Moiself changed that from, “As I age,” when I remembered that As We Age was the name of a mail order catalog with which the-gods-I-don’t-believe-in pranked me, by sending said catalog to me a on a quarterly basis. The catalog’s pages were filled with pictures of women (in their late twenties-early thirties pretending to be in their fifties and sixties) alternatively modeling sensible beach coverups, loud floral-patterned loungewear and the like.
Moiself was mildly intrigued by receiving this publication, and flipped through the first issue I received. Doing so provided me with several minutes of petty satisfactions, as in, getting all snarky re the catalog’s, Oh crap you’re getting older, “be your best“ products, all counting on proving their worthiness for purchase by magnifying the cultural current/subtext of Celebrate Yourself ® Because You’re Going Downhill And You’ll Slide Even Further Unless You Use This Rejuvenation Cream/Powder/Supplement/Slimming regimen/Thigh Tightener….
Then, in the very middle of the catalog, I stumbled upon two pages of…well, dildos. Some of them were described euphemistically as “massage wands” while the other Bobs [1] and selfie sticks were more wink-wink-nudge-nudge about it.
Yet again, I digress (which, BTW, happens as we age to everyone).
As I live my life, as I observe myself and my fellow members of my species – what (IMO) “works” and what doesn’t; what I admire and what I frown upon; what I think is helpful, both personally and society, and what I think is no fucking way are you serious? – I have developed an OSITY file.
Clarification: The OSITY file isn’t a material folder of any kind. Rather, it is a mental accounting of the characteristics I find essential to Being A Good Person® – characteristics I hope to maintain and hone…most of which I think can be broadly classified into two categories: curiosity, and generosity.
Yep; I think that covers just about everything.
* * *
Department Of I Don’t Mind…
That when I’m looking for something on youtube, somehow – most likely because The Internet ® knows that I have the heart and soul of a 11-year-old – my search window defaults to this:
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself. Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [2]
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” ( François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name, Voltaire [4] )
“If something does not look odd, it is less likely to be investigated.
That is precisely why ‘normalcy’ serves as such a protective covering for so many patriarchal institutions.” ( Cynthia Enloe, American author, political theorist, and professor, quote from her book,
Seriously!: Investigating Crashes and Crises as If Women Mattered )
* * *
May you cultivate your own osityfile; May you maintain (or at least appreciate) the heart and soul of an eleven year old; May you judge people by their questions and not (necessarily) their answers; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics, and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[3] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[4] Voltaire was “… a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially of the Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.” (Wikipedia entry)
Department Of Snarky Thoughts While Looking At The Rear License Plate
Of The Car Ahead Of Me At The Traffic Light.
“Isn’t that sweet – one of the license plates Jesus made while
he was doing 5-10 at the Federal Penitentiary for money laundering….”
* * *
Department Of Gummie Bears, Schmummie Bears – Have You Tried…
Dateline: 9:20 am Wednesday; message from daughter Belle. In her work as QA manager for a hard cider company, Belle is privy to the FDA’s product recall list. She sent a copy of the latest list, with this intro:
“The FDA email recall list is the gift that just keeps on giving!”
* * *
Department Of I’m Not Sure What, Exactly, Prompted This Memory Number 3,2781 In A Never-Ending Series Sub- Department Of Lost In Translation
I’m thinking what brought this to mind was a podcast moiself recently listened to, wherein the various stories presented had to do with the protagonists having to make do in unexpected circumstances.
Dateline: a midweek afternoon; the mid-1980s, Planned Parenthood clinic in Santa Ana, CA, where I worked as an Options Counselor/Clinic Aide. At that time perhaps 30% of PP clients were bilingual or Spanish-only speaking, and there were always at least two bilingual clinic and office staff scheduled. On that fateful day, we were short staffed in the clinic, with only one clinician (a Nurse Practitioner, “Serena,” who spoke only English) and two clinic aides – moiself, and Anna, who was bilingual.
I was halfway through my afternoon Clinic Aide shift. Brief clinic logistics: both new and returning patients checked in at the reception desk. “Renee,” the clinic’s receptionist, either pulled the existing chart or created a chart for a new patient, then placed the charts in order of appointment time/patient arrival in a chart holder which was affixed to the door between the reception area and the clinic waiting room. I was surprised when the door between the reception office and the clinic opened, and Renee, holding a chart in her hand, personally escorted a new patient back to the clinic. This was unusual.
What was also unusual was the new patient herself. She looked to be in her late 30s (most of our patients ranged in age from late teens to early 30s), and was dressed to the nines: immaculately coiffed, glistening black hair; a string of fresh water pearls around her neck; a tastefully expensive diamond ring on her left hand [1]; a tailored linen suit… She had a bearing of Old Money ® about her, and looked as if she were headed for a corporate cocktail reception and not a women’s health clinic.
Renee pulled me aside and said that the patient, “Señora Rica,” spoke no English – Renee had learned what she was about to tell me from the PP accounting secretary (“Dina”), who was bilingual and whom Renee had grabbed to translate when Señora Rica [2] came to the reception desk. Señora Rica: age 36, in good health; no allergies; not taking any medications; has two children who are back at home with her husband; currently using an IUD for contraception; lives in Guadalajara; has been visiting relatives in Santa Ana for the past two weeks; began having heavy heavy vaginal bleeding two hours ago; she was not in pain; it was not time for her menstrual cycle. This PP was the closest medical facility Señora Rica’s family knew of; Señora Rica insisted on driving herself to the clinic, sans accompaniment. [3]
I wondered aloud why la Señora had not been referred to an ER, but dropped that concern when I saw that I’d made the already twitterpated Renee even more hyper. The other clinic aide, Anna, had just left for her lunch break – this was before cell phones; there was no way to reach her. So: we have two non-bilinguals – moiself, and NP Serena – in the clinic for the next hour. I told Renee that I’d get la Señora set up for an exam and that Renee needed to get that bilingual accounting secretary back to the clinic, pronto, to interpret.
Moiself just happened to have started studying “clinical” Spanish – and by just I mean, like, two days prior. I’d taken Spanish in high school and had learned next to nothing useful ( ¡Qué sorpresa! ). And although by my junior year my high school’s student body was majority Hispanic-surnamed, the words and phrases I’d picked up from my friends were, how you say, hardly genteel and not at all respectful (nor Castilian grammarly-correct). Still, with my minimal skills I was able to escort Señora Rica to an exam room, where, after apologizing for my abysmal Spanish, I asked her to disrobe from the waist down, put on a drape, and take a seat on the exam table. I told her that I would be right back with the clinician, along with someone who spoke better Spanish than moiself.
I exited the exam room just as Renee and the Very-Nervous-Looking accounting secretary, Dina, and the NP, Serena, arrived outside the exam room door. Fortunately, there were no other patients in the clinic waiting room. I quickly got my comrades up to speed…which was way below the speed limit, as I didn’t know much. NP Serena gave a sneak preview to Dina re what Serena and I would be asking the patient, via Dina’s translation. Serena asked Dina to first please introduce the three of us; we’d need to know at what point the patient was in her reproductive cycle, whether or not she might be pregnant, and she should be informed that the clinician would be performing a pelvic exam which should reveal the status of Señora Rica’s IUD…. And could Renee wait outside the exam room for a minute, until we all got settled?
A little more than a minute after the three of us entered the exam room and maybe forty seconds after Dina had begun talking with the patient, I noticed that Dina’s lips were turning blue, and that her eyes – which had focused on the blood that seeped through La Señora’s paper gown and off the edge of the chux pad[4] under the exam table’s paper – started to roll up in her head. “She’s going,” I hissed to Serena. I managed to catch Dina before her legs’ muscle tone had morphed into al dente spaghetti. As quickly and discretely as I could, I scooted/dragged Dina out of the exam room and to clinic waiting area. I helped Dina to the floor, propped her legs up on a chair and put a seat cushion under her head. I told Dina to breath slowly and deeply, and told a flabbergasted Renee to please keep watch over Dina. [5]
I returned to the exam room. The patient was supine on the exam table while Serena performed a pelvic exam on her. La Señora seemed nonplussed by the near-swooning-drama; whatever is the opposite of nonplussed, that was moiself. I was plussed as hell, but was determined not to let any of that be seem by the patient (or Serena ). I did my best – my comments and questions bracketed with lo siento; lo siento mucho [6] – to convey what Serena needed to do to and know about La Señora.
The exam revealed that La Señora had most likely expelled her IUD, but the patient had no idea when…perhaps when she was in Guadalajara? Or during her shower yesterday morning? “I need to know if there’s a possibility she could be pregnant,” Serena told me. “We can try a pregnancy test after the exam, but the bleeding – which seems to have stopped; well, it still it might interfere with the results – the tests we have here might not be accurate.”
With the help of the calendar on the exam room wall, I was falteringly able to determine La Señora’s LMP. [7] Now, Serena told me, I needed to ask La Señora when was the last time she’d had intercourse. Oh, this is gonna be fun (not). I gulped, and tried my best to comply:
“Ah…Señora, lo siento, pero…
¿Cuándo es la ultima vez…momentito, por favor.”
I realized my high school/crude Spanish was going to fail me in this situation. I whispered to Serena that I did not know the technical Spanish term for sexual intercourse and that I did not want to offend the patient – Serena interrupted me and said that this was need-to-know info, and that I should just do my best.
My best. Muchas gracias, Serena. You want me to ask this very gentle, very patient, very gracious woman when was the last time she and her husband fucked?!?!?
I girded my proverbial language loins, and, as one does when all else fails, employed the universal language of gestures.
“Lo siento mucho, pero, ¿Cuándo es la ultima vez que…usted y el esposo…”
I could feel my cheeks flushing as I made the OK sign with my left hand and jabbed my left right finger back and forth through it.
La Señora’s eyes widened with comprehension. She smiled, chuckled softly, kindly reassured me ( “No hay problema, señiorita” ), pointed her finger toward the calendar, and gave me a date.
