Tag Archives: COVID-19

Forster Predicted Our Zoom Existence

By Robin Bates | Published: December 16, 2020

In his 1909 novella “The Machine Stops,” E.M. Forster all be predicts the internet, Zoom, and Facebook, along with their downsides.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged E. M. Forster, Internet, Machine Stops, Zoom | Comments closed

Finding Strength in a Time of Covid

By Robin Bates | Published: December 14, 2020

Robinson Jeffers offers a poem that reminds us of spiritual resources available to us in these dark days.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Answer", Adonais, American Dream, death and dying, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robinson Jeffers | Comments closed

Austen-Like Dating During Covid

By Robin Bates | Published: December 13, 2020

Covid is disrupting our dating lives but may as a result have an up-side. Kundera, John Fowles, and Jane Austen explain.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged French Lieutenant's Woman, Jane Austen, John Fowles, Milan Kundera, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Relationships, sexuality, Slowness | Comments closed

Trump Finds Covid Victims a Nuisance

By Robin Bates | Published: November 17, 2020

Trump focusing on his own misery while ignoring the millions suffering from Covid is comparable to the French marquis in “Tale of Two Cities.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charles Dickens, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Tale of Two Cities | Comments closed

Scott Atlas, a Fieldingesque Quack

By Robin Bates | Published: October 22, 2020

Fielding’s jabs at quack doctors in “Tom Jones” are suddenly relevant again given Trump’s approach to the pandemic.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Center for Disease Control, Deborah Birx, Donald Trump, Henry Fielding, quack doctors, Robert Redfield, Scott Atlas, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Scott Atlas’s Miracle Covid Cure

By Robin Bates | Published: October 20, 2020

Radiologist Scott Atlas has Trump’s ear about Covid, with disastrous implications. Perhaps he thinks he’s Charles Atlas or the Atlas in “Atlas Shrugged.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Bull", "Elegy Charles Atlas", Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Donald Trump, Jack Driscoll, Ralph Hodgson, Scott Atlas | Comments closed

Trump & Covid: Tragedy or Farce?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2020

Was the Rose Garden event for Trump’s new SCOTUS pick–which became a Covid superspreader event–a Shakespearean tragedy? How about a farce?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Game of Thrones, George Martin, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Masque of the Red Death, Richard III, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Spying, in Austen and at Colleges

By Robin Bates | Published: September 24, 2020

In “Northanger Abbey,” Tilney startles us with his use of the word “spies.” Spying has become one means that universities are using to combat Covid outbreaks.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Covid protocols, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Sewanee, spying | Comments closed

How to Overlook 200,000 Deaths

By Robin Bates | Published: September 21, 2020

Donne’s “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” captures why America might be overlooking 200,000 deaths at the moment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", climate change, Covid deaths, Donald Trump, John Donne | Comments closed