Monthly Archives: August 2017

Could a Bestseller Help Defense Sec?

Secretary of Defense James Mattis is a voracious reader, and a novel he mentions liking is M. M. Kaye’s “Far Pavilions.” The work explores how to deal with inept leadership, which may be important to him in his current situation.

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School under the Sea: Reeling, Writhing…

To welcome teachers and students back to school, here’s a description of education under the sea, as experienced by Lewis Carroll’s Gryphon and Mock Turtle.

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Crashing against the Debt Ceiling

If the GOP Congress members don’t soon come to their senses, we will have a debt ceiling crisis. For a visual image, picture a giant Alice in the White Rabbit’s small house.

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Trump as Raskolnikov

Is Trump as Raskolnikov, unable to hide the fact that he’s committed a crime so that a relentless detective is able to track him down. But while Mueller may be a Porfiry, Trump isn’t deep enough to be a Dostoevskian hero.

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Transfiguration: I Saw a Tree inside a Tree

Here’s a Christian Wiman poem for Transfiguration Poem that gets at those moments when the veil is momentarily lifted and we see into the life of things.

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The Synergy between Statue and Poem

Senior White House aide tried Wednesday to separate the Statue of Liberty from Emma Lazarus’s poem. He wasn’t entirely wrong but he was more wrong than right.

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Nazis and the Classics

Do the classics make us better people. F. R. Leavis thinks so while Terry Eagleton disagrees and cites as an example concentration camp commandants who read Goethe.

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Trump as Miss Havisham

Frank Bruni compares Donald Trump to Miss Havisham, forever fixated on November 8 before the rose lost its bloom. The GOP would do well to break free as Pip does.

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Trump as Alpha Dog Wannabe

A recent “National Review” article says that Donald Trump is like those young men who watch “Glengarry Glen Ross” and fantasize about being the alpha dogs portrayed there.

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