YEE HAW! | The Blog I'm Not Writing

The World Series I’m Not Watching

November 3, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, sports, travel, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! Godzilla Day, Halloween, ML baseball rule changes, MLB, Present Face, Signals gift catalog, sirens and dudes on baseball teams, The Dropkick Murphys, The Season's Upon Us, The World Series, trick or treat Comments Off on The World Series I’m Not Watching

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

* * *

Department Of Halloween Highlights

Dateline: Tuesday eve, 8 pm ish. I hadn’t been in the mood for trick or treaters, for mostly logistical reasons, [1] and MH did most of the doorbell-answering/treat-dispensing duties. Then, when I did take a turn, a lone trick or treater made my evening.

He wore a really cool/handmade dinosaur-ish costume, appeared to be about ten years old, and was delighted when I guessed that he was Godzilla. After he took his candy he thanked me, lingered on the porch for a moment, then, his eyes sparkling at me through his costume’s eye slits, asked, “Can I give you a high-five?”

My heart soared like a hawk.

But wait – there’s more. Today is…can you guess?

( On November 3, 1954 director Ishirō Honda and special effects master Eiji Tsuburaya’s vision for movie monsters changed cinema forever as Godzilla opened in theaters. On November 3, 2023, we join our fellow fans and proud partners in recognizing the indomitable 69-year influence of the King of the Monsters with the biggest Godzilla Day yet.” From Everything You Need To Know To Celebrate Godzilla Day )

* * *

Department Of I Wouldn’t Have Believed It If I’d Seen It With My Own Eyes…

Except that I did see it.

There it was, in my mailbox. The new (to moiself ) Signals gift catalog.

Gifts that inform, enlighten and entertain?

I had trouble with the catalog’s name as preceded by the description of their gifts. Then, my Devious Little Mind ® went to work:

Ah…Signals as in, virtue signaling?

Alas, my DLM worked for naught, for when moiself skimmed through the catalog I found saw no mention of how these gifts are ethically sourced, etc.

The Signals title apparently also does not – cannot, IMO – refer to how the gift recipients will think you’re so cool for selecting presents for them from this catalog. Moiself saw nothing outstanding in that department, nothing different from the five bajillion gift catalogs which’ll clog mailboxes around the country in the next couple of months.

So, neither coolness nor virtue is being signaled by buying any of this catalog’s jumble merchandise, unless you mistakenly think that giving a *you’re an amazing woman* mug to a friend/relative/neighbor/coworker is somehow informing, entertaining, enlightening, rather than what it actually is: an opportunity for them to practice their Present Face. ®

* * *

Department Of Lions…And Sirens And Dudes, Oh My

“So now we’ll have a world series between a couple of 2nd place also-rans that nobody outside of Dallas and Arizona will care about.
I predict record setting low ratings. Happy MLB?”
(Comment from a FB friend, after the Game 7 of the Philadelphia-Arizona National League Championship Series )

Was it only a year ago, when moiself was excited about having the opportunity to attend a MLB playoff game? Apparently, as per these excerpts from my post of 10-21-22:

Early last week daughter Belle messaged me, wondering if she should get a ticket to Game 4 of the Seattle Mariners-Houston Astros American League Division series playoff game. The division playoffs are a best-of-five series; Belle’s company, Schilling Cider, is a Mariners sponsor, and was guaranteed a certain number of tickets to purchase for playoff game 4. Belle checked to see how many tickets her company would be allotted, and found out there would be enough so that she could get one for moiself as well…and would I be interested?

It warmed the cockles of my heart, to hear that Belle was interested in going. How Belle’s grandparents would have liked that, I told her.

Chet and Marion Parnell were longtime baseball fans. They once told me they’d always wanted to go to a playoff game but never had the opportunity. I grew up going to LA Dodgers and Anaheim Angels games, then in the 80s I lost – or rather deliberately misplaced – my interest in the sport. I don’t remember the exact year; it was when there was yet another player/management strike. Free agents had become the thing; it seems like you didn’t know the players anymore (“Wait…he was a Dodger and now he’s a Yankee?”), there was no team loyalty or team identity on either side of the management/players…it used to be you could follow the career of a player, having come up through the farm system….

Then came the latest the player/manager/owner strike. I remembered thinking,

“Hmmm, which group of multi-millionaires do I feel sorry for?”

And that was that.

I became a fair weather fan – one who would watch The Big Games ®, particularly if there’s a team I had an interest in (rooting for California or West Coast teams, and against CHEATERS like the Houston Astros…or just arrogant asshats like the Yankees).

As it turned out, there was no playoff game for Belle and I to attend. While I was stuck on the train (a presidential visit and the usual, non-unusual-for-Portland shenanigans, including some dude who was “laying across the tracks,” delayed the train’s departure for *hours*) after we finally got moving, the Mariners lost the longest 1-0 playoff game in MLB history. [2]

As I’d mentioned in that year-old post, the lack of any team loyalty/permanence re their player roster was a factor in limiting my interest in baseball, along with the gradual and interminable lengthening of the games. But this year, with a new pitch clock and other rules changes, my *potential* interest perked up a wee bit…until the playoffs. It used to be the Boys of Summer became the Men of October, and now, what with the various divisions and wild card series and league series championships, the World Series won’t be finished until November. Who set this up – Oprah? “You get into a playoff series! And you! Every team gets into a playoff series!”

My tends-to-be-sensible husband was befuddled by the endless playoffs, and voiced his opinion on the matter: After such a long season, there will likely be one team in each league with the best record, and why don’t those two teams play each other in the World Series? Okay, maybe you need at least one playoff series, so the top two teams in each league – never mind which division they are in – face each other, then the winners go to the series. Isn’t a team’s record over the *ONE HUNDRED SIXTY TWO* game season more indicative of talent than the random/bad luck any team might have during a five or seven game series?

Oh, honey, you’re so cute when you’re trying to make something make sense. Sports and rationality…they just don’t mix, silly boy. Moiself gently reminded MH about the enormous amount of $$$ from broadcasting revenues and merchandising, etc., to be made from playoff games.

Once again, I digress.

After I read my friend’s FB comment, here was my response to him:

“My daughter and I were discussing (texting- text cussing?) this last night. I echoed your sentiment, and she replied,
‘Everyone not in the southwest should just refuse to watch the World Series. Make it have the lowest viewership numbers in decades.
We will cyberbully them into submission.
It’s kindergarten tactics – like we’re convincing all the other kids in class not to go to their birthday party.’ “

What I didn’t share with him was the content of Belle’s and my textcussion during the latter innings of the Phillies – Diamondbacks game, during which Belle and moiself traded some important observations about baseball…uh…strategy. Her closing comment had me giggling so loud MH had to ask what was going on:

Moiself (circa inning 5):
Alex Bohm of the Philadelphia Phillies is adorable.
I bet Yeti [3] would love to snuggle in his hair

Another cute Philly just knocked in the go ahead run.
The Phillies definitely have the most interesting hair. So, they got that.

Any questions?

Belle:
I haven’t been watching, had to run some errands after work and now I’m cooking dinner.
Is the game over?

Moiself:
No, still on…now sixth inning…now I think Arizona’s leading 3 to 2.

Belle:
Me and L___ at work came up with a theory about baseball: players will always fall into one of two categories.
(1) Ridiculously handsome, essentially a male siren
(2) “Yeah that’s just a dude.”
I’ve never seen the theory proved wrong yet.

Bryson Stott was also workin’ it in the siren category.

Moiself:
There could be a third category…arguably, it could be a subcategory of the second one: the chunky uncle, who could be wearing a MAGA hat, instead of a baseball hat.

Belle:
That’s still 2 main categories though!

Moiself:
I think you and L___ need to submit that categorization to major league baseball. They can work it into the rules somehow.

Belle:
A new stat. They mention which category every player is in, in the commentary.

Moiself:
When he’s at bat, along with his average.

Belle:
“And coming up to bat is Dan Smith, career 321 hitter, falls into the siren category as well!
Do you think his looks will distract the pitcher?”

I think Belle’s grandparents would have been proud.

* * *

Department Of A Modest Proposal [4]

Dateline; last Friday. The link for my yoga streaming class never came through, so moiself did an online class instead, the link to which I discovered a couple of years ago. It’s a fun, covers-most-of-the-bases, 60m vinyasa class, it’s become one of my favorites. Except for this one part where the teacher tells her students, after an intense series of postures, that “It’s OK to smile; it’s not that serious.”

Now, the teacher was joking to her class, which included both men and women. But it reminded me of a recent outing where I heard someone else (a man) advising some woman to smile. Yep, we’re almost to 2024, and many dudes still haven’t read the memo.

But if this holiday season is like all the others before it, ’twill not only be men who will be the transgressors in this matter. Here come the requests for family and extended family group photos, and say cheese and hold still and we’ll have to do this again- Uncle Aeneus had his eyes closed…”

This can be annoying for everyone (and particularly for scophphobes such as moiself ). And there’s always the adolescent who just really isn’t in the mood to smile, as everyone turns to look at them with their you’re-ruining-it-for-everyone-else glares….while the tween wonders aloud why people can’t just have their normal face on display for a photo.

And so, my modest proposal for keeping the peace during the holidays (my pipe dream is to extend this year-round):

How about if we all agree, no matter the circumstances, to stop telling other people
what *we* think they should do with *their* faces?

Okay, everybody stop smiling and someone call Child Protective Services.

* * *

Department of Employee Of The Month

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

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]

“I’ve been told by professional drug users that if I did the drugs, I would like the Dead. It seems like the most effective PSA against drugs could just play some Dead jams and say, ‘If you do drugs, you will like this kind of music.’ What other deterrent would one need?”

( Penn Jillette, from Every Day is an Atheist Holiday! )

Non-stoned concertgoers appreciate a Grateful Dead reunion jam.

* * *

May your gift-giving inform, enlighten and entertain your giftees;
May you be in charge of your own face during photo shoots;
May you never pass up the opportunity to high-five Godzilla;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Doing some major house remodeling which means our usual spaces are compromised and we’d be running up and down the stairs to answer the doorbell.

[2] 18 innings, 1-0. Sounded to me like a soccer score.

[3] Belle’s Bengal cat.

[4] Kudos to the English literature majors who get the Jonathan Swift rip off reference.

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

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

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

The Important Life Decision Change I’m Not Regretting

October 13, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, nature, politics, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! atoms and quarks, Caring Kids Without Religion, cosmologist Katie Mack, Dale McGowan, decision to have children, Ologies podcast, Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, The Large Hadron Collider Comments Off on The Important Life Decision Change I’m Not Regretting

Department Of Do Something Guaranteed To Make You Feel Smarter
(Or Maybe Just A Little Less Oblivious)

It’s much easier than you think. Just listen the Ologies podcast (Cosmology: the Universe, Part I, with Katie Mack) in which host Alie Ward chats with theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack about way cool things about the universe and how cosmologists study them, including by using The Large Hadron Collider.

