employee of the month | The Blog I'm Not Writing

The Hidden Power I’m Not Doubting

February 6, 2026

Robyn Parnell family life, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, Me so happy, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! birthday cards, Christian salvation summation, Dear Republicans, Eisenhower, employee of the month, Friedrich Nietzsche, Greta Christina, Hidden Brain podcast, Icelandic, Icelandic swearing, non sequitur conversation at the Dollar Tree, Plimsleur language app, the DDAY invasion, the power of doubt, The Winter Olympics 2 Comments

Department Of First Things First

One of my favorite dates is today. Happy Birthday, She-Who-Was-Not-Intimidated-By-The-Rope-Swing-On-The-Treehouse-Deck. [1]

* * *

Department Of Why I Will Be A Couch Potato (Luger?) For The Next Three Weeks

The Winter Olympics begin today.

Bring on the Norwegians!

* * *

Department Of Human Interaction Is Sometimes Disguised As
– or Enhanced By – a Non Sequitur

Dateline: Tuesday morning; circa 10 am; The Dollar Tree Store‘s Birthday greeting cards section. [2] Moiself is picking out birthday cards, a lot of ’em. To an uninformed observer it might seem that I am choosing them at random, dumping them in my handbasket…but this is not so. There is method to my madness. As I grab one card two envelopes come with it, and the extra envelope flutters to the floor. Only when I reach down to retrieve it do I realize that a woman is standing next to me, in front of the Valentine’s Day card section.

“Excuse me,” I say, as I lean over to pick up the miscreant envelope, which has landed just to the right of her right foot. “I didn’t mean to fling an empty envelope in your direction.”

She smiles, looks at my handbasket, and I expect her to remark on the number of cards in it (which will eventually total 30). Instead, she replies, “My daughter was unable to have children, so she adopted four dogs. I get them all cards for every holiday and special occasion.”

* * *

Department Of Few People Say It Better Than Greta Christina [3]

“Dear Republicans,

Apparently some of you are having second thoughts. Recent events have led you to question your commitment to Trumpism, and even move away from it. A line has been crossed for you, and you can no longer accept the direction the country is going in.

Am I glad about this? Yes. Do I want you to step away from Trump and the Republican Party, to rethink the path you’ve been on and walk it back? Yes….

But as you walk back this path, you need to realize that it’s not going to be covered with rose petals. A lot of people are extremely angry with you, and we have every right to be. You have done a great deal of harm. The Republican Party has done a great deal of harm — not just in the last month, it’s been doing great harm for a long time — and you’ve been part of that. When you’ve hurt people badly, you need to do more than just say “Oops” and expect to be forgiven. You need to work to fix the harm you’ve done. And the greater the harm, the more work you have to do….

We warned you this was coming. Even the Republican Party warned you this was coming: the Project 2025 document spelled out their plans in detail. You chose not to listen. Moving forward, you need to be willing to listen. You need to do the kind of listening that involves not talking. You need to not get defensive, not try to justify your actions. You need to stop saying, ‘I didn’t vote for this!’ You absolutely voted for this.”

( excerpts from author, activist, blogger Greta Christina’s
Dear Republicans 1-28-26, my emphases )

* * *

Department Of The Hidden Power Of Doubt

“What do you do when you’re not sure?”
( from opening monologue, Doubt: A Parable, a play by John Patrick Shanley )

Last week the podcast Hidden Brain concluded their You 2.0 series [4] with, as per the podcast website’s intro, “…a look at the hidden power of doubt — not as weakness or indecision, but as a tool that helps us make better choices and navigate an uncertain world.”

The episode opens with the story of the little known letter General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of the allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, aka, D-Day. There were so many factors at play – including the weather – and an allied victory was far from certain. Eisenhower drafted what he dreaded, should he have to announce that the mission had failed. When it became apparent that Operation Overlord was succeeding, Eisenhower crumpled the letter and tossed it in his office trash can. His military secretary retrieved the letter and kept it, allowing history to see what (IMO) was the true leadership of the man.

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” [5]

Time machine to the present: can you imagine the so-called leader we have today ( The Tantrum-Throwing-Toddler-in-Chief ) writing something like that – taking responsibility so succinctly and directly? #47 will go to his corpulent casket carping and whining and kicking, blaming others for the political, moral, financial and cultural devastation he leaves in his wake.

Yet again, I digress.

HB podcast host Shankar Vedantam and his guest go on to talk about the power of doubt, which is something we tend not to associate with the stereotype of leadership (confident; decisive; never wavering; unwilling to back down).

“We don’t think of strong leaders as hesitant, doubtful, or unsure of the right answers. Confidence and determination are admirable traits. But they also have drawbacks. Confidence can lead to overconfidence; decisiveness can make leaders less likely to be tolerant of dissent; determination can blind us to risks.
At the University of Virginia’s Darden College of Business, [Bobby] Parmar studies the value of doubt. He says that by avoiding uncertainty, we miss out on opportunities for growth.”
(excerpts, You 2.0: Trusting Your Doubt, Hidden Brain Staff / January 26, 2026 )

It’s a thought-provoking presentation of a compelling subject. Two thumbs up for podcast listeners.

* * *

Department Of Learning To Lie In Another Language

Ég skil íslensku.

Funny how one of the first phrases I learned in my Plimsleur language app, which I’ve been struggling through like a stuttering pig using daily since last Wednesday, is a total lie: I understand Icelandic.

Yeah, fluency is just around the corner.

Adding to the hoax is that five minutes after learning how to say, I do not understand Icelandic, I have forgotten how to say, I do not understand Icelandic.

Just about every Icelander speaks English ( Ninety-eight plus %! English is a compulsory subject in Icelandic schools ), but still, I want to be a gracious visitor when we go there this summer. I think this trying-to-learn-some-conversational-Icelandic is going to be one of those things where I have to repeat lesson one seven times before moving on.

About speaking Icelandic. Knowing that fact (that Icelanders speak English), then bothering to learn to say in Icelandic, Excuse me, do you speak English? while perhaps respectful in intent, could easily come off as, to an Icelander, Why is this doofus butchering my language when it is totally unnessary to do so? Obviously, if I’ve bothered to learn anything about the country (including from when MH and I were there three summers ago), I should know that any Icelander whom I address will speak far better English than I speak Icelandic.

I wish the language course would start off by teaching Icelandic cusswords. That would be more inspiring. Of course, there is the internet, where I discovered, farðu í rassgat, which you would hurl as an insult when you are in the kind of situation where you want to advise someone to crawl up your own asshole. Perhaps I’ll save that one for the United States customs agents.

“May your urine burn, you cowardly goat,” will be my backup curse.

* * *

Department Of Cool Story, Bro… [6]

When I recently saw this spot-on summation of Christian theology I was reminded of an acquaintance who, when I came out decades ago as religion-free, resorted to the believers’ last tactic: when you can’t counter facts and logic and rationality, use fear ( of something only the religious believe in – hellfire/damnation [7] ). He was not amused when moiself, using the following synopsis to do so, laughingly confirmed that I was indeed rejecting his god’s plan for “salvation.”

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [8]

“Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders? [9]
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad
has made the world ugly and bad.
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.”

( Friedrich Nietzsche , as quoted in The Very Best of Friedrich Nietzsche: Quotes from a Great Thinker, by David Graham,)

* * *

May you remember to fix the harm you’ve done when you realize you’ve done harm;
May you, as much as possible, not find yourself in farðu í rassgat situations;
May you resolve not to find the world ugly and bad;
…and may the hijinks ensue. [10]

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Belle can still give you the badass, stinkeye look, should the occasion call for it.

[2] Two for $1!

[3] GC is an author, blogger, speaker, LGBTQ and atheist activist.

[4] The podcast does an annual series, at the end of the old/beginning of the new year, exploring the latest in evidence-based understandings offered by behavioral scientists – understandings which may help people improve their lives via establishing good habits/getting rid of bad habits, overcoming emotional, romantic, career-related, and cognitive challenges, etc.

[5] Note that the draft was dated July 5th. In 1966, when the question about this date was put to him, Einsenhower indicated that it was a minor mistake on his part and that he had actually written it on June 5, 1944. (from D-Day Overlord, Encyclopaedia of the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy )

[6] Not.

[7] It’s a knee slapper, when you think about it: they try to make *you* afraid of something that is in fact *their* greatest fear, something which you don’t thing about at all, like pissing off Santa claus.

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

[9] This is serious stuff; no need for a footnote.

[10] See previous footnote.

The Theism I’m Not Promoting

February 7, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, reproductive rights, school, Wow, Yikes! church book study group, employee of the month, monotheism leads to totalitariamism, monotheism v. polytheism, monotheistic aversions, UCC, windmills Comments Off on The Theism I’m Not Promoting

Department of Pro Poly…

…Sub-Department Of Not *That* Kind Of Poly [1]

Last week friend EHS sent me a link to an article, Monotheists Are The Worst, with the intro, “Thought you might appreciate this.” So, someone *has* has been reading my screeds against religious nonsense and bigotry thoughtful critiques of the dangers of entangling mythology and supernatural beliefs with cultural institutions and government.

The article reminded moiself of the many of the issues my fellow bookies [2] and I wrangled with during my decade-plus-long participation in a Hillsboro United Church of Christ book study group. [3] The books we chose to read and discuss had a connection to religion/spirituality in some way but were nonfiction (so, no scriptures – sorry, any biblical literalists [4] ), and ranged from comparative theologies to history and science and politics and biography and philosophy and essay collections….

My summation of the article’s provocative but not unfamiliar (to moiself, at least) premise: our world’s cycles of progress and regression can be attributed to the fact that over half of the planet’s supernatural-believing peoples subscribe to monotheistic religions. Monotheism leads to a concentration of power, rigidity and totalitarianism (your god doesn’t share power, so why should your ruler?), and that One True God ® “…never has faults, never varies his thinking, is perfect….” In monotheistic societies the one god idea extends beyond religion; it is conflated with every aspect of life – particularly, power and leadership – and thus associates the supposed attributes of the One True God ® (e.g., gender and ethnicity) with mortals who share the traits of the One True God ®. And guess what gender is attributed to every monotheistic god?

Our book group never got around to reading this.

“Karl Marx called religion the opium of the masses, but I disagree. It’s monotheism that fits this definition only.

