Home

The Emotions I’m Not Second-Guessing

September 11, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holidays, Isms (religion), movies, music, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Emotions I’m Not Second-Guessing

Department Of This Date In History

Yep. Twenty-five years ago.

*   *   *

Department Of  Yep #2:  This.  Yep; This.

As a longtime reader of (select) advice columns, moiself  has come to think that they can open an interesting window into human motivations and behaviors.  Over the years I have noticed an irritating pattern to many of the letters sent by advice-seekers:  ( trigger alert:  massive generalization ahead)

* A man will report his emotions sans even the slightest modicum of introspection
( “Why doesn’t she understand how she’s annoying me?!?!?” );

* A woman will report her emotions and second-guess herself ( she reports an astoundingly annoying thing – a thing that would even piss off Mr. Rogers or the Dali Llama – which was said or done to her, yet asks,
“Am I right to be annoyed by ___?” )

 

“Yes, you can stop second-guessing yourself, sweetie, your boss really is a flaming asshat.”

 

Aside from the indisputable entertainment value of kitten-bops-enormous-dog’s-nose  videos, social media ‘s worth goes up a few notches when you consider how it can be an effective way of transmitting insightful observations and analyses about the politics of personal relationships.  One such analysis which I recently came across online (from “The Inner Pattern” ) addressed and partially explained the roots behind the complicated advice-column-letter-dynamic moiself  mentions above.

What’s the most damaging thing patriarchy ever pulled off? Convincing everyone that male anger counts as objective reality, but female emotions get filed under subjective instability.

Watch how differently the same emotion gets treated depending on who’s feeling it. He slams a door and it’s “he had a rough day.” She raises her voice once and it’s “she needs to calm down.”

His frustration gets a cause.  Hers gets a diagnosis.

 We grew up watching men’s reactions get treated as data — something to analyze, respond to, take seriously. Meanwhile women’s reactions got treated as noise — something to soothe, dismiss, or wait out. So, we learned early to run our own feelings through a filter before anyone else even heard them. Is this reasonable enough? Am I being too sensitive? Will this get taken seriously or will it just get me labeled?

That filter isn’t caution. It’s conditioning. It’s decades of being taught that our inner world needs to justify itself before it’s allowed to exist.

Your anger was never irrational. It was just never given the same benefit of the doubt his got by default.
(my emphases, FB, first seen by moiself  on  9-5-26)

 

*   *   *

Department Of There Goes The Neighborhood

Dateline:  The morning of August 5; SeaTac airport; Alaska Airline’s first-class lounge; waiting to board our flight to Iceland.  Checking out the massive, multi-buffet table breakfast spread set out for the lounge passengers I see that, on the end buffet table, there is a contraption that look like a 3-D printer.  This machine is labeled, “pancake printer,” and moiself  alerts my family to its presence.  None of us actually want a pancake, but we have to see how it works, and so I press its start button.

Five seconds after I start the pancake printer a woman walks past the side of the buffet table and eyes my family with confusion.  She is dressed in that casual money style   [1]  and holds a plate of pastries which looked like they’d have French-sounding names.  Meanwhile, my family – MH in his tie-dye tee, son K in his black leather jacket /death metal band shirt, daughter Belle in her in Pacific NW/Columbia lumberjack gear, and me in my CatZilla t-shirt – is crowded around the pancake printer. 

 

 

I remain standing while the rest of my family bends forward, practically down on their knees, as they watch a blob of (ostensibly) pancake batter make its way down a series of the printer’s criss-crossing cooking treadmills.  I make eye contact with the woman, and with widened eyes and a knowing nod of my head, I project (or so I intend) an amiable, joking,  yeah right – like we’ve never seen a pancake before  vibe.  In return, her facial expression and body language…

Oh, how can I put it?  So much attitude is succinctly and clearly expressed in the rolling/stink eye stare she flings toward me and mine:

“OMG, who let the Beverly Hillbillies into the first class lounge !?!”

 

Y’all come back now for the pancake breakfast, y’ hear?

*   *   *

Department Of Yeah, The Date…
September 11 Memories

Twenty-five years ago, since those horrific ( and/yet mesmerizingly cinematic  [2]  ) terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.  So much has changed in our nation; so much of that change is not for the better, and so much of this not-for-better change has been and is attributed to needing to Get Tough On Terrorism®.

I remember the unscripted eloquence of British PM Tony Blair, who interrupted his planned speech on a domestic issue to express his profound shock and sympathy for the American people and pledge his and his country’s full support for his allies.

 

 

I remember the stark contrast of Blair’s heartfelt articulateness with the glassy-eyed,  aardvark-caught-in-the-headlights expression of the clearly-not-up-to-the-gravity-of-what-lies-ahead “leader” which was George W. Bush.  The only solace I had been able to take from GWB’s mistaken ascendency to the presidency was that, up until 9-11, he had seemed destined to be a one-term president.

 

“Uh, Dad?  Dick Cheney?  Somebody, tell me what to do…”

 

But I’ll let the pundits and historians elaborate on that.  After all these years, moiself  is more interested in the personal stories – select memories, from those at Ground Zero and those of us across the country and out of the country  [3] – of we who were affected by the attacks.  It is the stories of our reactions, the memories of that impactful, holy-shit-am-I-watching-a-movie-or-is-this-real ?!?!?!  day, which we will impart to our children who were too young to remember (or who were born after) the 9-11 attacks.

Moiself  will always know that September 11, 2001 was on a Tuesday, because I was in my home office that morning, getting ready to leave for my Tuesday 7 am book club.  I gathered my book club items – coffee mug,   [4]  purse, jacket, the book the group was currently discussing – and stepped out of the office.  Before I could head down the hallway to the garage, I looked up at the sound of MH’s voice.

MH was standing in the upstairs hallway, leading against the stairway railing, a confused look on his face.  He said he’d been listening to NPR’s  Morning Edition,   [5]   which had just reported that an airplane had hit one of New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers.  I replied that I remembered reading, several years ago, that a small/private plane had collided with a large sky scraper in some big city – I found that to be an odd and accident, as you’d think the pilot could see such an enormous building in his path…

MH, still confused, said, no, this was a commercial-sized jet, and the report was that less than a half hour later another jet hit the second tower, and “…what kind of air traffic control mixup or other accident could account for…”

I gasped as I interrupted him: “TWO jets? That’s no accident.”

 

 

After listening to a few news reports I grimly drove to book group, which met in the pastor’s office of our local UCC church.   [6]   Every member of the book group showed up, despite or because of having heard the news.  We all had the same feeling: we wanted to be together.  I was one of the last to arrive, and made my entrance feelings-first:

“Well, we are ALL  FUCKED.  This is how wars start.”

I forget the name of the book we were discussing.  The leader of the group, the pastor, obviously felt some obligation to try to steer us toward the book, even as she was glassy eyed with shock and worry (her beloved sister-in-law was a flight attendant who often worked the American Airlines route from Boston to LAX) . [7]   But (of course) we spent most of the morning discussing the attacks, speculating about all that we knew and did not know, and what might happen in the days to come.

