W.D. Ehrhart

by W.D. Ehrhart Are you kidding me? Are you freakin’ kidding me?!?! I recently read this headline in today’s Washington Post: “Trump violated gag a 10th time, judge says, threatening jail.” The article goes on to say that “New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan made it clear to Trump that his 10th gag order violation—which he ruled on at the start of last Monday’s court session—was going to be the last that would result in only a fine.” Trump’s latest fine for contempt of court was $9000. Oh, ouch, agony, the pain, the pain! Let’s see: Dolt .45 would need to sell 23 pairs …

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by W.D. Ehrhart My memoir Vietnam-Perkasie ends in the spring of 1968 with me drunk and passed out in the shower at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina.  It is a fitting way to end the book because that was my mental state by the time I got back from the war.  And I stayed pretty well messed up for a long, long time thereafter. And for a long time, I felt completely alienated from the community I grew up in or the people I grew up with.  The perception was not entirely false, either.  The good folks of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, had proudly …

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by W.D. Ehrhart I turned on my computer this morning and was greeted by this headline in the Washington Post: “Six months into Gaza war, Biden confronts the limits of U.S. leverage.” It was all I could do to keep from shouting at the top of my lungs, “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” Can Joe Biden really pretend that he’s run up against “the limits of U.S. leverage”? Can an editor of the Washington Post write such a headline with a straight face, or the publisher print it without either gagging or laughing? According to Axios, in 2022, the U.S. government gave $3,300,000,000 to Israel, …

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by W.D. Ehrhart I have had a very long, though unusual, career as a teacher. I first entered the classroom as a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle teaching freshman composition in 1977. Later I taught high school for a year, then went off to write a book. I taught high school for another two years, then spent several more years writing books. I taught high school for three more years when my daughter was born, then returned once again to writing books. All three of those high school jobs ended badly because, though I did great with the kids in …

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by W.D. Ehrhart Let me get this straight. The United States military, using our tax dollars of course, has begun air-dropping humanitarian aid packages into Gaza while the Israeli Defense Forces continue to pummel Gaza with bombs and artillery shells paid for with U.S. money—our tax dollars again—provided to the Israeli government. So the U.S. is concerned about civilian suffering in Gaza, but has so far vetoed United Nations ceasefire resolutions three times? Does this seem strange to anyone other than me? No, not strange. Cockamamie. Schizophrenic. Stark raving nutso. It’s like one of those kindergarten picture puzzles where there’s a fish in a tree …

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For John Prados Only the stupid ones who get caught,gutted, beheaded, filleted, and eatenfried or poached or boiled or broiled,pickled in brine, fed to porpoises rawat Sea World, canned for family pets. The smart ones just keep swimming.You’ll never meet an intelligent fishbecause they don’t take the bait,though they never seem to go hungry. My friend Gary Metras loves to fish;ties his own flies, pulls on his wadersand heads for his local river severaltimes a week, rain or shine, year-round.Strictly catch-&-release. Lucky fish,but not very bright. He tells mehe often catches the same fishmultiple times. One of these days,the guy with the rod won’t be …

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