracking and splitting.
* * *
* * *
Department of Anomalous Accolades
What is the most curious strangest compliment y’all have ever received?
This question comes from myhaving recently overheard someone in a public place tell a friend about the backhanded compliment[8] her in-law had given her. This brought to mind two compliments moiself has received – accolades which were truly meant, by the giver, to be positive, but which nevertheless had a rather odd, weeellllllll….oooookkkkaaay, you-don’t-hear-that-every-day quality to them:
(1) “You have a poster-quality cervix!” ( Context: spoken by a nurse practitioner, in aSo Cal Planned Parenthood clinic where I
was a volunteer. I’d offered to help with staff training and evaluation; [9]
upon completing the pelvic exam she’d performed upon moiself the NP pushed her chair back from the exam table,
pointed to the female reproductive anatomy poster on the exam room wall, and exclaimed that
my cervix looked *exactly* like the one in the picture. )
(2): “You’re really good at filling your bladder!” ( Context: spoken by the ultrasound technician at the beginning of my fourth ultrasoun
in three weeks, during the ninth month of my Belle pregnancy. A full bladder, while torture to a pregnant woman
in her third trimester, helps elevate the uterus in the abdominal cavity,
which provides better ultrasound imaging. [10] )
* * *
Oh, but speaking of accolades….
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. [11]
“The religion/ politics dichotomy is a false one. It isn’t that politics has no role; it’s that politics is simply inseparable from the Abrahamic religions.
Religion is politics. That was the case during the Barbary confrontation in 1786, and it’s the case with the Israel-Palestine conflict now. Throughout history,
religion has simply been an excuse looking for a conflict.”
May you remember to have a notepad ready when picking up someone who is still under the effects of anesthesia; May you delight in your own autumn rituals; May you never have a reason for to be praised for your skill at filling your bladder ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] This is contingent upon having surgery for something relatively minor, ala wisdom teeth removal.
[2] This one makes sense to me, and probably was not the non sequitur the nurses thought it to be: Belle has prepped, stuffed, and mounted a grizzly bear head in her work as a docent for her college’s natural history museum.
[3] I likely sparked that comment by mentioning that Seth Meyers was hosting the Golden Globe Awards show.
[5] Or used to. It was deactivated; now, it lives again.
[6] The great thing about this story, besides being a great story, is that I was so young I have no memory of it, and thus no memory of the pain.
[7] If he’d been Greek, I wonder if he would have used Windex?
[8] As in, a compliment which is not really a compliment at all (e.g. your boss telling you that the memo you wrote was “surprisingly coherent.”)
[9] “The new doctor is friendly, forthright, and competent, but she needs to trim her fingernails….”
[10] I had pneumonia during my 9th month of pregnancy, and my belly’s fundal height – a measurement of the distance from the top of the uterus to the pubic bone, which is used to assess fetal development and estimate gestational age – had remained static for three weeks.
[11] 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.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
*I don’t drink fancy brews made from artisanal, on-site-roasted coffee beans.
* I don’t see what the big deal is aboutThe Goonies.
* It is difficult to imagine moiself caring less about the University of Oregon and the Oregon State University football teams (respectively, The Ducks and The Beavers).
* I am nice to Californians.
* Yeah, that Goonies, phenom is strange. Have you ever been around a Goonies extremist enthusiast? I just don’t get it. Many Oregonians – and Goonies fans from other states, who make pilgrimages out here to see “the Goonies house,” etc. – absolutely lose their shit over that 1985 movie (which was set in Astoria[2] and filmed in Astoria and nearby Cannon Beach).
* * *
Department Of I Forgive At Least One Tesla Owner
* * *
Department Of Food For Thought
Dateline: one afternoon last week, exercising while the TV is on, watching an old Western movie. During a commercial break, a long [3] fund-raising advertisement came on for Help God‘s people.org, sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The ad’s narrator spoke of talking “the urgent need for” food and other supplies by the “… over 100,000 Jews, who have become refugees in their own land.”
And I find moiself thinking, Uh, that’s an interesting choice of words, considering that that is what the Palestinians feel like, as well, and have felt like since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
I was both fascinated and repulsed by the ad, as one can be when a police officer waves you past a bloody multi-car accident and you know you shouldn’t gawk, but you do. [4] Voice-overs accompanied multiple scenes of sad and weeping Israelis (mostly women, children, elderly) while referencing how viewers can and should help out God’s people.
Hmmm. And by hmmm I mean, Oh, puleeeeze. If they – the Israelis – really are God’s People, why the plea for other people to help out – why isn’t their god helping them? Guess being The Chosen Ones ® is worth diddly squat when it comes to being safe and secure in The Promised Land. ® Where is the benefit, the special attachments, that come with the label, God’s people?
I’m not making fun of the hardship of those Israelis, or of any people. Rather, it’s a frustrating situation, considering the very same case can be made for “the other side,” who of course think that *they* (Palestinians; Arabs; Muslims) are *their* god’s chosen people living “in God’s holy land.” That god – anybody’s god – evidently doesn’t think very much of its so-called holy land, seeing as how that god either brings or allows (depending on how you think an omnipotent omniscient god operates), such misery, death, and destruction to the occupants therein.
* * *
Department Of They Left Skidmarks Changing The Subject
I’ve asked (versions of) the nine questions at the end of this article to religious family and friends. Funny, how I’ve never had the questions answered (as in, the subject[s] were changed by the questionees, with almost Olympic-gymnast-quality maneuvering.) [5]
Another Great Article You Must Read ®: author Herb Silverman, founder of the Secular Coalition for America, author of Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the College of Charleston, has participated in many debates over the years with Christian leaders. Read it all (article link at the end), or just enjoy these questions ( my emphases) the next time you want a stress-free holiday dinner with your religious family members.
“Here are some questions I’ve asked opponents during debates
when I had the opportunity:
* How would your behavior toward other people change if you stopped believing in a god who judges your actions?
* Which is more important, belief or behavior?
* What is the purpose of eternal torture?
* Do you believe that the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust just moved from one furnace to another?
* If you have free will in Heaven, can you sin there and go to Hell? If you don’t have free will in Heaven, will it really be you, or a robot?
* If you don’t understand why God acts as he does and if he is so mysterious and beyond human comprehension, how can you make
any claims about him or his existence?
* Does God change his mind because of a prayer based on something he didn’t think of or anticipate?
* If God allowed 50,000 children to die of starvation today,
why should he listen to your prayers?
* There have been countless natural explanations that have replaced supernatural ones. Can you give an example where people once thought something was natural and have now learned that it has a supernatural explanation? “
Are you of those people who downplays the role chance plays in your life? If so, why do you have insurance policies – life, health, auto, rental, mortgage – of any kind? [6]
“Chance events not only change lives, they can change history – as when a Soviet sailor’s briefly stuck foot prevented a potential nuclear catastrophe. You can’t predict when luck, good or bad, will intervene. But you can learn to take advantage of it.”
An excerpt from their discussion:
Alda: “…to sum up what I’ve learned from (your) book, it seems to me that whatever chance puts in front of you, what you do with that is kind of important. Whether it’s something good that happens or something bad that happens.”
Mark Rank: “That’s right. And that’s where kind of we get this interaction of, things can happen that are beyond our control, but how do we respond to those things? Do we take advantage of them or do we learn the lessons that that might be there? So again, it’s, it’s, it’s a dynamic quality. And you know, I talk in the book about that we have this random companion with us as we dance through life. It’s our partner and, you know, our partner leads in certain ways and we lead in certain ways….there’s a dynamic interaction that happens between the two partners.”
Alda: “Yeah. To accept chance as a partner rather than as a sentence.”
Is it arrogance or ignorance which motivates the braggart to protest when words like luck are applied to describe what he views as his successes? I’m not the only person with IQ higher than my shoe size [8] who has wondered why otherwise intelligent people sometimes cannot even acknowledge the *existence* of luck, not only in the universe, but in their personal, professional, and emotional lives?
The genetic contribution of your parents is, still, [9] random, as are the fate-influencing-if-not-determining factors into which you were born, including but not limited to
*your ethnicity
* your gender
* your social and economic class
* your access to good schools and teachers
* geography (was your parents’ house downwind of an EPA toxic superfund site,
or by the shores of a pristine mountain lake?)
“You get Palm Springs, and they get Bakersfield.”
Many people attribute the random twists of circumstance as *fate,* to divine guidance or intervention, using phrases such as, It was meant to be, divinely ordained, etc., completely ignoring the mental gymnastics required to resolve the cognitive dissonance which comes from simply opening their eyes and being aware of the lives of people around them. To wit: If Your husband is on the top story of his friend’s house, helping his friend lay down a new roof, and a violent thunderstorm rolls in, bring with it a tornado, which rapidly approaches the house, then veers off. You attribute your husband’s and his friend’s survival to:
* the intervening hand of the Lord (you started praying for them as soon as you heard the tornado warning sirens)
* or other supernatural beings (“his guardian angel was looking out for him”)
* or the mysteries of the deity (“God had other plans for him”)
If you attribute your husband’s and his friend’s survival to some kind of divine intervention or plan, you have conveniently ignored the fact that after the tornado swung away from your friend’s house it headed across the street and into another neighborhood, flattening one house and causing yet another house’s walls and roof to collapse and kill three of the six people hiding there, in the house’s storm cellar, praying for their loving god’s deliverance (the same god as yours).