By the end of the exam the patient’s bleeding had stopped. She said she felt fine; her vital signs were all normal; we referred her to an Urgent Care clinic for a pregnancy test and followup exam.
Later that afternoon, as Serena was doing her charting and I was getting ready to go home, Serena complimented me on keeping a cool head and on my “ability to pivot.”
“Is that what I did? Thanks, Serena. No, really – thank you, thank you very much,” moiself responded, followed by, “You realize Renee and Dina are never going to speak to me again? And I am never speaking Spanish with a patient, never, ever, never….” [8]
May you be entertained in traffic by other people’s license plates; May you have the appropriate vocabulary at the appropriate time; May you have fun going bowling instead; [10]
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Or so Renee (the clinician who saw her) – who always noticed such things about patients – told me later ( “Did you see that rock on her finger?!? White gold band, round center pink diamond with two rows of diamond insets…” )
[3] And she parked at the curb right in front of the clinic, leaving her cream-colored Merecedes in the no parking loading/unloading only zone.
[4] For general/every day exams, clinics use exam table paper, which makes that distinctive, crinkling sound when you sit on it. When a patient is in labor or during clinical/exam situations involving the possibility of any kind of heavy fluid expulsion, an absorbent underpad, aka “chux” pad, will be placed under the exam table paper, where the patient will be sitting.
[5] “She might throw up; deal with it as best you can; I’m sorry but I’ve got to get back in there….” I can’t remember all I blurted to Renee but I’m sure she found my instructions…lacking.
[8] The very next day I broke that “promise,” and would continue to break it in the following years I worked in the women’s reproductive health care field.
[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
[10] Which, rumor has it, can be made even more fun with a dose of Boner Bears.
I do support The Oregonian, [1] but since we subscribe online only now, I rarely see any of it stories. That’s because, although I have not surveyed the websites of every newspaper in the country, I will nonetheless and confidently assert that The Oregonian has the Worst. Website. Ever.
Listen up, The Oregonian media poobah or whomever is in charge of such things: your Oregon Live website sucks. And it’s not merely because seemingly 50% of the “news” coverage is devoted to local sports national sports international sports interplanetary sports (although that does frost my butt). [2]
It’s because moiself can only see three or four (or sometimes even only two) story headline links before I am assaulted by headline after headline of advertisements for prescription meds, OTC anti-aging products, or other Things You MUST Buy Now ® to treat a plethora of conditions (real and/or manufactured/imaginary) related to aging. These ad teasers are accompanied by extreme, exaggerated, AI-generated [3] pictures of older people – not the Senior Super Models walking hand in hand along the seashore while a robust male voice talks about erectile dysfunction. These oldsters are scared, confused, cranky, incredibly (almost comically) wrinkled, and yikes, do they look unhappy.
We’re so miserable – if only there were products to help us oldsters separate our foreheads when our wrinkles get tangled up at night….
All together now: Times-are-the-worst-ever-for-newspapers-they-need-whatever-revenue-streams-they-can-get…. Yeah yeah yeah.
But, is this what they think I am? Is this what they think I, their reader, wants, and/or what concerns me? This culture is laden with negative images of aging – and therefore negative images of life, for what else is aging? These ads try to frighten/horrify/embarrass you into purchasing anti-aging products. With every monthly subscription charge I feel as if I’m paying to be insulted. I keep threatening to cancel our Oregonian subscription; when I do so, MH reminds moiself (a writer, of all people who shouldn’t need such a reminder…yeah yeah yeah) of the importance of supporting local/independent journalism. But I don’t see how “independence” fits with being dependent upon scare tactic ad revenues. And when I click on a story, thinking I am clicking *through* to a story (as in, past the ads), I get maybe three short paragraphs of the story before I have to scroll past more – sometimes six or more – ads to see if the story does in fact continue.
Just a sampling of the lovely images and copy assaulting my eyeballs:
* ALZHEIMER’S BEGINS WHEN YOU CAN’T SAY THIS WORD…
* THIS DRUGSTORE ITEM IS ALL YOU NEED TO TIGHTEN WRINKLES…
* 63-YEAR-OLD SWAPPED A $18,000 FACELIFT FOR THIS DRUGSTORE FIND…
* CARDIOLOGISTS SAY THIS ONE HABIT IS WHY SENIORS KEEP….
* CHICAGO DOCTOR WARNS: STOP USING YOUR NON-STICK PAN IF IT….
* RETIRED MAN GOT 88 SCAM CALLS…
* MEMORY LOSS HAD BEEN TIED TO THIS COMMON BREAKFAST ITEM…
“I’m so old and forgetful I can’t even remember what breakfast is.”
* * *
Department Of While We’re On The Subject
Dateline: Wednesday afternoon; in the checkout line at my favorite local grocery store. [4] As I unload my cart items I peruse the magazines in the racks to the left of the checkout belt. The cover of the current issue of Harper’s Magazine gets my attention. Translation: it makes me stifle a shriek, pick up the issue and wave it to the checker and the one person ahead of my in line. Moiself sputters indignantly as I point to the photo of an older man, which comprises almost the entire magazine cover: “I want to show you something that really gets me – not your fault, of course” (I nod at the cashier, with whom I am on a first name basis), “but, look at this?!?!
The checker and customer wrinkle their respective noses. Harpers Mag, y’all gave three technically-senior-but-definitely-not-ruling-class women some moments of umbrage and laughter…and you have also inspired me to give you an award I haven’t bestowed in some time: The Golden Turd Trophy ®.
Moiself: “The cover story headline is, ‘How Seniors Became America’s Ruling Class.’ Did they tell the model what he was posing for? Is this even a real person, a model, or is the image AI generated or ‘enhanced’ to make him look as old and wrinkled and cranky as possible?Seniors are soon to be the largest demographic –what is Harper’s thinking? ‘Let’s show them the worst stereotype ever – that’ll get ’em to buy a copy!’ And what’s he supposed to be so angry about ( ‘Dagnabbit, everyone is younger and has smoother skin than I do!’). If he’s truly part of the ‘ruling class,” what’s he so upset about… This cover photo should be illustrating an article about the negative images of aging in our society….”
The checker and the other customer are both women who, like moiself, qualify for the store’s Senior discount day. [5] They each express their respective surprise and disgust re the magazine’s cover photo, and the three of us trade stories about how everyone tries to sell us “anti-aging” products. Then the other customer, a beautiful woman with black-and-silver streaked, straight, shoulder-length hair and perfect posture (I’m thinking, *she* should be on a magazine cover), laughs and says, in a melodious, lightly-accented (Italian?) voice, “It gets worse.”
Signora continues: “I’m telling you this so you won’t be surprised. Deodorant.”
Checker, and Moiself: “Deodorant?”
Signora: “Deodorant, for seniors.”
Moiself: “Seriously?”
Signora, nodding gravely: “I saw it. Last week.”
Checker: “What could possibly….
Moiself: “Oh, so you don’t smell…old?!”
“You’d be cranky too if some young whippersnapper stole your senior deodorant and now you smell geezer-ripe.”
* * *
Department Of Please, Someone Else Write This Story
After recently listening to a Curiosity Weekly podcast on the gut biome, which focused on the fecal transplants that are used now in curing C. Diff. and are being explored for other uses diseases across the board ( Why are people getting poop transplants? ) a story premise dropped anchor (sorry) in a little recess of my mind.
Story premise:
A new disease, merdemortel ( aka M&M ), is threatening to wipe out humanity. M&M spreads easily and rapidly, infects *everyone* who comes within casual contact of victims, but produces no symptoms after infection for its 7-10 days of incubation, during which time the disease carriers infect everyone they come in contact with. M&M kills 87% of its hosts within two weeks of the onset of symptoms, and it does not respond to any of the conventional ( or “alternative”) drugs or treatments.
Scientists have discovered 17 people worldwide who have not contracted M&M after having verifiably been exposed to it. These 17 people have a very specific gut biome which not only makes them immune to M&M but also cures those infected if this gut biome is transplanted to M&M victims. While scientist rush to synthesize a form of this super gut biome, these 17 people are forced into being super poopers: they are secreted away to an underground, sterile holding area, fed a high fiber diet [6] where their feces are collected, processed into capsules ( aka, crapsules) and used to treat humanity….
Calling all would-be novelists and screenwriters: this premise is yours for the taking. [7]
Everyone’s a critic.
* * *
Department Of Asking The Same Question, But For Different Reasons Sub Department Of Still Asking The Same Questions(s), Six Years Later ( this rant originally ran 4-1-20 )
“What is wrong with people?”
The photo, which you can see here if you are so perversely inclined, was of the decapitated head of an enormous bull elk. The head rested atop a bloodied blanket in the bed of a pickup truck. The post asked for help in returning this pathetic souvenir of macho death lust trophy to the hunter who’d killed the elk:
“These antlers were stolen from a man in his 70’s who has never killed a bull this big with a bow. It was taken from his property….”
These antlers.
No mention of the rest of the animal; no mention of the head to which those antlers were attached – the head which showed the elk’s tongue protruding from its mouth, a mute testimony to the elk’s agonizing death throes; [9] no mention of concern for the remaining 600 lbs of the animal. A magnificent creature was slaughtered, not for sustenance or in self-defense, but so that some old dude could hang a part of that creature’s body on his wall as a testimony to the fact that he’d previously “never killed a bull this big.”
What is wrong with people?
As posed by the FB poster(s), the question speculates as to what kind of person would steal an elderly hunter’s booty. As posed by moiself, the question wonders what kind of person of any age enjoys killing any creature for “sport.”
If you consider trophy hunting to be a legitimate sport, I obviously disagree with your assessment, although I respect our difference of opinion on this matter.
And by I respect our difference of opinion on this matter I sincerely mean, Go fuck yourself.
