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The War On The Holidays I’m (Still) Not Declaring

October 30, 2026

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, music, nature, Oregon, politics, science, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , Leave a comment

Department Of Here They Come

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

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

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

And after Halloween, the holiday season really gets going.

 

 

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

The idea of a “War on Christmas” has turned things like holiday greetings and decorations into potentially divisive political statements. People who believe Christmas is under attack point to inclusive phrases like “Happy Holidays” as (liberal) insults to Christianity….

Christmas is a federal holiday celebrated widely by the country’s (shrinking) Christian majority.  So where did the idea that it is threatened come from?

“The most organized attack on Christmas came from the Puritans, who banned celebrations of the holiday in the 17th century because it did not accord with their interpretation of the Bible….”
(“How the ‘War on Christmas’ Controversy Was Created,” NY Times, 12-19-16)

 

 

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

What do we vegetarians, vegans, non-meat and/or plant-based eaters
do on Thanksgiving?
( Other than, according to your Aunt Erva, RUIN  IT  FOR  EVERYONE  ELSE.  [1]  )

The above question is an existential dilemma worthy of Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who wrote eloquent discourses on the subjective and objective truths one must juggle when choosing between a cinnamon roll and a chocolate swirl.   [2]

 

*   *   *

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


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

This observation provides a convenient segue to my annual, sincere, family-friendly,  [3]

Heathens Declare War On Christmas © post.

 

 

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

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

It is worthwhile to note that while many if not most Americans, Christian or not, celebrate Christmas, there are also some Christians who, on their own or as part of their denomination’s practice or decree (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses; The Worldwide Church of God), do *not* celebrate Christmas   [4]   (nor did our much-ballyhooed forebears, the Pilgrims).  Also, the various Orthodox Christian denominations use calendars which differ from most Protestant and Catholic calendars (a biggie for them at this time of the year is the Nativity of Christ, which occurs on or around January 7).

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

 

The Chinese (lunar) New Year began on February 17; in 2027, The Year of the Fire Goat (or Ram) will begin on February 5

 

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

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

* St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6).

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

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

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

* Bill of Rights Day (Dec 15).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Department Of Did You Know…

…that the Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that, “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”   [5]

…that because of its known pagan origins, Christmas was banned by the Puritans, and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts until 1681.   [6]

 


“Do you celebrate Christmas?”

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

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

 

 

Early Roman Catholic missionaries tried to convert northern Europeans to the RC brand of Christianity, and part of the conversion process was to alter the pagan’s existing religious festivals. The indigenous folk, whom the RC church labeled “barbarians,” quickly discovered that when it came to dealing with missionaries, resistance is futile. The pagans intuitively grasped the concept of natural selection and converted to Christianity to avoid the price (persecution, torture, execution) of staying true to their original beliefs.  But they refused to totally relinquish their traditional celebrations, and so the church, eventually and effectively, simply renamed most of them.    [7]

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

 

 

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

The fir boughs and wreaths; the Yule log; plum pudding; gift exchanges; feasting; the holly and the ivy and the evergreen tree….It is hard to think of a “Christmas” tradition that does not originate from Teutonic (German), Viking, Celtic, and Druid paganism.    [8]   A celebration in the depths of winter – at the time when, to those living in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun appears to stop its southerly descent before gradually ascending north – is a natural instinct. For thousands of years our Northern Hemisphere ancestors greeted the “reason for the season” – the winter solstice – with festivals of light and gift exchanges and parties.  The Winter Solstice was noted and celebrated long before the Roman Jesus groupies pinched the party.

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

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

 


And Woden is the reason the middle of the week is named Wednesday.   [9]   My calling Wednesday “Wednesday“ doesn’t mean I celebrate, worship, or “believe in” Woden.  I don’t insist on renaming either Christmas, or Wednesday.

 

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


The Winter Solstice is the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, and the longest night. In the northern hemisphere it falls on what we now mark as December 21 or 22.  However, it took place on December 25th at the time when the Julian calendar was used.  [10]   The early Romans celebrated the Saturnalia on the Solstice, holding days of feasting and gift exchanges in honor of their god Saturn ( Other major deities whose birthdays were celebrated on or about the week of December 25   [11]   included Horis,
 Huitzilopochtli, Isis, Mithras, Marduk, Osiris, Serapis and Sol ).  The Celebration of the Saturnalia was too popular with the Roman pagans for the new Christian church to outlaw it, so the new church renamed the day and reassigned meanings to the traditions.    [12]

In other words, why are some folk concerned with “keeping the Christ in Christmas”  [13]  when we should be keeping the Saturn in Saturnalia?

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

[2] Damn right I’m proud of that one.

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

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

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

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

[7] “Paganism in Christianity.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

The Total Solar Eclipse I’m Not Seeing

October 16, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, 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), nature, Oregon, politics, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Total Solar Eclipse I’m Not Seeing

That would be the one next summer – August 2, 2027, to be precise.  This is being  referred to as the “Eclipse of the Century“ because its totality duration will be one of the longest of the 21st century  (6 minutes and 22-23 seconds near Luxor, Egypt).

“Although total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average, they recur at any given place only once every 360 to 410 years.   A total eclipse [is when] the dark silhouette of the Moon completely obscures the bright light of the Sun, allowing the much fainter solar corona to be visible. During an eclipse, totality occurs only along a narrow track on the surface of Earth.  This narrow track is called the path of totality.”
( Solar Eclipse, Wikipedia )

 

 

Since most of the planet is covered with water, every time there is a total solar eclipse there are not that many suitable places for us landlubbers to view the path of totality.  This 2027  EOTC will cross parts of southern Spain, Gibraltar, Egypt, Morocco and other countries of northeastern Africa, and parts of the Middle East.  And since there are a growing number of eclipse chasers,   [1] you have to plan early to secure accommodations in/ transportation to such locales. 

Earlier this year, after we (MH and I) had made plans two years ago to be in the zone of totality for the August 12, 2026 eclipse,   [2]   an astronomer friend of ours – who was responsible for us seeing the total eclipse in 2017 which passed through central Oregon ( moiself  wrote about that in  The Experience I’m Not Describing ) – alerted us to a trip being planned by an eclipse-chasing colleague of his, to see the EOTC.  Astronomer Friend®  asked if our family, in any combination, might be interested?  MH and I, plus our enthusiastic offspring, said yes, and put down the necessary deposits.

 

 

The EOTC trip will be to Morocco.  That country was chosen by the experienced eclipse-trip-planner for being closest to the longest total duration without being in Egypt ( for reasons of political stability ).  Not long after that was decided, I did what I do before considering any travel plans:  moiself  looked up Morocco’s history and current situation re women’s rights.  Like most Moslem-dominated countries, theirs is not a stellar record, but they are progressing, and there’s been genuine modernization in terms of political and civil rights for women.  Translation:  the country wouldn’t require *me* (or any females in Morocco, including female Moroccans) to dress up like a pillar or other forms of infrastructure.

Moiself  was content with that.  Until I wasn’t.

 

When you have to have safety tips, that means it’s not safe.

What is that saying – no; it’s much more than a saying…more like a life guideline:

Standing up for your principles only counts when it is inconvenient to do so.

Many, many years ago, during a time of great strife and discrimination and anti-homosexual hysteria, I asked gay friends, coworkers, neighbors and family members how best to be what we now would call an ally.  The variety of suggestions moiself  received all shared one request in common, which I can summarize thusly:

“Please do not patronize entities of any kind – including countries – that do not support LGBTQ rights and/or which actively discriminate against us.  Your vehemently disagreeing with their policies while willingly giving them your patronage and your $$ is passively supporting their discrimination against us.”

I promised to honor that request, as much as possible.  [3]  One of the people I made that promise to is now dead.  But I’m not.  And I remembered that promise recently, and looked up Morocco’s LGBTQ rights situation.    [4]  My first, kneejerk reaction, moiself  is not proud to say, was totally self-serving and not at all worthy of virtue-signaling:

Shit shit shit shit I can’t go to Morocco.

 

I alerted my family (MH; daughter Belle; son K ) to this – with the caveat that my decision is my decision, and they must decide for themselves.  Belle immediately chose not to go on the trip, as have I.  As of this writing, MH and K are 90% probably also not going.  MH told me that his main reason for wanting to go was to be with the great group of friends who will be going – friends we’ve known since college and who came out to stay with us during the 2017 eclipse.  That was as much a pull – getting to spend more time with those people – as seeing the eclipse, for me, as a reason to do the trip.  But I’ve never been very good at pretending to not know something once moiself  knows it, and I know this now, and it pisses me off, and I can’t support traveling to/spending money in a country where it is illegal for some human beings to be human beings.

