The Northcountry Chronicle

by W. D. Ehrhart Soon after I heard that the Kleptocrat-in-Chief had ordered U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, I sent this e-mail to pretty much everyone I know: “The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is a U.S. federal law that restricts the use of the military for civilian law enforcement within the country. It prohibits the use of federal troops to execute civilian laws unless explicitly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress. “Marines deployed against American citizens in the streets of the United States of America. I have never before been so ashamed of the Marine Corps or of my having once …

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by W.D. Ehrhart “What’s in a name?” Juliet asks in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. “That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” But what the heck did Shakespeare know?  “U.S. Military Bans Men With Girl Names From Participating In Combat,” read a recent headline. According to this story, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says that gender characteristics, courage, tenacity, dependability, reliability under fire, the warrior spirit, what have you, are all determined by one’s name. And thus, only soldiers with masculine names are fit to serve in combat. Our Fox TV “presenter” and “personality” never completed Ranger School, …

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by W.D. Ehrhart Just today, I received an e-mail from my friend Lorrie Goldensohn,1 who had received an e-mail from her friend, the playwright Naomi Wallace,2 who received an e-mail from her friend Rawand Gawad Abu Ghanem,3 a Palestinian living in Gaza. “I hope you’ll post this letter,” Lorrie writes, “in as many places as you think would be interested in this heartfelt cry from someone still lucky enough to be alive in the hell that we are all constructing in Gaza.” You will find the letter below, but first here is information you ought to know about the writer of the letter Lorrie is …

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by W.D. Ehrhart Here is a poem from Palestinian poet Mosab abu Toha’s newest book, Forest of Noise (Knopf, 2024): Ramadan 2025 Around that dinner table, missing are the chairs where my mother, my father, and my little sister used to sit with us on Fridays, and where my siblings and their kids used to drink tea at sunset when they visited. No one is here anymore. Not even sunset. In the kitchen, the table is missing. In the house, the kitchen is missing. In the house, the house is missing. Only rubble stays, waiting for a sunrise. Forest of Noise is Mosab’s second collection …

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for the innocent in Gaza,the Occupied Territories,and throughout the world How does one respond to such destructionwith a poem? Can poetry outweigha 2,000-pound Mark-84 bomb,save the life of a single wounded child,put an end to the hatred and madnessand inhumanity of those who dothe butchery? Might just as well bepissing up a rope as thinking poetrycan matter where it really countsthere among the dead and dying,armless, legless, homeless, starving,families shattered, orphaned children,misery without hope of ever ending. And here I sit in safety half a worldaway. My tax dollars buying bombsmy government supplies to those whodo the killing. How can one be silentin the face …

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by Jean Stimmell Winter is losing its grip. Even the chunks of snow that slid off my north-facing roof are almost gone. The daffodils have pushed up through matted oak leaves, and the ice went out early on Jenness Pond. It’s a time of renewal not only for Mother Nature but also for our democracy. Since his inauguration in January, President Trump has given it his best shot to destroy our country. But he will fail! As the opposition, we were flabbergasted by the audacity of Trump’s attacks on our Constitution and institutions starting on day one. We were initially struck dumb, but once it …

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