Streep and Kline in Sophie’s Choice A recent survey of the Tea Party movement has revealed that the movement is overwhelmingly white, educated, middle class and conservative, and people are now studying what it all means. I love this post Ta-Tehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic. As occurs in the world of the […]
Tag Archives: politics
Uncomfortable Books that Help Us Grow
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aruhdhati Roy, Diversity, Emily Bronte, God of Small Things, Human Stain, Native Son, Philip Roth, racism, Richard Wright, Sophie's Choice, Tea Party, William Styron, Wuthering Heights Comments closed
Republicans Need a Shakespearean Fool
William Dyce, “King Lear and the Fool in the Storm” (1851) There’s been a lot of talk about bubbles in recent years. Tiger Woods’ bubble, which cut him off from his fellow human beings, may have led to some of his self-destructive behavior. The Vatican has been living within a bubble for a while, unable […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged King Lear, Republican Party, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Hollywood’s Secret: We Can Have it All
Film Friday In my Film Genre class I’ve just been teaching Meet Me in St. Louis, the 1944 musical where Judy Garland, prior to her family leaving their beloved home to move to New York, sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” The film sent me back to a book that has been instrumental in […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged American identity, Meet Me in St. Louis, Populism, Vincente Minnelli Comments closed
Remembering the West Virginia Miners
Ma, Tom, and Pa Joad in John Ford’s Grapes of Wrath I don’t know a lot about the details of the Massey coal mining accident that killed 29 miners in West Virginia last week, but, from what I’ve been able to make out, it was a non-union mine owned by a heavily fined company that […]
Purity Tests Kill the Patient
This is following up on an idea I inferred yesterday, that our delight in white cherry tree blossoms indicates a deep longing for innocence. I suggested that we have more of a problem than do the Japanese (or at least certain Japanese connoisseurs) over the fact that this innocence will fade. Wanting to grab on to innocence […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Abortion, Birthmark, Conservatives, Environmentalism, Extremism, Nathaniel Hawthorne Comments closed
How to Respond to Tea Party Rage
Leslie Marmon Silko This week we celebrate both Passover and Easter, and the world, as it was during the original Passover meal and then again when Jesus celebrated it under Roman rule, is still filled with rage. The weekend newspapers were filled with stories of Tea Party anger, which is being directed at the recent […]
Republican Invective and King Lear
One of the memorable moments in the history of the U.S. Congress occurred in 1954 when Joseph Welch, head counsel for the United States Army, found one of his young lawyers being attacked by Joseph McCarthy. The turning point in the hearings occurred when Welch said forthrightly, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Democrats, King Lear, Republicans, Rhetoric, William Shakespeare Comments closed
