Moiself was merely one of the thousands of people who informed certain media and entertainment outlets that their kowtowing to a DICKtatorship cowardice in the face of First Amendment threats has consequences. This is the email I sent last week to ABC national and local affiliates:
We are saddened to have to cancel our ABC-related accounts (Hulu, Disney) – I am a fan of Grey’s Anatomy and had eagerly awaited the new season – but we feel we have no ethical choice. We are appalled by the cowardice and submissiveness ABC is broadcasting by its decision to suspend the Jimmy Kimmel Live show.
ABC did this after the Trump administration – which complains about every news and media outlet which does not kiss their a**es bend the knee to their ideological whims – complained about the contents of Kimmel’s comments re Charlie Kirk’s killing. Yet Kimmel said nothing to disrespect the death of Kirk; rather – and we cannot emphasize this enough – Kimmel did his job. What Kimmel disrespected was the Trump administration’s frenzied usage of this tragedy for their political gains and aims. Kimmel did what comics and truth-tellers are *supposed* to do: tell the truth to power. The purpose of the court jester is to use humor to criticize the (in Trump’s case, would-be) king, something the commoners have neither the power nor the platform to do.
We are cancelling our household Hulu subscription. Our family will no longer purchase Disney products or services or visit its parks ( We don’t do this lightly; I am a former Disneyland Employee – Hungry Bear Restaurant), and will no longer watch our local ABC affiliate (Portland’s KATU) or any other ABC station.
As is the case with all authoritarian regimes, Trump’s attempts to silence his critics will eventually fail. But ABC will be left with the legacy of its capitulation to – and thus collaboration with – the censorious would-be dictator and his corrupt courtiers. ABC has betrayed its trust as a public media outlet; unless ABC reverses (and publicly repudiates) its capitulation, it is no longer trustworthy as either a source of news *or* entertainment.
Regretfully but firmly yours,
* * *
Department Of Just Wondering:
Question 497 In The Unending Series
Soon I’ll be traveling to Southern California to attend moiself’s high school reunion. [1] In preparation for the trip, I checked my ride service apps to make sure they still remember me (I don’t use them often; I will not be renting a car). I’ve discovered I’ve apparently either chosen [2] ( or been assigned? ) Lyft’s WOMEN+ CONNECT service:
“WOMEN+ CONNECT
Rides for women, by women
We’re driving change one ride at a time. Now, women and nonbinary drivers can turn on Women+ Connect to increase their chances of matching with more women and nonbinary riders.”
Oh; okay; sure.
When using the Lyft and Uber services I’ve had both women and men drivers (where they registered on any binary scale, I have no idea). I’ve yet to notice a difference in service that I’d attribute to gender. [3]
And then I got to thinking…
…yeah, always a dangerous endeavor.
Ahem.
I never got the memo re what makes a person want to identify as binary or non-binary, nor have I felt any pressure/had even a dash of desire to claim either…uh…( one of the two..therefore, a binary choice? ) label.
One of the cool (or frustrating, depending on where you are on the linguistic stick-in-the-mud scale ) things about language is that it expands and evolves: words take on new and additional – and sometimes *really* entertaining [4] – meanings. Still, moiself must confess that when I hear the word binary my default thinking steers me toward the word’s original definition, as an adjective typically applied to mathematical systems and computer programming [5] consisting of or identified by two things or parts, as in a system of numbers ( the binary digits 0 and 1) or a formula incorporating a choice of two alternatives (e.g., on-off or yes-no ).
And then I got to thinking: if you identify as non-binary (however you define the criteria), does that mean that you in turn identify everyone who does *not* identify as non-binary as binary?
* * *
Department Of Empirical Question Of The Year
Are yellowjackets helpful pollinators/vital members of the pollinator ecosystem, [6] or just the bellicose bullies of the wasp world – heartless bastards who swarm and sting for no apparent reason?
Moiself knows what ecologists and entomologists want me to think. But really, yellowjackets are *so* obnoxious. And the fact that they can sting multiple times without paying the ultimate price, as honeybees must do, only adds to their predilection for arrogance, IMO.
* * *
Department Of The Remedy I Hope To Never Use
Dateline: 9-19-25, 3pm-ish; at a local pharmacy checking in to receive my COVID vaccine. Moiself sees a sign at the pharmacy check-in window informing clients that Naloxone may be obtained there. MH shows up for his vaccines ( COVID and influenza [7] ) not long after I check in, and in addition to our vaccines we end up getting two packages of Naloxone, one to for my car and one for his.
I thought of the practicality having a dose of Naloxone – which rapidly reverses an opioid overdose – several years ago, after I first read of its availability to the general public. But my second thought at the time was one informed by…to put it delicately, compassion fatigue. As in, after reading/hearing paramedics’ and police officers’ and hospital emergency room staff’s stories of doing multiple, serial revivals on the same person, (sometimes more than once a day), only to have that same person they’d revived three times come in the next day or week dead from an opioid overdose, moiself thought, If someone is stupid enough to use that shit I’m not going to waste time and resources “saving” them today so that they can kill themselves tomorrow.
