The New Neo

Dealing with Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Training

Posted on May 12, 2021 by neoMay 12, 2021

We’ve been discussing what people can do if they ever find themselves in the position of having to undergo a Critical Race Training course.

It’s hard to find a good course of action, and it depends on how much is at risk. But silence – which might seem a good approach – is often defined as not being able to think of any way to respond or to counter an argument, or even acquiescence. And, as some have pointed out, silence often is not allowed:

They anticipated [the silence] approach. That’s why the trainings have breakouts into small groups of 2,3 or 4 people, each with assigned roles one must perform. And then reforming as a larger group and direct questioning about what your group learned, etc… And there are individual writing assignments.

And, of course, there is always, “I notice you have been quiet so far this morning…Can you share with the group a time when you have felt marginalized…”

Silence is not permitted.

Technically speaking, of course, it is permitted, but at the same time it’s invalidated or reinterpreted, and there are built-in methods to the training to encourage people to abandon silence as a tactic of defiance. The trainers have been doing this for a long time and are prepared, so anyone who would defy them must also be prepared, and one of the things that person must be prepared for is ostracism. Perhaps even job loss, if a job is involved.

That threat is what the left counts on to gain compliance from even the most recalcitrant.

In my opinion, for what it’s worth, the best way to counter CRT is to argue process in particular. I’ve described the process/content dichotomy several times, at greatest length here.

In other words, instead of being silent, or arguing whether this is a racist country or not or whether you are racist or not, describe the game that’s being played – the double-bind or the Kafka trap or however you want to label it. Explain also that it’s a way to avoid debate on the merits. If they say that debating on the merits is a white supremacist notion, say that describing the methods by which their arguments might be found wanting as racist is another way they have of evading challenges and defining their own argument as correct and unassailable before the discussion even begins. The game is rigged and not worth playing – it’s of the “heads I win tails you lose” variety.

I think that is what needs to be called out.

However, that approach can lead to a problem like this

The “process” approach you outline is only effective in more traditional Western discourse – attacking premises, or form vs. substance, logic, reason, or the entire range of tools we’re all used to using in discussion and argument. CT, and thus CRT explicitly rejects this entire structure through postmodern deconstructionist gobbledeegook. Ironically, and childishly, this philosophy* uses the very structure it rejects to establish itself, then it immures itself from its own style of deconstruction.

This is a cult technique.

In practice, their tactic is an emotional one. Accuse people of the most vile thought crimes possible. Lay the blame of the New Original Sin at their feet. Induce feelings of panic, fear, helplessness, guilt, shame, and smuggle in the ideology. Apply the kafkatrap in cases of anger or denial to get confusion. Go ahead and officially respond about process, or facts and reason. See how far you’ll get in the faces of people who reject that utterly.

I know that the trainers themselves reject logic and all the rest. But this approach is not designed to appeal to the trainers. They are the True Believers. It is for those other people in the room (the trainees) who still value logic.

Calling out a kafkatrap such as that presented by CRT doesn’t rely just on logic, either. The training is partly an appeal to the emotions of those caught in it. They are often confused and don’t know what’s happening, being unfamiliar with kafkatraps or double binds. Therefore, naming and describing the reason they’re feeling that way and how it’s a rigged game can help them emotionally to reject it by offering an explanation and a way out in the emotional sense. The idea is that the process argument is the equivalent of Alice saying, at the end of the trial in the book, “you’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

Here’s the passage – and note that Alice’s ordeal is in the form of a surrealistic and somewhat Kafkaesque trial:

‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister…

So far I’ve spoken about individual reactions when faced with mandatory attendance at a training. But this is only part of the fight against CRT, and it’s probably the smallest part of all. Relevant to this is this article from Christopher Rufo, who’s done excellent work for quite a while on exposing and fighting CRT:

Second, critical race theorists have constructed their argument like a mousetrap. Disagreement with their program becomes irrefutable evidence of a dissenter’s “white fragility,” “unconscious bias,” or “internalized white supremacy.” I’ve seen this projection of false consciousness on their opponents play out dozens of times in my reporting. Diversity trainers will make an outrageous claim—such as “all whites are intrinsically oppressors” or “white teachers are guilty of spirit murdering black children”—and then, when confronted with disagreement, adopt a patronizing tone and explain that participants who feel “defensiveness” or “anger” are reacting out of guilt and shame. Dissenters are instructed to remain silent, “lean into the discomfort,” and accept their “complicity in white supremacy.”

