Monthly Archives: September 2019

Dramatic Irony & a Medical Emergency

By Robin Bates | Published: September 30, 2019

As I followed the ambulance taking my mother to the emergency room, I saw myself playing a scene from Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone.”

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A Serene Way to Deal with Chaos

By Robin Bates | Published: September 29, 2019

Scott Bates’s humorous fable “The Contented Weed” offers a serene way to handle everything that life throws at us.

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Let My Words Turn into Sparks

By Robin Bates | Published: September 28, 2019

In this Marge Piercy Rosh Hashanah poem, the poet asks how she has contributed to peace.

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T. S. Eliot on Resisting Tyrants

By Robin Bates | Published: September 26, 2019

Columnist Gerson invokes “Murder in the Cathedral” to predict the impeachment of Donald Trump.

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Trump Tries for a Deal You Can’t Refuse

By Robin Bates | Published: September 25, 2019

In the Trump-

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Standing Up to a Bully President

By Robin Bates | Published: September 24, 2019

Pelosi standing up to Trump with an impeachment inquiry is reminiscent of Jane Eyre standing up to her bullying cousin John Reid.

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Nothing Hidden about Trump’s Crimes

By Robin Bates | Published: September 23, 2019

Trump has been caught red-handed wielding government power to attack an opponent. Borges helps us understand why the outcry isn’t louder.

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Downton’s Servants Put to the Test

By Robin Bates | Published: September 22, 2019

A scene from the recent “Downton Abbey” echoes a highly comic scene in “She Stoops to Conquer.” Luckily for all involved, it goes in a different direction.

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The Leaves Are Falling

By Robin Bates | Published: September 21, 2019

Rilke says that, like the leaves, we all are falling. But “there is one who holds this falling/endlessly gently in his hands.”

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