 

 

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Department Of I Am Not Going To Blog About *This*….

I was going to blog about the current season of The Great British Baking Show, but then I got some news – the *This* – and lost the impetus to write further.  Next week moiself  will be up to taking on the bakers.  As for the *This*… just wondering, rhetorically.  Have you ever received heart breaking news – news that you were 99% certain was inevitable, yet still felt kicked in the gut to receive it?

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

 

 

*   *   *

May you someday see a solar eclipse in its totality;
May you not have to compromise your principles to see anything awe-inspiring;
May you gird your loins for those inevitable gut kicks;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Eclipse chasers are people, from professional astronomers to laypersons who don’t even own a telescope, who travel around the world trying to be the path of totality for the next total solar eclipse….just because once you’ve experienced it, the SFA (So Fucking Awesomeness) is something you want to experience again.

[2] The impetus (read: excuse) for our trip in August to Iceland.

[3] It’s not always possible to know, for example, every business’s political donations.

[4] “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Morocco face significant challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Both male and female forms of same-sex sexual activity are illegal in Morocco. Gay and lesbian Moroccans face many hardships in the country, as they have limited legal rights. Moroccan police disproportionately target perceived LGBTQ people, and attitudes towards the wider LGBTQ community remain mostly negative throughout the nation….  Article 489 of the Penal Code of Morocco criminalises “lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex”. Same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Morocco and can be punished with anything from six months to three years’ imprisonment and a fine…. The Moroccan government uses the law as a way to police members of the LGBTQ community. When a person is arrested in Morocco for a suspected homosexual act, their name is publicised, thereby publicly identifying the individual before a trial takes place…..” (  excerpts,  LGBTQ rights in Morocco, Wikipedia )

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

The Beer I’m Not Worshipping

October 2, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, music, nature, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Beer I’m Not Worshipping

Department Of The Cannily Observant Runner

Dateline: last Thursday, 12:35 pm,; walking to the Manzanita Post Office to mail a couple of letters.  A jogger runs past me and gasps what sounds like, “Like the purple.”   [1]  I  reflexively thank him, although I’m not really sure what he is referring…. Then I get a load of what moiself  is wearing: a black t shirt under a purple long-sleeved shirt; purple pants, purple jacket, purple shoulder bag; purple hat….  

 

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Department Of Perhaps I Should’ve Rephrase That

Dateline #2: Sunday evening ;7 pm-ish; driving back from Rock Creek Tavern, where MH and I had enjoyed our usual date night (for their Sunday Irish Music night)…which turned out to be somewhat less enjoyable than usual because, for the first time either of us can recall, the scheduled musical act did not show up.

MH is driving; moiself  is making a mental inventory of the unused items from our weekly CSA produce share, thinking of how I might use them for the next day’s dinner. I have a few ideas, and ask MH if he has any preferences:

“So, what would you like to see me do with the broccoli tomorrow?
And don’t be rude….”

 

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Department Of I Don’t Do This Intentionally…

…but moiself’s  mind just goes there.

Dateline #3:  Monday;10 am; the beginning of yoga class.  The yoga teacher asks us yogis to set an intention   [2]    for the class.  She offers these words for us to silently repeat to ourselves several times during the class, synchronizing it with our inhalations and exhalations:

(Inhale) I am here.
(Exhale) l Here I am

Here is what moiself’s  mind silently repeated instead:

(Inhale) I am Sam.
(Exhale) Sam I am.

*   *   *

Department Of Autumnal References
Sub-Department Of Time for The Clear Fingernail Polish

Harbingers of the Fall:  cooler, crisp morning temps; geese flying south in V-formations; hot apple cider; crunchy maple leaves underfoot; pumpkin-spiced everything; the fingernail on my right pinkie splitting…

Yeah, about the latter omen:

 

 

My sister N, who was three years old, was playing chase with her 18-month-old sister   [3]   (moiself).  When it was moiself’s turn to chase my sister, N fled into the bathroom.  N slammed the bathroom door and locked it, failing to realize, despite my ensuing, bone-chilling shrieks, that I had reached out to N at the last minute, and that my right little finger from the top joint up was crushed between the door and the door jamb.

Our parents convinced N to unlock the door.  They rushed me to the doctor, who examined my pulverized pinkie and pronounced, “It’ll probably need to be amputated.”  He took a second and third look, then mused, “Well, maybe….”

In a Nobel-Prize-worthy moment of medical inspiration, the doctor reached for his miracle salve (Vaseline), dabbed it on the top of my smooshed finger, and wrapped the damaged digit with gauze.  Doc advised my parents to keep the bandaged finger dry – no peeking! – and return in two weeks, or sooner if the finger started to smell like last year’s ham sandwich.  [4]

Two weeks later, at the unveiling, the tip of my finger had partially re-formed itself, and was thus spared its date with the guillotine.

So: I grew up with a funny finger.  While admittedly un-decorative in appearance, it is largely functional.

 

 

Besides my pinky’s misshapen profile, its Fun Finger Facts include the following, most of which are true:

  1. teeny sub-dermal bone fragments are palpable on the underside of the finger.
  1. the fingernail grows cleft from the nail bed to the edge, with the split running bottom to top in the left side of the nail, and curving down at the edge. The fingernail’s growth is self-limiting; it tends to disintegrate (for lack of a better term) at a certain length, and split on the left side.

 

( See that little bit of split fingernail, on the left, jutting upward? 

  1. the tip of the finger, from the second joint up, has reduced sensation (as compared to that of other fingers) and is prone to bouts of numbness.
  1. during one such numbness bout I discovered that Icould stick a pin in the top of that finger, sans pain. Besides giving me that certain, je ne sais quoi cachet among eighth graders, this ability proved to be a helpful form of pest control.  Waving my impaled pinkie was an effective gross-out/shoo-away to a certain cheerleader-type who’d attempted to make me feel self-conscious several times by loudly broadcasting, “Ew, what’s wrong with your finger?!  That is SO DISGUSTING!” in the classroom and at the lunch tables.
  1. There is no fifth Fun Finger Fact.
  1. The tip of the finger is an effective dowser implement, and twitches when in the proximity of an underground water supply.  [5]

The Fun Finger Fact #2 is the subject of the omen of fall.  During the decreasing humidity of autumn, the fingernail gets more dry/brittle and split.  The first time moiself  notices it doing so I start applying several (at least three) coast of clear fingernail polish to the nail a couple of times per week, which helps hold the cracked nail together.

 

 

*   *   *

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.   [6] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

Ten Reasons Why Beer is Better Than God

10. No one will kill you for not drinking Beer.
9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex.
8. “In the name of Beer…” has never caused a major war.
7. Adults don’t force Beer on minors who can’t think for themselves
6.  When you have a Beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.
5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged or tortured over his brand of Beer
4. You don’t have to wait 2000+ years for a second Beer.
3. There are laws saying Beer labels can’t lie to you.
2. You can prove you have a Beer.
1. If you’ve devoted your life to Beer, there are groups to help you stop.   [8]

 

 

*   *   *

May you discoveryour own Dr. Seuss-inspired exercise mantra;
May you have a stranger compliment your color choices;
May you know what you’d like to see done with the broccoli;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Not many other words that rhyme with urple, which was the last word he said.

[2] In yoga practice, to “set an intention” is to choose a focus or attitude for your practice to ground you in the present (instead of, say, like working out at a gym with a future goal in mind – e.g., “I’m gonna lose five pounds/tone those abdominals”).  Variations of “I am here, now,” are commonly used intentions to help your mind focus when you are feeling busy or distracted.

[3] I’ve no memory of this incident – for which I’m grateful – only the finger to remind me

[4] Not his exact phrasing, but you get the idea.

[5] This is such a lie.  Please don’t tell me if you fell for it.

[6] 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.

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

[8]  Moiself’s compilation,  adapted from many, many sources, including the FFRF Freethought Today’s  “The Top Ten Reasons Why Beer is Better Than Jesus”

The Magic Pill I’m Not Taking

September 25, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Magic Pill I’m Not Taking

Happy (Belated  [1])  Bisexual Visibility Day Y’all

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Seven Words That Should Give People Hope
But That People Mostly Ignore

 

Your magic pill is how you live.   [2]

 

 

Those seven words are from a Clear + Vivid podcast moiself  heard several weeks back.  The subject was…many subjects.  It’s an episode I can’t find now –  which I findironic in that one of the episode’s topics was discerning regular/age-related forgetting v. dementia-type forgetting.  The podcast’s guest explained why, for example, I can tell you what I had for dinner eight *years* ago on a warm summer evening with my daughter in Paris bistro, but I likely can’t remember what I had for dinner eight weeks (or even days) ago.

