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The Common Ground I’m Not Forging

September 22, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

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 sooooooooo wanted to be in that class!   [3] )

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 Yesterday in 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?

 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [7]

 

 

*   *   *

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.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Perhaps because WE ARE.

[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.

[5] from the album, Tug of War. 

[6] The song, with over 1600 cover versions, is the most covered song in music history.

[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 Existential Concepts I’m Not Debating

September 15, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Existential Concepts I’m Not Debating

Department Of My Work Here Is Done
Exhibit A.9995

Can anything match the parental pride such as that experienced by moiself, when son K’s first reaction upon reading the name of the offender in the news article, Serial flasher gets long sentence for exposing himself… was, “It’s the role he was born to play.”

“Washington County Circuit Judge…handed down a sentence…to Michael G. Dick, who pleaded guilty to two counts of felony public indecency…”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Spending Too Much Time Thinking About
An Existentially Inconsequential Concept.

As heard on a commercial for Saatva dog beds ( the ad was in a recent Hidden Brain podcast, “Be kind to Yourself “):

.”…these dogs beds are not your typical slabs of foam covered in polyester.  They are true inner spring mattresses that provide unparalleled back support and proper spine alignment for dogs of all sizes….”

I can’t remember if it was on an earlier HB episode or a different podcast where I also heard an ad for Saatva dog beds, in which it was claimed that a Saatva dog bed is the mattress “your dog deserves.”

This sterling example of the sentimentally manipulative capacity of marketing got me to wondering: How can a dog *deserve* a certain kind of dog bed?

 

 

deserve
transitive verb: to be worthy of : MERIT
(“deserves another chance”)
intransitive verb: to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward or requital
( from Merriam-webster online dictionary )

I can understand a dog wanting something (a tummy rub) or needing something (a drink of water); I can understand a person wanting or needing something for their dog (a trip to the dog park; a leash).  I can understand a person rewarding their dog for a specific act – with the reward directly connected to the act so that the dog understands that it did what was asked of it (e.g., giving the dog a treat for obeying a command to sit or heel…), and thus you can say the dog “earned” or merited the treat.

But how does a dog merit a piece of furniture that will be given to it – *must* be given to it (it’s not like the dog can take its Mastercard and go to Petsmart) –  by its human?

 

 

I don’t know about that superlative.  A dog meriting a bed is perhaps not the greatest mystery.  But it does get me to wondering, about other mysteries of life and human behavior (this dog bed thing has everything to do with human motivations and almost nothing to do with dogs),  including….

 

*   *   *

Department Of Existentially Consequential Concepts Which Deserve All The Time In The World To Contemplate…
Despite My Doing So Not Making A Damn Bit Of Difference

Sub-Department Of I Blame Vladimir Putin,
For Everything…

…including the fact that beloved friends are going through a grueling Something which has afflicted them, for reasons unrelated to them personally and/or anything they may have done.  Like Putin vis-à-vis the Ukrainians, there is this Something out there which is trying to torment and kill them, for no rational reason.

The cosmos is full of beauty and wonder and misfortune and pain, all of it unevenly and randomly distributed.  Understanding this phenomenon is the key to equanimity…along with being able to tell the truth in all circumstances.  Say, this is dreadful, when it is dreadful; cry when you have to and laugh when you can. 

 

 

Moiself  knows that disease organisms, like all primitive of life forms, just do what they do: try to survive and replicate.  Got it.  But, dammit it, you flaming asshole tumors, pretend for one nanosecond that you have sentience.  Get some self-awareness here:  if you kill the host, you die, too, HELLO !?!?!?.

We humanist/religion-free folk know that such afflictions are not personal: we know we’re not being punished when illness and injury occur, nor are we being rewarded when we somehow avoid or recover from the same calamities which afflict others.  Still, as human beings; we suffer when hurt.  At least we are spared the suffering from cognitive dissonance and the mental gymnastics that come with trying to live with and justify concepts such as karma and fate and believing the existence of deities which are supposedly all-powerful and thus *could* choose to alter the Something…but simply *don’t.* 

So, we can admit upfront that contending with lethal illnesses et al sucks, as in,
“This is massively, putridly, ginormously, donkey-dong sucking….”

 

“Hey! I thought you weren’t going to get personal?”

 

….even as we live in a world where, come yet another day, there will also be the mixture of the profound and the mundane to be appreciated, in, say, the sight of the morning dew sparkling on the araneus diadematus’s web, which she’s anchored between the raspberry bushes and the recycling bin. And neither phenomenon – the simple but stunning example of the splendor of the natural world, and the specific ordeal of the illness we battle in that same world – is one we either caused or merited.

 

 

The late great Roger Ebert, noted film critic and freethinker,   [1]    shared his thoughts about his then-imminent death in his blog post, Go Gentle Into That Good Night.  This was during a time when Ebert’s mental faculties were as sharp as ever despite his body having been ravaged by both his disease and the treatments for that disease.  His perspective is one that is shared by many humanist/religion-free thinkers.  It is a lovely meditation (excerpted here), the entirety of which is worth reading and rereading, no matter what your worldview is regarding your own mortality or that of a loved one. 

“I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear… I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris…

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.
To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Because I Was Trying To Avoid Something I Need To Work On,
And For Some Reason Had A Flash Back To This Topic

That topic, broadly speaking, would be co-worker relationships.  Most of us have had a combination of ups and downs in that category, but have you ever had a coworker for whom your mere presence was apparently so annoying that it motivated them to play a petty (but delightfully so) prank on you?

Last week my remembrance of one such “relationship” resulted in a FB post from moiself.  And now, my social media secret is revealed: the main reason for almost any story I post (or tell at the dinner table) is related to what inspires 5-year-olds to play doctor:  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.  I love to hear and read the stories of others, so I share one of mine, as a prompt.

 

 

My post:

“Okay, it’s another thinly disguised story prompt (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours): please share any similar stories you may have re a really poor relationship you had with a petty, nasty, bigoted, misogynist, and/or just plain stupid coworker, which led to an amusing incident.
Here’s mine: On my first day back on at second season of a summer job (Disneyland; The Hungry Bear Restaurant), one of the kitchen crew clicked the play button on a mini-cassette recorder he had in his pocket, and serenaded me with Elton John’s, ‘The Bitch is Back.’ “

And dammit, although I got comments, for the first time no one shared a similar story.    [2]

As you can imagine, this workplace incident didn’t happen out of nowhere.  A friend requested the backstory; and so:   [3]

 

 

At the end of my senior year in high school, anticipating the need to earn college tuition money, I began working weekends at Disneyland.  I obtained “seasonal” worker status, which was the status of the majority of my male and female coworkers with whom I shared summer shifts at  Disneyland’s Hungry Bear Restaurant (HBR).   [4]   Once we were hired by The Happiest Place on Earth®, if we seasonals worked the entire summer season and at least one other holiday season (winter or spring breaks; Thanksgiving…) we were guaranteed a job for the following summer. 

The serenader in question – moiself  will refer to him as Kid Rock  [5]  ( who wasn’t a thing then, but if he had been, I think my serenader would have been a *big* fan ).

Kid was a boor from the moment I met him.  His square-jawed face’s limited repertoire of expressions were all variations of a smirk, and he oozed dumb jock attitudes and mannerisms.  Moiself  initially experienced a wee bit o’ guilt for judging him at first glance, until my second, and third, and one hundred seventeenth glances and encounters (as well as my observations of his interactions with others) confirmed my stereotyping assessment astute perception of who and what he was.

With his male coworkers, Kid was constantly jockeying for position, ingratiating himself with his kitchen shift managers, and attempting metaphorical pissing matches with the other kitchen guys.  [6]   He considered himself to be above his peers (although they were all doing the same job, at the same pay scale), even as he courted their respect (or fear) for being a “player,” with an edgy (read: mean and stupid) sense of humor.  The nice guys in the kitchen crew (and there were several) earned Kid’s contempt, because being a nice guy meant being well thought of by the HBR females (we were “the girls,” of course).

 

“I can smell that creep from here.”

 

No surprise, Kid also had a binary way of relating to the HBR females: they were either objects of his sexual desire or not worthy of it.  His preferred mode of communication with female co-workers was a combination of peacock preening, barely-masked sexual come-ons, and furtive insults (aka, “jokes”).  He got giggles from some of the girls, but, as I observed, those girls seemed to be giggling to mask their unease, and trying to prove that they could “take a joke” and weren’t prudes.  If Kid’s thinly disguised sexual banter was rejected by a girl, he’d let it be known that he hadn’t really wanted her at all – he’d just been trying to make her feel better, because she was unattractive.  I saw him behave this way with *every* female at HBR, with the exception of one of the counter area managers, whose slight but noticeable physical disability effectively neutered her in his eyes.

And, as was typical of many guys of the time (even the not-so-loathsome ones), when Kid complained about his male coworkers he was able to do so using specific language re what bothered him about their actions:  they’d been slow on the grill, had been late to their shift, had burned a batch of onion rings, had neglected key steps in their closing shift, had acted too passively, or aggressively…..  Any complaints he had about a female coworker came under the cover-all of critiquing her very essence, with no particulars as to behavior:  “She’s just a bitch.”

 

 

Kid’s attempts at titillating braggadocio didn’t impress moiself  (SURPRISE !), and I limited our interactions as much as possible.  Whenever possible, I ignored him.  Therefore, of course (and, yay!), he had to announce to one and all that he didn’t find me appealing.  But that wasn’t the end of it.  It took me awhile to figure out the source of his irritation with moiself  because I didn’t spend much time considering it – which was, for him, the issue.  He seemed continually annoyed by my lack of interest in what he had to say, about anything.  

 

 

In Kid’s eyes, I had committed the worst sin possible for a female:  I’d indicated, not by saying so but by merely not engaging with him, that I had no interest in his opinion of me.  I did not wear his taunts and insults as a badge of honor (as did a couple of my bad ass, feminist HBR colleagues), I simply stopped hearing them.  I realized for the first time what it meant to hold someone beneath contempt.  Strong emotions, including contempt, require effort and time to maintain.  To moiself, Kid was just…macho flotsam.

