Tag Archives: politics

Chris Christie as “Boss” Willie Stark

By Robin Bates | Published: February 17, 2014

Chris Christie resembles Willie Stark in “All the King’s Men” in more than a few ways.

By Robin Bates | Published: January 31, 2014

Tom Perkins complaining about Nazi-like progressives resembles the dragon in “Beowulf.”

By Robin Bates | Published: January 15, 2014

Anthony Trollope shows us partisanship at its worst.

By Robin Bates | Published: January 13, 2014

Chris Christie has resorting to plausible deniability such as that discussed in Shakespeare’s “Richard II” and “Antony and Cleopatra.”

By Robin Bates | Published: November 22, 2013

Lucille Clifton’s poem on looks back to a time of hope–before the Kennedy assassination.

By Robin Bates | Published: November 11, 2013

William Carlos Williams has a poem that prompts us to see beyond immigrant stereotypes.

By Robin Bates | Published: October 16, 2013

Can the Tea Party move beyond fantasies and deal with the world as it really is? Shakespeare and Yeats weigh in.

By Robin Bates | Published: October 15, 2013

A witty bit of doggerel captures the twists and turns of the debt ceiling and government shutdown conflict.

By Robin Bates | Published: October 10, 2013

“A plague on both your houses” doesn’t work for Mercutio or for citizens today.