Note that trainers instruct dissenters to become silent, and label silence as a path to acceptance of the trainers’ premises.

Here are some of Rufo’s suggestions for group action and more effective responses, at least when the CRT-type approach is being used in the classroom:

This year, several state legislatures have introduced bills to achieve the same goal: preventing public institutions from conducting programs that stereotype, scapegoat, or demean people on the basis of race. And I have organized a coalition of attorneys to file lawsuits against schools and government agencies that impose critical race theory–based programs on grounds of the First Amendment (which protects citizens from compelled speech), the Fourteenth Amendment (which provides equal protection under the law), and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibits public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race).

On the grassroots level, a multiracial and bipartisan coalition is emerging to fight critical race theory. Parents are mobilizing against racially divisive curricula in public schools and employees are increasingly speaking out against Orwellian reeducation in the workplace…

In terms of principles, we need to employ our own moral language rather than allow ourselves to be confined by the categories of critical race theory…

Similarly, in addition to pointing out the dishonesty of the historical narrative on which critical race theory is predicated, we must promote the true story of America…

But it’s this last paragraph that is most important of all:

Above all, we must have courage, the fundamental virtue required in our time: courage to stand and speak the truth, courage to withstand epithets, courage to face the mob, and courage to shrug off the scorn of elites. When enough of us overcome the fear that currently prevents so many from speaking out, the hold of critical race theory will begin to slip. And courage begets courage. It’s easy to stop a lone dissenter; it’s much harder to stop 10, 20, 100, 1,000, 1 million, or more who stand up together for the principles of America. Truth and justice are on our side. If we can muster the courage, we will win.

In my own smaller and less consequential fights against what used to be called PC thought, which have occurred in academia and occurred mostly in the 90s and earlier when I was in school, I have stood alone while risking much less than people risk now. Many of my fellow students would come to me in private and say they agreed with what I had said, but would not stand with me publicly for fear of getting bad grades or bad recommendations. That was a sobering experience for me, and caused me to believe that people willing to take courageous stands were more rare than I’d previously thought.

Now the stakes are higher, and the courage required is greater. But this involves the fate of our children and our country.

[NOTE: By the way, here’s a sample of what is proposed for a fifth-grade curriculum in Washoe County, Nevada, which includes Reno:

Washoe County School District Board of Trustees is asking the public to view and comment on new social justice resources that may be added to English Language Arts curriculum for Kindergarten through 5th grade students.

WCSD says Benchmark Education has created three new Social Justice resources for three of its ten units.

“Benchmark designed this layer of questions and additional reading suggestions to encourage students to discuss and share experiences using students’ personal stories and cultural histories as lenses for analyzing texts. This will help deepen cultural understandings and expand students’ world views,” the website read.

Examples pulled from the curriculum of questions fifth graders would discuss include:

How does white male privilege allow people to have a false sense of self?
Why are stories about heroes most often about males who are not members of diverse communities?
Why is it important that, when faced with challenges created by systemic racism, people from BIPOC and other diverse communities maintain their cultures to survive?…

Washoe County officials say it is not critical race theory curriculum.

Not a critical race theory curriculum? Call it whatever you like, it’s the same sort of message. Apparently there are many different varieties of this poisonous ideology that go by different names and have slightly different emphases and approaches.]

Liz Cheney removed from House GOP Conference leadership position

Posted on May 12, 2021 by neoMay 12, 2021

As far as I know, only Liz Cheney, her fellow Never-Trumpers, journalists, and the Democrats who read the MSM and adopt its talking points are upset (or pretending to be) about Cheney’s ouster. But at any rate, the deed is done:

House Republicans ousted Rep. Liz Cheney Wednesday morning in a closed-door vote from the No. 3 spot from leadership — but the Wyoming Republican remained defiant on the way out.

Her defiance took the form of a speech aimed at Donald Trump:

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!

Oops, wrong quote. My error. What Cheney actually said was this:

I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office. We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language. We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution, and I think it’s very important that we make sure whomever we elect is somebody who will be faithful to the Constitution.