You’ve heard of the LHC; you vaguely recall that it’s that huge, circular, underground, atom-smashing thing, somewhere in Switzerland.

But wait, y’all protest: “Uh…trying to understand that stuff will definitely *not* make me feel smarter – I remember atoms but haven’t been required remember specifics since high school.” Not to worry. Writer, actor, science geek and podcast host Ward has got your back. In her own entertainingly profane inimitable way, she makes it easier for you, with her Cliff Notes® take on the LHC, which includes a story offering a bit of cosmic perspective (my emphases):

Alie Ward:
“… The Large Hadron Collider is…a circular tunnel…over 500 feet deep in some parts and is 17 miles around. It is the largest machine in the world. This thing consists of over 1,200 magnets, and they’re cooled to a temperature colder than outer space. The magnets accelerate protons to almost the speed of light and then the protons are bashed together….

…Matter is stuff. Molecules are some atoms stuck together. Atoms are made of a nucleus – a little cluster of neutrons and protons. Protons have a positive charge – pro. Electrons have an equal negative charge, and electrons are…zooming around…outside the nucleus. The neutrons and protons…in the nucleus, those are made of smaller particles called quarks. The quarks come in a couple different varieties.

What gives these particles their mass? What are they? Where do they come from? We’ve got all these tiny things that make up matter….
there is a field called the Higgs field….How a particle interact with the Higgs field gives it its mass, kind of like drag in water. Higgs bosons are particles that are an excitation of the Higgs field, kind of like a drop of water splashing from an ocean. The Large Hadron Collider smashed protons together to see if they could prove that the Higgs boson exists, and guess what, bitches? It does. The Large Hadron Collider, one of the things it does: smashes protons together in to smaller things to figure out why matter has mass. There you go.

Also, the Large Hadron Collider accidentally has its name spelled wrong on its own website as ‘Large Hard-on Collider.’ Once would be mortifying, but what if they did it more than once? Like twice? Or five times? That’s impossible. Is it? Because a search on their site revealed they’d spelled it “Large Hardon Collider” ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE times!… . So whenever you’re like, ‘I don’t understand this stuff. Maybe I’m just not smart enough.’ Just think: someone typed in ‘Large Hardon Collider’ over 150 times. And they built the thing.”

(I decided against googling for a picture to illustrate a ‘large hard-on collider.’ Y’all will have to settle for this image of a hard-headed objects collision, which (fingers crossed) won’t get my internet search history forwarded to the FBI.)

* * *

Department Of Sometimes Say Never To Never Saying Never

“Dyanna Volek was never someone who dreamed of becoming a mother.
From an early age, she knew deep down that she didn’t want children…. ‘I’m always looking forward to the next thing,’ said Volek, who works in local government in San Francisco. ‘Being a parent was never one of them.’ ”
( excerpts from “Why more women are choosing not to have kids,”
CNN 9-25-23 )

* I’m afraid that I’m going to end up like my biological mom.
* I don’t like the idea of giving birth and changing my body.
* I feel like I am too selfish to have a child.
* I don’t want to lose myself as an individual.
* Having kids would mean having to be in that caring position for the rest of my life.
* I think the world is going to shit.
* I don’t want to subconsciously become like my mother.
* Honestly? I don’t like most kids.
(excerpts, 19 Women Got Brutally Honest About Why They Don’t Want Kids; )

“I can’t stand the way social media has idealised motherhood
at the expense of women and children.”
( wearechildfree.com )

“There should be no guilt in choosing a life path without my own children, yet I still…can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing some vital part of womanhood because I have never felt ‘baby fever.’ … I will not have kids, and I believe the decision is the right one for me, full stop. ”
( excerpts from “I don’t want children, but sometimes I want to want them,”
insider.com )

“____explained that the main factor for her (in not wanting children) was the disproportionate amount of work she would have to do as a mother compared to if she was a father. She explained that dads get to be the ‘cool parent’, while mothers are categorized by any number of misogynist tropes like being overly smothering or nagging. And also, just having to do a lot more work.
‘People have always asked me, do you have kids?…they love asking me if I have kids. And I say, ‘No, I will not be having kids. And would you like to know why?’ And they say, of course. And I say, ‘I would love, love, love to be a parent. I would love to be a dad. I don’t get that choice.’ ”
( excerpts from Single Woman Explains why she doesn’t want kids…; )

Moiself has been seeing a lot of these kind of articles recently. [1] Is it just my imagination, or is there an increase in stories written about young women deciding not to have children, [2] and articles written by the young women in question, defending/explaining their decisions to be childfree?

“I love children…. But I don’t plan on having any of my own.
It took me a long time to be able to say that out loud. And by ‘out loud’ I mean whispering it with a hint of uncertainty so as not to offend. Because when you’re a married woman of a certain age with no kids, people have questions. Fertility advice. Pity. Judgment. Lots of judgment….

…the pressure to procreate comes from so many directions I’m considering pitching a ‘Walking Dead’ spinoff where the child free are the living and everyone else are zombies trying to turn us. But it’s a comedy so no one dies, except on the inside….
My mom-friends often confide in me the inequities of motherhood — how the childcare duties fall mostly on them and their bodies have shifted to the side and down. They lament the loss of time for personal, career or creative pursuits of their own. So, when I told one friend in an uncertain whisper that I wasn’t planning to have children, I was shocked by her reaction: ‘Telling people you don’t want kids is like telling people you’re vegan. It’s not about your healthy choices. It’s about making other people feel bad about their choices.’ And then she prayed I’d change my mind because having kids is the best.

I promise she’s not a monster. She’s a zombie, and that’s just what zombies do….

Life is about choices. Having them (or not). Owning them. And sometimes regretting them — but I would argue even that’s a choice. Because often there’s really no right or wrong decision, there’s just the one you make and you do your best to be happy.”
(excerpts from Opinion: “I chose to be child free. (The correct response is ‘Congratulations!’)” LA Times 8-19-23 )

I read these articles about and by young women explaining themselves – and BTW, it’s *always* women doing the explaining. Men, too, can struggle over the decision to have children, but there are nowhere near the same cultural pressures and expectations for men to become fathers – it is not locked up with society’s definition-as-a-person as it is with women.

I understand, and agree with, many if not most of the reasons and observations, both personal and societal, that the I-am-not-going-to-procreate women recount in these articles. And while I am supportive of these decisions, many of them often seem to be…missing something…in their reasoning. And moiself can’t help but compare and contrast the stories they tell to my own situation and decisions.

For the first three decades of my life moiself declared (and honestly believed) that I did not want to/was not going to have children, and probably would not get married. Then, I went and did both. I met MH when I was 28; we married when I was 31, and welcomed our son K and then our daughter Belle [3] when I was in my mid-late thirties.

As MH and I raised our very-much-planned-and-wanted [4] kids, when it was age-appropriate to do so, moiself shared with them Robyn’s Realities ® about marriage and family: There are no Everyone-must-do-this/live-like-this-to-be-fulfilled rules:

* You can be single and be happy;
* You can be single and be miserable;
* You can be married and be happy;
* You can be married and be miserable;
* You can be happy if you and your spouse have children;
* You can be happy if you and your spouse are childfree…. [5]

But it wasn’t until relatively recently that I realized something key about my earlier, I-will-not-be-a-parent mindset. It was not that I merely changed my mind about a major life issue. [6] It was that I had based that decision on my life – from my teens to early thirties, and how I viewed the trajectory of that life – as the single person I was. It was a decision made totally out of context of being in a committed relationship, which is the only way I would have even remotely considered having and raising a child. It was a decision based on what I (thought I) knew about moiself, and not moiself-and-MH…because there was no moiself-and-MH. [7]

There are people, men as well as women, who claim to have known from an early age that being a parent is what they’ve always wanted. There are women I’ve known who said they’d “always” wanted to have children, and if that opportunity did not arise within a relationship, they vowed to pursue single parenthood. Then there are the rest – the majority, in my opinion and experience. When it comes to having or not having kids, these not-yet-married-or-partnered girls and women express slight to strong preferences either way, but acknowledge their decision might ultimately depend on their relationship with their potential parental partner.

Let’s say you’re one of those women: you are single, and when you consider parenthood or are asked by friends/family/coworkers/your doctor/your barista about your procreative plans, [8] you say that you would do so only within the context of marriage/a committed partnership. As in, even if you had a strong preference for having and raising a child someday you know you will never pursue that as a single parent. So, if you are single and you consider the option of having children and conclude, “I’m not going to have kids,” you are making the decision sans complete data. That is, you are imagining something you would never do, so your imaginations are going to be negative – what you think about what being a mother would be like could only be about what it would be like for you, alone, because you have no parent-partner. There is no Other Parent (yet), to imagine how you would be a family, together.

Am I making sense here?

When I met the man-who-would-become-MH, as our relationship deepened we began to talk about Such Things ®. MH married me with the understanding that, although he would like us to have children, for moiself it was not a sure thing. I married MH with the understanding that, while I’d always thought being a mother was not for me, MH and I would consider this parenthood adventure thing.

Our decision to have children was an outgrowth of *our* relationship. It was vital to moiself to see how we worked together, as life partners. [9] In my years of working in women’s reproductive health care, I saw too many [10] married women who were essentially single moms, with regard to their husbands’ participation in the physical, intellectual, time and emotional investment in child-rearing. After five years of marriage to MH, I was assured enough to take the reproductive plunge. More significantly, I also anticipated the rewards, the adventure, of being “part of it all” with him, part of the circle of life (take it away, Elton!), which is why all of us are here in the first place.

Despite having no time travel/alternate reality technology with which I can confirm this belief I am about to state, I believe that I would have had equally significant – just different – highlights and low points in my life if I’d remained childfree (whether with MH, or another partner, or as a single person). That being said, raising my offspring – watching them become the kind, intelligent, curiosity-filled, artistic, witty, science-oriented, free-thinking, compassionate, nature-appreciating, cat-loving, do-the-right-thing people that they are – has been a, if not the, highlight of my life. I look forward to knowing them for as long as I can: it has been has been and is a challenging, rewarding, exhausting, energizing, surprising, sometimes agonizing, and more often kick-ass-fun, pee-your-pants-with-laughter experience, and remains an ongoing source of joy.

