As in, this is not the post that was intended for today. [1] But first, this breaking news:
Dateline: Monday eve, 6-23-25. Scott Harris joined us for dinner.
Several years back, when people were starting to post pictures of meals they’d eaten and/or dishes they’d prepared on social media, moiself decided to do so, as a kind of joke. The first time that I posted a picture [2] of a meal MH and I were enjoying, my friend Scott Harris [3] commented on the post with something like, “Oh, not, you’re not going to turn into one of those people who posts pictures of food, are you?”
Moiself picked up that gauntlet he’d thrown down, and ran with it.
Here’s the gauntlet I picked up. I’d assumed it was thrown by Scott.
From that time onward, every week or so I post a picture of a dinner I’ve prepared, along with a caption containing variants of, “MH and I would be delighted to share our stir fry with Indonesian peanut sauce with Scott Harris, were he in town;”“If only Scott Harris could be here to help us finish off this grilled steelhead with lemony garlic greens, spice-roasted butternut squash, and MH’s homemade sourdough…”
It became a long-running joke, with several of my FB friends wondering/asking moiself if there actually is such a person as Scott Harris? Indeed there is, I assured them, but Harris and his family have lived abroad for many years (first Hanoi, currently Hong Kong). He occasionally gets stateside to visit family in So Cal; we’ve tried to arrange get-togethers but nothing has worked out…until three weeks ago Scott messaged me with the news that, due to his youngest son’s participation in a touring baseball team tournament comprised of expat kids, he and his son would be in the Portland area, and:
“…if you are around, I demand to be fed.”
We were, and he was. Photographic evidence (yeah, I know, it could be AI-faked) is available, privately, for doubters.
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Department Of If You See One Movie This Summer… ( You Need To Get Out More Often )
Dateline: Tuesday. Coincidently, the day after a long-time friend [4] visits – the kind of friend where you can both catch up on each other’s respective lives and discuss the state of/meaning to the universe in the same paragraph – I met my dear buddy and fellow Movie Buff® CC at a theater to see The Life of Chuck. This is the incident which made the title of this week’s blog appropriate. Translation: I’m not writing the blog installment I’d intended, because moiself can’t get the movie’s themes from careening through my frontal lobe and my amygdala like a drunken sailor.
I felt odd, driving home from the movie theater, and actually wondered at one point if I should pull the car over and strip off my clothing and run into traffic whooping and yelping in both despair and delight catch my breath, because my mind, and possibly body, felt… elsewhere. After the movie was over I told CC, when we were both stumbling for words outside the theatre, that “…when I get home tonight MH will ask me how the movie was, and I’ll have no good answer, and then he’ll ask what was the movie about, and I’ll say something like ‘it was about living life with the knowledge of the inevitable obliteration of the cosmos, whether physically or philosophically/personally…and I can’t explain it any more than that.’ ”
And then I’ll have to sit in one of our Comfy Chairs ® and stream a movie about dinosaurs or King Kong or something.
* * *
Department Of…Or Something
The next day I saw one version of Or Something: The Phoenician Scheme, [5] which, for moiself, is the existential opposite of The Life of Chuck.
I won’t bother to give even a rudimentary summary of The Phoenician Scheme’s plot line, because it doesn’t matter. It was a Wes Anderson movie, in all its Wes Anderson-osity, with its plethora of *name* actors eager to play a part in his highly stylized eccentricity: Look at us – as actors we’re all individually and collectively capable of emoting our spleens off, but here we are in Wes Anderson ® mode, so enjoy us being deadpan and quirky amidst the symmetrical, bright-vintage and hyperrealistic, Andersonesque set design! [6]
* * *
Department Of In Three Days My Mother Would Have Had Her Ninety-Seventh Birthday
To honor that, moiself will be excerpting a blog from three years ago ( The Holiday I’m Not Renaming ), in which I shared one of my favorite memories of my mother:
Dateline: earlier this week. A FB friend posts pictures of his grandchild‘s visit to what looks to be an amusement park, and a picture shows the child playing that classic arcade game, Whac-a-mole. Seeing this picture prompts a lovely flashback for moiself– a memory I’ve not thought of in decades.
Dateline of memory: A long time in a galaxy far far away (Southern California). I am visiting my parents at their home in Santa Ana. It’s summertime, and the County Fair is on. My parents tell me they haven’t been to a state or county fair in ages, and suggest we go. And so we do. As we walk past the various cheesy games and merchandise and food booths, nothing catches our interest, until we come to an arcade. I espy a Whac-A-Molegame, and instantly am obsessed with getting my mother to play it.
My mother is hesitant, despite my enthusiastic recommendation. She knows nothing about it, she says ( Even better!!!, moiself thinks to moiself ). I assure her that it’s a straightforward game, no complicated strategy or levels or scenarios: she simply must hold the mallet and whack the heads of the moles as they pop up from the console.
“Why?” she asks me.
“There’s no time to get existential right now,” I reply. I put my two quarters in the slot, press the game’s start button and put the mallet in my mother’s hand. “You don’t want me to waste fifty cents, right, Mom? Look – there’s one! Pretend it’s digging up your rosebushes!”
…my mother is exquisitely awful at Whac-A-Mole. Her timing is atrocious; even so, she soon gets into it in her own way, emitting a high-pitched, “Oh!” whenever a mole head appears, followed by her delayed whack at its head. My father and I, standing to the side of the game console, are doubled over with laughter as we watch my mild-mannered mother, with an increasing maniacal look in her eyes, pursue those pesky moles:
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
( Carl Sagan, the late, great, American astronomer, planetary scientist, teacher, author, science communicator…. )
* * *
May you realize that we’re all living The Life of Chuck May you have a favorite memory of your mother; May your life never resemble a Wes Anderson movie; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[3] I’m making an exception here (in my blog) to identify a real person with his real name (and not an acronym or initials). He deserves it, and also, being a journalist for years, he kind of qualifies as a person in “the public eye.”
[4] We’ve known each other since junior high ( I was in the 7th grade, and Scott the 8th). Can you imagine the hideous (as in, embarrassingly adolescent) stories we could tell?
[5] Yep, I returned to the movie theater. I’m trying to get back into watching a movie a week in the theater…which shouldn’t be so difficult given the plethora of summer releases but which in fact is difficult for moiself when the majority of the releases are the seventeenth in a series of I Know What You Did/How You Screamed Fast and Furioiusly Last Summer – Marvel Super Hero, Inside Out of Training Your Despicable Me’s Dragon, Mission Impossible: The Final Squeezing Of Blood From A Movie Ticket Turnip…
[6] At least I didn’t pay for it…directly. I have a movie club membership, and have amassed many free tickets.
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Thoughts While Walking Around A Farmers’ Market
Dateline: Last Sunday, with MH, Orenco Farmers’ Market; ~ 11:45a. Moiself is noticing a long line for one of the market’s food carts. We approach the cart to see what it is selling, then exchange knowing snickers. As MH puts it,
“… it is so strange to see a long line for a place serving food you’d have to pay me to eat.”
That particular cart specialized in biscuits and gravy/biscuits and sausage and gravy. Even way back when moiself was the occasional meat eater, I disdained the dish – confession: I find its appearance so repulsive I’ve never even tried it.
To the minority (I’m being optimistic) of y’all who claim to actually like biscuits and gravy: [1] that homey dish, which may remind you of family comfort food, has always looked to me to be the result of feeding sausage to Grandma’s dog which then vomits all over a plate of Grandma‘s biscuits.
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Department Of More Thoughts, These Which Occurred To Moiself@ 5:57a On A Father’s Day Sunday Morning
Who “invented” shaving?
Shaving was, for centuries, an already well-established torture grooming option for men before the Roaring 20s and flapper fashions revealed that adult female humans also grow hair on their legs and armpits. Seeing as how there are few things more frightening to patriarchy – and the “feminine” ideal it created – than recognizing the natural, biological commonalities of male and female bodies, razors and depilatories became marketed to (read: mandated for) women.
But Whowas the ambitious Phoenician dignitary (or other post-caveman ancestor) to figure out that you could take a blade or hone a stone or another sharp surface and scrape it along certain parts of a man’s skin, to remove the hair growing on the skin [2] without removing the skin itself? And why did that Whothink that that – selective body hair removal – would be a worthwhile activity for human men to pursue?
And why were Certain Parts ® chosen for hair removal, while others were left alone? Shaving targets a man’s face – chin, cheeks, upper lip…not his eyebrows for some reason, [3] – but not the hair atop his head. Why, in most cultures, do men shave their facial hair, but not their forearm or leg hair?
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Department Of You Had Me At “We Don’t Understand Yogurt”
Moiself has no idea what this “We Don’t Understand Yogurt” quote is supposed to reference. But I had it set for today’s blog, and so it shall stand. Let your imagination run wild.
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Department Of Big Swinging Dicks
Not my terminology, but that used by the OceanGate[4] CEO and founder Stockton Rush ( I don’t know about big or swinging, but that’s a dick name if I ever heard one). Rush used the BSD term to describe the cadre of egotistical entrepreneurs ( alaJeff Bezos and Elon Musk) which, he told several of his employees, he aspired to join. No doubt Rush imagined that he would one day be the exemplar of the ITAL Big Swinging Dicks he admired. And now he is….although not exactly in the way he’d hoped.
In June 2023 Rush, and four passengers who’d paid OceanGate $250,000 each to ride in an OceanGate submersible to see the wreck of the Titanic died when OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded about 90 minutes into its descent, instantly goo-ifying/squashing killing all five people on board. [5] Investigations into the disaster [6] revealed that warnings had been raised by experts inside and outside of the company, from deep sea explorers to engineers and former OceanGate employees, about Titan’s unique carbon fiber design not being suitable for Titanic-style depths [7] – a design which ignored over 60 years of submersible design research and which was described by one former OceanGate employee as an “abomination” and an “inevitable disaster.”
Titan submersible, before….
Dateline: last Wednesday, 7:30 am. Moiself is watching the Netflix documentary Titan: The Ocean Gates Submersible Disaster. I’m not sure why I chose it; its near the top of my you-may-find-this-interesting list, and was something to watch while on my morning elliptical workout. As it began with the recap of the disaster, I wondered to moiself , Other than being appalled by the public resources used (read: money and equipment and manpower wasted) trying to rescue a bunch of privileged multimillionaires from their ill-advised, thrill-seeking adventure, am I really interested in this story?
The answer proved to be yes, yes, and yes. The film’s documenting of the rise and fall of OceanGate and its CEO is Shakespearean in its themes of ego and hubris, power and ambition, inevitable fate and coveted glory.