In polytheistic religions, gods can have faults. They can have different and contradicting views of things. They can be questioned more. They differ from one another.

It’s harder to say that a society should be ruled by men when goddesses are part of the pantheon you worship. It’s easier to accept people and their differences if your gods don’t all have the same hair color or make the same choices or love the same kind of people.”

( Monotheists Are The Worst: They are how we got here
by Lilith Helstrom; excerpts; my emphases )

Of course, that second supposition – the alleged flexibility and tolerance fostered by polytheism – doesn’t hold up upon examination. The prime example would be the historically polytheistic cultures forming what is now Hindu-dominated India. Hinduism had/has a pantheon of deities, [5] whose avatars have different genders and species (not to mention number of limbs…but the human-looking gods in the pantheon have the same hair color as the humans.). Yet these pantheistic cultures found it quite easy to say that their societies should be ruled by men, then and now.

“India, despite making strides in development in the past three decades, lags behind on gender equality. It ranks 131 of 188 countries on the U.N. Development Program’s Gender Inequality Index Dowry, female infanticide and women’s education are persistent issues despite decades of successive governments’ efforts to address them…..the problems in India are not limited to villages and uneducated people — the behavior of outspoken critics of sexism shows how deeply entrenched these attitudes are.”
( “Why India’s modern women say it’s a ‘burden’ to be female,”
by By Vidhi Doshi, India correspondent for The Washington Post )

As for polytheism making it “…easier to accept people and their differences,” just ask any practicing Muslim in India about their treatment by the Hindu majority.

Like the Monotheists Are The Worst author, I am religion-free, and wish that more [6] people viewed the world in the same way. Unlike the author, I do not think that

“….our society would be vastly better, even (if it were still) full of religion, if we had pantheons instead of monotheisms.
Pantheons can absorb new gods. Pantheons can therefore absorb new cultures and types of people. Pantheons can grow and shift as a religion. Pantheons can evolve.
But monotheisms are stuck in one place, stuck in one time, forever, trying to imprison us all with their rigidness.”

But I’m quibbling here, with her use of one adjective: vastly. I *do* think society would be better (or at least, different) with pantheisms instead of monotheisms.

And I do think that we’d all be better by considering more beyond-the-ordinary-POV articles like these. Give it a read, sez moiself. And thanks for the link, EHS.

* * *

Department of Employee Of The Month

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

* * *

Department Of I’m Still Laughing At This

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [8]

The three monotheisms share a series of identical forms of aversion: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name of one book alone; hatred of sexuality, women, and pleasure; hatred of feminine; hatred of body, of desires, of drives. Instead, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam extol faith and belief, obedience and submission, taste for death and longing for the beyond, the asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamous love, wife and mother, soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and nothingness exalted.

( Michel Onfray, French writer, philosopher, teacher ) [9]

* * *

May you take time to enjoy an old joke that still gets you laughing;
May you cast a critical eye to the ___-isms in your own life;
May you devise a pantheon of deities that would be beneficial
(or at least, entertaining) for humankind;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] And why did your mind go there first?

[2] My affectionate name for the book group members.

[3] The church MH and I and our offspring attended, and were members of, until we outed ourselves as religion-free.

[4] Yeah, like there are so many reading *this* heathen’s blog.

[5] Although and actually, from my years of studying and reading about I think it is more accurate to describe Hinduism as a form of polytheistic monotheism – as in, the multiple deities/avatars are a useful tool for humans to try to understand the incredible and overwhelming abundance of that which is All…which is a lot more complicated issue and deserves more discussion than I care to devote to in a footnote.

[6] Okay, ALL.

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

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

[9] I think there should be a ninth footnote. And now there is.

The Compliments I’m Not Savoring

October 4, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, radio & podcasts Ali A. Rizvi, Autumn rituals, blast from the past, employee of the month, Fall foliage, fall movies, Hoyt Arboretum, post-surgery babbling, The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason, When Harry Met Sally 2 Comments

Department Of A Blast From The Past

From 1-12-2018, to be precise. Moiself was searching through past blog posts, looking for a certain reference, when I came upon this:

* * *

Department Of I Have Her Permission To Post About This

The joys of listening to your children babble in a post-surgical, [1] pain-medicated, happy voice are not to be underestimated. How MH and I wish we’d thought to record son K on his ride home from the oral surgeon’s office, those many years ago. We remembered to do so when it came Belle’s turn to have her wisdom teeth removed, and although she had some random non sequiturs of note, at least (to our knowledge) she did not propose to her nurse:

We’ve discovered that opportunities for the gathering of anesthesia-induced babbling memories do not fade with age, and are perhaps even more enjoyable when your children are young adults. Last Friday afternoon, Belle underwent a procedure which required general anesthesia. After MH and I were allowed to see her in the post-op recovery room, I did not record her ramblings (Belle was with it enough to object to that), but did manage to take a few notes. There are some gems I know I missed, mostly because, I just wanted to be present to enjoy the stream of conscious moments caused by her brain only partially connecting with her mouth.

* “Is there boob PT? (After MH and I told Belle that the upper floors of the building she was in were dominated by orthopedic surgeons and PTs – psychical therapists.)

* “It stays on for THREE DAYS.” Belle pointed to the anti-nausea patch the anesthesiologist had placed on the side of her neck, then lowered her voice to a solemn whisper. “That’s a lotta days!”

* Belle said the nurses told her she was talking about bear heads
( “Let me tell you about the grizzly bear head…” ),
and that they don’t get many people who talk about bear heads. [2]

* “Do you remember when people were, like, in the future,
everything will be chrome?
It didn’t happen. I think they meant stainless steel.”

“I’d like to be Spider-Man.”

Moiself:
“But you don’t like spiders.”

“No sir, I do not. But, I appreciate spiders.”

* “Seth Meyers is like a marshmallow, with good hair.” [3]

While waiting for the nurse to remove her IV, Belle began to describe to MH and I, with great seriousness, how the cycle of banana mitosis and meiosis indicates that bananas can tell time. The morning after her surgery, I asked Belle if she remembered doing that. She said she didn’t, but that it’s no surprise because,

“Actually, I talk about that a lot.” [4]

Why carry a watch when you can just ask the banana on your head what time it is?

( blog excerpt from The Bullet List I’m Not Embracing, 1-12-2018 )

* * *

Department Of The Rituals Of Autumn

Raking leaves; pressing cider; going to the U-pick pumpkin farm and then a corn maze; hiking through Hoyt Arboretum trails to see the brilliant red-orange-golden fall foliage; attending an Oktoberfest or Harvest celebration; watching “When Harry Met Sally“; finding a coven of witches to cast spells on GOP vice presidential candidates….

These are all beautiful and beloved) traditions in their own way, but somewhat pedestrian compared to the I-bet-you-that-moiself-is-the-only-person-with-this-particular-ritual:

The Getting Out Of The The Clear/Strengthening Nail Polish From Last Year
(Hoping It Hasn’t Congealed), And Beginning Weekly Applications Of Polish
To My Right Hand’s Pinkie Fingernail ® .

This particular finger of mine even has its own Facebook page [5] Please remember: I’m showing you my finger, not giving you the finger.

Hard to tell in the light, even with the profile and “headshot,” but the tip of my right pinkie finger is angled right about 20 degrees to the left, and the fingernail is split vertically about two centimeters left of center. How did that happen, inquiring minds want to know?

My older sister NL and I were playing a game of chase inside our Santa Ana house. NL was almost twice as tall as me, and was twice as old (three years to my 18 months); nevertheless, I was the chaser. NL fled down the hallway and into the bathroom. She slammed the bathroom door and locked it, failing to realize,that I had reached out to try and grab her at the last minute, and when she slammed the door shut she’d inadvertently crushed my right little finger, from the top joint to the tip, between the door and the door jamb.

My ensuing, bone-chilling shrieks [6] attracted the attention of our parents, who convinced NL to unlock the door. They rushed me to the doctor, who examined the pulverized pinkie and pronounced, “It’ll need to be amputated….hmm. Well, maybe….” In a Nobel-Prize worthy moment of inspiration, the doctor reached for his miracle salve (Vaseline), [7] dabbed it on the top of moiself’s smooshed finger, and wrapped the damaged digit with gauze. Doc advised my parents to keep the bandaged finger dry – no peeking! – and return in two weeks, or sooner if the finger started to smell like last year’s ham sandwich.

Two weeks later the unveiling revealed that the tip of my finger had partially re-formed itself, and thus was spared its date with the guillotine.

So, I grew up with a Funny Finger ® . While admittedly un-decorative in appearance, it is largely functional, with a few exceptions (it isn’t as mobile as the other fingers, and sometimes goes into spasms or freezes up when I tightly grip something with my right hand). Besides the misshapen profile, my Six Funny Finger Facts include the following, all of which five out of six of which are true:

* Teensy, sub-dermal bone fragments are palpable on the underside of the finger

* The fingernail grows cleft from the nail bed to the edge, with the split running bottom to top in the left side of the nail, and curving down at the edge.
The fingernail’s growth is self-limiting; it tends to disintegrate (for lack of a better term) at a certain length and split on the left side.

* The tip of the finger, from the second joint up, has reduced sensation
(as compared to that of other fingers) and is prone to bouts of numbness

* During one such numbness bout, a junior high school-aged moiself discovered
that she could stick a pin in the top of that finger, sans pain. Besides giving her that certain, je ne sais quoi cachet among eighth graders. This ability
proved to be a helpful form of pest control. Waving my impaled pinkie was an effective gross-out/shoo-away to a certain cheerleader-type
who’d attempted to make me feel self-conscious by loudly broadcasting,
“Ew, what’s wrong with your finger?! That is SO DISGUSTING!”
in the classroom and at the lunch table.

* The tip of the finger is an effective dowser device: it pulses and emits
a series of high frequency beeps when in the proximity of an underground water supply.

* Come the dryness of the Fall and Winter seasons, the funny finger’s nail cracks,
at the top and along the split, sometimes painfully. Moiself found this solution:
I apply a couple of layers of clear polish to the nail on a weekly basis,
which seems to minimize the cracking and splitting.

* * *

Department of Anomalous Accolades

What is the most curious strangest compliment y’all have ever received?