I did not engage Kid in the repartee – playful, and with occasional double-entendre overtones –  that I did with the “nice guys” and my female colleagues. We were all mostly within three years of one another, age-wise; naturally, there was workplace banter and casual flirtation and good-natured kidding bordering on insults.  With regard to the latter I punched up, never down, with both male and female colleagues.  The few guys who harbored a nasty streak stayed clear of me, after one of them, the Assistant Shift “Chef,”   [7]   tested my limits on my first week on the job.  He did this with (what I later found out was) his standard routine with which he teased the new counter girls:

Assistant Shift Chef summoned me to the kitchen area, informing me that it was SOP to give counter girls a tour of the kitchen facility, even though they’d be working out front (later I was told that he always did this “tour” with others present, as having an audience was a key component of his routine.)  Under the pretense of wanting my opinion about a possible flaw in Disneyland’s chef’s apron design, which seemed to have pockets and a seam or something no one could quite figure out, he reached down, fingered the outline of his crotch, and ask Newby Counter Girl ® moiself, “Do you know what this is?”

I’d been informed re the HBR hierarchy on my first day at work.  Despite his title, Assistant Shift Chef had no authority over me (or any female HBR female), so I decided to go for it.

“Hmmm.” I assumed a wide stance, one hand on my hip and the other slowly stroking my chin in a gesture of solemn deliberation.  “Wait; don’t tell me, this is familiar…Oh!  I know!  It looks like it a penis, only smaller.”   [8]

Assistant Shift Chef guffawed heartily, as if he had collaborated with me on the joke.  Still, I noticed (and savored) the nanosecond of terror and humiliation which flashed across his eyes, just after my line sunk in and before his crew began to whoop it up.

Once again, I digress.

The first day I returned to HBG for my second summer season (after my freshman year of college), I was delighted to see that several of my favorite seasonal employees had also returned…oh yeah, and there was also the Kid.  Although, maybe he’d been there all year?  I can’t remember if Kid had been a year-round employee or was another seasonal worker (all of whom were college students – the idea of Kid in any institution of higher learning never occurred to moiself).

Anyway, Kid had obviously been alerted to my return.  He waited at the rear of the pack welcoming me back, and after the rest of us had exchanged greetings, he removed the mini cassette player from his pocket and pressed play.  This time, I was the one with the genuine smirk on my face.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Entertaining The Donations Dude

Dateline:  Monday; 1:30 pm-ish; Goodwill donations center.  The guy helping me unload the donations from my car engages me in small talk about the current mugginess and upcoming weather forecast.  I hand him a bag full of books; he points to a book at the top of the bag, whose title is something like, Staying Sane In An Irrational World.

“Well now, what’s that about?” he asks.

“Who knows,” moiself  shrugs.  “It’s a book of empty pages.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [9]

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
( Christopher Hitchens,  God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything )

 

 

*   *   *

May your pets somehow obtain the furniture (you think) they deserve;
May the book of your life not be filled with empty pages;
May you live long enough to find out that which makes you happy;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Ebert, who grew up Catholic, chose not to define his religious beliefs, saying he is not an atheist and not a believer. He clarified his religious views in a blog post called “How I believe in God.” He said, “I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist — which I am. If I were to say I don’t believe God exists, that wouldn’t mean I believe God doesn’t exist. Nor does it mean I don’t know, which implies that I could know.”  (from Roger Ebert entry, ffrf.org  )

[2] Perhaps there were none to share; perhaps all of my FB friends have been beloved (or at least tolerated) by even the most neanderthal of their colleagues.

[3] Thanks, RU, although I’d already considered sharing more of the details.

[4] Which, as more than one dissatisfied patron told me (as if I were responsible for the name or had any influence in *any* Disneyland policy) : “Shee-it, girl, this ain’t no restaurant, this is a burger and fries joint.”  Or a glorified fast food place, with no table service…aka, in Disney-speak, a “quick service eatery.”

[5] I am happy to report that although I’ll never forget his face I cannot recall that co-worker’s name (nor would I used it in this space, even if I did remember it).

[6] At that time, D-Land’s various food attractions staff were sex-segregated with respect to responsibilities: males in the kitchen, running the fryers and grills and stocking the food wells, and females upfront – the “counter girls”, taking the guest’s orders, receiving payment, and “boxing” and giving to guests the food and drinks.

[7] I can’t believe that title (chef?) was given to the dude who was in charge of the run-the burgers-through-the-grill machine line.

[8] A thousand thanks to seventh grade PE teacher Mrs. Ewing, who suggested a version of that response to flashers and other harassers.

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

The Godzilla I’m Not Colorizing

August 18, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, politics, radio & podcasts, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Let Me Say This About That

Dateline: Tuesday morning 6:59 AM listening to the Fresh Air interview with Christopher Nolan, director of Oppenheimer.  FA  host Terry Gross began her interview with a “getting something out of the way” question (  [my notes]  ):

TG:
“Before we talk about the film, let’s talk about the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which have shut down TV and film production….”

CN:
“……it’s an important moment in our business
[Nolan is both a director and a writer and a member of the Writer’s Guild] ….
The ways in which we’re compensated have to be updated
to reflect the current world….”

 

 

Moiself’s reaction:  what took them (the writers and actors) so long?

The issues involved ( including AI and streaming ) can seem complicated, at first.   They’re not.   Consider what’s at stake; it’s fairly basic.  There is a central issue:

The ways in which writers and actors
are compensated have to be updated to reflect the current world.

I’ve been on strike for years – as in, not writing for publication – for (many of) the same reasons.    [1]   Only in my case, no one powerful cares enough to rectify the situation.

 

 

The ways in which ______
(writers and actors…or insert waitstaff, teachers…almost any profession)
are compensated have to be updated to reflect reality.

That’s it.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of And Now, On A Totally Unrelated Note…

…except, maybe not.  This anecdote moiself  is about to share *is* related, in that it also was prompted by listening to the afore-mentioned Fresh Air interview.

Later in the interview, Terry Gross and Christopher Nolan were talking about dreams, as in, the dream-like narrative and/or pictorial quality of many films (including Nolan’s), and one of them (TG?) brought up the age-old question of whether or not people dream in color or in black-and-white.

 

 

One night when I was in high school I had a dream which started out to follow the usual pattern for my dreams: it was a colorful (I always dreamed in color), intricate, adventure saga, with a cast worthy of a Cecil B. DeMille film.    [2]   What made that particular dream noteworthy was that it used a chronological narrative (the plotlines in my dream world tended to vault around in time) until the middle of the dream, which suddenly switched to…something else  (“We now pause our regular programming for this important digression”). This center piece was an approximately three-minute segment wherein Godzilla made a cameo appearance.  When Godzilla was terrorizing people on a raft in the ocean, my dream switched from color to black and white; after the Godzilla short feature, my dream resumed its original setting and story, in color.

The next day I told a couple of school friends about my dream.  Their reaction was almost identical to mine:  they were fascinated by my subconscious mind’s ability to construct some sort of cinematographic cohesion within the total fantasy that is a dream: up to that point, Godzilla movies were filmed in black and white. I’d never seen a “color” Godzilla.

However, I’d also never seen a full-grown man, dressed in a vaudevillian striped shirt and straw boater hat and carrying a cane, jump out of a jar of peanut butter and start doing a song and dance routine – yet my mind inserted that scenario in one of my dreams.

 

It was my dream to be in one of her dreams.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Enough About How Moiself  Dreams;
Let’s Carp About How Some Other People Want To Change How Everyone Talks   [3]

Have y’all heard about “equity language”  (aka what moiself  thinks of as “compulsory euphemisms”)?  You probably have, even if you haven’t thought of it in those terms.  Either way, I highly recommend George Packer’s recent article in The Atlantic: The Moral Case Against Equity Language.  Here are excerpts from the article ( my emphases ), which makes this case: although the point of language is to clarify, well-meaning attempts to cleanse language “of any trace of privilege, hierarchy, bias, or exclusion” tends to obfuscate, and can also have the unintended consequence of dulling rather than sharpening awareness and empathy.

“The Sierra Club’s Equity Language Guide discourages using the words stand, Americans, blind, and crazy. The first two fail at inclusion, because not everyone can stand and not everyone living in this country is a citizen. The third…even as a figure of speech (‘Legislators are blind to climate change‘), is insulting to the disabled….

In its zeal, the Sierra Club has clear-cut a whole national park of words. Urban, vibrant, hardworking, and brown bag all crash to earth for subtle racism. Y’all  supplants the patriarchal you guys, and elevate voices replaces empower, which used to be uplifting but is now condescending. The poor is classist; battle and minefield disrespect veterans; depressing appropriates a disability; migrant—no explanation, it just has to go.

Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the country’s leading institutions, particularly nonprofits….  The guides also cite one another. The total number of people behind this project of linguistic purification is relatively small, but their power is potentially immense….

 

 

Which is more euphemistic, mentally ill or person living with a mental-health condition? Which is more vague, ballsy or risk-taker? What are diversity, equity, and inclusion but abstractions with uncertain meanings whose repetition creates an artificial consensus and muddies clear thought? When a university administrator refers to an individual student as “diverse,” the word has lost contact with anything tangible—which is the point.

The whole tendency of equity language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts. This aversion to reality is its main appeal. Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption, leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion. The second is rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad. Imprecise language is less likely to offend. Good writing—vivid imagery, strong statements—will hurt, because it’s bound to convey painful truths.

The liturgy changes without public discussion….  A ban which seemed ludicrous yesterday will be unquestionable by tomorrow…. in the National Recreation and Park Association’s guide, marginalized now acquires ‘negative connotations when used in a broad way. However, it may be necessary and appropriate in context. If you do use it, avoid ‘the marginalized,’ and don’t use marginalized as an adjective.’  Historically marginalized is sometimes okay; marginalized people is not. The most devoted student of the National Recreation and Park Association guide can’t possibly know when and when not to say marginalized….

But this confused guidance is inevitable, because with repeated use, the taint of negative meaning rubs off on even the most anodyne language, until it has to be scrubbed clean. The erasures will continue indefinitely, because the thing itself—injustice—will always exist. “

 

 

I encountered a pertinent example of the smokescreen effects of using equity language in a recent episode of Serial’s The Retrievals podcast (summarized below   [4]. )  Episode four deals with the aftermath of patients’ lawsuits against the Yale hospital fertility clinic, where a clinic nurse had stolen drugs meant for fertility procedures.  The hospital, in its papers addressing the issue, used the term drug “diversion” instead of theft.  Oh gee, that doesn’t sound so bad –  a diversion.  Like, the drug was merely diverted – relocated – from this clinic to another one, or one patient to another?