There is a science (as in, cognitive strategies) to make meaningful memories at any age.  However, as C+V host Alan Alda and his guess discussed, people would rather have the science behind such discoveries lead to a Magic Pill®  to boost memory (or anything else).  This is because – surprise! –  we evolved to be…well…effing lazy.   [3]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Mark Your Calendars:

“You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time,
but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.”

( Dan Barker, former evangelical Christian minister turned atheist activist,
in his 1992 book Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist )

 

 

Wednesday 9-30 is International Blasphemy Day.  Why not write a blasphemous  [4]   haiku to celebrate?   [5]

Here’s a sample of my past contributions.

First things first:  get the silly Old Testament proscriptions out of the way:

Eli, Saul – y ‘all heard?
Life is great; nothing’s unclean!
Shrimp rolls, anyone?

In the spirit of ecumenicism, a gentle dig at those gentle Zen Buddhists:

Get real, Grasshopper
The sound of one hand clapping
Sounds just like one clap

I’ll kill two birds with one stone in this swipe at a tenet of many forms of Hinduism
and Buddhism and – wait, make that three birds! – the New Age/past lives crowd:

Reincarnation?
Right – get a life!  But next time
Come back with some proof

And of course, no Blasphemy Day contest would be complete without a California surfer’s
take on the Christian sacrilege that was heliocentric theory:

Telescope; awesome.
So, like, we spin around them?
Copernicus, dude!

For several years there have been Blasphemy Day t-shirt slogan contests,  inspired in part by a United Nations resolution meant to pacify uber-sensitive Islamists.  But that resolution was the very reason I took a  “why bother/what’s the point?”  attitude toward composing a Blasphemy Day slogan (or even haiku) for Islam.  I mean, considering the possible reactions, who is going to wear a shirt poking fun at something that mandates death to fun-pokers?

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

The oft-quoted  [7]  Robert Ingersoll   was one of the most notable orators and speechmakers and civil rights activists of his time (post-Civil War America)…yet few remember him today.  Trained as an attorney, ’twas his oratory tours – speaking on topics as wide-ranging as Reconstruction period to Shakespearean literature to religion to science – that made him famous. He was…”the friend of Presidents, literary giants like Mark Twain, captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie, and leading figures in the arts. He was also beloved of reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other Americans considered themselves his enemies, (as he bitterly opposed the Religious Right of his day. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate of science and reason. More, he argued for the rights of women and African-Americans.  Ingersoll also praised the virtues of family and fireside. And he practiced what he preached. Contemporary sources say Ingersoll enjoyed almost idyllic contentment in family life. Opponents frequently despaired of finding anything to disparage in his personal life.”    [8]

*   *   *

May you value your daily habits more than your magic pills;
May you prize making memories over conserving energy;
May your opponents despair of finding anything to disparage
in your personal life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Bi-lated?

[2]  Translation:   Nurture once again trumps nature, in that your lifestyle – your daily habits, from what you eat, how much you sleep, how you move through the world) are more impactful on your health and longevity than any magic pill ever will or could.

[3] “We evolved to conserve energy” – sounds more respectable, doesn’t it?

[4] From Mirriam-Webster:  blasphemous, adjective, : impiously irreverent : profane

[5] And if you do, please share it with moiself.

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

[7] At least, in my blog

[8]  excerpt, Free Inquiry, Robert Green Ingersoll biography. 

The NDR I’m Not Signing

August 14, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, friends, health & wellness, nature, Oregon, politics, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The NDR I’m Not Signing

It’s time for a…

 

 

Moiself  sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.

 

 

*   *   *

The NDR I’m Not Signing
( August 14, 2020  )

Department Of Things That Will – Or Should – Blow Your Mind

Did you know that the post-slavery, Jim Crow Law society of the USA served as a model for the Nazis’ system of establishing “racial/Aryan purity”?

“It turned out that German eugenicists were in continuing dialogue with American eugenicists. Books by American eugenicists were big sellers in Germany in the years leading up to the Third Reich….of course, the Nazis needed no one to teach them how to hate. But what they did was they sent researchers to study America’s Jim Crow laws. They actually sent researchers to America to study how Americans had subjugated African Americans, what would be considered the subordinated caste. And they actually debated and consulted American law as they were devising the Nuremberg Laws. “   [1]
( “It’s More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America’s ‘Caste’ System,”
Fresh Air, 8-4-20 )

 

“Captain, you’re shitting me, – I mean, fascinating….”

 

In her recent Fresh Air interview with host Terry Gross, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson spoke about discovering, while researching her latest book, that Nazi Germany modeled their system of codified racism in part on (what Wilkerson calls) America’s racial caste system.  Wilkerson suggests that we look at America as having created a caste system (as opposed to using the overused and often misapplied blanket term of “racism”) to keep down African Americans.

GROSS:
In the comparisons that you make between the Nazi regime and the caste system in America, you describe…what qualified in each country as being white…. Would you compare the two countries in defining that?

WILKERSON:
Well, that was a source of tremendous debate, I came to discover. I had no idea how they (the Nazis) had arrived at their delineation of people. And they sent people to study the United States and how it had defined and codified, categorized and subjugated African Americans and delineated who could be what in the United States. They also studied the marriage laws – intermarriage laws. And in doing so, they debated as to who should qualify to be considered Aryan in Germany at that time.
And in studying the United States, they were stunned to have discovered the one-drop rule that was the common distinction in the United States for determining whether a person could be identified as Black…. That idea of the one-drop rule – that was viewed as too extreme to them.

GROSS (incredulously):
Too extreme to the Nazis?

WILKERSON:
Stunning to hear that…stunning to see that, stunning to discover that. The Nazis, in trying to create their own caste system…went to great lengths to really think hard about who should qualify as Aryan because they felt that they wanted to include as many people as they possibly could, ironically enough.
In trying to define who could qualify to be Aryan, the Nazis were more concerned about making sure that those who had Aryan blood would be protected…. They actually had greater latitude in defining who could be Aryan and who would qualify as Jewish than the United States had determined with who could be African American or who could be white.

 

Too extreme to the Nazis?

Terry Gross’s reaction keeps coming back to oiself. 

Once again, historical scholars and journalists are doing fascinating research, bringing to the forefront information and historical documentation, via sources and materials readily available, that we Americans are just not taught in school – or anywhere else.

Another intriguing quote from the interview is from when Gross and Wilkerson were discussing the fact that “the idea of being white is an American innovation.”

GROSS:
“You were talking to a Nigerian-born playwright, and that playwright told you there are no Black people in Africa…. Africans aren’t Black.
What did they mean?“

To find out what that playwright meant, and how Wilkerson came to believe that “caste” is a more accurate description of Black people’s experience in the USA than racism, listen to the interview (or get the transcript here).

*   *   *

Department Of How’s This For A Life Strategy?

* Live your life so that you never have a reason to request
even one non-disclosure agreement, from anyone, ever. *

“For decades, (He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Space ) has relied on broadly worded nondisclosure agreements as a powerful weapon against anyone who would say something critical of him. Among those who have signed agreements are a porn star, two ex-wives, contestants on ‘The Apprentice,’ campaign workers and business associates….
Now, in one of the most sweeping efforts by a former associate to undo nondisclosure agreements, the _____ campaign’s former Hispanic outreach director last week filed her latest effort in a class-action suit to void all such campaign contracts. She says they are so broad that they deny individuals their First Amendment right to say anything critical of the president — even as he routinely takes to Twitter to mock and deride his critics.”
( The Washington Post, 8-7-20,
“t**** long has relied on nondisclosure deals to prevent criticism.
That strategy may be unraveling.” )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Nostalgia
Sub Department Of Yet Another Reason To Fear For The Youth Of Today

What with virtual schooling perhaps being the norm at least for a while, combined with the gradual replacement of chalkboards with whiteboards in schools, will an entire generation of children grow up unable to appreciate the metaphor of describing a hideous experience as “…like fingernails on a chalkboard?”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of It Can’t Be Scarier Than Letting Them Drive

Y’all heard of the campaign to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds?

Calm down, Grandpa, and think about it.

The goal of vote16usa.org is “…to support efforts to lower the voting age on the local level, help start new local campaigns, and elevate the issue’s prominence on a national level.”