This question comes from my having recently overheard someone in a public place tell a friend about the backhanded compliment [8] her in-law had given her. This brought to mind two compliments moiself has received – accolades which were truly meant, by the giver, to be positive, but which nevertheless had a rather odd, weeellllllll….oooookkkkaaay, you-don’t-hear-that-every-day quality to them:

(1) “You have a poster-quality cervix!”
( Context: spoken by a nurse practitioner, in aSo Cal Planned Parenthood clinic where I
was a volunteer. I’d offered to help with staff training and evaluation; [9]
upon completing the pelvic exam she’d performed upon moiself the NP pushed her chair back from the exam table,
pointed to the female reproductive anatomy poster on the exam room wall, and exclaimed that
my cervix looked *exactly* like the one in the picture. )

(2): “You’re really good at filling your bladder!”
( Context: spoken by the ultrasound technician at the beginning of my fourth ultrasoun
in three weeks, during the ninth month of my Belle pregnancy. A full bladder, while torture to a pregnant woman
in her third trimester, helps elevate the uterus in the abdominal cavity,
which provides better ultrasound imaging. [10] )

* * *

Oh, but speaking of accolades….

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. [11]

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [12]

“The religion/ politics dichotomy is a false one. It isn’t that politics has no role; it’s that politics is simply inseparable from the Abrahamic religions.
Religion is politics. That was the case during the Barbary confrontation in 1786, and it’s the case with the Israel-Palestine conflict now. Throughout history,
religion has simply been an excuse looking for a conflict.”

( Ali A. Rizvi, The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason )

* * *

May you remember to have a notepad ready when picking up someone
who is still under the effects of anesthesia;
May you delight in your own autumn rituals;
May you never have a reason for to be praised for
your skill at filling your bladder ;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] This is contingent upon having surgery for something relatively minor, ala wisdom teeth removal.

[2] This one makes sense to me, and probably was not the non sequitur the nurses thought it to be: Belle has prepped, stuffed, and mounted a grizzly bear head in her work as a docent for her college’s natural history museum.

[3] I likely sparked that comment by mentioning that Seth Meyers was hosting the Golden Globe Awards show.

[4] She’s a Biology major.

[5] Or used to. It was deactivated; now, it lives again.

[6] The great thing about this story, besides being a great story, is that I was so young I have no memory of it, and thus no memory of the pain.

[7] If he’d been Greek, I wonder if he would have used Windex?

[8] As in, a compliment which is not really a compliment at all (e.g. your boss telling you that the memo you wrote was “surprisingly coherent.”)

[9] “The new doctor is friendly, forthright, and competent, but she needs to trim her fingernails….”

[10] I had pneumonia during my 9^th month of pregnancy, and my belly’s fundal height – a measurement of the distance from the top of the uterus to the pubic bone, which is used to assess fetal development and estimate gestational age – had remained static for three weeks.

[11] 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.

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

The Situations I’m Not Dismissing

June 7, 2024

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Department Of Props For Keeping The Mystery A Mystery

I am writing this portion of the blog on June 3 – the day, according to singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry, that Billie Joey McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge.

Gentry’s Ode To Billie Joe is arguably the greatest song mystery never revealed. [1] Class act that Gentry is, I hope she takes that lyrical secret – what Billie Joe and the song’s narrator threw off the Tallahassee bridge – to her grave.

* * *

Department Of Conditional Considerations

“Ideal for pre-existing foot conditions.”

The above teaser, for an ad promoting some orthopedic-looking sandals, caught my attention as moiself scrolled online, looking for a friend’s social media post. Distraction ensued, in the form of a wee bit o’ existential crisis. Translation: I spent way too much time trying to figure out the ad’s wording.

Pre-existing foot conditions. Pre-existing; well, yes, I have a foot – two, lucky moiself! – and they existed prior to seeing or thinking about sandals or any other footwear…. So, ’tis likely not the foot which is preexisting, but the *conditions*. Specifically, foot conditions; as in, conditions of the foot? And conditions, as in the classic definition….

Here’s what Webster’s online offers, for condition:

1a: a premise upon which the fulfillment of an agreement depends; a stipulation
b: obsolete : covenant
c: a provision making the effect of a legal instrument contingent upon an uncertain event
must meet the terms and conditions of the contract
2 : something essential to the appearance or occurrence of something else: PREREQUISITE: such as
a: an environmental requirement (Available oxygen is an essential condition for animal life).
b: the clause of a conditional sentence
3 a: a restricting or modifying factor : QUALIFICATION
b: an unsatisfactory academic grade that may be raised by doing additional work
4a: a state of being (ITALthe human condition)
b: social status : RANK
c: a usually defective state of health a serious heart condition)
d: a state of physical fitness or readiness for use (The car was in good condition).

We have to go all the way to 4c to get into the definition which mosty likely applies to the sandals ad: foot “conditions,” I suspect, is meant to reference or imply conditions as in foot problems (no arches; high arches; fallen arches; bunions; hammer toes; mallet toes; claw toes; twinkle toes; 18 toes….)

It’s possible moiself is overanalyzing this.

* * *

Department Of Moiself’s Many Mottoes
Episode 363, Regarding Ethics

Context. Is. Everything.

Without the test of context, your ethics – your sense of or proclamations about morality – are theoretical, at best. I was reminded of that while listening to a recent Hidden Brain podcast, Innovation 2.0: the influence you have. HB host Shankar Vedantam was talking about the work of Stanley Milgram, the Yale social psychologist known for his controversial research on human obedience to authority. [2]

Vedantam:
Stanley Milgram grew up in a world that seemed bent on destroying itself. World War II was raging in Europe and Asia, and by the time he was 8, the U.S. was swept up in the conflict….
The fields of battle were far from Stanley’s home. But as he grew older, he couldn’t stop thinking about the war and its implications. Stanley was consumed by some big questions. Why did so many people willingly kill Jews in the Holocaust? Was everyone who followed Nazi orders inherently evil?

Stanley Milgram (video soundbite):
How is it possible, I ask myself, that ordinary people, who are courteous and decent in everyday life, can act callously, inhumanely, without any limitations of conscience?….

Vedantam:
As a high school student, (Milgram) was worried that the Holocaust could happen again in America. And everybody said, Stanley, that was Nazi Germany. That was then. We’re not that kind of people. And he would say,
I’ll bet they thought the same thing. And the bottom line, he says, is how do you know how you would act unless you’re in the situation?

How do you know how you would act unless you’re in the situation? Stanley’s theory was that the context that people found themselves in shaped their behavior. This went for Nazis, but it went for ordinary people, too.
Most of us never get to find out if we will behave like Nazis because most of us never find ourselves in situations where we’re asked to behave like Nazis.( excerpts from Hidden Brain podcast, Innovation 2.0: the influence you have, my emphases )

Most of us never get to find out if we will behave like Nazis because
most of us never find ourselves in situations
where we’re asked to behave like Nazis.

Remember the debates about Situational Ethics [3] ( SE, which I’ve heard referred to as ethical contextualism)? I don’t hear much about it now. However, I have memories from my high school and college years, when it seemed to be quite fashionable – a “requirement” of sorts – in Christian circles to dismiss the legitimacy of SE.

Dateline: A late afternoon, when moiself was in college, at a bible study/social group which I occasionally attended. One group member brought up situational ethics, and a lively debate ensued. But it was a debate only because moiself was involved; the others in the group were all in agreement that SE was a bad thing (even though – surprise! – a couple of the most vociferous anti-SE -ers couldn’t even define it when asked them to do so).

How could anyone justify SE? I was told. Viewing ethics through the lens of situation is “subjective” and “individualistic,” and contradicts our god’s will as revealed in scripture.

There I was, in yet another situation wherein I almost outed moiself as a humanist and freethinker, that time by disagreeing with the group’s disappointingly naïve, reductionist arguments. Looking back, I don’t know why the group’s opinions surprised and disappointed me. Their religion’s theology was so wrong about the natural world, why would it be a shocker that they would also be wrong about the basics of behavioral psychology?

Ethics do not exist in a void – they are only, and always, situational. It’s uncomplicated to be ethical in theory; your ethics become credible, and are manifest, only when they are applied to a situation. People who think that ethics or principles are black-and-white issues are morally colorblind.

I rolled up moiself’s metaphorical sleeves and got to work.

“Lying is wrong; you shouldn’t lie.” I used this classic “fact” that most people would agree with, then brought up examples of the telling of Little White Lies ® to spare someone’s feelings. Let’s say your toddler nephew presents you with the picture he drew of your cat and asks you what you think of his artwork, after which his mother proudly models for you the new designer jeans she just purchased and says, “I’m so excited – my first pair of Calvin Kleins! But really, do these pants make my ass look fat?”

Who, under the umbrella of ruthless truthfulness, would

(1) tell your nephew the truth – you think that the alleged “cat” he rendered (in a series of hideous colors which look like something the cat barfed up) disturbingly resembles a monster from the Alien movies;

(2) answer your sister with the truth – that it’s not the pants that make her ass look fat, it’s her fat ass that makes her ass look fat.

Most of the group agreed with the concept that some “truths” might be less essential than others, and that erring on the side of kindness to spare someone’s feelings is usually an allowable (and sometimes even preferable) course of action. But a couple of arguers disagreed: they were adamant that even those kind of white lies lead to the slippery slope® of justifiable dishonesty.

Alrighty, the naysayers asked for it. How about this scenario? I asked: [4]

Dateline: 6 pm on a weekday. Responding to the insistent knocking, you open your front door and behold Ray, your friend Janelle’s husband. Ray is disheveled and wild-eyed, and you know that on the previous day Janelle filed for a restraining on Ray, after he’d pistol-whipped her with his recently purchased handgun. Ray asks you if you’ve seen Janelle – “She’s not at home; she won’t answer my calls; I’m worried about her…Have you seen her today? Do you know where she is?”

Not only have you seen Janelle, you know exactly where she is…because you are the one who helped Janelle pack her suitcase and drove her to the women’s shelter.

How can your ethics tell you, in that situation, anything other than to LIE YOUR ASS OFF to Ray? [5]

Don’t ever lecture me about the evils of situational ethics if your consistent, non-contextual ethics would require you to truthfully answer Ray’s question.

* * *

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. [6]

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [7]

* * *

Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when I feel gratitude for never having been in situations where I was asked to behave like a Nazi.

