Department Of Why You Don’t Want Me To Fill Out Your Survey
Dear, ____ (name of artistic group whose events I patronize),
I know that you-who-sent-moiself-this-survey – or the consultants which convinced you to do so, to justify their services – hope that having me fill out your survey will help you to “gain insights into the kind of audience” you are attracting, or wish to attract. [1]
However, I am slightly annoyed/somewhat mystified by the myriad of (what I consider to be) none-of-your-business/how-does-this-matter? questions. Checking “prefer not to disclose” was not satisfying, to moiself…then, my annoyance morphed into delight, when I came upon this question in your survey:
Please select any of the following sexual identities/orientations that describe you.
Aromantic
Asexual
Bisexual
Fluid
Gay
Heterosexual or straight
Lesbian
Pansexual
Queer
Questioning or unsure
Prefer not to disclose
Other:
At first glance I thought the first option was “Aromatic.” Which I decided to disclose to you, under “other.” I also thought about checking “pansexual” (I have this thing for cast iron skillets)…but…nah.
Anyway, thanks for the entertainment.
Are those your grill ridges, or are you just happy to see me?
* * *
Department Of These Labels Violate My Boundaries
Sometimes moiself wonders if social media has amplified the tendency we all have toward practicing amateur psychiatry. We scoff at our social media friend who barks, “Don’t poison your body – do your own research!” and sends us a link to a 15 minute video hosted by a dubiously-credentialed Guy In A Lab Coat® who spouts conspiracy theories contradicting 15 years of medical research on RNA vaccines. Then we turn around and employ (and misuse) psychological concepts and diagnoses, such as boundaries and narcissist.
In psychology jargon, boundaries are rules and guidelines we set for *ourselves,* to help us set realistic limits on activities and relationships. We choose and set these boundaries; thus, it is we who are in charge of enforcing them. Yet, those [2] I hear (or read about) who use the term boundaries emphasize the actions of *other* people – extended family; coworkers; friends and neighbors – whom they accused of ignoring or violating their boundaries. They forget the crucial point of boundaries (or perhaps never understood it in the first place): boundaries are rules that *they* set for *themselves,* not for others.
” Yet even as ‘boundaries‘ have taken off, the concept has become misunderstood, joining gaslit and narcissist in the pantheon of misused psychology jargon. When you want someone to do something, throwing in the word boundary can lend the request a patina of therapeutic legitimacy.
When imposed on us, boundaries can feel upsetting. Because many people view happy relationships as problem-free, a request to behave differently can feel like a rejection. Some people—out of trauma or other wounds—interpret a ‘no’ from a loved one as the end of a relationship. But boundaries are supposed to help preserve relationships, not destroy them. ‘People typically believe that boundaries are to control people, and in actuality, they are safeguards for yourself and for peace and comfort in your relationships,’ says the therapist and Drama Free author Nedra Glover Tawwab.”
( “The Most Misunderstood Concept in Psychology: What are boundaries?” By Olga Khazan” The Atlantic 8/23 , my emphases )
That article got me to thinking about more misuse/misunderstandings of the other two psychology terms the article mentions – terms that but get diluted with mis- and over-use.
Narcissist. How many times have y’all heard that term, used as a pejorative and also as an analysis of a difficult spouse/coworker/person/family member, despite the fact that the person being labeled a narcissisthas not received a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis from a mental health professional, nor has ever even visited a counselor? [3]
” ‘One of the internet’s favorite diagnoses is that someone is a narcissist—which has become shorthand for anyone who appears self-centered or entitled. The term is ‘thrown around so carelessly,’ says Jacquelyn Tenaglia, a licensed mental health counselor based in Boston. ‘I see narcissism being especially misapplied when it’s used to label someone who exhibits qualities that someone might not like.’
While it might feel good to call your frenemy who only talks about herself a narcissist, mental-health experts suggest refraining. Narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis….”
And gaslit – I’m hearing that term more and more, to describe the allegedly nefarious actions and/or motivations of someone we don’t trust and/or just don’t like…but, are we really using it correctly?
The term is derived from the 1944 movie, [4]Gaslight. Gaslight tells the story of a late 19th century woman who is whirlwind-romanced into marriage, by a man who wants to gain access to her wealthy aunt’s estate, in which, he’s discovered, many valuable jewels are hidden. The husband tries to convince his wife that their house’s gas lights, which flicker and fade (but only when she is in a room, alone) are not in fact actually dimming, and that she is imagining the sounds she hears coming from the attic. The husband himself is the one behind both the noises and the dimming lights, in a strategy to drive his wife mad and have her institutionalized.
Someone can treat you poorly, even lie to you, without “gaslighting” you.
“Although in most cases the word serves to expose implicit power dynamics and level the playing field, it can also be used to do the exact opposite. That’s thanks to a process called ‘semantic bleaching,’ where a word’s true meaning gets diluted through imprecise and bad-faith usage…. woke—a word that originally meant ‘socially and politically aware,’ but now can be used to mean ‘sensitive’ and ‘irrational about social and political issues’ because of semantic bleaching by right-leaning media.”
Moiself highly recommends these articles I’ve cited (and hope I’m not violating any of your boundaries with this suggestion).
* * *
Department Of And One More Thing We’re Overusing/Doing Wrong:
Can we please stop referring to people as toxic?
“One of my most important rules as a therapist: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, or cold, or hot-tempered, it doesn’t tell me much about the problem. Adjectives aren’t facts.
That’s especially true of ‘toxic,’ an adjective that’s become increasingly popular in and outside of my office (it was even the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2018). It’s also easily overused — a way of reframing a difficult relationship as one not worth having.
So, when I have a therapy client who uses ‘toxic’ to describe someone, I don’t ask them to clarify, or to reconsider the word. Instead, I focus on the facts of the challenging situation they’re telling me about….
When you feel anxious around another person, your brain will begin to take emotional shortcuts that usually involve fighting, fleeing, or complaining to others. You quickly label the person as ‘toxic,’ declare their toxicity as the cause of your anxiety, and assume that escaping them will fix your distress…
When one of my clients starts getting into adjective-heavy territory, I redirect them with questions like, ‘What did they do?’…and ‘Where and when did this happen?’ and ‘How did you respond?’ Notice that none of these questions have the word ‘why.’ This is because ‘why’ usually requires you to guess a person’s motivation, or label them as a certain kind of person….”
(“Why Therapists Avoid Using the Word ‘Toxic’ – Labeling others can stunt your own growth,” Forge.medium.com ; my emphases )
Hey, I enjoy petty name calling as much as the next guy. But do I really think the person who annoys me – or even the who has treated me poorly [5] for years – has venom running through his veins, and that touching him would set off an anaphylactic or neurological reaction? Or is it that he does ____, and ____, and ____, and thus I believe it is ultimately unhealthy for me to be around him?
Delineate, please. Be specific; calling someone toxic tells me nothing, except that you don’t like them.
“Toxins are poisonous substances produced within living cells or organisms and can include various classes of small molecules or proteins that cause disease on contact. The severity and type of diseases caused by toxins can range from minor effects to deadly effects. The organisms which are capable of producing toxins include bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants. Some of the major types of toxins include, but are not limited to, environmental, marine, and microbial toxins. Microbial toxins may include those produced by the microorganisms bacteria (i.e. bacterial toxins) and fungi (i.e. mycotoxins).” ( 14.4A; Toxins, Biology Libre Texts )
Is your boss doing any of this? He may be a brazenly manipulative asshat, but he’s probably not toxic.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Affirmations Gone Astray
Moiself received yet another solicitation to purchase “anti-aging” products. The misogyny and (ultimate) futility of the concept behind the term “anti-aging” I have railed articulately commented about, many times, in this space.
“Viral on TikTok” and “proven by science” – such a deal!
This time I had a minor epiphany as to the appropriateness of the term. Anti-aging: it is, indeed, anti– aging…which therefore makes it anti-life. Because if you’re not aging, you’re not alive. The only people who do not (who cannot) age are dead.
Feeling rather smug, I briefly meditated upon another embrace-the reality-maxim:
Today I am as old as I have ever been, and, as young as I will ever be.
“I realized early on that it is detailed scientific knowledge which makes certain religious beliefs untenable. A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically? . . . What could be more foolish than to base one’s entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at the time, now appear to be quite erroneous? And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?”
May you always identify as the Best-Smelling Orientation; May you remove unfortunate vestiges of earlier erroneous beliefs; May you enforce boundaries with the narcissistic gaslighters, real or imagined, in your life; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I know this because it says so on the survey’s intro.
[2] These folks are not mental-health care professionals.
[3] Oh, but that would be typical of a narcissist, right?
[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] British physicist and biologist Crick, along with James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins, helped decipher the structure and replication scheme of DNA, for which he (and others) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.
Department Of This Is Beyond Depressing Sub-Department Of Are We Abetting A Nation Of Crybaby Snitches?
“As gold sunlight filtered into her kitchen, English teacher Mary Wood shouldered a worn leather bag packed with first-day-of-school items….
Everything was ready, but Wood didn’t leave. For the first time since she started teaching 14 years ago, she was scared to go back to school.
Six months earlier, two of Wood’s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition students had reported her to the school board for teaching about race. Wood had assigned her all-White class readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between the World and Me,’ a book that dissects what it means to be Black in America.
The students wrote in emails that the book — and accompanying videos that Wood, 47, played about systemic racism — made them ashamed to be White, violating a South Carolina proviso that forbids teachers from making students ‘feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress’ on account of their race.”
( excerpted from, “Her students reported her for a lesson on race. Can she trust them again?: Mary Wood’s school reprimanded her for teaching a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now she hopes her bond with students can survive South Carolina’s new laws.” By Hannah Natanson, The Washington Post, 9-18-23 )
I read Between the World and Me. I think every American should read Between the World and Me. I wish that a book like Between the World and Me had been published when I was in my American History and social studies classes in high school, and if it had been, I know we would have been able to read and discuss it.
Gaaaawwwwd, it makes me feel old, to read about this shameful South Carolina policy. Old in a different way than the usual, “In my day…” story, which is often the tag line for a Good Old Days ® conservative cultural sentiment.
Why does it seem as if we are going backwards? [1]Moiself was able to benefit from so many high school classroom topics and discussions that some people, apparently, would find “controversial” (read: threatening) today, but that which we students managed to deal with. Isn’t that the point of education?
I remember when a couple of friends of mine, who were taking the Logic class given by one of our high school’s most respected teachers, told me about how they were frustrated after a classroom discussion wherein a student brought up the topic of religion: this student thought that some idea(s) presented in the class threatened his religion in particular and/or dismissed the idea of taking something “on faith” in general, and wanted the class to discuss it. Being a class on logic, i.e., a class on learning to employ and evaluate different kinds of arguments [2] and learning how to recognize good or bad arguments, students who made illogical and or unsubstantiated claims re their religion were challenged, and the mistakes in their arguments and claims were pointed out to them, by both the teacher *and* by fellow students.
I listened to my friends’ recounting of the class’s discussion; I pointed out where I thought the other students and teachers had made excellent points, and gave my friends the, “Hey, chin up – this is good for you!” support. My friends accepted my feedback – one of them had to pout for a minute, as she was initially put out by the fact that I didn’t just jump to her defense, no matter what, but she was thoughtful and gracious about it.
And that was that.
It never occurred them to run whining to their parents like a tantruming toddler:
“Mommy, Daddy, that mean Mr. Guggenheim made me feel uncomfortable!
My teacher corrected me when I made false assertions
and used faulty reasoning!
My teacher introduced me to new ideas!
My teacher attempted to teach!
WAAAAAAHHHHHH! “
What’s with students – in an *Advanced Placement* class – turning into narcs? WTF ?!?!?! Coate’s book is just the kind of thought-provoking material “advanced” students should be reading and discussing.
This is yet another sad example of the wimping out by and dumbing down of the American student, and it is happening on all sides of the cultural and political spectrum. Those college students who essentially put their hands over their ears and assume the nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah I can’t hear you posture, as they bleat, “We feel threatened! We need safe spaces in order to learn!” while they shout down and/or attempt to censor professors and guest speakers with whom they disagree? Same coin; opposite side.
And what kind of parents would report a teacher for…..arrrrghhh. My own parents were conservative, both with regards to politics and religion, but it never would have occurred to them [4] to presume to tell my teachers what and how to teach.
* * *
Department Of I Don’t Give A Rat’s Ass About What Percentage Of Tag Fees Go Toward So-Called “Conservation Efforts,”
I Wish All Hunters Would Hunt Each Other And Leave Other Creatures Alone
Yet another misguided attempt at forging common ground. Because, yeah, what can unite us human beings – despite our differences in skin color, origin, religion, ethnicity, etc. – is the All-American ® desire to kill other living beings for the sheer, bloodthirsty fun of it sport.
“Hunters of Color, founded in Corvallis in 2020…is a nonprofit intent on diversifying the outdoors, specifically hunting. The organization has flourished since its inception, with ambassadors in Texas, Washington, New Mexico and many more states. It offers a mentorship program, hands-on restoration opportunities and anti-racist education services. The organization aims to confront and remove barriers for people of color interested in hunting.” ( excerpt from “The outdoors are for everyone: Oregon nonprofit aims to diversify hunting,” Oregonlive.com )
* * *
The Podcast I’m Looking Forward To (Sub-Department Of Note To Moiself:
Time To Stop Complaining And Appreciate Something)
Moiself has a long line of podcast episodes in my listening queue, but the one going to the top of the list will be the one that was previewed on the last Clear + Vivid podcast I listened to, which was C+V host Alan Alda’s interview with Maya Shankar. Shankar, a gifted violinist, had her hard work and dreams smashed by an injury which ended her dream of a musical career. Yet it was the end of that dream, and that career, which led Shankar down another path: to a PhD in neuroscience…which led her to being appointed to science advisory posts with both the Obama administration and the United Nations.
As if that episode wasn’t interesting enough (and it was), here was the teaser for the next C+V episode, featuring Matt Walker, the “…go-to expert on everything to do with sleep, from how it keeps both mind and body healthy to why we dream.
(Walker speaking; my emphases): “I often think of dream sleep as a Google search gone wrong. Let’s say that I type into Google, ‘Alan Alda,’ and the first page is all of your…accomplishments, but then I go to page twenty, it’s about a field hockey game in Utah, and I think, ‘Hang on a second, that’s not…’ but if I read it and I look, there’s a very distant, very non-obvious association. When you start to collide things together that shouldn’t normally go together, it sounds like the biological basis of creativity. And no wonder, as a consequence, no one has ever told you, ‘Alan, you should really stay awake on a problem.’
How can I not resist a preview like that?
Sometimes I feel as if Alda and his C+V staff write their podcast episode previews for an audience of one: moiself. The podcast’s focus is on communication; host Alda has a passion for the subject, both as an actor and as a lifelong science devotee (Alda hosted Scientific American Frontiers, and founded Stony Brook University’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.)
Here is the mission statement for C+V:
“Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country.
You’ll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It’s something we need now more than ever.”