The submersible Titan was made of a material (carbon fiber) that no other submersible – either in Rush’s own company or other companies that produce submersibles – had used, a fact which, to moiself, screams the question, IF NO ONE ELSE IS USING THIS MATERIAL TO GO THAT DEEP IN THE OCEAN, MAYBE THERE’S A REALLY GOOD REASON WHY ?!?!? When Rush was interviewed by a newscaster who raised this fact, Rush actually said, on camera, that once they got through testing the Titan the submersible would be “ invulnerable.” The newscaster quickly reminded Rush, “Isn’t that what they said about the Titanic?”
“Come home to mama, little Titan.”
If you were fictionalizing this story you couldn’t concoct a more classic, almost stereotypical, self-aggrandizing, bullying, grandiose, and ultimately ignorant elitist lead character, whose background of privilege and wealth and money and connections got him a Princeton University degree [8] and seed money for his projects. During the US Coast Guard’s investigation of the disaster, one former OceanGate engineer testified under oath that he quit the company after he asked Rush what would happen if the Titan failed a neutral/third party inspection, and Rush replied that he would “buy myself a congressman.”
Moiself found the documentary both fascinating and unnerving. It reminded me of Werner Herzog’s acclaimed 2005 documentary, Grizzly Man. [9] In both films you see a narcissistic megalomaniac unraveling on screen – making rash choices and brazenly overconfident assumptions which lead to their (and other people’s) deaths. In Stockton Rush’s case, in the end he would literally rather get in a sub that’s going to implode than admit failure (or do what he really needed to do – get some therapy).
Rush’s conceit and aspirational insecurities are vividly on display. He’d sunk his company’s money and his ego and reputation on this new design that would show all the naysayers what a BSDhe was. He ignored everyone and everything he’d used to help him on the project – his engineers, the test results, even his own monitoring system. The filmmakers obtained footage of one of Rush’s solo test dives on Titan, which Rush filmed. When the hull began cracking you could see, you could *feel,* his anxiety. It was all over his face, and he didn’t do another dive for four months after that, until he…until he what? Just said, WTF?!?!? He ignored the evidence that the hull would break. He couldn’t deal with the failure; he pushed his luck…and when that luck ultimately and inevitably ran out, he took other human beings with him.
BSD. Big Swinging Dick, indeed, that’s what Rush finally was. But not in the way he’d envisioned.
Titan submersible…after.
* * *
* * *
Department Of A Recent Bingo! Moment
Dateline: last Tuesday, 8:02 am, walking on the beach at Manzanita, listening to a Fresh Air podcast about stand-up comic and American immigrant, [10]Atsuko Okatsuka. Don’t you love it when someone else, at least for a moment, has thought your same thoughts and/or has experienced your same experiences, and comes up with a pithy way to describe it – a phrase or explanation that you can use, then blame it on/attribute it to someone else, if anyone finds the description unpleasant or insulting?
As a standup comic Okatsuka puts herself at the center of attention when she is working, and thus by definition, is “on stage.” Still, in the interview she showed a unique understanding in answering certain questions or prescriptions often posed to writers, artists and other “creatives” by folks not in those fields, folks and who conflate an artist’s wanting to do the creative work with wanting fame and acclaim for that work:
“Why do you do *___*” or, Why don’t you do *____*?
My response (often unuttered) has always been on the tip of my snarky little tongue when, over the years, people who’ve judged me amusing and/or clever felt the need to give me unsolicited career advice. This advice, always phrased in ways to seem complimentary, comes out as some version of
* You should be (should’ve been) a stand-up comic! * You should be (should’ve been) an actor, or someone on stage!
Fact is, if or when y’all would truly pay attention and/or look beneath the surface (as did some editors and publishers, who were less than pleased with the results), you would surmise that although I’m one of the more genial people you will meet and am generally fine in one-on-one and very small group situations, being “on stage“ (or even the idea of it) is something I truly abhor.
Yeah, kinda like this.
Translation: book fairs, book signings, author readings and appearances – while highly (and often desperately) sought by aspiring/newbie writers, and (usually) highly appreciated or desired by other, established authors – were anathema to me. And I’m fine with that.
Thus, my answer to the Why did you never pursue being a stand-up comic/more public speaking/presentation opportunities to sign books and bask in attention and acclaim…?” [11] question:
“Because I don’t have this hole in my heart that I have to fill with the validation of strangers.”
(Reason # 68). I’m angry that when people run for political office in the Unites States, it’s considered legitimate to grill them about their employment background, their positions on legislation, their positions on social issues, the taxes they’ve paid, even their sexual history… but, it’s considered invasive and intolerant to ask if they believe in talking snakes, demonic possession, magic underwear, magic crackers that turn into the flesh of their god, an earth that was created 6,000 years ago, or a god who put himself on Earth in human form and then sacrificed himself to himself to atone for sins that other people committed and to save humanity from the punishment he himself was planning to dole out.
If someone is going to make decisions about science funding, emerging medical technology, our educational system, and so on… I think it matters if they believe any of that shit, and I bloody well want to know.
May your life be free from BSD’s; May your comfort food never look as though it’s been regurgitated; May you, for whatever reasons, understand yogurt; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[4] OceanGate Inc. was a privately-owned company, co-founded by Stockton Rush, based in Washington state’s Puget Sound. OceanGate manufactured and provided crewed submersibles for tourism, research, and exploration. It ceased operations after the Titan disaster.
[5] The five were Oceangate’s CEO Stockton Rush (who piloted the submersible), British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
[6] From the US Coast Guard, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, even the US Department of Justice (which was concerned about the company’s financial practices).
[7] The wreck of the Titanic lies some 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface.
[8] Even though his grades – the documentary shows his Princeton report cards – were hardly Ivy League bragging material (they ranged from B – to D’s and even Fs).
[9] Focuses on the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a self-proclaimed grizzley bear “expert,” who descends into grandiosity and manic delusion in his quest to “save the bear” and also get himself attention and jump-start his aspiring actor career. Among Treadwell’s many peculiarities included him faking an Australian accent (he told some people he was from Australia; he was from New York state) or telling people that he was a British orphan (both of his parents survived him). Moiself highly recommends you watch this movie…but only once.
[10] technically an “illegal alien” – as a child she was brought to the US from Japan, without proper papers, by her grandmother.
[11] Translation: I was the worst self-promoter, ever.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Los Angeles, and elsewhere. The escalation – federal forces and incendiary rhetoric – to produce the violence #47 so desperately seeks. Instigation, followed by justification.
Dictators; authoritarians…this is their playbook. And one of the most essential – and the most heart-wrenching – chapter of the playbook is that their followers don’t, won’t, can’t, or refuse to see it. They vehemently and obstinately don their moral and historical blinders and bray, “That was then; this is different,” as they slide into the putrid pit of “then.”
* * *
Department Of Win-Win
Dateline: Monday eve, watching the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary. Moiself can’t remember exactly where I was or even how old I was when I heard Led Zeppelin’s first album, but the thing was that I heard it as an album. Among the many insights presented in the documentary is the group’s strategy to *not* be a singles band – their albums were meant to be played and listened to us as just that: albums. [1] That differentiated them at the time (although, arguably, they were preceded by The Beatles’Seargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in terms of a band producing an album that was meant to be listened to as an album, and not just filler songs surrounding one or two singles).
I (eventually) bought all of the LZ albums and attended several of their concerts. I also understood, intuitively if not consciously at the time, how LZ, and the heavy metal and “stadium rock” bands which followed, became partly responsible for the emergence of punk rock. Several of the members of The Ramones, as well as members of other punk bands, have spoken about how their approach to music (jackhammer, two-minutes songs; minimalist instrumentation and no solos by any member of the band) was a reaction to and rebellion against what they saw as the self-indulgent excesses of mainstream rock, which had abandoned or twisted the original energy of rock ‘n roll into, as an example, Jimmy Page’s and John Bonham’s respective, lengthy, guitar and drum solos. [2]
Moiself was a fan of Led Zeppelin’s music, then *really* loved The Ramones and punk rock as well, so it all worked out for me.
* * *
Department Of A Blast From The Past
Dateline: January. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month). Perhaps moiself will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025. So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.
This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?![3] friend gave me, all those years ago, [4] as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. Journal/diary-resistant moiself would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.
Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago June to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )
As a kid, I didn’t understand thelight a matchreference, nor the presence of a pack of matches in the bathrooms of most people of my parents’ generation. Even after it was explained to me by an adult, [5] it still seemed rather silly. Was it a last resort, an act of religious penance ( Forgive me, Father, for I have blown Satan’s bugle [6]), or some kind of ritual atonement (setting oneself on fire rather than face the shame of emerging from the host’s bathroom after you’ve stunk it up)?
Matches eventually gave way to the Bathroom Air Fresheners industry – including the aptly if not discretely namedPoo-pouri[7]. This was a great loss to the budding pyromaniac that lurks in most six-year-olds, and also provided yet another variation on things that don’t make much sense.
Yeah, I get the point of, or rather I understand the supposed need for, commercial bathroom air fresheners. But other than serving as an effective irritant to asthmatics and people with fragrance allergies I think it is arguable that they “work.” In my experience in other people’s houses and in restaurants, businesses and other “out” venues, it’s a tossup as to whether air fresheners eliminate [8] or enhance the odors they are designed to combat.
And the varieties of masking perfumes, ay yi yi. Here are just some of the olfactory auras available to you, Discerning Consumer, thanks to the scentmeisters of Glade, Renuzit, et al:
Frosted Pine Clean Linen Creamy Custard® & Apple Cinnamon Angel Whispers [9]
But really, who’s kidding whom? Here are your choices:
*Bathroom usage sans air freshener: it smells like someone took a dump in here. * Bathroom usage with air freshener: it smells like whispering angels stood by as someone took a dump on a pine tree,
in your clean linen, on your apple custard dessert.
Not to get all Bathroom Buddhist ® , but it is what it is. Embrace the stone age, y’all: light a match.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Born Too Soon To Achieve My Ultimate Sports Destiny Sub-Department Of I Realize The Pressure To Fill Space With Content 24/7,
But, A Classic Sibling Bedroom Brawl Is Now A Professional Sport?
Dateline: Sunday night, at Manzanita’s San Dune Pub, [10] realizing that one of the pub’s five televisions which show a variety of sports was set to an ESPN channel which was broadcasting the PFC, as in…I can’t believe moiself is typing this….Pillow Fighting Championship.
“PFC: Pillow Fight Championship is the world’s first professional pillow fighting league featuring professional fighters engaging in intense, fast-paced and all ages-friendly combat unrivaled by any other professional sports entertainment or fighting organization.