* * *

May social media ad content keep you on your (non-condition-stricken) toes;
May you consistently practice situational ethics;
May you always wonder why Billie Joe jumped off that bridge;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Along with what man is the subject of Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain.

[2] The Milgrim Experiment was his most famous, and controversial research. The Milgram experiment examined people’s willingness to obey authority. Participants in the study were instructed to administer electric shocks to a learner, even when that obedience caused harm to the learner. The results of the study showed that the majority of participants continued to administer shocks to the maximum level when they were told to do so by the experiment’s authority figure, even when they believed that the shocks were causing serious harm.

[3] “Situation ethics (contextualism). In situation ethics, right and wrong depend upon the situation. There are no universal moral rules or rights – each case is unique and deserves a unique solution. Situation ethics rejects ‘prefabricated decisions and prescriptive rules’. It teaches that ethical decisions should follow flexible guidelines rather than absolute rules, and be taken on a case by case basis.” (Ethics guide; situation ethics, BBC )

[4] One example which, sadly, I did not have to invent, as several like it were relayed to me by a woman who worked at a domestic violence hotline.

[5] And say whatever else to get him off your porch, after which you telephone (a) the police and (b) the women’s shelter.

[6] 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.

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

The Oracles I’m Not Consulting

December 8, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, nature, Oregon, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! ancestor worship, employee of the month, First 24 hour Church of Elvis, Flying Spaghetti Monster, LARPing, new Godzilla movie, pagan faire, Partridge of the week, theism, which spiritual beliefs are the most foolish, Wicca Comments Off on The Oracles I’m Not Consulting

Department Of The Partridge Of The Week

It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, Moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

* * *

Department Am I So Lucky To Have Raised A Science *And* Film Nerd?

Dateline: last Saturday, circa 8:50 am. The following IM message chat ensued between daughter Belle and moiself, after she’d IM’d me the previous evening to let me know she was going to see the new Godzilla movie.

Belle:
Okay Godzilla Minus One was AWESOME….
I know I recommend a lot of movies but I RECOMMEND this one.

Moiself:
I will see it for sure…We’ll see if I can drag MH to it. [2]

Belle:
It’s a pretty low budget film, but the combination of practical and special effects is really well done, and the story is really solid.
I also really like the Godzilla design.

Moiself :
He doesn’t have a peewee head, I hope.
In some past ones his head was out of proportion to his body, IMO.

Belle:
Sorry, his head is tiny haha.

Moiself:
😵‍💫

Belle:
… the tiny head had never really bothered me. It makes sense for a lizard that lives in land and water. It’s an aerodynamic shape; and, I think the canon is that he feeds off of radiation, so he technically doesn’t need a big mouth to eat anything

Moiself:
This conversation is so going in my next blog post.
You are right, of course. I think I’m reacting to having been imprinted on the original Godzilla, in which he had a much bigger head, more like a T-rex, but your commentary on the design makes sense.

Belle:
Because of course the anatomy of a giant radiation-consuming lizard has to make evolutionary sense!

Moiself:
Doesn’t the radiation trump evolution here?

Belle:
Exactly lol, I’m saying it’s kinda silly to assume the small head is because he doesn’t need to eat things when it’s a totally made-up monster.
But I like the case of evolution gone totally haywire. That’s more fun.

* * *

Department Of Later That Same Day….

Dateline: Saturday, WA CO County Fairgrounds convention hall. MH and I attended the Winter Moon Bazaar. It had been advertised as a “pagan fest,” with

“…Over 100 Vendors: Explore a diverse array of artisanal treasures.
Female Krampus: Witness the enchanting allure of the Winter Moon.
Pagan Spirit: Celebrate the season’s magic and history.
Concessions: Satisfy your cravings with delightful treats.
Workshops and Entertainment…”

We heard about it from a (non-pagan) friend, who had a booth there with her crocheting and other handwork; we decided to stop by to see her and check it out. The event was sponsored by paganfrye….whose website’s motto, “Your magick begins here,” is probably a better marketing slogan than, “Serving all of your sparkly hokum needs.” And in case y’all be wondering what that alternative spelling indicates, other than an attempt at being precious…

…you can check that out here.

MH and I roamed the convention hall, checking out the booths. The Winter Moon Bazaar resembled most any other holiday bazaar, except for the dominance of vendors whose products signaled the pagan/wicca theme. I found moiself wondering how many of those peddling their witchy wares actually “believe in” or practice Wicca or contemporary paganism. We saw one of the entertainment moments: dancing by some of the fest’s participants, who were attired in…. There’s no nice way to put it. I’ll just say moiself cringed with embarrassment for them – and for any actual Wiccans present, who surely don’t dress like middle-aged women who got drunk at a Walmart post-Halloween costume sale and tried on all the merchandise.

Son K once told me, after reading up on the various spiritualities which fall under the umbrella of paganism – [3] Wicca or witchcraft, druids , pantheistic or theistic-free – that paganism reminds him of the “modern” religions, in that its followers ultimately (whether or not consciously), and simply decide to “….pick something they want to believe to be true, and so they devote themselves to that.”

Sounds about right, from moiself’s POV . After several interesting conversations with self-identified Wiccans/pagans over the years (in college, and in post-college work situations) I came away with the impression that pagan spiritualities are akin to all other spiritualities. And therefore they, like all worldviews, are subject to the same critiques and analysis, including the first and foremost, RGP’s First Law of Spiritual Dynamics:

* Open your eyes and get off your knees – don’t worship any one or thing.*

BTW, did y’all know that Portland was home to the First 24 Hour Church of Elvis?

The now-defunct FCOE was created by artist (and former corporate lawyer!) Stephanie Pierce.

“For three decades, one of the best known and quirkiest Portland tourist attractions was the 24 Hour Church of Elvis…. For a quarter, visitors could hear a sermon by Elvis, confess their sins, receive the Elvis catechism, or get a photo with the King of Rock and Roll. Pierce also offered Elvis-themed wedding services, including legal weddings for $25, novelty weddings for $5, and coin-operated weddings for $1…”
(excerpt from the Oregon Encyclopedia )

Alas, despite the 24 hour claim, moiself was never able to avail myself of the F C of E services, as it was always closed/out of order when I stopped by.

Reverences heaped upon The King of Rock ‘n Roll® aside, I find the concept of worship to be obsequious, abhorrent, and ultimately dangerous for the human mind and motives. However, if for some reason people want to devote themselves to the veneration of “forces,” both outside and/or encompassing ourselves, honoring “the forces of nature” (personified or otherwise) seems to me to be more rational than embracing the bizarre theologies of theistic religions, wherein some *supernatural* deity/force is said to be in charge of the *natural* world.

Venerating what we can see, what we know to exist – the change of the seasons, the tides, etc. – well, whatever floats your boat swoons your moon, engages your sage. Also, I can’t recall hearing of a Wiccan vilifying someone’s sexual orientation or trying to ban books from libraries or insisting that their beliefs about nature be taught in school science classes….

Except for what seems to be a common connection between the practices of Wicca and the celestial horseshit unicorn feces of astrology, tarot readings and other psychic divination absurdities, what the heck – how harmful can such beliefs be? Then I visited the website of the person/group [4] organizing the event, took a peek, and found…services…offered under a heading called Crows of Fate. ( a small sample; my emphases):

* Flight of Truth – A 5 card draw placed in a cross pattern.
It shows you the truth of your current situation. $20

* Full Flight – A 10 card draw placed in the Celtic Cross fashion.
This draw is best for when you are struggling with a difficult problem. $50

Oracle and other Services
If you have difficulty figuring out what question you should focus on or just need a yes or no answer the Oracle cards are best for such answers at $7 a card.

Psychic Services for Private Events:
Only Tarot and Oracle readings are available for private events….
It will cost $80 to retain my services for the evening….

Psychic Consultations:
I am more than willing to help with any psychic or magical trouble you are having for $10/hr.

…. Please give a basic description of the problem so that I can arrive properly equipped to deal with the problem. Otherwise you will incur an inconvenience fee of $160.

And moiself once thought that theistic religions had the corner on con games. Anyone ignorant enough to pay for such psychic services will incur more intellectual damage than any $160 inconvenience fee would cost them.

Oh, and this is priceless: psychic consultations which stipulate beforehand, “Please give a basic description of the problem.“ So much for psychic abilities.

* * *

Department Of On A Related Subject….

I have blogged previously about the subject – alternative spiritual practices – as in this excerpt from my post of 2-17-17:

As regular readers of this blog know (and new or sporadic readers will likely surmise), I am not a religious person. I was raised by church-going, Christian parents; [5] flirted with/researched a variety of denominations during/post college; was a member (even served as a deacon, holy shit!) of a UCC church [6] for many years; happily (read: finally) came out over a decade ago [7] as a lifelong skeptic-atheist-Freethinker-Bright.

While I hold a modicum of respect for some of the ideals and practices of, say, contemporary non-theistic Buddhism and Unitarianism and Jainism, I find all religions to be more-or-less silly/offensive/just plain fallacious. There is one “spiritual” practice, however, which I can somewhat understand, if only in that it makes a teesny-tiny, infinitesimally wee bit o’ sense:

Ancestor Worship.

Yes, really.

Make that, ancestor veneration, not worship. For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, get off your knees, open your eyes, and stop bowing your head – nobody should “worship” anything.

Worship: VERB
1. [with object] Show reverence and adoration for (a deity)
1.1 [no object] Take part in a religious ceremony.
(English Oxford Living Dictionary)

Unlike the claims of religions which have one or more deities, you don’t have to take your ancestors’ existence on “faith” [8] – you know they have lived (you yourself are evidence of that); you’ve likely met them one, or two, or sometimes even three generations back. From the photo albums and other heirlooms to the birth certificates, school and county records, family businesses, homes, farmsteads, and kinfolk near and far, you’ve an idea of what they have “given” you, materially, intellectually and emotionally – you’ve some idea what you might be grateful for.

Best of all, you’ve little incentive to argue or go to war with other people over whose interpretation of what their imaginary friend wants is correct. Your neighbor’s ancestors are their business, and yours are yours….