Alda’s guests include many scientists, but not exclusively. He interviews people from across the spectrum of professions, including music and art. One of his most memorable guests (IMO) was Paul McCartney. Alda spoke with McCartney about communicating through music and the process of composing a song. Some of Paul’s songs he crafted deliberatly: When Paul was struggling with his grief over John Lennon’s death, Paul’s late wife Linda, knowing music was the vehicle through which her husband dealt with emotional issues, suggested he write about his feelings for his childhood friend and former Beatles bandmate…and that prompt resulted in McCartney’s heartfelt song, Here Today.[5] Other times, McCartney noted, although he would still apply his musical skill and experience in fine-tuning a song, the original idea for a song appeared organically, or out-of-the blue, as when he awoke one morning with the complete melody for Yesterdayin his head, after having “composed” it in a dream. [6]
Here are just a few of the guests and subject titles of recent C+V podcasts.
* Adam Mastroianni: Why You So Often Get It Wrong * Nancy Kanwisher: Your Brain is a Swiss Army Knife * Dan Levitt: You Are Stardust. Really. * Adam Gopnik: The Joy of Getting Good at Something Hard * Brenna Hassett: Why We Are Weird
So, if you haven’t already…check it out!
* * *
Department Of Reasons To Read Your Junk Mail
Because you may just stumble upon gems like this:
Robyn, you’re invited to a FREE Seminar and Meal! Presented by SMART CREMATION – your local pre-planning experts.
*Smart* cremation. As opposed to, uh, foolish or stupid cremation, where you, like, stumble into the crematorium chamber when you’re not really dead yet?
Also head-scratch worthy: the invitation’s envelope was addressed to, “The Robyn Parnell Family.” Hmm. Does my family have plans for me, to which I am not privy?
May you not “stay awake on it” when contemplating your next challenge; May you occasionally, actually, read your junk mail; May you creatively “collide things which shouldn’t go together”; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] Such as categorical syllogistic logic, propositional logic, predicate logic….
[3] But, alas, I was never able to fit it into my schedule, which was weighed down with everything else I either wanted to or had to take, and the class was offered only once a semester, at one time of the day.
[4] And I did ask them about it – about what they would do in similar circumstances – years ago. This was when I’d read an article about students complaining to parents about a teacher teaching something that the student didn’t like – something which was not factually incorrect, or presented in a rude or condescending or nasty way, but a mere fact, which made the student (translate: a fact which their parents had told them was not a fact, as in something about religion and/or the civil War) uncomfortable.
[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
The HTC: The Hood To Coast relay race, that’s what it is.
Hood To Coast is a long-distance relay race that starts at Mount Hood and continues nearly 200 miles to the Oregon Coast. Known as “the mother of all relays”, it is the largest running and walking relay in the world…. The race is held annually in late August, traditionally on the Friday and Saturday before the Labor Day weekend. The course runs approximately 200 miles…from Timberline Lodge on the slopes of Mount Hood, the tallest peak in Oregon, through the Portland metropolitan area, and over the Oregon Coast Range to the beach town of Seaside on the Oregon Coast. Teams of 12 runners take turns running legs along the course. ( from “Hood to Coast” Wikipedia entry )
The Hood to Coast Relay is so popular, it sells out every year within minutes on the day when it opens for team registrations. [1] HTC begins at Mount Hood, with staggered start times on Friday from 3 am to 2 pm (teams have 36 hours to complete the course). [2] This year there were 1,000 teams participating, and 12,000 runners. Teams come from all US states and 40 other countries, including our neighbors to the north:
Y’all impressed? You should be. For all the years we’ve been coming to the Oregon coast, the last weekend in August is one of the more fun times to be there (almost [3] fun enough to make me want to take up running again, just to participate in the HTC). MH and I hang in Manzanita, 22 miles south of the HTC finish point (Seaside). During the HTC weekend, almost about anywhere on the north Oregon coast you’ll spot the HTC team vans with their colorful names and mottos painted on the sides and doors, and encounter the enthusiastically exhilarated (and exhausted and sleep-deprived) HTC team members looking for food and drink, massages, blister relief, or just wanting to hang out.
Moiself knows many people who’ve participated in the HTC. This year son K joined a team for the first time, and asked me to be a HTC volunteer. All local [4] HTC teams are required to provide three volunteers or one exchange leader, [5] or they’ll be disqualified from the race. As you might imagine, with so many runners, a 200 mile race stretching from a mountain to an ocean needs a lot of people helping with logistics along the way, [6] including at the start and at the exchange points, to keep track of participants and vans (each team must provide two vans to transport members; each race member must run three legs of the race), and particularly at the end of the race, where the teams check in to a large, roped off section of the beach at Seaside, and have ceremonies and parties and eat and take official pictures…and did I mention parties?
I signed up for the 9:45a – 2:45p Saturday volunteer shift at Seaside. There were many of us volunteers at that shift time, and we were (most unscientifically) chosen for a variety of tasks. Moiself ended up in Trash and Recycling. T/R involved constant movement: for the next five hours (with lunch and hydration breaks at the volunteers’ discretion) we T/R crew walked a snaking/looping pattern throughout the various sections of the finish line area, from the perimeters to the zones within the zone, checking the I-lost-count-of-how-many trash and recycling receptacles. T/R volunteers duties included “pre-cycling” as much as possible (invariably, people dump the wrong items in the receptacles, despite the bins being clearly marked for trash v. recycling and having picture labels showing what items go where; thus, we had to move items from one bag to another), and changing the bags when they were 75% full.
* * *
Department Of People Are Fun
It was fun, even while digging through the icky T/R receptacles, [7] to see the teams arrive. There was so much sheer joy to be witnessed, on the part of the runners and the friends and family cheering them on. And the team names – I wish moiself could remember them all. I had a job to do, but tried to pay attention as the teams’ arrivals were announced over the loudspeaker (which you could hear from any part of the finish zone). Most teams go for a funny/punny name; e.g., one that satirizes their workplace and/or sponsors, or is a play on words with common situations and ailments faced by distance runners in general or HTC racers in particular (e.g., team “My Third Leg is Harder Than Yours”).
Most teams had custom shirts for their runners, and sometimes hats and other accessories. Teams decorate their vans, too. A popular team name motif is the slightly naughty/double entendre. Years ago, I saw a van with this motto painted on its rear door:
” Go Nads! (National Association of Distance Sprinters)”
Atop the van, attached to its luggage rack, was a large set of paper mâché…any guesses?
Another van’s display of their team name made me consider whether or not I would want to park (or walk) behind a van labeled, “Twelve Sticky Buns.”
A few intrepid teams run in full costume – moiself spotted members of one all male team which seemed to have a Barbie theme going on – or regalia related to their names. I never found out the name of the team whose every runner, male and female, was clad in red prom dresses, but they were a jolly group to behold.
Some team names I remember from years past:
* Run Like a Mother *199 Bottles of Beer on the Wall * Get in the Van! * Where’s the Beach? * Hauling Ass-prin * 12 Drummers Drumming * Cheap Hills * Forrest Stump [8]
* Endorphiends * Toenails Are For Sissies * It’s Cute You Run Marathons * Tektronic Megahurtz * Hoodwinked * Van You Catch Us? * The Team Formerly Known As Class Act [9]
* Back Fat * The Young and the Breathless * The Young and The Rest Of Us * Premature Acceleration * Monty Crython and the Hilly Trail * Oreo Speedwagon * Electrolyte Orchestra * Turd Herders * I-Be-Pro-FUN * Worst. Wine. Tour. Ever. * Obi-Run Kenobi * Cirque du Sore Legs * Last Place Legends * Team Questionable Life Choices * The Island of Misfit Toys * Married Up * Pace Cadets * Kids, Get Your Shoes On * Resisting A Rest * Seven Deadly Shins * Tequila Mockingbird * Another Run Bites the Dust * We’ve Got the Runs * The Kind Of Dirty Dozen * Lactic Acid Trip
* Two Dozen Scrambled Legs [12]
Now: who’d want to be a member of team Back Fat? When I saw several BF team runners hanging around by one of the finish area T/R receptacles, moiself had to ask. I did my T/R checking job, then prefaced my query by pointing to my shirt (as I did several times afterward, when I realized that people would answer *anything* I asked when they saw my shirt). “So,” I said, “in my ‘Race Official capacity, ‘ I must ask you: Why would anyone want to run under the team name, Back Fat?”
The BF-ers exchanged knowing glances. “Well, look at us,” one of them said, and he pivoted to show me his back. Yep, in their green polyester, clingy running shirts (mostly) covering their squatty, chunky physiques….I’ll concede that their team’s name was a first-rate example of truth in advertising.
“We’re just running for fun…we’re not the elites,” the BFer said, as he hoisted a beer with one hand and with the other hand, pointed behind moiself, to the Nike area (Nike had its own roped off zone within the finish zone, with complimentary food and beverages for Nike-sponsored teams, as well as their own set of gleaming white, porta-pottie trailers. Bouncers checked IDs at the entrance to the Nike zone, ensuring no plebes – except for those wearing Race Official ® shirts – got inside.) “We know we’re not the team that’s in the best shape…” BF guy snickered.
“But you’re the team having the best time,” I offered. He laughed heartily, and he and his fellow BFers toasted me with their beers.
Moiself moved on to the next set of T/R bins, where another group of racing men stood (hanging around the T/R bins seemed to be a thing). There were six of them, all wearing their race shirts and, from the waist down, colorful batik, sarong-type wraps. They were quite the contrast to the BFers: they were all tall, slender, in their 40s – 50s, in great shape, with that lanky, distance runner’s physique. And the way they were groomed: even after having just finished a two-day race, their hair was neatly styled and none of them looked the least bit sweaty. Distinguished-looking, you might say. Something about their aura and the way they carried themselves radiated, “well-kept” (read: money).
I asked about the team’s name on their shirts (a word which sounded Hawaiian to moiself); also, noting their sarongs, I asked if the team had some Polynesian connection (although the men were all haoles). One of the men began to explain: “A few years ago, a friend of mine bought a small island in Fiji…” To which I interjected, “As one does.”
Well-Groomed Man didn’t miss a beat; he continued to tell me about how their team name was a word his Fijian-island-owning friend had introduced them to. The word had a few variants among the Fiji Islands and was similar to the Hawaiian alohain that it had no one translation, and could be used as word of greeting and departure, or as a way of wishing someone well, etc.
My next T/R stop took me to the Nike area – my Race Official ® shirt was my entry ticket. It was quite the nice setup. About twenty minutes later, I encountered a T/R volunteer in a (non-Nike) area by the finish lines, and she told me that although there were not long lines of people waiting to use the porta-potties which lined the perimeter of the finish zone, the facilities always seemed to be occupied. I told her that if she needed a bathroom break, she should go to the Nike area and use their pristine facilities. “But, isn’t that for Nike people only?” she asked. “Who cares?” I snorted. “I didn’t see anyone checking IDs once they let you in their zone. Besides, if someone questions you, give them a WTF look, show ’em your shirt and your trash bags, then ask them if they’re saying that you’re good enough to pick up their trash but not good enough to use their porta potties?”
* * *
Department Of People Are Pigs
Oh, but it wasn’t all fun and games. As a member of the T/R crew, I had more than enough job security. As my shift wore on I became lip-curlingly disgusted with my fellow human beings, too many of whom left their discards in the strangest places – as in, obviously and deliberately misplaced, not just dropped in carelessness.
Yeah, clever, dude! Because that’s where recycling goes.
Besides the Nike teams’ area there was another restricted/ID required zone: The VIP tent. There was a guy seated at one entrance to the tent, whose job was to check people’s…. status, I guess?…before he let them into the tent. Moiself never found out what qualifications were needed to enter the VIP tent (I saw several people – non-VIPs, I assume – turned away). However, Those Of Us Wearing Race Official® shirts were allowed inside the tent, to do our T/R duties. The first time I approached the VIP tent, I saw Entry Checker Guy eye my volunteer shirt and the extra T/R bags I was carrying. I told him I was there for a VID – a Very Important Duty. “Ah, yes,” he said. In a tone both flip and friendly, he added, “But, are you a VIP?” To which I replied, “I am a Very *Impudent* Person. Is that VIP enough for you?” Turns out it was.
When I came back on my third run-through in the VIP tent, its T/R receptacles, while not yet full, needed changing. I was disgusted by the behavior of the VIP tent occupants, who’d left their trash *everywhere.* A couple of VIPs were seated less than two feet from the T/R containers, and when they saw me, they nodded in acknowledgement (as if to say, “Ah, here comes the help”) and then just – I couldn’t believe it – set their plates of partially eaten food and their half-empty beer cans down, on the sand, nudging the items toward the T/R receptacles but not bothering to get off of their Very Imperious Posteriors and properly dispose of said trash. Something in me snapped, a wee bit. T/R volunteers had been told (at the beginning of our shift, by the volunteer coordinator who did our T/R duty training) not to berate or even correct people who discarded their trash improperly, but to just “fix it.” So, I did pick up the VIP refuse and sort them into the proper bins, but decided to leave the tent with full T/R bins, and did not return to check on them later.
My HTC volunteer experience brought to mind the gentle…warning, for lack of a better word, which I received many years ago from someone who was quite the dedicated volunteer. She had volunteered across a variety of fields and for a variety of events and services, for decades, and she told me that when you volunteer, for anything,
“…be prepared to be disappointed in your species.”
As the hours went by it began to bother me, more and more: the amazing amount of trash, and waste. T/R receptacle liners bulged with utensils, non-recyclable cups, and plates loaded with food – plates of food from which someone had taken a couple of bites, from hot dogs to burgers and noodle dishes/stir frys, and then thrown aways the rest. Why do people even bother? Did it taste bad? And the food – apart from that served in the VIP and Nike areas, was not free – it had to be purchased from various booths. Were the people who bought it even hungry; did they get a burrito, then realize, Oh, I don’t really want/need this? You don’t have to eat every time there is food around, (perhaps the food wasters fell prey to that American Mindset®: “Look, food! Must be time to eat.”)
I just didn’t get it; I didn’t want to get it…
There were many booths in the finish zone, some with sponsors/vendors giving out free cans and bottles of various beverages (kombucha and flavored/”energy” waters). We T/R crew would find many of those cans and bottles cracked open but half full, buried in the sand, or leaning against the recycling receptacles (which had notices asking people to please empty cans and bottles before recycling them). What’s the deal, of not taking five seconds to empty it? Were they just waiting for/assuming someone else to do it?
When checking in volunteers were given a Race Official shirt, which we were told we must wear over whatever other shirts we had on, during our shift. After check-in we were directed to move away from the check-in line and wait for a volunteer coordinator to assign us to task groups. As I stood in the waiting-group, I looked noted that most of that group, plus those in the volunteer check-in line, were female. One young man, who looked to be in his late teens-early twenties, was standing at the periphery of my waiting group. I pulled on my RO shirt, sidled over to him and asked if he was or had been a HTC runner. He shook his volunteer shirt (he was holding a Race Official shirt but had not yet donned it) and mumbled, “No; I’m just doing this for a friend.” Another volunteer also greeted him, and by the look on the young man’s face I couldn’t tell his reaction: was he mortified, or disgusted, to be surrounded by middle-aged women, some of whom were actually attempting to talk with him.
