Good old Winston! Good old Franklin! They Koventriered Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfort and Cologne, incinerating not only innocent German civilians (a half dozen or so of whom surely existed) but the tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans seeking refuge from Winston and Franklin's beloved ally, the mass-murdering Uncle Joe Stalin. Their acts of benevolence culminated, of course, in good old Harry's nuclear Koventriering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus ended the Good War.

Every year, around August 6 and 9, America-hating malcontents brazenly question the morality of Harry's atomic bombing of Japan (but certainly not Winston and Franklin's firebombing of Germany!). I can still hear the roars of disapproval from the gathered crowds.

Unlike the hand-wringing, head-in-the-clouds Blame America First crowd, the enlightened multitude grasps the illegitimacy of moral equivalence. The German and Japanese bombing of Coventry and Pearl Harbor are rightly viewed as homicidal bombing. Likewise the 9/11 attacks and the suicide bombing practiced by Muslim extremists. But when the Apostles of Democracy deign to uplift barbarian societies by raining death from the skies, well, that's what we call humanitarian bombing.

In the immortal words of Vonnegut, "And so it goes."

Tony Pivetta
Royal Oak, Michigan

From: Rudy
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--extirpate

Good old Adolf! After the German bombers completely eradicated Coventry, UK, Hitler coined a new word for "extirpate" -- Koventrier: To Coventry. He thenbroadcast to the English people that Germany would erase all their cities. I can still hear the roars of approval from the gathered crowds.