The Northcountry Chronicle

by W.D. Ehrhart I recently had lunch with a man who’d grown up in my home town. I don’t know him well, but I’ve known him for 70 of my 77 years. He is a good and decent man, a husband, father, and grandfather fully engaged in the life of his community. Before we ate lunch, he bowed his head and folded his hands in prayer. And when we parted, he whispered in my ear, “Remember the empty tomb,” a reminder that Christ Is Risen and alive in this world. But this man also voted for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and has …

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by Jean Stimmell Driving to an early morning appointment in Boston, my son and I got mired in rush-hour traffic made worse by an accident: the trip took over 2 1/2 hours. Miles of backed-up cars, holding their passengers hostage in exhaust-polluted paralysis, the opposite of the sparkling air and open spaces we left behind in Northwood. It was the final straw for me. What an idiotic way to live. In that instant, I saw how absurd our modern world has become. In my mind, the main villain is our blind devotion to progress. It is, without doubt, our secular religion, preaching that our lives …

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by W.D. Ehrhart In recent years, I have been writing frequently in support of the people of Palestine. A few years ago, I was introduced to the poetry of Mosab abu Toha by my Jewish American friend and university professor Ammiel Alcalay, and have written about Mosab and his poetry on multiple occasions, especially taking note of his two books in English, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and Forest of Noise. But my connection to what is happening in Gaza and the Occupied Territories became much more personal this past spring through another friend of mine, the American playwright Naomi Wallace, who …

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by W.D. Ehrhart Anyone paying any attention at all to what’s been happening in this country since January 2025 has to be aware of the ongoing and vigorous efforts of our Whitewasher-in-Chief to purge American history of anything that isn’t thoroughly upbeat, positive, and—well, let’s be honest here—white. Nothing negative. According to him and his minions, this country is and always has been pure as the driven snow. Like the anthem says, “Land of the free, and home of the brave.” Thus, various Smithsonian museums must remove the Gay Pride flag, Rigoberto Gonzalez’s painting of immigrants crossing our southern border, Hugo Crosthwaite’s images of Dr. …

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by W.D. Ehrhart “His primary rules are: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.” Does this sound at all familiar? Might it remind you of a certain someone currently in the process of dismantling two hundred and fifty years of …

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by W.D. Ehrhart I do not advocate, have never advocated, and never will advocate for the murder of anyone, and nothing I am about to write negates what I’ve just said.  Though I have no doubt that at least some people will claim I am doing just that, it is not true. Truth, however, seems to have little value in Trumpian America.  I cannot stop the Trumpasaurians from thinking and saying and believing what they think and say and believe.  But the real and actual truth is that I am not glad or grateful or relieved that Charlie Kirk was murdered. There is, however, a …

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