Once I was on my T/R shift, I continued to note (anecdotally; this was not a scientific survey, but I saw what I saw) how the volunteers were overwhelmingly skewed, gender-wise. Particularly, those who were chosen for T/R duty – I saw only one man doing T/R. And while moiself recalls being thanked by four (yes, I counted) men during the five hours of my shift, I lost track of the number of female race participants who, when they saw my Race Official shirt (and noticed me picking through the trash), thanked me for doing so.
That’s women for you, I groused to moiself. We are the world’s garbage collectors. I was reminded of a quote I read, decades ago, from a woman who was part of a lawsuit against a local (So Cal) municipality which refused to even consider hiring women to work on refuse collection crews: men don’t object to the fact that women pick up/deal with the world’s physical and metaphorical garbage, as long as we aren’t paid to do so.
Stop getting all existentially bummed, I castigated moiself. If K runs the HTC again next year and asks me to volunteer, I probably will. I can select a different shift and locale – maybe somewhere midrace, at an exchange point? Oh, but there’ll be trash duty there as well. Will I just be removing moiself from seeing the majority of the waste produced by this event…. This is way too much ruminating on yet another example of how we continue to literally trash our environment, which is our home, our VIP zone. So, after my shift ended I went home and washed out the reusable containers in which I’d brought my lunch – yeah, that’ll save the planet….
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time again, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself . Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [13]
May you respect the person who picks up your trash; May you be the person who picks up your trash; May we all have the means to buy a (trash-free) island in Fiji; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Beginning in the 1990s, Hood to Coast implemented a lottery system to select participating teams.
[2] Some elite teams, often corporate (read: Nike) sponsored, have run the course in half that time.
[4] As in, from within Oregon, not those flying in from, say, Costa Rica.
[5] Exchange leaders work in the exchange zones, where a race participant passes off to the next participant in rotation to run the next leg. Each leg of the race varies in distance, from approximately 4 – 7 miles.
[6] …and an estimated 500 port-a-potties are staged along the route.
[7] I insisted on the thickest pair of gloves they had at the volunteer check-in booth. Some T/R volunteers just wore thin vinyl gloves.
[8] All Forrest Stump team members were adaptive athletes: all team members had some physical challenges, including prosthetic legs and/or use wheelchairs due to spinal cord injuries….
[9] The story behind this name: One year a team called themselves, “Class Act.” The next year they were, “Class Act Is Back.” During that second year one of their vans was pulled over and reprimanded by a Sheriff’s deputy when the riders were shooting Super Soakers out the window on the highway. Thus, the third year’s Prince-inspired moniker, to allow for how their “classy” reputation had been tarnished.
[11] They were young (I think the minimum age for runners is 13) and female, and they were running fast – picking up the pace! – when I saw them cross the finish line.
[13] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
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.
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
(Which makes MH, Mr. Abner Kravitz. Yep, I’ve been having fun with that all week).
Left: Gladys Kravitz; Right: Samantha Stevens
For those readers younger than 50, Gladys Kravitz was the nosy neighbor of the TV series Bewitched‘s protagonist, Samantha Stevens. Gladys was convinced that there were extraordinary goings on in Stevens’ household, and was exasperated to the nth because she couldn’t prove her suspicions to her husband ( “Abbbnnneeeerrr!” ) [2]
Background to this startling revelation about my heretofore secret identity: Dateline, Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am. I was at the coast, out for a morning walk…
But first, a relevant digression. A long time ago…oh, no – here it comes again…
From my late high school years until my late twenties, I ran [3] between two to five miles, every day. As recreational runners know, unleashed dogs and runners are not a good combination. [4] Every runner I’ve met has stories of being confronted, harassed and/or attacked by an unleashed/unaccompanied-by-its-human, aggressive dog. The stories, and the avoiding-being-a-dog-bite-victimadvice runners receive and pass on to other runners, are mostly similar, but sometimes divergent.
A person running triggers the prey instinct in many dogs; thus, the common wisdom shared amongst runners: when approached by a dog whose posture and behavior…
* stiffening or freezing of the body; * forward-leaning, hunched down, hunting/stalking posture; * “whale eyes” (wide, with a lot of white showing); * teeth baring; tense mouth/curled lips; wrinkled nose; * ears laid flat against the skull or stiffly held straight up (not relaxed); * barking, growling; “air-snapping”….
…indicates aggression, and there is no dog owner in sight, you should:
* stop running * stay as calm as you can * avoid eye contact (which can be seen as aggressive); * speak to the dog in a calm, firm, but non-threatening voice; [5]
* remain upright; * don’t scream (or flail your limbs or panic or jump up and down); * back into a corner or against a wall so the dog can’t get behind you; * look for a tree or car to climb [6] and hope to f***’s sake the owner appears…
I faced the aggressive dog situation many times when I was running for exercise. Those strategies worked for me, as they did for other runners…except when they didn’t. I heard too many stories of someone who did everything right and got bitten anyway.
Fellow runners also shared the WTF?!?!?confusion of hearing sure-fire advice from so-called experts which contradicted advice shared by other experts. As in: ignore the dog; *don’t * stop running. Continue what you’re doing, because some dogs will pay you no mind when you walk or run past them but if you stop, they “think” (okay, no human really knows what a dog thinks, we are trying to guess/interpret) you are a threat to them.
In other words, encountering an aggressive dog is situational and dog-specific: sorry, but there is no sure-fire, works-every-time, strategy. But, human nature being what it is, there is this sure-fire reality: there will always be some person who will tell you that, whatever you did, you should have done something else.
Back to the future background to the Mrs. Kravitz revelation: Dateline: the Oregon coast (Manzanita); Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am; out for my morning constitutional. On that day I decided to walk north along the imaginatively named Ocean Road, which parallels the beach, then splits into two roads, one of which (Beulah Reed Road) continues along the coast and up into the streets winding around the base of Mt. Neahkahnie.
I walked along the road, noting the increasing number of vans and other vehicles I’d been seeing in my early morning walks – vans and campers parked alongside Ocean Road which look as if they’ve been there all night (as opposed to the vehicles whose drivers pull over, watch the waves and savor their morning coffee [7] before driving on to their jobs, or what/where ever). Those been-there-overnight vehicles are situated in such a way to indicate that the occupants are camping there, despite the fact that it is illegal to do so, and despite the “No Parking between 11pm – 5am” signs posted along the road.
As I turned up Beulah Reed Road I saw two more looks-like-illegal-campingvehicles parked on the west side of the road. Safety-conscious pedestrian that I am, when I am walking along a sidewalk-less road, I always walk facing traffic; thus, I passed close by both of the vans, whose occupants were presumably still inside/asleep (the vehicle’s windows had shades and other objects blocking the windows and windshields). One of the vans stood out due to its color and décor: a green van festooned with white and yellow flowers, sporting a Nebraska license plate and a message – “love mother nature and she will love you back” – painted on the van’s rear window.
The Green Van was in the same spot on the west side of Beulah Reed Road where, in the past few months, I’d walked past other camping vehicles one of which provided moiself with a memorable visual a couple months ago. The naked man who’d emerged from that vehicle and began urinating by the side of the road just as I was passing by was an unpleasant sight, but a minor startle compared to what happened Tuesday am.
I continued walking up Beulah Reed Road for a few more minutes, then headed back to Ocean Road. As I neared the Green Van(this time, walking on the far side of the road) I saw a husky/malemute dog lying in the sand by the right rear of the GV. The dog had not been there five minutes ago, when I’d first walked past the GV, and there was no sign of any humans (other than moiself) about. When I was about thirty feet away from the GV the dog’s eyes fixed on me; it got up and slowly began to cross the road toward me.
Oh, shit. It takes minutes to type what flashed through my mind in nanoseconds Some of the nicest dogs I’ve met, and some of the meanest, have been husky/malemutes – and those two breeds consistently rank high on the Biting Dogs lists….[8]
The dog was obviously not going to be one of the nice ones. It slunk toward me, in a crouched position (the classic hunting posture – have you ever seen footage of wolves or other carnivores stalking their prey?). Its approach was menacing, but silent…which I found more disturbing than barking. [9] If it had been barking, that would have (hopefully) alerted its owner.
“How’d ya like to see these teeth up close?”
I stop walking and spoke softly but firmly, remembering not to make eye contact. I did all the “right things,” which had no effect on the dog’s aggressive body language and approach, so I slowly began to continue my walk. The dog circled in front of me, blocking my path. It growled, bared its teeth and walked stiff-legged toward me, then began to snarl and bark. I put my walking poles between me and the dog and called out loudly: WHOSE DOG IS THIS – COME GET YOUR DOG. I did this several times; finally, a woman appeared from the west-facing side of the van. She had long, reddish hair and looked to be in her late 20s – early 30s. She made no apologies for her menacing dog, but unenthusiastically attempted to
(1) assure me that her dog was not aggressive (“He just has a lot to say” she said,
as her dog began barking even louder, flattened his ears, and raised his hackles) (2) get her dog under voice control.
She failed at both (1) and (2).
She held no leash (and with the dog’s thick fur I couldn’t tell if it even had a collar to which a leash could be attached). She kept calling to the dog, which would turn to look at her, take two steps toward the GV, then turn around and bark and take three steps toward moiself. As the dog continued to ignore the anemic “suggestions” of his owner to return to her, I swung one of my walking sticks at him, which temporarily stopped his advance (at that point he was less than two feet from me).
Oh, for some pepper spray, I thought – not for the dog, but to use on that pathetic excuse for a human being. GV lady may make van-decoration-declarations on loving Mother Nature but she obviously doesn’t give an oyster’s ass about walking responsibly through Mother Nature’s land while respecting and protecting *all* of Ma Nature’s creatures, including bipedal ones.
This brand only works on German-speaking dogs.
I made firm, aggressive eye contact with the woman when she repeated her, “He’s not mean/he has a lot to say”bullshit excuse. I replied, “Yeah, he’s saying a lot and none of it is nice – I’ve been bitten by a dog; I know when I’m being threatened. You need to get your dog under control, RIGHT NOW.” The insolent look on her face reminded me of a pouty adolescent whose parents had threatened to ground her until she cleared the dinner table. “I am going this way,” I pointed toward Ocean Road, “and your dog needs to gothat way.“ I pointed toward her van.
Which eventually happened. After the woman and her dog disappeared behind the other side of the van, I took a picture of the back of the GV.
I was seething when I got home (and really hungry). I posted the GV picture on my FB page, along with a very brief description of the incident. As I was doing so I remembered that on my way back I’d passed an elderly couple walking on Ocean Road, headed in the direction I’d come from. Damn, I chastised moiself– should I have warned them about staying away from that van? With that thought in mind I posted the same photo and incident description, with an “FYI” warning/introduction, on a FB page where locals post pictures and info about items of North Oregon coast interest.
I knew I should report what had happened to “the authorities.” As I fixed my breakfast and mulled over whom to call (The town? The county? ) I was contacted by my Friend and Neighbor ®. F&N had seen my post, and urged me to report the incident. I called the police non-emergency number; the dispatcher who finally answered said that Beulah Road was under Tillamook County jurisdiction, and that she’d have a TC deputy contact me.
The TC deputy took down the details of my report, and then…oh my my (“Officer Chatty Cathy,” my mind soon nicknamed him). He had a lot to say about what had happened to me, and about related incidents he had been/was currently dealing with. I was apparently a sympathetic ear into which he unloaded his and his law enforcement colleagues’ frustrations with similar incidents and with “what’s going on in the county,” including:
* increased illegal camping * increased reports of aggression between illegal campers and county residents * illegal campers’ aggressive/unleashed dogs (who go after both people and other dogs) * the overload of reports the county has to investigate without the staff to do so….
He said that TC had a backlog of *hundreds* of calls about illegal camping and other violations, but that because what happened to me involved menacing, he could prioritize my report, and would head for Beulah Road. I thanked him, and noted that the van had probably moved on. Actually…probably not, he said. And, in his experience, if it did move it would likely move to somewhere nearby, and a green van with Nebraska plates would be easy to spot. Should he find the van, he said he’d have an in-depth conversation with the van/dog owner. How he handles these cases, he explained, is based on the dogs’ and or vehicles’ owners’ demeanor and response. If they listen respectfully and are forthright and apologetic, he tries to educate them and lets them off with a warning. If they are unapologetic and insolent, and even (as some people have done) go so far as to assert that they have no intention of abiding by the _____ (leash, parking/camping/trash disposal, etc.) laws, he’ll give them “as many citations as possible.”
He asked me to spread the word: please tell people to report these encounters, even as he acknowledged the perception that “They (law enforcement) will do nothing,” and so most incidents go unreported. It’s true, we (local police/sheriff departments) are understaffed, he said, but people need to know that the reports, even if they cannot be immediately investigated, help them gather statistics in general, and make records in particular for individual menacing dogs and their owners, so that if (or as he put it, “unfortunately, when“) the dog harasses/attacks another person or pet, the dog owner can’t get away with, “Oh, he’s harmless/he’s never done that before….”
At one point in our conversation, I told him how I’d began my walk thinking about the increase in illegal parking/camping, and asked if he knew if that is indeed the case, or just my anecdotal impression? And is this uptick (in illegal beach camping) related to homelessness? He told me the increase in numbers wasn’t my imagination, but that my assumption about the cause was incorrect. He then asked me something which led to an “aha” turn to the conversation: “Have you heard of the website, ‘vanlife’?”
“You’ve seen the hype around #vanlife. You’ve seen the stunning photos on social media. Now you want to throw everything to the wind, quit your job, build out a camper van, and live a carefree life of adventure…. This page is designed as a jumping-off point for your personal vanlife journey. We go over the pros and cons of this lifestyle, the reasons why full time van life is awesome… We answer the most frequently asked questions about living in a van – everything from bathrooms and showering…to finding sweet camping spots.”
“After we’ve posted this cool picture of ourselves can we go back to our penthouse and order takeout sushi?”
I said I knew of the site, but had never visited it. I thought it was similar to other sites I’d heard about, where people share information about RVing and/or traveling and living in trailers and vans. It is that, Officer CC said, but has become so much more: it has become a source of the increased “incident” calls faced by local law enforcement. He proceeded to express his frustration re the influence of the van-lifestyle sites, where people post info for others who’ve chosen to live in vans, sharing tips about where to travel and camp “for free” (but not necessarily legally).
More and more, Officer CC said, the people he speaks to and then warns and/or cites for illegal camping are mentioning (in some cases, boasting) that they were “referred” to the Oregon coast by vanlife and similar websites and online bulletin boards. And, he stressed, these people are *not* homeless– they seem well-funded (trust fund babies?) and/or are working remotely. For whatever reasons, they have romanticized the idea of public urination and defecation[10] life on the road. They…
* find it glamorous to be house-less by choice;
* take pride in ridding themselves of the bourgeois trappings of consumerism:
* receive positive feedback from like-minded folk when they post cool pictures on Instagram of their adventures in livin’ on the road;
* believe that dogs also “need freedom” and so they ignore local leash laws;
* tell him that they love livin’ “for free”…
which – surprise! – turns out to be anything but free for the people in the communities who pay the taxes that fund the services to clean up after those freedom lovin’ van lifers, who leave their trash and toxic waste behind as they move on – and the damage these love-nature-and-she’ll-love-you hypocrites do to natural habitat areas frustrates him to no end…
As he described his dealings with these voluntary nomads, more than once he referred to van-life enthusiasts as, “hippies.” I could tell from Officer CC’s voice that he was much younger than moiself; it took all of my maturity (ahem) to refrain from correcting him:
“Actually, they aren’t hippies – that was an older generation. Any surviving hippies are at home rubbing patchouli and/or CBD oil on their aching joints…I think y’all need to come up with a more contemporary epithet for the younguns whose lives and values you find disrespectful, or just fruity.”