However, PFC isn’t just for professional fighters. We have developed a unique set of rules and regulations to complement our patent-pending and safe combat pillows that allow anyone to participate.
Pillow Fight Championship has been credited for being a safe alternative to traditional, violent combat sports and for it’s ITAL (sic) cardiovascular and benefits.” ( from PFC: About )
Zora Neale Hurston. Brilliant Harlem Renaissance writer. Anthropologist, ethnographer, folklorist. Best known and beloved for her 1937 masterpiece nove,l Their Eyes Were Watching God. Enormously influential in the worlds of literature, anthropology, oral tradition, African American folklore, and just about every other damn thing except maybe particle physics. She was a non-believer, and even as a child, she was beginning to question the unquestioning faith and dogma of her congregation. She wrote of those years she could not “understand the passionate declarations of love for a being that nobody could see…. When I was asked if I loved God, I always said yes because I knew that was the thing I was supposed to say. It was a guilty secret with me for a long time.” She eventually concluded, “Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.” [12]
May you no longer engage in pillow fights for free if others are paid to do so; May you not say yes because you know it is the thing you are supposed to say; May you find a way to torch the authoritarian’s playbook; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] And LZ founder/guitarist Jimmy Page was fortunate to get the contractual stipulations to be able to do that.
[2] Johnny Ramone’s one note guitar riff in I Wanna Be Sedated was his satirical nod to rock guitarists’ lengthy solos.
[3] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.
[5] By my uncle Joe, accomplished match lighter, may he rest in peace.
[6] a high-pitched, keening wail of a fart, as if summoning Satan’s minions from one’s nether regions.
[7] I am not making this up, and you have to read the product reviews.
[8] Sorry. Potty-pun unintentional. No shit really.
[9] Because we all know what angel whispers smell like.
[10] Interested in a business opportunity? The beloved Pub is for sale. We want someone good to keep it going!
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[13] Who herself is not an old white guy; rather, Greta Christina is a not-infrequently-quoted-in-this-blog author, atheist ad LGBTQ activist, and speaker.
It’s been almost six months since the death of Jimmy Carter, the #39 US President. Carter served in the tumultuous, smack-dab-in-the-middle-of-the-1979 Energy Crisis, [1] post-Watergate years of 1977 – 1981
Yeah, Watergate. Not even gonna attempt a summary, except to say to those readers too young to remember it, that I never thought I’d miss having a president who goes on national television to defend himself thusly: “…people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.” Contrast that with the Current Occupant who has raised crookery to an art form, and who doesn’t give an orange-toupeed rat’s ass if anyone or everyone knows about it.
After Carter’s death in December (2024), the usual pros and cons of Carter’s public life were listed and discussed by pundits and historians. Pros including Carter
*brokering the 1978 The Camp David Accords (signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin);
* championing diversity in the justice system by pointing out judicial inequities in representation and appointing more minority judges to the federal judiciary than all previous presidents combined;
* working with human rights organizations and engaging with foreign governments to free political prisoners in countries around the world [2]
* shifting US foreign policy to build diplomatic relationships with African nations (his 1978 visit to Liberia and Nigeria were the ITAL first ever state visits of a US president to sub-Saharan Africa.
But during Carter’s term the country struggled with a new-to-most-folks-in-the-Western-world neologism: stagflation[3] – which was aggravated by the afore-mentioned oil crisis – then the Iran hostage crisis.
Carter was an ethical breath of fresh air after the dishonesty and criminality of Nixon and his henchmen. Still, critics noted that his much acclaimed “outsider’ status made him ineffective when it came to working with the politics-as-usual members of Congress, many of whom resented what they saw as his “above-it-all” (read: holier than thou) presentation of his political self.
“… James Earl ‘Jimmy’ Carter came out of nowhere to capture the Democratic nomination for president, eventually winning the presidential election…. Carter’s ‘I’ll never lie to you’ pledge resonated with voters disgusted with the corruption of the Nixon administration….
Jimmy Carter…was an unlikely president who served in difficult times….Being an ‘outsider,’ not part of the Washington D.C. political establishment, was a great asset in the everything-inside-the-beltway-is-corrupt estimation of the public. But what helped him get elected came back to haunt Carter as his inexperience with beltway politics was, in part, his undoing….
As president, Carter attempted to de-pomp the imperial presidency that had blossomed under Nixon. Downsizing the presidency seemed a good idea at the time, but world events conspired to demand a stronger, more in-charge president. Post-Watergate, the public was in a president-bashing mood, and Congress began to flex its muscles, leaving the presidency weaker and more vulnerable than at any time in the previous two generations. Governing in the best of times is difficult enough, but governing in an ‘Age of Cynicism’ and declining trust was all but impossible.”
Carter is often referred to as “the most successful ex-president,” if by successful you mean someone who tries to do good in the word. Many of Carter’s predecessors (also and especially his successor, Reagan) leveraged the ex-president card as a way to make millions in post-presidential speaking gigs. But Carter used whatever cache he had to establish, fund, and promote NGOs that worked on a variety of national and international human rights causes, from affordable housing (Habitat for Humanity) to nonpartisan and collaborative conflict resolution, monitoring of elections, and parasitic and infectious disease ratification (The Carter Center).
Waging peace.Moiself loves it, and admires the work Carter [4] engaged in post-presidency. And what a legacy! here’s just one example: thanks to Carter’s decades-long advocacy, Dracunculiasis, the crippling parasitic affliction aka Guinea-worm disease, is on the brink of being eradicated.[5]
As much as I admire Carter’s humanitarian work, when I heard all the rush-to-praise that accompanied his death – which accompanies the death of any former leader – I found moiself biting my tongue about a few of my less-than-charitable-so-close-to-his-demise critiques of some of his methods.
I admired Carter, but do not idolize him (or anyone); thus, it’s not a feet of clay thing.
Nope, not like this at all.
’Tis uncomfortable to pick nits about someone who did a crap-ton of good work (and who had cancer). But equal opportunity picker, that’s moiself. And when I ran across this several months back – it was not new, but new to me – those nits just begged to be picked, or at least nudged.
“Former U.S. President Carter said on Sunday he believes ‘Jesus would approve of gay marriage.’
“I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else,’ Carter, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, told HuffPost Live…..
(Carter) spoke at length in the HuffPost Live video about how his faith has informed his politics. He is promoting his new book, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. ”
To repeat: I greatly admire the humanitarian work of former President Jimmy Carter. More ex-presidents would do well to follow his example of using his influence and connections to advance human rights and eschew temptation to pursue lucrative speaking opportunities (yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, George W. Bush). Just as I would pooh-poo a wingnut claiming to speak for what their god would or would not do, sorry, Jimmy, if you use the same tactics you get the same reaction. Doesn’t matter if I approve the message – the idea that anyone thinks that what their deity would or would not approve of should influence civil rights is antithetical to a rational, secular government.
Carter used the same methods – the appeal to what their deity *really* wants or intends; [1] the selecting citing of scriptures to support their position – that his opponents used to refute his claims. I recall him doing that several times, regarding several human rights issues, over the course of his post-presidency public life. For example, while I’m glad he supported women’s rights I cringed when he cited his faith for justification. [2]
Now, y’all keep in mind that moiself, as a Freethinker-atheist-Bright-Secular humanist, don’t believe in any of these deities I’m about to use in a For The Sake Of Argument® example:
Moiself has to insist that, in fairness, regarding your support for or claims about the political/human issues I might happen to agree with (as in, your positions on social or other issues): you must appeal to evidence and reason, and not your opinion of some silent deities’ likely take on the issue. I insist on the same standards from those whose positions you oppose.
An actual comment moiself read on FB, regarding a human rights issue ( think LGBTQ rights, immigration reform, women’s bodily autonomy….):
“Any true Christian who understands the life of Jesus would believe this as well.”
You could put this on any side, of any argument, citing any religion, in the form of a Mad Libs® Doctrine of applying faith to politics:
* any true ___ (Christian; Muslim: Jew; Hindu; Prosperity Gospel believer) who reads and understands the ___ _______ ( life of Jesus, words of Mohammed, Torah, Bhagavat Gita; Wall Street Journal ) would ______ (believe this as well; believe as I do; feel the same way )
about _____
( insert whatever cause).
While I’m usually glad when liberal religious believers support causes of social justice, I cringe to see them use same tactics/justifications as their conservative counterparts; that is, extrapolating what a “just god” thinks about Issue X.
Support your causes – fight the good fights based on reason, justice, human rights and realities, utility of existence – not by citing the unprovable notions of an illusory, or fickle at best (given the causes attributed to said deity for a millennium) deity:
* god made separate “races” and segregation – just look at these verses….;
* our god made us equal and supports civil rights – just look at these verses….;
Your arguments and advocacies should stand on their own evidence, and on their own intellectual, physical, and scientific merits, and not on the fluctuating, consistently-behind-the-times, illusory precepts of theology.
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself. Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [8]
May you not need justifications for treating people kindly; May you never support your opinions with Mad Libs theology; May we all be wagers of peace; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Aka (in the USA) as The Oil Crisis, a drop in oil production after the 1978 Iranian revolution, which led to speculation and hoarding and not nearly enough self-examination re our dependency on non-renewable energy sources.
[2] After he left office, Carter continued to work on freeing political prisoners through The Carter Center.
[3] rising inflation paired with a high unemployment rate and sluggish economic growth.
[4] and his fellow activist and humanitarian and the love of his life, his wife, the late Rosalyn Carter.
[6] Only in this case he didn’t, because there aren’t any Christian scriptures which support – or oppose – gay marriage. Not matter the translation, the words gay and homosexual do not appear in those ancient texts. In those times what later folks termed “homosexual acts” were considered to be just that – acts – and not an outward expression of a sexual orientation, the concept of which didn’t even exist until the late 1800s.
[7] Just as his opponents cited theirfaith as to, for example, why women shouldn’t be ordained in their churches.
[8] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[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
Does anyone remember Boobquake? Reading the current news headlines (moiself handles it by glancing at them and shrieking), I feel like the world could use many more rounds of guerilla activism and mocking-the-mock-worthy.
Boobquake, a rally to protest (read: mock) an Islamic cleric’s proclamation attributing earthquakes to women’s immodest attire, took place on April 26, 2010. It was inspired and co-organized by (then) grad student and blogger, Jen McCreight. [1]
“In early 2010, there came news reports that an IranianIslamic cleric, Kazem Seddiqi, had blamed earthquakes on God‘s wrath because of women who dressed immodestly and advised ‘Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.’ and Iranians should ‘adapt their lives to Islam’s moral codes’ to avoid being ‘buried under the rubble.’ The day that this was reported, (genetics grad student and activist/blogger ) Jen McCreight [2] comically encouraged her readers (via Facebook) to dress ‘in your immodest clothing to represent Boobquake,’ which they referred to as a scientific experiment. The actual event took place on April 26, with McCreight carefully avoiding hateful, anti-Islamic, or anti-Iranian messages.
