Moiself has been in a reflective mood; which should not be surprising. According to a study I just made up, everybody knows that within three days of a holiday referencing the Irish, a writer’s brain is capable of little output which does not involve humorous anecdotes of family and friends and kneecapping British soldiers and scatological puns and Chuck Norris “facts” (psst – this is what is known as foreshadowing ).
Department Of Parents Are Never Too Old To Go Apeshit Over Reminders of Childhood Cuteness
It has been a week of many celebrations, both national and personal. Belle is home for Spring Break. Pi day. The Ides of March. That Irish-American Thing. [1] Many if not all of these festive days call for special feasts. I asked Belle if there was any special dinner she’d like, in honor of…whatever. While she was pondering her options, MH showed me a list Belle had made, quite a long time ago. He found it written on a (unfortunately, undated) notepad he discovered as he was going through old papers in the attic:
I told Belle all she had to do was say the word and we would endeavor to come up with a speshl desert and froot salid…and lots of Yum.
* * *
* * *
Department Of No, Wait – That’s A Lie. Regular Programming Continues To Be Disrupted.
After sharing a blog-posted memory involving my daughter, it’s time for one involving my son. During one glorious phase in his life [3] son K was notorious (within our family) for getting moiself helpless with laughter by telling me Chuck Norris puns and memes. Moiself shared this memory on 1-14-22 ( The S-Words I’m Not Mispronouncing ):
Punz For The Day: Scat Edition
Did you hear about the monkey who was arrested for throwing its feces at zoo patrons? The monkey was charged with turd debris assault.
Why did Packy the elephant [4] bring toilet paper to the zebra’s birthday bash? Because Packy was a party pooper.
Remember, dog owners, when you walk the dog you have to pick up its poop. It’s your doo diligence.
Why is Chuck Norris’s dog trained to pick up its own poop? Because Chuck Norris doesn’t take shit from anyone. Chuck Norris doesn’t flush the toilet. He scares the shit out of it.
Yeah, I know, scat is typically used to denote animal feces. But I’ve heard that making at least one Chuck Norris Joke ® – aka, reciting a Chuck Norris “fact” – at the beginning of the year is a guarantee of good fortune in the weeks to come. [5]
Department Of The Bonus Round Of You-Know-Who Jokes
(Happy New Year to son K, who once brought me to helpless tears of stomach-cramping, snotty-nosed laughter when he loaned me his Chuck Norris Factbook to read while we were seated in a booth in a restaurant, waiting for our lunch to arrive).
* Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
* The flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year.
* When Chuck Norris plays dodgeball, the balls dodge him.
* Chuck Norris doesn’t worry about high gas prices. His vehicles run on fear.
* The Dead Sea was alive before Chuck Norris swam there.
* When Chuck Norris was born, he drove his mom home from the hospital.
* There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
* Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience.
* There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.
* MC Hammer learned the hard way that Chuck Norris can touch this.
* Chuck Norris has been to Mars. That’s why there are no signs of life there.
* Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.
* If Chuck Norris traveled to an alternate dimension in which there was another Chuck Norris and they both fought, they would both win.
* Chuck Norris’ farts smell like freshly baked cinnamon rolls.
Okay; I gotta get control here. Seriously; somebody stop me; this could go on forever.
* Chuck Norris counted to infinity — twice.
* * *
Department Of This Time It’s True
* * *
Department Of Don’t Ask Questions (But Do Ask Your Doctor For Drugs…Just, Any Drugs)
Dateline: last Tuesday; 9:25 pm-ish; sitting in The TV Chair®…although not watching whatever show was on TV that MH had left on while he went to load the dishwasher. I was about to check something on my phone….
…when moiself heard a TV advertisement. The ad caught my attention with its opening question, which I found rivetingly nonsensical:
Uh…golly gee…I…don’t know. How *would* I know? What the heck is Vivaldi?
The advertisement continued with what’s become the standard prescription meds come-on, encouraging viewers to ask their doctors about whether or not they could benefit from using this prescription medication…. But, for what? Why would you take this medication? There’s gotta be a reason, right? For no other reason than you fall into the category of, Hmmm, I’m currently not taking any prescription medications and all my friends and family are and I feel kinda left out….? I kept waiting, but:
There. Was. No. Mention. Of. What. That. Drug. Would. Be. Used. For.
Really.
Nevertheless, you’ve been advised. Call your primary care provider, now.
Patient: “Doctor, am I ready for Vivaldi?” Doctor: “What makes you ask? What are your symptoms, or health concerns?” Patient: “None at the moment; I’m fit as a fiddle. Still, could I benefit from taking Vivaldi?
Maybe, like, if I bought stock in the company?”
If life has no meaning for someone unless they pretend to know something they don’t know, then I would strongly and sincerely urge extensive therapy and counseling. This is particularly true if feelings of meaninglessness and lack of purpose lead to depression, which is a serious illness. Absent a mental disorder, or head trauma, there is no reason an adult should feel life is meaningless without maintaining some sort of delusion. ( Dr. Peter Boghossian, American writer, philosopher, professor )
Or, maybe that Someone should ask their doctor about Vivaldi.
* * *
May you remember to even it up; May your loved ones serve you speshl desert and froot salid and yum; May you not ask your doctor, any doctor, about TV advertised drugs; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] On March 17 real Irish people in Ireland apparently do not affix paper shamrocks on their foreheads, don Kiss Me I’m Irish underpants and drink until they vomit green beer on their faux Leprechaun shoes and call it a celebration of their heritage.
[2] A phrase of my father’s, used for when he had done something for one of his four children who had a particular need, and then found a way to “even it up” by doing something for the other three.
[3] Which is presently dormant but which I’m certain could be resurrected at a moment’s notice….
[4] Explanation for non-Oregonians: Packy the elephant (1962-2017) was an Asian elephant born who was and lived his life at the Portland’s Oregon Zoo. Famous for, among other attributes, being the first elephant born in the Western Hemisphere for five decades , growing to be among the tallest of Asian elephants in the world, siring seven calves, and being beloved by zoo staff and visitors, having a quirk about hats…. ( I wrote about that here, in The Elephant I’m Not Freeing ).
[5] That is something I just made up. But it makes as much sense as any of the “Doing _____ will guarantee good luck in the new year!” prescriptions I’ve ever heard.
[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
Perhaps not. But – with all apologies to novelist Thomas Wolfe, who perhaps didn’t realize this – you *can* go to your high school reunion, in your hometown.
Some of us may remember Wolfe’s admonition/advice, from discussing the themes of his novel Look Homeward, Angel in our high school or college literature classes:
The house, the town, the schools, even the people you remember from your youth and then left in your adulthood – they’ll never be the same, or make you feel the same, as you did when you were young. [1] They have all changed…as (of course), have you. Life moves forward; the only constant is change; the home you left behind can never be reclaimed…but it can constantly be remade in the present.
So yeah, well then. Dateline: Saturday October 4. My high school reunion.
Second semester Senior Class Officers: President AG, Secretary GR, and VEEP (yours truly) in the middle…apparently goosing AG (where is my other hand?).
Moiself’s pre-reunion fears: That I might be unable to stifle my kneejerk exclamation/observation upon entering the reunion venue ( “Holy déjà vu-ew – who are all these old/gray/fat/balding people – oh, that’s right, they are *us*!” )
Moiself’s Reality: “Who are all these happy, well-adjusted, warmhearted, engaging, kind, generous, witty people – oh, how lovely, they’re *us*!”
* * *
Department Of The Morning After The Reunion Reflections
This person is so warm, kind, funny, observant – why didn’t I know him/her better,
and/or hang around her/him more in high school?
Well, simply and most likely because it was a large high school (some 550+ in our senior class) and we were in different classes/activities/friend groups. Also, people change. Perhaps our respective personalities wouldn’t have been a good fit at the time, like the proverbial clashing combinations of oil and water, cats and dogs, pickled herring and crème fraîche…
Reunion activities included a tour of the high school campus Friday afternoon followed by dinner at a BBQ joint; the “official” reunion Saturday evening; an anyone-who’s still-in-town-and-would-like-to-do-so lunch meet-up at a downtown foodcourt mall on Sunday.
My flight arrived Friday eve, too late for the tour…which I’d no interest in, anyway. [2] I’d last checked out the campus seven years ago, when I went down to So Cal after my mother died. While it was nice to see that the school had some kind a sign up referencing one of its name-drop-worthy alums ( Diane Keaton…street? Sidewalk? Lamppost? Library book return drop? ), I only recognized one or two of the buildings, and felt no positive – or negative – connection. Which seemed logical, to moiself. After all, the school (to me) was the people, not the buildings. It just…wasn’t my school anymore. Such is The Nature of Things®.
I’d left much free time in my trip planning, by both design and circumstances ( I was going to meet up with family who, due to ongoing health issues, could not say when they were available until last minute). Thus it turned out that I had plenty o’ free time on Saturday before the reunion, and decided to check out some old hangouts: the Santa Ana Zoo, Norm’s restaurant, and Bowers Museum.
The Santa Ana Zoo – initially known as Prentice Park, was vastlydifferent than I’d remembered, which was a good thing, as the zoo’s animal enclosures from decades ago were PETA-protest worthy. Although much-improved (and, like most if not all zoological parks today, very conservation-focused), the SAZ is still not an AZA member. [3] Even so, I had a good time observing the wildlife. And the animals were interesting, as well.
I had a nice interaction with this ocelot, who seemed to like looking at my hat.
Three of my visit’s highlights included what surrounded me after I’d ordered lunch at the zoo’s café and ate it on a table by the children’s play area/sandpit:
* A tiny boy, picking up pinecones under the trees by an outdoor eating area, toddled over to my table and solemnly presented me with one of his treasures. His mother was both proud of and astonished by her son’s generosity: “Oh, this is a first!” she gushed. “He’s so shy, he *never* approaches or even makes eye contact with strangers!” I reassured her, “Yes, well, I have that effect on men.”
* I overheard (then watched) two different parents – each trying to remain The Reasonable One ® despite their respective, escalating irritation – discussing what had happened and what then should happen re an altercation between their children. Dad A wanted Mom B’s son to apologize to Dad A’s toddler daughter, whom Mom B’s toddler son had pushed over in the sand pit by the swings. Mom B’s boy wandered off after the encounter (with Dad B chasing after him); Dad A was not pleased with Mom & Dad Bs’ reluctance to get their toddler to apologize. “Oh, he’s very young,” was their excuse, which Dad A countered with, “This is how they learn…“, adding, “Good luck with that,”when Mom B indicated that no apology would be forthcoming ( “They’re just kids; you don’t have to be snippy about it…”[4] )
* A family of four – two young men and two older women – sitting two tables away from me, played a game of Unowhile they waited for their café food order. They conversed loud enough so that I didn’t have to eavesdrop to hear the some of the details. Moiself surmised that the two young men were, patiently and with good humor, “defending” their sister (yay!), who was somehow a concern for the two older women (who didn’t like the young woman’s…boyfriend? Job? General life direction?). Also of interest to moiself was how smoothly all four family members switched from Spanish to English and back again, sometimes two or three times within the same sentence. Not being bilingual moiself[5], I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the cause/trigger for them to switch?
And what a surprise the Bowers Museum turned out to be. One of the city’s few “cultural” attractions, I remembered Bowers as the bane of Santa Ana schoolchildren, who had to do the obligatory (read: eyeball-evisceratingly boring) field trip to Bowers at least once in their elementary school career. [6] While Bower’s original (and beautiful) Spanish mission-style main building was still there, the museum had expanded. I remembered a few of the old/permanent exhibits, but there were many more, including the featured World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century, an impressive traveling exhibit I’d actually read about [7] before making the trip to SoCal.
Alas, I never made it to Norm’s (I got hungry and lunched at the zoo before heading to Bowers) I’d intended to send photographic proof of my being there to my older sister and her high school bestie, for whom Norm’s was a personal/in-joke, involving the less-than-stellar meals (with regard to the food’s taste and quality ) we’d had at that SoCal institution. The restaurant’s motto was, “Norm’s – We Never Close”( which I appended with, “No Matter What The Health Department says!” ).
“Okay, so the food is meh, but you can get it 24/7!”