When I read these I-am-never-going-to-have-kids articles, having been there moiself I can identify with many if not most of the sentiments expressed therein. I also understand that few things can be more irritating that the smug, condescending responses which are all too commonly flung at the declared child-free woman: “Oh, you’ll change your mind, after all I/she/they did….” I moiself have had those experiences and heard those comments (and I moiself have changed my mind, moiself ). Even so, I’d advise any young woman who would ask to keep an open mind: never say never….and congratulations, on whatever you decide.

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [11]

“The main goal of education should always be to learn how to learn, to become an independent thinker….
…evangelism of children seeks to cut off the process of independent thought before it begins. It’s this aspect of religious indoctrination that is most unacceptable—the idea that doubt is bad, that unquestioning acceptance is good, that there is only one possible right answer, and that someone else has already figured out what that answer is…
(1) Always question authority;
(2) when in doubt, see rule 1.”

( professor, writer, philanthropist Dale McGowan; excerpts from
Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion )

* * *

May you carefully consider the contexts of your major life decisions;
May you enjoy your own particular dance steps in The Circle of Life;
May you be daring enough to do an internet search for “large hard-on collider”
(and discreetly let moiself know the results);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Some of these articles are written about demographic studies that show that “nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s.” (Pew Research center)

[2] As opposed to having no children due to infertility issues.

[3] They are three years apart, lest you think this was some kind of Irish twins situation.

[4] More than one longtime acquaintance of myself, knowing I’d never expressed any interest in parenthood, when hearing the news of my pregnancies had a kneejerk reaction of spewing something along the lines of, “Uh, was this intentional –oops, sorry, of course it was, or must have been…I mean, she worked for Planned Parenthood…okay, I’ll just shut up now….”

[5] And I always refer to the state thusly, instead of the vile (IMO), lacking-something label, “childless.”

[6] as I have done throughout my life and doubtless will do again.

[7] I had other boyfriends/potential life partners pre-MH, most of whom made it known that they wanted, eventually, to have kids.

[8] And if you are a grown-ass woman who has not yet had a child, someone will always ask you.

[9] And If I had married someone else, it is entirely possibly I’d also be happily married at this point and be childfree.

[10] Any is too many.

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

The Trash I’m Not Being Paid To Pick Up

September 1, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, exercise & fitness, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, Recreation, sports, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! best team names, Chris Kluwe, employee of the month, Hood to Coast relay race, people are fun, people are pigs, trash & recycling duty, volunteerism 2 Comments

Department Of What Is It?

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Department Of People Are Fun

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some team names I remember from years past:

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

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

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

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

This year’s team names included:

* Pick it up Princess [11]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Department Of People Are Pigs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Department of Employee Of The Month

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

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [14]

* * *

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

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

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

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

[3] Ah…but only almost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[12] Son K’s team’s name.

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

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

The Incomplete List Of Summer Entertainment I’m Not Recommending

July 7, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, radio & podcasts, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! age discrimination, award shows, bad French accent, celebrity egos, Hidden Brain, Ingrid Michaelson, Ricky Gervais, The Best Years of Your Life, The Golden Globes, Wanda Sykes Comments Off on The Incomplete List Of Summer Entertainment I’m Not Recommending

Department Of Not That You Asked…

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

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

But let’s not give everybody sweaters like this.

* * *

Department Of Not That You Asked, The Sequel

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

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

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

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

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

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

French, oui; Wanda’s wife, non.

* * *

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

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

Ahem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

( AARP image )

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Department of Employee Of The Month

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

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]

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

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

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

* * *

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

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

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

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

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

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

The Ethics Class I’m Not Teaching

June 30, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, nature, Oregon, politics, science, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! Brights, cognitive bias, coyotes go after dogs, ethics lesson, fate or coincidence, Freethinkers, humanists, mental classification language, Past Lives movie, Skeptics, supernatural-free world views, The Golden Rule, The Platinum Rule, thefalseconsensus effect, Tim Minchin Comments Off on The Ethics Class I’m Not Teaching

Department Of The Best One Sentence Movie Review I’ve Read In Some Time

That would be from friend CC, in a text on Tuesday, furthering the conversation we had in the movie theater parking lot on Monday, after having seen Past Lives. Which, BTW, is the next movie *you* are going to see, (if moiself can influence you to do so) and then talk about with friends and family.

Here’s the movie’s summary/blurb, from people who are paid to do such things: [1]

“Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Decades later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront destiny, love and the choices that make a life.”

It’s the kind of movie…I want MH and my offspring to see it, although in a nod to ageism, a part of me thinks that, even at ages 30 and 27 respectively, my son and daughter aren’t old enough (as in, have not had the life experiences) to truly get it. Also, in another nod to ageism, it’s a summer release movie without the “summerisms”: there aren’t any superheroes or explosions….

…and it is a gentler-paced movie, even as it time jumps through 24 years…. But damn, there is so much going on.

CC wondered if MH and I had talked about the movie – she and her husband had a conversation “…about love and life’s twists and turns,” when she returned that afternoon after having seen the movie. No, we didn’t…even though I wanted to. But I held back, giving MH only a brief description when he asked me how the movie was. I was still ruminating on it moiself, and wanted him to see it so I wouldn’t have to explain the unexplainable. Such as, how you may love someone in some way, and maybe the way they love will not be enough…and will you be “the person who leaves” in someone’s life, and/or “the person who stays,” in another someone’s life…and the concepts of destiny and fate – in yun, from Korean/Buddhist influences – which can also be seen as coincidence, and all of which might have much more influence in our lives than we think…as per this bit of dialogue (from one of the Korean born protagonists to her American husband) from the movie:

“There’s a word in Korean: 인연 [in yun] ⁠— it means “providence” or “fate.” If two strangers walk by each other in the street, and their clothes accidentally brush, that means there have been eight thousand layers of 인연 between them.”

Yet again, moiself digresses. CC’s one sentence review which I thought nailed the essence of the film, and its influence:

“I was pondering that all couples should see this film to give them better words to say to each other and know how normal all of this is, immigration or not, to question how a person loves and to accept how a person loves.”

* * *

Department Of Ethics Teaching Of The Week

Humanists generally follow The Platinum Rule, not The Golden Rule. There is an important distinction between the two directives, in both the statement and implications. Class, do you think you can spot the difference?

First, we have the more familiar, “The Golden Rule.” There are various phrasings of TGR – an ethical principle found across religions and world views – which all amount to,

Treat others the way you would want to be treated.

TGR is phrased in either “positive” (to do something) or “negative” (to refrain from doing something) formulas. In Christianity this principle is found in Matthew 7:12: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .”

The “negative” form of this principle, “Do not do to others what you would not like done to yourselves,” is found in 2nd-century documents of the early Christian church ( Didachē and the Apology of Aristides), in second century Jewish works ( Tob. 4:15), in the writings of the classic Jewish scholars, including Hillel and Philo of Alexandria “…and in the Analects of Confucius (6th and 5th centuries BC). It also appears in one form or another in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Seneca.” [2]

Examples of TGR across world religions:

Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire
not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.
( Bahá’í Faith; Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings)

Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
( Buddhism; The Buddha, Udana-Varga 5.18 )

One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct….loving-kindness. Do not
do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
( Confucianism; Confucius, Analects 15.23 )

This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.
( Hinduism; Mahabharata 5:1517)

Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others
what you wish for yourself.
( Islam: the Prophet Muhammad, Hadith )

One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated.
( Jainism; Mahavira, Sutrakritanga 1.11.33 )

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the
rest is commentary. Go and learn it.
( Judaism; Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a )

Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself.
( Zoroastrianism; Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29)

(excerpts from The Golden Rule Across the World’s religions )

The Golden Rule variations are well-intended; however and ultimately, they miss a key point of Human Reality:

* People are different. *

Okay; sure; you know that. But do you really get what *that* means?

Not all people like or want the same things. This reality is both simple and profound, because it means that while at first glance it sounds fine or even admirable to treat everyone like yourself, it is in fact inappropriate to do so, given people’s different backgrounds, experiences, mental and physical abilities, and expectations.

The Golden Rule lets you get away with, and even promotes, self-centric thinking (“Others think the way I do.”). And self-centric thinking [3] lets you off the hook from doing the work, which can range from pesky to grueling, of trying to understand someone else’s point of view.

So, what’s an honestly-seeking-to-do-the-right-thing ® kinda person to do? Follow the principles of Humanists, Freethinkers, Brights, Skeptics, and other supernatural-free world views. As in, practice The Platinum Rule:

Treat others the way *they* want to be treated.

Meditate on this, for a moment.

“Girls and Boys, can you spot the difference? I think you can.”

The subtle yet powerful difference is that The Platinum Rule calls for a more thoughtful consideration of the *others* who will be on the receiving end of your treatment of them.

As in, don’t presume that *your* likes and preferences – or dislikes and aversions – are universal.

Here’s an example a child could understand: There’s nothing Jilly likes better than having her feet tickled. Not only that, Jilly’s best friend, Millie, also enjoys having her feet tickled – she and Jilly agree, it’s the best fun, ever! But for Jilly’s brother, Billy, having his feet tickled is tantamount to torture. Should Jilly and Millie tickle Billy’s feet?

* * *

Department Of Public Service: Things To Ponder® Moment Of The Week

Brought to you by the following excerpt from my recent letter to moiself’s offspring. [4]

…. Yesterday morning I went walking in the Neahkahnie Beach area, and wondered if I would catch a glimpse of the coyotes that have been spotted crossing the roads there, and out on the beach.

The coyotes (at least two adults, possibly a pair raising pups nearby) are going after unleashed dogs on the beach: one tries to lure the dogs to follow them by assuming play postures, then running into the shrubbery (where coyote #2 would spring out and attack – wildlife biologists note that this is a hunting adaptation of coyotes living near human-populated areas). One coyote has even chased several dogs, as reported by the dogs’ owners who came to their pets’ rescue, then posted on a local FB group to warn others.

Some people responded to these reports and warnings (which have included pictures of the coyotes) with, “My dog responds to voice control,” or “The coyotes just want to play.” Some people are morons.

And I can call them “morons,” although I can’t (even though I wouldn’t) call them “retards,” which I find mildly bemusing.

Y’all might want to rephrase that.

Get ahold of your nightsticks, y’all self-appointed word police: I understand (and agree with) the prohibition of the term retard, as it became a shorthand pejorative for people formerly known as “mentally retarded.” But the term mentally retarded is not a pejorative in and of itself, and was once considered to be a valid descriptor for adults classified on (an outdated) psychiatric scale of severe intellectual disability. The scale was:

* Moron (adult with an estimated mental age between 7 and 10 and an IQ of 51–70)

* Imbecile (” ” ” ” mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50)

* Idiot ( ” ” ” ” less than three years; IQ below 25)

Now then: I can and do sometimes use those words (moron; imbecile; idiot) to disparage someone and/or their behaviors…although, when I do so the image of an actual person with an intellectual disability *never* comes to my mind.

