Ezra's Essays

Category: 2004

  • SUNDAY NIGHTS ON THE TUBE

    Sunday evenings were never meant to be enjoyable. People go to bed early after a weekend of eating drinking and other assorted activities. Monday mornings come soon enough. During the summer months, ESPN has Sunday baseball at 8PM Eastern Time. That is often a life saver in a desert of non-entertainment. As a general rule,…

  • WHERE DID THE JOBS GO? – TO YOU AND ME

    This is a follow-up essay to an earlier piece called “Jobless Nostalgia.” Before we get to the heart of the subject, every reader should know that a new table and a new chair are being used for this monumental work of essay writing. Earlier this year, Miss Chicka decided that my office chair, which had…

  • WE’LL KEEP A WELCOME

    A TRIBUTE TO THE LIFE OF JEAN MC FARLAND LIVERMORE AND A COMMEMORATION OF MORE THAN 50 YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP WITH HARRY A. LIVERMORE “We’ll Keep a Welcome” is a Welsh song that personifies Jean McFarland Livermore’s life and to some extent, Grinnell College in Iowa which she attended. “We’ll Keep a Welcome” goes back…

  • ARE AMERICANS COLOSSAL PRUDES? OR: VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAIETH THE LORD

    The effort to answer the question as to whether my fellow country women, men and children are colossal prudes will inevitably require allusions to what some pious Yankees consider vulgar language. In other cases, our research inevitably leads also to consideration of the display of nude or semi-nude females in night clubs, on the beach,…

  • TONY NAVE’S FATHER

    This essay about the death of Tony Nave’s father is dedicated to George Bush and to George Nethercutt, a Representative from Washington State who made it all possible. Nearly eight months ago, there was printed in several newspapers and on the Internet, a photograph taken by Steve Perez of the Detroit News Photo Department. It…

  • THOUGHTS THAT OCCUR WHILE SHAVING | Second Series of Thoughts

    In this Second Series, we deal with why Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, Iraq, took his coronary troubles to Jewish and Christian cardiologists in London. He went to London, not to Damascus or Cairo or Beirut, for his heart work. For Ali Sistani to agree that infidels (Jews and Christians) be allowed to meddle…

  • JOBLESS NOSTALGIA

    JOBLESS NOSTALGIA During this election year, the Bushies say that everything having to do with the economy and jobs are going honky-dory. The Democrats point to three million lost jobs since the Bush Administration took office. It might be supposed that the count of lost jobs perhaps ought to go up by one in view…

  • STUD DUCKERY

    This little story has to do with Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and other world figures and a small, young orange and white tabby cat who is now walking on my writing paper and is trying to catch my pen. It also has much to do with one of my soldier friends from Indiana.…

  • OLD GEEZERS DYING IN BIG NUMBERS

    Saturday, May 29, 2004, was the day the long awaited World War II Memorial was to be dedicated. The broadcast was carried by most of the major television networks. On one station, we were told that World War II veterans were dying at the rate of 1000 to 1100 per day. Another station said the…

  • MUSINGS — Volume III

    This old essayist thought that one set of musings and ponderings while Ms. Chicka drives the car would be sufficient. Obviously, that is not the case. It appears that several other thoughts have occurred while the Chrysler is not in my control. Try these musings, for example. Is 2004 a rerun of 1928? During the…