Two weeks later, when details of the terrorist plot were being revealed, the book group again set aside our book for the day and mostly discussed the attacks.  One of the group members brought in an article he’d been reading, written by a foreign correspondent who’d been researching the recruiting process for Islamist terrorist groups.  The article addressed a seemingly unfathomable question:  given the human instinct for preserving one’s own life,  how do you recruit young men for a suicide mission?  The book club member began reading the article’s list of commonalities found among the terrorist recruits:

“…strong ties to hard-core religious beliefs; weak ties to their own families; political idealism; religious and cultural conservatism – and while not necessarily virgins themselves, the young men were attracted by the enticement that their martyrdom would be a righteous deed which would earn them a shortcut to heaven, where they would enjoy the sexual attentions of 72 dark-eyed virgins….”

I heard my own snorting-with-ridicule interruption as if it were coming from somewhere other than my own mouth:

“Yeah, right – that shows you what kind of mindset fanaticism appeals to.  What kind of sexually ignorant, inexperienced idiots want – I mean, seventy-two *virgins*?  That’s an enticement?  Give them just one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing…”

I looked around the circle at my book comrades’ wide-eyed, Is that so? expressions, and thought, maybe middle-aged moiself  should have kept that to moiself?

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Not One Damn Recipe

I recently got a new cookbook, which is one of my favorite things to get.  Cookbooks – moiself  tends to read livres de cuisine like novels, as in, getting inspiration from more than actually following a recipe step by step.  After reading through this new book I found moiself  wondering, Why did I order this?

The book’s recipes concentrate on a culture whose cuisine is mostly unfamiliar to me – as do several cookbooks in my collection, so it’s not that.  Sourcing many of the key ingredients would be difficult, but…see previous comment.  It’s just that there was not one recipe that stood out, not one recipe that made me think, I’d like to try that, or work up a variant moiself.  My get a new one get rid of an old one policy,  [8]   has kept my cookbook supply steady at seventy-four. And it will remain at 74 as this new book goes into the list of sixty cookbooks I have recycled.  [9]

 

Woe to anyone who recycles one of my cookbooks.

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [10]

A cigarette pack is one of the few consumer products…that practically insults its own customer. Buy a pack and you are greeted by…blunt declarations that your habit may kill you. Governments force tobacco companies to confess the danger directly on the packaging because the evidence is overwhelming: smoking causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and millions of deaths annually….

Yet the satirical image asks a deeply uncomfortable question: if cigarettes require warning labels because they can harm human beings, why do religions—whose histories include crusades, inquisitions, sectarian wars, terrorism, witch hunts, executions for heresy, honor killings, forced conversions, and systematic oppression—escape similar scrutiny?

The meme…exposes an asymmetry in moral outrage.
Society treats physical harm as measurable and ideological harm as sacred.

The irony is brutal. A cigarette company cannot advertise without legal constraints, but a preacher can tell children they deserve eternal torture for doubting a doctrine and still be called a moral authority. Tobacco executives are condemned for manipulating fear and addiction, while some religious institutions have built entire civilizations around fear of invisible punishment….

Imagine if holy books carried labels modeled after cigarette warnings:

WARNING: This ideology has been linked to violence, intolerance, and persecution when interpreted literally.

WARNING: Excessive exposure may impair critical thinking and increase susceptibility to authoritarianism.

( excerpts, Religion: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly )

 

(from my supply of stickers I carry with me when I travel, in case the hotel room has a Gideon bible or other religious book in the dresser drawer.)

 

*   *   *

May you see your emotional reactions as data, not noise;
May you practice the get a new one get rid of an old  one policy;
May you benefit from the experience of even one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Like pornography, I know it when I see it, even if I can’t describe it…and so can you.

[2] I watched footage of the two places crashing into the towers, over and over, in a way trying to convince myself that it was real – it seemed like something out of a movie…but CGI was in its infancy then, and a Hollywood special effects crew couldn’t possibly have pulled off such an epic job.

[3] LS, in the Netherlands, are you there?

[4] That was the one day a week that I drank coffee in the morning.

[5] Which was his Monday – Friday morning routine, before he got out of bed and we got our kids breakfast and ready for school.

[6] The church MH and I were members of for years, until we came out of the Happy Heathens® closet.

[7] She had no news about her SIL at that time, but later that day was assured that her SIL was not working that day.

[8] Which I apply to most “things,” from cookbooks to household items to clothing….

[9] As in given away to friends and/or family and/or Goodwill.

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

The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On

August 21, 2026

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, Oregon, reproductive rights, school, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On

It’s time for a…

 

 

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

 

 

*   *   *

The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On
( 8-21-20 )

Department Of Yet Another Silver Lining

The Democratic convention’s pandemic-mindful/physical distancing states’ roll call (in its entirety, here ) – how delightful was that?   The usual political party convention roll call, with the delegates dressed basically the same (we can wear three colors – can you guess what they are?) and wearing those ridiculous straw boater hats, some of which look to be made of styrofoam….it’s beyond boring.

 

Well hellooooo, ladies.

 

Moiself sez let’s do it this way from now on, pandemic or not. We got a brief glimpse into the states’ – and US territories’ – terrain as well as character,  [1]  with a few surprises, too.  Rhode Island calamari – that’s even a thing? Who knew?

*   *   *

Department Of Which Is The More Accurate Adjective?

What the radio podcast host said:
” (name)…is a board-licensed professional counselor.”

What moiself heard;
“(name) …is a bored, licensed professional counselor.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of If Given My Druthers, I’d Like To
Leave The Civics Lesson To Someone Else

What, BTW, are druthers?  In the various idiomatic expressions which use the word, it does seem to be a positive thing. Do I have to wait to be given them, by someone else, or can I get or earn them on my own?   [2]

If it were in my power, I would give all of you your druthers. Wouldn’t it be great if druthers turned out to be something like this:

 

 

Once again, I digress.

Moiself  is thrilled with Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate.  During the Democratic debates, a California friend (MM) and I were exchanging ideas/compliments about the various candidates. In MM’s opinion Sen. Harris, besides being experienced and intelligent and a razor-sharp questioner during Senate hearings, was also not the kind to put up with crap or betrayal – “She’ll put a shiv in you,” MM wrote admiringly.  We both agreed that was a talent sorely needed when dealing with the petty viciousness and mendacity of the Republican congress.  [3]

One of the many, many other things I like about Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is that I don’t know a thing about her religious/spiritual and/or worldview beliefs.  And I’d like to keep it that way.

Except of course, the Republicans will not stand for that. Even the (secretly) religion-free among them must grovel to the altar of right-wing Jayyy-suuuus  lovers.   #45 figured this out when he was laughing all the way to the bank (or golf course), passing church after church along the way, metaphorically thumbing his nose at them even as he was snickering about how easy it was to bamboozle the congregants.

 

The Republicans will look for every opportunity, during the election and debates,  [4]  to play their piety cards and jab Biden and Harris about their beliefs.  Biden has already fallen into that trap –of talking about his own faith rather than telling those who ask that it’s none of their business as the USA is not a theocracy, and let’s get back to the issues….