I’m not criticizing or mocking the deputy. He was amiable, empathetic, and eager to articulate the frustrations of law enforcement officers who cannot adequately fulfill their oath to serve and protect when they are overwhelmed by calls they cannot address.
Our talk turned to what people can do to protect themselves against aggressive dogs (Officer CC said his wife is a runner, and that she and her running buddies frequently deal with unleashed and aggressive dogs). I said that, due to my afore-mentioned, bitten-by-a-dog incident, I’d done my research, and ordered a cannister of citronella spray [11] and an air horn, for self-defense. Before I could tell him I’d ruled out bear sprays/pepper sprays, he strongly advised that I tell my friends *not* to carry pepper sprays, because
* Unless you’re an expert who practices with pepper spray on a regular basis you can end up inadvertently spraying yourself, particularly when you’re under duress; * At the beach, where gusts of wind can arise seemingly out of nowhere, pepper spray can backfire, as in, get blown back on *you.*
He said that while he hated having to recommend it (“Nobody wants to hurt an animal,”) carrying a club might be called for (I said thanks/no thanks, and mentioned my walking poles). He expressed admiration for the air horn strategy: “What a great idea!” he enthused, noting that the loud noise would both startle the dog and alert nearby humans.
Yeah; okay, are we ever gonna get to the Gladys Kravitz connection?
After my conversation with the deputy I drove to Hillsboro, where I had business to attend to. While driving I received a voice mail from my Friend & Neighbor, and pulled over to return her call. F&N said that my local/beach group FB posting had spawned a comment firestorm: most were from people relating their own/similar incidents, and/or expressing sadness re what happened to me in particular and what they saw happening to their community. Other posters engaged in unfounded and unsolicited second-guessing, reframing the incident, and even claiming to know the dog’s intentions, despite having not been there. [12] Several of those I-wasn’t-there-but-I-know-what-really-happened posters also opined on what I *should* have done to avoid being menaced by the dog.
( Ladies, does this sound familiar?
“If you’d only done this/said that/worn that/walked this way,
you wouldn’t have been assaulted.” )
I’d read a few of the early comments, including two which asserted that “people should mind their own business” and “stop caring about who parks where or does what.” [13] The MYOB theme was picked up by a few other unbalanced strident posters. How that became a thing, considering the context, was a mystery to moiself. Translation: I found it bewilderingly irrational. The afore-mentioned Gladys Kravitz remark came from one such poster, who addressed her remarks to moiselfand fumed about why I was being Gladys Kravitz, and that I should have minded my own business….
Say what? Minding my own business – exactly what I was doing. I did not approach the dog and try to determine whether he was neutered. My business, which I was minding, thanks for your concern, was walking. I was out for a walk on a public road, enjoying the scent of the briny coastal air and minding my own beeswax, when an aggressive, unleashed canine decided to make his threats my business.
F&N and I had a giggle about how comments on my post had spiraled into many tangents. I said that, after violating the never-feed-the-trolls rule (I corrected one unhinged commenter, who seemed to be reading comprehension-challenged and tried to rewrite my story to fit her outrage at…whatever), I’m not going to read any more comments on that group. F&N said she’d keep me apprised of the more entertaining (read: whackadoodle) posts…although, I told her, the Gladys Kravitz epithet would be hard to top.
The next morning my phone rang: it was F&N’s update call. Apparently, by the end of the previous day, “things got nasty,” as she put it. She’d checked the FB local/beach site before bedtime: there were “248 or 258” comments, including a thread where people posted pictures of when they’d been bitten by an unleashed dog, and others posted either support or criticism for the bite victim. Then a man mentioned that he might carry a gun when he goes to the beach, and lawdy mama, it took off from there, with about 40 more posts related to carring concealed weapons on the beach. In the morning when F&N rechecked the site, about 40 of those packing-heat-on-the-beach posts had disappeared, taken down by the group moderator (or perhaps, I posited, by the posters who’d developed cooler heads overnight?). F&N said the nastiness also included some posts which made blatant or tacit references to class warfare, claiming that heartless “rich people” at the beach hate “the rest of us” and harass people who have no choice but to live in their cars…in sharp contrast with the deputy’s testimony that the majority of the people he and his fellow deputies encounter and warn about/cite for illegal camping are neither destitute nor homeless, but self-obsessed, “van life” adventure seekers, whose idea of freedom is mooching off of public services they can well afford to pay for….
And moiself? Oy vey. I’d not even considered filing a report about illegal camping.
I just want to go for a walk, anywhere it’s safe and legal to do so, and not get bitten.
May you enjoy any/all outdoor activities free from dog (or human) harassment; May you delight in observing online trolls but not in feeding them; May you enrich the public discourse by coining a better word than “hippies” to describe Gen Z…hippies; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] And of course, Gladys Kravitz turned out to be spot on: Samantha Stevens *was* a witch. Despite promising her mortal husband Darrin that she would *not* use her powers, just about every episode of Bewitched involved Samantha using witchcraft to create unusual happenings, or to try to undo the wacky situations created by her witch and warlock relatives, who would make mysterious arrivals and departures and mess with the mortals. Mrs. Kravitz witnessed just enough to have her suspicions, which would always be explained away by Samantha or others. Yep, Mrs. Kravitz was a nosy neighbor, but her suspicious were correct, and she was gaslighted.
[3] Or I could say, “I was a runner,” but I never took my identity from that; I ran for enjoyment and exercise, as opposed to training for the Olympics or whatever.
[4] Unless the dog belongs to the runner and is also running because…well, it usually isn’t the dog’s idea.
[5] This is not to make yourself the alpha or assert dominance, but to get as much control of yourself and the situation as possible, and to make any cues you give the dog – “sit; down; stay; go home” as understandable as possible.
[6] The strategy used by one elderly gentleman, in a neighborhood I used to live in, when he was attacked by two free-roaming dogs when he was doing his early morning neighborhood rounds, delivering advertising flyers. The man and I had greeted each other when I went out for my morning run, and I was able to rescue him when I returned and saw that the dogs had treed – carred? – him.
[7] Or sometimes, doobies…as I notice when I pass the vehicles and they have the windows down.
[8] Which I learned in my training for the animal rescue organizations for which I volunteered, and I confirmed this when I returned home, by searching for dog bite statistics.
[9] Many a person who has survived a dog attack says that the silent ones, who approach you steadily, are more dangerous than the barkers.
[11] The smell of citronella is irritating/offensive to dogs, but not harmful.
[12] Perhaps there is a Canine Psychic Intentions website I am unaware of.
[13] Those comments seemed to be related to other posters who focused on the illegal parking and camping situation, not the aggressive dog.
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of The Best One Sentence Movie Review I’ve Read In Some Time
That would be from friend CC, in a text on Tuesday, furthering the conversation we had in the movie theater parking lot on Monday, after having seen Past Lives. Which, BTW, is the next movie *you* are going to see, (if moiself can influence you to do so) and then talk about with friends and family.
Here’s the movie’s summary/blurb, from people who are paid to do such things: [1]
“Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Decades later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront destiny, love and the choices that make a life.”
It’s the kind of movie…I want MH and my offspring to see it, although in a nod to ageism, a part of me thinks that, even at ages 30 and 27 respectively, my son and daughter aren’t old enough (as in, have not had the life experiences) to truly get it. Also, in another nod to ageism, it’s a summer release movie without the “summerisms”: there aren’t any superheroes or explosions….
…and it is a gentler-paced movie, even as it time jumps through 24 years…. But damn, there is so much going on.
CC wondered if MH and I had talked about the movie – she and her husband had a conversation “…about love and life’s twists and turns,” when she returned that afternoon after having seen the movie. No, we didn’t…even though I wanted to. But I held back, giving MH only a brief description when he asked me how the movie was. I was still ruminating on it moiself, and wanted him to see it so I wouldn’t have to explain the unexplainable. Such as, how you may love someone in some way, and maybe the way they love will not be enough…and will you be “the person who leaves” in someone’s life, and/or “the person who stays,” in another someone’s life…and the concepts of destiny and fate –in yun, from Korean/Buddhist influences – which can also be seen as coincidence, and all of which might have much more influence in our lives than we think…as per this bit of dialogue (from one of the Korean born protagonists to her American husband) from the movie:
“There’s a word in Korean: 인연 [in yun] — it means “providence” or “fate.” If two strangers walk by each other in the street, and their clothes accidentally brush, that means there have been eight thousand layers of 인연 between them.”
Yet again, moiself digresses. CC’s one sentence review which I thought nailed the essence of the film, and its influence:
“I was pondering that all couples should see this film to give them better words to say to each other and know how normal all of this is, immigration or not, to question how a person loves and to accept how a person loves.”
* * *
Department Of Ethics Teaching Of The Week
Humanists generally follow The Platinum Rule, not The Golden Rule. There is an important distinction between the two directives, in both the statement and implications. Class, do you think you can spot the difference?
First, we have the more familiar, “The Golden Rule.” There are various phrasings of TGR – an ethical principle found across religions and world views – which all amount to,
Treat others the way you would want to be treated.
TGRis phrased in either “positive” (to do something) or “negative” (to refrain from doing something) formulas. In Christianity this principle is found in Matthew 7:12: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .”
The “negative” form of this principle, “Do not do to others what you would not like done to yourselves,” is found in 2nd-century documents of the early Christian church ( Didachē and the Apology of Aristides), in second century Jewish works ( Tob. 4:15), in the writings of the classic Jewish scholars, including Hillel and Philo of Alexandria “…and in the Analects of Confucius (6th and 5th centuries BC). It also appears in one form or another in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Seneca.” [2]
Examples of TGR across world religions:
Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself. ( Bahá’í Faith; Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings)
Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. ( Buddhism; The Buddha, Udana-Varga 5.18 )
One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct….loving-kindness. Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. ( Confucianism; Confucius, Analects 15.23 )
This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. ( Hinduism; Mahabharata 5:1517)
Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. ( Islam: the Prophet Muhammad, Hadith )
One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated. ( Jainism; Mahavira, Sutrakritanga 1.11.33 )
What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it. ( Judaism; Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a )
Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself. ( Zoroastrianism; Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29)
The Golden Rule variations are well-intended; however and ultimately, they miss a key point of Human Reality:
* People are different. *
Okay; sure; you know that. But do you really get what *that* means?
Not all people like or want the same things. This reality is both simple and profound, because it means that while at first glance it sounds fine or even admirable to treat everyone like yourself, it is in fact inappropriate to do so, given people’s different backgrounds, experiences, mental and physical abilities, and expectations.
The Golden Rulelets you get away with, and even promotes, self-centric thinking (“Others think the way I do.”). And self-centric thinking [3] lets you off the hook from doing the work, which can range from pesky to grueling, of trying to understand someone else’s point of view.
So, what’s an honestly-seeking-to-do-the-right-thing ® kinda person to do? Follow the principles of Humanists, Freethinkers, Brights, Skeptics, and other supernatural-free world views. As in, practice The Platinum Rule:
Treat others the way *they* want to be treated.
Meditate on this, for a moment.
“Girls and Boys, can you spot the difference? I think you can.”
The subtle yet powerful difference is that The Platinum Rulecalls for a more thoughtful consideration of the *others* who will be on the receiving end of your treatment of them.
As in, don’t presume that *your* likes and preferences – or dislikes and aversions – are universal.
Here’s an example a child could understand: There’s nothing Jilly likes better than having her feet tickled. Not only that, Jilly’s best friend, Millie, also enjoys having her feet tickled – she and Jilly agree, it’s the best fun, ever! But for Jilly’s brother, Billy, having his feet tickled is tantamount to torture. Should Jilly and Millie tickle Billy’s feet?
* * *
Department Of Public Service: Things To Ponder® Moment Of The Week
Brought to you by the following excerpt from my recent letter to moiself’soffspring. [4]
…. Yesterday morning I went walking in the Neahkahnie Beach area, and wondered if I would catch a glimpse of the coyotes that have been spotted crossing the roads there, and out on the beach.
The coyotes (at least two adults, possibly a pair raising pups nearby) are going after unleashed dogs on the beach: one tries to lure the dogs to follow them by assuming play postures, then running into the shrubbery (where coyote #2 would spring out and attack – wildlife biologists note that this is a hunting adaptation of coyotes living near human-populated areas). One coyote has even chased several dogs, as reported by the dogs’ owners who came to their pets’ rescue, then posted on a local FB group to warn others.
Some people responded to these reports and warnings (which have included pictures of the coyotes) with, “My dog responds to voice control,” or “The coyotes just want to play.” Some people are morons.
And I can call them “morons,” although I can’t (even though I wouldn’t) call them “retards,” which I find mildly bemusing.
Y’all might want to rephrase that.
Get ahold of your nightsticks, y’all self-appointed word police: I understand (and agree with) the prohibition of the term retard, as it became a shorthand pejorative for people formerly known as “mentally retarded.” But the term mentally retarded is not a pejorative in and of itself, and was once considered to be a valid descriptor for adults classified on (an outdated) psychiatric scale of severe intellectual disability. The scale was:
* Moron (adult with an estimated mental age between 7 and 10 and an IQ of 51–70)
* Imbecile (” ” ” ” mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50)
* Idiot ( ” ” ” ” less than three years; IQ below 25)
Now then: I can and do sometimes use those words (moron; imbecile; idiot) to disparage someone and/or their behaviors…although, when I do so the image of an actual person with an intellectual disability *never* comes to my mind.
I can think or say that people who let their dogs go off leash on the beach – after having been warned about coyotes going after unleashed dogs – are morons, or that their behavior is idiotic and/or their reasoning imbecilic. I’ve used the words (moron; idiot; imbecile) sporadically over the course of my life (most frequently during the #45 administration), with no corrections from a Well-Meaning Guardian Of The Hurt Feelings Of Others ® (“It’s not nice to make fun of morons.”). And I can’t help but wonder why that is. [5]
May you avoid self-centricism masquerading as ethical principles; May you follow The Platinum Rule; May you see the movie “Private Lives” and discuss it with friends and family; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] In this case the movie studio PR staff, I’d guess.
[4] I send daughter Belle and son K weekly letters, every Friday. Letters as in snail, not e-, mail.
[5] Isn’t it time for another footnote? Just wondering.
