I read a very good op/ed from the Richmond Times Dispatch website yesterday.  It was written by Mr. Barton Hinkle.  The piece explores the idea about where our obligations to the government come from.  It was very thought provoking, and extremely well written, especially given the depth of the topics the author touches.

But as I read through the piece, I realized that Mr. Hinkle was missing an important truth that, once considered, should alter his entire hypothesis.

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Tags: politics & government by Mike McGowan
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Sure, we all know that Ben Bernanke is the head of the federal reserve. But did you also know that he’s a tool? That’s just one of the many things I discovered while compiling my list of little known facts about him! Read on for some more!

Ben Bernanke was the inspiration for the Marvel Comics villain “The High Inflationary.” In the upcoming film “X-Men: First Class,” he will be portrayed by actor Ray Park!

Ray Park as the villain The High Inflationary in a promotional shot from the upcoming film “X-Men: First Class.”

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Tags: ends & odd, money by Ricky Sprague
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Welcome back to “Audio Files,” where existential orphans with spiritual aphasia power-bock toward the sexy froth of a Siberian Dawn.

Last week we debuted a new feature wherein talented folks describe five albums they’d need if stranded on a desert island. (Yes, that ol’ cliche.)

I initially called it “Meadows of Asphodel” in reference to this desolate Greek void of negative space. But “Meadows of Asphodel” sounds like a diseased candyland for Medieval sex offenders, so I’m giving it the more muscular name of “Asphalt Meadows.” And this week I’ve got some damn fine participants.

Please come along — we’ll eat the world and vomit lava!

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Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
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When Lisa Murkowski lost the GOP primary, it seemed her time in the U.S. Senate was over. The Republicans didn’t want her (and the party leadership were enraged that she might want to run regardless), the Democrats already had a candidate (and even when they learned Lisa had an unexpectedly open dance card, chose to stick with their guy), and if she made a go of it as an independent, voters would be required to write her name on the ballot. And thus she faces a uniquely harsh task for a candidate: not only must she battle the two majors parties to convince Alaskans to go to the polls to support her, but she must teach the general population how to spell “Murkowski.” [Read more →]

Tags: Mr. Sean goes to Washington by Sean Cunningham
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It started back in March, 2009 — my first column for When Falls the Coliseum, and my review of The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. I have been waiting all those long months for the follow-up, The Fall and boy, was this worth the wait.  When they get around to making a movie about this trilogy, I will be first in line for my ticket. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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I recently got an iPad for me and my girlfriend. Our laptop was on its way out and we have a new desktop that works perfectly. I didn’t want to get another laptop so I settled in the middle and got the iPad since all we really wanted was easy access to the Internet when we were lounging around. I’m not going to lie. This thing is awesome. They have apps for everything. I’m pretty sure there’s an app that will tie your shoes and do your laundry for you — for just $9.99! Anyway, all was going well with our new toy. We bought a fresh black case for it and a screen protector. We’re careful about where we put it — ya know, the way you are with your baby the first few weeks of its life. And then it happened. [Read more →]

Tags: going parental, technology by Jaclyn Roth
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You take a train to Penn Station, make a left onto Seventh Avenue and fight uptown through the crowds until you hit the TKTS line at 47th Street. You wait on what used to be the Howard Johnson’s side but which is now the Roxy side. You figure you’ll be on line for an hour or so and you inch forward. You and your companion take turns moving up front to check the board, which used to be narrow signs slid into slots but now is LED’s. You lament the fact that the shows you want to see the most are not up there. Too new. 

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Tags: Broadway Fred by Fred Siegel
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Elevators can be scary places, especially when that elevator music is playing.  But when the lights start flickering, the elevator gets stuck between floors and you are trapped with strangers and possibly Satan, a new level of terror sets in. Less is more in the taut 80 minute Devil, produced and based on a short story by M. Night Shyamalan. The film is tense, chilling and satisfying. And it is fun. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie by Gail D. Rosen
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I like many types of music, ranging from Russian monophonic chant to Gothic German techno-metal to screechy avant-garde nonsense. My beard, however — well that’s a different story. His tastes are very specific, quite rarefied and were formed mostly in the first half of the 1970s, ending shortly after I was born. He likes droning, ambient noise, stuff that suggests the depths of space, or a long, slow descent into madness. [Read more →]

Tags: ends & odd, music by Daniel Kalder
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The nightmare I’m about to describe starts out like any other evening: You’re lying in bed after a long day, enjoying a glass of pinot grigio and flipping channels on the television. That’s when you see one. Dark, round, and virulent-looking. And just as quickly, it’s gone. Wait, are your eyes playing tricks on you? But no, for there is another. And another. And…another. You start to sweat, you start to cry, you jump up off the bed and battle the urge to burn the whole house down. Alas, it is too late. You’ve been infested, and the innocence you once knew is now gone. No, dear readers, I am not talking about bedbugs. I speak of the Kardashians. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Meg gives advice to famous people by Meg Boyle
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I spend a lot of time trying to hide something, but I might as well come clean here. I have these slightly creepy, longish fingernails on my right hand. You can uncurl the top lip a little. It’s not like I am lounging on a gilded, wing-backed settee in a robe and grinning while scratching the top of a sleepy Persian cat’s head with three inches of talon. They’re just a little beyond the ends of my fingers. I play the classical guitar and the nails are how you get good sound on nylon strings. Still, it looks weird from the uninformed perspective. In the end, my nail issue sums up an awkward situation for the unknown artist in our society. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo by Chris Matarazzo
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I harbor a distinct antipathy toward what a friend of mine used to call “the bumper-sticker mentality,” which disdains thinking and settles instead for sloganeering.

