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The Surgical Ordeal I’m Not Recounting

November 14, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, exercise & fitness, extended family, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Surgical Ordeal I’m Not Recounting

That’s because this post was written a day ago.  When it goes live moiself  will be in the hospital, waiting for my foot surgery to begin.

 

Something along these lines.

The Foot Doctor ®, while performing his presurgical assessment, told me I had a strong heart, and robust foot and leg muscles and joint flexibility ( without using the qualifier, “for someone over fifty,”   [1]   which I appreciated ).  I told him that’s likely because I’ve been active/a regular exerciser all my life; thus, my major concerns about the surgery    [2]   involve post-operative restriction of activities.

When discussing post operative care, FD confirmed what I’d read:  much to people’s surprise, recovery from knee and hip replacement surgeries are, in many ways, easier than recovery from foot surgeries.  This is because in the latter case you must keep *all* weight off of the foot for some time post-surgery.  In the joint replacement surgeries, within a few days you are up on your feet – which carry the majority of your weight load – working toward assuming unassisted walking.  Depending on the type of foot surgery, you cannot put *any* weight on your foot for 6-8 weeks.

 

Meet Bertha, my BBB (Big Beautiful Boot).  She’ll be my constant companion for 6-8 weeks.  Yep, I blinged her.

 

 

I told FD that what has kept me in good health pre-surgery will be  (moiself  is guessing) vexing to me post-surgery, in that it will be difficult for me to be only partially ambulatory.

Moiself:
“I assume at my first post-op appointment we’ll go over what exercises and activities I can do to prevent muscular atrophy – I can sit in a chair and do upper body weights?  Chair yoga, and abdominal workouts?  Maybe resistance exercises on the one weight-bearing leg, and…”

FD, giving me a shrewd look:
 “Now, don’t do anything stupid.”

MH’s reaction, when I told him that story:
 “You’ve only seen him a few times, and he knows you already.”

 


*   *   *

Department Of More Considerations

Recovering from surgery during the holiday season.

 

 

Yeah, that sucks.  Is there ever a good time for enforced/limited mobility?   [3]   Only times that are a wee bit less – or more – sucky/inconvenient, right?

So, why not put the surgery off until the new year?  Deciding factor: I want to be well over a half year’s recovery from the surgery for our once-in-a-lifetime, family trip to Iceland next summer, to be in the zone of totality for the 2026 solar eclipse.   [4]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Star Trek Moments When You Least Expect Them

Dateline:  last Friday, 11 a.m.-ish, doing a streaming/online yoga class.  Midway through the practice the instructor refers to a certain movement she’s adding into the sequence, advising her students to “assimilate that” into their vinyasa flow.

Any Star Trek: The Next Generation fan can guess what immediately popped into moiself’s  mind.

 

 

*    *   *

Department Of Passion, Schmassion – Careful What You “Follow”

Moiself  is not only irritated by but actually opposed to the concept/advice that when it comes to jobs/career paths, people must follow their passion ( there are many variations, including do what you love and the money will follow ).  This is because moiself  sees this tripe-passing-as-wisdom  as exceptionally first/white world privileged and tone deaf – for many reasons, including that it downplays and/or completely misses the fact that any work can have meaning without being what outsiders (or even you) might call meaningful.  [5]

As A Writer ®, along with other folk working in fields considered artistic/passion-following, I’ve often had that tired trope presented as a compliment wrapped up in advice ( “Oh, you’re a writer – you followed your passion!  You’ll never retire/a true artist will always keep creating/you’re so lucky to have been able to pursue your passion….” ).

 

 

Once I became aware of that scenario I tried to follow a healthier path, and for years  [6]  have held on to this perspective:

Be a verb; not a noun.

Don’t be defined by what you do, because you can do other things.
I write, but I may not always be writing.
I don’t have to be a writer for the rest of my life.

What you are doing – whether for more or less lofty career aspirations, or the just-a-job-to-pay-the-bills – or the recreations and hobbies you pursue ( you may run, but are you “a runner”? ) do not necessarily define you.

You can do other things.  Lather; rinse; repeat.

 You.  Can.  Do.  Other.  Things.

A wise perspective on the subject can be found in this excerpt from one of my favorite podcasts ( Hidden Brain, Love 2.0:How to Fix Your Marriage, Part 1;  my emphases ):

 HB host Shankar Vedantam:
” ‘Having a job that pays the bills is great, but even better is doing work that builds on your passions, one that challenges you, that drives you to innovate and excel.’

This message, that the ideal career is one where our work and our passions are neatly aligned, is widespread in American culture. For better or for worse, many of us want our work to do more than just keep a roof over our heads. We want it to reflect who we are.
Our guest…is Jon Jachimowicz, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School.  Jon, a lot of your work seems to be about stepping back from the pursuit of passion to see it more clearly and accurately. You say that one obstacle to doing this lies in the way that we have moralized passion. What do you mean by that?”

Jon Jachimowicz:
“I think that we have elevated the pursuit of passion to such a high moral level where we are good people for pursuing our passion and vice versa. We’re seen as morally bad people if we don’t pursue our passion. And I think that that is a wrong expectation to have. At best, I think it’s unhelpful….
Amy Wzefsiewski has this really wonderful distinction between meaning and meaningful. Work can have a meaning without in and of itself being meaningful. I can think of my work as having a really important role in my life. It can empower me to do other things. It might allow me to support my family. But in and of itself, that work might not necessarily be meaningful….the reality is that for many people, pursuing work that is meaningful is a luxury…

I think we as a society need to embrace that that is a perfectly great justification to do what it is that we’re doing. I think we would do better by highlighting that for some people, given their life circumstances at some time points, it might actually be more meaningful if they focused on work that isn’t in and of itself something that they’re passionate about, but that might empower them either to pursue their passion later on in life, or to pursue their passion outside of work – which is an equally noble, or in my mind at least, an equally noble way of doing something that we deeply care about.”

SV:
“One other unfortunate consequence of moralizing passion is that passionate people can sometimes be reluctant to give up their passions, even when they should, because they’re afraid that others will think less of them.  I want to play you a clip of a man named Simone Stolzow, who left a traditional career in journalism to become a speaker and a consultant.”

Clip of SS:
“I felt guilty. I felt that I was sort of abandoning a calling, and democracy dies in darkness, and what am I doing – turning off one more light in the room? And will my colleagues and my coworkers ever forgive me? Will I ever be able to publish ever again?”

 

And whatever you do, think twice about following a passion that involves clowns.

 

SV:
“Jon, would you say this is another way in which moralizing passions ends up hurting people who decide to take a different route in their lives?”

JJ:
“Absolutely.  I think part of the challenge is that when we moralize passion in that way, we also worry about how other people might think of us if we were to quit or give up on one passion pursuit. The implication being,  ‘If I am a good person for pursuing a passion, then what must be wrong with me that I’m now giving up on that thing? There must be something inherently morally wrong with me. I must be a bad person for choosing to give up on what it is that I’m passionate about.’

Or at least that’s the belief that people themselves have. What we actually find in the research…is that other people understand that sometimes you need to give up on one passion in order to pursue another, that that’s just what life is like, that you don’t give up on passion pursuit altogether. But from that person’s perspective who’s pursuing a passion, they might really worry, ‘Are other people going to think of me as a lesser person because I’ve given up on that passion?’

And we find that that worry can keep people in jobs that they perhaps initially were really passionate about or where the working conditions perhaps initially were a really good fit, but where for whatever reason, it’s no longer a fit where they’re now having troubles and challenges maintaining that passion or they’re incurring negative outcomes that can harm them in the long run. But they keep on persevering because they worry so much about what other people will say if they were to give up.”

 


*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

Christian apologetics   [8] in a nutshell:      [9]

“My book is true, because it says so right here in my book.”

 

 

*   *   *

May you strive to be a verb;
May you remember that you can do other things;
May you assimilate what needs assimilating;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.   [10]   Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Which, for some reason, I’ve been reading a lot, lately.  Seems medical & exercise gurus have enshrined age 50 as some kind of natural divider. As in, life before and after.

[2] Besides, of course, that it works….

[3] As opposed to say, recovering from an accident…this surgery is, technically, elective.

[4] Family, as in, our young adult children actually seem to want to take a trip with their parents.  Us footing the bill helps.

[5] And in most countries/cultures for most of history that meaning has been that your work keeps you and your family alive.

[6] If not decades…but who’s counting?

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

[8] From “apología” a Greek word that means “defense.” Christian apologetics means giving a defense of the Christian faith and theologies.  The problem with Christian apologists is that instead of looking at the available evidence and then drawing conclusions from the evidence, they start out with the conclusion, then look for whatever supports their position while ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

[9] An appropriate container.

[10] And thanks for reading this tenth footnote.

The Everything I’m Not Knowing

October 3, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Everything I’m Not Knowing

Department Of The Argument I Didn’t Win.

This memory flashback is courtesy of the latest episode of the Clear + Vivid podcast, featuring guest Canadian psychologist and author Steven Pinker:

“Steven Pinker: When You Know That I Know That You Know…
It then becomes ‘common knowledge,’ and can be both beneficial – like cementing friendships or empowering peaceful protests – or destructive, causing a run on toilet paper or splitting society into silos, each with their own common knowledge.”

 

 

Dateline: one afternoon in the late 1970s; UC Davis, during moiself’s…junior or senior year?; in most likely an upper-level sociology class (my pre-law major, criminal justice, was offered through the department of sociology).  It was a smaller ( ~ 20-30 students ) class; we were discussing a certain chapter of one of the class’s assigned textbooks.

The discussion began with the professor expressing his distaste regarding the phrases common knowledge and common sense, which the textbook author had used several times in the chapters.  Professor professed that he found those phrases assumptive and reductive: he asserted that there were no such things, and that if common sense and common knowledge truly existed then everyone would have them, and we would not have the scornful descriptors describing their lack; e.g.:

* “You think what? Oh, c’mon; it’s common knowledge that…”

* “What an idiot – he has no common sense…”

Everyone else in the class nodded and uh-huh-ed their assents with the professor’s observation.  But his argument struck me as…insufficient.  I had to disagree, and offered the following, with the intention of encouraging further discussion:

The definition of the adjective common does not mean mandatory, or ever-present.   Something can be common, as in widespread, but that doesn’t mean that *everyone* *everywhere* possesses this “common” thing, or trait.  [1]

 

 

Now it was moiself’s  turn to be the recipient of my classmates’ nods and good point uh-hus…which quickly dissipated as it became obvious that the professor had become somewhat irritated.  He had meant to drop what he’d considered to be a brillante déduction, and then move on.

And so, the discussion…moved on, if you know what I mean.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Good Advice To Remember

The way you walk the path is just as important as where it leads.
( Anonymous  [2]  )

True, that.  Especially if you work for The Ministry of Silly Walks.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Previews

RROTB (Regular Readers Of This Blog ®)  may surmise that Clear + Vivid is one of my favorite podcasts.  But two mentions in one post is, moiself  thinks, a new record.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago  C+V host Alan Alda and the show’s producer had the show’s season premier, wherein they discussed/played excerpts from the upcoming season’s episodes.  Here was one of my favorite previews, [3], from Alda’s conversation with science and writer and climate researcher Kate Marvel, whose new book is titled, Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet ( my emphases ):

C+V host Alan Alda:
“…You take a really unusual approach to communication in this book, Kate. When scientists write about science, they almost always avoid emotion every way they can. But you built your book on nine emotions, and under each emotion you tell the powerful stories that led you to have those emotions. It’s so unusual. How did you come to think of doing it that way?