Thus, I humbly offer my advice to Ms. Harris – the advice she didn’t solicit from me  [5]  but which I hope she takes:

Don’t fall for Pence’s religious rhetoric claptrap, and make him sorry if he even asks. I know you’re capable of going all prosecutorial on his ass…even though that tactic, if you employed it, would make your advisors reach for the smelling salts as the white evangelicals would clutch their pearls and gasp in horror at The Angry Black Bitch Atheist (whether you are or are not the fourth, you’d definitely be pegged as the first three).  So, yes, I understand how you must go for discretion.

I also hope you don’t mumble platitudes about respecting everyone’s faith journey (although I understand there will be pressure to do so). When – not *if,* as religion will definitely be an issue – the subject of a paticular candidate’s religious beliefs are brought up, don’t ignore it.  Instead, candidly and assertively steer away from the subject, every time it happens, and every time reminding us of why you are doing so:

We are electing presidents and vice presidents here,
not popes and pastors and vicars and decans – or rabbis, imams or mullahs, Zen masters or Lamas, pujaris or gurus….

 

I know, this is important…I’ll ty to stay alert.

 

American citizens hold a diversity of religious opinions. The candidates elected will be the President and Vice President for all the people, including the growing percentage of atheists, agnostics, humanists, Freethinkers Brights – aka, to pollsters and scientists, as the “Nones,” as in, we Americans who are religion-free and/or claim no religious affiliation.

Polls and studies reveal that 23 to 26 % of the US population – approaching one out of every four people – claim “none” for their religion, despite facing open hostility and discrimination from religious believers (and incurring a political liability as well, if they run for office).  And scientists note that these 23-26% figures are conservative estimates.

 “…psychologists…contend that there may be far more atheists than pollsters report because “social pressures favoring religiosity, coupled with stigma against religious disbelief…, might cause people who privately disbelieve in (god[s])  to nonetheless self-present as believers, even in anonymous questionnaires.
To work around this problem of self-reported data, the psychologists employed what is called an unmatched count technique, which has been previously validated for estimating the size of other underreported cohorts…. (Using a) Bayesian probability estimation to compare their results with similar Gallup and Pew polls of 2,000 American adults each…they estimated, with 93 percent certainty, that somewhere between 17 and 35 percent of Americans are atheists, with a “most credible indirect estimate” of 26 percent.
(“The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising,”
Scientific American, 4-1-18 )

As a former prosecutor you, Senator Harris, are aware of the average person’s cognitive capacities, so I’ll trust you to condense those statistics into something debate-attention-span appropriate.

After doing so, please give a brief reminder – more like a civics lesson, considering how many Americans know next to nothing about the history of our country’s secular roots – that the USA was the first country to have a totally god-free constitution.  “God” – anyone’s god  – is not mentioned in the US Constitution (nor is Jesus, nor Christianity), not even once.  Religion is only mentioned twice, and then in exclusionary terms: in the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”), and in Article VI, which declares that “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

And do this – remind folks of the facts – Every. Time.

 

 

There will be some ignoramuses (most likely your debate opponent), even among otherwise seemingly articulate members of the press, who will confuse the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution, and will quote the former:

“But wait, what about the part where it says,
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’….”

Here is, yet again, another opportunity for education. Remind the populace of the difference between the two: The Declaration of Independence (an ‘apology’ and call to arms for the American revolution);  and the Constitution of the United States (the new nation’s governing document).

You may also want to be prepared for when some idiot sputters about how his dollar bills say, “In God We Trust”…which he probably doesn’t know was not added to our currency until 1957, during the Commie/Red Scare era, and then he may continue on as how the Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase, “Under God”…except that until relatively recently, it didn’t:

 The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy… (who) had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.  In its original form it read:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1923, the words, “the Flag of the United States of America” were added:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” creating the 31-word pledge we say today.
Bellamy’s daughter objected to this alteration.
(“The Pledge of Allegiance,” Historic Documents, usdocuments.org)

You will likely also encounter shade from the historical yahoos who will crow about how the USA was formed as a “Christian nation.” Not only does Constitution make no such claims, we have the confirmation to the opposite, declared and signed by the very founding fathers of our country and the framers of the constitution, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoly – which was sent to the Senate (by President John Adams).  The entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor (including the (in)famous words in Article 11; copies were printed for every Senator; the treaty was ratified by a unanimous vote of all 23 Senators. They knew what they were doing:

Treaty of Tripoli, article 11
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”   [6]

All this history should be enough.  Of course, it won’t be.

So, please, get the message across…in your own astute, succinct way.  Perhaps, a more prime time-palatable version of the following?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Fun With Nature’s Wacky Reproductive Scenarios

“Some sharks give live birth from two uteruses — and that’s not the weirdest part.”

Dateline: earlier this week, listening to a Curiosity Daily podcast. CD is one of my favorite podcasts.  As per their website:

The award-winning Curiosity Daily podcast will help you get smarter about the world around you — every day.
In less than 10 minutes, you’ll get a unique mix of research-based life hacks, the latest science and technology news, and more.

I’m not sure how much smarter CD has helped moiself  to get, but I’m certainly entertained, and armed with interesting trivia facts, by each episode.

A recent segment on sharks which have dual uteri caught my eye (ear?).  The takeaway: many shark species have multiple uteri and give birth to live baby sharks, which hatch from eggs in the uteri.  Before being expelled, the baby sharks which hatch first swim between the uteri, and eat the eggs of their un-hatched siblings, so they can grow faster. In one species, multiple free-swimming baby sharks hatch at the same time and fight to the death inside their shark mom’s uterus.

 

“Congrats, Mom, it’s a boy…I mean, a girl…uh, make that, a cannibal.”


For some petty reason, I enjoy the idea of anti-choicers – most of whom hold a conservative religious dogma which says that their god creates and directs all life (so guess who’s responsible for this preborn carnage?) –  cringing at these facts…even though sibling predation – “siblicide” –  is not unknown in other animals (e.g. the newly hatched chicks of some bird species will attack and eat their smaller siblings, or push them or any unhatched eggs out of the nest).

As with every CD episode, at the end of this one the two hosts recapped what they’d learned.  The male host, whose wife is pregnant, said that he’s been feeling his wife’s belly when the fetus kicks her, and now he’s thinking how “…that is really mild, compared to what sharks do.”  He then declared, “I’m glad I didn’t marry a shark.”

 

“Oh, honey, can you feel them fighting to the death?”

*   *   *

Pun For The Day

Presidential candidate Scissors was forced to withdraw from the race
after failing to find anyone who would run with him.

 

“Do you see what humor they have to put up with, in a so-called ‘free’ society?”

 

*   *   *

May you support politicians in remembering and upholding our country’s secular foundation/roots;
May you have yet another reason to detest that insipid “Baby Sharks” song;
May someone surprise you with the gift of druthers;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

[1] But California should have had a surfer boy standing between those two women.

[2] I could Google this, I know, but sometimes, it’s just more fun to wonder.

[3] Then added that, as much as he admired President Obama, “that was a talent Obama lacked.”  (moiself  ageed).

