Dateline: Saturday; mid-afternoon; on my way to drop off donations to Goodwill. Driving south on a throughway street which bisects residential areas to its east and west, I pass a blue sign on the left side of the road [1] . This sign directs you to find:
ARISE
CHURCH →
The sign is bent in the middle, which causes moiself, at first glance, to miss the I in the top word.
All those headed to the church of the Holy ARSE, turn right.
I like big butts and I cannot lie….
* * *
Department Of, Oh, Ya Think?
Dateline: 6:45am last Saturday. A dear friend is in the hospital, recovering from life-altering [2] surgery. I found a respected medical clinic’s website and looked up information on radical cystectomy, the surgery he has undergone. From the site:
“The procedure to remove the entire bladder is called a radical cystectomy. In men, this typically includes removal of the prostate and seminal vesicles….
“After removing your bladder, your surgeon also needs to create a new way to store urine and have it leave your body. This is called urinary diversion.”
Under risks associated with urinary diversion there is the following bullet point. Which I had to read several times to assure moiself, yep, that’s what it says. Apparently, one of the risks following removal of your bladder is:
* Loss of bladder control (urinary incontinence)
Really.
Yeah; kinda difficult to control an organ you no longer have in your body.
Department Of Gawddammit It’s Like They Know I’m Coming In…
And so they put this right where I’ll see it. Because a sculpture like this, displaying both the talent and whimsy which moiself so admires in art…and which the artist oh-so-appropriately-not-to-mention-appealingly named, “Speckled Twerp”…they know who’s going to take it home.
At first I tried to divert moiself by falling for this charming piece, called…wait for it…Yellow Chicken.
But the twerp in me would not be denied.
“Are we all clear on the new installation? Have the twerp piece where she’ll see it, and maybe distract her first with the chicken….”
* * *
Department Of Things You Talk About With Good Friends After A Good Lunch
The Miriam Webster online dictionary has a special link for those and other “funny-sounding words,” but that’s not enough, sez moiself (and friends agree). There needs to be a special day set aside, or declared, to encourage the usage of these words.
* * *
Department Of Why Has It Taken Me So Long To Realize This?
I don’t use marjoram. As of last Wednesday, there is no longer a jar of marjoram in my Wall O’ Spices ®. You know how it is, when you redo your kitchen’s spice holding system and buy those pre-printed spice jar labels which of course include one for marjoram and you think, “Ah yes, a classic spice,” and so you give it jar space but then forget that you never use it because…you never use it.
Nor is there a marjoram jar or tin on the cabinet shelves filled with refills for spices I commonly use, and less-commonly-but-still-occasionally-used ones, from amchur and asafetida to celery powder to gochugaru.
When I last encountered a recipe calling for marjoram [3] I used up the pitiful amount I had left. And when looking for more, I found none in the bulk sections of several markets, and I wasn’t about to pay $8.99 for a small jar which would go stale before I would use even 10% of it.
Thus, for perhaps the first time in my adult life, I am marjoram-free.
Gopnik is a professor of psychology and researcher into cognitive and language development. She spoke with C+V podcast host Alan Alda about her (and other people’s) research which shows how children are generally curious about their world; thus, children are interested in science and have innate abilities for experimentation and theory formation…then tend to lose interest in the subject itself as they age. Gopnik, along with many other scientists, argue that this is, in great part, because of the way science is taught:
“Suppose we taught baseball the way we teach science. So for the first five years you’d be reading about baseball games, and maybe you’d be reading about some of the rules. And then in high school you’d get to reproduce famous baseball plays…and you would never get to play the game until you were in graduate school…. That’s kind of the way we teach science – you don’t really play the game, you don’t really *do* science, until you’re in graduate school.”
* * *
Department Of Here We Go Again Sub-Department OF Preview Of Coming Grievances Attractions
( Sub- Department explanation: my next three blogs will deal with various aspects of The Writing Life As Moiself Sees It ® ).
Dateline: Earlier this month, researching and updating guidelines for literary journals and publishers. [4] What I find in my research confirms one of many reasons moiself rarely submits my work anymore. For example, I come across this, from the guidelines of a self-proclaimed “international” journal:
“Submissions are open to all, but we particularly welcome work from….
First Nations and POC writers, the LGBTQI+ community, and writers with a disability.”
Should I decide to send my work to this journal I, like any writer submitting work to any journal, would not be doing so in person. I’d submit material as per their guidelines: either online via their submissions portal (the default nowadays) or via mail (much less common, but still used). Either way, the journal’s editors can neither see nor hear nor speak with me.
My first name may or may not indicate my gender; my surname might convey an impression (which could be a false impression either way) as to whether I am or am not a First Nations and POC writer. How will the editors know if I am a LGBTQI+ community, or a writer with a disability, unless I declare this in my cover letter? And if I do so, will the journal’s editors then “particularly welcome” my story due to my personal particulars that they have particularly decided to find particularly welcoming?
Moiself can’t help but suspect that the content of my work will be read and judged differently under such circumstances. Which moiself finds both ethically odious and disturbing. Speaking [5] both as a writer and *especially* as a reader, I don’t give a flying buttress’s butthole…
“Excusez-moi?!?!!”
…about writers’ “identities” or “qualities.” I’m interested in the quality of the *stories* they write, not in who or what they *are.*
May you remember to make someone a sandwich; May you support the reform of how we teach science in schools; May you not be hornswaggled into giving a tarradiddle’s colleywobbles
about doing things widdershins; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] You’ve seen those signs, with names of churches or other businesses located in an otherwise residential area.
[3] In itself a rare thing, and I have found that the recipe either won’t miss it or that oregano will do just fine – or even better – instead.
[4] (I’ve addressed complained about this issue previously, in this space.
[5] There should be at least five footnotes in this post.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, http://www.ffrf.org
Department Of It’s The Little Things Which Make Life Worth Living In These Trying Political Times
Dateline: Tuesday afternoon. Apropos of…whatever, my offspring, son K and daughter Belle, have this exchange on our family messenger group, Yep!!!! Cats!!!! [1] (sans pix; these are my illustrations):
K: I did not realize how truly gigantic Fetterman is.
He’s like 6’9.” Since words and reason don’t work we now have Fetterman to give the insane senators a swirly.
Belle: (thumbs up) First on the list: Mitch McConnell.
Belle: Although I think just turning him upside-down would kill him, probably couldn’t even get to the swirly part.
Moiself walked around the rest of the afternoon with a big smile on my face, thanks to the imagery provided by my offspring.
Relax, Mitchie-boy. Just think of it as your well-deserved spa treatment.
* * *
Department Of Another Good Thing ® About Social Media
There’s no shortage of criticisms of the various social media outlets, and most critiques are legit, I’d wager. [2] Even as I am encouraging those who complain about supporting a certain megalomaniac to drop their Twitter accounts and stop buying Teslas, moiself remains on one social media site: Facebook. Here’s one of the reasons why.
Dateline: earlier this week. A FB friend posts pictures of his grandchild‘s visit to what looks to be an amusement park, and picture shows the child playing that classic arcade game, Whac-a-mole. Seeing this picture prompts a lovely flashback for moiself– a memory I’ve not thought of in decades.
Dateline of memory: A long time in a galaxy far far away (Southern California). I am visiting my parents at their home in Santa Ana. It’s summertime, and the County Fair is on. My parents tell me they haven’t been to a state or county fair in ages, and suggest we go. And so we do. As we walk past the various cheesy games and merchandise and food booths, nothing catches our interest, until we come to an arcade. I espy a Whac-A-Molegame, and instantly am obsessed with getting my mother to play it.
My mother is hesitant, despite my enthusiastic recommendation. She knows nothing about it, she says (Even better!!!,moiself thinks to moiself ) I assure her that it’s a straightforward game, no complicated strategy or levels or scenarios: she simply must hold the mallet and whack the heads of the moles as they pop up from the console.
“Why?” she asks me.
“There’s no time to get existential right now,” I reply. I put my two quarters in the slot, press the game’s start button and put the mallet in my mother’s hand. “You don’t want me to waste fifty cents, right, Mom? Look – there’s one! Pretend it’s digging up your rosebushes!”
Unlike the champ in the above video, my mother is exquisitely awful at Whac-A-Mole. Her timing is atrocious; even so, she soon gets into it in her own way, emitting a high-pitched, “Oh!” whenever a mole head appears, followed by her delayed whack at its head. My father and I, standing to the side of the game console, are doubled over with laughter as we watch my mild-mannered mother, with an increasing maniacal look in her eyes, pursues those pesky moles:
I haven’t gone to a county fairs in years and it’s been even longer since I’ve even seen a Whac-a-mole game. So, then: would that memory have been prompted by anything else, save for a post on social media? It’s not like I would have seen a picture of my friend’s grandchild playing this game – like most of my FB friends, we don’t have a letter-writing kind of relationship.
* * *
Department Of Well That’s Not Up To Their Usual Standards
Moiself is referring to the recent rerun of an interview with (the late) Loretta Lynn on Fresh Air .
It was a tad interesting, due to the skills of FA host, Terry Gross, arguably [3] the best interviewer out there. But IMO it was not up to the usual FA standards. This was because Lynn was (again, IMO)…. There’s no easy way to say it. The guest can make or break the interview. And it wasn’t that Lynn was a “bad” guest, or an audaciously humorless and insufferably boorish one like a notable few TG has dealt with. [4] On the contrary. Lynn was pleasant enough, but it seemed to me that she was also…well… rather…simple, or basic. Not plucking every string on her guitar, so to speak.
In the history of country music, LL’s talent was even bigger than her hair.
LL seemed not at all interested in self-reflection and/or discussing or exploring how she writes her songs. Okay; fine; her prerogative. But then, why agree to be come on a show where the whole point is to talk about your work as a female singer who broke ground in her genre for writing her own songs?
The point of a FA interview with a musician/singer/songwriter is to reflect upon one’s work, technique, inspiration, and so on. Which Lynn summed up in sentences like, “Oh, I don’t really know,” or “I don’t like to talk about that.” Lynn’s songs are personal – she’s said in previous interviews that her husband was, in one way or another, “in every song” she wrote, yet she wouldn’t go further when FA host TG would ask her about *how* or why her husband is in a particular song.
And TG let her get away with it.
LL’s song Fist City is borderline hilarious in some ways and disturbing in others. And TG did not probe into that, as I have heard her done, through the years – the decades now – that I’ve been listening to FA interviews. Gross is insightful and persistent as an interviewer, and respectfully so. She typically does not give up after one attempted conversational diversion by a guest. And her guest was country music legend Loretta Lynn, who has written all these classic country songs about women trying to take her man (including, wait for it: “You Ain’t Woman Enough To Take My Man”), and… hello? What are those lyrics about?
If it had been any other songwriter, I think TG would have asked more persistently about the song’s implications. She did try, but Lynn wasn’t having any of it. “Oh I don’t want to talk about that,” LL would purr, in her soft Kentucky lilt.
I wanted TG to get LL to at least to consider why people might want LL to talk about that problem – about how she was really singing about, writing about, the wrong problem. When LL sang about how some women were ‘after,’ (her words) her man, the underlying problem wasn’t those women.
Loretta Lynn, the woman who wrote so empathetically about birth control liberating women from the life of a brood mare (“The Pill”), and the trials of a divorced woman having people think that just because she’s divorced she’s loose/available (“Rated X”) didn’t seem capable of, or willing to, consider the fact that it was her husband who was the problem. He married her, but chased after other women. But Lynn…wouldn’t go there. And TG, in deference to Lynn’s age, status and/or “sweetness,” didn’t seem willing to push it the way I think she would have with another musician…or politician, or writer or artist or sports figure or….. Is that ultimately respectful, or patronizing?