Now then. By ancestor veneration I’m not talking any kind of belief system wherein the dead are beseeched to intercede on behalf of the living – that’s just as silly as all the others (religions). I do not believe that my deceased grandparents and parents have a continued existence in a spirit world, nor that their spirits look after moiself and my family in particular or the world in general, nor that they somehow can influence the fate of the living. I’m talking about a practice of honor and appreciation, in which a person might use the roads paved and trails blazed by previous generations as a focal point for remembrance and gratitude.

Thanks for the dimples, Dad.

I’m not sure what brought the previous topic to mind. A likely suspect is the recent death of my mother. [9] Anyway, y’all have my permission to honor your ancestors…as well as my fervent wish that that is as far as your theology goes. However, as I look at the state of the world, it appears that the old superstitions have some staying power. As long as people continue to proclaim and dispute whose invisible leader is the bestest, I’d like someone to come up with another dog in the fight.

As the Bay Area’s own Huey Lewis once sang, I Want A New Drug.

Putting it yet another way, y’all have my encouragement (if you are religiously inclined) to come up with a new religion, within the following parameters: in this belief system, it is the men who are required, in one form or another, to cover themselves.

That’s it.

Yep. That’s the entire theology in a nutshell. [10]

From a light veil or a hijab – make, that, a he-jab – to a full-body, Bro burqua, your theology must include all the usual nonsense reasons (modesty; an easily offended diety; protection from your fellow believers who will beat the holy crap out of you if you show any evidence of human form) as to why certain people – in this case, those with boy parts – must be covered in public.

Duuuuuuuude – put a scarf on it.

We swear on Her Holy name, it doesn’t make your butt look big, no, not at all.

* * *

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. [11]

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [12]

“Wicca is just extreme LARPing. Then again, so is every other religion.”
(Oliver Markus Malloy, writer and cartoonist, Inside The Mind of an Introvert

( LARPing = Live Action Role Playing, wherein participants dress in costume, use props,
and act out roles in a fantasy scenarios or multiplayer games. )

* * *

May you be conscious of your LARPing;
May you attend at least one holiday bazaar (who *doesn’t* need a felt troll?);
May you remember that popcorn goes well with any Godzilla movie;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Specifically, in our pear tree.

[2] I did, the next evening.

[3] The historical pre-Christian-era religious beliefs of peoples in what are now the European countries and certain areas of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula territories, Syria, and Turkey.

[4] Still not sure exactly what it is.

[5] Lutheran, specifically: what was once called the ALC and now ELCA, for those obsessives interested in denominational nitpicking, It wasn’t one of the “synod” denominations (Missouri & Wisconsin), which are closer to Catholicism in their conservative doctrines (e.g. women cannot be ordained as ministers; liking to snipe about other denominations as being the “not true” faiths) .

[6] Which I have, since leaving, recommended to people who for whatever reasons are looking for a liberal Christian church experience and/or community.

[7] Over 17 years, as of this writing.

[8] Although, especially at Thanksgiving when someone brings up politics, you may have to take them with a helluva big grain of salt.

[9] She died Christmas Eve, 2016.

[10] Which is the proper receptacle for all theologies.

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.

The Graduate Degree I’m Not Googling

October 6, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, community, current events, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, science, Wow, Yikes! Dunning-Kruger Effect, employee of the month, Google isn't grad school, homeless camps and environmental degradation, illusion of explanatory depth, Springville corridor Comments Off on The Graduate Degree I’m Not Googling

Department Of The Most, And Most Profound, Information Contained In Four Words
I’ve Come Across In A Long Time…

…or maybe ever:

Google isn’t grad school.

Well, of course, we say to ourselves. But how many times have we fallen into the I-looked-at-this-for-five-minutes-and-now-I-get-it trap?

“The internet has fed a huge reservoir of good information, but it has also created an explosion of nonsense: technical-sounding nutrition advice about a new dietary supplement that miraculously stimulates the body to convert fat into muscle, financial jargon pushing dubious investment tips, health guidance that promises a miracle treatment your physician doesn’t know about….

Practically everywhere you look on the web, you can find technical information of dubious accuracy. This is not necessarily because we are being deliberately lied to—although *plenty* of that is going on there too—but because the internet is a free, democratic platform. This very freedom and accessibility causes many people to succumb to the illusion of explanatory depth, confidently sharing their newly acquired expertise in some technical information gleaned from reading a single article or watching a couple of videos…“

“… psychologists noticed in experiments that when people are first exposed to technical information, they usually overestimate how deeply they understand it…. The phrase illusion of explanatory depth was what researchers dubbed their finding. The phenomenon is similar to the famous Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how people with low levels of skill in an activity tend to overrate their competence. One explanation for this is ‘hypocognition,’ that people don’t know what they don’t know…

The overconfidence of people laboring under the illusion of explanatory depth can lead to the spread of misinformation. As researchers have shown, when a person’s confidence is highest though their actual knowledge is low, they become very believable to others—despite not being reliable. And the more inaccurate people are—or perhaps the more they want to believe the validity of their perception—the more they tend to be swayed by their own underinformed overconfidence….

…Just remember: Google isn’t graduate school. Learning about novel ideas is a thrill, and indeed, many researchers believe that interest itself is a positive emotion—a source of pleasure rooted in the evolutionary imperative to learn new things…. But beware your own susceptibility to the illusion of explanatory depth. If you think you understand something technical and complicated after cursory exposure, you might be able to put the knowledge to good use in your life, but you almost certainly don’t understand it well enough to hold forth on the topic.”

( excerpts from, “Google Isn’t Grad School: Having so much information at our fingertips is useful but seductive, easily fooling us into thinking we know more than we do,”
The Atlantic, 7-6-23. my emphases. )

Are y’all falling prey to the illusion of explanatory depth by thinking you understand the illusion of explanatory depth by reading these excerpts? Tricky of moiself , eh? [1]

* * *

Department Of A Recent Article Which Ties In To A Previous Blog

That would be my post from 8-25, which dealt, in part, with the social and environmental consequences of street camping. [2]

“On a scorching July morning, (Bureau of Environmental Services security manager) Keith Moen checked the steel barrier gate at the West Lents Floodplain, a natural area just off the Springwater Corridor Trail in outer Southeast Portland…. Moen noted a steel bollard missing at the entrance to the Springwater trail, meaning cars could again illegally drive onto the paved path and into the natural area.

As he inspected the floodplain, Moen walked past a shopping cart brimming with garbage and over a metal bridge spanning trash-strewn Johnson Creek….

…since the advent of the pandemic, the bureau’s land managers and environmental advocates have sounded an alarm about the escalating human-caused degradation of the city’s wildlife habitat zones, floodplains, rivers and streams, wetlands and wildfire hazard zones and are seeking ways to protect them…. Policies meant to address homelessness have exacerbated the damage in natural areas…. …the encampments and their detritus have kept people away from nature, especially in neighborhoods that are home to large numbers of low-income residents, people of color, immigrants and refugees, whose use of natural areas already tends to be limited.

‘The ecological damage from the camping is tremendous – decades of work, millions and millions of public dollars wasted,’ said Bob Sallinger, the former conservation director of Portland Audubon and now urban conservation director for the nonprofit Willamette Riverkeepers. ‘Trees have been cut down, vegetation has been trampled, water quality has been degraded…The amount of garbage, including hazardous waste, on these natural sites is remarkable’….

city land managers said they have seen a sharp increase in the number and size of encampments in protected wooded properties and along waterways….

Many of the spots fall under special city zoning and are considered ‘critical green infrastructure,’ said Ken Finney, a supervisor with the Bureau of Environmental Services who oversees the natural areas restoration program. …‘We don’t see them as just empty open spaces, but as fully functioning, complex systems…They provide specific ecosystem services to our city, including reducing flooding, managing stormwater and improving water quality. They also improve the air we breathe, protect us from extreme heat and sequester carbon….‘ “

( Hidden toll of homeless crisis: Portland’s prized natural areas ,
Oregon live.com, my emphases )

Seven years ago, (then) Portland mayor Charlie Hales enacted his controversial plan to allow overnight tent camping in certain city locations. Hales’ plan, like so many policies and proposals regarding homelessness, was well-intentioned but poorly-thought out. Hales eventually reversed his policy (saying it was “misunderstood”), but – surprise – word had gotten out (“Hey, let’s hop the freight to Portland – they let you camp on the sidewalks and natural areas.“).

Does moiself risk being called heartless or NIMBY or other pejoratives by pointing out that allowing encampments in wildlife corridors is stupid, stupid, stupid? Bring it on. It’s not a contest (“Do you care about environmental degradation or do you care about homelessness? It’s one or the other.”). We are not the only creatures on this planet; all species need clean air/water to survive.

“Camp Serenity” was part of a homeless population along the Springwater Corridor Trail. Moiself remembers watching an interview [3] with one of the camp’s self-proclaimed “leaders,” who made lofty claims about how the camp was self-policing: “Camp Serenity/Zero Tolerance – as in no tolerance for hard drugs [4] – has a code of conduct. Campers choose a leader and others for chores such as security and trash cleanup.”

At the time moiself was a wee bit abashed by my cynicism re the leader’s proclamations; my skepticism was verified several months later, when I watched and read other interviews, this time with those in charge of cleaning up Camp Serenity and other sites along the wildlife corridor. Not only had residents of neighborhoods abutting the corridor been harassed and attacked by occupants of the camps, when the camps were finally cleared out the workers who did so had to wear hazmat protective gear as they cleaned up the corridor. The trash and filth – including discarded syringes and other hazardous drug paraphernalia – and damage to the erstwhile wildlife corridor/former encampment was so intense, cleanup workers were consulting EPA guidelines for advice on toxic waste site management.

* * *

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]

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]

“We all know there are all kinds of things that religion is incompatible with — democracy, science, social equity, rational debate, blind justice. But it is sometimes thought that being an environmentalist is compatible with religious belief. That you could divorce irrational beliefs about imaginary friends, the subordinate role of women, and the importance of neoconservative government from rational concerns about the state of the planet. Sorry, can’t be done. [7]

To be a greenie concerned about the future of the planet, you have to, well, be concerned about the future of the planet. Religious people, even putting aside the Left Behind loonies, aren’t really concerned, because they have an imaginary friend who will look after them if they are good and pray hard and wear the right clothes…”

( “Green and Atheist: The Incompatibility of Religion and Environmentalism,”
Davis Horton, [8] huffpo.com )

* * *

May you stay free from the illusion of explanatory depth;
May you keep in mind that you don’t know what you don’t know;
May you celebrate your own term as Employee of the Month;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] I’d advise reading the entire article. You still won’t be an expert, but that’s okay.