[4] Are we even going to have debates, this year?

[5] Or, maybe she *did* and her email got caught in the spam folder.

[6] At the time of the Treat, Mediterranean Sea traffic was largely controlled by pirates from the North African Muslim states of the Barbary Coast.  Many European seafaring countries paid a tribute to the Barbary Sultans in exchange for safe passage through the Mediterranean. After the American Revolution, the US was no longer covered by British tribute treaties. The U.S. decided to form tribute treaties with the Barbary States, and given the history of The Crusades, assure the sultans that the US was not going to use the excuse of Christianity vs. Islam to go to war with them.

The NDR I’m Not Signing

August 14, 2026

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

It’s time for a…

 

 

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

GROSS (incredulously):
Too extreme to the Nazis?

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

 

Too extreme to the Nazis?

Terry Gross’s reaction keeps coming back to oiself. 

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

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

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

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

*   *   *

Department Of How’s This For A Life Strategy?

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

Calm down, Grandpa, and think about it.

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

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

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

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

Most of us are familiar the statistics behind auto driving:

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thoughts That Wake Me Up At 3 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of My Phone Knows Me Too Well

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ephemera I’m Not Minimizing

July 31, 2026

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

Department Of Be Aware Of Mono No Aware

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

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of Apropos Of Nothing…

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

Ingersoll’s Vow ( emphases mine  [7] )

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

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

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

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

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

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

[3] I still don’t get it.

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

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

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

[7] As well as some punctuation

The Energy Crisis I’m (Still) Not Solving

July 24, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Energy Crisis I’m (Still) Not Solving

Department Of Things That Hold Up Overtime

MH and I have been re-watching the TV series ER.   Aside from some older technology artifacts – the hospital records and procedures are not fully computer-integrated (e.g.,  the staff keeps index card files on certain patients! ) – the issues, both medical and personal, remain, IMO, compelling and contemporary. Except for wanting an old-fashioned schoolmarm’s stick to whack George Clooney’s character on the back (  “Stand up straight!  Look people in the eye!  You’re a doctor, FFS!” ), the performances are spot-on.  Although (for moiself  at least) Clooney’s hangdog/horndog, mannered performance as Dr. Doug Ross takes some getting used to, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how… fresh… everything seems.  It’s fun to rewatch a great episode I haven’t thought of in years, and turn to MH and say, “Oh, wait, I think I remember this…no I don’t/no, wait – something weird is gonna happen here….”

 

Someone who’s on the cusp of being a ginormous movie star and making an obscene amount of money should have better posture.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why Isn’t This A Thing Yet?

Percussive energy is the thing that isn’t, yet.  And it should be.  After all, moiself  blogged about it four years ago ( The Clean Energy Source I’m Not Yet Inventing ). And yet the eyes and ears of the scientific community remain blind and deaf to my far-fetched ranting well-thought proposals?

I wrote about percussive energy as the counterpart, or rather compliment, to solar and wind energy. Short recap:  utilizing all that  tap, tap tap  [1]  of raindrops – as in, designing a surface, which could capture that energy find a way to use or store it (an answer to the old school people who decry “clean” energy by saying,  “Yeah well solar only works when it’s sunny/wind power only works when it’s windy….” ).

The world is still waiting for, still needing, youth science fairs and contests to challenge and/or incentivize their entrants to…basically…save us from ourselves.   Or at least help us out with our existing problems, rather than translate their budding scientific and entrepreneurial skills into designing yet another mind-numbing gaming/entertainment app.

 

Lilly Downs, eighth grader from Osteen, Florida, wins Lemelson Early Inventor Prize winner at her 2025 science fair.   [2]

 

*   *   *

Department Of Gems Discovered While Seeking Something Else

That would be a blog segment from five years ago, specifically 8-20-21 ( The Butt I’m Not Kicking ) where in moiself  wrote about MH’s colonoscopy:

Department Of Post-Procedural Updates

Background info: MH has never been able to roll his rs, which is the main reason, he told me many years ago, that he took German as a foreign language in high school.  He’d thought Spanish would be more useful/practical, but he simply could not roll his rs as is required for the correct pronunciation of many Spanish words, and he was somewhat intimidated/embarrassed by his lack of being able to perform that particular linguistic feat.  And it’s true: over the years, I’ve tried to get him to do it (or trick him into it), and he simple cannot roll his rs.

Dateline: Thursday, 10:50 am. MH is back home after his colonoscopy.  He thinks he’s fine, but it’s obvious to moiself  that the effects of the Versed (the sedative used during the procedure) are still reigning.    [3]    He’s… goofy

He stands at the kitchen counter, looking at the color printout he was given at the hospital, which includes a map of the lower intestines. He begins reading off the “map sites” to me:

MH (in a voice much higher than his usual range):
“The ilium!
The cecum!
The rrrrrrrrrrrectum…”

Moiself:
What?!?!?!  Holy crap; did you hear yourself?!  You rolled your rs!

MH (in miffed toddler mode):
“No I didn’t.”

Moiself:
“Oh yes you did!”

MH proceeds to say “rectum” over and over, drawing out the r sound without rolling it.  But for one glorious, Versed-induced moment, them rs were rolling like a river.

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Not Completely Different
But Similar, As In, Involving A Memory

 

MH and I met in a Lutheran Church.  Yep; yours truly the flaming atheist, Humanist, Freethinker, Skeptic, religion-free apostate/heretic was raised by Lutheran parents and was herself, like her now equally religion-free (  but less flaming  [4]   ) spouse was once an active church member.  But that’s a story for another day (preferably, a day involving cosumption of gin and tonics by both the storetellers and story listeners ).

A momentary digression for Educational Purposes®:  moiself  has been referred to, by other active and former Christians, as both a heretic and an apostate.  Neither word is one I consider pejorative; both are arguable as to their applicability as labels for my beliefs and experiences.  [5].  In general, both labels refer to someone’s rejection of the religion they are/were “in” and/or were raised in.  The difference is in the degree of rejection.  Apostates totally reject or renounce their religion; heretics stay (or attempt to stay) within their religion and/or religious community but openly hold and assert beliefs that contradict their religions’ theologies and doctrines. [6]   (interesting factoid: at some point in time, every new religion/demonization has been accused of heresy/apostasy by their onetime co-religionists).

 

 

Moiself  recently overheard a tidbit of a conversation in which one person was relaying to another their experience of being challenged as to their worthiness of ascending to a certain position in their work. This reminded me of a story shared with moiself  by one of the pastors at Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, the church where MH and I met.

Grace Lutheran was a congregation in the ELCA synod, the most liberal synod or wing of the American Lutheran churches.  At that time (when MH and I were attending) Grace Lutheran had two co-pastors, one male and one female.  I became friendly with both of them, in particular the female pastor, SK.  This was in 1986, and although the ELCA had been ordaining women pastors since 1970, their acceptance was a slow process, and women pastors were not automatically welcomed with open arms.  One afternoon a few months after I’d joined the church SK and I met for tea in downtown Hillsboro.  During our wide-ranging conversation the subject of her being called    [7]  to Grace Lutheran came up.  Specifically, I asked her how smooth the process had been:  did she feel accepted by all of the congregation, or at least the majority?