* * *
Department Of The Big Day Next Week
The more I know about the origins and mythologies (read: lies) about Thanksgiving, the less I want to call it that.
I’ve always had a certain ambivalence regarding Tday. Even as a child, I suspected we weren’t being told the truth about that much vaunted Happy Time Between Indians and Pilgrims ®. Historians are starting to speak up, and…how can I put this? Folks, if the Readers Digest, hardly The Socialist Review, is willing to address this issue, that means it’s way past time the rest of us did.
“Thanksgiving is both uniquely American and full of treasured traditions. But this rosy picture of modern celebrations leaves out most of the real history of Thanksgiving…. Yes, you can still settle down with family to give thanks. But it’s important to know what you’re celebrating and unlearn some long-held myths.”
…. What’s the harm in believing the happy version so many of us grew up with? It’s just a story, right? This whitewashing downplays the long and bloody series of conflicts between white settlers and Native Americans that would occur over the next two centuries…..
‘Narratives of a harmonious Thanksgiving celebration were created to justify westward expansion and Manifest Destiny,’…. The term Manifest Destiny, coined more than two centuries after the first Thanksgiving, was the belief that settlers were destined by God to expand across America and prosper…. Myth: The “first Thanksgiving” started the tradition that founded the holiday. Truth: The harvest celebration of 1621 was not called Thanksgiving and was not repeated every year. The next official ‘day of thanksgiving’ was after settlers massacred more than 400 Pequot men, women and children. Governor Bradford’s journal decreed, ‘For the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a governor is in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.’ We should add that to our list of favorite Thanksgiving quotes as a stark reminder of the real history of Thanksgiving.” (“The Real History of Thanksgiving,” Readers Digest, 11-15-22)
I like the idea of a holiday involving gratitude, and one in which friends and family get together for a celebratory meal. As for what is in the meal, as the years have gone by, my own dietary preferences have changed – although even as a child I never was all that fond of the big bland boring turkey and wondered what all the fuss was about. [5]Moiselflikes the idea of variety feast, rather than a fixed menu. [6]
Moiself also likes that which is practiced by our neighbors to the north. Canadian Thanksgiving, which I and my family have experienced thanks to the generosity of a dear Canadian friend and (former) neighbor, is more of a general harvest celebration, without a traditional fixed menu.
Hmmm, so, how’s about Harvest Fest? Gratitude Day? Grativest Day? Harvitude Day?
Yeah, like that’s gonna fly.
Perhaps I’m being persnickety here. After all, I’m the one who points out the secular origins of Christmas, which I don’t insist on renaming it, for the same reasons that, for example, I call the middle day of the week Wednesday even though I do not worship the Germanic god for whom the day is named. Still, knowing the origins of Thanksgiving and the subsequent mythologies which promoted it, I can’t help but wish for a name change.
But that’s about as likely to happen as Elon Musk is likely to gift the running of Twitter to the Southern Poverty Law Center, sell his holdings in Tesla and donate the profits to Greenpeace, then take a vow of abstemious living and join a Buddhist monastery.
Ah, but it’s good to dream.
* * *
Punz For The Day Tday Edition
How did Ziggy Stardust express his gratitude to the Thanksgiving host for serving her tasty sweet potato casserole? “Wham, yam, thank you ma’am.”
My family advised me to stop telling Thanksgiving jokes, but I said I couldn’t quit cold turkey.
How does rapper Sir Mixalot, who loathes pumpkin pie, express his Thanksgiving dessert preference? “I like big bundts and I cannot lie.”
I’ll give her points for not eating us, but really, these jokes are fowl.
* * *
May you have a good feast with friends and family, whatever you call it; May visions of Mitch-getting-a-swirley warm the cockles of your heart; May you find a whac-a-mole game and go to town; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] So named, by MH…I can’t remember the specifics, but it had to do with one of us commenting about all of us posting cat pictures yet again. It has evolved into a family message board…with – yep! – lots of cat-sighting pictures.
[2] Wager, rather than aver, because I’m not on most social media and thus can’t speak from direct experience.
[3] As in, you could argue with me about this, but you’d lose.
[4] As in her FA interviews with Bill O’Reilly and Gene Simmons.
[5] My most memorable Tday was when the friend of a host brought a huge chinook salmon he’d caught the previous day in Alaska, and the hosts, my aunt and uncle, roasted it simply, with herbs and lemon juice. I WAS AMAZED.
[6] Also, I haven’t eaten meat for years, so there goes that feast centerpiece.
Much to my surprise, moiself received a text from the campaign of Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate for Oregon governor. [1] The message said that Drazan “has a plan” (no details of course) for Oregon’s homeless situation, and asked for a donation.
My cell phone has been inundated by texts from political candidates, mostly from the Left side of the spectrum. I block the caller# and delete them all, even when they are from candidates I support (I do *not* give candidates my cell # and resent them finding and using it). And what in the name of a purple Planned Parenthood placard…
Like this one.
…would make anyone on the Drazan campaign think that *I* would forget Drazan’s anti-abortion politics because of some mysterious “plan” she has?
Moiself just had to respond to this text, before blocking/deleting:
If you are not pro-choice then you are no choice. Shame on you. Do not text this number again.
* * *
Department Of Thanks For Sharing
The streets of Manzanita are a crap minefield.
Like this, only with crap.
Welcome Fall; welcome to the roaming elk and deer, pooping while they’re roaming, pooping while they’re standing still…stepping on their own poop; stepping on the poop that their herd comrade just dropped in front of them; stepping in the dried poop from three days ago…
A small price to pay for living in and/or visiting a bit o’ paradise on earth – the Oregon coast – in autumn.
And yet another reason to take your shoes off when you enter a home. If you’re walking around here, whether on the streets, sidewalks, trails, or beach, you’re stepping on poop, in some form or another.
Although it doesn’t show up well in this picture, this poop pattern continues up the street, on both sides.
* * *
Department Of The Playoff Game That Wasn’t
Early last week daughter Belle messaged me, wondering if she should get a ticket to Game 4 of the Seattle Mariners-Houston Astros American League Division series playoff game. The division playoffs are a best-of-five series; Belle’s company, Schilling Cider, is a Mariners sponsor, and was guaranteed a certain number of tickets to purchase for playoff game 4. Belle checked to see how many tickets her company would be allotted, and found out there would be enough so that she could get one for moiself as well…and would I be interested?
It warmed the cockles of my heart, to hear that Belle was interested in going. How Belle’s grandparents would have liked that, I told her.
Chet and Marion Parnell were longtime baseball fans. They once told me they’d always wanted to go to a playoff game but never had the opportunity. I grew up going to LA Dodgers and Anaheim Angels games, then in the 80s I lost – or rather deliberately misplaced – my interest in the sport. I don’t remember the exact year; it was when there was yet another player/management strike. Free agents had become the thing; it seems like you didn’t know the players anymore (“Wait…he was a Dodger and now he’s a Yankee?”), there was no team loyalty or team identity on either side of the management/players…it used to be you could follow the career of a player, having come up through the farm system….
LA Dodgers: The 1970s Cey to Russell to Lopes to Garvey era.
Then came the latest the player/manager/owner strike.
I remember thinking,
“Hmmm, which group of multi-millionaires do I feel sorry for?”
And that was that.
I became a fair weather fan – one who would watch The Big Games ®, particularly if there’s a team I had an interest in (rooting for California or West Coast teams, and against CHEATERS like the Houston Astros…or just arrogant assholes like the Yankees).
BTW: Why do we sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” when we are already out at the ballgame?
Yet again, I digress.
When Belle asked if I were interested, moiself realized that *I* had never been to a MLB playoff game. And when your 26-year-old daughter solicits a visit from her (much older, ahem) mother…
I started gettin’ spontaneous. I booked train passage to and from Tacoma, found a (very expensive, yikes [2]) hotel room, and crossed fingers for our odds in getting the tickets, which would be for sale depending on what happened in the first three games.
Game 4 would be on Sunday (10/16). My train reservations were for Saturday afternoon. MH advised me to get to the Portland train station early, as President Biden was in town that weekend. I took his advice to heart; I’d not been paying attention and had no idea Portland was in for a presidential visit, but I remembered a story I’d read about our most recent decent President: An Average Person ® had traveled many miles to attend a political rally, where she got to speak with Obama. She invited him to visit her state, because “…it would be such an honor to have a presidential visit.” Obama thanked her for the invitation, then warned her in good humor that, in reality, a presidential visit is a massive inconvenience to the area of the visit. Presidential visits cause backups and delays for motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, even public transportation users, and are difficult to plan for, as, for security reasons, the presidential limo motorcade (and the decoy limo) and entourage routes can’t be announced in advance. So, maybe the people who are invited to the speech or meet-n-greet or whatever consider it an honor, but for almost everyone else, it’s an irritation. I like the fact that Obama was aware of/acknowledged that.
“Okay, remember, the decoy limo stops at Starbucks.”
As it turned out, Biden’s visit impacted a train’s departure four hours earlier in the day, but as I checked in I was told that my train (departing at 3:38p) was on time. Then, for the next two and a half hours, Amtrak moved our departure time ahead, first in 5 minute increments, then ten, then….. Train station personnel on their intercoms and passengers googling on their cellphones were trying to find out what was going on. The delay wasn’t due to the presidential visit (Biden’s entourage was already out of the area)…something about how due to a “police action” our train was stopped across the river. Turns out there was a person “laying on the tracks.” [3]
Our train finally arrived and we boarded, coming on three hours after our scheduled departure time. Then, the train just sat at the station. And sat. Sat sat sat sat. What now? Eventually, the conductor announced that “someone up ahead had set a fire next to the train tracks.”
Fucking Portland,I texted to Belle, who had already moved back and then cancelled the dinner reservations we’d had. She passed the time on her end by giving me updates on the game. It was do or die for the Mariners: they’d lost the first two games; thus, if they lost game 3 (which I – mistakenly, as it turns out – assured Belle ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS [4] ) there would be no game four.
The hours went by; the game went into overtime. Belle messaged at one point,
“Heading into the 15th inning now still 0-0. Maybe we’ll just end up going to game 3 tomorrow.”
There would be no ballgame on Sunday. Still, I had a very lovely day with my daughter, which included taking the ferry to Vashon Island. Belle, who works at Schilling Cider, wanted to show me another cidery she and her fellow Schilling-ers had visited. We got to-go sandwiches and enjoyed a picnic on the orchard grounds of Dragon Head’s Cider. We sampled their amazing Columbia Crabapple blend, chatted with the affable DH employees, and just chilled out on an unseasonably [6] warm October afternoon.
After our island visit Belle wanted to go to her apartment to see her cat and rest up for the evening. When she dropped me at my hotel moiself noticed that the area –The Point Ruston development in Tacoma’s Ruston Way Waterfront – was hoppin.’ I got in the hotel elevator along with four other people – two couples, both of whom asked me, “Are you going to the concert tonight?”
Now, you could hear music coming from outside the hotel, and I said something about how I’d just told my daughter that it was such a nice night, you’d think someone would have scheduled a band to play outside in the amphitheater (where they have a summer concert series)…but then this weather is unexpected so it would be hard to book a group at the last minute…
My elevator buddies all looked momentarily confused, and one of them said, “No, not that – Elton John.” I thought she meant an Elton John cover band was playing outside. I laughed, and said, “Yeah, right, I don’t think so,” and another one of them chimed in and told me that Elton John was playing at the Tacoma Dome.