Kate Marvel:
“Yeah, I resisted having emotions for a very long time because I’m a scientist, right? And we’re supposed to be neutral, we’re supposed to be objective…. Just the facts. And that’s how we maintain our credibility by pretending we feel nothing, but that doesn’t make us more believable. That makes us liars. And I realized that I don’t wanna lie.
And I don’t actually…there’s no gulf between getting the facts right and telling good stories about the facts. There’s no conflict between knowing things and feeling things.
And when that clicked for me, that’s when the idea for the book came in.”

Alda:
“Kate Marvel’s opening chapter is on Wonder. Wonder at the power of science to explain why the world is warming. After that she turns to anger.”

Marvel:
“…anger was the easiest chapter for me to write. And you know, I’m angry for the same reason that most people are angry when you think about climate change –  the lack of action and the telling of lies….

One of the things that makes me the most angry is the weaponization of uncertainty. Hmm. The fact that they say, ‘Oh, we don’t know everything” as an excuse to not do anything. And of course we don’t know everything. That’s why I still have a job. That’s why I go to work every day.

If science knew everything, science would be over. And so the fact that there are still things to find out about this planet does not mean that we know nothing. We are sure that greenhouse gases are causing climate change. We’re more sure about that than we are that smoking causes cancer. And the fact that there are still things that we don’t know about the planet, there’s still things we don’t know about how climate change will progress, what it will mean – that absolutely doesn’t mean that we’re not sure that climate change is real. It’s us, it’s happening, it’s dangerous. “

 

This sounds like a job for Science Captain Marvel.

 

Later in the conversation with the same scientist I heard one of the best metaphors (IMO) for our ultimately deadliest   [4]   planetary problem.  This could be helpful to y’all – which includes moiself –  the next time we’re discussing the topic with a person whose comments indicate that they don’t understand the difference between weather and climate.

Alda:
“I wanted to ask Kate about the difference between climate and weather. Years ago I noticed it wasn’t accurate to say that a weather event was an example of climate change because they seemed to be two different realms. But now I see weather events referred to as examples of climate change. So I asked Kate if she could explain that to me.”

Marvel:
“The way that I like to think about weather and climate is you can think of weather as a play that happens every day, but climate is the stage. And so weather is happening against this backdrop that’s set by the climate. And when you change the stage, you change the things that can happen on that stage. You change the stories that can be told, and that’s what’s happening now.
There is no weather that is happening, that’s not happening, against the backdrop of a changed climate. And we know from kind of basic physics what happens when the earth gets warmer…”

 

*   *   *

Department Of Oh And By The Way….

It irritates moiself  when I hear people say “climate change” when they should be saying, “global warming.” And that’s because I remember that there was a concerted effort, over twenty years ago, by conservative Republicans to change the vocabulary in an effort to change hearts and minds.

What conservative spinmeisters/climate change deniers want you to think:

“Climate change, that’s just the way of things – change is normal…
we’ve had lots of changes over the earth’s history….”

 

 

The fact that a more neutral term ( climate change) has become the go-to phrase, replacing the true, more descriptive phrase of *what is actually happening* (global warming – our climate is warming, not cooling ) – is a deliberate, obfuscatory, head-in-the-sand or-up-the-butt tactic.

“In 2002, a memo was written by Frank Luntz for the Republican Party on how to address environmental issues (Luntz, 2002). Luntz suggested that Republicans should update their terminology when discussing the environment, by describing themselves as conservationists, rather than preservationists or environmentalists….
Secondly, he suggested Republicans use the term climate change instead of global warming, as the latter was deemed less controllable, more catastrophic, and more emotionally challenging. It was suggested that these simple changes in terminology would assist the Republicans in winning the environmental debate. “  [5]

( excerpt, ” ‘Global warming’ versus ‘climate change’ “: A replication on the association between political self-identification, question wording, and environmental beliefs,” from ITAL Science Direct: Journal of Environmental Psychology, V. 69, June 2020 )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Question Moiself   [6]
Thinks I Know The Answer To

Which is humanity’s biggest roadblock to progress in fixing our current problems:
opposition (to the solutions), or indifference?

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 

 

*   *   *

May you personally avoid (and enlighten others who, knowingly or naïvely use)
the weaponization of uncertainty;
May you remember that the fact that we don’t know everything
doesn’t mean that we know nothing;
May you feel free to insert a silly walk as you walk your path;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Obviously not moiself’s  verbatim recollection of what I said.

[2] From a recent guided meditation, so I’m thinking some Buddhist-type anonymous.

[3] which I share here in hopes of enticing some of y’all to tune in to Clear + Vivid.

[4] For humans.  Cockroaches will carry on just fine.

[5] Why aren’t there more footnotes in this post?

[6] unfortunately

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

The Advice I’m Not Giving

September 12, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, exercise & fitness, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, politics, radio & podcasts, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Advice I’m Not Giving

Department Of This Advice Is Worth What She Paid For It

Dateline: September 4; early morning walk; listening to a recent Fresh Air podcast with guest host Tonya Mosley interviewing Jane Fonda.

At age 87 Fonda is perhaps even more interesting than she’s ever been. I’ve long admired Fonda for her acting and her activism, even during the times when I was shaking my metaphorical fist and saying to her, Stop working out your daddy issues by marrying controlling men!  [1]  I’ve admired her quest for knowledge in general as well as self-knowledge, and her willingness to fight for important causes.  Even when I felt she was naive/mistaken in her methods and/or style (as in her trip to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War), she was correct about the substance of those causes.

And it’s about the latter issue that, were moiself  ever to have a privilege to meet her, I might spoil that privilege (read: send her running from the room) with my statement, May I give you some unsolicited advice?  And the advice would be:

 Please don’t ever apologize again for what you did and said
during your anti-Vietnam war activism.

 

 

Notice the key word in the phrase:  apologize again.  That’s because Fonda has apologized, many times during the past decades, with sincerity and in great length and specificity.

The cause for anti-Vietnam-war activism was just and right.  And as the years passed, with the help of the Freedom Of Information Act, as well people higher up in the decision-making – and as it turns out, deception-making – echelons of government being willing to confess and confront the “sins” of our nation’s foreign policy, we found out just how right the anti-war activists were.  They were right to oppose a war we never should’ve been in the first place; they were right about how our government was lying to us ( anyone remember The Pentagon Papers? ); they were right to criticize a government which dug in its heels and kept sending our soldiers to kill and be killed by Vietnamese people both north and south, for *years* after their own research and analysis brought them to the conclusion that the war was unwinnable.

But, back to my advice. I would say:

“Ms. Fonda, please never apologize again when someone asks you about the mistakes both you and they think you made.  Acknowledge their concerns if you must, with that prickly attorney’s rejoinder:  Ask and answered.  Then drop it.”

Because, this:  at this point, anyone who is still holding a grudge re your anti-war activism (on behalf of himself personally or by taking it upon himself –  mistakenly, I believe –  to defend his country or the honor of US soldiers ) is either completely oblivious to and/or refuses to acknowledge the fact that you have, indeed, apologized.  It’s a fact that he won’t accept.  And he’s never going to…because he doesn’t *want* to.   [2]

 

 

There are people who do not want to give up their anger against Fonda re her anti-Vietnam war activism.  It’s part of their identity.  There’s this guy in his 70s, and an important part of his self-perception is

* he wears his Ohio State University football shirt every Thanksgiving;
*  his favorite music, which he listens to almost exclusively, is his collection of
Otis Redding and Glen Campbell albums;
* he’s an avid duck hunter, likes to ski and play backgammon with his wife and take his grandkids bowling
(even though the kids would rather play computer games with him);
*  he describes his politics as middle of the road;
* he hates/will never forgive Jane Fonda …..

For all of the complicated reasons which only the-therapist-he-will-never-see could unravel, the grudge he is holding against Fonda is part of his identity.  To give that up, to accept the fact that Fonda *has* apologized, would oblige a rational person to let go of that grudge – to let go of a piece of himself that, after all these years, he would feel incomplete without.

I admire Fonda’s never-say-never spirit, but the people who matter   [3]   are people who will listen to opinions other than their own and try to understand and their fellow human beings, whether or not they agree with them.

You can’t change the others.  The precious time Fonda (and all of us) have remaining will be lost and can never be regained by repeating sincere apologies to insincere ears. 

Thank you for listening, Ms. Fonda.  And thank you for…

Cat Ballou; They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Klute; Coming Home; Julia;
The China Syndrome; Nine to Five; On Golden Pond; Agnes of God;
The Morning After; all those workout tapes     [4];  Grace and Frankie;
Book Club; This is Where I Leave You; Our Souls At Night….

 

One of my faves: Two old pros reunited: Fonda and Redford in Our Souls at Night.

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [5]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [6]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

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

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 9-13-13, The Keys I’m Not Losing.  (Twelve years ago, ay y iyi.   The segment I’m excerpting begins with a reflection on writing the next book I was thinking of writing, at the time….):

 

…And I have to choose the characters’ names as soon as I think of the character.  I use baby naming books and other resources, to identify characters with names that hold special meaning, even if only to myself.  Hmmm, how can I denote this character’s total prick-osity without actually calling him a dick?

*  *  *
Speaking of dicks (and thanking moiself for that segue)….



 

Dateline:  last Sunday am (9-8-13); MH and I in bed;    [7]  listening to NPR’s Weekend Edition.  My attention was caught and hackles were raised during Rachael Martin’s interview with author Norman Rush re his new novel:

“On the surface, Norman Rush’s new novel is about a middle-aged man, Ned, who reunites with a group of college friends after one member of the group dies unexpectedly. But what transpires over the next few days ahead of the memorial service is less about Ned’s relationship with these men and the heady, self-absorbed days of yore, and more about how Ned sees himself.
In his third, much anticipated novel, Rush takes the reader inside the most intimate parts of relationships — between Ned and his wife, between Ned and his deceased friend, and between Ned and his own expectations.”

 Imagine that!, the cynical author part of  moiself  snickered to moiself  while MH breathed deeply   [8]   beside me.  A novel written by a middle-aged author that purports to take a reader “…inside the most intimate parts of relationships;” a novel that is, the author says (further into the interview), “about friendship.”  Ah, that relationship-y thing again.  And the novel is “much anticipated” and taken seriously, and is also described merely as what it is:  a novel. There is no limiting modifier.

Now, change the gender (for both author and characters) in Martin’s commentary:

On the surface, Nora Rush’s new novel is about a middle-aged woman, Nell, who reunites with a group of college friends after one member of the group dies unexpectedly. But what transpires over the next few days ahead of the memorial service is less about Nell’s relationship with these women and the heady, self-absorbed days of yore, and more about how Nell sees herself.
In her third, much anticipated novel, Rush takes the reader inside the most intimate parts of relationships — between Nell and her husband, between Nell and her deceased friend, and between Nell and her own expectations.