SK told me that her call to Grace Lutheran went smoothly, although she was aware that the final vote of the congregation (to accept her call to be one of their pastors) was not unanimous.  On her first Sunday at Grace Lutheran, the leaders of the congregation held a reception for SK in the church’s Fellowship Hall, after the worship service.  The reception wound down after about two hours, which was a relief to SK, who, although grateful for the warm greetings she’d received, was beginning to think her petit frame could not bear another well-meaning handshake or congratulatory hug from the throngs of parishioners who introduced themselves to and welcomed her.

SK headed to the Fellowship Hall kitchen, intent upon helping the staff with KP duty, when one of the few parishioners remaining in the Fellowship Hall approached her.  A Tall Elegantly Dressed Older Woman (TEDOW) smiled broadly at SK, introduced herself as a “long-time” Grace Lutheran member, and said, in a friendly tone of voice that belied the rebuffing sentiment she was about to utter, that she would like to take SK to lunch to tell SK why she had “voted against your call, as I don’t think you belong here.”

SK kept her composure, smiling in return as she thanked TEDOW for the lunch invitation…which SK declined.

Moiself  was impressed by SK’s graciousness under fire, so to speak, and even more so by the rational simplicity of her response:

“No, thank you.  I *am* here; I don’t have to defend my being here.”   [8]

 

“Someone hand me the mic so I can drop it.”

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

*   *   *

May you have fond memories of a loved one’s post-colonoscopy rantings;
May you enjoy binging an old favorite TV series;
May you never have to defend your being where are you;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And oft times, stomp stomp stomp.

[2] Society for science; Courtesy photo from Lilly Downs.

[3] I suggested he go upstairs and sit or lie down, as he was rather wobbly standing.  He wanted to go up the stairs by himself; I insisted he hold on to the handrail, which he did, while vaulting up the stairs two at a time.  When I snapped at him to slow down he said, “It feels better this way!”

[4] Except when he’s high on Versed and flamboyantly rolling his r’s….

[5] But, I’ll take ’em!

[6] For example, some Unitarians consider themselves Christian, but were/are rejected by other Christian denominations because Unitarians affirm the “unity” of the “one god” and reject the Christian doctrine of the trinity established by the apostle Paul.  Thus they are (in Christian eyes) heretics, not apostates.

[7] Being called refers to the process by which churches find and employ their pastors.  It varies between denomination and churches; here’s the link to ELCA call processes.

[8] I never met TEDOW.  She (and her husband) left the congregation before I began attending.  According to another congregant whom I quizzed about the incident, TEDOW and her husband were opposed to female ordination and also had problems with the other ways in which they felt their church was embracing heresy/leaning more liberal, and when they left Grace Lutheran they made sure that certain people knew they were leaving and were “taking their money” with them (implying that they were generous financial supporters of the church, which, that person I spoke with said, they were *not.*).

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

July 17, 2026

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

Department Of Judgy Snark Alert

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

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

“They misspelled tacky.”

 

 

*   *   *

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

*   *   *

Department Of Traditional Foods Whose Existence I Acknowledge…

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

 

 

( Excerpts; my emphases ):

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

Oh… Holy crap. Figuratively and literally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

D – Depart from evil and do good….”

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

 

*   *   *

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

Nova
( 5/1/2007 -7/8/26 )    [12]

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

[5] I disagree with that evaluation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The What-Others-Have-Experienced I’m Not Sharing

July 3, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , Comments Off on The What-Others-Have-Experienced I’m Not Sharing

( BTW Happy birthday JWW )

*   *   *

Department Of Things I Love To Say ( Or Even Think )

This one came to me after returning from an early morning walk and passing the fruit tree in our front yard: “It’s time to pare the pears.”

 

Gotta make sure the branches stay healthy and will be able to do their holiday duty,
supporting the Partridges we host in our pear tree every Yuletide.

 

*   *   *

Department Of  What Would Sir Paul Do?

If it had been anyone else’s post, I might’ve sent a private message along the lines of,

“Check your account. I think you’ve been hacked. Someone posing as you posted an embarrassing, cringe-worthy, face-palmingly clueless, humble-brag-of-a-tone-deaf…”

Why did I keep reading after the first sentence, of the you’ve-gotta-be-fucking-joking-but-no-apparently-it’s-serious  post I saw on a friend’s social media page?  I’m still asking moiself  that question:  Department Of Why Didn’t I Just Scroll Past After The First Line… Like I’ve Done 1000 Times Before?

As for the post’s last sentence/request:  “I would love to hear what others have experienced!”

 

 

Really.  I really doubt it.

I loathe that which makes me experience one of my least favorite states of mind: being embarrassed on behalf of someone else (if you know what I mean and I think you do)… 

 

 

…regardless of how strong, or  so-weak-as-to-be-essentially-nonexistent  their connection is to moiself .  

Readers of this blog, and anyone spending a modicum of time on Social Media Sites, likely have at least one acquaintance among their group of SMS friends fitting this criteria:  they are someone whose friend request you accepted on behalf of a childhood/long-ago friendship you had with them, even though your present relationship  is for all intents and purposes nonexistent, or merely social media functional….    [1]

So, why not, Department Of I Should Just Let It Go, Right?

Instead…

Department Of Yep, I’m Gonna Do It

 

 

A burning bridge is perhaps not the best, or most apt, idiom for the situation. But for someone whom I (used to) respect, who posts such claptrap and then solicits responses…are they to get off Scott-free?

BTW: why is the expression  Scott free, and not Andrew-free, or Thomas-free or Ian-free?  A brief bit o ‘web research shows me that, first of all, the phrase is actually “scot-free” (one “t; not capitalized”), and is used to imply that one had escaped punishment, blame, or penalty for a wrongdoing. The idiom goes way back; it refers to medieval European financial penalties and has no relation to, say, a tax cheat named Scott.

Yet again, I digress.

Here is the claptrap post that frosted my butt:

“I thought it might be kind of cool to share some of the wonderful things that God has done for me in my life. Here’s one of my favorites:

Several years ago, at a very challenging point in my life, the upper hinge of a frequently used kitchen cupboard broke in half when I went to open it. Not knowing what to do and feeling utterly overwhelmed, I asked God to please send me some help for it. I assumed He would soon bring across my path someone who could fix it, a common enough answer to prayer. But a few minutes later, as I went about my tasks in the kitchen, I gingerly went to open the broken cupboard, only to find that the metal hinge was now completely fixed and restored to an unbroken state. My Miracle of the Hinge 💖

I would love to hear what others have experienced!”

Yep.  That’s it.

 

 

 

 

Again, regarding that last sentence:  Unless the what others have experienced would be self-delusional -reinforcing, along the lines of the proverbial choir singing to itself (  “Jesus found my lost car keys when I was late for the PTA meeting *and* removed that pesky grass stain from my husband’s trousers!” ), it’s strongly likely the poster really doesn’t want know what others are experiencing.