Later that afternoon I went out to a nearby market, and returned to the hotel for another Elevator Encounter ®. A couple who’d just checked in got in the elevator and didn’t know how to operate it. I showed them how; they punched the button for floor 5. Another man who got in the elevator at the lobby floor didn’t say anything, and didn’t make a floor selection. When I got off at my floor (3) the couple wished me an enjoyable evening. I turned around and asked, “Are you going to the concert?” they enthusiastically replied, “Yes!” and asked if I was also going. I laughed and said that no, “…and I had no idea it was even taking place until people in elevators started talking about it.”[7]
The Amphitheater Where Elton John Is Not Playing.
* * *
Department Of Weird Carpet Walking Man
That evening over dinner I told Belle the story of my elevator encounters, and also about what happened after the second encounter. The previously-mentioned man in the elevator, whom I thought gave off “didn’t belong” vibes (and wore a big scraggy beard, torn jeans and dirty shoes) exited the elevator when I did. I lagged behind; I let him go first, to keep an eye on him, lest he turn out to be the El Creepo Guy® who follows lone females off of hotel elevators to see what rooms they go to.
So, he’s walking ahead of me, verrrrrry strangely, weaving from side to side, sometimes taking large steps and sometimes tiny steps. As I observed him I realized he was walking so as to avoid stepping on the dark(er) blue spots on the hotel’s carpeted hallway – like a kid does when playing the “Don’t touch the lava!” game or “step-on-a-crack-break-your-back.” I got out my phone to film him, stopped moiself, then relaxed when he removed a key from his picket and let himself into a room.
After dinner Belle came up to my room to get something I had for her. On her way out of the hotel I got this series of texts from her:
Belle: I JUST SAW THE GUY WALKING WEIRD ON THE CARPET.
It had to be the same guy. He was avoiding the dark spots.
Moiself: YES!
Belle: Large beard.
Moiself:
YES!
Belle: Wow amazing. He’s like a natural phenomenon.
Context: re advice to a letter writer who is being told by her husband’s family that if she objects to his extravagant spending habits she will be “emasculating” him.
“Is there a worse word (or concept) than ‘emasculating’? It’s basically a verbal encapsulation of the concept that the genders must
work in concert toward preserving the standing of men.”
* * *
Punz For The Day Baseball Edition
What’s the difference between a pickpocket and a second base umpire? One steals watches and one watches steals.
Did I tell you the joke about the pop fly? Never mind; it’s way over your head.
Why was Cinderella kicked off the baseball team? She ran away from the ball.
Did you hear about the baseball player who can spot a fast-food restaurant a mile away? He leads the league in Arby eyes.
“What did I say about encouraging her?”
* * *
May you remember that those who are not pro-choice are no choice; May you read Carolyn Hax’s column – what are you waiting for?; May you one day be enchanted by a Weird Carpet Walking Man; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Don’t make me use the term gubernatorial, which is a word that ought to be banned in public, IMO.
[3] A protestor? A drunk or loony? We never found out. Just pick ‘em up and toss ‘em aside, disgruntled passengers helpfully suggested, to anyone who would listen.
Dateline: Monday ~ 7:45 am. I am on my elliptical exercise machine, which is in our family room, across from the kitchen. I hear MH walking downstairs. As he approaches the kitchen he pauses, gives moiself a long look, and says…nothing.
“I know, I know,” I say. His expression tells me he is wondering about my shirt-pants combo. “My other (yoga/workout) pants are in the laundry,” I explain.
“That looks like something a kid would wear.” MH laughs.
“A kid like *me,* you mean,” I say. “Remember that picture?”
He says he does.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, MH and moiself were visiting The Folks® in Santa Ana, looking through an old photo album with my mother. When I came across that picture, moiself burst out laughing. My mother reminded me that that combination of clothing items – corduroy leopard print cutoffs and a blue/green Hawaiian midriff shirt – comprised my favorite “outfit” that spring and summer. Not that I dressed in outfits (I knew the difference, as I had friends whose parents bought their children – read: their daughters – outfits.). It was just that those two items of clothing – both hand-me-downs from older neighborhood children – were my favorite shorts and top, respectively. Therefore, in my 10-year-old mind, they were a perfect match.
“You wore them constantly,” my mother told me. She said she’d sneak into my room at night while I was sleeping, get the shorts and top from the end of my bed and put them in the laundry basket, only to discover the next morning that I’d gone through the basket and was wearing them again. I told her how much I admired her for letting me go outside like that, knowing what the neighbors must think (“She lets her kid dress like that? Every day?!?!”).
The black and white photo doesn’t do it justice; use your colorful imagination.
* * *
Department Of Generalizations
Sitting across from me at the breakfast table, MH asked if I’d read about “the soccer game.”
“The one in Indonesia? Where people, uh, died?” Moiself was unsure re the details.
MH scrolled to a news site on his phone and read a summary aloud:
“A stampede at a soccer stadium in Indonesia has killed 125 people and injured more than 320 after police used tear gas to quell a pitch invasion….
Officers fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse agitated supporters of the losing home side who had invaded the pitch after the final whistle in Malang…
‘…They started attacking officers, they damaged cars,’ (the police chief) said, adding that the crush occurred when fans fled for an exit gate.” (“Indonesia soccer stampede kills 125 after police use tear gas in stadium.” reuters.com 10-2-22 )
Although generally disdainful of gender stereotypes, I felt compelled to comment on the baffling-to-moiself phenomenon of crazed sports dudes rushing the pitch, or rushing anything, for any reason.
“Women don’t do that,” I grumbled.
“If they had testosterone shots, they might,” MH noted.
Won’t vote for female politicians because he says women get too emotional.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Apropos Of…Something
I was listening to a blog, the name of which escapes me now, where in one of the subjects being discussed was apologies and holding grudges. It got me to thinking about the conventional teaching re that particular, delicate, interpersonal relations territory.
We have all heard of, or have been on the receiving (or giving) end of what has been termed the insincere or “false” apology, which is some variant of:
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
I’ve little quarrel with the conventional apology-psychology which has decided thatI’m sorry you feel that way is not a sincere apology, but instead is a way of *not* expressing contrition, of *not* taking responsibility.
Notice I didn’t say, *no* quarrel, but littlequarrel. The little is this: I think there may be more to it than that.
In some cases, sincere-apology territory is clear cut: let’s say I step on your foot, either intentionally or as a (poor) joke or because I’m a klutz. You yell, “YEOUGH, you stepped on my foot! That hurt!” My saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way” would indeed be an inappropriate, callous (and clueless) non-apology.
In defense of the other cases of the “non”- apology [1] : Sometimes, under some circumstances, I’m sorry you feel that way is the only sincere and/or accurate expression Person1 can offer to Person2 if Person2 feels injured or slighted or by Person1.
As in: If Person2 feels poorly (sad, angry, resentful, and/or slighted) because of something they think Person1 said or did, Person1 may indeed be sorry to learn that Person2 is feeling poorly. But, if Person1 disagrees with Person2’s interpretation of whatever happened (or even in some cases if the incident even happened in the first place), what can Person1 say that would be sincere, and which would truly satisfy Person2?
One of the most memorable times I have been in the position of having to deliver what might be interpreted as a non- or insincere apology was during a phone call I received from (someone I considered to be) a friend, who was also a fellow member of the church MH and I attended. This was over 16 years ago; moiself (and soon after, MH and our offspring [2] ) had recently “come out” as religion-free and had stopped attending the church. This person, whom I’ll call “FJ,” called to tell me how hurt he was by my decision to leave the church.
Three sentences into the conversation, it became obvious that FJ felt *he* had been wronged by me. I disagreed, even as I felt sincerely sad for FJ. I was sad that he took my decision/action so personally (in his words, it was a “personal affront” to him); I felt sorry for him, even as I felt in no way responsible for his feelings, which, IMO, were his alone to hopefully/eventually experience and analyze.
FJ was hurting; it seemed to moiself, from what he was saying to me, he was determined to take it personally – to take *what* personally? It’s not like I went to church during a worship service, stood up after the opening hymn and declared that I was leaving the church because of FJ. Nothing about FJ, either personally or representationally, had led to my decision. So, what was he taking personally – that I’d decided to live the truth about my life and beliefs?
It was one of the oddest phone calls I’ve ever received. I kept rephrasing/repeating to FJ what he was telling me, to make sure I was hearing him correctly (I was). As bizarre as it seemed to me, he made it plain: If I left the church, he was going to take it as a personal affront. When it became obvious that FJ expected me to apologize to him, all I could honestly say was, “FJ, I’m sorry you feel that way.”.
I could not say what he wanted (or thought he needed) me to say – “I’m sorry for leaving the church [3]/rejecting religion” – because I wasn’t. [4]
“I’m sorry that you feel that way; however, you do not have my ‘permission’ to feel that way. If you decide to take my feelings, *my* beliefs, as a personal affront to your feelings and beliefs, then that is on you – that is your decision. I did not make my decision based on what I thought would “hurt” (or please) *you*, or any other member of the congregation, but rather on what was the right thing to do, for me.”
Another observation re the so-called non-apology: our contemporary counseling culture advises us that when we are having an argument or expressing our feelings to another person, we shouldn’t say, “You make me angry/sad when you ____ (do or say this anger/sadness-causing thing).” Rather, we are supposed to say, “I feel angry/sad when you _____.” In other words, by reframing, rephrasing what we say, we express our anger/sadness while also taking responsibility for our reactions and feelings, and not blame the other person for them. Now, isn’t that, in some, way, interwoven with the non-apology?
Interpersonal relationships; apologies, sincere and otherwise…. Complex territories, fraught with emotional landmines. I need to think about this for a while.
And if you disagree with my ruminations, well, I’m sorry you feel that way.
Sub-Department Of, Who Says I Don’t Have A Filter?
Dateline Saturday night/early Sunday morning: MH has been battling a rhinovirus for the past few days (surprise! COVID is not the only player left in the world of virology [7] ).
So, monkeys get credit for the pox: I get the common cold virus…not that anyone asked.
He’s been sleeping with his head elevated, but that night the congestion got to him…and to me, even through my earplugs (translation: loud snoring). Moiself tries the usual tricks of loudly adjusting my pillows and rearranging/tugging the sheets, which sometimes get him to change position without fully waking him up. [8]
Finally, I jostle his shoulder and speak to him, gently but firmly.
“Roll over.”
What he says: (in very clear voice, as if he’s just sprung into full-awakeness, even though one second before he sounded as if he were clearcutting an endangered forest):
“Why – was I making noise?”
What I think (and want to say): “WTF? Seriously – ‘Am I making noise?’
What are the circumstances where in the past, in the middle of the night, I have asked [9] you to roll over? Why would there be any other reason to ask you to roll over? Because I heard the cat barf and it’s your turn to clean it up? How would you rolling over clean up the cat barf? Because I heard someone trying to break in the house, or I heard the toilet running, or the sounds of the TV left on downstairs, or family photos falling from the fireplace mantle and hitting the floor? My getting you to roll over would accomplish nothing in those situations. ‘Am I making noise?’ Oh, no, of course not – I just woke myself up out of a sound sleep and decided that, for aesthetic purposes and/or achieving universal peace and harmony, I wanted you to roll over.”
What I actually say: “Yes.”
