I got a new computer for my home office last week, moved the old one to the kitchen so my wife and son could use it without my standing behind them impatiently waiting for them to get out of my way so I could put up a blog post or edit one or check my e-mail. Had a hell of a time getting a strong wireless signal to the kitchen so my wife could surf online with reasonable speed. I bought a Linksys range expander, which knocked my wireless off of the Internet entirely, and it took a long phone call with their tech support to finally get the connections to work properly. Now the signal is very good and my wife can upload photos to Shutterfly without any problems, and I have a new computer all to myself. Life is good.

And so is Vista. I was reluctant to get a computer running Vista — I’d heard the complaints, seen the Mac ads. I know some people hate PCs. And Microsoft. And I’m sure that Macs are good. Everyone I know who has one likes it. But Macs are expensive. It would have cost me two to three times what I spent on my new computer to get a decent Mac. Maybe more. And I don’t do major video editing or graphic design. I barely use the functionality of my PC in these areas. I had no need for a Mac. I could use the money for other things. Like pizza. [Read more →]

Tags: technophoria // 1 Comment »

I didn’t vote for Barrack Obama.

While I am not a fan of President-elect Obama’s politics, I — am — a realist. Since it became obvious to me last summer that Mr. Obama was going to win the election, I have been nursing the hope that his victory would have a profound effect on the issue of race relations in this country. The elevation of a black man, in an open and free election, to the highest office in this land and, indeed, one of the most powerful positions in the world, is a clear indication of how far we have come.

While it would be foolish to expect the ripples from this election to be felt so soon, it is human nature to hope. The deafening silence from renowned race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over the last few months has fed those hopes.

All is not sugar and spice, however. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture // 1 Comment »

One day in November 1973 I was sitting on a Metroliner bound for D.C. I had bought a copy of Newsweek at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, but didn’t even open it because I wanted to finish the book I was reading. This was In My Own Way, the autobiography of Alan Watts, which had come out the previous year

I finished the book, stared out the window for a while, then picked up the magazine — and discovered that Alan Watts had died some days earlier. It was an odd experience, if only because, in the prose I had just been reading, Watts had seemed so very much alive.

I suppose a thrice-married, former Episcopal priest with a drinking problem (”I don’t like myself when I’m sober,” he told a friend) could be regarded as a dubious choice for a guide to religion, but I continue to think that much of what Watts had to say on the subject is worth paying heed to.

In an essay called “The World’s Most Dangerous Book,” for instance, he says something that is very worth pondering. Belief, he says, is “holding to a rock.” Faith, on the other hand, is “learning how to swim.” (By the way, the book referred to in the essay’s title is called the Bible.) [Read more →]

Tags: that's what he said, by Frank Wilson, truth (or something) // 1 Comment »

It was the common grilled cheese dilemma. As with most fried foods, if the temperature is too high, the bread will burn while the sandwich’s contents remain cold. If the temperature is too low, well, it takes forever to cook. I wasn’t in the mood to wait.

It was New Year’s Eve and I had stayed home to work on this sandwich. I cooked with maximum efficiency. While I sliced the onion, mushroom, and tomato, the first piece of bread and slices of American were already in the pan. [Read more →]

Tags: recipes & food, truth (or something) // Add Comment »

In the first comment on Jeff Scheuer’s excellent post “Shall we overcome?“, reader Henry Pelifian implies that Governor Blagojovich’s corruption is not a big deal and that his crime amounts to essentially just “loose and foolish talk” because, after all, “[g]oing to war with loose and foolish talk by elected officials is all right politically.” You see, goes the logic (as far as I understand it), since no one seems to care about the foolish and loose talk by President George W. Bush that led to war, and since Bush did something far worse than Blagojovich, we shouldn’t make a big deal over what Blagojovich did.