I can think or say that people who let their dogs go off leash on the beach – after having been warned about coyotes going after unleashed dogs – are morons, or that their behavior is idiotic and/or their reasoning imbecilic. I’ve used the words (moron; idiot; imbecile) sporadically over the course of my life (most frequently during the #45 administration), with no corrections from a Well-Meaning Guardian Of The Hurt Feelings Of Others ® (“It’s not nice to make fun of morons.”). And I can’t help but wonder why that is. [5]

Don’t be such an imbecile; you know why.

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]

Stay tuned for more Tim Minchin. [7]

* * *

May you avoid self-centricism masquerading as ethical principles;
May you follow The Platinum Rule;
May you see the movie “Private Lives” and discuss it with friends and family;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] In this case the movie studio PR staff, I’d guess.

[2] Brittanica.com/goldenrule

[3] A cognitive bias known to social psychologists as “the false consensus effect.”

[4] I send daughter Belle and son K weekly letters, every Friday. Letters as in snail, not e-, mail.

[5] Isn’t it time for another footnote? Just wondering.

[7] In July 14’s blog.

The April Fools Pranks I Didn’t Play

April 14, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! Andrew Bradley, April Fool's Day, April Fools pranks, Betty Bowers – America’s Best Christian, déjà vu, Deven Green, family pictures, family weddings, Fiona Apple, If You Want To Kick Me Under The Table, Photophobes, podcast Unexplainable Comments Off on The April Fools Pranks I Didn’t Play

Department Of Excuses For A Rerun

April 1 is one of my favorite days. This year it seems like it snuck past moiself, and I missed it.

I used to be so much fun…didn’t I? I looked into my archives for evidence, and came up with moiself’s April 1 post from seven years ago:

Department Of Fun With Student Drivers

Dateline: Tuesday, early a.m., out for my morning walk, waiting to cross a street. As I watched the cross traffic’s stoplight and saw the green-changing-to-yellow light – the pedestrian’s rewarding indicator that it will soon be your turn to cross the street – I noticed a white sedan slowing down much more deliberately than is usual yet still not managing to come to a complete stop until the car’s front bumper was just a tad into the crosswalk.

My light changed to green, I began to cross the street, and saw the telltale red and yellow logo for a local driving academy on the car’s driver’s door. A student driver?

Excellent.

I looked inside the car: the student in the driver’s seat sat ramrod straight, an expression of nervous anticipation drenching her face. Her white-knuckled hands gripped the steering wheel, and her gaze was fixed ahead. Her instructor was looking down at a clipboard he held; neither of them seemed aware of my approaching presence.

My instinctive reaction was to throw myself onto the hood of the car and scare the living pee-pee out of both of them.

How I managed to restrain myself, I’ll never know.

But, I did. Okay?

* * *

Pity the afore-mentioned scenario happened Tuesday, and not today. Had I gone through with my whimsical notion, ‘twould have made a good – dare I say, even legendary? – April Fool’s Day prank.

You gotta love a day that is devoted to honoring and encouraging practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks both well- and feebly played.

The origins of April Fools Day’s are not completely agreed upon by historians, and have been variously attributed. What is agreed upon is that many cultures, going back to the ancient Romans and Egyptians, have set aside days for celebrating jokes and pranksters. Perhaps, as some people have speculated, there’s just something about the day’s timing – the fading of winter and the blooming of spring – which lends itself to the observance of light-hearted frivolity.

I can recall only a few of the pranks I’ve played on friends, family and co-workers over the years. The memories are silly but fond, and include:

* Sneaking a package of Hydrox cookies [1] from the family snack drawer and replacing all the cream fillings in the second row of cookies with toothpaste.

* Showing two positive pregnancy test dipsticks to a newbie Planned Parenthood co-worker and telling her I was pregnant with twins.

* Adding just a couple of drops of blue food coloring to the carton of nonfat milk in my parent’s refrigerator.

* Calling my father at his office and convincing him (if only temporarily) that someone had bought a raffle ticket in his name for the local animal shelter’s fundraising event, he’d won the raffle, and could he please let the shelter know when he was coming to claim his prize: an English Mastiff and a week’s supply – a 100 lb. bag of kibble – of the dog’s food. [2]

“I don’t get it – why would that be funny?”

* Swapping my and my siblings’ framed high school graduation pictures, which hung in my parent’s hallway, with pictures of the members of Led Zeppelin.

* Replacing the hard-boiled egg in my sister’s school lunch bag with a raw egg.

* Cutting my finger, smearing my blood on the scissors in co-worker Roger’s cubicle, leaving a note on my computer saying I had been threatened by Roger and feared for my life, then faking my own death and leaving town.

Oops, that’s right – I never got around to implementing the last one.

As pleasurable as it is to pull off an epic prank, it can be equally fun, IMHO, to have a great prank played on your own self. I hope y’all have a Happy April Fools’ Day…and I hope that I do not regret having made that previous declaration.

* * *

Speaking of foolery…

Department Of Uh, Since You’ve Asked, That Would Be, “No”

Last Sunday a FB friend began her post thusly:

Happy Easter, everyone! Can I share what it means to me?

FBF went on to – surprise! – offer her testimony for Jesus, without waiting for an answer to her question.

* * *

Department Of Back To The Future
Department Of After 35 Years The Spark Is Still There

Dateline: a recent Sunday night, friend over for dinner. I’d asked MH to choose some background music. When the Fiona Apple song Under the Table came on, MH turned to moiself and said, “This song always makes me think of you.”

I didn’t recall the song, but after listening to the lyrics, I appreciated his comment.

♫ I would beg to disagree, but begging disagrees with me…
So when they say something that makes me start to simmer
That fancy wine won’t put this fire out, oh

Kick me under the table all you want
I won’t shut up; I won’t shut up
Kick me under the table all you want
I won’t shut up; I won’t shut up… ♫

* * *

Department Of Analogy Of The Week

Dateline: late last week, listening to the most recent episode of Unexplainable, the science podcast which “explores scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown.”

In this “Your questions, unexplained” episode, the podcast hosts consulted various scientific researchers to help them answer questions the podcast listeners had on three topics: sleepwalking, déjà vu, and the Earth’s magnetic field. For the segment on the memory phenomenon known as déjà vu, the hosts interviewed Scottish cognitive science and neuroscience researcher Akira O’Connor. O’Connor got my attention with a memorable analogy. Among scientists who study the phenomenon, O’Connor said, theories about déjà vu are like toothbrushes:

“Everybody’s got one, but nobody wants to use anybody else’s.”

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [3]

( Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian ®
as created/played by Andrew Bradley and Deven Green )

* * *

May you start planning right now for next year’s April Fools Day;
May you appreciate a song that someone says reminds them of you;
May you be forewarned: if you kick me under the table, I won’t shut up;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Anyone else remember the precursor (and competitor) to Oreos?

[2] My sisters making muffled barking sounds to approximate background animal shelter noise was a great help in pulling off this prank.

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

The Upbringing I’m Not Regretting

April 7, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, Recreation, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! a religious upbringing, atheists, Camp Adams, church camp, communion and cannibalism, Freethinkers, Holi festival, kids talking about religion, Skeptics, The Mighty Quinn, UCC denomination Comments Off on The Upbringing I’m Not Regretting

Department Of In Praise Of Religion

Yeah, I know – from moiself ?

It’s not what it sounds like, ma’am.

Confession: this post isn’t really about praising religion. As we approach the weekend of the most holy Christian festival (in which, as with most Christian holidays, the ancient rites and myths of paganism and other spiritualities were incorporated into the Christian myths) moiself thought it would be appropriate to write a wee bit about how I am, in some ways, grateful for the religious upbringing I had.

* I am grateful to have been raised in a moderate Christian family, whose parents were members of a moderate Christian church. And by my moderate I mean they were a members of a mainstream denomination (Lutheran), and not fanatical, tongue-speaking Holy Rollers. My church experiences allowed me an education into the dominant religious thinking of our country, of that time. Translation: I saw how the sausage was made, so to speak, which is why I became a vegan religion-free.

As soon as I was able to formulate such ideas to moi’s younger self, I was able to understand religious traditions (all of ‘em, not just my family’s own) for what they were: failed hypotheses originating from primitive/pre-scientific peoples who were trying to understand/explain their world. Although I had that understanding as far back as I can remember, like most atheists-skeptics-freethinkers in this culture, I did not “come out” until much, much later, when it was safe (well, safer) to do so: as in, when there was a critical mass of Freethinkers and their allies to provide a buffering from the, “You can only be good with (a) god/nonbelievers are going to hell, etc.” attitudes which religions are highly effective at promoting.

* Not only did my religious upbringing provide me with a good cultural education, I appreciate that it allowed me to experience and observe how nice, well-intentioned, and otherwise seemingly reasonable people can accept the unreasonable-ness of religion for a variety of reasons. I learned that people can note the logical flaws, improprieties and downright batshit crazy inanities of beliefs and practices of *other* religions, while *not* applying the same analytical skills to what they have been taught (i.e., they critique Judaism and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, et al on the respective scriptures, principles, teachings and merits of those religions, but accept the claims of Christianity on “faith.”).

* My religious upbringing allowed me to see firsthand the danger of the complacency of accustomization, which the adult moiself eventually formulated into this truism:

The ridiculous is no longer ridiculous when it is the familiar.

Favorite example: Decades ago I heard two (white, Christian) women talking about a new (to them) religious festival, which they’d read about in a newspaper article about local Hindus [1] celebrating the Hindu Festival of Holi. Among other activities, Holi celebrations involve adherents dancing in the streets and throwing colored dye and/or powdered paints on each other. One of the women offered a weak defense of the color-flinging (“Well…maybe…it’s kinda like dying Easter eggs?”), but both agreed that Holi seemed…ahem…rather silly, not to mention primitive and nonsensical for a religious rite.

Their comments indicated that they were totally oblivious of how downright bizarre and even grotesque their own Christian ritual of symbolic (or in the case of the Catholic flavor of Christianity, literal [2] ) cannibalism, celebrated in the Christian rite of communion, can seem to people of other religious faiths.

* My religious upbringing was an educational experience I tried, in part, to impart to my own children…which is why MH and I joined a Christian church (the most liberal denomination we could find – the United Church of Christ, aka The UCC). We remained active members for years, until MH and I were honest with ourselves about not being able “…to do this anymore.” [3] This coincided with our children (son K and daughter Belle) being old enough and comfortable enough – despite liking both their church friends and many of the church’s social activities – to send the same honesty *our* way:

“Why do we go to church when I don’t – and it’s obvious that *you* don’t – believe any of that stuff (i.e., Christian theology)?”