This is something moiself  supports.  I hope that you will as well, after researching and considering the issues – like these ones:

Your child must file a return in any of the following situations for tax year 2019:
Unearned income was more than $1,100.
Earned income was more than $12,200.
( from Kids and Taxes, figures for 2019 filing year )

The 16-year-old with an after-school job and a paper route will have to pay income taxes, just as a part- or full-time employed 18-year-old must, if their incomes exceeds a certain amount.  But unlike the 18-year-old, the 16-year-old cannot vote for her political representative to decide tax policy.

Most of us are familiar the statistics behind auto driving:

* Over 37,000 Americans die in automobile crashes per year.
* An additional 3 million are injured or disabled annually.

Driving is quite the responsibility.  Yet, a 16-year-old can get a driver’s license and also, at the DMV, can sign a legally binding consent to be on an organ donor registry.  But he himself cannot vote on how those life-altering policies (the licensing of drivers and organ donation) are implemented, nor can he elect representatives to do so for him.

 

 

No taxation without representation.  Remember that rallying cry?   [2]   Our political forebears fought an effin’ revolution over issues like that.  It seems only fair that, if you can work a job and pay taxes, you should be able to vote.

Because of our culture’s fucked-up misunderstanding of the 2nd amendment  lively debate on issues surrounding firearms, 16- and 17-year-olds have the “right” to attend high schools where they must participate in active shooter drills, but they cannot vote in or out the adults who set national and state firearms policies (they are old enough to be murdered, but not to vote).

Do you remember how, after the Parkland High School shooting, many of the school’s students organized marches, and addressed their adult political representatives:

“Every kid in this country now goes to school wondering if this day might be their last. We live in fear. It doesn’t have to be this way. Change is coming. And it starts now, inspired by and led by the kids who are our hope for the future. Their young voices will be heard.“
( Parkland students say, ‘We are going to be the last mass shooting’,
Daily Journal Online )

Do you also remember how many adults, from news pundits to politicians, dissed the students for doing so?  Do you think politicians could so easily ignore those young voices if those same voices had the power to organize and vote them out of office?

 

 

One of the more common arguments older people give against lowering the voting age is their claim that 16- and 17-year-olds aren’t rational or informed enough to be involved in political decision making.

Seriously? What qualifies as “rational” or “informed-*enough,* given our populace?  Do you know how many Americans over age 18 watch reality TV shows? At the height of its popularity, Here Comes Honey Boo-boo, arguably the worst reality show ever, drew 2.9 million viewers  (the show ran for two years, and was only cancelled when it was revealed that the mother of the show was dating a registered child sex offender).  

Many 16- and 17-year-olds are more sensible and better informed on politics and social issues than adults thrice their age.  When I was in high school I ruefully noticed that so many of my peers – in particular, those of us in the journalism group, where being interested in and informed about currents events was both an attraction and a requirement –  knew much more about politics and current events than most of our adult family members and even some of our teachers – a frustrating fact which was evidenced when we tried to initiate discussions of said events and the adults openly copped to being unfamiliar with the issues.

From my junior high – high school years, I can recall many a baffling dialogue with my parents, in which I tried to engage them on political issues – not just to express moiself’s  own thoughts; I genuinely wanted to hear their opinions.  I was almost always unable to satisfactorily do so, because they knew few (and sometimes no) specifics of the issues I wanted to discuss, from a local school board election to international criticism of USA policy on Vietnam.   And in some (read: too many) cases, they frankly admitted they just didn’t know and didn’t care… And yet, there were no “rational and informed” poll tests nor requirements they had to pass: by virtue of their age alone, they were able to register to vote and then go to the polls and cast their ballots on issues about which they knew or cared nothing, and/or elect other citizens who would make those decisions for them.

I used to advise religions that forbade female clergy, “Either ordain women or stop baptizing them.”   [3]   (For some reason, the various RC popes never took moiself’s  advice on that…or any other matter.).  Fair is fair.  If you’re old enough to pay taxes you’re old enough to vote for those people who make those tax policies.    [4]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thoughts That Wake Me Up At 3 AM

2020: it is the present year, and also the term for normal visual acuity. When we say that someone “…has 2020 vision,” we are complementing that person’s accuracy of perception.

I began the year with optimism: maybe 2020 is the year when the collective WE ® will realize that international problems require international solutions.  How appropriate, moiself  dared to dream, if 2020 turned out to be the year when WE began to get our proverbial shit together!?

Now I despair that 2020 will be the year when we ultimately lost our sight.

The viral pandemic and the resulting medical economic and political upheaval have put other pressing issues on the back burner.  Speaking of burning, the most crucial of those issues is that we are burning the planet up – we are setting our own house on fire. Aside from our nation’s own pathetic excuse of non-leadership on this issue,  I don’t see any other international leader with the standing and influence (or, seemingly, the desire) to take point on this issue.

This is why leadership is so important — why leadership is a thing in the first place.  Because there are 7.7 fucking BILLION of us, and moiself  and my friends trying to “do our part” by never buying another plastic bag ( “refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle, and other ways to reduce your carbon footprint” ) may help save a sea turtle or two but it’s not gonna hack it in the long run.

It’s just too damn depressing. I need a baby sloth moment.

 

“Oh sure, you wanna talk about burning up? I live in a tropical jungle and y’all put me in flannel pajamas?”

 

*   *   *

Department Of My Phone Knows Me Too Well

Here is how my smart(ass) phone, at 3 am, translated my dictation of,
“Department Of Thoughts That Wake Me Up At 3 AM”:

“Department of farts that wake me up at 3 AM.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of You Can Pee In The Yard, But Don’t You Dare Enjoy It

Our across-the-street beach neighbor, JK and his wife CK,  [5]    live next to a house which is almost always rented out. This (edited) email from JK was in response to my giving him a “heads up” that my son K and his friends would be staying at our place last weekend:

 You might have noticed the group of 11 staying at the rent house next door (rated for 8 occupancy)… black SUV and black pickup truck… the SUV arrived before the pickup truck guy (who had the key) arrived to open the house. The three (SUV) women tried the front door, to no avail, went around back, which started our dogs barking. I went out to the deck to see why the dogs were barking so viciously and got there just in time to see a woman hook her thumb into the back waistband of her yoga pants, pull them down and squat in the backyard between the fern and the picnic table. After a few seconds, presumably emptying her bladder, she stood up and pulled her yoga pants back up. It was obvious that she neglected to put her panties on that morning… yes, commando yoga pants. The three women got back in the SUV and headed south.

Upon hearing this story, CK reported the event to the rental agency and the Manzanita Police. The black pickup truck arrived about 15 m after the SUV left;  the guy couldn’t figure out how to work the house key, and made the dogs bark again. He got on his phone and shortly drove off in the same direction as the SUV. When officer M arrived, he and I had a nice discussion about these events, and he agreed with my suspicion that the gals were just early, had to go NOW, and then decided to go to the beach. He also informed me that, according to Oregon law, peeing in the yard is not illegal but trespassing is. If the woman was part of the group renting the house, she’s entitled to do so (pee in the yard). As long as she’s not touching herself for pleasure.

My response to JK:
Thank you – this is hilarious.  As long as it’s not happening next door to us.  😉 Hey, good to know that, in Oregon, I can drop trou to pee, but not “pleasure” myself.  Does this law also extend to men?

JK:
Yes the law applies equally to both/all genders.  If you are on property that you do not own, you must have permission to be on the property.
The Oregon code states that a person has “… a reasonable expectation of privacy …” in a number of places including “… residences, yards of residences, …” and it makes no distinction between front or back yards. Exceptions are included for touching one’s privates for pleasure and “… causing arousal in others …”

 

You are correct to notice that this picture in no way relates to the above story…
but do you really want a picture of a woman peeing in someone else’s yard?   [6]

*   *   *

May you never sign nor request others sign a non-disclosure agreement;
May we all continue to learn the parts of our national history
which make us uncomfortable;
May you always have other options than having to pee in the yard;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1]  The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic and racist laws in Nazi Germany…. The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households, and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens. The remainder were classed as state subjects without any citizenship rights.

[2] And by remember I mean, from your American history class…not that you heard it personally.  I mean, moiself knows my readers tend to skew older, but not *that* old.

[3] Or stop cashing their checks.  Now I just want women to stop writing those checks. Imagine what would happen to religious organizations if women stopped giving them time and money? I sometimes do, and I sleep better at night when I do.

[4] If you can’t, then you shouldn’t have to pay income taxes until you’re 18.

[5] Who gave me permission to share this story, in case you were wondering.

[6] And if your answer to that question is “Yes!” then please stop following moiself’s  blog.

