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Tags: announcements, technology by Coliseum
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I enjoyed the first episode of HBO’s The Pacific, but my enjoyment was somewhat marred by hearing Tom Hanks, one of the miniseries’ producers, state that the war with Japan was based on racism, which he then compared to the current war on terrorism.

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Tags: art & entertainment, race & culture, terror & war by Paul Davis
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When Falls contributor Judi Cutrone has just been informed by a reputable source (aka her sister) that because of yesterday’s inflammatory post against Jerry Seinfeld, she has been banned from several establishments and landmarks in Massapequa, NY, which is hometown to both the controversial blogger and Seinfeld, who is arguably the hamlet’s most famous onetime resident (unless you’re a big Police Academy fan).

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Tags: television by Judi Cutrone
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August 8, 2009
I dream Deborah has just arrived for a visit with me and Gail. When I am alone for a few moments with Deborah, I see there are specks of blood on her face. I ask her what the hell happened. She says she had to rescue a cat who had hung himself from her shower rod. She couldn’t untie him, so she had to find a pair of scissors and cut him down. I tell her to clean up, but she insists she doesn’t look that bad. Later on, I see that the cat has a collar and I impulsively cut the collar off with a pair of scissors. The cat suddenly has a burst of energy because he is finally free.

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Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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Dear When Falls the Coliseum,

I am 8 years old and a cute, innocent little girl. My friends told me that there is no such thing as St. Patrick, and that St. Patrick’s Day was just an excuse to let grownups get drunk. Are my friends right?

Sincerely,

Virginia

Dear Virginia,

As I sit here at my computer savoring my fourth Irish coffee of the morning (top o’ the morning to you!), I can’t help but to feel melancholic about your question. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, drugs & alcohol by Ricky Sprague
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In the exciting opening scene of Brooklyn’s Finest, bad guy Carlo (Vincent D’Onofrio, in an effective but too brief performance) explains to Sal (Ethan Hawke) his philosophy about “righter and wronger.” Issues of moral relativism drive this taut cop thriller, and it is sometimes hard to tell the cops from the criminals. Crisp direction from Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), compelling characters and a trio of excellent lead performances kept me completely engaged in a film from a genre I usually avoid. The film is a bit of a downer but it is exciting and enjoyable. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
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Now that spring is upon us, and the trees are beginning to leaf out and grow, my life has become a lot more hectic. Such is the row a forester has to hoe, but I’m busy planting trees, measuring trees, I’ve got three logging operations running at the moment, so on and so forth. I’ve been reading my usual three or four books a week. I’ve been keeping up-to-date on political movements, health care reform, cap-n-tax, the TEA Parties, you know, all the headlines that fill our days.

However, I find that I want to write about something and I can’t think up a topic.  [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing by Mike McGowan
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Once upon a time two boxers fought round after round until one couldn’t continue. This was bad for two reasons:

1. It often took a very long time. (Frankly, once you reach round 80 or so, the crowd’s losing interest.)

2. After hours of punches, fighters tend to suffer fatal internal injuries.

And so the sport was changed so that you could win by decision, which was great as spectators had places to be and the athletes didn’t die quite so frequently. Still, there’s a basic flaw in the system: people pretend decisions are accurate and should be treated with respect, when time after time that’s shown to be wrong. [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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I watched The Marriage Ref on Sunday.

This is not TiVo’s fault (I love you, TiVo, and I know you’re reading this because you can do anything. ANYTHING.) TiVo knows I’d basically lay over train tracks for Ricky Gervais and, so, it thought it perfectly acceptable to tape the latest episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s new show on NBC, The Marriage Ref, where Ricky Gervais joined “panel” guests Larry David and Madonna. Larry David and Ricky Gervais in the same room? I am only human for God’s sake.

And, clearly, that’s exactly the reaction that Jerry Seinfeld was hoping for- that I would dumbly follow my comedy gods anywhere. I spent the next forty minutes wincing and burying my head in my hands.

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Tags: television by Judi Cutrone
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…if, for example, you’re jogging on the beach and listening to your iPod and a small experimental plane has to make an emergency landing and the pilot can’t see because there’s oil on his windshield and he lands on the beach and you don’t hear the plane coming because you’re jogging on the beach listening to your iPod and the plane runs you over. Looked at another way, we could say that jogging can kill you, too. Or maybe it’s the combination of jogging and listening to an iPod. No, that’s not enough. An emergency landing has to be added to the mix. And a windshield covered in oil. Maybe never mind. Keep up the jogging and the listening to the iPod, since the chance of the above all happening has to be near zero. At least, the chance of it happening again. This might even be almost funny, if it happened in a movie, maybe to a villain in an action spoof of some kind — if it hadn’t happened for real, if Robert Gary Jones hadn’t been killed, if he didn’t have two children, if he weren’t just minding his business, if things that shouldn’t happen didn’t and a person’s life didn’t sometimes end like that.

