Monthly Archives: August 2023

MAGA & Regeneration thru Violence

By Robin Bates | Published: August 21, 2023

MAGA’s increasingly violent rhetoric fits a long American tradition of regeneration through violence.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged MAGA, Paul Waldman, Political violence, Regeneration through Violence, Richard Slotkin | Comments closed

In Soccer, MAGA Rooted against Casey

By Robin Bates | Published: August 20, 2023

When it comes to American women’s soccer, the American right has been rooting for Casey to strike out.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Casey at the Bat", Baseball, Ernest L. Thayer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Soccer, USNWT, World Cup | Comments closed

A Moses Poem for a Lost Child

By Robin Bates | Published: August 19, 2023

Mourning her dead child, this writer chose to read a poem echoing the infant Moses story.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Cargoes", "Jabberwocky", "Late Fragment", "Moses", "Sonnet 29", "Taking Care", "Theme in Yellow", Calista Buchen, Carl Sandburg, child's death, death and dying, John Masefield, Lewis Carroll, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Raymon Carver, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Belarus Bans 19th Century Poet

By Robin Bates | Published: August 17, 2023

Belarus, fearing revolt against its authoritarian leader, has banned a key 19th century Belarusian poet.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Adam Mickiewicz, Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus, Pan Tadeusz, Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich | Comments closed

Bluest Eye and Ohio’s Abortion Politics

By Robin Bates | Published: August 16, 2023

Morison’s “Bluest Eye” functions as an implicit rebuke of the Ohio legislature’s attack on abortion.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abortion politics, Bluest Eye, Fundamentalism, Toni Morrison | Comments closed

Fani Willis’s Big Baggy Monster

By Robin Bates | Published: August 15, 2023

The Georgia Trump indictment is like a “big baggy monster” whereas Jack Smith’s narrower indictment is like a Flaubert novel.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Charles Dickens, Donald, Fani Willis, Georgia Trump indictment, Henry James, January 6 insurrection, Leo Tolstoy, Percy Lubbock, Trump | Comments closed

“Beowulf” on Why Demagogues Arise

By Robin Bates | Published: August 14, 2023

A recent study says sorrow as much as anger led to the rise of Trump. But Beowulf teaches us that the two are related (Grendel and Grendel’s mother).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Anger, Beowulf, demagoguery, populist politicians | Comments closed

New Monument Protected against Witchery

By Robin Bates | Published: August 13, 2023

The new Ancestral Footprints National Monument closes the land to uranium mining. Leslie Marmon Silko should be glad.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ancestral Footprints National Monument, atomic bomb, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, Ceremony, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Joe Biden, Leslie Marmon Silko, uranium mining, witchery, World War II | Comments closed

On Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne

By Robin Bates | Published: August 12, 2023

Cohen’s “Suzanne” is a poem about spiritual searching.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Suzanne", Jesus, Leonard Cohen, Spiritual Searching | Comments closed