[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
Dateline: last Saturday; 8 AM-ish; walking north along a section of the Oregon coast, from Hug Point to Arch Cape and back, during a minus tide. While looking at tide pools and observing the creatures in and around them, moiself had a flashback to childhood:
Flashback dateline: a Saturday, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (So Cal; late 1960s), at my usual hangout, a minimum of four days a week, in the summer: [1]
This beach day is a family outing, to Corona del Mar. After a morning of finding less-than-rad barrels to body surf (I prefer the waves at Newport Beach), I scarf my tuna sandwich and Seven-Up, [3] and look for something to do during (what I’ve been told is) the mandatory post-prandial 30 minute wait before going back into the water.
Debunking the Myth
“No, you don’t have to wait 30 minutes or more to swim after you’ve eaten. Swimming right after you’ve had something to eat isn’t dangerous at all. The concern was that because digestion diverts some of your blood flow from your muscles to your stomach, swimming might somehow inhibit that necessary blood flow to the stomach, causing cramps so severe that you could drown. Alternately, another version of the myth claims the opposite: your limbs won’t get enough blood flow because your stomach is diverting it, causing you to drown. These concerns are unwarranted because your blood just isn’t diverted enough to cause any real problems. There are no documented deaths attributed to anyone swimming on a full stomach….
Where Did the Myth Come From? …It turns out that this “rule” has been around since at least 1908, when it was included in a Boy Scout handbook. The handbook warned that if boys didn’t wait at least 90 minutes before swimming, they might drown — “it will be your own fault,” the manual admonished. Where the Boy Scout handbook got the idea isn’t known, but it certainly wasn’t accurate. Still, the fallacy has doggedly persisted for over 100 years….” (Is Swimming After Eating Really Dangerous? Dignityhealth.org )
I get my parents to follow me south along the beach to the base of some cliffs, to one of my favorite tide pool areas. Many is the afternoon wherein I pass more than the minimum 30-minutes-after-eatingdictum by exploring the rocks and tide pools, playing with harassing the anemones, [4] or just settling down on a rock and watching the ocean’s flora and fauna. My parents dutifully follow me, but after a few minutes of tide pool observance, they want to move on. One of them (I can’t recall who said it first but the other chimed in with agreement) says something along the lines of, “Yes, it’s nice, but there’s not much to see. Not really anything here.”
Looking back, moiself realizes that they didn’t mean to sound dismissive, they were just ignorant. To them, and probably to most non-scientist-folk of the time (or, sadly/likely, even most folks today), what counts as Life ® – as in, as in, something “to see” – is something that’s big, and furry. As in, mammals…followed by birds and fish and “bugs.”
My folks looked in the tide pools and saw seaweed-covered rocks and saltwater. The fact that the ocean in general and tide pools in particular teem with life – the kind of life which actually dominates the planet, in terms of sheer biomass and diversity of species.… That kind of life-stuff didn’t count.
Anemone. Like this minty one on the Oregon coast, sea anemones were thought by my parents to be plants, until the little smartass that was moi’s preteen self informed them that sea anemones were predatory sea *animals,* related to jellyfish.
Excerpt from the episode’s conversation with Freakonomics host Stephen Dubner and guest, Holy Shit author Melissa Mohr:
Stephen Dubner: “What do you think is more common over time: for words that are taboo to become less taboo, or vice-versa?”
Melissa Mohr: “Hmm, that’s an interesting question. You’ve got this kind of euphemism treadmill [5] that Steven Pinker talks about, where it starts off as a bad word but then people use it more and more and you get used to it and then it falls away, and then you need to come up with another bad word…and you’ve seen that with religious words; we’re seeing that with f*** and c*** and sh**…”
SD: “But on the other hand, ‘homeless person’ becomes taboo.”
MM: “Yes. Right now we are in a New-new Victorianism in that way. And of course that’s very culturally specific in the United States. Among my relatives in Wisconsin who didn’t go to college, they’re not going to say, ‘the unhoused,’ …but in academia, and Cambridge it’s, yep —.”
Moiself highly recommends the episode, which deals with one of my favorite subjects: language, and the evolution [6] of usage and vocabulary. Speaking of which, if you’ve the mind to do so, read some of George Carlin’s books, or just google some of his standup routines. The late great comedian and author was noted for his keen, observational wit and analytical social critique, and had an almost academic interest in the quirks of the English language. Plus, he was fuckin’ hilarious.
“I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers that I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answer at about the same 50 percent rate. Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don’t. Same as god; 50/50.
Same as the four-leaf clover, the horse shoe, the rabbit’s foot, and the wishing well. Same as the mojo man. Same as the voodoo lady who tells your fortune by squeezing the goat’s testicles. It’s all the same; 50/50. So just pick your superstitions, sit back, make a wish and enjoy yourself. (George Carlin, from his live standup album, You Are All Diseased)
“You want I should squeeze *what*?”
* * *
Department Of, Seriously?
Dateline: Wednesday, circa 10:45am, in a movie theater, watching previews before the main attraction (Chevalier, which moiself recommends). Among the trailers was one for the upcoming (and likely, final) Indiana Jones movie.
After the fast-paced series of exotic locales, death-defying stunts, and other hallmarks of the IJ franchise, the screen cuts to the movie’s title…and I was…what?
The coda to one of the most successful action/adventure series in movie history gets this lame name?
I know, right?
* * *
May you stand in awe of the diversity of this planet’s non-furry life; May you debunk a myth (and get to blame the Boy Scouts handbook for the myth’s origin); May you avoid strenuous workouts on the euphemism treadmill; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] This is not an exaggeration (and I have the sun damaged skin to prove it). Until we were older and could either drive or bicycle to the coast on our own, my friends’ and my parents (and then our older siblings, when they got their drivers’ licenses) took turns taking us to the beach.
[2]The Beachwas our generic term for the Orange County coast, from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach. Most often it referred to our favorite hangout, Newport Beach, followed by Corona del Mar.
[3] The Parnells were not a soda-drinking family (for which my parents received high praise from our dentists). Soft drinks were for special occasion only, but this rule was suspended during summers, when my siblings and I could have one soda each to take with us to be pat of our beach lunch.
[4]Moiself love the feeling of sticking my fingers between their tentacles, and having the tentacles close around them. It freaked out some of my friends, which therfore made it even more fun to do.
[5] “Psychologist and linguist Stephen Pinker coined the term euphemism treadmill in a 1994 article in the New York Times. It refers to a process by which words that are used as a euphemism for a concept that’s somehow tainted then end up becoming tainted themselves by association. At that point, society generates a new “correct” euphemism. Then that chugs along for a while until it picks up the taint as well, and people seek a new term. A matter of racism: Pinker pointed out that a good indication that there’s an underlying issue is that the euphemism treadmill keeps coming up with terms that are essentially synonymous with one another, e.g. coloured people, people of colour, Negro (literally, Spanish for black), and black. That underlying issue is, in the case of skin colour, racism. Even the most derogatory N-word derives from the Latin for black, but countless layers of complexity and history have piled up on top of it. All that complexity and history passes right on along to the next popular term people choose.” (excerpt from “What is the Euphemism Treadmill,” Mental health at home, )
[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.” Defipix: indiananition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
April 1 is one of my favorite days. This year it seems like it snuck past moiself, and I missed it.
I used to be so much fun…didn’t I? I looked into my archives for evidence, and came up with moiself’s April 1 post from seven years ago:
Department Of Fun With Student Drivers
Dateline: Tuesday, early a.m., out for my morning walk, waiting to cross a street. As I watched the cross traffic’s stoplight and saw the green-changing-to-yellow light – the pedestrian’s rewarding indicator that it will soon be your turn to cross the street – I noticed a white sedan slowing down much more deliberately than is usual yet still not managing to come to a complete stop until the car’s front bumper was just a tad into the crosswalk.
My light changed to green, I began to cross the street, and saw the telltale red and yellow logo for a local driving academy on the car’s driver’s door. A student driver?
Excellent.
I looked inside the car: the student in the driver’s seat sat ramrod straight, an expression of nervous anticipation drenching her face. Her white-knuckled hands gripped the steering wheel, and her gaze was fixed ahead. Her instructor was looking down at a clipboard he held; neither of them seemed aware of my approaching presence.
My instinctive reaction was to throw myself onto the hood of the car and scare the living pee-pee out of both of them.
How I managed to restrain myself, I’ll never know.
But, I did. Okay?
* * *
Pity the afore-mentioned scenario happened Tuesday, and not today. Had I gone through with my whimsical notion, ‘twould have made a good – dare I say, even legendary? – April Fool’s Day prank.
You gotta love a day that is devoted to honoring and encouraging practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks both well- and feebly played.
The origins of April Fools Day’s are not completely agreed upon by historians, and have been variously attributed. What is agreed upon is that many cultures, going back to the ancient Romans and Egyptians, have set aside days for celebrating jokes and pranksters. Perhaps, as some people have speculated, there’s just something about the day’s timing – the fading of winter and the blooming of spring – which lends itself to the observance of light-hearted frivolity.
I can recall only a few of the pranks I’ve played on friends, family and co-workers over the years. The memories are silly but fond, and include:
* Sneaking a package of Hydrox cookies [1] from the family snack drawer and replacing all the cream fillings in the second row of cookies with toothpaste.
* Showing two positive pregnancy test dipsticks to a newbie Planned Parenthood co-worker and telling her I was pregnant with twins.
* Adding just a couple of drops of blue food coloring to the carton of nonfat milk in my parent’s refrigerator.
* Calling my father at his office and convincing him (if only temporarily) that someone had bought a raffle ticket in his name for the local animal shelter’s fundraising event, he’d won the raffle, and could he please let the shelter know when he was coming to claim his prize: an English Mastiff and a week’s supply – a 100 lb. bag of kibble – of the dog’s food. [2]
“I don’t get it – why would that be funny?”
* Swapping my and my siblings’ framed high school graduation pictures, which hung in my parent’s hallway, with pictures of the members of Led Zeppelin.
* Replacing the hard-boiled egg in my sister’s school lunch bag with a raw egg.
* Cutting my finger, smearing my blood on the scissors in co-worker Roger’s cubicle, leaving a note on my computer saying I had been threatened by Roger and feared for my life, then faking my own death and leaving town.
Oops, that’s right – I never got around to implementing the last one.
As pleasurable as it is to pull off an epic prank, it can be equally fun, IMHO, to have a great prank played on your own self. I hope y’all have a Happy April Fools’ Day…and I hope that I do not regret having made that previous declaration.
* * *
Speaking of foolery…
Department Of Uh, Since You’ve Asked, That Would Be, “No”
Last Sunday a FB friend began her post thusly:
Happy Easter, everyone! Can I share what it means to me?
FBF went on to – surprise! – offer her testimony for Jesus, without waiting for an answer to her question.
* * *
Department Of Back To The Future Department Of After 35 Years The Spark Is Still There
Dateline: a recent Sunday night, friend over for dinner. I’d asked MH to choose some background music. When the Fiona Apple song Under the Tablecame on, MH turned to moiself and said, “This song always makes me think of you.”
I didn’t recall the song, but after listening to the lyrics, I appreciated his comment.
♫ I would beg to disagree, but begging disagrees with me… So when they say something that makes me start to simmer That fancy wine won’t put this fire out, oh
Kick me under the table all you want I won’t shut up; I won’t shut up Kick me under the table all you want I won’t shut up; I won’t shut up… ♫
* * *
Department Of Analogy Of The Week
Dateline: late last week, listening to the most recent episode of Unexplainable, the science podcast which “explores scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown.”
In this “Your questions, unexplained” episode, the podcast hosts consulted various scientific researchers to help them answer questions the podcast listeners had on three topics: sleepwalking, déjà vu, and the Earth’s magnetic field. For the segment on the memory phenomenon known as déjà vu, the hosts interviewed Scottish cognitive science and neuroscience researcher Akira O’Connor. O’Connor got my attention with a memorable analogy. Among scientists who study the phenomenon, O’Connor said, theories about déjà vu are like toothbrushes:
“Everybody’s got one, but nobody wants to use anybody else’s.”
May you start planning right nowfor next year’s April Fools Day; May you appreciate a song that someone says reminds them of you; May you be forewarned: if you kick me under the table, I won’t shut up; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Anyone else remember the precursor (and competitor) to Oreos?
[2] My sisters making muffled barking sounds to approximate background animal shelter noise was a great help in pulling off this prank.
[3] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Confession: this post isn’t really about praising religion. As we approach the weekend of the most holy Christian festival (in which, as with most Christian holidays, the ancient rites and myths of paganism and other spiritualities were incorporated into the Christian myths) moiself thought it would be appropriate to write a wee bit about how I am, in some ways, grateful for the religious upbringing I had.
* I am grateful to have been raised in a moderate Christian family, whose parents were members of a moderate Christian church. And by my moderate I mean they were a members of a mainstream denomination (Lutheran), and not fanatical, tongue-speaking Holy Rollers. My church experiences allowed me an education into the dominant religious thinking of our country, of that time. Translation: I saw how the sausage was made, so to speak, which is why I became a vegan religion-free.
As soon as I was able to formulate such ideas to moi’syounger self, I was able to understand religious traditions (all of ‘em, not just my family’s own) for what they were: failed hypotheses originating from primitive/pre-scientific peoples who were trying to understand/explain their world. Although I had that understanding as far back as I can remember, like most atheists-skeptics-freethinkers in this culture, I did not “come out” until much, much later, when it was safe (well, safer) to do so: as in, when there was a critical mass of Freethinkers and their allies to provide a buffering from the, “You can only be good with (a) god/nonbelievers are going to hell, etc.” attitudes which religions are highly effective at promoting.
* Not only did my religious upbringing provide me with a good cultural education, I appreciate that it allowed me to experience and observe how nice, well-intentioned, and otherwise seemingly reasonable people can accept the unreasonable-ness of religion for a variety of reasons. I learned that people can note the logical flaws, improprieties and downright batshit crazy inanities of beliefs and practices of *other* religions, while *not* applying the same analytical skills to what they have been taught (i.e., they critique Judaism and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, et al on the respective scriptures, principles, teachings and merits of those religions, but accept the claims of Christianity on “faith.”).
* My religious upbringing allowed me to see firsthand the danger of the complacency of accustomization, which the adult moiself eventually formulated into this truism:
The ridiculous is no longer ridiculous when it is the familiar.
Favorite example: Decades ago I heard two (white, Christian) women talking about a new (to them) religious festival, which they’d read about in a newspaper article about local Hindus [1] celebrating the Hindu Festival of Holi. Among other activities, Holi celebrations involve adherents dancing in the streets and throwing colored dye and/or powdered paints on each other. One of the women offered a weak defense of the color-flinging (“Well…maybe…it’s kinda like dying Easter eggs?”), but both agreed that Holi seemed…ahem…rather silly, not to mention primitive and nonsensical for a religious rite.
Their comments indicated that they were totally oblivious of how downright bizarre and even grotesque their own Christian ritual of symbolic (or in the case of the Catholic flavor of Christianity, literal [2] ) cannibalism, celebrated in the Christian rite of communion, can seem to people of other religious faiths.
* My religious upbringing was an educational experience I tried, in part, to impart to my own children…which is why MH and I joined a Christian church (the most liberal denomination we could find – the United Church of Christ, aka The UCC). We remained active members for years, until MH and I were honest with ourselves about not being able “…to do this anymore.” [3] This coincided with our children (son K and daughter Belle) being old enough and comfortable enough – despite liking both their church friends and many of the church’s social activities – to send the same honesty *our* way:
“Why do we go to church when I don’t – and it’s obvious that *you* don’t – believe any of that stuff (i.e., Christian theology)?”
