Monthly Archives: December 2010

On Obama, Lincoln, and Compromise

By Robin Bates | Published: December 13, 2010

Saturday’s New York Times had a column by African American novelist Ishmael Reed attacking those leftists that are excoriating President Obama for his willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts in return for a second stimulus package. What particularly galls Reed is that many of these critics refer to themselves as Obama’s base (as in, […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments closed

Consolation Prize: Mary, Queen of Heaven,

By Robin Bates | Published: December 12, 2010

Spiritual Sunday Today, as a member of my church choir, I participate in our service of Lessons and Carols (an indication that they will let anyone sing, especially if he is a guy). One of our featured songs is a lyric that I teach in my medieval literature survey. “Adam Lay Bound” is a beautifully […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments closed

What to Make of a Diminished Peyton

By Robin Bates | Published: December 11, 2010

Sports Saturday “The question that he frames in all but words,” Robert Frost writes in his “Ovenbird” sonnet, “is what to make of a diminished thing.” This poem has always had a special place in my heart.The ovenbird is not a bird that sings when June is bustin’ out all over.Rather, it is a “mid-summer and […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Five Films that Changed My Life

By Robin Bates | Published: December 10, 2010

Film Friday I belong to a film group that every six weeks or so assembles to eat snacks and watch a movie, which we then discuss. We generally watch something out of the mainstream—as our host Jim Bershon (he with the big screen) puts it, “If there’s a line around the block, we don’t want […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

How to Write a “True” Essay about Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: December 9, 2010

When I wasn’t teaching class yesterday, I was continuing my marathon essay-grading session. I took a break to write today’s post, however, and used a well-known poem by Langston Hughes to reflect on what I was asking my students to do. In “Theme for English B,” the only black student in a college composition course […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Comments closed

Essay Grading and the Great Wall of China

By Robin Bates | Published: December 8, 2010

At this time of year, I sometimes wonder why I signed up for this gig. Stacks of ungraded essays are strewn “far and wee” across my study, and only the knowledge that I have completed my student essays in the past assures me that I will make it through this batch. In my hour of […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments closed

An ABC of Children’s Books

By Robin Bates | Published: December 7, 2010

As we enter the holiday season, you can expect a number of posts on children’s books.  I have mentioned several times how one of my father’s great joys when we were growing up was reading us the books he had loved as a child.  We got extra reading around the Christmas season.  Here’s a poem […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Fantasy Portals to Other Worlds

By Robin Bates | Published: December 6, 2010

I have a special place in my heart for The Magician’s Nephew, chronologically the first of the Narnia series. When I was a child, I was especially fascinated by “the wood between the worlds.” This is a quiet forest in which can be found innumerable pools, each of which is the entrance to a world. […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Comments closed

God Calls to Us in the Night

By Robin Bates | Published: December 5, 2010

Spiritual Sunday My basketball player who is writing an essay about Henry Vaughan (see my post on him and the poem “Cock Crowing” here) has me thinking about light and dark imagery in the poetry of this 17th century mystical Anglican. Usually Vaughan associates God with light, as in “Cock Crowing” and “The World” (which […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments closed