The poster is someone I knew from…

 

 

…and our current relationship/only point of contact for the past decade plus is that we’re social media friends in, as I earlier mentioned, The Way That One Often Does® with old friends who have morphed into acquaintances.  It’s because of posting like the above that I’ve had to silence this person’s posts every once in a while.  But this one….it felt patronizing to *not* respond in some way.

Now then.  Sir Paul might advise…something else.

 

 

But Paul’s currently on tour and doesn’t return my texts.  So, here’s the reply  [2]   I wanted to make, but didn’t:

 Are you fucking kidding me?

*  All over the planet, sincere and desperate people are appealing to their god(s).

* Many (if not the majority) of these prayers for intercession/assistance are directed to the deity whose belief in/worship of they share with you  (aka Yaweh; “The Christian” god; Jesus Christ ).

* Many (if not the majority) of these prayers for intercession/assistance are asking for help in situations far more dire and consequential than that of malfunctioning kitchen hardware.  They’re asking for help in surviving/preventing/healing from

– chronic, fatal, debilitating, painful and humiliating illnesses;
– horrendous, disfiguring and disabling accidents;
– vicious physical and sexual assaults;
– persecutions based on religious, gender, sexual orientation and civil rights identities;
– soul-crushing betrayals by loved ones;
– death and destruction from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters;
– school children gunned down in their classroom;
– the devastation caused by wars, armed conflicts, and acts of terrorism

There are recordings of terrified passengers on the Sept 11 United Airlines flight 93, praying with a 911 operator, a family member, and even telephone answering machines….  Despite those prayers for help – as heartfelt and sincere as ever such a plea could be, considering the circumstances – their hijacked plane plummeted down, killing all aboard.

Your god,   [3]  whom you believe has the ability to act in the natural world (which you believe it has created), has dropped the ball on countless of these and other “please send me help for…” requests – requests which so many of my friends and family and neighbors and coworkers have shared with me.  These people are/were true believers in your same god, and had to/have to juggle and justify the devastating silence from that same god, as they, their loved ones, and the entire world continue to suffer.

Your fellow Christians call out for help to your god, both alone and in groups, as the false comfort of scriptural promises lie flaccid on the pages of their holy book.  [4]   Their god, your god, idly stands by, effectively deaf when it comes to rescuing the displaced Nigerian Christian woman, who screams Someone help me!  Help me Jesus!  as she is beaten and gang-raped in the refugee camp…and yet this god somehow found time to save you from the hassle of your allegedly broken cabinet hinge.

 

 

‘Twas interesting to do a bit of self-analysis on my reaction to this post, on why moiself  ultimately decided I needed to write about it.  Is it because I used to be a part of that world – or, at least I let everyone think that I was – and I carry guilt over not speaking up sooner/more often at the ultimately harmful (even if surface-seemingly silly) ideas that were propagated by it?

Translation: I should’ve called bullshit more often than I did, and I didn’t.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

 

Hey, but at least he fixed that pesky hinge!

*   *   *

May you examine your criteria for what constitutes a miracle;
May you take Sir Paul’s advice better than I did;
May you remember that it’s never too early to prep a soft landing spot
for any partridges that may want to nest in your pear tree;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] As in, every now and then they do post some adorable animal videos.

[2] language toned down, if you can fucking believe that.

[3] Whom you believe exists so I will write as if it does…but I do not capitalize the name god, seeing as how it is not a proper name…and even if your deity existed its name would not likely be, god.

[4]  “Whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:13; World English Bible; ) “Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth concerning anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 18:19 KJV )

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

The Enlightenment (Still) I’m Not Ingesting

June 26, 2026

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

Department Of My Favorite I KNEW IT Headline

That would be from this book review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sometimes The Analogy Can’t Be Stretched

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

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

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

* Why we love watching sports

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

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

 

 

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

Journalist Kate Fagan:

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

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

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

 

 

Fagan:

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmmm?  Needs more work to reach pithy aphorism status.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why AI Sucks

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

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

 

 

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

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

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

*   *   *

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] But never professionally employed as an anthropologist.

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

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

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

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

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

The Belly Button Deodorant I’m Not Using

June 19, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, exercise & fitness, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Belly Button Deodorant I’m Not Using

Department Of Yep, This Is It:
Succinctly Brilliant Life Advice (Before The Inevitable Snark)

“You’ll regret it if you get married.  You’ll regret it if you don’t.
You’ll regret it if you have kids, and you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

The following is attributed to Kierkegaard  [1]   (my emphases):

“Regret is inevitable because the human mind
will always romanticize the life it didn’t live.
It’s not about making the ‘perfect’ choice;
it’s choosing which regret you are willing to make peace with.”

So.  Choose your path.

 

*   *   *

Department Of, And Now, On To The Snark:
Could This Be The Sign; Is This The End Of The World?

Dateline: Monday morning; 7:54 AM; watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding III   [2] while doing an elliptical workout.  During the commercial break I behold an advertisement moiself  has never see before – it’s from    [3]   a series of ads for Cottonelle toilet paper known as the  Come Clean campaign.   [4]   The ad begins with a discreet shot of some guy sitting on a toilet, then we see him (after he has presumably done his business and hiked up his trousers)    [5]  walking into a family/TV room in a (his?) house, where friends and family wearing team jerseys and eating copious amounts of snacks are watching a football game on the room’s wide screen TV.  The man has a beatific smile on his face, as if he’s just received enlightenment from a guru or had another kind of spiritual experience.   Apparently, after having used Cottonelle toilet paper to wipe himself post-deuce-dropping he has the cleanest hindquarters he’s ever had.  [6]   He is so overcome with the bliss of butt cleanliness he decides to “come clean” with his friends, confessing, among other things, the fact that he doesn’t really “get” football….

 

 

*   *   *

The Saga Continues: Department Of Bodily Functions Sell Products,
The Neverending Story

Back to moiself  on the elliptical, continuing to watch  My Big Fat Greek Wedding III  (which primarily takes place in – surprise! –  Greece).   [7]   After fifteen minutes, there is another commercial break:  three ads in a row featuring products related to those pesky bodily functions:

* #1:   [8]  It’s one more Cottonelle  come clean ad, this one featuring a woman, who, after having the tush mop of her life, comes clean to her homework-doing child about the fact that she never “got” algebra;

* #2:  Yet another ad for that    [9] ( “doctor-developed!” ) whole body deodorant, Lumē.  And by whole body, the Lumē folk mean your entire body – including parts you maybe didn’t realize you had, much less had to worry about being…reekified.

“Anywhere you have odor but wish you didn’t….just a pea-sized amount rubbed in like a lotion…all over your body:  “pits, privates, underboob, belly buttons, tummy folds, thigh creases, feet….”

 Underboob?

 

 

You name it, if it’s a body part, Lumē wants to you to be concerned that it might stink.

feet; tummy folds; thigh crease….  I think they left out that space between your fingers – for which there should be a name.  Actually, there is: the interdigital folds. But, moiself  suspects there’s a better word for it in German, like FingerSchlitzen….

Ahem.  That omission aside, the not-so-subtle message these Lumē advertisements convey is that your entire body is an odiferous swamp in need of aroma-masking.  As for the bemused skeptics who ask, “Um, why not just take a shower?”