What a cheap and insulting diversion in and of itself: to rebrand the theft of a vital medicine; to divert attention away from the horrific pain patients experienced during a procedure involving having a long needle inserted into their most private body cavities and through their abdominal walls.   [5]

Diversion; schmersion – patient’s pain medication was *stolen.*

These and other examples of equity language raise my hackles, both personally and professionally via my “AS A” credentials.  As a writer (and a reader), I esteem communication which uses words and phrases that illustrate, elucidate, and clarify, rather than those which attempt to soften or divert or confuse or disguise. 

(Confession: moiself  also likes words and phrases that provide a visually evocative substitute for the normative term – such as

* for vomiting:
calling the dinosaurs; de-fooding; feeding the fish; whistling carrots; driving the porcelain bus; inspecting the chowder; barking at the ants….

* for fart and/or the act of emitting flatulence:
cheek sneak; breaking dawn; carpet creeper; deviled egg; duck stepping….

All of these are, of course, euphemistic…and are also just plain fun.)

 

 

As Packer notes, the term the poor is “rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad,” while people with limited financial resources…leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion.”  I think the provocation of emotion is good, particularly when it spurs action to address what caused the provocation.  Y’all ever been poor?  “Poor” should provoke emotion, because Being. Poor. Sucks.

Certainly (read: IMO), all linguistic rebranding needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis.  There are words and phrases which could use a good makeover if they originated from and reflect times of ignorance and prejudice.  Here’s one of the best examples (again, IMO) of a renaming which could (and I think, does) help reframe the way we view a fellow human being:  “She is confined to a wheelchair,” vs. “She uses (or rides) a wheelchair.”  The first is a rather patronizing description, painting a picture of dependency and pathos…but most of all, it is simply inaccurate.  For someone whose physical condition requires it, a wheelchair is *liberating* – it provides the ability to move about when one’s legs, whether on a temporary or permanent basis, cannot.

Then, there are the others:  the dreadful, weasel-word-filled, furtively-trying-to-slip-one-past-us euphemisms.  Trying to rebrand “He served a prison sentence” into “He had an encounter with the criminal justice system” makes me think you’re trying to hide something.  A person using such a circumlocution may intend to be helpful, but that kind of window re-dressing does nothing to reform, acknowledge, or even address the reality of the brutality of the American penal system and the obstacles faced by parolees.

Some of the most well-meaning folk never seem to get it.  Calling bullshit “bovine ejecta” does not make it smell like morning at the bakery.

 

Preach it, sister!

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stuff That Is Out Of My Control,
And Keeps Me From Having A Good Night’s Sleep

It was almost two decades ago, I think,    [6]   that the actor Susan Sarandon expressed what turned out to be some rather prescient concerns re what was to come in her field. Although she didn’t use the term AI, her a particular concern is at the heart of the current writers/actors strike.  Sarandon gave this example:  Let’s say a producer likes her face, her voice, her overall presence, whatever they find distinctive and/or appealing about her as an actor, and wants to hire her to act in their movie…but she doesn’t want to do that role.  Perhaps she doesn’t like the script or the politics conveyed via the plot; maybe she doesn’t trust the director’s experience or intent, or she just thinks it’s a stupid storyline.  And, Sarandon noted, she had turned down acting jobs for all of those reasons – she just said, “No thank you” to the offers.  However, she knew that there were people working on technologies which would allow them to essentially replicate her and use whichever of her qualities they wanted – they could make “her” do things that she didn’t want to or never would choose to do.

No doubt some folk dismissed or pooh-poohed her concerns. Yeah, what does a mere actor know – she probably one of those anti-tech, Luddite types, right?

 

 

More and more, I come across warnings, from People Who Know What They’re Talking About ®, re what is to come with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its many applications.  One of these PWKWTTA has articulated his warnings in a way that made me think he’d been inside my head, when he used the exact term that keeps coming to my mind:

AI = Counterfeiting

This person is American cognitive scientist, writer, and philosopher Daniel Dennett, whose recent guest turn on Alan Alda’s Clear + Vivid podcast is as fascinating as the topic they discussed is foreboding.  As per the podcast’s summary:

“Counterfeit people, the seductively appealing Deep Fakes made possible by AI, are just the beginning of what the distinguished philosopher Dan Dennett says is a threat to humanity. This spring, he joined hundreds of other thought leaders in signing a starkly scary statement:
AI threatens to make us extinct.”
( excerpt from “Dan Dennett: Fake People Aren’t Funny”
Clear + Vivid, July 24, 2023 )

Dennett was so concisely articulate that I had to stop listening for a while – it was too much to take in.  In particular, his comments about the people who are involved in AI development and research made me squirm.  I know such people.  And I know that they are (or seem to be) good people.  And I know how seductive it can be, to think of yourself as working on the cutting edge while also thinking of yourself as a good person with good intentions…which leads to rationalizing away any critique of your work:

* Well, if I don’t/we don’t do it, someone else will….

* At least this way I know that *I* am involved, and I am a good person with good intentions…”

These are the go-to justifications of people involved in, for example, designing and building assault weapons, chemical weapons, nuclear bombs….  And the agencies and businesses making such products rely on their employee’s instinctive, defensive, self-justification.  Or, both the businesses and their employees may dismiss any criticism with, “This is just what people have always said with every new idea;” or, “People who say that are anti-technology,” and other deflections.

 

 

We all tend to rationalize away such threats.  *I* know I’m not a lil old lady who’s gonna be conned into sending her savings to Nigerian prince to save her kidnapped grandson – they tried it with email and it didn’t work on me!     [7]

But that’s the point Daniel Dennett makes:  we *know* AI *is* going to be used for nasty purposes, because of what already happens *without* AI.  Counterfeiters and scammers have always used the latest technologies; now, here comes AI, something that is so far above, so much more sophisticated than the usual techniques, that soon nothing will be able to be trusted except for face-to-face interactions   [8]…which are simply not possible for many of us in this world of globalization and mobility.  A phone call or Zoom message from my child, who is in obvious distress – how will I know that it isn’t a fake?

I’m not saying y’all working on developing anything AI-related should exit the business. I’m saying, with all the conviction my non-AI heart and mind can portray, that:

* You should summon the guts and hearts to realize that what you are doing, no matter your original intent,
is enabling the counterfeiting of human beings; thus…

* You should be advocating for the strongest possible watermarks (to continue the counterfeiting analogy Dennett used).  The least you can do is to also develop legitimate technologies and strategies which will allow us humans to recognize the counterfeit.

 

 

This is yet another thing over which moiself  feels like I have so little personal control (thus, the “department” title of this segment).  And how do I know it’s even me who is writing this – that is indeed moiself  who is thinking these thoughts?   Maybe I am an AI human prototype which was released years ago…

 

This might explain her taste in t-shirts.

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [9]

 

*   *   *

 

May our work and compensation reflect the current world;
May we weight the pitfalls and benefits of equity language;
May we consistently be able to recognize the counterfeit;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Non-Hollywood writers – members of the Authors Guild (movies and TV writers are Writers Guild members) have a few similar and many different concerns with their contracts, including publishers eschewing the traditional/basic functions of a publisher (editing, design, distribution, marketing [e.g., publishers are increasingly demanding authors do the bulk of publicity] ) and not modifying royalty percentages and otherwise updating contracts to reflect the realities of the internet and e-books.

[2] The term used to describe DeMilles’ epics was “A cast of thousands.”

[3] But am I somehow dissing those oily freshwater fish by using carp as a verb?

[4] “ The Retrievals is a is a five-part series about the patients who say their pain was dismissed, a nurse who was hiding something, and the institution that failed to protect its patients.  It tells the story of a dozen women who underwent egg retrieval procedures at the Yale Fertility Center. For months they complained of severe pain. But nobody caught on to exactly what was wrong, until one day…the truth was revealed: A nurse at the clinic had been stealing the pain medication and replacing it with saline. Eventually the nurse has her own story, about her own pain, that she tells to the court. And then there is the story of how this all could have happened at the Yale clinic in the first place.” (excerpts from “Introducing ‘The Retrievals,’ a New Podcast From Serial Productions.” NY Times, )

[5] I try not to pass out and/or vomit (or, bark at the ants) just thinking about it.

[6] This interview I read (heard?) was not with a large organization or prominent reporter, and was pre-internet; thus, I didn’t bother searching for a link. 

[7] Or whatever the latest scam is.

[8] Until the replicant technology takes over.

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

The Standard Of Care I’m Not Upholding

August 11, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Standard Of Care I’m Not Upholding

Department Of Before I Get To The Complaining Thoughtful Expositions On Topics Of Importance To All Humankind…

First, this observation of appreciation:

I’m not a coffee drinker,    [1]   but I would like to thank the person who, somewhere on Necarney Boulevard (Manzanita, OR)  at approximately 7:30 am Tuesday morning, was either out on their porch or deck with their morning cuppa Joe, or brewing it in a nearby kitchen with the windows open.  Whatever grind or blend they were using, its enticing aroma wafted onto the bicycle/pedestrian path as I walked by.  In combination with the morning mist, which carried the scent of the salty ocean…Aaaahhh.  What a delightful sensory experience.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Gut-Wrenchingly Devastating, Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing Thing To Hear…
And Yet Also, Ultimately, Am I Surprised?

Unfortunately, the answer is, fuck no.

This  Gut-Wrenchingly-Devastating-Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing-Thing-To-Hear  can be heard in the latest Serial podcast, the capper to their five-part narrative series, The Retrievals.  Moiself  has written in this space about this podcast, which I can’t recommend strongly enough.  In Episode 5: The Outcomes, former patients talk about the lasting effects of their experiences at Yale’s fertility clinic, wherein an IVF procedure caused them excruciating pain, both during the procedure and for hours and even days afterword (…and for “good reason” – it turns out a narcotics-addicted clinic nurse had been stealing the analgesic used for the procedure and replacing it with saline).  But the patients’ reports of pain, even to the doctors and clinic staff who heard the patients screaming during the procedure, were discounted and/or minimized.

 

 

The following podcast excerpts (Episode 5: The Outcomes, transcript) are from conversations between Serial producer/investigator Susan Barton, and Kelly Fitzpatrick, one of the attorneys representing the patients in their malpractice lawsuits against the Yale clinic,   [2]  and Barton and Cecelia Plaza, an attorney who wrote a paper cited in the conversation (my emphases):

Fitzpatrick:
“These women were repeatedly ignored….that sets it apart from a regular medical malpractice case. These women were gaslighted. They weren’t believed. …And that makes it different.”

