Parting Words from Moristotle

Portrait of Moristotle
by Susan C. Price

By Moristotle

Why am I retiring from blogging? For a long time, I have known my sun was slowly setting, but it seems now to be sinking fast, as memory and memories fade. Some mornings even my fingers can’t remember what was the best way I’ve yet found to hold the coffee grinder to brush out the shards of bean.
    But the existing content will still be here, and more posts are already scheduled for August – a few more statements of farewell (suggested by Maik Strosahl, to whom I’m indebted for the idea), a “Father’s Art” column by André Duvall, and poems by Maik, Michael H. Brownstein, and Eric Meub, whose sonnet “Afterlife” will appear last because its title rather caps my going off.

From “The Scratching Post”: Bilge on parade

By Ken Marks

[From the original on The Scratching Post, June 25, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

Language, culture, and politics continually buffet one another. Sometimes their interaction produces an eruption of linguistic and political bilge. We are living in one of those times. I’ll elaborate, but first I need to go over a couple of elementary concepts. Please bear with me.
    When we talk of sex as a biological classification, we refer to two categories, male and female, into which living things are divided according to anatomical characteristics. In humans, both males and females have primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Primary characteristics are apparent at birth; secondary characteristics, during puberty. Males have the primary characteristics of a penis, a scrotum, and the ability to produce sperm. Their secondary characteristics are facial hair, pubic hair, and often a noticeable Adam’s apple. Females have the primary characteristics of a uterus, vagina, fallopian tubes, clitoris, cervix, and the ability to bear a child. Their secondary characteristics are enlarged breasts, widened hips, and pubic hair.
    When we talk of gender in its nongrammatical sense, we refer to the characteristics of human males and females that are socially determined. These are the norms, behaviors, and roles associated with being a male or female, as well as their relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.
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[Read the rest on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: The Great Hurdle

By Ken Marks

[From the original on The Scratching Post, May 26, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

Humans, being social animals, have a dread that surpasses all others, including death. It’s the dread of becoming an outsider. Getting over this hurdle is the foremost task of our lives.
    Outsiders despair of finding a social niche. They’re not like prison convicts in this regard. Convicts find acceptance, albeit dubious, in their own populations. Nor are outsiders like those we ostracize. An ostracized person has been deliberately excluded from the company of others. Outsiders are people who simply drift away from social norms, like an unmoored boat that gradually moves into the open sea. The most common word for them is loner. The cruelest among us prefer to say loser.
    Sadly, many do not clear the hurdle. Their fate is suicide, the second leading cause of death in America for 10- to 14-year-olds and 25- to 34-year-olds. Those who do clear the hurdle owe their lives to strong psychological defenses, perhaps complemented by some just-in-time therapy.
    For both groups, the challenge to their selfhood presents itself in the same way. As preschoolers, the value of conformity and popularity become disturbingly clear. Adults coach us on the rewards of “going along,” but they needn’t take the trouble. Then comes the terrible realization that social acceptance is far from certain. Some kids reject you because of something “off” about you. Some are just plain mean. Sometimes neighbors are too, like the old man who curses at you when your ball rolls into his yard. Even teachers can be openly unfriendly. They’re doing “hard time,” and therefore so should you. That’s when our defenses kick in. Most of us see we’re not the only ones who are hurting, and alliances form. These are what I call affiliations of the wounded.
    Along with the affiliations comes a nascent identity, an assemblage of descriptors we sort into “that’s me” and “that’s not me.” The sorting requires a painful self-assessment. To soothe the pain, we attach our identity to palliatives. They are calming, habit-forming behaviors that are introduced to us by our affiliations. Their effects can be constructive or destructive, or they can be harmless quirks. They take hold of us for a lifetime.
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[Read the rest on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Free will

By Ken Marks

[From the original on The Scratching Post, April 14, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