The Yoga Pose I’m Not Practicing

August 7, 2026

Robyn Parnell community, current events, exercise & fitness, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, movies, nature, Oregon, Recreation , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Yoga Pose I’m Not Practicing

It’s time for a…

 

Moiself  sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.

 

 

*   *   *

The Yoga Pose I’m Not Practicing
( August 7, 2020 )

Department Of Even Yoga Teachers Need To Be Careful What They Ask For

Backstory: A couple of months ago, when we were all new to this streaming business, my 9 am yoga class teacher held a pre-class video chat for us streamers. She told us a “yoga joke,” then said that if anyone else knew any yoga jokes, she’d love to hear them.  

Dateline: Monday; circa 9:30 am; doing a vinyasa (yoga) class via streaming. The regular teacher is on vacation.  As the substitute yoga teacher leads the class into Triangle Pose, my mind wanders – which *not* the point of a yoga class, I realize…

 

 

“Bad yogi!”  [1]

Ahem.

…my mind wanders to ponder the many different yoga pose names, both their English “nickname” and the Sanskrit names and translations, and as I do this, a joke begins to develop in moiself ‘s  un-mindfulness-practicing mind.  There are a few twisting yoga poses which are notorious for producing, in certain people, a certain bodily response – in fact, the Sanskrit name for one such pose translates as:

 

My joke is a play on the Sanskrit name for Triangle Pose, which is Trikonasa (TREE- kone-ah-sauna).  I will ask my yoga teacher if there is a yoga pose known for inducing bladder leakage, and if so, would that pose be called, Trickle-asana?

 

My guess is that Trickleasana would look something like this.

*   *   *

Department Of Extending The Metaphor

Yeah, hipster, since you obviously don’t care about trashing your own lungs, go right ahead and give no thought to trashing your small portion of the planet, which happens to be shared by everyone else.  That’s the true American Spirit.    [2]

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Actually, not. Not something *completely* different, that is.

Instead, a smooth segue into….

Department Of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes… And Nowhere Else, If You’re Lucky

MH and I have two fireplaces in our house.  One has never been used; the other has been used once, not long after we moved in (~ 26 years ago), and never since.  This is because of moiself’s  killjoy spirit  high livability standards.

I have been the family spoilsport when it comes to wood fires, be they fireplace fires or beach bonfires or campfires.  When on vacation, burning wood is “permissible” only if necessary – e.g., if your accommodations have a wood-fire stove as the only heating source.  You see, I am one of those annoying,   I-can’t-pretend-to-not-know-something-once-I-know-it  kinda people, and cannot justify sitting around a pollution source sans a more compelling reason than my personal entertainment.

 

 

And yes, I have fun, sitting-around-the-campfire  memories from childhood.  And yes, I have been pooh-poohed for my anti-wood fire attitude (  “Oh, c’mon, it’s not really that bad…” ).  And yes, I am thanking someone else for doing the legwork on the It Really Is That Bad ® statistics I once knew but have forgotten and was too lazy to look up.

That info via Someone Else ®  was provided in yesterday’s Ask Amy column, wherein Amy dealt with a woman’s am-I-right-to-be-disturbed-by-this question. This (nonsmoking) woman has been accused by her (non-smoking) husband’s “big smoker” sisters of over-reacting because of the woman’s concerns about the fact that when she and hubby go for “chats and s’mores” to the sisters’ place, the sisters toss their butts and partially smoked cigarettes into the fire pit: 

“…since we don’t smell any cigarette smoke as the fire burns, (the sisters claim that) second-hand smoke isn’t an issue.
I feel this is second-hand smoke and a very real health concern.”

Amy lays it on the line (my emphases):

 “Cigarettes aside, the backyard fire pit itself presents risks to lung health. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov), ‘In addition to particle pollution, wood smoke contains several toxic harmful air pollutants, including: benzene, formaldehyde, acrolein, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).’
Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which is a finely spun plastic (not cotton, as I had always assumed). Burning plastic sends off toxic fumes. The leftover tobacco on the spent cigarettes will also release ‘second-hand’ smoke.
So yes – this bonfire is basically a flaming pit of toxins.”

 

“The Scoutmaster says we’re only two requirements shy of earning our Flaming Pit of Toxins merit badges!”

Are you lost in the forest in the dead of winter? Ok; build a fire. You and your friends just wanna sit beside a pile of wood and watch it burn for…oh, that warm, glowy-feeling, or whatever?  There are other ways to enjoy each other’s company that don’t involve needless production of toxic waste.  How about playing charades, or that game where you find clever ways to trash your hypocritical friends who make you feel guilty about, say, things like polluting for your own pleasure?

Or how about this: re-purpose some old holiday lights, and if you put them on twinkly-mode you can pretend it’s flickering flames.  Imagination is good for the body and spirit.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Could The Editor Have Cut The Movie To Give You
All At Least Five Minutes Before Contradicting Yourselves?

Dateline: a week ago, this evening; watching The Go-Go’s documentary with MH.  One of the Go-Gos was doing a voice over about the early 1980s Los Angeles punk scene (from whence the Go-Gos was spawned); specifically, about how accepting the punks were:  it didn’t matter if you were gay or straight, white or black, male or female etc. you were welcomed for however you were/whatever you were.

 

This kumbaya declaration was made literally seconds before the band went on to recall how the other Go-Gos demanded that their new drummer, Gina Schock, an import to LA from Baltimore, undergo a makeover when she arrived – they cut and dyed her frizzy blonde hair to short and dark, to be more suitable to the punk scene.

Confession:  the picture of Gina’s “Baltimore” hairstyle that flashed onscreen during that recollection…it *was* really, clownishy, wretched, even by 1980’s hair standards.  [3]    Open and accepting only goes so far; I guess even punk rockers have standards.

 

Yep; it was worse than this.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stopping Moiself  In The Nick Of Time

Dateline: Tuesday, circa 7 am, walking north along the beach at Manzanita. There are few people on the misty beach.  About 200 yards ahead of me I see three creatures walking south – a man, a woman, and their dog. The man and the woman each hold a large takeout coffee cup in their respective right hands.  The dog, walking between the two, is looking up at the man.  Dog pays the woman no attention; dog’s eyes stare up at the man.

As the trio gets closer I notice that the dog’s laser focus is on the man’s left arm, which the man has tightly clenched to his left side, and I get a glimpse of the halves of two brightly colored orbs the man is carrying between his upper arm and armpit/chest.

As our two groups (well, moiself  is a group of one) we both do the polite, COVID-appropriate thing, moving to the side and smiling in acknowledgement and greeting. The woman says a few words to the dog, which gives no indication it has heard her – it never tears its gaze from the man and the toys he has “hidden” under his arm…and the woman sees that I have noticed this.  As she gives me a What-am-chopped-liver? look and shrug of her shoulders, I stop myself at the last minute from pointing to the dog and to the man and saying to the man,  “Oh, I get it – you’re the one with the balls!”

 

“In a just world, I’m the one with *all* the balls.”

 

*   *   *

Pun For The Day

I can’t believe I got fired from the calendar factory – all I did was take a day off!

 

 

*   *   *

May you enjoy the simple pleasure of wasting precious brain wattage
on composing a bad joke about your favorite form of exercise;
May you be the coveted one with the…uh…balls;
May we all hope that the nostalgia for pre-pandemic times does not presage
a return to 1980s hair;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] No no no – not *that* kind. A yogi is anyone who practices yoga.

[2] Can you make out the cigarette carton brand?  Do ya get it, huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?

[3] I can provide no still picture of that hair, from the documentary – I think it would have burned the camera lens to even attempt it.

The Ephemera I’m Not Minimizing

July 31, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Ephemera I’m Not Minimizing

Department Of Be Aware Of Mono No Aware

“There’s a wonderful Japanese term, for which there isn’t a precise English translation.  The term is Mono No Aware  ( mo no no a- war -ey ) loosely means, a sensitivity to ephemera; the bittersweet feeling of seeing things change.  Mono no aware is a wistful awareness of the transitory nature of existence.  Since everything we see all around us will one day be gone, we must appreciate every millisecond.  According to this idea, cherry blossoms are not only beautiful despite only blossoming for two weeks once a year, they are beautiful *because* they only blossom for two weeks once a year.