Footnote which deserves more than a footnote: [4] Looking back, K and Belle were both open about their views long before MH and I were. It seemed to me that their school peers talked about religion – read: regurgitated what they were taught in their parents’ churches – much more frequently than I could remember my peers doing when I was in grade school. [5] And while my offspring never initiated such conversations (they weren’t “afraid” of the subject; they simply had little-to-no interest in it) they would answer honestly any questions posed to them. Perhaps because he was older, [6] K was subjected to this more than his sister, and was subjected to denigrating comments from certain classmates who were obviously being raised by very conservative religious, creationist-leaning parents.

If only the Jesus kids listened….

Although I was both happy with (and relieved by) my children’s inclination toward freethought, I wanted to be sure they understood that they must not be like their peers who criticized them – I wanted K and Belle to own their own viewpoints, and not just hold the same opinions as MH and I did, without considering the issues for themselves. When, for example, K shared a story about an outrageous and/or inane or just plain ignorant religious statement a kid had made, I would defend the kid (“He probably heard that at home/in church”), then question K further, trying to get him (and Belle) to practice the art of understanding a different POV:

“Why do you think someone would ____ (say/believe/think that)?

Can you think of any reasons why someone might ____ (say/believe/think that)?”

I did this consistently, until one day, K replied, with an insight (and sigh of resignation) beyond his years:

“The thing is, Mom, you know that *their* families are not doing the same.” [7]

When classmates made anti-science/pro-religion comments, K would respond with his own opinions….which led to him receiving the “godless atheist” label. I was proud of the way he handled himself, even as my heart cringed to see him mistreated by ignorant and mean-spirited Jesus bullies. What was worse, IMO, were the friends who didn’t join in the abuse but who also didn’t stand up for him (some of whom, I eventually surmised, felt the same way as K but didn’t want to become targets themselves, and thus stayed silent).

Belle had less school drama re her (lack of) religious beliefs. And there were two major incidents which made me realize that she was fully capable of standing up for herself in that regard. The first involved the last year Belle went to summer camp.

Both of our kids attended several seasons of the UCC’s summer church camp. Camp Adams is located in the temperate rainforest of Molalla (Oregon), with lots of fields and trails and creeks and a swimming hole – an ideal camp locale. For the younger ages, Camp Adams was more camp than church. For the older kids, starting around grade 5, the counselors and camp staff introduced more “churchy” things, including basic Christian theology (as seen through a liberal UCC lens). This gradual morphing from all-camp-fun to camp-fun-plus-Jesus-is-the-reason-we’re-here is a typical progression, as I remember from my own years of church summer camps. [8]

So: For several years in a row Belle had enjoyed going to summer camp – she even claimed to LOVE the camp’s food. But Camp Adam’s mashed potatoes weren’t enough, the last year she went to camp.

A preview of coming attractions for that last-year-of-camp: when MH filled out Belle’s camp registration form, after the requests for standard information about family, emergency contacts, medical concerns, food allergies, etc. there was an open-ended question asking parents to list anything they thought “ …the camp counselors and staff should know about your child.” MH wrote, “Belle will probably have little interest in the churchy or theological (religious) aspects of camp. And that is fine.”

Both MH and I drove Belle to camp; I picked her up at the end of the camp week. When I asked her how this year’s camp was she described a couple of amusing pranks the campers and counselors played on one another, then said that the rest of it was not the same fun as it used to be, and she wasn’t going back next year. When I asked her to elaborate, she told me the following story:

Unlike in previous years, the camp had fireside “churchy” services every evening, which Belle found irritatingly pointless. One day near the end of the camp week, the camp’s chaplain asked to meet with Belle privately. He told her she wasn’t in trouble; rather, he was concerned for her: the camp’s counselors had noticed Belle sitting through those services making little attempt to disguise her disinterest. [9] The chaplain flipped through the pages of a bible on his desk, reading aloud several scripture passages he’d marked, passages which told of the Christian god’s love for his people and the importance of loving that god in return. He then asked Belle what she thought about them.

I was surprised to hear this – throwing bible verses at a nine-year-old was not something I expected from a UCC chaplain (but I said nothing, and let Belle continue her story). And Belle simply but firmly disagreed with him. She told him (in her 9-year-old vocabulary) that she did not find those verses – or anything in his bible – profound or relevant to her in anyway. Despite being interested in all kinds of mythologies, she did not believe the stories about the Christian god were any different or factual than those of the Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, and other deities she was reading about.

“Good for you!” I crowed, as I concentrated on *not* driving off the road (I was dancing in the driver’s seat with delight). What an intimidating position to be in – for anyone, let alone a child – and she was able to stand up for herself.

So where do kids get such ideas?

The second incident occurred around the same season, when MH’s parents came to Oregon for their annual summer visit. MH and his father were out running errands; I was also out, driving MH’s mother and Belle…somewhere. Belle was in the front passenger’s seat; for reasons I cannot recall her grandma had insisted on sitting in the back seat, and then for reasons I really cannot fathom but remember as being totally out of context, Belle’s grandmother began talking to Belle about “god things.” I gritted my teeth but said nothing – my MIL was talking to Belle, not me. And Belle handled it with steely grace.

“I don’t believe in a god,” Belle calmy stated.

“You don’t believe in God?!?” Belle’s grandmother spoke with shock and dismay, and if Belle had just said that she liked stomping on baby hamsters. “I feel sorry for you.”

“Well, I feel sorry for *you,*” Belle replied.

Once again, I thought my seatbelt would burst with pride. That’s a difficult thing for a child, to stand their ground with a beloved relative who is criticizing and/or disapproving of you.

It was a long time ago and I’m unsure of the exact timeline, but at some point I thought, my work here is almost done, and I stopped attending our church. [10]

I had wanted K and Belle to have a religious literacy, because at that time, religious thought seemed to rule the world (or at least the US of A).

I wanted them to be familiar with the dominant religion of our culture, which had figured strongly in both of their parents’ backgrounds, so that they would know what it was that they were “rejecting” (to use their grandmother’s language), and also so that they might be inoculated against religious proselytizing. [11] But, I wanted them to be exposed to all of this via a denomination/church where they would *not* be subjected to abhorrent doctrines which taught that, no matter what kind of life they’d led, post-death they would be sorted into either a rewarding afterlife or one where they are subjected to anguish and torment, depending on whether or not they had subscribed to certain theological abstractions.

(Excerpts from Tim Callahan’s review of Dinesh D’Soua’s frothy book of apologetics What’s so great about Christianity):

“…(religious moderates) claim that fanatics represent nothing more than a lunatic fringe. However, we nonbelievers repeatedly encounter…egregious behavior among the faithful. Often, those claiming to be among the Christian ‘saved’ are gratuitously rude and loutish. Sometimes it’s only their casual arrogance that offends. Or perhaps it’s the cosmic death threat. D’Souza writes (p. xi)

‘Death forces upon you a choice that you cannot escape.
You must choose god or reject him, because when you die all abstentions are counted as ‘no’ votes.’…

Implicit in this statement is the threat of eternal damnation, not based on whether or not you have lived a good life, but rather whether or not you have adhered to what my wife refers to as the ‘loyalty oath.’ According to the ethics and ideology of the ‘loyalty oath’ we’re all such wretches (as in the hymn Amazing Grace) that no amount of decency in how we live can make up for our unbelief. Conversely, any degree of depravity seems acceptable, so long as you’ve confessed your sinful nature and continue to affirm your belief in the (specifically) Christian god. It is surprising that we take offense at this?”

And so on this weekend Christians call Easter (even though most Christians have no idea why, and the word is not in their scriptures), I am celebrating the spring equinox, and reflecting on the ideas of renewal, and on the good fortune I had as a child and the even better fortune I chose to make for myself (and, I hope, model for my offspring) as an adult.

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [12]

* * *

May you reflect on an aspect of your childhood which was enlightening in ways you did not fully understand as a child;
May you detect the fine lines between the ridiculous and the familiar;
May you find an excuse to celebrate…something…which involves throwing colored paint on your fellow celebrants;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Several local high-tech companies employ a substantial amount of East Asian engineers, who brought their cultural and religious traditions with them and were beginning to be more “open” about their festivals and beliefs.

[2] “Transubstantiation – the idea that during Mass, the bread and wine used for Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ – is central to the Catholic faith.” (Pew Research Center)

[3] As in, the intellectual dishonesty finally got to us, despite our wish to support a progressive, open & affirming congregation.

[4] Which is why it is there, and not here.

[5] Which was a large part of my inspiration for writing my juvenile novel, The Mighty Quinn.

[6] Belle is three years younger than K, and from what I heard her classmates didn’t talk religion as much as the older kids did.

[7] As in, those kids were not being encouraged at home to understand K’s POV – they were just being told that peop0le like K were wrong and/or going to hell.

[8] and is why K opted out of camp several years before Belle

[9] And apparently ratted her out to the chaplain.

[10] It took MH a bit longer to feel comfortable with being open about his beliefs; he kept attending services for a few weeks after the kids and I stopped going (I told the kids it was totally up to them if they wanted to go to church or not – even if MH and I were no longer attending, we would take them to church – any church – if they wanted to go).

[11] In my experience, some of the easiest converts, whether to mainstream denominations or cults (and what are cults, really, except for religions with less money and PR than the mainstream denominations?), are people who’ve had no religious background at all and are naïve prey for slick proselytizing.

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

The Micros I’m Not Dosing

March 31, 2023

Robyn Parnell community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Me so happy, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! #45 indicted, advertising drugs, bell, blue sailors on the beach, body music, creative people, Disgraceland, Evie Ladin and Keith Terry, house concert, micro dosing, percussive dancing, poaching elk on the coast, preferred pronouns Comments Off on The Micros I’m Not Dosing

Department Of First Things First

IT”S ABOUT FUCKING TIME !!!!!

(and yes, the photo is edited as I refused to have that pathetic criminal’s face take up space in my blog).

Here’s to the first of many oindictments to come, and all seriously overdue.

* * *

Department Of The Return Of The Blue Sailors

These perplexing (to many Oregon coast visitors) creatures are commonly referred to as vellas, but their full species title is Velella vella. When you have such a cool name, why not have it twice?

A small (~ 7 cm in length), deep blue-bodied, plankton-eating hydrozoa, vellas are surface floaters. They’ve a small, stiff “sail” which moves them over the surface of the ocean, leaving them at the mercy of wind and currents. Depending on those two sea forces, vellas can get stranded on the beach, where they die off en masse (and their blue fades/gets bleached to white, leading some folk to think there are two different species, or colors, of vellas) and clog the beach for a day or so until subsequent tides wash them back out to sea.