It’s strange, having a flashback on a Sunday morning in bed, when I’ve never taken an acid trip (in or out of bed).  But that’s what happened as I listened to the interview – I was back to a conversation with friend and fellow fiction author SCM  about an unfortunate, ongoing, literary dirty laundry issue which, thanks to uppity female authors with more clout than moiself, has received some airing in the past few years:

* Novels dealing with (what literary critics perceive to be) ” relationships” are often
critically acclaimed when the author is male, and when the author is female, such books are dismissed as “domestic/family dramas”…if they are reviewed at all.

 

Not germane to the rant, but a cute picture

 

Warning: domestic drama ranting  [9]  ensues (via excerpts from an email, sent approx.  two years ago re this topic, to SCM):

“I think it’s a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it’s romance, or a beach book – in short, it’s something unworthy of serious critic’s attention.   [10]

On my way back from an errand this afternoon I caught the tail end of a rerun of NPR’s Fresh Air 2010 interview with author Jonathan Franzen, recorded not long after the release of his latest novel, Freedom.  I felt an almost overwhelming urge to pull the car over to the side of the road, get out and find somebody’s yippie dog and give it a good kick.

The ways Franzen’s novels have been presented and marketed by publishers, and reviewed by the critics, have had me (and many other writers, almost all – surprise! – women) reflecting on the sexism and even misogyny that still pervades the wacky world o’ contemporary literature (well, the world in general).  What sent me into Pomeranian-punting mode were several of Franzen’s ruminations, including  [11] :

“I wanted in this book to write about my parents’ marriage and their parental experiences as I observed them … but I…wanted to set it in times contemporaneous with my own. So in that way, too, I turned my parents into people my age; into people I might be or I might know. And that was the real engine. It was something that came from inside.
“…much of the work on a novel for me consists in the kind of work you might do in a paid professional’s office of trying to walk back from your stuck, conflicted, miserable place to a point of a little bit more distance, from which you can begin to fashion some meaningful narrative of how you got to the stuck place.”

What frosted my butt was not Franzen himself – don’t know him, personally – but the fact that when he, a male author, chooses to fictionalize the subject matter of family, feelings and relationships, the resulting work is touted as a “masterpiece of American fiction” (Time Magazine) and “an indelible portrait of our times” (The New York Times).

 The Fresh Air site acknowledged the controversy:

“So many terrific contemporary female novelists cover the same terrain, yet their work receives a fraction of the highbrow fanfare that greets Franzen. It’s like how men still get praised for doing housework and taking care of their own kids: Any male involvement in the domestic realm still merits applause.”

In the interview Franzen spoke extensively about how his own feelings, experiences, family relationships and background influenced his writing.  I was reminded of an excerpt I read many months ago, from article in  New York magazine, in which a novelist noted that if a woman writes about herself or acknowledges using material from her own life in her writing, she’s a narcissist, and has no wider interest in or focus outside of   [12]   the domestic sphere.  If a male novelist does the same, he’s describing universal truths or chronicling the human condition.

Of course, such inequities almost always sound better when put into the mouths of fictional characters.  I love this observation, from the novel, Commencement:

“When a woman writes a book that has anything to do with feelings or relationships, it’s either called chick lit or women’s fiction, right?” one of the characters asks.  “But look at Updike or Irving.  Imagine if they’d been women.  Just imagine.  Someone would have slapped a pink cover onto ‘Rabbit at Rest,’ and poof, there goes the Pulitzer.”

Here is something the non-fictional character moiself  wrote over a year ago, right around the time of the release of Freedom (it’s from one of the documents in my Things I Hate About The Publishing World file.  Oy vey, it’s less expensive than therapy):

Freedom is being hailed as “a domestic drama about marriage and family.”  Effusive, serious praise…for a domestic drama.  Since it is a Jonathan and not a Joanna Franzen who wrote it, the book isn’t being consigned to the “women’s fiction” bin of commentary.  When a female novelist writes about herself, or her protagonists’ ethnicity, age, social and economic circumstances are thinly disguised versions of herself or her peers, she’s a neurotic narcissist.  When a female novelist tackles subjects related to family, feelings or relationships, her work risks being labeled  “Chick Lit” (or the faintly more reputable, “women’s fiction”).

A (usually white) male author (e.g. Franzen, Updike, Irving, Cheever, Roth….) does the same thing, writes about the same “territory.”  Do the literary critics – whose ranks are still overwhelmingly white and male – review his book in the category of…what?  ITAL “Dick lit?”  Noooooooo.   He’s illustrating and critiquing the human condition!  He’s doing some serious ITAL  Li’t-ra-chure!

*   *   *

By the way, if you want to borrow the  Dick Lit descriptor, feel free to do so.
Attribution would be nice (or, failing that, cash).”

*   *   *

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

 

A simple question, which is never satisfactorily answered:

*   *   *

May you stop holding decades-old grudges against…anyone;
May you never feel guilty for enjoying a book about relationship-y subjects;
May you check out some of Fonda’s recent work ( Our Souls at Night is quite touching) ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Fonda has talked and written about her strained relationship with her cold, distant, hair-trigger-tempered father, actor Henry Fonda.  And her husbands were French film director Roger Vadim, American activist and California senator Tom Hayden, and multimillionaire business entrepreneur Ted Turner.

[2] I’m using “he” because although I’m sure there’s some nasty grudge-loving old ladies out there, the fanatical Fonda-haters I’ve met have all been male.

[3] Yep, I’m treading into dangerous/judgmental, territory here, and that’s fine ’cause I got my combat boots on.

[4] Really!  They were fun.

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

[6] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[7] Shame on (or, good for) you, but sorry, not that kind of dick reference segue.

[8] Notice I did not type, “snored.”

[9] Still awaiting its critical acclamation. Yes, I’ve mentioned this topic before, and will doubtless do so again.

[10] author unremembered – at least, by me.

[11]  I checked the program’s website transcript to make sure I was recalling them correctly.

[12] No, there is no footnote in the middle of my email. How silly would that be?

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

The “Ultimate Writers’ Guide” I’m Not Writing

August 29, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The “Ultimate Writers’ Guide” I’m Not Writing

This story, attributed to Jewish-Austrian philosopher Martin Buber, (“Tales of the Hasidim”),  is making the rounds on FB.  As one commenter noted, Buber’s tale is a convoluted way of admitting that the concept of a divine deity should be unnecessary….

 ( Buber story post; my emphases )
A rabbi was asked by one of his students “Why did God create atheists?” After a long pause, the rabbi finally responded with a soft but sincere voice. “God created atheists,” he said, “to teach us the most important lesson of them all – the lesson of true compassion.

You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his actions are based on his sense of morality. Look at the kindness he bestows on others simply because he feels it to be right.

When someone reaches out to you for help. You should never say ‘I’ll pray that God will help you.’ Instead, for that moment, you should become an atheist – imagine there is no God who could help, and say ‘I will help you’.”

 

 

For that moment?  No; You should “become an atheist”   [1]  for all the moments when you have helped other people; for all the times when other people help people, without “miraculous”/deistic intervention, which is – no matter what you have been taught to think, is you, a person, acting, not your god – always. Always.

How’s about y’all who are religious just skip the middle layer of bureaucracy and leave out the unnecessary and functionally impotent deity – whom you believe parted the Red Sea and performed other “miracles” but who can’t mow your neighbor Fred’s lawn when Fred is recovering from chemotherapy, and so you do it?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Wholesome Family Games Night
Wheel of Fortune, Public Service Edition

 

“I’d like to solve the puzzle.”

*    *   *

Department Of You Know You Need This
Sub-Department Of, Only 129 nicknames for the Tangerine Terrorist?

Select goodies from the website, 129 Insulting tR***   [2]  Nicknames You Must Know— Choose Your Favorite!

Cheeto Satan
Trumpoleon
The Incontinental Divider
Vladdy’s Boy
Mango Mussolini
Our Fondling Father
Tsar Trumplingrad
Sweet Potato Hitler
Pumpkin Spiced Stalin
Kim Don Un
President Donald McDonald’s
The Lyin’ King
Don the Con
Cheetolini

Comedian and late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel also weighed in with his and his writers’ collection:Don Whoreleon

Napoleon Bone-Aspur
Nostra-Dumbass
All Caps-Tain Kangaroo
Founding Farter
Teddy Dozevelt
Gaseous Clay
Dopey McGropey
Lepre-Con Man
Al Ca-Porn
The Shart of the Deal
Nelson Tandela
Greedy McGolfy
Yabba Dabba Doofus
His MAGA-Sty
Donald Duck the Draft
The Notorious P.I.G.
Hair Mussolini
Con-Mander-In-Chief
Phony Soprano
The Ayatollah Complaini
Presidementia
Stable McGenius
The Tanchurian Candidate
Tannibal Lecter
Scammy Davis Jr.
The MAGA-Lorian
Vladimir Gluten
HippoPOTUS
Darth Tax Evader
The Tan of La Mancha
MAGATHA Christie
Grab-Ass Grandpa
Orange Julius Caesar
Dictator Tot
Quid Pro Combover
The Lock-Her-Up-Ness Monster
General Lie-Senhower
Alexander Scamilton
Jabba The Pizza Hut
and Pumpkin McPornhumper

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Meet Your Brain
 Part 391 in A Never-Ending Series

We neurological layfolk – as well as the writers of popular psychology/medicine articles – tend to separate realms when we talk about how the human brain (supposedly) functions.  We speak and write about some people who have great cognitive skills and people who are stronger with emotional skills ( using terms like IQ and EQ, for example ), often in binary or at least separate terms. Let’s all stop doing that, right now.

 

 

Yes; really.  Bonk yourself on the head if you find yourself doing that.   [3]

“I think our traditional Western philosophies too often separate cognition and emotion; we think that there are cognitive skills and that there are emotional skills…and that maybe those two things impact on each other, right?  But actually, that’s the wrong way to think about it.

They are two differ dimensions of the same thing.  Thinking is inherently cognitive and emotional, *always,* at the same time.  And we can look at thinking from a cognitive lens and analyze the cognitive dimensions of what’s going on – and it’s important to do that – and we can look at thinking from an affective lens, and analyze the emotional engagement that’s going on, but actually both of those things are simultaneously happening, in an integrative way, *always*, when people are alive – when they’re moving through the world, adapting and engaging with things around them.”

(  Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, USC professor of neuroscience; director
of the Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education.
Excerpt from her interview on the Hidden Brain podcast, “How Our Brains Learn.” )

 

 

 

*   *   *

Depart Of WTF Is Going On
Sub-Department Of A Writer’s Life

Chapter 952 In The Never-Ending Series, The Rights To Which
Have Yet To Be Optioned For A Major Motion Picture ®

After years of the proverbial radio silence since my juvenile novel  The Mighty Quinn went out of print, in the past couple of weeks moiself  has received several complimentary emails from who-the-heck-are-these-people  who  apparently   [4]  want to show me how they can maximize my book sales and impact my presence on social media, ad nauseum ad scam-eum, etc.  One example:

From: redacted <redacted@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2025 7:42 AM
To: ( moiself’s  main email address    [5]  )
Subject: The Mighty Quinn

Dear Robyn Parnell,
“The Mighty Quinn is a delightful mix of humor, heart, and clever storytelling. Quinn’s journey through school struggles, bullies, and unexpected friendships is both relatable and entertaining. The way you balance lighthearted moments with real challenges makes this story shine for young readers and adults alike. Katie DeYoe’s illustrations   [6]  also add a wonderful layer that brings Quinn’s world vividly to life. I’d love to hear what inspired you to create Quinn’s character and the whimsical yet meaningful adventures he experiences.”

