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Parting Words from Moristotle (07/31/2023)
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Saturday, December 31, 2022

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.

Friday, December 30, 2022

Guest “Pome of the Season”

16 Years Ago:
The 2006
Christmas Pome


By Bill Keene

[This delightful light verse had not been re-run (until today) since its appearance here on December 24, 2006, at 6:47 a.m.]

A lot of folks don’t know that Santa only has one eye.
The other is a glass replacement through which he can spy
all the little boys and girls, moms and daddies, too.
At any time of year he could be looking right at you.

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Fiction: She Likes It Cold
(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

Even long before the wedding, Paula knew they were doomed.
    She liked it cold. Windows-open-in-winter cold. Air conditioners from the 1970s set on 8 in November. Running barefoot in the snow and freezing sleet to retrieve the mail. She’d bring the old-lady neighbors their mail, too. Barefoot in snow.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers:
How to Love Another Man’s

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Maik Strosahl

I was digging through a box of memories when I found a scrap piece of paper with a handwritten poem scribbled on it.
    In my newspaper days, it was common for me to compose poems on the paper that was used to protect the freshly printed papers. On other occasions, any clean piece of cardboard could bear words that would surely have been lost if I didn’t get them out of my cluttered mind onto some sort of record.
    The one below was scribed on just such a piece of packaging and long ago forgotten.
    Until today.

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

The Christmas Miracle: From the
Chronicles of Meth Mountain

A Piece of Flash Fiction

By Michael H. Brownstein

When Christmas day dawned, there were no Christmas trees, no gifts, no cookies, no glasses of milk—only small plastic bags of meth.
   It’s Christmas, she told her companion. Get up. Let’s see what Santa sent us.

Monday, December 26, 2022

From the Alwinac: Wooden Angels:
  Silent Night for Cello Ensemble

[Click on image to
go directly to
the Alwinac’s home page
]
[The Alwinac blog is part of the schroeder170 project, honoring the life and musical career of cellist Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928) and exploring the history of cello playing in the US.]

Looking up from the organ loft at St. Trinitatus church in the Thurginian town of Holzengel (“wooden angel”), home of Alwin Schroeder’s paternal forebears, a musical score comes into view. Foregrounded diagonally within a music-themed quadrant of the church's painted wooden ceiling, the meticulously reproduced sheet music is readily identifiable as the soprano and alto parts of Gruber’s Christmas carol “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.” With my warmest wishes for love- and music-filled holidays, I hope you will enjoy this cello ensemble version of Silent Night, performed by the cellists of the Philharmonia Orchestra.
_______________
Read on the Alwinac website itself….


Copyright © 2022 by Geoffrey Dean

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (85)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Saturday,
November 1, 1924,
10:47 PM


Terry Miller and Steve Davis were drunk. They’d been to Miss Lottie’s for the cheap drinks, but they had some money tonight due to Terry’s uncle, and another’s leavings didn’t suit them this night. They were headed to Senegal’s Sumptuous Palace of Delights, to sample some new flesh reported to have arrived recently enough not to smell like old fish.

All Over the Place: Daughter

By Michael H. Brownstein

A Christmas gift to my daughters, my four granddaughters, and my wife, who is a daughter too.

Saturday, December 24, 2022

Acting Citizen:
At a Cars and Coffee Meet

By James Knudsen

I ended last month’s column with mention of a very rare, very beautiful, and very expensive automobile, the Ferrari GT 250 Lusso. Rare (only 351 were built) beautiful (subjective, yes, but trust me it’s beautiful), and expensive (it cost $13,375 in 1964; the same amount would buy you two Cadillacs off the showroom floor). This was a car for the few.

Friday, December 23, 2022

Goines On: What does Goines want for Christmas?

Click image for more vignettes
Goines almost always asked his wife what she wanted for Christmas. He wasn’t good at thinking up what she might want. Besides, in theory, they didn’t get each other Christmas gifts anyway. They just went on being one another’s gift to the other. Goines liked that. And it simplified things.
    But what about asking himself what he wanted for Christmas? The idea was prompted by a questionnaire he had been sent that included the question, “If you could have anything you wanted, regardless of cost, what would it be?”