This mass stranding happens yearly on the Oregon coast, where vellas have acquired a variety of nicknames, [1] including what-the-hell-are-those-things? Moiself just calls them the blue sailors. Some years they seem to blanket the beach.

* * *

Department Of The Wonders Of American And World Music

Dateline: Wednesday evening, near the end of one of the best house concerts MH and I have ever attended. The duo we saw are singer/songwriters: Evie Ladin is a guitarist and banjoist steeped in the American/traditional music genres; Keith Terry plays standup base, and both are also accomplished cloggers, “percussive dancers,” and “body musicians.”

Body music involves incorporate body slaps as both percussive and musical accompaniments (e.g. “hamboning” [2] ):

“Body music, also known as body percussion or body drumming, is a fascinating amalgam of composition and choreography. The music creates the shapes and patterns of the dance; the dance makes the sounds and rhythms of the music resulting in visible music/audible dance….”
(from “Music you can see; dance you can hear,” kekeca.net )

Keith Terry (center) at the International Body Music Festival

It’s difficult to describe what a unique and immersive listening and watching experience Ladin and Terry provided; I urge y’all to see them if you can (check their schedule -they tour as Evie Ladin Band, here) .

Near the end of their performance, after they’d performed a particularly dynamic body music number, they asked if anyone in the audience had any questions. Moiself of course did: I couldn’t help but wonder if this – I proceeded to mime the armpit fart maneuver – counted as body music? Terry said that as a matter of fact it does, and that there is a rich tradition of it in Ethiopia, although the Ethiopians don’t call it “fart music” (I replied that 12-year-old Ethiopians probably did) but rather, armpit music.” And after the show we spoke privately, and he earnestly urged me to google “Ethiopian armpit music.”

Which I did:

And look – it’s not just for Ethiopians anymore!

* * *

Department Of It’s Inevitable

Recently I received yet another email in which, underneath the sender’s sign off, there was the person’s stated pronoun preference, ala:

Beula Gertrude Bransfrøgsdattir
she/her

A part of me both dreads and anticipates the occasion wherein moiself will be requested (or required) to state the same. And if I’m requested to provide my “preferred” pronouns, in order to answer honestly, I will have to list

Robyn Parnell
She/Her Royal Awesomeness The Fabulous Miss Scarlett Johansson [3]

Zhee whiz this is complicated.

* * *

Department Of Calling This Hunter
Dumpster-Fire-For-A-Soul Doesn’t Even Begin To Cover It

Just hearing about this incident this week, via North County News:

“A subject shooting into a herd of elk near Nehalem killed one and mortally wounded at least three others in January, while illegally shooting from a road, and in the direction Hwy 101.
The 66-year-old subject blamed “elk fever” when he self-reported the incident….”
(“Subject Mortally Wounds At Least Four Elk After Shooting Into Herd” )

Elk fever. So, the sight of these magnificent creatures sent Dumpster-Fire-For-A-Soul into a killing frenzy?

Elk on the beach at near Seaside, Oregon

Intrepid sportsman that he is, DFFAS shot from his car “…in the direction of the highway.” Oh…myyyyyyyyy….

Along the Oregon coast where MH and I spend a good deal of time there are at least two resident herds of elk near us – one in Manzanita/Nehalem area. The elk roam daily, trying to find the best remaining grazing territories, and you can often see them hanging out near the highway (101), along with the cars which have slowed down and/or pulled over to the side of the road, to admire the sight and take pictures.

That bloodthirsty, festering turd of an excuse for a human being irresponsible DFFAS could just as easily hit one of those cars, or one of the people inside them, or anyone driving or walking along the highway. The rifle he used, a .308 “sniper rifle,” has a “zeroed range of from 300-600 yards” and can target up to 1000 yards.

Meanwhile, DFFAS left three elk to die in agony (two were tracked, “assessed,” and put down by sheriff’s deputies; the third mortally wounded elk was last seen trying to escape in the Nehalem River, where she presumably drowned).

Sometimes I really don’t like my species.

* * *

Department Of Ick Of The Week
Sub Department Of The Podcast I Just Deleted From My Feed

As if your average US citizen needs another encouragement to mask their moods and alter their brains with more chemicals….

Dateline: Tuesday 7 am-ish, getting ready for a morning walk, scrolling through my podcast feed. Oh, lookey: there’s a new (to me) Disgraceland, an episode on Lou Reed. That might be entertaining.

I never found out. The podcast host did something which had me reaching for delete. He read a commercial from one of his podcast’s sponsors (emphases mine):

“Hey everybody, so you’ve probably heard about micro dosing and you’ve probably wondered, ‘What could it do for me?’ [4]
Just know that all sorts of people are micro-dosing daily to relax, to perform better, to feel better, and for so many other reasons.
Our show today is sponsored by Microdose Gummies. Microdose Gummies deliver *perfect*, entry-level doses of THC that help you feel *just* the right amount of good.
Sometimes, as a creative person, you need some other sort of inspiration….”

“I’m so much more creative than a lion, but people don’t seem to notice, so maybe if I micro-dose I can focus better on self-promotion….”

Yet again, moiself digresses. The ad continued:

“When I’m recording an episode of Disgraceland sometimes it’s hard to focus and be creative; I might be feeling distracted, uninspired…half a Microdose Gummie to relax and get centered is just enough for me, just enough to spark some creativity, not so much that I feel hazy or spacey. Microdose is available nationwide; to learn more about micro dosing THC go to microdose.com and use code Disgraceland…”

Sometimes, as a creative person, I need a barf bucket to contain my disgust with sleazebag tactics which use the “as a creative person” appeal to push (legal or otherwise) untested and unregulated mind-altering substances.

Feeling “hard to focus” or “distracted/uninspired”? Go for a walk; get outside; get some fresh air. Take a break; put on your favorite music and make yourself a cup of tea. Get out of the house/office, talk to a friend. If you are seriously concerned about your mood/attitude then make an appointment with a licensed medical/mental health care professional (someone with credentials other than “podcaster”) for behavioral modification recommendations. [5]

Holy effin’ bong water brains: people will fall for (and sell) any kind of crap.

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]

* * *

May you check into a mental health facility should you come down with elk fever;
May you aspire to greatness with your preferred pronouns;
May you understand that truly creative people manage to be so despite pharmaceutical enhancement, not because of it (think, armpit music !);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Sailor-by-the-sea; sea raft, by-the-wind sailor; purple sail; little sail; mini-man-o-war;

[2] a style of dance involving stomping and slapping various parts of your body – a style found in cultures all over the world but most familiar to Americans via the descendants of enslaved Africans who performed the art during the vaudevillian age.

[3] Damn right it’s going to get me in trouble.

[4] Yes to the first “probably”; HA HA HA HA HA HA nope to the second.

[5] and/or pharmaceutical, which should never be the first choice.

The Self I’m Not Controlling

March 24, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! badonkadonk, binge-watching, Columnist Carolyn Hax, dead foods, farty putty, gratitude awareness, happiness, Hidden Brain podcast, in praise of normal days, mindfulness, North Coast Pinball, not-quite-flirting with an adolescent, Reframing poblems, self-control or self-command, the perfect plate, who is in charge of your life 2 Comments

Department Of Listen To This, For Something Insightful To Consider
Chapter 347 In A Never-Ending Series

What could be more appropriate for Spring, the season of growth, renewal and new beginnings, than to consider what we think about, and how we pursue, happiness and contentment?

(intro to) Hidden Brain Podcast: Happiness 2.0: The Path To Contentment.

“The conventional way most of us go about accomplishing anything, is to work hard at it. When it comes to happiness, many of us say, ‘If this is something I really want, I need to go out and get it.’

This might be especially true in the United States, where the Declaration of Independence celebrates the ‘pursuit of happiness.’ The problem is, pursuing happiness can have the paradoxical effect of chasing happiness away. Trying to elude unhappiness can be similarly counterproductive.

(in this episode we) kick off a month-long series we’re calling Happiness 2.0. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness can seem more elusive the harder we chase it, and what we can do instead to build a lasting sense of contentment.

* * *

Department Of Commander In Chief

What would moiself do without podcasts? [1]

Can’t remember where I heard this (a podcast, most likely), so moiself apologizes for the lack of attribution….

Research into human nature (aka the full employment strategy for psychologiss) has led to the tactic of *reframing* negative or tricky situations, which can be an effective solution to understanding and solving them. For example, take the words self-control and self-command.

Talking about “self-control” seems to have fallen out of behavioral science vogue. What is become more popular is attributing bad habits and harmful behavior patterns to a combination of genetics, environment, etc. Certainly, these are all factors for any situation, positive or negative. But if you have a problem with the concept of self-control (or even with the term itself), try reframing it to this: self-command.

But first, we at self-command central [2] need to define a term that is used in subsequent paragraphs: Dead Food.

Oh, do you really?

“ ‘Dead food’ is the newest title given to food that has had the life packaged, preserved, or cooked out of it, to the point where it has become sadly void of virtually all nutritional value. Dead food refers to processed food or food without nutrients. It is called dead because it has been refined to a point that it is bereft of minerals, vitamins, and fibers.

These types of ‘foods’ are not foods!!! Rather they are a series of synthetically derived ingredients that are mixed together into something that tastes OK, has a long shelf life and actually does more harm than good to our health. In recent times these health depriving ‘foods’ have become quite popular and often a staple in the Standard Western Diet. As such, we have seen an incredible rise in modern diseases like diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, infertility, cancer and more….

Live foods are foods that are consumed fresh, raw and/or in a condition as close as possible to their original, vibrant, living state. The basic idea behind all live foods is retaining the very best that natural foods have to offer, including live enzymes, antioxidants and other nutrients.
(dead food v. alive food, deepH.com )

Yep, I’m out to ruin Girl Scout cookies for you.

“There are numerous ways to classify food—low fat, high sodium, low fiber, high sugar, clean, gluten free, vegetarian, lactose free, to name a few. But what if you were told the path to good health was to eat only ‘alive’ food and avoid ‘dead’ food?

So, what exactly is a ‘dead’ food? If it can sit on your counter for days or weeks and not go bad, then it’s a dead food. These foods are refined, highly processed, often synthetic and have little-to-no nutritional value. Think about foods like cheese-flavored crackers, meal replacement bars, fruit snacks and flavored beverages. Chemicals? Check. Artificial colors and flavors? Check. Ingredients on the label that you can’t pronounce? Check.