Sorry, religious believers, but you can’t have it both ways. If you believe that your loving god is capable of directing the tornado away from your loved one and in fact did so, then you must acknowledge that the same god is also the heartless SOB who directed that tornado toward the loved ones of other people, forever altering (and in some cases, destroying) their lives.
Anyway, the podcast is a good listen on a fascinating, seemingly little discussed or researched subject. Definitely worth two hamster thumbs up.
May you accept chance as your partner in the dance of life; May you have fun making people uncomfortable with holiday dinner conversations; May you feel free to love The Goonies (but don’t try to convert me to that cult); …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Or any beer, really, beyond a sip or two of Guinness or Murphy’s Irish stouts.
[2] I thought it was mildly entertaining (more so, perhaps, if you were a kid) despite having one of the more annoying soundtracks ever penned (music constantly swelling to “NOW YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL ALARMED/EXCITED/SAD/ASTOUNDED/HEADED FOR GRAND ADVENTURES!!!!!” proportions).
[3] As in, well over the 30 sec or even one minute commercial.
[6] except for those required by law; e.g., auto insurance in some states, for some drivers, or home insurance required by your mortgage lender.
[7] Little known, cool – and scary – story expounded upon in the interview.
[8] which seems to be rising as I age – my shoe size, not necessarily my IQ.
[9] we haven’t gotten to DNA designer babies… yet.
[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Hey Weather, A Forty Degree Differential? Is This Really Necessary?
* * *
Department Of Back To School…No Thanks
The first morning I saw the school buses back on the road, moiself overheard a conversation between two parents, whose children are past school age, about “what they miss most” about the school years. An equally interesting conversation, I thought, would be what you do *not* miss about those years. Definitely at the top of my school memories list is what happened to daughter Belle, one day during her sophomore year of high school. Here is the email moiself sent at the time (sans graphics), detailing the incident to certain friends. [1]
* * *
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 11:59 PM Subject: If you don’t read this all the way through, the (school bureaucrat) terrorists have won
Dateline, yesterday (Tuesday, April 10). MH took Belle to a first-thing-in-the-morning doctor’s appointment (to check on Belle’s knee that she had injured at track practice the previous week). The appointment would, we estimated, cause her to miss her first class and arrive a little bit late for her second class at Liberty High School (LHS). In accordance with LHS policy, we’d phoned the attendance office earlier that morning re Belle’s appointment and late arrival to school. When MH dropped Belle off at school after her appointment Belle followed the protocol for such arrivals: she went straight to the attendance office, picked up her excused absence/late arrival form, and took it to her 2nd period class.
Essential background info: Many LHS classrooms, and also staff break rooms, have microwave ovens. Unbeknownst to the major players in the story that is to follow, someone at LHS had used one of the microwaves in the staff room that morning, had spilled/burned whatever it was they were trying to heat, then did a less-than-adequate job of cleaning up their mess. The smell got worse over the next few hours, as other people proceeded to use the appliance…. Anyone who has ever shared a common break room/office microwave knows how that goes (I remember it well – the worst was someone’s seven times re-nuked tuna salad. Ick, to infinity.).
Bear with me; this gets more interesting.
Ten minutes after Belle had settled into her second period class, a school security guard entered the classroom, spoke with the teacher, and escorted Belle to the office of SM__, the LHS Dean of Students. (MH and I, working in our respective offices, at Intel and at home, were of course oblivious to this.)
I received a phone call at 10:30 am from SM___. (Disclosure: we know the Dean of Students, SM__, personally; or rather, we are friends with her elderly parents). She is calling, SM__ said, about Belle. It seems that after Belle arrived at school, “a couple of people” reported that Belle smelled of marijuana, and so Belle was brought to the Dean’s office and her person and book packs searched (yes, plural: Belle carries multiple packs, what with her books/school supplies and track shoes and clothing). No trace of Evil Weed ® nor drugs of any kind were found (duh), but, in the course of the search, a murderous machete teeny tiny multipurpose tool (Leatherman’s smallest, their micra multi tool, which is standard issue for all hominid members of our household) was found at the bottom of one of Belle’s book packs.
The school district’s policy is the infamous “zero tolerance” on “weapons” of any kind…and although Belle “should” be suspended from school for a day, Dean SM__told me that she’d decided to give Belle after-school detention (“it was the smallest knife we’d ever seen.”). The horrendous threat to national security mini-pocketknife was confiscated, and would be kept at the attendance office, for either MH or I to identify and claim it.
I must confess I was stifling laughter during the Dean’s phone call, from shock as well as bemusement and bewilderment. Thus, I neglected to ask all the questions that just begged to be posed (like, Excuse me, WHO made the marijuana accusations?). The illicit switchblade pocketknife was just a stupid mistake. Belle, like all students, knows the silly rule about no “weapons.” She takes her Leatherman tool to her weekend zoo shifts, where she uses it to trim goat dingleberries and whatever. [2] She keeps a separate bag for her zoo stuff, but on busy days things get transferred from one bag to another…and in her rush to get all her stuff and go to the doctor’s appointment, she grabbed the wrong bag that day.
After I’d hung up from the phone call with Dean SM__ I called MH, to let him know what was going on (and ask him, uh, had the doctor rubbed any strange-smelling liniment or ointment on Belle’s knee, or was she wearing any lotion that might smell like…what am I saying?) Oh…are you serious? MH was as bemused as I. Belle’s going to be really upset about this, he cautioned. I told him I was going to figure out a time to go and see the Dean and straighten this ridiculous thing out…unless he, the more likely of the two of us who would be able to keep the Are you people insane?!?!?!?!? look off of his face, would like to do the honors. He laughed, and declined.
I sent a quick email to our friend (and family attorney), Jane, [3] re the situation, then received a text from Belle, which started the following exchange.
Belle: I can’t believe this.
Moiself: How’s my favorite little dope smoker?
Belle: Oh my gosh I want to cry.
Moiself: Are you at lunch? Don’t message in class…and don’t cry, don’t worry; you’ll look back on this & laugh.
Belle: I’ll call you at passing time.
Belle tried to call me between classes, but the reception was bad, and the calls kept getting dropped. She was able to text again a few minutes later.
Belle: I’m soooooo pissed right now!! I don’t want a stupid detention!!
Moiself: Call me!
Belle: I can’t, class just started. I’ll call when I go to the bathroom or something.
Moiself: Remember to breathe – and laugh. You’ll be fine – I love you.
Belle: Thanks! And by the way – I DON’T SMOKE WEED!!!
Moiself: I know you don’t…but maybe one of the attendance office staff does. 😉
Turns out, my little comment was close to the truth. As I found out later, it was one of the attendance office staff who’d made the accusation.
In the meantime, Attorney Friend Jane replied to my email (which I had titled, Just wait until your daughter is in public school). The core of her reply, with much censoring and redacting, follows:
“Oh, for ______’s sake. REALLY? REALLY?!!
Poor Belle – I mean, it’s a great story for six months or years from now, but I’m sure she’s mortified/furious/hurt.
I’m glad the Dean of Students is an acquaintance, because most schools have zero tolerance policies that would have gotten her the suspension.
The lawyer in me (who only has a passing acquaintance with school law) says:
She has due process rights.
That would include a right to confront accusers.
So you/she should be told who made the accusations.
And whether there was, in fact probable cause and/or reasonable suspicion (I can’t remember what it is for schools).
Because she also has a right to unreasonable searches.
If the original basis for the search is invalid, the search is invalid.
Therefore, there would be no finding of the machete. I mean, penknife.
Therefore, no discipline.
…If it were my kid, I would only really go down this road if you determine something goes in her official file, because of course that should be expunged. Unless it is very important to Belle.”
I received another text from Belle, right before she was about to get out of class for lunch, just as I finished reading Jane’s email. I began to ponder the mystery of what was it that someone smelled that got Belle accused of being a stoner.
Belle: Wow, right now the entire school smells like a mixture of weed and burning stuff.
Moiself: Really? Are you about to go to lunch?
Belle: Yea. When they were searching me they mentioned that they had received a few other comments about weed smell. I wonder if that was it. Cause it REEEEEEEEEKS in here.
Moiself: CALL ME RIGHT NOW!
Belle: Sorry – class almost over. I’ll call ya in 5.
She did, and this time the call wasn’t dropped. The puzzle pieces were starting to fit in: some other students had told Belle what the smell was from (the microwave spill story). Belle said she’d noticed the smell in the hallway in the morning, when she came to school after her appointment and checked in at the attendance office. So, when Belle opened the door to the attendance office (which is closed off from the main hallway), the smell came in with her.
I told her to go, RIGHT NOW, to the Dean of Students (whose office is behind the attendance office, far away from the main hallway) and tell her that! Belle was very reluctant to do so; she said that, as a student, she didn’t think she would be believed, but I encouraged her to stand up for herself for being falsely accused, speak calmly, rationally…and to tell Dean SM___ that I would be stopping by to talk with her.
Belle (text at the end of lunch: I tried talking to her, but she didn’t seem to get that I thought they searched me under wrong pretenses or whatever. Maybe you’ll have more luck.
Twenty minutes later I was at the school main office. I asked to see Dean SM___ . “The Dean is with someone in her office right now; do you have an appointment?” one of the narcs attendance ladies asked. “Nooooooo,” sez I, baring my teeth, with an angelic smile. “My name is Robyn Parnell; I’m Belle _____’s mother.” “Oh,” attendance lady lowered her voice, “I know what you’re here for.” She scooted into a back room, emerged with Belle’s little Leatherman, handed it to me with a conspiratorial wink and grin, and seemed to think I would then shoo myself away.