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Fiction: Movie Night
(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

“Remember you told me I’d have to tell you about all my lovers someday,” Paula reminded, “but I was so cool that I never did? Haha!”
    “I do remember, and yes, you are so cool. I said you didn’t have to.”

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers:
Pasticcio Pudding

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Maik Strosahl

Back in the summer of 2019, I heard a word that kept me up all night, trying to figure out how I could use it in a poem. That word was Pasticcio.
    Pasticcio is another term for pastiche, which refers to an artistic work consisting of a medley of pieces taken from various sources.
    For me, it brought to mind a poetry collaboration and because it sounded so close to pistachio, reminded me of my favorite summer moments in Wisconsin, eating Almond Pistachio pudding turned into ice cream, then playing on the shore and in the waters of Lake Ripley. What if we did an artistic collaboration about our memories with pudding?

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (84)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Saturday,
November 1, 1924,
8:57 PM


Stuart Police Chief Oren B. Padgett was the second cousin, once removed, of the Padgett brothers over at the Sheriff’s Office, who would later that day be sent to Fort Pierce. He was sitting at a window table in the Victory Hotel finishing his coffee when he saw George Mariot coming out of the grocery across the street.
    George had an awful lot of groceries for just him and his wife Lola, John Ashley’s estranged sister, Padgett thought.

Monday, December 19, 2022

Goines On:
What three words?

Click image for more vignettes
Goines was asked what three words he would use to describe himself. He was surprised how quickly came the three words “skeptical,” “optimistic,” and “helpful.“
    But he soon realized that those descriptors had come too fast; they needed qualification, elaboration.
    “Skeptical” pertained mainly to incoming information, the “news,” or opinions expression by others. For Goines, “being skeptical” was questioning things, refraining from judgment – neither outrightly dismissive nor quickly accepting and storing as “knowledge.”

Sunday, December 18, 2022

All Over the Place: Michael’s Story

By Michael H. Brownstein

I was raised on a farm with no indoor plumbing
and her long strands of rainbow and leprechaun glitter slides down her back.
Let’s remember Michael, she says.

Saturday, December 17, 2022

Return of the Cheshire Cat?
(a short story)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

[Note: There’s a postscript at the bottom about the real cat.]

Chainsaw in hand, he eyed the fallen tree and wondered if he should tackle it first, or the one next to it that was leaning but had not yet toppled. Another storm, another downed tree. The joy of owning a wooded property.

Friday, December 16, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (83)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Friday,
October 31, 1924,
1:30 PM


The top of the telegram read “Postal Telegraph”, followed by the triangular shield of the US Postmaster, then “Commercial Cables.” The recipient was listed as “JAMES MERRITT, SHERIFF, SAINT LUCIE CTY.” The body of the message was straightforward, as telegrams were charged for by the word.

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Fiction: Can’t Shoot ’Em
(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

“The imbalance of power between women and men since the Middle Ages correlates precisely to the replacement of worship of Astarte with that of Yahweh back in the dusty middle-eastern misogynist deserts of numberless aeons ago.”

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers:
The Long Goodbye

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Maik Strosahl

It is estimated that 5.8 million Americans suffer through some sort of dementia. Safe to say, that leads to at least 5.8 million caregivers to watch as the tragedy unfolds, moments evaporating, entire lives rising into a cloud their loved one cannot see through. It is often called the long goodbye.
    Thank you to my friend Theresa Timmons for editing suggestions!


Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Goines On: Acts of love

Click image for more vignettes
The deadline was barely a week away for the State Library of North Carolina’s Accessible Books and Library Services’ writing contest. Goines was becoming desperate. His ideas for selecting some of his recent writings and shaping everything thematically into a cohesive narrative weren’t coming together. He needed to get organized, oil his brain, light a flame.
    Goines suggested to Mrs. Goines that they have a pot of their favorite tea. She didn’t hear him, because she was sitting at the dining table concentrating on the large jigsaw puzzle of a Paris map she had brought back from France two months earlier.

