Monthly Archives: August 2021

Letting Others Clean Up Afghan Mess

By Robin Bates | Published: August 31, 2021

In Biden’s speech yesterday about withdrawing from Afghanistan, I half expected to hear him quote from “The Great Gatsby.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Afghan withdrawal, Afghanistan War, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby | Comments closed

How Novels Aided the World War I Effort

By Robin Bates | Published: August 30, 2021

During World War I, librarians sought to supported wounded men with fiction. Some preferred love stories to action adventure fiction.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bibliotherapy, Edgar Rice Burroughs, librarians, World War I, Zane Grey | Comments closed

Summer’s Over, Back to School

By Robin Bates | Published: August 29, 2021

The end of the Pooh books mourns the end of summer and the return to school.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "End of Summer", "Tables Turned", A. A. Milne, back to school, House on Pooh Corner, William Wordsworth | Comments closed

A Christian Attack on Toxic Masculinity

By Robin Bates | Published: August 28, 2021

In “Sir Charles Grandison,” Richardson attacks toxic masculinity in ways that feel very modern.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Clarissa, dueling, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Joseph Andrews, Northanger Abbey, Pamela, Samuel Richardson, Shamela, Sir Charles Grandison, Tom Jones, toxic masculinity | Comments closed

Aslan as Eco Warrior

By Robin Bates | Published: August 26, 2021

Lewis’s Aslan is a bold creative stroke that opens up environmental possibilities for Christianity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged animal rights, C. S. Lewis, climate change, Environmentalism, Imagination, John Gatta, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Magician's Nephew, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, theology | Comments closed

Anti-Maskers Seized by a Fury from Hell

By Robin Bates | Published: August 25, 2021

Anti-Maskers appear to have been infused by Allecto, the black fury from hell described in “Aeneid.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aeneid, anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, COVID-19, Trumpism, Virgil | Comments closed

Dr. Watson Returns from Afghanistan

By Robin Bates | Published: August 24, 2021

Dr. Watson is also a former Afghanistan War vet, with certain similarities to our own vets. The messy end of America’s involvement also recalls Kaye’s “Far Pavilions.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Birds of Afghanistan", Afghan withdrawal, Afghanistan, Arthur Conan Doyle, Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye, Scott Bates, Study in Scarlet | Comments closed

Frozen in the Ice of Indifference

By Robin Bates | Published: August 23, 2021

The difference between politicians who care and those who don’t is the difference between Dante’s Purgatory and Inferno.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Afghan withdrawal, American presidency, Dante, Donald Trump, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inferno, Joe Biden, Purgatorio | Comments closed

An Endless Game, an Endless War

By Robin Bates | Published: August 22, 2021

The Afghan War has been like the endless baseball game in Kinsella’s “Iowa Baseball Confederation.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries", A.E. Housman, Afghan War, Iowa Baseball Confederacy, W.P. Kinsella | Comments closed