Tag Archives: George Orwell

Satire lets us laugh at our politics

Satire. It is one of the most powerful tools in politics. After all, governing is serious business; laws are implicitly and explicitly backed by the threat of force. When humor is brought to the intellectual battlefield, it diminishes the stature of the satirist’s opponent. For millennia, it has been part of western social discourse. Literary scholars […]

Back to school with Harrison Bergeron

School is back in session. For students throughout Maine, that means sports, homework, and, yes, reading assignments. Some of those books will be a slog to get through — I still don’t get “Catcher in the Rye” — while others will stick with them through the years. One such story is “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt […]