Goines On: In his dreams

Click image for more vignettes^*

Goines’ in-laws by his son’s marriage texted they were thinking of taking a sleeper car on an AMTRAK Empire Builder from Minneapolis to Seattle. Goines texted back that he had taken a train from the San Joaquin Valley to Connecticut for his freshman year in college.
    His daughter texted, how long had the trip taken?
    He couldn’t remember exactly, but he texted he guessed it took at least two nights.
    He remembered boarding the Union Pacific RR train in Tulare early one August morning, with a trunk holding the encyclopedia his parents had bought for him when he was in the seventh grade.

From Rus in Urbe Backyard Buck: On Coyote Patrol

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

[Columnist Paul Clark fashioned Rus in Urbe: Country in the City from his family’s one-acre suburban lawn, turning it into a wilderness retreat for them and their neighboring wild creatures.]

At our place in Virginia, our backyard deer have their fawns the last two weeks of May. Not coincidentally, our ever-present but seldom seen coyotes show up in greater numbers the first two weeks of May.

Goines On: Going slow

Background from a painting
by Karin Neuvirth
Click image for more vignettes

A few days after going fast in exultation, Goines found himself going slow. The only thing fast about his walk was the speed of the thoughts swirling in his head.
    There were images of friends’ faces, of nieces and nephews, of cousins, and his wife.
    There were thoughts of his friend whose 50th birthday party he had attended, which had been thrown by his sister. He had been trying to write but was lately showing signs of maybe no longer having it in him....
    ...of his friend in Bulgaria whom he’d never met in person and whose mountain treks were on hold for family reasons and might never resume....

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.
______________
[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.

Links to André Duvall’s Father Billy Charles Duvall’s Art

André
Duvall’s
Father

Billy
Charles
Duvall’s

Art

A Visual Index

By Moristotle

In case you haven’t noticed, the sidebar now includes a table of images representing each of my cousin Billy Charles Duvall’s artworks that have been presented in his son André’s column, “Father’s Art.” The images are not just for decoration; each of them links to the original image in the “Father’s Art” column it appeared in. All you have to do is click on the image.
    The table looks just like the one shown here, and you can get to it in either of two ways: 

• Click on its link in the Sidebar Directory, or 
• Scroll down to it (quite a ways, because the sidebar contains lots of elements, concluding with the entire collection of #tags associated with Moristotle & Co.).

The table of artwork images came about, because…Well, I’m not entirely sure now, because it was a while ago, and I actually got bogged down at one point and finally decided to just forget the whole thing. But within 24 hours my muse graced me with an avalanche of ideas for taking a better approach than I had started out with.
    Originally, the ratio of each image’s height to width (H:W) was the same as the artwork referred to. The problem with that was that I had to have a separate table for each row of images because their column widths varied and they wouldn’t stack into regular rows.

All Over the Place: “Beginnings” from The...Other Poems

By Michael H. Brownstein

5AM and I’m working on a computer allergic to attachments and has a mouse in need of serious training; every now and then Microsoft Edge opens and closes a window as if the computer has a bad case of hiccups; spellcheck takes a visit elsewhere; and the screen is too dim—my cataracts may be getting worse….
    The second section of my Katy Trail book was requested by Amy Huffman, the editor of A Kind of Hurricane Press. I offered her a wide variety of writing and she decided ultimately what she would want to publish. Of course, I was flattered by her choices and, figuratively speaking, took the walk with her into the next section of the book. No more Katy Trail narrative.
    “Now,” she said, “poems to read over and over again to enjoy and contemplate.”
    Enjoy.

Acting Citizen: Joining the Ranks of EV Owners

It’s Happening

By James Knudsen

I’m not sure we can claim to be “early adopters,” but the Knudsen household has joined the ranks of electric vehicle (EV) owners. Andra’s Subaru Forester began developing issues, and Andra favors new cars. New Subarus to be precise. All of which found us in the local dealership on the Memorial Day weekend selecting a Subaru Solterra to be Andra’s daily driver.

Endurance (a poem)

By Roger Owens

I have nothing to do,
No one to see,
And nowhere to go.
I would have thought this was heaven,
Just a few years ago.

Trials of a Crooked Clown (a poem)

Current events

By Moristotle

Dirty Don, he wags it’s persecution:
“I’ve done nothing – it’s a hoaxy-cution.”
    But while he schticks to his denials,
    And farces on ’bout witches’ trials,
Justice drags him straight to prosecution.

Copyright © 2023 by Moristotle Moristotle has been and continues to be:   Writer and editor since mother’s teat, / in old age manages a weblog beat,       sometimes opines / in rhyming lines,   and chooses words to set in measured feet.

Highways and Byways: Fairmount

By Maik Strosahl

I’ve discovered I haven’t been consistent.
    While recently watching one of my go-to-sleep movies—movies I enjoy and have seen so many times that they don’t need my focus, so I, in theory, can go to sleep—I found myself researching plot lines and history behind the show. Again not sleeping.

At Random: In Defense of Worrying

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)

Worry is thought by some to be avoided, an unhealthy stress. But I consider worrying and plain old thinking to be basically interchangeable terms. In most cases, thinking instead of ignoring is the first step toward taking action, and worrying is second-level thinking, taking a further step toward action.
    I find the more I worry about something instead of “just thinking” about it, the more likely I am to do whatever I can to help whatever cause.
    For example, in the case of worrying about people in this country who are likely to attempt an autocratic takeover, DeSantis and Trump top my list. What I’m doing about this might be the subject of another column. Or not.