You’ve probably seen this one: “Arms are for hugging.” This isn’t wit. It’s plain old-fashioned equivocation — taking a word that has multiple meanings and pretending it only has one. Whoever came up with this should run out right now and hug a howitzer. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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A big satisfying sandwich can make a great weeknight dinner. For this Curry Chicken Sandwich recipe, the chicken can be prepared the night before and dinner can be on the table in 10 minutes. I usually serve this with some homemade potato chips, or a green salad with sliced apples.

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Tags: easy weeknight dinners, recipes & food by Jessica Alfreds
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I dig Wal-Mart. As much as people hate on Wal-Mart, I go for therapeutic reasons. I have been down in the dumps lately — work has been busy, money is tight, and I have spotted a few grays in my precious golden locks. But instead of going to a shrink to help me work out the kinks, I just jump in the car and go to my local Wal-Mart to make myself feel better. I cannot imagine what it costs for a session in some professional’s office to help you sort yourself out, but at Wal-Mart it’s free. (Well, it was $15.67 for the cashews, apple juice, Willie Nelson clearance priced T-Shirt, and pack of gum.) Once again, Wal-Mart has saved a consumer his hard-earned pocket change. [Read more →]

Tags: all work, fashion & clothing, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
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I try not to make Bad Sports, Good Sports the jerk-of-the-week column every Monday, but there are too many idiots in sports that make this difficult for me. Writing this column for the past year and a half has made it clear to me that there will never be a shortage of first-class morons on which I can focus. This week, Braylon Edwards is our man. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. “When my last roommate gave me any trouble, I just beat him with a sockful of nickels.”

9. “What’s the point of having two beds in this room?”

8. “I’m studying the flesh-eating virus, so all these drawers here are off limits.”

7. “Hope you don’t mind all the Justin Bieber posters.”

6. “Oh, Glenn Beck is like God to me!”

5. “So which are you, Team Edward or Team Jacob?”

4. “Hi, I’m Steven, but on the weekends I’m Stephanie.”

3. “Seriously, some of Al-Qaeda’s principles aren’t as crazy as they sound.”

2. “I haven’t stopped crying since I found out the Cathy comic strip was ending.”

1. “Goodnight snuggle?”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, education by Bob Sullivan
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‘We’re not going to die, are we Dan?’ asked my friend Joe, a CBS radio reporter, shortly before we crossed from El Paso into Juárez, Mexico, murder capital of the world. ‘Nah,’ I replied. ‘Our guide is a priest. It’s a Sunday. The narcos will respect that.’

I was lying to make him feel better. [Read more →]

Tags: terror & war, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
4 Comments »

A group calling itself the Jerks Who Want to Tell You How to Raise Your Kids Because Your Kids are Obviously Too Stupid to Think for Themselves Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission complaining about a new show called “Zevo-3,” which is about a bunch of superheroes who wear shoes.

They’re not complaining about the fact that the show promotes an unhealthy view of the world by suggesting that all kids need to succeed is superpowers (think about what that will do to the self-esteem of the literally thousands of children who go without superpowers every day); no, what they’re in an uproar about is the fact that these totally unrealistic superhero characters wear a specific brand of shoe. [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, television by Ricky Sprague
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Steven Hayes testified about the 2007 rape and murder of Jennifer, Michaela and Hayley Petit and a robbery that got “out of control.” He is a defendant in the case. We at PWSBKTW see his testimony as definitive proof that there is no truth to the phrase, “There is no honor among thieves.”

Hayes and his accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky entered the home through an unlocked basement door and beat William Petit with a baseball bat until he was a bloody mess. With dad out of the way, they moved on to mom Jennifer and daughters Michaela and Hayley. Hayes forced Jennifer to go with him to a bank to withdraw $15,000, and “when they returned Komisarjevsky had already sexually assaulted 11-year-old Michaela.”

We at PWSBKTW are pretty sure that this is bad behavior, but what happened next warms our hearts and makes us think that thieves indeed have a sense of fairness. [Read more →]

Tags: people who should be killed this week by Scott Stein
1 Comment »

I don’t have a clue what determines if something is acceptable on television these days. Clearly wardrobe malfunctions where a boob happens to come flying out in the middle of a Superbowl half-time show is not. We know that’ll get you a hefty fine and will force live shows to broadcast on a delay.

