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The Pretty I’m Not Owing You

March 17, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, politics, reproductive rights, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Department Of Guilty Pleasures

Strikethrough that!  What a lame expression. If it gives me joy, then it ain’t (and moiself isn’t) guilty.

Look what I’ve rented for three months.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Book I’m Not Recommending

…well, sorta, if not wholeheartedly:  Women Don’t Owe You Pretty,    [1]   by Florence Given.   However, I’m still thinking about the book, almost two weeks after finishing it.  So, for moiself , that counts as a recommendation.

WDOYP  was this month’s choice for the book group  [2]   moiself  hosts.   As described in this post, Book Club has themes for each month.  Seeing as how March is Women’s’ History Month, Feminist/pro-woman titles is this month’s theme.

One BC member said she had a problem getting into WDOYP, at first (me, too).  As in, it took us several chapters to get used to the Ms. Given’s prose patterns, and we (mistakenly, ultimately) felt that with regard to both content and style the book was aimed more towards young(er) women, and not cranky, been-around-the-block-and-back feminists like ourselves.  The afore-mentioned BC member, who grew to like and appreciate the book, nailed it in her description of the author’s tendency toward curt prose and didactic, bullet-point ideas: “I felt like I was being shouted at.”

 

 

Upon reflection, I’m thinking that many of the contradictions I found in the book are not so much contradictions as they are the author’s attempts to deal with the conundrums inherent in being a feminist in this or any society. Given decries the culture and political, social, and economic systems wherein women are raised to put their appearance at the forefront and to dress and behave for the male gaze– systems she wants to dismantle or at least overhaul.  Yet she stresses how we must not criticize women who do organize their appearance for the male gaze, because they have been socialized to do so.

As I was pondering this sticky wicket, for some reason I turned to the book’s back cover.  Checking out the authors’ photo is something I almost never do,   [3]  but this time I did, and I didn’t know whether to guffaw or smirk.  Was the picture that Given (and her editor/publisher?) chose – Given clad in a no-bra midriff top, her wide-eyed gaze smoldering beneath her Charlie’s Angels hairstyle –  meant to be ironic?  As in, was it an intentional a juxtaposition of the author’s premise and exposition – that women do not and should not present themselves for the male gaze – with an image of the author which references the most male-gazieest pop culture female characters ever?

 

 

Or perhaps, moiself  thought, she’s just young and vain?  In the book, Ms. Given mentions –  always in context to whatever she’s shouting writing about yet more often than I found necessary –  being aware of her privilege as a “slim, pretty, white woman.”  Sure, she’s committed to feminist principles…but she’s also an occupant of those here-I-am-look-at-me, Instagram Tik-Tok, self-promotion, social media worlds    [4]  which so many people her age   [5]  inhabit.  A quick search revealed to moiself  that Given is quite active on those sites – sites which, as many therapists and [other/older] feminists point out, promote unhealthy body images and are detrimental to the mental health of girls and women. 

Given makes you go, girl  type noises re women and girls who “choose” to dress in what might be seen as a provocative manner, as long as those females are doing it for “themselves” or because it’s what *they* like, and thus they are expressing their authentic, feminine selves… Yet how can they reliably know that those styles and modes – that *any* styles and modes – of dress and presentation are what they truly like?  How can you know what your “authentic” likes are/self is, when you’ve been propagandized (read: poisoned) all your life about what is appropriate female attire and physical presentation?

 

 

Case in point: high heels are  poor podiatric shoe choices bad for you – that’s a medical fact, not a style opinion.  My encounters with women who describe themselves as progressive and feminist yet still think stiletto heels are appropriate dress-up attire have always chapped my ass (and heels) – I want to grab those women by their shoulders (but caefully, because they might topple over) and sputter,

“ *Who*  told you these contraptions are appropriate and/or attractive?!?”

Your only excuse for such a “choice” of footwear would be if you were a native of the planet Cripfemme, where the females have only three toes: two short ones on the side and a very long pointy one in the middle.  Otherwise, do you expect moiself – and yourself – to believe that you came to this conclusion on your own, without any outside influences, and that this kind of shoe is practical and comfortable?

 

Something tells me the leader of Planet Cripfemme looks like this.

 

All in all, WDOYP was a good book for discussion and reflection (obviously, as I am still doing so).  Despite her overuse (IMO) of relationship buzzword descriptors  (e.g., “toxic”), the author has some insightful phrasings and framings of various issues, including the chapter wherein she delineates the “misogyny tax” women pay, and another chapter dealing with the prejudice against single women:

“ ‘Single’ doesn’t mean ‘waiting for someone.’
Choosing to be single is an autonomous choice, and a lot of men fear autonomous women and gender-nonconforming-people.  It reminds them that we have other purposes on this planet than to serve them….
When people make autonomous decisions about their bodies and their lifestyles, they are met with a whole spectrum of resistance, and this is particularly true for marginalized people.  Anything that deviates from the narrative society has written for and about you is shamed and unaccepted.”

Overall, I’m glad I read it.  Note:  WDOYP does contain trigger warnings on a couple of chapters dealing with sexual assault and harassment.    [6]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Yet Another Adjective That Moiself  Does Not
Want To Hear Y’all Use As Noun

But it’s too late, as its informal usage has already entered certain dictionaries.   [7]

I’m talking about creative, when used for a person or an occupation.  We got your firefighters, we got your x-ray technicians, your IT specialists, your butchers and bakers and candlestick makers…and now we have Creatives ®.  It’s no longer a mere modifier (“What a creative floral arrangement” or “Those kids are full of creative energy.”) It is being used as a noun, and thus preceded by an indefinite article.

The hubris of those who would so refer to themselves, moiself  can scarcely imagine.  Except that I don’t need to imagine it, as twice this week I heard more than one person   [8]   do this (which is what sparked this rant post):

“As a creative, I…”

“I am a creative, and so I….”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Because We Are Sheep, That’s Why

I’m noticing a new thing at one of the grocery stores where I shop. Just inside the store’s entrance there will be a couple of young-ish men and women, standing alert and dressed more formally than most people do for picking up some produce. These folks try to make eye contact with shoppers who enter and exit the store, and when they do, they approach the shopper and ask, “One quick question?“ Whether you say yes or no, they proceed with the question:

“What is your current mobile service?”

I’m surprised and disappointed to have observed so many shoppers answer this question despite the uncomfortable, oh-please-leave-me-alone-I-just-want-to-get-some-salad-veggies looks on their faces. 

Why do people do that – answer questions from strangers, when they know what’s coming and don’t want to be subjected to a sales pitch?  They seemingly feel obliged to respond to that intrusive query…which, okay, is not as intrusive as, “What is your current underwear size?” but which is nonetheless personal. Your utility services and bills – that’s personal finance info, and none of anyone else’s business.  What is it about human nature that so many of us respond?  Oh yeah, because we are….

 

 

From what moiself  has observed, the Mobile Service Shillers®  work as partners: one stands near the entrance/exit doors, another about 20 feet inside the store.  I’ve seen them signal to each other, with eye and/or hand gestures and head nods, indicating (I deduced) a shopper they did not engage.  Thus, if the first one doesn’t “get “ you (or is talking to someone else) the other has a shot, either when you’re entering or leaving the store.

Up until recently I have observed the MSS-ers closely but never answered them, until the past two weeks when I grew tired of ignoring them and decided to engage.  Since then  I’ve been approached four times while pushing my cart on my way out of the store, and I’ve answered four times.

“Hello! Excuse me; what is your current mobile service?”

Time #1: Moiself  smiled perkily and said, “None of your business.”

Time #2:  I donned my best non sequitur expression and replied,  “Spatula.”

Time #3:  “As an all-natural family we communicate via strings tied to paper cups.”

Time #4:  This time, the MS Shiller®  got specific, and asked if my mobile service was____ or ____ (the two most common carriers in this area ).  “Neither,” I replied, opening my hand and mimicking the flip phone gesture Captain Kirk made when he was going to request Scotty to beam him up. “I use my Star Trek communicator.”

“A communicator!” Mobile Service Shiller®  overly enthusiastically gasped.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him signal to his partner with a shake of his head, as if to say, “Nope – leave this one alone.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week:

“Men often ask me, ‘Why are your female characters so paranoid?’
It’s not paranoia. It’s recognition of their situation.”     [9]

( Margaret Atwood )

*   *   *

May you never confuse recognition with paranoia;
May you give yourself permission not to anawer shilllers of any kind ;
May you have a happy day celebrating being Irish in America;   [10]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Great title, BTW.

[2] (the oh-so-cleverly named, Book Club)

[3] Writers should be read and not seen ( Moiself  included).  I generally doesn’t care or want to know about an author’s physical appearance and/or personal life.

[4] Worlds which seem, IMO, to mainly consist of constantly posting images of yourself, over and over and over….

[5] She is 24.

[6] Although, thinking of a friend who appreciates those warnings, there was also material earlier in the book and outside of those chapters which I thought could be difficult for someone who’s been raped and/or abused.

[7] Misapply any word  long enough and it’ll get an entry.

[8] Radio news shows and podcast interviews.

[9] Why is there no footnote here?  Paranoid, who, me?

[10] St. Patrick’s Day…that’s what it essentially is, in the USA.

The Cartoonist(s) I’m Not Defending

March 10, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, movies, politics, reproductive rights, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Cartoonist(s) I’m Not Defending

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

 

Sign me up!

 

And what a convenient segue to…

Department Of Topical Topics

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Before

     

After

 

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

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

And the focus of Lopez’s most recent column? 

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of Silly Moiself…

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

Someone needs to cast a spell on that man.

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking Of Boneheads

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

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

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

 

Historical context:

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

Seriously?

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

*   *   *

Department Of Must See TV

So much to complain about, this past week!

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

Keep up the good work – and the story lines!

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week   [9]

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

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

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

[4] Yes, in 2023, not 1923.

[5] Founding member, if memory serves.

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

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

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

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

The Advice Columnist I’m Not Blaming

January 13, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, politics, reproductive rights, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Advice Columnist I’m Not Blaming

Department Of Blame It On Carolyn

Carolyn Hax, that is, my all-time favorite advice columnist.  [1]   I read her column every morning; a query in her January 7 column took me back to an issue of great interest to moiself  …although, it was one of her reader’s responses to the column, rather than the column itself, which is responsible for this tangent.

The CH letter writer sought advice for this dilemma: her fiancé wants a big family, as in, six kids (he’d “settle” for four). But she wants two…maybe…at most. Is it possible to compromise on kids?

After giving her advice to the LW, CH posted a few responses from her readers to the LW.  Here was the one that caught my attention:

Re: Kids: …have big talks about how said family will work. Does he expect to be a true 50/50 partner, as in baths/feeding/rule-making/following up with teachers/bringing to doctor appointments/helping with homework? Or does he just think a big family will be “fun,” not thinking of logistics?
We know from studies that women still, unfortunately, take on the bulk of emotional and household labor for families. I know plenty of men personally who want more kids but do far less than 50 percent. Of course they want more! They get the fun parts!

 

 

Ah, yes.  Partnership; family logistics; division of labor.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away   [2]   moiself  began taking notes on the Stay-Home Parent debate.  Because, apparently (sorry) there was one, and someone was making comments and/or assumption about child-rearing and household-running which I found…debatable.