In a comment on a conversation between Paula Marantz Cohen and Robert Anthony Watts called “Political entitlement — liberal hypocrisy,” in which our dynamic duo discusses the propriety of giving Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat to Caroline Kennedy, reader Ari writes, “I think we’ve got a long way to go before liberals come anywhere near the cronyism of the Bush administration…”

These are only two examples from this site, but I have been seeing this sort of thing elsewhere — in blog comment sections and other op-eds — and maybe you have, too. Apparently, Bush is so dishonest and corrupt and Republicans are so dishonest and corrupt, no liberal or Democrat politician can commit any crime or be corrupt or improper, because whatever they do, it isn’t as bad as what Bush did.

Let us grant for argument’s sake that Bush is guilty of whatever misdeeds, motives, and lies that are attributed to him. The corruption or even downright evil of one politician, or one political administration, does not remotely excuse corruption by other politicians. Democrats, if you want to change the political culture (we heard a lot about change in recent months), the way to do it is not to ignore or excuse corruption in your own party by noting that sure, it isn’t good, but at least it’s better than the Republicans or Bush.

Leaving Bush out of it, there will almost always be some historical (recent or otherwise) example of political corruption and even evil that is worse than whatever is in the news that week. But “not as bad as” whatever is the worst example you can find is hardly something to aspire to. You’ve won the election, guys. It isn’t about Bush anymore. Your politicians must stand on their own accomplishments, policies, and integrity and be judged by what they do. It doesn’t matter how bad the last guy was. You can’t excuse corruption on the grounds that there is worse corruption out there. Have a little self-respect.

Tags: rulers & ruled // 4 Comments »

At 9:30pm on New Year’s Eve my friend’s two-year-old son threw up. They left by 10pm. My kids were asleep by 10:45pm. My husband and I took our respective drinks to the couch. We flipped through the channels and were bored by everything on. We didn’t want to put on a movie. We wanted to see and feel the spirit of the night (even though we weren’t actively participating in anything very exciting ourselves). For us that meant watching the ball drop in Times Square. I’ve been to Times Square four times to ring-in the New Year but this year I was perfectly content to be with my family; maybe even, as others have said, I couldn’t think of a single happier way to ring in the new year.

So, we chose to watch the pre and post ball-dropping commentary on television. However, I did want to be, at least slightly, entertained — and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve doesn’t do it for me anymore. Really, I just can’t stand Ryan Seacrest. So we turned to CNN. Really, we did!

Anderson Cooper had Kathy Griffin co-host the evening with him. What a ridiculously unlikely combination. We flipped to CNN thinking we were going to switch out just as quickly as we’d found them. We didn’t. We stayed. And we liked it. They had a lot of time to fill and did a really good job making people feel like they were part of the evening. I’ve never been a fan of Kathy’s — her humor just never did anything for me. However, for this one evening, she was the perfect ying to Anderson’s yang.

Did anyone else watch? Did I miss fabulous programming somewhere? Let me know so I can make note for next year!

Tags: art & entertainment, trusted media // 3 Comments »

At a time of unprecedented national pride and renewal, as we approach the inauguration of America’s first nonwhite president, it’s hard to imagine anything more squalid than the behavior of the president-elect’s home-state governor, Rod Blagojovich of Illinois, who was arrested Nov. 12th on charges of conspiring to sell Mr. Obama’s own seat in the U.S. Senate. Nothing could be more distracting or at odds with the spirit of the moment. Or so it seemed.  

Gov. Blagojovich will of course have the day in court to which he is entitled — followed, most likely, by many years of incarceration. But from the standpoint of racial harmony and conciliation, which is a key subtext of the past election, the present time, and the coming administration, I would single out another chapter of this story for its inappropriateness: something less despicable than what Gov. Blagojovich allegedly did, but in a way, more depressing. That is the reaction of some African-American leaders in Illinois and in Congress, to the Governor’s nomination of a distinguished black politician, Roland Burris, to fill Obama’s Senate seat.

Blagojovich remains governor as of this writing, with the powers pertaining to that office. He himself claims to have a legal duty to fill the seat; duty or not, his nomination of Burris is perfectly legal.