Norm and I have been friends since high school. We still see each other occasionally, and a few weeks ago, we had Norm and his wife, Susan, at our house for dinner. Afterward we sat and talked in our family room. Inevitably, the conversation became political. I say inevitably because Norm is to the left of me, and only politically obsessed people are to the left of me.
    Norm had the shootings at the Nashville Covenant School on his mind. I knew he’d been agonizing over it because our gun culture is the hottest of his hot buttons. He wants the government to seize every firearm in the country with no questions asked. After that, he’s OK with allowing a federal agency to issue gun licenses, but only under the most extreme circumstances – like, you’re a celebrity with a history of being stalked or a gay living in Buffalo, N.Y.¹ I’d be much more lenient with gun owners. You can own a gun but only a hand gun. No clips over 8 rounds. No history of antisocial behavior or mental illness. Licensing, registration, and gun insurance required.
    Norm and I went back and forth about whose gun control plan was better, and then the conversation took an unforeseen turn …²

Norm: Ya know what I will never understand, Ken? How can anyone decide to kill innocent people, and complete strangers besides? Yeah, I know what you’ll say. Many shootings are simply hate crimes, but still … the victims probably had loved ones and dreams of the future. And many, especially children, don’t have an unkind bone in their bodies. How can anyone choose to do something so evil?

Me: You say “decide” and “choose,” Norm. It sounds like you believe the shooter acted with volition; she had a free choice, to kill or not to kill, and she chose to kill – consciously, deliberately.....
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[Read the rest on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Attention entrepreneurs!

By Ken Marks

[From the original on The Scratching Post, March 22, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

Remember the collectible Trump Cards, the ultimate case of hucksterism and self-aggrandizement? Each of them sold for $99, and you didn't even get a physical card. Only a certifiable fool would buy one, yet to no one’s surprise, they sold out! Go ahead and click here. Laugh again.
    I’m reminding you of his cards as a point of reference, so you can contrast them to another set of cards that doesn’t yet exist but should before the year’s out. I think of them as the “Trump Disgrace Cards.” I see them as scenes from Trump’s fall from glory, ranging from his soon-to-come perp walk in Manhattan to a picture of a hulking brute molesting him in prison. Of course, the collection would not be complete without mugshots and pictures of his face at each of his sentencing hearings. If a photo of him in an orange jumpsuit holding a mop is obtainable, it would be the prize of the collection. (Although some might favor the one of Trump getting buggered.)

    As a bonus, the Disgrace Cards could include the faces of his many toadies and suck-ups when they get the news of a fresh conviction. And by all means Melania and his children should be included in this group.
    These should be linen cards, like the best poker cards but somewhat larger. The price of a card should be the production and distribution cost plus a profit of no more than 20%. Every effort should be made to ensure that something so desirable is affordable.
    So step up, those of you with some risk capital. It’s your chance to clean up!
[Read this in situ on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Out of the mouths of idiots …

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, March 14, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

Back in early 2020, I wrote a piece titled “Thinking the unthinkable,” arguing why a divorce between the Red and Blue States was thinkable, if not desirable. I followed that with a companion piece, “The necessity of divorce,” offering a plan for getting through the messy separation process. Not surprisingly, the feedback was sparse. Few people are willing to come to grips with the unthinkable.

    So I decided to bark up other trees … until now. A month ago, the frumious Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the same separation in a couple of tweets. My reaction was mixed. I was happy to see that a public figure had put the idea into mass circulation, but I cringed to see that the advocate was MTG. In today’s politics, her face is to buffoonery what Washington’s face is to patriotism. Why couldn’t a Republican intellectual — pardon the oxymoron — like Thomas Sowell have been the spearhead? As time passes, it seems that neither he nor any other Republican is willing to take up the banner. I’d be discouraged but for a recent survey of 1,000 likely voters. It found that 34% of them agreed with the idea, and nearly as many Republicans favored it as didn’t.
    The silence of Republican politicians is easy to explain. They gave up on thinking at least two decades ago. (Truth be told, they never liked it much after Reconstruction.) Then came the ultimate retreat — the refusal to speak their minds for fear of alienating crackpots in their leadership and base. They’ve given leadership a bad name.
    Mitt Romney, a Republican of a different stripe, scoffed that we’d disposed of MTG’s idea in the Civil War. Steve Schmidt, a former Republican and “never Trump” activist, also chimed in. He claimed MTG had “called for a second American Civil War.” Both men ignored a key sentence in one of her tweets: “National divorce is not civil war.” Maybe they would counter with, “Yes, but the very attempt to enact a divorce would lead to civil war.” That’s quite a leap. The attempt might also lead to a deeper examination of grievances and eventually to a reconciliation. Or it might lead to the creation of two new nations with two different constitutions. Is the danger so great that separation must not even be discussed?….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Entertain me, dammit!

