Monthly Archives: December 2016

Murakami: Don’t Be a Sheep

By Robin Bates | Published: December 20, 2016

Murakami’s “Wild Sheep Chase” is a modern parable that has important lessons for confronting authoritarian regimes. That’s the lesson one of my Bernie supporters took from it. Another student used it to support his decision to come out.

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There’s More to Christmas Than We Think

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2016

When fundamentalist Christians say that there is a war on Christmas, they point to secular and pagan threats. But many of the symbols they embrace are borrowed from other religions traditions, as this Scott Bates poem makes clear.

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Must Dreamers “Hibernate” Again?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2016

Ellison’s Invisible Man must retreat to a hole–or, as he calls it, hibernate–after getting banged around by reality. With Trump as president, will the Dreamers and others who benefitted from Obama’s prosecutorial discretion have to hibernate as well, returning back to the shadows?

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The New Moon, A Prayer Opening to Faith

By Robin Bates | Published: December 17, 2016

In a powerful Advent poem, David Whyte compares waning faith with the waning moon. The poem reminds me of poems by John Keats and Lucille Clifton.

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For the Final, We Shall Be Tested on Love

By Robin Bates | Published: December 15, 2016

Thomas Centolella applies the language of testing to love in this witty and moving poem.

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Harry Potter Stole My Child

By Robin Bates | Published: December 14, 2016

Young Adult Fiction like “Harry Potter,” “Perks of Being a Wall Flower,” “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” sometimes threaten parents because they empower children and conjure up visions of them abandoning family values as they enter a secular society.

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Invisible Man & Lolita Changed the ’50s

By Robin Bates | Published: December 13, 2016

Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and Nabokov’s “Lolita” both challenged basic 1950s assumptions. The former changed public perceptions on what it meant to be black while the latter violated a tacit agreement not to go digging under neatly manicured lawns bordered by white picket fences.

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Neil Gaiman and the Pipeline Protests

By Robin Bates | Published: December 12, 2016

In “American Gods,” Neil Gaiman warns that Americans are doomed if we don’t make spiritual connection with the land. The protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline are making the same argument.

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McConnell as Moriarty, Trump as Figaro

By Robin Bates | Published: December 11, 2016

Mitch McConnell is proving himself to be a veritable Moriarty in his ability to weave devious plots to get his way. Trump, by contrast, is more a trickster figure a la Figaro or Mac the Knife.

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