The problem is that the governor is so deeply compromised, not just by the charges pending against him but by the nationally-publicized recordings of some particularly damning evidence for those charges, that any act he performs in his remaining time as governor bears the taint of corruption. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, rulers & ruled // 1 Comment »

 As a wise man once said, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” So there I was on a brilliant sunshiny January morning dancing up Broad Street wearing an over-sized satiny dress with about 2,000 similarly dressed whack jobs, looking for all the world like Dean Wormer’s worst nightmare, when it occurred to me that nowhere but in Philadelphia can so many guys look like frat brothers from Animal House on New Year’s Day and consider it a way of life. What would Philadelphia be without the mummers? Another city certainly.

Mummers are the bad boys of the western world. The Deltas in an Alpha culture. Been that way since the Romans called it Saturnalia. Kings dressed as slaves. Men dressed as women. City folk dressed as farm boys. The best fool became the wisest man. It was an extended solstice festival, like Christmas through Carnival. And any bozo who dragged it out past the end of March was labeled an April fool.

Philadelphia takes care of all that in a single day, or thereabouts. And that single day identifies Philadelphia to itself. The world may not know mummers but we do. This past New Year’s parade clocked in at a record six hours and 30 minutes. It was a cold glorious day. Brilliant winter light shined on Broad Street as if the sun was a spotlight at the Navy Yard. And yet the crowds took a hike. The fans and first timers remained and had a great time. What’s not to like? A wonderful parade on a beautiful day. But there was nobody there. I’m talking nobody-deep on the west side of Broad and Pine when the ninth string band passed.

I know why, of course. Who would bring their family out to watch a parade that might not happen? Or if it does happen there might be a work stoppage? Or if there is a parade it might turn violent if the fat, drunk and stupid parts of both cultures act up. So the bad press about the mummers-City Hall conflict cooled off the size of the crowd as much as the cold day. And boy what a great show they missed. But one thing is for sure, the mummers are as big a part of Philadelphia as any sports team and the thought of a New Year’s Day without a parade is as unthinkable as a spring without the Phillies or an autumn without the Eagles. And the powers that be ought to accommodate that reality into the annual budget instead of acting like the mummers can be put on double secret probation.

Photo of Clark the Mummer by Chris Dwyer. Photo of Fat, Drunk and Stupid by Clark DeLeon.

Tags: easy go, ends & odd // Add Comment »

Dear Ruby,
I know this is a bad time to think about leaving my job, but I hate it and I don’t think I can stand it much longer. I have a micromanaging boss and some bad coworkers, but mostly I’m just tired of what I do. It’s office work and not very creative. I’ve been trying to stick it out, but I find myself surfing around online all day and I’m afraid that I’m going to get caught and fired before I find something better. Should I stay or should I go?

Ken

Dear Ken,
You didn’t tell me whether or not you are supporting a family, but I’m going to try to answer in a way that would address both situations — stay.

Put down the letter opener, I don’t mean forever. What I do mean is, end it like a man. End it honorably, like an agreement, like a marriage, like any obligation. You need a plan and a timetable, so I am providing you, free of charge, Ruby’s patented 3 Weeks to 2 Weeks’ Notice program:

Week 1: Get some real work done.
On Monday morning for two hours, figure out what you need to accomplish in the coming week to get caught up on your work, or at least close to it. Close your office door or tape off your cubicle opening, turn off your phone. You could even send out a “please do not disturb me from 8-10″ email to those likely to disturb you. If your boss gives you crap about it, tell him or her that it’s something you read about in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and you hope it will help you be more organized. It is likely that your screwing off has already been noted and this explanation will give your boss hope that you are getting back on track and that he or she will not have to fire you. It is false hope, but you don’t have to explain that.

I know what you’re thinking — if you could get yourself to work more you wouldn’t be in this position. The problem was that you weren’t incentivized. Here’s your incentive. After every 2 hours of work you complete, you get to spend 20 minutes on your resume and you get to pick one personal item to take home. Maybe it’s 20 minutes reading an online article about interviewing or maybe it’s 20 minutes of writing out a really flattering description of your current position. By the end of a week, you should have a spiffing resume in progress and a desk drawer or two cleaned out.

At night, it goes without saying, you’re Facebooking, LinkedInning, and hitting the job boards. Hard. But, only at home, where you have time to write carefully compelling cover letters and catch the errors before you hit “Submit.”