All of these (and more) trips involved moiself taking Uber or Lyft , as I’d decided to forgo the hassle of car rental (and navigation of SoCal freeways). And that was entertainment in its own right. Really and truly, as I told several friends and family members, for my next trip I might be satisfied just booking different Uber or Lyft rides all day, to…wherever. Moiself so enjoyed the conversations I had with the drivers, all of whom were from a variety of different backgrounds and life experiences and who were friendly and eager to share their stories with me and hear mine in return, and who included:
* Jose and Raymundo, both of whom are getting married next week! [8]
* John, who’s off to Colorado to visit his daughter, who is expecting baby#1 next month!
* Zheng, who lives at the beach even though he can’t afford to, but it’s the beach!
* Michael, who is retired ( “big mistake”) and misses having something to do!
* Abdul, who’s only getting $4 for this fare (so he says) and wants me to know! [9]
Not one of my Uber drivers (but just as friendly).
* * *
Department Of Priorities
Dateline: Sunday, 8:15 am, the 61 Hundred Bread bakery in Santa Ana. I arrive early as advised and snagged a couple of loaves of their blue masa sourdough ( “Best sourdough in the universe” ), one to take to my older sister and her husband when I visit them later this afternoon, and one to take back with on the plane, for MH, when I return to Oregon.
Later in the morning, as I’m doing some prepacking for tomorrow’s flight, I realize I don’t have enough room in my carryon luggage to add the bread, unless I make some sacrifices. And so, the sparkly black *bling* sneakers I wore to the reunion will stay behind in the hotel room. [10]
* * *
The reunion committee, as wonderful as they were for all the details they had to plan and juggle, got my name wrong on the preprinted name tag they provided for attendees. They had me as “Robyn Parnell Wagnell,” which was one surname too many. The latter surname belongs to MH’s and my offspring (and is part of my email address; thus, the nametag mixup, I’m assuming). Not to worry; due to the facts that…
(a) this has happened before with nametags; and
(b) I don’t like premade nametags,
…I’d brought along my own, custom name badge.
There is a story behind why I decided to have my own name tag made.
Story Dateline: many, many years ago; attending an event wherein people were provided with sharpie pens and those HELLO MY NAME IS stickers. I am gob smacked by the number of people (and by people I mean, men) who have written their professional credentials after their name, and who are introducing themselves to me ala:
Introduction: “Hello, I’m Dr. Austin Tayshus.” ( Name tag reads: Austin Tayshus, Ph.D. or M.D. )
This event is neither a medical nor scientific conference, nor a professional gathering of any sort; it’s purely social. After the fifth or sixth time I encounter what moiself considers to be this boorish, status-signalling behavior, [11] I return to the party check-in table, grab a sharpie, and append my nametag to read, Robyn Parnell, N.a.D.
Which I have to explain to the next please-be-impressed-by-me Doc who introduces himself, then pretends, for a moment, that he recognizes my credential.
Pretensious Party Person: “Hello, I’m Dr. Igor Maniac. And I see you are……uh…’Na.D.” Yes, oh…Naturo…Allopathic….?
Moiself: “Robyn Parnell; Not A Doctor.”
Just want to make sure there’s no confusion about that.
Harold: “You sure have a way with people.” Maude: “Well, they’re my species.”
* * *
May you have entertaining encounters with ride service drivers; May you make any sacrifice necessary to include the sourdough; May you not need to have the Harold and Maude reference explained to you ; [13]
[2] And as for the bbq joint meetup, by the time I’d Ubered to my hotel and checked in, I could have shown up later, but I checked out its menu on line. Yikes. Nothing a plant-eater such as moiself would be interested in eating. Or even smelling.
[3] I wonder if that’s due to it’s size, or quality of animal exhibits/care, or….?
[4] Oh, the joy of watching that interaction and thinking about how I don’t have to navigate that world anymore.
[5] Being able to curse, insult, and critique the bathroom supplies in several languages doesn’t count as language fluency…I think.
[6] Or whenever we had the city and/or county history/social studies blocks.
[7] But didn’t know it would be at the Bowers Museum.
[11] It’s okay to be proud of your profession, and/or the education you received to get it, but other people also work hard and take pride in their professions sans trumpet-blaring – I couldn’t think of a reason why a person would do that at a social gathering, other than they wanted to accrue some kind of special treatment/elevated status points for being “a doctor” of…whatever.
[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
[13] And if you do, may the first thing you do after reading this is find some way to see that movie.
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard’s pear tree. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of Questions With No Answers
Two almost identical exclamations, used to express disappointment/anger and/or disgust with a less-than-optimum situation. Both involve euphemisms for feces; both can engender differing reactions from the exclamation over-hearers.
“Oh, crap!” (responses include outright agreement, sympathetic clucks,
knowing nods, maybe a slight grimace)
“Oh, shit!” (responses include silent disapproval, maybe a sympathetic nod, cringing, mouthing anguage, please, or Don’t cuss in front of Grandma! )
Is it just the fact, due to the continuing evolution of acceptable usage, that the former expression has gained wide acceptance while the latter is considered crude (or even at the level of cursing)?
Just wondering.
* * *
Department Of Just As Important As Having Your Heart In The Right Place Is Having Your Head In The Right Place
You’d have to put a gun to my head to force me to watch a SeaWorld orca show, an animal-act circus or other “entertainment” events which use (read: abuse and exploit) animals. I do support the educational and conservation work done by AZA accredited zoos, aquariums, and animal rescue organizations. MH and I are longtime Oregon Zoo members, and I think that our offsprings’ participation in the ZooTeens program [2] was partly responsible for nurturing their interests in science in general and biology in particular.
The Oregon Zoo Foundation is one of several charities to which MH and I regularly donate. This week we received the foundation’s end-of-year update for donors, including the announcement that Rose-Tu, a member of the zoo’s family of Asian elephants, is pregnant. This will be the first elephant born at the Oregon Zoo in ten years, and during those past ten years the zoo’s elephant habitat has undergone a massive expansion/makeover ( “Elephant Lands” ). [3]
The announcement re Rose-Tu brought to mind the Free Packy Lady, ® whom I encountered outside the zoo, some 15+ years ago. But first, some context.
The late great Asian elephant Packy (1962 – 2017) was a beloved, long-time resident of the Oregon Zoo. Born at the Seattle Woodland Park zoo to wild-born parents, Packy had several claims to fame, including having been the first elephant born in the Western Hemisphere in 44 years, and growing up to be one of the tallest Asian elephants in the USA (and perhaps the world). Packy was arguably the most famous zoo resident of his time (LIFEmagazine did an 11-page article on him in their 5-11-62 issue) and was considered a “star” in and beyond the zoo and animal conservation worlds, as his birth and subsequent life were closely monitored and studied and had a huge impact on Asian elephant care and breeding programs worldwide. [4]
I visited the zoo weekly when son K and daughter Belle were young; when they were in school, I’d occasionally visit on my own. One day, during one of my solo visits, one of Packy’s keepers noticed me playing a game of “hide ‘n seek” with Packy. It was a slow day; moiself was the only visitor at the elephant habitat. I’d noticed Packy watching me as I stood by the fence in an area where he was playing with a pile of greenery (you’re never too old to play with your food). To test whether he was actually watching moiself, I moved to a spot behind a structure where he couldn’t see me, then peeked out from the other side of the structure. Packy began following my movements and anticipating where I would appear next…or at least, that’s what it seemed like to me. Maybe I was just imagining his attention? Packy’s keeper approached me, introduced himself, and confirmed that yes, Packy was in fact playing a game with me. The keeper shared this fun fact: Packy had a “fixation” on hats; specifically, on women wearing hats (I was wearing a red rain hat). As in, in that keeper’s interpretation/opinion, Packy didn’t like certain kinds of hats, and if Packy had been able to get close enough to me he likely would have snatched the hat right off of my head.
Once again, I digress….
Today, the vast majority of US zoo elephants are native-born, via breeding programs monitored by the AZA [Association of Zoos and Aquariums] as part of their endangered species survival plan. Some zoos obtain wild-born elephants who are “rescued” from captive tourist and/or work camps in Asia and/or Africa, or from the danger of being culled (read: executed) due to humans expanding into elephant territory.
But capturing wild elephants was the unfortunate standard practice for zoos, private wildlife “collections,” and circuses, up until the 1980s, when a combination of animal rights/conservation awareness and shrinking wild populations led to most countries outlawing the practice.
Today’s zoos focus on conservation and education, and often host a population of rescued and endangered species who are cared for on site but not on display to zoo visitors, as part of species survival and repopulation programs. Many if not all zoos have had their dark histories, but those who decry their continued existence don’t seem to understand the world all of us animals currently inhabit, which includes the sad fact that the only way some species may survive [5] is because of zoo care/breeding programs and educational efforts. Human population is exploding; thus, the world for wild animals is shrinking – that ship has sailed when it comes to the idea that all animals should live in their native habitats, when those habitats are increasingly being invaded and altered (read: destroyed) by humans.
“Zoos serve as vital conservation facilities supporting the most endangered
species. Indeed, zoos have built a successful track record with breeding and reintroduction programs aimed at repopulating extinct animals. Far too many species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, hunting, and ecological threats. As scientists warn we are in a “Sixth Mass Extinction,” the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species estimates there are over 42,100 species ‘threatened with extinction.’ By maintaining populations of these endangered
species, zoos can provide a safety net against the specter of extinction in the wild.” ( Center for the Environment &Welfare, “The Benefits of Zoos for Conservation and Education “)
Still, the mere existence of any kind of zoo/wildlife park/reserve is controversial to some people. There are animal rights groups, e.g., Free Oregon Zoo Elephants, which work to stop all zoo breeding programs and advocate shipping existing zoo elephants to sanctuaries to live out the remainder of their lives “…in peace and freedom.” [6]
So…yes…the Free Packy Lady. I encountered her when she was demonstrating outside of the zoo’s main entrance, one afternoon when I’d come to visit daughter Belle during her zoo volunteer shift. I couldn’t tell, from the hand-written sign FPLheld (which read “FREE PACKY”), if FPLwas associated with a group or was there on her own, but she had a friendly face and I was in a curious mood. I approached her, introduced myself, and asked if she would tell me why, as her sign indicated, she was advocating for Packy to be “free,” and what that term (“free”) meant to her?
FPL: “It means Packy will be freed from life at the zoo.”
Moiself: “Okay. So, freed *from* the zoo means…what? Where would he live?”
FPL: “There’s an elephant sanctuary in California (she probably meant this one),
and one in Tennessee.”
Moiself: “Oh, that would be The Hohenwald Sanctuary.” [7] FPL(gushing, eyes brightening): “You know about the Howenwald sanctuary!?”
Moiself: “I read their newsletter cover to cover. I’ve been a monthly donor [8] for several years….”
Obviously thinking me to be a kindred spirit in the cause of elephant liberation, FPL began to dig into a large satchel she carried that was crammed with papers and pamphlets.
FPL: “There’s a list of people you can call, to ask them to support the movement to free Packy, and the other….”
Moiself(cutting her off, as politely as possible): “Thank you, but I’m not going to do that. Elephants are highly social creatures, forming deep interpersonal bonds….”
FPL’svisage dulled. I’m not sure how to describe it; it’s as if that translucent eyelid that some birds and reptiles have (a nictitating membrane ) lowered across her eyes.
Moiself: “…I think that removing Packy from his family would be cruel and, I believe, misguided. What do you think about alternative….”
FPLabruptly turned away from me and headed for a family with two toddler daughters who were approaching the zoo entry booth.
I rarely engage with petitioners and/or demonstrators, outside the zoo or elsewhere. In my experience their mentality is that of religious solicitors: they are there to proselytize, and don’t really want to engage you in actual give-and-take conversation. Although I did engage another, free-Packy-the-elephant demonstrator ® at the zoo, a month or so later, again by the zoo entrance as I was leaving. This demonstrator was there with a group, but stepped aside from the group to engage in an affable discussion with me. We bonded over our mutual, lifelong interest in and love of elephants, and both acknowledged that the real danger facing Asian and African elephants is habitat destruction. We had a good ten minute chat, and parted with a handshake as she agreed with my supposition that time and money might be better spent investing in ways to stop human elephant poaching and habitat encroaching rather than to work to “free” a USA-born elephant from the only home and family he has ever known.
“A sharp distinction between humans and ‘animals’ is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.” – Carl Sagan
* * *
May you strive to *not* talk shit in front of Granny; May you appreciate the rareness that is a genuine conversation with a demonstrator; May you realize it’s never too late to develop a lifelong love of elephants; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago.