Moiself  does not remember in detail the instigating incidents; I *do* very well remember commiserating about the incidents with a woman who was also a SHP/trying to work from home.  I took copious notes about our conversations and then tried to organize them into an essay/advice document for the next time some poor fool hopeful naïf solicited my opinion on the matter. I searched my computer files and found the document.    [3]    Lucky y’all – grab a tranquilizer of choice, here it is.   [4]

***********************************

SHP

So, you want to be, or it has been decided that you will be, the SHP – “stay-home parent?”  Good luck with that.

There is a tendency to refer to this as a “privilege”….

 

 

…. when, in fact, it is a sacrifice.

In the following rant reasonable and thoughtful essay, I will use female as the default for the stay-home parent’s gender, as (sadly) it is still, overwhelmingly, the mother who assumes the pre- and post-weaning tasks of child and household care.

However, I must note that the stay-home dads I have either known personally or whose concerns I’ve read about (books, magazine articles, letters to editors…) list the *very same-exact-identical-equivalent* concerns and complaints.  Gender has little to do with it; the sacrifices made and frustrations encountered by the SHP are part of the SHP “job description”  – that which a parent of any gender will encounter when taking on the non-paying responsibilities of stay-home parent.

BTW, the issue of non-payment is a crucial one.   Wake up and smell the Starbucks:   [5]  the person who earns the “real” money wields the ultimate power (whether functional, or veto) in the household.

Speaking of $$, the WAFHP (works-away-from-home-parent) may claim that because his entire paycheck goes into the family budget, everything of “his” is being shared.  Thus, he may say he envies his SHP the “privilege” of staying home…

 (1) even if he never volunteered for the job;

 (2) even if both parents desired at least one stay-home parent and there was no other viable financial option for the family;

 (3) even if he’s been heard to whine, “Gee, I’d love to stay home and take it easy.“

Except that if he does (3) he’s lying, to her and/or himself.  He doesn’t envy her; not sincerely.  Most men never *seriously* consider ditching their wage-earner credibility to assume the endless responsibilities and low social and economic status of homemaker.

This kind of a husband may begrudge any additional monies his wife may make from a home business or “projects” produced from the home, which she may keep “for herself” (the Olden Days ®  term was egg money; e.g., the monies farm women earned from selling eggs, butter, etc., which they kept out of the general budget and hid away for household emergencies).  He may think that since he contributes all of “his” money, his wife must give all of hers.

 

 

But, as Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hax so astutely noted to one such husband who’d written to her (to carp about the money his wife kept from her “projects”):

Can you see that thing that’s right in your face?  That’s called the surface. Look past it, and you’ll see that you are* not* sharing so much more than money.   So much more includes

 -job experience
-job continuity
-workforce connections and networking
-up-to-date technological skills
-income toward Social Security
-credits toward a pension
-and whatever else he’s accruing that I’m leaving out, equally or otherwise. 

That and more is “his” “money.”   The wife, in return for taking on an essential yet unpaid “career,”

 -loses her place in her workplace hierarchy
-watches her skills erode or fall out of date or both
-lowers her Social Security income
-cuts her ties to benefits
-and, if and when she is able to return to the paying workforce, faces competition from candidates who didn’t take several years off, as well as the documented “mommy” prejudice and penalty (there has been no equivalent, documented “daddy penalty”)

Yes, perhaps she gets more opportunities to “bond” with the kids. But what if you leave her, or die?

And I didn’t get into self-worth, or that her “projects” could be construed as a second job. In practical terms alone, her pocketing a few bucks is a small hedge against total dependence on you, and no substitute for the workplace credibility you’ve stockpiled while she’s been home.

************************

 

 

In addition to the above sacrifices that CH noted, there is the matter of the SHP job itself, and its Dirty Not-So-Little Secrets ®:

 * Caring for children and running a household, tasks which are unremitting and indispensable to family and society, are considered to be low-skilled labor.

* Managing a household, however essential to familial and societal stability, is repetitive work, and involves a number of self-defeating tasks.  As in, almost everything you do will need to be done again, and sometimes almost immediately.  Imagine a ditch digger who returned to work every morning to find that the ditch he had dug the previous day had been filled in.

* SHP is a “career” with a limited lifespan, and no possibility for advancement.

Perhaps the dirtiest (open) secret of all:  Children – yep, even your little darling sweetum oookie scnookums fruit-of-your-loins – are not fascinating and enjoyable at all times.  They have moments of sweetness, and watching/helping them meet their developmental milestones can bring its own special joy. But telling the following truth in no way diminishes the love you have for your children:

Children are not adults.

 

 

No; really.  Meditate upon these four words, the understanding of which is key to the emotional stability of (and the resulting cabin fever often experienced by) SHPs.

Children are not adults.

Their brains are developing; their interests and intellects and reference points are shallow, and (of course) childish and self-involved.  Thus, they are not reliably appealing, or intellectually and emotionally stimulating and fulfilling, companionship for adults.  The WAFHP parent will have at least some semblance of adult relationships and conversation at his workplace.  The SHP will not, and will need to seek it elsewhere…yet another item on her to-do list.

This is the core of the dirty, not-so-secret secret:  unless you are a Fascinating Womanhood ® devotee or possessed of an IQ smaller than your bra size, taking care of children is tiresome.  It doesn’t matter that you love them – supervising and entertaining a young child for hours is mind-numbing as well as exhausting.

Now, most fathers find young children boring (another dirty secret, but one that some men will openly admit to).  Husbands will often get more involved in (what just barely qualifies as) childcare when the kids become more “fun” to be around; i.e., taking the kids to their scout meetings and soccer practices.  But few fathers voluntarily do the day-to-day, routine maintenance care, or offer to be the stay-home parent (even if their wife’s job is the one which brings in more money, and thus the logical financial solution for the couple, if they desire at at-home parent in the family, would be to have the husband stay home).  Monotonous work with little or no monetary reward or social status – men avoid it, if possible. How many men do you know who are nannies or day care workers?

Also, there’s the complaining issue (read: telling the truth).  Much of parenthood, especially being the primary care parent, is repetitive (which is why this bears repeating) and tedious, as is managing a household. Sure, you say, but lots of things are tedious.  Mowing lawns for a living can be tedious.  But if a lawnmower landscape maintenance technician admits that he finds his job unfulfilling, he’s simply telling the truth.  Women who speak the truth about the boredom, frustration, and ultimate lack of job security in being the primary child/household care parent are often labeled as whiners who are unappreciative of their “privilege,” or, if they have the misfortune to come from a religious background, they can be diagnosed as dangers to The Divinely Mandated Family Structure®, or neurotics incapable of appreciating their “true” or “biologically based” calling and/or natures.

 

 

Okay.  The task at hand:  job description for a SHP.  I am leaving out so, so much – and many tasks could be filed under several or separate categories, and I just had to stop at one, remembering, oh yeah, and there’s this, and then this…

Keep in mind that “manage” listed as a task is an all-purpose, all-encompassing term.  It may refer to doing a particular task yourself, as well as involving, organizing and/or supervising family members in the task.

Transportation
Let’s start with this one and get it out of the way:  the term “Stay-home” mom (or parent) is a joke.  You will be ferrying everyone, and everything.  The last minute, emergency/unexpected trips will seem to consume as much time (and more emotional energy) as the planned errands.

Family events management

– manage family calendar, including scheduling/keeping track of
– social and school events;
– holidays, regular and school;
– conferences and appointments; following up with teachers;
– regular and one-time events, including visits from friends/family;

Food
It is impossible to overestimate the amount of time this responsibility involves.  It is daily, and unlike many other tasks, cannot be deferred.  Unless it involves a really, really, stinky item (never underestimate the reek potential of any cloth you used to wipe up spilled milk or cat barf, no matter how thoroughly you rinsed it out), you can put off laundry until tomorrow, or the day and sometimes even the week after.  But everyone needs to eat three times a day – or more, for infants.

– meal planning:
            – consulting family calendar for dinner planning purposes, noting special days, events, exceptions;
            – grocery list preparation and maintenance;
– staple items
                        – infrequent or one-items for particular meals, or that can only be purchased at certain times/seasons or at particular venues
                        – items for school lunch preparation

 – grocery shopping:
                        -maintain knowledge of what stores carry what ingredients, best pricing for bulk, organic, staples, and any special items;
-maintain awareness of family staples specials, so as to be able to stock up when good prices appear

– meal preparation:
            – includes acquisition, maintenance, and upkeep of cooking utensils, cookware and appliances;
– additional/unplanned/last minute trips to the store, when family members have used up crucial items and have neglected to add those items to the grocery list (this will be a constant thorn in your side);
– when you discover someone has consumed ingredients critical to the meal you are about to prepare;
– when you discover ingredients crucial to the meal you are about to prepare are spoiled or have otherwise gone bad;
– when guests are invited/just appear at the last minute

– clean/maintain school lunch bags and supplies/manage school lunch schedule

 

 

finances

-pay bills;
– mortgages & utilities;
– maintain (or memorize) schedule of what gets paid when;
– make special payment arrangements for vacations and misc. off/away times;
– keep track of and pay infrequent/interval bills, such as property tax and insurance premiums;
– check online accounts daily to check balances (and guard against ID theft possibility);
– transfer funds between accounts as/when necessary;
– balance checking/savings statements;
– balance credit statements, pay when due, and note payment schedule on calendars;
– manage on-hand cash supply, from which:
– regular or seasonal or one time cleaning services are paid;
– allowances are paid;
 carpool drivers are reimbursed for mileage/gas;
– children’s activities (e.g. snack or movies with friends, bus or other public transportation costs) are paid/reimbursed

Misc. household

– arrange/manage cleaning services (from housecleaning to window-washing, regular or sporadic);
– arrange/manage family cleaning when regular cleaning service is on vacation, or cancels, or you must cancel due to upcoming vacation, schedule change or illness;
– perform said cleaning when family does not help/is not available;
– arrange/manage special items cleaning (e.g. furniture, drapes);
– gather and do regular laundry items on an as-needed basis (3-4 days/week);
– gather and do special laundry;
-bedding and linens on a regular/weekly basis;
-clothing/household articles that need periodic cleaning (e.g. cleaning towels, sleeping bags, blankets/comforters and other awkward sized bedding);
– arrange/manage other household care services (e.g. lawn care);
– arrange/manage perform periodic household cleaning:
            – shampoo/steam clean carpets;
            – clean wood and tile floors;
            – furniture dust/vacuum
            – doors and windows

– maintain supply of essential non-food items:

– toilet paper, paper towels, and other tissues;
– household personal (soap, shampoo, lotions, deodorants, toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss);
– first aid supplies
– cleaning supplies
– emergency kit: (water, cash, other ER supplies)

pet care

– maintain supply of food and litter;
– manage feeding and other care chores;
– scoop litter as needed during day;
– change water ” ” “;
– manage cleaning of food and water bowls;
– schedule and take to regular vet appointments;
– schedule and take to emergency vet appts.;
– arrange for care during out of town/vacation days

 

 

Misc. child care

– regular transportation (providing and arranging for transportation);
– to and from regular school;
– for special school events;
– medical, dental and orthodontic appointments;
– lessons and other post school activities;
– kids’ friends “play dates,” etc.;

– on call transportation: pick up children from school and/or friend’s houses due to

– sickness/injury;
– braces repaired or other orthodontic or medical mishap;
– lost/forgotten homework and/or lunches;
– wardrobe malfunctions;
– school emergency closures (e.g. sewage spills);
– last minute cancellations from other member(s) of carpool or previously arranged transportation

– allowances

            – provide on weekly basis, keep track of amounts;
            – reminders to budget for charity;
            – provide opportunities for charitable donation, which almost always includes  transportation to said opportunities

– clothing

            – keep track of sizes (clothing, shoe and underwear, jackets and other outerwear);
            – shop for all items when needed;
– specialty items (needed for sports, school camps, outings/events) 

– schedule regular Medical and health-related appointments, including

– doctor;
– dentist;
– orthodontist;
– ophthalmologist;
– dermatologists and other specialists when needed
– schedule/transport to unanticipated/emergency Medical appointments;
– provide care when child home from school with illness or injury;
– misc. other appointments (e.g. haircuts);
– manage and maintain supply of medications, prescriptions (e.g. fluoride and allergy meds) and OTC vitamins;
– confirm the above gets taken as needed;

– school

            – maintain school schedule, including conferences, holidays, vacations;
            – acquire/replace and maintain school supplies

– social life.  This is way too complicated, but includes

– managing social calendars;
– managing birthday preparation for child, as well as birthday party of friends preparation (reminding/shopping for gifts);
– keep track of special needs of friends (e.g. food/pet allergies) when planning meals, play dates, etc.

