Tag Archives: politics

Satanic Fury from the Freedom Caucus

The Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives has been behaving like Satan in “Paradise Lost.” They would be advised to see what happens to Milton’s anti-hero.

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Hillary before Judges Like Tolstoy’s Pierre

The Congressional Committee to Investigate Benghazi is like the military tribunal in “War and Peace” that questions Pierre. It is interested only in answers to lead to conviction.

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Misusing Metaphor in the Abortion Debates

Both sides are misusing metaphor in the abortion debates. If we want a deeper vision of reality, we must turn to literature.

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Tolstoy and Climate Change Denial

The denial of the citizens of Moscow as Napoleon approaches the city, described by Tolstoy in “War in Peace,” resembles climate change denialism.

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The GOP Debate & the Ox-Frog Fable

Last night’s GOP debate often reminded me of the fable of the ox and the frog, with people trying to puff themselves up with hardline positions to impress voters. Here’s a Scott Bates version of the fable.

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Trump as Frankenstein’s Monster

What is it about Donald Trump that brings out the literary analogies? First a Salon columnist compared him to Odysseus’s Cyclops, then the New Yorker’s John Cassidy saw him as Gulliver, and most recently Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and others have compared him to Frankenstein’s monster. I’ve written about the Cyclops parallel here, but let’s take […]

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Trollope on Conservatives vs. Liberals

Anthony Trollope has wise things to say about the differences between conservatives and liberals in “Prime Minister.”

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Political Commentary’s Most Cited Poem

The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne has called Yeats’s “The Second Coming” the most cited poem in political commentary. Yeats may set up a false dichotomy between “passionate intensity” and “lack of conviction,” however.

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Trump, Lucille Clifton, & Menstruation

Donald Trump assumed that Fox’s Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she aggressively asked him questions. Aside from his sexism, we should listen to Lucille Clifton, who points out how impressively women function even when they are having their periods.

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