Burton:
“…So how do you do that? How do you sue for ignoring pain?… It’s not like that, another one of the (patients’ lawsuit) attorneys told me. You can sue because they should have investigated reports of pain…


And then I came across the perfect paper. It was called, ‘Miss Diagnosis – gendered injustice and medical malpractice law.’ ….
The paper…(didn’t say) ‘Here’s how you sue for ignoring pain.’ What it did do is explore how this issue of women not being believed in medical settings plays out in court….


The (paper’s) author was a young attorney named Cecilia Plaza… She set out to answer a specific question about the gender gap in medical malpractice outcomes, which essentially is a question about whether women can be fairly compensated in the medical malpractice system. And what she found is that women likely cannot.


Because the foundation of this system is, did what happened to you meet the standard of care? If it did, you’re out of luck. Like, you’re a woman, you think you’re having a heart attack. You go to the ER.  The doctor says, ‘it’s just your anxiety,’ and sends you home. Then it turns out that you really were having a heart attack. Can you successfully win a case against this doctor in court?


Maybe not. Because doctors misdiagnose so many women’s heart attacks as anxiety that sending a woman home could actually be interpreted as a reasonable choice that an ordinary doctor would make.

Just to be clear, Cecilia’s paper is not a work of opinion. It is an empirical analysis based on a ton of data. And what Cecilia found is that women cannot expect to get as much money as men in this system.
Because dismissing women doesn’t necessarily fall below the standard of care.”

Plaza:
“You would have to basically make the argument that not believing your patient’s report of symptoms or of pain is de facto below the standard of care. That’s not currently the case, which is a little bit mind boggling. But you would have to make that argument, and the court would have to agree with you.”

 

 

Got that, amid the legalese?

* Because so many doctors misdiagnose women and have done for so long and for so often, it is considered to be routine.

* Because discounting, minimizing, ignoring women’s pain, and *not believing them when they report severe pain,* is so common in the medical field, it is considered to be the standard of care.

 

 ( Here Are 29 Stories From Women Whose Doctors Did Not Take Their Pain Seriously )

*   *   *

Department Of While I’m Getting Uppity….

Recently, while re-reading Roxane Gay‘s collection of essays,  Bad Feminist,  moiself was reminded of my conflicted feelings on whether or not people ultimately care about, or learn from, the lives and stories of others.

RG’s essays – specifically, Blurred Lines, Indeed –  took me back to last summer, when moi-blog-self  mulled over issues of freedom/personal liberty after the SCOTUS Roe V. Wade ruling.  We religion-free folk have taken a page from the LGBTQ playbook; thus, many of us so-called atheists, Freethinkers, Skeptics, Brights, et al, encourage “outing” ourselves as such, and not only for reasons of truth-telling (religion-free folk tend to be fans of reality), but also with the thought/hope that that increased visibility helps to break down barriers, open minds, increase participation in the civic arena, and counter stereotypes.  Thus I outed moiself, in one sense,   [3]   by briefly mentioning my reproductive history:

(excerpt from The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting, 7-29-22):
So.  A dimwitted busybody curious person may wonder, If it’s personal/no one else’s business, why am I making it yours by writing about it here? Moiself  does this for reasons that are not so original and yet are nonetheless pertinent. 

“In 1972—when abortion was illegal throughout most of the country—53 well-known U.S. women courageously declared ‘We Have Had Abortions’ in the pages of the preview issue of Ms. magazine.
‘To many American women and men it seems absurd, that in this allegedly enlightened age, that we should still be arguing for a simple principle: that a woman has the right to sovereignty over her own body,’ they declared.
Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, Susan Sontag, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Judy Collins were among the signers. The women spoke out ‘to save lives and to spare other women the pain of socially imposed guilt’ and ‘to repeal archaic and inhuman laws.’ They invited all women to sign in order to ‘help eliminate the stigma’ of abortion.”
(  ” ‘We Have Had Abortions’ Petition Relaunches 50 Years Later—With Support From Original Signatories.”
Msmagazine.com 1-20-22 )

It can be easy to ignore or discount issues that are critical for other people, if you think the issue doesn’t affect you or anyone you know.  If you (mistakenly) think that you don’t know anyone who’s gay/atheist/has had an abortion, then LGBTQ rights/religious discrimination/reproductive freedom may be an abstraction to you.  You can allow yourself to be on the fence about the issue – or even on the compassionate side of the fence but not really involved – if you think it doesn’t affect you or anyone that you know.

I’m not sure about my mother’s stance on abortion, but I know she went to her grave not knowing about her older sister‘s harrowing experience.   [4]  My parents were as loving and considerate as could be to all of my different friends, and they knew of (and even occasionally discussed with me) my political opinions.  However and sadly, judging from the publications and mailers I espied on their coffee table during my infrequent visits to their house, it is likely that they could have fallen prey to fear-mongering politics of The Billy Graham Association and other conservative religious organizations.

During one of my visits, California had an “anti-homosexual” proposition on the ballot (I can’t remember which proposition, nor exactly when– there’ve been several, over the years), and I saw a GAY  TEACHERS  ARE  AFTER  YOUR  KIDS -type flyer on their kitchen table.

 

 

I asked them if they took such hyperbole seriously.  One of them (can’t remember if it was Mom or Dad) said they realized it was over-the-top, then said, “Actually, we don’t know anyone who is gay.”

“No,” I said, “Actually, you *do* know gay people.  You just don’t know that they are gay because you don’t know them well enough to be privy to their personal lives, or they have chosen not to reveal this to you…” – I indicated the flyer atop the mail pile – “…because of crap like that.”  (My mother later assured me that that the flyer had just come in the mail, and that they hadn’t “requested it”).

I proceeded to give them the names of friends and teachers of mine, whom they’d met and liked, who were gay.  They seemed genuinely surprised.  “Mr. Haffner is gay?  He was one of your and your sister’s favorite teachers….” (Still is, Dad.)  “That nice friend of yours from college – he’s so sweet and smart and funny, he was a premed student, I think – he’s gay?” (Yes, Mom.  He’s still the nice young man – nice doctor, now – who impressed you.  You simply know something about him that you didn’t know before).

Did it make a difference in how they thought, or voted?  No idea.

*   *   *

I’m still wondering: when it comes to knowing the personal stories of others, what does and doesn’t make a difference?  Still wondering after reading these excerpts from RG’s essay, Blurred Lines, Indeed  (my emphases):

“On June 30 2013 in the Room for Debate section, the NYT asked, ‘Would support for abortion rights grow if more women discussed their abortions?’  When I first saw the question, I bristled. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their personal histories to enlighten those who are probably uninterested in enlightenment.

…what if she doesn’t want to tell her story?  What if it’s too personal, too painful?  What do these confessions really do?  Some people will be moved, but those are rarely the same people who support legislation to erode reproductive freedom.  Immovable people will not be moved by testimony.”

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Different As In, And now For Something More Light Hearted:
We’ll Always Have Paris…

A classic line from a classic movie.  [5]   There are lists of such – “best” or “most memorable” movie lines – compiled by the American Film Institute, et al.  Last week moiself  overheard two people discussing classic movie lines.   [6]   I got to thinking about those lists, which, if I remembers correctly, tend to be skewed toward films released before the mid-1970s.  So, off the top of moiself’s  pointy little head…

 

Not *this* pointy.

 

…I started my own list of memorable lines or dialogue from films released since 1975.  I’m not claiming these are the “best” lines; they’re just, IMO, marvelous.

In no particular order, I present you with the lines, in this format:

“Line/dialogue “
characters/actors who speak the lines
( movie in which the lines appear )

“You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”
Matty/Kathleen Turner
( Body Heat )

“I have been and always shall be your friend.”
Spock/Leonard Nimoy
( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )

“KKKKHHHHAAAANNNN !!!!”
James T. Kirk/William Shatner
( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )

“Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?”
Soldier #1/Michael Palin
( Monty Python & the Holy Grail )

“You sit on a throne of lies!”
Buddy/Will Ferrell
( Elf )

“Louise, I don’t know how to fish.”
“Neither do I, Thelma, but Daryl does it – how hard can it be?”
Thelma & Louise /Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon
( Thelma and Louise )

“That is one big pile of shit.”
Ian Malcolm/Jeff Goldblum
( Jurassic Park )

 

 

Look, I have ONE job on this lousy ship.
It’s STUPID, but I’m gonna do it, OKAY?”
Gwen DeMarco/Sigourney Weaver
( Galaxy Quest )

“Fuck you Mars.”
Mark Watney/Matt Damon
( The Martian )

“Into the garbage chute, flyboy!”
Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher
( Star Wars: A New Hope )

“Better get a bucket.”
Mr. Creosote/Terry Jones
( Monty Python: The Meaning of Life )

“How do you like your eggs?”
Emma/Sally Field
( Murphy’s Romance )

“It’s comin’ outta me like lava!”
Megan/Melissa McCarthy
( Bridesmaids )

 

Before 1975; still one of my favorites of the classic movie lines:

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [7]

 

 Actually, there are hundred of reasons…
but all you need is one, and this is a good one.

*   *   *

May you not be an immovable person/uninterested in enlightenment;
May you find a way to incorporate a classic movie line
into at least one comment of yours during the upcoming week;
May you be pleasantly surprised by enticing aromas;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Moiself  will occasionally treat myself to a latte-dah type drink, but tea is my hot beverage of choice.

[2] Fitzpatrick herself has been through an IVF procedure.

[3] The other sense – my religion-free status – has been out for some time.

[4] A few years before her death, at the request of one of her nieces (who suspected, correctly, that there were family stories to be told), my mother’s eldest sister revealed that the reason she and her husband never had children was that she was unable to, after having undergone an illegal abortion (that almost killed her) .

[5] Casablanca.  Please don’t tell me if you didn’t know that.

[6] As in debating which were the best, or most-overrated or under-rated lines or dialog couplets….

[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 Regrets I’m Not Regretting

July 14, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), kayak, making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Regrets I’m Not Regretting

Department Of Oh. My. Gaaaaawwwwwwwd.

This American Life podcast:  The Retrievals.  Words fail moiself  but will have to do, as I’m not much of an artist and don’t know how to render a primal scream.

If you are a fan of the Serial podcasts, or just human being interested in an astounding, compelling and – warning – gruesome story. This intro, from the podcast website (my emphases):

At a Yale fertility clinic, dozens of women began their I.V.F. cycles full of expectation and hope. Then a surgical procedure caused them excruciating pain. In the hours that followed, some of the women called the clinic to report their pain — but most of the staff members who fielded the patients’ reports did not know the real reason for the pain, which was that a nurse at the clinic was stealing fentanyl and replacing it with saline. What happened at that clinic? What are the stories we tell about women’s pain and what happens when we minimize or dismiss it?