“My hunter buddy tells me, ‘Don’t worry, when I hunt I use every part of the animal.’ You know who also uses every part of the animal? THE ANIMAL.” –Deepak Sethi, writer/comedian
* * *
May you be free from any affliction which is cured by ingesting crapsules; May you (still) support your local independent newspapers; May you never hear from me that I respect our difference of opinion on this matter; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[5] Which, in another nod to aging hassles, the store changed to, “wisdom discount day,” as per complaints of a few customers who didn’t like being asked about their age and/or assuming they qualified to be…gasp…seniors).
[6] Specifically formulated to increase their gut biome production without altering its microbial composition.
[7] But have some self-respect and give attribution, please.
[8] Rather than wimpy, anti-hunting target shooters like moiself.
[9] Death by arrow is not instantaneous, not matter how expert the marksman.
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of How To Take Advantage Of The Something Else
So much in life we feel is out of our control, and certainly a lot of it is. But a recent TED Talk podcast shares the good news that your fate is not sealed by your genetic lottery.
If you’re lucky enough, i.e. if you don’t die before age 65, you will become part of a demographic often referred to as the elderly. The good news is that you have options and choices when it comes to whether you will be part of the ill-derlyor the well-derly.
Doctors and scientists investigating so-called Super Agers[1] (those who at age 80 were on no medication, had never had cancer or dementia-related issues) studied genomes of Super agers, and noted that it was lifestyle choices and preventive measures that extended the Super Agerswellspan (aka healthspan [2] ).
“Eric (Topol, Cardiologist and professor and executive vice president at Scripps Research) and the Scripps Research team looked for the longevity secrets in the DNA of wellderly Super Agers. And what they found changed everything they thought they knew about how humans age.
Eric Topol: The stunning result was…there was not much to be able to say, ‘this was a genetic story’. So, this was either due to luck, which seems that’s farfetched to say all these people were so lucky, or something else. And I think that something else is what we’ve learned so much about in the last couple of years…”
( excerpts, my emphases, How to be a “Super Ager” (it’s not your genes); 5-1-26, TED Radio Hour )
Translation: There ain’t no, TPAGTLLAHL ( These People Are Guaranteed To Live Long And Healthy Lives ) genes.
Lifespan refers to the quantity of years a person lives; wellspanrefers to the quality of those years; i.e., the number of years a person lives in good health, free from chronic disease and cognitive and physical disability. You want a long wellspan, right (no use in having a lengthy lifespan if you’re sick and miserable)?
Listen to the talk/read the transcript for some good tips. (Spoiler alert: ignore the Increase your protein! Inject Peptides! And Plasma! …and other snake oil hypes, and get the shingles vaccination.
* * *
Department Of The Good Advice I’m Currently Pondering
*Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. [3]
* Accepting reality is not the same thing as endorsing reality.
* We are born on one day. We die on one day. We can change on one day. We can fall in love on one day. Anything can happen in one day. [4]
* * *
Department Of After All These Years, There IS Still Room For Improvement In My Social Skills
Dateline: several days ago. This (imaginary) exchange takes place on social media:
FB Reminder: ” _____(name of FB friend) has a birthday today. Let him know you are thinking of him.”
Moiself : “But, I’m not….”
* * *
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 moiselfwill 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?!?!?![5] friend gave me, all those years ago, [6] 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 moiselfwould 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 May to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, What was I thinking!?!? )
Department Of Things That Frost My Butt Installment 621 in a series
(Pre-rant background information: I volunteer for a feline-specific animal adoption organization, at one of their offsite locations. The majority of the cats and kittens are housed at the mother ship, aka the main shelter in south Washington County city. Kittys are also housed at several offsite adoption centers – generally, pet supplies stores which have special cat kennel section which they lease to the shelter.)
To the Guy (and it’s always a guy) who walks his dog (it can be any breed, from the 5 lb yippies to the 80 lb Dobermans) up and down the aisles of the PetOpia store: Dude, you hold your dog up to the glass wall of an animal’s kennel/habitat and encourage your canine to bark/growl/otherwise harass the animal (usually a cat, but I’ve seen it happen to rabbits, gerbils and other rodents, reptiles, birds, other/smaller dogs) housed on the other side of the glass. Anyway, you know who you are…
On second thought, you probably don’t. Your actions indicate that there is nary an introspective bone in your body, only a thick mass of bone-like tissue where your brain should be housed.
Every time it happens, a part of me is surprised as well as disgusted. Apparently, because you have an animal with you and you are in a pet supplies store, I hold the (obviously mistaken) assumption that you are fond of animals. And yet you engage in this behavior as if it were playful, and persist in encouraging your dog to bark at the other animal despite [9] seeing obvious signs of distress in that animal.
And I, a volunteer for an organization which depends upon the goodwill of the pet supplies store in order to have that adoption space at the store, have been explicitly instructed that I am forbidden from confronting you. I can only “redirect” your behavior and attempt to educate you; I can’t kick your sorry sadistic ass to the curb.
If only for a taser gun with a heat-seeking, genital-specific probe….
” ‘The original sin was eating from the tree of knowledge.’ That line, whether read as theology or metaphor, contains a quiet irony: the foundational story of much of Western religion begins with a punishment for seeking knowledge. Not violence. Not theft. Curiosity.
That narrative sets a tone that echoes through history. When church signs declare that education distances people from God, or that faith thrives where common sense falters, they are not anomalies—they are symptoms. They reflect a long-standing tension between authority and inquiry, between certainty and doubt….
… The pattern is not anti-knowledge per se; it is selective acceptance of knowledge that does not destabilize belief systems.
That selectivity matters.
Modern research consistently shows a measurable—though nuanced—negative correlation between religiosity and scientific literacy…. This does not mean religious individuals are unintelligent…. It means that when beliefs are tied to identity, community, and perceived moral order, contradictory evidence is often filtered or resisted.
So the issue is not stupidity. It is insulation….
…the sharper question is not, “Does religion need people to be stupid?” That framing misses the mark.
A better question is:
Does religion function best when people stop asking certain questions?
Another:
If a belief is true, why should it fear scrutiny?
And another:
What kind of truth requires protection from education?…
Religion does not require stupidity. It often thrives on something more subtle: the prioritization of belief over verification.
That distinction matters, because it shifts responsibility. The problem is not that people are incapable of thinking critically—it is that many are taught, explicitly or implicitly, that certain ideas should not be critically examined….”
May you never be One Of Those People whose ass other people want to kick to the curb; May you take advantage of the Something Else; May you eat from the tree of knowledge at every opportunity; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] A Super Ager is someone age 80 or older who exhibits cognitive function that is comparable to an average person who is middle-aged and/or who has never had cancer nor is on medication for chronic conditions (heart disease, Type 2 diabetes….)
[2] Referring to increasing lifespan, people are trying to add years to life, vs. wellspan or healthspan,where the emphasis is “adding life to your years.”
[9] Or because of…bullies apparently do not limit their torments to their own species.
[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
Department Of Not One Damn Popover Was Ever Baked In Our Home
Moiself has nothing against popovers. I didn’t really know what they were before I got married, then had little interest afterward when someone described them to me as dinner rolls on steroids. Perhaps I had a lingering case of PPA (Premarital Popover Aversion)…?
MH’s and my wedding anniversary was this past week. Somehow, this memory popped (sorry) [1] to mind:
Dateline: However many years ago; some place in Palo Alto, CA; wedding reception of MH and moiself. I have been roped into small talk with a large man, one of the many Perfectly Nice People Whom I’ve Never Met Before And Whom MH Knows Only Vaguely Because They Are Relatives/Friends Of His Parents ® .
This PNPWINMBAWMKOVBTAR/FOHPis an older man who decides to engage me in conversation (translation: I listen to him talk about) the wedding present he and his wife got us: a popover pan.
Popover pan, sans popovers
A popover pan. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a specific piece of baking equipment (the Parnells were not a popover-consuming family). “I said, ‘Let’s get them a popover pan,’ “ this man tells me, recreating the pivotal gift-giving conversation he had with his wife. He also tells me, with evident pride in overturning the stereotypical, who-buys-the-wedding gift assumptions, that *he himself* volunteered to purchase and wrap the pan! And that he was happy to do so! Because, “I always loved it when my wife made me popovers, and I hope that MH will have the same experience.”[2]
I thank him, drain my glass of champagne in two gulps, and say, (while beaming the most oblivious-to-sexist-expectations smile that I can muster) [3] “I’m looking forward to MH learning to bake us popovers!”
Another happy couple looks forward to consecrating their marriage with the popover experience.
* * *
Department Of Not What We Were Looking For, But A Fun Surprise
Dateline: last week; MH and I searching closets, file cabinets, the attic, the We-never-would-have-moved-them-here drawers…. When we had the house interior painted many months back, MH cleared out the room where our treasured LPs and cassettes were kept. [4]. And now we can’t find them.
We’ve become friendly with several of the Rock Creek staff. There are two newer servers – a brother and sister, [5] both of whom are into (what they call) “retro” music. I asked the young woman, “Nellie,” for examples of what she considered retro she mentioned several singers/bands (which I recognized as the soundtrack from my retro youth). When Nellie said that she really liked Joan Jett, I said, “I’m going to impress you, then.”
I told Nellie about having seen JJ twice in concert – once when Jett was with The Runaways, [6] and once with her band Joan Jett and The Blackhearts. And as if that wasn’t impressive enough…
…many years ago my grooviest friend in the world, former WWDC 101 disc jockey EDK, met Ms. Jett when she was in DC for a concert. Jett visited the radio station, as bands often do when they’re on tour. While she was there EDK asked her to record some station promos, AND wish me a happy birthday, which he recorded and sent to me on tape.
Nellie’s eyes widened with delight; she begged me to bring in the tape and play it for her.
But here’s something MH did find, in a file of old tax returns. He took pictures of the letter I’d written to the IRS (after our first filing as a married couple), and sent the pictures to our offspring: “While searching for other archived items, I came across this. Thought you might enjoy reading some nonfiction writing by your mother.” Transcript (with address/personal details redacted) below.