Moiself’s  reply:
Dear Mr. Redacted,
Who are you and what are you selling?

Here is my favorite one (so far).
The email’s subject line: “Show Don’t Tell – The Ultimate Writers’ Guide

“Hi Robyn, your guide feels like a true gift to writers at every stage. By breaking down ‘show, don’t tell’ into practical, achievable steps with clear examples, you demystify one of the most essential and misunderstood craft elements. What drew you to make this guide so hands-on, with exercises that invite writers to immediately apply what they learn?”

 

 

Spoiler:  I have written no such guide.

Nor do I ever recommend that one-dimensional sop – show; don’t tell – which unfortunately passes as classical (and simplistic and therefore bad, IMO) advice.   Show and tell; good writing does both.

What’s going on?  Can I blame AI for this?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Sensitivity Of Things

The Sensitivity of Things – Mono no Aware 物の哀れ   – is variously described as an awareness for the fragility of the existence, of life in all forms, and appreciation for its beauty while acknowledging the gentle sadness of its passing.  Moiself  had heard of the concept in passing,  then recently it was the subject of one of my Calm app morning meditations.

“It’s natural to seek a sense of stability and forever-ness.  Change and uncertainty can feel stressful and scary.  To recognize that everything that begins is to acknowledge our mortality, which isn’t a warm and fuzzy prospect.  But there’s great wisdom in the view that everything is changing and ephemeral.  Nothing is permanent.  Today, the tallest tree in the woods.  Tomorrow, a log of carbon lying on the forest floor.  Today, a massive glowing star; tomorrow, a disparate cloud of cooling elements.

 


 Webb Space Telescope images

 

It’s understandable to fear change, but there’s so much to be gained by accepting impermanence, rolling with it, even seeing the beauty in it.  For it’s only because life ends that our years on this earth are so precious.  Only because of the harsh winds of winter that we drink up every sun-drenched moment of summer.

Mindfulness encourages us to see that it’s not the nature of impermanence that causes us to suffer, it’s our desire for things to be permanent that causes us to suffer.  By accepting impermanence, we open to reality and find deeper fulfillment in our lives.

There’s a wonderful Japanese term, for which there isn’t a precise English translation – a term, mono no aware, loosely means a sensitivity to ephemera.   The bittersweet feeling of seeing things change is the wistful awareness of the transitory nature of existence.

Since everything we see all around us will one day be gone ,we must appreciate every millisecond.  According to this idea, cheery blossoms are not only beautiful despite only blossoming for two weeks a year, they are beautiful *because* they only blossom for two weeks once a year. 

As Jack Kornfield     [7]   said, ‘Like a sandcastle, all is temporary.
Build it.  Tend it.  Enjoy it.  And when the time comes, let it go.’ “

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 


( Becky Vollmer )

 

*   *   *

May you cultivate and appreciate a sensitivity to ephemera;
May you “act like an atheist” when someone needs help;
May you be reassured by the knowledge of the impermanence of the influence
of Genghis Don, and bask in the never-ending satisfaction achieved by
engaging in petty derision of that Commander-In-Thief;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Which is not actually a thing and there is no ism or credos to adopt – it’s just one term for being religion-free, which unfortunately defines you in terms of religion (a-theism – without theism).

[2] Moiself  cannot bear to have his unredacted name in my blog, even when quoting others.

[3] And note that you will experience the bonk in several realms, including the cognitive, emotional, and physical realms: ouch.

[4] They offer little-to-nothing in the way of identification and/or professional credentials.

[5] I have several.

[6] Actually, the illustrations were done by a wife-husband team, Katie De Yoe  and Aaron DeYoe. 

[7] American writer and teacher, who trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand.

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

The Haiku I’m No Longer Sending

August 8, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , Comments Off on The Haiku I’m No Longer Sending

Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [1]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [2]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

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

 

 

Since I’ve been writing my blog there has been only one other August 8 which fell on a Friday. Reading through it, I can see the presumptive value of my blog (serving as “a journal of sorts”) that I was optimistic about when I started, even though I had no idea moiself  would look back 11 years later, read an entry, and marvel about how I’d forgotten about (most of) those daily correspondences I sent to my mother…and also how my concerns for my offspring’s generation – regarding the world we are making for and leaving to them – have only increased…which is something I wish I could forget.

So.  Here is an excerpt from my blog of 8-8-14 (  The Generation I’m Not talkin’ ’bout ).  Wait a minute – here’s the whole damn blog.  Moiself  be entitled to take a vacation on my father’s birthday.

 

 

 *   *   *

The PG (Parental Guidance) Post 

 

 

Dateline: Monday evening, doing my own sous chef preparation before sautéing shallots and Swiss chard.  As I strip the ruby red chard leaves from their stalks, I remember how much my father loved Swiss chard.

*   *   *

 Band of Memories

 

Chet cira 1953, on his beloved palomino stallion, Stardust.  “These are the good times”

 

I think of my father every day, and mention him often (an easy thing to do, as he was a special character), in part to keep his memory alive for K and Belle.  But when my family sees that I’ve brought out the Band of Brothers DVD box set, they know something extra is in the air.

Today would have been Chester “Chet-the-Jet” Parnell’s 90th birthday.  It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that number.  I’ll let my heart do the binding.

 

 

When Chet wanted to relax he would haul out his old Martin guitar. He loved to serenade his kids.  Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes, a traditional country tune covered by singers from Roy Acuff to Rosemary Clooney, was one of the songs Chet used to sing to me at night.

 

 

 *   *   *

 My mother is frail;
“I am winding down,” she says.
She is eighty-six.

Widowed five years now;
Her eldest child lives nearby.
I am second-born.

My two other sibs
Live in the Bay Area;
Mom is in So Cal.

 

 

Mom loathed to travel,
even when she was healthy.
And, now she cannot.

Twenty-three years plus
I’ve lived one thousand miles north,
with my family.

Mom doesn’t do much;
there’s little to talk about.
Calls can be awkward

She always refused
to learn to use computers.
Her children conspired…

We got a gadget:
“technically un-inclined”
is its user base.

 

 

A “one-way device,”
it receives and prints email
from select sources.

Pro: she gets no spam;
Con: she gets but can’t send mail
(which is fine by her).

I send her brief notes –
a small something for the day,
in her morning mail

Mondays are for jokes.
Who wouldn’t like a giggle
To begin the week?

 

 

Tuesdays I phone her.
Her moods and health are falling.
Tuesdays make me sad.

Each Wednesday I send
a Word of the Day feature.
(I choose cheerful words).

Thoughts For the Day
from minds famous and obscure,
are Thursday’s items.

Fridays are for Quotes:
adages and citations
to spark mind and heart.

Saturday, poems:
I send different verse styles,
From Browning to Lear.

Every Sunday
I send my mother haiku,
Two verses, or more.

I write them moiself;
thus, they are not quote-worthy.
Silly, but heartfelt.

 

*   *   *

 A Brief Meditation On Ways To Fail Your Children

Is that a buzz kill subject heading, or what?  If you’re looking for the feel-good post of the week, I suggest returning to the picture of the Swiss chard and using it for a gratitude meditation focal point.

I’m thinking about the many ways my father and mother succeeded, as parents…also, about those ways in which they, and parents in general, failed.

This digression is courtesy of one of my recent morning walk podcast sessions.  [3]   I was listening to the Freethought Radio interview with the president of a N.O.W. chapter, re activism resulting from the SCOTUS  [4]   Hobby Lobby decision. This topic was antithetical to the purpose of my morning walks, which are supposed to be somewhat meditative as well as invigorating.  The former purpose took a back seat to ruminative rage as I considered the seemingly unending, fact-free, conservative political and social balloon juice about a woman’s right to right to personal jurisdiction, and other issues that should have been settled so, so, long ago….

And I find myself thinking,

We failed.

We, as in, talkin’ ’bout my generation.

 

 

We have failed in so many ways, including imagination.

Thirty years ago, I couldn’t imagine we’d be fighting the same fights.   [5]   Sure, a few dinosaur fossils would remain, but I’d hoped that the battle for equality and against sexism and misogyny (at least, in this country) would be history, as in, my son and daughter would learn about it the same way they learned about women’s suffrage ( There was a time when women couldn’t vote?!  And it was less than one hundred years ago?! )

I realize that historical milestones are almost never confined to a single day or week…or even era. The campaign for women’s suffrage was not waged and won on August 18, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.  Nor was the amendment a one-time antidote to the festering, cyclic, boil-on-the-ass-of-human rights that is the tendency for groups of people to oppress those they view as The Other.

 

 

*   *   *

 Power shared = power diminished.

According to one Wise Old White Guy © I had the pleasure of knowing,   [6]   there is a widely held but false axiom behind bigotry and discrimination. That was the gist of what he tried to explain, one day in our Tuesday morning book group of yore. The group stumbled onto the continuing struggle for civil and women’s rights vis-à-vis religious institutions – a provocative topic for anyone who hasn’t downed their first cup of coffee by 7 am.

I brought up what I saw as the ultimate butt-frosting, teeth-grinding, bloomer-bunching irony: in order to acquire the rights and opportunities that you, say, a woman or African-American, are denied, you have to convince a majority of those in power – the very people who have been denying you those rights – to grant them.   [7]

This prompted WOWG to share his “unfortunate observation” regarding human nature:

Few people anywhere have ever easily agreed to share power.

I knew what WOWG meant, but asked him to elaborate.  What follows is my (paraphrased) recollection of his simple but profound Walter Cronkite-ism:   [8]

 Power shared = power diminished – this is what people in power believe. But power does not diminish when shared, it multiplies.  Small, stingy, fearful minds don’t understand that – they think power is finite, or is in limited supply, and therefore sharing power with you means there is less of it for them.  This is especially true for those who are (or who see themselves as being) on the lower rungs of the power and status ladders; e.g., some of the fiercest, most vicious criticism of the civil rights movement came from poor white southern men.

He ended with:

We failed. Our generation didn’t fix that.
Maybe it can’t be fixed; but now, it’s your turn.

 *   *   *

And now, a segue to make us all feel better.    [9]

I Am A Bad Person
#359 in a never-ending series

Making travel arrangements for an upcoming family wedding, my brain did that thing it does, and conjured up a memory from a friend’s wedding, several years ago.  I was talking to a teenager at the wedding reception. When I asked her about the rather sour look on her face, she complained to me about how  “Old people at weddings always poke me in the ribs and say, ‘You’re next!’ ”

I told her she could get revenge by saying the same to them at funerals.

 

I’m sure she means next as in next in line at the buffet.

 

*   *   *

Spam Subject Line Of The Week:

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

I didn’t read it “now” (or at all).