Week 2: Hanging curtains in the escape tunnel [Read more →]

Tags: advice for the rest of us by Ruby Mac, all work // Add Comment »

I had the best New Year’s Eve I’ve had in a long time and I didn’t even go anywhere. I stayed in with my parents and Callie, my 4-year-old. We ordered from Outback and we watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Well, we tried to watch it in between Callie yelling for us to all come out to the balcony because the “Fire Man” was doing “sparkles” again (fireworks on the beach).

Neither of my parents actually made it to midnight. Mom went down around 10 p.m. and Dad followed at 11:30. But Callie stayed up the whole time until the ball dropped. I think it’s the first time she’s been up until midnight other than when she was an infant and routinely woke up at all hours of the night. She and I alternately watched the intermittent fireworks from the back bedroom of my parents’ condominium, which overlooks the Intercoastal Waterway, and from the front balcony, which overlooks the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. Not a bad place to spend New Year’s Eve.

Of course, in years past, it was the absolute last place you would have found me on the biggest party night of the year. [Read more →]

Tags: blood // 1 Comment »

Nearly every morning last year I went into my office with a single intent — to write. Something. Anything. Nothing. Instead, other than the few posts made here, I have managed to play 386,427 games of spider solitaire. Sadly, I don’t win often, but I do have an impressive twelve-win run in easy mode, which is totally pathetic.

I am discouraged.

Rest assured that there is an abundance of gross incompetence, general stupidity, and blatant disregard for truth and justice in the world that I would gladly comment on. At this very moment there are dozens of diatribes dancing around in my head fighting to find a direct pipeline to my keyboard.

This is not a case of writer’s block. There are big, big, big things going on that piss me off and I, like thousands of others in the blogosphere, have opinions and judgments that I think are unique, brilliant, and deserving of being blasted throughout the universe because, well, um, I am right and you are wrong.

No, this is not writer’s block. My deserving diatribes on the big issues are not absent. My truth is out there. But unlike everyone else in the blogosphere, I am the victim of a cruel conspiracy. My rage has been stolen and broadcast as a ‘special comment’ by Keith Olbermann. [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch, books & writing // Add Comment »

December 19, 2008
I dream there is a sparse crowd in a theater watching movies of old magicians. In the audience is Chanin, my magic mentor from my teen years. I am amazed that he’s still alive, as he must be in his hundreds by now. I try to talk to him about his salt trick, but he is more interested in his nursemaid. When we leave the theater we use vampires as a mode of transportation. We climb onto them and ride them to Borgo Pass, where we have to make a transfer.

July 6, 1999
I dream Gail and I show up after having missed a day at our editing jobs. Oddly enough, we find a very relaxed place with no stress and nobody seems to care that Gail was absent. To satisfy the authorities, my boss asks Gail to write on a piece of paper that she had mono. We wind up in an entertainment environment in which a production of Dracula is playing. Dracula is about to terrorize a group of hand puppets who are in bed together. I recognize this, of course, as the original Bela Lugosi version of Dracula. Then they run an old Three Stooges short made with replacement stooges after the originals all died.

June 13, 1999
I dream I am a modern-day Van Helsing working in the last minutes before sunrise to destroy Dracula, who is played by Kelsey Grammer. Grammer has to get back to his coffin and my associates and I have to kill him. Through my palm sized computer-communicator I see that Grammer is trying to con one of them into transforming him back into a human instead of destroying him with stake and garlic. I tell my associate that Grammer is lying; he’s trying to fool you and what you should do is load Grammer’s head with bullets.

Tags: Fred's dreams // Add Comment »

No writer is quoted more reflexively than Shakespeare, which is too bad, because Will’s best lines not only repay close attention, but often demand it. Take the advice Polonius gives his son Laertes:

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Spoken like a true courtier, which is what Polonius is — a temporizing careerist whose summum bonum is survival. He is also a “wretched, rash, intruding fool,” as Hamlet — uncharitably, but accurately — calls him after impulsively running the old duffer through in Act III.