[2] Now defunct; it has morphed into ZAP, Zoo Apprenticeship Program.
[3] )….which they now realize will need modifications to ensure that a baby elephant will not be able to, say, squeeze under or between structures that would safely contain a juvenile or adult elephant. Thus – surprise! – the announcement included a solicitation for donations for the retrofitting/improvements.
[4] “Twenty-eight calves have been born at the zoo since 1962, and the facility has become a leader in understanding the care, enrichment, and captive breeding of Asian elephants.” (Oregon Encyclopedia: Packy the elephant. )
[5] Tacoma’s Pt Defiance Zoo is part of the Red Wolf Recovery program. Red wolves are the most endangered mammal in the USA (less than 20 survive in the wild) and will only be repopulated due to the success of captive recovery programs. Three species of rhino (black, Javan, and Sumatran) are critically endangered; the Oregon Zoo participates in the AZA’s breeding program for Black Rhinos, as the species is being decimated by poaching and habitat destruction.
[6] Packy was euthanized in 2017 due to a recurrence of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Hey Weather, A Forty Degree Differential? Is This Really Necessary?
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Department Of Back To School…No Thanks
The first morning I saw the school buses back on the road, moiself overheard a conversation between two parents, whose children are past school age, about “what they miss most” about the school years. An equally interesting conversation, I thought, would be what you do *not* miss about those years. Definitely at the top of my school memories list is what happened to daughter Belle, one day during her sophomore year of high school. Here is the email moiself sent at the time (sans graphics), detailing the incident to certain friends. [1]
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012 11:59 PM Subject: If you don’t read this all the way through, the (school bureaucrat) terrorists have won
Dateline, yesterday (Tuesday, April 10). MH took Belle to a first-thing-in-the-morning doctor’s appointment (to check on Belle’s knee that she had injured at track practice the previous week). The appointment would, we estimated, cause her to miss her first class and arrive a little bit late for her second class at Liberty High School (LHS). In accordance with LHS policy, we’d phoned the attendance office earlier that morning re Belle’s appointment and late arrival to school. When MH dropped Belle off at school after her appointment Belle followed the protocol for such arrivals: she went straight to the attendance office, picked up her excused absence/late arrival form, and took it to her 2nd period class.
Essential background info: Many LHS classrooms, and also staff break rooms, have microwave ovens. Unbeknownst to the major players in the story that is to follow, someone at LHS had used one of the microwaves in the staff room that morning, had spilled/burned whatever it was they were trying to heat, then did a less-than-adequate job of cleaning up their mess. The smell got worse over the next few hours, as other people proceeded to use the appliance…. Anyone who has ever shared a common break room/office microwave knows how that goes (I remember it well – the worst was someone’s seven times re-nuked tuna salad. Ick, to infinity.).
Bear with me; this gets more interesting.
Ten minutes after Belle had settled into her second period class, a school security guard entered the classroom, spoke with the teacher, and escorted Belle to the office of SM__, the LHS Dean of Students. (MH and I, working in our respective offices, at Intel and at home, were of course oblivious to this.)
I received a phone call at 10:30 am from SM___. (Disclosure: we know the Dean of Students, SM__, personally; or rather, we are friends with her elderly parents). She is calling, SM__ said, about Belle. It seems that after Belle arrived at school, “a couple of people” reported that Belle smelled of marijuana, and so Belle was brought to the Dean’s office and her person and book packs searched (yes, plural: Belle carries multiple packs, what with her books/school supplies and track shoes and clothing). No trace of Evil Weed ® nor drugs of any kind were found (duh), but, in the course of the search, a murderous machete teeny tiny multipurpose tool (Leatherman’s smallest, their micra multi tool, which is standard issue for all hominid members of our household) was found at the bottom of one of Belle’s book packs.
The school district’s policy is the infamous “zero tolerance” on “weapons” of any kind…and although Belle “should” be suspended from school for a day, Dean SM__told me that she’d decided to give Belle after-school detention (“it was the smallest knife we’d ever seen.”). The horrendous threat to national security mini-pocketknife was confiscated, and would be kept at the attendance office, for either MH or I to identify and claim it.
I must confess I was stifling laughter during the Dean’s phone call, from shock as well as bemusement and bewilderment. Thus, I neglected to ask all the questions that just begged to be posed (like, Excuse me, WHO made the marijuana accusations?). The illicit switchblade pocketknife was just a stupid mistake. Belle, like all students, knows the silly rule about no “weapons.” She takes her Leatherman tool to her weekend zoo shifts, where she uses it to trim goat dingleberries and whatever. [2] She keeps a separate bag for her zoo stuff, but on busy days things get transferred from one bag to another…and in her rush to get all her stuff and go to the doctor’s appointment, she grabbed the wrong bag that day.
After I’d hung up from the phone call with Dean SM__ I called MH, to let him know what was going on (and ask him, uh, had the doctor rubbed any strange-smelling liniment or ointment on Belle’s knee, or was she wearing any lotion that might smell like…what am I saying?) Oh…are you serious? MH was as bemused as I. Belle’s going to be really upset about this, he cautioned. I told him I was going to figure out a time to go and see the Dean and straighten this ridiculous thing out…unless he, the more likely of the two of us who would be able to keep the Are you people insane?!?!?!?!? look off of his face, would like to do the honors. He laughed, and declined.
I sent a quick email to our friend (and family attorney), Jane, [3] re the situation, then received a text from Belle, which started the following exchange.
Belle: I can’t believe this.
Moiself: How’s my favorite little dope smoker?
Belle: Oh my gosh I want to cry.
Moiself: Are you at lunch? Don’t message in class…and don’t cry, don’t worry; you’ll look back on this & laugh.
Belle: I’ll call you at passing time.
Belle tried to call me between classes, but the reception was bad, and the calls kept getting dropped. She was able to text again a few minutes later.
Belle: I’m soooooo pissed right now!! I don’t want a stupid detention!!
Moiself: Call me!
Belle: I can’t, class just started. I’ll call when I go to the bathroom or something.
Moiself: Remember to breathe – and laugh. You’ll be fine – I love you.
Belle: Thanks! And by the way – I DON’T SMOKE WEED!!!
Moiself: I know you don’t…but maybe one of the attendance office staff does. 😉
Turns out, my little comment was close to the truth. As I found out later, it was one of the attendance office staff who’d made the accusation.
In the meantime, Attorney Friend Jane replied to my email (which I had titled, Just wait until your daughter is in public school). The core of her reply, with much censoring and redacting, follows:
“Oh, for ______’s sake. REALLY? REALLY?!!
Poor Belle – I mean, it’s a great story for six months or years from now, but I’m sure she’s mortified/furious/hurt.
I’m glad the Dean of Students is an acquaintance, because most schools have zero tolerance policies that would have gotten her the suspension.
The lawyer in me (who only has a passing acquaintance with school law) says:
She has due process rights.
That would include a right to confront accusers.
So you/she should be told who made the accusations.
And whether there was, in fact probable cause and/or reasonable suspicion (I can’t remember what it is for schools).
Because she also has a right to unreasonable searches.
If the original basis for the search is invalid, the search is invalid.
Therefore, there would be no finding of the machete. I mean, penknife.
Therefore, no discipline.
…If it were my kid, I would only really go down this road if you determine something goes in her official file, because of course that should be expunged. Unless it is very important to Belle.”
I received another text from Belle, right before she was about to get out of class for lunch, just as I finished reading Jane’s email. I began to ponder the mystery of what was it that someone smelled that got Belle accused of being a stoner.
Belle: Wow, right now the entire school smells like a mixture of weed and burning stuff.
Moiself: Really? Are you about to go to lunch?
Belle: Yea. When they were searching me they mentioned that they had received a few other comments about weed smell. I wonder if that was it. Cause it REEEEEEEEEKS in here.
Moiself: CALL ME RIGHT NOW!
Belle: Sorry – class almost over. I’ll call ya in 5.
She did, and this time the call wasn’t dropped. The puzzle pieces were starting to fit in: some other students had told Belle what the smell was from (the microwave spill story). Belle said she’d noticed the smell in the hallway in the morning, when she came to school after her appointment and checked in at the attendance office. So, when Belle opened the door to the attendance office (which is closed off from the main hallway), the smell came in with her.
I told her to go, RIGHT NOW, to the Dean of Students (whose office is behind the attendance office, far away from the main hallway) and tell her that! Belle was very reluctant to do so; she said that, as a student, she didn’t think she would be believed, but I encouraged her to stand up for herself for being falsely accused, speak calmly, rationally…and to tell Dean SM___ that I would be stopping by to talk with her.
Belle (text at the end of lunch: I tried talking to her, but she didn’t seem to get that I thought they searched me under wrong pretenses or whatever. Maybe you’ll have more luck.
Twenty minutes later I was at the school main office. I asked to see Dean SM___ . “The Dean is with someone in her office right now; do you have an appointment?” one of the narcs attendance ladies asked. “Nooooooo,” sez I, baring my teeth, with an angelic smile. “My name is Robyn Parnell; I’m Belle _____’s mother.” “Oh,” attendance lady lowered her voice, “I know what you’re here for.” She scooted into a back room, emerged with Belle’s little Leatherman, handed it to me with a conspiratorial wink and grin, and seemed to think I would then shoo myself away.
“Thank you,” I said, reaching into my purse to pull out my (identical to Belle’s) matching Leatherman. “Just to let you know, I’m also ‘packing.’ Is this okay?” Attendance lady blinks several times. “I’m going to wait to speak with Dean SM__,” I told her, as I took a seat in one of the waiting area chairs, “as my daughter has been falsely accused.”
In five minutes I was escorted back to SM__’s office, where we both explained our “sides” of the incident. SM___ seemed somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing, without being apologetic. After all (and I understand this part), she was just doing her job. The point I wanted her to get, which I made several times using different tacks, is that the pocketknife thing was not the big deal to either Belle or I. Rather, our larger concern was the false accusation of contraband-smoking, which led to the needless search. What kind of evidence is needed to justify a search? I asked. Is it that someone can simply declare, “I think so and so ____ (is smoking a doobie; has stolen my calculator),” and the accused student’s belongings get searched? That gives a lot of power to, say, a disgruntled, grudge-holding student who wants to get a rival in trouble, or a paranoid, jump-to-conclusions staff member. SM__ explained that schools have legal license to operate on different grounds, for safety concerns, ad nauseum…but they do try to weigh accusations carefully (and have encountered false ones, for just the reasons I mentioned – someone trying to get someone else in trouble). One time an entire class’s book packs were searched because a teacher’s private possessions had been stolen, and you wouldn’t believe the things we found!! Blah Blah blah….
Had this been something that would have gone on Belle’s permanent record, “I don’t want to do the waving the lawyers thing at you,” I said, but my husband and I would have pursued ‘legal remedies.’ “ I was assured that a detention does not go on a student’s permanent record. Okay, fine, let Belle do the high school equivalent of staying after school to clean erasers; perhaps she’ll be more diligent about which book bag she brings where, and keep her zoo stuff separate. SM___ reminded me again that this is the first time in all of her Deanhood (not her exact words) that she has *not* suspended someone for bringing a sling blade dripping with fresh rabbit blood pocketknife to school; in fact, the school doesn’t even have a detention form for that kind of disciplinary action, as it usually merits an automatic suspension (she had to cross “suspension” off the form and write in “detention”), but, she must admit, it was the smallest blade she’d ever found….
And we have to know that if Belle brings a knife to school again (and is caught), it will be an automatic suspension (which, as I found out, also doesn’t go on any record that would be sent to colleges – nothing “behavioral” does, according to SM__, and even suspensions are expunged from a student’s record, after two years).
Well, okey dokey.
Just like when I see TSA agents preparing to do a full body cavity search on a wheelchair-bound granny whose titanium hip implant has tripped the airport security scanner, the confiscating of a teenage girl’s micro mini-Leatherman tool in no way assures me that They Are Keeping The Schools Safe For My Child ®. Ah, but such is life.
I emailed Lawyer Friend Jane with the update. Her response:
“Poor Belle. This is one of the crappiest life lessons anyone has to learn, and you’d think she could at least have waited until college to learn about the bureaucracy that grinds us all into dust….
(Also, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge from the front desk would have made me get that Leatherman out and get stabby!)
