Thursday Yesterday I attended a Grundy County event looking back at Tennessee’s raid 60 years ago on Highlander Educational and Research Center, an instrumental player in the civil rights movement. While we relived those days—although I was only eight, my father took me to meet director Myles Horton—current co-director Ash-Lee Henderson reminded us that Highlander […]
Monthly Archives: July 2019
Pakistani Girl Saved by “Little Women”
Wednesday NPR has done it again. Ira Glass’s recent This American Life episode about a classic novel coming to someone’s rescue reminds me of Morning Edition’s account of Anna Karenina doing the same for an unjustly imprisoned Somali prisoner. (See my account here.) The radio program reported on how Little Women came to the aid […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Feminism, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, Pakistani women, patriarchy Comments closed
What Trump Means by Infestation
Tuesday Following Donald Trump’s latest racist tirade, this one targeting Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings and his “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” of a Baltimore district, I’m reposting an essay I wrote a year ago May. At the time, commentators had begun noticing that Trump frequently opts for images of infestation when talking about brown […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Donald Trump, Elijah Cummings, images of infestation, Lucille Clifton, racism Comments closed
I Must Arise and Go There
Monday Listening to the humming of our hummingbirds the other day, I thought of Yeats’s reference in “The Lake Isle of Inisfree” to linnet wings. I don’t think we have linnets in America and I can’t imagine that they make any sound at all, much less hummingbird buzzing. Still, Yeats conjures up images of feathery […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Lake Isle of Innisfree", hummingbirds, summer, William Butler Yeats Comments closed
Eyes Welded Shut by Mortal Pain
Spiritual Sunday Today’s Old Testament lesson, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is catnip to hellfire and brimstone preachers, who use it as a parable for what they regard at the modern world’s sinful ways. I find deeply problematic, however, the idea that a city is so unredeemable that every man, woman and child must […]
My Mixed John Galsworthy Feelings
Friday Listening to John Galsworthy’s Maid-In Waiting on disk, I’ve been thrown into a welter of identity confusion. I strongly identify with the gentry’s commitment to duty, even as I am turned off by their classism and racism. I root for them to succeed, even as I wince. Liberal and conservative impulses war within me. […]
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Mueller Demythologized
Thursday I’ve written a lot about people’s hopes in Robert Mueller, which helps explain the palpable disappointment in his performance yesterday before two Congressional committees. From one perspective, there’s no reason to feel let down. After all, his report exposed one of the great scandals in American history: our president welcomed and encouraged Russian election […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "In the Pine Woods Crows and Owl", Arthur Conan Doyle, Crime and Punishment, David Lodge, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jean Renoir, Mueller Report, Robert Mueller, Rules of the Game, Russia investigation, Sherlock Holmes, Small World Comments closed
Cather’s Story Is America’s Story
Wednesday Conservative NeverTrumper Bret Stephens, with whom I seldom agree, has written a New York Times column that could have appeared in Better Living through Beowulf. In other words, Donald Trump is prompting even inveterate foes to make common cause. In this case, the issue is immigration. As Stephens sees it, Willa Cather’s My Antonia […]
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Watching Over the American Dream
Tuesday The one silver lining in our Trump-induced nightmare is that we are called upon to reaffirm our faith in the American ideal. No longer can we take the Declaration of Independence or The Constitution for granted. At the New York Times, conservative NeverTrumpers have been turning to American classics to define true Americanism. Today […]
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