General house management
– being the manager of all of this, which means that even as the children and spouse are able and willing to “help,” the extra job of being the one who keeps track of what needs to be done when, to teach and supervise (when necessary) said tasks.   [6] 

******************************************

Reading it over…yikes.

Can you magine what you’d have to pay someone (else) to do all this?     [7]

 

******************************************************************

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week   [8]

One of my favorite fantasies is that next Sunday not one single woman, in any country of the world, will go to church. If women simply stop giving our time and energy to the institutions that oppress, they could cease to be.
( Sonia Johnson    [9]  )

*   *   *

May you ensure that, when it comes to home and family, you also get “the fun parts”;
May you reconsider your participation in institutions that oppress;
May you be cognizant of the “mental labor” you leave for others;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And a damn good writer, as well.

[2] Actually, a little over ten years ago.

[3] In which Carolyn Hax makes another cameo appearance.

[4] The original document did not have the graphics present in this blog post.

[5] How can you not? There’s one on every corner.

[6] This is what psychologist Joshua Ziesel refers to as the “mental labor” of running a household.  His essay, dealing with the iniquities of household labor where both spouses are employed, is a must read:  “I wanted to be a better husband. So I planned my kid’s birthday party. As a psychologist, I knew men did less “mental labor,” but I didn’t see my own shortcomings.” The Washington Post, 6-18-21 )

[7] Actually, you don’t need to use your imagination.  Economists and other labor scientists have studied this for years, and estimates range from $96k in 2012 dollars to 178K on 2019 as median salaries to have a person or persons be on 24 hr call – as are homemakers – to perform the services of a tutor, negotiator, nurse, chauffer, party planner, chef, nanny, housecleaner….

[8] “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, www.ffrf.org  

[9] Author, activist, and feminist, excommunicated by the Mormon church for supporting the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.

The Weird Carpet Walking Man I’m Not Following

October 21, 2022

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, sports, travel, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Weird Carpet Walking Man I’m Not Following

Much to my surprise, moiself  received a text from the campaign of Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate for Oregon governor.   [1]  The message said that Drazan “has a plan” (no details of course) for Oregon’s homeless situation, and asked for a donation.

My cell phone has been inundated by texts from political candidates, mostly from the Left side of the spectrum.  I block the caller# and delete them all, even when they are from candidates I support  (I do *not* give candidates my cell # and resent them finding and using it).  And what in the name of a purple Planned Parenthood placard…

 

Like this one.

 

…would make anyone on the Drazan campaign think that *I* would forget Drazan’s anti-abortion politics because of some mysterious “plan” she has?

Moiself  just had to respond to this text, before blocking/deleting:

If you are not pro-choice then you are no choice.
Shame on you.
Do not text this number again.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thanks For Sharing

The streets of Manzanita are a crap minefield. 

 

Like this, only with crap.

 

Welcome Fall; welcome to the roaming elk and deer, pooping while they’re roaming, pooping while they’re standing still…stepping on their own poop; stepping on the poop that their herd comrade just dropped in front of them; stepping in the dried poop from three days ago…

A small price to pay for living in and/or visiting a bit o’ paradise on earth – the Oregon coast – in autumn.

And yet another reason to take your shoes off when you enter a home.  If you’re walking around here, whether on the streets, sidewalks, trails, or beach, you’re stepping on poop, in some form or another.

Although it doesn’t show up well in this picture, this poop pattern continues up the street, on both sides.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Playoff Game That Wasn’t

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

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

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

 

LA Dodgers: The 1970s Cey to Russell to Lopes to Garvey era.

 

Then came the latest the player/manager/owner strike.

I remember thinking,

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

And that was that.

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

BTW: Why do we sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” when we are already out at the ballgame?

 

 

Yet again, I digress.

When Belle asked if I were interested, moiself  realized that *I* had never been to a MLB playoff game. And when your 26-year-old daughter solicits a visit from her (much older, ahem) mother…

I started gettin’ spontaneous.  I booked train passage to and from Tacoma, found a (very expensive, yikes   [2]) hotel room, and crossed fingers for our odds in getting the tickets, which would be for sale depending on what happened in the first three games.

Game 4 would be on Sunday (10/16). My train reservations were for Saturday afternoon. MH advised me to get to the Portland train station early, as President Biden was in town that weekend. I took his advice to heart; I’d not been paying attention and had no idea Portland was in for a presidential visit, but I remembered a story I’d read about our most recent decent President:   An Average Person ® had traveled many miles to attend a political rally, where she got to speak with Obama.  She invited him to visit her state, because “…it would be such an honor to have a presidential visit.” Obama thanked her for the invitation, then warned her in good humor that, in reality, a presidential visit is a massive inconvenience to the area of the visit.  Presidential visits cause backups and delays for motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, even public transportation users, and are difficult to plan for, as, for security reasons, the presidential limo motorcade (and the decoy limo) and entourage routes can’t be announced in advance.  So, maybe the people who are invited to the speech or meet-n-greet or whatever consider it an honor, but for almost everyone else, it’s an irritation.  I like the fact that Obama was aware of/acknowledged that.

 

“Okay, remember, the decoy limo stops at Starbucks.”

 

As it turned out, Biden’s visit impacted a train’s departure four hours earlier in the day, but as I checked in I was told that my train (departing at 3:38p) was on time.  Then, for the next two and a half hours, Amtrak moved our departure time ahead, first in 5 minute increments, then ten, then….. Train station personnel on their intercoms and passengers googling on their cellphones were trying to find out what was going on.  The delay wasn’t due to the presidential visit (Biden’s entourage was already out of the area)…something about how due to a “police action” our train was stopped across the river.  Turns out there was a person “laying on the tracks.”   [3]

Our train finally arrived and we boarded, coming on three hours after our scheduled departure time.  Then, the train just sat at the station.  And sat.  Sat sat sat sat.  What now? Eventually, the conductor announced that “someone up ahead had set a fire next to the train tracks.”

Fucking Portland, I texted to Belle, who had already moved back and then cancelled the dinner reservations we’d had.  She passed the time on her end by giving me updates on the game. It was do or die for the Mariners: they’d lost the first two games; thus, if they lost game 3 (which I – mistakenly, as it turns out – assured Belle ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS    [4]   )  there would be no game four.

The hours went by; the game went into overtime.  Belle messaged at one point,

“Heading into the 15th inning now still 0-0.
Maybe we’ll just end up going to game 3 tomorrow.”

After 18 innings the Mariners lost “the longest 1-0 playoff game in MLB history.”     [5]

There would be no ballgame on Sunday.  Still, I had a very lovely day with my daughter, which included taking the ferry to Vashon Island. Belle, who works at Schilling Cider, wanted to show me another cidery she and her fellow Schilling-ers had visited.  We got to-go sandwiches and enjoyed a picnic on the orchard grounds of Dragon Head’s Cider. We sampled their amazing Columbia Crabapple blend, chatted with the affable DH employees, and just chilled out on an unseasonably   [6]    warm October afternoon.

 

 

After our island visit Belle wanted to go to her apartment to see her cat and rest up for the evening.  When she dropped me at my hotel moiself  noticed that the area  –The Point Ruston development in Tacoma’s  Ruston Way Waterfront – was hoppin.’  I got in the hotel elevator along with four other people – two couples, both of whom asked me, “Are you going to the concert tonight?”

Now, you could hear music coming from outside the hotel, and I said something about how I’d just told my daughter that it was such a nice night, you’d think someone would have scheduled a band to play outside in the amphitheater (where they have a summer concert series)…but then this weather is unexpected so it would be hard to book a group at the last minute…

My elevator buddies all looked momentarily confused, and one of them said, “No, not that – Elton John.”  I thought she meant an Elton John cover band was playing outside.  I laughed, and said, “Yeah, right, I don’t think so,” and another one of them chimed in and told me that Elton John was playing at the Tacoma Dome. 

Later that afternoon I went out to a nearby market, and returned to the hotel for another Elevator Encounter ®.  A couple who’d just checked in got in the elevator and didn’t know how to operate it.  I showed them how; they punched the button for floor 5.  Another man who got in the elevator at the lobby floor didn’t say anything, and didn’t make a floor selection.  When I got off at my floor (3) the couple wished me an enjoyable evening.  I turned around and asked, “Are you going to the concert?” they enthusiastically replied, “Yes!” and asked if I was also going.  I laughed and said that no, “…and I had no idea it was even taking place until people in elevators started talking about it.”    [7]

 

The Amphitheater Where Elton John Is Not Playing.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Weird Carpet Walking Man

That evening over dinner I told Belle the story of my elevator encounters, and also about what happened after the second encounter. The previously-mentioned man in the elevator, whom I thought gave off “didn’t belong” vibes (and wore a big scraggy beard, torn jeans and dirty shoes) exited the elevator when I did. I lagged behind; I let him go first, to keep an eye on him, lest he turn out to be the El Creepo Guy® who follows lone females off of hotel elevators to see what rooms they go to.

So, he’s walking ahead of me, verrrrrry strangely, weaving from side to side, sometimes taking large steps and sometimes tiny steps. As I observed him I realized he was walking so as to avoid stepping on the dark(er) blue spots on the hotel’s carpeted hallway – like a kid does when playing the “Don’t touch the lava!” game or “step-on-a-crack-break-your-back.”  I got out my phone to film him, stopped moiself, then relaxed when he removed a key from his picket and let himself into a room.

After dinner Belle came up to my room to get something I had for her. On her way out of the hotel I got this series of texts from her:

Belle:
I JUST SAW THE GUY WALKING WEIRD ON THE CARPET.
It had to be the same guy. He was avoiding the dark spots.

Moiself:
YES!

Belle:
Large beard.

Moiself:

YES!

Belle:
Wow amazing.
He’s like a natural phenomenon.