I have only the barest memory of writing the letter, and of the bureaucratic injustice which spurred me to do so. But after reading it I told MH, “Yep; sounds like me.” What’s nice is that I got the unexpected: a personal response, from a government bureaucrat! And it was a good one (I’ll spare you thattranscript) …although, as MH noted, you can consider it ironic or fitting, given the subject, that the IRS’ response letter is signed with a woman’s name, signing for the (male) IRS Director of Returns.
You may want to sit down; lest you be overcome with excitement.
I am writing to you regarding an inaccuracy on my Federal Income Tax refund check.
My husband and I filed joint returns for ____ (year). I have attached a copy of our Federal Income Tax refund check, which, as you can see, is made payable to “____ ( MH’s first name and middle initial and surname) and “Roby _____ (MH’s surname). While my husband’s name is indeed ____ (MH’s first name and middle initial and surname), my last name is Parnell. I am not Robyn _____ (MH’s surname) (and I am most certainly not “Roby MH’s surname”); there is no Robyn ____ ( MH’s surname) that I am aware of who is married to my husband and who has my Social Security number.
Two areas of interest regarding this matter:
a space for Spouse’s Signature (“if joint return BOTH must sign”) is provided on the 1040 form, yet there is no space, at the beginning of the form, for spouse’s name to be printed, although there is a space for spouse’s SSN.
despite not having a space to record my name, my Social Security number was provided, as was my signature, which, while admittedly not renowned for its legibility, is obviously not of someone whose last name begins with the letter “W.” I kept my birthname at marriage, as did my husband. I have never been “Robyn ____ (MH’s surname”) – the name is not mine, nor does it appear on any of my legal or personal records, nor is it associated with ____ (my SSN).
Taking all of this in to account – and not for one moment daring to assume that a governmental agency would change my name without my knowledge, consent or request to perhaps follow a sexist, outdated assumption of what happens to the surname of a woman when she marries – I am at a loss to figure out how that name got on our check. Perhaps someone at the IRS can enlighten me?
(Don’t be too hard on yourselves – the state of California didn’t do any better. We also filed a joint state income tax return, with my name listed as filer and my husband’s SS# listed as “Spouse.” Our state refund check was made payable to two different versions of my name, neither of which even remotely resembled my husband’s name).
A friend of mine encountered a similar situation last year: her federal refund check was made payable to her and her husband, each listed as having her husband’s surname, which is not her surname, professionally, personally or otherwise. Both endorsed the check as it was written, per their banker’s instructions. A few weeks after depositing the check they received letters from the IRS inquiring as to who the second payee was who endorsed the check, as they have no records of any such person – the name they erroneously put on the check – having my friend’s Social Security number!
If this seems like small potatoes to you – “What’s a few letters changed here and there” – consider what would happen if I or any taxpayer had such a cavalier attitude toward listing and recording our expenses and deductions (“What’s a few numbers or decimal points changed or eliminated”)…we’d be in holy hot water (bureaucratically speaking, of course) quicker than you could say, “Subtract line 30 from line 23.”
IRS Commissioner Gibbs writes “…working together with you, I believe we jointly (my emphasis) can find ways to make taxes less taxing for all of us.” * By bringing this matter to your attention, I am trying to do my part.
Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely, your “valued customer,” *
Robyn Parnell
cc: – Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project
-Lawrence B. Gibbs, IRS Commissioner
* quotes taken from the From the Commissioner letter in the 1040 forms and instructions booklet.
“New rule: If churches don’t have to pay taxes, they also can’t call the fire department when they catch fire. Sorry reverend, that’s one of those services that goes along with paying in. I’ll use the fire department I pay for. You can pray for rain.” ( Bill Maher, “Real Time,” 2-17-2006 )
* * *
May you have your own version of a popover experience; May you have a memorable communiqué with a bureaucrat; May you get the services you pay (not pray) for; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] I still remember his odd (to me) choice of words…but then, a popover ignoramus such as moiself might not know that having popovers is an experience.
[3] And that was my second of what would be many glasses of bubbly that night, so there was mustering to be done.
[7] Nor can we find a lot of others, and some really cool LPs…but, as my father used to say, “It’ll turn up.”
[8] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Reasons For That Take A Deep Breath Truism
“The way we breathe has a direct and immediate impact on the state of our mind, emotions, and nervous system. When we’re agitated or anxious, our breath is often quick and shallow. When we’re calm, and grounded, it tends to be long and deep. So, it’s helpful to remember that we can deliberately alter our breath when we want to soften stress or anxiety.…
we can always call on this tool, lengthening our inhales and exhales, in order to regulate our stress response, and gain a sense of calm.” ( Calmmeditation, app, “Breath in Three Acts,” 4-6-26 )
* * *
Department Of Powerful People Have The Privilege Of Ignorance Sub-Department Of Reasons To Use The Calming Breath Tools
“It is an old truism that knowledge is power. The inverse — that power is often ignorance — is rarely discussed.
The powerful swathe themselves in obliviousness in order to avoid the pain of others and their own relationship to that pain. There’s a large category of acts hidden from people with standing: the more you are, the less you know….” ( excerpt, Rebecca Solnit, “Nobody Knows,” Harpers Magazine )
A few days ago, when moiself ran across Rebecca Solnit‘s above cited article, I was reminded of SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor’s recent and right-on critique of her colleagues’ obliviousness to the realities in daily lives of non-one-percenters such as themselves.
( excerpts, my emphases/additions, “Supreme Court’s Sotomayor slams colleague Kavanaugh for ICE ruling,” USAToday, 4-9-26 ):
Sotomayor spoke about the court’s divided decision in September 2025 that allowed the Trump administration to resume indiscriminate immigration-related stops….
Over the objections of the court’s three liberal justices, including Sotomayor’s, the court blocked a lower court ruling that said federal agents need to have reasonable suspicion that the person they’re questioning is in the country illegally…. [1]
‘I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,’ Sotomayor said, referencing Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion…. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.’
Sotomayor added, ‘Those hours that they took you away, nobody’s paying that person,’ she said of those detained. ‘And that makes a difference between a meal for him and his kids that night and maybe just cold supper.’ ….
In his opinion for the court, Kavanaugh liedblew smoke out of his prep school Ivy League ass made up crap about something he knows nothing about said that legal residents’ encounters with immigration agents are ‘typically brief,’ and impacted individuals ‘promptly go free.’
* * *
Department Of New Great Term From A Book I Might Read
*Might read,* as in, Get in line with the 158 books ahead of you on my list. But, as is often the case with my reading list, the lastest, newest/shiny entry kicks the others to the rear. Sigh. There’s no fighting evolution.
Oh yes the term: safetyism. Before I even read the definition I suspected what it was;…moiself knew it was a name for something I’d previously had no name for – a phenomenon that both alarmed and infuriated me when I saw it creeping into my children’s college experiences. [2]
The Coddling of the … reviewer admitted being skeptical about a book whose title could have heralded a tirade from middle-aged professors about how “today’s students are too soft and whiny.” Instead, the reviewer noted, the book’s authors point out the disturbing data of what is happening on college campuses: the rise of trigger warnings, safe spaces, disinvited speakers, student protests shutting down debate – linked with the dramatic and documented rise in anxiety and depression among young people. The book does not blame young people for these particular problems; rather, it lays responsibility on the bad ideas that youth are being taught by well-meaning adults.
“…despite their theoretical benefits, protected educational experiences [safe spaces] often fail to instill the most important attributes of a liberal education: critical thinking, persuasive argumentation, close reading, and cultural understanding. Indeed, students’ desire for safe spaces can limit their ability to traverse the real world—where strong disagreements and challenging experiences are part of life…. I know my campus is not a protective bubble that can shield students from reality. Rather, it’s a microcosm of the real world—and I’m not doing my job as an educator if I perpetuate the illusion of safety at the expense of challenging students’ ideas and beliefs.
As a Black man who teaches Shakespeare at a predominantly white institution, I realized years ago that the classroom can never be a safe space. When I teach Othello, a tragedy replete with anti-Black racism and misogyny, am I safe from silent criticisms that I’m an assimilated Black person with a ‘white voice’ teaching a white author? If there is only one Black female student in the class, is she safe? Rather than asking a non-Black colleague to teach the play for me, I lean into discomfort and use it to my pedagogical advantage. I carefully address whatever arises from the class’s collective exposure to the text and its racist moments, because that is my job as a professor.
In my classroom, I eschew safe space rhetoric—such as the truism that all opinions are equally valid—in favor of a pedagogical practice I call ‘productive discomfort.’ This practice leans into difficult discourses on a variety of contentious topics and fearlessly engages students’ personal backgrounds, identities, and experiences. It uses the learning process to expand the boundaries of students’ comfort zones by challenging their existing assumptions and biases.”
“Education should disrupt the status quo and promote critical thinking.”
Yet again, I digress.
What follows are excerpts from the The Coddling of the American Mind review, with my emphases. I have not yet read the book; thus, my emphases of the reviewer’s statements mark *my* concerns – ones I’ve amassed over the past decade, from my offsprings’ experiences as well as from my own readings and observations. One example: although content/trigger warnings and attempts to establish colleges as safe spaceswhere students are promised refuge from being “offended” may feel like a kindness in the moment, IMO these policies impinge on free speech, suppress open discussion of complex issues, throttle academic and intellectual diversity, and ultimately (and perhaps most importantly) hinder young people in building resilience.
“Lukianoff and Haidt [the books’ two authors] are not conservatives….both lean left politically. That matters, because this book is not a right-wing attack on campus culture. It’s a liberal critique of things that have gone wrong inside liberal spaces….
The central argument is simple: three bad ideas have spread through American universities (and increasingly through K-12 schools, workplaces, and families). These ideas sound good on the surface. But they are toxic. They make students more anxious, more depressed, and less prepared for adult life.