Footnote which deserves more than a footnote: [4] Looking back, K and Belle were both open about their views long before MH and I were. It seemed to me that their school peers talked about religion – read: regurgitated what they were taught in their parents’ churches – much more frequently than I could remember my peers doing when I was in grade school. [5] And while my offspring never initiated such conversations (they weren’t “afraid” of the subject; they simply had little-to-no interest in it) they would answer honestly any questions posed to them. Perhaps because he was older, [6] K was subjected to this more than his sister, and was subjected to denigrating comments from certain classmates who were obviously being raised by very conservative religious, creationist-leaning parents.
If only the Jesus kids listened….
Although I was both happy with (and relieved by) my children’s inclination toward freethought, I wanted to be sure they understood that they must not be like their peers who criticized them – I wanted K and Belle to own their own viewpoints, and not just hold the same opinions as MH and I did, without considering the issues for themselves. When, for example, K shared a story about an outrageous and/or inane or just plain ignorant religious statement a kid had made, I would defend the kid (“He probably heard that at home/in church”), then question K further, trying to get him (and Belle) to practice the art of understanding a different POV:
“Why do you think someone would ____ (say/believe/think that)?
Can you think of any reasons why someone might ____ (say/believe/think that)?”
I did this consistently, until one day, K replied, with an insight (and sigh of resignation) beyond his years:
“The thing is, Mom, you know that *their* families are not doing the same.”[7]
When classmates made anti-science/pro-religion comments, K would respond with his own opinions….which led to him receiving the “godless atheist” label. I was proud of the way he handled himself, even as my heart cringed to see him mistreated by ignorant and mean-spirited Jesus bullies. What was worse, IMO, were the friends who didn’t join in the abuse but who also didn’t stand up for him (some of whom, I eventually surmised, felt the same way as K but didn’t want to become targets themselves, and thus stayed silent).
Belle had less school drama re her (lack of) religious beliefs. And there were two major incidents which made me realize that she was fully capable of standing up for herself in that regard. The first involved the last year Belle went to summer camp.
Both of our kids attended several seasons of the UCC’s summer church camp. Camp Adams is located in the temperate rainforest of Molalla (Oregon), with lots of fields and trails and creeks and a swimming hole – an ideal camp locale. For the younger ages, Camp Adams was more camp than church. For the older kids, starting around grade 5, the counselors and camp staff introduced more “churchy” things, including basic Christian theology (as seen through a liberal UCC lens). This gradual morphing from all-camp-fun to camp-fun-plus-Jesus-is-the-reason-we’re-here is a typical progression, as I remember from my own years of church summer camps. [8]
So: For several years in a row Belle had enjoyed going to summer camp – she even claimed to LOVE the camp’s food. But Camp Adam’s mashed potatoes weren’t enough, the last year she went to camp.
A preview of coming attractions for that last-year-of-camp: when MH filled out Belle’s camp registration form, after the requests for standard information about family, emergency contacts, medical concerns, food allergies, etc. there was an open-ended question asking parents to list anything they thought “ …the camp counselors and staff should know about your child.” MH wrote, “Belle will probably have little interest in the churchy or theological (religious) aspects of camp. And that is fine.”
Both MH and I drove Belle to camp; I picked her up at the end of the camp week. When I asked her how this year’s camp was she described a couple of amusing pranks the campers and counselors played on one another, then said that the rest of it was not the same fun as it used to be, and she wasn’t going back next year. When I asked her to elaborate, she told me the following story:
Unlike in previous years, the camp had fireside “churchy” services every evening, which Belle found irritatingly pointless. One day near the end of the camp week, the camp’s chaplain asked to meet with Belle privately. He told her she wasn’t in trouble; rather, he was concernedfor her: the camp’s counselors had noticed Belle sitting through those services making little attempt to disguise her disinterest. [9] The chaplain flipped through the pages of a bible on his desk, reading aloud several scripture passages he’d marked, passages which told of the Christian god’s love for his people and the importance of loving that god in return. He then asked Belle what she thought about them.
I was surprised to hear this – throwing bible verses at a nine-year-old was not something I expected from a UCC chaplain (but I said nothing, and let Belle continue her story). And Belle simply but firmly disagreed with him. She told him (in her 9-year-old vocabulary) that she did not find those verses – or anything in his bible – profound or relevant to her in anyway. Despite being interested in all kinds of mythologies, she did not believe the stories about the Christian god were any different or factual than those of the Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, and other deities she was reading about.
“Good for you!” I crowed, as I concentrated on *not* driving off the road (I was dancing in the driver’s seat with delight). What an intimidating position to be in – for anyone, let alone a child – and she was able to stand up for herself.
So where do kids get such ideas?
The second incident occurred around the same season, when MH’s parents came to Oregon for their annual summer visit. MH and his father were out running errands; I was also out, driving MH’s mother and Belle…somewhere. Belle was in the front passenger’s seat; for reasons I cannot recall her grandma had insisted on sitting in the back seat, and then for reasons I really cannot fathom but remember as being totally out of context, Belle’s grandmother began talking to Belle about “god things.” I gritted my teeth but said nothing – my MIL was talking to Belle, not me. And Belle handled it with steely grace.
“I don’t believe in a god,” Belle calmy stated.
“You don’t believe in God?!?” Belle’s grandmother spoke with shock and dismay, and if Belle had just said that she liked stomping on baby hamsters. “I feel sorry for you.”
“Well, I feel sorry for *you,*” Belle replied.
Once again, I thought my seatbelt would burst with pride. That’s a difficult thing for a child, to stand their ground with a beloved relative who is criticizing and/or disapproving of you.
It was a long time ago and I’m unsure of the exact timeline, but at some point I thought, my work here is almost done, and I stopped attending our church. [10]
I had wanted K and Belle to have a religious literacy, because at that time, religious thought seemed to rule the world (or at least the US of A).
I wanted them to be familiar with the dominant religion of our culture, which had figured strongly in both of their parents’ backgrounds, so that they would know what it was that they were “rejecting” (to use their grandmother’s language), and also so that they might be inoculated against religious proselytizing. [11] But, I wanted them to be exposed to all of this via a denomination/church where they would *not* be subjected to abhorrent doctrines which taught that, no matter what kind of life they’d led, post-death they would be sorted into either a rewarding afterlife or one where they are subjected to anguish and torment, depending on whether or not they had subscribed to certain theological abstractions.
“…(religious moderates) claim that fanatics represent nothing more than a lunatic fringe. However, we nonbelievers repeatedly encounter…egregious behavior among the faithful. Often, those claiming to be among the Christian ‘saved’ are gratuitously rude and loutish. Sometimes it’s only their casual arrogance that offends. Or perhaps it’s the cosmic death threat. D’Souza writes (p. xi)
‘Death forces upon you a choice that you cannot escape.
You must choose god or reject him, because when you die all abstentions are counted as ‘no’ votes.’…
Implicit in this statement is the threat of eternal damnation, not based on whether or not you have lived a good life, but rather whether or not you have adhered to what my wife refers to as the ‘loyalty oath.’ According to the ethics and ideology of the ‘loyalty oath’ we’re all such wretches (as in the hymn Amazing Grace) that no amount of decency in how we live can make up for our unbelief. Conversely, any degree of depravity seems acceptable, so long as you’ve confessed your sinful nature and continue to affirm your belief in the (specifically) Christian god. It is surprising that we take offense at this?”
And so on this weekend Christians call Easter (even though most Christians have no idea why, and the word is not in their scriptures), I am celebrating the spring equinox, and reflecting on the ideas of renewal, and on the good fortune I had as a child and the even better fortune I chose to make for myself (and, I hope, model for my offspring) as an adult.
May you reflect on an aspect of your childhood which was enlightening in ways you did not fully understand as a child; May you detect the fine lines between the ridiculous and the familiar; May you find an excuse to celebrate…something…which involves throwing colored paint on your fellow celebrants; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Several local high-tech companies employ a substantial amount of East Asian engineers, who brought their cultural and religious traditions with them and were beginning to be more “open” about their festivals and beliefs.
[2] “Transubstantiation – the idea that during Mass, the bread and wine used for Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ – is central to the Catholic faith.” (Pew Research Center)
[3] As in, the intellectual dishonesty finally got to us, despite our wish to support a progressive, open & affirming congregation.
[5] Which was a large part of my inspiration for writing my juvenile novel, The Mighty Quinn.
[6] Belle is three years younger than K, and from what I heard her classmates didn’t talk religion as much as the older kids did.
[7] As in, those kids were not being encouraged at home to understand K’s POV – they were just being told that peop0le like K were wrong and/or going to hell.
[8] and is why K opted out of camp several years before Belle
[9] And apparently ratted her out to the chaplain.
[10] It took MH a bit longer to feel comfortable with being open about his beliefs; he kept attending services for a few weeks after the kids and I stopped going (I told the kids it was totally up to them if they wanted to go to church or not – even if MH and I were no longer attending, we would take them to church – any church – if they wanted to go).
[11] In my experience, some of the easiest converts, whether to mainstream denominations or cults (and what are cults, really, except for religions with less money and PR than the mainstream denominations?), are people who’ve had no religious background at all and are naïve prey for slick proselytizing.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
(and yes, the photo is edited as I refused to have that pathetic criminal’s face take up space in my blog).
Here’s to the first of many oindictments to come, and all seriously overdue.
* * *
Department Of The Return Of The Blue Sailors
These perplexing (to many Oregon coast visitors) creatures are commonly referred to as vellas, but their full species title is Velella vella. When you have such a cool name, why not have it twice?
A small (~ 7 cm in length), deep blue-bodied, plankton-eating hydrozoa, vellasare surface floaters. They’ve a small, stiff “sail” which moves them over the surface of the ocean, leaving them at the mercy of wind and currents. Depending on those two sea forces, vellas can get stranded on the beach, where they die off en masse (and their blue fades/gets bleached to white, leading some folk to think there are two different species, or colors, of vellas) and clog the beach for a day or so until subsequent tides wash them back out to sea.
This mass stranding happens yearly on the Oregon coast, where vellashave acquired a variety of nicknames, [1] including what-the-hell-are-those-things? Moiself just calls them the blue sailors. Some years they seem to blanket the beach.
* * *
Department Of The Wonders Of American And World Music
Dateline: Wednesday evening, near the end of one of the best house concerts MH and I have ever attended. The duo we saw are singer/songwriters: Evie Ladin is a guitarist and banjoist steeped in the American/traditional music genres; Keith Terry plays standup base, and both are also accomplished cloggers, “percussive dancers,” and “body musicians.”
Body music involves incorporate body slaps as both percussive and musical accompaniments (e.g. “hamboning” [2] ):
“Body music, also known as body percussion or body drumming, is a fascinating amalgam of composition and choreography. The music creates the shapes and patterns of the dance; the dance makes the sounds and rhythms of the music resulting in visible music/audible dance….” (from “Music you can see; dance you can hear,” kekeca.net )
It’s difficult to describe what a unique and immersive listening and watching experience Ladin and Terry provided; I urge y’all to see them if you can (check their schedule -they tour as Evie Ladin Band, here) .
Near the end of their performance, after they’d performed a particularly dynamic body music number, they asked if anyone in the audience had any questions. Moiself of course did: I couldn’t help but wonder if this – I proceeded to mime the armpit fart maneuver – counted as body music? Terry said that as a matter of fact it does, and that there is a rich tradition of it in Ethiopia, although the Ethiopians don’t call it “fart music” (I replied that 12-year-old Ethiopians probably did) but rather, armpit music.” And after the show we spoke privately, and he earnestly urged me to google “Ethiopian armpit music.”
Which I did:
And look – it’s not just for Ethiopians anymore!
* * *
Department Of It’s Inevitable
Recently I received yet another email in which, underneath the sender’s sign off, there was the person’s stated pronoun preference, ala:
Beula Gertrude Bransfrøgsdattir
she/her
A part of me both dreads and anticipates the occasion wherein moiself will be requested (or required) to state the same. And if I’m requested to provide my “preferred” pronouns, in order to answer honestly, I will have to list
Robyn Parnell
She/Her Royal Awesomeness The Fabulous Miss Scarlett Johansson [3]
Zhee whiz this is complicated.
* * *
Department Of Calling This Hunter
Dumpster-Fire-For-A-Soul Doesn’t Even Begin To Cover It
“A subject shooting into a herd of elk near Nehalem killed one and mortally wounded at least three others in January, while illegally shooting from a road, and in the direction Hwy 101. The 66-year-old subject blamed “elk fever” when he self-reported the incident….” (“Subject Mortally Wounds At Least Four Elk After Shooting Into Herd” )
Elk fever. So, the sight of these magnificent creatures sent Dumpster-Fire-For-A-Soul into a killing frenzy?
Elk on the beach at near Seaside, Oregon
Intrepid sportsman that he is, DFFAS shot from his car “…in the direction of the highway.” Oh…myyyyyyyyy….
Along the Oregon coast where MH and I spend a good deal of time there are at least two resident herds of elk near us – one in Manzanita/Nehalem area. The elk roam daily, trying to find the best remaining grazing territories, and you can often see them hanging out near the highway (101), along with the cars which have slowed down and/or pulled over to the side of the road, to admire the sight and take pictures.
That bloodthirsty, festering turd of an excuse for a human being irresponsible DFFAS could just as easily hit one of those cars, or one of the people inside them, or anyone driving or walking along the highway. The rifle he used, a .308 “sniper rifle,” has a “zeroed range of from 300-600 yards” and can target up to 1000 yards.
Meanwhile, DFFAS left three elk to die in agony (two were tracked, “assessed,” and put down by sheriff’s deputies; the third mortally wounded elk was last seen trying to escape in the Nehalem River, where she presumably drowned).
Sometimes I really don’t like my species.
* * *
Department Of Ick Of The Week Sub Department Of The Podcast I Just Deleted From My Feed
As if your average US citizen needs another encouragement to mask their moods and alter their brains with more chemicals….
Dateline: Tuesday 7 am-ish, getting ready for a morning walk, scrolling through my podcast feed. Oh, lookey: there’s a new (to me) Disgraceland, an episode on Lou Reed. That might be entertaining.
I never found out. The podcast host did something which had me reaching for delete. He read a commercial from one of his podcast’s sponsors (emphases mine):
“Hey everybody, so you’ve probably heard about micro dosing and you’ve probably wondered, ‘What could it do for me?’ [4]
Just know that all sorts of people are micro-dosing daily to relax, to perform better, to feel better, and for so many other reasons. Our show today is sponsored by Microdose Gummies. Microdose Gummies deliver *perfect*, entry-level doses of THC that help you feel *just* the right amount of good.
Sometimes, as a creative person, you need some other sort of inspiration….”
“I’m so much more creative than a lion, but people don’t seem to notice, so maybe if I micro-dose I can focus better on self-promotion….”