Monday, December 12, 2022

Interview: Alexandra Dotcheva

The Author of
It Really Is Simple:
A Holistic Approach
To Self-Confidence


Interviewed by Moristotle

Today’s interview was suggested by my son, contributing editor Geoffrey Dean, who discovered and read Alexandra Dotcheva’s book and was so affected by it that he wrote a testimonial for it, which we published here as a “rave book review.” Geoffrey first approached Alexandra about an interview, and we are both delighted that she agreed to participate, because she is a very busy person.

Sunday, December 11, 2022

All Over the Place: Faith

By Michael H. Brownstein

Do you see the lights in the distance?
The fog erased outline of the station?
Are you comfortable with your name?

Late afternoon, a spit of sun, sand,
A triumph after the last bloodletting.
Where do we want to go from here?

The temple not destroyed, but desecrated,
Blood graffiti, carcasses of pig,
The ark wide open, spilled oil, broken lamps.

Saturday, December 10, 2022

A Poem from Nowhere

By Roger Owens

When I see you, we’ll be past this,
Our little dance with the Devil will be done.
But who will be the one
To say? “Now it is brought to pass.”
Now it is fulfilled, rendered harmless,
Like a serpent that has been killed,
Like an antidote to the poison
We have willed into this world.


Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens

Friday, December 9, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (82)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Friday,
September 5, 1924,
3:43 PM


The payday rush hadn’t really started yet, and Teddy Pendergast had just come on duty as a teller at the Bank of Stuart to service the needs of their customers on the busiest day of the week.

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Fiction: Huevos con Chorizo
(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

This Mexican egg specialty, originating, actually, with the Mayans roughly 7,200 years ago, offers not just ease of preparation, but magnificence of taste, especially if you’re a newbie young gringo or African-American or a Lufthansa flight attendant on a stopover at Billy’s house on your way to the Taj Mahal or some similarly exotic destination and Billy begs you to take him with you, to free him from the figurative and literal claws of his wife, Paula, who is trying to kill him, but very slowly, he avers.

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers:
Simple Math

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Maik Strosahl

At one time I was a math wiz. Numbers just made sense to my young mind and I loved being the first to complete calculations, slapping my pencil down on the desk—too early according to my teachers, who encouraged rechecking solutions. Even doing so, I still turned my sheet over quickly and, when graded, was found to have the right answers.
    Ah, those were the days—before sine and cosine took me down, before a graphing calculator I defiantly rejected became a necessary tool and my love for numbers diminished.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Goines On: How ever not?

Click image for more vignettes
Goines read legacy.com’s annual reminder of a friend’s passing four years earlier, a friend he had thought of several times during the year without needing to be reminded. Goines had highly valued this friend, and he wondered how this friend, or any friend who died, could no longer be there, not be somewhere else rather than nowhere.
    Of Goines himself, he wondered, How could Goines not be somewhere after he died?
    Goines could not imagine not being.

Monday, December 5, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (81)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Sunday,
February 17, 1924,
2:35 PM


The three boats plowed into West End Harbor, having skirted Indian Cay and the shoals off West End Town. They’d just made it, cutting north of the main peninsula and riding the swells back southwest until they were in the shelter of the northern arm of the bay.

Sunday, December 4, 2022

All Over the Place: Within the Shadow of Haiku

By Michael H. Brownstein

The dogs are in the haiku section of light
the aisle blocked by a thickness of sunshine
the shelves overburdened with shame
the banners overwrought by forced rhyme
and the expanse of heaters planning a blizzard of sleet

Saturday, December 3, 2022

At Random: A Reply
to Acting Citizen’s Defense of FWD

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)


James, what a fabulous and informative article (“Old Enough to Understand,” November 26). I had no idea about the history of FWD. After reading your historical account, and having driven a few FWD vehicles, I’m not at all surprised the first attempt at FWD was slow and clumsy and ended in disaster. If only humanity had the wisdom to abandon the sordid concept, then and there, instead of resurrecting it and foisting it on unenlightened and unsuspecting drivers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Not that the original Austin Mini wasn’t cute and charming, and a thrilling and fairly safe car to drive—at golf cart speeds.