“Thank you,” I said, reaching into my purse to pull out my (identical to Belle’s) matching Leatherman. “Just to let you know, I’m also ‘packing.’ Is this okay?” Attendance lady blinks several times. “I’m going to wait to speak with Dean SM__,” I told her, as I took a seat in one of the waiting area chairs, “as my daughter has been falsely accused.”
In five minutes I was escorted back to SM__’s office, where we both explained our “sides” of the incident. SM___ seemed somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing, without being apologetic. After all (and I understand this part), she was just doing her job. The point I wanted her to get, which I made several times using different tacks, is that the pocketknife thing was not the big deal to either Belle or I. Rather, our larger concern was the false accusation of contraband-smoking, which led to the needless search. What kind of evidence is needed to justify a search? I asked. Is it that someone can simply declare, “I think so and so ____ (is smoking a doobie; has stolen my calculator),” and the accused student’s belongings get searched? That gives a lot of power to, say, a disgruntled, grudge-holding student who wants to get a rival in trouble, or a paranoid, jump-to-conclusions staff member. SM__ explained that schools have legal license to operate on different grounds, for safety concerns, ad nauseum…but they do try to weigh accusations carefully (and have encountered false ones, for just the reasons I mentioned – someone trying to get someone else in trouble). One time an entire class’s book packs were searched because a teacher’s private possessions had been stolen, and you wouldn’t believe the things we found!! Blah Blah blah….
Had this been something that would have gone on Belle’s permanent record, “I don’t want to do the waving the lawyers thing at you,” I said, but my husband and I would have pursued ‘legal remedies.’ “ I was assured that a detention does not go on a student’s permanent record. Okay, fine, let Belle do the high school equivalent of staying after school to clean erasers; perhaps she’ll be more diligent about which book bag she brings where, and keep her zoo stuff separate. SM___ reminded me again that this is the first time in all of her Deanhood (not her exact words) that she has *not* suspended someone for bringing a sling blade dripping with fresh rabbit blood pocketknife to school; in fact, the school doesn’t even have a detention form for that kind of disciplinary action, as it usually merits an automatic suspension (she had to cross “suspension” off the form and write in “detention”), but, she must admit, it was the smallest blade she’d ever found….
And we have to know that if Belle brings a knife to school again (and is caught), it will be an automatic suspension (which, as I found out, also doesn’t go on any record that would be sent to colleges – nothing “behavioral” does, according to SM__, and even suspensions are expunged from a student’s record, after two years).
Well, okey dokey.
Just like when I see TSA agents preparing to do a full body cavity search on a wheelchair-bound granny whose titanium hip implant has tripped the airport security scanner, the confiscating of a teenage girl’s micro mini-Leatherman tool in no way assures me that They Are Keeping The Schools Safe For My Child ®. Ah, but such is life.
I emailed Lawyer Friend Jane with the update. Her response:
“Poor Belle. This is one of the crappiest life lessons anyone has to learn, and you’d think she could at least have waited until college to learn about the bureaucracy that grinds us all into dust….
(Also, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge from the front desk would have made me get that Leatherman out and get stabby!)
I think SM___is saying the standard for schools is reasonable suspicion, which is a lesser standard than probable cause, but given those facts, I don’t think it would rise to that. At least, I could write a really great brief arguing it didn’t; whether it does or not is up to the judge…which is another life lesson that I hope Belle doesn’t (ever) have to learn.
I had a sense that SM___ was trying her best to keep Belle out of trouble – but am kind of bewildered that suspensions aren’t actually something on a permanent record. What’s the point? It’s like when I ditched classes in high school and got suspended. Um, what? OK, I’ll go to the beach. No problem. Not on my permanent record? OK, no problem.
Anyway, I’m glad that it has a relatively good resolution, but life lessons, oy. I think you all deserve a meal out.”
Yes, another Life Object lesson for my darling daughter. Several, in fact, from this incident, including, Sadly, this won’t be the first nor the last time you will be falsely accused of something... which was to be one of the oy vey, dinner table topics of conversation last night.
Well, it didn’t qualify as a true dinner table conversation, as Belle was exhausted and just wanted to stay home to pick at leftovers. MH and I went out for Thai food because by dinner time I was (still) too pissed off to cook, and probably would have burned the halibut, and then the burr-under-his-saddle, retired cop who lives next door would have caught a whiff and thought I was cooking up methamphetamine and he’d sick the narco squad on me….
End of email
* * *
Moiself’s notes to moiself, at the time of the incident and email:
I have zero tolerance for schools’ zero tolerance policies (same for the so-called Three Strikes laws). I’m against anything that removes reasoned assessment and context from crucial situations and promotes/rewards hysteria and overreaction and subjects even minor infractions to a one-size-fits-all analysis.
Yes, it’s both more difficult and time-consuming to deal with possible disciplinary actions on a case-by-case basis. But isn’t thoughtful, careful examination and investigation of evidence what we are trying to teach our kids to do?
A mini-Leatherman is a tool; a switchblade is a weapon. Could a tiny pocketknife be used as a weapon? Of course, just as your fist or foot could. Belle’s stainless steel lunch thermos could be used to BASH SOMEONE’S HEAD IN. Her art classrooms have Exact-o knifes and other slasher weapons, and the things you can do with a pencil, or other writing implements (remember the scene in Goodfellas in which Joe Pesci takes a pen to a guy’s throat?)….
I wonder if the school administrators and security guards who rigidly enforce these over-the-top policies fully understand the contempt the students hold for them (both the policies and the enforcers) – contempt both Belle and her older brother K and their friends had told me about, well before Belle’s incident. They (school administrators and security guards) patrol the halls with their walkie-talkies on their belts, like modern day gunslingers (I might get detention for using such an analogy), hassling students for minor infractions, yet somehow managing to avoid the truly dangerous situations. “They are on such a power trip, and they never get the really bad kids,” I’ve heard many a student remark.
* * *
When I look back on it, [4] I think even more strongly what I thought at the time:
What a wasted opportunity – for the so-called adults running the school to do the right thing…
What a wasted opportunity to apologize to a young person; what a wasted opportunity to show good citizenship, good leadership, good humanity, by admitting when you are wrong and demonstrating that by doing so you are not diminishing your authority, prestige or whatever…
No one ever expressed their regret to Belle, for falsely accusing and humiliating her. Instead, they found an excuse to hold her after school… It’s like ITAL Oh, we have to do *something* in order not to appear like we’ve over-reacted,ITAL instead of what they should have done: admit their mistake, apologize, and let her go…and offer to help put everything back in her bookbag they had callously and power-trippingly dumped out on the floor.
May your most frustrating stories be tamed by time; May you never be too proud to admit you’re wrong when you’re wrong; May you survive the bureaucracy that grinds us all into dust; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[4] which isn’t often, except for what inspired this post.
[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
Department Of Boys And Girls, Can You Identify These Magazines?
Silly question. The titles are right there, on the cover, juat like any periodical, right?
Almost. Here is another example.
Girls and boys, can you note the difference?
I knew you could.
The last picture has the subscriber’s address on it and the return address of the organization; other than that, the cover is ala the proverbial brown paper wrapper. When you unfold it, you see that it is Freethought Today, the periodical for members of the FFRF – Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Several years ago I found out from a FFRF board member the reason for the *discretion*: when the FFRF first began to publish Freethought Today – with the periodical’s title and other text and graphics on the front cover, just like any other organization’s journal – many members reported that their copies often arrived in their mailboxes having been damaged. They’d been torn, graffitied, and vandalized with anti-freethought screeds, with article headlines crossed out and threats scribbled across the cover. Now, who would have motivation to do such a thing? The slogans and threats had a “Christian” (if often scatological, obscenely-worded) theological bent (repent or you f****ing ass**** atheists are going to hell/kill a commie godless bastard for Christ[1] ). The logical deduction being that it is the recipients’ Good Christian® friends, or family, or neighbors? Postal carriers and/or the U.S. P.O. mail sorters? [2]
The publishers ofChristianity Today[3] (founded by Billy Graham), U.S. Catholic (published by the Claretian Missionaries[4] ), Lutheran Lifeand other religious magazines don’t have to hide the name of their publication lest the magazines be defaced by self-righteous…who? Atheists and other “non-believers.”?
But the reason why Freethought Today cannot declare itself openly on its front covers is related to why I often put aside the FFRF newsletter when it arrives. If moiself is at all in a “tender” mood (read: disgusted with a good number of my fellow human beings), I wait until I’m feeling calmer to read it.
My attempt to explain this reticence might seem more puzzling than enlightening. It has to do with the important work that the FFRF does, via education, litigation, and persuasive advocacy. Their legal department takes on cases on behalf of its members and the public, and ending hundreds of state/church entanglement violations each year, such as prayers and proselytizing in public schools and events, and public funding for religious purposes and religious symbols on public property.
FFRF lawsuits have removed Ten Commandment displays and Jesus paintings from public schools, stopped city/school board prayer; halted school subsidy of child evangelism, and stopped censorship of freethought displays, literature, and merchandise.
Other FFRF court victories include:
Halting federal funds to a bible school offering no academic classes;
Ending millions of tax dollars used to repair and maintain churches;
Successfully suing the IRS to reinstitute investigations of church politicking. [5]
All this is good news…and all this is frustrating news – frustrating in that they shouldn’t have to do this in the first place. Each case reported in Freethought Today reminds me of previously reported incidents, and of the sad fact that, because of the sheer number of the cases they take on and the responses they get, for every family who contacts the FFRF for help [6] (re their child whose history teacher proselytizes religion and makes anti-science comments in class; re the child of Jewish parents who objected to team prayers led by her Christian soccer coach and was then shunned/harassed by her teammates….) there are hundreds more who stay quiet, not wanting to be discriminated against any more than they already are.