 

The carpet.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Carolyn Hax    [8]    Gem Of The Week

Context: re advice to a letter writer who is being told by her husband’s family that if she objects to his extravagant spending habits she will be “emasculating” him.

“Is there a worse word (or concept) than ‘emasculating’?
It’s basically a verbal encapsulation of the concept that the genders must
work in concert toward preserving the standing of men.”

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Baseball Edition

What’s the difference between a pickpocket and a second base umpire?
One steals watches and one watches steals.

Did I tell you the joke about the pop fly?
Never mind; it’s way over your head.

Why was Cinderella kicked off the baseball team?
She ran away from the ball.

Did you hear about the baseball player who can spot a fast-food restaurant a mile away?
He leads the league in Arby eyes.

 

“What did I say about encouraging her?”

 

*   *   *

 

May you remember that those who are not pro-choice are no choice;
May you read Carolyn Hax’s column – what are you waiting for?;
May you one day be enchanted by a Weird Carpet Walking Man;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Don’t make me use the term gubernatorial, which is a word that ought to be banned in public, IMO.

[2] For reasons revealed later in this post.

[3] A protestor? A drunk or loony?  We never found out. Just pick ‘em up and toss ‘em aside, disgruntled passengers helpfully suggested, to anyone who would listen.

[4] A sweep in a MLB series playoff.

[5] 18 innings, 1-0.  Sounds to me like a soccer score.

[6] As in record-setting for the Seattle area.

[7] And that’s why I had to spring for the pricy hotel rooms, as so many places were completely booked up, with the Elton fans, I assumed.

[8] What do you mean, who is Carolyn Hax?  Just about the best advice columnist ever.

The Mirror Universe I’m Not Occupying

September 23, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Mirror Universe I’m Not Occupying

Department Of Aging Well

As soon as you’re within sniffing distance of The Medicare Age ®, look out.  I thought all the television and mail (smail- and e-) solicitations were over-the-top, but lately moiself   has been running across ads for podcasts about that subject-most-subjected-to-stereotyping:  aging.

“In this podcast, reporter ___ ___ explores the challenges of aging.”

“Aging is inevitable.  We can fight it (despite knowing we can never win) or we can learn how to embrace it.”

“(podcast series name) is about why and how to live a long healthy, fit, energetic and vital life and never be OLD at any age. ____ will offer you mind, body, spiritual proven (sic) tips and strategies that (sic) guarantee will help you resolve most health challenges and age fearlessly and never be old.”   [1]

 

 

 

I get the impression that many of these programs and podcasts are going to perpetuate the stereotypes they purport to address.  Never be OLD [gasp!] at any age – gee, no pejoratives about aging there.

The problem is not with aging; it’s with ageism.  Yeah, I’ve brought this up before; yeah, as we get older we might tend to repeat ourselves.  But this is something that bears repeating, until we all get it.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Apropos Of Nothing,
I Recently Remembered The Most Apropos Tribute Ever.

It was a billboard erected by Star Trek fans, upon hearing of the death (2-27-15) of actor, poet, director, author and photographer, Leonard Nimoy.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sometimes (Translation; Many, Many, Times)
Moiself  Thinks About These Things

Dateline: Tuesday morning 7:45 am-ish.  [2]   I’m walking in a neighborhood near Shadywood Park in Hillsboro. A person is approaching me; she is also, moiself  deduces, taking a morning constitutional.   [3]

As we get within eye-contact-making-distance (approximately 15 feet away from each other) we each, almost simultaneously, say to the other, “Morning.”  Not, “Good morning,” or even its truncated version, “G’morning.”

And not for the first time in my life moiself  thinks about that.  I think about why, as a form of greeting-a-stranger-in-passing, we each say a word which could be taken, in another culture or by an alien anthropologist, as a statement of fact.

Morning.  Well, yes, as per the time of day, it is morning. Why don’t we exchange some other factual/descriptive word(s)? The walker approaching me could’ve said Sidewalk (she was walking on the sidewalk) and I could’ve said Asphalt (I was walking in the street). Or, I could have said, Trekking poles (which I was using) and she could’ve responded with, New Balance Nergize Sport (or the name of whatever shoes she was wearing).

Perhaps if Star Trek was/is correct and there are mirror or parallel universes, even as I type this there is a parallel moiself, a behavioral scientist studying this question of upmost importance to…well, to me.

Or, perhaps mirror moiself  has a real job.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why People   [4]   Don’t Like Christians

In the past few months Florida governor Ron DeSantis has used several bastardizations of a certain bible passage to rally his like-minded cretin stormtroopers motivate his conservative base.  DeSantis referenced the apostle Paul’s “Armor of God” passage in the New Testament’s letter to the Ephesians while speaking to, respectively, the national student summit for Turning Point USA; the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference, and another rally in February:

“You gotta be ready for battle. So put on the full armor of God, take a stand against the left’s schemes, stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. You will face fire from flaming arrows, but the shield of faith will protect you.”

“It ain’t going to be easy. You got to be strong. You got to put on the full armor of God. You got to take a stand, take a stand against the left’s schemes, you got to stand your ground, you got to be firm, you will face flaming arrows, but take up the shield of faith and fight on.”

“We need people all over the country to be willing to put on that full armor of God to stand firm against the left.”

 

 

Here is the actual passage:

“A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:10–12, NLT)

DeSantis – surprise! – conveniently stops his misquotes before verse 12, which inconveniently (for DeSantis and other right wing Christian politicians) states that Paul is not talking about politicians or citizens, or earthly opponents of any kind, but spiritual ones.  Surprise again, DeSantis replaces taking a stand against “the devil” with taking a stand against “the left,” leaving no doubt for his listeners:

Y’all paying attention, kids:  The Left/Democrats = Satan.

 

 

At least one Christian blogger noticed and took issue:

“Politicians quoting the Bible in an effort to garner votes or appeal to the religious beliefs of their supporters is nothing new; politicians quoting a verse completely out of context is equally common….
A politician blatantly changing the wording of the Bible is something else entirely, especially when it’s done to gain the support of the very people who should be outraged by it. Christians of all stripes (liberal, conservative, moderate) and all denominations (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) may disagree on the interpretation of the Bible, but few if any would go so far as to change the actual words to fit their worldview.”

(“Ron DeSantis Changes a Well-Known Bible Verse to Fit His Own Agenda,”
medium.com 8-3-22 )

 

 

 

Moiself  disagrees with the blogger’s last statement (in the above excerpt). Experience and observation have taught me that the opposite is true.  It’s not few if any – it’s most if not all religious believers have no problem fiddling with “the actual words” (of their scriptures, of anyone else’s scriptures, of anything) to fit their worldview.

The above-quoted blogger went on to wonder/despair at the lack of concern – or even recognition – other Christians have shown re DeSantis’ hyperbolic scriptural contortions.  Moiself’s concern is how those who identify as Christians will handle the most recent “un-Christian,”  [5]   headline-grabbing stunt pulled by DeSantis (who’s a proclaimed Christian).

“A couple of weeks back, The Economist published a long cover story on ‘The Disunited States of America,’ detailing how, on issues such as abortion, guns, voting rights, and immigration, America’s red and blue states are engaged in a “new politics of confrontation.” As if on cue, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who often seems as if he is campaigning to succeed Donald Trump as the nation’s Provoker-in-Chief, staged his latest political stunt: using Florida taxpayers’ money to charter two planes to fly about fifty undocumented migrants, mostly Venezuelan, to Martha’s Vineyard. DeSantis was not even relocating the group from his own state—the flights originated in Texas.”
( DeSantis’s Heartless Migrant Stunt Provides a Preview of 2024,
newyorker.com, 9-17-22 )

I felt no pressing need to condemn DeSantis’s cruel, political stunt…even though (and of course) moiself  eventually did, when I found that someone else had edited, DeSantis-style, the very scriptural passage I’d been thinking of:

 

My comment to this FB repost:  “All these Christians ignoring one of the few unambiguous statements in their scriptures…all of those mega churches in Texas apparently open their pocketbooks (and hearts) only for themselves and their rapacious ‘pastors.’ ”

Yes, The Immigration/Undocumented Migrant Issue ® is a problem that is intractable and almost/ultimately seems unsolvable.  But, however you purport to solve this problem – any problem – you don’t do it by exploiting the vulnerable. Tell me, Ron-DeS-boy, whom would your Jesus manipulate?

DeSantis’ hard-hearted action condemns itself. Here’s a thing which keeps coming back to moiself.

Decades ago, before designated dog parks were a thing, I remember reading a newspaper article about a town’s escalating disagreement between neighborhoods:   Some of the townsfolk living in one neighborhood discovered a nearby neighborhood which contained two adjacent, un fenced, empty lots owned by the city.  Neighborhood #1 folks were advocating for those lots to be designated as a dog-walking/play area. Many people living in the neighborhood by the empty lots were opposed to that idea: they feared that such a designation would attract dog owners from outside the neighborhood, which would exacerbate the dog feces problem they already had (not-so-long ago, when taking their dogs for a walk, most dog owners let their pooches poop with impunity without picking up after them).  As the debate heated up, some of the “anti-dog-yard” people gathered up bags of dog feces and deposited them on the front porches of the “pro-dog-yard“ people.

That is literally the first thing I thought of when I read about DeSantis’s vile act:

he’s treating vulnerable human beings like bags of dog shit.

With all the migrants have been through, having their dignity dissed is perhaps the least of their worries at the moment.  However, I’m sure the humiliation will come back to haunt them.  The Humiliation of being treated like bags of dog shit – like something people would be aghast to find on their front porch.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Sure-Fire Mood Uplifter After Reading The Nasty News
Made By Ron DeSantis And Other Nasty People

The following made my day…week…month…  Say what you will about social media (and moiself  does), but without it, I might have missed seeing this.

 

 

 

Ballerinas can fart, too!

This is going to be my new mantra.  It is applicable to sooooo many situations, including those involving the kinds of discrimination and injustices which can only be mitigated by the realization of our shared humanity:  remember; we are all human.  Ultimately, we are all ballerinas, and yes, ballerinas can    [6]  fart.

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
MGE   [7]

I started reading a book about anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down.

I dream of taking a sailing adventure in an ocean of orange soda.
It’s just my Fanta sea.

Wife to husband: “Honey, it sounds like elk are falling from the sky!”
Husband to wife: “No, it’s just reindeer.”

Doctor to patient:  “The tests confirm that you drank a bottle of food coloring,
but you’re going to be fine.”
 Patient: “But doc, I feel like I’m dyeing inside.”

Biologists made a lab frog immortal by removing its vocal cords.
Now it can’t croak.

I was going to make my husband a belt of watches…
but then I realized it would be a waist of time.     [8]

 

*   *   *

May you fight ageism and not aging;
May you be remembered, vis-à-vis the Vulcan saying, Live Long and Prosper,
as someone who did;
May you remember that ballerinas can fart, too;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And never having to worry about being able to construct coherent sentences.

[2] Not amish.

[3] Which sounds so much more posh than “going for a walk”  — it sounds downright British, in fact.  My tribute to Queen Elizabeth.

[4] As in people who are not Christians, whether they claim a different religious affiliation or are religion-free.

[5] The words of others, not moiself.

[6] And evidently do.

[7] Miscellaneous Groaners Edition.

[8] No, this does not require a footnote.