When you notice yourself fearing or resisting change, perhaps you can remember the concept of mono no aware, and find harmony with the impermanent nature of all things.   As Jack Kornfield   [1] said, ‘Like a sandcastle, all is temporary.  Build it; tend it; enjoy it. And when the time comes, let it go.’ ”
( from Daily Calm morning meditation, 7-22-26 )

 

*   *   *

Department Of Apropos Of Nothing…

…or at least the nothing that now seems so important, or at least, memorable.  Recently, both a book I was reading and a podcast I was listening to, on the subject of the history of the radical undergrounds  [2]   in the 1970s-1980s, mentioned an incident in Chicago where the boxer Muhammed Ali ( “the most recognizable man in the world” ) joined in on an action to disrupt the eviction of a poor Black family living in a Chicago tenement.   I didn’t know about that incident; while I admired his acting on behalf of that family, hearing about it got me to thinking of the impressions I carried of Ali, and still do, to this day.

My parents were not very interested in boxing.  Moiself  actively opposed and was confused by its very existence:  why were select men given money and medals for doing something that, if they did it in the streets instead of in a sporting arena, they’d be arrested ?  [3]   I refused to watch any boxing matches as a matter of principle, but when it came to the Ali-Frazier competitions I –  like the entire country, it seemed – was well aware of the pre-matches hype and the post-matches analysis.

 

When it came to that classic rivalry –  the three Frazier-Ali matches known as The Fight of The Century (1971) and the rematches Super Fight II  (1974) and the Thrilla in Manila –  my parents, like most Whites of that era (so it was assumed), supported Joe Frazier.  Joe Frazier was shy, respectful, softspoken, and humble;  those traits of his were ridiculed by Ali and his supporters as being more palatable to White people whom, they sneered, saw Frazier as a Good Negro®.

I admired Ali for how he stood up for himself and was willing to go to jail for his principles.  I’d never heard of a Black man talking back to White people like Ali did.  It wasn’t so much that Ali talked back, it was that he unapologetically stood up for himself.  I loved that.  And I hate hate hated the way Ali talked about, and to, Joe Frazier.

Joe Frazier supported Ali ( both publicly and financially ) after Ali refused induction into the US Army and was subsequently stripped of his title, banned from boxing, and threatened with jail.  Frazier even lobbied the boxing powers that were ( and President Nixon! ) for Ali’s being able to return to the sport. Here is what Frazier got in return:  Ali boasted about how “pretty” he himself was, and contrasted his own handsome visage  [4]  with the features of Frazier,  called Frazier “ignorant” and “dumb” and “ugly,” and actually compared Frazier to a gorilla.

 

 

Those astoundingly racist epithets would’ve been called out as being just that if they had been uttered by a White person instead of being brashly spewed by the self-proclaimed   [5]   “Greatest.”  You could try to excuse Ali’s taunting by saying it was part of the boxing culture’s pre-match hype; but Frazier didn’t, and never forgave Ali for the taunting and bullying he (and his family) endured from Ali supporters.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was the celebrated agnostic orator of the 19th century, sparking what became known as The Golden Age Of Freethought.  A Civil War officer, abolitionist, civil rights and women’s rights advocate, author, and skilled orater, Ingersoll’s lectures attracted thousands, and he was the person most responsible for the flowering of Freethought in the USA.

 

 

Although I knew *of* Ingersoll I did not encounter Ingersoll’s vow until after my own coming out as religion-free.  Moiself  got goosebumps, the first time I read this essay of his, to think of how the experiences of a someone of over 100 years ago so paralleled those of my own.  It’s as if he was emptying my thoughts onto his pages.

The *news,* was not what Ingersoll realized he was convinced of ( e.g., the natural, not supernatural, origins of our world; the fact that religions are mythologies ) but rather of his ability – his*need,* his obligation, even –  to express this openly.

 

 

Ingersoll’s Vow ( emphases mine  [7] )

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths –  there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust.
I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free –

* free to think, to express my thoughts;
* free to live to my own ideal;
* free to live for myself and those I loved;
* free to use all my faculties, all my senses;
* free to spread imagination’s wings;
* free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope;
* free to judge and determine for myself;
* free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books
that savages have produced,
and all the barbarous legends of the past;
* free from popes and priests;
* free from all the “called” and ‘set apart;’
* free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies;
* free from the fear of eternal pain;
* free from the winged monsters of the night;
* free from devils, ghosts, and gods;
for the first time, I was free.

There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain – for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell in the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.”

 

*   *   *

May you remember, or soon discover, the first time you realized that you are free;
May you know the wistful joy of appreciating ephemera;
May you feel free to spread imagination’s wings;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Jack Kornfield  is a Jewish-American writer and teacher of the Vipassana style of Theravada Buddhism.  He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, and has been teaching mindfulness meditation since 1974.

[2] The Weather Underground, The Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army. 

[3] I still don’t get it.

[4] Which, as more than one White and Black pundit pointed out, was the result of having some European ancestry in his lineage – specifically, an Irish ancestor from County Clare.

[5] “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.” “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”  Muhammed Ali In His Own Words.

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

[7] As well as some punctuation

The Icelandic…*Candy*…I’m Not Looking Forward To Trying

July 17, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, travel, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Icelandic…*Candy*…I’m Not Looking Forward To Trying

Department Of Judgy Snark Alert

Dateline: Circa 7:45 am; taking my morning constitutional.  In a neighborhood where I sometimes walk, I pass a house that is heavily trashed accessorized: its front yard décor    includes a multitude of plastic multicolored flowers, garden gnomes, smiling animals, faux garden implements stapled to the house’s siding, etc.

A sign on the front door of the house reads,  “This is my happy place.”  My first thought as moiself  reads the sign:

“They misspelled tacky.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Unintentional Reruns
Sub Department Of: The Squirrels Have Returned
( As per The Toxins I’m Not Cleansing, 4-30-21 )

The Very Nice Exterminator Man (VNEM) tried unsuccessfully to stifle his laugh when, as he followed me on the pathway around the side of the house to the place where the squirrels were using our trees to access our roof, he told moiself  that the traps he was going to set were kill traps, and I blurted out an enthusiastic, GOOD!

 

“Wow, it’s a squirrel howitzer,” I said, when I saw the first trap.

 

“Your attitude,” VNEM chuckled – then quickly added, when I turned around to see if he thought I was A Terrible Person ® , “I like it.  It’s, uh…very different…when I’m in Portland.”  He explained that when he’s setting up traps in optimal places ( for where the squirrels are accessing the house ), his Portland clients often ask him – whisper to him, he said – if he can “hide them (the traps) so the neighbors don’t see.”

I correctly surmised that was because they don’t want their neighbors to know about the kill traps.  “Let me guess,” I replied.  “Portlanders fear their neighbors’ judgement because they, like their neighbors, are misinformed.  They think it’s somehow better or more humane to trap the squirrels and ‘relocate/transplant them,’ when they in fact know nothing about squirrels, including that

*  squirrels are highly territorial; thus, depending on how far away they are transplanted, they will find their way back to your property and continue to be a problem/do the damage for which you wanted them gone in the first place, or

* they will be beaten and harassed by other squirrels into whose territory they have been released, [1]  not given a moment’s peace to establish their own territory, much less forage, and they’ll starve to death;

* the majority of Oregon’s squirrels are *not* native, but are introduced species which, through being larger and more aggressive and via spreading new diseases, have taken over the native squirrel population…”

 

“You *do* know a lot about squirrels,” VNEM said, as I finished my Why It’s Okay To Hate Squirrels harangue explanation. 

“Enough to loathe them,” I said.  “Look; I love animals; my diet is 99% plant-based; I escort spiders from our house (even bought a special device that traps, rather than squishes them)…and I detest squirrels.”

Ater one week with the traps up:  the body count is two traps, two dead squirrels.    [2]

The following is not a picture of a dead squirrel.  The Picture That Does Exist But That I’m Not Showing You [3]  is of a squirrel tail trailing out of one of the bazookas, the tail waving in the slight breeze, like a flag of surrender….  [4]

 

She’d never want us trapped in a sloth bazooka, but then, we’d never chew on her house or electric wires and cause hundreds of dollars worth of damage….

 

*   *   *

Department Of Traditional Foods Whose Existence I Acknowledge…

…but will not touch with a ten-foot pole.  Or narwhal tusk.  Or whatever is available to push the hákarl as far away from moiself  as possible.  The idea that you can call such a thing “food” is, IMO, an insult to all which is considered edible.

 

You’ll be safe with me, lady.  Let’s order the tuna casserole instead.

 

Y’all may have heard of hákarl, the infamous Icelandic “delicacy.”  If not, videos of people chunder-spewing immediately after having tried it are just an internet search away.

