Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Is John Kelly a Man for All Seasons?

By Robin Bates | Published: September 7, 2020

Trump’s derogatory comments about the military would have been overheard by Gen. Kelly, who has been silent. “Man for All Seasons” helps us understand the meaning of such silence.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged John Kelly, Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt, Trump and the military, U.S. military | Comments closed

Trump’s Shadows? The Nothing That Is

By Robin Bates | Published: September 2, 2020

Satirist Alexandra Petri uses a Wallace Stevens line to satirize Donald Trump’s conspiracy mongering.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Snow Man", conspiracy theories, projection, Wallace Stevens | Comments closed

Novels That Predicted a Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: August 30, 2020

Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here” and Roth’s “Plot against America” do a very good job of predicting a Donald Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged authoritarianism, Fascism, It Can't Happen Here, Plot against America, Sinclair Lewis | Comments closed

Obama: From Patience to Fury

By Robin Bates | Published: August 27, 2020

Dryden’s “beware the fury of a patient man” applies to the speech that Obama gave last week at the Democratic National Convention.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Absolom and Architophel, Barack Obama, cause of justice, Constitution, Democratic National Conference, John Dryden | Comments closed

The USPS and Conspiracy Theories

By Robin Bates | Published: August 26, 2020

As controversies swirl around the postal service, Pynchon’s “Crying of Lot 49” seems relevant. So does Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Crying of Lot 49, Emma, Eudora Welty, Jane Austen, Louis DeJoy, mail sabotage, Thomas Pynchon, U.S. Postal Service, Why I Live at the P.O. | Comments closed

Wanted: A Pragmatic Idealism

By Robin Bates | Published: August 18, 2020

In Ghosh’s first novel “Circle of Reason,” extreme rationality is shown to be blinkered and vulnerable. In the end, it must be blended with pragmatism, a good lesson for today’s politics.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Amitav Ghosh, Circle of Reason, Democratic Party, Idealism | Comments closed

Trump as Aesop’s Frog

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2020

Aesop’s fable of the frog and the ox, versified by La Fontaine and Scott Bates, applies only too well to Donald Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "F Is the Fable of the Frog and the Ox", "The Frog that Wished to Be as Big as an Ox", Aesop, Jean de la Fontaine, Scott Bates | Comments closed

Wanted: Teachers, Not Martyrs

By Robin Bates | Published: August 8, 2020

Some say teachers should, like soldiers, should put their lives on the line. This A.E. Housman poem brings up the question of whether even soldiers should do so when there sacrifice will be meaningless.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Here Dead We Lie", "I Have a Rendezvous with Death", "Soldier", "Strange Meeting", A. E. Housman, Alan Seeger, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Bertolt Brecht, COVID-19, Galileo, Rupert Brooke, school reopening, teachers, Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, Wilfred Owen | Comments closed

Memo to Teachers: Put Lives on Line

By Robin Bates | Published: August 6, 2020

Trumpian disrespect for school personnel–no special emphasis on safe reopening–brings to mind Kipling’s “Tommy.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Tommy", Betsy DeVos, COVID-19, Rudyard Kipling, school reopening | Comments closed