Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

The House Speaker’s Théoden Moment

By Robin Bates | Published: April 22, 2024

House Speaker Mike Johnson had a Théoden moment when it came to Ukraine aid. I explore the parallels.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Congress, Donald Trump, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Michael Johnson, Ukraine, Ukraine aid | Leave a comment

Moscow’s Terror Attack and Big Brother

By Robin Bates | Published: March 28, 2024

Like Big Brother, Putin is attempting to change the facts of the Moscow terrorist attack to justify his political goals.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 1984, George Orwell, Moscow terror attack, Russo-Ukraine War | Comments closed

Alexei Navalny as Harry Potter?

By Robin Bates | Published: February 18, 2024

Some Russians saw Navalny, recently killed by Putin, as a Harry Potter “boy who lived.” That dream is gone but others live on.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "meeting after the savior gone", Alexi Navalny, authoritarianism, Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Lucille Clifton, Martin Luther King | Comments closed

Russia’s “Expendable” Invaders

By Robin Bates | Published: October 3, 2023

Russia’s invading army regards certain men as expendable. I am reminded of the shrews in the “Redwall” books by Jacques.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Brian Jacques, casualties of war, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Redwall, Ukraine invasion, war | Comments closed

The Light Brigade’s Charge & Wagner’s

By Robin Bates | Published: September 11, 2023

Does “Charge of the Light Brigade” glamorize senseless sacrifice. What would Russian soldiers in Ukraine think?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Crimean War, Plato, Republic, Ukraine invasion, Wagner mercenary group, war | Comments closed

Prigozhin Didn’t Take the Tide at the Flood

By Robin Bates | Published: June 27, 2023

Did Prigozhin disregard Brutus’s advice, failing to take the tide when it was at its flood? If so, he might come to regret it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Hamlet, Insurrection, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, unsuccessful coup, William Shakespeare, Yevgeny Prigozhin | Comments closed

Ukraine: What Would Leo and Fyodor Do?

By Robin Bates | Published: June 21, 2023

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy’s novels work as indictments of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Anna Karenina, Brothers Karamazov, Child Abuse, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Hadji Murat, Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, sadism, War and Peace | Comments closed

Just How Dangerous Is Fiction?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 2, 2022

Peter Brooks’s new book, “Seduced by Story,” raises the issue of fiction’s role in horrors.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged atrocities, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Peter Brooks, Russo-Ukrainian War | Comments closed

Russian Rockets and Male Insecurity

By Robin Bates | Published: October 10, 2022

Putin bombing Kyev is more about proving masculinity than conducting effective military strategy. It’s like Hitler’s V-2 rockets, as described in “Gravity’s Rainbow.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged bombs, Gravity's Rainbow, Russo-Ukrainian War, Thomas Pynchon | Comments closed