Monthly Archives: August 2015

Trollope on Conservatives vs. Liberals

Anthony Trollope has wise things to say about the differences between conservatives and liberals in “Prime Minister.”

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Political Commentary’s Most Cited Poem

The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne has called Yeats’s “The Second Coming” the most cited poem in political commentary. Yeats may set up a false dichotomy between “passionate intensity” and “lack of conviction,” however.

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ISIS and the Grand Inquisitor

Dostoevsky may provide a compelling explanation for the recruiting success of ISIS: young people want to escape from freedom.

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Herbert & Bronte on Spiritual Restlessness

St. Augustine, George Herbert, and Charlotte Bronte all write about spiritual restlessness.

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Trump, Lucille Clifton, & Menstruation

Donald Trump assumed that Fox’s Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she aggressively asked him questions. Aside from his sexism, we should listen to Lucille Clifton, who points out how impressively women function even when they are having their periods.

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A Tolstoy Fable about Radical Empathy

Tolstoy’s story “Esarhaddon” captures a common wish fulfillment of the powerless–that the oppressor see the world through the eyes of the oppressed.

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Attn: English Majors–Business Needs You

Increasingly businesses are discovering that they need employees who have majored in English and the humanities.

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Fox, Like Odysseus, Tries to Gouge Trump

A Salon columnist compares Trump to the Cyclops in “The Odyssey.” He has a point.

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Queasy about Bodies Used for Medicine

The sting videos by anti-abortion activists are designed to shock. But being shocked by the use of dead bodies for medical research is nothing new, as seen in the grave robbing scene in “Tom Sawyer.”

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