Sports Saturday Negotiations between the National Football League owners and the Players Association were at an impasse. The owners locking out the players seemed all but inevitable, along with suspension of the 2011 season. Then the goddess Athena stepped in. Taking the form of U.S. District Judge David Doty, she ordered the two sides to […]
Tag Archives: Beowulf
Judge Doty in the Role of Deus ex Machina
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged blood feuds, Football, Homer, labor negotiation, Odyssey, Sports Comments closed
Lost Paradise Syndrome in Tucson
Spiritual Sunday As I teach Beowulf for the umpteenth time, I am struck once again by its beautiful rendition of the Genesis creation story. I’m also struck by how the invocation of that beauty calls forth human horror. Exploring the linkage provides some insight into the mass killings we have almost come to expect. The […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged John Milton, Paradise Lost, Religion, Tucson killings, violence Comments closed
Revenge, Understandable but Unhealthy
I’ve been talking a lot about rightwing anger this past year.Today I write about my own.It is an anger I try to keep hidden but that nevertheless washes over me from time to time, usually when I hear about some act of gross injustice where the perpetrator seems to escape scot-free. At such moments I […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Prayer for the Man Who Mugged My Father", Anger, Charles Webb, Poiitics Comments closed
Beowulf (the film): Fathering Monsters
Jolie as Grendel’s Mother Film Friday I’m teaching Beowulf at the moment and of course my class wants to know what I think of the movie, by which they mean Robert Zemeckis’s animated 2007 version rather than the 2005 Swedish film Beowulf and Grendel. Neither is very good but it’s interesting to see what each […]
Using Beowulf to Defend Lebron
Sports Saturday Lebron James has been taking a lot of heat recently for joining the Miami basketball team. (Did you catch the pun?) This past trading season was termed “the Lebron Sweepstakes,” and teams from around the country trekked to Cleveland to play court to “King James.” James made the occasion particularly gaudy by persuading […]
