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A proud mugwump for Obama

I believe Obama is our best bet as president. I’m not a Democrat. I’m not even a liberal. I’m an independent. A mugwump, in the only important sense of the word:

Matt Stone, a co-creator of South Park, summed it all up for me: “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals.” And yet I’m voting for Obama. I even held my nose and declared myself a Democrat for one day to vote for him in the primaries. New Jersey went to Hillary anyway, but hey, I did what I could.

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Tags: politics & government by Olga Gardner Galvin
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My 9/11

This piece by Jason Stein ran a couple of days after September 11, 2001, in the original When Falls the Coliseum.

My 9/11

Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, I leave my apartment around 7:45 a.m., as I am always very excited about going to the deli and ordering two eggs on a roll for $1.25 for breakfast, which I will eat when I get into the office. After breakfast is secured I head over to the A train in the Times Square area going downtown to 60 Wall Street. I take the elevator up to the 42nd floor, thinking I’m glad I don’t have to walk up 42 flights because by the time I get up to 42 it would be time for lunch and there goes my special breakfast. [Read more →]

Tags: terror & war by Coliseum
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Magic

June 19, 2008
I dream I am in my office practicing the cups and balls, and I have to go to the bathroom. When I get there, I am not wearing shoes, and it occurs to me that I am probably standing in the urine of my colleagues. I accept this, but I’m also not wearing pants and I have to get back to my office without being observed. The first hallway is ok, but when I turn a corner there are bearded men that I have to avoid. I sneak through the catacombs and nobody mentions my lack of pants. When I get back to the office I contemplate the cups and balls. How many balls should I use? What should be my final load? Finally, my pants get wet because one of the cups is filled with milk.

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Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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Upgrades

We’ve made a few improvements to When Falls the Coliseum. You can now access archives of all the posts by individual contributors lower on the middle sidebar or at the end of each contributor’s bio. Also, at the conclusion of every individual post, you can now find a link for a printer-friendly version of that page. Finally, each post now has a “ShareThis” link to make it easy for you to e-mail posts to your friends and list our posts in such places as Facebook, Technorati, Myspace, Digg, and Reddit.

Tags: announcements by Coliseum
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Ineffectual

August 3, 2008
I dream I am getting ready to leave a version of my father’s house in Northeast Philadelphia with Karen, Mary, and Dawn. I am upset to see people I don’t know hanging around my house. It’s as if there is an event scheduled in my house that I don’t know about. I try to chase the intruders away, and I go outside to talk to Karen, Mary, and Dawn. When I return, my house is overrun with people. I don’t know who they are or why they’re there, but they do whatever they want. I threaten them with violence, but it doesn’t matter. I punch them, but they don’t feel it. I try to take a shower, and a young lady is so uninterested in my presence that she takes a shower with me. I am irrelevant.

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Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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What’s in a name? Are we insulting Hillary and Barack?

Robert: We have got to do another round on the use of first names in politics — whether it’s demeaning or intimate to refer to candidates that way (see first round here).

Paula: I tend to think that some degree of consistency makes sense. If you call Obama, Barack, you should call McCain, John. Since that won’t work — John is just too common a name (though for some reason that didn’t get in the way of the occasonal references to “Bill”) — then I think they both need to go by their last names.