Yet again, moiself digresses. The ad continued:
“When I’m recording an episode of Disgraceland sometimes it’s hard to focus and be creative; I might be feeling distracted, uninspired…half a Microdose Gummie to relax and get centered is just enough for me, just enough to spark some creativity, not so much that I feel hazy or spacey. Microdose is available nationwide; to learn more about micro dosing THC go to microdose.com and use code Disgraceland…”
Sometimes, as a creative person, I need a barf bucket to contain my disgust with sleazebag tactics which use the “as a creative person” appeal to push (legal or otherwise) untested and unregulated mind-altering substances.
Feeling “hard to focus” or “distracted/uninspired”? Go for a walk; get outside; get some fresh air. Take a break; put on your favorite music and make yourself a cup of tea. Get out of the house/office, talk to a friend. If you are seriously concerned about your mood/attitude then make an appointment with a licensed medical/mental health care professional (someone with credentials other than “podcaster”) for behavioral modification recommendations. [5]
Holy effin’ bong water brains: people will fall for (and sell) any kind of crap.
May you check into a mental health facility should you come down with elk fever; May you aspire to greatness with your preferred pronouns; May you understand that truly creative people manage to be so despite pharmaceutical enhancement, not because of it (think, armpit music !); …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] a style of dance involving stomping and slapping various parts of your body – a style found in cultures all over the world but most familiar to Americans via the descendants of enslaved Africans who performed the art during the vaudevillian age.
[4] Yes to the first “probably”; HA HA HA HA HA HA nope to the second.
[5] and/or pharmaceutical, which should never be the first choice.
[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
Department Of Listen To This, For Something Insightful To Consider Chapter 347 In A Never-Ending Series
What could be more appropriate for Spring, the season of growth, renewal and new beginnings, than to consider what we think about, and how we pursue, happiness and contentment?
“The conventional way most of us go about accomplishing anything, is to work hard at it. When it comes to happiness, many of us say, ‘If this is something I really want, I need to go out and get it.’
This might be especially true in the United States, where the Declaration of Independence celebrates the ‘pursuit of happiness.’ The problem is, pursuing happiness can have the paradoxical effect of chasing happiness away. Trying to elude unhappiness can be similarly counterproductive.
(in this episode we) kick off a month-long series we’re calling Happiness 2.0. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness can seem more elusive the harder we chase it, and what we can do instead to build a lasting sense of contentment.
Can’t remember where I heard this (a podcast, most likely), so moiself apologizes for the lack of attribution….
Research into human nature (aka the full employment strategy for psychologiss) has led to the tactic of *reframing* negative or tricky situations, which can be an effective solution to understanding and solving them. For example, take the words self-control and self-command.
Talking about “self-control” seems to have fallen out of behavioral science vogue. What is become more popular is attributing bad habits and harmful behavior patterns to a combination of genetics, environment, etc. Certainly, these are all factors for any situation, positive or negative. But if you have a problem with the concept of self-control (or even with the term itself), try reframing it to this: self-command.
But first, we at self-command central [2] need to define a term that is used in subsequent paragraphs: Dead Food.
Oh, do you really?
“ ‘Dead food’is the newest title given to food that has had the life packaged, preserved, or cooked out of it, to the point where it has become sadly void of virtually all nutritional value. Dead food refers to processed food or food without nutrients. It is called dead because it has been refined to a point that it is bereft of minerals, vitamins, and fibers.
These types of ‘foods’ are not foods!!! Rather they are a series of synthetically derived ingredients that are mixed together into something that tastes OK, has a long shelf life and actually does more harm than good to our health. In recent times these health depriving ‘foods’ have become quite popular and often a staple in the Standard Western Diet. As such, we have seen an incredible rise in modern diseases like diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, infertility, cancer and more….
Live foods are foods that are consumed fresh, raw and/or in a condition as close as possible to their original, vibrant, living state. The basic idea behind all live foods is retaining the very best that natural foods have to offer, including live enzymes, antioxidants and other nutrients. (dead food v. alive food, deepH.com )
Yep, I’m out to ruin Girl Scout cookies for you.
“There are numerous ways to classify food—low fat, high sodium, low fiber, high sugar, clean, gluten free, vegetarian, lactose free, to name a few. But what if you were told the path to good health was to eat only ‘alive’ food and avoid ‘dead’ food?
So, what exactly is a ‘dead’ food?If it can sit on your counter for days or weeks and not go bad, then it’s a dead food. These foods are refined, highly processed, often synthetic and have little-to-no nutritional value. Think about foods like cheese-flavored crackers, meal replacement bars, fruit snacks and flavored beverages. Chemicals? Check. Artificial colors and flavors? Check. Ingredients on the label that you can’t pronounce? Check.
Unfortunately, these processed, chemical-rich foods are pervasive in the American diet. We want fast, convenient and tasty food and there’s plenty on the supermarket shelves that fit the bill.” ( Alive food v. Dead food, ACE certification )
*Most of us know about (or are at least familiar with the concept of ) the nutritional ideal of the “perfect plate,” which consists of 50 % veggies and fruit, 25 % whole grains, and 25 % a lean/high fiber protein source. [3]
* Most of us know, or at least have heard, that we should not drink our calories, and that sugar-laden soft drinks, milk shakes and sports drinks – even allegedly healthy smoothies – are awash in calories but don’t make you feel full, and that diet sodas and artificially sweetened beverages are no better than their full sugar counterparts and in fact are also linked to increased food cravings for high calorie foods and Type II diabetes [4]….
* Most of us know, or at least have heard, that (as per the AARP’s phrasing) “ Your sainted mother [5] was wrong — it’s bad to clean your plate. The iron rule: Exercise more; eat less….”
Damn right I’m gonna eat more than one slice at the office potluck because I * deserve* it, and besides, my co-workers are all jerks….
* * *
We don’t necessarily let our meals be dominated by simple carbs (bread, white rice, white pasta, sugar, chips) and soft drinks, and all the synthetic snack foods, cereals, and other dead foods, because we’re lazy or incompetent or greedy. [6]
But it’s likely we’ve stopped commanding you own lives. Who is in charge?
Advertisers for the industrial/fast/dead food industries are trying to get us to eat when we’re not hungry, and to think that we’re hungry 24/7. The entertainment industry wants us to park your badonkadonkson the sofa from dinner time to bedtime, stream our brains out and then brag about it later. Remember when the word “binge” did not have positive connotations (“We ordered in and binged all episodes of ‘Housewives of Chernobyl’ last night…”)?
Self-command. Who is calling the shots in your life, and what are the areas in your life where the commander is anyone, anything, but yourself?
* * *
Department Of Back to Happiness and Contentment: In Praise Of Simple Pleasures
There is simple yet insightful essay (recently referred to by The Washington Post Columnist Carolyn Hax) that, although written some 18 years ago, addresses some of what we now might call gratitude awarenessand mindfulness before those concepts got into the mainstream.
When I read the essay I was reminded of a phone call in January with daughter Belle. After catching up with her goings-on, Belle asked MH and I about what we were doing, and I couldn’t really think of much to say, other than something like it was just another “uneventful normal day.”
Many “normal days” in a row, are, as the essay’s author points out, the bulk of days for most people. Thus, since “most of life *is* normal days, to be in love with them is to be in love with life.”
To be in love with normal days is to be in love with life.
However much we await the arrival of fantastic things, or dread the tragedies and anticipate their passing…it all does pass, or at least change. Meanwhile…
“How many of us pass our lives in anticipation? Of the larger homes, smaller bodies and fattened bank accounts of our dreams; of the losses and disasters of our nightmares? We’re so focused on what we pray will happen or on what we hope never will happen that we’re blind to what is.
What is, for most people, is normal days.
Days when you’re aware of being neither particularly sick nor well. When your relatives, friends and partners waver between buoying you up and sitting on your nerves; when you’re too busy to notice much of anything — except that you’re too busy. Days when people ask, “So what happened today?” and you pause, think and come up with squat.
I found the essay both sweet and profound, and hope y’all check it out.
And in praise and recognition of simple pleasures, moiself will confess to the first one that sprang to my normal (well, for me) mind:
I love it that my family knows I will appreciate (and use) a jar of “farty putty.” [7]
* * *
Department Of The Secret To Eternal Youth
Dateline: Monday, North Coast Pinball. I am playing one of the arcade’s newest – as in, most recently acquired – games. [8] A ~12 year old boy, whom I’d seen earlier playing some of the games, was playing chess with his sister (? they look like fraternal twins), at the arcade’s games table, which is a few feet from the pinball machine I’m playing. He and his sister get up to leave, and he approaches me. He looks at me shyly, glances down at his shoes, then looks up and smiles the sweetest bright-eyed smile I’ve seen in years. He holds out two tokens in his right hand, and nods at me.
“For me?” I ask. He nods again, and blushes. I take the tokens and thank him. The two kids leave the arcade, and I inform WI, the arcade owner, of this encounter.
“Awww,” WI says, raising his voice two octaves. “ ‘Will you be my valentine?’ “
“It was so sweet,” moiself gushes. “Like being asked to go steady.”
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” (Author E.B. White )
* * *
May you expeience the emotional equivalent of being asked to go steady; May you strive to be in love with the life of normal days; May you find a way to work the word badonkadonks into your next conversation; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Plenty, actually. Just like I did, and continue to do, before this genre of news and entertainment existed.
[2] Okay; there’s no such thing, but I’m working on it.
[4] Artificial sweeteners lead to a reduction in the hormone that inhibits appetite, increase the risk of Type II diabetes and obesity (Multiple sources, including NPR 10-7-21
[5] Or grandparents, who lived through The Great Depression and had it hammered into them that you never know when (or if) your next meal is coming so you must eat all of whatever is offered to you.
[6] Or, perhaps a brutally frank self-assessment and/or some sessions with a trained counselor might indicate that, maybe, we *are* and now that we have identified these tendencies we can work on overcoming and/or managing them.
[7] Which is why I found one in last year’s Christmas stocking.
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
The Classic TV Sitcom Identity I’m Not Hiding
August 25, 2023
Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, Recreation, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! aggressive dogs, batshit loony commenters, Bewitched, bogus class warfare, dogs and runners, Gladys Kravitz, hippies, illegal camping, nature loving hypocrisy, The Classic TV Sitcom Identity I'm No Longer Hiding, van life 1 Comment
Department Of, Curses – My Cover Has been Blown!
According to a rather irrelevant and batshit crazy deranged, ad hominem attack/comment someone made about moiself on a Facebook group…
Can you believe it – someone said something nasty on social media?!
…I am…(gulp)…Gladys Kravitz. [1]
(Which makes MH, Mr. Abner Kravitz. Yep, I’ve been having fun with that all week).
Left: Gladys Kravitz; Right: Samantha Stevens
For those readers younger than 50, Gladys Kravitz was the nosy neighbor of the TV series Bewitched‘s protagonist, Samantha Stevens. Gladys was convinced that there were extraordinary goings on in Stevens’ household, and was exasperated to the nth because she couldn’t prove her suspicions to her husband ( “Abbbnnneeeerrr!” ) [2]
Background to this startling revelation about my heretofore secret identity: Dateline, Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am. I was at the coast, out for a morning walk…
But first, a relevant digression. A long time ago…oh, no – here it comes again…
From my late high school years until my late twenties, I ran [3] between two to five miles, every day. As recreational runners know, unleashed dogs and runners are not a good combination. [4] Every runner I’ve met has stories of being confronted, harassed and/or attacked by an unleashed/unaccompanied-by-its-human, aggressive dog. The stories, and the avoiding-being-a-dog-bite-victim advice runners receive and pass on to other runners, are mostly similar, but sometimes divergent.
A person running triggers the prey instinct in many dogs; thus, the common wisdom shared amongst runners: when approached by a dog whose posture and behavior…
* stiffening or freezing of the body;
* forward-leaning, hunched down, hunting/stalking posture;
* “whale eyes” (wide, with a lot of white showing);
* teeth baring; tense mouth/curled lips; wrinkled nose;
* ears laid flat against the skull or stiffly held straight up (not relaxed);
* barking, growling; “air-snapping”….
…indicates aggression, and there is no dog owner in sight, you should:
* stop running
* stay as calm as you can
* avoid eye contact (which can be seen as aggressive);
* speak to the dog in a calm, firm, but non-threatening voice; [5]
* remain upright;
* don’t scream (or flail your limbs or panic or jump up and down);
* back into a corner or against a wall so the dog can’t get behind you;
* look for a tree or car to climb [6] and hope to f***’s sake the owner appears…
I faced the aggressive dog situation many times when I was running for exercise. Those strategies worked for me, as they did for other runners…except when they didn’t. I heard too many stories of someone who did everything right and got bitten anyway.
Fellow runners also shared the WTF?!?!? confusion of hearing sure-fire advice from so-called experts which contradicted advice shared by other experts. As in: ignore the dog; *don’t * stop running. Continue what you’re doing, because some dogs will pay you no mind when you walk or run past them but if you stop, they “think” (okay, no human really knows what a dog thinks, we are trying to guess/interpret) you are a threat to them.
In other words, encountering an aggressive dog is situational and dog-specific: sorry, but there is no sure-fire, works-every-time, strategy. But, human nature being what it is, there is this sure-fire reality: there will always be some person who will tell you that, whatever you did, you should have done something else.
Back to the future background to the Mrs. Kravitz revelation: Dateline: the Oregon coast (Manzanita); Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am; out for my morning constitutional. On that day I decided to walk north along the imaginatively named Ocean Road, which parallels the beach, then splits into two roads, one of which (Beulah Reed Road) continues along the coast and up into the streets winding around the base of Mt. Neahkahnie.
I walked along the road, noting the increasing number of vans and other vehicles I’d been seeing in my early morning walks – vans and campers parked alongside Ocean Road which look as if they’ve been there all night (as opposed to the vehicles whose drivers pull over, watch the waves and savor their morning coffee [7] before driving on to their jobs, or what/where ever). Those been-there-overnight vehicles are situated in such a way to indicate that the occupants are camping there, despite the fact that it is illegal to do so, and despite the “No Parking between 11pm – 5am” signs posted along the road.
As I turned up Beulah Reed Road I saw two more looks-like-illegal-camping vehicles parked on the west side of the road. Safety-conscious pedestrian that I am, when I am walking along a sidewalk-less road, I always walk facing traffic; thus, I passed close by both of the vans, whose occupants were presumably still inside/asleep (the vehicle’s windows had shades and other objects blocking the windows and windshields). One of the vans stood out due to its color and décor: a green van festooned with white and yellow flowers, sporting a Nebraska license plate and a message – “love mother nature and she will love you back” – painted on the van’s rear window.
The Green Van was in the same spot on the west side of Beulah Reed Road where, in the past few months, I’d walked past other camping vehicles one of which provided moiself with a memorable visual a couple months ago. The naked man who’d emerged from that vehicle and began urinating by the side of the road just as I was passing by was an unpleasant sight, but a minor startle compared to what happened Tuesday am.
I continued walking up Beulah Reed Road for a few more minutes, then headed back to Ocean Road. As I neared the Green Van (this time, walking on the far side of the road) I saw a husky/malemute dog lying in the sand by the right rear of the GV. The dog had not been there five minutes ago, when I’d first walked past the GV, and there was no sign of any humans (other than moiself ) about. When I was about thirty feet away from the GV the dog’s eyes fixed on me; it got up and slowly began to cross the road toward me.
