Mr. Smith went to Washington yesterday, with Barack Obama playing the role of Jefferson Smith from the feel-good movie starring Jimmy Stewart about an unlikely United States Senator who leads his countrymen, women and children to their common senses and their common purpose. To say that I shed a tear or two would diminish the national deluge that greeted President Obama’s oath of office. With a single, “So help me God,” this unlikely candidate, and even unlikelier winner, became our 44th president.

If it seemed like a movie, it was. It was a national spectacle filled with famous and anonymous faces of Americans who realized that a page in human history has been turned, millions of whom have been dreaming and praying for just such a day. America, at long last, has proved to itself and the world that it means what it says because it believes its own founding myth. That all men are created equal and that we the people control our own destiny.

Jimmy Stewart is the perfect role model for Barack Obama in the role of the people’s president. He even started his presidency with a Jimmy Stewart stammer because of the crossed signals during Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert’s recitation of the Constitutionally mandated Presidential oath of office. At the same time the cast of characters surrounding the event looked like every hero and villain from Bedford Falls in Frank Capra’s other Jimmy Stewart classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. Tell me that outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t look like he was doing a Lionel Barrymore impersonation as the evil miser Mr. Potter when he rolled onto stage in his wheelchair and cane.

It was great theater and it was a great day for America and for the world. The only thing missing was Zuzu’s petals and the sound of a bell ringing. For somewhere in heaven an angel certainly earned his wings for showing us all that a single life can indeed change the world. Oh happy day.

Tags: movies, politics & government by Clark DeLeon
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Obama was elected months ago but today he became our president. I can’t help but feel hope. I know we have a long road to travel before this country gets back up on its feet — but the swearing in of our first black president says so much about how far we’ve already come, as a people and a nation. I feel as if we can do anything.

In his inauguration speech Obama said:

“This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

Wow… that just says so much about how far we really have come. But it’s important to note that my feeling of hope for this country is not because Obama is black; it’s because Obama seems to inspire change. He inspires influential people to try to inspire change. He inspires the average citizen to want to help create positive change.

Also, I can relate to Obama. The leader of our country is also just another guy, a father. I watch his speeches culminate in applause and then see his older daughter give him the equivalent of a high-five. Her excitement, her interest, and her words, “great speech dad,” say so much about him as a man and as a father.

I am not sure if this feeling of hope will last — especially as more people continue to lose their jobs and their homes — but maybe it will help to get us through the hard times ahead.

It’s 1pm and I just watched Barack and Michelle walk former president Bush and Barbara to their ride out of D.C., a presidential helicopter. Man — it feels so good to see Bush go away and to see Barack standing on the steps with confidence. I know Barack will mess up at some point. I know he will make decisions I don’t agree with, but it’s true that, for right now, I have a renewed sense of hope and pride in my country. I will ride this wave as long as I can.

Tags: politics & government, race & culture by Amy Boshnack
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I’ve never been big on foreign films. In fact, prior to Sunday, I had only seen two in my entire life — Haute tension, a french horror flick, and Crimen ferpecto, a Spanish comedy with some telenovella elements. So when Slumdog Millionaire ran roughshod over its competition at the Golden Globes, I was a little unsure whether or not I should take some time to see it. After all, it’s not what I’d consider my usual type of movie. But I decided to give it a whirl.

I’m glad I did. I’m not going to bore you with the plot details, as I’m sure you’ve heard about its basic idea focusing on an Indian boy, named Jamal, who racks up the rupees on his country’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” What’s great about the film is how it shows you the way that Jamal came to know the answers to the questions he’s asked. It’s a fascinating journey through a hard life that makes it impossible not to root for him as he sits in the hot seat. The film doesn’t drag one bit. Its two hours of length fly by. Cringe worthy moments? A few. Humorous moments? Also more than a couple.

Slumdog received a rousing ovation from the packed independent movie house I went to. I felt a little out of my element, as I was probably the youngest person there and also the only one who attended the 2:20 PM screening solo, but I was in agreement with everyone about how good the film is. It deserves every single accolade it gets.

Tags: movies by Glenn Giangrande
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“It is a good thing for an uneducated man,” Winston Churchill declared, “to read a book of quotations.”  It is certainly a good way to grow familiar with much that Churchill had to say. If the book is the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford University Press, $18.95), you will even learn what he didn’t say.

