http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com a journal of American culture (or lack thereof) Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:39:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/06/i-like-vista/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/06/race-issues-is-there-any-hope/ 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, ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/06/proportioning-your-beliefs-to-your-faith/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/06/grilled-cheese-on-new-years/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/05/not-as-bad-as-bush-so-it-must-be-okay/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/05/anderson-cooper-and-kathy-griffin-ring-in-2009-for-cnn/ 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. ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/04/shall-we-overcome/  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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/04/mummers-not-bummer/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/02/432/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/01/new-years-with-callie/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/01/01/reflecting-on-2008-and-why-i-havent-been-writing/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/31/vampires/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/30/being-true-to-the-good-and-bad-of-thine-own-self/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/29/my-2008-in-books/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/27/facebook/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/26/michelle-obama%e2%80%94get-grandma-into-the-white-house/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/26/herodotus-we-hardly-knew-ye/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/25/funeral-shoes/ 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 ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/24/amusement-park/ 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. ... http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2008/12/24/drone-machines/