One thing I don’t understand about NeverTrumpers is what they think Trump actually did to violate the Constitution. They always seem to think it’s a given and that all their listeners understand that it’s a given – including the Trump supporters, who are assumed to not care that he violated the Constitution. As for the “danger” he provokes “with his language,” I seem to recall that he asked the demonstrators to be peaceful, and that as the facts have emerged it actually was a relatively peaceful undertaking as things go these days (except for the killing of one of the demonstrators by a Capitol Police officer).

You may recall that Cheney was also censured by the Wyoming GOP back in February after she voted to impeach Trump in the last days of his presidency.

Trump had this to say in reaction to today’s ouster of Cheney:

Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party. She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our country. She is a talking point for Democrats.

That last sentence resonates. That is exactly and precisely what Cheney has become.

Open thread 5/12/21

Posted on May 12, 2021 by neoMay 12, 2021

I discovered this song in a strange way. I bought a record about forty years ago that I thought was a certain piece of music, but I had made an error and it was this piece instead. After I listened to it, the music began to grow on me tremendously. This isn’t the original version I had, but it’s close:

“To Fight Racism, Should White Children Be Made ‘Uncomfortable’?”

Posted on May 11, 2021 by neoMay 11, 2021

That’s the title of this article.

The simple answer is “no.” The more forceful answer is “no, no, a thousand times no.”

The first reason is a very basic one that actually has nothing to do with race, but is a general rule: no member of a racial group bears group responsibility, especially children, even if the premise of the accusation is true for a large number of people in that group. Responsibility is an individual matter and we are responsible only for our own acts.

However, there are more objections than that to the “systemic racism” “whites are privileged” “anti-racism” game. And it is a game, a high-stakes one, with power and money available for those promoting it, and with the indoctrination of generations of children in leftist racialism and inverted racism the additional goal.

From the article:

Examples abound in CRT theory and popular writing about how overcoming white fragility requires of white people that they sit with their guilt, shame, and unease. Take this example from an NPR report: “‘It’s going to be uncomfortable and you’re going to have legitimate fear,’ if you choose to engage in racial equity dialogue, said Kwame Christian, director of the American Negotiation Institute in Ohio.”

Or this from The New Yorker describing “antiracist” author Robin DiAngelo’s approach: “One has the grim hunch that such an approach has been honed over years of placating red-faced white people, workshop participants leaping at any excuse to discount their instructor.”

Rather than debate their own theory on the merits, the “anti-racist” crowd has adopted a clever tactic that seemingly makes their approach unanswerable. It goes like this: the more you argue with me, the more it proves me right. There must be a name for that sort of fallacious argument in terms of logic, but in terms of psychology it is somewhat like (although not exactly the same as) a double bind. If the person wants to disagree with the trainer, then that person is automatically wrong, even if the person’s arguments are good in the logical or factual sense:

The double bind occurs when the person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore can neither resolve it nor opt out of the situation.

Agreement is the only response to CRT allowed.

In addition:

(1) “Systemic racism” is an assertion that not only has not been proven but which is impossible to prove or disprove because it is both vaguely and broadly defined as the cause of any disparity between the races. And yet systemic racism is the support for the entire anti-racism movement and without it there is no CRT movement.

(2) Critical Race Training has not been proven to help the matter, even if one accepts some of its premises of Critical Race Theory. In fact, there are indications (see also this) that such training may make things worse.

Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Training are among the most pernicious of modern philosophies, all the more destructive because they cloak themselves in seeming righteousness and exploit people’s wishes to be good and to self-flagellate in the process of self-betterment. It appeals both to many of those who have cast off religion (it’s a religion-substitute sneaking in through the back door, as it were) and also to many of those who embrace religion and want to be purer than pure in motive and deed and who seek penance. CRT is a leftist philosophy that cleverly substitutes race and power for the old class and power focus of Marxism, and in this new guise has threatened the work that generations of actual anti-racists believed they had accomplished.

Britain: voter ID for general elections will be mandatory

Posted on May 11, 2021 by neoMay 11, 2021

Those Democrats who think Europeans are the people to emulate might want to take a look at this:

Britons will have to show photo ID to vote in future general elections, ministers are poised to confirm this week, as a means of tackling fraud which critics claim could deter poorer and ethnic minority voters from taking part in democracy.