One of the more famous things attributed to him is a remark about De Gaulle: “Of all the crosses I have had to bear in this war, the heaviest has been the Cross of Lorraine.” That, however, was originally said not by Churchill, but by Edward Spears, a British soldier and diplomat. But Churchill knew a good line when he heard one and accordingly appropriated Spears’s quip later on. (What has the Cross of Lorraine got to do with De Gaulle? Originally associated with Joan of Arc, the heraldic Cross of Lorraine — which has two crossbars, one shorter than the other — was adopted as a symbol by the Free French forces, which De Gaulle led.)

Churchill’s remark about books of quotations comes from a 1930 volume of his titled My Early Life. He goes on to say that “the quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.”

Of course, all of us, whether educated or not, miss plenty of things, or don’t pay proper attention to them, or forget them. So we can all use a volume of quotations from time to time. But apart from their utility, such books are just fun to have around. If I were still commuting on public transit, the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations would routinely make its way into my briefcase. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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I met Yo Yo Ma when he was about to go under the knife. This was in the early 80’s and he was performing the Lalo cello concerto with the Colorado Springs Symphony. There had been some bad blood between his management and the conductor when Yo Yo switched to the Lalo from what had originally been programmed. It seems he didn’t want to learn the other work, which he knew, but not well, because he was afraid he’d never play it again.

This was his last performance before having spinal surgery and spending six months in a body cast. I remember him talking about it. He was scared to death. The doctors had told him that there was a chance, albeit slim, that he’d never play the cello again. And, he worried that he’d never been even a few days without practicing. What would a 6-month hiatus do to his skills? [Read more →]

Tags: music by Christopher Guerin
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Okay, I admit it. I read The Secret. Loved it. Have the “wish board,” or whatever you call it. At the risk of sounding crazy, I have to agree that there is something to this “power of positive thinking” or “Law of Attraction” deal. For those of you who’ve somehow managed to escape hearing about it, the basic premise is that what you think about is what you bring to your life, good or bad.

Near the end of 2008, I decided that I wanted to write a book. And I did. I just kind of asked for the words to come and they did. 44, 461 words, in fact. I don’t really know how, seeing as I have no previous writing experience or training, but it happened and I’m grateful.

Getting what you ask for works in mysterious ways, too. Everyone has heard the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for, because it may come true.” When I asked for money to come my way, I wasn’t expecting it to come in the form of a severance check after being laid off. But hey, I didn’t ask how to get it, I just asked for it.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, religion & philosophy by Stephanie West
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Greetings. This is my first post on When Falls the Coliseum and I’m not quite sure what I will be writing about. Certainly, my 26 years in the symphony orchestra business will be a recurring theme, particularly when I come across articles or news on that subject. I hope also to weigh in on numerous other, mostly cultural, topics. At 55, I cast a cold, if not curmudgeonly eye on the current state of culture. Everything seems to be dying. Some of my favorite things, like Top 40 radio, died long ago. The death of the LP and now the CD (a poor substitute), and the virtual demise of the music industry, is a constant thorn. And, in the last year, we saw the deforestation of most culture reporting in print, including huge losses for reviewers of all kinds. And don’t get me started on computer graphics in the movies. I can’t blame the end of melody on the universal digitalization of creativity alone, but the fact remains that melody just doesn’t seem to interest anyone anymore. The world, at least the younger world, seems content to seek philosophy from 20-year old guitarists. Well, you grok my drift, as my wife is used to my saying.

 Let’s begin. [Read more →]

Tags: music by Christopher Guerin
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Dear Ruby,
I am interested in volunteering, but I have a problem. I am too shy. The idea of walking into a soup kitchen or a hospital and offering help is embarrassing to me. When I mentioned this to a friend, she said, “Stop being shy! Just get out there and help people!” I felt bad about it.

I’m honestly not lazy, I’m just not a joiner. I can’t even go to church because I hate all the ‘fellowship’ stuff. But, I genuinely want to contribute to a worthy cause. Any ideas?

Shy in Milwaukee

Dear Shy in Milwaukee,
First of all, the proper response to your friend is, “Stop being an insensitive dink.” And then see whether that works. Probably not.

You are not alone, Shy Guy. It’s impossible to tell how many humans fall into the non-joiner category (because you can’t get them all into one room), but trust me, they’re out there. Tell your friend that there are good reasons for shyness — including evolution. Perhaps your shy ancestors were the ones who decided to stay home instead of visiting that new tribe in the next village — the new tribe with all the shiny machetes. Or, maybe your ancestors decided to skip church on “Bless your Buboes” day. For the most part, being shy and retiring keeps you out of all kinds of trouble.