The three bad ideas are:
‘What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.’ This is the opposite of the old saying. It teaches that discomfort, emotional pain, and offense are dangerous. So, we must protect people from them. The problem is that avoidance makes anxiety worse, not better. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), one of the most evidence-based treatments for anxiety, teaches the exact opposite: you have to face your fears to overcome them.
‘Always trust your feelings.’ This sounds empowering. But your feelings are not always reliable guides to reality. Anxiety tells you there’s a threat when there isn’t. Anger can be based on a misinterpretation. If you always trust your feelings without questioning them, you become a prisoner of your own emotional reactions.
‘Life is a battle between good people and evil people.’ This is the us-versus-them mindset. It divides the world into oppressors and victims. It leaves no room for nuance, context, or good-faith disagreement. And it makes every conflict into a moral crusade where compromise is betrayal….
Here are four things the reviewer learned from the book ( again, excerpts from the review, my emphases ):
“1. Safetyismis not the same as safety.
The authors coin the term “safetyism” to describe a culture where emotional safety is treated as more important than intellectual freedom. Actual safety protects you from physical harm. Safetyismprotects you from ideas that might make you uncomfortable. The problem is that you can’t learn in a discomfort-free environment. Learning requires challenge.
2. The rise in anxiety and depression is real and alarming. [5]
3. Antifragility is a real thing.
The book borrows Nassim Taleb’s concept of ‘antifragile’ things [6] that get stronger when they’re stressed (e.g. bones, muscles, immune systems) Minds can be antifragile too. But only if they’re exposed to manageable challenges. Protecting kids from every stressor makes them fragile, not safe.
4. You can be compassionate and still allow discomfort.
One of the book’s most important distinctions. Compassion does not mean removing every obstacle. Sometimes compassion means letting someone struggle, fail, and figure it out.
The book ends with a line that has stuck with me: ‘Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.’
That’s it. That’s the whole argument. We have been so focused on smoothing the road, removing every bump, every uncomfortable idea, every moment of potential distress, that we forgot to prepare the child. And now we have a generation that is more anxious, more depressed, and less resilient than any in recent memory.”
May you remember that discomfort is the point of learning; May you call out mind-coddling when you see it; May you always have room for nuance, context, and good-faith disagreement; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] I don’t know if it went as far back as high school – I don’t recall K or Belle mentioning “safe spaces” or “trigger/content warnings” then – but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was already there.
[3] I copied/wrote down portions, so it must have been online…Facebook? One of my many newspaper online subscriptions? ACVATTWAFNB (All Cat Videos All The Time With A Few News Breaks)?
[5] Most of us have heard about the skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression; the book presents data linking this to social media, the decline of free play, and the rise of safetyism.
[6] Nassim Taleb is a Lebanese-American author, professor, mathematician. His book cited here is Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder,
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of But First, Set Aside The Skepticism For: More Proof That Everything Circles Around
Dateline: Tuesday 4:29p, reading a blurb in The Weekmagazine’s “guide to what’s worth watching.” I come upon a blurb that makes me shriek with joy, and search my blog history for the story I know is there. Here, from 10-27-17 ( The Studio I’m Not Touring ), is an excerpt of my relating a Parnell family story to my family
Remember the story I’ve told you, when I was in grade school, and one night at the dinner table my dad was teasing my mom about her name….
For the benefit of those not related to me or who haven’t heard the story, [1] a wee bit o’ background info: my mother’s birth surname was Hole. [2] Yes, Hole. I sometimes teased her, about why her own mother didn’t keep her surname Moran but instead was willing to take on her husband’s…unique…family name: It really must have been love, or desperation….
Yeah, so, the story. At the family dinner table, occupied as per usual by my parents and their four children (on this particular night oh-so-many years ago, my older sister, younger sister and I were all in grade school, and our brother was an infant):
After my father’s customary So, tell me about your day? query, we dove into yet another round of thematic banter. Our family dinner table dialogues tended to focus on one subject, which was never (or rarely) intentional or pre-planned, but rather tangential from something which had happened to one of the Parnell siblings [3] at school. On that evening, I shared a story about a kid who had been teased on the playground about his name: the combination of his first name and last name made for some tease-worthy rhyme schemes. [4]
Marion Parnell said she felt sorry for the poor boy. Growing up with her particular last name, she knew exactly how he felt:
“My father was always telling my sisters and I how, in Norway, Hole was a respectable, upper class, landowners’ name. I lost track of how many times he told us we should be proud of our name. He just couldn’t understand how it was for us, because in America, it was just HOLE. Oh, I heard it all the time, the jokes: ‘Look, here comes Marion Hole, hole-in-the-ground…don’t fall into a hole!’ “
(I had also lost count of how many times I’d heard about Hole-is-a-proud-Norwegian-name assurances, and had come to think that our maternal grandfather had made that up to make our mother feel better. I’d never heard of anyone, of anyethnic background, with that name.)
Still with me? You deserve The Order of the Pretty Purple Toe ® award.
My mother took little comfort from me telling her that her peers had been pretty lame in the joke department: ” ‘Marion Hole-in-the-ground’? I can think of a lot worse things to do with a name like…”
Chester Parnell jumped in, to save me from embarrassing my mother. Or so I thought.
“Well, Robbie Doll, you know what your mom’s middle name is?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “Alberta?”
“That’s right,” Chet nodded enthusiastically. “But you know, she was so beautiful, I never had any second thoughts about marrying an A. Hole.”
This produced shrieks of delight from the three Parnell daughters – first from me (my shriek decibel count was boosted by my pride in being the first one to “get it”), followed a few seconds later by my older sister, and then by my younger sister, who probably didn’t get the reference but knew something hilarious must have been said by the way her older sisters and father were reacting.
Mom had that tense/amused, try-to-be-a-good-sport look on her face. Dad gazed across the table at her with impish affection – I knew something even better was coming up.
Chester B. Parnell: “Tell them about your cousin.”
Marion A. Hole Parnell (baring her teeth): “I don’t want to tell them about my cousin.”
Chet: “Tell them about your cousin. What was his name?”
Marion: (muttering) “His name was Harry.”
Chet: “And it wasn’t a nickname – his real name wasn’t Harold? And he didn’t have a middle name – just a first and last name?”
Marion: “That’s right.”
Mom, of course, knew where this was heading. She tried to act as if she were miffed, but I could see the corners of her mouth beginning to twitch.
Chet: “And so his name was…?”
Marion (deep breath): “Harry Hole.”
Professional stand-up comics would kill to get an audience response akin to that which erupted that evening, in the smallest of venues, the Parnell kitchen dining nook.
* * *
Back to the present; specifically, Tuesday, when moiself comes across the blurb in The Week magazine and shrieks aloud, My mom’s cousin!!
* * *
Department Of Post Easter Reflections
It’s the week after the weekend of the most holy Christian festival that ironically [5] has the most un-Christian name. What we call Easter, as with most Christian holidays, consists in large part of the ancient rites and myths of paganism and other spiritualities which were incorporated into the Christian myths (see this Longest Blog Footnote So Far ® for details, should that float your boat. [6] )
Three years ago, around this time of year, this was included in my blog:
Department Of Uh, Since You’ve Asked, That Would Be, “No”
Last Sunday a FBF (Facebook Friend) began her post thusly:
Happy Easter, everyone! Can I share what it means to me?
FBF went on to – surprise! – offer her testimony for Jesus, without waiting for an answer to her question.
Moiself remembered that post on Monday, when I saw a different post on social media – a post which, if I had a different relationship with that FBF, I would forward to her, and possibly even ask for her reaction/opinion.
For my Christian readers, family and friends – and yessirreeebobsurprise! I do have them – I assume they call themselves Christian because they go to a Christian church and/or believe they have committed to “follow Jesus.”
Having been raised in that background, it has always – and especially around this time of year – been a source of forehead-bonking wonder to moiself that there seems to be little understanding by Christians that their Jesus is never quoted in their scriptures as saying, “Oh, yeah, along with the teachings and good deed admonitions I’m leaving y’all with, here’s the most important thing: please remember to start a new religion, and name it after me.”
Former Christian evangelical divinity student Jim Palmer’s new ministry seems to be to “minister” to former literalists such as himself ( from Palmer’s writings moiself has seen so far, I gather Palmer would still claim to follow [some] words/example of Jesus, but not Christianity). For the sake of relative brevity, moiself will assume that most Christians accept their Biblical scriptures as reliable. [7] It is to those Christians that I’d like to direct to one of Palmer’s writings, which contain some abundant food for thought (an entire life’s rations, I’d say) about how Christianity ≠ Jesus ≠ Christianity:
It still surprises people who haven’t looked closely that Jesus and Christianity are not the same thing. Not even close. Jesus was not a Christian. He didn’t start Christianity. He didn’t write a creed, build an institution, or outline a belief system that would later dominate empires. You can’t blame Christian nationalism on Jesus. You can’t even cleanly blame Christianity on him. What exists today under his name is something that formed after him, around him, and in many ways, in spite of him.
What we call Christianity is largely shaped by the Apostle Paul and later by the political machinery of the early church. Most of the New Testament isn’t Jesus talking, it’s Paul interpreting. Then you have centuries of councils, debates, and power plays where theology gets hammered into place by people trying to stabilize a movement that was never meant to be stabilized. Read the creeds. They are packed with metaphysical claims about Jesus, yet strangely quiet about the actual things he taught. It’s a lot of doctrine, very little Jesus.
Then Constantine shows up and everything shifts. After the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Christianity goes from a grassroots, disruptive movement to a state-sanctioned tool. Legalized, institutionalized, and eventually weaponized. What began as something subversive becomes something that props up empires. By the time you get to Nicaea, Jesus is being defined in ways that would likely leave him scratching his head. The question isn’t just who Jesus was. It’s who needed him to be what they said he was.