At a certain point, the need for security should take over. ID is a basic requirement for participation in modern society and is required for some of the smallest things, and nearly everyone has ID and the few who don’t could easily obtain it.

It is not a high bar; it is the very lowest bar. The lack of a requirement to have it destroys the foundation of voting and the essence of the “democracy” the left pretends to champion: the public’s faith in the validity of the results. Without voter ID – and various other safeguards, such as limits to mail-in voting – this faith is fatally undermined.

But US Democrats seem determined to undermine that faith. Now, why would anyone want to do that? (Rhetorical question.)

[NOTE: After our 2020 election, I did a lot of research on voting laws around the world and in particular in Europe. I never wrote a post on it – the information quickly became unwieldy, and other matters seemed more pressing to write about, anyway. But I’ll just say here that I learned that our voter security in many states is among the most lax in the world, and our reliance on mail-in ballots greater than almost every country in the world.]

Open thread 5/11/21

Posted on May 11, 2021 by neoMay 11, 2021

Another crazy story of a pop hit that almost wasn’t. The person speaking is the songwriter John Stewart, who had been a member of the Kingston Trio:

The Monkees, of course, was the name of the assembled TV pop band that became a real band of sorts, and had a lot of hits. Here’s the song as they sang it in 1968, with “happy” instead of “funky”:

The theory that COVID was bio-engineered and escaped from a Chinese lab…

Posted on May 10, 2021 by neoMay 10, 2021

…is being revived. Take a look:

The natural-emergence theory has long held the upper hand, in part because of strong statements made by virology experts from early on.

“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” a group of virologists and others wrote in The Lancet on Feb. 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened…

It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the New York City-based EcoHealth Alliance. Daszak’s organization funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to The Lancet’s readers. To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.”

Interesting.

…[I]if in fact one of these souped-up viruses is the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, virologists everywhere, not just in China, will have a lot of explaining to do. “It would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom,” MIT Technology Review editor Antonio Regalado said in March 2020.

That’s another competing interest right there, although a more general one. None of that proves a lab origin for the virus, but:

…[V]irologists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China were doing exactly these kinds of experiments. The program was headed by Dr. Zheng-li Shi, known as Bat Lady in China because of her intense interest in bat viruses. Dr. Shi had gathered many coronaviruses, the type to which SARS2 belongs, from caves in Yunnan in southern China. Her research focused on the spike proteins which stud the surface of the virus and latch on to its target cells.

…Shi was taking spike protein genes from different viruses, inserting them into a series of virus backbones, and trying to find the combination that would best attack humans.

She tested her viruses out not on real people but on cultures of human cells and on humanized mice — mice that have been genetically engineered to carry in the cells of their airways the human protein that’s the target of SARS-type viruses…

…[B]y a strange twist in the story, she was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health — channeled through Daszak. And these grant proposals, a matter of public record, spell out exactly what experiments she planned to do.

Not only was she generating dangerous viruses, she was doing so in arguably unsafe conditions…

“It is clear that some or all of this work was being performed using a biosafety standard — biosafety level 2, the biosafety level of a standard US dentist’s office — that would pose an unacceptably high risk of infection of laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2,” says Ebright.

So the lab-escape scenario is not the conjecture of some conspiracy theorists. It’s not based on someone pointing to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and saying, “Yeah, I think the virus could have come from there.” It rests on the specific program of research that Shi was known to be pursuing, and on the fact that she was working in minimal, probably inadequate, safety conditions.

Much much more at the link.

I think this is on the right track – and not just for California

Posted on May 10, 2021 by neoMay 10, 2021

Can the GOP win in California? I very much doubt it. But if they ever are to do so, I agree that this would be the right approach:

[In California] Prop 47 downgraded many felonies to misdemeanors and then freed those felons who had their charges downgraded on an early release program. It is also state, and in most cities, municipal, law that anyone can steal up to $950 worth of goods a day without prosecution. Yes, you read that right.

Laws that prevent cities from cleaning out homeless encampments in residential areas and in front of businesses and provide access to drug paraphernalia and “safe injection sites” encourage a never-ending influx of homeless addicts and drug dealers. There are only incentives to stay on the streets. There are no policies that de-incentivize criminal vagrancy…

The voting habits of many Californians aren’t based on ideology, but on ignorance. Ask around about Prop 47 and you’ll be shocked to discover how few people know what it is or what it does. Prop 47 is easily the most insidious state law to ever victimize California taxpayers and most people don’t know anything about it.