Well, maybe not, Martha. After encountering more/recent stories of how many people have OD’d on fentanyl (and other opioids) completely unintentionally…
– they intentionally ingested something, from an illicit drug to a totally benign medication or substance that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with, say fentanyl, or
– they unintentionally were dosed with fentanyl or another opioid ( read; they were, essentially, poisoned ) by having, e.g., a beverage that was spiked, by someone they knew (who thought it would be a funny joke to play on them, har de har har! ) or a total stranger
…I thought it prudent to be prepared to help out, no matter the circumstances. I think of it (having Naloxone in my car) as another insurance policy: it’s good to have, and I hope to never have cause to use it.
* * *
Department Of Another Small Step Toward Understanding
Y’all have that friend, family member, coworker, who seems (mostly) otherwise rational but who can drive you face-palm-slapping batty with their persistent denial of evolution or other processes and principles of science? Here is some understanding – not for them to understand science, but for you to understand them.
This opinion piece recently appeared in the Washington Post. Moiself is a WaPo subscriber; if you hit a paywall for this article, it’s worth it, to gain a modicum of consideration from the experiences and perspectives of someone who once fit into that (science-denier) category.
I highly, highly recommend this read. The author is a former religious missionary [8] turned scientist, with a valuable, first-hand view of how just “following the facts” of science is a difficult thing to do for so many people, in part because of another fact of science: how we evolved, as humans, to view the world and the places we and other people fit into it.
“The moment I finally admitted that evolution was real didn’t feel liberating. It felt like grief. I had spent years running up against hard evidence that, despite my best efforts, I simply couldn’t refute. I was in the shower, and I cried inconsolably. Accepting evolution meant more than just accepting a scientific theory. It meant leaving my community and almost every friend I had ever known, and it was the final nail in the coffin of my arranged marriage.
Those tears were a response forged in the Paleolithic era. We are not meant to find it easy to leave our tribe because, back when caves were prime real estate, leaving your tribe was a death sentence. My anguish was biologically ingrained over hundreds of thousands of years. That ancient biology explains why so many people still reject ‘the science.’ ””
( excerpt, “I’m a former creationist. Here’s why ‘Follow the science’ failed.”
by Ella Al-Shamahi )
* * *
Department Of Setting Your Intentions
It is a common practice at the beginning of a yoga class – whether the class is live (in a yoga studio), or streaming, or in a yoga workout tape or DVD – for the teacher to suggest that you “set your intention” for the class.
Intention as in, asking yourself a question, from the purely logistical to the profound ( e.g., Why did I come to this class today? Why do I do yoga in the first place? ) or consciously choosing a purpose or affirmation to focus on during your practice, as a way to stay present ( aka mindful ) beyond just performing another set of physical exercises.
Sometimes I do this — set an intention. Sometimes I don’t. And one time recently at the beginning of a yoga class, when the teacher mentioned (amid a soundtrack of soothing background music) that yogis might want to take a brief moment to set an intention, moiself had a most un-yoga thought:
My intention is to kick some Yoga ass.
Which, once again, reminded me of how my thoughts and attitudes often affirm another yoga truism:
“It’s yoga practice, not yoga perfect.”
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [9]
* * *
May you avoid being bullied by yellowjackets;
May you never have a reason to use administer opioid overdose reversal medicine;
May you enjoy reading the blog posts you read (mine, or someone else’s),
whether or not you set an intention to do so;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Yikes.
[2] I don’t remember doing so.
[3] Anyone of any gender can overdo the personal scents, as did one driver whose cologne was so overwhelming I rolled down both backseat windows and stifled the urge to tell him, “Whatever you’re trying to cover up, I’m sure your natural body odor is far better than this perfumed stink bomb.”
[4] I refer, of course, to all the euphemisms for farting.
[5] You can get an idea of my age from my using that term, instead of “coding.”
[6] I recently posed the question to two certified Master Gardeners ® at a farmer’s market, and their answer was no, not really. Yellowjackets are primarily predators and scavengers…which does help to clean up their surrounding by consuming dead and decaying animals (think of them as tiny vultures). Yellowjackets are neither efficient nor intentional pollinators, but do transfer some pollen as they fly about, bumping into plants while looking for other insects and animals to harass and torture…. These were not the Master Gardeners’ exact words.
[7] I had had the influenzas vaccine three days earlier; at the time, due to the dickheads “in charge” of health misinformation, I could not yet get this year’s COVID vaccine.
[8] “I’ll show ’em – I’ll study their evidence and find all the flaws and refute their theories!”
[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