However, clear sexual innuendo on television is, apparently, just fine. The other night I decided not to fast forward though the commercials and watched the AXE commercial below. I immediately rewound it so I could watch it again… and again… and again. I turned to my husband and asked him, “how many guys do you think are whacking off to this commercial right now?”

The 12 seconds of silence while the host of the show circulates the two [golf] balls in her hand and then says “Wow, I can play with these balls all day” had to be the most sexually charged. But below I pulled out some other highlights… [Read more →]

Tags: television by Amy Boshnack
3 Comments »

It’s important that you know this about me: My kid plays up.

I remember those early days, when she was I guess four, when we first joined the town club team. She was running around with the other kids, and I could tell she had it. She needed more. She needed to play with the five-year-olds. As a good parent, I was restless watching her out there with the average kids. I recognized that having fun with her friends wouldn’t be enough. I told her everything she needed to do every second of every game. And I know she heard me, because I said it nice and loud. But we still weren’t getting results. So I moved her up. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
20 Comments »

Seldom in life, a man is given an experience that sticks with him forever. His wedding day, for one.  Maybe his Bar Mitzvah. Perhaps his Catholic Bar Mitzvah*. [Read more →]

Tags: announcements, environment & nature, mostly kidding by Matt Scottoline by Matt Scottoline
8 Comments »

We’ve moved on, right? We’re not still lying in bed at night trying to figure out ways to get in with the cool kids, right? Peer pressure is just an unpleasant memory from the past. Now, we can teach our kids to avoid the riptides under popular currents and to do their own thing. Right? If this is all true, then can someone please tell me what a “guilty pleasure” is? [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, language & grammar by Chris Matarazzo
6 Comments »

Welcome back to “Audio Files,” where naysayers and hatchet men receive a good “rodgering” on the tactile surfaces of traffic-calmed neighborhoods.

Enough psychosexual innuendo, though. It’s time to put on my Big-Boy Cycling Shorts. I’ve got a very special guest this week — an astonishingly beautiful woman actually – to help introduce a new feature, “The Meadows of Asphodel.”

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Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
4 Comments »

Under the Poppy is a story of workplace romance and intrigue — that is, if your workplace happens to be a Belgian brothel in the 1870s and your coworkers are whores, mutes and puppets.  It’s a complicated arrangement: Decca and Rupert own a brothel.  Decca is in love with Rupert.  Rupert is in love with Decca’s brother, Istvan, a traveling performer with a chest full of very naughty puppets.  There is a lot of back-story amongst the three of them, everyone has secrets, and no one is telling the whole truth.  In the end, it may be up to the puppets, the mecs, to tell the story. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
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Frank Wilson has an intriguing piece on prayer and belief in God. Check it out. After reading it I devised a little parable for believers and non-believers to chew on.

There were two Catholic school boys in New England. One hated studying theology, not only because it was boring, but because he saw no evidence of God. The other boy was skeptical too, but he made a decision to respect theology. The cynical boy took his test and failed. After finding out his grade he cursed God. The boy with faith prayed for an A and received one.

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Tags: creative writing, religion & philosophy by Robert O'Hara
5 Comments »

Hello, all. After well over two years of posting my dreams I have decided to take a break. Starting next week at this time, I’ll start “Broadway Fred,” a memory column about my experiences as a spectator in Broadway theaters. In the meantime, enjoy two military dreams. And many thanks to Dr. Spiegelvogel, who has helped me over the past few months and has now returned to Vienna.

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Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
2 Comments »

Please watch UnderCovers tonight. My cousin Ben Schwartz plays CIA field agent Bill Hoyt. UnderCovers is written by JJ Abrams and Josh Reims and directed by JJ Abrams. It premieres tonight, Wednesday, 8pm on NBC. Ben is hilarious (if you never saw him as Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Recreation, you missed some funny television).

Tags: television by Scott Stein
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That’s right! It happened. And I didn’t do it! James Jones boarded his daughter’s school bus in an attempt to put an end to the bullying his daughter suffered at the hands of some snot nose punks. Check out the video, it’s crazy. Now listen, we all know this isn’t appropriate behavior but let’s be honest — we’ve all wanted to do it. My daughter is only 4 and I’ve already experienced this feeling. This poor guy’s daughter is fifteen and has cerebral palsy. These little douche bag bullies put an open condom on her head, smacked her in the back of the head, twisted her ears and shouted rude comments at her, multiple times. All I’d be thinking is, “those kids are fucking dead!” But see that’s the difference. I’d be thinking it. James Jones went out and did something about it. Dude’s got brass ones. [Read more →]

Tags: going parental, on the law by Jaclyn Roth
8 Comments »

Despite interesting characters and strong performances, Never Let Me Go is disappointing. Aside from the unoriginal and implausible plot points, this film fails to examine the issues it raises. Despite some early promise in the first half of the film, the characters (and the audience) never really take that emotional journey necessary for a satisfying film. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
2 Comments »