Christianity didn’t just elevate Jesus. It insulated people from him. Turning him into God conveniently removes the pressure of actually following him. If he’s divine in a way you can never be, then you don’t have to wrestle with his humanity or your own. You can worship instead of embody. You can believe instead of live. It’s a brilliant move if your goal is control. Not so great if your goal is transformation.
Strip away the layers of theology, politics, and institutional spin, and you find something far more dangerous than what Christianity preserved. Jesus wasn’t executed for starting a religion. He was executed for disrupting one. He challenged the alliance between religious authority and political power, and he did it without holding any official position himself. That’s what made him dangerous. He didn’t oppose the system by building a rival system. He made the existing one look unnecessary.
The Romans didn’t crucify nobodies. Jesus mattered. Not because he held power, but because he exposed it. His message stirred hope, and hope is not harmless. Hope destabilizes systems that rely on resignation. It wakes people up. It makes them harder to control. Jesus told people to stop outsourcing their authority, to stop deferring to religious gatekeepers, and to trust what was alive and true within themselves. That’s not religion. That’s a direct threat to anyone who benefits from people staying dependent.
Every time Jesus spoke, he was pulling another block out of the structure holding everything in place. He didn’t need an army. He didn’t need a platform. His clarity did the damage. He revealed that the system people thought they needed wasn’t necessary in the way they had been told. And once people start to see that, the whole thing begins to wobble.
What’s ironic is that the religion built in his name ended up doing the opposite of what he did. It rebuilt the very structures he exposed. It reintroduced authority, hierarchy, and dependency, then stamped his name on it for legitimacy. And now, two thousand years later, Jesus is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Talked about endlessly, but rarely recognized.
Jesus might be the most famous missing person in history. Not because he disappeared, but because the institution built around him made sure you wouldn’t find him.
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?!?!?![8] friend gave me, all those years ago, [9] 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 April to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )
“I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.
Believers should eagerly take up this challenge, since without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, ‘And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain…. ‘ (I Corinthians 15:14-15)
The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul’s tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened….”
Protestants and Catholics seem to have no trouble applying healthy skepticism to the miracles of Islam, or to the ‘historical’ visit between Joseph Smith and the angel Moroni. Why should Christians treat their own outrageous claims any differently?…
[Thomas] Paine points out that everything in the bible is hearsay. For example, the message at the tomb (if it happened at all) took this path, at minimum, before it got to our eyes: God, angel(s), Mary, disciples, Gospel writers, copyists, translators. (The Gospels are all anonymous and we have no original versions.)
But first things first: Christians, either tell me exactly what happened on Easter Sunday, or let’s leave the Jesus myth buried next to Eastre (Ishtar, Astarte), the pagan Goddess of Spring after whom your holiday was named.
Then, like now, you’d think somebody at the time would have noticed zombies walking around….
* * *
May you enjoy the rites of spring, no matter what natural processes and/or mythical beings you attribute them to; May you apply a healthy skepticism to all supernatural claims; May you always notice when zombies are walking around; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] The latter group would not include anyone within a twenty mile radius of my dining table.
[2] Which is why, once my feminist worldview began to develop, I told her it was completely understandable that she never even considering retaining her birth name upon marriage
[3] Which translates into, usually moiself. Things were always happening to moiself.
[4] And although I remember with vivid clarity the conversation that ensued from me sharing that story about the kid being teased re his name, to this day I cannot recall what the kid’s name was – something along the lines of Bart Katz, which of course got turned into Barfing Cats or Fart Cats or the like.
[6] When early Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north, they attempted to convert them to Christianity and, of course, alter their existing religious observations. They did so in a clandestine manner, as suggested by church authorities and finally “officialized” in 601 A.D., when Pope Gregory I issued an edict to his missionaries regarding the customs of peoples they wanted to convert. Rather than banish native customs and beliefs, the pope had his missionaries incorporate them (e.g., if people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, Greg I advised missionaries to consecrate the tree to Christ).
Early Christians holy day observances coincided with celebrations that already existed. And as with almost all “Christian” holidays, Easter was originally a festival of another religion, and derives from a variety of pagan celebrations. It made sense to Christians to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration. Still, every Easter, many Christian parents are put in the uncomfortable position of having to explain to the kiddies why the torture, execution, and supposed resurrection of Jesus is celebrated with colored eggs and cute widdle bunnies. Uncomfortable, in that most adult Christians have only a vague clue about the connection. Some grant that Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover celebration. However, seeing as how Yahweh didn’t send a plague of egg-hiding rabbits into Egypt, the link seems rather feeble.
The name of the holiday, “Easter,” is the name of a pagan goddess, and was identified as the source of the holiday’s name by “The Venerable Bede” (672-735 CE), a Christian theologian (in his book De Ratione Temporum.) The name “Easter” has many variations (Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Ester, Eastra, Eastur, Austron, etc.) but all of these come from the same Roman deity, the goddess of the dawn, named “Eos” or “Easter.”
[7] The refutations of that assumption, along with the problems which come from assuming such veracity and/or the reliability of scriptural sources, are just a google search away.
[8] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.
[10] For those not familiar with churchy stuff, this is the traditional Paschal greeting.
[11] “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 only reason I’m not casting my vote for the 2026 Best Picture Oscar is because moiself is not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences…either that, or the Academy misplaced my ballot. Not that it would matter, because I’d do a write-in; that is, I’d vote for a movie that didn’t win last year, because it was egregiously mistakenly not on the ballot: 2024’s TheLife of Chuck.
If you hold as truth, as I do, the idea that we all contain multitudes, [1] then all of the movies which existentially and ultimately mean more than diddly-squat [2] can be contained in The Life of Chuck.
* * *
Department Of Helpful Reminders
Tomorrow is Pi Day. Do you have your recipes ready? Seeing as how it’s AEDD [3] month, y’all can guess what my entrée will feature.
“I think she means us!”
* * *
Department Of Tomorrow Is Pi Day And Today…
…is a significant day for my circle of loved ones. Moiself wasn’t going to mention the significance until I made a…perceptive typo, if there is such a thing. [4]
Background info: every Friday I write and send two letters ( yep, “snail,” in the mail), one to each of my offspring. I begin each letter with either a haiku or limerick, rotating every week. This week is a haiku week. The two letters I sent today began by noting the birthday of someone dear to us, who was taken from us way, way, way too soon. [5]
A Haiku For SEH A wise life guide is
to “Love ’em while you got ’em.”
And she was so loved….
I can’t write about anything else today, which is SEH’s birthday. She would have turned 35 today. She’d have had finished her residency; I like to imagine her working…in one of her several specialties: family medicine; wilderness medicine; reproductive medicine? She loved the outdoors so much, and was concerned about this country’s eroding reproductive rights and access to medical care in underserved communities…. I like to think she might have stayed in Utah to provide women’s health care there, or in other more restrictive states. She shone bright in her brief but significant life, and her fabsence is keenly felt.
Yikes, did you see what I just did typed? I decided to let the typo stand; certainly her absence is keenly felt, but IMO she also had a keen fab sense.
“Sarah Elizabeth” English tea rose
* * *
Department Of I Guess I’ll Never Know The Answer
If I Never Ask The Question
Dateline: Sunday, ~1p.m., returning from lunch with MH. As MH steers our car into our driveway an oldiebegins playing on the car radio. I recognize Jimmy Soul’s bouncy 1962 hit, If You Want To Be Happy. The song begins with its chorus:
“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life/ Never make a pretty woman your wife/ So for my personal point of view: Get an ugly girl to marry you…“
The song goes on to extol the virtues of marrying an unattractive woman. The singer proclaims that, among other plusses, an ugly woman won’t ever leave you ( as per the stereotype, she’ll be grateful for any attention she receives, ’cause no one else would want her ). Oh, and she’ll be a great cook.
Har de har har!
The first time I heard that song ( Junior high? It was already an oldie) moiself was appalled. When I expressed my distaste for the lyrics, a guy friend accused me of being a Women’s Libber With No Sense Of Humor® ( “Oh c’mon, it’s an old song; a light-hearted joke of the times… “ ).
Skip to decades later, to the day when daughter Belle came home from high school in a grumpy mood. She told me about a boy who’d been sent home to get a change of clothing because he’d shown up to school wearing a t-shirt with a slogan on it that another boy objected to as being racist. What gave Belle the grumpies was that the previous week, when she and another girl had gone to the administration to complain about a couple of troglodytes male students who harassed female students and wore t-shirts with misogynistic slogans (e.g., with a drawing of a boy ordering a girl to “Shut up and make me a sandwich”[6] ), they were told by said administrative spineless lackies personnel that what those boys were doing wasn’t “illegal” and that there was nothing the school could ( read: would ) do about that.
I sadly confirmed to my daughter what experience was already teaching her. Yep, you are not imagining things: there’s a hierarchy of political and cultural concern with discriminatory isms and ists. Something deemed as racist is seen as worse than something deemed as sexist. It’s not (or shouldn’t be) a contest; still, isms/istsare often pitted against one another, as many a Black feminist has attested.
“As a black woman I’ve been told that…I’m supposed to be black first and stand in solidarity with black men. Focus on the impact of racism, specifically on racism that negatively impacts black men. Stop bringing up sexism so much.”[7]
If the student at Belle’s school had worn a short with a drawing of a white boy ordering a black boy to Shut Up And Go Pick Me Some Cotton, he’d be sent home/ordered to change his shirt and possibly even suspended. But wearing a shirt with a slogan meant to put a female in/remind her of “her place” – somehow, that was acceptable, or at least tolerable.
On the rare occasions when I hear that Jimmy Soul song – which still receives airplay on Oldies stations – I think of what moiself has long wanted to ask someone who whistles along to the up-tempo ditty: What if, instead of referencing a sexist stereotype of the early 60s, the If You Want To Be Happysong contained a 1962-ish, “light-hearted” reference to racism? Would the song have even gotten airplay, then or now? If it got airplay today, would its dodgy lyrics be excused as a relic of the times? Ala….