It is later.

I don’t hate moiself.

Ergo, it must be my turn for an all-caps-three-exclam-attack:

VICTORY IS MINE !!!

 

Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahaha

 

*   *   *

May you always be next in line for life’s buffet, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

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

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[3] During my morning walks I listen to podcasts of some of my favorite radio shows, including Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Freakonomics, RadioLab, This American Life, TED Talks, Fresh Air, and Freethought Radio.

[4] Which, yes, oft times seems as if it should be the acronym for Sexist Codgers (and not Supreme Court) of the United States.

[5] Only with different, and often troll-enabling – technologies.

[6] WOWG lost a brief but fierce battle with leukemia ~ 10 years ago.

[7] I remember, a long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, trying to explain to my kids, who were dealing with fledgling democracy concepts in school, how women couldn’t vote to give themselves the vote.

[8] “And that’s the way it is.”

[9] Wait a minute…there is no ninth footnote.

 

The TV Show Theme Songs I’m Not Singing Along To

July 4, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, nature, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The TV Show Theme Songs I’m Not Singing Along To

Department Of Let’s Get This Out Of The Way

Uh…Happy Birthday, USA?

 

 

‘Twould be the under-est of understatements to say that, this year, moiself  doesn’t really feel much like hailing Independence Day.  The holiday, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, rings hollow this year, what with His Royal Orangeness – He Who Puts The Dick In Dictator (along with the vile Vance, traitorous Dick #2 ) – determined to send this nation tumbling ass-over-tit down the slope of authoritarianism.  Meanwhile, #47’s butt-snogging, morally-deluded followers seek to replace the independence celebrated on July 4 for the slavish insurrection he instigated on January 6.

Thus, moiself  be looking to the past for some wisdom…or just a moment’s diversion.  I think the last time July 4 fell on a Friday was in 2014; searching through my blog post of that day for a #47-free excerpt, I see that I had other things on my mind:

Excerpts from The (made-in-China) Flag I’m Not Waving (7-4-14 ),

I can think of few better ways to celebrate our nation’s independence from hierarchical hegemony than to kick a hallowed institution.  But, first….

 *   *   *

White People Problems – #568 In An Unending Series
The Warning That Ruins Lives

Don’t you, kinda yeah maybe well sure, want to know things?  As in, when a certain variation of A Good Thing to Do has a deleterious or dangerous side effect, and there is a better version of or way to do The Good Thing ®, wouldn’t you want to know about it?

 

Another helpful hint – it’s too much to handle! Let the little #$&!s get melanoma!

 

Dateline: A Sunday morning, at the Oregon Zoo’s Cascade Grill.  Two Mommy Friends ©, each accompanied by one ambulatory toddler and one infant in a stroller, are chatting outside the entrance doors to the café.  One of the women is pregnant.  Preggers Woman reaches into her stroller’s storage bag for an aerosol can of sunscreen and begins to spray her toddler’s legs.  As the sunscreen mist envelops her child from toes to torso she complains to her friend about how she just read somewhere that pediatricians are advising parents to refrain from using spray sunscreen on their children, because

(a) spray-on sunscreens are not effective as the rub-in lotions, and
(b) children can inhale the sunscreen mist, which is harmful to their lungs.

 “And I thought, really?”
PW rolls her eyes and snorts with disgust as she snaps the cap back on the spray bottle and tosses it in the stroller bag.
“I mean, really – it’s just so frustrating!  So now what else can’t I give my kids?!”

What else can’t you give your kids?

How about lead paint?

Or an overdose of Tylenol, or….?

*   *   *

And now, let the kicking begin.

The Honeymoon Is Over

Although the relationship was doomed from the start, I’m surprised more friends didn’t intervene and say, “He’s just not that into you.”

I refer to the liberal religiositati’s  [1]  high hopes for the latest head of the Catholic church, Pope Francis.  He threw them a few bones about caring more about the poor than about divisive social issues and they were practically tripping all over themselves, using their ACLU membership cards to mop up their deferential drool.

It may be true that, as one friend put it, P. Francis is “better than the Nazi,”   [2]  but talk about damning with faint praise.

PF has consistently dodged questions about raising the status of women in his church, and last week responded to a journalist’s query about the underlying misogyny in the Catholic church by making a “joke” :

Francis replied: “The fact is that woman was taken from a rib.”
PF then laughed “heartily” before saying: “I’m joking. That was a joke.”

 That’s one wacky dude!  Hard to believe he traded in a promising stand-up comedy career for vows of celibacy and poverty.

 

Living the vow of poverty, Vatican-style.

 

Not only is the latest high priestess of Isis/RC witch doctor/holy chicken bone mumbler pope maintaining his church’s separate and unequal gender wall, he seems prone to reinforcing it, as when he spoke a few weeks back about, the need for “… fertility in maintaining a Christian marriage.”

Frankie baby blamed a “culture of well-being” and comfort for convincing married couples that a carefree life of world travel and summer homes was better than having children.  He said married couples should look at how Jesus loves his church to learn how to be faithful, perseverant and fruitful in their vocation.

 

 

Pay attention to whatever the man in the dunce cap pointy hat – surely a signifier of supreme intellectual aptitude if there ever was one – tells y’all.

 

 

Yo, Catholic married couples: Your Jesus (according to RC doctrine) never married and was childless; therefore; it logically follows that to be faithful to this Jesus and his church you should marry and must have children.  If it breeds, it leads!  Or…something.    [3]

Why anyone heeds the admonitions of a childless celibate who presumes to lecture other people on the supposed virtues – and strictures – of a breeding marriage….  RCs, get your heads out of those orifices. 

 

 

Or perhaps Francis the talking mule O’Pope was trying to divert attention from the latest Catholic business as usual scandal. “Our own little Holocaust,” is what an Irish Mirror writer called the discovery of the bodies of ~ 800 toddlers and babies who died of disease and malnutrition in the Irish institutions that housed their unmarried mothers, who were shamed and damned by the cultural stigma against sexually active females and “bastard” babies – a stigma invented, promoted, and implemented by the church.

On the really, really dim bright side, will yet another set of these latest revelations finally help to break the RC stranglehold on Irish culture, law and politics?

“After the revelations that Irish priests raped countless little boys and Irish nuns beat and starved countless little girls forced to work in the Magdalene laundries, we can’t take any more. The children in the homes were even used as guinea pigs for pharmaceutical companies to test vaccines… Never again should the Catholic Church dare to point the finger at any young woman contemplating abortion, or lecture on the sanctity of human life.”
The Week (6-20-2014)

 

*   *   *

That was fun, wasn’t it?

 

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To

Television show theme songs, that is.

 

 

They still make TV shows; however, it seems to have become more common in the “contemporary classic” era to repurpose existing songs – e.g., The Rembrandts’ I’ll Be There For You, which was used as the theme song for Friends .

But according to a study I just made up, you couldn’t do better than those Golden Years Of TV Theme Songs, ®  when composers were paid to come up with original instrumentals – such as the thundering, surf’s-up vibe of film composer Morton Stevens theme to Hawaii Five-0, (later a hit for The Ventures  [4]), and Jerry Goldsmith’s eerie psych-out theme for The Twilight Zone; Alexander Courage’s theme to the original Star Trek series.

Or you had actual, narrative,  songs-with-annoyingly-catchy-tunes-whose-lyrics-explained-the-show, ala the themes to Gilligan’s Island or The Brady Bunch or The Addams Family.   [5]

But that melodious passage which awakened moiself  at 2:05 AM Tuesday morning – I figure if you’re going to have a bout of classic TV show theme song induced insomnia, you can’t do better than having arguably the best television main theme ever, with its urgent, hypnotic syncopation (notable for being in 5/4 time), Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin’s Grammy-winning  Theme to Mission:  Impossible.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Pondering Life Choices

Dateline: Thursday, circa 1 pm.  Enjoying my sushi lunch at Happy Elephant restaurant    [6] in Manzanita, which now serves sushi as well as Thai food.

Sometimes, when I’m having a good meal in a restaurant, moiself  wishes I’d followed up on going to medical school, so when the server stops by after I’ve had a chance to sample my food and asked me how everything is, I can honestly say, “It’s just what the doctor ordered!”

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself.  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [7] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 

 

*   *   *

May you have the odd (and hopefully, rare) pleasure of classic TV theme song insomnia;
May you never take family planning advice from celibate men wearing pointy hats;
May you find reasons to be hopeful on July 4;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Yeah, not an OED-recognized word. But it should be.

[2] The always observant SCM was referring to Joseph Ratzinger, better known by his slave name, Pope Benedict.

[3] No footnote here. Move along folks; there’s nothing to see.

[4] Pride of the Pacific northwest, an instrumental band out of Tacoma!

[5] Just try *not* to snap your fingers.

[6] Formerly, A Mighty Thai.

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

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

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

The Big D**k I’m Not Swinging

June 20, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, nature, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Department Of Thoughts While Walking Around A Farmers’ Market

Dateline:  Last Sunday, with MH, Orenco Farmers’ Market; ~ 11:45a. Moiself  is noticing a long line for one of the market’s food carts.   We approach the cart to see what it is selling, then exchange knowing snickers.  As MH puts it,

“… it is so strange to see a long line for a place serving food
you’d have to pay me to eat.”

That particular cart specialized in biscuits and gravy/biscuits and sausage and gravy.  Even way back when moiself  was the occasional meat eater, I disdained the dish – confession: I find its appearance so repulsive I’ve never even tried it.

To the minority (I’m being optimistic) of y’all who claim to actually like biscuits and gravy:   [1]   that homey dish, which may remind you of family comfort food, has always looked to me to be the result of feeding sausage to Grandma’s dog which then vomits all over a plate of Grandma‘s biscuits.

 

*   *   *

Department Of More Thoughts, These Which Occurred To Moiself @ 5:57a
  On A Father’s Day Sunday Morning

Who “invented” shaving?

Shaving was, for centuries, an already well-established torture grooming option for men before the Roaring 20s and flapper fashions revealed that adult female humans also grow hair on their legs and armpits.  Seeing as how there are few things more frightening to patriarchy – and the “feminine” ideal it created –  than recognizing the natural, biological commonalities of male and female bodies, razors and depilatories became marketed to (read: mandated for) women.

 

 

But Who was the ambitious Phoenician dignitary (or other post-caveman ancestor) to figure out that you could take a blade or hone a stone or another sharp surface and scrape it along certain parts of a man’s skin, to remove the hair growing on the skin   [2]  without removing the skin itself?  And why did that Who think that that – selective body hair removal – would be a worthwhile activity for human men to pursue?

And why were Certain Parts ® chosen for hair removal, while others were left alone?  Shaving targets a man’s face – chin, cheeks, upper lip…not his eyebrows for some reason,   [3] –  but not the hair atop his head.  Why, in most cultures, do men shave their facial hair, but not their forearm or leg hair?

 

 

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Department Of You Had Me At “We Don’t Understand Yogurt”

Moiself  has no idea what this “We Don’t Understand Yogurt” quote is supposed to reference.  But I had it set for today’s blog, and so it shall stand. Let your imagination run wild.