Oh, shit. It takes minutes to type what flashed through my mind in nanoseconds Some of the nicest dogs I’ve met, and some of the meanest, have been husky/malemutes – and those two breeds consistently rank high on the Biting Dogs lists…. [8]
The dog was obviously not going to be one of the nice ones. It slunk toward me, in a crouched position (the classic hunting posture – have you ever seen footage of wolves or other carnivores stalking their prey?). Its approach was menacing, but silent…which I found more disturbing than barking. [9] If it had been barking, that would have (hopefully) alerted its owner.
“How’d ya like to see these teeth up close?”
I stop walking and spoke softly but firmly, remembering not to make eye contact. I did all the “right things,” which had no effect on the dog’s aggressive body language and approach, so I slowly began to continue my walk. The dog circled in front of me, blocking my path. It growled, bared its teeth and walked stiff-legged toward me, then began to snarl and bark. I put my walking poles between me and the dog and called out loudly: WHOSE DOG IS THIS – COME GET YOUR DOG. I did this several times; finally, a woman appeared from the west-facing side of the van. She had long, reddish hair and looked to be in her late 20s – early 30s. She made no apologies for her menacing dog, but unenthusiastically attempted to
(1) assure me that her dog was not aggressive (“He just has a lot to say” she said,
as her dog began barking even louder, flattened his ears, and raised his hackles)
(2) get her dog under voice control.
She failed at both (1) and (2).
She held no leash (and with the dog’s thick fur I couldn’t tell if it even had a collar to which a leash could be attached). She kept calling to the dog, which would turn to look at her, take two steps toward the GV, then turn around and bark and take three steps toward moiself. As the dog continued to ignore the anemic “suggestions” of his owner to return to her, I swung one of my walking sticks at him, which temporarily stopped his advance (at that point he was less than two feet from me).
Oh, for some pepper spray, I thought – not for the dog, but to use on that pathetic excuse for a human being. GV lady may make van-decoration-declarations on loving Mother Nature but she obviously doesn’t give an oyster’s ass about walking responsibly through Mother Nature’s land while respecting and protecting *all* of Ma Nature’s creatures, including bipedal ones.
This brand only works on German-speaking dogs.
I made firm, aggressive eye contact with the woman when she repeated her, “He’s not mean/he has a lot to say” bullshit excuse. I replied, “Yeah, he’s saying a lot and none of it is nice – I’ve been bitten by a dog; I know when I’m being threatened. You need to get your dog under control, RIGHT NOW.” The insolent look on her face reminded me of a pouty adolescent whose parents had threatened to ground her until she cleared the dinner table. “I am going this way,” I pointed toward Ocean Road, “and your dog needs to go that way.“ I pointed toward her van.
Which eventually happened. After the woman and her dog disappeared behind the other side of the van, I took a picture of the back of the GV.
I was seething when I got home (and really hungry). I posted the GV picture on my FB page, along with a very brief description of the incident. As I was doing so I remembered that on my way back I’d passed an elderly couple walking on Ocean Road, headed in the direction I’d come from. Damn, I chastised moiself – should I have warned them about staying away from that van? With that thought in mind I posted the same photo and incident description, with an “FYI” warning/introduction, on a FB page where locals post pictures and info about items of North Oregon coast interest.
I knew I should report what had happened to “the authorities.” As I fixed my breakfast and mulled over whom to call (The town? The county? ) I was contacted by my Friend and Neighbor ®. F&N had seen my post, and urged me to report the incident. I called the police non-emergency number; the dispatcher who finally answered said that Beulah Road was under Tillamook County jurisdiction, and that she’d have a TC deputy contact me.
The TC deputy took down the details of my report, and then…oh my my (“Officer Chatty Cathy,” my mind soon nicknamed him). He had a lot to say about what had happened to me, and about related incidents he had been/was currently dealing with. I was apparently a sympathetic ear into which he unloaded his and his law enforcement colleagues’ frustrations with similar incidents and with “what’s going on in the county,” including:
* increased illegal camping
* increased reports of aggression between illegal campers and county residents
* illegal campers’ aggressive/unleashed dogs (who go after both people and other dogs)
* the overload of reports the county has to investigate without the staff to do so….
He said that TC had a backlog of *hundreds* of calls about illegal camping and other violations, but that because what happened to me involved menacing, he could prioritize my report, and would head for Beulah Road. I thanked him, and noted that the van had probably moved on. Actually…probably not, he said. And, in his experience, if it did move it would likely move to somewhere nearby, and a green van with Nebraska plates would be easy to spot. Should he find the van, he said he’d have an in-depth conversation with the van/dog owner. How he handles these cases, he explained, is based on the dogs’ and or vehicles’ owners’ demeanor and response. If they listen respectfully and are forthright and apologetic, he tries to educate them and lets them off with a warning. If they are unapologetic and insolent, and even (as some people have done) go so far as to assert that they have no intention of abiding by the _____ (leash, parking/camping/trash disposal, etc.) laws, he’ll give them “as many citations as possible.”
He asked me to spread the word: please tell people to report these encounters, even as he acknowledged the perception that “They (law enforcement) will do nothing,” and so most incidents go unreported. It’s true, we (local police/sheriff departments) are understaffed, he said, but people need to know that the reports, even if they cannot be immediately investigated, help them gather statistics in general, and make records in particular for individual menacing dogs and their owners, so that if (or as he put it, “unfortunately, when“) the dog harasses/attacks another person or pet, the dog owner can’t get away with, “Oh, he’s harmless/he’s never done that before….”
At one point in our conversation, I told him how I’d began my walk thinking about the increase in illegal parking/camping, and asked if he knew if that is indeed the case, or just my anecdotal impression? And is this uptick (in illegal beach camping) related to homelessness? He told me the increase in numbers wasn’t my imagination, but that my assumption about the cause was incorrect. He then asked me something which led to an “aha” turn to the conversation: “Have you heard of the website, ‘vanlife’?”
“You’ve seen the hype around #vanlife. You’ve seen the stunning photos on social media. Now you want to throw everything to the wind, quit your job, build out a camper van, and live a carefree life of adventure….
This page is designed as a jumping-off point for your personal vanlife journey. We go over the pros and cons of this lifestyle, the reasons why full time van life is awesome… We answer the most frequently asked questions about living in a van – everything from bathrooms and showering…to finding sweet camping spots.”
(excerpts from the intro to Van Life How To: Complete Guide to Living in a Van Full Time,
my emphases )
“After we’ve posted this cool picture of ourselves can we go back to our penthouse and order takeout sushi?”
I said I knew of the site, but had never visited it. I thought it was similar to other sites I’d heard about, where people share information about RVing and/or traveling and living in trailers and vans. It is that, Officer CC said, but has become so much more: it has become a source of the increased “incident” calls faced by local law enforcement. He proceeded to express his frustration re the influence of the van-lifestyle sites, where people post info for others who’ve chosen to live in vans, sharing tips about where to travel and camp “for free” (but not necessarily legally).
More and more, Officer CC said, the people he speaks to and then warns and/or cites for illegal camping are mentioning (in some cases, boasting) that they were “referred” to the Oregon coast by vanlife and similar websites and online bulletin boards. And, he stressed, these people are *not* homeless– they seem well-funded (trust fund babies?) and/or are working remotely. For whatever reasons, they have romanticized the idea of public urination and defecation [10] life on the road. They…
* find it glamorous to be house-less by choice;
* take pride in ridding themselves of the bourgeois trappings of consumerism:
* receive positive feedback from like-minded folk when they post
cool pictures on Instagram of their adventures in livin’ on the road;
* believe that dogs also “need freedom” and so they ignore local leash laws;
* tell him that they love livin’ “for free”…
which – surprise! – turns out to be anything but free for the people in the communities who pay the taxes that fund the services to clean up after those freedom lovin’ van lifers, who leave their trash and toxic waste behind as they move on – and the damage these love-nature-and-she’ll-love-you hypocrites do to natural habitat areas frustrates him to no end…
As he described his dealings with these voluntary nomads, more than once he referred to van-life enthusiasts as, “hippies.” I could tell from Officer CC’s voice that he was much younger than moiself; it took all of my maturity (ahem) to refrain from correcting him:
“Actually, they aren’t hippies – that was an older generation. Any surviving hippies are at home rubbing patchouli and/or CBD oil on their aching joints…I think y’all need to come up with a more contemporary epithet for the younguns whose lives and values you find disrespectful, or just fruity.”
I’m not criticizing or mocking the deputy. He was amiable, empathetic, and eager to articulate the frustrations of law enforcement officers who cannot adequately fulfill their oath to serve and protect when they are overwhelmed by calls they cannot address.
Our talk turned to what people can do to protect themselves against aggressive dogs (Officer CC said his wife is a runner, and that she and her running buddies frequently deal with unleashed and aggressive dogs). I said that, due to my afore-mentioned, bitten-by-a-dog incident, I’d done my research, and ordered a cannister of citronella spray [11] and an air horn, for self-defense. Before I could tell him I’d ruled out bear sprays/pepper sprays, he strongly advised that I tell my friends *not* to carry pepper sprays, because
* Unless you’re an expert who practices with pepper spray on a regular basis you can end up inadvertently spraying yourself, particularly when you’re under duress;
* At the beach, where gusts of wind can arise seemingly out of nowhere, pepper spray can backfire, as in, get blown back on *you.*
He said that while he hated having to recommend it (“Nobody wants to hurt an animal,”) carrying a club might be called for (I said thanks/no thanks, and mentioned my walking poles). He expressed admiration for the air horn strategy: “What a great idea!” he enthused, noting that the loud noise would both startle the dog and alert nearby humans.
Yeah; okay, are we ever gonna get to the Gladys Kravitz connection?
After my conversation with the deputy I drove to Hillsboro, where I had business to attend to. While driving I received a voice mail from my Friend & Neighbor, and pulled over to return her call. F&N said that my local/beach group FB posting had spawned a comment firestorm: most were from people relating their own/similar incidents, and/or expressing sadness re what happened to me in particular and what they saw happening to their community. Other posters engaged in unfounded and unsolicited second-guessing, reframing the incident, and even claiming to know the dog’s intentions, despite having not been there. [12] Several of those I-wasn’t-there-but-I-know-what-really-happened posters also opined on what I *should* have done to avoid being menaced by the dog.
( Ladies, does this sound familiar?
“If you’d only done this/said that/worn that/walked this way,
you wouldn’t have been assaulted.” )
I’d read a few of the early comments, including two which asserted that “people should mind their own business” and “stop caring about who parks where or does what.” [13] The MYOB theme was picked up by a few other unbalanced strident posters. How that became a thing, considering the context, was a mystery to moiself. Translation: I found it bewilderingly irrational. The afore-mentioned Gladys Kravitz remark came from one such poster, who addressed her remarks to moiself and fumed about why I was being Gladys Kravitz, and that I should have minded my own business….
Say what? Minding my own business – exactly what I was doing. I did not approach the dog and try to determine whether he was neutered. My business, which I was minding, thanks for your concern, was walking. I was out for a walk on a public road, enjoying the scent of the briny coastal air and minding my own beeswax, when an aggressive, unleashed canine decided to make his threats my business.
F&N and I had a giggle about how comments on my post had spiraled into many tangents. I said that, after violating the never-feed-the-trolls rule (I corrected one unhinged commenter, who seemed to be reading comprehension-challenged and tried to rewrite my story to fit her outrage at…whatever), I’m not going to read any more comments on that group. F&N said she’d keep me apprised of the more entertaining (read: whackadoodle) posts…although, I told her, the Gladys Kravitz epithet would be hard to top.
The next morning my phone rang: it was F&N’s update call. Apparently, by the end of the previous day, “things got nasty,” as she put it. She’d checked the FB local/beach site before bedtime: there were “248 or 258” comments, including a thread where people posted pictures of when they’d been bitten by an unleashed dog, and others posted either support or criticism for the bite victim. Then a man mentioned that he might carry a gun when he goes to the beach, and lawdy mama, it took off from there, with about 40 more posts related to carring concealed weapons on the beach. In the morning when F&N rechecked the site, about 40 of those packing-heat-on-the-beach posts had disappeared, taken down by the group moderator (or perhaps, I posited, by the posters who’d developed cooler heads overnight?). F&N said the nastiness also included some posts which made blatant or tacit references to class warfare, claiming that heartless “rich people” at the beach hate “the rest of us” and harass people who have no choice but to live in their cars…in sharp contrast with the deputy’s testimony that the majority of the people he and his fellow deputies encounter and warn about/cite for illegal camping are neither destitute nor homeless, but self-obsessed, “van life” adventure seekers, whose idea of freedom is mooching off of public services they can well afford to pay for….
And moiself? Oy vey. I’d not even considered filing a report about illegal camping.
I just want to go for a walk, anywhere it’s safe and legal to do so, and not get bitten.
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [14]
* * *
May you enjoy any/all outdoor activities free from dog (or human) harassment;
May you delight in observing online trolls but not in feeding them;
May you enrich the public discourse by coining a better word than “hippies”
to describe Gen Z…hippies;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Or at least, channeling her spirit.
[2] And of course, Gladys Kravitz turned out to be spot on: Samantha Stevens *was* a witch. Despite promising her mortal husband Darrin that she would *not* use her powers, just about every episode of Bewitched involved Samantha using witchcraft to create unusual happenings, or to try to undo the wacky situations created by her witch and warlock relatives, who would make mysterious arrivals and departures and mess with the mortals. Mrs. Kravitz witnessed just enough to have her suspicions, which would always be explained away by Samantha or others. Yep, Mrs. Kravitz was a nosy neighbor, but her suspicious were correct, and she was gaslighted.
[3] Or I could say, “I was a runner,” but I never took my identity from that; I ran for enjoyment and exercise, as opposed to training for the Olympics or whatever.
[4] Unless the dog belongs to the runner and is also running because…well, it usually isn’t the dog’s idea.
[5] This is not to make yourself the alpha or assert dominance, but to get as much control of yourself and the situation as possible, and to make any cues you give the dog – “sit; down; stay; go home” as understandable as possible.
[6] The strategy used by one elderly gentleman, in a neighborhood I used to live in, when he was attacked by two free-roaming dogs when he was doing his early morning neighborhood rounds, delivering advertising flyers. The man and I had greeted each other when I went out for my morning run, and I was able to rescue him when I returned and saw that the dogs had treed – carred? – him.
[7] Or sometimes, doobies…as I notice when I pass the vehicles and they have the windows down.
[8] Which I learned in my training for the animal rescue organizations for which I volunteered, and I confirmed this when I returned home, by searching for dog bite statistics.
[9] Many a person who has survived a dog attack says that the silent ones, who approach you steadily, are more dangerous than the barkers.
[10] That was my snarky thought, not his.
[11] The smell of citronella is irritating/offensive to dogs, but not harmful.
[12] Perhaps there is a Canine Psychic Intentions website I am unaware of.
[13] Those comments seemed to be related to other posters who focused on the illegal parking and camping situation, not the aggressive dog.
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org