“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, Never make a light-skinned woman your wife, So for my personal point of view, Get a colored girl to marry you…”
* * *
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?!?!?![8] friend gave me, all those years ago, [9] 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 March to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHATwas I thinking!?!? )
Here is an excerpt from my blog of 3-14-14 ( The Book I’m Not Stealing ) – two excerpts, actually, both of them book-related:
“The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.” ― Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book
A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away….
Okay, it was 1971. American anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman wrote and published Steal This Book. As intrigued as I was at the time – by the “counter culture” and social activism of the late 60-s–mid 70’s in general and by Hoffman’s cheeky chutzpah in particular – I declined to pilfer Hoffman’s prose. Stealing anything was not something I was inclined to do. I also did not buy his book because how in good conscience could I lawfully purchase a book that was, essentially if puckishly, advising me not to do so?
Thirty-three years later I find myself wondering: who, if anyone, bought that book?
Belle leaned against the doorway to my office, respectfully but insistently reminding me that I’d agreed to donate copies of two of my books (my short fiction collection This Here and Now and my juvenile novel, The Mighty Quinn) to her friend A’s senior project…and…uh… A needs those books, now. Up in the attic, searching for a box to put the books in, I remembered I had copies of another book of mine – “mine” in the sense that my writing was in it, even if my name wasn’t on the cover – to donate.
Feminist Parenting: Struggles, Triumphs and Comic Interludes (The Crossing Press, 1994) – has it really been twenty years since its publication? My contribution to the anthology was an essay [11] wherein I juxtaposed the naming of my soon-to-be firstborn, K, with how I chose names for my fictional characters. I was honored to have my contribution included along with a variety of essays, stories, and poems – selections from literary luminaries like Robin Morgan and Anna Quindlen, [12] and literary ordinaries like…well, like me.
The publisher-arranged publicity for the book consisted of readings by the anthology’s contributing writers, held at select locations throughout the country. There were enough contributors from the Pacific Northwest to do a reading in Oregon, which took place one stormy January evening in Eugene, at the erstwhile vanguard of independent feminist bookstores, Mother Kali’s. [13]
May Mother Kali recommend some light reading-perhaps a political satire or a wacky historical romance?
MH, sitting in the in audience with our son K on his lap, later noted that I was the only one of the speakers F-parenting in what (used to be) the normative child producing/rearing relationship: I was a woman married to a man with whom I was raising our child. There were four of the anthology’s contributors present: One lesbian mom, two divorced/single moms, and moiself -mom.
May you find a way to use diddly-squat in conversation today; May you know what it feels like to be the least normative in a crowd; May you remember to love ’em while you got ’em; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[6] The phrase has various attributed origins ( including a 1995 SNL skit ); whether it is aimed at feminists in particular or women in general, it plays off the sexist idea that it’s a woman’s place to be in the kitchen serving her husband or boyfriend.
[12] I particularly enjoyed Quindlen’s essay, “What About the Boys?”
[13] I know, I know. The bookstore was named in the 70’s, okay?
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
One of my favorite dates is today. Happy Birthday, She-Who-Was-Not-Intimidated-By-The-Rope-Swing-On-The-Treehouse-Deck. [1]
* * *
Department Of Why I Will Be A Couch Potato (Luger?) For The Next Three Weeks
The Winter Olympics begin today.
Bring on the Norwegians!
* * *
Department Of Human Interaction Is Sometimes Disguised As
– or Enhanced By – a Non Sequitur
Dateline: Tuesday morning; circa 10 am; The Dollar Tree Store‘s Birthday greeting cards section. [2]Moiself is picking out birthday cards, a lot of ’em. To an uninformed observer it might seem that I am choosing them at random, dumping them in my handbasket…but this is not so. There is method to my madness. As I grab one card two envelopes come with it, and the extra envelope flutters to the floor. Only when I reach down to retrieve it do I realize that a woman is standing next to me, in front of the Valentine’s Day card section.
“Excuse me,” I say, as I lean over to pick up the miscreant envelope, which has landed just to the right of her right foot. “I didn’t mean to fling an empty envelope in your direction.”
She smiles, looks at my handbasket, and I expect her to remark on the number of cards in it (which will eventually total 30). Instead, she replies, “My daughter was unable to have children, so she adopted four dogs. I get them all cards for every holiday and special occasion.”
* * *
Department Of Few People Say It Better Than Greta Christina [3]
“Dear Republicans,
Apparently some of you are having second thoughts. Recent events have led you to question your commitment to Trumpism, and even move away from it. A line has been crossed for you, and you can no longer accept the direction the country is going in.
Am I glad about this? Yes. Do I want you to step away from Trump and the Republican Party, to rethink the path you’ve been on and walk it back? Yes….
But as you walk back this path, you need to realize that it’s not going to be covered with rose petals. A lot of people are extremely angry with you, and we have every right to be. You have done a great deal of harm. The Republican Party has done a great deal of harm — not just in the last month, it’s been doing great harm for a long time — and you’ve been part of that. When you’ve hurt people badly, you need to do more than just say “Oops” and expect to be forgiven. You need to work to fix the harm you’ve done. And the greater the harm, the more work you have to do….
We warned you this was coming. Even the Republican Party warned you this was coming: the Project 2025 document spelled out their plans in detail. You chose not to listen. Moving forward, you need to be willing to listen. You need to do the kind of listening that involves not talking. You need to not get defensive, not try to justify your actions. You need to stop saying, ‘I didn’t vote for this!’ You absolutely voted for this.”
( excerpts from author, activist, blogger Greta Christina’s Dear Republicans 1-28-26, my emphases )
* * *
Department Of The Hidden Power Of Doubt
“What do you do when you’re not sure?” ( from opening monologue,Doubt: A Parable, a play by John Patrick Shanley )
Last week the podcast Hidden Brain concluded their You 2.0 series [4] with, as per the podcast website’s intro, “…a look at the hidden power of doubt — not as weakness or indecision, but as a tool that helps us make better choices and navigate an uncertain world.”
The episode opens with the story of the little known letter General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of the allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, aka, D-Day. There were so many factors at play – including the weather – and an allied victory was far from certain. Eisenhower drafted what he dreaded, should he have to announce that the mission had failed. When it became apparent that Operation Overlord was succeeding, Eisenhower crumpled the letter and tossed it in his office trash can. His military secretary retrieved the letter and kept it, allowing history to see what (IMO) was the true leadership of the man.
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” [5]
Time machine to the present: can you imagine the so-called leader we have today ( The Tantrum-Throwing-Toddler-in-Chief ) writing something like that – taking responsibility so succinctly and directly? #47 will go to his corpulent casket carping and whining and kicking, blaming others for the political, moral, financial and cultural devastation he leaves in his wake.
Yet again, I digress.
HB podcast host Shankar Vedantam and his guest go on to talk about the power of doubt, which is something we tend not to associate with the stereotype of leadership (confident; decisive; never wavering; unwilling to back down).
“We don’t think of strong leaders as hesitant, doubtful, or unsure of the right answers. Confidence and determination are admirable traits. But they also have drawbacks. Confidence can lead to overconfidence; decisiveness can make leaders less likely to be tolerant of dissent; determination can blind us to risks. At the University of Virginia’s Darden College of Business, [Bobby] Parmar studies the value of doubt. He says that by avoiding uncertainty, we miss out on opportunities for growth.” (excerpts, You 2.0: Trusting Your Doubt, Hidden Brain Staff / January 26, 2026 )
It’s a thought-provoking presentation of a compelling subject. Two thumbs up for podcast listeners.
* * *
Department Of Learning To Lie In Another Language
Ég skil íslensku.
Funny how one of the first phrases I learned in my Plimsleur language app, which I’ve been struggling through like a stuttering pig using daily since last Wednesday, is a total lie: I understand Icelandic.
Yeah, fluency is just around the corner.
Adding to the hoax is that five minutes after learning how to say, I do not understand Icelandic, I have forgotten how to say, I do not understand Icelandic.
Just about every Icelander speaks English ( Ninety-eight plus %! English is a compulsory subject in Icelandic schools ), but still, I want to be a gracious visitor when we go there this summer. I think this trying-to-learn-some-conversational-Icelandic is going to be one of those things where I have to repeat lesson one seven times before moving on.
About speaking Icelandic. Knowing that fact (that Icelanders speak English), then bothering to learn to say in Icelandic, Excuse me, do you speak English? while perhaps respectful in intent, could easily come off as, to an Icelander, Why is this doofus butchering my language when it is totally unnessary to do so? Obviously, if I’ve bothered to learn anything about the country (including from when MH and I were there three summers ago), I should know that any Icelander whom I address will speak far better English than I speak Icelandic.
I wish the language course would start off by teaching Icelandic cusswords. That would be more inspiring. Of course, there is the internet, where I discovered, farðu í rassgat, which you would hurl as an insult when you are in the kind of situation where you want to advise someone tocrawl up your own asshole. Perhaps I’ll save that one for the United States customs agents.
“May your urine burn, you cowardly goat,” will be my backup curse.
When I recently saw this spot-on summation of Christian theology I was reminded of an acquaintance who, when I came out decades ago as religion-free, resorted to the believers’ last tactic: when you can’t counter facts and logic and rationality, use fear ( of something only the religious believe in – hellfire/damnation [7] ). He was not amused when moiself, using the following synopsis to do so, laughingly confirmed that I was indeed rejecting his god’s plan for “salvation.”
“Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders? [9] Faith: not wanting to know what is true. The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad
has made the world ugly and bad.
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.”
May you remember to fix the harm you’ve done when you realize you’ve done harm; May you, as much as possible, not find yourself in farðu í rassgatsituations; May you resolve not to find the world ugly and bad; …and may the hijinks ensue. [10]
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Belle can still give you the badass, stinkeye look, should the occasion call for it.