Unfortunately, these processed, chemical-rich foods are pervasive in the American diet. We want fast, convenient and tasty food and there’s plenty on the supermarket shelves that fit the bill.”
( Alive food v. Dead food, ACE certification )

*Most of us know about (or are at least familiar with the concept of ) the nutritional ideal of the “perfect plate,” which consists of 50 % veggies and fruit, 25 % whole grains, and 25 % a lean/high fiber protein source. [3]

* Most of us know, or at least have heard, that we should not drink our calories, and that sugar-laden soft drinks, milk shakes and sports drinks – even allegedly healthy smoothies – are awash in calories but don’t make you feel full, and that diet sodas and artificially sweetened beverages are no better than their full sugar counterparts and in fact are also linked to increased food cravings for high calorie foods and Type II diabetes [4]….

* Most of us know, or at least have heard, that (as per the AARP’s phrasing) “ Your sainted mother [5] was wrong — it’s bad to clean your plate. The iron rule: Exercise more; eat less….”

Damn right I’m gonna eat more than one slice at the office potluck because I * deserve* it, and besides, my co-workers are all jerks….

* * *

We don’t necessarily let our meals be dominated by simple carbs (bread, white rice, white pasta, sugar, chips) and soft drinks, and all the synthetic snack foods, cereals, and other dead foods, because we’re lazy or incompetent or greedy. [6]

But it’s likely we’ve stopped commanding you own lives. Who is in charge?

Advertisers for the industrial/fast/dead food industries are trying to get us to eat when we’re not hungry, and to think that we’re hungry 24/7. The entertainment industry wants us to park your badonkadonks on the sofa from dinner time to bedtime, stream our brains out and then brag about it later. Remember when the word “binge” did not have positive connotations (“We ordered in and binged all episodes of ‘Housewives of Chernobyl’ last night…”)?

Self-command. Who is calling the shots in your life, and what are the areas in your life where the commander is anyone, anything, but yourself?

* * *

Department Of Back to Happiness and Contentment:
In Praise Of Simple Pleasures

There is simple yet insightful essay (recently referred to by The Washington Post Columnist Carolyn Hax) that, although written some 18 years ago, addresses some of what we now might call gratitude awareness and mindfulness before those concepts got into the mainstream.

When I read the essay I was reminded of a phone call in January with daughter Belle. After catching up with her goings-on, Belle asked MH and I about what we were doing, and I couldn’t really think of much to say, other than something like it was just another “uneventful normal day.”

Many “normal days” in a row, are, as the essay’s author points out, the bulk of days for most people. Thus, since “most of life *is* normal days, to be in love with them is to be in love with life.”

To be in love with normal days is to be in love with life.

However much we await the arrival of fantastic things, or dread the tragedies and anticipate their passing…it all does pass, or at least change. Meanwhile…

“How many of us pass our lives in anticipation? Of the larger homes, smaller bodies and fattened bank accounts of our dreams; of the losses and disasters of our nightmares? We’re so focused on what we pray will happen or on what we hope never will happen that we’re blind to what is.

What is, for most people, is normal days.

Days when you’re aware of being neither particularly sick nor well. When your relatives, friends and partners waver between buoying you up and sitting on your nerves; when you’re too busy to notice much of anything — except that you’re too busy. Days when people ask, “So what happened today?” and you pause, think and come up with squat.

Those are days worth loving.”
(excerpt from “The Dog’s Wet And Life Is Wonderful,”
Donna Britt, The Washington Post, June 16, 1995)

I found the essay both sweet and profound, and hope y’all check it out.

And in praise and recognition of simple pleasures, moiself will confess to the first one that sprang to my normal (well, for me) mind:

I love it that my family knows I will appreciate (and use) a jar of “farty putty.” [7]

* * *

Department Of The Secret To Eternal Youth

Dateline: Monday, North Coast Pinball. I am playing one of the arcade’s newest – as in, most recently acquired – games. [8] A ~12 year old boy, whom I’d seen earlier playing some of the games, was playing chess with his sister (? they look like fraternal twins), at the arcade’s games table, which is a few feet from the pinball machine I’m playing. He and his sister get up to leave, and he approaches me. He looks at me shyly, glances down at his shoes, then looks up and smiles the sweetest bright-eyed smile I’ve seen in years. He holds out two tokens in his right hand, and nods at me.

“For me?” I ask. He nods again, and blushes. I take the tokens and thank him. The two kids leave the arcade, and I inform WI, the arcade owner, of this encounter.

“Awww,” WI says, raising his voice two octaves. “ ‘Will you be my valentine?’ “

“It was so sweet,” moiself gushes. “Like being asked to go steady.”

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week

“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”
(Author E.B. White )

* * *

May you expeience the emotional equivalent of being asked to go steady;
May you strive to be in love with the life of normal days;
May you find a way to work the word badonkadonks into your next conversation;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Plenty, actually. Just like I did, and continue to do, before this genre of news and entertainment existed.

[2] Okay; there’s no such thing, but I’m working on it.

[3] Plant-based, ideally!

[4] Artificial sweeteners lead to a reduction in the hormone that inhibits appetite, increase the risk of Type II diabetes and obesity (Multiple sources, including NPR 10-7-21

[5] Or grandparents, who lived through The Great Depression and had it hammered into them that you never know when (or if) your next meal is coming so you must eat all of whatever is offered to you.

[6] Or, perhaps a brutally frank self-assessment and/or some sessions with a trained counselor might indicate that, maybe, we *are* and now that we have identified these tendencies we can work on overcoming and/or managing them.

[7] Which is why I found one in last year’s Christmas stocking.

[8] Bally’s World Cup Soccer. I love it when the machine’s voice yells, “GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAL!”

The Cartoonist(s) I’m Not Defending

March 10, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, movies, politics, reproductive rights, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! anti-aging industrial complex, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, cartoonist Scott Adams, consequences of offending, Dilbert, Gates Fadden;Steve Lopez Golden State column, Grey's Anatomy, Mimi Roger, NPGA, Rasmussen poll, Salman Rushdie, Star Trek: Picard, Ted Cruz bonehead remark, Theo can Gogh, transgender witches, tv storylines about abortion, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media Comments Off on The Cartoonist(s) I’m Not Defending

Dateline: Friday morning; watching a movie on TV while warming-up on my elliptical machine before my streaming yoga class. When Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone takes a commercial break, I discover a new (well, to moiself ) tactic in the using-the-fear-of-living-to-sell-stuff campaigns. Along with “anti-aging” potions, there now is at least one skin product company that is promoting their products as “ageless.“ Hmmm So, if you use their serums and creams and lotions you can be ageless. Which, if I understand the meaning of the suffix -less, means you will no longer have age – you know, like people who don’t yet exist, or are dead.

Sign me up!

And what a convenient segue to…

Department Of Topical Topics

Dateline: Sunday 1:30 pm-ish; MH and I driving home after dining out. During lunch we’d discussed our previous evening’s watching of the first three episodes of season 3 of Star Trek’s Picard. We talked about what we liked and didn’t like plot-wise, and what we both found distracting and disturbing: the “new face’ in the cast, [1] which was actually a familiar face, or should have been. Translation: we were both saddened and disappointed by the draconian visage of actor Gates McFadden (Star Trek/TNG’s Dr. Beverly Crusher), yet another actor who oh-so-obviously had drastic self-mutilation “work done.”

How moiself cringed to behold her…and I’d been looking forward to seeing her character again. I’d just listened to McFadden’s most recent podcast: I’ve listened to many episodes of it, where I’ve learned that in addition to being an actor and choreographer, McFadden is also passionate about her work as a theater director and acting teacher. I don’t know if she’s still teaching acting, but if she is, I’m wondering how she would counsel novice actors – in particular, female actors – re the thespian principle of how your body is your instrument…and your face is attached to your body and is the most expressive part of your instrument, but so many actors now seem to view their face as an ornament – passive and decorative, not active and expressive – which needs periodic refurbishing.

McFadden and most of the TNG cast are making guest and/or recurring appearances on Picard. Assuming McFadden’s fellow TNG actors hadn’t seen her in a while, [2] here’s another thing I wondered: one by one, as her former castmates are filming their scenes in which Dr. Crusher and their respective characters have roles, they see her grotesque altered appearance for the first time, backstage, and…how do they react?

They *are* actors, so it’s likely that, after a truly sincere, “It’s so good to work with you again!” they convincingly spew the obligatory, “You look great!”…or just change the subject. [3]

I feel so bad for – nope, wait, I do not. Not gonna apologize for my honest reaction. I’m just so sad to know that if I were to have met her, I’d be stifling my What happened to you – you look terrible?!? Whatever you did, let it wear off and DON’T DO IT AGAIN reaction, which would be a cruel thing to say to anyone. And after it’s done – when it’s “too late” – no one is likely giving her honest feedback.

What kind of a shallow and shitty world makes her think that she had to do that to herself? And who LIES to her (who lies to *anyone* who does these procedures?) after her face has been sliced the pulled and stitched and bloated and tells her she looks great, or at least somehow better?

It’s unfair/not nice, I know. Female actors encounter a loss of work if they age naturally, then get criticized when they attempt to mask their age surgically. But…oh, Ms. McFadden…Gates, Gates, Gates, girl…things aren’t going to change unless we decide to change them, by not capitulating to the sexism and agism which drive such decisions. And if you’re not moved to rebel by realizing the dirty cultural and political standards that drive the plastic surgery industry, what about trying a dose of this reality:

* You don’t look “better” after cosmetic surgery – no one who undergoes these procedures does.
* It calls attention to your aging, and your fear of it;
you look distorted, not younger.

Before

After

Après lunch I opened the LA Times app on my phone, and saw the latest Steve Lopez column. Longtime journalist Lopez started a new project several months back, which the Times announced thusly:

“…we are thrilled to announce that Lopez is launching a new column, Golden State, which will explore the challenges, and occasional thrills, of aging.
Nearly 6 million people 65 and older live in California, and that number will nearly double by 2030. That growing demographic grapples daily with care-giving shortages, age discrimination, isolation and health issues. … They are negotiating relationships with adult children and with grandchildren. In some instances, they’re raising their grandchildren. At the same time, many people 65 and older continue to be at the top of their game….”

And the focus of Lopez’s most recent column?

“We live in a society obsessed with youth, fearful of death and allergic to wrinkles.
But actress Mimi Rogers, who is 67, is having none of it….
It’s refreshing to see a big-name Hollywood actor age naturally and gracefully rather than grotesquely.”

