To this day I feel visceral fear when I think of the unknown Columbus, Ohio police officer who forced his way into my home when I was a graduate teaching associate at Ohio State University. I remember was that it was late in the evening in 1994, and I was grading my students’ paper assignments at my desk in my small basement studio apartment located just a few blocks off of the Ohio State University campus. I had a huge stack of their papers to go through from the several classes that I taught, a hundred maybe two hundred student papers. I heard a rough knock at my door, the kind of knock only people with habitual authority make, a knock such as a policeman would make. Through my door pe

Jo Brand is bawdy, crude, rude, and honest in a wholesome, kindly way. She finesses that unwieldy mix, and makes it look easy. I love her for it. I understand her acerbity and sarcasm. (I hate her gratuitous man-bashing.) I remember when I was an innocent young woman, and all anyone had to do was curse to get me to leave the room. How powerful they must have felt, how long ago that was. I no longer defend my femininity by fleeing, I am fully, intellectually competent, and I use it. On rare occasions, when the best thing to do is to curse back, I try to give better than I got. It is called strong language for a reason. Jo Brand’s ball-busting, barrier-breaking, bunker-buster feminism

This old lady, Ann Coulter, is mean-spirited and unrefreshed. She pontificates as if she were the secular second coming. In a word, she is offensive. When she travels the world, because she is such a visible American, she is a massive embarrassment. Among all the other inanities in her interview on SVT/TV 2/Skavlan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxTtjGamJtI), Ann Coulter smirked that, “Feminists are angry man-hating lesbians.” When the Scandinavian interviewer firmly corrected her, “It (feminism) doesn’t really mean that, does it.” Her response was to double-down coyly, “Oh, but it does.” What an idiot. Drugs? Narcissism? Early on-set dementia? All of the above, and more? When wi

“...destruction of society...and a lot of it needs to be laid at the feet of women...” touts smug self-proclaimed philosopher Stefan Molyneux. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjDyJPrmflo In his bold and aggressive manner, Stefan Molyneux harangues the online public with the faults that he finds in women. And he find much fault with women, he finds seemingly endless fault with women. Is he self-projecting?* His harassment simply continues that which women have endured throughout recorded history, he adds nothing new. Men have been in position to fault women with impunity since the dawn of time. In many other regards he seems to be a fine, even excellent philosopher, although ther

Ever since he detoxed off of decades of drug abuse, Rush Limbaugh no longer calls decent American women "Feminazis" when they stand for equal rights and dignity, but the damage is done. Any American woman calling herself a “feminist” is instantly labeled with his peculiar brand of sexual bigotry which he promoted all those years as "Feminazism". Rush Limbaugh is old now, and he pardons himself saying, “I’m naive in many ways...” (showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.) You think, Rush? Never occurred to you that labeling decent American women as “Feminazis” wouldn’t handicap them and keep over fifty percent of our country from contributing fully? Rush Limbaugh created the ter

I do not want to do this day. The day that I want to do begins with a brisk walk in the woods under the newly turning autumn leaves, baking bread, an afternoon of playing bridge or mahjong with friends, and tucked into bed early with tea, pain patches, and a good book on my Kindle. Instead I will be dragging myself through yet another bout dealing with my late father’s loss of leg due to nursing home neglect lawsuit. Aarrgghh↓ So I put on my garden clogs for a very short hobble around my yard, ate healthy oatmeal, promised myself a nice dinner of polish sausage and potato, prayed for those near and far, and applied the pain patches now instead of then. Tonight I will have a spa-type even

The northern European tale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff * by the Brothers Grimm is a story that my paternal grandmother enjoyed reading aloud to me when I was a toddler. She would not hold me, saying “You are always so dirty.” She literally pushed me away until I gave up trying to be held. Her repulsion was probably because my parents could not be bothered to bathe me and she hesitated to intervene, but be that as it was, I would sit quietly nearby while she read. I wanted very much to be held because this story was very scary to me. I tried not to hear the gruesome details, my life was scary enough as it was, and I did not enjoy being further frightened. Even then I knew that there

I do like wool products, very much. Wool is warm, it breathes, and I like the natural feel of it. However, this new internet gimmick of linking a casual product comment to a person’s name is off-putting. I would not mind if the companies had simply posted my nice comments on their websites, but to link themselves to my name online is a bit much. Especially as slippers and blankets are personal, even intimate products. Well, I certainly will not be making any more product comments for any company. These well-known companies, Haflinger (boiled wool slippers) and Pendleton (warm wool blankets) should not ride my little name with their big brands. Postscript: Pendleton apologized and remov

I realize that my Blog flotsam and jetsam has posts from the past century of my life entered right next to postings from my here and now. And my tranquil postings are often bracketed by emotionally turbulent postings. The reason for this is that, first, I am at the time of life, soon to be a septuagenarian, where past events are very, very clear to me, they come unbidden to my mind; and so many are very, very sad, but they have merit and should be included in my memoirs. And yet, my current life is often pleasant and tuned closely to nature so I enjoy including these happy experiences. Equally, I feel vindicated when I am able to post about a twenty-first century injustice that I have en

When I was a graduate student and graduate teaching associate at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, I rented a small off-campus apartment which included services on the mechanicals, electrical, plumbing, and the like. The plumbing was old and unreliable. One day I called in a request to the apartment manager for a plumber to fix the toilet. I was always simultaneously preparing to teach my classes while studying for my own courses, so I suppose that is what I was doing on that day. The plumber came and quickly replaced a part on the old toilet. I was anxious for him to leave so I could get on with whatever I was doing, time is short in graduate school. I remember that he was in no