[2] Whether by homeless persons or “van life” aficionados.

[3] On the local news, one of the network channels or Oregon’s PBS?

[4] And what was the definition of a “hard” drug – any drug someone else was using, but not you?

[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.

[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, www.ffrf.org

[7] Time for another footnote!

[8] From huffpo biography: “David Horton is a writer and polymath with qualifications in both science and the arts (BA, BSc, MSc, PhD, DLitt), and has had professional careers (and done research work) in biology, archaeology, publishing and farming, extending over 30 years. He has published some 100 scientific papers and a number of books on biology and archaeology. Now retired to become a professional writer and farmer, he screams often at the tv news bulletins, blogs, writes columns for local newspapers, gives talks to environmental groups, lectures occasionally in local colleges, and continues to work on his interest in the environment.”

The Trash I’m Not Being Paid To Pick Up

September 1, 2023

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, exercise & fitness, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, Recreation, sports, travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! best team names, Chris Kluwe, employee of the month, Hood to Coast relay race, people are fun, people are pigs, trash & recycling duty, volunteerism 2 Comments

Department Of What Is It?

The HTC: The Hood To Coast relay race, that’s what it is.

Hood To Coast is a long-distance relay race that starts at Mount Hood and continues nearly 200 miles to the Oregon Coast. Known as “the mother of all relays”, it is the largest running and walking relay in the world….
The race is held annually in late August, traditionally on the Friday and Saturday before the Labor Day weekend. The course runs approximately 200 miles…from Timberline Lodge on the slopes of Mount Hood, the tallest peak in Oregon, through the Portland metropolitan area, and over the Oregon Coast Range to the beach town of Seaside on the Oregon Coast. Teams of 12 runners take turns running legs along the course.
( from “Hood to Coast” Wikipedia entry )

The Hood to Coast Relay is so popular, it sells out every year within minutes on the day when it opens for team registrations. [1] HTC begins at Mount Hood, with staggered start times on Friday from 3 am to 2 pm (teams have 36 hours to complete the course). [2] This year there were 1,000 teams participating, and 12,000 runners. Teams come from all US states and 40 other countries, including our neighbors to the north:

Y’all impressed? You should be. For all the years we’ve been coming to the Oregon coast, the last weekend in August is one of the more fun times to be there (almost [3] fun enough to make me want to take up running again, just to participate in the HTC). MH and I hang in Manzanita, 22 miles south of the HTC finish point (Seaside). During the HTC weekend, almost about anywhere on the north Oregon coast you’ll spot the HTC team vans with their colorful names and mottos painted on the sides and doors, and encounter the enthusiastically exhilarated (and exhausted and sleep-deprived) HTC team members looking for food and drink, massages, blister relief, or just wanting to hang out.

Moiself knows many people who’ve participated in the HTC. This year son K joined a team for the first time, and asked me to be a HTC volunteer. All local [4] HTC teams are required to provide three volunteers or one exchange leader, [5] or they’ll be disqualified from the race. As you might imagine, with so many runners, a 200 mile race stretching from a mountain to an ocean needs a lot of people helping with logistics along the way, [6] including at the start and at the exchange points, to keep track of participants and vans (each team must provide two vans to transport members; each race member must run three legs of the race), and particularly at the end of the race, where the teams check in to a large, roped off section of the beach at Seaside, and have ceremonies and parties and eat and take official pictures…and did I mention parties?

I signed up for the 9:45a – 2:45p Saturday volunteer shift at Seaside. There were many of us volunteers at that shift time, and we were (most unscientifically) chosen for a variety of tasks. Moiself ended up in Trash and Recycling. T/R involved constant movement: for the next five hours (with lunch and hydration breaks at the volunteers’ discretion) we T/R crew walked a snaking/looping pattern throughout the various sections of the finish line area, from the perimeters to the zones within the zone, checking the I-lost-count-of-how-many trash and recycling receptacles. T/R volunteers duties included “pre-cycling” as much as possible (invariably, people dump the wrong items in the receptacles, despite the bins being clearly marked for trash v. recycling and having picture labels showing what items go where; thus, we had to move items from one bag to another), and changing the bags when they were 75% full.

* * *

Department Of People Are Fun

It was fun, even while digging through the icky T/R receptacles, [7] to see the teams arrive. There was so much sheer joy to be witnessed, on the part of the runners and the friends and family cheering them on. And the team names – I wish moiself could remember them all. I had a job to do, but tried to pay attention as the teams’ arrivals were announced over the loudspeaker (which you could hear from any part of the finish zone). Most teams go for a funny/punny name; e.g., one that satirizes their workplace and/or sponsors, or is a play on words with common situations and ailments faced by distance runners in general or HTC racers in particular (e.g., team “My Third Leg is Harder Than Yours”).

Most teams had custom shirts for their runners, and sometimes hats and other accessories. Teams decorate their vans, too. A popular team name motif is the slightly naughty/double entendre. Years ago, I saw a van with this motto painted on its rear door:

” Go Nads!
(National Association of Distance Sprinters)”

Atop the van, attached to its luggage rack, was a large set of paper mâché…any guesses?

Another van’s display of their team name made me consider whether or not I would want to park (or walk) behind a van labeled, “Twelve Sticky Buns.”

A few intrepid teams run in full costume – moiself spotted members of one all male team which seemed to have a Barbie theme going on – or regalia related to their names. I never found out the name of the team whose every runner, male and female, was clad in red prom dresses, but they were a jolly group to behold.

Some team names I remember from years past:

* Run Like a Mother
*199 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
* Get in the Van!
* Where’s the Beach?
* Hauling Ass-prin
* 12 Drummers Drumming
* Cheap Hills
* Forrest Stump [8]

* Endorphiends
* Toenails Are For Sissies
* It’s Cute You Run Marathons
* Tektronic Megahurtz
* Hoodwinked
* Van You Catch Us?
* The Team Formerly Known As Class Act [9]

* Grateful (We’re Not) Dead
* 70 Rocks [10]

* Chafing the Dream
* Blister Sisters
* PNW, WTF?
* Saturday Night Dead
* Ducks for a Husky-Free Northwest

This year’s team names included:

* Pick it up Princess [11]

* Back Fat
* The Young and the Breathless
* The Young and The Rest Of Us
* Premature Acceleration
* Monty Crython and the Hilly Trail
* Oreo Speedwagon
* Electrolyte Orchestra
* Turd Herders
* I-Be-Pro-FUN
* Worst. Wine. Tour. Ever.
* Obi-Run Kenobi
* Cirque du Sore Legs
* Last Place Legends
* Team Questionable Life Choices
* The Island of Misfit Toys
* Married Up
* Pace Cadets
* Kids, Get Your Shoes On
* Resisting A Rest
* Seven Deadly Shins
* Tequila Mockingbird
* Another Run Bites the Dust
* We’ve Got the Runs
* The Kind Of Dirty Dozen
* Lactic Acid Trip
* Two Dozen Scrambled Legs [12]

Now: who’d want to be a member of team Back Fat? When I saw several BF team runners hanging around by one of the finish area T/R receptacles, moiself had to ask. I did my T/R checking job, then prefaced my query by pointing to my shirt (as I did several times afterward, when I realized that people would answer *anything* I asked when they saw my shirt). “So,” I said, “in my ‘Race Official capacity, ‘ I must ask you: Why would anyone want to run under the team name, Back Fat?”

The BF-ers exchanged knowing glances. “Well, look at us,” one of them said, and he pivoted to show me his back. Yep, in their green polyester, clingy running shirts (mostly) covering their squatty, chunky physiques….I’ll concede that their team’s name was a first-rate example of truth in advertising.

“We’re just running for fun…we’re not the elites,” the BFer said, as he hoisted a beer with one hand and with the other hand, pointed behind moiself , to the Nike area (Nike had its own roped off zone within the finish zone, with complimentary food and beverages for Nike-sponsored teams, as well as their own set of gleaming white, porta-pottie trailers. Bouncers checked IDs at the entrance to the Nike zone, ensuring no plebes – except for those wearing Race Official ® shirts – got inside.) “We know we’re not the team that’s in the best shape…” BF guy snickered.

“But you’re the team having the best time,” I offered. He laughed heartily, and he and his fellow BFers toasted me with their beers.

Moiself moved on to the next set of T/R bins, where another group of racing men stood (hanging around the T/R bins seemed to be a thing). There were six of them, all wearing their race shirts and, from the waist down, colorful batik, sarong-type wraps. They were quite the contrast to the BFers: they were all tall, slender, in their 40s – 50s, in great shape, with that lanky, distance runner’s physique. And the way they were groomed: even after having just finished a two-day race, their hair was neatly styled and none of them looked the least bit sweaty. Distinguished-looking, you might say. Something about their aura and the way they carried themselves radiated, “well-kept” (read: money).

I asked about the team’s name on their shirts (a word which sounded Hawaiian to moiself); also, noting their sarongs, I asked if the team had some Polynesian connection (although the men were all haoles). One of the men began to explain: “A few years ago, a friend of mine bought a small island in Fiji…” To which I interjected, “As one does.”

Well-Groomed Man didn’t miss a beat; he continued to tell me about how their team name was a word his Fijian-island-owning friend had introduced them to. The word had a few variants among the Fiji Islands and was similar to the Hawaiian aloha in that it had no one translation, and could be used as word of greeting and departure, or as a way of wishing someone well, etc.

My next T/R stop took me to the Nike area – my Race Official ® shirt was my entry ticket. It was quite the nice setup. About twenty minutes later, I encountered a T/R volunteer in a (non-Nike) area by the finish lines, and she told me that although there were not long lines of people waiting to use the porta-potties which lined the perimeter of the finish zone, the facilities always seemed to be occupied. I told her that if she needed a bathroom break, she should go to the Nike area and use their pristine facilities. “But, isn’t that for Nike people only?” she asked. “Who cares?” I snorted. “I didn’t see anyone checking IDs once they let you in their zone. Besides, if someone questions you, give them a WTF look, show ’em your shirt and your trash bags, then ask them if they’re saying that you’re good enough to pick up their trash but not good enough to use their porta potties?”