* * *
Department Of The Subject Of This Post
…is important enough for it to be a single subject, [7] in moiself’s opinion.
A dominant worldview – dominant in terms of numbers of the worldview’s adherents (whether by actual belief, or adherents via the inertia of culture [8] ), and not dominant due to the rationality of the worldview’s content – defines everything in terms of itself.
A dominant worldview defines everything in terms of itself. Thus, the religionists have given us the term atheist, to which they want to imbue with a plethora of malicious associations even though the word simply means “not a theist.” They’ve also provided us with non-believer, another pesky misnomer, as it, like atheist, takes a person who is *not* religious and labels them in religious terms.
There’s plenty of things I “believe” in, but religion ain’t one of them. If you are religious and looking for an umbrella term for those who are not religious, moiself, along with many other freethinking folk, prefers religion-free.
Now I must address the unasked question by including a question of my own, which is why this question – “And, what do *you* believe?” goes unasked. I can count on the fingers of my two hands (if some of the fingers were missing due to a tragic food processor accident) how many times a religion-believer, upon finding out that I am not “one of them,” shows an interest in what I do believe in. The majority simply don’t ask; they’re not interested in – or their tone and body language indicate that they are fearful of/uncomfortable with – the possible answers. They just want to know if you do or do not believe what *they* believe (so that they can accordingly shun/pray for/witness to you).
As for what moiself believes, I can’t state it any better than this :
* We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
* We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
* We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.
* We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
* We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.
* We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
* We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
* We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
* We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
* We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
* We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
* We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.
* We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.
* We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
* We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
* We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.
* We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.
* We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.
* We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.
* We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
* We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.
* * *
Department Of Anyone Looking For A Business Investment Opportunity?
I’m thinking of starting my own yoga studio, wherein students will practice in the nude. I’m going to call it, Yogi Bare.
May you take the Humanist creed to heart, no matter what your worldview is; May you appreciate your right to read uncensored periodicals; May you strive to be a good guest at the dinner party of your life; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Freethought Today also has a regular feature article, Crankmail, wherein the editors share, printed just as received (in other words, atrocious grammar/spelling/punctuation left as is) “…some of the more ‘out there’ letters and social media comments that we get.”
[2] Who had access to the journal, once it was printed and mailed?
[3] Masthead here; I’m not sure who the publisher is and which organizations the magazine currently represents, other than “evangelical Christianity.”
[4] “a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men headquartered in Rome.” (Wikipedia)
[6] Most of the plaintiffs in the FFRF lawsuits prefer to remain anonymous, due to the harassment and threats they have received when trying to address their concerns via non-legal means; e.g., going directly to their child’s school or sports team or….
[7] Although, of course, this subject encompasses about a bajillion others….
[8] persons who, if asked re religious affiliation, say that they are Christian, then when you question them re the tenants of Christian theology they either disagree with the tenets or don’t know them… but, when you bring this to their attention, they say they know they’re not Hindu or Buddhist or Jewish and this is a “Christian” country so they identify as that.
[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Dateline: Monday, 5:45 am-ish. I’d left my yoga pants on the bathroom floor overnight. As I picked them up I shook them, as moiself would with any article of clothing before putting it on, to get out the wrinkles or whatever, and a spider [1] made an athletic if somewhat startling ( to moiself) exit from one of the pant legs, where she had apparently spent a restful evening.
Or perhaps she was preparing me for a yoga pose: the Utkata Konasana variation known colloquially as, spider pose.
* * *
Department Of Just Wondering… (But Not Enough To Follow The Link For The Ad)
Dateline: Tuesday morning, 5:37 AM. After finishing the last of my New York Times word games I went on to another word game: Waffle. After finishing the daily word waffle, an advertisement popped up on my phone screen. The ad consisted of graphic of a black spider with long spindly legs, along with the phrase, “Way to stop spiders.”
Although I quickly scrolled past that on my way to the waffle royale, [2] I was distracted by, and kept thinking about, the ad’s grammatically imprecise teaser:
Way to stop spiders.
Huh? Way to stop spiders? As in, *a* way or *the best* way to stop spiders, as opposed to a slang-ish congratulatory phrase one might confer upon an exterminator:
( Duuuude, way to stop spiders! )
And if it’s the former, “stop spiders” from…what, exactly? From merely existing? From getting inside your house? From…
* building their webs across the armrests of your TV chair?
* weaving their web in the corner of your living room and successfully reproducing so that when their egg sac hatches around Christmas time dozens if not hundreds of baby spiders burst forth and land on your Christmas tree? [3]
* crawling inside your yoga pants and startling you in the morning (ahem)?
* inviting their spider friends over to sample and then critique your steamed mixed veggies with Indonesian style peanut sauce?
* going down the rabbit hole of political psychosis and weaving tiny red hats instead of webs and screaming at you at the top of their thin, quavery, high-pitched arachnid voices, “Oh look, Karen, it’s another bleeding heart woke liberal!” when you open the door and shoe out a fly that had gotten inside your kitchen instead of squashing the fly with a rolled-up issue of last month’s The Atlantic ?
Like I said, I didn’t follow the link, so I guess we’ll all just have to speculate.
Not that I have anything against spiders wearing hats.
* * *
Department Of Olympic Reflections
As previously noted in this space, I love watching the Olympic Games, both the summer and winter versions. I saw many outstanding performances in these summer games; among my favorites was the men’s 5000-meter race. I found moiself, much to my surprise and embarrassment, shouting at my TV screen ( “WTF?!?!? WT effin’ F is he doing – how can he just do that?!?!!?! “) as I watched the Norwegian entrant, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, with less than 600 meters left in the race and seemingly hemmed in by the other runners, shift into a gear that the other runners – including the four ahead of him – did not seem to have. And he looked so casual while doing it; it’s as if he suddenly reminded himself, Oh, sure, you betcha, it’s time for me to get in front. And as the other runners gasped and flailed with effort, Ingebrigtsen just…ran faster.
“To do: Check the lefse and pickled herring supply when you get home; get a new setdesdal sweater for cross country ski season,
hmm, what else was on the list – oh, yah, win the 5k….”
It’s a two year wait until the Winter Games in in Italy, and four years until the next Summer Games in Los Angeles. I’m in the process of withdrawal, from not having the luxury of sitting in the comfy chair ® for hours during and after dinner, clicking a few buttons on the remote to decide among a plethora of volleyball games or rugby matches or kayak races or fencing/skateboarding/BMX biking/gymnastics/track & field events to choose from.
Alas and yep, the games are over now, so it’s time to thoughtfully consider some of the existential issues brought up by such an amazing series of athletic contests complain.
Is it just my imagination, or, as indicated by their behavior before/after/during their events and also by what they said during interviews preceding and following their events, that the self-opinions held by many Olympic athletes has exceeded the heights of years past?
Robust egotism should be neither surprising nor unexpected from athletes who devote years to pursuit of excellence in honing what are essentially it’s-all-about-me pursuits and skills. Still, according to a study I just made up, the literal and metaphorical chest-thumping on display in the 2024 Summer Olympics was 48% greater than such displays in previous summer Olympics.
Some of those immodest exhibitions I blame squarely on the influence of social media in all aspects of young(er) people’s lives (the ages of the vast majority of the Olympic athletes are between 20 – 30).
And although the Games are already a spectacle of Olympic proportions…
(sorry) …but it seemed that for many of the participants – who were perhaps keeping in mind their post-athletic careers hawking athletic gear and junk food – you can never have too much showtime.
Of particular annoyance to moiself was how the athletes were introduced in too many certain venues, such as when entering the aquatics center or track and field stadium. The booming voice from stadium PA system would announce name of the individual and/or team members competing in the next event, followed by the athlete(s) strutting through the entrance to the stadium field, pausing to perform flirty and/or self-aggrandizing versions of I’m-ready-for-my-selfie!/I’m-number-one! poses and gestures
Uh, hashtag, SpareMe.
Now, I don’t know exactly who is to blame for this – the host country’s Olympic organizing committee? But isn’t this something that, even if it was “foisted” upon the athletes (“BTW, this is how we’re going to introduce you”) couldn’t they just have refused to go along with the peacock-ish preening and simply given a wave of acknowledgement to the cheering crowds?
So many of the entrances seemed to have been coordinated, as in choreographed, exhibitions. I’m all for athletes [4] having fun in the moment, but the prancing and posing seemed anything but spontaneous.
I mentioned previously in this space about having watched the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Full disclosure: I watched less than half of it – I mostly just saw the flotilla of athletes cruising down the Seine, followed by that mesmerizing metal horse – and missed the vocal performances and some of the other presentations that some people found controversial. The closing ceremonies have always held little interest for me (bbbbooooooorrrrrring), and true to self, I once again didn’t watch them, although for a brief moment moiself considered doing so. My customary lack-of-interest was stoked when word was leaked that the Hollywood poster boy for refusing-to-age-gracefully-or-intelligently, [5] Tom Cruise, was going to be featured in a stunt symbolizing the passing of the Olympic flame to Los Angeles.