* * *
Punz For The Day Losing My Religion Edition
Q: How many atheists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two. One to actually change the bulb, and the other to videotape the job so fundamentalists won’t claim that their god did it.
What do you call a ruling on Islamic law made by an overweight imam? A fatwa.
What is the Dalai Lama’s favorite margarine advertising slogan? “I can’t believe it’s not Buddha.”
Why don’t churches have free wifi? They don’t want to compete with an invisible power that actually works.
* * *
May you give yourself permission to dress like a kid; May you never, under any circumstances, rush onto the pitch; May you roll over when so requested; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Which I have been on the receiving end of, when a blatantly sincere apology was called for, so I’m not taking this lightly.
[2] Who were quite delighted that they didn’t “have” to go to church anymore. Even though they had friends there whom they liked, they didn’t accept Christian theology or any religion’s theology) and wondered, in their words, “Why do we (our family) go to church when it’s obvious you don’t believe in any of that?”
[3] Or “rejecting the church/religion/god”…and all the many other ways my decision has been categorized by religious family and friends – ways which are, of course, their terms, and not mine.
“Following the Supreme Court’s ruling that has overturned Roe v. Wade, Pittsburgh-based Dick’s Sporting Goods’ CEO has announced that the company will provide travel expense reimbursement for employees seeking abortion access.
Company President and CEO Lauren Hobart posted the announcement… ‘We recognize people feel passionately about this topic – and that there are teammates and athletes who will not agree with this decision. However, we also recognize that decisions involving health and families are deeply personal and made with thoughtful consideration. We are making this decision so our teammates can access the same health care options, regardless of where they live, and choose what is best for them,’ Hobart said.” (“Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO announces travel expense reimbursement to employees seeking abortions in another state,” cbsnews.com )
And they love equal access to health care as well.
* * *
Department Of Good Intentions That Still Make Me Slightly Queasy
Regarding Dick’s Sporting Goods, Apple, and other companies are offering to reimburse employees for travel expenses related to abortion care access. Moiself has mixed feelings about this. [1] I am 90% YEE HAW!!! I mean, it’s the right-on thing to do. But, that means the woman is going to have to request/arrange this with her company’s HR/benefits department, which means even more people in her personal business, which should be just between her and her doctors and (if she so chooses) her partner. [2]
On the other hand, when it comes to healthcare at work, if you need time off for treatment for, say, cancer or the onset of what will turn out to be a chronic disease, there isn’t much privacy in that regard, either.…
BTW, these doing-the-right-thing companies (as of this date) are:
Starbucks, Tesla, Yelp, Airbnb, Microsoft, Netflix, Patagonia, DoorDash, JPMorgan Chase, Levi Strauss, PayPal, Amazon, the Walt Disney Company, Meta, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Condé Nast. ( “These Companies Will Cover Travel Expenses for Employee Abortions,” NYtimes.com )
There are others; my apologies to any companies moiself has omitted. Give these businesses a shout-out and/or support their products and services, [3] and let them know why you are doing so.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Incredibly Dumb, Face Palm-Worthy Things I Have Done
I have rather unruly eyebrows, and their ruly-ness seems to be getting more “un” as moiself ages. I’m not talking Andy Rooney level unruly, but, yeah.
Before leaving the house I sometimes wipe moiself’s damp toothbrush bristles across each eyebrow. Here is something that has happened more than once – a thing which should onlyhave happened once: I have set my toothbrush out with a dab of toothpaste on it, intending to brush my teeth, got distracted, come back to the sink minutes (or hours) later, and used said toothbrush to comb my eyebrows, thus ending up with a tiny white streak of Sensodyne ProEnamel ® on my eyebrows.
On the plus side, I’ve never had an eyebrow cavity. So, there’s that. [4]
OK, your turn? Help me out here. Certainly…please…there must be someone out there who has done something even dumber than toothpasting their brows.
* * *
Department Of Embarrassing My Offspring Chapter 581 In The Never-Ending Series.
This memory came to me on a recent morning walk, apropos of…something, which moiselfis currently unaware of.
Dateline: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Daughter Belle is attending the University of Puget Sound, and has recently joined her school’s women’s rugby team.
( One of my favorite things about rugby culture – yep, that’s a thing – is
the annual Prom Dress game, for both men’s and women’s teams. )
MH and I are attending one of her rugby team’s away games; home team is a college about an hour’s drive south of where we live.
During halftime Belle grabs one of the team’s rugby balls, takes her parents aside, and teaches us some of the throwing warm-ups that the team does. Several of her teammates are clustered together by the side of the field, swigging from their water bottles and chatting. One of them looks over at Belle and MH and I throwing the ball to each other, and I can see the proverbial light bulb switch on in her eyes.
Belle’s Rugby Teammate, calling out to MH and moiself: “You are Belle’s parents?”
Moiself: “Yep.”
BRT, standing up and flinging her arms wide: “Oh, I *love* Belle! Thank you for making her!”
Moiself, as I pass the ball to Belle: “You’re welcome. It was our pleasure…literally.”
Belle, dropping the ball and covering her eyes with her hands: “Moooooooooooom!”
* * *
Punz For The Day Annoying and/or Embarrassing Parents Edition [5]
When I was a kid, my parents said, “Excuse my French” after they cussed. I’ll never forget that first day at junior high school, when we were discussing foreign language electives and the teacher asked if any student knew any French words…
My parents raised me as an only child. This really annoyed my younger sister.
Do unfit parents have to exercise a lot to get their children back?
I told my parents I’m gray. Dad said he didn’t like my tone.
How do parents lose their kids in the mall? Seriously, any tips are welcome.
* * *
May you support companies who support abortion rights; May you have done something even dumber than toothpasting your brows; May you continue to find novel and loving ways to embarrass your progeny; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] And not just due to the hideous fact that five SCOTUS justices can drag us back to the back alleys so that such announcements are necessary.
[2] Except in cases of unintended pregnancies resulting rape, incest, abuse etc. I know hearing the word “partner” is a bitter pill to swallow, for women in those circumstances.
MH and I return from six weeks overseas, to find our country in the toilet – make that the outhouse, as toilets weren’t introduced until the late 1800s and six members of SCOTUS seem determined to flush us back to the Middle Ages. And now we’ve a diabetic cat on death row….never mind that depressing development.
First, reflections on July 4.
Department Of Generosity Of Spirit…Yeah. Right. Get Back To Me On That.
Here is my social media post on July 3.
“So, what are your plans for the 4th?”
That’s the usual question around this time of the year, and while MH and I may do some grilling and gather (read: commiserate) with friends, I am boycotting the Fourth of July as a celebratory holiday this year, and asking y’all to consider doing the same.
Our constitution is, unfortunately, elevated to the status of a sacred document by some folk. While many of its precepts were progressive for its day, it was flawed from the beginning and is showing its age. The fact that business as usual under its governance has allowed the cabal of cheats and liars and loons to institute their medieval theocracy ideals…. I just don’t think the USA deserves a birthday celebration this year.
Please join me in taking a knee on July 4, and wherever and whenever you are presented with flags and anthems and other bitter reminders of our false claims to liberty and justice for all.
* * *
Department Of Further Reflections From Little Miss Sunshine
As for the day itself? Meh.
“For some strange reason, people around the world have decided that the best way to mark important holidays and events is…by blowing things up.
Most of us are aware that fireworks are dangerous: we either know someone, or know of someone, who ended up in the hospital emergency room due to fireworks, but most people are completely unaware of the more insidious environmental damages and health impacts caused by fireworks…..
Fireworks create… a toxic fog of fine particulates, poisonous aerosols and heavy metals…that poison the air, the water and the soil, making them toxic to birds, wildlife, pets, livestock — and people….” ( excerpts from “Festive Fireworks Create Harmful Pall Of Pollution,” Forbes, science section, 12-31-19 )
The neighborhood’s pyrotechnics started sporadically in the late afternoon, gradually increasing in uniformity and intensity around 10 PM, and were finally, mostly, done by midnight. As our cat Nova cowered under our bed, moiself reflected, not kindly, upon my fellow humans’ obsession with that most wasteful and destructive means of “celebration.”
The world is on fire, [1] so yeah, let’s celebrate with incendiary devices spewing even more pollutants into our air, and as a bonus, we can terrify all the dogs and cats and nesting wildlife….
Why they were celebrating at all, I kept thinking? Don’t they realize what is happening in in their country? Or maybe they do, and just don’t care, or think it’s too late: We keep destroying our liberty and our planet, so what the hell, eat drink and be merry (and start another wildfire, what the hell), for tomorrow we may die.
The next morning I encountered this scenario during my walk. Over the years I recall seeing people cleaning up their post fireworks debris by hosing down their sidewalks and streets, sending the contaminated mess into the sewer system (and eventually into our streams and wetlands).
* * *
Department Of Last Week’s Distractions
Last Friday, the first new blog post after returning from 6+ weeks of travels, moiselfhad intended to post some travel reflections, only to become distraught distracted by…shall we say…current events. Such as these headlines
“SCOTUS Justices ‘Prayed With’ Her — Then Cited Her Bosses to End Roe. “A right-wing evangelical activist was caught on tape bragging that she prayed with Supreme Court justices. The court’s majority cited a legal brief that her group filed while overturning Roe v. Wade” ( Kara Voght & Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, )”
I shall attempt to return to reflective mode, by allowing moiself to share some impressions gathered during MH’s and my overseas travels.
First of all, why is everyone sarcastic when they find out you’re going on a trip? And by that I mean the comment moiself kept hearing, as our departure date neared, that I should “have fun packing!“ Is packing, for anything, ever *fun*?
Once again, I digress.
The trip’s timeline – both the original plans and the changed itinerary after we got COVID – is in the previous post. What I didn’t mention was the bag of 100, 1 ½ inch rubber chickens which accompanied moiself on my journey.
Down to twenty.
Each day I hid/placed a chicken in a “public” spot. [2]
from a hotel or Airbnb dresser drawer,
to a crack in the leg of a theater seat in Stockholm’s Drottingholm Palace grounds,
to a potted plant in an Oslo tapas restaurant,
to a crack in a rock wall on on a rock wall on Strangehagen Street in Bergen…
in the hopes that someone, some day, will find it and think to themselves,
“Uh…what is this, and why is it here?”
* * *
Travel Reflections
Things Scandinavians do better than Americans:
* toilets (both in businesses/private residences/public WCs)
From Vigelandsparken, Oslo. Sculptor Gustav Vigeland
* * *
Department Of Missed Opportunities
Certainly one of the cultural highlights of the trip was our visit to the Iceland Phallological museum in Reykjavik. Iceland was the last country we visited before returning home, and so as not to be schlepping gifts all over Scandinavia I informed certain folks that I would return with souvenirs for them from Iceland – read: most likely from the Phallological museum’s giftshop (“You’re all getting dicks!”).
But while the museum itself was interesting and informative, the vast majority of the items the gift shop carried were…regrettably, not. More along the line of tacky joke shop items designed to make 11-year old boys snicker. But I did manage to purchase and then fit several bags of penis-shaped pasta into our luggage.
Then, much to my disappointment, upon our return to the USA we sailed right through Customs at PDX. One customs officer asked us if we had any apples or oranges in our bags (from Iceland?), but that was it. I was so hoping for the classic question, “Do you have anything to declare?” [6] which I had planned on enthusiastically answering,
“A bags of dicks! Officer, I declare I have bags of the cutest dick pasta you’ve ever seen!”
* * *
Department Of Even Plant-Based Eating Moiself Still Doesn’t Get This
Artichokes.
What’s the point?