* * *

Department Of People Are Pigs

Oh, but it wasn’t all fun and games. As a member of the T/R crew, I had more than enough job security. As my shift wore on I became lip-curlingly disgusted with my fellow human beings, too many of whom left their discards in the strangest places – as in, obviously and deliberately misplaced, not just dropped in carelessness.

Yeah, clever, dude! Because that’s where recycling goes.

Besides the Nike teams’ area there was another restricted/ID required zone: The VIP tent. There was a guy seated at one entrance to the tent, whose job was to check people’s…. status, I guess?…before he let them into the tent. Moiself never found out what qualifications were needed to enter the VIP tent (I saw several people – non-VIPs, I assume – turned away). However, Those Of Us Wearing Race Official® shirts were allowed inside the tent, to do our T/R duties. The first time I approached the VIP tent, I saw Entry Checker Guy eye my volunteer shirt and the extra T/R bags I was carrying. I told him I was there for a VID – a Very Important Duty. “Ah, yes,” he said. In a tone both flip and friendly, he added, “But, are you a VIP?” To which I replied, “I am a Very *Impudent* Person. Is that VIP enough for you?” Turns out it was.

When I came back on my third run-through in the VIP tent, its T/R receptacles, while not yet full, needed changing. I was disgusted by the behavior of the VIP tent occupants, who’d left their trash *everywhere.* A couple of VIPs were seated less than two feet from the T/R containers, and when they saw me, they nodded in acknowledgement (as if to say, “Ah, here comes the help”) and then just – I couldn’t believe it – set their plates of partially eaten food and their half-empty beer cans down, on the sand, nudging the items toward the T/R receptacles but not bothering to get off of their Very Imperious Posteriors and properly dispose of said trash. Something in me snapped, a wee bit. T/R volunteers had been told (at the beginning of our shift, by the volunteer coordinator who did our T/R duty training) not to berate or even correct people who discarded their trash improperly, but to just “fix it.” So, I did pick up the VIP refuse and sort them into the proper bins, but decided to leave the tent with full T/R bins, and did not return to check on them later.

My HTC volunteer experience brought to mind the gentle…warning, for lack of a better word, which I received many years ago from someone who was quite the dedicated volunteer. She had volunteered across a variety of fields and for a variety of events and services, for decades, and she told me that when you volunteer, for anything,

“…be prepared to be disappointed in your species.”

As the hours went by it began to bother me, more and more: the amazing amount of trash, and waste. T/R receptacle liners bulged with utensils, non-recyclable cups, and plates loaded with food – plates of food from which someone had taken a couple of bites, from hot dogs to burgers and noodle dishes/stir frys, and then thrown aways the rest. Why do people even bother? Did it taste bad? And the food – apart from that served in the VIP and Nike areas, was not free – it had to be purchased from various booths. Were the people who bought it even hungry; did they get a burrito, then realize, Oh, I don’t really want/need this? You don’t have to eat every time there is food around, (perhaps the food wasters fell prey to that American Mindset®: “Look, food! Must be time to eat.”)

I just didn’t get it; I didn’t want to get it…

There were many booths in the finish zone, some with sponsors/vendors giving out free cans and bottles of various beverages (kombucha and flavored/”energy” waters). We T/R crew would find many of those cans and bottles cracked open but half full, buried in the sand, or leaning against the recycling receptacles (which had notices asking people to please empty cans and bottles before recycling them). What’s the deal, of not taking five seconds to empty it? Were they just waiting for/assuming someone else to do it?

When checking in volunteers were given a Race Official shirt, which we were told we must wear over whatever other shirts we had on, during our shift. After check-in we were directed to move away from the check-in line and wait for a volunteer coordinator to assign us to task groups. As I stood in the waiting-group, I looked noted that most of that group, plus those in the volunteer check-in line, were female. One young man, who looked to be in his late teens-early twenties, was standing at the periphery of my waiting group. I pulled on my RO shirt, sidled over to him and asked if he was or had been a HTC runner. He shook his volunteer shirt (he was holding a Race Official shirt but had not yet donned it) and mumbled, “No; I’m just doing this for a friend.” Another volunteer also greeted him, and by the look on the young man’s face I couldn’t tell his reaction: was he mortified, or disgusted, to be surrounded by middle-aged women, some of whom were actually attempting to talk with him.

Once I was on my T/R shift, I continued to note (anecdotally; this was not a scientific survey, but I saw what I saw) how the volunteers were overwhelmingly skewed, gender-wise. Particularly, those who were chosen for T/R duty – I saw only one man doing T/R. And while moiself recalls being thanked by four (yes, I counted) men during the five hours of my shift, I lost track of the number of female race participants who, when they saw my Race Official shirt (and noticed me picking through the trash), thanked me for doing so.

That’s women for you, I groused to moiself. We are the world’s garbage collectors. I was reminded of a quote I read, decades ago, from a woman who was part of a lawsuit against a local (So Cal) municipality which refused to even consider hiring women to work on refuse collection crews: men don’t object to the fact that women pick up/deal with the world’s physical and metaphorical garbage, as long as we aren’t paid to do so.

Stop getting all existentially bummed, I castigated moiself. If K runs the HTC again next year and asks me to volunteer, I probably will. I can select a different shift and locale – maybe somewhere midrace, at an exchange point? Oh, but there’ll be trash duty there as well. Will I just be removing moiself from seeing the majority of the waste produced by this event…. This is way too much ruminating on yet another example of how we continue to literally trash our environment, which is our home, our VIP zone. So, after my shift ended I went home and washed out the reusable containers in which I’d brought my lunch – yeah, that’ll save the planet….

* * *

Department of Employee Of The Month

It’s that time again, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself . Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [13]

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [14]

* * *

May you respect the person who picks up your trash;
May you be the person who picks up your trash;
May we all have the means to buy a (trash-free) island in Fiji;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Beginning in the 1990s, Hood to Coast implemented a lottery system to select participating teams.

[2] Some elite teams, often corporate (read: Nike) sponsored, have run the course in half that time.

[3] Ah…but only almost.

[4] As in, from within Oregon, not those flying in from, say, Costa Rica.

[5] Exchange leaders work in the exchange zones, where a race participant passes off to the next participant in rotation to run the next leg. Each leg of the race varies in distance, from approximately 4 – 7 miles.

[6] …and an estimated 500 port-a-potties are staged along the route.

[7] I insisted on the thickest pair of gloves they had at the volunteer check-in booth. Some T/R volunteers just wore thin vinyl gloves.

[8] All Forrest Stump team members were adaptive athletes: all team members had some physical challenges, including prosthetic legs and/or use wheelchairs due to spinal cord injuries….

[9] The story behind this name: One year a team called themselves, “Class Act.” The next year they were, “Class Act Is Back.” During that second year one of their vans was pulled over and reprimanded by a Sheriff’s deputy when the riders were shooting Super Soakers out the window on the highway. Thus, the third year’s Prince-inspired moniker, to allow for how their “classy” reputation had been tarnished.

[10] All team members are age 70 or over.

[11] They were young (I think the minimum age for runners is 13) and female, and they were running fast – picking up the pace! – when I saw them cross the finish line.

[12] Son K’s team’s name.

[13] 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.

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

The Reality Show I’m Not Watching

July 24, 2020

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, music, Oregon, politics, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! embarrassing misstatements, employee of the month, Goodbye Earl, high school newspaper, Indian Matchmaking, journalists' sense of humor, Oregon beach bill, Oregon bottle bill, Oregon's state motto, sharing stories, stupid state mottos, Tags: Epicurean Excursion Evolution, The Dixie Chicks, The Generator, Vexillology Comments Off on The Reality Show I’m Not Watching

Department Of Peculiar State Mottos

I love my state, despite its having these three flaws:

(1) the 46^th ugliest [1] state flag in the USA (it violates at least one of the Five Basic Principles of Flag Design, as per the North American Vexillological Association, [2]

(2) as well as one of the more perplexing state mottos.

(3) There is no third flaw.

Who was the person who first decreed, “States must have slogans – oh, wait, let’s call them, ‘mottoes!’ ” ? Who convinced others in the government that, with all the to-dos which come with qualifying for statehood, motto-composing is a good use of time? That person is lost to history.

Moiself (motto: “It’s my blog, so there.”) decrees that there are four states vying for Worst State Motto award. Besides Oregon, they are:

* Connecticut (“He who transplanted sustains.”)

Oh, yeah. That goes without saying.

* New Mexico (“It grows as it goes.”)

Imagine what the NM motto committee was smoking when they thought up that one.

* Maryland (“Manly deeds, womanly words.”)

Oregon’s state motto is in Latin, because the same doofus who sent out the, “Every state must have a motto” memo also apparently added, “…and if you can’t think of anything profound or at least plausible to say, say it in Latin.”

Thus, Oregon’s motto: Alis volat propriis. Which translates as…

She flies with her own wings.

Many Oregonians do not know what our state’s motto is. And when they find out, their reaction is not what moiself imagines was the goal of the motto committee:

WTF does that even MEAN ?!?!?

The general consensus of historians and People Who Try To Care About Such Things ® is that the motto is meant to convey a sense of Oregon’s “tradition of independence and innovation” (e.g., the nation’s first bottle bill, the public beach access bill). [3] So yeah; there’s that. But, couldn’t it have been phrased in a more accessible way (“Oregon: pick up your trash and get off our lawn beach.“)?

On the other hand, it could be seen as reassuring to residents of other states: if you meet an Oregonian and she looks like she’s about to takeoff, don’t worry – she has too much pride and self-reliance to steal *your * wings. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the air show.

* * *

Department Of Best Song Couplets, V. 2

♫ The weeks went by and spring turned to summer and summer faded into fall/
And it turns out he was a missing person who nobody missed at all. ♫

( from “Goodbye Earl,” the [band formerly known as the] Dixie Chick’s
ode to taking revenge on an abusive husband )

* * *

Department Of Seriously, You Need A List For This?

On Monday, an ad with this headline appeared on my FB feed:

“Five Tips For Wearing Less Makeup.”

The ad’s headline accompanied a picture of an attractive Woman Of A Certain Age ®, which made me think the ad’s content could be along the lines of the standard advice that women who wear makeup should tone it down as they age…or perhaps the ad was related to the COVID shelter-in era, with people not wanting to deal with their usual routines?