“In the end, I am just a guy wearing spandex that turns left really fast.” ( Canadian Olivier Jean, [7] short-track skater, 2010 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 500 meter relay )
“Curling is not a sport. I called my grandmother and told her she could win a gold medal because they have dusting in the Olympics now.” ( Charles Barkley,[8] American former basketball player and verbal raconteur )
* * *
Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…
I hated it when the NBC Olympic coverage team apparently thought it was equally exciting for viewers to watch celebrities watch an Olympic event –
* here’s Seth Rogan watching the Artistic Gymnastics Women’s All-Around Final! * And Martha Stewert at the same event! * Mick Jagger is at the fencing competition! * See Spike Lee cheering for the US women’s water polo team! * Bill Gates spotted at the Tennis Men’s Singles First Round match! *wow – Elizabeth Banks, Judd Apatow, and Leslie Mann watch beach volleyball! * Look, it’s Jason and Kylie Kelce at Women’s Rugby 7s! [9]
“Here’s Snoop Dogg, high up in the stands….” Well, of course he is.
* * *
May you not try to stop spiders (from anything); May you be mistaken for a celebrity when watching a sporting event; May you never challenge Charles Barkley’s grandmother to a dusting race; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I have been finding a lot of spiders in the bathroom recently, but have not found a nest or remnant of egg sacks or any kind of entry point.
[5] which moiself blames on, among other factors, Cruise’s combination of a Hollywood doctor’s plastic surgery expertise, and Scientology.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[7] I don’t actually know if Jean is a freethinker, but with a refreshing perspective like that, he probably is.
[9] These are…”name” people? How can I be impressed by their attendance when I don’t know (or care) who they are? I remember a quip from comedian Jay Leno, something along the lines of, “You’re not a celebrity unless my mother knows who you are.”
[10] There were several times, when watching the NBC coverage (MH and I also had other coverage with different schedules and announcers, which is what we mostly watched) when action in a game or other event was missed when the cameras cut to show celebrities in the crowds.
Something I came across recently on social media. With the right addition (* courtesy of moiself *) IMO it is is the best ever – as in most straightforward – definition of a complicated concept:
If you’ve never had a Supreme Court case *or a constitutional amendment* decide if you have the same rights as others, you have privilege.
* * *
Department Of Motivational Speaking… Make That, Walking
Dateline: Tuesday morning; 7:45 AM-ish; morning walk; rounding a corner on the way back to my neighborhood. Even with my earbuds in and listening to a podcast, [1] I hear a voice from behind to the side of me. When I look to the right of me I see a woman in aSubaru Outback; she gives me a thumbs up as she drives past, and yells something out of her rolled-down driver’s window about how…well, the only word I catch is, motivational. I give her a thumbs in return, and think,
Thanks!… uh, I guess?
From the glimpse I caught of her, I would’ve guessed her to be slightly older than moiself, and so I wondered, just what is so motivational about seeing someone who is out for a morning walk? Is it that she thinks *she* should be outside, walking instead of riding in a car? Or is it the dreaded patronization of, “Oh, look, isn’t that sweet – that woman is, my gosh, ambulatory, at her age!!” I mean, hell, this is the week of the Olympic Games, and I’m just walking – cruising along, listening to a podcast – I’m not running or hurdling or swimming marathons. I’m keeping up a good pace, but it’s just….walking
Perhaps I’m overthinking this.
Anyway, for the rest of the day (read: two hours) I decided to be happy (read: smug) over the fact that someone looked at what I was doing, and the concept of motivation came to their mind. Now, the rest of y’all, get off your asses, shut down your screens, drop to the floor and give me 50.
I need to see some motivation NOW!
* * *
Department Of It’s Still A Milestone Even If He’s Dead
Yesterday would have been my father’s 100th (!) birthday.
He was less than half that age in the summer of ’67 when he showed off posed for my mother, who took this picture of him lifting his two youngest children.
Chet Parnell (age 43) with my younger sister (age 6) and my year-old brother.
* * *
Department Of The Good News Just Keeps Rolling In….
Moiself refers to that wacky world o’ publishing, with yet another development that confirms my notion that had I known then what I know now I would have chosen another field, artistic or otherwise, in which to waste devote my time and finite brain matter.
Small Press Distribution Closes its Doors “Small Press Distribution (SPD), a crucial distributor for independent publishers and authors, has abruptly closed after 55 years, leaving small presses and writers facing uncertainty. Publishers must retrieve their inventory from SPD’s partners and seek alternative distribution channels. The closure poses financial challenges for small presses… Authors may experience delays in royalties and book distribution due to the disruption….” ( The Author’s Guild Bulletin Spring-Summer 2024 )
“Last week, Diane Goettel was on vacation in Florida when she saw an alarming email on her phone. After 55 years, Small Press Distribution (SPD)—one of the last remaining independent book distributors in the US—was shutting down immediately, with no advance notice or transitional support. Its website went dark, its Twitter account was deleted, and no one was answering calls.
‘The small press world is about to fall apart,’ Goettel remembers thinking. She’s the executive editor of Black Lawrence Press, one of more than 400 publishers that relied on SPD to fulfill online orders and make copies available to bookstores and libraries…
On the other side of the country, the executive editor of Noemi Press, Sarah Gzemski…received a text about SPD. ‘We were shocked, [though] some of the fulfillment issues we encountered over the past few months began to make more sense,’ Gzemski says. ‘We’re already working on shoestring budgets, so for our distributor to close abruptly, without warning, while not paying us our earned income, is devastating.’
Distributors are perhaps the most opaque and byzantine part of the publishing industry. When you buy a book on Amazon or Bookshop.org, it’s usually the distributor—not the publisher—who ships you a copy from its warehouse. When bookstores, libraries, and schools order books for their brick-and-mortar locations, they use online catalogs populated by distributors….
Without a distributor, presses like Black Lawrence and Noemi are completely cut off from their main sources of income….
‘I don’t know where else these presses can go,’ says Meg Reid, executive director of the Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg, SC. ‘Larger distributors are going to have sales minimums that might not be financially viable, and self-distribution basically takes them out of the system in terms of getting reviewed in major publications or public radio.’
To make matters worse, many small presses say SPD owes them money. ‘We’re owed upwards of $8,000,’ says Gzemski. ‘We just released three books [at Noemi], and all of the preorder and event order revenue from those books has disappeared.’….
Goettel is optimistic about Black Lawrence Press, but anxious about the situation more broadly. ‘I’m not panicking at this point, but I would not be surprised if some small presses completely close because of this.’…. ( excerpts from Lit Hub,The Small Press World is About to Fall Apart:
On the Collapse of Small Press Distribution , my emphases )
Prediction: small/independent presses will soon have to close or merge, as will the larger presses, which will morph into one or two monoliths of literature and employ technology to let them cut out those pesky middle men and women,aka, authors:
( “Let’s just plug in a story outline and let our AI run with it” ).
In fact, how do you know AI isn’t writing this, even as you read it?
“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace
with his pants down…. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him.
It if is a bad book, nothing can help.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
* * *
Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…
I love it when I’m guaranteed a laugh at the end of a yoga class, but I’ve forgotten when that opportunity will be, until it is there, once again. Example: Wednesday morning; finishing up a yoga class that I stream from yoga international.com. I do a variety of classes from that site; this particular class is one of the ones I do about once every three or four weeks. The teacher is knowledgeable and amiable, a little too into the “woo” for me, but all is forgiven near end of the class when, after leading the student yogi she is instructing into [3] a twist and hip-opening session, she explains what the student is doing in a forward learning pose from a seated position: “…cascading over, connecting her little S-self to her big S- self; connecting your little S-self to your big S- self….”
The first time I heard the teacher’s narration, moiself of course thought the teacher was advising that I should be “… connecting your little-ass self to your big-ass self….”
“…The shin bone’s connected to the knee bone; the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone; the thigh bone’s connected to the little-ass bone; the little ass bone’s connected to the big-ass bone….”
* * *
Department Of I Love It Even More…
…when I fantasize about how the PR handlers of a certain VEEP candidate, concerned with his condescending smearing of a sizeable percent of the voting population, arrange for him to visit a local animal shelter, and when they attempt a photo op of him trying to make peace with its feline residents….
Just hold still for the other side, Mr. Vance.
* * *
May you cherish the rights no court has had to bestow upon you; May you have fond memories of someone’s milestone birthday; May you find peace connecting with your little-ass self;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I always have the volume low enough to be able to hear what’s around me – passing or approaching cars; friendly neighbors, attack squirrels….
[2] “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
[3] Some of the yoga classes on the site are filmed with the teacher and a “model” student/yogi or two, some with a class of yogis.
Dateline: one week ago tonight, watching the Olympic Games opening ceremony. As mentioned previously in this space, moiself looooooooves to watch the Olympics Games; however, I almost never watch the opening or closing ceremonies. I’m glad I did this time; I thought the French did an excellent job, despite the rain and the attempts at sabotage diversions. If you missed the ceremony, try to find some footage of that beautifully strange and mesmerizing metal horse galloping down the Seine to deliver the Olympic flag. [1]
I actually, embarrassingly, found my eyes tearing up at some points, during the speeches by the French Olympic organizers – words of encouragement and welcome to the athletes and spectators – wherein the hope for peace and the ability to set aside differences and come together for games and camaraderie was lauded. Somehow, if only for a moment, those sentiments sounded more…plausible?…when spoken with French accent.