It seems safe to say that, for Polonius, being true to yourself means nothing more than giving top priority to your own self-interest. My guess is that, in Polonius’s view, everyone is out for himself, and that this defines the extent to which anyone can trust anybody else — which is to say, hardly at all. It is a supremely cynical outlook, and how exactly it ensures against being false to anyone else is far from clear.

There is another play in which the notion of being true to yourself figures: Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. When Peer visits the trolls, the troll king explains that the difference between humans and trolls is that while, among humans, the maxim is “to thine own self be true,” among trolls it is “to thine own self be — enough.”

But how do those differ, really? In both cases, the standard remains … yourself. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson // 2 Comments »

I didn’t do as careful a job tracking the books I read this year as I did last year, but I think the below covers it (they’re listed more or less in the order I read them — I sometimes read more than one at a time). The list is about as long as last year’s; it seems that these days I read only 22 or so books a year. I used to read many more books each year, but I guess that was back when I didn’t have papers to grade or an online magazine to run or a child to play with. I hope next year the list will be a good deal shorter, since that would mean I’m spending more time writing my new novel in 2009 — I tend not to read fiction when I’m writing it.

Anyway, I hope your 2008 in books was a good one, and I’d be interested to hear what you thought about any of the below, if you read any of them (most of them are not new books). And do you keep track of what you read each year? I just started doing that the last couple of years. Since I’m asking questions, what was the best book you read in 2008? The worst? 

One of the below was really, really, bad; a few were not very good; a few were disappointing; a few were relatively painless and easy to get through, if unremarkable; a few were interesting enough even if not as good as they’d been hyped up to be or even if flawed in some major way; and a few were memorable and well worth reading. How’s that for specificity?

1. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, stories by Susanna Clarke

2. I, The Jury, a novel by Mickey Spillane (I wrote about it here)

3. Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

4. Boomsday, a novel by Christopher Buckley

5. The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing // Add Comment »

I just discovered that Facebook has a breast controversy.

According to several news sources, the social networking site deletes photos of women if they are breastfeeding… or is it that their babies are breastfeeding?  Okay, I’m a bit confused on the verbiage, but Facebook is not confused about the Terms of Use.  If you have a Facebook account, you agreed to the Terms of Use, which includes the provision that “photos containing a fully exposed breast” are subject to removal from the site.  No caveat for when the breast is being employed in a mammary fashion versus the Girls Gone Wild display that was certainly the impetus for the rule in the first place.  And thus, controversy.

[Read more →]

Tags: on the law, technophoria // Add Comment »

Michelle, you’ve got the right idea … and I am speaking from experience. Do everything you can to convince your mom to move into the White House with you. I know she’s super independent and also wants to give your family some space to be a family — my parents said the same thing — but who really needs that much space? Don’t let her get away with it. Her moving to her own place near the White House just won’t be the same as you all living under one roof.

My parents moved in with us back in June and, honestly, it’s been fantastic. I never have to run out to get milk or eggs. I get weather updates every morning so I know how to dress myself and my kids. I change 50 percent less poopy diapers. I no longer need to feed the goldfish (although I wouldn’t expect mom to walk the new puppy coming your way; however, she may be willing to walk with one of the girls as they walk the new puppy). I get to sleep in every once in a while because my kids go down to my parents and bug them to get breakfast going. When my husband needs to work late I can still go out for a coffee to catch up with a friend. When my husband doesn’t need to work late we can put the kids to bed and then catch a 10 p.m. movie without worrying about a babysitter. Every once in a while my mom will cook (and it isn’t half bad). Plus, there is always someone to get my daughter off of her school bus when my husband and I are at work.

OK, so maybe some of my benefits won’t exactly translate to things you will get (or need) from your mom. However, what you will get is a comfort that is immeasurable. Knowing that there is someone else you trust, implicitly, living in your house is the unspoken benefit. Someone else there that will help keep your kids grounded and guide them when you and Barack get pulled away. Someone to read them bedtime stories when you are not around. Someone for the girls to talk to when they need the love that only a parent or grandparent can give. And I am not sure how Marian is with sweets… but my kids always know they get a little something extra for dessert if grandma is in charge.

So, to Marian, mother to the first-lady-elect and grandmother to two adorable girls about to transition into an entirely new world, move in to the White House. Your family needs you — and besides, you will get as much out of the next four years as they will. Just ask my parents.

Tags: blood, rulers & ruled // Add Comment »

The father of history is a man named Herodotus, a Greek writer who lived in the ancient times before the birth of Alexander the Great or even Richard Nixon. Herodotus has been called the first “historian” in that he made it his business to write down the story of mankind as best he could with the available information in the 4th Century B.C., which was way before Google or Wikipedia.

As a result Herodotus has been referred to, even by some of his contemporaries, as “the father of lies.” His chief sin seems to have been a willingness to report popular lore alongside verifiable fact. For instance, during the reign of the Persian king Cambyses, the evil and murderous son of the first Persian conqueror, Cyrus, Herodotus wrote that a Babylonian journalist threw both his shoes one after another at the most powerful ruler in the world during a farewell press conference in Baghdad. 

Centuries later scholars of antiquity doubt if such a preposterous event could have taken place in such a heavily guarded and hyper vigilant venue as a close quarters photo-op by a universally unpopular and commonly detested foreign monarch in occupied territory.

Clearly Herodotus was just making this stuff up. And so, undoubtedly, will our current technological state-of-the-art Geek historian — You-Tube-Us — be rejected by future generations who will be expected to believe that the President of the United States was dodging hurled shoes like some kind of Whack-The-Mole video game.

Puh-LEESE! We all know how this kind of “live” video can be digitally enhanced, altered or completely fabricated. Will we expect intelligent life forms 2,500 years from now to believe that that was a a real event featuring the actual United States President, George W. Bush, grinning that infuriatingly guilty grin of his, ducking those Iraqi soles last week?

Tags: rulers & ruled // Add Comment »

I have wealthy cousins — men — who judge others by the shoes they wear. When I was a teenager, I remember hearing one of them advise that you could tell if someone was really rich by looking at his shoes.

Shoes were the last thing I was thinking about when my grandmother died on Christmas day, 2006, two days before her 95th birthday. We were at my aunt’s, just starting her Christmas party for family and friends, when my father’s cell phone rang with the news from the nursing home. I was just finishing my first deviled egg. [Read more →]

Tags: fashion & clothing, reflections & recollections by Scott Stein // 2 Comments »

December 21, 2008
I dream I am attending some kind of professional conference that is held in a public park. The keynote address is about to be given from the top of a pyramid shaped tower/building. The building is very crowded, but they have speakers set up so you can hear from anywhere on the grounds. Suddenly, just as the speech is about to begin, the pyramid transforms into a huge amusement park ride that looks like a windmill. The people on the pyramid are thrown upside-down and spun in various directions. People are amazed at this new innovation, and I am delighted because a) it is magical-looking and b) I am not on it.

June 11, 2000
I dream I work as an attendant on a tower of death ride. My one job is to look for problems and push a panic button. At the end of the day, I am dropped off at a mall/arcade near my house and I run into my brother, Dan, who is trying to impress a young lady. The young lady instantly takes a shine to me. I charm her by using my foot as a puppet.

October 21, 1998
I dream I awaken on the floor of a garage on the edge of a seashore amusement park. My brother and I look for an attraction called “The Murder House,” a dark ride that you can only find by going through laundry rooms and maintenance areas until you come across a creaky old service elevator made of dark, rotting wooden slats. Other people seem to know of the ride, too, and we all go onto this elevator and press “down.” The elevator descends to a frightening, awful level filled with wailing demons that reach through the wooden slats and fondle us. The demons are genuine, and I am so scared that my brother promises to sue the amusement park for me.

Tags: Fred's dreams // Add Comment »

A former bandmate of mine went to engineering school, then scuttled the guitars to write heavy metal with…actual heavy metal. Ground Control Magazine has a great video interview up with him now showcasing the sounds of doom and apocalypse he is able to wrestle out of his huge drone machines. It’s that rare circumstance of something totally unique being created, a pairing of uber-smarts and primitive roar.  

Tags: art & entertainment // Add Comment »