Ezra's Essays

Category: Islam

  • OH, DIDN’T HE RAMBLE | Meditations: Chapter 17, Verses Amu to Emu

    For good reasons, New Orleans remains in the news. Its prominence in the news may go on for years. Two events account for our attention to New Orleans these days. The first is the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The second is a presumably powerful prayer released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who claims…

  • IS SATAN BEING UNFAIRLY MALIGNED?

    Judging from the numbers of recent aggressive articles and angry letters to the editors of newspapers, it is my probably biased judgment that old Satan is getting a bum rap. Fair play is fair play. He is being accused of such dis-similar events as the spread of AIDS, purse snatchings, fixing the football playoffs, and…

  • INFIDELS AND APOSTATES

    This short essay is undertaken with a sense of fear and trembling since it involves religion. When one person or one sect or one country calls another infidels and apostates, it would almost always be a slur. Generally speaking, my religious involvement is minimal because this ancient non-believer would seem to have no dog in…

  • WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS IN IRAQ

    OR: THERE AIN’T NO JUSTICE  IN MILITARY JUSTICE Early in December, 2003, news reports and network television broadcasts quoted Lt. Colonel Nathan Sassaman of the United States Army as delivering these pungent remarks after the American Army had shot up some Iraqi villages. Col. Sassaman said, “With a heavy dose of fear and violence and…

  • What to do about… GEORGE BUSH’S REBATE CHECK

    Last week, there arrived in our mailbox a life changing letter. It was a check for $600. In the first place, it was mailed from Austin, Texas which now seems to be at the center of Bush’s universe. The United States Treasury is on 15th Street in Washington, but for this purpose was moved to…

  • ON GOLF, CIVIL WAR, AND VIRGINS

    -Three Disparate Thoughts Growing up during the great American Depression, it was my view that golf was an elitist sport. There were a few driving ranges around, but public golf courses were few and far between. Jobs also were few and far between and money was a problem at every step of the way. Golf…

  • NEVER SEND TO KNOW FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

    “NEVER SEND TO KNOW FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS; IT TOLLS FOR THEE” John Donne 1572 – 1631 These lines are being dictated on a gloomy Friday afternoon at the end of December, 2006. Ordinarily my outlook on life is less than exuberant during the period between Christmas and New Year’s. Today’s news has sent…

  • WAR ON TERROR

    The news from Washington, particularly the White House, tells us that we are fighting a war on terror. This old under-educated, inarticulate clod is baffled by that description. What war are we talking about? And are the American people genuinely terrorized? The imprecision of the language in the so-called war on terror is immense. When…

  • A FEW WORDS IN PRAISE OF SANITY

    I hope that my readers will not think less of me when I offer a few words of praise of sanity in the American relationship with those who practice the Muslim faith. During the month of September, pious adherents of that faith are celebrating the month-long holiday of Ramadan. Ramadan requires that the faithful consume…

  • TURNING THE VIRGINITY ODOMETER BACK TO ZERO

    This essay is going to attempt to perform an impossible literary marriage in that it involves the virginity of Muslim women and an apt poem by A. E. Housman, an English poet who could foresee miracles of the future. Whether this marriage will last is a reasonable subject for discussion, but I believe that it…