 

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Department Of Big Swinging Dicks

Not my terminology, but that used by the OceanGate     [4]    CEO and founder Stockton Rush ( I don’t know about big or swinging, but that’s a dick name if I ever heard one).  Rush used the BSD term to describe the cadre of egotistical entrepreneurs ( alaJeff Bezos and Elon Musk) which, he told several of his employees, he aspired to join.  No doubt Rush imagined that he would one day be the exemplar of the ITAL Big Swinging Dicks he admired.  And now he is….although not exactly in the way he’d hoped.

In June 2023 Rush, and four passengers who’d paid OceanGate $250,000 each to ride in an OceanGate submersible to see the wreck of the Titanic died when OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded about 90 minutes into its descent, instantly goo-ifying/squashing killing all five people on board.   [5]   Investigations into the disaster   [6]  revealed that warnings had been raised by experts inside and outside of the company, from deep sea explorers to engineers and former OceanGate employees, about Titan’s unique carbon fiber design not being suitable for Titanic-style depths   [7]  – a design which ignored over 60 years of submersible design research and which was described by one former OceanGate employee as an “abomination” and an “inevitable disaster.”

 

Titan submersible, before….

 

Dateline:  last Wednesday, 7:30 am.  Moiself  is watching the Netflix documentary Titan: The Ocean Gates Submersible Disaster.  I’m not sure why I chose it; its near the top of my you-may-find-this-interesting list, and was something to watch while on my morning elliptical workout.  As it began with the recap of the disaster, I wondered to moiself , Other than being appalled by the public resources used (read: money and equipment and manpower wasted) trying to rescue a bunch of privileged multimillionaires from their ill-advised, thrill-seeking adventure, am I really interested in this story?

The answer proved to be yes, yes, and yes.  The film’s documenting of the rise and fall of OceanGate and its CEO is Shakespearean in its themes of ego and hubris, power and ambition, inevitable fate and coveted glory.   

The submersible Titan was made of a material (carbon fiber) that no other submersible – either in Rush’s own company or other companies that produce submersibles – had used, a fact which, to moiself,  screams the question, IF  NO  ONE  ELSE IS  USING  THIS  MATERIAL  TO  GO  THAT  DEEP  IN  THE  OCEAN, MAYBE  THERE’S  A  REALLY  GOOD  REASON  WHY ?!?!?  When Rush was interviewed by a newscaster who raised this fact, Rush actually said, on camera, that once they got through testing the Titan the submersible would be  “ invulnerable.”  The newscaster quickly reminded Rush, “Isn’t that what they said about the Titanic?”

 

“Come home to mama, little Titan.”

 

If you were fictionalizing this story you couldn’t concoct a more classic, almost stereotypical, self-aggrandizing, bullying, grandiose, and ultimately ignorant elitist lead character, whose background of privilege and wealth and money and connections got him a Princeton University degree   [8]  and seed money for his projects.  During the US Coast Guard’s investigation of the disaster, one former OceanGate engineer testified under oath that he quit the company after he asked Rush what would happen if the Titan failed a neutral/third party inspection, and Rush replied that he would “buy myself a congressman.”

 

 

Moiself  found the documentary both fascinating and unnerving.  It reminded me of Werner Herzog’s acclaimed 2005 documentary, Grizzly Man.     [9]    In both films you see a narcissistic megalomaniac unraveling on screen – making rash choices and brazenly overconfident assumptions which lead to their (and other people’s) deaths.  In Stockton Rush’s case, in the end he would literally rather get in a sub that’s going to implode than admit failure (or do what he really needed to do – get some therapy).

Rush’s conceit and aspirational insecurities are vividly on display.  He’d sunk his company’s money and his ego and reputation on this new design that would show all the naysayers what a BSD he was.  He ignored everyone and everything he’d used to help him on the project – his engineers, the test results, even his own monitoring system.  The filmmakers obtained footage of one of Rush’s solo test dives on Titan, which Rush filmed. When the hull began cracking you could see, you could *feel,* his anxiety.  It was all over his face, and he didn’t do another dive for four months after that, until he…until he what?  Just said, WTF?!?!?  He ignored the evidence that the hull would break.  He couldn’t deal with the failure; he pushed his luck…and when that luck ultimately and inevitably ran out, he took other human beings with him.

BSD.  Big Swinging Dick, indeed, that’s what Rush finally was.  But not in the way he’d envisioned.

 

Titan submersible…after.

 

*   *   *

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Recent Bingo!  Moment

Dateline: last Tuesday, 8:02 am, walking on the beach at Manzanita, listening to a Fresh Air podcast about stand-up comic and American immigrant,  [10]  Atsuko Okatsuka.  Don’t you love it when someone else, at least for a moment, has thought your same thoughts and/or has experienced your same experiences, and comes up with a pithy way to describe it – a phrase or explanation that you can use, then blame it on/attribute it to someone else, if anyone finds the description unpleasant or insulting?

As a standup comic Okatsuka puts herself at the center of attention when she is working, and thus by definition, is “on stage.”  Still, in the interview she showed a unique understanding in answering certain questions or prescriptions often posed to writers, artists and other “creatives” by folks not in those fields, folks and who conflate an artist’s wanting to do the creative work with wanting fame and acclaim for that work:

“Why do you do *___*” or, Why don’t you do *____*?

 

 

My response (often unuttered) has always been on the tip of my snarky little tongue when, over the years, people who’ve judged me amusing and/or clever felt the need to give me unsolicited career advice.  This advice, always phrased in ways to seem complimentary, comes out as some version of

* You should be (should’ve been) a stand-up comic!
*  You should be (should’ve been) an actor, or someone on stage!

Fact is, if or when y’all would truly pay attention and/or look beneath the surface (as did some editors and publishers, who were less than pleased with the results), you would surmise that although I’m one of the more genial people you will meet and am generally fine in one-on-one and very small group situations,  being “on stage“ (or even the idea of it) is something I truly abhor.

 

Yeah, kinda like this.

 

Translation: book fairs, book signings, author readings and appearances – while highly (and often desperately) sought by aspiring/newbie writers, and (usually) highly appreciated or desired by other, established authors –  were anathema to me.  And I’m fine with that.

Thus, my answer to the Why did you never pursue being a stand-up comic/more public speaking/presentation opportunities to sign books and bask in attention and acclaim…?”   [11]   question:

“Because I don’t have this hole in my heart that I have to fill
with the validation of strangers.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

(Reason # 68). I’m angry that when people run for political office in the Unites States, it’s considered legitimate to grill them about their employment background, their positions on legislation, their positions on social issues, the taxes they’ve paid, even their sexual history… but, it’s considered invasive and intolerant to ask if they believe in talking snakes, demonic possession, magic underwear, magic crackers that turn into the flesh of their god, an earth that was created 6,000 years ago, or a god who put himself on Earth in human form and then sacrificed himself to himself to atone for sins that other people committed and to save humanity from the punishment he himself was planning to dole out.
If someone is going to make decisions about science funding, emerging medical technology, our educational system, and so on… I think it matters if they believe any of that shit, and I bloody well want to know.

( excerpt, Greta Christina’s informative, entertaining, passionately logical, both ferocious and calm, scathing and compassionate analysis of religion, Why Are You Atheists So Angry: 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless  )

 

*   *   *

May your life be free from BSD’s;
May your comfort food never look as though it’s been regurgitated;
May you, for whatever reasons, understand yogurt;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] And if this is you, you have my sympathy.

[2] Or so they thought, primitive humans not understanding how hair follicles function.

[3] Except for the occasional unibrow correction.

[4] OceanGate Inc. was a privately-owned company, co-founded by Stockton Rush, based in Washington state’s Puget Sound.  OceanGate manufactured and provided crewed submersibles for tourism, research, and exploration. It ceased operations after the Titan disaster.

[5] The five were Oceangate’s CEO Stockton Rush (who piloted the submersible), British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.

[6] From the US Coast Guard, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, even the US Department of Justice (which was concerned about the company’s financial practices).

[7] The wreck of the Titanic lies some 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface.

[8] Even though his grades – the documentary shows his Princeton report cards – were hardly Ivy League bragging material (they ranged from B – to D’s and even Fs). 

[9] Focuses on the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a self-proclaimed grizzley bear “expert,” who descends into grandiosity and manic delusion in his quest to “save the bear” and also get himself attention and jump-start his aspiring actor career.  Among Treadwell’s many peculiarities included him faking an Australian accent (he told some people he was from Australia; he was from New York state) or telling people that he was a British orphan (both of his parents survived him).  Moiself  highly recommends you watch this movie…but only once.

[10] technically an “illegal alien” – as a child she was brought to the US from Japan, without proper papers, by her grandmother.

[11] Translation:  I was the worst self-promoter, ever.

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

The Authoritarian Regime I’m Not Writing About

June 13, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, music, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Authoritarian Regime I’m Not Writing About

Los Angeles, and elsewhere.  The escalation – federal forces and incendiary rhetoric – to produce the violence #47 so desperately seeks.  Instigation, followed by justification.

Dictators; authoritarians…this is their playbook.  And one of the most essential – and the most heart-wrenching – chapter of the playbook is that their followers don’t, won’t, can’t, or refuse to see it. They vehemently and obstinately don their moral and historical blinders and bray,  “That was then; this is different,” as they slide into the putrid pit of “then.”

 

 

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Department Of Win-Win

Dateline: Monday eve, watching the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary.  Moiself  can’t remember exactly where I was or even how old I was when I heard Led Zeppelin’s first album, but the thing was that I heard it as an album.  Among the many insights presented in the documentary is the group’s strategy to *not* be a singles band – their albums were meant to be played and listened to us as just that: albums.   [1]   That differentiated them at the time (although, arguably, they were preceded by The Beatles’ Seargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in terms of a band producing an album that was meant to be listened to as an album, and not just filler songs surrounding one or two singles).

I (eventually) bought all of the LZ albums and attended several of their concerts.  I also understood, intuitively if not consciously at the time, how LZ, and the heavy metal and “stadium rock” bands which followed, became partly responsible for the emergence of punk rock.  Several of the members of  The Ramones, as well as members of other punk bands, have spoken about how their approach to music (jackhammer, two-minutes songs; minimalist instrumentation and no solos by any member of the band) was a reaction to and rebellion against what they saw as the self-indulgent excesses of mainstream rock, which had abandoned or twisted the original energy of rock ‘n roll into, as an example, Jimmy Page’s and John Bonham’s respective, lengthy, guitar and drum solos.   [2]

Moiself  was a fan of Led Zeppelin’s music, then *really* loved The Ramones and punk rock as well, so it all worked out for me.

 

 

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Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [3]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [4]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

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

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 6-14-18 ( The Match I’m Not Lighting  ).

Department of Will Someone Please Explain to Me…

As a kid, I didn’t understand the  light a match reference, nor the presence of a pack of matches in the bathrooms of most people of my parents’ generation.  Even after it was explained to me by an adult,   [5]   it still seemed rather silly.  Was it a last resort, an act of religious penance (  Forgive me, Father, for I have blown Satan’s bugle   [6]  ), or some kind of ritual atonement (setting oneself on fire rather than face the shame of emerging from the host’s bathroom after you’ve stunk it up)?