To my mind, this opens up an opportunity for the GOP. With a recall election on the horizon, Californians have politics front and center for a while. There are an estimated 2 million conservative votes that aren’t cast every year in this state. Most of us feel defeated before we even get to the ballot box, and thus don’t bother. Does that surprise you? Most Californians would be surprised to hear that, too.

California is winnable for Republicans, with effort. Things have never been worse. People of all walks of life are feeling the effects of awful policy, even if they don’t know what the policies are. I think Republicans have a unique opportunity to educate voters here, and piggyback on the dismal sentiment the current governor has inspired in his constituency. There are votes to be peeled off, but even more so, there are “sleeping” votes to be awakened.

Again, I’m not saying such as effort would be successful. It’s a steep uphill battle. But I think the reasoning is sound. Specifically – and this is not limited to California – I have observed that most of the Democrats I know are very poorly informed in exactly the manner described above.

Of course, explaining doesn’t necessarily lead to voting change. As I’ve often said, a mind is a difficult thing to change, and voting habits in terms of party affiliations are often very deeply ingrained. Nevertheless, for many people an “Aha!” moment comes at some point. Perhaps for some the point is now.

And yes, voter fraud is possible for 2022 and beyond, but that doesn’t mean that the above quote isn’t a worthwhile approach, as well. At least so far we don’t have HR1 yet, although it hangs by a thread. There is no time to waste.

[NOTE: In that last paragraph of mine there’s a reference to HR1, and I assume most people who read this blog know what that’s about. Here are some of my previous posts about it. But it occurs to me that most people in general don’t know, and if they knew some of the details they would be incensed.]

Remember Kim Gardner? The Soros-backed circuit attorney for the city of St. Louis, Missouri?

Posted on May 10, 2021 by neoMay 10, 2021

It was Gardner’s office that set up the McCloskeys, for example, by rearranging their purposely inoperable gun to make it appear as though it was operable all the time. Now she’s got some hefty ethics charges against her, including those from an even older case – she apparently suborned perjury (among other deceptive practices) in order to frame Missouri’s Governor Greitens, a Republican (and a political changer, by the way), and get him out of office.

Although Gardner’s deception regarding Greitens has ultimately been discovered, that didn’t happen until she had succeeded in her goal of getting the governor out of office. The Missouri legislature had threatened to impeach him and he resigned as a result.

Here are the ethics violations against her, explained:

Now Greitens is running for the US Senate seat that will be vacated by Roy Blunt, and McCloskey is considering running for that same seat.

George Soros has certainly been influential in undermining our legal system. But his efforts wouldn’t have borne fruit if the way hadn’t been paved by decades of leftist education and a willing leftist propaganda-producing MSM.

[NOTE: And although Soros is many abominable things, “Holocaust collaborator” isn’t one of them, although that’s often an accusation made against him. I dealt with that question and several others here, and in greater detail here and here.]

Open thread 5/10/21

Posted on May 10, 2021 by neoMay 10, 2021

I had almost forgotten this one, but once Brenda started to sing I remembered most of the words – in particular that great line, “Come in daughter, that’s enough for tonight.” When I looked up the lyrics to the song, though, it’s rendered as, “Come here, darlin’, that’s enough for tonight.” That makes less sense, and that’s not what I heard in 1960 and it’s not what I hear now.

And why does everyone in the audience seem to be chewing gum? Was the whole audience given free gum as some kind of promotional gimmick, or did everyone chew gum constantly anyway back in 1960?

And although I’ve never thought of this as a telephone song, whoever designed the backdrops for the show seemed to think it was. I also perceive her as lip-syncing. That was very common back then for technical reasons, but there’s no question Brenda Lee could have knocked it out of the park singing live:

Lee was one of the biggest singers of the 60s in terms of charting hits, surpassed in that decade only by Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Ray Charles. She had been singing professionally since childhood (she’s only about 15 here) and supporting her impoverished family, much like the Bee Gees. Also, like the Bee Gees, when she was a child her family was so poor that she had to share a bed with two of her siblings.