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, February 25, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

It seems likely that entertainment and religion were once inextricably linked. Furthermore, the priest, the poet, and the chanter were likely one and the same person. Chanters would in time become what we recognize as singers. They added a musical accompaniment, at first only percussion. Then ritual dance joined in. These enhancements made the bond between entertainment and religion even stronger.
    At some point, we realized that worship must engage eyes as well as ears. The visual arts were needed to give shape and color to shrines and representations of the divine. This was yet another form of entertainment. It had the mark of all that we call entertaining: the power to command our notice, evoke emotion, and give us an inexplicable sense of enrichment.
    It was comedy that first made us think of entertainment as an independent phenomenon. There is nothing funny about religion. To laugh, someone’s dignity has to be punctured. It’s a minimum requirement. We can’t have gods tripping on banana peels, but if a proud hunter catches a spear in his ass, that might be hilarious. We noticed as well the artistic similarity between a heroic narrative and a comedic narrative. The droll story became an art form unto itself.

    Entertainment evolved further when we realized how much in love we were with ourselves. Our flaws had given birth to tragedy and comedy. Might our opposite qualities, excellence of the mind and body, also be entertaining? Yes, in fact. Watching a savant compute the cube root of 53,582,633 or recall the box score of a baseball game on a given date makes us gasp at the magic of the mind. Watching jugglers and acrobats at work or a running back breaking tackle after tackle has a similar awe-inspiring effect. We love being amazed by ourselves….

[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Sexual musings, Part 3

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, January 24, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

In Part 2, I showed how skepticism and a commitment to reason undermined ancient authority and drove centuries of positive change. Notably, this upheaval included the recognition of women’s rights in all industrialized societies. It also included a recognition of the injustices done to people whose race, ethnicity, or sexual habits differed from the tribe they lived among. Of all these mistreated groups, women have fared best. Not only are they unquestioned members of the prevailing tribe, they are desired members as well. People who differ racially or ethnically are accepted into the prevailing tribe only after generations of assimilation. Their struggle for social justice has generally been upward but with painful reversals. People who are seen as sexually perverted have fared worst. A large number of the prevailing tribe see them as a threat. Many believe they prey on children and turn them into social deviants. Many judge them as unfit to be a parent, teacher, social worker, policeman, doctor, politician, or anyone obligated to model normative behavior.¹
    In the 1920s, while American women were celebrating their newly won right to vote, American gays were regularly harassed by the law. In New York state, for example, the legislature criminalized any behavior that looked like sexual solicitation between men. They called it “degenerate disorderly conduct,” or simply, “degeneracy.” The courts might impose a fine or 30 days in jail, but this was trivial compared to the possible loss of a job, a career, or a family’s love.
    In 1927, the New York state legislature struck again, prohibiting theater performances with queer characters, and in the 1930s, Hollywood studios agreed to a censorship code that forbade lesbian or gay characters, or even the “inference of sexual perversion.” In 1933, New York’s State Liquor Authority prohibited bars from employing gay people or even serving gay groups. During the Second World War, the federal government banned homosexuals from serving in the military, and after the war, it widened the ban to civilian federal agencies….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

Poetic Diversity

By Ken Marks


Last Sunday night I wrote my first poem in years. Its inspiration was an email from an old friend who said he couldn’t recall a single limerick that wasn’t risqué and asked whether I could. I didn’t want to leave him hungering for a limerick that wasn’t sexually suggestive, so I wrote one:

Moristotle 80th Birthday Interview

Interviewed by Geoffrey Dean

I posed a number of probing questions to Moristotle recently. His answers give us new insights into his mind and heart, while on a lighter note, they also helped me figure out what to give him for his 80^th birthday tomorrow!