I think SM___is saying the standard for schools is reasonable suspicion, which is a lesser standard than probable cause, but given those facts, I don’t think it would rise to that. At least, I could write a really great brief arguing it didn’t; whether it does or not is up to the judge…which is another life lesson that I hope Belle doesn’t (ever) have to learn.
I had a sense that SM___ was trying her best to keep Belle out of trouble – but am kind of bewildered that suspensions aren’t actually something on a permanent record. What’s the point? It’s like when I ditched classes in high school and got suspended. Um, what? OK, I’ll go to the beach. No problem. Not on my permanent record? OK, no problem.
Anyway, I’m glad that it has a relatively good resolution, but life lessons, oy. I think you all deserve a meal out.”
Yes, another Life Object lesson for my darling daughter. Several, in fact, from this incident, including, Sadly, this won’t be the first nor the last time you will be falsely accused of something... which was to be one of the oy vey, dinner table topics of conversation last night.
Well, it didn’t qualify as a true dinner table conversation, as Belle was exhausted and just wanted to stay home to pick at leftovers. MH and I went out for Thai food because by dinner time I was (still) too pissed off to cook, and probably would have burned the halibut, and then the burr-under-his-saddle, retired cop who lives next door would have caught a whiff and thought I was cooking up methamphetamine and he’d sick the narco squad on me….
End of email
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Moiself’s notes to moiself, at the time of the incident and email:
I have zero tolerance for schools’ zero tolerance policies (same for the so-called Three Strikes laws). I’m against anything that removes reasoned assessment and context from crucial situations and promotes/rewards hysteria and overreaction and subjects even minor infractions to a one-size-fits-all analysis.
Yes, it’s both more difficult and time-consuming to deal with possible disciplinary actions on a case-by-case basis. But isn’t thoughtful, careful examination and investigation of evidence what we are trying to teach our kids to do?
A mini-Leatherman is a tool; a switchblade is a weapon. Could a tiny pocketknife be used as a weapon? Of course, just as your fist or foot could. Belle’s stainless steel lunch thermos could be used to BASH SOMEONE’S HEAD IN. Her art classrooms have Exact-o knifes and other slasher weapons, and the things you can do with a pencil, or other writing implements (remember the scene in Goodfellas in which Joe Pesci takes a pen to a guy’s throat?)….
I wonder if the school administrators and security guards who rigidly enforce these over-the-top policies fully understand the contempt the students hold for them (both the policies and the enforcers) – contempt both Belle and her older brother K and their friends had told me about, well before Belle’s incident. They (school administrators and security guards) patrol the halls with their walkie-talkies on their belts, like modern day gunslingers (I might get detention for using such an analogy), hassling students for minor infractions, yet somehow managing to avoid the truly dangerous situations. “They are on such a power trip, and they never get the really bad kids,” I’ve heard many a student remark.
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When I look back on it, [4] I think even more strongly what I thought at the time:
What a wasted opportunity – for the so-called adults running the school to do the right thing…
What a wasted opportunity to apologize to a young person; what a wasted opportunity to show good citizenship, good leadership, good humanity, by admitting when you are wrong and demonstrating that by doing so you are not diminishing your authority, prestige or whatever…
No one ever expressed their regret to Belle, for falsely accusing and humiliating her. Instead, they found an excuse to hold her after school… It’s like ITAL Oh, we have to do *something* in order not to appear like we’ve over-reacted,ITAL instead of what they should have done: admit their mistake, apologize, and let her go…and offer to help put everything back in her bookbag they had callously and power-trippingly dumped out on the floor.
May your most frustrating stories be tamed by time; May you never be too proud to admit you’re wrong when you’re wrong; May you survive the bureaucracy that grinds us all into dust; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[4] which isn’t often, except for what inspired this post.
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Holy Mother Of Romulus And Remus – I Saw An Effin’ Wolf
Dateline: Wednesday, circa 12:45 pm, Oregon highway 26, headed west (toward the coast), at about milepost 15 or 16. The movement from the north (right) side of the road caught my eye; in the micro-mico-millisecond it took me to register the movement I took my foot off the accelerator and thought,
Oh, great, a deer is about to spring across the road.
There was no springing. That micro-micro movement morphed into an elegant running creature, crossing the two-lane highway, a mere 20-30 feet ahead of me. The animal was the size of a deer but definitely not a deer; my mind immediately tried to register, “coyote,” except that I’ve seen plenty of coyotes running across roads (or fields) or loping on/crossing hiking trails ahead of me. This canid was the size of a deer and had long, thin legs and different body posture from a coyote (its long tail was horizontal to its spine, not tucked, as a coyote’s would be). I’ve never seen a canid run like that, the way it held its large, majestic head, so very upright, like one of those carousel animals….
The wolf’s head was like this, vis-à-vis its posture…but nothing remotely zebra-ish otherwise
Yes, moiselfknows I am babbling right now, but holy fuck, this is the first wolf I’ve seen this close [1] and I am (still, two days later) gobsmacked. Oh, but for a camera mounted on my car’s front bumper!
There arewolves in Oregon. Many (but not all) of them are tagged (for tracking/ study purposes), and most live in the eastern part of the state, although wolves can and do roam…and a few of Oregon’s have roamed as far as So Cal . The one which crossed the road in front of me appeared to be heading toward Tillamook county…looking for a cheese fix, perhaps?
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Department Of Life Is So Unfair
Yet another of life’s inequities to ponder:
If you donate a kidney, everybody loves you and you’re a total hero.
But try donating five kidneys and suddenly everyone is yelling and the police get involved….
Apologies to the late Stephen Sondheim. I’m sure the opening to moiself’s blog would have been better if Sondheim had composed it, given the complex polyphony which was his style. [2] May we all take a moment to pause to remember and appreciate he-who-was-arguably among the greatest of American lyricists and composers.
Bravo, Stephen.
And now, three vignettes of my Tuesday In The Park.
Dateline: Tuesday, circa 7: 15 am. Which way shall I go this morning? I decide to do the to-and-from to a light rail station which, given my circuitous route, will be a 3-3.5 mile jaunt. I take one of the trails leading through a neighborhood park, when what to my wondering eyes did appear
I pause to document the odd (to me) sight, then post the picture on my Facebook page, soliciting explanations:
“OK; what’s the story here? A fire extinguisher, about 25 yards from the nearest house, under a tree, in a bunch of wet leaves?”
There were some creative hypotheses. I liked my daughter Belle’s offering best:
“They were deep frying a turkey and forgot to bring that back in.”
Vignette the Second
Department Of Appreciating A Form Of Reasoning Which
Is The Process Of Drawing A Conclusion
Based On Premises Generally Assumed To Be True;
As In, Using A Logical Premise To Reach A Logical Conclusion.
Same morning walk, 20 minutes later: now the sun is trying to rise above the cloudy horizon. I’m taking a winding road through a neighborhood adjacent to the park, a road I traverse at least once a week on my way to the walkway which leads to the afore-mentioned light rail station. As moiself rounds a corner I exchange good morning greetings with a couple I have come to know by sight. They and their three canine companions are out for (what I assume is) the morning ritual of dog owners everywhere: that which moiself thinks of as the “P Five” – the Puppy People’s Predawn Poop Perambulation. ®
It appears my presumptions are spot-on. A the couple passes by on the other side of the street I notice that the (presumed) husband has two plastic bags of (presumed) doggie-doody swinging from a strap around his wrist.
Ain’t deductive reasoning grand? Truly, ’tis a cognitive process we often take for granted… until we meet a #45 conspiracy theorist who wouldn’t know the concept of deductive reasoning from his ass if it were wrapped in a MAGA hat and sticking out of a hole in the ground. [3]
Vinaigrette the Third
Department Of Later That Same Morning…
I have reached the station and am headed home. I am walking on a pathway near the athletic fields west of the station. Yet another dog-walking couple with whom I have an I Hi-there-we-pass-each-other-at-least-once-a-week relationship [4] are walking toward me. As we approach each other we all look skyward at the same time, toward the sounds of at least five different, low-flying, scraggly V formations of Canada geese, calling out to their comrades as they head southeast to…wherever.
The man points his finger upward and says,
“That’s a very nice sound, isn’t it?”
Moiself points to my rain-or-shine hat, then at their respective visors, and replies:
“Yes, it is.
And it’s very nice – and very smart – of us to have hats on
when we’re walking underneath flying birds.”
The three of us chuckle as we pass one another, our mirth punctuated by the sound of…uh, plops… from overhead landing on the grass on either side of the walkway.
“I hate it when they wear protection.” “Yeah; we’ll get ’em next time.”
Department Of Belated Content Warnings
Moiself just realized I missed the opportunity to apply a content warning to the previous segments: two of my three park vignettes involved a mention of shit “animal droppings.”
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Department Of Kill Your Heroes
Dateline: a week or so ago, MH and I were discussing a recent podcast we’d both (separately) listened to, in which one of the stories presented involved an immigrant Chinese worker exploited by a railroad baron. We somehow segued to the subject of power, as in, having power over the lives of others, and how easy it is to draw lines and reach binary conclusions, particularly when we judge the wielding of power in the past. Railroad tycoon = bad. Chinese railroad worker = good.
It’s an interesting subject to ponder: how would the immigrant railroad worker have behaved if he’d been the one with the power? Perhaps he was downtrodden at work; what about when he returned home where, as a man in a patriarchal society, he had power over others simply by virtue of his gender? Would he have shared his power with his wife and daughters? Would he have encouraged their own dreams and aspirations, or subjected them to foot binding and/or denied them access to education as per the other cultural torture norms of his time and place?
No matter what our intentions, moiself thinks it’s healthy to keep a certain supposition in mind: [5] that most if not all of us may be just a couple of rungs on the authority ladder away from being the despots our descendants might denigrate.
Moiself remembers the less-than-positive reaction I have garnered over the years, when I’ve been asked the question, “Who are your heroes?” and I’ve replied, truthfully, “I have no heroes.”
There are historical figures whom I admire for specific things they did: causes they fought for, injustices they tried to right, etc. That said, I do not believe in having “heroes” because it seems that we – and by “we” I mean, every human being but moiself ( ahem, I mean of course, every human being *including* moiself ) – do not know how to apply perspective – that is, how to consider so-called heroic people for the flawed human beings they are.
Some great scientist will – someday very soon, I hope – discover the key to fixing global warming. But, years later when it is revealed that she was, say, consistently rude to waiters and others in the service industry and disparaged anyone whom she considered to be “beneath” her, our descendants will argue over whether or not such a practitioner of classism should have a high school named after her…and should the Nobel committee rescind the prize they bestowed upon her?
Early 20th century activist Margaret Sanger was inspired (in part by her own family history) to work to liberate women from early death and abject poverty due to their lack of bodily autonomy which consigned them to lives of serial breeding. Sanger withstood withering criticism, ostracization, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats to her life, from individuals and powerful organizations (read: the Catholic church) alike, not only for advocating birth control, but also for simply teaching women about their own bodies and reproductive cycles – which was illegal!
Sanger strongly believed that the ability to control family size was crucial to ending the cycle of women’s poverty. But it was illegal to distribute birth control information. Working as a visiting nurse, she frequented the homes of poor immigrants, often with large families and wives whose health was impaired by too many pregnancies, miscarriages, or in desperation botched abortions. Often, too, immigrant wives would ask her to tell them “the secret,” presuming that educated white women like Sanger knew how to limit family size. Sanger made it her mission to 1) provide women with birth control information and 2) repeal the federal Comstock Law, which prohibited the distribution of obscene materials through the mails, and regarded birth control information as such. ( “Margaret Sanger,” womenshistory.org )
Margaret Sanger also made some comments which, taken out of time and context, are used as a cudgel – particularly during political campaigns by conservative, anti-abortion Republicans – to discredit Sanger and to brand her (and, by association, Planned Parenthood and any organization supporting birth control and women’s reproductive autonomy) – as “racist.”
Sanger’s stated mission was to empower women to make their own reproductive choices. She did focus her efforts on minority communities, because that was where, due to poverty and limited access to health care, women were especially vulnerable to the effects of unplanned pregnancy. As she framed it, birth control was the fundamental women’s rights issue. “Enforced motherhood,” she wrote in 1914, “is the most complete denial of a woman’s right to life and liberty.”