Friday, December 2, 2022

Goines On: Tzitzit

Click image for more vignettes
After Goines raised the shade over the back door, Mrs. Goines stood there for a few seconds enjoying the cold morning view. “Tzitzit,” she said, “those are what those rope ties on the bird feeder remind me of.”
    “Tzitzit?” Goines said. “What’s that?”
    “What are those,” she corrected him. “The noun’s plural. They’re the fringes, or tassels, that Orthodox Jewish men wear on their garments. I remember them from Shtisel.”

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (80)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Sunday,
February 10, 1924,
2:00 PM


“Water,” John Ashley said in disgust. “Those sons of bitches sold us water. And for top prices.” He dumped part of the bottle marked “Gordons London Dry Gin” into the brown waters of the South Fork of the Saint Lucie River. He tossed the remainder, bottle and all, and it sank with a tiny splash.
    Hanford Mobley, Tom Maddox and Teddy Miller all looked down in shame. John thought Teddy, hands in pockets, might actually scuff his shoe on the weathered, uneven dock boards. He was the nephew of Tom Miller, the grocer back in Gomez.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers:
Ronna, Quetta,
        Ronto, Quecto

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Maik Strosahl

[Note: Last week I trucked my final load—for the foreseeable future anyway—and yesterday I began working in the Dollar General office as a Fleet Supervisor, basically managing about 20 drivers, most of whom I have trained over the last three months. So, having pulled off the highways and byways for now, I’m adopting a new title for my column, a phrase I’ve been partial to ever since I used it in my poem “When It All Came Falling Down” (May 5, 2021), which was inspired by a quote from Albert Camus.]

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Love your enemies
deciphered in quartina

Click to enlarge
10 Years Ago Today

By Moristotle

[Published originally on November 29, 2012.]

According to the Gospel of Matthew (5:44, King James Version), Jesus said:
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Monday, November 28, 2022

Rave Book Review:
It Really Is Simple

A life-changing book

Reviewed by 
Geoffrey Dean

Over the last six months I have experienced intense and exponential growth in my creativity, self-confidence, and capacity to find meaning and joy in everything I do. Changes in diet and exercise have played an important role in this, but the courage and motivation to make these changes, and the determination to stick with them with a level of consistency I have rarely achieved before, are attributable to a life-changing book that I read last spring. Alexandra Dotcheva’s It Really Is Simple is a compellingly-written, comprehensive guide to achieving the kind of life you want for yourself and your loved ones. It is all about setting very specific goals and mastering the steps to achieving them.

Sunday, November 27, 2022

All Over the Place: A Dormitory
Too Many Wish to Enter

By Michael H. Brownstein

In the dormitory of perfect birds there lives a passion for perfect violence
and you go into old age with all of your lies,
reminiscing by the telling of these lies
until every lie you know
is a lie you own
alone.
But everything is OK—
leave this place and let
your life live out somewhere else.


Copyright © 2022 by Michael H. Brownstein
Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Acting Citizen:
Old Enough to Understand

FWD
(front wheel drive)


By James Knudsen

In his September column, “At Random: Things I Will Never Be Old Enough to Understand,” Paul Clark (aka motomynd), chronicled some things he doesn’t like or just doesn’t get. Front wheel drive (FWD) made the list, and from his column it seems to fall in the category of something he doesn’t like. As the son of an early adopter of the FWD train layout (see my “Fourth Saturday’s Loneliest Liberal: About the Panhard,” November 2014), I found this troubling to the point of offensive, and so, today’s defense.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (79)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Thursday,
January 10, 1924,
concluded