The center of the event (the ‘epicenter’) was at Purdue University, with participants dressed in appropriate attire and carrying signs saying things like Cleavage for Science, andGod hates boobs….
An estimated 200,000 people participated in Boobquake…..true to the, um, scientific nature of the event, McCreight ran a rigorous statistical analysis of seismic activity during Boobquake and figured out that world-wide incidence of earthquakes on April 26 was actually below average. Conclusion: boobs stop earthquakes!” ( excerpts, rationalwiki, McCreight )
* * *
Department Of Why Do We Forget This?
We hear so much about PTSD – so much that some people are under the mistaken impression that every traumatic event will bring PTSD to those who experience trauma – and we hear relatively little about the other effects of living through or with trauma. One of the most important effects is a positive: PTG, as in, Post Traumatic Growth. PTGis not about denying or repressing one’s suffering, but about recognizing that living through trauma can also lead to developing resiliency and insightfulness, to having changes in perspective and increasing compassion for one’s self as well as for others. But PTGrarely seems to be addressed or even acknowledged, along with the fact that it’s possible to experience both PTSDand PTGfrom the same traumatic circumstances.
“There is research showing that, in the aftermath of a traumatic stress, some people – probably not immediately – actually end up better off. They develop resources, friendships, social networks, insights into themselves, a sense of purpose….so many people, for example, who receive a terminal diagnosis of cancer at least will *say* that it *really* put things in perspective, and they valued their last days much more than they probably would have in any other scenario. So, it’s possible, for example, that there is some benefit for having been through something terrible.”
Well someone knows enough about it to turn it into a list.
* * *
Department Of A Name I Can Live With
As regular/longtime readers may know, moiself cannot even bear to type the name of that international sign of shame that is our current occupant of the White House; thus, I must resort to aliases (e.g., the Mandarin Mussolini) when mentioning him. But, leave it to science – specifically, taxonomic classification – to provide an alternative.
This nomenclature suggestion comes from (I assume) an ornithologist, or someone in the birding community:
The Common North American Trump( anus tangerinus ).
* * *
Department Of Finding An Unexpected Use For A Often Troubling Technology
As much as I have grave doubts about AI usage (except for certain applications, e.g., to medical and scientific research), there is one thing which recently gave me a favorable feeling toward these technologies: their mere existence has given me the almost perfect framework with which to understand, or at least classify, a phenomenon which has both bemused and saddened moiself for decades.
I have Religious Friends And Family Members ® whose correspondence and interpersonal interactions [3] have long struck moiself as…pamphlet-like, ya know? I’ve struggled with ways to describe it; after last weekend, I shall struggle no more.
Dateline: Saturday; 7:45 AM; morning walk. Apropos of almost nothing ( but perhaps a recent article I’d read about professors despairing of reading the all-sound-alike, AI-assisted essays from their students? ) I had a clickmoment which provided me with a more contemporary description for my impressions:
It’s like these RFAFM’s lives are guided by Christian AI.
There are many, many Christian denominations – over 200 in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity – a head-scratching number for a religion that, according to most of its adherents, is just so obviously the only true faith/pathway to salvation/god. [4]
Ah, yet again, I digress.
These RFAFMs of whom I write are typically aligned with the conservative/evangelical brands of the religion. Over the years, when I listen to the things they say/read the things they write/watch the things they do, I’ve often found moiself wondering, Is there an individual in there? It all sounds so…scripted. I can’t distinguish what she said or wrote from what her sister or that cousin/friend/coworker said or wrote. In conversations with RFAFM’s that might actually (and would likely, with other people) steer toward the substantive, there is little of anything uniquely personal – little of *them* present – other than their discernable desire to fulfill an obligation to be looking for any moment, in every situation (particularly when they are in the company of us happy heathens), to say or show how their lives are a “witness” to their religion.
It’s as if they are reading from a Christian AI script. [5]
* * *
Department Of Sound Advice For The… Day… Week… Month…Your Entire Life.
This is advice (usually but not always solicited) which moiself has given – and heeded – many, many times:
Write it down. Then put it away. Come back to it in a few days ( or better yet, weeks), and read it with the mindset, Is this still what I want to say? Edit, then send…
or not (maybe it’s no longer necessary?)
Context: moiself’s favorite advice columnist, The WaPo’s Carolyn Hax, writing to an advice seeker who’d been zinged at her mother’s funeral, by her mother’s sister. The advice seeker was wondering how to respond to her aunt, as the zing – and the feelings it brought – still linger. Hax listed several possible options, including
* write off your aunt’s words as the rantings of a grieving mess; * two variations on the do-nothing/let it go response; * handwrite a note to your aunt.
Moiself strongly favors that last option. I have seen too many friends and family estrangements come from slights and resentments left unspoken. Brushing things under the rug gets you nothing but a houseful of lumpy rugs. Don’t leave it to others to assume how/why you are feeling what you are feeling…
BUT, and this is a big but…
almost as big as this one?
BUT:
* choose your battles, and
* use the perspective which can only come from deliberation,
as opposed to the instantaneous reactivity of texting, or emailing,
or (gasp) using social media IN ANY WAY.
Write it down; then, sit on it, so to speak.
“The purpose of paper is to encourage slow reactions. You write it and set it aside, in case just writing it is enough; if you want to send it, then you rewrite it as needed until all venom is out; then you snail-mail it so she can’t hit “reply” and react. Etc. Cooler heads.”
( excerpt, “Aunt’s vicious jab at funeral tarnishes a late mother’s gift,” Carolyn Hax, The Washington Post, 5-6-25 )
May you never attribute temblors to tatas; May your birding binoculars never be soiled by the image of an anus tangerinus; May your interactions never sound as if they are AI-scripted ; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Jen McCreight goes by the name Jey McCreight now and uses different pronouns, but at the time of Boobquake and her other feminist activisms other she identified as Jen/female; thus I am using the names/pronouns which she used at that time and was identified as in news reports, etc.
[2] who described herself on her blog (at the time) as “a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana.”
[3] both of which are becoming increasingly infrequent, given the years and physical and emotional distance between us.
[4] So “obvious” in its theologies and tenets that there is a need for all those denominations, as these followers of the One True God ® can’t agree on how that god wants them to eat, live, sing, worship, dress, pray, love, play music….
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Is it art? Or is it engineering? Either way, I will appreciate it while I can, until the next high tide brings its own critique.
* * *
Department Of Making A Java Junkie’s Day
Or, morning at least…
Dateline Tuesday; Manzanita (Oregon), 7:35 AM-ish; walking past Manzanita Coffee Co. A car pulls over driver stays with it as a passenger gets out color. I saw her reading the sign on the door which listed the shop hours – closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays [1] – and her countenance fell, in the way that only other coffee addicts (which I think of to moiself as, Coff-Dicts, which is too easy to mistake for Coff-*dicks, so perhaps another nickname I should create?) can understand.
Coffee Seeking Woman turned around and looked plaintively at the driver in the car. Without breaking my stride I approached CSW, waved hello and pointed up the street, and said, “Manzanita News and Espresso is open.” The beam in her eyes nearly outshone her profusion of gratitude: “Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you!“
* * *
Department Of She Sells Seashells By The Seashore…Oops
I allude to the recent kerfuffle [2] about former FBI director James Comey, whose sharing of a social media post (a picture of the numbers 86 and 47 formed by an arrangement of seashells that he and his wife saw while at a beach) caused an uproar:
“We stood over it and I said, ‘I think it’s some kind of political message.’ She said, ‘86, when I was a server it meant to remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients,’ Comey said. ‘To me, as a kid, it always meant to leave a place, to ditch a place.’
“47″ was also understood to represent Trump’s current term as 47th president of the United States.
Comey added that it was his wife’s idea to post a photo of the message, a decision that sent Trump’s White House allies into a frenzy.
“She said, ‘You should take a picture of that,’ Comey said. ‘And I did, I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it.’
Many within Trump’s orbit interpreted the “86” as a threat to the president—with some even suggesting that it was a call for his assassination.
( Excerpts, “James Comey Blames His Wife for Cryptic Post That Set MAGA Off,” The Daily Beast, 5-20-25 )
I hadn’t heard the term *86* in some time. Like Comey, I grew up with the idea that it meant to ditch, quash, or get rid of something (e.g., “At the cafe we 86’d our plans to go to the movies after dinner.” ). I also sympathize with the *nasty* possible meaning behind the two numbers together, although I try to restrain such thoughts. I keep hoping that #47 will die of natural causes…until I remember what we’re dealing with and remind moiself , Oh yeah, there’s nothing about that man that’s natural….
“If you weren’t an atheist I’d smite him for you.”
* * *
Department Of The New Podcast I’m Not Listening To
That would be Proxy with Yowei Shaw. Shaw is a former host of the podcast Invisibilia, which is in my podcast feed. I enjoy Invisibilia’s use of narrative storytelling to report scientific issues, so I decided to give Proxy a listen when a sample episode of the podcast showed up in my podcast feed.
A description from Proxy’s NPR link:
“ Proxy investigates niche emotional conundrums through conversations with
strangers who have relevant experience.”
The host describes herself as an “emotional investigative journalist.” Okay; I’ll give it a go. The sample episode (original airdate 4-22-25) in my feed was titled “Bisexual Wife Guy.” Preview on the site (which I did not have access to when I began listening to it):
“The case of the bisexual wife guy who got dumped. In this episode, we find a proxy
to stand in for a listener’s ex – another queer woman who left her straight relationship….”
So, the podcast host is talking with “George,” [3] (the bisexual-wife-guy-who-got-dumped). The episode opens with Shaw giving a few specifics about the case, then speaking with George, who says about his decade-plus relationship ending in divorce:
“…it gets really complicated and kind of pricky to talk about, but bottom line, two years ago my partner said, ‘Hey I think I’m bisexual.’….
ultimately, the elephant in the room is…‘Hey, actually, I’m queer and I’m not interested in being with a cis dude anymore.’ “
Then Shaw reads from an email supposedly written by George (which led to her inviting him on the show):
“I’ve not found any support groups or the like for people in my situation, and I’m not saying that should be the priority either. I just want to better understand in what ways I’ve been perpetuating a system that oppresses LGBTQ people and how I can grow and be better in the future, and ultimately be a human who loves everyone, including myself.”
I was turned off immediately – which is why I included the modifier supposedlywritten by George from the email Shaw read. My gut reaction was, What am I hearing – a pamphlet? Where are the emotions, motivations, and sincere responses of an actual person? At first (and second and third and fourth…) listen I thought it might’ve been AI-generated.
Moiself did listen a bit more, but could not sustain an interest in the podcast episode after the initial setup of some guy claiming he “just wants to understand …” followed by what sounds like phrases he’d get from a cis-dude-reeducation camp. Where is the anguish, the anger, the despair, of being dumped, out of the blue, by the partner you loved, for whatever reason?
It’s not fair to write something off so soon; I know this on an abstract, intellectual level. But, in the here and now, I barely have time to keep up with the podcasts moiself already subscribes to. Although getting through the backlog is quicker than it used to be, what with my post-election policy of deleting episodes with such angst -inducing titles and/or subject matter descriptions as,
* How Our Democracy Is Going Down The Toilet;
* Fear and Fascism: How America Reached a Political Breaking Point; [4]
* The Rise Of American Nazism;
*Why The USA’s (Former) Allies Now Despise Us…
I figure moiself’s incapacitation from a bleeding ulcer is not going to help the cause.
* * *
Department Of One Of My Favorites Ethical Dilemmas…
Favorite because, unlike so many dilemmas, there are more than two or three or five sides to this issue, and no one compelling, *it MUST be this* answer…. Thus, it’s fun (and revealing) to discuss it with others.
This is from a podcast moiself *is* listening to. No Stupid Questions, which ended last year, has been replaying some of their favorite episodes. NSQ’s Should We Separate The Art From The Artist? episode, hosted by Angela Duckworth and Stephen Dubner, is as relevant as it was when it first ran (9-27-20). Certainly, a consensus on the question has not been reached. [5]
Moiself tends to think of the question as an octopus-ical ethical dilemma, in that it has multiple tentacles of interpretation and application.
Do you have the right (or the obligation) to separate the art from the artist?
DUCKWORTH: “Did you know that the Rhodes Scholarship was founded on blood money?”
DUBNER: “Did you know that *everything* was founded on blood money,
if you go back far enough?”
“Today on the show: In the era of cancel culture, should we still be able to enjoy the art of
problematic artists?” (excerpt from NSQ episode transcript )
Re historically great works produced by artists [6] whom we later discovered led ethically sketchy (or downright reprehensible) lives: I am comfortable with people making their own decisions as to whether they will honor/enjoy or boycott the work of such artists. This holds true (for moiself) even if such artists’ work would be judged today as subtly or even openly promoting racism, imperialism, sexism, classism, nihilism, poor dental hygiene….
The past is…wait for the Zen-like profundity…the past. That was then; this is now. I’m not convinced of the value of spending time, money and emotional energy judging the centuries-dead by their descendants’ twenty-first century values.
That said, if you think you should never again read any book by Charles Dickens because you learned that the man who wrote so eloquently about the plight of the poor and downtrodden in Victorian England was a SOB to his own family, then…don’t. Let that conviction float your boat, but don’t try to sell moiself on the notion that I cannot be A Good Person ® if I enjoy re-reading A Christmas Carol during the yuletide season.
When it comes to the art of the present, I am more comfortable drawing harder lines. Some hip-hopper rapping about what he’s going to do to his bitches and hos – nope, sorry, he’s not getting any of my business. [7]
Harry Sanborn: “Hey, some people see rap as poetry.”
Erica Barry: “Yeah, but c’mon, how many words can you rhyme with bitch?”
Doobie-drenched rapper Snoop Dogg is now more known for his commercial ventures – e.g., , his unlikely friendship with Martha Stewart and his amusing gig as the USA’s Olympic Games ultimate fan – than for his rap career of decades ago. And he refuses to disavow his earlier work for its sexism and misogyny and violent imagery – he says that the existence of such in his lyrics is evidence of how much he’s changed and grown.
I’ve no idea whether Mr. Dogg is truly repent-ive, or just cannily re-inventive. Since he doesn’t seem to run from the controversy, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if I were not so inclined, it’s not as if moiself boycotting misogynistic and homophobic hip-hop songs would have any influence whatsoever.
Something closer to my intellectual and artistic home is the work of a comedian, writer and filmmaker whose books and movies I read and watched…until I didn’t.
I enjoyed much of Woody Allen’s work in the past, but there were always aspects about his movies that bothered me – recurrent themes and scenes (which were pooh-poohed by two boyfriends of mine, when I brought it up) which came to a stunning, forehead-slapping, AHAmoment when Allen’s abuse of his biological daughter and his affair with his de facto stepdaughter were revealed. It was a no brainer – no more, for me.
But…damn.
There was – is – so much I loved about the movie Hannah And Her Sisters, including the fact that when I saw it in the theater [8] for the first time the entire audience gasped – in astonishment, appreciation, and approval – as Allen’s character found love and unexpected joy, with a woman who was his equal on many levels (age, artistic talent, neuroticism…). It’s one of my favorite movie endings ever, and it used to be one of my favorite movies. And occasionally, I do want to watch it, again…. [9]
Many years ago a high school friend confessedto me ( as in, “Don’t tell anybody, but….”) that he liked the Frito-Lay commercials featuring the cartoon mascot, The Frito Bandito, despite having had many of his fellow Chicanos lecture him as to why he shouldn’t. They warned him: if he said anything positive about the bandidto, or any other representation of Latino culture that could be seen as (read: that those self-appointed gatekeepers had interpreted as ) racist, or promoting ethnic stereotypes, that meant he was a coconut. [10]
I’ll leave it to my Jewish friends to decide for themselves whether or not to listen to Ride of the Valkyries (or any works of the German composer Wagner ), or whether or not to enjoy or boycott the entire bibliography of William Shakespeare because among the works of that brilliant poet and playwright is the widely (but not exclusively) held as antisemitic play, The Merchant of Venice.
My feminist sisters are welcome to listen and even sing along to last century’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside,“ despite the fact that when I listen to it with contemporary ears, there’s no way around it, that holiday classic is…uh…kinda rapey. But there are bigger feminist fish to fry, and many people listen to that song because it reminds them of their grandparents’ generation. Now, were a contemporary singer to record a holiday tune about a man insistently inviting (pressuring?) his reluctant date to spend the night with him, to the point of intimating that he was spiking her drink? Yep, that would raise my cancellation hackles.
John Lennon created some of my favorite music on the planet. Lennon was also – by many accounts of those who loved and admired him – prone to bouts of jealous, narcissistic, violent rages (primarily expressed emotionally, but also physically). Knowing this about him, can I still enjoy his great body of work, during and after The Beatles? The same musician who wrote the spiteful, Run For Your Life – with lyrics ( “Well I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man…”) I recognized as creepy/controlling/stalker-y even when I was a third-grader – later wrote the beautiful/haunting/yearning/evocative songs In My Life, Imagine, Across The Universe….
If moiself demanded total ethical and human rights purity from people working in any art form, I could never again watch any movie or TV show, listen to a song, appreciate live theater, or read a book, because until these art forms have all been taken over/supplanted by AI, they will continue to be produced by flawed human beings. It’s a line I think all people with EQs and IQs greater than their shoe size should endeavor to carefully discern and not write in stone.
Yes, that means constant…vigilance, or maybe, mindfulness? Or maybe just the simple dictum of paying attention to what, by your patronage, you implicitly or explicitly support.
DUBNER: “…it’s the slippery-slope argument….a philosopher named Janna Thompson….
made an argument against cancel culture: ‘If the character of the artist becomes a criterion for judging art, then the door is open to the exclusion of artists because they belong to a despised group, or because they’ve said or done things that many people do not like.’ So, going back to the Nazis — because all roads seem to lead to the Nazis today — that’s what the labeling of ‘degenerate art’ was all about. Some of it was based on aesthetic principles, but it was also based on the ethnicity or politics of the artists who created it. So, do you want that too?”
…I will make one last argument against canceling, just generally. Let’s go back to politics for a second. So, one thing I personally find suboptimal about the American two-party duopoly is that it essentially forces people to go all in on either the red team or the blue team. If you want to be blue, you’ve gotta be all blue. If you want to be red, you gotta be all red.”
DUCKWORTH: “No purple.”
DUBNER: “No mixing and matching of policy—”
DUCKWORTH: “No plaid.”
DUBNER: “…Yeah. No plaid….
that’s the kind of doctrinaire cancelation that, in my view, harms the political process more than anything. This deep, deep, deep self-siloing. So I would say that, yes, we probably should learn to separate the politician from the policy and the art from the artist. I would take it as a sign of maturity, a sign of thoughtfulness and consideration. And I’m in favor of all of those things, for the record.”
( transcript excerpts my emphases, Should we separate the art from the artist? NSQ Episode 20 )
What if you’re self-siloing, but in a purple silo?
May we all, when it comes to politics and art, learn to accept the purple; May we see art in engineering and engineering in art; May we express ourselves in ways that do make us not sound lik AI-produced pamphlets; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] This is often the case with coastal businesses. They are open on the weekends and on Mondays (for the spillover tourist business), but closed Tues & Wed.
[2] What a great word. I’d like to think it’s Irish in origin. Let’s all strive to use it in a sentence today, shall we, class?
[7] An I’m sure he’s losing sleep over that. Middle aged white ladies don’t like my shit – I’d better change.
[8] an “arty” cinema in Palo Alto, where everyone in the audience gave off the vibe of being familiar with all of Allen’s movies
[9] If there’s some way to do so without funneling any money to Allen, I mean, not even a 5₵ cent royalty.
[10] Pejorative for a Mexican-American who by not conforming to ethnic stereotypes was also somehow seen as ashamed of their heritage: “brown on the outside, white on the inside.“
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
“Keep our nation on the track/one step forward two steps back!” ( Ladies Against Women slogan )
I love Stephen Colbert’s work wherein he used his conservative commentator alter ego ( a “well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot”) to lampoon conservative politics. However, Colbert was no pioneer in that strategy. Almost three decades before The Colbert Report, The Plutonium Players, a feminist guerilla theatre troupe, used satire to illuminate and mock the anti-feminist politics of Reagan-era conservatives. [1]
Do any of my older (ahem) readers remember the Bay Area comedy group, Ladies Against Women (LAW)? I attended several of their rallies and performances during LAW’sheyday in the 1980s. The LAW(an offshoot of The Plutonium Players) riffed on the sexist, anti-gay and anti-civil rights values espoused by the Right Wing, holding “Evenings of Consciousness-Lowering” events, which included cooking demonstrations (to encourage Ladies to make Twinkies ® from scratch), exercise routines to help Ladies look and feel helpless, [2] lessons on how Ladies could reduce stress via apathy, presentations on the insidious truth behind the ERA ( “the Equal *Restrooms* Amendment” ), and a wimptest for males in the audience.
The Plutonium Players gained notoriety for their Reagan For Shahcampaign, and for showing up dressed as their LAWcharacters at airports and political rallies, where they greeted political VIPs – from POTUS Reagan to anti-feminist campaigner Phyllis Schlafly ( who also was parodied by LAWas the character, Phyllis LeShaft ), to televangelist Jerry Falwell, et al – holding posters which read, “Ban Books Not Bombs”, Poverty Is So Tasteless,” “Born To Clean,” “Ban the Poor, ” “Push Us Back, Push Us Back, Waaaay Back.”
Two of the LAWLadies, “Virginia Cholesterol” and “Mrs. T. “Bill” Banks,” demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, 1988 (Photo by Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
Repeal the Ladies’ vote. It is suffering and not suffrage that keeps us up on our pedestals. And if God hadn’t wanted us up on pedestals, He wouldn’t have made us shorter than our husbands.
Abolish the environment. It takes up too much space,
and is almost impossible to keep clean!
Free Ladies from wage slavery.The 70-odd cents we earn for every manly dollar
is entirely too much. It is unladylike to accept money for your work.
Maintain illiteracy as a high school graduation requirement. An uninformed populace
is an obedient populace, and a self-censoring one, too. After all, ignorance is a virtue: what you can’t read, can’t hurt you!
Procreation, not recreation. Where did so many gals get the idea that s_x is supposed
to be f_n? True ladies, it’s time to close your eyes and do your duty!
LAW’sperspective is sorely needed in these times (and, sadly, sorely applicable as to the targets of their satire). On a related note….
* * *
Department Of You Can’t Make Up This Shit
I refer to the POTUS and his festering turd allies/advisors minions wanting to offer a $5000 bait bribeBaby bonus offer to entice women (read: young white women) to be fruitful and multiply.
Speaking as someone who was once a young white woman, had I been in my mid-20s and such an offer was made to me by anyone connected with a governmental agency, the only enticement it would have provided would have been to get moiself to the nearest medical facility and lie about my age/medical condition to fit the criteria for having a hysterectomy.
I’m not the only woman of a certain age who had that gut response. For one example, read WaPo opinion columnist Kathleen Parker’s take on the subject. She starts out expressing similar sentiments (pokes fun at the baby bonus). However, in a refreshing sidenote on the demographic concern re declining birthrates in the “developed world,” Parker goes on to express something which is not often mentioned when the talk turns to why women choose to have or not have children. Parker, who like moiself chose to become a mother later in life, [3] discovered something for herself when she did so – something which isn’t mentioned as much as it might be, but which is described by a word that should be used more often in conjunction with the experience of voluntary parenthood:
JOY.
Circa 20 years ago, son K and daughter Belle, bringing moiself much delight in their interpretation of their parents’ request to pose for “A nice picture we can send to your grandparents for Christmas…”
* * *
Department Of, As Opposed To Live Shorter, Worser?
Moiself was bemused to hear the title of a recent Clear + Vivid Podcast: Eric Topol: Live Longer, Better. I got past that and was treated to yet another thought-provoking C+V dialog between host Alan Alda and an interesting, articulate and intelligent guest.
Eric Topol is an American is an American doctor (cardiology), scientist, professor of Molecular Medicine and the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Their discussion revolved around the captivating concept of how can you live, what can you do, to increase your odds of being one of the wellderly and not one of the illderly(i.e., the elderly set by chronic conditions and diseases).
“While promises of extending the human lifespan to 125 and beyond are premature, recent breakthroughs in the early detection of killer diseases of the major organs and brain offer a healthier old age – especially when paired with behavioral changes that Dr Topol callsLifestyle+ .” ( episode summary, Clear + Vivid Podcast: Eric Topol: Live Longer, Better. )
Episode content poiler alert: you are not a prisoner of your genes:
Alda: “A lot of people live by the joke, ‘If you want to live a long time, choose old parents.’ How much of healthy, long living is attributed to the genome and how much to things like nutrition and exercise?”
Topol: “Yeah, and this is I think one of the most important things we’ve learned, and all the evidence backs it up: The genes are *far less* important than we had suspected….”
Topol notes that far more important factors are not just the familiar pair, diet-and-exercise, but “all these other lifestyle factors,” including
* Nature – as in, how much time do you spend in nature/outdoors
The one (and in some cases, seeminngly the only) thing we as humans have in common is that unless we die RIGHT NOW we are going to continue to age. Moiself sez it’s a two-hamster-thumbs-up subject, so check it out.
“People who are most strongly attached to a belief in an afterlife are more likely to try to delay death when it’s clearly imminent. That doesn’t make any logical sense. If people believe in a blissful afterlife, then logically, you’d think they’d accept their death gracefully, and would even welcome it. But it makes perfect sense when you think of religion, not as a way of genuinely coping with the fear of death, but as a way of putting it on the back burner.”
May you consider composing your own Ladyfesto list; May never be on the receiving end of a bribery to reproduce; May you aim to be one of the wellderly; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[3] In obstetrical terms, that is. ( You are labeled “advanced maternal age” when you are pregnant at age 35 or older). It’s not like we waited until we were 52 and said, “Hey, might be time to have kids!”
[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
New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month). Perhaps moiself will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025. So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.
This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?![1] friend gave me, all those years ago, [2] as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. Journal/diary-resistant moiself would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.
Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago May to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? ). But this time, I’m making an exception.
While Searching for something else, moiselfcame upon a post from the second Friday of October, seven years ago, that eerily (read: sadly) resonated with (too) many issues of the here and now. So I’m running it in its entirety.
That letter would be to orthopedic surgeon and Oregon State representative Knute Buehler (R-Bend), the Republican party’s candidate in the Oregon governor’s race. [1] The subject matter of the letter would be the why behind the fact that although there are reasons I might consider voting for him, I cannot vote for him.
And the reasons have nothing to do with the fact that Oregon has elected only one Republican governor in the past 43 years.
I gotta have some respect for a Republican who receives the following critiques:
…Buehler frequently found himself getting into hot water with party activists who didn’t think he was conservative enough. They particularly criticized him for refusing to embrace President Donald Trump and for describing himself as pro-choice on abortion. Buehler’s recent vote in favor of a gun-control bill related to domestic abuse also rankled many gun-rights activists. (“Republican Buehler Nominated To Face Brown
In Oregon Governor’s Race,” OPB 5-18-18)
After reading about some of Buehler’s positions on various issues, MH wondered aloud, something along the lines of,
How/why is this man was even a Republican?
I have no logical answer at this moment.
I have found the incumbent governor who is running for reelection, Democrat Kate Brown, to be…. mostly acceptable. What I find unacceptable is her campaign’s advertising campaign [2] against Buehler. I am particularly disappointed with the way the Democrats are trying to smear Buehler re his claims of being prochoice, despite his repeated public proclamations as such.
“I’m going to vote for you, but I sure wish you were pro-life,” (a Republican voter tells Buehler at the Oregon state fair). (The Republican voter) says he finds abortion offensive and posits that Buehler’s position is just an appeal to the liberal western portion of the state. Buehler sympathizes with his perspective, but confirms he supports abortion rights. Efforts should be made to make abortion as rare as possible, Buehler says, but the decision to have an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. (“Buehler’s ‘pro-choice’ stance: Disliked by conservatives, discredited by Democrats,” Salem Statesman Journal9-6-18)
That seems straightforward to me, and expresses sentiments similar to those I’ve heard from both prochoice conservatives and liberals. But many Oregon Democrats don’t like the fact that Buehler disagrees with them on related issues – “it’s my way or the highway”seems to be the attitude they are taking. He must agree with every issue they, or the Oregon chapters of NARAL or Planned Parenthood – organizations which I support, both philosophically and financially – deem to be related to abortion and/or reproductive health care, or they feel entitled to take away his prochoice label.
Example: there was an Oregon House Bill, signed last year by Gov. Brown, which required insurance companies to cover abortions and other reproductive health services at no cost to the patient. (I favored that bill, BTW). Buehler opposed the bill because he considered it “fiscally irresponsible to fund a new program as others were losing funding.” So, Those Who Think They Own The Label ® declare he “really isn’t pro choice.” Which means I am seeing and hearing political ads featuring Concerned Women ® saying, “We just can’t trust Knute Buehler,” and implying that Buehler would somehow do away with women’s rights. And that just frosts my butt.
While this picture is in no way illustrative of the issue addressed in the previous paragraph, wouldn’’ you rather see a cute sloth than the writer’s frosty butt?
In 1969, Oregon was one of the first states to legalize abortion, even before Roe v. Wade hit the law books. “Our policies are borne out of Oregon exceptionalism,” says (the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon). “We are progressive and libertarian. Voters on the east side of the Cascades may or may not agree with a woman’s right to access abortion, but they sure as heck agree that the government has no place in that decision.” (“Why Oregon is the Only State that Doesn’t Limit Legal Access to Abortion,” Portland Monthly)
Oregon’s long record as a prochoice state makes us the envy of many other states; thus, the issue of abortion in this particular political race is not a “biggie” for a staunch prochoice advocate such as moiself. And although he crosses his party’s line in his prochoice stance, I know there are other issues about which Buehler likely toes the Republican party line. But he is willing to tackle what is one of the most important state political issues for me, and one that the Democrats have repeatedly failed to address: the fact that Oregon’s growing public pension obligations are crowding out the rest of the state budget – what the NY Times refers to as a severe, “self-inflicted crisis.”
Oregon…is caught in a fiscal squeeze of its own making. Its economy is growing, but the cost of its state-run pension system is growing faster. … its spiraling costs are notable in part because Oregon enjoys a reputation for fiscal discipline. Its experience shows how faulty financial decisions by states can eventually swamp local communities…. Oregon’s costs are inflated by the way in which it calculates pension benefits for public employees. Some of the pensions include income that employees earned on the side. Other retirees benefit from long-ago stock market rallies that inflated the current value of their payouts. The bill is borne by taxpayers. Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System has told cities, counties, school districts and other local entities to contribute more to keep the system afloat. They can neither negotiate nor raise local taxes fast enough to keep up. As a result, pensions are crowding out other spending. Essential services are slashed. (“A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash,” NY Times, 4-14-18)
I like Buehler’s willingness to address Oregon’s need for PERS ( Public Employees Retirement System) reform. The PERS as it stands, IMHO as well as the opinions of financially astute people on all sides of the political aisles, is a disaster in the making. The system is unsustainable as currently calculated and implemented, and yessiree Bob, it will be a complicated and a “dirty” fight to reform it. The spineless Democrats haven’t done a @#$?! thing about it, except to criticize Buehler (or anyone who has a plan to reform PERS), as being anti ____ (teacher, firefighter, or other public employees [3] ). Thus, every four years when it’s time to elect a governor, here come the ads showing Concerned Teachers ® – mostly female, from what I’ve seen – talking about how ____ (insert name of non-Democratic candidate…this year, it’s Buehler) is “against” them.