Do y’all know what the procedure for IVF “retrieval” involves?  Most women and no men have *not* undergone it; for all of us who fit into that category, imagine a series of long and sharp needles inserted into your most private and sensitive body areas —  like your vagina if you’re a woman, and your urethra (yep, up your penis), if you’re a man —  and then through the side abdominal wall tissue and probing into another part of the body, without anesthesia.

 

 

Perhaps equal to (or arguably worse) than what happened to these women is what all woman face: of having their reality – from social and workplace and harassment, patronization and lowered expectations, to gut-wrenching, making-you-pass-out, physical pain ­– minimized and/or dismissed.

Acts one through three are available.  Act 3 adds another fascinating layer to the drama:  the forthright deliberations of the judge –  who is essentially thinking aloud – at the nurse’s sentencing hearing, and what is and what isn’t considered as “relevant” to the hearing.

*   *   *

Department Of Yet Another Tragedy That Didn’t Have To Happen

 

 

Excerpts from a press release from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s office (the article was also posted on Facebook in the North County News group):

“On Friday, July 7, 2023, at about 7:23 pm, Tillamook 911 dispatched….  [1]  to a reported water rescue at the mouth of Nestucca Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

A 12-foot boat had been crabbing in the area with one 40-year-old male adult, one 17-year-old male and one 15-year-old male on board. The boat capsized and all occupants were thrown into the water. The older male and 17-year-old were able to make it to shore, but the 15-year-boy disappeared in the water….

…the missing boy has not been recovered and is presumed deceased….

… The missing 15-year-old boy was not wearing a life jacket when the boat capsized, and he was thrown in the water.”

 

 

This is the not infrequent scenario, on Oregon’s coastal waters, rivers, and lakes: a boat of some kind – whether a commercial fishing boat or a pleasure craft – capsizes, and its occupants are thrown into the water and some of them drown.  [2]   And all too often – and by all too often I mean, every effin’ time it happens it’s too often –  those who died were not wearing Personal Flotation Devices, aka PFDs, aka life preserver jackets.  Thus the request, at the end of the Facebook post, from the deputy investigating the accident:

“…please be kind with your comments below,   [3]  this could just as easily have been people you love.”

Moiself  felt no need to comment. Certainly, that 15-year-old boy’s father is beating himself up over that decision – and yes, it was a decision, whether passive or active – to not insist that all occupants of the boat wear a PFD.

MH read the article to me over breakfast; we looked at each other, our eyes wide with WTF?!?!? sorrow and disbelief. When we go kayaking, or go out on our friend’s crabbing boat, or do any other water/boating activity, we don’t even step on the dock without wearing our PFDs.

 

 

I can’t remember the exact context of this decades-old anecdote moiself  is about to share, but I’ll always remember the particular conversational exchange. MH’s parents were out for a summer visit with us on the Oregon coast.  Some Person®  who was with us, listening to us plan a kayaking adventure, made a startling (to moiself  ) admission:

Some Person:
“I *never* wear a life jacket when I’m in a boat.”

MH’s father:
“Really?  Why?”

Some Person:
“Because I can swim.”

MH’s Father:
“Even when you’re unconscious?”

 

 

As the Tillamook County Deputy investigating the boy’s drowning noted, accidents happen “in the blink of an eye.”  People just don’t anticipate – well, that’s the reason accidents are called accidents, right? You weren’t planning for the boat to capsize or hit a swell or a rock or whatever happened which caused you to go overboard; you don’t think about the fact that, at a certain rate of speed (a rate which is much lower than most people estimate), when you fall from a moving object and hit the water it’s like hitting concrete. Or, the boat capsizes at a much slower pace, or you leaned too far over the gunwales – whatever you did to end up in the water, and you’re conscious and an excellent swimmer and the water is calm…but the water is *cold,* much much colder than you realized, and hypothermia sets in, and all of a sudden you can’t move your limbs to even do a dog paddle to keep your head above water….

Several weeks ago moiself  spoke with a family member of one of the crew members of a crab fishing boat which capsized.   [4]     She told me that even the so-called professionals, the crab and salmon fishers, generally don’t wear PFDs.  We both agreed that that was insane, but, “It’s their culture,” she said.  And then a big wave upends the boat and the crew scrambles to put on their survival suits….and another aspect of their culture survives: attending the funerals of drowned comrades.

 

 

And so, there will be another such story, and another, and another request for “thoughts and prayers“ and to “go easy“ on the survivors in the comments section…and another sad opportunity for a Coast Guard or sheriff’s department representative to remind people of the obvious:

“These types of incidents happen in the blink of an eye. It is important to be wearing life jackets, or have them readily available immediately,” said Deputy Greiner. “Oregon law requires children 12 and under to be wearing a properly fitted USCG approved PFD while on a boat that is underway. All non-swimmers, regardless of age, should be wearing PFD’s when on the water.

Even in the summer, our bays and rivers have dangerous currents present during tidal events and recreating on the water near the mouth of a bay or a river where it meets the ocean is particularly dangerous. When you need a life jacket, it’s often too late to put one on.

Tragedies like this are often avoidable by simply wearing a PFD. You should also avoid crabbing, fishing, paddling or swimming on an outgoing tide anywhere near the mouth of a bay or river. Your survival in a boating accident greatly increase if you are wearing a PFD, no matter what your age. No family should have to go through something like this.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thought® Of The Week

Dateline: Monday, circa 11:30 am; driving to Hillsboro from the coast, listening to a No Stupid Questions podcast,  What is the Worst Kind of Regret?  Early on in the podcast, this question was posed, “What do you most regret:  the things you’ve done, or not done?”  When I first heard the question moiself  thought that I couldn’t answer it, at least not right away.  That question is the kind which requires some serious self-reflection.  The podcast hosts approached the issue from a variety of angles and possibilities while I ruminated on the kindness aspect.  Do I most regret times when I, intentionally or not, had been unkind to someone, or do I most regret not intervening when I witnessed someone being treated unkindly?

Later in the podcast one of the hosts was talking about the fear of rejection – from personal relationships to business ventures – which keeps people from saying or doing or pursuing ____ (fill in the blank with just about anything).  The host quoted from Trevor Noah’s memoir, “Born a Crime” a book which moiself  has read and which I highly recommend…even as I cannot recall this quote from it, which I now think is one of the more tantalizing assertions I’ve read in some time  (my emphases):

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in my life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say.  We spend so much time afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, but regret is the thing we should fear the most.  Because failure is an answer; rejection is an answer.  Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.”

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of The Philosophy You Didn’t Know (Or Care) That I Have

Someone asked me once about how I wanted “…to be remembered, as a writer.”   Which felt rather odd, to moiself,  seeing as how I don’t know or even care.   [5]   

It seems I have a kindred spirit in the devilishly delightful Tim Minchin, the Australian composer/singer/actor/comedian/writer.  The chorus of his song Talked Too Much, Stayed Too Long  I’ve adopted as my own anthem in such matters:

♫  Don’t wanna be in your club if you take me as a member

I’m not even slightly interested in whether I’m remembered

I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Get me a tombstone if you feel you must

Saying, “Here lies the clown who wrote some songs

He talked too much and stayed too long.”  ♫

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

 

*   *   *

May you talk too much and stay too long;
May you pay attention to both kinds of regrets;
May you always wear a PFD whenever you’re in a boat;    [7]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Five different rescue groups, including the Coast Guard.

[2] Time for another footnote?  No; not yet.

[3] The temptation to spout “Why the hell were they not wearing life jackets ?!?!?!” is understandable, if cruel…and too late.

[4] A relative of hers was killed in the accident.

[5] …which is why I likely won’t be remembered, as I’ve done a good job of keeping out of the limelight, much to the dismay of editors who chastised me re my lack of interest in self-promotion. 

[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] Or safe at home, on the couch, just thinking about getting in a boat….

The Incomplete List Of Summer Entertainment I’m Not Recommending

July 7, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, radio & podcasts, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Incomplete List Of Summer Entertainment I’m Not Recommending

Department Of Not That You Asked…

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

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

 

But let’s not give everybody sweaters like this.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Not That You Asked, The Sequel

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

French, oui; Wanda’s wife, non.

 

*   *   *

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

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

 

 

Ahem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

( AARP image )

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

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

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [6]

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

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

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

 

 

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Word I’m Not Overusing

June 9, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, radio & podcasts, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Word I’m Not Overusing

Department Of The Universe Is Telling Me I Should Stop Writing And
Run For The Border Take The Next Shuttle To Mars

Moiself  just found out that this is a thing: Taco Bell Quarterly.  A new “literary” journal.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why Does This Question Need To Be Answered, Let Alone Asked?  [1]

“Is it morbid to take selfies with the deceased in their casket at a funeral?”
(from a letter to advice columnist Dear Abby, The Oregonian, 6-3-23 )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Question Worth Answering, Or At Least Pondering.

As posed by the No Stupid Questions podcast:

Do you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset?

Some parameters might be useful. As per the NSQ website:

“…a scarcity mentality refers to people who see life as a finite pie – a zero-sum game. If you have something, I can’t have it…. people with a scarcity mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit, whereas someone with an abundance mentality has the idea that there’s plenty out there for everyone. The rising tide lifts all boats. Let’s not just give me a bigger piece of the pie; let’s make the pie bigger….”

My bet is that every person is  a combination of the two, and that some folks will definitely skew one way or the other. Scarcity and abundance not just in terms of economics, but in regard to relationships, time management and perceptions, emotional self-regulation, creative endeavors….

 

 

The No Stupid Questions podcast on the scarcity/abundance mindset took me on Lyft ride down memory lane.  In particular, this happened when NSQ  co-hosts Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth were discussing research addressing the origins of the scarcity mindset concept:

NSQ cohost Stephen Dubner:
“…Shankar Vedantam, (host of the Hidden Brain podcast, speaking in a piece he made for an NPR show)…says: ‘When you’re hungry, it’s hard to think of anything other than food. When you’re desperately poor, you constantly worry about making ends meet. Scarcity produces a kind of tunnel vision, and it explains why, when we’re in a hole, we often lose sight of long-term priorities and dig ourselves even deeper….’
So he’s making the argument that scarcity — real scarcity, not a scarcity mindset — can impose an even additional burden because it forces you to spend a lot of your attention and resources on just getting enough.”