Just lick the mayo/aioli/butter off the spoon and get it over with.
Also, I try to avoid eating veggies which have hair and/or a heart.
* * *
Punz For The Day Penis Pasta Edition
What do you get when you mix a penis, a potato, and a boat? A dictatorship.
Why is it so easy to distinguish a penis apart from a testicle? There’s vas deferens between them.
On average, how much does a circumcisionist earn for his services? Sixty dollars an hour, plus tips.
A husband says to his wife, “I bet you can’t tell me something that will make me both happy and sad at the same time.” The wife thinks about it for a few moments and replies, “Your dick is bigger than your brother’s.”
* * *
May you think about how (and why) you celebrate a National Holiday; May you enjoy Icelandic cod and American veggie burgers; May you have the opportunity to declare to a customs agent, “Dicks!”; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] “The past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history, new data shows Global temperatures in 2021 were among the highest ever observed, with 25 countries setting new annual records, according to scientists from NASA, NOAA and Berkeley Earth.” Washington Post, 1-13-22 )
[2] The rules I set for moiself: it had to be hidden in a place where someone could theoretically/eventually find it without trespassing on private property, it could not do damage to its hiding place or surroundings (e.g., jammed in between and thus widening the cracks in a museum artifact).
[3] Better pay for workers; little to no tipping expected (or sometimes even allowed).
[4] Iceland excelled here. Norway, surprisingly, dropped the ball when it came to cod. Notice I didn’t say, “dropped the cod ball,” because that would be…ick.
[5] Decaffeinated beverages do not seem to be a thing, and woe unto you who asks for decaf coffee.
[6] I’m not even sure they ask that question anymore, if you are part of the Global Entry Program.
I’m going through my every-two years (pandemic-influenced schedule changes notwithstanding), post-Olympic blues, where after dinner I sit down in one of our way-too-comfy chairs and expect instant access to televised, Holy ACL tear, how do they *do* that? feats of athleticism. Despite my enjoyment of the spectacle, my attention feels somewhat squirm-worthy…. Moiself doesn’t even try to justify my interest in The Games ® with my abhorrence of the host country’s abysmal human rights record.
The USA engaged in a “diplomatic boycott” of these Beijing-hosted games. Remember the lackluster response to that announcement?
Few if any sports fans tune in to watch the participating countries’ political envoys compete in the Ambassadorial Mixed Team Relay Luge, what’s the point? When it comes to action strategies, a diplomatic boycott reminds me of prayer – it’s a way of trying to provide the illusion that you’re doing something when in fact you’ve done nothing of consequence.
“We’re doing a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics.”
“We’re praying for the victims of human rights violations.”
Can or should sports (or any human endeavor) be politics-free? And if the answer is yes, what kind of human rights violations and atrocities are allowed to eclipse those leave-politics-out-of-these-games declarations?
Other minds far keener than moiself’s frequently debate this issue, and come to contradictory conclusions (“The Olympics *are* political and the IOC is delusional” ; “Olympics ‘Are Not About Politics,’ Athletes Should Be Politically Neutral At Games”) and everything in between. I do remember reading a couple of op-ed pieces about the importance of viewers – and journalists – at the Olympics, as in, acting as witnesses to hold the China government accountable for the image they intended to portray vs. the reality of what they do. If no one’s watching, Chinese officials can say whatever they like about…anything.
When the USA boycotted the Russian-hosted 1980 Summer Olympic to protest Russia’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, 64 other countries joined the boycott. Sound like a lot? Think again – 80 countries did not, and sent representative athletes to the games. What was accomplished? Oh, that’s right; how quickly I forget. Shamed as bullies before the free world, Russia renounced its oppressive ways and turned into a beacon of liberty and civil rights for the downtrodden masses across the globe.
Back to the actual games. The big-liest story involved the 15-year-old Russian figure skater, Kamila Valieva. Valieva tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance but was still was allowed to compete (and then fell apart during a key performance).[1]
Moiself would wager that many teenaged Olympic athletes are “older” than their non-athletic team member peers in many ways, after years of single-minded devotion and adherence to a grueling practice schedule that would break most adults. There is a second part to my wager: at the same time, these teen athletes’ pursuit to excel at their sport makes them more naïve than other teens. Young Olympics-bound athletes often little experience of the maturation that comes from encountering “real life,” having been shielded from the day-by-day mundane decisions and activities – by both their coaches and parents – so that they can concentrate on mastering the backside quad cork 180˚ or whatever.
So, who’s responsible for Valieva’s doping? Was it the athlete, or her coach(es)? Given how coaches control influence their athlete’s lives, and the age of the skater in question, it’s not that difficult for me to imagine Valieva’s unquestioning compliance to a command recommendation.
“Here comrade, take pill/shot, and don’t worry, it’s …uh… vitamin B-12! Da, that is what it is.”
Still, there is the argument that if she’s old enough to be on the Olympics team she’s old enough to take responsibility for following the Olympics’ rules. If a substance is banned, you don’t take it, and you don’t let anyone give it to you.
No matter who’s at fault, I hated to see/think of a 15 year old getting ripped a new one by her coaches…which is what happened. Whosever decision it was to dope – hers, or her “support” team’s – maybe it doesn’t matter in long run. And maybe someone should check on Valieva, after she’s returned to Russia and the hoopla dies down, to make sure she hasn’t been carted off to the All-Gulag Tour of Ice Dancing With The Russian Stars.
My interest in watching any of the figure skating dropped after the Valieva doping-but-excused revelation. It left a bad taste in my mouth, particularly when I compared the skater’s outcome with what happened to a Summer Olympics track star. Why wasn’t there a huge outcry about the difference in treatment – USA sprinter Sha’ Carri Richardson was kicked off the Summer Olympics team for failing *her* drug test. A few people commented, including, succinctly, Richardson herself:
“The only difference I see is I’m a black young lady.” ( “Double Standard, Racism? Sha’Carri Richardson Booted From Olympics For Cannabis, Russian Skater No Problem For Doping.” Benzinga 2-14-22)
Moiself does recall that someone else commented about the brouhaha, at the time when Richardson got the boot….
As the Tokyo (Summer) Olympics Games enter the final week, I’m realizing I will soon be going through the withdrawal I experience every two years, after watching two-plus weeks of (summer or winter) Olympics events. I’m not normally a frequent televised-sporting-events fan, but moiself does enjoy The Games ®….
In the second week, with track and field events predominating, moiself is thinking about a conversation I had with daughter Belle, several weeks back, about how the USA’s track star Sha’ Carri Richardson received a suspension for testing positive for marijuana, and thus would not be participating in the Olympics.
Belle was peeved that Richardson would not be able to compete, due to what Belle sees as an unfair and archaic drug testing system. I mentioned that Richardson’s competitors might also be disappointed in Richardson’s absence from the games. As I understand it, when you’re at the top level of your sport, you want to compete against the best. Also, whatever your accomplishments, you don’t want an asterisk next to them (as in, “* ___ won the gold medal, after the favorite ____ was disqualified for….”).
We agreed that athletes should be tested for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs; definitely-absolutely-go-for-it. But Belle and I had fun wondering back and forth about why athletes are tested for alcohol and marijuana…. it seems to moiself that weed and booze, with their relaxant and depressive properties, would diminish, not enhance, athletic performance. And really now: in what sports could marijuana be considered a performance *enhancing* drug? Competitive eating? Belle suggested.
You’d think athletes would *want* their rivals to get the munchies before competition: “Here comes Richardson, strolling across the finish line in last place, giving the other racers a, ‘What’s up with all the hurry?’ look as she heads for the pizza roll vendor….”
“I’d like to thank my coach, and my training partner, Maui Wowie.”
So, lobby to change the Olympics’ drug testing rules, if you think it would be worthwhile to do so. Until then, it would be unfair to other athletes to make exceptions for some and not others, in terms of how existing drug rules are applied. [2]
Also, the athletes know full well what they will be tested for. My advice [3] to them is, don’t act surprised and/or disappointed if you used a banned substance and then get caught. Take responsibility. Don’t play dumb when you’re not. (Excerpts from 8-6-21 blog post, The Drug Test I’m Not Failing, full text here)
Once again, I digress. Time to finish with the Winter Olympics.
As always, moiself thrilled to watch the ariel snowboarding and skiing and ski jumping events, marveled at the WTF?!? stamina and skill required by the XC skiers and Biathlon-ers, [4] and yawned through (read: ignored) the curling/bobsled/luge/skeleton events. [5] Although it was great to see pioneering USA snowboarding champ Shaun White in Olympic action again/for the last time, it was also awe-inspiring to see the younger snowboarders – many if not most of whom were inspired by White – perform their gravity-defying new stunts…and then it was poignant to realize, as White seemed to do so graciously, that his time at that level of competition had passed. Most of all, it was great fun, for moiself at least, to see a smaller country, Norway (population 5 million, led the medal count with thirty-seven. Yes; 37), dominate the competition. [6]
But, my enjoyment was dampened by the skating scandal. And also, the host. Fucking People’s Republic of Human Rights Bullies China.
My gradually-souring mood was saved by son K, who steered me toward an old video clip of Shaun White as a bright-eyed 19 year old, being interviewed by CNN after his first Olympics. Refreshingly unjaded and enthusiastic, gushing as if amazed by his own success, White described how, during his plane flight back to the USA, the flight attendants [7] fawned over his Olympic medal. White’s charmingly disarming, duuuuude, totally rad persona, seemingly endemic to surfers and snowboarders, surfaced when the CNN interviewer interrupted White with an attempted “gotcha” moment. It reminded me why I’m gonna miss the red-haired dude and his ‘tude:
* * *
* * *
Department Of Things I Sometimes Forget
Such as, sometimes I forget how much I like a simple veggie chili, which can be made rather quickly with Staples I Almost Always Have Handy ® . As for the simple part, you can complexify [8] it up, as much as you want, with different beans and pepper combos, and get jiggy with the toppings.
– 2 cans no salt added chopped tomatoes -1 can each (~15 oz) of the following (no salt added) cooked beans, rinsed & drained: Black, kidney, garbanzo, lima – 1 c white frozen corn, thawed – 3 T chili powder – 1 T ground cumin seed (toasted first – optional, but delish) – ½ t each kosher salt & freshly ground black peppercorns; cayenne pepper to taste
– 1 t (or more) red wine vinegar – 3T rinsed pickled jalapeno slices (more or less to taste) [10]
– lime slices
Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1m. Add beans through cumin seeds, mix well, and bring to simmer over med-high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until flavors are blended, ~ 30m.
Season w/salt, pepper and cayenne, and jalapenos. Add vinegar to taste. Serve with lime slices to squeeze over.
Additional toppings: Avocado chunks or slices or guacamole; chopped fresh cilantro; chopped scallions; plant-based or regular sour cream or plain yogurt; shredded veg or other cheeses; crushed tortilla chips; red or green chili salsa; a mother’s bitter tears….
Your final product should look nothing like this.
* * *
Punz For The Day Chili Edition
I got a miniature fresh habañero pepper at the farmer’s market. When I returned home I put a tiny blanket on it, because it was a little chili.
We are thinking about making Five Alarm Bean and Cabbage Chili for Christmas Eve. We’re starting a new tradition called, ‘Silent But Deadly Night.’
How do you make a good vegan chili? Stick her in the freezer.
What do dead Norseman like in their chili? Vallhallapeños.
You can see yourself out.
