Monthly Archives: May 2016

Time for GOP Moderates To Go to Ground?

By Robin Bates | Published: May 9, 2016

As the GOP reels in the wake of Trump’s victory, it might want to model itself on Edgar in “King Lear.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Donald Trump, King Lear, politics, Presidential Primaries, Republican moderates, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Now, Gods, Stand Up for Trump!

By Robin Bates | Published: May 8, 2016

When traditional institutions like the government or the Supreme Court are undermined, the way is cleared for the rise of liar like Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged delegitimization, Donald Trump, GOP, John Roberts, King Lear, politics, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Offer Healing to Every House You Enter

By Robin Bates | Published: May 7, 2016

Mother’s Day this year has taken on special meaning as my 94-year-old mother-in-law passed away yesterday. This Julia Kasdorf poem captures what Jeanette Miksch passed along to my own Julia.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "What I Learned from My Mother"' death and dying, Julia Kasdorf, Mothers | Comments closed

The Unbearable Lightness of Donald Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: May 5, 2016

Czech author Milan Kundera warned about how dictatorships thrive off of our forgetting. In a “Rolling Stone” article, Charlie Pierce argues that forgetting has led to the rise of Donald Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Donald Trump, forgetting, GOP, history, Milan Kundera, politics, Presidential Primaries, remembering, Unbearable Lightness of Being | Comments closed

Hillary & the Pressure To Be a Cool Girl

By Robin Bates | Published: May 4, 2016

Understanding the popularity of Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” amongst young women helps explain the mixed feelings about Hillary Clinton. She’s not a “cool girl.” But this is actually good.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cool girls, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Hillary Clinton, Jeff Lindsay, Psycho, Robert Bloch, Sarah Palin, Sexism, Sexual Politics, Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris | Comments closed

Trump and Gazing into the Abyss

By Robin Bates | Published: May 3, 2016

Ted Cruz said that, if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, we would be gazing into the abyss. For what this would be like, I turn to Milton, an expert on abysses.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Donald Trump, John Milton, Paradise Lost, politics, Presidential Primaries, Ted Cruz | Comments closed

In Memory of Daniel Berrigan

By Robin Bates | Published: May 2, 2016

Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit activist and poet, died this past Saturday. His “A Dark Word” is a fitting way to note his passing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Dark Word", analysis, Daniel Berrigan, death and dying, John Donne, Meditation 17 | Comments closed

Ted Cruz as Lucifer, “Squat Like a Toad”

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2016

After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bram Stoker, Dracula, Henry Fielding, John Boehner, John Milton, Julius Caesar, Lucifer, Paradise Lost, Peter King, politics, Presidential Primaries, Satan, Senate, Ted Cruz, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare | Comments closed