The Novel Characters I’m Not Liking

September 16, 2022

Robyn Parnell freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, movies, nature, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , Comments Off on The Novel Characters I’m Not Liking

Department Of Things Are Never Going To Get Better
Until We Start Asking The Correct  Questions

 

 

Whether posed from a pro-choice supporter who encourages openness as being essential to  debates over reproductive freedom and (ironically) privacy, or from a rape hotline volunteer who is working to bring the statistics of sexual assault into the public consciousness, IMO people – well-meaning and otherwise – keep asking the wrong questions.

Question, posed to a woman:
Have you ever had an abortion?

Question which *should* be posed to a man – either preceding or following the previous question – but never rarely is:
Have you ever, even potentially,   [1]  been the cause of an abortion?
(Translation: have you ever had sexual relations with a woman, consensual or otherwise, in which your intent was not to father a wanted pregnancy? )

 

 

Question, posed to a woman:
Have you ever been sexually assaulted?

Question which *should* be posed to a man – either preceding or following the previous question – but never rarely is:
Have you – or any male friend/relative/acquaintance you know of –
ever sexually assaulted anyone?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Doing the Thing I Wasn’t Going To Do

Moiself  has started a book club.

Always the vanguard of creativity and novelty, I am calling it, Book Club.

 

 

The reason why I wasn’t going to do it: my experiences in the previous BCs I’ve been a part of.

The BCs dealing with nonfiction were fine, and more than that – highly enjoyable and educational.  But when it came to BCs that included – or were totally centered around – works of fiction…not so much.  What would happen: at least one of the other BC members would find out that I was a published author of fiction (something I tried to keep under wraps) and “out” me to the group.  This revelation tainted the BC experience for moiself, and also, it seemed, for many if not all of the other members.  I noted a deference, toward moiself, from the other members, which frustrated, saddened, and frankly nauseated me.

The other BC members would noticeably defer (sometimes downright obsequiously) to my opinions, or change theirs if they’d spoken first and then it was my turn to speak  [2]  and I offered a different perspective, or ask me to express my thoughts before they’d offer theirs. They’d even come right out and say something along the lines of:

“Well, as an author, you know more than I do about….”

Ick, ick, ick.

And no amount of encouragement on my part –  that their opinions and feelings as readers were equally valid (or even more so) than mine as a writer  [3]  – seemed to relieve that deferential dynamic.

The straw which broke my BC camel’s back…

 

“Ooh, thank you for that.”

 

…you’re welcome.

As I was saying typing, the straw which broke my BC camel’s back was when we members of BC #4 were discussing A Thousand Acres, author Jane Smiley’s contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

ATA was a book I did not care for.  As it turned out, not one person in the group did, although the other members were initially hesitant to express their distaste for ATA, seeing as how the literary critics were coming in their pants over their eagerness to heap praise upon it (in my opinion…which I managed not to express to the BC  in the words moiself  has used here).

So; none of us liked it.  But, why?  Moiself  kept her mouth shut until everyone else had spoken, when I found out that everyone else in the group didn’t enjoy reading ATA because “There were no likeable characters in the book.”

Um, okay.  Moiself  didn’t partucularly “like” any of the book’s main characters. But, what about the story itself – the plot, the pacing, the way the story of those unlikeable characters unfolded?  I tried to present the idea that a story can be compelling without containing characters which you, the reader, find likeable or “identifiable-with-able.”  I mean, seriously, dudes: who is “likeable” in Macbeth?

Moiself  didn’t like the book because I didn’t like the story being told, in the way it was told.  I didn’t care for the plot content and trajectory, which never engaged my attention, and…oh, never mind.

I tried, very carefully and respectfully, to offer an alternative perspective to not-liking-something, which some of the other BC members took as me trying to talk them out of *not* liking the book – which, as I ‘d already stated, moiself  Also. Did. Not. Like.

 

 

Fast forward to at least two decades later. The first meeting of “my” BC was last Thursday, and seemed to be a rousing success. A nice mix of life backgrounds and opinions among the members;   [4]  moiself received good feedback; everyone seems looking forward to next month’s meeting.  The format, which is open to modification as per members’ suggestions and preferences,    [5]   is fairly simple:  Once a month; my place; all who are able to do so bring a plate of appetizer/canape/”finger food” type goodies to share (and/or conversation-stimulating beverages);  we nosh and sip and talk about the book.

 

 

At the end of the evening we offer suggestions for next month’s book, based on the month’s theme, which has been announced in advance.

I wanted this BC, instead of specializing in genres, to offer a wide variety of reading options.  I didn’t want to host (or participate in) an all fiction or all nonfiction group. In order to offer the widest variety of possibilities – and perhaps force moiself  to read at least one book a year in a category I don’t normally opt for (e.g., history), moiself  came up with a list of themes (and a clarification of them), which I shall ever-so-humbly share with y’all now, in case this idea is also appealing to you.    [6]

 

 

Book Club Monthly Themes

* January: Literary Classics You Should Have Read
I never made it through War and Peace (and have no desire to do so now), how about you?  But there are plenty of other classics I’d like to give a go (or would be willing to re-read, since I’ve probably forgotten most of, say, Moby Dick).  What constitutes a “classic”? Think of your high school/college literature class reading lists.

* February: Short story collections
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”
This quote (variously attributed to everyone from Twain to Voltaire) is related to a category that never quite gets its due recognition, but in which (so-called) New World authors have excelled, from past practitioners like Mark Twain and Ray Bradbury (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and other stories; The Illustrated Man) to relative newcomers Edwidge Dandicat and Tim O’Brien (Ghosts; The Things They Carried).

*  March: Feminism  “I Am Woman; Hear Me Roar (and see me read).”
Sisterhood is powerful, as we’ll see when we delve into/revisit the classics of first and second wave feminist thought (Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Women; Betty Freidan’s The Feminist Mystique; Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch; Gloria Steinem’s The Truth Will Set you Free But First It Will Piss You Off ) as well as the “Third Wave” feminists’ updates (Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist; Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me).

* April: Regional – “She flies with her own wings” (and reads with her own eyes).
Did you recognize Oregon’s state motto? Yeah, it’s somewhat…lame, but it’s a great state and region we are privileged to live in. In April we’ll affirm that by reading and discussing a book either written by an Oregon/Pacific NW author, or one that deals with Oregon/Pacific settings and/or subjects.  From Ursula LeGuin’s sci-fi novels to Stephen Ambrose’ history of the Lewis & Clark expedition, this theme could include almost any literary category.

* May:  Freethought  “Having faith is believing in something you just know ain’t true.”
This quote from Twain leads us to themes of humanism, skepticism, and freethought. We’ll be choosing from the writings of those who are-religion free, such as the provocative manifestos of Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason) and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), the memoir of activist Dan Barker (Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists), and the historical works of Susan Jacoby (Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism).

* June: “Pride Month” writers
From the semi-autobiographical fiction of Rita Mae Brown  (Bingo; Six of One) to the essay collections of David Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day) to the novels of James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room) to the poetry of Justin Chin (Harmless Medicine)– this is yet another category which can encompass all genres.  From poetry to political manifestos, the only requirement for a June book is that the book’s author identifies as LGBTQ. 

 

 

 

 

* July: History and other Non-fiction
The broadest category of all, this could cover anything from self-help to ancient civilizations to true crime to WWII narratives….

* August: Memoir/Biography/Autobiography
From the thought-provoking, introspective life story of an esteemed philosopher to the behind-the-scenes memoir of a pivotal political figure to the how-it-all-happened tale of a groundbreaking scientist to the riotous recollections of a ribald rock musician, books in this non-fiction category must tell a story about someone’s life  (note: I reserve the right to have veto power when it comes to books about Kardashians and their ilk).

* September: International Literature. “The world is my country….” (Thomas Paine).
The timeless works of England’s Jane Austin; the complex novels of the Russian “masters”  (but please, no War and Peace); the contemporary stories of India’s Arundhati Roy;  the poetry of Chile’s Pablo Neruda; the essays of Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe – a September BC book can be fiction or nonfiction, as long as its author is/was a citizen of a country other than the USA.    [7]

* October:  Controversial Authors
This theme could (and hopefully will) spur conversations about how we separate artists’ work from their personal lives (and whether or not this should even be a goal). 

Charles Dickens critiqued the poverty and social stratification of Victorian England via his characters’ memorable stories.  Yet historians who’ve read Dicken’s personal letters tell us that the man known as a compassionate champion of family values – the man who wrote so sympathetically about the plight of Tiny Tim – was a SOB to his own family. [8]

Are the stories of Sherman Alexie still worthwhile, after the critically-acclaimed author was accused of (and admitted to) sexual harassment?  Will you read J.D. Vance’s best-selling memoir about poverty-stricken Appalachia (Hillbilly Elegy) now that Vance has embraced ultra conservative politics?  If a writer is unrepentant when confronted with a racist remark from his past but wrote a damn fine  [9]  novel, do you give yourself permission to read his work?

* November:  Books Made Into Movies. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”  [10]

When it comes to film adaptations of novels, avid readers often declare, The book is always better.  Here’s your chance to affirm that, or discover that, in some cases, the opposite may hold true.   From Jaws to Sense and Sensibility, from The Color Purple to The Maltese Falcon, from The Wizard of Oz  to The World According to Garp, this category is for cinephiles as well as literature lovers. Perhaps we’ll be introduced to books we didn’t even know were adapted into movies (I bet more of us have watched the movie Forrest Gump than have read the novel).

* December:  Embarrassing Or Guilty Pleasures.
“Is That A Nora Roberts Novella In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?”   We’ll end the year with books we may not so eager to admit we like, because they aren’t literary enough.  We know we’re supposed to read books which challenge us intellectually (that effin’ War and Peace again) – titles that would look impressive on our Goodreads resumes.  Still, there are times when we want to rest our brains with a “light” read, be it a murder mystery, romance, fantasy/sci-fi, action/adventure, western – whatever your favorite genre.   And sorry, although it provided a plot point for a cute movie (Book Club), as BC host and instigator I reserve my power to veto all shades of 50 Shades of….

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Books Clubs Edition

Our Book club is reading a novel about anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down.

I finally got my book Club to read Jane Austen. They just needed a little Persuasion.

Our new Book Club member says she doesn’t like Lord of the Rings,
but she doesn’t know what she’s Tolkien about.

Our book Club bartender recommended we read his favorite book:
Tequila Mockingbird.

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you like a book with unlikeable characters;
May you remember to ask the right questions;
May you enjoy the last week of summer;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Potentially, as in, you had unprotected intercourse with a woman, wherein the intention was not to get her pregnant, and she did not get pregnant (but could have).

[2] In one of the BCs the format was to go around the circle, each person speaking once so that everyone got a turn, and then it was open to everyone to take it from there.

[3] Although I wasn’t there, at those groups, as a writer, but as a fellow reader.

[4] Except where politics are concerned…which came into the conversation and it seems we’re all on the left side of the page, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

[5] Although for simplicity’s sake I offered to be permanent host (hoping that *not* having to host will make it easier on someone who is interested but hesitant if a rotating host schedule is required, which I’d seen in other groups), I made it clear that it is our, not *my* group, and we can change the meeting time/place/format as we see fit to do so.

[6] Steal borrow these if  you like.  I’d be flattered…with a bit of attribution.