That’s not to say that Sanger didn’t also make some deeply disturbing statements in support of eugenics, the now-discredited movement to improve the overall health and fitness of humankind through selective breeding…. She was, of course, not alone in this viewpoint: In the 1920s and 1930s, eugenics enjoyed widespread support from mainstream doctors, scientists and the general public. ( “What Margaret Sanger Really Said About Eugenics and Race,” Time, 10-14-16 )
What Margaret Sanger may or may not have thought about eugenics does not change her ground-breaking accomplishments in helping to unshackle generations of women from lives of compulsory brood mare-ism.
Likewise, Nelson Mandela deserves high praise for his tenacious fight against the immorality of apartheid. But if you elevate the man to a myth, you’ll be disappointed to find that your great moral hero sacrificed his family life to his causes (and expected them to do the same), did almost nothing to alleviate or even acknowledge the growing AIDS crisis in his country (he later admitted to being “shy” re talking about a sexually transmitted disease), and upheld and instituted economic policies which have kept poor South Africans living in much the same conditions as when they were under apartheid, while the country has had to live with “…growing insecurity, violence, and crime.”
The more you know about historical figures, the more material you will have for being disappointed in or by them. They were creatures of their time, as we are, of ours. Even the most prescient of us will be judged harshly by future generations.
So, admire the ideals and actions [6] of justice warriors – certainly! But just as certainly, never worship the creatures behind the causes. Don’t idolize *people;* do venerate the high *principles* for which those flawed people have fought.
* * *
Department Of A Blast From Christmas Past
Dateline: Southern California, in the late 1960s – early 1970s. For some reason, for a few years in the Westchester area of Los Angeles the “in” holiday décor was having a giant (as in, eight to ten foot tall) red wooden candle in your front yard. [7] I’m 100% sure how the fad began; I seem to recall my Uncle Joe telling me that some guy had made one for his yard, his neighbors admired it and he made some more for them, and then other home carpenters/crafty-types figured it out, and it took off from there.
When visiting our LA relatives (my aunt and uncle, Gwen and Joe Baker, and their five children) during the Christmas season my family would drive around their neighborhood at night, just to see the big ass candles. All of the yard candles had the same setup: a lone red candle, with a spotlight illuminating the candle from base to the top. At the base of the candle were wooden letters, painted white, spelling out the name of the family in whose yard the candle stood. In two or three cases I can recall, the word at the base of the candle was, “Noel” or “Yule,” but for 99% of the candles it was the family name.
Uncle Joe was quite the carpenter hobbyist (one of my favorite creations of his was a motorized wooden Santa and elves display that he put out on the rooftop, every Christmas). Joe constructed a Christmas yard candle for his family’s front yard, with their surname “Baker” prominently spotlighted. A few days after my grandmother admired her daughter Gwen’s and SIL Joe’s yard candle, Joe drove down to Santa Ana and installed, in my grandmother’s front yard, the candle he had made for her. Thus, Edna Gertrude Hole [8] became the only person in Santa Ana (as far as we knew) who had an eight-foot-tall red candle in her front yard with a spotlight illuminating her last name.
I haven’t been able to find any pictures of the Westchester yard candles. Think of something like this, only made of wood, with a white top, eight feet tall, in someone’s front yard, with a sign at the base.
My grandmother left her yard candle up for that one holiday season. The day after Christmas she telephoned Joe and asked him to come and fetch it. The thrill wore off for her, the third or fourth night Edna Hole answered her doorbell – which had been rung by a person who’d been walking or driving by – and found herself listening to a total stranger sharing their concerns regarding her holiday décor: [9]
“Excuse me, I don’t want to embarrass you, but I think you’ve misspelled, ‘Holy.’ “
* * *
Punz For The Day Heroes-Not-To-Be-Worshipped Edition
Q. Why did Wonder Woman stop checking her email? A. Her inbox was loaded with Spamazons. [10]
If Iron Man and Silver Surfer teamed up, would they would be alloys?
Q. What does Peter Parker say when people ask him what he does for a living? A. Web designer.
Have you heard of The Incredible Hulk’s new fashion line? It’s all the rage.
* * *
May you see a wolf before you die (but not see it and then…die); May you applaud the deeds and have forbearance for the deed-doers; May your holiday yard décor provide confusion and/or entertainment to passing strangers; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] The wild ones I saw in Alaska were much farther away, and the ones in zoos don’t “count.”
[6] Should, of course, those ideals and actions be truly admirable, as opposed to ill-considered, rash, or merely attention-seeking.
[7] And then, just three or four years after the fad started, no one put up the candles anymore. What happened?
[8] Yes, that was her real (married) name. She was born Edna Gertrude Moran; Hole was her husband’s family surname – apparently, it was prestigious name in the tiny Norwegian town they came from, but in America? No surprise it never occurred to my mother to keep her birth surname.
[9] I always wondered, why didn’t she just remove her family name, and keep the candle?
“As of 2019, the total fertility rate was 1.7 — that’s 1.7 babies born per woman of child-bearing age over her lifetime.”
I immediately thought of my two children, K and Belle, both young adults and successfully fledged. They keep up with politics, demographics and current affairs. I pondered how moiself, as a Loving and Responsible Parent ®, can honestly respond to them should they run across this statistic, then pose the inevitable question.
How will I decide which one of them is the .7 child? Should I flip a coin? Make my judgment based on which one is more likely to visit me in the nursing home (or less likely to put me in one)?
* * *
Department Of Sometimes It’s Better To Let Your Imagination Run Wild With The Question And Not Even Care About The Answer
The question I am referring to comes from the previously-referenced Freakonomics podcast episode (“How Much Do We Really Care About Children?“), which posed the question,
To what degree have car seats functioned as contraception?
* * *
“I thought Girl Scouts was supposed to be about making the world a better place. But this isn’t at all making the world better.” ( 14-year-old Girl Scout Olivia Chaffin, quoted in “Child Labor Linked to Palm Oil in Girl Scout Cookies, Snack Brands”)
Dateline: Sunday afternoon. Moiself was backing my car out of the driveway, just as The Cutest Girl Scout In The World ® left a flyer on my porch. She continued on, walking with her father (my guess) and another Scout to my neighbor’s house. I stopped my car, got out and waved, and from a maskless-but-safe-distance her father said the Girl Scouts were doing a different form of cookie sales this year – orders online – and that the information was in the flyer.
After returning from my errand, I googled to see if the reasons moiself[1] had boycotted Girl Scout cookies the past few years were still valid. Sadly, yes. The Scouts are still using palm oil in their cookies…AND…a report has just been released linking the production of that palm oil to child labor violations.
I have long wished [2] that GS fundraisers would involve a community service drive several times a year, akin to the Boy Scouts’ Xmas tree recycling service. I mean, community service – yay! Besides, look at us Americans – no one should be eating those (or any organization’s fundraising) cookies.
But it’s the palm oil usage – specifically, the orangutan and other wildlife habitat destruction resulting from the production of palm oil – that has me the most concerned. People can choose to snack themselves into Type II Diabetes, but orangutans have no choice in the matter of where they can live, and they certainly don’t choose to have their habitat razed to grow a cheap oil so that humans can have smoother ice cream, less runnier lipstick, and crisp cookies and potato chips.
When K & Belle were in the Oregon Zoo Teens program they learned about the problems with palm oil production, and began educating us – their parents, family and friends – on why we should choose products that did not contain palm oil and boycott those that did. Such education should be right up the Girl Scout’s alley, so to speak, with the organization’s declared belief in “…the power of every G.I.R.L. (Go-getter, Innovator, Risk-taker, Leader)™ to change the world,” and their manifesto, to build “girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place.”
But, according to the EcoWatch article, “Child Labor Linked to Palm Oil in Girl Scout Cookies, Snack Brands,” that ain’t happening. Excerpts from the article (my emphases):
Environmental concerns first motivated then-11-year old Chaffin to investigate the source of the palm oil in the Girl Scout cookies she sold. Chaffin…saw that the palm oil listed on the cookie boxes was supposed to come from sustainable sources. However, she looked closer and saw the word “mixed”, which meant that sustainable and non-sustainable sources had been combined in the cookie recipe.
She swore off cookie-selling and launched a petition one year ago urging Girl Scouts to abandon palm oil….
Chaffin told The Associated Press that learning about the child labor issues [3] made her more motivated to fight for the oil’s removal….
The Girl Scouts did not respond to The Associated Press before the study was published, but did address the article on social media.
“Child labor has no place in Girl Scout Cookie production. Our investment in the development of our world’s youth must not be facilitated by the under-development of some,” the organization tweeted.
They said that their bakers and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) should take action if standards were being violated.
In other words, business as usual. They are shocked – shocked! – to learn about child labor violations (and don’t forget habitat destruction), but not enough to put any political or economic muscle behind their rhetoric.
The Girls Scouts claim to “…offer the best leadership development experience for girls in the world.” Their girls are inadvertently learning a lesson in politico-speak (express concern, but don’t make any actually changes which may threaten your income stream), which is sadly common to leaders worldwide.
* * *
Department Of Quote Of The Year, 2021:
“But fuck you for being there.”
Moiself realizes the year is young, but already there is a comment which so succinctly nails What Happened on January 6 ® that I am hard pressed to imagine what might beat it for Quote of the Year.
It comes from NPR’s January 15 article, “Meet Three D.C. Police Officers Who Fought For The U.S. Capitol.” Excerpted here, the article contains interviews with police officers who were attacked by the pro-#45 mobs who stormed the US Capitol.
Beaten, tased, lying dazed on the steps leading out of the west side of the U.S. Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6, Officer Mike Fanone remembered thinking,
“…about the movie Black Hawk Down when the pilot gets stripped from the cockpit because guys were grabbing gear off my vest, they ripped my badge off of me, and people were trying to get my gun, and they grabbed my ammunition magazines. I remember trying to retain my gun, I remember guys chanting, ‘Kill him with his own gun.’ “
Fanone was tased at least a half-dozen times. He says he considered using his gun to defend himself, but knew rioters would likely turn the gun on him. So he pleaded for his life.
“At one point, I decided I could appeal to someone’s humanity in this crowd. And I said I have kids,” he recalls. “Fortunately, I think it worked. Some people did start to protect me, they encircled me and tried to prevent people from assaulting me.”
Fanone, a 19-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, was found and eventually pulled to safety by his patrol partner. He was hospitalized, and was told he had had a heart attack.
Fanone says he doesn’t want to get into what may have motivated Trump’s supporters, many of whom have long claimed they back police. He’s thankful he got out alive, but he’s angry that that was ever in question.
“The ones in the crowd that somehow appealed to their better angels and offered me some assistance, thank you,” he says. “But f*** you for being there.”
* * *
Department Of Yes, This. Reflections After The Inauguration
Although I love watching the Olympics and missed having the opportunity to do so in 2020, [4]moiself did not miss having to listening to the devoted, often over-the-top-and-arrogant, fans of Team USA. Hearing their strident, hyperbolic chants of, “USA! USA! USA! We’re Number One!” makes me want to do a number two, as I think of how those chants represent many of my fellow citizens’ understanding of our place in the world, both historically and in the present.
When it comes to being a “great” country, we *are*number one…in self-delusion and mythology. Maybe, just maybe, we could be #1 in potential of across-the-board quality of life, if the majority of us could be honest with ourselves.
Those ideals in our founding documents, [5] national anthem and patriotic songs are just that. They are ideals to which we may aspire, but they are not reflections of either historical or present reality; they are a journey, not a destination. We are not “there yet” – how could we be, when the codification and implementation of the lofty democratic ideals of our so-called fore-fathers involved the complete exclusion of our foremothers? The omission of political power for over half the country’s population lasted for 144 – yes, that’s one hundred and forty-four – years after our country’s “birth”!
We are not there yet. And how can we ever be, when there is only grudging (if any) acknowledgement from too many of us about the reality of [6] the treatment of the original occupants of our land – the native/indigenous peoples, as well as those who did not come here willingly, but who instead were the “…tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…” because our ancestors had enslaved them?
Make America great again? To anyone who chants that insipid call to political arms slogan: what can you possibly mean by, *again*?
You can’t make American something it never was. Make America Live up to its great ideals – or tear them down and start over.
So sez moiself. Thus, it was refreshing to hear Baratunde Thurston give his take on the subject, on a TED talk. Thurston, a writer, comedian, political commentator, activist, philosopher, and “futurist,” is also the producer/host of the marvelously titled, “How to Citizen, a podcast which “… reimagines the word ‘citizen’ as a verb and reminds us how to wield our collective power.”