My butt grows frostier by the minute.
Oh, no! Don’t worry; we’ll save you from the pictorial representation of her wrath.
No no no no no– and did I say, no? Teacher Ma’am, those who point out that your purse is leaking dollar bills and that you need to either get a new purse or fix the existing one – or at least stop walking down the street with your purse hanging upside down – are not “against” you, or your profession. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Someone who is trying to save you from inevitable bankruptcy is not out to get you (boys and girls, can you ask your economics teacher to explain what happened in Detroit, or Greece ?). But the critics of those who offer PERS reform, time and time again, year after year, offer nothing substantial in response, except for the occasional mealy mouthed admission that “something” needs to be done…eventually…by someone….
Buehler has proposed a sound beginning approach to PERS reform, and the response is ad homimen criticism from Democrats and teachers’ unions: “Why does Buehler hate teachers/public employees!?!?!?Their distract-from-the-real-issue hysteria reminds me of the rabid, irrational criticism from conservatives leveled at football players who take a knee to protest racial injustice. Instead of actually listening to and considering the grievances which inspired the players’ actions, it’s, WHY DO YOU DISRESPECT OUR FLAG AND OUR SOLDIERS ?!?!?!?!?
But everyone respects a picture of a lovely cowfish, so let’s all take a deep breath and think before we yell.
There is a sad truth I am getting back to, in the letter I am currently not sending to you, Rep. Buehler. Despite just having expressed disgust with the black/white, you-must-agree-with-me-on-every-thing-or-you’re-against-me attitude and despite admiring you for your ideas on an issue that is of paramount importance to all Oregonians, I cannot seriously consider voting for you as long as you are willing to remain affiliated with the Republican party.
People who know most of my political positions probably assume I usually vote “for the Democrat,” and that is (usually) correct. For most of my voting life [4] I have been registered as independent or decline to state for political party affiliation. [5] I have, at times, temporarily registered in a variety of parties – mostly in the two “biggies” (Democrat or Republican), depending on how I wanted to vote in a primary election (or in a couple of cases due to my curiosity as to what kind of political mailers I would receive by being on, say, the Peace and Freedom Party’s membership roll [6]). In each case, after the primary election was over, I left skidmarks switching my status back to Independent.
I have never felt a strong affiliation for a political party, in any personal or “loyalty oath” kind of way, and have always loathed (what I view as) the kneejerk, no-thought required tendency of many people to always vote for their party’s candidates, no matter what. I have voted for Republican candidates who, like you, Mr. Buehler, seemed willing to tackle difficult issues in a meaningful way and “reach across the aisle” to do so. But, as I have previously stated in this space, I will never vote for a Republican again, as long as your party continues to support/does nothing to oust #45. [7]
Now, you may point out that the governorship to which you aspire is a state office, not Federal. It doesn’t matter; I will not vote for a Republican for any political office. If you claim the party affiliation, you share that affiliation with those who support the affront to human decency and civilization that is The Current Occupant of The White House. Your Republican brethren at the top seem impervious to criticism from the top, so I’m holding all of y’all down the totem pole responsible.
I’m sorry, Mr. Buehler, because you seem like a thoughtful, intelligent, just plain good person in many ways, and one who is trying to do his best for the state he loves. But the continued presence of #45 shows, to me, that those who support him have turned a blind eye to their country and their humanity – as particularly and abhorrently illustrated by the events of recent weeks [8] – which leaves me ethically unable to support anyone at any governmental level who is willing to remain on the Republican team.
* * *
Department Of A Possible Exception To The Previous Proclamation
I could vote for a Republican who was actively and publicly working to remove #45 from office via impeachment or by invoking the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
May you carefully weigh the costs of your affiliations; May you accept my thanks for abiding with me through one-issue rants posts; May pictures of sloths warm your frosty butts; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Notice I did not use the term, Gubernatorial, and when you’re around me, please don’t you use it, either. I find the word offensive, as in unnecessarily fancy…and just plain nasty.
[2] An objectionable political advertising campaign – what a surprise!
[3] Which include some OHSU physicians and Oregon University football coaches, some drawing grotesquely inflated pensions of more than $76,000…per MONTH.
[4] Since I register to vote at age 18 I’ve never missed an election for which I was qualified to vote.
[5] The label has varied from state and county, etc.
[6] The mailers were never as interesting – or out and out loony tunes – as I’d hoped they’d be.
[8] I of course refer to the SCOTUS nomination and confirmation of Judge “I love beer so much I can’t remember the women I tried to rape when I was drunk but I love beer don’t you love beer and nothing’s gonna happen to privileged white preppie boys like me, boy ya gotta love beer!” Kavanaugh.
Department Of Simple Pleasures # 4582 In A Never-Ending Series
Dateline: Wednesday; 2pm-ish; picking up the week’s share of produce from The Farm ® (our CSA, La Finquita del Bujo[1] ). This is only the third pickup of the season, and the first one in which there has been bok choy. As I pick out my bok choy stalks I find moiself talking to them, an interaction which did not occur to me when I picked up the bundles of kale, lettuce, mustard greens, radishes, cilantro, shallots, and mushrooms:
Bok, bok bok bok bok bok bok bok…choy!
I don’t know how not to do this.
* * *
Department Of The Cautious Indoor Kitty Steps Out
We’re trying out a new harness/leash arrangement with our elderly cat, Nova – who officially is 18 years old, as of yesterday (!) – as part of our ongoing effort to make car transport easier for her…and, okay, also (read: mostly) for us. Nova goes to and from the coast with us on a regular basis; the aim is to have Nova in an open carrier (which is belted into the seat belt) in the back seat of the car, with her harness/leash device clipped to that carrier so that she’ll be able to roam from the carrier to her travel litterbox and back to the carrier – but with the least short enough so that she cannot get into the front seats with us and get underfoot/carjack us/otherwise get into trouble, in an effort to reduce “accidents” [2] she’s been having in her other carrier.
* * *
Department Of What Is Wrong With Me, That Even For A Moment, I Wanted This
Stop wringing your wimple, sister, I didn’t even post what “this” is.
Ok; you can shame me now.
* * *
Department Of A New Thing To For My Brain To Wake Me Up In The Middle Of The Night Wondering: “What About This?”
Moiself looks forward to the day when I read a headline about how, with the help of AI technologies that could understand and synthesize every available piece of research and information, medical researchers have found the causes of – and therefore the cures for – Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and other devastating, progressive afflictions.
Regular readers of my blog may know that I tend to be very critical of AI across the board, both the emerging technology itself and its applications. Moiself is holding hope (despite what I know of human tendencies and capacities), that for all of the downsides of AI – read: the counterfeiting of almost everything – there are scientists and engineers working on identity/detecting technologies, as in, solutions/warning/watermarks two warnings of the “bad” or counterfeit usage of AI.
A recent episode of the science podcast Curiosity Weekly had me wondering about another AI downside, mere seconds after the episode had me marveling over the same AI application. I left skidmarks going from, This is incredible!!, to Yikes – how will we recognize the counterfeit or be able to identify mistakes?!?
The last part of the episode Indigenous Climate Solutions, Virus Thaw, AI Brain Implant deals with a new AI-powered brain implant. This device aims to translate thought into speech for a person who survived a stroke which left her a quadriplegic who had also lost the power to speak.
“A new AI powered brain implant was able to translate thoughts to speech in an instant for patients with paralysis like the studies participant, and this is the closest to naturalistic speech, a communication device has come yet, a brain computer interfaceor BCIis a system that lets the brain talk directly to a computer. It works by detecting the electrical signals your brain naturally produces when you think, move, or even just imagine speaking, and then translates those signals into commands that a computer can understand….
‘Anne’ had a stroke in her brain stem, which left her quadriplegic and unable to speak even though she knows what she wants to say. The hope is that BCI can decode what she intends to say and turn those thoughts into real-time audible speech….
…currently, most patients with severe speech impairments rely on devices ranging from simple picture boards to computer programs that synthesize speech from text…. Scientists are still developing these brain computer interfaces, but a new system from researchers at UCSF and Berkeley…was able to simultaneously detect words and thought and turn them into speech within just three seconds….
They trained the deep learning model on data to interpret the patterns of neural activity. Because the system was designed to capture activity in tiny windows of time every 80 milliseconds. It didn’t have to wait for Anne to finish a whole sentence. It could start interpreting what she was trying to say while she was still saying it…
So far Anne has been the only patient to test the device, so there’s a long way to go before a device like this is available to the masses. But as a proof of concept, [3] it’s such a great start. And for an added touch per Anne’s request, they train the system on recordings from her wedding video. So the computer speech sounded like her voice from before her paralysis….” (excerpts, transcript for Curiosity Weekly 4-23-25 )
YEAH WOW…BUT….
What if the AI device is seemingly working fine – as in, accurately translating Anne’s thoughts into speech, for days, weeks, months – then suddenly mistranslates something? What if the AI/BCI somehow gets it wrong, about what Anne was thinking, what she meant to imply, what she wanted the technology to say for her? What if, from that point on, her AI voice is wrong, every time…or maybe one out of three times, or…?
Whether it messes up one minor thought…
* Anne’s I’d like a lemonade is mistranslated as, Please bring me orange juice,
or mistranslates her attempt to convey a symptom…
* Anne’s I taste blood in my throat translates as, My scalp itches.
Instantaneous or verification of precision or inaccuracy of translation is vital.
Anne can hear what her BCI is saying, as “herself” (Anne). But because she is quadriplegic with no power of speech, she can’t say, immediately or otherwise, Whoa there, that’s not what I meant to say. How can she indicate to friends, family, coworkers, her medical attendants around her, that, No, the BCI/AI voice, which is uncannily mimicking (“speaking in“) her voice, got it wrong:
* She was not asking for an enema; she was asking about her Aunt Emma;
* She was not asking you to mark her ballot for the Republican candidate; she was thinking as strongly as she could that it will be a cold day in Death Valley before she will ever vote for a Republican again…
* Her BCI/AI voice says to Please help me redo my will, when she was thinking ,Will you please redo my rickety wheelchair ramp?
