W.D. Ehrhart

I. Let us combine Washington’s birthday with Lincoln’s birthday so that we can add a holiday for the man who once described the United States government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” II. There are 14 quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. on his memorial in DC, but the quote above was not included. III. Are we supposed to honor all our presidents on Presidents’ Day? IV. William Henry Harrison was our president for 32 days, barely enough time to screw things up. Lucky man. V. Warren G. Harding appointed a US Army deserter to be the first director of the …

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by W.D. Ehrhart I woke up this morning thinking of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats and his unsettling poem ‘The Second Coming.” Yeats wrote it over 100 years ago, and I’m pretty sure that his title is a reference to the long awaited second coming of Jesus Christ; the poem itself, however, is an utter dismissal of whatever positive implications that concept might suggest. Certainly, Yeats could not possibly have imagined the situation here in the United States of America a century after he wrote his poem, and much of the poem bears little resemblance to what we are experiencing with the Second Coming …

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by W.D. Ehrhart I first became aware of Noam Chomsky in the early 1970s after I came back to this country as a Marine Corps veteran of the American War in Vietnam and got involved in the antiwar movement through Vietnam Veterans Against the War. For well over half a century a rare voice of sanity and reason in the wilderness of American hypocrisy, lies, and dissembling, he is high on my list of American patriot heroes. My acquaintance with the very much younger Nathan Robinson, founder and editor-in-chief of Current Affairs magazine, is much more recent, but he, too, is a truth-teller. Together they …

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You’d think they were playingfor an NBA championship ring.Or maybe a berth in the Final Four.At least a high school division titlethe way they scramble for rebounds,pass the ball around the perimeter,look for the open player inside,shoot from the top of the keyor drive hard for the lay-up,fight for loose balls, all elbowsand knees and ponytails flying.A few of the girls are big for their age;most are not yet five feet tall,bantam bundles of energy. The Middle East reeks of hate.Putin is using North Koreansto put the screws to Ukraine.We live each day in the shadowof nuclear war and global warming,and the recent US electionsgive …

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by W.D. Ehrhart Ever since November 6th, I’ve been doing my best to avoid reading, seeing, or hearing anything about the election. Pundits and prognosticators proclaiming who’s at fault for the utter failure of the Democratic Party, losers pointing fingers and hurling accusations at each other, Republicans grinning and gloating and enjoying the angst and agony of the millions of Americans who are not part of the even more millions of MAGAMobsters. But it’s hard to play ostrich forever. Last week, a friend sent me a recent poem titled “In Defense of Dogs,” by which I learned that Kristi Noem will be our next Secretary …

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