But, there’s a tradeoff. It’s important to realize that anxiety, including social anxiety, can worsen over time and cause real problems for you. If it’s interfering with your work, preventing you from seeking help for personal issues, turning into a phobia, or if you’re very lonely and unhappy, then it’s no longer functional and you need to seek help somehow.

But, in your case, if you just don’t want to subject yourself to needlessly uncomfortable situations, then don’t. There are a surprising amount of volunteer opportunities for shy folks — for one, try the Virtual Projects section of SmartVolunteer.org, where there’s a long list of ways you can donate your skills from your home, usually involving a computer.

If you think you might want a more hands-on project, think about what you’re willing to put up with and how much structure you’re willing to abide. Some shy people find it easier to work with kids or animals — though you will probably still have to deal with an adult administrative component, and maybe attend meetings or training. Public libraries often depend heavily on volunteers and would undoubtedly find you a quiet place in the stacks. A sneaky way might be to take a part-time job for an organization you admire and then donate your paycheck, even anonymously. It goes without saying that shy people (otherwise known as Anonymous Donors) keep the wheels of philanthrophy greased, rotated, inflated, and rolling.

Good luck, Shy Guy. And a shout-out to all the clubs and congregations and associations out there — have you given any careful thought to how your more introverted brethren can contribute to your good work? Why the hell not?

Got all the answers? Yeah, right. Ask Ruby.

Tags: advice by Ruby Mac
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In an ever-escalating drive to bring news reporting to the very pinnacle of triteness, NBC Nightly News offered coverage of a plane falling into the Hudson River today along these lines: “So much could have gone wrong that didn’t; so let’s hear from our experts on some of the things that could have gone wrong.”

Go, Brian Williams! When the news isn’t exciting enough,* reporting on news that might have been — what a concept!

“The weather today was exactly what is normally expected this time of year; let’s hear from our experts on how a tsunami would have affected the economy of the tri-state area.”

“Charles Barkley was arrested today for drunken driving; let’s hear from our sportscaster how it would have played out had he walked into a church and started singing along with the choir.”

“The president made a few routine decisions and signed a couple of unremarkable laws; let’s hear from our political commentators what would have happened if he’d asked Congress to approve funds for a bicycle trip to the Moon.”

________________________

* Because nobody died; but this guy is the new Joe the Plumber. His autobiography will come out in 2009, followed by a run for Congress in 2010.

Tags: diatribes, trusted media & news by Olga Gardner Galvin
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The week of Obama’s inauguration, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino announces a special press conference for the White House Press Corps. This will be George W. Bush’s final address as 43rd President of the United States. We go live to that conference already in progress:

“We got you good,” says Bush on-screen, smiling. He looks down to his notes.

“We’ve been making gasoline from water and old garbage since the 70’s and selling it to you. There is no shortage! National debt? Ha! We’ve paid it all off with gas money and have a surplus. We’re going to give fifty-thousand to everyone. What’s more, I recently talked with Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, and Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and these two gentlemen have agreed to eternal peace. Along with Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they will head a task force to stop terrorism and educate the Middle-East on the dangers of Islamic extremism. Say hi, guys.”

[Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch, politics & government by Tyler Samien
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Scott Stein and I have known each other via internet for some time, but it was only this past November that I had an opportunity to see him in person. We met up for lunch and a beer. We had an excellent time (at least from my point of view), discussing a wide range of topics ranging from serious to not. But there was one uncomfortable moment which I feel I must address, one comment I made that seemed to wound Scott very deeply.

You see, I have placed more than a thousand of my books in a storage locker.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, family & parenting by Jason Sterlace
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December 22, 2008
I dream I am not myself and I work at an office at which very little is accomplished. There are constant parties and hours during which people watch television and yet everyone thinks they are overworked. I purchase a greeting card with the idea of giving it to a young woman but I don’t know which young woman. It is a treacherous situation, because all the women talk to each other about who gives them greeting cards. After a company picnic lunch, I get involved in a plot parallel to the last scenes in a Hannibal Lechter movie. I chase Lechter through a series of bathroom tableaus and I foil him. Throughout this process I am also watching it on a wide screen TV.