     Thanks to my sister, Jennifer, for taking the photos above.

What three (or more) words would you use to describe yourself?

Skeptical, optimistic, helpful. I’m surprised how easily those three words came, and how confident I am of them….No, those came too fast; they need qualification, elaboration.

From “The Scratching Post”: 2022: Stories of the year

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, December 24, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

Each year, I try to pick the most important story of that year, the one most likely to affect our immediate future. This year, however, I’ve picked two stories. They seem to have little in common but are strangely inseparable, at least to me. Perhaps it’s because they share the same theme — the death spiral of a monster.

The first story involves the war in Ukraine, which started late last February. It was supposed to be a quick mauling of any Ukrainian forces that resisted the Russian invasion. It was anything but. To understand why, we have to imagine a dictator who is among the greatest fuckups in history, and also one of the cruelest, most impulsive, and most vengeful — Vladimir Putin. If you’re wondering what he could have done to earn these distinctions, here’s a record of ineptitude that may challenge your credulity:

• Putin’s first responsibility was to gather intelligence, and in this he failed utterly. The estimate of Ukraine’s readiness and will to resist missed the mark completely. The estimate of the West’s commitment to Ukraine also erred badly. The West quickly agreed on crushing sanctions that all but crippled Russia’s economy. Then it followed through by providing Ukraine with advanced weapon systems, technical assistance, military intelligence, food, clothing, medical supplies, and infrastructure support. Putin failed to realize there was no way to intercept supply lines without invading NATO nations and triggering a doomsday scenario. In effect, Putin found himself fighting against the entire industrialized world, minus China, India, and Iran.
• He never bothered to understand the logistics of fighting a war. He had no access to Ukraine’s rail system, so he sent countless military and supply vehicles down Ukraine’s roads, where they stalled and became targets. The glut of traffic was so immense that fuel, munitions, spare parts, and other materiel couldn’t be efficiently moved to troops in forward positions.
• He put quickly trained — and therefore poorly trained — soldiers in the field. Moreover, he sent far too few of them. Approximately 150,000 to 190,000 Russian soldiers, regulars and irregulars, were in the initial invasion force, facing a country of 44 million people. That’s a ratio of 4 Russian soldiers for every 1,000 Ukrainian inhabitants. Data from modern warfare shows that roughly 20 soldiers for every 1,000 inhabitants are needed to conquer and pacify a hostile population. This explains why Putin has been desperate to find more soldiers. He has hired mercenaries and offered convicts freedom if they agree to fight. He has gone so far as to institute a draft, but this caused such an uproar that he had to give it up.
• Last April, Russian troops halted their advance on Kyiv. It was the perfect moment for Putin to cut his losses and pretend he had delivered a harsh warning to Ukrainians who dared to collude with NATO. Sadly, he was too proud to accept the rebuke he was dealt. He redeployed Russian forces to the East and South, where many Ukrainians identify with Russian culture. The Russians were brutal in asserting their claims to these regions. Rockets destroyed urban centers and residences. People on the street were indiscriminately executed and consigned to mass graves. Many of the survivors were tortured; women were raped. The new strategy was to demoralize Ukrainians by subjecting them to a barrage of war crimes. The memory of this savagery will evoke Ukrainian hatred for centuries. Even if Russian reverses its record of screwups and losses, it will never pacify a single acre of Ukrainian territory. Russia hoped to avoid sharing a border with a NATO country. Now they will share a border with something far worse, a blood enemy. And if Ukraine is ever in a position to dictate the terms that will end the war, Putin and his surviving generals will certainly face war crimes trials, imprisonment, and execution.
• He is oblivious to the enormity of his crimes. This winter he has doubled down. He’s sent missile barrages against Ukraine’s infrastructure, depriving Ukrainians of light, warmth, water, and food supplies. He has actually weaponized winter. This strategy will never drive his foe toward capitulation; it will have exactly the opposite effect.
• He has never had a contingency plan for a long war. After 10 months of fighting, he’s using charity drives to supply soldiers with medicine, sleeping bags, felt boots, woolen socks, mittens, scarves, and body armor. One charity event raised the equivalent of $45 thousand. Contrast this with the $45 billion that Congress recently passed for emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies. The appropriation includes a critical infusion of Patriot anti-ballistic missiles.

