Category Archives: Uncategorized

Channel Your Inner Gandalf

By Robin Bates | Published: July 27, 2025

Gandalf challenges the allied forces to stand tall against Sauron. Don’t underestimate such principled stands.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 26, 2025

It’s no surprise to learn to Malcolm Guite’s love George Herbert. Both poets grapple with doubts and fears and use poetry to reconnect with God.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 24, 2025

Hammett’s “Red Harvest” is an autocratic fantasy that has little basis in reality—but it still guides some people who support Trump.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 23, 2025

I reflect on Stockmann’s “you should never wear your best trousers when you fight for freedom and truth” in Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People.”

By Robin Bates | Published: July 22, 2025

Gawande’s “Being Mortal,” which looks at how we die, makes good use of Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”

By Robin Bates | Published: July 21, 2025

In “Mysterious Stranger,” Twain calls upon us to laugh at autocrats—even when it gets us in trouble, as it did Late Night’s Stephen Colbert.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 20, 2025

An uplifting Alison Luterman poem about our migrant communities, which in spite of all Trump can do refuse to be defeated.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 19, 2025

In Kipling’s “The Sons of Martha,” the speaker channels Martha’s resentment against her sister Mary, who chooses to sit at Jesus’s feet.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 17, 2025

Superman has anti-fascist roots, as Chabon explains in his novel “Kavalier and Clay.”