Monthly Archives: September 2016

Twain Anticipated Trump’s Crazy Talk

By Robin Bates | Published: September 8, 2016

Donald Trump is popular with certain fans not despite but because of his outrageousness. Mark Twain has a humorous piece, “The Presidential Candidate,” that captures how much fun such outrageousness can be.

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i sing of Kaepernick glad and big

By Robin Bates | Published: September 7, 2016

The case of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick not standing for the national anthem brings to mind E. E. Cummings’s “i sing of Olaf,” where an American conscientious objector refuses to honor the flag and is tortured.

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Schlafly, Model for Atwood’s Serena Joy

By Robin Bates | Published: September 6, 2016

Recently deceased Phyllis Schlafly served as the model for Serena Joy in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “Handmaid’s Tale.” Because Serena Joy gets the society she says she wants, however, her life turns bitter. Schlafly was lucky to live in a society that allowed women to have their own careers.

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Reflections on Art for Art’s Sake

By Robin Bates | Published: September 5, 2016

The art for art’s sake movement buoyed Oscar Wilde in the 1890s, but it’s not a philosophy that works well in every age.

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Work Makes Us Soar, Money Not So Much

By Robin Bates | Published: September 4, 2016

In her novel “Leaps fo Faith,” Rachel Kranz helps us understand what work means to us. Citing Marx, she notes that work helps us express our essence but that, when it becomes part of the cash nexus, we find ourselves alienated from it.

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The Singing of a Flute Came from the Sea

By Robin Bates | Published: September 3, 2016

Summer, with its memories of water and sun, may be ending, but this Frithjof Schuon reminds us that the real summer is within.

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Satanic Trump Unleashing Dark Forces

By Robin Bates | Published: September 1, 2016

When Donald Trump excited the alt-right with his Wednesday night speech promising to deport all undocumented immigrants, he reminded me of Milton’s Satan inspiring Sin and Death after engineering the Fall.

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