I didn’t click on the ad, but instead of just scrolling by, I stared at the inane headline which had caught my eye, and repeated to moiself the Five Tips For Wearing Less Makeup I would give, gratis, to anyone who asked:

1. Wear less makeup. 2. Wear less makeup. 3. Wear less makeup.
4. Wear less makeup.
5. Set your smartphone’s alarm reminder: Wear less makeup.

* * *

Department Of, Once Again, Reality Outdoes Fiction

You cannot make up a line this…rich.

Context: MH and I, watching a Netflix show, Indian Matchmaking:

“Matchmaker Sima Taparia guides clients in the U.S. and India in the arranged marriage process, offering an inside look at the custom in a modern era.”

I thought at first the show was fiction, then, a documentary, then, after two episodes, I said to MH, “This is a reality show, right?” (Translation: “We can’t watch it anymore. We don’t watch Those Kind of Shows. ® “)

The line in question came from an Indian-American woman, who spoke with snort-worthy distain about rejecting a man who wasn’t as travel-knowledgeable as she:

“He didn’t know that Bolivia had salt flats.”

That particular woman was one of the matchmaker’s clients featured in the two episodes we watched. She was in her mid-30s, a lawyer, very busy, a world traveler when not working. Once she’d agreed to matchmaking services ( via evident pressure from her mother and sister ) she began noticing how her married female friends actually spent a significant amount of time with their husbands – an idea which seemed to disgust her. And she found excuse after excuse to object to any matches the matchmaker suggested.

Her predicament led to this tender exchange between me and my life match:

Moiself: “Why is she doing this? She so obviously doesn’t want to be married.”

MH: “She doesn’t need a husband, she just needs a vibrator.”

* * *

Department Of The Convoluted Path Of Memories

Dateline: last Saturday. I posted on Facebook a list my Swenadian [4] friend had sent me: five anecdotes with the theme of memorable, embarrassing misstatements. I actually remember reading (in a newspaper) about the fifth one:

What happens when you predict snow but don’t get any? We had a female news anchor, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn’t, who turned to the weatherman and asked,
“So, Bob, where’s that 8 inches you promised me last night?”

One of the main reasons I tell my stories or share the stories of others is because of what I call the 99% reaction motivation: ala the *I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours* approach to life, sharing a story almost always prompts others to share their similar stories. Whether it’s an anecdote of a major parental fail I pulled, or imparting someone else’s *yes-she-really-said-to-the-handsome-golf-pro-that-she-liked-playing-with-men’s-balls* tale, I know that I will soon hear from a buddy about her worst mothering incident (which makes me feel better about mine), or a face-palming moment of their own which will make me laugh harder than the original story.

It’s what I live for. [5]

Given the number of writers and reporters I know, I was certain that the last of the Five Embarrassing Misstatements stories would generate [6] a story in response. What with newspaper editors asking for copy in terms of inches of print space (“I need six inches for the op-ed….”) I knew my journalism buddies would have similar stories. Sure enough, SDH, a comrade since our junior high school days, posted a doozy.

The next morning at breakfast, MH mentioned SDH’s story, which sent me on a memory flashback. I think about my high school journalism friends often – even posted about them six years ago. Since it’s summertime, I’ll indulge moiself with a bit of a rerun:

(5-16-2014, excerpts from The Tattoo I’m Not Explaining )

I am currently reading Weedland by Peter Hecht. Subtitled Inside America’s Marijuana Epicenter and How Pot Went Legit, the book, as per one blurb, is “essential reading for anyone who is a fan of California’s most lucrative agricultural product.” Which, I am not. However, I am a fan of Peter Hecht.

I’ve known (and admired and adored) Pete since junior high school. He was one of my buddies from a group of friends and acquaintances I still think of as the high school journalism gang.

The Write Stuff

Neither K nor Belle have ever brought home (nor even mentioned, sans my prompting) their high school’s newspaper. They both know I’d written for my school paper. [7] They know it was a “real” newspaper, with separate pages (and editors and reporters) devoted to news stories, editorial/opinion pieces, entertainment/feature and sports writing. They know that when The Generator, Santa Ana High School’s award-winning biweekly newspaper, was distributed in the school’s classrooms, the teachers and students stopped what they were doing and read it, cover to cover. They know that students’ parents also read the high school newspaper, and that The Generator ran stories with enough substance to garner parental interest… and complaints.

(“I can’t believe what your reporter/ smart aleck columnist ____ wrote about! That’s no subject fit for a high school newspaper!”) [8]

They know all of this because of the stories I’d told them. And they could not bear to disappoint me when it came to their own school’s pitiful excuse for fishwrap newspaper.

Son K, ever the diplomat, laid it out for me after my third or fourth Why-don’t-you-ever-bring-your-school-newspaper-home? whine petition.

“Mom, our school’s newspaper sucks.
It’s embarrassing…nothing in it but rah-rah stories…
No one reads it and no one cares.”

Think back to your high school history, chemistry, English, or PE classes: how many of those classmates went on to become historians or chemists or English teachers or pro athletes? It still amazes me to think of how many of my peers who wrote for The Generator went on to pursue careers in journalism in one form or another. Along with Peter Hecht, there are:

* Scott Harris, former Los Angeles Times and San Jose Mercury reporter/columnist, Scott is currently one of “The Expat Files” contributors, living in/freelancing from Hanoi;

* Janis Carr, longtime Orange County Register sportswriter;

* Tim Ferguson, – Wall St. Journal reporter and current Forbes editor;

* Victor Cota, reporter for the Orange County Register

* Phil Blauer, So-Cal area news anchor;

* Deborah Franklin, “my” editor, [9] whom I greatly admire for finding a way to combine her two loves, science and journalism. Instead of (as the dubious voices advised) dumping one to concentrate on the other, Franklin became a science and medical reporter. Her works appear in a variety of venues, from VIA to NPR to Scientific American.

…and oodles of others I’m probably forgetting. [10]

Three of those previously mentioned: Back row: the striped shirt and boyish-grin belong to Tim Ferguson; front row: L, Pete get-a-load-of-that-1974-hair Hecht; R Scott Harris, who was engaged in a campaign to get me to leave student government (“The BOC”) and join The Generator staff, which almost excuses his scribbled commentary;
second from R, Janis Carr.

Back to the breakfast table of the present: After MH told me about reading SDH’s story, I told him how delighted I was that SDH had shared it, then repeated two observations I’d made many a time: (1) I am amazed at how so many of my high school peers went on to have long careers in “actual” journalism, and, (2) of all the different sub-groups I was involved with in high school – the “gifted’ academic program; athletics; student government; the school newspaper – it is the journalism group I think of most frequently, and most fondly.

I got a good-natured, well-of-course-and-duh-you-are-all-writers reaction from MH the first time I told him that. This time, his expression was open and interested, beyond mere tolerance mode to an actual, tell-me-more-of-what-you-mean way.

Yes, almost exactly like this.

And so, I did.

What was so great about that group was that, although they were all different, unique students, definitely not cut from the same “cloth,” politically or personally or socially or emotionally, they were all really…. *smart.*

They were intelligent, if not necessarily in the academically-gifted-program way (most of them were not enrolled in our school’s ‘s gifted program)…but it was more than that. They were informed and inquisitive; they were both interesting, and interested – attentive to people and events and ideas outside of themselves…which was a refreshing change from the ubiquitous high school, *it’s-all-about-me* mentality. Even those who “just” reported on sports (sorry, guys) were also conversant on politics and culture – they had a wide variety of interests, beyond their personal (and later, professional) specializations.

And they were, almost without exception, *wicked* funny.

Trading barbs, making wittily snarky observations of our fellow students – you had to have a thick hide to survive that group, and be able to take it as well as dish it out. We were fast on the draw, quick to mine any seemingly innocent comment for innuendo potential. Speaking of which, how convenient of moiself to provide a segue to this apropos example: One afternoon during my senior year, I was in our newspaper’s office, shooting the breeze with one of our newspaper’s reporter’s as he had a late lunch. He told me that someone had asked him for a clarification for the usage of the word, * innuendo,* then spat out part of his sandwich when I told him that “innuendo” was Italian for “anal sex.”

* * *

Department Of, It’s Her, Again? But She Won Last Month….

* * *

Pun For The Day

When you get a bladder infection you know urine trouble.

* * *

May you visit Oregon, but remember to bring your own wings;
May you have fond memories of at least one of your high school “groups;”
May you never reject a potential romantic partner because they
don’t know obscure geographic facts about Bolivia;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Beating it in ugliness are the state flags of Hawaii (A union jack? Seriously? With all the gorgeous Hawaiian colors to choose from, you steal from the Brits?) and the flags of Georgia and Mississippi, which incorporate part of the Confederate flag, tackily celebrating one of the ugliest chapters in American History.

[2] Vexillology is the study of flag history and symbolism. Yes, Virginia, there’s an organization for everything.

[3] Oregon was the first state to enact a container-deposit bill (1971); Oregon’s landmark beach bill (1967) declares that all “wet sand” within sixteen vertical feet of the low tide line belongs to the state of Oregon, and recognizes public easements of all beach areas up to the line of vegetation, regardless of underlying property rights, so that the public has “free and uninterrupted use of the beaches,” and property owners are required to seek state permits for building and other uses of the ocean shore. Wikipedia, Oregon Beach Bill.

[4] A Canadian married to a Swede.

[5] Well, that and Grey’s Anatomy reruns. And world peace.

[6] Only a select few of my readers will get that reference: My high school’s student newspaper, where I met most of these fine folk,s was named The Generator.

[7] Primarily Parnal Knowledge, my regular op-ed column, plus miscellaneous reporting, ranging from “hard” news to satire to cultural reviews to sports.

[8] The Generator’s faculty advisor (English teacher Ted Clucas), was never happier than when he’d received a parental complaint. “It proves they’re paying attention – you made somebody think about something!”

[9] Franklin, The Generator’s Editor-in Chief my senior year, displayed support and discretion above and beyond the call of journalistic duty by allowing me free (mostly) range in writing my op-ed column, Parnal Knowledge.

[10] I have not updated this list; some of the members have retired/moved on. One of the “oodles” I forgot to mention was the venerable Peter Schmuck (all together now: yep, that’s his real name), who recently retired from over 30 years of sports reporting for The Baltimore Sun.

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