Copyright © 2023 by Paul Clark

With apologies to Joe Hill (a poem)

By Bob Boldt

This is my latest poem, my latest attempt to express my outrage at our treatment of the greatest journalist, certainly the bravest journalist who ever drew breath. Of course, the horrific torture of Julian Assange represents not just a crime against one man but an attempt to silence all journalists and publishers and put an end to the troublesome First Amendment as well.

All Over the Place: “My Journey” from The Katy Trail...

By Michael H. Brownstein

My Journey

Three days of hiking with only bottled water

is penance enough for one lifetime,

the path littered with opera and breath-beats,

the sarcasm of the bullfrog, the yelp of the red fox.

Every night enough stars shoot across the sky

to grant every wish for a hundred years of wishing,

every aspiration, every melody, every quarter note.

Summoner (a sonnet)

By Eric Meub

I wish I had the skill to draw your face,

Make quick work of epitomes as though

Da Vinci, Dürer and Tiepolo

Had taken turns at talent in my place.

I’d craft mandalas of your brows and eyes,

With meditations on the subtle dip

That circumnavigates your lower lip.

From every pad of paper, you’d arise.

Issues in Catiline: Rebel of the Roman Republic (Part 4 of 4)

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2023
Click image to order the
book from Barnes & Noble

By James T. Carney

Catiline: Rebel of the Roman Republic suggests that the Republic fell because the members of the elite were unwilling to deal with the basic problems outlined in Part 3. The only issue that the elite did address was the need to expand Roman citizenship to all Italians, but it required the Social War to bring it about. 

    Solutions to any of these problems required the governing classes (and sometimes the citizenry as a whole) to give up some of their economic and social “goods” for the benefit of the Republic. The basic obstacle to any reform is that it requires sacrifices on the part of one or more groups of powerful citizenry.

Issues in Catiline: Rebel of the Roman Republic (Part 3 of 4)

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2023
Click image to order the
book from Barnes & Noble

By James T. Carney

In our own time, Catiline has been featured in Richard Harris’ Cicero Trilogy as a bigger villain than even Cicero made him out to be. Perhaps the most realistic and intriguing modern picture of Catiline in novels appears in Steven Saylor’s Roma sub Rosa series, with one book – Catilina’s Riddle – devoted to him. Saylor depicts Catiline as a Bill Clinton made of sterner stuff.

    In the last fifty years, the Catilinarian conspiracy has attracted a great deal of attention from historians, prompting a number of ingenuous reinterpretations of Catiline’s story:

Highways and Byways: Granbury

By Maik Strosahl

While returning from last week’s adventure in Nebraska (see “German Settlement Road”), my trainee and I had to make a pit stop at the rest area just south of Rockport, Missouri, on I-29.
    At an interstate rest area, you will usually find many brochures intended to bring you to all the action and adventure our great country has to offer.

Issues in Catiline: Rebel of the Roman Republic (Part 2 of 4)

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2023
Click image to order the
book from Barnes & Noble

By James T. Carney

The second issue that my book, Catiline: Rebel of the Roman Republic, addresses is what caused the Catilinarian conspiracy to fail. The book tells the stories of the almost comical mishaps that led to the failure of the conspiracy:

• the betrayal by Q. Curius,
• the swift action by the Roman senate to utilize the military forces available to it to squelch the conspirators’ efforts in various parts of Italy before their actions could prompt local insurgencies,
• and the incredible blunder of Lentulus in entrusting the secrets of the conspirators to the Gauls.

Issues in Catiline: Rebel of the Roman Republic (Part 1 of 4)

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2023
Click image to order the
book from Barnes & Noble

By James T. Carney

[Editor’s Note: Columnist James T. Carney was asked by the editor of his book (see cover at the side) to write about it for Ancient Origins Magazine. The Wikipedia entry for the Catiline of the title identifies Catiline as

Lucius Sergius Catilina (c. 108 BC – January 62 BC), known in English as Catiline. He was a Roman politician and soldier, best known for instigating the Catilinarian conspiracy, a failed attempt to violently seize control of the Roman state in 63 BC.

I agreed to edit the magazine write-up for Jim if he’d let me serialize it here for your enjoyment and erudition. I’m grateful to him for agreeing to that arrangement. Perhaps he’ll even give me an autographed copy of the book….]

All Over the Place: “Truth” from The Katy Trail...

By Michael H. Brownstein

Truth

In the end I did not hike the Katy Trail from Jefferson City’s center

across the concrete bicycle path over the river

down the asphalt road to North Jefferson (where the bathrooms are always locked)

to Hartsburg, the bed and breakfast, the restaurant of cold water,

to the place where the trail meets the MKT

and enter into Columbia, downtown, Stephen’s College,

arriving finally at the home of my children.

Goines On: Going fast

Click image for more vignettes

Goines couldn’t believe it himself: he was not only the first customer to enter Costco that day, he was also the first to check out with purchases and leave the warehouse.
    FIFO, he thought that was called – first in, first out. LIFO would have been impossible; by the time the last customer entered a Costco, hundreds, if not thousands, of others would already have checked out, returned home, and unloaded. LILO was more likely, although he couldn’t remember that acronym ever being used at IBM. Did it sound too much like something a fugitive would do?