[7] This month we read The Story of My Teeth, by Valeria Luiselli.  A book I really enjoyed, but probably never would have discovered, had I not created this themed list.

[8] Dickens hated his mother, was cruel to his wife and schemed (unsuccessfully) to have her institutionalized when he was having an adulterous affair. With his children he followed a pattern of initial enthusiasm followed by utter disillusionment and disparaged them to his friends (even hoping for the death of one son who’d disappointed him).

[9] Keeping in mind that “damn fine,” like any artistic judgment, us ultimately subjective, even though the “crimes” and deficiencies the author is being accused of may be more objectively defined.

[10] A quote from the movie “Jaws,” the memorable line was not in the novel but was adlibbed by actor Roy Scheider.

The Eyebrows I’m Not Combing

August 5, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, school, sports, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Eyebrows I’m Not Combing

Department Of Why I Love Dicks

“Following the Supreme Court’s ruling that has overturned Roe v. Wade, Pittsburgh-based Dick’s Sporting Goods’ CEO has announced that the company will provide travel expense reimbursement for employees seeking abortion access.
Company President and CEO Lauren Hobart posted the announcement…
‘We recognize people feel passionately about this topic – and that there are teammates and athletes who will not agree with this decision. However, we also recognize that decisions involving health and families are deeply personal and made with thoughtful consideration. We are making this decision so our teammates can access the same health care options, regardless of where they live, and choose what is best for them,’ Hobart said.”
(“Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO announces travel expense reimbursement to employees seeking abortions in another state,” cbsnews.com )

 

And they love equal access to health care as well.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Good Intentions That Still Make Me Slightly Queasy

Regarding Dick’s Sporting Goods, Apple, and other companies are offering to reimburse employees for travel expenses related to abortion care access.  Moiself  has mixed feelings about this.   [1]  I am 90%  YEE HAW!!!  I mean, it’s the right-on thing to do.  But, that means the woman is going to have to request/arrange this with her company’s HR/benefits department, which means even more people in her personal business, which should be just between her and her doctors and (if she so chooses) her partner.     [2]

On the other hand, when it comes to healthcare at work, if you need time off for treatment for, say, cancer or the onset of what will turn out to be a chronic disease, there isn’t much privacy in that regard, either.…

 

 

BTW, these doing-the-right-thing companies (as of this date) are:

Starbucks, Tesla, Yelp, Airbnb, Microsoft, Netflix, Patagonia, DoorDash, JPMorgan Chase, Levi Strauss, PayPal, Amazon,
the Walt Disney Company, Meta, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Condé Nast.
( “These Companies Will Cover Travel Expenses for Employee Abortions,” NYtimes.com )

There are others; my apologies to any companies moiself  has omitted.  Give these businesses a shout-out and/or support their products and services,  [3]  and let them know why you are doing so.

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

 

Department Of Incredibly Dumb, Face Palm-Worthy Things I Have Done

I have rather unruly eyebrows, and their ruly-ness seems to be getting more “un” as moiself  ages. I’m not talking Andy Rooney level unruly, but, yeah.

 

 

Before leaving the house I sometimes wipe moiself’s  damp toothbrush bristles across each eyebrow. Here is something that has happened more than once – a thing which should only have happened once:  I have set my toothbrush out with a dab of toothpaste on it, intending to brush my teeth, got distracted, come back to the sink minutes (or hours) later, and used said toothbrush to comb my eyebrows, thus ending up with a tiny white streak of Sensodyne ProEnamel ® on my eyebrows.

On the plus side, I’ve never had an eyebrow cavity.  So, there’s that.   [4]

 

 

OK, your turn? Help me out here.  Certainly…please…there must be someone out there who has done something even dumber than toothpasting their brows.

*   *   *

Department Of Embarrassing My Offspring
Chapter 581 In The Never-Ending Series.

This memory came to me on a recent morning walk, apropos of…something, which moiself is currently unaware of.

Dateline:  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  Daughter Belle is attending the University of Puget Sound, and has recently joined her school’s women’s rugby team.

 

 

( One of my favorite things about rugby culture – yep, that’s a thing – is
the annual Prom Dress game, for both men’s and women’s teams. )

 

MH and I are attending one of her rugby team’s away games; home team is a college about an hour’s drive south of where we live.

During halftime Belle grabs one of the team’s rugby balls, takes her parents aside, and teaches us some of the throwing warm-ups that the team does. Several of her teammates are clustered together by the side of the field, swigging from their water bottles and chatting.  One of them looks over at Belle and MH and I throwing the ball to each other, and I can see the proverbial light bulb switch on in her eyes.

Belle’s Rugby Teammate, calling out to MH and moiself:
“You are Belle’s parents?”

Moiself:
“Yep.”

BRT, standing up and flinging her arms wide:
“Oh, I *love* Belle!  Thank you for making her!”

Moiself, as I pass the ball to Belle:
“You’re welcome.  It was our pleasure…literally.”

Belle, dropping the ball and covering her eyes with her hands:
“Moooooooooooom!”

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Annoying and/or Embarrassing Parents Edition   [5]

When I was a kid, my parents said, “Excuse my French” after they cussed.
I’ll never forget that first day at junior high school, when we were discussing foreign language electives and the teacher asked if any student knew any French words…

My parents raised me as an only child.
This really annoyed my younger sister.

Do unfit parents have to exercise a lot to get their children back?

I told my parents I’m gray.
Dad said he didn’t like my tone.

How do parents lose their kids in the mall?
Seriously, any tips are welcome.

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you support companies who support abortion rights;
May you have done something even dumber than toothpasting your brows;
May you continue to find novel and loving ways to embarrass your progeny;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And not just due to the hideous fact that five SCOTUS justices can drag us back to the back alleys so that such announcements are necessary.

[2] Except in cases of unintended pregnancies resulting rape, incest, abuse etc. I know hearing the word “partner” is a bitter pill to swallow, for women in those circumstances.

[3] (if you deem them worthy).

[4] And so, there’s this – another footnote apropos of nothing.

[5] Why are there so few footnotes in this post?

The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting

July 29, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting

Department Of It’s Still Complicated

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” These words, penned by Thomas Jefferson more than 240 years ago, continue to inspire many Americans.
And yet these very same words — affirming the equality and dignity of all — were written by a man who owned hundreds of slaves, and fathered six children by an enslaved woman, Sally Hemings.
For historian Annette Gordon-Reed, the contradictions embedded in Jefferson’s life are ‘a window into us, into who we are as Americans.’
‘The fascinating thing about Jefferson is that he, in some ways, embodies the country,” she says. “A lot of Jefferson’s contradictions are alive in us.’ “

 

 

This is the intro to the Hidden Brain podcast A Founding Contradiction: Thomas Jefferson’s Stance On Slavery, wherein host Shankar Vidantam interviews Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard University historian and law professor.  Gordon-Reed’s latest book is Most Blessed Of The Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson And The Empire Of The Imagination.  As moiself  listened to the podcast, I was struck by how so much of what the historian was saying about enslaved people and their relationships with their enslavers also applied to “free” (white) women.

Historians have long speculated about the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, citing letters and documents and writings from Jefferson’s friends and critics which indicate that he was fond of and most likely in love with Hemmings.  Hemmings left  [1]  no such records; her true feelings remain a mystery…but then, how can you have a true relationship in a family, as we understand it today, with family members who are not free to enter (and exit) the relationship?

The experiences of women in the abolitionist movement were a large part of what inspired the first wave of feminism and led to the Seneca Falls convention, when women activists realized that, despite all their in-the-trenches work in abolitionist groups, when it came to legal and political power they, like the enslaved people they worked to liberate, were in similar circumstances:  women, of any skin color, also lacked ultimate power over their own destiny .

“When abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimke faced efforts to silence them because they were women, they saw parallels between their own situation and that of the slaves.”
(from “Women’s Rights, Abolitionism, and Reform in Antebellum and Gilded Age America,”
Faye E. Dudden, American History )

“ (___women activists) began speaking publicly for anti-slavery organizations before mixed crowds of men and women, even though they were mocked and threatened for doing something considered so unladylike. Thousands more women wrote articles for abolitionist newspapers, signed anti-slavery petitions, and circulated anti-slavery literature. Still, women who joined the cause of abolition found that traditional assumptions and attitudes about women often limited the scope of their participation and leadership in the movement. When the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1833, women were not allowed to be delegates.

….female abolitionists faced discrimination not only from slavery supporters but also from within their own movement. This highlighted to them the injustice of women’s inferior legal and social standing. When women were not allowed to speak or be seated at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had both travelled to attend the convention, began discussing what needed to be done for women’s rights.”

( “Abolition: The catalyst For The Women’s Rights Movement”
Utahwomenshistory.org  )

 

 

I listened to the podcast, wondering if Gordon-Reed would address that.  She did.

GORDON-REED:

“… But if you look at the kinds of male-female relationships they would have known at that time, a wife, a white wife, would have been under the control of her husband, too. She could not refuse consent to sex any more than an enslaved woman could. He could not sell his wife, but that would be about the only thing that he couldn’t do. So we look at this – and there’s this sharp difference between male-female relationships. And we see the difference between – obviously a white woman has more power than an enslaved woman. But those people – Sally Hemings would not have thought that as a woman she would have freedom to do whatever she wanted. So it’s complicated.”

*   *   *

Department Of Getting Personal:
When Your Business Which Should Be Only Your Business Becomes The Business Of People You Don’t Even Know And Wouldn’t Care To Meet

Speaking of Jefferson, why is it that the legacy of the failings of dead-for-over-200-years men continue to harass women?

It is not always wise or fair to judge the people of the past by the standards of today; still, it’s not as if the abolition and women’s rights movements were non-existent when our government was being crafted.  Our Founding Fathers ®, as visionary and radical as they were for their time re representational government vs monarchy, dropped the ball when they ignored the moral stench of slavery and preserved its institution, and snubbed women’s requests for equal rights.  I always thought that’s why the so-called “Liberty” Bell was cracked.

 

 

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

(excerpts, my emphases, from the letter Abgail Adams wrote to her husband,
Founding Father and second US President, John Adams )

 

 

But rational adults in the 21st century cannot hide behind history to justify why five people – five people out of 330 million   [2]  – have the power to drag their fellow citizens back to the dark ages of religious oppression and paternalism, by using the excuse that they adhere to a retro judicial philosophy of “originalism” via interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

Some longtime readers of this blog may have been somewhat surprised by my lack of constant commentary re the recent SCOTUS decision overturning Roe v. Wade.  Some of that “lack” was due to moiself  being out of the country and with a self-imposed news block for almost seven weeks, returning a few hours after the decision was as announced.  Watching this debacle, moiself  was at once enraged and stupefied-into-an-almost-zombie-like-disengagement by what was happening.  [3]

What kind of nation had I returned to?

 

 

Moiself  has previously written about having worked (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) in the field of women’s reproductive health care.  I worked five years in a private OB-GYN practice, bookended by a total of ~ three years in Planned Parenthood clinics – one in So Cal and three in the Bay Area.  My job for the latter clinics included working in their abortion clinics, stories from which I noted in more detail in this post.