[3]GC is an author, blogger, speaker, LGBTQ and atheist activist.
[4] The podcast does an annual series, at the end of the old/beginning of the new year, exploring the latest in evidence-based understandings offered by behavioral scientists – understandings which may help people improve their lives via establishing good habits/getting rid of bad habits, overcoming emotional, romantic, career-related, and cognitive challenges, etc.
[7] It’s a knee slapper, when you think about it: they try to make *you* afraid of something that is in fact *their* greatest fear, something which you don’t thing about at all, like pissing off Santa claus.
[8] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[9] This is serious stuff; no need for a footnote.
Department Of Movie Directors Looking For Their Next Project
“I worked for somebody that is probably borderline clinical psychopath. Definitely a narcissist,” said Tony Nissen, a former engineering director at OceanGate. “How do you manage a person like that who owns the company?”
Dateline: I’ve been getting reacquainted with last year’s riveting Netflix documentary, Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster, ten to fifteen minutes at a time, while working out on the elliptical the past few mornings. [1] Monday circa 11-11:30 am, I get an AHA flash: This has to be done.
Thisbeing, making a theatrical movie based on the documentary.
Maybe it’s already on some producer’s proverbial drawing board; moiself thought it ( the first time I saw it, and even more so, as I’m rewatching it. The story – of the foreseeable and even inevitable implosion of a submersible designed and operated by the American company OceanGate during a 2023 expedition to view the wreck of the Titanic – is a Shakespearean fairy tale in scope, with its themes of ambition, ego, hubris, obstinance, punitive pettiness. OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush was the emperor who wouldn’t listen to his dressers despite desperately needing new clothes for his submersible ride.
Kathleen, call me. Let’s do lunch and discuss the details.
First things first, Kathleen ( do you prefer Kath, or Kathy? ): nail down the director. Who can handle the technical aspects of filming given the difficult set” (the deep ocean) without sacrificing the primacy of storyline and character; who has a proven record of maintaining that level of tension and interest while telling a “true” story, despite the audience already knowing the ending? Why, it’s your sister in K, Kathryn Bigelow.
I also have a few casting suggestions:
* Sign Josh Brolin for the lead role. With his hair dyed white, I can totally envision Brolin channeling Rush’s primal arrogance and aspirations to be a BSD ( “Big Swingin’ Dick” ) like the billionaires Rush admired ( read: Elon Musk; Jeff Bezos ); * Zoe Kazan would be heart-tuggingly excellent as Emily Hammermeister, OceanGate’s assistant to the lead engineer, whose growing concerns about the viability of the submersible were ignored and suppressed, leading to her resignation;
* Palestinian-American actor and standup comedian Mo Amer would nail it as Joseph Assi, a videographer hired by Rush to film OceanGate’s expeditions;
* either Simon Pegg or Chris Pine would bring different but equally compelling portrayals of Tony OceanGate engineer Tony Nissen, who was fired by Rush after questioning him about the submersible’s defects; [2]
* English actor Stephen Graham to play the Scottish engineer David Lochridge , OceanGate’s Director of Marine Operations submersible pilot, who was fired by Rush after warning questioning him about design and safety features.
Given the proven track record of both Ks, I’ll let them handle the rest.
“…and I owe these awards to Robyn Parnell, who insisted I take on this project and who refused to take screen writing credit despite her many helpful edits to the script….”
* * *
Department Of About All Those Uncured Cancers – My Bad
Moiself recently reposted this on FB. I thought of prefacing it with,“Had I written this I would have added the modifier intercessory before prayer,” but you know how that goes (I went on to watch some dancing kitten reel).
Some FB friends thought I was being rather harsh, including one who wrote, “Prayer may not be for everyone but if a person thinks it help (sic) them, who am I to say ‘no.’ ” Moiself is not advocating that we all break into little old lady’s homes and take away their prayer shawls. As I assured my friend, moiself simply reminds folks that seemingly benign beliefs practices, such as intercessory prayer, have unintentional but harmful consequences.
“…had I written that, I would’ve modified prayers by adding intercessory. Prayers for one’s own personal… Enjoyment? Enhancement? Meditative purposes? Fine; whatever floats your boat. But for intercessory purposes, and public announcements of concern ( “I’m praying for the victims of the school, shooting” ), offering prayers is ineffective (and therefore insulting, IMO) and dangerous in that “praying for…” whatever fools people into believing constructive action has been taken when nothing of substance has been done.”
Confession: back in the day, I was asked to be on my church’s prayer chain. The workings of such vary from church to church, but in general, a prayer chain or group or committee is a group of people in a church who take prayers requests (via telephone or text, e.g. ) and share them with others in the group, starting with the primary contact who then shares the request with, creating an unbroken link (“chain”) chain” where each person in the supposedly prays for the request and then passes on the information in a prearranged ( Leader of the group passes on the info to person A, who contacts person B, who contacts….)
Moiself accepted the invitation, even as I told the person who invited me (the pastor of my very liberal UCC church, who knew I was a troublemaker freethinker/skeptic) that I viewed prayer chains as being, essentially, a neighborhood news site for religious folk, who can’t seem to justify action unless there’s some god connection (I left out that second part).
The prayer chain served as a bulletin board/clearing house for news & needs of members and friends of the congregation, from “Alex and Jenny have become first time grandparents!” to “Bill has just received a cancer diagnosis,” to “Mary’s had knee replacement surgery,” and all the “joys and sorrows.” in between.
I never – nope, not once – stopped to pray for the particular need shared when it was passed along to me. [3][4] Before passing on the information to the next person on the chain I used the tidbit of information I‘d received to brainstorm whether or not there was something I, or someone I knew, could do to help:
* I’ll send a card to Alex & Jenny, or bring them a batch of their favorite cookies to celebrate their good news…
* MH and I can check and see if Bill is going to need a ride to and from his radiation therapy treatments, or if he’d like a friend to play cards with him in the waiting room, or have some meals brought in…
* Mary might need someone to take the cans out to the curb for her on recycling day, or do her grocery shopping while she recovers, or mow her lawn…
It is the knowledge of a situation, of a need, that spurs the reaction which is needed, which is action– not sitting on one’s arse (or groveling on one’s knees), beseeching a nonexistent at best ( or if existent, indifferent, as per all available evidence ), supernatural/sky wizard.
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Department Of Random Thoughts On Yet Another Reason Why Not Only Prayer But Religious Belief Itself Is Not Benign
Some critics of religion (or even mildly religious folk themselves) say, What’s the harm in religion, as long as people keep it to themselves and don’t try to have their religious beliefs influence science education, or public policy or whatever?
“Hey, good point!”
The thing is, any belief in an omniscient/all-powerful deity carries an inherent, ineffective counter to despotism. After all, if you believe your god is all-powerful and ultimately in charge, the rising fascist in your government…well , he can reasonably claim to be part of your god’s plan…or at least, he is able to be “used” by your god for reasons that might not seem clear at the time. Throughout history, kings and tyrants have appealed to that reasoning: “I am here because your god wants (or at least allows) it. Therefore, to oppose me is to oppose your god.”
No; seriously. I’ve heard and read Christians using that “reasoning” to justify the Orange Turdfurher. They bolster their claim with biblical stories of supremely flawed kings; e.g.,
* King David, who arranged for the husband of a married woman he desired to be killed in battle after he summoned, bedded, and impregnated her [5]
* King Solomon, who along with his three hundred (300) concubines married seven hundred ( yep, 700 ) wives from the nations his god warned the Israelites never to enter into marriages with, lestthey turn away their hearts after their gods (guess what? they did) , and who used forced labor to build the temple and his own palace, ad nauseum…. [6]
The justification goes, …”if god was able to use them, he is able to use #47.”
I so wish I was making this up.
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Department Of My Reactions Which Reveal To Moiself My Low Opinion Of Many Of My Fellow Earthlings
Dateline: last week watching an episode of Love On The Spectrum. LOTS, as per its Netflix description is about, “Young adults on the autism spectrum look for true love in this documentary series that ‘revels in the plain, beautiful truths of courtship.’ ” I’d seen LOTS a year or so ago, but didn’t remember all the details. Considering what was in the news I wanted a pick-me-up and I’ve found a series to be…sweet, and good hearted, in many ways.
There was a moment when a couple, both on the autism spectrum, were having a dinner date which was going well, and they decided to extend their time together by going for a walk along the waterfront. They were both being exuberant and happy and quirky, and overly loud, at least according to most neurodivergent folks’ standards… I began to get a fearful (but sadly realistic) feeling in the pit of my stomach, centered around the nasty reality of The World We Live In ®:
If those two cheerfully boisterous young people were out on their own, on this date, in public, without a camera crew to protect them, they could be a target for some cretinous person or persons who, for their own cretinous reasons, would the couples’ differences upsetting or offensive. In plain speak: the autistic lovebirds would be at risk for assault.
And by persons, I mean, a man, or most likely, two or more men.
Think about the reports when something like this happens. It’s not a woman, or a group of women friends, who, while out for a stroll along the waterfront or downtown, see another single person or a couple and decide that they are somehow different or offensive or whatever and hassles and/or even beats them up.
And yeah, sorry guys: it’s not all men ®…but it’s always a man.
May you get out ASAP when you realize your boss is a psychopath; May you examine whether or not your beliefs are benign; May you encourage your congressfolk to use their words; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Trying to get my foot back in shape post-foot surgery.
[2] “I told him I’m not getting in it,” former OceanGate engineering director Tony Nissen said to a panel of Coast Guard investigators, referring to a 2018 conversation in which CEO Stockton Rush allegedly asked Nissen to act as a pilot in an upcoming expedition to the Titanic. ( ‘I Told Him I’m Not Getting in It’: Former Titan Submersible Engineer Testifies, Sep 16, 2024, Wired, Science section )
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