* * *
May you never be subjected to an Olympic-sized double standard; May you never engage in a diplomatic boycott (of anything); May you join your loved ones in a rousing chorus of, “I’m talkin’ ’bout Mountain Dews, baby!” [11]
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] As in, she fell, several times, during her last performance, where, favored to take first place in the Women’s Singles competition, she did not medal.
[2] Richardson claimed she used weed to cope with receiving the news of the unexpected death of her biological mother. If that’s the case, I’m wondering why she didn’t alert officials before she was tested, along the lines of, “BTW, I used this substance for this reason,” to try to explain or at least warn them that she wasn’t trying to sneak anything past them.
[3] Which they clamor for, night and day…it gets soooooo annoying.
[4] Only Norwegians could come up with such a body-punishing, seemingly disparate skills-requiring event as biathlon.
[5] The nuances of the sledding events evades me (“He tilted his body one degree to the right to steer the sled higher on the turn”…uh huh). No doubt fun to do yourself, but a snoozefest to watch someone else do it.
[6] Second place Germany, population 83 million , 27 medals…summer Olympics powerhouse USA (population 330 million) got 25 winter Olympic medals.
[7] Although he refers to them using the antediluvian term, “stewardesses.” DUDE ?!?!?
Moiself hopes you found a less-than-traditional way to celebrate yesterday.
* * *
Department Of How Come I Never Thought Of This Before?
This is fascinating… At least to moiself.
A recent issue of the podcast Freakonomics (“What’s Wrong with Shortcuts?”) featured podcast host Stephen Dubner interviewing mathematician Marcus du Sautoy about du Satoy’s book, Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life. The author argues that, despite what we’ve been taught, the secret to success is not in hard work, it’s in figuring out and applying shortcuts to solve one problem quickly so we can then move on to another. Mathematics; music, psychotherapy, politics – du Sautoy claims that shortcuts can be found/applied to practically everything. But, not everything:
“When you’re going on holiday, I don’t want to shortcut the holiday, because it’s about spending time. The point is, I don’t want you to use shortcuts for everything and spoil something you enjoy doing.”
Actually, Mr. Generic Handsome White Dude who is probably a CGI creation, in real life, there are both.
C.B.T. (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) has been hailed by many psychologists as being a true breakthrough in mental health therapeutic modes, due to C.B.T.’s pragmatic and short-term approach to handling problems. Podcast host Dubner noted that Du Satoy’s book dealt briefly with the idea of using shortcuts in psychotherapy, but seemed skeptical of its efficacy, as per the fact that the human psyche is complex and dynamic enough to reject the type of shortcutting that might work in other realms. Du Sautoy’s response indicated he was at least somewhat in agreement (my emphases):
“… I think that (applying shortcuts) depends on the problem you’re facing…. I talked to Susie Orbach, who’s a psychologist, and she had this nice way of describing some of the problems that people are facing: it’s hard to learn a language. It’s even harder to unlearn a language. “
Imagine trying to unlearn English (or whatever your first language is).
Some people come to therapy with ingrained ways of thinking from experiences they’ve had in childhood – the family “language” they learned does not serve them well, and they need to “unlearn” that language and learn another one. Such resetting of thought patterns and behaviors will not likely respond to drastic shortcuts. However, the C.B.T. modality (of learning how to be aware of what your thought processes are) is, in itself, “…enough to short-circuit the algorithm which was always sending you into depression. You’re sort of stuck inside the system of the way you’re thinking. What C.B.T. often helps you to do is to take a step up and look at the way that thought process is happening and understand the trigger which always sends you down….”
Moiselfis a longtime fan of C.B.T. [1] But what keeps coming back to me from the podcast is the concept of trying to *unlearn* your first or native language. I realize the concept is used metaphorically in du Sautoy’s argument; nevertheless, I’ve encountered something like it throughout my life, in the correlated cases of watching people deal with the cognitive dissonance of trying to embrace reality while trying to stay within certain religious traditions and/or worldviews.
A personal example: I was raised within the “language” – both via the wider culture and in my own family of origin – of the Christian religion. During one of the few conversations with my father I had (when I was an adult) wherein he asked about why I was not/was no longer a Christian, I briefly laid out the fundamentals of the faith, along with why and how I know that those religious tenets are not true and/or are not valid explanations of reality. I then asked him a question he could not answer:
The headline had remained on the online Oregonian newspaper feed for several days. I would scroll past it on my phone news app…and finally decided to check it out.
Big mistake; what kind of story was moiself expecting, given the headline?
Perhaps moiself should title this segment, Department Of the Make A Wish Foundation Achievement I’m Not Celebrating.
Even though I was reminded of that M-A-W organization (the kind of charity which helps dying/cancer-stricken/handicapped kids achieve their “dreams”) when I read about this “achievement,” the hunter in this story is a grown-ass young man, not a child. My lip is still curling after reading about how this significantly handicapped man – who was apparently raised to think that it is a high achievement to hunt (read: stalk and slaughter) a magnificent creature, not as a way of putting food on his starving family’s table, but for “sport” [3] – was able to kill an elk thanks to a group of abettors, referred to in the article as his “guardian angels.”
The article is accompanied by a photograph of three masochistic killers “sportsmen” : the CP-stricken hunter in his ATV wheelchair, and two of his “angels,” one of which holds up the lifeless head of the elk by lifting its antlers. Some choice excerpts from the article:
“On…the next-to-last day of his northeast Oregon elk season and despite severe impairment by cerebral palsy, DM (hunter’s name) pulled the trigger on the massive six-point Rocky Mountain bull he yearned for.
But not without the help of a flock of good Samaritans. [4]
Guardian angel 1: DM’s father and one of his primary caregivers, who takes Drew fishing and hunting, has developed a system for Drew to shoot a well-aimed rifle….
Angel 2: The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which issued DM his disabled fishing and hunting permit after completion of a hunter safety course…..
Angel 3: Youth Outdoors Unlimited of Moses Lake, Washington, which hosted DM years ago on a bear hunt and loaned him the same track and mechanical rifle system he used then…..
Angel 4: Facebook. Yup, social media. Monsey has a large following on the platform….”
The article goes on to list at least three more “angels,” including the veterinarian/cattle rancher who owns the ranchland where the elk was shot.
The picture I mentioned is repulsive (to me…I realize I’m living in a very different world and mindset from those who enjoy hunting). Here is the only picture of a giant bull elk moiself finds acceptable. What in the world possesses people to think that the life of such a magnificent animal – which is what attracts a hunter to it in the first place, the fact that it is alive – is best served by becoming a trophy, or a testament to some short-sighted asshole’s twisted sense of accomplishment?
…and any other KenKen puzzle books (which moiself purchases on a regular basis).
Re your description on the cover of the books, “100 challenging logic puzzles that make you smarter.” Not that you care what I think, but you have no objective evidence for that claim.
Q. In pop culture, it’s a popular notion that you can do puzzles to ‘train your brain.’ But, as an adult, can you actually do that? To improve memory and cognition?
A. “So, the answer to that is generally, ‘Yes,’ but doing puzzles improves your brain only in doing puzzles…. the way you think about that is like doing sports: If you do tennis, you’re not necessarily going to be good at doing football; you’ll just be good at doing tennis. But overall, doing tennis is helping your general physical abilities and making you sprier.”
(Ausim Azizi, chair of neurology at Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine, interviewed in “Do Puzzles Really Train Your Brain,” The Philly Voice. )
Also, to make moiself“smarter” is not why I buy KenKen books. I just like doing the puzzles. But I suppose, from a marketing POV, “100 challenging logic puzzles that you just like to do” doesn’t quite cut it.
* * *
Department Of Phrases Which Spark Memories
It was a phrase or sentiment I had neither thought about nor heard in some time, until it was used by a long-time friend recently. This made me think back to…
Dateline: over twenty years ago, when my in-laws were out from Florida, visiting moiself, MH, and our offspring. I was driving my late father-in-law somewhere. And by late I do not mean to cast aspersions re his timeliness – he wasn’t a tardy man – but late as in, he is now deceased. But he was (obviously to y’all, as per this story…I hope) alive when I was driving him somewhere; I mean, I’m not the kind of person to schlep a dead in-law around in my vehicle….
Once again, I’ll start again.
So: moiselfand MH’s father are out. I was driving; he was in the passenger seat of my car; we came to a stoplight; the car in front of us had a quite noticeable bumper sticker.
My ordinarily even-tempered FIL told me that whenever he saw a car with a sticker like that he felt like getting a big shovel of shit, dumping it on the car’s windshield, and exclaiming to the driver, “Look, it’s happening!”
He used a somewhat humorous tone when he made that declaration, but I could tell that it (the bumper sticker) actually upset him. I asked him why he found the phrase/sentiment so irksome. He said he thought it to be indicative of a negative, passive attitude about life.
I chewed on that that for a while, then told him that I had a very different reaction. To moiself, shit happensis merely an…uh, earthier…form of the expressions and adages found worldwide, in many languages and cultures; e.g., “C’est la vie;” “Que sera, sera.”
Translation: shit happens simply (if scatologically) expresses the understanding that there will be things, good and bad and neutral, which will happen to us and which will be out of our control. This doesn’t mean that you therefore go through life as flotsam, simply drifting with the currents and tides of fate – of course not. You do what you can, but it is realistic – and mentally healthy – to recognize that, ultimately, you are *not* in control of everything. Shit happens/que sera, sera:things can and will happen to you – things which may seem as an insult from the universe but which, in fact, are random and have nothing to do with you personally.
I think I was able to successfully communicate my POV. Or perhaps the genial comments of understanding my FIL made were to thwart me from breaking into the theme song of my patron saint, Doris Day. [5]
* * *
Punz For The Day Day-After-Thanksgiving Edition
Q: What smells the best at a Thanksgiving dinner? A: Your nose.
Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a
classic Thanksgiving dessert by its diameter? A: Pumpkin pi.
* * *
May you understand that shit happens; May you do strive to ensure that you are not the shit happening to someone else; May you do your best to ignore Black Friday; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] To the point that I think, by comparison, most other forms of therapy are basically a waste of time.
[2] Even though * he* was the one who brought it up, my sweet father responded with his go-to, five-word phrase of circumvention, which he employed whenever we were getting into conversational territory which made him uncomfortable: “Well, that’s enough about that.”
[3] And unless or until the Bull Elk in question, or any other animal so stalked, is armed with the high-powered weaponry of the human hunters (who must also, as their prey is, be naked) and agrees to participate with the human, in the hunting, it is the ultimate in poor sportsmanship to call hunting a “sport.”
[4] Certainly, not a Good Samaritan from the elk’s POV. And in the original Good Samaritan story, the Samaritan did not help one creature by killing another one.
[5] Yes, atheists can have a patron saint, and for a while, Doris was mine.
Magnificent to observe – from a safe distance, y’all.
* * *
And Speaking Of Groovy Natural Phenomena…
What would ushering in the holiday season be without The Dropkick Murphys?
* * *
Department Of More On Stormfronts
Dateline: earlier this week. Moiself saw a post from a FB friend, in which they announced that it was their son Oden’s [1] birthday…and that they would be celebrating without him, as he is in another state and wants nothing to do with his parents and is “angry angry angry.”
There are few relationships sadder than those involving parent-child alienation. The emotional part of me took hold first. I wanted to message them privately, until the rational part of me said:
As in, WTF are you – moiself – thinking?
Because my message would have been along the lines of:
“Oh, ____ (friends’ names) I am so sad to read this…and the fact that I’m reading this on social media makes me even sadder. Is Oden on Facebook? Will Oden’s seeing or becoming aware of this post help him to be less angry?”