Tags: music, trusted media & news by Scott Stein
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Nobody has enjoyed a late career renaissance like Johnny Cash. The series of collaborations he made with Slayer producer Rick Rubin reignited critical interest in his work at a time when Cash believed he was destined to become a touring nostalgia act. The first of these, American Recordings is a fantastic album — raw, dark, stark, stripped down to the Man in Black’s voice and primitive guitar playing. Cash had never sounded young, and he’d always been good with death, but I was shocked by the simplicity of the first lines, the frank, naked, blasé expression of brutality: [Read more →]

Tags: music by Daniel Kalder
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“A 40-year-old Racine man is accused of killing a 2-year-old boy, punching him because he was spilling his milk.”

Manuel Garcia “lost his temper with his girlfriend’s son, punching him numerous times in the abdomen on Thursday, killing him.” He “admitted punching the boy at least three times because the child was[...] ’frustrating him’ and spilling his milk.”

We at PWSBKTW understand that two-year-olds can be frustrating. They have terrible table manners. Still, no one should die over spilled milk. [Read more →]

Tags: people who should be killed this week by Scott Stein
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I’m interested in the recent flap between Chief Justice John Roberts and the White House over comments that President Obama made at the State of the Union address. In the speech, you’ll recall, Obama criticized the Court’s decision in Citizens United to roll back campaign finance restrictions. Then, last week, a tape was released in which Roberts characterized Obama’s open criticism as indecorous. The New York Times has a roundup of the argument, along with the jabs of several writers who have weighed in — the word “crybaby” comes up frequently.

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Tags: language & grammar, politics & government by Neil Verma
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Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things.  He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache…and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

It’s a great beginning to a promising story: part thriller, part horror, part treatise on the nature of the devil.  While Horns occasionally gets bogged down in reminiscence, it’s still an extremely entertaining read. 

A year ago, Ig’s girlfriend Merrin was raped and murdered.  Ig was the prime suspect — an alibi like “I was passed out in my car parked behind an abandoned Dunkin Donuts” is not very convincing — and although he was never charged, he was also never cleared.  There is a cloud of suspicion hanging over him already, and growing horns is not going to make him look innocent. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
2 Comments »

Some weeks back I mentioned Robinson Jeffers’s poem “Science,” which is a meditation on the development of the atomic bomb. It ends thus:

A little knowledge, a pebble from the shingle,
A drop from the oceans: who would have dreamed this infinitely little too much?

This, of course, is merely a 20th-century gloss on something Alexander Pope said a long time ago: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” [Read more →]

Tags: science, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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You know what’s amazing? Sometime this week, almost everyone you know will fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket. Male, female, young, old, basketball fan, non-basketball fan, it doesn’t matter. The numbers are staggering. I don’t have the research on this, but I have to imagine that it is the sporting event that pulls in the most non-fans this side of the Super Bowl. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Whenever someone proposes spending money on a new government program, critics will say that we should balance out the effect on the budget with a matching tax increase. That would be great if it worked, but it’s a mistake to think that we can make up for increased government spending by increasing taxes.

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Tags: money, politics & government by Mark Draughn
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Two of my favorite things in the world are fine food and game shows. There is nothing I enjoy more than curling up on the Victorian settee to watch the latest episodes of “Jeopardy!” and “The Price is Right” while eating foie gras-stuffed quail with asparagus and drinking port wine. The extreme pleasure of consuming great food combined with the excitement of a thrilling game show causes the cares of the world to just drift away.

Given my love of food and of game shows, the appearance of the NBC program, Minute to Win it, should be cause for celebration. After all, it is a game show, and it is hosted by a popular figure from the Food Network.

You might think that one such as I would enjoy the Food Network. You might think that, but do not say it out loud, because if I hear you, I will remove my gauntlet and slap you across the face. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, television by Ricky Sprague
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10. “No, that’s my shillelagh, but I’m still glad to see you!”

9. “But I love the taste of Bailey’s Irish Cream!”

8. “Every time I see you, somethin’ starts Dublin in size!”

7. “What’s this I hear about Meredith Baxter practicing her Gaelic?”

6. “Because of you, my Irish thighs are smiling!”

5. “I’ll show you who’s hung like a leprechaun!”

4. “They don’t call me Lord of the Pants for nothing! ”

3. “You’ve made my sham rock hard!”

2. “It’s those two Irish smoothboys: Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick!”