“I really appreciate the honesty of saying, ‘We haven’t succeeded yet.’ I think we are so good at myth-making, about our greatness and our uniqueness and our specialness, that we forgot we’re not there yet. We have a big number of us who can say, like, ‘We used to be so great!’
How could you say that when half the population couldn’t even vote? *When are you starting the clock?* So, there’s a lot to do. There’s value to the honesty that we haven’t really done it yet, and there’s motivation to the idea that we might get there. And I think we have to be motivated by the pursuit, not just the arrival. That we’ve gotten a little bit better; that we’ve reckoned with some of the more painful things, knowing there’s a laundry list of stuff we still haven’t dared to face honestly. And if we get closer, that’s still good.”
( Excerpts from TED radio hour podcast, “How to Citizen,”
with Baratunde Thurston speaking with TED host Manoush Zomorodi )
* * *
Department Of Gut Check – Yep, I’m Still Numb
And just now daring to relax. The inauguration happened; no one was shot.
When I finally let myself watch part of the proceedings moiself was both mesmerized and comforted by Amanda Gorman’s recitation of her stunning poem, “The Hill We Climb.”
* * *
Department Of One More Thing
And – hello, New York Times headline on the 20th[7] – I never, ever again want to read about #45 and his entire, vile, despotic, rapacious, racist, sexist, nepotistic, cadre of liars and thieves, unless the story has to do with their impending criminal charges, plea bargains, and convictions. [8]
* * *
Pun For The Day
Finally it’s, 2021, and now I can truthfully say that hindsight is 2020.
* * *
May your children all be 1.0 and never .7; May we work toward making our country great (not “again”); May we aspire to deserve the voices of poets like Amanda Gorman; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] A former girl Scout, and lover of their Thin Mints cookies.
[2] And have done more than wishing; i.e., expressing to Scout leaders and writing to the national organization (with no response).
[3] “Child labor is another major problem for the (palm oil) industry, according to The Associated Press. The UN’s International Labor Organization estimates that 1.5 million children aged 10 to 17 work in Indonesia’s agricultural industry, of which palm oil is the dominant crop. In Malaysia, a 2018 study found that more than 33,000 children work in the industry, and that almost half of them are between the ages of five and 11.”
[4] On the off-chance you were off-planet, the 2020 Olympics were cancelled due to the pandemic.
[5] e.g. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence.
[6] And never mind the possibility of reparations for….
[7] Who gives a flying fuck if Tiffany tR**p is engaged? Shame on you for making me scroll past that in order to access my daily mini-crossword.
[8] And hopefully those stories will have at least eight footnotes.
Noteworthy science podcast anecdotes; musings on how we understand, use (and misuse) the term “educated;” wondering how and why some people can believe in the efficacy of intercessory prayer; a bad pun or two; the last Partridge of the Week, etc. I don’t know if the subjects I had planned to address in today’s post were more profound, but they were certainly more fun, than…this.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.” (Vice President Mike Pence, 1-6-21, in a letter to members of Congress. From “Pence defies Trump, says he can’t reject electoral votes,” apnews.com )
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done….” ( #45‘s tweet, after Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged he does not have the power to throw out electoral votes )
* * *
Someone needs to be shot for insurrection.
If #45 had the cojones he accused Pence of lacking, he‘d call a press conference, resign, then blow hisbrains out [1] on live television. He‘d get the “biggliest ratings, ever!” which is and always has been hisultimate concern.
* * *
“Prevoskhodno! This is all going according to plan.”
* * *
How many times did I read or hear, during the last four years,
“Yeah, I know he (#45) is a dick a horrible person as a person, but I’m voting for him because of ______ (conservative policy).”
As friend MM so succinctly put it,
“Everyone who voted for Trump for tax cuts and judges, you own this.”
* * *
What was it that the anti-Vietnam war protestors chanted as they were beaten by Chicago police in 1968?
“The whole world is watching.”
And they were. And we are.
* * *
Department Of Get HimOut, Now. How Can You Not?
Congress: Impeach. Invoke the 25th amendment – #45is clearly “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” [2] Get the SCOTUS to lead a squad of Capitol Police to arrest him. Whatever it takes.
Please, no cries of, “But we only have to hang on another two weeks, for the good of the country…”
No.
For the good of the country, he needs to go. Would *anyone else* who had fomented a riot – committed sedition – *not* be held accountable?
For the good of the country, his legacy, as MH put it, “needs to be appropriate.”
For the good of the country, we cannot let strongman hooliganism subvert or even delay our democratic processes.
For the good of the country, we need to show the world – we need to show ourselves – that we have not become another anarchic banana republic our laws and ideals have actual meaning.
And, if heis allowed to just…leave, do you really want any portion of your tax dollars to go to hispresidential pension? $219,000 a year, for the rest of hisdeplorable life, living among whatever other deplorables can stand to abide with him? [3]
“A Russian dacha or a North Korean apartment – your choice, Comrade.”
* * *
May we get the kind of honest, decent, compassionate leadership we need; May you-know-who finally get what hedeserves; May circumstances allow moiself to return to “regular programming” next week; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Not to worry; it’d be a small splatter, considering the target.
[2] Section 4, 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.
[3] There need to be more footnotes, but the only appropriate footnote regarding this deranged disaster of democracy is an unending torrent of FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!
Another Fact Abscess Feminist Ruins A Family Outing Enlightens A Grateful Grandpa
My offspring, K and Belle, successfully fledged several years ago. When they were young (ages 1-5), their respective daycare/preschool teachers knew that, rain or shine, they wouldn’t be in class on Wednesdays, as that was our zoo/museum outing day. Nine out of ten times, we’d go to the Oregon Zoo.
Those zoo trips were before the massive, community bond-supported revamping, updating, and expansion of the zoo and its animal habitats. There weren’t many visitors then – particularly on windy/rainy days, which were our favorites, because it often seemed if we had the zoo all to ourselves. [1] Several of the zookeepers got to recognize us, and we them. The staff were impressed and amused by K’s and Belle’s flourishing interest in animals and wildlife conservation and liked that we always greeted the keepers by name and asked (or tried to ask) interesting questions about the animals.
That the zookeepers took the time to speak with us (often quite extensively, and when it was obvious they had *real* work to do) is one of several factors moiselfcredits for both K and Belle going on to be in the Zoo Teens program while in high school and then majoring in the Biological Sciences in college.
I’d also like to think that I “modeled” or that K and Belle inherited (nature? nurture?) that interest from me. Moiselfwas quite the animal nerd growing up, particularly in grade school. My parents recognized and encouraged that interest, and for years I always received at least one nature-themed/animal facts book for my birthday and Christmas presents. Thus, informed and armed, I was able to spoil the fun of many a prepubescent boy – who was trying to be naughty by teasing his female classmates about this AMAZING animal he’d come across – by explaining that a titmouse was in fact *not* a well-endowed rodent, but a petite North American songbird.
As always, I digress.
One of my interests at the zoo was not only watching my kids watch the animals, but watching the other zoo visitors. In that older version of the zoo, near the Penguin House, there was a habitat wherein dwelt a solitary, enormous, beautiful, Alaskan Brown bear named Marcia (Marsha? Or Martha? Don’t know the spelling; her name was not on the information card on the habitat; we’d learned about her from the zookeepers [2] ).
On days when there were many other zoo visitors and we stopped by Marcia’s habitat, inevitably – I mean, without fail – other adults would “mis-identify” the bear. Always the male visitors (and also quite a few of the females) would remark, to themselves or to the kids who were with them, something along the lines of,
“Wow, get a load of that bear, he’s so big! Look at his paws…”
I would then take the opportunity to say, “Actually, her name is Marcia.” My comment/correction would oftentimes lead to brief but interesting, personal-connection type conversations about the zoo and the animals, and sometimes my kids and I would learn something new, from a visitor who had talked with a zookeeper at another exhibit and had an interesting animal fact/behavior tidbit to share. If the person seemed receptive, I would sneak in a factoid about how a zookeeper told me that the majority of the zoo’s resident animals were female…and how another zookeeper, and more than one biologist I’d met, told me that the majority of the world’s biomass is female but that an individual animal’s gender is usually misidentified by non-biologists when they use a pronoun other than “it” to refer to the animal. For example, if you espy a wild animal when you’re out and about – say, a garter snake when you’re hiking the Wildwood trail in Forest Park – it is most likely a “she snake,” even though you or your hiking companion(s) will probably call it, or think of it as, a “he.”
With two exceptions moiselfcan recall, these interactions at Marcia’s habitat were always positive (which is why I kept engaging in them). In exception #2, an older dude got his grandpa tighty-whities in a knot when I spoke up after he’d pointed out the bear to (what I assumed were) his two grandkids, as well as to moiself and my two kids, and exclaimed, “Look at that HUGE bear – can you guess how strong he is?”
“She sure is something – she’s one of our favorite animals at the zoo!” I cheerfully chirped. “And, actually, her name is Marcia.”
The man’s face slowly but surely morphed into Grumpy Old Man, get-offa-my-lawn! territory, as his granddaughter waved to the bear and called out, “Marcia – she’s Marcia! Hi, Marcia!”
“Why does that matter?” he said to me.
“What do you mean?”I asked, not knowing if the “matter” he was wondering about was the bear’s name or its sex.
“Why does it matter?” he repeated, now looking full-blown irritated, as if he thought I were trying to show him up in front of his grandkids (neither of whom were paying any attention to the adults, but were standing with my kids, waving to the bear). “Does it matter if it’s a he or a she?”
Moiself donned my best, well-practiced, kill him with kindness visage, raised my voice to a perky, non-threatening octave above my usual tone, and delivered my reply with bared teeth pretending to be a smile a friendly grin:
“Well, obviously it does, or you wouldn’t object to being corrected about a simple fact.”
He muttered under his breath and herded his grandkids away from the exhibit. The little girl turned back and called out, “Marcia! Marcia! Bye, Marcia!”
* * *
Department Of Telling Grandpa Why It Matters
If Grumpy Gramps had stuck around and showed an ounce of amiable interest in the subject, I might have told him that I also would have offered a corrective comment had he misidentified the bear’s species, or its coloration or predation habits or dietary needs (“Look at that black bear/purple grizzly bear/orange sun bear – you know, in the wild, polar bears climb trees to hunt penguins[3]….”), or any other basic fact about it. An animal’s sex or gender [4] is just another one of those basic facts.
The most obvious “proof” as to how important this is, Gramps, is that when I pointed out this particular, simple, factual error, did you notice how many of your feathers got ruffled?
I have taken it upon moiselfto be a “Squirt Gun Ambassador” re the natural world, hoping to incorporate the playfulness/good humor that this childhood summer toy brings to mind, when dealing with this particular issue, which is of importance TO THE ENTIRE WORLD (whether the entire world realizes it or not).
The SQUIRT gun issue to which I refer is my Sex Question Identification Reparations Therapy ® crusade, regarding peoples’ tendency to apply male pronouns to all animals they see, unless the animal is obviously female (e.g., nursing its young). I go the other direction, and use “she” instead of “it” (which I used to always do, and which I’ll get back to doing some day, when people stop defaulting to using “he”) to refer to an animal whose gender is unknown. My crusade is somewhat analogous to, and in part inspired by, actor Geena Davis’ campaign on gender inequity in entertainment media.
Media is one of the most important factors influencing our values. Women and girls are 51% of the population, but entertainment media is bereft of female characters, with a ratio of approximately 3:1 male characters to female characters since the 1940s. (Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media )
……When her…daughter was a toddler, and (Davis) started watching movies with her, she realised how woeful the depictions of women in family movies really were. She was particularly struck by just how few speaking characters in these films were female. She took this point to industry colleagues, but most denied it. Well-meaning and sincere, they couldn’t see a problem. Davis pressed on – she wanted to see the numbers….she sponsored the largest study carried out on gender depictions in family-rated films and children’s television…and found that for every female speaking-character, there were 2.5 or three male characters – a figure unchanged since 1946. Furthermore, the vast majority of those female characters were stereotypical or highly sexualised, with ambitions largely related to romance. Even crowd scenes were only made up of 17% women….
Hollywood thinks women just don’t like to “gather,” or flee from monsters….
