Correspondence: Wight ring

Freshwater, Isle of Wight

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.]

Every morning I ask my wife, “Has Trump resigned yet?” and she sadly shakes her head and replies, “No such news.” Moristotle, I know from your right-wing blog and the many ingratiating things you have said about President Trump that you are one of the still tens of millions of American voters who support him. But for the love of God in whom you also ardently believe, PLEASE STOP ENCOURAGING TRUMP. He must be made to accept that he no longer has the love and support of anyone but a handful of awkward individuals – in his own family, perhaps, and among those almost as bad as himself on his staff and in his Cabinet – if they didn’t abandon him the day he betrayed them. Moristotle, if you stop supporting Trump and encourage your right-wing friends to stop as well, maybe this can be turned around, and my wife can give me good news for a change.

The night of the gun on Tadpole Creek

By Ed Rogers

There are a few stories I haven’t told yet about my time growing up on Tadpole Creek. One night, fearing for our lives, my friends Herbert and Willy and I had to hide under their bed because a large, drunk, crazy-mad black man came raging through their shotgun house with a pistol in his hand.

Today today

This moment

By Moristotle

To a friend’s confession yesterday that as a boy he had wished that dogs could go to heaven, I said, “I can assure you most reliably that dogs do go to heaven.” (Of course, I could “reliably” do no such thing, but my friend was free to be assured, or not, as he wished.)

Boldt Words & Images: The Whole World Was Watching

Grant Park, Chicago, August 1968

50 Years Ago This Week

By Bob Boldt

Not being in touch much with the mainstream media, I have no idea whether the 50th anniversary of those tumultuous days of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago are passing with little or no mention. If Internet comments are any indication, I suspect they are. I guess nobody wants a reminder of humanity’s last gasp of freedom when a better world actually looked possible.

The Loneliest Liberal: Past wisdom

By James Knudsen

Conventional wisdom holds that those who forget the past are destined (or is it doomed?) to repeat it,  or at the very least elect a reality television star/white dwarf President. And while I don’t advocate for living in the past, as it is impossible to make anything great again, I do recognize the value of keeping select pieces of history. Museums, libraries, parks – these places, along with any home owned by myself or my siblings – are well stocked with pieces of history. How selective we have been in the keeping is open to debate. For the most part we just aren’t very good at throwing anything away. And when you add in the fact that since the beginning of this century, Dad and his two siblings have passed on and left a trove of over 200 combined years of accumulation…well, there’s a lot of history to consider.

Susan’s Stuff: The story of “Avery, Yar”

By Susan C. Price

Consider before you read this.
    Do you want to change your impression of what you were originally drawn to in a painting? If someone says, “I see a dog in this painting,” it can be very hard to un-see the dog.

Nine Years Ago Today: The Greatest Joke Ever Told

By Moristotle

[Originally published on August 22, 2009.]

Yesterday [nine years ago], in response to Steve’s comment [on “Ambrose Bierce on prayer”] that “[God] isn’t worth having a discussion over; waste of time and breath,” I commented that “on the contrary, it’s endlessly entertaining! Surely the biggest joke anyone ever told.” Being a slow-witted writer, I of course failed to take advantage of the opening to say instead, the greatest joke ever told. But it did put me in mind this morning (on my walk with Siegfried [then in his first year of life]) of the 1965 feature film directed by George Stevens and released by United Artists (after a lengthy pre-production period involving 20th Century Fox and a cast of characters almost as numerous as the credited actors).

Five Years Ago Today: Cleverness of the Coyote

By motomynd

[Originally published on August 19, 2013.]

In Native American legend, and in real life, the coyote is known as a creature of crafty intelligence and humor. I’ve been around them enough in various parts of the country to give them great credit for above average intelligence and awareness, but I’ve dismissed much of their vaunted standing as hype.
    Now I’m not so sure. Case in point: I have no photos to contribute with this post, and I should.

One U.S. President conducts his life differently

Hail to Jimmy Carter!

By Moristotle

Former President Jimmy Carter has written 33 books since leaving office in 1981, according to this article in yesterday’s Washington Post: "The un-celebrity president Jimmy Carter shuns riches, lives modestly in his Georgia hometown" [Kevin Sullivan & Mary Jordan, photos by Matt McClain].

Why we desperately need to make use of women’s intelligence

Men just aren’t that smart

By Moristotle

Take a perhaps typical man. He turns the key to lock his garden shed’s sliding glass door, and then tries to turn the key back 180° to extract it from the lock. It won’t budge. He jiggles it. He pushes it in the tiny fraction of an inch it will go and tries again. Still the key won’t move. Shit!

Eleven Years Ago Today: Ghost Dog

By Moristotle

[Originally published on August 16, 2007, without a photo of Wally.]

My wife just came back in the house after a walk with Wally to report that as she started to go around the cul-de-sac she looked back to see where he was, but he was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t on the leash. When she came back to the house to investigate, there he was sitting next to the front door where she surmises she had snapped the leash around air, not around the clip on his halter. Please, please, let my wife not be losing it. I need her!

Book Review: Cross Creek

By Neil Hoffmann

We are in Maine and I have been reading voraciously. Not since childhood summer vacations have I read so much. I am bewitched.
    Nothing contemporary. I am reading Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's Cross Creek, a trip into another time and place, her home in rural Florida orange groves in the 30’s [the book came out in 1942, when the author, whose life spanned 1896-1953, was 46]. The copy I found on a book shelf in the rental we’re staying in is a first edition and inscribed “Ruth Lunt April 1942,” a month before my birthday. Someone I know visited the house represented on the book’s dust jacket not long ago. She reported that the house was virtually as Rawlings left it, including her typewriter and car.

Snake

Good morning!

By Moristotle

Ooh, I thought, something bit me! It was barely light when I had reached my right hand around to the back of the bird feeder to open it and dump some sunflower hearts in. I pulled the hand back quickly, as quickly thinking something had bitten me.

Poetry & Portraits: Score

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Score
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on November 12, 2016]

The curtain rises in its gilded frame
upon the final act of La Boheme.
He marks the heroine’s consumptive life,
and then compares this creature to his wife.

Correspondence: Funny & not funny

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.]

The last time my short-term memory was updated I required an anaesthetic and several new microprocessors.

One of our authors’ books can now be borrowed from North Carolina public libraries

Brain Tangles, by Shirley Deane/Midyett

By Moristotle

One of our book authors has just had her book accepted by BiblioBoard for distribution through public libraries in the State of North Carolina, with possible distribution in a few weeks through public libraries in the rest of the United States (we will let you know).

Movie “Review”: They Are Everywhere

Theological implications

By Moristotle

The 2016 French-language film Ils sont partout, directed by Yvan Attal, struck me the other night, when we watched it on Netflix, as a comedy – despite being about the very serious topic antisemitism. Nominally it’s antisemitism in France, but, like the Jews, antisemitism is everywhere.