Photo taken by Ruth Caldwell (2009)
Immigrant Conditions Likened to Dante’s Inferno
“‘. . . The problem with Turkey must be made an international issue,’ Spyros Vougias, the deputy minister for public order, said in an e-mailed statement. Last month, Mr. Vougias ordered the closure of the Pagani center — a converted warehouse that had been housing 1,300 migrants — saying it was ‘worse than Dante’s inferno.'” [. . .] –Niki Kitsantonis, The New York Times, November 18, 2009
“Rogue American Woman”
“Of course, the subtitle of Sarah Palin’s book is ‘An American Life.’ Because she is the lovely avatar of real Americans — ordinary, hard-working, God-fearing, common-sense, good, ordinary, real Americans. If you are not living an American life, you are, to use a Palin coinage, living ‘bass-ackwards.’. . .
I approached reading her book with trepidation, worried I might learn that I am not a real American, dang it, just another dreaded, jaded ‘enlightened elite.’
I was born and live in Washington, D.C., after all. Now you’d think that this would be a rather patriotic city to call home, but Palin paints it as a cross between Sodom and Dante’s Fifth Circle.” [. . .] –Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, November 17, 2009
Margaret Visser, “The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude” (2009)
“. . .The Gift of Thanks is a scholarly, many-angled examination of what gratitude is and how it functions in our lives. Gratitude is a moral emotion of sorts, Ms. Visser writes, one that is more complicated and more vital than we think. Ms. Visser acknowledges that simple politeness is the grease that keeps society running and, conversely, how much hostility can build up among people when words like ‘thanks’ are not spoken.
In Dante’s Inferno, she observes, ‘at the bottommost circle of hell, the ungrateful are punished by being eternally frozen in the postures of deference they had failed to perform during their lifetimes: trapped rigid in enveloping ice, they stand erect or upside down, lie prone, or bow face to feet.’
In The Gift of Thanks, however, Ms. Visser is most interested in the kind of gratitude that is not compulsory or self-interested. She writes about the humility required to be genuinely grateful, and the essential ability to climb out of one’s own head.” [. . .] –Dwight Garner, The New York Times, November 17, 2009
Vladimir Kobekin, “Hamlet of the Danes, Russian Comedy” (2009)
“…Mr. Kobekin’s Hamlet of the Danes, Russian Comedy, is hardly a comedy, except perhaps — as the composer observed — as the word was used by the likes of Dante. Nor, apart from language, is it notably Russian. It is a brash re-telling of Shakespeare’s play in contemporary words” [. . .] –George Loomis, “Moscow’s Second Stage Revels in the Homegrown,” The New York Times, November 17, 2009
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