Matches eventually gave way to the Bathroom Air Fresheners industry – including the aptly if not discretely named Poo-pouri    [7].  This was a great loss to the budding pyromaniac that lurks in most six-year-olds, and also provided yet another variation on things that don’t make much sense.

Yeah, I get the point of, or rather I understand the supposed need for, commercial bathroom air fresheners.  But other than serving as an effective irritant to asthmatics and people with fragrance allergies I think it is arguable that they “work.”  In my experience in other people’s houses and in restaurants, businesses and other “out” venues, it’s a tossup as to whether air fresheners eliminate   [8]   or enhance the odors they are designed to combat.

 

 

And the varieties of masking perfumes, ay yi yi.  Here are just some of the olfactory auras available to you, Discerning Consumer, thanks to the scentmeisters of Glade, Renuzit, et al:

Frosted Pine
Clean Linen
Creamy Custard® & Apple Cinnamon
Angel Whispers   [9]

But really, who’s kidding whom?  Here are your choices:

*Bathroom usage sans air freshener:  it smells like someone took a dump in here.
* Bathroom usage with air freshener:  it smells like whispering angels stood by
 as someone took a dump on a pine tree,
in your clean linen, on your apple custard dessert.

Not to get all Bathroom Buddhist ® , but it is what it is.  Embrace the stone age, y’all: light a match.

 

*   *   *

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Born Too Soon To Achieve My Ultimate Sports Destiny
Sub-Department Of I Realize The Pressure To Fill Space With Content 24/7,
But, A Classic Sibling Bedroom Brawl Is Now A Professional Sport?

Dateline: Sunday night, at Manzanita’s San Dune Pub,  [10]   realizing that one of the pub’s five televisions which show a variety of sports was set to an ESPN channel which was broadcasting the PFC, as in…I can’t believe moiself  is typing this….Pillow Fighting Championship.

 

 

“PFC: Pillow Fight Championship is the world’s first professional pillow fighting league featuring professional fighters engaging in intense, fast-paced and all ages-friendly combat unrivaled by any other professional sports entertainment or fighting organization.

However, PFC isn’t just for professional fighters. We have developed a unique set of rules and regulations to complement our patent-pending and safe combat pillows that allow anyone to participate.

Pillow Fight Championship has been credited for being a safe alternative to traditional, violent combat sports and for it’s ITAL (sic) cardiovascular and benefits.”
( from PFC: About )

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

 Zora Neale Hurston. Brilliant Harlem Renaissance writer. Anthropologist, ethnographer, folklorist. Best known and beloved for her 1937 masterpiece nove,l Their Eyes Were Watching God. Enormously influential in the worlds of literature, anthropology, oral tradition, African American folklore, and just about every other damn thing except maybe particle physics. She was a non-believer, and even as a child, she was beginning to question the unquestioning faith and dogma of her congregation. She wrote of those years she could not  “understand the passionate declarations of love for a being that nobody could see…. When I was asked if I loved God, I always said yes because I knew that was the thing I was supposed to say. It was a guilty secret with me for a long time.”
She eventually concluded, “Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.”    [12]

( excerpts, list of “7 Amazing Atheists Who Aren’t Old White Guys,”
By Greta Christina,   [13]  August 30, 2012 |)

 

 

*   *   *

May you no longer engage in pillow fights for free if others are paid to do so;
May you not say yes because you know it is the thing you are supposed to say;
May you find a way to torch the authoritarian’s playbook;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] And LZ founder/guitarist Jimmy Page was fortunate to get the contractual stipulations to be able to do that.

[2] Johnny Ramone’s one note guitar riff in I Wanna Be Sedated was his satirical nod to rock guitarists’ lengthy solos.

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

[4] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[5] By my uncle Joe, accomplished match lighter, may he rest in peace.

[6] a high-pitched, keening wail of a fart, as if summoning Satan’s minions from one’s nether regions.

[7] I am not making this up, and you have to read the product reviews.

[8] Sorry.  Potty-pun unintentional. No shit really.

[9] Because we all know what angel whispers smell like.

[10] Interested in a business opportunity?  The beloved Pub is for sale.  We want someone good to keep it going!

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

[12][12] From Dust Tracks on a Road.

[13] Who herself is not an old white guy; rather, Greta Christina is a not-infrequently-quoted-in-this-blog author, atheist ad LGBTQ activist, and speaker.

The Pranks I’m No Longer Playing

March 14, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, foodie, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

 

Happy Pi Day, Y’all

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Things For Tomorrow’s To-Do List

Beware the….

Tides that arch?  Brides that parch?  Sides of starch?  What was that…thing?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025?  Time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!   [1]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [2]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

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

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 3-10-17 ( The History I’m Not Reading ).

 “For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.”[3] 

MH and I are traveling ’round Ireland in the late spring.

 

 

Thank you! We’re excited, too.

I try to read up on the history of places I’m going to visit, and also sample the destination’s contemporary art (in the form of fiction and films). As per the former endeavor, I am currently and once again reminded of why I loathe reading history: because war and religion, two of the most despicable human enterprises, IMHO, almost always figure so prominently. And in Irish history, the combination of the two is a feckin’ load of ballsch to curl your clackers.   [4]

I cannot recall the source of the nailed-it!  quote I ran across, several years ago (I believe it was from an Irish novelist, not a historian), which went something along the lines of this:  Ireland’s cultural and political woes can be attributed to the fact that the Irish are

“a twice colonized people – first by the Catholics and then by the British.”

There are many ways to interpret history, and two “sides” I keep encountering, each which urges the reader to keep in mind either (1) “History is written by the winners,” or (2) “History is written by the literate, whether or not they were the ultimate winners.”

 

And your point would be?

 

Whatever.  In either case, and especially with regards to reading Irish and European history, it’s the nomenclature, for lack of a better term, that gets to me. Consider the many, many, many – and did I mention a whole lotta? – pages devoted to the various invasions of “The barbarians.”  Some of these pages are contained in a book I recently finished, the presumptuously titled, How The Irish Saved Civilization.

HTISC, by its very title, presents a (dubious, in some critics’ eyes) supposition as fact. The book essentially argues for the elevation of the importance of the Irish Catholic clergy in preserving Western culture after the collapse of the Roman Empire, when western Europe was “…being overrun by barbarians” (aka Huns, Visigoths, and other Germanic tribes).

So. We have the entrenched residents, whose beliefs and actions I would not hesitate to call barbaric, whose priests waged wars and inquisitions to subjugate, torture and kill “heretics” (defined however they chose, from those who simply disagreed with official policy, to philosophers, Jews, “Witches,” Protestant reformers, and other fellow Catholics – the various factions who slaughtered each other over nuances in theology)…  But it’s these guys coming over the hill,  they are the barbarians, because….uh…because they are illiterate and thus can’t cite their magic holy books to justify their atrocities.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

 

My impression and subsequent summation of centuries of Irish history, after reading 600+ pages (and more to come!) in various books, is almost Tweetable     [5]   in its brevity:

The _______(civil articles; treaty; king; bishop) promised religious toleration;
the _______ (king; landlord; bishop) saw no advantage in a peace now that victory was secure;
the Gaelic infantry was slaughtered.

Lather; rinse; repeat.

 

 

Department Of And Then There’s This

Slogging through the pages of history, I am occasionally rewarded with a gem hidden in the festering bog. Such as this sentence, from a passage about kinship ties between Gael lords and the Catholic clergy:

“One sixteenth-century bishop of Clogher was eulogized on his death as ‘a very gem of purity and a turtle dove of chastity,’
this despite his leaving behind at least fifteen children.”

(Ireland: Land, People, History, by Richard Killeen)

 

Not tonight, dear, I’m the turtle dove of chastity.

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of You’re No Fun Anymore

Moiself  still gets a great idea,    [6]    every now and then, about pranks to play.   Such as the one that often returns through my twisted wistful little mind when I’m returning from a morning constitutional and, depending on the route I take, walk past a house near my ‘hood that fills me with pranks-that-were-not-to-be-realized  regret.

Said house has a three-car garage.  The third garage door, when open, reveals the setup of a home electronics/wood shop and sometimes the shop dude, either working on a project or, on a warm, late summer day, sitting in a lawn chair in the driveway, in front of his shop, working on a brewski.  Also…

 

 

….make that, up until a couple of years ago, when that third garage door was down you could see a metal plaque affixed to the middle of it which read:  MEN ONLY.

Moiself  actually looked into the cost of getting a stick-on plaque, made of the same material and using the same font as the one on Shop Man’s garage door, which would have one word on it: GIRLY.  My fantasy prank was to (can you guess where this is headed?), one day at the end of one of my early morning walks, stick that plaque above the MEN ONLY one.

I woulda done it, except for this Sad Fact Of Modern Life ® : from more elaborate ventures (such as my plaque-trolling) to the simple/youthful pleasures of playing dingdong ditch or planting gnome statues or other tacky knickknacks in a friend’s Sunset magazine-worthy landscaping, ‘tis almost impossible to “get away with” playing tricks on anyone, anymore. 

 

 

Seriously, you need to ask that?  Because:  from elaborate, motion-activated porch and yard security devices to cell phone cameras, every person, every house or apartment or dwelling, has recording devices.

A couple of years ago the owners of the MEN ONLY garage shop house had the entire exterior of the house painted.  The plaque was taken down as part of the paint prep, and has yet to be reinstalled.  Perhaps (presumption or fantasy on moiself’s  part) the girly occupants of said house took that opportunity to ask the manly shop man to leave it down.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

“There is no good evidence that gods do exist, and lots of good evidence that the idea of gods was invented by human beings. It was realising this that enabled me to feel comfortable describing myself primarily as an atheist rather than an agnostic.

Atheism is also a better basis for investigating morality. Right and wrong are ultimately about how we affect the suffering and wellbeing of other sentient beings. Helping other sentient beings to flourish is good, and causing other sentient beings to suffer unnecessarily is bad. It is complicated to figure out what is right and wrong in any given situation, because there are so many permutations of the effects of your actions.

However, religion distracts us from identifying what is right and wrong by adding in answers that are unrelated to suffering and wellbeing in the real world, but are based on imaginary souls and imaginary consequences in imaginary afterlives. And so you get contradictory messages in books like the bible, which tell us to love our neighbour but stone him to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. We know that this last command is morally wrong, and so we ignore it. This shows that we do not get morality from the bible, but apply our morality to what we read in it.”

( excerpt from “How And Why I became an Atheist,” by Michael Nugent.
Nugent, a writer and Dubliner, is chairperson of the advocacy group Atheist Ireland,
which promotes atheism, reason and ethical secularism in Ireland and around the world. )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have a tasty Pi Day celebration;   [8]

May you be on the lookout for Ides  mischief after that, and then…
May you have a happy
day-of-celebrating-being-Irish-in-America (aka St. Patrick’s Day);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

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

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[3] From The Ballad of the White Horse, by G. K. Chesterton, English Critic, Essayist, Novelist and Poet, 1874-1936.

[4] For the Irish slang impaired, feckin’ = fucking; ballsch = rubbish; clackers = testicles.

[5] If I were a Twitter kind of person, which I am not.

[6] Well, great to moiself.