The dog finally stopped whimpering, the shouting went on, and Red saw something. The army tent had a short wall of interwoven branches about four feet high, and above it he spied a head of black hair, thinning on top. A man sitting up with his back to Red, like from a bunk, who then shouted at someone else to get down.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Goines On: Thanksgoings

Click image for more vignettes
Thanks to Linnea Desktop Calendars
for their November from 2011
The day after his blood was drawn for his annual physical exam the next week, Goines felt upbeat and hopeful – and thankful. As usual on the day of the draw, Goines had fixed breakfast for himself and Mrs. Goines, but he refrained from having his, because he had been advised not to eat or even drink coffee until after his blood was drawn. The draw was scheduled for 10:50 a.m., by which time he would have been fasting for almost 17 hours. He poured his coffee into a thermos and put his cereal and diced fruits in plastic containers and stored them and two 6-oz. bottles of probiotic smoothies in the refrigerator until time to leave for Chapel Hill.

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Highways and Byways:
A Turkey Buzzard Thanksgiving

By Maik Strosahl





Just down the road from my house, I had to pull over to get a photo of red berries in the November sunset.

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

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.

Monday, November 21, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (78)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Thursday,
January 10, 1924,
5:00 AM


As the column of cars and trucks crawled through the predawn darkness along the raised marl and sand roads heading into Gomez Grant, with water on either side, Red Dedge was skeptical.
    This was the third raid against the Ashleys he’d been on, two with Saint Lucie County John Merritt, who was not one damn bit happy with his latest volunteer. The memory of losing a lawsuit to this young man, or rather buying his way out of it, was too fresh.

Sunday, November 20, 2022

All Over the Place: Do You Die
When You Hit the Water
or During the Fall?

By Michael H. Brownstein

—for John Berryman

The noise of morning rises with the cream of dawn:
it is I who opens the gate to Samael,
it is I who finds window glass wanting,
it is I who no longer wishes to wait,
it is I who seek entrance with Thyone.

Saturday, November 19, 2022

From the Alwinac:
  Catching Up: My Most Recent
  Cello Performance Videos

[Click on image to
go directly to
the Alwinac’s home page
]
[The Alwinac blog is part of the schroeder170 project, honoring the life and musical career of cellist Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928) and exploring the history of cello playing in the US.]

Earlier in the year I was able to record a handful of cello pieces to add to the collection on my YouTube channel, and today I actually added them to the collection! Of course there is a story behind each of these pieces, and I hope to get around to telling these stories in the near future. For now, here are the video links, with some suggestions for further reading and my wish for pleasant listening.
    F. Prume, Melancolie, Op. 1. Several European cellists, George Knoop and Theodore Ahrend among them, played versions of this once-popular violin piece after settling in the United States. Read my post about Ahrend here. The Knoop story is on the way.…    _______________
Read on….


Copyright © 2022 by Geoffrey Dean

Friday, November 18, 2022

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (77)
A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]
By Roger Owens

Thursday,
October 7, 1923,
5:30 PM


With belts and cleats, Red Dedge had gone up near the top of a towering cypress, with Rufus, also belted onto the tree, as his second saw man. They gauged the wind, the slight angle of the tree itself, the seemingly insignificant branches high, high up here on the top. Branches that contained much of the water sucked up by these massive swamp giants, tons of it.

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Fiction: Thanksgiving
(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

Billy said, “Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday for more than the fifty first years of my life. Of course I don’t remember my first few feasts, but in the photographs, my dad’s father and my dad’s sister were there at the table with us, grinning bigger than I ever saw them grin, along with Ma’s aunt and her husband, you know: all the old relations who died long ago had gathered round the table, smiling and hungry, all politics aside, driven actually mad by hours of aromas, the men in suits and ties, the ladies in pearls, hair fresh from the beauty shop, the air throughout the whole small house aromatic of old ladies and all their mingling perfumes.”