“What if we are inculcating generation after generation to believe that low representation of women is the norm?” (Davis) asked her audience. So her institute commissioned more research: this time, a global study of gender in film in the 10 biggest film markets in the world. The findings were “bleak”: of those characters seen to be holding a job, 77.5% were male and 22.5% were female. Women in leadership and science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM fields were dramatically underrepresented in film, she said, and of the 127 characters that held political office, only 12 were women. This lack of onscreen depiction contributes to symbolic annihilation, Davis said, by which those that don’t see themselves reflected on screen believe they are unimportant. She quoted damning statistics that show the more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she thinks she has in life.
(“How Geena Davis became a champion for women on screen,” The Guardian, 3-5-17 )
* * *
Department Of And While I’m On The Subject…
Can we agree to get rid of those dreadful feminizing/diminishing suffixes appended to people, animals, and professions?
If you come to a party at my house, I am your host, not your hostess.
And I won’t be serving these, BTW.
Your doctor, if she is a woman, is your doctor, not your doctress. Lions are male and female; there is no need for “lioness” as an identifier. If you name your Aunt Erva in your will as the person who will manage your estate, she should be called your executor, not your executrix.
Still with me, Grumpy Gramps? Since you asked it’s important, to know the animal’s correct gender because girls need to know that what is female is present, in the world, everywhere. Girls often grow up into women who lack the confidence to move through the world as easily and powerfully as men do, because they don’t think that the world belongs to them. Unintentionally and sometimes deliberately, girls get presented with skewed perceptions of their “place” – even of simply how many of them there are [5] – in the world. In the images and examples girls *and* boys are shown, the default for everything is male, especially if the thing in question is perceived as being big and powerful.
It’s important because a person will want to care for the world and that which is in the world, to seek education and take action – from studying to be a geologist to learning to do their own basic auto maintenance and repairs – if they think these things are truly and equally theirs. If it belongs to you, then you feel a sense of responsibility for it. Despite the progress made in the past few decades, girls (and boys) still look at the world, at the images and descriptions presented to them, and see it as primarily belonging to, and inhabited and ruled by, boys and men.
* * *
Department Of Remember That Which Will Eventually Kill Those Of Us Who Survive The Rest Of This Ca-Ca?
Global warming/climate change – the human-induced warming of the planet – has been getting our attention span short shrift these days, what with the pandemic, poor policing of POC and other parts of the panoply of poop parading past. [6]
After my pitch for gender label inclusivity, I’ve not much energy left for another harangue.
I’ll leave y’all with this analogy on the subject. At many a dinner party discussion, I’ve listened while friends have lamented the conundrum of how and why otherwise rational-seeming people can ignore the evidence of climate change and/or that some “aware” people tacitly admit that the evidence is real, but find ways to avoid thinking about it and/or don’t want to act on this evidence because they view any such actions as impeding their current lifestyle, or that they believe that individuals cannot make any significant changes to the problem.
I’ve had to bite my tongue when well-meaning people whom I admire and even love have sincerely claimed not to understand such willful ignorance…because they do the same thing, with regards to the same issue. They are all willing and enthusiastic participators in the environment-razing, carnivore fodder industry.
They all eat (factory-farm grown and processed) meat.
I’ve decided to be silent no more. I will try my Girl Scout Best [7] to *not* be of those self-righteous scolds, but the next time someone starts with the, “How can those people ignore the evidence ?!?!?” wail I will gently point out that their lament is not only rhetorical, but disingenuous. They know, or *should* know, exactly why “those people” want to ignore the evidence of climate change because they themselves use the same rationale for ignoring the evidence on meat consumption:
* because they don’t want to alter their current way of life;
* because they don’t want to make the necessary changes, which they view as making sacrifices and being inconvenienced;
* because they just don’t want to be bothered.
Some of the most thoughtful people I know find ways not to give the problems of animal agriculture any thought, just as I find ways to avoid thinking about climate change and income inequality…. Animal agriculture is now recognized as a leading cause of global warming…. We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This is not a refutable perspective, but a banal truism….cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. According to the research director of Project Drawdown — a nonprofit organization dedicated to modeling solutions to address climate change — eating a plant-based diet is “the most important contribution every individual can make to reversing global warming.” Americans overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change. A majority of both Republicans and Democrats say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord. We don’t need new information, and we don’t need new values. We only need to walk through the open door.
( “The End of Meat Is Here: If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals,” Jonathan Safran Foer, NY Times 5-21-20 )
* * *
Pun For The Day
* * *
May you carefully consider which evidence you are choosing to ignore; May you remember that I’m a writer, not a writress; May you enjoy an adolescent’s misunderstanding of “titmouse;” …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I remember at least two occasions where we saw no other human beings, with the exception of the zookeepers and other zoo employees.
[2] And two keepers told me two different names for that bear: “Martha” and “Marcia.”
[3] Despite all the cute cartoons you may have seen, polar bears and penguins never interact. Polar bears are northern pole denizens while penguin species all live south of the equator. And neither of them climb trees.
[4] I realize these are loaded terms, used interchangeably and not always in the same manner, by humans.
[5] The world human population male/female ratio consistently hovers around 50-50, but you wouldn’t know that if your only statistic in this matter came from your consumption of popular media, where the male characters consistently and overwhelmingly outnumber the female.
Department Of If You Want To Make Your Head Spin, Think About This
HAL HERZOG: …The New York Times actually wrote an editorial about it (the killing of an amusement park crocodile named “Cookie,” by its owner, after the crocodile drowned a 6 year old boy who had fallen into the croc’s enclosure)… the editorial writer wrote, killing Cookie made no sense intellectually, but it felt right emotionally.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: And the reason it didn’t make sense intellectually, of course, is the idea that a crocodile would do what a crocodile does is hardly surprising.
HERZOG: … (the croc’s) brain is smaller than a walnut. He is a creature, largely, of instinct, particularly when it comes to food. And he was… doing what crocodiles do. He was not a moral agent, you know, which I would argue is one of the biggest differences between humans and other species. We are moral agents.
VEDANTAM: So the interesting thing is that Cookie’s owner, in some ways related to Cookie as if Cookie was a person, that Cookie was a moral agent…which is, you’re assuming that the animal has agency and behaves or thinks or has human-like qualities and that you are therefore obliged or required to treat this other creature as if, in some ways, it had human-like qualities.
HERZOG: …This similarly played out in a bizarre incident that happened in Tennessee, where an elephant named Mary killed its groom while in a circus parade in 1916. And they hung the elephant to death…and to me that was…the ultimate example of where we’ve anthropomorphized animals – that we give it capital punishment in a sense for something that it was clearly not morally culpable.
The concept of moral consistency often times leads us astray in our interactions with animals. This is just one of many take-aways from the most recent episodes of one of my favorite podcasts, Hidden Brain. In this episode, host Shankar Vedantam interviews Hal Herzog, a professor of psychology who has studied human-animal interactions for more than 30 years and the author of the book, “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard To Think Straight About Animals.”
* * *
When I began doing my research on the comparative cruelty of cockfighting versus McNuggets…I just – I was absolutely stunned. And I realized…cockfighting should be illegal, but the casual chicken eater is committing a bigger sin in their own way than is the rooster fighter. (Hal Herzog, Hidden Brain guest)
* * *
It has always fascinated me that every person I know or have read about who has chosen to alter their eating and other lifestyle habits in part or primarily due to their concern for animals – e.g., vegans, as well as other animal rights activists who are not exclusively plant-eaters – has pets. Yet one can make a strong argument that keeping animals as pets is presumptuous at best and “species-ist” at worst: you are keeping animals in captivity, away from their natural habitat, without their request or permission.
Moiself’s family of origin had a variety of pets over the years, including hamsters, cats, and dogs, and on a few occasions we attended events that featured animal “entertainment” (e.g., my parents took us to a circus, and to Sea World a couple of times.). MH and I and our two children have always had pets, including cats, snakes, rodents, fish, birds, and a bearded dragon. Our current fauna enslavement count is four felines. [1]
I will never again go to an animal circus. Nor will I patronize a Gator World or Sea World type facility, which, unlike accredited zoos or wildlife preserves (which nowadays focus on education, conservation and breeding programs for endangered species), keep animals as moneymaking entities and train them to perform for human entertainment. I’ve also a “moral problem” with horseback riding, as much as I’ve enjoyed that activity in the past.
Watch the “Blackfish” documenary, if you don’t understand the Sea World reference.
As per my own moral consistency regarding the pet issue…let’s see how many metaphors I can mix….
IMHO, the barn door has already closed when it comes to removing/returning certain animals from/to their natural habitat. That ship – of cats and dogs – has already sailed, particularly with regard to dogs, which have been kept and selectively bred by humans for thousands of years. Domestic cats also have a long relationship with humans but have not been subjected as much genetic tinkering; thus, “homeless” cats can be seen, in our own neighborhoods and on city streets around the world, hunting and otherwise fending for themselves quite well – ’tis why we have a problem with feral “domestic” cats. It’s hard to imagine dogs, especially those of wheezing, gasping brachycephalic (flat-faced) breeds (e.g. pugs; French bulldogs, Boston Terriers) or toy breeds (Yorkies, Pomeranians, Chihuahuas…) “make a living” without us.
At the time my offspring wanted reptiles as pets I insisted that any herps [2] (which eventually consisted of a corn snake, a ball python, and a bearded dragon) they acquired be captive bred. I no longer think that is a good idea. Considering their behaviors and interactions with humans, I think reptiles belong “in the wild” (and as undomesticated as your adolescent child’s bedroom might seem to you, that doesn’t count).
Ditto for rodents, and birds. [3] And fish (really, people…keeping fish as “pets”? Just get a terrarium and watch the grass grow, for comparable excitement).
* * *
Hidden Brain’s host and guest discussed how humans’ attitudes toward and treatment of animals are shaped by how we anthropomorphize them. For example, the giant panda and the giant salamander are both endangered species native to certain regions of China, but guess which gets the lion’s (panda’s?) share of attention and concern? You’re not gonna see the World Wildlife Fund put the pictures of endangered invertebrates on their calendars, coffee mugs, tote bags and other fundraising swag.
(more from the Hidden Brain interview, my emphases)
HEZOG: And the panda…in some ways, looks a little bit like a human. But it’s basically a faker in the sense that it has these giant circles around its eyes, which ethologists call baby releasers. So we look at that panda and it basically logs on to that – jams into that maternal instinct that we have when we see creatures with big eyes and it impose on them that in some ways it reminds us of a human infant. So, for example, researchers have shown that one of the biggest predictors of whether or not people will give money to save animals is the size of the animal’s eyes. And pandas certainly have it when it comes to eye size.
But wait – if it’s round eyes you’re going for, how about the wolf spider, which has eight big fuzzy ones? Oh, never mind.
Am I cuddly, or what?
It – how some animals we “love,” some we consider pests, and some we eat – is a fascinating issue to consider. And if you, like moiself (and the podcast’s psychologist) think that the paradoxes of pet ownership are in some ways unresolvable, just wait until you start thinking about eating animals, or using them in “sports” for our entertainment.
VEDANTAM: So the more we think of animals as sort of members of our family, the more we think of them as being like us, in some ways, this raises a profound moral paradox: if we actually think of these animals as being like us, how in the world can we…in any good conscience, confine them to our homes, confine them to cages, treat them as if they were our captives to do with as we please?
HERZOG: I think that’s a great point… And I’ve really quite seriously been thinking about, is it ethical to keep animals as pets? If we really think of them as autonomous beings, what right do we have to take away all their autonomy by controlling every aspect of their life? – what they eat, where they go, when they go. And increasing, we’re taking control of their genes, which created its own problems. To me, the logic of pet keeping is not that different than the logic of meat eating. I eat meat. And I know the arguments against it are good and they’re better than my argument for eating meat, which is, basically, I like the way it tastes. Well, I feel the same way about my cat. I love my cat, but she carries with her a moral burden. And it’s my moral burden. It’s not her moral burden. I’m the moral agent. I’m the adult in the room. And I’m the one that has to deal with thinking about this stuff. Although, most people conveniently repress it and don’t think about it.
Like most Americans, you are probably disgusted by the brutality of cock fighting and support bans on it and other animal “blood sports.” And, like most Americans, you probably occasionally or regularly eat chicken, when dining out or at home. Unless you insist on Certified Humane ® products from your restaurants and grocery stores, do you know which animal – the rooster raised for fighting, or the factory farm raised broiler which ends up in your McNuggets and Chicken Tikka Masala – actually has the “better” life (and less horrific death)?