Of course it won’t help. Nor would my rhetorical question to them have been of help, no matter how many times I would have tried to “gently” rephrase or reframe it. And I refer to this hypothetical question as rhetorical, because I can’t think of a sensible reason for someone to believe that making such a public statement [2] would help their cause of reconciliation. Unless…
…duhand ahhh, unless reconciliation is *not* their cause (at this point). Rather, the only cause I can think of which would be served by such an announcement is to receive pity/sympathy from their friends and family – reactions which could have (should have, IMHO) been garnered privately, by speaking or messaging personally with those who are aware of the long, complicated, parents-child relationship here, rather than by exposing the already-alienated-and-angry son to public scrutiny and even shame. [3]
If feeding the parents’ sense of martyrdom heartache was the true purpose of the post, then, well-played.
It’s still sad. No matter what. I wish that seeing a picture of a *Baby Sloth Wearing Magic Pajamas Of Reconciliation* would make it all better, for everyone.
* * *
Department Of Yeah What He Said
Moiself occasionally checks comedian and author and TV host Bill Maher’s “New Rules” segment, and his one last week, Rule: Words Matter, was a doozy. Maher starts out proposing that instead of putting bibles in hotel rooms people should put dictionaries,
“…because apparently, nobody knows what words mean anymore.”
Maher goes on to illustrate one of my pet peeves – the fact that you dilute the importance of words when you misunderstand and misuse them. And I couldn’t have given a better example of misusing/redefining than the cringe-worthy one Maher provides. It involves a standup comic, some of whose work I have listened to and liked, commenting on the standup special of another comic, some of whose work I have listened to and liked (and some…nah).
Chappelle, who above all else seems to (consider himself to) be a free speech advocate, is once again testing the limits of that in his new streaming special on Netflix. Certain remarks he has made in the special have raised the hackles of many in the LGBTQ community. [4]
“Dave Chappelle does not make it easy.
He is one of the most brilliant stand-up comics in the business. But he also makes a sport of challenging his audience — putting ideas in front of them that he knows are uncomfortable and unpalatable to those invested in modern notions of how to talk about feminism, gender, sexual orientation and race. Sometimes, he does it to make a larger point. But at times, especially during his latest special for Netflix, ‘The Closer,’ he also seems to have a daredevil’s relish for going to dangerous places onstage and eventually winning his audience over — regardless of what he’s actually saying. “ (“For Dave Chappelle, punchlines are dares. His new special, ‘The Closer,’ goes too far.” ( NPR, Morning Edition, Tv Review 10-5-21 )
Australian standup comic Gadsby, a lesbian who often features LGBTQ issues in her routines, characterized Chapelle’s special as “…hate speech dog-whistling.”
Maher points out the glaring misuse of two terms which essentially cancel each other out:
” ‘Dog whistle’ refers to when someone puts something in code because they’re afraid to come out and say what they really think.
That’s what you get from Dave Chapelle –
he’s afraid to say what he really thinks?”
Maher also on touches on my second semantic pet peeve: attaching “-phobic” to any reaction you don’t like.
“…and it’s not hate speech, just because you disagree with it. Nor is it phobic. Phobic comes from a Greek word meaning something you fear irrationally, like spiders, or germs. But now it is used as a suffix for something you just don’t like.I’ve been called ‘commitment-phobic.‘ No, I don’t *fear* commitment, I just don’t want any.Other people do; great! I don’t call them, ‘single-phobic.’
….And if I talk about how wrong I think it is to force women to wear a beekeeper’s suit all day, that’s not Islamophobic – I just don’t like it.”
Objecting to this is not Islamophobia, it’s forcing-women-to-wear-burial-shrouds-while-they’re-still-alive ophobia.
“A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation. It is a type of anxiety disorder.
A person with a phobia either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or endures it with great anxiety and distress. ( “Phobia – what is it?” Harvard health a-z.edu )
For those who fling the –phobic suffix with Woke® impunity: y’all ever met a person with an actual phobia and seen that phobia manifested? [5] True phobics endure debilitating symptoms that can mimic a heart attack. It is a frightening, humbling thing to see.
If you’re gay and someone disagrees with you, about LGBTQ-related public policy or personal relationships – or if he flat out say that the idea of a gay “lifestyle” (translate: sex) makes him uncomfortable, he is just that – uncomfortable…or perhaps immature or ignorant or close-minded or whatever. But unless he slobbers and hyperventilates and screams and has to run out of the grocery store when Ru Paul enters, he is not (homo- or trans-) *phobic.*
If you’re a woman and, come time for the annual extended family Thanksgiving gathering, your strip joint-frequenting cousin Bubba Bocephus argues with every feminist principle you espouse, and freely and loudly expresses his opinion that women’s places are in the kitchen and bedroom as he tells jokes belittling his female co-workers, it is possible that Bubba actually hates women. But unless he exhibits behavior that indicates he has an irrational, anxiety-producing *fear* of any female relative at the gathering, he is not a “gynophobe.” He’s a misogynist asshole.
Moiself’s screams upon encountering Ru Paul at the grocery store would be those of sheer delight.
Related (moiself sez) to the misuse or “rebranding” of certain words and terms is safe spaces, a concept I find ominous, and even the opposite of “safe.” Those school boards trying to outlaw any form of Critical Race Theory being taught, or even mentioned, in schools? They took a page from the far left playbook: they’re trying to keep students (read: white students) “safe” from the reality of the USA’s history of systemic racism.
Ever since I first heard the term safe spacesI’ve had an almost visceral loathing of it (but, I am not safe spacephobic). This is because I think that institutions – in particular universities, which are supposed to challenge and enlighten – being asked or even required to produce “safe spaces” produces just the opposite, and stifles development of one of the most important human qualities higher education should aspire to engender: strength of character, along with the character-building-and-expanding skill of being able to listen to and consider opinions you disagree with, or even find offensive.
And now I know why I have this reaction, thanks to the series of talks I’ve been listening to (“The Stoic Path,” via this meditation app) . In the episode, “The Upside of Negative Thinking,” stoic philosopher William B. Irvine puts a name to perhaps the most vital yet an underappreciated part of our body’s defensive systems:
“Most people are born with an immune system. But for it to be maximally effective it has to be developed, and the best way to develop it is by exposing it to germs. Suppose then that you’re a parent, who wants her child to grow up strong and healthy. You know that germs cause illness. The obvious thing to do would be to keep your child’s exposure to germs to a minimum. If you acted on this reasoning, though, and tried to raise your child in a germ-free environment, you had better be prepared to keep him there for the rest of his life. Otherwise, as soon as he stepped into the real world, his underdeveloped immune system would likely be overwhelmed by germs. So what’s a caring parent to do? As paradoxical as it may seem, she should expose her child to germs, but in a controlled fashion….
The Stoics didn’t know about the biological immune system…but they did intuit the existence of what I am calling a psychological immune system. Whereas your biological immune system protects you from sickness caused by germs, your psychological immune system protects you from experiencing the negative emotions triggered by life’s setbacks.
Consider the following scenario: suppose that parents, in order to reduce the number of negative emotions that their child experiences, worked hard to prevent bad things from happening to him. They never shared bad news with him; never criticized or insulted him and did their best to prevent other people from doing so. And whenever a problem arose in the child’s life they would deal with it on his behalf. Although these parents might have the best intentions in the world, those intentions would likely backfire. Their child’s psychological immune system would end up dysfunctional; indeed, he would be the psychological equivalent of a bubble boy. He would be hypersensitive to comments other people made; he would be angered and frustrated by the smallest setbacks, and he might burst into tears upon hearing bad news.
Caring parents…will take steps to develop their child’s psychological immune system… Their goal is for the child to be emotionally ready to face the imperfect world into which he will emerge in a few year’s time. He should able to hear bad news, criticism, and even insults, without getting overly upset. And when he encounters a setback, he should be able to calmly and coolly set about to overcoming it.”
If only our psychological immunity could be so easily boosted.
Ponder this: Allowing yourself to be exposed to contrary, harsh, even insulting thoughts, words, and opinions is the psychological equivalent of getting a flu shot.
As he expands on the concept of psychological immunity, Irvine considers how the Stoics would respond to “hate speech.” (my emphases):
“One of their (stoicism’s) key psychological insights is that what harms you the most when you’ve been insulted, maybe by a racist or a sexist, is not the insult itself, but your reaction to that insult….
We are presently in the midst of a great human social experiment involving hate speech. The Stoics’ advice for targets of such speech is to toughen themselves up; they need to strengthen their psychological immune system.…
Lots of people reject this advice out of hand. Instead of encouraging people to toughen up, they tell them that they have every reason to be upset. They might also provide them with “safe spaces’ in which they can recover from understandably devastating insults.
The stoics would argue that dealing with hate speech in this manger inadvertently undermines people’s psychological immune systems. Even worse, such actions can trigger a kind of downward spiral with respect to hate speech: the more people are protected from hearing offensive remarks, the more upsetting they find those remarks, and the more upsetting they find them, the more protection they need. The target of hate speech can thereby end up as the psychological equivalent of the Bubble Boy.”
* * *
Department Of Mama Nature’s Psychedelics
Last Saturday and Sunday, we Oregonians had the rare opportunity to witness the aurora borealis, aka, the northern lights.
“A storm that started more than 92 million miles away is sending a spooky light show to skies above the Pacific Northwest…. a powerful solar flare left the sun on Thursday. Now charged particles are heading toward Earth… That’s likely to result in visible aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, in areas where the lights are rarely seen. The ghostly night-sky phenomenon, which at its brightest can fill dark skies with glowing, dancing sheets of translucent green and purple lights, occurs when electrons from the sun’s solar flares collide with the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere…. ( opb.org )
Of course, light pollution in our area (Portland Metro) bscured any view MH and I and other “space enthusiasts” might have gotten.
* * *
Department Of Atmospheric Phenomenon Providing A Memory Segue
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – when I was pregnant with That Who Would Become MH’s And My First Offspring ® – moiself made the mistake of sharing some of my baby-naming ideas with my mother.
We now pause for the following announcement.
Hear me, ye who are newly pregnant: do not share your baby name ideas with anyone other than your partner, unless you are actively seeking input (read: criticism) as to your choices. Because if anyone, especially the expectant grandparents, think there is a snowball’s chance in a California wildfire to change your mind, they will try. As a Stanford Hospital employee (the records clerk responsible for recording the newborn’s name on vital documents) told me, “Don’t tell *anyone* the name until it’s on the birth certificate – because until it’s on the certificate, *someone* will try to get you to change it to a name they think is sooooooo much better….”
The afore-mentioned mistake happened during a phone call with my mother, a few days before I’d received my amniocentesis results. Since my mother had asked I said yes, when we are contacted with the amnio results we would want to know everything, including the 23rd chromosome pair arrangement. MH and I had just begun to think about names; if the test showed we’d be having a girl, one of the names I was considering was Aurora.
I liked Aurorafor several reasons. It can be a tough world for girl-childs, I told my mother, and being named for an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon – the aurora borealis! – is a sign of strength. Also, Aurora Dupin, the real name of the author George Sand, was a trail-blazing, stereotype-defying, 1800s French writer…. [6]Aurorawas my front runner for a girl, and if we chose that name we’d probably call her “Rory.”
My mother, born of Irish-Norwegian peasant stock, had royal blood when it came to her ability to indirectly express negative feelings rather than openly address them. Thus, my family’s Queen of Passive Aggression made her standard, “Oh, that’s interesting,” response to my Aurorastory…which rolled right past me until she telephoned the very next day, and the following exchanged ensued.