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

[8] If you don’t celebrate Pi Day, why not?  Where would we be without this fundamental mathematical concept of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, which helps us set up equations to understand circles, and objects which oscillate/repeat, and thus allows us to, for example, get precise measurements (via geometry) for construction.  Add it to your calendar  – and it’s a great excuse to make savory and or sweet pies.

The Nothing I’m Not Controlling

February 28, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Nothing I’m Not Controlling

Department Of The First (And Likely Last) Time I’ve Ever Asked This Question

“What is your favorite mice curse?”

Dateline: Last Saturday evening.
Context:  Don’t y’all worry your pretty little heads about that.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Can’t Believe How Good This Is…
And How, Ultimately, Heartbreaking

Best podcast episode…in a long time…or, ever?

This American Life: Ten Things I Don’t Want To Hate About You.  From the intro:

 TAL host Ira Glass:
I think we all have people in our lives who we love, but there’s no talking to them. They have their way of seeing things or doing things, and it’s hard to take. And no matter how you try to talk it out, it goes nowhere. It doesn’t get solved, even if they also want things to change.

We’re devoting our entire show today to a story like that from Zach Mack, who’s a reporter. And the story is about him and his dad and how they both wanted to mend a rift that had grown between them that had lasted for years, but they couldn’t figure out how until Zach’s dad offered a very surprising way out.

Zach’s (and his family’s) story is told in three parts (you can listen to them all at the link).  Part 1: Zach and his father enter into an agreement that could change their entire relationship. (9 minutes)

Part 2: Zach’s mother and sister weigh in on the agreement. (28 minutes)

Part 3: With the year coming to an end, someone is going to have to say, “You were right, and I was wrong.” Will it change anything?

From the intro through the ending credits song ( Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds – gut-punchingly apropos, considering the subject ), this is one of the best, if not *the* best, podcast episodes I’ve ever heard.  And I’m glad I made moiself  listen to it, even as I was trying not to sob at the end.

 

 

*    *    *

Department Of Not Only Is This Food For Thought, It’s So Much Food
That I Might Need The Heimlich Maneuver After Attempting To Ingest It All

We control nothing, but we influence everything.

I’m still mulling over that proclamation/observation, which I heard last week, along with its corollary –  We should all focus less on control, and more on resilience – via the same venue:  the Hidden Brain Podcast  moiself  mentioned in last week’s post.

This week on Hidden Brain, we…look at how we can come to grips with the unpredictable forces that shape our world and turn them to our advantage. We hear a lot these days about separating the signal from the noise. The idea is that there’s a deep order, a solid predictability we can count on, if only we can screen out distracting details, meaningless static. But what if those trivial random factors actually matter? What if they matter a lot? At University College London, political scientist Brian Klaas studies these hidden forces.
( intro to Hidden Brain: Wellness 2.0: The Art of the Unknown )

HB host Shankar Vedantam and guest Brian Klass talked about the intriguing story of Klass’s own history with random factors.  First, they discussed stories of highly consequential historical events – including a phenomenon known in Japan as Kokura’s Luck   [1]  – which underline “…the fact that the interconnectivity of the world means that unexpected and sometimes deeply problematic things arise from the smallest of human choices.”

In 1945, nearing the end of WWII in the Pacific theater,   [2]  a change in the weather had huge consequences for the Japanese cities of Kokura and Nagasaki. Kokura was the primary target for the USA’s second atomic bomb dropping, but a change in Kokura’s cloud cover prompted the bomber crew to choose a secondary target.   [3] 

 

from the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki archives

 

Klass goes on to tell a story from rural American, 1905.  Clara Modlin Jansen and her husband lived on a farm in Wisconsin with their four children, all ages four and younger.  Do that math:  Clara’s been having kids basically nonstop.  At some point the stress of gestating, birthing, and parenting four young children (it is assumed…who actually knows?) overwhelms Clara: she kills her four young children, then takes her own life.

Klass:
“And so…Clara’s husband comes home and discovers that most horrific thing that any human can experience – the single moment where his entire family has been wiped out in this intense act of murderous tragedy….all of them are dead…we can only imagine what that was like.
The reason I tell that story is because the man who came home to that farmhouse was my great grandfather. And what is really striking about it from my perspective is that, because my great grandfather remarried about a decade later to the woman that became my great grandmother, I literally would not exist if those kids did not die. It’s my sort of version of Kokura’s luck.”

 

 

Last week, the same day I listened to the HB podcast, friend CC and I met for one of our regular sushi lunches wherein we discuss and solve the problems of the world.  [4]   I brought up that story, about Klass’s family history, and we each noted our own versions of Kokura’s luck.

Mine included an insight MH shared with me about our family – him reacting as if he’d realized it for the first time – after I’d told him that, giving the current erosion of medical and personal autonomy, it was time to go public ( in my blog post,  The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting ) about the fact that I’d had an abortion when I was in college.  That was years before I’d met MH,    [5]   who seemed to gob-smack himself with the realization that it is almost 99% certain we would not have met and married, and thus our offspring K and Belle would not have been born – had I not had that abortion.

The “interconnectivity of the world,” meaning that the unexpected sometimes arises from seemingly random events, also means that the spontaneous abortion (lay person’s term,  miscarriage) – I had not quite two years after son K was born, when MH and I were trying to have another child, means that daughter Belle is who she is her because of that pregnancy fail. 

Of course, you can string this on add ad infinitum item into all sorts of areas (does the world owe the Theory of Relativity to the fact that Albert Einstein’s great great great grandmother existed?    [6]  ) until your cranium feels like it will explode.

 

 

One of the more powerful, cranium-exploding events I remember was from several decades ago, when moiself  was reading about an innovative jailhouse group counseling program for sexual offenders.   [7]   The article, written by two of the program’s founders and counselors, spoke of how sexual offenders were one of the (if not *the*) most difficult class of prisoners to rehabilitate.  This was because rapists ( like most of society at that time, to be frank) tended to blame their victims for the attacks, and thus were highly resistant to behavioral change therapeutic modes.

Somehow, no matter the circumstances, men imprisoned for assaulting women and girls  [8]   asserted that it was the fault of the females they’d assaulted. The cognitive gymnastics involved in an opportunistic predator managing to find a way to blame the 68 year-old woman he raped for being responsible for him breaking into her house and attacking her as she was asleep in her own bed, in her own bedroom – Simone Biles couldn’t do as many flips.  Sexual predators are masters at the craft of speculative fiction.

The counselors wrote about a breakthrough they had one day, in a session of group counseling, wherein they got a convicted serial rapist to open up to the group. This man (“Y” ) was adamant about how every single one of his rape victims was responsible for him stalking and attacking them. The female counselor (“F”) asked Y to describe, to the group, the last assault he committed, after which he was caught, convicted and sent to prison.  F said she wasn’t going to contradict or judge Y, she just truly wanted to know the details, from his POV,  After all, he’d been a “successful” predator for years before being caught.  How did he choose that victim (“X”)?

Y began relating the story, which in itself was a tacit admission of the willfulness of his act – he didn’t contradict F when, in her question to him, she stated that he *chose* his victim ( a fact some of the other men in the group called Y out on later).  But Y didn’t argue with the phrasing of F’s question.

He described how he went out one night to the downtown area of the large city where he lived, and began following random women who crossed his path.  He didn’t know where they were walking from or to – a restaurant, their place of work, a friend’s apartment? – and he mostly followed women walking alone but also honed in on a few who were in groups.  Y followed one lone woman and told himself, “If she turns right at the next corner or keeps going straight ahead, I’ll ‘get’ her.”  The woman turned left.

Y began following a group of four women who were chatting amongst themselves.  He told himself, “If one of them breaks off from the other group, I’ll follow her.”  At the next street corner, three of the women turned left, waving goodnight to their friend, X, who turned right.  As Y followed X for another few blocks, he said to himself, “At the next intersection, If she turns left or continues straight on ahead, she goes free; if she turns right, I’ll get her.”

X was Y’s final assault; he was captured soon afterward.    [9]   At this point in Y’s narrative, F said to Y, “I am curious about something.  You’ve said in the past that every woman you’d raped had brought on her own assault.  What did X do to deserve this attack?  What did X do that prompted you to attack her?”

Y looked at the floor for a good ten seconds, then looked up, squarely into counselor F’s eyes.  Without a trace of emotion Y said, “She turned right.”    [10]

 

 

All these years (decades) later, moiself  still hasn’t gotten over the fact that, for one person in that story – the assailant – true randomness had nothing to do with him committing that most significant act of his life….and for the assault victim, randomness had everything to do with it.

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

Many people worry about life’s “meaning.”  Or perhaps they just pretend to worry about it, when they’re not engaged in other things.  I’ve long been convinced that a concern about the ultimate “meaning” or “purpose” of life is a psychological problem masquerading as a philosophical one.

What could life mean?  What does consciousness and its contents, at this moment, mean?  What is its purpose?

Whatever is, all together, simply *is.*  What meaning could there be?

It seems to me that meaning and  purpose are just a distracted person’s imaginary friends.  There is only reality…and we’re not separate from it.
Isn’t that good enough?
(  Sam Harris, Waking Up moment 2-22-25, my emphases )

 

Or you could just consult Monty Python.

*   *   *

May your purpose be to *not* be separate from reality;
May you appreciate the connection between luck and reality;
May your luck include not having a loved one sucked into the vortex of religious certitude
and conspiracy theories;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] In Japan, someone is said to have “Kokura’s luck,” when they manage to avoid a catastrophewithout ever having realized they were in danger.  It refers to the fact that when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki in 1945, the intended target had been the city of Kokura.

[2] The Pacific Theater (of operations); The European Theater – who is responsible for giving bloody and devastating wars such benign logistical labels?  “Uncle Sam wants you to join the theater!”

[3] As the B-29 was approaching Kokura, ready to drop its payload, the city was obscured by un-forecasted fog and clouds and haze – the crew couldn’t see the bomb site, and didn’t want to risk dropping an atomic bomb and missing.  While they circled a few times, waiting for the weather to change, they realized they were running low on fuel and eventually decided to divert to a secondary target – Nagasaki.

[4] And, not to be snooty about it, but the world will be so much better off when it realized that its problems have solutions, and listen to CC’s and my answers!

[5] This was no big secret to close family members and friends; it was a personal matter.  Nor was there any shame behind keeping it personal –  I’d never felt a need to discuss my private medical history with strangers.

[6] Certain philosophical or spiritual traditions hold that Einstein’s “soul” would’ve found a way to be born into someone else’s body, in some other family.

[7] Moiself  majored in Criminal Justice in college, and had intended to go to law school.  For a few years after graduation, I still kept up with my two areas of special interest – feminist civil rights, and prison/sentencing reform.

[8] Of course, men can be assault victims and women perpetrators; the overwhelming majority of scenarios in sexual assault are male perp/female victim, and that’s what the group counseling article was about.

[9] Evidence emerged linking him to several other assaults, some of which he was tried and convicted for.

[10] The rest of the convicts participating in the group discussion had been bone-chillingly quiet during Y’s of how he’d chosen his victim, and at this point they began talking and shouting at once, calling him out on his self-delusion.

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

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