Ahem.  Written by the person who, attracted by the title, purchased,  Does Anyone Actually Eat This?  Nanna Rögnvaldsdóttir, Iceland’s “best known food writer,” wrote this slim ( 73 pages ) but mildly intimidating book about 16 peculiar Icelandic delicacies.  Besides the better known hákarl – Greenland shark meat that is fermented (read: putrified) in a way to remove the copious amounts of uric acid (read: piss) in the shark’s flesh so that you may eat it and not vomit blood (a common reaction to piss-shark-flesh eating) –  curious culinary minds might want to read about other Icelandic delicacies, including

* Svið (a sheep’s head, halved and singed, then boiled with the brain removed;

* Súrsaðir hrútspungar (sour ram’s testicles) – yep, just that: sheep’s testicles, boiled, pressed into blocks and preserved in fermented whey.  Some Icelanders consider it rude to call the dish by its name; thus, several euphemisms are used to refer to it, including millifótakonfekt ( “between-the-legs candy” );

*Hverabrauð, a hot sprin- baked, dense, pumpernickel-rye bread, which at first sounds rather tame until you get to the details:  “the bread…has a reputation for causing flatulence and is sometimes nicknamed, þrumari, aka, “thunder bread.”

 

Dude, a chase of thunder bread will absorb the urine/blood vomit aftertaste.

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Idealism Is Nice,
But Your Age/Gender/Privilege Is Showing

Datelimne: earlier this week; listening to Clear + Vivid podcast, of 6-30-26.  Host Alan Alda’s guest is American journalist, editor and biographer Walter Isaacson. The episode:  Walter Isaacson: Are These Truths Still Self-Evident?  From the episode’s description:

On the eve of our nation’s 250th, Walter Isaacson takes a deep dive into the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. It’s what he calls “the greatest sentence ever written.”

After discussing the history of the declaration and the interpretation and implementation of that so-called “greatest sentence,   [5]   Alda and Isaacson discuss the current fragmentation of our nation and the fact that we seem to have lost our ability to compromise, which is what led to the crafting of Declaration, and later, key elements of the U.S. Constitution.

 

 

( Excerpts; my emphases ):

Alda:
Now, what about the big question…how can we accomplish the return to this great sentence…and make it no longer merely aspirational or largely aspirational, but make it truly happen?  What kind of things need to be done…can be done?

Isaacson:
…Among them is look for ways where we can have shared national service, whether it be being part of civic life in your town or teach for America….

We should form the type of civic organizations that, when you and I grew up …you’d go into town, there’d be the Kiwanis Club, and the Rotary Club, and the bowling League, and the Elks and the Moose.

We all had whatever our religions, whatever our ideologies, we all rubbed elbows together.  And so I think in our daily lives, we can say, how do we do it at a local level?  We can’t do this at a national level now….

My reaction:  Gawd, does he (Isaacson) ever sound old/white/male/upper class!

The community and social institutions Isaacson lists – it’s not a bad thing, IMO, that they’ve faded away and/or drastically lost their impact.  In their heyday they exerted great influence in the business and social lives of their cities, and membership in them and other “fraternal” organizations were steppingstones for business and political success.  But, the we all rubbed elbows together ideal – what orifice did Isaacson pull that out of?

 

“My orafices are none of your beeswax, sweetie.”

 

Those institutions, whether community/civic or fraternal, were *not* welcoming and inclusive.  They required an invitation and/or sponsorship from current members for your membership application to be considered.  If you were white and male (and had an “in”), you had a chance.

Many a story I’ve read about those organizations’ resistance to change.  In particular I remember a community newspaper article about the blowback faced by an Oregon Coast man, a longtime member of his local fraternal organization (Elks, maybe?), who lobbied his fellow members to allow women to join the organization.  He pointed out that his wife and other wives of members already did the lion’s share (  maybe it was the Lions Club!? ) of the work when it came to organizing, setting up (and – surprises! – cleaning up after ) the group’s yearly fundraisers and other events, and that they and other women in the community had expressed interest in joining….  But, no.  His fellow Elks/Lions were content to keep the ladies in auxiliary status.  Women were capable of doing the work, but heaven forbid they get the recognition (and status and influence) of membership.

Two personal examples: Over a decade ago I congratulated an acquaintance of mine when I saw an announcement in the local paper about how she’d joined the local branch of a nationwide service organization (ala Kiwanis Club).  She was one of three businesswomen who’d been invited to “integrate” the previously all male    [6]  club, which had gained a reputation among newer-to-the-area, younger and nonwhite/nonmale city residents as stodgy, elitist and out of touch.  Two years later I saw her at a city event, and told her I’d once again    [7]   intended to support her in the group’s annual fundraising sales, but that I didn’t find her name on the group’s roster.  She rolled her eyes in disgust and told me she’d resigned from the group, as she was tired of banging her head again the proverbial wall.  “All those old men are going to have to die  [8]  before anything will change,” she huffed.   [9]

Another friend of mine started her own business in her small Oregon town, and as her success grew she joined her local Chamber of Commerce.  Her C of C experiences…

* being either ignored and or patronized by old time (read: white male) COC members

* her ideas dismissed/discounted by her male colleagues one minute, then ten minutes later appropriated by another COC member, who presented them as his own

…spurred her to rally other women business owners in her town to form the ____ (name of town) Women’s Business Association.

So yeah, definitely encourage people to get off of social media and find other outlets for personal connection.  But before advocating a return to those old organizations, a remaking of them is in order.

 

And, BTW, what’s so bad about having bees that don’t wax?

*   *   *

Department Of A Documentary I’ll Have To Get Back To

A friend recently sent me a link, along with this message:

 I don’t know if you’ll like this, but this week’s independent lens is about a woman dealing with her father who is the last creationist in their family. I appreciated her struggle.   

The episode he linked me to was released earlier this week by the PBS  documentary series, Independent Lens.  Its title and description: Flood, directed by Katy Scoggin:  A filmmaker revisits her evangelical roots to find connection with her estranged father.

I thanked him and wrote that I’d watch it later.  I did, then sent this reply:

Oh… Holy crap. Figuratively and literally.

I love the Independent Lens documentary series, but I could only get about 20 minutes into this particular documentary before I had to stop watching it. I know there had to be a setup of the filmmaker’s conservative evangelical background in order to establish the estrangement between the filmmaker, who left those beliefs behind, and her father, who still holds them, but still…ICK.

If I never again, no matter the context or pretext, have to hear grownass adults serious singing/discussing about being “washed clean by the blood,” then I will have lived a happy life and can possibly withstand even global warming.

Listening to children reciting the gibberish of theology provokes a physical reaction in me.  It actually twists my stomach, to hear children spewing things they’ve had to memorize but have no idea what they’re talking about.  [10]  Particularly retch-worthy was the scene at the filmmaker’s father’s dinner table, when one of his cherubic blonde granddaughters (maybe four or five years old?), chirps, “I know all vowels: A E I O U!” Then, smiling, she recites in a sing-song voice the first four letters of the alphabet, which she has been taught to link with bible verses:

 “A – All have sinned and  gada fada baba…  ( it’s hard to make out many of the words, as she lisps and runs the words together  [11] )…the glory of god

B – Believe in the lord jesus christ and thou shalt shall be saved

C – Children obey your parents in the lord for this is right

D – Depart from evil and do good….”

It’s child abuse; it’s emotional and intellectual child abuse.  And I can’t watch that, any more than I can stand by and watch someone beat a child and not intervene.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Damn, It’s Inevitable,
But They Rip A Piece Of Your Heart Out When They Go

Nova
( 5/1/2007 -7/8/26 )    [12]

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

 

*   *   *

May your bees continue to wax;
May you remember to never eat a slice of thunder bread before yoga class;
May your sweet tooth steer clear of between-the-legs candy ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I have seen some epic squirrel territorial battles in a nearby park which I regularly walk through/around – battles that have drawn blood between the combatants (and which unnerved me, years ago, when I didn’t know much about squirrels) and which would make MMA combatants envious.

[2] Upon completing his inspection the VNEM thought one or at most two squirrels were accessing our roof, trying to chew their way into our attics.  Which was somewhat better than the last invasion, which included an entire squirrel family.

[3] But which I sent to select friends/family, who almost certainly wouldn’t rat me out to PETA.

[4] I did send the picture to the exterminator (when he asked if we knew if either of the traps had been sprung), with the caption, “My heart soars like a hawk.”

[5] I disagree with that evaluation.

[6] And mostly all White, despite the city’s growing Hispanic population.

[7] I had donated to the group’s yearly fundraiser only because she was in it.

[8] A lot of them did…but then their nepo-stodgy sons “inherited” their memberships, so change as continues to be slow.

