Ezra's Essays

Category: Politics

  • STAYING THE COURSE

    A week or so ago, the English Prime Minister, Tony Blair, came to Washington to discuss how things were going in the war against Iraq. Blair and Bush appeared after their conference to hold a meeting with the press. None of the major American networks carried the program. It didn’t even appear on the Public…

  • MORE WAR ON TERROR

    On Sunday, November 26, 2006 the United States will have been at war in Iraq for the same length of time that we were involved in World War II. As an observer of human events for the last 80 years and as a veteran of World War II, I believe that it is incumbent upon…

  • THE THIRD RAIL

    Well boys, the German Pope has stuck both feet in it. Every person who ever lived on a farm where cattle were pastured will recognize the “it” in the previous sentence. George Herbert Walker Bush, our preppy former president, never lived on a farm, but he refers to the “it” as “deep doo doo.” Old…

  • OH, GOOD JESUS

    As a general rule, Gentiles who profess a religious faith tend to claim that they are Christians of one sort or another. While Christianity requests that it adherents subscribe to various rules, a good many rules are ignored or are deliberately violated. A case in point is the Catholic teaching that use of birth control…

  • A COLLOQUY WITH TOM FRIEDMAN

    Under ordinary circumstances, your old essayist attempts to keep his correspondence separate from the essays that are produced here. In this case, however, Tom Friedman, the New York Times star op-ed writer wrote a piece that should not be condensed or treated in the Reader’s Digest fashion. Friedman’s piece was so wrong and so provocative,…

  • POKING FINGERS IN EYES

    The reports from London about the bombings on trains and the bus are saddening and they are sickening. As an old World War II soldier, it was my privilege to serve with elements of the British Eighth Army in North Africa, Sicily and on the Adriatic Coast of Italy where there were often many casualties.…

  • MIRACLES AND THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE

    Those of you who have read these essays may recall my long term high regard for the intellectual achievements of H.L. Mencken, reporter, editor and commentator of the Baltimore Sunpapers as well as the editor and publisher of the Smart Set and the American Mercury magazines. Mencken was also the author of some 80 books…

  • THE PES-TI-MIST

    It is a matter of great regret that none of you knew George Knickerbocker, my pre-World War II St. Louis colleague at AT&T. George insisted in pronouncing every letter of every word in spoken English. For example, miscellaneous on George’s tongue came out as MIS-KEL-AN-EOUS. Old George did not stop there at all. As in…

  • A BATTING PRACTICE SLUGGER

    As most of you know, this old essayist and former solder has long believed that George Bush is a vile creature who is attempting to finish what Nixon started, which is to turn the United States into a Fascist theocracy. The litany goes on. A war brought on by Bush’s lying. The squandering of our…

  • A BUCKET OF WARM SPIT

    It is widely believed by high school English teachers and prissy editors that spit is a horrid word. Before you consider joining the cabal condemning that descriptive word, it might be well to recall that it was used most effectively by a Vice President of these United States. When he used spit in a ringing…