Mimi Rogers had contacted Lopez about another article he’d written. They corresponded, she agreed to be interviewed about her recent acting roles, and then…

… she was happy to speak her mind…about ageism, longstanding societal pressures on women to look young, the double standard for men, and ‘the plastic surgery nightmares we see all around us.’
‘This is me, this is my face,” Rogers says, ‘and I’m not going to show up with fish lips.’
Rogers said she feels fortunate to have been able to consistently find work as she has aged, and she revels in her current role on Bosch: Legacy… a full-on, artful and talented lawyer who plays her age while fighting for her clients and her causes.
In many ways, Rogers said, this is a good time for older actors because streaming of high-quality shows has opened some doors. But biases and double standards are still firmly in place.
‘It goes back to when Cary Grant was cavorting with 22-year-olds’ on screen,’ Rogers said. ‘I think it’s better in Europe, but a lot of women talk about this idea that past a certain age, you become invisible. It’s like your sexual currency is gone, and that currency goes away much more rapidly for women.’
We’re at something of a ‘turnstile moment,’ says University of Michigan cultural critic Susan J. Douglas, author of “Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media.” Stereotypes about female aging persist, she said, but there’s been a pushback and ‘a visibility revolt’ in which actresses, including Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, ‘are still opening movies and TV shows, and political figures, including Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, are ‘staking a claim to be visible in public life.’

Moiself’s insertion: Yeah, stake that claim….even as people like CNN Newscaster Don Lemon (age 57) keep saying (and thinking) shit things like this: [4]

CNN host Don Lemon shocked his co-host after saying that Nikki Haley, who recently announced her plan to run for president in 2024, and other women over the age of 50 aren’t in their “prime.”
On Thursday morning’s episode of CNN This Morning, Lemon and co-host Poppy Harlow discussed Haley’s recent comments about requiring competency tests for politicians over the age of 75.
“This whole talk about age makes me uncomfortable. I think it’s the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians are suddenly not in their prime. Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime. Sorry. When a woman is considered in her prime is in her twenties and thirties,” Lemon said.
(Newsweek 2-16-23)

More Lopez column excerpts (from “ ‘This is me, this is my face’: Actress Mimi Rogers on aging naturally, without cosmetic surgery,”
my emphases, LA Times 3-4-23 )

‘Mimi’s position is so important to the rest of us, because celebrity culture often sets the standard for everyday women — the standards of slimness and beauty and looking young,’ Douglas said.
Many women, Douglas continued, face a “punishing” dilemma — especially those in entertainment and public life. Wrinkles can threaten their livelihood, but ‘if you go under the knife and don’t look like yourself, you’re attacked for being narcissistic or wanting to hold on to the past. So it’s really hard to win.’
And then there’s the multibillion-dollar ‘anti-aging industrial complex’…diligently grooming the next cult of warriors in the fight against the inevitable.
“…it’s really quite a brilliant campaign,” said Douglas. ‘They are now marketing Botox to people in their 20s, and if you get people to be phobic about aging when they’re young, you have an ever-replenishing market for your products.’ “

* * *

Department Of Silly Moiself…

…for doubting that Yet Another Bonehead remark® could come prancing out of the mouth of Senator Ted Cruz.

Last Saturday morning, I saw this social media post from a friend who is a longtime activist [5] in the National Gay Pilots Association:

NGPA Stands with Transgender Aviation Community
On March 1, 2023, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “It gives no comfort to the flying public that their pilot might be a transgender witch but doesn’t actually know how to prevent a plane from crashing…”
The NGPA strongly condemns Sen. Cruz’s transphobic statement and welcomes the opportunity to educate Sen. Cruz and members of the Senate Commerce Committee on effective Crew Resource Management, how an inclusive flight deck is a safe flight deck, and how to be a supportive ally to Transgender aviators across the industry. Read the full press release here.

I had to look up the video (here it is) of Cruz’s comments; I thought the report of it might be an exaggeration, because I couldn’t quite believe that anyone would utter the words “transgender witches” with regard to anything FAA-related.

Someone needs to cast a spell on that man.

Also, as a member of the Flying Public ® (and therefore qualified to speak for ALL OF US), I know that witches have a millennia of skillful flying under their belts hats. Thus, I’ve no problem with witches of any gender orientation being involved with aviation. In case my opinion on the matter isn’t clear, behold my favorite of my car’s many bumper stickers:

* * *

Department Of Speaking Of Boneheads

I don’t read many comic strips anymore, in part due to my (mostly but not exclusively) subscribing to online newspapers. Even when MH and I subscribed to three “dead tree” newspapers and moiself would scan the comics pages, I hadn’t paid attention to Dilbert in years if not decades. I thought Dilbert was a clever idea when it started – the cubicle culture was a fresh and ripe venue for satire. Eventually it seemed to me that Dilbert kept repeating itself. [6] I stopped checking it out because I found it boring; also, there was a certain undertone of…smugness(?)…I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Moiself didn’t know the strip was still running until its creator, Scott Adams, got into a brouhaha after he got ahold of some wicked Maui Wowie decided that the world needed to hear his WTF?!? opinions on race relations he broadcasted on his YouTube channel. [7]

Adams reportedly has a history of airing “problematic” views (including statements that can be taken as anti-COVID vaccination, claiming he lost job opportunities because he is white, and questioning the Holocaust death estimates). On February 22 he posted a rant (YouTube livestream ) wherein, after referencing a poll by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Group that found only a slim majority of Black Americans agreed with the weirdly phrased statement, “It’s okay to be white,” Adams said that Black Americans are “a hate group” and advised white people to “get the hell away” from them.

Historical context:

“The phrase ‘it’s okay to be White’ was popularized in 2017 as a trolling campaign meant to provoke liberals into condemning the statement and thus, the theory went, proving their own unreasonableness. White supremacists picked up on the trend, adding neo-Nazi language, websites or images to fliers with the phrase….

‘Anyone who did know the history of it or who had a suspicion about the history of it might react to that Rasmussen question with some skepticism,’ said Nicholas Valentino, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who studies racial attitudes and public emotions. ‘And that wouldn’t be a sign that they didn’t like White people.’
(“A poll asked if it’s ‘OK to be white.’ Here’s why the phrase is loaded.” The Washington Post, 2-28-23 )

Did Adams not know (or care) about that tricky phrase’s history? Did he wonder, even for a moment, about that poll’s question’s phrasing?

I have no idea. However, IMO what some other cartoonists have said is equally or more troubling than Adams’ rant.

( Excerpts from “Cartoonists say a rebuke of ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams is long overdue,” my emphases, NPR news 2-28-23 ):

“…(other) cartoonists say Adams has a long history of spewing problematic views…
‘It begs the question, now that everyone is piling on him, what took so long?’ said Keith Knight, an illustrator known for his comic strips The Knight Life, (th)ink and The K Chronicles….
After receiving widespread pushback for his offensive rant, Adams described himself as getting canceled. But (some) cartoonists argue that he is simply being held accountable for his remarks.
‘By Adams saying he’s been canceled, its him not owning up to his own responsibility for the things he said and the effect they have on other people,’ said Ward Sutton, who has contributed illustrations to The New York Times, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. ‘He’s trying to turn himself into a victim when he himself has been a perpetrator of hate.’
…Similarly, Hector Cantú, best known for his Latino-American comic Baldo, said he believes in freedom of speech, but not freedom from repercussions.
‘Don’t gloss this over by saying it’s politics or it’s cancel culture,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to offend people, you risk paying the price.’

Seriously?

Do some deep yoga breaths, Cantú, and consider this: How do you define what the “price” is?

A blanket statement like If you’re going to offend people, you risk paying the price could be used to justify anything, as long as someone feels “offended.”

* What about “the price” Salman Rushdie has paid ? After all, he “had an effect on” – he “offended” – many, many people.
* What about the attack on the French newspaper, Charlie Hebro (12 murdered ; 11 injured) by an Islamic terrorist group, after the satirical publication ran cartoons that many people found offensive?
* And what about Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who, in collaboration with Somali-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a TV film which criticized conservative Muslim clergy for perpetuating views that are anti-women and anti-gay? van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on the streets of Amsterdam for his “offensive” views and films, [8] and Hirsi Ali received numerous death threats and had to go into hiding.

Look: It’s no surprise to moiself that Adams’ rant makes him sound like a Major Dickhead.

That’s *General* Dickhead to you, ma’am!

There are reasons I chose to stop reading Dilbert. And newspapers are, of course free, to choose which strips they will carry and which they won’t, for whatever reasons. But, hello, I am greatly troubled by Cantú’s comment. I believe Cantú’s attitude is a danger to intellectual liberty and freedom of expression – I suppose I should say I’m greatly *offended* by him, and then, what? I could be justified in making Cantú risk paying the price…whatever price I decide is appropriate re the depth of my umbrage?

* * *

Department Of Must See TV

So much to complain about, this past week!

Thus, I was happy find something worthy of anti-complaint. Moiself did something I’ve never done before: I wrote a letter to the producer(s) of a TV show. Here it is, in its entirety:

The 3-2-23 episode of Grey’s Anatomy (“All Star”) was a stunner, for me. First, the obligatory listing of my commentary credentials:

* I worked for nine years in women’s reproductive health care; five of those in a private OB-GYN practice and four in various Planned Planned Parenthood clinics.
* I am a human being.

The episode’s storyline which inspired me to write featured a young mother who suffered intractable non-treatment-responsive, devastating, postpartum depression after the births of each of her two children. She and her husband suffered a contraceptive failure and she was faced with a third, unplanned pregnancy. She chose to terminate her pregnancy to save her own mental health and to be able to be a fully present mother to her two young children.

What was stunning for me was when I realized how rare it was – what I was seeing. How refreshing to see a storyline involving a woman’s decision to have an abortion presented so forthrightly – as in, not involving hysteria or judgment, but wherein a patient needing medical services was able to make the best choice for herself and her family, and was able to do so legally, and with competent and compassionate medical care. Having worked in an abortion clinic, I also appreciated the depiction, once again competent and compassionate, of the abortion procedure itself.

Keep up the good work – and the story lines!

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [9]

* * *

May you be part of the aging naturally visibility revolt;
May you be wary of how you react when you are “offended;”
May you cherish the comical absurdity of terms like transgender witches;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] I almost didn’t recognize her…except that she was identified as Dr. Crusher.

[2] They’ve all been pursuing other gigs since the series went off the air and the last TNG movie was made, which was over 20 years ago.

[3] And how many of the male cast has had cosmetic procedures? Hard to tell, although, typically, males are “allowed” their wrinkles (and can use facial hair to a certain extent to hide sagging chins and lip and mouth lines). Patrick Stewart, who plays Jean Luc Picard, certainly looks *near* his age, but his forehead is suspiciously taut.

[4] Yes, in 2023, not 1923.

[5] Founding member, if memory serves.

[6] Without announcing, “this strip is a rerun.” Hey, everybody needs a vacation…

[7] Yep, I didn’t know Dilbert was still running and also didn’t know Adams had a YouTube channel.

[8] van Gogh was already dead when his murderer used a knife to pin a death threat to Ali on van Gogh’s chest. Ali subsequently went into hiding under government protection.

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

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