NSQ cohost Angela Duckworth:
“…I’m going to read you the end of the first paragraph [of the research paper, Some Consequences of Having Too Little ]: ‘Resource scarcity creates its own mindset, changing how people look at problems and make decisions.’

The first line [of the paper] is, ‘The poor often behave in ways that reinforce poverty…. For instance, low-income individuals often play lotteries, fail to enroll in assistance programs, save too little, and borrow too much…. But we suggest a more general view. Resource scarcity creates its own mindset, changing how people look at problems and make decisions.’ “

SD:
“…there’s a lot to untangle here….low-income people often compound their low-income-ness by making choices that contribute to a furthering of that pattern…. So, there are people who say, ‘Well, there you go. Poor people are poor because they make bad decisions.’ And what this line of research is saying, if I’m understanding correctly, is that poor people are poor for any number of reasons. And then it’s easy for poverty itself, for scarcity itself, if we want to call it that, to essentially compound on itself.”

AD:
“…I think it would be easiest to actually explain some of the research…a summary of a series of laboratory experiments…to basically create a fake [game] world where [researchers] could randomly assign people to be rich or poor and experimentally figure out what the heck is going on with decision-making that is different for those who are rich and poor…”

SD:
“…the idea is to measure how good or bad a decision is when you’re under different stressors?”

AD:|
“…you want to see if you randomly assign people to be poor in these games, do they accumulate more debt than people who are randomly assigned to be rich?….what [the study did] is create a microcosm of society, except they get to choose who’s rich or poor….they can show that you can take people who have…nothing wrong with their decision-making faculties, assign them to have fewer resources in a game, and show that they’ll accumulate more debt than rich people…

…the key insight is that there seems to be a shift in attention. When you are assigned to be in the poor condition and you have fewer resources…your attention is going to these urgent problems that are right in front of you, and you’re not making decisions that are good for you in the long term. Whatever you want to call it, that focus of attention on the urgent [is] the landmark finding. And immediately, you can change the way somebody’s brain is functioning just by putting them into a situation where they have scarce resources.”

SD:
“So there’s this snowball effect, which is when you’re dealt a bad hand, there are a number of cards within that hand that will lead to further bad cards, essentially.”

AD:
“That’s the vicious cycle that would logically ensue…. you’ve got fewer resources and more stress and less time, and you’re making even worse decisions with each round of life.”

( excerpts, my emphases, from “Do You Have a Scarcity Mindset
or an Abundance Mindset?”  NSQ, 5-7-2023 )

 

 

 

When I was in college I took a class   [2]  on The Sociology of Poverty.  Decades later, when I first heard the term “scarcity mindset” (coined by academics, so hey, it’s a thing!) my mind immediately flashed back to one of the required books for the class.  The book consisted of chapters presenting studies of the roots and realities of poverty alternating with chapters telling the story of a woman and her family (her husband and four children) who lived in New York City.    [3]    The wife and husband were each born into and continued to live below what was called the poverty line.  Both adults were marginally educated; the wife raised the children and tended their home (a rental apartment); the husband was sporadically employed in a series of low skill/low wage jobs.

While I was taking that class I was cobbling together different jobs to put moiself  through college, and was well acquainted with stretching a dollar until it tore in half. Which is perhaps why moiself  found it depressing and frustrating to read the family’s story, to see how they seemed to defeat themselves on a day-by-day basis.  The woman (the main focus of the story) and her husband were functionally passive, drifting through life, like human flotsam at the mercy of the tides of fate (and the whims of their capricious deity, which the woman mentioned several times, ala, “God will provide”…except, of course, he didn’t).

 

 

She lived for the day, instead of planning not only for today but for the tomorrows which would, inevitably, become the todays.  One of many examples: instead of getting her family to walk with her further in (or out of) her immidiate neighborhood, just once a week, to a larger, discount grocery store where they could buy rice and beans and other staples in bulk to last an entire week’s worth of meals, each afternoon the woman would go to the (expensive) corner bodega, getting the ingredients for whatever she’d decided to make for dinner that night, spending two or three times the amount for items that would last one meal, at a cost that would have lasted for six meals if she’d purchased the same items at another store.  

When I finished the book I realized there was something else going on; something I didn’t have a word for until I heard the term, scarcity mindset.  When I was growing up my family, although not below the poverty line, had to be quite careful (read: things were “tight”) with money.  However, unlike the adults in the book, the parents around me (both mine and those of *most* of my peers    [4]  ) set a good example with regard to planning, budgeting, and spending.  From day to day the Book Woman ®  didn’t know for certain if her husband would bring home enough money to buy a half-pound box of rice and a can of beans and some vegetables, and she was surrounded by people living the same way – people who had developed and/or were born into the same mindset.  On a day when there was money, they ate a little better.  On a day when they had little money (and/or the rent was due), they ate a little worse.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Word To Stop Over Using

Seems like moiself  can’t spit without hitting   [5]   a news app or story wherein someone, in a letter to an advice columnist or in a first-person essay, writes about their “toxic“

* in-law
* parent
*sibling
* extended family
* friend
* next door neighbor
* spouse
* children
* coworker
* barista…

Speaking of spitting, what’s the name of that reptile which can gob its venom?  Ah, yes, that would be the aptly dubbed, spitting cobra.

 

 

“A ‘spitting’ cobra is any of several species of cobra that can intentionally, defensively shoot their venom directly from their fangs….
Most spitting cobras’ venom/toxungen is significantly cytotoxic, apart from the neurotoxic and cardiotoxic effects typical of other cobra species….”
(excerpts from Wikipedia entry on the spitting cobra )

Note the repeated usage of the word toxic, as per its original/primary definition,    [6]  referring to a substance being poisonous and capable of causing death or serious debilitation, or that which exhibits symptoms of a deadly condition caused by a toxin.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know – language evolves.  I moiself  enjoy many a repurposed or expanded usage of an old term; still, IMO, the widespread and often hyperbolic application of toxic (or any adjective) lessens its potency.

Sure, there are people who behave nastily and/or whose (intentional or incidental) malice seems to be a part of their very essence.  But you and your sister strongly disagreeing about politics and religion and memories of who did what to whom in childhood – does that mean your relationship is comparable to a paralytic venom?   [7]    The guy in the cubicle next to yours who rummages through the break room refrigerator, pilfers and consumes half of your avocado hummus sandwich, then blames your disappearing lunch on the new HR intern –  is that guy really “creating a toxic work environment,” or is he merely (and effectively) acting like an immature, entitled, inconsiderate asshat?

 

Whenever possible, I opt for the Asshat of the Week ® Award.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Veggiepalooza

Dateline: a couple of weeks ago, outside my neighborhood’s cluster unit mailboxes.  Exchanging what-have-you-been-up-to?s  with a neighbor, and when I mentioned I’d just returned from picking up my CSA share,    [8]   he said that he and his wife are trying to eat healthier (“more vegetables and all that”).  Of course, I had to put in a plug.

Even before MH and moiself  joined our first CSA (over a dozen years ago) I was already more than halfway toward a whole foods plant-based eating life.  But the introduction to foods I’d never or rarely seen in the local markets was a special benefit of CSA membership. Before that, how would I know that I would have liked, for example, shishito peppers, Chinese broccoli, celeriac, and kohlrabi so much?

 

I’m intrigued by any plant which resembles a jellyfish-Russian spy satellite hybrid.

 

Speaking of kohlrabi, I came up with this recipe many years ago, when moiself  was craving Indian-spiced food and had leftover tomatoes & kohlrabi from our CSA share.  I told my father about my creation, and he said that he looked forward to me cooking it for him the next time he and Mom came up for a visit..  Alas, I never got to make this one for him (he died a few months after that foodie conversation of ours). Here’s to you, Chet. And here’s the recipe for Kohlrabi Dal.

KohlRabi Dal (Serves 4)
The recipe name is a play on words for the root veggie, and dal (in Indian cuisine, dal are dried, split legumes),
and honors my father, whose nickname for me was Robbie Doll.

Ingredients:
– ½ t  each of whole brown mustard seeds and cumin seeds|
-1T neutral oil
– 1 medium yellow onion, diced
– 2 garlic cloves, minced
– ½ T minced ginger root
– 1 large green jalapeno, stemmed & seeded & finely chopped
– 1½  T pomegranate molasses (or tamarind paste –  you want a tart, tangy taste)
– 1 packed t dark brown or coconut sugar
– scant 1 t chili powder (New Mexico, if possible)
– ¼ t ground turmeric
– ½ c masoor dal (red lentils), picked through   [9]  and rinsed
– 2 medium tomatoes, chopped (or canned, to equal ~ 6 oz/170g)
-3-4 med-large Kohlrabi (~675 g or 1 ½ lb) – peeled & diced small
-Salt to taste
-Chopped fresh cilantro and cooked brown or white rice
-Drained unsweetened soy/other plant-based yogurt OR soft silken tofu, to equal 1 c,
blended with 1/8 t salt and 2T lime juice

Instructions:
– Heat oil in a Dutch oven or other high-sided pan. Add the seeds; sauté until the seeds pop (30 sec to 1 m).  Add the onions and sauté for 5m.
– Add garlic & jalapeno & ginger; sauté until fragrant (30 s – 1m).  Add the molasses and the remaining spices; stir for 15 sec.
– add dal to the pan.  Sauté for 1-2 m stirring, until dal is covered w/oil & spices.
– Add tomatoes and 1 ¾ c water, bring to boil; turn heat to low, cover pan & simmer 20 m.
– Meanwhile, prep kohlrabi: steam or nuke the pieces 5-6 m or until tender.
– Add steamed kohlrabi to pan, continue to simmer, uncovered ~ 10 m or until lentils are cooked through and sauce thickens.  Add more water if necessary for desired consistency.
– Add salt to taste.
-Serve: atop rice of choice, with dollops of lime/yogurt sauce and sprinkles of chopped cilantro.

 

Chet Parnell and his Robbie Doll, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [10]

 

 

 Ali Rizvi is a Pakistani-born, Canadian, atheist ex-Muslim
and secular humanist writer and scientist (oncologic pathologist)
who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith.

*   *   *

Of all the selfies you may be tempted to take, may none of them be at a funeral;
May you maintain a healthy disance from actual toxins;
May you discover (if you haven’t already) the joys of kohlrabi;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I didn’t read Abby’s advice.  Didn’t need to; the question itself was so grotesquely entertaining that I couldn’t imagine any answer which would top it.