For Mother’s Day: my mother, the essayist

Posted on May 8, 2021 by neoMay 8, 2021

One of the tasks that fell to me since my mother’s death years ago was to go through her papers and photos.

Some “getting rid of” candidates were obvious. Medical records, of which my mother kept very many. Not needed any more, now that she was gone. Ditto her lists of things to do, address and appointment books, and random jottings.

But the rest! A few letters from me in high school and college. Greeting cards. At least a hundred letters from my father when they were dating in the late 30s when he was traveling constantly while working for the government as a lawyer. Those tend to take the form of descriptions of cities and small towns visited, but here and there are some more personal nuggets. A scrapbook of clippings about her activities in the community. A similar one made by her mother my grandmother, and one compiled by her grandfather my great-grandfather. That last one contains his wedding invitation, circa 1883.

Yearbooks. As an only child of an only child, my mother also inherited all the family photos going back to Civil War times and earlier. Some are of people I knew but many lovely ones are of the total strangers who must be my ancestors, and whose identities are lost.

Sorting them out has been time-consuming, and the task is still incomplete many years later. But I try, especially with those things that seem of special interest.

For me that includes my mother’s writing – because she was a writer too, an essayist whose work was often published in local newspapers and who’d written poetry as a precocious child and young woman. I had seen many of her poems and essays before, but some were new to me.

Here’s an essay of my mother’s that I found and read for the first time about a year after her death. I thought it might be fun to publish it on the blog; I don’t think that would have bothered her in the least. It appears to be something she wrote at the age of 80 (during the 1990s) for a writing workshop in response to an exercise staged by the teacher. It’s written in longhand, with various cross-outs, but I’m impressed with how few corrections she had to make in the flow of her thoughts, and how graceful her expression was under the circumstances.

And she seemed to like the dash, too—just like me.

It appears that the teacher had played music for the class, lit some candles, and given the students a sheet of guidelines (these were not saved; I have a hunch my mother didn’t think too much of them), telling the students to write for a few minutes. Here’s what my mother produced:

80 years of living has immunized me somewhat to candles, music, and yes, even meditation—so I looked with a somewhat jaundiced eye at first on Guidelines—and what strikes me at once is the word “Proprioceptive”—what does it mean and where does it come from?

Isn’t that awful—but I do like words and I keep wondering about that one—

The music is delightful and I wonder what is making me put words on a yellow legal pad anyway—and why am I resistant—

Probably because I tend to have used humor as a shield all my life—it helped me overlook hurts, and raise children without going crazy, and a laugh has been like medicine—the best for me.

As an only child I looked for friends—-and it helped me acquire them and saw us through good days and bad.

My husband liked a “light view”—but now it is more difficult because people are different—more violent, angry, and sad. I cling to humor—if and when possible—and its not always possible anymore to find it.

Why am I writing about fun and laughter when I could pick anything? Perhaps it keeps me sane when the alleged golden years have crept up and facing the inevitable is too much. Like Scarlett O’Hara—if it’s unpleasant “I’ll think about that tomorrow”—

Writing fiction is almost impossible for me because “truth is stranger than.” Coincidence, friendships, travels, the endless variety in people who cross your life are enough—there is little laughter these days and I plan to hold onto just as much as possible.

Now I have made a neat ending but the time is not up and the music and candles are still with me—and with them go gratitude for good luck and good health and the ability to cope with what comes—so far so good.

My mother and I were temperamentally very different, although we both liked humor. One of the things we shared was writing, and perhaps that’s why her essays mean a lot to me. I was especially struck in this one by her saying she couldn’t write fiction. I’ve written quite a few short stories, but they’re not my natural genre and I gave up writing fiction about fifteen years ago and it’s been essays ever since.

Some of my earliest writing memories involve my mother helping me write. She was a fabulous typist (she could even use carbons, and boy was she fast on a manual!) and a good editor. When we were young, my brother and I would leave our essays for her to read and correct for grammar errors, and she knew what she was doing.

My mother was also an excellent natural untrained dancer. But even though my mother couldn’t really sing, when I saw Bebe Daniels in the movie “42nd Street” on TV as a child, I was transfixed because the actress reminded me so very much of my mother. Here’s Bebe: