LETTERS

Confined to the first circle of hell?

Posted 9/28/23

To the Editor,

After reading Mark Patinkin's excellent Providence Journal column complimenting the Rhode Island Airport Corporation's outstanding ad that disparages Boston's Logan Airport with …

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LETTERS

Confined to the first circle of hell?

Posted

To the Editor,

After reading Mark Patinkin's excellent Providence Journal column complimenting the Rhode Island Airport Corporation's outstanding ad that disparages Boston's Logan Airport with advice to air travelers to "forget about all the B.S @ BOS (Ouch! T.F. Green ad takes a bite out of Boston, 9/24, 2A), I felt compelled to revisit Dante's Inferno referenced by Patinkin.  

Lo and Behold! Who did I find in Dante's 8th Circle of Hell? None other than Donald Trump.

Dante's Inferno has nine rings. Within the eighth ring, the Mlebolge (Evil Pockets), are ten bolgie, or ditches of stone. Within these bolgie are the fraudulent, those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil.

There in the fourth bolgia, reserved for sorcerers and false prophets, I found the future Donald Trump. He wallows there with his head twisted backward, crying so many tears that he cannot see. He and his fellow fourth bolgia residents suffer retribution for the delusions they concocted that led their followers to their own peril.

Patinkin posits that if Dante could try flying out of Logan Airport, he would add a tenth circle of hell to include the "B.S. @ BOS."  Good, moderate conservatives, on the other hand, believe that Donald Trump has so egregiously deceived his followers--deceit that will once again cause conservatives to lose Congress in 2024--he will one day occupy a prominent place in Dante's eighth circle of hell.

Many of Trump's more ardent advocates will be in the eighth circle beside him. The rest of us will continue to suffer in the first circle of hell (Limbo) reserved for the non-believing but virtuous who forever grieve the hopelessness that our country will ever find reconciliation.

Lonnie Barham
Warwick

Barham, a retired Army Colonel, has voted Republican most of his adult life.

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