[9] And she even had an “in” – she was the former mayor’s daughter-in-law.

[10] And I have a similar aversion to kids reciting loyalty oaths, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, in schools.  I stopped saying the pledge when I was in the fifth grade.

[11] It’s likely the Christian tenet, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god…” from Romans 3:23

[12] I was so NOT able to even type that last week.

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

The Enlightenment (Still) I’m Not Ingesting

June 26, 2026

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, sports, The Write Stuff (literary life), Uncategorized, Wow, YEE HAW! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Enlightenment (Still) I’m Not Ingesting

Department Of My Favorite I KNEW IT Headline

That would be from this book review:

The guru who loved to lie:
The wild celebrity and dark secrets of author Carlos Castaneda

 ( review excerpt ):“The 1970s were thick with New Age spiritual fads and movements, from the benign (crystals) to the unspeakably toxic and cultic (Jonestown). Somewhere in the middle of that woo-woo spectrum lies the work of Carlos Castaneda. A UCLA anthropology grad student turned self-appointed guru, Castaneda became a counterculture icon with the publication of his first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, in 1968, purporting to find enlightenment via psychedelic mushrooms, peyote and the cryptic musings of Don Juan, an Indigenous spirit guide.

That book (…and those that followed) seduced millions of readers….That Castaneda’s books were largely flimflam isn’t in dispute. But Ru Marshall’s hefty biography, American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Casteneda, reveals the depth of his deception — and…how easily people can be taken in by it.

‘He didn’t lie out of convenience or opportunism,’ Marshall writes. ‘He lied because he loved to. Lying was, for him, an art, and he did it exceptionally well.’…

Born in Peru (not Brazil, as he often claimed) in 1925 (not a decade later, as he often claimed), Castaneda demonstrated no particular intellectual promise. But in the mid-1950s…he developed an affection for writing, philosophy and history. While pursuing a graduate degree in anthropology in the ’60s, he grew enchanted with Buddhism, Theosophy, existentialism and Native American spirituality — all key elements of the spiritualist goulash he would eventually cook up for his books.

His timing was impeccable: From Timothy Leary’s LSD experiments to transcendental meditation, non-Christian religion and drugs fueled the zeitgeist. And Castaneda’s manuscript of The Teachings spoke effervescently about both.

It hardly seemed to matter that the book also demonstrated his ignorance of both: He had little understanding of psychoactive drugs (you don’t smoke shrooms, dude), and there was nothing meaningfully Yaqui about Don Juan. Still, the book — and their follow-ups… were massive bestsellers.”

 

 

The writings of trained   [1] anthropologist Castaneda, in particular his Don Juan series, were all the rage during my early college years.  If often seemed that, when walking down the residence hall hallways, you couldn’t spit (and I did try) without encountering a fellow student, slumped outside their dorm room, taking a break from cramming for their chemistry midterm by searching for some stoner wisdom from the mythical   [2]  Yaqui “Man of Knowledge” Don Juan Matus.  Castaneda’s books portrayed Don Juan as a shaman (of the indigenous Yaqui people) who imparted his wisdom to Castenada via a purported apprenticeship Casteneda had with Don Juan in the early 1960s.

I tried to understand the appeal by reading  [3] the first and some of the second of what would eventually be a series of quasi-spiritual drivel nine books.    [4]   My reaction to what I read was further evidence to moiself  that I would never be as hip as my comrades…and I was relieved to be so.

I only said, You realize he made up all that shit?!?!  a few times to Castenada/Don Juan true believers.  The reactions my skepticism received made me realize that if the reason for my lack of mystical illumination after reading the books – the reason moiself  couldn’t understand the deep spiritual enlightenment wisdom of the books’ teachings –  was that I wasn’t stoned while reading them (as one devoted Castenda follower informed me), then that was a burden I was willing to shoulder.  I got more enlightenment, and a better use of my time, via playing a game of racquetball with friends.

 

 

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Department Of Sometimes The Analogy Can’t Be Stretched

Dateline: Sunday 2:52 pm, listening to a TED Talk podcast, Sports Psychology For Everyone: The Psychology of Winning (and Losing).  Some interesting stuff there, including interviews with sports stars and behavioral scientists.  The hour-long podcast is divided into four segments:

* Soccer legend Abby Wambach reflects on the most iconic goal of her career

* Why we choke under pressure, according to a cognitive scientist

* Why we love watching sports

* Don’t be afraid of failure. Instead, embrace the near-win

The third segment had some key insights into why some sports develop and maintain a loyal audience while others – e.g., women’s sports – have a harder time doing so.  Obstacles include good old-fashioned sexism…

 

 

…coupled with cultural traditions, familiarity, and generational inheritance.

Journalist Kate Fagan:

“When I worked at ESPN…I was always pitching women’s sports stories.

It almost never worked. Every once in a while, it would work. But this thing would happen when we would do a women’s sports segment.  Many of the other men on the segment – they didn’t really do their homework.  So they were kind of blah, then the segment would be kind of blah. There’s actually a term for this.  It’s called  gender bland. And then the segment would end, and the producer would be like, ‘See, this is why we never do women’s sports, ’cause they’re boring.

When a men’s segment fell flat, the problem was us. We would redo it.  All right, come on, do your homework. Pick it up. We’re doing that again. When a segment on women’s sports fell flat, the problem was women’s sports.
The reality is that, just existing in our culture, you will know a dozen men’s storylines… these things are literally push-notified to your phone. Or you’re at a bar or a doctor’s office, and the talking heads are giving you the latest NBA drama. In America, osmosis will have you knowing men’s sports storylines…”

 

 

Fagan:

“There’s so many veins of generational inheritance in sports. There’s the one that does take time and literal family generations where you can actually say, Why am I a New York Met fan? Well, ’cause my grandpa was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And then they left for LA. And then the next team that we got was the New York Mets…. And there’s something bigger than yourself about that.
I think why we love sports at its core is for the culture and community of it. And whether it’s your literal community, it’s like your city team, or you live out of state, and it’s your grandmother’s favorite team…That’s all part of community as well.

And then pair that – and they often go hand in hand – with cultural value….We want to be in on what culture is talking about.”

 

 

Fagan and other podcast guest spoke of factors that get people interested in more obscure/not-so-popular-in-our-culture sports  – factors such as when we understand the stakes to the games and the storylines within them (e.g., the underdog USA ice hockey team battling the heavily favored USSR team; the Romanian gymnast struggling in poverty…).  Then Fagan shared a story of how her father, who taught her basketball, guided her with two pieces of advice about the game, which she applies to life today:

” ‘Always make your last dribble the hardest’….

The other one I loved was…‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’
And that’s a standard basketball one, but…my wife and I will say it to each other all the time when we want to do something we’re not sure we should. It’s like, ‘Well, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ “

Moiself’s  mind immediately began trying to analogize that shot-taking adage to other sports and activities.  For some reason, rock climbing was the first one I thought of:

“You survive 100 percent of the cliffs you don’t fall off of
from the mountains you don’t climb….”

Hmmmm?  Needs more work to reach pithy aphorism status.

 

 

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Department Of Why AI Sucks

Moiself  looks forward to AI applications that can assist doctors to more quickly distinguish between benign and malignant tumors, and which can also help medical researchers fine-tune existing/invent new treatments and for illnesses from cancer to tuberculosis…and help scientists discover non-toxic ways to eliminate air- and waterborne pollutants and develop non-toxic, renewable energy sources…

As for the rest, this sums up my feelings and fears.  When it comes to writing (both fiction and nonfiction/journalism) and the creative arts, don’t be fooled by a seemingly bland term like, Artificial Intelligence.  It’s counterfeit coding ; it’s plagiarism software.

 

 

BTW, that ingestion of written output…without consent, compensation, and credit…?  It’s happened to moiself.

BTW 2.0: for any other published writers out there, whether or not you are involved in one of the many class action lawsuits re AI-enabled pirating,    [5]   AI-enabled pirating of your work has already happened or will happen to you, whether or not you are aware of it.

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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

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May you be able to spot spiritual flim-flam;
May you not be the easiest person to fool;
May you not fall off of the cliffs you do not climb;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

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[1] But never professionally employed as an anthropologist.

[2] As in, Casteneda pulled Don Juan (and their encounters) out of his ass.

[3] By the second book, it was more like skimming, as I found it so uninteresting I couldn’t concentrate on paying actual attention to the twaddle.

[4] The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power, The Second Ring of Power, The Eagle’s Gift, The Fire From Within, The Power of Silence, The Art of Dreaming.

[5] I am one of the many parties to the Anthropic CA lawsuit. 

[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

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