The novella Clockwork Orange captures the process of fascist conditioning, such as we are seeing carried out by Putin on swatches of the GOP.
Author Archives: Robin Bates
Does Clockwork Orange Describe Us?
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Anthony Burgess, Clockwork Orange, Fascism, Night of the Long Knives, Russian talking points, Vladimir Putin Comments closed
Trump, Stormy, and The Waste Land
The Stormy Daniels-Trump encounter resembles the sordid sex scene found in T.S. Eliot’s “Waste Land.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Donald Trump, Manhattan election interference trial, Stormy Daniels, T.S. Eliot, Waste Land Comments closed
He Took Us with Him to the Heart of Things
Poet’s writing about the Ascension often focus on our tangled lives.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Ascension", "Crown: Ascension", "Sonnet for Ascension Day", Henry Vaughan, John Donne, Malcolm Guite, Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth Comments closed
A May Sarton Poem for Mother’s Day
A poetic reminder, by May Sarton, to remember the good times we spent with our mothers
Jane Eyre, Teacher of the Month
To honor teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week, I look at teaching as it occurs in “Jane Eyre” and “Villette.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, teachers and teaching, Villette Comments closed
On Gulliver and Biden Putting Out Fires
Disagreeable measures used to combat Covid were like Gulliver pissing on a palace fire to save the structure.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Covid, Covid masking, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, satire, vaccines Comments closed
On Comedy, Seinfeld, and Tom Jones
Seinfeld has complained that wokeness is ruining comedy. Similar complains show up in Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Brian Boone, Henry Fielding, Humor, political correctness, Seinfeld, Tom Jones, wokeness Comments closed
The Founders vs. Dostoyevsky’s Inquisitor
Christian nationalists have the same objections to democracy that Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor has to Christ’s vision.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged American Revolution, Brothers Karamazov, Christian nationalism, Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump, founding fathers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Robert Kagan Comments closed
This Is the Time of Loves
As we are still in the Easter season, here’s a Christina Rossetti carol that captures the joy.