When – not, if – Anne’s BCI-AI translator misinterprets her brain waves, she will (hopefully) know that it has done so, [4] because she hears what other people think she is saying or requesting, via her BCI-AI. How would Anne then communicate this error in communication?
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself. Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [5]
“Religion…asks us to deliberately deceive ourselves – to replace reason with its opposite, faith, and when men operate on faith, they can no longer be reasoned with, which makes them more dangerous than any sane man, good or evil.” ( James L. Sutter, American author & game designer )
* * *
May you make a sizeable donation to the ASPCA should you ever
purchase a classic car stroller for your pet; May you never had the need for a brain implant to speak for you; May you enjoy making chicken noises to your bok choy or other produce items
(try clucking to kohlrabi for a real change of pace!); …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] Read: barfing and/or peeing and/or pooping. Sometimes she goes for the trifecta.
[3] A proof of concept (POC) is a demonstration of a product in which work is focused on determining whether an idea can be turned into a reality. A POC’s goal is not to seek market demand for the concept or choose the best way to produce it. Rather than focusing on building or developing the idea, it tests whether the idea is feasible and viable. In addition, it enables those involved in the proof-of-concept exercise to explore its financial potential. From techtarget, definition, POC
[4] As long as her hearing remains intact…or her eyesight, if the technology allowed for printout of every thing the AI voice says for her.
[5] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Moiself and MH took off last Friday to spend the weekend with daughter Belle. After starting the day with an appointment with our lawyer (to update our wills – a task which was much overdue and was in no way related to our calculating our odds of survival in making the trip) we drove north to Auburn, WA. Auburn is the headquarters of Schilling Cider, where Belle works as QA manager, and also home to Belle, whom I recently insufferably boasted wrote about ( here ), re her passing her Pommolier exam.
We met Belle at her workplace in the late afternoon, got a brief “update” tour (we’d been there a couple of years ago) and had dinner with her at a local Thai restaurant. After an acceptable hotel sleep [2] we picked her up the next morning at her apartment, drove south & west to Tacoma ( where both Belle and her brother, K, went to college, [3] and where Belle lived up until a year ago) for breakfast at one of Belle’s favorite diners, the HobNob. On our way there we discovered that Belle didn’t know what it meant to hobnob; she thought the term was a noun, [4] rather than a verb. I told her she should pretend that MH and I had a certain amount of celebrity (or at least notoriety) so that she could say she had hobnobbed over breakfast.
Suggestion for Good Clean Fun ®: try saying hobnobover and over and over. Or, elbow, or farm– in just a few moments you’ll sound like you’re making up nonsense, instead of repeating actual works that have actual meanings….
Once again, I digress.
After breakfast we drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The TNB’s claim to fame is its predecessor, the original TNB bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie. GG’s collapse a mere four months after it opened (July 1940; likely due to an aeroelastic flutter during a windstorm) was caught on film, and became de rigueur viewing in West Coast high school physics classes for decades afterward.
After a gallop-free bridge crossing, we headed up the east side of the Olympic Peninsula to Finnriver Cidery, where we had lunch and then a private tour [5] of their orchards and facilities. Since the tour guide and Belle are both in the hard cider industry, I got to hear them exchanging a lot of shop talk (perhaps even a few trade secrets?). It was a beautiful drive; Finnriver was an impressive place (Belle had been saying for two years that she “had to” take us there one day); the tour of the orchards and facilities was interesting, informative, and also tasty – during the tour we got to sample taste several different varieties of their ciders.
Afterwards we drove east to Port Townsend, the “…historic seaport with an artistic soul” on the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. We stayed in a downtown hotel, walked around the downtown waterfront area, had dinner at Tommyknocker’s, a restaurant specializing in worldwide variations on Cornish pasties and other British Isles dishes (I was the only one who ordered a pasty – a vegan/Indian spiced variety). After dinner we returned to the hotel to play games from the hotel’s collection in their library. MH and Belle played a new version of Sorry; I joined them for Scrabble on the condition that, as MH put it, “You can’t win.” [6] After breakfast on Sunday we made a leisurely trip back down the peninsula, returned Belle to Auburn, and returned ourselves back down to Oregon.
Sorry (not really) if I bored the crap outta y’all, but this is so much more relaxing than the It’s-even-worse-than-I-thought ® political primal scream commentary moiself had originally planned for this space.
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Department Of Yeah, What He Said Quote Of The Week
So, yeah, a pope died this week. Which means there will be a new one, soon.
Some of my religious friends [7] – those on the more liberal side re Christian theology – have said nice things about Pope Francis over the years. Moiself has seen no reason to not remain been skeptical. Sure, I wanted someone with that kind of (regrettable) power over the ignorant ovine masses faithful to be more broad-minded than his predecessors; but as I’ve said before, PF’s kindler, gentler façade is just that: a façade. It’s a new window dressing on a cracked, skewed window. The House (of Roman Catholicism) got new drapes, while it’s 2000-year-old window frames, door jambs, and its very foundation continues to erode.
Given his (or any pope’s) influence, PF’s proclamations could have inspired his flock to action that would have benefited people all over the globe. But the only reason he had that “authority” (religious, cultural political, whatever) is because people gave it to him.
“I have as much authority as the Pope.
I just don’t have as many people who believe it.” ( Comedian, author, social critic George Carlin, from his book, Brain Droppings )
People continue to pay attention to proclamations from the Vatican (or other religious institutions and leaders) as it they were relevant to our century. Coming from pre-scientific, superstition-bound folk, that is understandable. From present-day, religion-free progressives and their liberal religious brethren, this is mind-boggling: y’all be reinforcing the influence of the elderly inhabitants of the Vatican – an institution that was historically and is currently hostile toward rational thought, intellectual freedom, and human rights (no matter how many “nice” things they may say re classes of people they formerly abused and still [if tacitly] denigrate).
The more I think on it the more irritating I find the progressives’ and liberals’ praises re PF. I mean, what did Franky-boy say that hasn’t been said – and better and sooner – by others? PF began his pope gig by playing nice, by saying kind things…uh yeah, a decent human being is supposed to be like that. Why were progressives fawning over a religious leader, and not for being factually correct, but for being nice?
PF said a few “nice” things ( “nice” if contrasted with, kill them infidels and pervies ) things about gays, and made an acknowledgement of the existence of global warming, and liberals suddenly pretended *not* to remember the RC church’s 2000-year history of getting everything wrong, and then ignoring/refusing to right the wrongs in the face of the evidence. [8]
Franky-boy said that “women in the church are more important than bishops and priests”…right after saying “…on woman as priests, that cannot be done.” Thanks for throwing us that cheap/holy bone, Your Inadequacy-ness. For *twelve* years PF was the leader of the his faith’s hierarchy, that “clutch of hysterical sinister virgins” [9] who assert their divine mandate to dictate sexual standards and reproductive health care proscriptions to and for women, while banning women from that same hierarchy. And he did not use his pope power to change that.
Ordain women or stop baptizing them.
I’m tired of blathering about it all these years; I’ll let others more articulate and accomplished than moiself blather their share.
“The pope’s whirlwind visit was a public relations coup for the Vatican. But scratch the surface of the PR machine and we find that the pope is all talk….
The pope speaks a great deal about healing the wounds of child abuse–child rape and torture is the more appropriate phrase–even saying “God weeps.” God might weep (if he existed), but they must be crocodile tears, because the pope speaks, but does not act. The pope has the power to stop the rape and torture of children. The solution is simple: Turn over priests accused of this to the criminal and civil justice system and stop hiding and shuffling them around the globe. Turn the rapists and their protectors over to the police and use the vast wealth of the Vatican to make some amends to the victims….He has this power and budget, but does not use it.
He denies women control of their bodies and lives, and upholds the Catholic ban on contraception, even though condom-use would save millions of African lives. He cares more for the rules of his god – supposedly all-powerful though easily defeated by a thin strip of latex – than human life. He’s the pope, he could change the church’s stance, but won’t.
He opposes equal rights for LGBTQ people. He may “not judge” them, but he has the power to change billions of minds and help LGBTQ rights…. But he won’t….
When someone has the power to change a moral evil but does not, their words and excuses are irrelevant. Actions, as the saying goes, speak louder than words. Frank talks a good game, but he’s not doing anything. Talk is cheap….”
( Excerpts, Reminder: The pope’s still conservative and a moral hypocrite,” September 30, 2015 by Andrew Seidel )
“Anita Bryant did more for gay rights than this co-opting, faux-queer-friendly fraud ever did. At least Anita made us angry and inspired rebellion and fury against her stupid homophobia…. But this new guy does nothing and pretends to be gay positive. Remember that song Smiling Faces Sometimes by the Temptations, with the lyrics ‘Beware of the pat on the back. It just might hold you back’? This is Francis. ‘Good queer,’ he seems to imply when he utters ‘Who am I to judge?’ about gay marriage. Who *are* you?! You’re the fucking Pope for Christ’s sake, that’s who you are.“
( quote from Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder, by John Waters )
Ordain women and LGBTQ folk or stop dressing like drag queens.
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Department Of Heaven On Earth
Those of us who are Atheist/Skeptics/Humanists/Freethinkers/Brights generally hold no belief in an afterlife; we know that humans find and make our paradises (or netherworlds) right where we are, in the here and now. And according to a study I just made up, whether y’all are religion-free or superstition/supernatural-bound a POOF (“person of observant faith”) [10] there is nothing more satisfying for epicureans/foodies/gourmands than reading through a new cookbook.
Moiself can’t think of any place else I’d rather be than right here, right now, flipping through the pages of a new [11] cookbook. Dora Ramirez’s Comida Casera is home cooking (literal translation), Mexican plant-based style. And from what I’ve seen so far, Ramirez has a lot of sabroso (tasty) style.
As is my custom with a new cookbook, I read through it and mark on a piece of paper (which I keep with the cookbook) what recipes moiself be interested in trying. So far, I’d be marking just about every page. ¿Como se dice YEE HAW en Español?
May you hobnob with the best of them; May you savor the joy of reading a new cookbook; May you stop praising dead popes and paying attention to live ones; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] As in, writing about family travels give me less of a headache than writing about the state of our democracy.
[2]Moiself generally does not sleep well in hotels…if I get 4-5 hours’ worth, it’s a win.
[9] My favorite terminology for the RC’s (alleged) celebate male heierarch – from the pope and cardinals down to the parish priests – comes from (surprise!) the ever quotable, late great Christopher Hitchens.
[10] Which is an acronym I think the world sorely needs.
[11] Both to me, and to the world – it was published just this year.
[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
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.