1. “Oooooooooooooooooo! Danny Boy!”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, ends & odd, race & culture by Bob Sullivan
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For many of us, our lives don’t work out the way we planned. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a plan. It’s very apropos that Lost‘s “Dr. Linus” episode was named for a teacher since it taught us some very valuable lessons about who we are and what our purpose here may be. In other words, it really was all about you.

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Tags: religion & philosophy, television by Marc Oromaner
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To those who believe that the ongoing war on terrorism against Islamic fanatics is a war without end or a war that can’t be won,  I suggest they read up on the anarchists’ 19th Century international terror campaign.

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Tags: books & writing, terror & war by Paul Davis
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I love the Florida Keys. I love the laid-back, tropical, “Margaritaville” lifestyle of the local characters.

But one laid-back inhabitant should not be behind the wheel of a moving car.

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Tags: ends & odd by Paul Davis
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BBC News reported this week that the Treasury Department has eased sanctions against Iran, Cuba, and Sudan with the hope of “[helping] further the use of web services and [supporting] opposition groups.” While I generally disagree with sanctions on principle, and so certainly welcome any removal of them by our gov’t, I can’t help but make a few quick points regarding the general narrative that this move fits into. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, technology by Calvin Pollak
1 Comment »

1. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater
   Based on the off-chance that someone working for the Washington DC Archdiocese might be gay and want to marry their partner, the organization, employing about 850 people, has announced that they’re eliminating all health care benefits for their workers’ families. As Tiny Tim would say, “God bless us, everyone!” [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy by Ari McKee
1 Comment »

I am so sick and tired of hearing Republican hack after Republican hack telling those of us who are conservative, and yet not also Republican, that we are the ones screwing everything up.  From Limbaugh and Rove on the squawking boxes to actual Republican leaders like Romney, it’s a virtual litany these days…

It pisses me off.

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Tags: politics & government by Mike McGowan
6 Comments »

The new Iron Man 2 trailer has appeared to much fanfare, as the sheeple begin to salivate over the return of their military-industrial complex savior. Well, you’ll excuse me if I’m not excited about the so-called “super” hero known as “Iron Man.” I know he is not all the media would have you believe. I know that Iron Man, AKA Tony Stark, is a heartless businessman who cares for nothing more than the padding of his own massive bank account.

Tony Stark is more than just an opportunist and war profiteer. He’s also got a shameful secret he’d like to keep hidden. A shameful union-busting past, as stated in the explosive headline of this post.

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Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
6 Comments »

Paramedic Daniel McIntosh died in the line of duty in Bensalem, PA. 

On Sunday night, the squad’s ambulance crew had rushed to the 2600 block of Knights Road for a report of a suicidal man. When they arrived, the man ran away and McIntosh chased after him, hoping to save the man from hurting himself. Instead McIntosh suffered a fatal heart attack. Members of the ambulance squad then turned their attention to saving the life of their own crew member with no luck.

I suppose the suicidal man is not to blame for McIntosh’s death. [Read more →]

Tags: trusted media & news by Scott Stein
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I’ve seen the future of news, and it’s as red as the blood of a freshly killed Siberian ibex.

Don’t doubt it. Think about it. While American news publications die a slow death and adapt clumsily to new media, Russian journalism evolves with stunning rapidity.  It is the new standard-bearer, the prized Rothschild Egg. Meanwhile, all that American journalism can do is lay an egg.

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Tags: trusted media & news by Michael Cade
2 Comments »

When Falls the Coliseum is looking for bloggers to post commentaries, essays, rants, satire, and reviews about current events, politics, entertainment, culture, and many other topics from a broad range of personal and political perspectives. We appreciate both serious discussion and merciless mockery. We like humor — the funny kind. If you’re interested in being a regular contributor, visit our submissions page and tour our site (see FAQ, Welcome, and History). We don’t care if you are libertarian, liberal, conservative, other, or don’t pay attention to politics. As long as you can write posts that interest readers and you want to do so regularly, we’d like to hear from you. We’re looking to increase our coverage of movies, books, TV, video games, celebrity news, pop culture, politics, current events, social issues, online oddities.

Tags: announcements by Coliseum
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March 7, 2010
I dream I am with friends who cultivate eccentricities. I am fussy about the kinds of eccentricities I am willing to cultivate, but with them, anything goes. For example, I am reluctant to use the new inspirational paper towels. I am ok with the old ones imprinted with general homilies that might be appropriate in a wide range of contexts, but my friends prefer the new ones that are thought to be the word of God. If anyone has a problem or question, all they do is rip off the next paper towel and do what it says. My friends recline together in enormous beds and think up odd things to do. I feel out of it, and begin work on a list of eccentric activities.

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Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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