I know those who are anti-abortion don’t want to hear or read this,    [4]   but I lost track of the amount of times moiself  heard from one of the people those clinics served – from a sheepish teenager to a mortified, grown-ass woman to the only-mildly-apologetic-mother-who-used-to-protest-outside-the-clinic-and-who-now-is-in-our-waiting-room-requesting-our-services-for-her-teenaged-daughter –

“You know, before ____ (the particulars of their situation)
happened to me/my family,
I might have been one of those protestors outside your clinic.”

I continue to metaphorically watch The Ongoing Situation ® while holding my open-fingered hands over my eyes, confident – hopeful? – in the knowledge that, as bleak as it may seem, we can never fully return to the past.   [5]   Progressive states (I am so fortunate to be living in one of them – yay, Oregon!) – will keep women’s rights to health care enshrined in their state laws; there will be networks of women (and men) who will help others not so fortunate…

 

 

After the recent SCOTUS ruling, an older female friend told me how dumbfounded she was.  She’d fought so hard in the 60s and 70s for women’s rights, after having been one of those desperate, frightened women who had an abortion in the kitchen of an apartment somewhere before abortions were legal.   I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened to me, if abortion would have been illegal when I needed one.  I know I would have found someone, somewhere, some way….

I have been pregnant four times.  Three of those were intentional, and with MH: the pregnancy which produced our son K; a spontaneous abortion (the layperson’s term is miscarriage); the pregnancy which gave us our daughter Belle.

This – my reproductive status and history –  is should be no one’s business but my own (and MH and my doctors, should I choose to share that information).  And certainly, no one who lacks a uterus gets to weigh in on what happens in mine.

 

 

For women who are anti-abortion: I may not approve of your choices re when you get pregnant, who will father your children, and how many children you have, but I am glad you get to make your reproductive decisions sans my or our government’s interference (the interference you receive from your husband, family, church – I can’t help you there).

As for men who are anti-abortion:  are you fucking kidding me?

Just. Shut. Up. Go. Away. And. Keep. It. In. Your. Pants.  [6]

 

 

I’ll make it simple for y’all.

Robyn’s Righteous and Rational Rules Of Reproduction
* If you’re a woman who is opposed to abortion, don’t have one.
* If you’re a man who is opposed to abortion, don’t be the cause of one.

 

 

 

I suppose I’m outing myself, in a way, in this space. Yet, to repeat a point that apparently needs to be sledgehammered into some skulls, “outing” certain info about moiself  has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with *privacy* –  my own, primarily, and to a lesser degree, that of the man who caused my first, unintentional/unwanted pregnancy (remarkable person that I am, possessed with wondrous powers beyond mere mortal imagination, I nevertheless did not knock up moiself ).

Let us pause for a moment and consider a certain…inadequacy, when it comes to the issue of how we talk about abortion. When we ask about statistics or share stories, it’s always along the lines of How many women have had abortions/Do you know a woman who’s had an abortion?

These questions let a key participant in the equation wriggle out the backdoor, and ignore or skirt a basic Fact of Nature ®:

Ejaculations cause pregnancies.

 

Who, me?

 

Why is it never framed this way:

How many men have been the cause of an abortion?
Do you know any man who has caused an unintended/unwanted pregnancy?

Let’s all make a vow to change, or at least expand, the focus.  The next time you hear or read the “how many women…” question, be sure to ask “how many men…”

 

 

For anyone reading this blog who is anti-abortion and  [7]  calls themself “pro-life,” and who might claim *not* to fully understand   [8]   the reasons why any woman might want to end her pregnancy…sigh.  Google it.  The cretins in the TexASS state legislature promise you a bounty for sticking your nose in someone else’s hoo-haw?  That doesn’t change the humane fact that unless it’s your pregnancy it’s ultimately none of your business.

To borrow a variation of the only thing I’ve been seeing that makes sense and that does not strike a defensive posture: Do you call yourself pro-life, and interpret that label into wanting to criminalize abortion?  Hear ye this:  I, too, am pro-life.

I am pro-Indira, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Shelby, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Natasha, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Rosalia, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Li Chen, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Imani, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Sakura, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-Zahra, who had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-my Aunt Erva, who had an abortion  [9]
for reasons that are none of your business.
I am pro-my own life: I had an abortion for reasons that are none of your business.

 

 

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 none the less 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. 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 propostion, nor exactly when– there were 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 reassured 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.

Select family members and friends already know (at least the bare bones details) of my own abortion story.  Moiself  be mentioning it here in the hopes that it might help yet another woman to know she is not alone in her experience.  [10]   Am I pissing in the wind delusional to think it might, just possibly, cause a moment of reflection for someone who supports the SCOTUS decision?   [11]  

 

 

The so-called pro-lifers – please, let’s label them honestly: they are anti-abortion, anti-women’s bodily autonomy.

They. Just. Don’t. Care. About. Your. Life.  Or mine.

 

*   *   *

 

May we understand – but not excuse – the wrongs of our Founding Fathers;
May we keep our noses out of other people’s hoo-haws;
May we support reproductive freedom for all (or STFU);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Was not allowed to leave.

[2] The US population, which is probably closer to 333 million.

[3] Are we really, in 2022, still debating women’s bodily autonomy?

[4] Like there are any reading this blog.

[5] That is why I cannot bring moiself  to watch the acclaimed streaming series about going back and even further: The Handmaids Tale.  I read the book, and that was enough dystopia for me.

[6] And wrapped in five plutonium condoms.

[7] And what are the chances of that?

[8] Or in all honesty just doesn’t want to know.

[9] Self-induced, way back when abortion was illegal, and the resulting complications left her unable to have children when she later married and wished to do so.

[10] Hell know, there are a bajillion of us – The Guttmacher Institute estimates at least 73 million each year, world wide.  But most simply do not share this information

[11] There should be another footnote here, but I’d rather throw heavy furniture down the staircase, so excuse me for a moment.

The Gender I’m Not Erasing

July 22, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, music, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, travel, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Gender I’m Not Erasing

Department Of Why I Fear For My Country
Chapter 1285 In A Depressingly Long Book

Moiself  be so effin’ tired of this:

“….writing for the majority in overturning Roe vs. Wade, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued for a more narrow interpretation of the rights guaranteed to Americans, saying that the right to an abortion was not spelled out in the Constitution.”

 

 

Imagine that!  How astonishing, that the all-male, all-white, enslavers-of-Black-Africans, upper class, property-owning dudes who wrote and signed our nation’s governing document over 240 years ago didn’t “spell out” women’s’ rights to bodily autonomy, when they wouldn’t even give women the right to vote?

 

 

Justice Alito, take your ass out of your mouth for just one minute:  consider the intellectual absurdities behind why you (or any person in the 21st century person), when it comes to interpreting and applying the US Constitution, would consider himself an originalist.

 

 

And as one who call himself an originalist, why are you not then demanding the resignation of your SCOTUS colleague and fellow ignoramus originalist, Clarence I’m-only-black-when-I-can-play-the-race-card Thomas, whose enslaved ancestors were “spelled out” in the Constitution as 3/5 of a white person and who were not enfranchised, much less able to hold judgeships and other public offices?

 

 

Why are you not also demanding the resignation of the latest originalist  horseshit-licker adherent, Amy Conehead Coney Barrett, who, if the original writers of the Constitution had their way, would neither be able to vote nor serve on the SCOTUS?

“…why should we, in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken (America’s) People? Why increase the Sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks…”
(Founding Father and United States Constitution signatory Benjamin Franklin,
lamenting the “darkening” of America,
“Founding fathers, trashing immigrants,” The Washington Post 8-28-15 )

Nor was it “spelled out” in the Constitution, nor even imagined by its framers, that one day the Roman Catholic son of “swarthy” complected immigrants with surnames like, hello, ALITO, might serve on the SCOTUS.

 

 

 

Look.  Moiself  was born here (USA), and almost everyone I love is here.  Sigh, to the nth.  To start over in another country, at my age and lack of “other” language skills – which would translate into never-quite-belonging-in- ____ (insert country name) – is not likely to happen.  But in the past few months….

 

 

Having seen other alternatives, I get urges to run away to Norway or Denmark or Sweden or Iceland – to countries with equally complicated histories but which don’t enshrine the mistakes of those histories in their contemporary governing documents.

*   *   *

 

 

*   *   *

Except…not completely different.  In fact, depressingly similar.

Department Of Stop What You’re Doing And Read This Op Ed Piece Now,
Whether You Be A Man Or A Person With A Vagina Woman:

The following are excerpts from “The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count” ( Pamela Dowd, NY Times,  7-3-22; my emphases)   [1]  

“It wasn’t so long ago — and in some places the belief persists — that women were considered a mere rib to Adam’s whole. Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts, was an important part of the struggle for sexual equality.

But here we go again, parsing women into organs. Last year the British medical journal The Lancet patted itself on the back for a cover article on menstruation. Yet instead of mentioning the human beings who get to enjoy this monthly biological activity, the cover referred to “bodies with vaginas.” It’s almost as if the other bits and bobs — uteruses, ovaries or even something relatively gender-neutral like brains — were inconsequential. That such things tend to be wrapped together in a human package with two X sex chromosomes is apparently unmentionable….

“…(on the far Left) the word ‘women’ has become verboten. Previously a commonly understood term for half the world’s population, the word had a specific meaning tied to genetics, biology, history, politics and culture. No longer. In its place are unwieldy terms like ‘pregnant people,’ ‘menstruators’ and ‘bodies with vaginas.’

Planned Parenthood, once a stalwart defender of women’s rights, omits the word ‘women’ from its home page. NARAL Pro-Choice America has used “birthing people” in lieu of ‘women.’ The American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime defender of women’s rights, last month tweeted its outrage over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to several groups: ‘Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, immigrants, young people.’

It left out those threatened most of all: women.
Talk about a bitter way to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX.”

“The noble intent behind omitting the word ‘women’ is to make room for the relatively tiny number of transgender men and people identifying as nonbinary who retain aspects of female biological function and can conceive, give birth or breastfeed. But despite a spirit of inclusion, the result has been to shove women to the side….

Women didn’t fight this long and this hard only to be told we couldn’t call ourselves women anymore. This isn’t just a semantic issue; it’s also a question of moral harm, an affront to our very sense of ourselves.”

 

 

 

“Those women who do publicly express mixed emotions or opposing views are often brutally denounced for asserting themselves. (Google the word ‘transgender’ combined with the name Martina Navratilova, J.K. Rowling  [2]    or Kathleen Stock to get a withering sense.) They risk their jobs and their personal safety. They are maligned as somehow transphobic or labeled TERFs, a pejorative that may be unfamiliar to those who don’t step onto this particular Twitter battlefield. Ostensibly shorthand for ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist,’ which originally referred to a subgroup of the British feminist movement, ‘TERF’ has come to denote any woman, feminist or not, who persists in believing that while transgender women should be free to live their lives with dignity and respect, they are not identical to those who were born female and who have lived their entire lives as such, with all the biological trappings, societal and cultural expectations, economic realities and safety issues that involves.

But in a world of chosen gender identities, women as a biological category don’t exist. Some might even call this kind of thing erasure.

When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes. The formula on the right we know well: Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the ‘Don’t mind me’s. The unanticipated newcomers to such retrograde typecasting are the supposed progressives on the fringe left. In accordance with a newly embraced gender theory, they now propose that girls — gay or straight — who do not self-identify as feminine are somehow not fully girls. Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are ‘masculine’ and others ‘feminine.’