“I’ve been thinking about your baby name choice,” my mother said. “Do you know that the ‘R’ sound is the hardest sound for children to make – it’s usually the last consonant they learn to pronounce correctly.”
I asked her if that was a statement or a question, then reminded her that, yep, as one of the THREE of her four children whom she saw fit to give R names – ahem! – I was familiar with that phenomenon. I thought it was kinda cute that I was called ‘Wobyn’ by toddlers, my peers, kids I babysat – and even by my younger siblings, ‘Woofie’ (Ruthie) and “Wobert’ (Robert) – until they were old enough to master that devilish R consonant. So, her point would be…?
“I want you to go stand in front of a mirror,”she said. “Then look at your mouth, and what happens to your face, when you say, ‘Rory.’ “
Holy fucking non-issue,moiself marveled. She’s apparently/actually done this. She stood in front of her mirror, and did this.
I concentrated on keeping my tone as gentle as possible (more gentle than she deserved), but also as firm as the reply demanded:
“Mom, I want *you* to go stand in front of a mirror, and look what happens to your face when you say, ‘Buttinsky.’ “
There were no further baby name suggestions (or discussions) between us.
K, and the freshly hatched Belle. “K, I’m happy you are who you are, even as I want you to know you would have made a fine ‘Rory.’ “
* * *
Punz For The Day Baby Names Edition
Seriously, you’re going to name your son, Almondine? That’s nuts.
Seriously, you’re going to name your daughter, Cintronella? That’s repellant.
Seriously, you’re going to name your baby, Insurrection? That’s revolting.
Seriously, you’re going to name your baby, R.E.M.? You must be dreaming.
Seriously, you’re going to name your baby, KenKen? That’s puzzling. [7]
* * *
May you, some day, be able to see both the aurora borealis and king tides; May you never have an occasion to look in the mirror and say, Buttinsky; May the Baby Sloth Wearing Magic Pajamas Of Reconciliation be of comfort to you; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] And as far as this public statement of mine (blogging about this) goes, moiself is 99% certain they do not read this blog.
[3] for holding a grudge against his parents, who are just sitting there, posting alone in the dark, oy vey….
[4] Disclosure: I have not watched the special in its entirety; just clips.
[5] I have seen several phobic reactions, including this memorable one: I had to help a friend to the floor and raise her legs, when she began to hyperventilate at just the suggestion that my child mightconsider getting a pet tarantula (and keep it in the garage, in a covered terrarium, when the spider-phobic friend came over, so she would never see it). She was horribly embarrassed by her reaction, which she realized was over the top and irrational…but that’s what makes it a phobia. Quite different from the many people who don’t like spiders or “bugs” but who don’t turn into a quivering mass of quasi-sentient protoplasm at just the *mention* of them.
[6] who, like most if not all women writers of that time, had to use a male pen name in order for her work to be published.
[7] Yeah, but KenKen is the best puzzle, ever. Sudoku, in comparison and in MHO, is like watching paint dry.
As the Tokyo Olympics Games enter the final week, I’m realizing I will soon be going through the withdrawal I experience every two years, after watching two-plus weeks of (summer or winter) Olympics events. I’m not normally a frequent televised-sporting-events fan, but moiself does enjoy The Games ®.
As always, besides the events themselves, I find interest (and sometimes, petty and/or snarky entertainment) in “the human drama of athletic competition;” that is, the stories behind the stories. Does anyone else remember the ABC Wild World of Sports intro?
In the second week, with track and field events predominating, moiself is thinking about a conversation I had with daughter Belle, several weeks back, about how the USA’s track star Sha’ Carri Richardson received a suspension for testing positive for marijuana, and thus would not be participating in the Olympics.
Belle was peeved that Richardson would not be able to compete, due to what Belle sees as an unfair and archaic drug testing system. I mentioned that Richardson’s competitors might also be disappointed in Richardson’s absence from the games. As I understand it, when you’re at the top level of your sport you want to compete against the best. Also, whatever your accomplishments, you don’t want an asterisk next to them (as in, ” * ___ won the gold medal for the 100-meter race, but the favorite ____ was disqualified”).
We agreed that athletes should be tested for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs; definitely-absolutely-go-for-it. But Belle and I had fun wondering back and forth about why athletes are tested for alcohol and marijuana. Perhaps I don’t know enough about the subject, but it seems to moiself that weed and booze, with their relaxant and depressive properties, would diminish, not enhance, athletic performance. And really now: in what sports could marijuana be considered a performance enhancing drug? Competitive eating? Belle suggested.
You’d think athletes would *want* their rivals to get the munchies before competition: here comes Richardson, strolling across the finish line in last place, giving the other racers a, “What’s up with all the hurry?” look as she heads for the pizza roll vendor….
“I’d like to thank my coach, and my training partner, Maui Wowie.”
So, lobby to change the Olympics’ drug testing rules, if you think it would be worthwhile to do so. Until then, it would be unfair to other athletes to make exceptions for some and not others, in terms of how existing drug rules are applied. [1]
Also, the athletes know full well what they will be tested for. My advice to them [2] is, don’t act surprised and/or disappointed if you used a banned substance and then get caught. Take responsibility. Don’t play dumb when you’re not.
* * *
Department Of Levar Burton, Please Reconsider And/Or Retract
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like? ( Jean Cocteau, French novelist and director)
The acknowledgment of luck, circumstance, and “accidents” in our lives (and in the universe) is one of the hallmarks of wisdom, maturity, and humility. Sure, sometimes the cream rises to the top all by itself; sometimes, someone achieves fame and fortune not because they were the most talented writer/actor/scientist in the room, but because they were the *only* writer/actor/scientist in a room that needed their skills At That Very Moment…or they just happened to be in the right room at the right time, with the Right People to notice and promote them.
To some degree we can choose how we respond to luck, happenstance, and accidents, but we can neither totally nor consistently control nor predict these accidents (which is why such things are called…all together now…accidents).
On the first bumper sticker (or, maybe it was a chariot sticker) known to humankind, an ancient philosopher wrote a vulgar yet tersely wise summary of the existential acknowledgement of the fact that life is filled with unpredictable events:
Yet, some folks just don’t seem to get this.
Dateline: Wednesday 6:50-ish a.m., warming up my on elliptical exercise machine while listening to comedian Tig Notaro’s “advice” podcast, Don’t Ask Tig. Tig’s guest was producer-actor-writer Levar Burton, best known for his role as Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for being host of the beloved PBS children’s series, Reading Rainbow.
Moiself has always enjoyed Burton’s work. Thus, my WTF ?!?!? indignation when he said something in the capacity of advice-giver on the podcast, something which made me want to dust off my old Asshat Of The Week award and bestow it upon him.
Asshat Of The Week. Just waiting for the right recipient….
Burton and Notaro were responding to a letter from an advice-seeker when he flung this:
“I have had to learn over time that there are no accidents in the universe – that everything has purpose.”
The rest of Burton’s advice, about being mindful of one’s patterns and intentions, etc., would have been fine. But he had to insert that boner of a bogus bromide.
“There are no accidents in the universe – everything has purpose.”
No, Mr. Burton, that is not what you have “learned* over time” – that is what you inexplicably *believe.* Not only do you have no evidence for that belief, I would think that, looking around the world – excuse me, the UNIVERSE (using Geordi LaForge’s electromagnetic scanning VISOR, if necessary) – with a truly open mind, you would have to admit that there is quite the evidence to the contrary.
There areaccidents, or random incidents, in the universe. All. The. Time. Call them what you will; there is happenstance/luck/circumstance. The “purpose” of the series of tornadoes which struck Tennessee on March 2-3 2020 was not to kill the 25 people that they did; the tornadoes were accidents/incidents which occurred due to the particular combination of topography and weather patterns which spawn any tornado.
That execrable “There are no accidents in the universe” statement to the contrary, you’ve always seemed to moiself to be intelligent, curious, and kind. Thoughtful person that you seem to be, have you neglected to take under consideration the logical conclusions of such there-are-no-accidents beliefs?
Dude: the denial of accident/chance/luck/circumstance is Blaming The Victim 101.
What about that woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was attacked by a serial rapist? What purpose did it serve; what part did she play in it, or what lesson did she need to know – after all, if there truly are no accidents then everything happens “on purpose;” i.e., for a reason.
And the historical and ongoing oppression of people of color? You spoke briefly of experiencing racism in your life, but you also mentioned something indicating that you believe in “karma,” so then, there’s no accident there. You were born into an oppressed minority, through no choosing of your own…or….? Did you, do you and other people who have experienced discrimination, somehow have something to do with it? That’s what the philosophy of karma would say: that subconsciously or otherwise people choose their fates. [3] And since there are no accidents and everything has a purpose, what greater purpose (for those enslaved) did the enslavement of millions of people serve?
I’ve written about this before (most extensively, here) , and likely will again, as the “everything happens for a reason” horseshit philosophy is blithely held and repeated by too many otherwise non-rational well-meaning people.
Thank you for your attention. We now return to our regular programming.
* * *
Department Of a Memory Seemingly Apropos Of Nothing…
Whatever the prompt (or whatever Levar Burton might say is its “purpose”), I am grateful to recall the incident.
Dateline: 7-24-2015. The memory is from the day when a friend and I made some hastily scrawled protest signs and did an impromptu picketing of the anti-choice protesters who themselves were picketing outside of Portland’s Lovejoy Surgicenter.
Our adventures were recounted more extensively by moiself in this blog post; the specific remembrance I’m referring to was when my friend and I entered the clinic after the protestors had left, and chatted with a few members of the (all-female) clinic staff. This blurb still deserves the title I gave it six years ago:
Department of Possibly The Best Answer to a Question, Ever
We stayed until the Antis left, then entered the clinic. The Ladies of Lovejoy got quite the kick out of our signs and expressed their gratitude for our support. We chatted with them for several minutes, trading protester stories and shop talk. [5]
As per the latter, one of the clinicians mentioned that the clinic had expanded services to include male healthcare, and that she “really enjoys” doing vasectomies. I, of course, had to ask her why she found vasectomies so enjoyable. After working with women’s health all day, she said, “It’s a nice change of scenery.”
* * *
Pun For The Day Vasectomy Edition
What do a Christmas tree and a vasectomy have in common? The balls are only ornamental.
What do you call an artist who had a vasectomy? Seriously, does anyone know? I’m drawing a blank here.
Is there much difference between a man who’s had a vasectomy and a man who hasn’t? Yes, there’s a vas deference.
Most men can take having a sore arm or leg. But a vasectomy? That’s a whole different ball game.
* * *
May you enjoy the human drama of athletic competition ®; May you understand and accept the reality of luck and circumstance; May you always appreciate a change of scenery; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Richardson claimed she used weed to cope with receiving the news of the unexpected death of her biological mother. I that’s the case, I’m wondering why she didn’t alert officials before she was tested, along the lines of, “BTW, I used this substance for this reason,” to try to explain or at least warn them that she wasn’t trying to sneak anything past them.
[2] Which they clamor for, night and day…it gets soooooo annoying.
[3] The karmic premises of cause and effect: “each action (as well as a person’s thoughts and words) a person takes will affect him or her at some time in the future,” and “like causes produce like effects”
[4] Even if you don’t recognize the trigger at the time.
[5] A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I worked in women’s reproductive health care, both in a public clinic setting (Planned Parenthood) and in a private OB/GYN practice.
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.