HERZOG: (Gamecocks) live lives that are generally – compared to a broiler chicken – pretty darn amazing. They live, on average, two years. They’re not usually fought until they’re two years old. For a chunk of their life, they live in free range or they have way more room than a broiler chicken.
They’re fed incredibly well – a varied diet. They get plenty of exercise. If they win a couple fights, they will use them as a stud rooster. And what they’ll do is they’ll spend their life chasing the hens around. Not a bad deal.
On the other hand, the life of a broiler chicken is absolutely horrendous. Their life only lasts between six and seven weeks. They’re basically meat machines, which means that they put on weight so fast that their legs can’t really hold up their bodies… They’re jammed into giant broiler houses with 30,000 chicks in a broiler house, where they’ll never see the sun. They’ll never get to play on the grass. They’ll never get to peck at bugs. Their lungs will be burned with ammonia. [4] It’s an absolutely horrendous existence. And they will die a pretty lousy death. They’ll be crammed into a series of cages. They’ll be hauled, for miles, in an open truck, jammed into small little cages with their feathers flying down the interstate (to the slaughterhouse/processing plant), where they will be hung upside down by their legs, dipped into an electrified water bath to stun them. And then they’ll go through a carotid artery set of blades that will, hopefully, kill them quickly – although, oftentimes, it does not.
* * *
We human animals are inconsistent in how we think, feel, and behave towards non-human animals. No answers for y’all here, [5] just lots to think about…unless, like most pet owners and animal flesh eaters, you prefer not to think about such things and would rather live with the quandaries…because to do otherwise might require sacrifices and lifestyle changes and, hey, you’re a busy person and it’s time to walk the quandary again….
If you do nothing else, please just remember to be a responsible moral agent: take your bag with you and pick up the, uh, conundrums your quandary drops along the way, okay?
* * *
Department Of Will Someone Please Do This Man A Favor And Steer Him Toward Lessons In Basic Pronunciation?
Dateline: Tuesday am, listening to “How Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor Create One of the World’s Most Fascinating Podcasts,” a recent episode of the podcast Clear and Vivid.Clear & Vivid is concerned with how people communicate and connect with other people. In this episode, host Alan Alda interviews two of the creators of Ear Hustle, a podcast produced from San Quentin prison, by prisoners.
Ear Hustle deals with the daily life of prison inmates, which gives cause for (now former) prisoner Earlonne Woods, during the Clear and Vivid interview, to use the term death row several times. “Clear and Vivid”…except that Woods consistently mispronounces death row as deaf row, which is not at all clear but which definitely brings a vivid image to my mind: of someone who, for whatever reasons, makes a group of hearing-impaired folks stand in a lineup.
May you consider the quandaries in your life; May you be brave enough to consider said quandaries before your next meat-based meal; May you never have to choose between death rowand deaf row; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] MH and I have two, and our adult children each have one.
[2] From herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles.
[3] I realize that some kinds of birds, such as members of the parrot family, are more interactive with their human owners, even bonding with a human as they would in the wild with their mates…which presents a whole other set of logistical/care-taking and ethical problems.
[4] From the excretory fumes of their own and the 29,999 other chicken’s waste.
[5] Well of course I do have suggestions, such as adopting a plant-based diet. If for whatever reasons you do want to eat meat, do your research find some farmers/ranchers who raise their animals humanely – they do exist!
[6] A recurring feature of this blog, since week 2 of April 2019, wherein moiself decided that moiself would go through my cookbooks alphabetically and, one day a week, cook (at least) one recipe from one book.
Department Of Things That Should Be No Brainers… But Some People Have No Brains When It Comes To Animals
History: ____ (exotic animal’s name) was taken into her (former) owners’ home to be kept as a pet. After being bitten through a pair of welding gloves, her owners reached out to the rescue sanctuary….
History: ___ (exotic animal’s name) had been kept as a pet, but was rehomed after biting his owner’s child….
History: ___ (exotic animal’s name) was rescued from a home in ____(town, state), where she was being kept as a pet. After injuring her owners’ son….
History: Young couple purchased a baby (exotic animal) from a breeder who told them that the (exotic animal) would make a good pet for their young children. “Don’t feed the (exotic animal) any raw meat and he will mature to be docile,” the exotic animal breeder told the young couple. The (exotic animal) was put on a diet of canned tuna and chicken, until one day he bit the couple’s five-year-old son on the shoulder and would not let go…
These are just a few of the stories of how thousands of formerly neglected and abused lions and tigers and bears – and cougars and bobcats and servals and leopards, et al – came to be rescued by exotic wildlife refuge centers across the country. These stories also illustrate a few of the myriad of reasons why “exotic” animals do not make good “pets.”
No matter how much you may wish it, this
Is not this
* * *
I am currently on vacation with MH, visiting daughter Belle, who is working at one such exotic animal rescue sanctuary, as previously mentioned in this blog:
A few months after acquiring an exotic pet (whether via legal or questionable means), Joe Lookatmei’mcoolIownatiger realizes that the cub which was so adorable at 8 weeks old is growing into AN ACTUAL FRIGGIN’ TIGER – never mind that the breeder assured them it was from eight generations of “domesticated” tigers and was really just a big, big pussy cat. At that point, Joe either voluntarily abandons/surrenders the animal or is forced to do so by his neighbors or an animal welfare organization.
Enter Wild Cat Sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, et al, who offer a place for these discarded “pets” – along with animals rescued or retired from circuses or other anachronistic “entertainment” shows – to live out the remainder of their lives in as natural a setting as possible. These organizations also work to, essentially, put themselves out of business. That is, they lobby for legislation which would end the captive wildlife crisis by outlawing the buying, selling, breeding and exhibiting of such animals.
* * *
This is my first trip to Arkansas, home of Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. [1] Turpentine Creek’s mission, like that of other legitimate wildlife rescue organizations, is twofold:
to care for and provide lifetime refuge for abandoned, abused [2] and neglected big cats, (with an emphasis on lions, tigers, leopards and cougars [3]);
Intelligent, proactive, well–intentioned and kind-hearted, supportive-of-ethical-businesses person that you are, [4] you might be interested in advocating for and maybe even visiting an exotic animal sanctuary. But because the term “sanctuary” is not regulated by the government, any facility can call itself such. Being a person with the afore-mentioned attributes, you want to make sure you are supporting a true sanctuary and not enabling a pseudo-sanctuary – one which may seem to say all the right things but which in fact is keeping (and even raising) its animals for profit.
True sanctuaries will NOT
*breed animals *allow any interaction (petting/feeding) with cubs *allow the public to have any hands-on interaction with any carnivore of any age *allow its own animal care team to handle any animal (unless it is sedated for veterinary care) * buy or sell animal parts * exhibit animals at shows, or transport animals to any place off- sanctuary (unless for vet care)
Turpentine Creek’s website has links (What is a Sanctuary) which will help us educate ourselves; i.e., to know what questions to ask about a facility to determine its legitimacy:
“Differentiating between a true sanctuary and a pseudo-sanctuary might take a little extra research, but when you visit a true sanctuary you are helping to put an end to the exotic animal trade and also protecting exotic animals from exploitation.”
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Department Of One More Thing: You Also Don’t Want To Be Responsible For Encouraging The Breeding Of More “Kennys” In This World
If this tiger remind you in anyway of the British royal family, that’s because the (now deceased) “Kenny” is the poster boy for the dangers of inbreeding. Kenny’s tiger parents were closely related, and he suffered from a variety of physiological – and obviously cosmetic – ailments and deformities…but as long as breeding exotics is allowed and someone can make money off of it they will continue to do so and breed for a rare mutation – one that is de-selected for in the wild – because thanks in large part to ASSHOLES like Siegfried and Roy people got the mistaken idea that it would be cool to own white tiger.
* * *
Belle loves her work and the proximity she has to the creatures in the sanctuary, and reaffirmed her comment to us, made after her first week of her internship, about how she needs no convincing about wild animals needing to be wild: no matter how many generations of “domestic” breeding the animals come from, no matter how friendly they seem on the other side of the fence, [5] no matter how long they’ve lived in captivity or how much they seem recognize you as an ally/as someone who brings their food, “As soon as you turn your back to them they begin to stalk you.”[6]
* * *
Department Of But Wait, There’s More… (To Arkansas, That Is, Besides The Big Cat Sanctuary)
* more road kill than I’ve seen in a long time
* the former includes armadillos (seeing their carcasses, for some reason, makes me sadder than seeing that of the other road kill specimens)
* The beautiful Ozark “Mountains” (I cannot bring myself to refer to them as mountains without quotation marks –apologies to the friends who’d seen this part of the country and who, when they found out my destination, told me, “What they call ‘mountains” in the south/east aren’t really mountains.” These apologies are due because I reacted by pooh-pooh-ing them for what I considered to be their Western Regionalism Prejudice ® …and now I find myself thinking, Really, people, these are nice, rolling hills on a plateau…but the highest peak is 2500 feet and you call them, ‘mountains?”[7]
* An architecturally notable Art Museum…which inadvertently provided the most notable art of all (at least for moiself): A Certain Moment Of Engagement With A Fellow Human Being ® which happened to take place at said museum.
Please, do go on.
* * *
Blog Department Of Please Share Your Impressions With Us… Up To A Point.
At the end of the exhibit, I am standing in front of a comment board near the exhibition’s exit door. The comment board is a series of metal grooves on a wall, into which museum visitors may insert ~ 4″ x 6″ unlined index cards which are provided, along with felt pens, on a table by the wall, along with the instructions to “share your impressions of the exhibit.”
I begin to scan the various comments. One of the museum’s docents, who is stationed near the exit door, walks over to stand beside me. He also begins reading the comment cards, and quickly reaches up and removes two of them.
Moiself: Why are you taking those cards down?
Docent (pointing to a slot in the top of a trash can-like receptacle to the right of the Comment Wall): “We save them; they all go here. We take some cards down to make room for others.”
I note that there is plenty of room on the board, which looked as if it could hold about 50 comment cars and there were only about 9 – 10 posted at that time.
Moiself: “Okay…but why are you taking those two cards down?
I was careful to modulate my voice, to indicate curiosity and not accusation. Because the cards the docent left posted had comments along the lines of, “Beautiful!” and, “Thanks I enjoyed this,” while the comments written on the two cards he took down were:
card one: Move on
card two: There can be no illegal people living on stolen land.
The docent, again (attempting to distract/reassure me?) says, “We save all the comments.” I ask him if he’d chose those particular cards to remove – excuse me, to expedite to the save box – because they could be considered political or controversial. [8]
Docent (flashing me a nervous smile): “We like to leave the ones that are positive.”
Before I can point out to him that the instructions for filling out the comment cards mention noting about positive or negative, only offer the opportunity to share your impressions of the exhibit, he once again declares, “We save all the comments.“
* * *
May you do more than “save all the comments;” May you appreciate another state’s hills even if you remain smug about the superiority of your state’s mountains; May you appreciate and support the true sanctuaries of (exotic or ordinary) life; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] MH had previously visited the state in his way younger years, to see an uncle who ran one of those “Life of Jesus” theme parks (really).
[2] And by definition, private ownership and breeding of these animals is abuse.
[3] Along the way TC has also answered the call to rescue several bears, and servals, and even a monkey.
[4] Since your reading this blog, I’m assuming the best!
[5] And they are *always* on the other side of the fence. No matter what the individual animal’s history of human contact was prior to coming to the refuge there is *no* direct animal/human contact at that – or any respectable – wildlife refuge.
[6] The caregivers are always behind fences, and there is NO direct human contact with sanctuary animals, except for when the animal is sedated, e.g., veterinary care.
[7] When your point of reference for mountains are The Rockies (62 peaks exceeding 13k feet), or The Sierras (peaks to 14k), or the Cascades (peaks to 14k) or even the Coast Range of the Pacific Northwest (peaks to 4k)…. these cute little hills just don’t cut it.
[8] It was an interesting “egalitarian” moment of censorship, I thought, in that the move on comment could be taken to be a more right wing suggestion to Native peoples to get over their history of defeat and exploitation (common themes in the art), while There can be no illegal people living on stolen land is obviously a more left-leaning sentiment.
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
