Monthly Archives: February 2011

With Aging, Abundant Recompense

By Robin Bates | Published: February 10, 2011

  In a follow-up to yesterday’s post where I talked about my cancer-ridden friend Alan, I examine another passage from The Brothers Karamazov. This one is focused on aging generally, not just death. If you ever find yourself getting depressed about getting old, check it out.   And check out as well William Wordsworth’s Intimations […]

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Life from the Vantage Point of a Deathbed

By Robin Bates | Published: February 9, 2011

  I haven’t updated you for a while on my friends Alan and Jackie Paskow, former St. Mary’s colleagues. Alan has been suffering from terminal cancer for close to three years now, and Julia and I visit every Sunday night. Julia performs Reiki massage on Jackie while Alan and I talk. This past Sunday, while […]

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How Life Looks When One Is Property

By Robin Bates | Published: February 8, 2011

Last week we had another fine presentation in the series of Twain lectures that my colleague Ben Click has been running. Once again a talk about race and Huckleberry Finn deepened my respect for that magnificent book. Here are some of the ideas I picked up, which I share with you from memory since I didn’t […]

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Poetry Unleashed in the Streets of Cairo

By Robin Bates | Published: February 7, 2011

The Daily Beast website has an article about poetry that is being chanted in the streets of Tunisia and Egypt. (Thanks to the Daily Dish for alerting me to it.) It shows once again that language well used has the power to move mountains—or at any rate, to give historical players a firm place upon […]

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A Tiny Seed Can Save a Church

By Robin Bates | Published: February 6, 2011

Spiritual Sunday       Like many mainline Protestant churches, our little Episcopalian congregation in St. Mary’s City, Maryland is having money difficulties.  The expense of aging buildings plus a recession that wiped out much of our endowment has forced us to hold fairly continuous fundraisers to balance the budget.    People have become testy and […]

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A Champ on the Field, a Thug Elsewhere

By Robin Bates | Published: February 5, 2011

Sports Saturday Although it is a downer on the eve of Super Bowl Sunday, I can’t help but think of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger through the lens of Joyce Carol Oates’ terrifying short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” This is one reason I will be not be rooting for the […]

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Strangelove Somewhat Dated (Thank God!)

By Robin Bates | Published: February 4, 2011

Film Friday Recently, maybe on National Public Radio, I heard a story that struck me as marvelous: an American tourist was visiting underground Russian bomb shelters. What with improving relations, apparently the Russians no longer feel they need a place where their government officials can hide out for two weeks following a nuclear attack. The […]

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Chaucer and Hugh Hefner’s Wedding

By Robin Bates | Published: February 3, 2011

  Here’s a post that has been awaiting a moment when I thought this website could use a comic interlude. I’m not suggesting in any way that Hugh Hefner’s forthcoming marriage (check out Timothy Egan’s horrified response) is as newsworthy as, say, Egypt’s uprising (Monday’s post) or America’s problem with guns (yesterday’s post). But we […]

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Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Shoot, Shoot)

By Robin Bates | Published: February 2, 2011

Following the Columbine High School shootings, outrage against permissive gun laws led, not to tougher gun laws, but to pushback by the National Rifle Association.  The NRA went on to help George W. Bush squeak by Albert Gore in the 2000 elections and has since become so bold that the 2006 Congress was afraid to extend […]

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