I saw a very short video clip of a carefree, free-range chicken in an old-fashioned farmyard that had tarried too long chasing insects, pecking up seeds, and pleasing itself doing those things that chicken do when they are at liberty to live their natural avian lives. It had not noticed that day had turned to dusk and that all the other chickens had gone to roost. The other chickens were nestled down comfortably together under shelter. The video captured just the moment when the solitary chicken realized that it was left out, alone and unprotected. With a horrified squawk that any creature would recognize as dismay, the chicken scrambled for the shelter of its flock as if pursued by the

Spontaneously, from the depths of her dementia, sometime in the last months of her life, my mother whispered to me with a surprisingly emotional catch in her voice, “I wish I hadn’t bought those...those thin shoes for you.” I instantly knew what she meant. She was referring to the cheap shoes that she forced me to wear in the first grade of elementary school (by providing nothing else). Those ugly, skimpy shoes had soles so thin that they wore through the very first time that I walked to school in them. She refused to replace the shoes even though the sidewalk wore through my cheap socks too. Those socks were another issue, they seemed to lack shape and slid down into my shoes, where th

In 1985, just after I graduated from Ohio State University with a Master’s degree in Sociology, I met another recent graduate whose Master’s degree was in Philosophy. When two people meet and become friends, sometimes one of them is satisfied to make an acquaintance, while the other is keen to make more of it. He ingratiated himself into a casual friend status with me and I let him come around and talk because finding someone else who is interested in discussing philosophy is not as easy as one might think. I saw him a couple of times a month for a while, even though I had been put off by the ankle-length flowing white gown that he was wearing when I met him. The gown was cinched at his

When I was in my twenties, I knew that I was quite strong for a woman, feminine but strong as in physical labor was easy for me and I enjoyed heavy work. A whole-body sweat felt good to me, and I enjoyed the warm feeling of well-worked muscles. I once walked into a new weightlifting gym and easily did a free weight squat-dead lift-overhead—lifting the barbell from my feet smoothly up over my head and back down to the ground—of such a weight that the guys said their top woman lift competitor had trained for years without being able to do the same. Not bragging, just saying... I had not found my way into university studies yet, and I was looking about for a job, and hoping for a career. Wh

I was surprised in middle-age when I realized that I was not fully grateful. Like every other human being on the planet, I had heard of the concept but unlike many others it did not fully resonate with me. Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Although I readily appreciated and returned kindness, I was not thankful. I often volunteered kindness where it had not been shown, or even where it was denied, but I was not thankful. I knew that thankfulness is a virtue. I knew that thankfulness enhanced one’s person and life. I also knew that I was devoid of thankfulness, I simply lacked the feeling. I had not acquired it on my o

When I was in my early twenties I had a spontaneous epiphany* in which I realized that our culture, perhaps the entire world, lacks full compassion for men; and that I in particular lacked full compassion** for men. Men must stand at a moment’s notice and sacrifice themselves to protect women and children; and women and children are expected and trained to honor men’s noble sacrifice by feeling grateful before regretful. This derails thoughts of how to relieve humanity of the threats and violence that require men’s sacrifice. For example, when one thinks of men dying in war there is a sense of accordance that one does not feel at the thought of women and children dying in war. In gross t

I have an unusual hobby in which I indulge once every year or so. I people-watch in casinos, especially when I am traveling. I go there for the casino buffet which varies wildly in quality but which is dependably cheap; then after dining I find a comfortable niche with a view and take in the casino ambiance, while covertly observing people doing the various things that people do when they are gambling. Their behaviors and interactions are interesting, even entertaining to me, nothing more, nothing less. I myself have no interest in gambling. I disapprove of the vice of gambling because it tricks people into squandering their precious resources of time, energy, money, and hope. I do not

I was asked out for my very first date when I was a junior in high school, to a sweetheart dance for fifteen and sixteen-year-old sophomores at the high school that I attended in Kansas City, Missouri or perhaps it was in Kansas. (Kansas City is actually twin cities and we had lived several places in both states over the years.) One of my favorite classes, biology, had just finished and another student come up to me. He said that his friend wanted to ask me to the sweetheart dance but that he was too shy to ask me in person. That resonated with me as I was very shy then, I thought he must be very sweet. It seemed romantic of him to have an intermediary politely ask on his behalf. I reme

In 1967 when I was seventeen and a high school junior, my father took a different job as a research chemist in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and my mother found new employment as well as an accountant. My parents enjoyed living out in the countryside and they thought nothing of an hour-long commute to work so they bought a two-story, traditional-style house (with a horse coral and trails in the back, but never a horse for me) near the small town of Prior Lake, Minnesota. The Prior Lake public school that I attended was modern but definitely rural in tone, with an insiders-against-outsiders feeling to it. Frustratingly, this school transfer caused me to miss some components of mathematics and En

I feel excited, refreshed, renewed at the mere sight of this year’s first snowfall. I want to frisk under the large, wet, warm snowflakes as I hobble my old self out to capture the image. The snowflakes melt as they touch down, but what a thrill to see the first snow on my pear tree! Caption: Exhilarating First Snow Of The Year On My Pear Tree by Annmarie Throckmorton, October 12th, 2018