Didn’t we ditch those straitened categories in the ’70s?”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Parenting Confessions

This memory came to me apropos of … still trying to figure it out.

Anyway, the setup: People say you can call your dog anything as long as you use a certain type of voice.  It doesn’t matter what you say; Rover thinks you’re expressing undying admiration as long as you use high tones and a sing-song inflection:

“  ♫  Oh, whose the good little dung-doggie?  Rover’s just a little dirt doofus,
you widdle sweetie doo-doo-eating turdy-sack, oh, yes you are!  ♫  “

Along those lines….

Dateline:  a long time ago in galaxies far, far away (28 and 25 years ago).   I am blurry-eyed after early morning breast-feeding sessions, rocking whichever babe (28 years ago, son K; 25 years ago, daughter Belle), desperately trying to get them to go back to sleep by trying to sing a lullaby whose name and lyrics my sleep-deprived, 3 am brain cannot recall… except that it begins with the ultimate parental admonition,

“Go to sleep, little —-”

“…little…” what?  I think it’s something that rhymes with sleep.  Maybe, sheep?  Yeah, maybe, but what comes after that?  And I refuse to call my children sheep.  So, as I am wont to do, I craft my own lyrics, using my most Loving Mother ® voice:

“Go to sleep, little creep,

go to sleep or I’ll drop you…”   [3]

 

“C’mon, sweetie, drink your Ambien tea or mommy’s gonna keep singing.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of Appreciating Mondegreens    [4]
Is A The Key Factor In Maintaining Mental Health

Dateline: Monday afternoon, driving up the coast to meet friends from high school who are in the area.   [5]    The podcast I was listening to ended;  moiself  pressed my car radio’s scanner, trying to find a station which had somewhat decent reception (which can be iffy on the coast) and which was not a talk or religious format.  The first such station I hit upon was in the midst of playing a song with this lyric in its chorus:

♫  You’re the best thing since bathrobes, baby….  ♫

Huh? I pressed the button to remain on the channel, as my curiosity was piqued.  No, it can’t be “bathrobes.” Let’s see what the second chorus sounds like….

♫  You’re the best thing since bathrooms, baby….  ♫

Who doesn’t appreciate a bathroom, (especially when you’re on a road trip), but, really?

One more chorus:  oh…backroads. It turned out the country crooner   [6]   was comparing his sweetie to backroads.

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Backroads Edition

I don’t care for most country music – not to denigrate those who do.
And for people who DO like country music, ‘denigrate’ means ‘put down.’

What do you get when you combine country and rap music?
Crap.

I got a white noise machine for our bedroom.
It turns out that falling asleep to country music is harder than I thought.

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you resist the pressure to use gender-erasing terms;
May you enjoy making up your own lullabies;
May you learn to fall asleep to country music;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1]  Excerpts, schmexcerpts – I practically quoted the whole damn article.  Because it’s that good, that refreshingly sensible.

[2] The latest, which sounds so silly as to be an The Onion story. Sadly, I ain’t making this up: “Quidditch is now quadball, distancing game from J.K. Rowling, league says.,”  (Washington Post, 7-20-22 )

[3] And they did, eventually, go to sleep.

[4] “…a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense….” (Wikipedia, Mondegreen )

[5] Friends from high school…junior high, actually.  Wow.

[6] Well, of course it was a country music song.  Did moiself  really need to tag the genre?

The Summer I’m Not Yet Enjoying

July 8, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, school, science, sports, travel, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Summer I’m Not Yet Enjoying

Yeah, so.

MH and I return from six weeks overseas, to find our country in the toilet – make that the outhouse, as toilets weren’t introduced until the late 1800s and six members of SCOTUS seem determined to flush us back to the Middle Ages.  And now we’ve a diabetic cat on death row….never mind that depressing development.

First, reflections on July 4.

Department Of Generosity Of Spirit…Yeah.  Right. Get Back To Me On That.

Here is my social media post on July 3.

“So, what are your plans for the 4th?” 

That’s the usual question around this time of the year, and while MH and I may do some grilling and gather (read: commiserate) with friends, I am boycotting the Fourth of July as a celebratory holiday this year, and asking y’all to consider doing the same.

Our constitution is, unfortunately, elevated to the status of a sacred document by some folk.  While many of its precepts were progressive for its day, it was flawed from the beginning and is showing its age. The fact that business as usual under its governance has allowed the cabal of cheats and liars and loons to institute their medieval theocracy ideals….  I just don’t think the USA deserves a birthday celebration this year.

Please join me in taking a knee on July 4, and wherever and whenever you are presented with flags and anthems and other bitter reminders of our false claims to liberty and justice for all.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Further Reflections From Little Miss Sunshine

As for the day itself?  Meh.

“For some strange reason, people around the world have decided that the best way to mark important holidays and events is…by blowing things up.

Most of us are aware that fireworks are dangerous: we either know someone, or know of someone, who ended up in the hospital emergency room due to fireworks, but most people are completely unaware of the more insidious environmental damages and health impacts caused by fireworks…..

Fireworks create… a toxic fog of fine particulates, poisonous aerosols and heavy metals…that poison the air, the water and the soil, making them toxic to birds, wildlife, pets, livestock — and people….”
( excerpts from “Festive Fireworks Create Harmful Pall Of Pollution,”
Forbes, science section, 12-31-19 )

The neighborhood’s pyrotechnics started sporadically in the late afternoon, gradually increasing in uniformity and intensity around 10 PM, and were finally, mostly, done by midnight. As our cat Nova cowered under our bed, moiself  reflected, not kindly, upon my fellow humans’ obsession with that most wasteful and destructive means of “celebration.”

The world is on fire,    [1]   so yeah, let’s celebrate with incendiary devices spewing even more pollutants into our air, and as a bonus, we can terrify all the dogs and cats and nesting wildlife….

Why they were celebrating at all, I kept thinking?  Don’t they realize what is happening in in their country? Or maybe they do, and just don’t care, or think it’s too late: We keep destroying our liberty and our planet, so what the hell, eat drink and be merry (and start another wildfire, what the hell), for tomorrow we may die.

The next morning I encountered this scenario during my walk.  Over the years I recall seeing people cleaning up their post fireworks debris by hosing down their sidewalks and streets, sending the contaminated mess into the sewer system (and eventually into our streams and wetlands).

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Last Week’s Distractions

Last Friday, the first new blog post after returning from 6+ weeks of travels, moiself had intended to post some travel reflections, only to become distraught distracted by…shall we say…current events.  Such as these headlines

“SCOTUS Justices ‘Prayed With’ Her —
Then Cited Her Bosses to End Roe.
“A right-wing evangelical activist was caught on tape bragging that she prayed with Supreme Court justices. The court’s majority cited a legal brief that her group filed while overturning Roe v. Wade”
( Kara Voght & Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, )”

 

 

I shall attempt to return to reflective mode, by allowing moiself  to share some impressions gathered during MH’s and my overseas travels.

First of all, why is everyone sarcastic when they find out you’re going on a trip?  And by that I mean the comment moiself  kept hearing, as our departure date neared, that I should “have fun packing!“ Is packing, for anything, ever *fun*?

Once again, I digress.

The trip’s timeline – both the original plans and the changed itinerary after we got COVID – is in the previous post.  What I didn’t mention was the bag of 100, 1 ½ inch rubber chickens which accompanied moiself  on my journey. 

 

Down to twenty.

 

Each day I hid/placed a chicken in a “public” spot.    [2]

from a hotel or Airbnb dresser drawer,

 

 

to a crack in the leg of a theater seat in Stockholm’s Drottingholm Palace grounds,

 

 

to a potted plant in an Oslo tapas restaurant,

 

 

to a crack in a rock wall on on a rock wall on Strangehagen Street in Bergen…

 

 

in the hopes that someone, some day, will find it and think to themselves,

“Uh…what is this, and why is it here?”

*   *   *

Travel Reflections

Things Scandinavians do better than Americans:

 * toilets  (both in businesses/private residences/public WCs)

* Public transportation systems

* Hospitality & service industry   [3]

* Public art  (both the amount of and access to)

* Cod   [4]

Things Americans do better than Scandinavians:

* ADA access  (from businesses to museums and public buildings)

* Pizza

* Vegetarian/vegan burgers

* Extra pillows in hotels and/or Airbnb rentals

* Decaf   [5]

 

From Vigelandsparken, Oslo. Sculptor Gustav Vigeland

*   *   *

Department Of Missed Opportunities

Certainly one of the cultural highlights of the trip was our visit to the Iceland Phallological museum in Reykjavik.  Iceland was the last country we visited before returning home, and so as not to be schlepping gifts all over Scandinavia I informed certain folks that I would return with souvenirs for them from Iceland – read: most likely from the Phallological museum’s giftshop (“You’re all getting dicks!”).

But while the museum itself was interesting and informative, the vast majority of the items the gift shop carried were…regrettably, not.  More along the line of tacky joke shop items designed to make 11-year old boys snicker.  But I did manage to purchase and then fit several bags of penis-shaped pasta into our luggage.

Then, much to my disappointment, upon our return to the USA we sailed right through Customs at PDX.  One customs officer asked us if we had any apples or oranges in our bags (from Iceland?), but that was it.   I was so hoping for the classic question, “Do you have anything to declare?”   [6]   which I had planned on enthusiastically answering,

“A bags of dicks!
Officer, I declare I have bags of the cutest dick pasta you’ve ever seen!”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Even Plant-Based Eating Moiself   Still Doesn’t Get This

Artichokes.

What’s the point?

Just lick the mayo/aioli/butter off the spoon and get it over with.

 

Also, I try to avoid eating veggies which have hair and/or a heart.

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Penis Pasta Edition

What do you get when you mix a penis, a potato, and a boat?
A dictatorship.

Why is it so easy to distinguish a penis apart from a testicle?
There’s vas deferens between them.

On average, how much does a circumcisionist earn for his services?
Sixty dollars an hour, plus tips.

A husband says to his wife, “I bet you can’t tell me something that will make me both happy and sad at the same time.”
The wife thinks about it for a few moments and replies, “Your dick is bigger than your brother’s.”

 

 

*   *   *

May you think about how (and why) you celebrate a National Holiday;
May you enjoy Icelandic cod and American veggie burgers;
May you have the opportunity to declare to a customs agent, “Dicks!”;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] “The past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history, new data shows Global temperatures in 2021 were among the highest ever observed, with 25 countries setting new annual records, according to scientists from NASA, NOAA and Berkeley Earth.” Washington Post, 1-13-22 )

[2] The rules I set for moiself:  it had to be hidden in a place where someone could theoretically/eventually find it without trespassing on private property, it could not do damage to its hiding place or surroundings (e.g., jammed in between and thus widening the cracks in a museum artifact).

[3] Better pay for workers; little to no tipping expected (or sometimes even allowed).

[4] Iceland excelled here.  Norway, surprisingly, dropped the ball when it came to cod.  Notice I didn’t say, “dropped the cod ball,” because that would be…ick.

[5] Decaffeinated beverages do not seem to be a thing, and woe unto you who asks for decaf coffee.

[6] I’m not even sure they ask that question anymore, if you are part of the Global Entry Program.

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