Reality of course reared its cynical head, when I recalled the Parade of Nations. The Parade of Nations is the main part of the opening ceremony where the participating countries’ teams enter the host country’s stadium in alphabetical order (as determined by the host country’s language). The French did it differently, and more creatively IMO: instead of marching around a stadium, the over 10,000 athletes from 204 nations cruised in a flotilla of 94 boats down Paris’ Seine River. Most of the boats carried the Olympic team members of at least two countries (and sometimes more, for the smaller nations). I found that to be a cool idea, and it was great fun to see the teams mingling and rejoicing…until the narrator reminded us of the fact that Iraq and Iran should have been sharing a boat, seeing as how their respective countries’ names share 75% of their alphabet (even in the French language)…but nope, couldn’t do that. And the Russian athletes were absent, their participation banned due to their dickhead of a dictator’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Dah, comrades, I am why we can’t have nice things.”
Moiself is fairly certain that in Some Ancient Someone’s mythology, wars and other inter-tribal differences were settled via sporting events. So, I’ll do the sit back relax and enjoy thing (confession: although I almost never watch daytime TV, for the next two weeks my TV will be on almost continually, tuned to the coverage of the you-know-what). And maybe, just maybe, I’ll dream of a future mythology shared by all, in which disputes are settled by a heartfelt Women’s Rugby Sevens match, capped off with a haka. [2]
* * *
Department Of Another Reason To Be Optimistic
Have you ever heard multilingual Rhodes Scholar, army veteran, former mayor and presidential candidate and current Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg speak? I get a wee twinge of hope whenever I hear him talk, on any issue.
Perhaps you saw him during the 2019 Democratic nominees debates, but have you heard him interviewed (as in his recent interview with the NY Times series, The Interview) , or at a press conference? Did you know that Buttigieg accepts invitations to appear on Fox News to be interviewed by their shamelessly partisan hacks “journalists”? He will accept invitations to speak in such a hostile environment, where many of his fellow politicians would say, “What’s the point?”, precisely because, as Buttigieg points out, the Fox News type of audience is not even going to *hear* the Democratic party message if no one is willing to take it to them. He stays calm, remains rational, makes his points – which includes something I’d previously given little thought to: remember, there is the possibility that person who controls the TV remote does not necessarily speak or think for his [3] entire household. Translation: just because the household TV is tuned to Fox News that doesn’t mean that every mind in the household is closed off to anything but the Fox News POV…but that’s all they will hear if no rational person is willing to speak to them.
I admire Buttigieg’s composure, intellect, ethics, ideas, and presentation. And while this year is not yet his time for The Big Chair®, I’m looking forward to seeing Buttigieg serve in the Kamala Harris cabinet, and to having the opportunity to vote for him for president, four to eight to however many years from now. [4]
You may be familiar with British mathematician, philosopher, author, and activist Bertrand Burton Russell’s “china teapot argument.” Russell used the argument-by-analogy to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to the burden of disproof being upon a person hearing such claims.
In the example of religion, Russell wrote that if he were to claim, sans offering verifiable evidence, that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because it would be difficult if not impossible to prove his assertion to be wrong. [6]
“I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is *not* between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.” ( Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot. 1958 Ars Disputandi. 10 (1): 9–22. doi:10.1080/15665399.2010.10820011. S2CID37528278 )
Got it; absolutely agree. [7] I have no desire to even quasi-seriously entertain the idea that the natural world is the way it is because of the supernatural world (this is the tenets of all religions and spiritual beliefs in a nutshell [8] ), and/or that there are supernatural beings which are capable of intervening in the affairs of the natural world (but evidently choose not to do so, or do so with an almost violent capriciousness [9] ).
Given the evidence and statistical probabilities, [10] I can confidently assert that I do not “believe” there is a china or porcelain teapot – or a warm beverage-holding kettle of any composition – orbiting any celestial object in our solar system. However, what with all the junk humanity has dumped/let escape into space in the past 70 years, it wouldn’t surprise moiself if some alert amateur astronomer spots a rogue astronaut’s diaper (excuse me, Maximum Absorbency Garment eeewwwwww) circling a satellite or even the International Space Station.
That said, moiself can understand the appeal, if only from the point of view of a fiction writer, for holding on to such flights of fancy. There is much art to be made – many incredible flights of the imagination, from the whimsical to the grotesque, with which to entertain ourselves – in an orbiting-china-teapot world.
Remember, boys and girls, your tin foil hat will protect you should the teapot’s orbit disintegrate.
* * *
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. [11]
“As established in the Constitution of The United States,
there are three branches of government. Your religion is not one of them.” ( as per the legions of us often referred to as Anonymous )
* * *
Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…
I hate it when I have to think about something that makes me want to quote nonsense to combat nonsense…which is something I try to avoid in this space because it takes me to dark places I’d rather not spend time and brain cells mucking through….
Such dark places include the sadly undeniable fact that some people who identify as Christians support a certain, carroty-tinged candidate.
* * *
May you find hope in the existence of some young(er), sane, idealistic politician; May you consider using a hakato celebrate your victories, acknowledge your defeats, and settle your disputes; May you enjoy the occasional foray into an orbiting teapot cosmos;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Not a very good description…you just have to see it for it to make sense.
[2] There are a variety of hakas (ceremonial dances and shout-chants, usually performed by a group) Māori culture. “The haka is commonly known as a war dance used to fire up warriors on the battlefield, but it’s also a customary way to celebrate, entertain, welcome, and challenge visiting tribes….it’s also a customary way to celebrate, entertain, welcome, and challenge visiting tribes. The very first New Zealand representative rugby team, known as The Natives, performed a haka during a tour of Britain and Australia in 1888-89. The haka performed then, Ka Mate, is still performed by the All Blacks (NZ rugby team) today.” (History of Haka, experienceallblacks.com )
[5] Sagan’s dictum is related to Occam’s razor and other scientific and philosophical principles on how the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to the extraordinariness of the claim)
[6] Because the teapot is too small to be seen by our telescopes, for example, but really, it *could* be there, you just can’t see it.
[7] With minor quibbles as to the varying definitions for what one person may find “extraordinary.”
[9] and the causes of/reasons for these sporadic interventions vary among the various supernatural theologies (read: religions)….
[10] I’m not going to quote those here; I just wanted another footnote.
[11] 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.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of OK Right Now Everybody Drop What You’re Doing…
No; wait – first, finish reading my blog.
Then listen to this NYTimes The Interview podcast (or read the transcript) to learn the difference between bonding social capitaland bridging social capital, and how joining a bowling league – or a running club, or hosting a regular games night – can save democracy…or just make us all a little less lonely and isolated…which we probably are. Even if we think we are not.
(And you know all the people – and by people moiself means Single Angry Men® – who call themselves Incels or join the Proud Boys and other extremist groups? They do this in part because they’re lonely.)
“The author of ‘Bowling Alone’ warned us about social isolation
and its effect on democracy a quarter century ago. Things have only gotten worse.” (intro to “Robert Putnam Knows Why You’re Lonely”; The Interview )
In the dialogue between Putnam and the host there is an intriguingly pertinent question:
“Are we isolated because we are politically estranged, or are we politically estranged because we are isolated?”
* * *
Department Of Adventures In Babysitting
I’m not sure what sparked the memory which sparked the ensuing stories in this department. [1] I think it was a convoluted chain, one that in this case began when I read an article about a climber/snowboarder who fell into the crater at Mount Saint Helens. Dude actually survived the 1200-foot fall, but died when he fell again as he was trying to climb out of the crater. Moiself was thinking about the poor guy, alone, in the cold….
Dateline: A Friday afternoon, early June, some twenty five years ago. KH and JJ, two eleven-year-old girls, lived in our cul-de-sac and were best buds. I had used their child watching services during the previous summer, paying them to play with my kids, at my home, three days a week for several hours, while I was at home working on whatever writing I was working on at the time. [2]
On that afternoon I got a call from KH, who proudly announced that she and JJ had, just that very morning, passed the final test in the Baby Sitter Certification training class they’d been taking. “We were wondering,” KH said, “if maybe you and MH would like to go out and have a date night tonight – maybe to the movies – and we could babysit for you?”
Although we hadn’t made any such plans, of course, moiself had to say yes. “This is amazing,” I told MH (and anyone I knew who would listen, for three weeks afterward). “Babysitters who call *you!*
I’d actually intended to look for a sitter for Saturday night so that MH and I could go to the movies; thus, we ended up using KH’s and JJ’s two nights in a row. On Friday we saw Titanic (I trust no description is necessary). On Saturday we saw, The Ice Storm, the Ang Lee-directed film wherein a winter storm is a metaphor for two upper-class Connecticut couples who use drugs and adultery as an escape from their bleak, dysfunctional, lives in the socially turbulent 1970s and whose children, while seemingly contemptuous of their parents, reflexively begin to mimic them. Not exactly the Heartwarming Family Drama ® of the year. [3]
After leaving the theater on Saturday evening, I told MH, “I never want to see a movie involving cold, and water, ever again. No cold in any form; no cold water, no snow; no ice; no ice water….”
Department Of Adventures In Babysitting, The Prequel
Way back when, like many teens and preteens (mostly the female ones), I made spending money by babysitting. I had a few regular gigs: the most frequent one was for the two little boys of a young married couple who lived two houses down the street from my family. I babysat for them once or twice a month, then it began to be a regular gig, as in every Friday night and sometimes Saturday night as well. This happened after the wife, whom I’d deemed the first time I saw her as she-married-way-too-young, [4] had apparently begun to feel that she indeed had married too young and had missed out on…certain rites of passage. She asked her husband to leave their house – which he did, with grace and patience, hoping she’d come back to him after she’d gone through her “phase” – and started dating on a regular basis.