[2] A class which eas required for my major.

[3] I cannot recall which borough, but it was one of the B’s – Brooklyn, or the Bronx.

[4] Except the wealthy ones, who just did and bought whatever the hell they wanted to.

[5] I’m not sure if I’m mixing metaphors here or just misusing or abusing one. Would that make me a toxic metaphor-ist?

[6] ( see Merriam Webster online dictionary )

[7] And I’m not casually dismissive of the label, nor do I think it has no legitimate application.  I know more than one person whose close family member(s) have poisoned their relationships with continual, malicious, soul-crushing words and deeds.

[8] Community Shared Agriculture, or CSA, is a farming model built on fairness and transparency for both the farmer and the consumer. Traditionally, a consumer buys a share of a farm up-front, which provides financial security to the farmer for that season. In return, the consumer receives a regular box of fresh produce. ( What Is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?, The Spruce Eats )

[9] Any dal or dried beans can sometimes include small bits of chaff or even pebbles.

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

The Loogie I’m Not Hawking

May 19, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), radio & podcasts, school, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Is this your favorite of moiself’s  blog titles…or, perhaps not?

*   *   *

Department Of What Is It With The XY Chromosome And Spitting

Dateline: in my car; one day last week; returning from an errand in another city; stopped at a stoplight, behind one other vehicle.  The driver of that vehicle opened his car’s door, leaned down and spat onto the road.

Fast forward: last Saturday, 7:30 AM-ish.  Moiself  was at the coast, going for walk on pedestrian path which parallels a road heading toward Neahkahnie State Park. A man riding a skateboard was going in the opposite direction; i.e., approaching me.  As passed me he nodded in acknowledgment.  His skateboard seemed to be going by rather fast, IMO, so as we passed each other I turned back to see if I could tell if he was atop one of those motorized boards. At that point he was about 20 feet behind me; I turned around just in time to see him spit huge gobs of…a white something    [1]…onto the road.

 

 

Now.  Ahem.  The two individuals cited here are not to meant represent all of male kind.  They *are* emblematic of something moiself  has noticed over the years: more than women (almost to the point of gender exclusivity),  men are the ones who spit in public, and onto public surfaces.   [2]   From delicate white salivary droppings to gigantamous loogie hawkings, men expectorate in public with impunity. I never see women do this.  What’s the deal?

I know for a fact that women also produce saliva, and get seasonal allergies, common colds, and other virus which cause post-nasal drip and thus instigate the accumulation of snot and saliva in the mouth and throat.  But I never, ever, see women expel that goo (pardon my usage of complex medical terminology) in public.   [3]

Are men just somehow, physiologically, more prone to producing copious amounts of body fluids which congregate in their oral cavities?   

Or could it be as simple as, once again, nurture triumphs over nature?  As in, women are raised to, both literally and metaphorically…uh…swallow everything.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Perhaps This Is Why Some Of My Neighbors Cross To The Other Side Of The Street When They See Me Out For My Morning Walk

Dateline:  last Thursday, 7:30 am-ish. I am returning from a morning walk, rounding the corner, after having text-wished MH (and our cat, Nova) a pleasant drive to the coast.  [4]

As I rounded the corner of a street two blocks from our house, I saw MH’s distinctive midlife crisis car convertible approaching the intersection about 20 feet in front of moiself.   I waved; he pulled over to the curb; I walked up to his car; gave him a kiss; we briefly chatted.

As this was happening a woman I know by sight was returning from her morning walk with her dog.  She passed by MH’s car just as he pulled away from the curb and I resumed walking.  She gave me a knowing yet questioning look; her mouth opened slightly – for a moment I thought she was going to say, “Your husband?” It’s a good thing she didn’t, because I realized I would have blurted out, “No, but when I see a cute guy in an orange sports car, I think, why not take the opportunity?”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of, On The Other Hand, *This* Podcast Was Excellent

The other hand refers to…

No, not that hand.  I’ll start again.

The other hand refers to my blog of last week (May 12), in which I nit-picked about insightfully analyzed a (usually) favorite podcast of mine, whose guest on that particular episode I found so self-justifying and cluelessly annoying that I had to stop listening.

The next day, I was rescued by another usual favorite podcast, PIMA’s (People I Mostly Admire) episode 104: The Joy of Math, with PIMA host Steve Levitt’s guest, Sarah Hart.

British Geometry Professor Hart is on a quest (as is Levitt) to reform math education.  In their conversation she shared her interest in mathematics by explaining, for example, how patterns are everywhere, and how mathematical concepts and be found in the arts and literature as well as in the natural world.

 

 

Something moiself  found the most compelling about their dialogue was when they got to the reformation of the way math has been taught for so/too long (my emphases).

LEVITT:
“I had the mathematician, Steven Strogatz on the show, and he expressed frustration with the way we teach math to high school students…we tend to teach them all sorts of techniques for solving very specific problems that they will never ever be asked to solve anywhere but on a math exam. And the consequence is that almost everyone gets discouraged and in the end they conclude that they’re not a math person.
So…his idea is that we should move towards math appreciation courses like art appreciation — courses with the goal to show kids the wonder and the power of math applied to interesting, real-world problems with less emphasis on rote memorization.
And wow, did that conversation strike a nerve. I’ve never gotten such a flood of emails from listeners, hundreds of emails that are still coming in on a daily basis. And the only negative responses are from professional mathematicians…”

HART:
“I couldn’t love the idea any more. We do not need everybody to come out of school being able to do arcane stuff with trigonometry; they’re never going to need it. It’s going to put them off.”

 

 

HART:
“I’m good at maths and I enjoyed doing mathematical calculations, but even for me there were things that were not super interesting. And we don’t even motivate like why we’re doing it. Did you ever have a lesson in school where they said, ‘Why are we doing trigonometry?’ ”

 

 

Yes! Yes! Yes! Or should I write, No! No! No!, if Hart was implying that no one ever either poses or answers that question in a math class.  I DID – I asked, many times.  And I never got an answer.

 

 

I was a straight A student in all subjects, and in math from fractions and times tables through school Algebra 1 and Geometry.  Unfortunately (this will be explained soon) with regard to math, in high school I was placed in what is now referred to as a Gifted and Talented program, but which in California schools at that time was called the MGM – “Mentally Gifted Minors” – program.

 

Uh, that’s *minOrs.*

 

Mentally Gifted Minors ® that we were, we MGMers had a lot of fun mocking the acronym, our favorite pejorative being that MGM stood for Mother’s Greatest Mistake. Turned out the joke was on me, as taking my school’s MGM math courses was (one of) MGM – my greatest mistakes.

Before there was an MGM program, top students could take AA classes, which students were placed into by testing and/or teacher referral.    [5]  AA classes were offered in maths and social sciences, and continued to be offered at my high school after the MGM program was instituted.  My younger sister, who had an almost instinctive interest in and aptitude for math, remembered my experience, and chose her classes accordingly.  Although she took MGM classes in history and literature, she refused to participate in the MGM program for math, and instead took our school’s AA math classes.  [6]

Once again, I digress.

 

There was only one teacher for my high school’s MGM math courses (Algebra 1; geometry; Algebra 2; trigonometry; advanced math [aka pre-calculus]).  It was a mismatch from the start, between the MGM math teacher and moiself, in terms of personality, academic presentation, and just about everything else.  I was totally capable of being taught by teachers whose styles bothered and/or annoyed me or whom I even actively disliked – I managed to learn from such teachers in classes both preceding and following the classes taught by That Certain MGM Math Teacher (TCMGMMT).  However, despite the straight-A student thing, math – or in hindsight, the way math was *taught* – had always bored me.

By the time I was in second year algebra and then trigonometry, doing the assignments and/or studying the material for the sake of doing so was not cutting it for me. I wanted to know *why.* As in,

Why are we doing this – why does *anyone* do this?  (And don’t just
repeat the “because: triangles” thing.)
What will we use it for, and when will we be required to do so?

When I asked questions in class, I was told not to disrupt class (and TCMGMMT often turned questions asked – by other students, not only moiself – around in a way to make fun of the student who’d asked the question.  After observing this tactic of hers, I stopped asking questions).

One day I took time out of my busy high school academic and social calendar and scheduled an after-school appointment to meet with TCMGMMT, to raise my concerns. At that meeting (during which her discomfort was palpable), TCMGMMT actually told me that “it doesn’t matter *why* you are doing _____ (sine, tangent, and cosine functions, et al.). ”  She advised me to essentially shut up and do the rote memorization and, “two years from now ,when you are in your college calculus class, this (trigonometry equations) will make sense.”

 

 

I effin’ kid you not.

Nope; sorry; wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.  If I can’t make it interesting to me in the here and now it won’t interest me in some mythical, two-years-from-now class that I won’t be taking because I don’t need another thing frosting my ass with tediousness.   I took TCMGMMT shutting me down as a convoluted way of admitting, “Yeah, this has nothing to do with your life (or that of most students), but this is the way we have always done it, so shut up and dance.”

 

 

Yet another digression:

About that “mythical class” I didn’t think I’d be taking:  I actually took a calculus class in college, despite not being required to do so.  In the spring quarter of my freshman year I took part one of a three quarter Calculus series – the B series, which was required for students majoring in certain sciences and engineering.  [7]   Although I hadn’t yet declared a major, I was one of those idealistic idiots scholars, who held that:

* Every student should take advantage of the richness and diversity of subjects offered at college!
* All students should strive to be well-rounded intellectually!

 

 

No, really. Stop laughing, you narrow-minded camel.

I sincerely believed    [8]   that, for example, physics majors should take a poetry class and literature majors should take a physics class.  Many of my fellow students found it odd that, although I became a pre-law major    [9]   I also took classes in geology, physics, astronomy, wildlife fisheries and biology, and forestry.   [10]

Moiself  received an A in that calculus class.  A dormmate, who somehow found out that fact, took it upon himself to mansplain lecture me as to why getting a top grade in my calculus class was “selfish” of me.  With a totally straight and serious face he informed me that, since the class was graded on the curve, I was taking an A away from some “premed student who actually needs it,”    [11]  and since calculus wasn’t required *for* me, that A  grade was “totally wasted” *on* me.   [12]

Perhaps he was right, if only in a wee, mathematically insignificant way.  Although I adored and respected the class’s professor I didn’t find the subject matter interesting  (how I managed to get an A despite my FALLING ASLEEP DURING THE FINAL EXAM, I have no idea).  And today, in 2023, if you held a calculus equation before my eyes and a gun to my head (and I really hope you are never tempted to do either of those things) and demanded, “Do this calculation or I’ll pull the trigger!”  …well, one of us is going to prison.