 

Silly geese!  If you feel felt cleaner after taking a shower, they can’t sell you anything.  Check here if you’d like An Expert® to explain why you’re so stupid as to think that bathing is better than using Lumē products.   [10]

Just in case you’re not sure how the product should be applied to someone’s, er, privates, here are the handy instructions (found here; my emphases):

“For privates – the short story:
A little goes a long way. Using fingertips, swipe onto thigh folds, undercarriage,
and sweep up between the butt cheeks to the tailbone.

For privates – the full story:
Working front to back (never work back to front due to increased risk for urinary tract infections), apply to the clitoral hood & labia majora (not inside the vagina or around the urethra), continue back further to the perineum (the space between the rectum and vaginal opening), and sweep up between the butt cheeks to the tailbone.
Apply around the base of the penis and between the folds of the legs, work back to the space between the scrotum and rectum, and finally sweep back between the butt cheeks and up to the tailbone.”

 

 Undercarriage.  In all my years in health care…

 

 

… moiself  never heard the word at word undercarriage – heretofore used for the structural and mechanical foundation supporting the body of an automobile or truck – to refer to human anatomy.

 

 

Listening to this insulting shill ad, moiself  be getting my undergarments in a knot ( this could be a job for Lumē! ) as I consider the commercial’s underlying premise: your entire body is a stinkpit.  Yeah, thanks for the empowering message, brought to us by a woman OB/GYN ( a fact much touted in the product’s various ads).

Ah; once again, moiself  digresses.  On to Advertisement #3, which was concerned with infant and baby number two – specifically, with the idea that not all baby BMs are manageable ( as in, containable ) – via the average disposable diaper.  And this certain brand of diaper – damned if I can’t remember the name, [11]  is for “…people who’ve seen some sh*t.”   [12]  Translation:  it can handle your biggest baby’s biggest poop!

Now then:  although moiself  wasn’t paying close attention to My Big Fat Greek Wedding III, I’m fairly certain it contained no overt nor clandestine themes of cleaning up after defecation and/or malodorous body parts.  Thus, I’m forced to conclude that the clustering of these particular ads during  MBFGWIII  commercial breaks was just a happy coincidence.

 

 

*   *   *

Speaking Of Products Related To Crap…

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

Notes I wrote to myself a few years ago after someone, who’d discovered my “unbelief,” tried the What-you-need-is-a-personal-relationship-with-Jesus crap on me:

What I do not need is a “personal relationship” with Jesus,
or the Christian god, or any deity.

What religious believers need is a personal relationship with reality – the same reality to which they appeal when they critique the tenets and validity of Scientology, Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism – of any faith but their own.  The same reality they use when they evaluate evidence to make any important decision in their life: such as, which investments are sound, which physician to see for an illness, etc.

Oh and by the way:  How is it that, for all their much-touted (but in reality, scantily practiced   [14]  ) reading of their scriptures, Christian fundies never seem to recognize that their “personal relationship with their personal savior” rhetoric never occurs in the Bible.  Jesus is never quoted as speaking this way in the gospels, nor does the founder of Christianity, Paul, do so in his epistles.  This “personal savior” piety is no older than 18th century Lutheran Pietist movement in Germany.

 

 

*   *   *

May we all have a personal relationship with reality;
May you not romanticize the path you didn’t take;
May we give our respective undercarriages the honor they are due;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Søren Kierkegaard, (1813 – 1855), Danish philosopher.

[2][2] It was either that, or some May Day Airline disaster show…which I actually like – the parts about the investigations and the problem solving involved (not the crash reenactment).  

[3] Yep, I googled it afterward.

[4] Slogan: “We are coming clean: your booty deserves gentle care.”

[5] I could have written pants, but I think trousers is a work we should all use more frequently.

[6] doesn’t say much for the character’s potty hygiene and/or showering skills, does it?

[7] So I don’t really mind or pay attention to the plot; I just enjoy the scenery.

[8] Shouldn’t this have been add #2, since it’s about cleaning up about number…you know?

[9] I say that because you’ve likely seen at least one of those ads – you can’t spit (or sweat) without hitting one.

[10] BTW, the company is facing several class action lawsuits accusing Lumē’ of false advertising/deceptive marketing of their products.

[11] Which I attribute to my brain being overloaded, at that point, with this ad shit.

[12] The word is bleeped in the ad

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

[14] The bible is a huge collection of writings; still, it’s mind-boggling how many Christians cherry pick their readings to “the happy” or familiar, G-rated stories stuff.  Most of them seemingly have no idea what is in their scriptures, from the three different version of The Ten Commandments ( Version 1: Deuteronomy 5:6-21; Version 2: Exodus 20:1-17, differs slightly from the Deuteronomy version; Version 3: Exodus 34: 14-28 – Hmmm, these commandments are wildly different than the first two versions, although the writing claims it is the LORD speaking.  Guess he’d forgotten what he’d said the first two times?  Also, although this list is never referred to when religious leaders and politicians talk of the Ten Commandments, this version – in verse 27- is the only version referred to in scripture as the “ten commandments” ) ,to the passages where Jesus contradicts himself, to the scriptural guidelines for killing and raping women….

The Deity Of Obstructed Plumbing I’m Not Beseeching

June 12, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, exercise & fitness, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! Comments Off on The Deity Of Obstructed Plumbing I’m Not Beseeching

Department Of Learning To Change Your Mind

I’ve always been careful with/skeptical of the label, SBNR ( “I’m spiritual but not religious.”)  Describing one’s self (or others) as SBNR in answer to questions about one’s religion and/or worldview can be seen – and often is, IMO – as an intellectual cop-out” by people on all sides of the question.

Those who are religious can be annoyed by the term, for several reasons, including:

* It is the pinnacle of cherry picking.  “The ‘I’m SBNR  folks take the warm and fuzzy ideas of their god/religion while not actually following anything…”

* Those who claim they are spiritual-but-not-religious are trying to sell the notion that they are somehow in a deeper, more profound relationship with their ‘higher power’ instead of working within the theologies and traditions of an established church.

* “This idea of being ‘spiritual’ without being ‘religious’ sounds like an attempt at superiority, being that religion (in American society) is often looked upon as a bastion for the ignorant. But being ‘spiritual,’, well, that’s just totally cool, dude.”  [1]

 

You SBNRs are numerous enough to have people marketing your very own religious – excuse me, spiritual – accessories to you!


Humanists/Freethinkers/Skeptics/Atheists/otherwise Religion-Free folk’s critiques of SBNR include:

*  The mealy-mouth SBNR acronym stems from not wishing to come out of the atheist closet.  There is a social stigma of irreligion, particularly for those who have devout family and friends (or even coworkers) who view any total “rejection” of religion ( “I am not religious” ) as a betrayal and/or criticism of *their* beliefs and values.  The claim of SBNR is conflict avoidance strategy, so as not to admit to a complete loss or rejection of faith. Openly declaring oneself as atheist risks alienating friends and family who view the transition as a moral loss rather than an intellectual one.