I was thirteen, and really didn’t understand such things. All I knew is that that that was one of my favorite gigs: the boys were adorable, sweet, well-mannered, and amazingly clean (the mom was quite the clean freak, and bathed them every night, right before I arrived, so that they would be ready for bedtime). And just as my parents began to wonder aloud about the frequency and length of my sitting jobs with that family (I often did not get home until after 1 am), the husband came over to our house one evening to explain the situation to my parents. It was a move I found at once strange and unnecessary, yet also somehow….gentlemanly?
Most babysitting gigs came out of referrals from established gigs, or recommendations via my older sister and friends who also babysat, and who would pass along my name when they were unavailable for a certain jobs.
Three such referral jobs stand out in my babysitting career.
The first involved a family of five children. I never would have agreed to watch five children as the only sitter; frankly, I was lied to, by omission, when the father contacted me over the phone and I asked him about the gig’s parameters and rate of payment.
And the kids were horrible. Just awful. Ranging in age from about four to ten – yeah, those breeders barely took a breather between pumping out insolent brats – they fought amongst themselves, made a mess of the house, and mocked me when I tried to enforce the rules their parents had written down for the babysitter. After an hour and a half of that shit I did something I’d never had to do before when babysitting: I called the emergency phone number the parents had left me.
No words were minced as moiself told the parents about their children’s behavior. As I was on the phone, I saw by the expression on the oldest child’s face that she feared she and her sisters and brothers were going to be grounded for life. Yep, I’d called her bluff. When I’d warned her that I would call her parents unless she could help me corral her younger siblings, she’d replied, “Ha! Yeah, so what? I know you won’t!”
I sat sulking in the father’s car as he drove me home, counting my measly $1.50 for just over two hours (I thought I should have been paid for the hours agreed upon – and double, for the number of kids. But at that point I just wanted to get away from all of them, and didn’t argue about it).
The second memorable referral gig was actually three gigs. The referral came from another babysitter who lived right across the street from the four-year-old boy I came to think of as That Weird Kid Up The Block. On my first night as his sitter TWKUTB was described to me, by his parents, as “quite intelligent and very precocious.” While his parents were commenting to me re their son’s brilliance TWKUTB was arranging letters on one of those magnetized alphabet screens. His father proudly noted that, although TWTKUTB was only four years old, he was already composing stories on the board and writing complete sentences. “Show her,” the dad said to TWKUTB. The boy raised the magnetic board and pointed at the two “words” he had formed with five magnetized letters. “Pan Am!” TWKUTB said. He tapped his chubby fingers on the board for emphasis. “Pam Am!”
I was somewhat confused and just nodded, until I realized a response was expected of me. “Oh…uh…as in…air travel?” And the father confirmed that yes, the name of that (now defunct) airline was what his genius son had written. TWKUTB kept repeating “Pan Am,” insistently tapping the alphabet board in a way that made me realize that my reaction had unintentionally indicated to TWKUTB that I was not as impressed as he thought I should be.
After TWKUTB’s parents had left for their evening, it was just like any other night with any other less-than-gifted, entitled, grumpy, annoying child. I tried to entertain TWKUTB but he’d seemingly taken a dislike to me, and so I gave up and read my own book/did homework until his bedtime. It wasn’t the best babysitting experience, but his parents threw in an extra buck when they paid me, so I agreed to another gig.
On my third (and last) night babysitting TWKUTB, he was the one who answered when I rang the doorbell. TWKUTB peered at me through the screen door and snarled, “Oh, it’s *you* again.” His mother, two steps behind him, tried to hide her mortification…and later paid me double the hourly rate for what most parents offered at the time. [5] But it wasn’t enough to earn more of my time – I’d already decided that no compensation was adequate for a mere mortal having to abide her gifted spawn.
I’ve often thought back to how incredibly underpaid I was as a sitter (the going rates at the time were something like fifty cents – yep, $.50 – an hour, a dollar an hour after midnight). On the other hand….
On the other hand, after the kid(s) bedtime I got paid for being there and doing my homework… or after finishing the homework and being bored, I was essentially paid for watching TV and/or looking at the reading materials that the parents had in the house. It was amazing, what people would leave out on their coffee tables, end tables, etc.
Which leads me to Memorable Gig #3.
It started out like another other referral gig from someone-else-who-knew-someone-else: I got a ride, from a stranger – usually the dad, sometimes the mom – to whom I’d spoken on the phone, to their house. Today, in 2024, that’s an arrangement I can’t imagine the parents of a babysitter agreeing to.
But this is now and that was then, and then, after I’d put Gig# 3’s two children to sleep sans incident, I realized I’d neglected to bring my homework or any reading materials of my own. A quick check of the channels revealed that there was nothing on TV I wanted to watch. I sat in an armchair in the living room, harumping with anticipatory boredom, until I espied a large pile of magazines on the armchair’s side table. There was one of those “housewife” periodicals — BORING – atop the pile.
Underneath that magazine was another magazine, which – I can’t exactly remember the cover, but it had drawings on it that indicated to me that it was going to be some kind of comic book. Thinking I was picking up a cousin of MAD Magazine, I began turning through that pages, only to discover it was…gulp…my first ever glimpse of pornography. [6] I mean, way beyond erotica – that stuff was crass.
I cringed, gingerly slipped that magazine under the bottom of the pile, and looked for something else. Nope; it was porno after porno after porno, with a few of the smut rags pathetically and ineffectively “hidden” between months-old copies of Family Circle. I snorted and tossed the magazines across the room…then realized I was going to have to cover my tracks so the parents wouldn’t think I was snooping. I picked up the magazines and tried to arrange them on the table as I’d found them.
I was totally creeped out; I refused to sit back down in that chair, or on any of the furniture, and looked around the house with an increasing sense of dread, not wanting to touch any of the surfaces. My paranolia was problematic as I really had to pee, but *no way* was I going to use their bathroom. Fortunately, the couple soon returned home. The sound of the front door opening woke up their son, who called out from his room. The mother went to comfort her boy, first paying me for the evening, and the father drove me home. I remember scooting as close as possible to the car’s passenger side door; instead of making my customary chitchat with a babysitting parent about how their evening had been, I was silent, save for monosyllabic yes or no grunts in response to his attempts to make small talk. All I was thinking was, DON’T EVEN LOOK AT ME YOU PERVERT. I practically left skid marks jumping out of his car when it pulled into my driveway.
Never told my parents about it; never accepted a babysitting job for that family again.
I love it when I realize that moiself never, ever again has to babysit for strangers in order to earn money to go to the movies with my friends.
* * *
May you pay your babysitters (if you have them) well; May you join (or form) something like a bowling/social league; May you not develop a loathing for cold water movies; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I should have a rubber stamp with that phrase on it…or, a tattoo. The stamp might date me (at least, the reference does).
[4] As in, the first time I met her, I assumed she was her husband’s younger sister or other relative, and not his wife.
[5] I later found out, from their former sitter who’d referred them to me, that the parents were having problems – surprise! – finding a sitter who would sit for them more than twice.
[6] I’d seen some of the neighbor boy’s girlie magazines. This stuff made Playboy look like Ladies Home Journal.
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of You Can’t Make Up This Shit (Therefore, This Shit Must Have Come From A Deity?)
Regular readers of this blog are likely aware of my disdain for religious thought and supernaturalism but may also notice that I don’t often avail moiself of the opportunity to pick on religious minorities. This is partly because it’s the American Way ® to pick on one’s own “kind;” thus, I usually stick to trashing the absurdities of the dominant religion (Christianity) and culture from whence I hail. But thanks to the alertness of MH, who recently entertained me at the breakfast table by reading this, No – really…what?!?!? story, [1]moiself gets to diss some Jews.
Q: I live in a co-op in New York City that doesn’t have a doorman. The front door to the building locks automatically every evening at 9 p.m., and there is an electronic keypad outside that requires a code to open the door. I observe the Sabbath, and cannot use this keypad from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. There is a side door to the building with a keyed lock that leads to the basement, which has a staircase to the lobby. I requested a key to this door but was told it is not for use by any tenants. What responsibility does the co-op have to accommodate residents’ religious practices?
A: Your request for a key to enter a side door in order to adhere to your sincerely held religious belief of Sabbath observance should be honored by your co-op, unless there is a credible reason why tenants’ use of that entrance is dangerous…. “If the co-op flatly rejected your request, you can sue for discrimination because they are effectively making the building unavailable to observant Jews,” said Andrew Lieb, who practices discrimination law in New York….
( excerpts, “I Can’t Use My Co-op’s Keypad Entry on the Sabbath. Am I Entitled to a Side Door Key? Because of your religious beliefs, your co-op could face legal liability if it fails to accommodate your request.” NY Times, Real Estate, 6-29-24 )
Pressing a keypad, that’s forbidden “work.” But the work of inserting a key and turning the doorknob, hey, that’s kosher.
Adherents of conservative/observant Judaism have for centuries dumbfounded the world with their interpretation of their god’s demand for slavish observations of absurd personal and social restrictions – what a surprise! Y’all never would have guessed that unless moiself pointed it out, right?
After reading the above-mentioned article MH was curious as to where the restrictions come from and how they are interpreted. The World o’ Google provided several ludicrous helpful explanations, including the fact that the door keypad uses electricity, and “…the spark which causes electricity is, technically, the kindling of a flame,” and sure enough there is a flame-prohibition in the Torah (Exodus 35:3, ” Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.”).
Hmmm…yeah…okay. That thing about the flames? I wonder how the ultraconservative Jews, who are the driving force behind Israel’s current military policies, feel about kindling the most lethal kind of flame – bombing Palestinians – on the sabbath?