    The war will end in either of two ways. One, Russia loses in the traditional way — they capitulate and Ukraine dictates terms, which will undoubtedly include Putin’s removal (if he isn’t already dead), loss of the Crimea, and war reparations. Two, Russia loses in the pyrrhic way; that is, they win but pay a staggering price in lives, leadership, prosperity, and reputation. If it’s the second way, it won’t be called “pyrrhic,” because no winning military in world history will have paid such a disastrous price. It will be called a “putinic” (poo-TIN-ic, with two short i’s) victory. It’s amazing to think that the likelihood of a no-win scenario has probably never occurred to Putin.

The second story begins….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Sexual musings, Part 2

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, November 20, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

The roots of the Modern Era of human sexuality are improbable and deep. They reach down into the heart of the Scientific Revolution, which began five centuries ago and lasted about two centuries. In this interval, the giants of early science lived—Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Christiaan Huygens, and Isaac Newton. Together, they swept away virtually everything the ancient Greeks had to say about the cosmos. The Earth lost its prestige as the center of all that is. Everything beyond the Moon’s orbit was once thought to be forever fixed, but thanks to the ingenuity of Dutch lens grinders, astronomers saw novae and comets deep in the reaches of space. They calculated that the paths of planets were elliptical, not circular. They discovered that the Moon’s terrain was uneven and mountainous, not smooth and polished as Aristotle had supposed. The Earth, always thought to be stationary, had to be moving through space at an incredible speed, and with it, its atmosphere and everything on its surface! Newton brought the revolution to its climax by explaining the movement of celestial bodies entirely in terms of mathematical laws. It was as if man had looked into God’s mind.
    One cannot have lived during this era without feeling unmoored. Recall that the Reformation had begun, and the Age of Discovery was well underway. The Catholic Church was buckling, and half the world was a fresh mystery. Descartes threw a lifeline to all of Europe—doubt everything, rely on reason, break problems into parts, solve the simplest parts first, submit your work to the scrutiny of others. The scientific method was launched, and the esteem for reason as a tool for good was secured.
    The question arose, how else might reason be applied? To society, to governance, and to economics, of course. These became the topics of discourse among educated and comfortable people. They spearheaded a new era, the Enlightenment, or, as I prefer, the Age of Reason. Among its leading lights were Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, Nicolas de Condorcet, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Paine. These men were by no means unanimous in advocating for the rights of women. Rousseau, for example, wrote that women were subordinate to men and should obey them. But Locke disagreed, asserting that the notion of male superiority was a male fabrication. Condorcet advocated for female political equality, and Voltaire, on the death of his lover, wrote, “I have lost one who was my friend for twenty-five years, a great man whose only defect was being a woman.”
    Women entered the discourse about women’s rights through social venues, such as salons, coffee houses, and debating societies. Salons were held in private homes or hotel dining rooms. Though they were led by women with elite connections, women of lower classes and less education could attend. In fact, they often used a salon to socialize more widely and improve their educations. Coffee houses entertained a broader clientele. Some were run by women, and these did little to restrain the speech of their female patrons. Debating societies held their meetings in rented halls, and attendees paid an admission fee. At first, they were dominated by men, but eventually their gatherings became mixed-gender events and sometimes women-only events. Unlike salons, women participated as equals.
    Writing became an ideal occupation for many educated women. It was a way to express their minds and do so at their convenience and anywhere they liked. Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges wrote declarations and vindications of women’s rights, and Catherine Macaulay advocated for the education of women. Women in Europe and America had found their voices.
    From the early 1800s to the present, women have steadily worn down the bastions of male dominance in the West. I want to dwell on the events that were hammer blows to the status quo….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