* The “Spiritual” Buffer: Using the SBNR label often serves as a safe stepping stone.  SBNRers believe the label distances them from rigid doctrine while retaining a connection to awe, mindfulness, or the unknown, without having to do the hard-but-necessary work of confronting and refuting the harsh stereotypes religious folk often associate with atheism.

*   The SBNR people are being smug and/or provocative and/or cowardly.  Responding to a question about one’s religious beliefs by claiming to be ‘spiritual’ isn’t an answer; rather, it’s a cop out – an attempt to avoid the question while sounding like one has put some thought into it, and to avoid the judgement that might come their way by declaring that they are, in fact, religion free ( “What!?  You don’t believe in anything?!?!?” ) .

 

 

And there are those who simply have questions about the SBNR phrase’s semantic employment (translation:  there is no coherent definition of SBNR ):

” Spiritual is such a useless non-word; I’ve never heard from a believer what spiritual encompasses – no two people can agree on how to define it.”

 

“Yeah, I’m not into organized religion, but I’m very spiritual.”

 

Moiself  recently (re) listened to a podcast related to the SBNR issue: A PIMA ( People I Mostly Admire ) podcast rerun, specifically, Steve Levitt’s interview with Sam Harris: Spirituality Unveiled.

From the PIMA episode website:  He’s a cognitive neuroscientist and philosopher who has written five best-selling books. Sam Harris also hosts the Making Sense podcast and helps people discover meditation through his Waking Up app. Sam explains to Steve how to become spiritual as a skeptic….

LEVITT:
I’d love to talk about your book, Waking Up, and I’m going to say something that I literally have never said before about any book, and that is that I think Waking Up is important. And it’s important in the sense that I think it can have a large and a positive impact on many people’s lives….
And while there are, I’m sure, thousands of books on meditation and mindfulness, your book, Waking Up, is the only one I’ve ever run into that I could read through my scientific mind and not feel embarrassed about thinking that I could pursue spirituality. Does that reading of your book resonate with you at all?

HARRIS:
Yeah, yeah. That is certainly its purpose.

 

 

HARRIS:
Spirituality is a loaded term. We don’t have a great term for what the most positive end of human psychology should be called, right? But we want to explore this range of human experience. We want to understand it scientifically. We want to access it personally. On the most basic level, as a matter of experience, all we have is our minds, right?
Happiness and suffering are mental events and that opens the door to various possibilities. One is that the changes you make in the way you pay attention to the world and to the content of your own experience and the contents of consciousness — that it’s possible to make real changes in your relationship to experience itself, and to suffer less, and even not at all in circumstances that would have otherwise caused you an immense amount of pain. And to find joy and beauty and connection in places that you were unable to even notice before. And there’s a training that allows for that. And meditation is sort of the generic term for that….
And so, my goal in writing the book and subsequently releasing the meditation app by the same name, is to convey that. We should have a 21st century conversation about the deepest possibilities of human well-being.

LEVITT:
And if I try to dumb down what you said, I think your main point is that there’s a lot of evidence for practicing various techniques like meditation, which will then lead you to experience the world in a way which is more fulfilling and gratifying and less troubling and disturbing than if you don’t do it. Is that a fair summary of your view of the world?

HARRIS:
Yeah, and I would just point out that 150 years ago, the only person lifting weights was the crazy guy in the circus with the handlebar mustache and leopard skin singlet…. And yet, we all now know that physical exercise is one of the best things you can do. And most of us have found a way to not just tolerate it, but actually love it. But the notion of mental training is fairly esoteric and has to be argued for…
…one difference is that you can’t see the results in quite the same way. The body admits an immense plasticity, and given commitment and native talent and good luck, you can make some serious changes in your physical body. But most people feel like their minds are more or less whatever they wound up with when they stumbled into adulthood, right? They understand that they can get educated and they can learn new facts. But the idea that through training, you could really change your mind, that’s not understood. And it’s not helpful, frankly, that the people who’ve done this work traditionally have always done it explicitly in a religious context. We do have to break it out of these traditional framings because we should be able to use all of the world’s literature and the millennia of conversations that have been had about the mind or anything else, about what works and what makes sense.”

( excerpts, PIMA,  Spirituality Unveiled.  )

 

Let’s work it out together!

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past
Dateline: January 2025.  A new year; a new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  My thought at the time: Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [2]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [3]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Thus, journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago June to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it,  WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 6-12-2015 ( The Self I’m Not Hating ).

 

It’s Later, and I Don’t Hate Myself

The spam message I dared to delete:

IF  YOU  DON’T  READ  THIS  NOW  YOU’LL  HATE  YOURSELF  LATER

*   *   *

I’d Like to Buy a Vowel, Pat

 

NO NO NO NO NO.

Not that vowel.

I’d like to buy an i.

i is my favorite vowel, in part because two of my favorite words begin with it.   [4]

There is the word I itself, the personal pronoun. Although I am not fond of the first-person narrative in fiction and rarely employ it in my stories, I am fond of I for more personal reasons, having to do with action and momentum. I is an indicator of agency and responsibility ( I will do ___; I think that ___).

My other favorite i-word is if.  I love that word.  For me, it is the key to answering the question non-writers of fiction often ask of writers of fiction; specifically, How do you get your story ideas?  The closest I can come to answering that question truthfully  [5]   is to say that the What if question is always involved.

Story ideas, from the mundane to the profound, center around possible answers to the question, What if… 

*  a couple used their argument over whose turn it was to bring in the garbage can as a distraction from their crumbling relationship, mental health issues, and employment insecurity…

* a husband betrayed his wife by posting bail for her sister who was in jail for abetting a cult leader…

* a bereaved mother enlisted the help of a sympathetic stranger she met in a university library to avenge her daughter’s death…

* a teen-aged/elderly/mentally challenged skate boarder/retired cracker salter quality assurance manager/grocery bagger  stumbled upon the body of a former teacher/complete stranger/notorious serial flasher in the hall closet/supermarket parking lot/Grand Canyon gift shop restroom…

Also, if can be used to denote the hope of things to come and the rationalization of things that fail in the here and now ( “If ___, then ___” ).  It is a word of both promise and regret ( “If only…” ).  A mere two letters, a thousand possibilities. I like that.

*   *   *

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week:  [6]

Who Says We Don’t Have a Sense of Humor?    

( Credited to Sun Tzu [7] )

*   *   *

May you have a favorite vowel, or consonant
and know why it’s your favorite;
May you learn how to change your mind;
May you never have to beseech the gods of clogged toilets;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1]  My Take: ‘I’m spiritual but not religious’ is a cop-out,  Sharper Iron (a self-described fundamental Christian forum)  10-1-12.

[2] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.

[3] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[4] Uh, that is, they begin with the letter “i,” not “it.”

[5] Yep, I’ve lied or mislead on many occasions. “How do I get my ideas? Well, there’s this guy in a trench coat who hangs around NE Burnside, and if you slip him a twenty he’ll flash you a plot and character outline….”

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

[7] Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer (“The Art of War“) who lived during the Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC)  (Wikipedia entry.)

Older Entries