* * *
Department Of It Gets Even Better
I am familiar with one of the more ingenious ways ever invented re getting around religious restrictions : that of theShabbat Goy. The SG is a non-Jew hired by Jews to perform services (such as turning lights on and off) which are forbidden to orthodox Jews on the Sabbath. Thinking of this made me, once again, miss my dear/sweet “best bud” from high school (whose initials were [2] conveniently SG), with whom I would trade observations and giggles about the tenets of our respective religions. SG was Jewish (his family was not strictly observant ), and one lazy school afternoon he tried to get me to you’ve-got-to-be-kidding stage by telling me stories about outlandish Jewish Sabbath requirements and restrictions, after which I offered to be his Shabbat Goy, no charge. But he missed the mark by keeping this one from me:
“It is forbidden to rip toilet paper on Shabbat, and doing so may be a violation of several melachot. [3] This is true whether one cuts the toilet paper along the perforated lines or in between them. Most authorities classify tearing toilet paper (or attached tissues) under the melachot of koraya (tearing), mechatech (measured cutting), and/or makeh b’patish (finishing touches).[ As such, one must be sure to cut toilet paper before Shabbat or use tissues that are dispensed one-by-one. Indeed, a roll of toilet paper is muktza [4] on Shabbat and may not be used or moved unless one is faced with no alternative….
In the event that one did not prepare toilet paper or tissues before Shabbat, one may hint, or if need be, directly ask a non-Jew to cut some toilet paper….” ( excerpts, my emphases, from Tearing Toilet Paper on Shabbat, by Rabbi Ari Enkin )
Restrictions on tearing toilet paper. Toilet paper. A hygienic invention which didn’t even exist when those Iron age desert sheepherders decided to codify their ignorance. And considering the friction-producing urgency with which some people are known to…uh…employ…toilet paper, might its usage also put you in danger for violating the rule against kindling a flame?
No; seriously. And how much would you have to pay a Shabbat Goy to kindlewipe …uh, perform that task for you?
And as for the Attorney who counseled the tenet to sue on the grounds of discrimination against his religion? Oy, oh, for a forthright lawyer, who would get to the point:
“Dude, the only discrimination here is that your religion is discriminating against your brain.”
* * *
Department Of Here Come The Games
I don’t watch many sports on TV, but moiself looooovvvvveeeeessssss watching the Olympic Games. Both the winter and summer versions turn me into a Happy Sloth couch potato. I have withdrawals when they are over, when, after the summer Olympics for example, I realize I no longer have the opportunity to watch highlights from a volleyball game [5] every night.
And I love watching as the teams playing for country of my ancestors, Norway, win more medals per capita in the winter games (and no awaads for fashion sense).
However, the nationalism (read: obnoxious chants of USA! USA!) of the fans and the media coverage gets to me. I couldn’t put it better than travel guru Rick Steves, in his recent monthly newsletter:
“Even as I root for Team USA, as a traveler, I also find myself getting caught up cheering on athletes from distant lands. Whether it’s Hungarians at water polo, the French at team handball, a Norwegian rower, or a Bulgarian weightlifter, it’s fun to venture beyond the Simone Biles du jour — and pick a few non-American athletes to get behind, too.
And then there’s the medal count. Each evening, the news ranks the countries of the world based on the total number of medals they’ve collected…which Team USA always seems to dominate. (In the 2021 Tokyo Games, we snagged 112 medals, besting China with 84, Russian athletes with 71, and Great Britain with 62.)
Every time I see that list, I’m reminded of years ago, when a Dutch friend pointed out that while the United States usually wins the most medals, we also have a huge population and the biggest GDP — which means more athletes to choose from, and more money for training and equipment. If the playing field were leveled, the results would look quite different.
Consider this back-of-the-napkin math: At the Tokyo Games, the USA grabbed the most gold medals with 39, followed by China, Japan, and Great Britain. But if we look at the ‘medal count’ on a per capita basis — golds won per citizen — Team USA is wayyy down the list (between Ecuador and South Korea). We won one gold medal per 8.6 million citizens. And who’s at the top of the per capita list? Bermuda (a gold for every 72,000 people), followed by the Bahamas (a gold for each 176,000) and Slovenia (a gold per 700,000 Slovenes).
Of course, I don’t mean to take anything away from the remarkable accomplishments of our American athletes. But when you approach the Olympics — or, really, anything — with a global perspective, it’s more honest…and more insightful. That’s why, as good travelers and thoughtful global citizens, with each Olympic Games we can imagine how smaller countries cheer on their teams — and have some extra fun by seeing things from their point of view.”
Department Of The Next Book On My Reading List [6]
That would beThe Science Of Weird Shit. Can’t imagine why moiself would be attracted to a book with that title, can you?
Subtitled, Why Our Minds Conjure The Paranormal, TSOWSis the latest book by British professor, psychologist and researcher Chris French, a recent guest on Alan Alda’s Clear + Vivid podcast . French is a leader in the field of anomalistic psychology; [7] his research centers on the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences (including, e.g., the claims of psychic abilities, ghosts, UFO abductions, and astrology). French, at once both entertaining and serious, emphasized to Alda the importance of understanding why people believe in the paranormal, and why he thus supports taking these claims seriously to explore the underlying psychological factors involved.
French studies the science of the paranormal not because he believes paranormal phenomenon are true – he doesn’t; he identifies as a skeptic who used to believe in such things when he was in his 20s. No matter how such studies turn out, French holds that studying the paranormal may help to further explain how the human brain works – as in (my interpretation) may answer the question about how and why so many of us fall for this crap despite decades and even centuries of scientists debunking psychic readers, seers, spoon-bending illusionists, astrologists and the lot.
Alda: “…what about being skeptical – why is it important? Some people get support from beliefs like this: Why is it important to be skeptical, and to spread that skepticism?”
French: “My own personal position is I’m happy for people to believe whatever they want to, as long as it doesn’t have negative repercussions for other people. And as you say, a lot of people do get great comfort – particularly from religious beliefs…maybe believing in life after death – then, I wouldn’t want to take that away from them. But….science is all about how the world really works, and I’m afraid that is not a question then of just thinking, ‘Well, how would we *like* it to be?’ It’s a matter of trying to figure out, as best we can, what the truth is, about the universe, and it may be that the truth is something that we wouldn’t feel all that comfortable with… “
Alda and French go on to discuss famous/historical cases of the paranormal wherein the practitioners either admitted, years later, of their deceit (including that of Kate and Margaretta Fox, the two sisters responsible for the birth of “spiritualism” and the séance craze of the 1800s, admitted their fraud after 40 years, and said that they started out just wanting to prank their mother) or had their methods and results disproven either by scientists or fraud exposers…. And yet, some true believers, even after their palm reader or seer (or pastor) has been proven to be a charlatan, continue to hold to their particular paranormal beliefs. What purpose(s) does it serve the believers, that they want to continue to believe that, say, their beloved, long dead uncle Roy was communicating to them in the séance, answering yes or no questions via making rapping sounds, when the Fox sisters admitted that the rapping was them cracking their joints under the table?
When it comes to those who take paranormal seriously moiself vacillates between the attitudes of whatever floats your boat (just as long as you’re not teaching my kids or trying to influence public policy) and No way, reality matters, and those willing to accept fuzzy thinking in one matter are likely to fall prey to it in other areas. I want to be compassionate for those who take comfort in illusions, even as I question how that compassion can be condescending, because illusion is the ultimate example of short term thinking: your illusions are likely, sooner or later, to break down under the weight of reality, and thus illusions do not benefit either the individual or the culture and society. Being willing to set aside reality for what you have been told are the comforts of illusion and supernaturalism can be devastating, as evidenced by what happens when a growing number of individuals believe, or accept – and elect – frauds and charlatans.
“Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.” ( French Enlightenment writer, philosopher Voltaire, 1765 )
“But wait – this means that observant, non-flame-kindling Jews can’t be superstitious on the sabbath?”
* * *
Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…
I love it when I think about the Olympic games in Paris, and wishing they would have a special event – the fastest and most stereotypically Parisian waiter’s disregarding of an Ugly American ® tourist who is asking for the check.
The first one to overlook the request for l ‘addition wins.
* * *
May you enjoy watching at least one obscure (to you) sport during the Summer Olympics; May you never put money into a paranormal practitioner’s pocket (even for “entertainment” purposes); May you never believe that there are divine restrictions on tearing toilet tissue; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] As contrasted with those who suffer from constipation.
[2] SG died way too young, when he was in his 30s.
[3] Melachot are 39 classes of activities which Jewish law prohibits on the Sabbath.
[4]Muktzeh (“separated” or “set aside”) refers to items that are forbidden or whose uses are restricted on the Sabbath (Shabbat) or other Jewish holidays.
[5] I prefer the indoor, six person per team version, but beach Vball will do – the men’s teams, that is. Having played volleyball on the beach moiself, I cannot abide the women’s vball team’s “uniforms” of bungee cords up the butt. Why can’t they wear shorts, like the men’s teams? That sand gets everywhere….
[6] The list which has about 100 books already ahead of it… Unless I put it to the front of a line which I often do with the new shiny thing, and so the poor other books get, once again, pushed down the line…
[7] Anomalistic psychology is the study of human experiences and behaviors that are often called paranormal, without making many assumptions about the validity of the reported phenomena. It aims to explain these experiences and beliefs using known psychological and physical factors. (Goldsmiths University, “What is Anomalistic Psychology?”)
[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
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