Favorite Quotes of Ken Marks

Martin    Stevens
Berra    Carlin    Rizzo
Rubin    Stranger
Bush    Fields    Gervais
Keillor    Socrates
Aristotle
Hanh    King    Shaw
Faulkner    Marple
Mandela
Cicero    Schiller
Shakespeare
Dawkins    Plato

Discovered on
The Scratching Post

By Moristotle

Ken Marks began scratching on The Scratching Post the year after he left the staff of Moristotle & Co. After we ran the opening of his latest scratching last week, I clicked on its “About Me” link.

    Ken says little there directly about himself, leaving it to the reader to infer things about him from his pastimes, languages, reading habits, and favorite movies, words, and quotes.

     A telling quote with regard to his saying little directly about himself is the one by Socrates. Ken has a strong mind, not a weak one; he discusses ideas, not people.

On Halloween

Fear and trembling

By Moristotle

Daily walks for days now in my neighborhood have made me witness to blow-up ghosts, goblins, ghouls (and cartoon Goofy’s) that neighbors paid hard-earned dollars for at Target or wherever these flimsy, quickly deflating toy balloons can be found. Are they competing with each other for ghouliest, or gaudiest?

From “The Scratching Post”: Sexual musings, Part 1

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, October 24, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

Empedocles missed his chance at greatness when he failed to give sex a place in his group of basic elements—earth, air, water, and fire. True, sex isn’t an element, but I don’t disqualify it on that account. It occupies our thoughts far more than earth, air, water, and fire combined.

Educated Fleas

     The omnipresence of sex was probably best recognized by Cole Porter when he wrote, “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it.” That scope is well beyond what I could manage in a hundred blog posts, and besides, my obsession with sex isn’t quite that strong. Dealing only with human sexuality is more than enough, and even then, quite a lot remains on the table. There’s the plethora of how-to manuals, moral diatribes, boorish humor, titillating fiction, scholarly research, manifestos of grievances, legal argumentation, and social history to consider—enough to inundate the world’s largest library. And you’d still have to dedicate another city block to a library for porn videos.

    I can come to grips with this agglomeration only by focusing on social history, and here I discern two distinct eras of human sexuality….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Bye-bye, Betsy

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, September 24, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

My feelings about the late queen are complicated. They’re vaguely tranquil with an admixture of fatigue. I struggle to think of anyone who’s made a similar impression on me, and only a few are close.
    One was Frida, a cashier at the cafeteria of a place where I once worked. She took our money with robotic speed. No matter that her queue was the longest; it was always served fastest. As her hands flew, she nevertheless took time for a “How are you today?” I always replied with something like, “Two ticks from suicidal.” She would invariably break stride and commiserate until I showed my readiness to move on. She loved an opportunity for small talk, and it was always good-hearted small talk.
    Queen Betsy also had a good heart, or so I believe. She cared deeply about her family, especially if they were blood relatives. She loved animals. If you were a dog or a horse, you were treated with special regard. She was very engaging with titled people and heads of state. I can’t recall a single misstep, even with impossible boors like Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump. But she assiduously avoided any conversation that touched on policy and never revealed a point of view on any issue of consequence. Her raison d’etre was to preserve the notion that the Royal Family was the rock upon which the greatness and goodness of British civilization rested.
    Given all that, let’s fantasize by appropriating a well-worn Hollywood concept .... Suppose, as the result of some cosmic burp, Frida and Betsy undergo a personality swap....
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[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Medievalism, Part 2

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, August 16, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

In Part 1, Congresswoman Greene talked about the futility of fighting climate change. She favors confronting it stoically, as brave people have always done in the face of natural disasters. She declared her love for science when it manifests God’s glory, but she resists the timeline that science assigns to the development of life. She disparaged homosexual marriage because it doesn’t respect Nature’s demand for procreation, and she warned that changes in our sexual mores would soon lead to our extinction. She conceded that she hated Democrats and blamed them for instituting a policy of immigration without quotas. She predicted this blunder would destroy the culture that Americans had come to love.
    Obviously, her enmity ran deep. I wanted to explore this further.
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Please tell me more about the disputes with Democrats that push you toward hatred. Maybe it’s still possible to find common ground.^*

I see you’re slow on the uptake, Ken, so I’ll spell it out for you.