I can, however, recall the lyrics to the theme song from Gilligan’s Island.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [13]

“Bowling might fulfill all the social needs that religious worship and ritual do, without being delusional, divisive, and repressive, occasionally ridiculous and all too often violent.
So, go bowling next week instead of attending church, temple, or mosque,
and have a good time.”
( William A. Zingrone, The Arrogance of Religious Thought )

 

 

*   *   *

May you pardon me for this week’s blog title;
May you find a reason (if you don’t already have one) to go bowling;
May you, in your ideal life, be able to solve a differential equation AND sing about unsuspecting future castaways going on “♫ a three hour cruise…♫ ”;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] It looked like he was a gull, crapping through its mouth.

[2] On the road, on public transportation vehicle floors – i.ee., not into their handkerchiefs.  Which no one seems to carry anymore but I remember when the Old Folks ® did.

[3] I am trying oh-so-hard to come up with *one* example to contradict my memory…I realize this is anecdotal, not scientific.

[4] In response to receiving his text that he was departing soon; I joined him the next day.

[5] and/or past performances/GPS in the subject…I’m not really sure how it was determined.

[6] In which she excelled, and she received a mathematics scholarship for college.

[7] The A series Calculus was required for mathematics and physics majors.

[8] And still do, mostly.

[9] I graduated with a B.A. in Criminal Justice.

[10] My biggest academic regret is not taking a tractor driving class.  UC Davis offered such a class, for one credit (like what you’d get for taking a PE class), but I could never make it fit between my academic and work schedule.

[11] Can you guess what his major was?

[12] Totally wasted was the description moiself  found applicable to that student’s demeanor and mindset, on most weekends in the dorms (he ended up transferring to a college with a less rigorous academic environment).

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

The Vocals I’m Not Frying

May 5, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, radio & podcasts, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Vocals I’m Not Frying

Department Of, Like, Just Give It A Fancy Name, And It’ll Be, Like, Less Annoying

It’s been a noteworthy past few weeks for my podcast listening obsession hobby, with several different podcasts focusing on a subject of particular interest to moiself : language and usage.    [1]    Clear + Vivid podcast is on a roll re that topic.  Yet another thought-provoking episode:  English evolves, like it or not.

Podcast guest Valerie Fridland, researcher and author of Like Literally Dude: Arguing for the good in bad English, says that those likes and so’s and you knows, ahs, ums and other language tics that annoy us so much are inescapable, and actually linguistically useful.  In this excerpted exchange, Fridland and C+V host Alan Alda discuss what many people decry as one of their most annoying language peeves, the use of the word, “like.”

 

 

Valerie Fridland:
One way that we’re using like in a new way is as an approximating  adverbial.   [2]  And I think when you think about it that way it makes it sound so much more intellectual that it will convert people into like likers…

Alan Alda (laughing):
It’s so intellectual I can’t understand it….

VF:
I’m gonna break it down for you; I just want you to know that it’s doing something important.

AA:
…you got me halfway there, with the fancy name.

VF:
So when you are talking about something that you’re estimating…you need to indicate to your listeners somehow  that what you’re saying – you’re not trying to be exact; you’re not trying to lie to them if you’re wrong about the number you’re giving them, but you’re just estimating.  Usually in standard English we use  “about” as what we call an approximating adverbial.  Which would mean, I would say something like, “He’s about five years old’ or ‘it’s about twenty pounds.’ That’s an approximating adverbial – the ‘about’….

‘Like’ has simply become a new approximating adverbial: “He’s like ten pounds;” or, ‘It’s like a hundred years old.’ So ‘like’ has become a one-to-one substitution for something that’s already well-accepted and serves a purpose.   It’s just not as well accepted, but it still serves that same purpose.

 

 

They chat about other linguistic topics, including vocal fry.

AA:
Your mission, if you should accept it, is to show me why that (accepting vocal fry) is a good thing.

VF:
I want to clarify something:  none of these are better necessarily than things we used to do, they’re just different. That that’s basically the evolution of language…. Things don’t necessarily change because they’re better, they change because there is a cognitive desire or an articulatory desire from our evolutionary standpoint to move that direction and a social trigger to make it happen.

 

 

And although I understand Fridland’s defense of language evolution, why do certain evolutions – vocal fry, as a prime example – have to be so effin’ annoying?  In moiself’s opinion, it’s like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.  Speaking of which….

*   *   *

Department Of Good And Bad Anticipations

Good anticipation:  a family wedding later this month.

Bad anticipation: the probable harangue/entreaties for those attending to participate in extended family photos.  Not a big deal for many folk, and perhaps even anticipated by those in the selfie-obsessed/must-document-every-moment-of-ME crowd.  However, such entreaties are the equivalents of fingernails on a chalkboard for those of us who are fotografizophobic. ®

And no, we’re not just camera shy.

 

 

It’s not the lack of “fear” which bothers moiself  about (some) photographers, it’s their lack of boundaries.  Exemplified by the person – whom I had just met and who thus falls into the virtual stranger ® category – who, long ago in a galaxy far far away, actually told me, when they’d asked me to be in a picture they were taking and I politely declined, that they were “offended” by me not wanting them to take my picture.

The subject came up after a trip many years MH and daughter Belle and I made, to visit son K in college.  I’ll let moiself  explain as per a previous blog several years ago:

Saturday night, after dropping off K at his dorm, Belle, MH & I had dinner at Pomodoro, in Tacoma’s Procter district.   Not long after we were seated Belle removed her sketch pad and pencils from her purse. She and MH were seated across from me, and Belle looked in my direction as she began to sketch. I turned around to see if perhaps a cute waiter or bus boy was lurking behind me.  Nope.  This put me into a rather mild existential panic.  I tried my best not to sound like a bad Robert DeNiro imitation as I asked, “Are you sketching *me*?”

 

 

“Yes,” Belle replied.  “Hold still.”

I didn’t hold still.  None of us held still.  We were doing restaurant-things: eating, drinking, lifting napkins to our mouths, answering questions from our server, as well as allegedly conversing with one another.  Belle said nothing more, but from her heavy sighs and eyebrow gymnastics it was apparent that she was disappointed with my lack of stillness, and other attributes that render me unfit for sketching.

I do not translate well to photos.  I am not a still life, and loathe having my picture taken in any form and for any cause. The reasons for this are not particularly complicated or interesting; they are known to those supposedly closest to me, and in a kind and just world (calling Mr. Rogers!) would be respected, even if not “understood.”  This is rarely the case.

From the POV of a fotografizophobic   [3]  when people gaze at you intently and allegedly dispassionately, judging the contours (read: inadequacies) of your bone structure and other facial features, hearing them say, “Hold still so I can sketch you/take your picture” is the emotional equivalent of hearing, “Hold still so that I may throw acid in your face.”

Unsolicited, adult-to-adult advice: when any sentient being declines to have their picture taken by you, respect their wishes and move on.  Do not whine and wheedle; do not attempt any form of emotional blackmail  ( “The family reunion shot will be ruined if you’re not in it, and who knows if Uncle Anus will live long enough to attend the next one!” ).  Unless I am renewing my driver’s license and you are the DMV camera dude, or you are the hospital’s medical photographer sent to document my Mayo Clinic-worthy, bulbous axillary tumor, back off.  It’s that simple.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of New Things To Think About

Moiself   had a pull-over-to-the-curb moment  [4]  last week, the kind that made me all tingly inside.

 

 

Relax, Countess, it’s not that kind of tingly.

It’s the even better kind, prompted by the realization of This  is something I’ve rarely – if ever – thought about before.

This was thanks to a recent Clear + Vivid podcast:  Susan Goldin-Meadow: Thinking with your hands.  From the podcast teaser:

Decades spent studying the way we use our hands when we talk has convinced Susan Goldin-Meadow that not only do gestures help our listeners understand us; gestures help us understand ourselves. They help us think, and as children, even to learn.

Susan Goldin-Meadow is a Professor in of Psychology, Comparative Human Development, and Education at the University of Chicago.  Her specialties and areas of research include exploring the impact of environmental and biological variation on language development – such as homesign, the unique, gestural languages created by children who lack language input (e.g. deaf children born to hearing parents who do not sign).  She is also fascinated by how our own gestures help us think and learn and communicate above and beyond the spoken word.

 

There’s a chart for everything.

 

We’ve all made the jokes about other people – or in moiself’s  case, I’ve both made the jokes and have had them applied to moiself – about people who “talk with their hands.”   [5]   As in, those who tend to gesture when talking, especially when telling stories or speaking with resolution and passion.  I tend to do this, and those who have pointed this out to me usually follow their observation with one of two attributions:

“It’s due to your Irish blood!”
(Yep; 50% on both sides of the family)

“You *must* be Italian!”
(Scusa; not a drop).

But I’ve never considered what place gestures and gesticulating plays in language (nor extensively thought about the fact that gesturing as a form of communication likely preceded both oral and written language), or that studying this fascinating topic is even an academic thing.

*   *   *

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.  [6]

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [7]

“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what?”
 ( Stephen Fry, British English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have happy reasons for pull-over-to-the-curb moments;
May you keep your fingernails away from chalkboards;
May you refrain from vocal frying “like” within earshot of moiself;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] (as moiself   wrote about last week).

[2] Approximating adverbials are “…used to show that something is almost, but not completely, accurate or correct: ‘The trip takes approximately seven hours. The two buildings were approximately equal in size. The flight takes approximately three hours.’ ”  Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries.

[3] Fotografizophobia is the fear of having your picture taken.

[4] Well, except for the fact that I was not driving.

[5] but *not* referring to people who actually communicate with their hands; i.e., deaf and hearing impaired people who use ASL.

[6] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg.  Until I did.  One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens.  No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.

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

The Furry Life I’m Not Observing

April 28, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, nature, Oregon, radio & podcasts, school, science, travel, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Reflections On The Meaning Of Life

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]

 at The Beach ®.    [2]

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.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sh** Yeah I Bought That Book

I refer to Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, just one of the references cited in a fucking delightful episode of a recent Freakonomics podcast.  Episode 504, Swearing is More Important Than You Think, deals with “swearing”/cursing in particular, and changes in language usage in general.

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.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [7]

“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 Beach was 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, )

[6] or devolution, depending on your POV.

[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

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