By an Inch It’s a Cinch, By a Mile It’s a Pile

By Dr. Ely Lazar & Dr. Adele Thomas

[Republished here by permission of the authors from the blog of their “Passionate Retirees” website]

Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning improvement. It is actually a philosophy that refers to small, steady, and continuous increases in productivity.

Can’t you chase storms in Australia?

By Moristotle

Readers have wondered why Ely Lazar and Adele Thomas have to go to the United States to chase storms. Can’t they do that in Australia?

Correspondence: Ironies of white extinction anxiety

Edited by Moristotle

[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]

Moristotle, don’t skip the comments on Charles M. Blow’s June 24 essay in the NY Times; they’re as informative as the article: “White Extinction Anxiety.” Opening paragraphs:

The Loneliest Liberal:What’s in this stuff?

By James Knudsen

One of the common gripes from conservatives is that progressives have abandoned standards. “Anything goes, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone,” is the adage that fuels this contempt for progressives and their acceptance of things that are considered out of the mainstream. The slippery slope to anarchy or a state-run-Orwellian dystopia awaits us all if we stray from the tried and true.

Book Review: Philip Roth Unbound

The Nobel Prize and various and sundry matters

By Jonathan Price

Philip Roth died a month ago. And it is a great loss though little surprise since he was 85 and had intentionally retired from writing six years ago and not given a farewell tour. His prominence is perhaps indicated by several articles the next day in the main section of the New York Times¹ marking his death, and a two-day retrospective of his interviews with Terry Gross on Fresh Air² (culled from seven interviews over the past, say, 25 years).

Roger’s Reality: Dancing with the Devil, Part 5

The long march

By Roger Owens

Much is written about the vagaries of war, the battles, the heroism, but I have chosen today to focus on some of the more mundane realities of war. Mainly, the constant marching, the privation, the drudgery. Earnest Taylor Pyle was maybe the most widely-known war correspondent in the modern era, and a perusal of his columns, such as “Digging and Grousing,” reveals some of that odious, behind-the-scenes labor without which wars could not be fought. (I know; we can only wish it were so odious that wars were not fought, but there you have it.) “Digging out here in the soft desert sands was like paradise…the ditch went forward like a prairie fire…a plain old ditch can be dearer to you than any possession on Earth.” (E. Pyle, 1943)

Penny for Her Thoughts: My Father’s Day

By Penelope Griffiths

This weekend is not only Father’s Day but also my only son’s 36th birthday. Sadly, I won’t get to talk with or see either of them.
    My father died when I was in my early 20s, but I’m proud to say I was his daughter, and those first two decades with him in my life were wonderful and enriching. My father was born in 1899, so I was a “late” baby, the only daughter after he fathered three sons, so to him I was “special,” although, since he was a “Victorian” father, I was strictly brought up.

35 Years Ago Today

My family and I moved from California to North Carolina

By Moristotle

June 16, 1983, was a Monday, I’m pretty sure, because I had worked my last day at IBM in San Jose, California the preceding Friday and I seem to recollect that we flew the day after that weekend. [Wrong! The calendar for June that year puts the 16th on a Thursday.] Raleigh-Durham Airport wasn’t international then, and my memory of it is similar to the image shown above, which was apparently made in the 1950s. I even think they rolled a stairway up to the airplane for us to disembark. Little of the fields of grass around it were covered with runways then.

The Power to Fascinate

By Dr. Ely Lazar & Dr. Adele Thomas

[Republished here by permission of the authors from their “Lifestyle Tips for Over 50s,” affiliated with their website “Passionate Retirees.”]

In Remembrance of Vincent Van Gogh

The painting on the front of the book’s
dust jacket is of Dr. Paul Gachet

By Moristotle

Having recently been reminded of a little book about Van Gogh that my wife gave me in October 1978, I have been reading it again and would like to share a bit of it here, in remembrance of its subject:

Fountain’s up & running!

Morning’s delight

By Moristotle

“I don’t know why we ever thought I’d need help setting up the fountain,” I said to my wife after coming in a little while ago from starting the fountain pump arunning.

Penny for Her Thoughts: Crossing the pond

I’ve been Green-Carded!

By Penelope Griffiths

It’s been almost three months since I sold up and moved over the pond to reside in North Carolina. It had taken almost a year and a couple of thousand dollars to get my “Green Card,” and it was not without a few bumps in the road. My daughter sent the original forms and fee in April 2017, and then we had to wait a nerve-wracking more-than-three months to have the documents sent to the department that would actually look at them, and then another three months to have them delivered to the reading/checking department, and then yet another three months and many phone calls to, and emails from the State Representative before we had the email that said the application had been read, the forms were in order, and everything was being sent to London, England, for an appointment!

Poetry & Portraits: Isaiah

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Isaiah
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on September 10, 2016]

Align the avenues and sweep the streets!
Suburbia, so long neglected, greets
the tan Executive, his tailored Queen,
his stately Presidential limousine.

The Heart of Music

A graduating high school senior’s tribute to her music teacher


By Katelyn Scherping

[Editor’s Note: It was our luck one evening last month to be present at Ms. Scherping’s reading of this tribute to a teacher at Osseo Senior High, in Osseo, Minnesota. Otherwise we would not have known to ask her permission to share it here, or be able to enjoy the honor of doing so.]

Where do I start?
Do I start with how you’ve transformed my
rough screeching and scratching into music?

Correspondence: Birds of a feather

Bow Down: In spring, during breeding season,
male Ruff sandpipers – widespread in Europe & Asia –
develop long neck plumes in a wide variety of colors

Edited by Moristotle

[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]

A dozen birds just being birds. Every year the Audubon Photography Awards reveal birds at their most majestic — and their quirkiest, too. In fact, some of the best shots we see capture them looking cute, weird, or downright hilarious. Enjoy this collection featuring birds just...well, being birds! And learn what behavior lies behind the strange-looking poses they strike: “Strike a Pose: 12 Pics of Birds Being Birds” [Kenn Kaufman, Audubon Magazine, May-June 2016]. Excerpt:

Four Years Ago Today: Value experience for its own sake

It’s an art

By Moristotle

[Originally published on June 5, 2014]

A passage in John E. Smith’s study of The Spirit of American Philosophy recently brought me full-stop. It was like the birth of Minerva from my own skull.
    The passage was in Chapter IV, on the philosophy of John Dewey, and it was about Dewey’s conception of art. It provided a formula or metaphor for me to express my own personal sense of the holy or sacred.