Please do.…
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Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Medievalism, Part 1

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, July 27, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a polarizing, far-right politician who represents Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She peddles conspiracy theories, tosses off racist remarks, ardently opposes abortion, immigration, and gay rights, and happily serves as a Trump echo chamber. But you probably knew all that already. What you certainly don’t know is that she called me last week and asked that I interview her and publish the transcript on this blog.* I was dumbstruck.
    I stammered something incredibly insincere, like “I’m flattered that you thought of me,” and recovered with, “But our political views are poles apart. How could my name have entered your mind?” Her answer was another surprise. “I want people to know me better. And I realized that what I have to say would be much better received if it was reported by someone who, politically, has practically nothing in common with me.” Then she flattered me with, “People tell me that your commitment to fairness is as strong as anyone who writes about politics. That was all I needed to hear.” “True words,” I said, laughing, “but you should expect some hardball questions.” “Of course, Ken,” she replied.
    We met on a Saturday in my San Jose office. I was impressed that she had flown out to see me, and thanked her for it. We chatted about her flight and the miserable summer heat. When the smalltalk trailed off, I motioned at my voice recorder and asked, “Shall we?”
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[Read the whole Part 1 of the interview on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Unanchored minds

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, June 26, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

If you’re a regular viewer of “Real Time,” Bill Maher’s weekly HBO series, you know the last segment is always a barbed commentary on something in the news that’s been gnawing at him. (A damn good theme for a personal blog, if you ask me.)
    In a recent show, Maher’s closing speech asked how a country [America] could solve any of its problems when “its people are so intractably, astoundingly, mind-numbingly stupid.” To illustrate his assertion, he showed excerpts from man-on-the-street interviews, most notably from “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and Jay Leno’s old “Tonight Show.”

Spry for her age

    The interviews are surreal. One woman, when asked where Queen Elizabeth was from, said, “Egypt?” Another was asked, “What is the largest city in the world?” She answered, “Europe.” In a clip from a TikTok show, a collage-age couple was asked, “Who was the first person to land on the Sun?” They didn’t know. A shopper was asked, “If you were born in 2021, how old would you be?” She answered, “21.” OK, maybe she was flustered, but what about the woman who was training to be a teacher? She was offered $100 if she could name the country where Venice, Italy, is located. She said, “Gee, I should know this … Paris?” I have no doubt these interviews are genuine. If you need convincing, go to YouTube and search for “dumb Americans.” Here’s a link I picked at random.
    Only a few years ago, I would have found all this hilarious and would have agreed fully with Maher’s opinion of the hapless people in the videos. But gradually, I began to see things differently….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

From “The Scratching Post”: Not enough data

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, yesterday, May 25, 2022, published here by permission of the author.]

I like data, gobs and gobs of data. I like gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, and whatever comes next. I'm particularly fond of data about groups — their preferences, predilections, penchants, partialities, and politics. Yes, I'm aware of the tyrants and lowlifes who use data destructively to abuse people and amass power. This is a drawback that powerful things — like corporations, nuclear power plants, the wired world, gene editing, artificial intelligence — have in common. We need them, but they can be dangerous. The answer is regulation, not rejection.
    I like to imagine the topology of data, the hills and valleys of data we have about every subject that we've deemed fit to study. There are some subjects — say, the global distribution of Formosan subterranean termites — that can boast a ton of data. Conversely, there are subjects, many that are keenly important, with a dearth of data. One such subject is comparative cultural values. We need a set of metrics that tells us how close (or far apart) the values of any two cultures are. If we had a way to reliably measure cultural distance, we'd have a tool that could show where cultural collisions might occur. Forearmed, we could use the science of mediation to find the roots of our value differences and work at reconciling them....
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[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.