September 12, 2008
I dream my department at work is being honored with a party and I am a central figure. Everybody is there from our department but nobody from any other department has shown up. Finally, people start showing up and they all have the capability of producing wads of caramel candy, supposedly in our honor. Thing is, the candy looks like turds and they are dropping them all over the place. On behalf of my department, I thank them.

November 25, 2001
I dream I am at a combination of a university and a publishing company. One of my younger colleagues corners me in a cubicle-filled area and he praises my sideshow article and adds that my grammar is impeccable. I thank him, and then try to find my cubicle and start work on my column. When I get there, I am not wearing any clothes and I do not have a computer.

Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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During a debate in the House of Lords on Nov. 5, 2002, one Lord Chalfont said the following:

I have heard some very strange statements tonight … I can only say that, in listening to some of the contributions, I have been reminded of the statesman who once said, “I wish I could be as certain of anything as he is of everything.”

I have seen the statement that Lord Chalfont quotes attributed to Churchill. I have also seen it spoken of as referring to Churchill. But my friend Dave Lull, affectionately known as the Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian (OWL), did some checking for me and found the quote attributed in an edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations to the English statesman William Windham, though in a slightly changed form: “I wish I were as sure of anything as Macaulay is of everything.” Dave noted, however, that the quote had also been attributed to another English statesman, Lord Melbourne, again in a slightly different form: “I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.”

I wrote back to Dave suggesting that he may have unearthed an error in Bartlett’s: William Windham died in 1810, when the future historian Thomas Babbington Macaulay was but 10 years old. [Read more →]

Tags: that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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Team Leader signaled the sniper to take up position. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to use him. It was always worst with the young ones. High schools and middle schools were bad enough, and the elementary school last week was a horror story, so many wasted lives barely begun. Even that was nothing compared to today. [Read more →]

Tags: creative writing, Pitney patrol by Scott Stein
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Thanks to a friend I am now obsessed with a website called Family Watchdog. The site allows you plug in any address you like and spits back a map, with different colored squares, indicating all of the registered sex offenders in the area. It distinguishes offenders by their type of sexual offense: rape, sexual battery, offense against children, and other. It also indicates if the location they are highlighting is where the offender works or resides. Plus, you can see perpetrator mug shots and the age of the offender and their victims. This site has been around since 2005 and I am sure it has its critics.

I wish I could say that I don’t think we need a site like this. That people have the right to live where they please, in anonymity, once they’ve served time for their crime. But really, I am glad I have easy access to this information. I am also glad my map didn’t show any red, yellow, blue, or green squares in my neighborhood. I guess, as I search every address I’ve ever lived, what I wonder the most is what would I do if I pulled up the map and found there was a rapist on my block or someone who committed a sex crime against a kid. What could I even do, other than feel disgusted and terrified?

Tags: on the law by Amy Boshnack
21 Comments »

And so The Itchy and Scratchy Show goes on for at least another week. The Eagles playoff victory over the New York Giants today guarantees that I will be both uncomfortable and unsightly at least until next weekend, pending the outcome of the NFC Championship game between the Eagles and Cardinals. At least until then, and possibly longer, I will be wearing my Eagles victory beard, as shaggy a shaggy dog story about this football season as ever there was to tell. Or as Fox NFL pregame court jester Frank Caliendo (playing Tony Soprano) said before kickoff yesterday, “Did you notice that Andy Reid is growing a beard on one of his chins?” I first noticed the reddish stubble on Reid’s chinny-chin-chins during that unbelievable Sunday when the Eagles came back from a fourth-and-fuhgeddaboutit chance to make the playoffs and then proceeded to blow out the Cowboys. It was during the fourth quarter of that sweet stomping of Dallas that I declared (unfortunately in front of witnesses at a Grays Ferry bar called the Krunch Inn), “I’m not going to shave until the Eagles lose.”

Growing a beard is a rite of passage that most guys go through at least once in their lives. Usually with disappointment the first time out in their late teens or early 20’s. There are those “patches” issues to contend with. That’s where the first-time beard grows luxuriantly in certain places and barely at all in others. The net effect is that the young man’s beard comes in looking like a dogleg par four complete with sand traps on the back nine at Cobbs Creek. That’s when he discovers that mom’s mascara isn’t just for girls anymore. It’s the beard equivalent of a comb over and it fools no one. In later years, say in his early 40’s, a man who decides to grow a beard discovers to his amusement that gray hair shows up in his face hair before his head hair. This gives him his first taste of youthful salt-and-pepper maturity, which gets old real quick. And then there is the man of a certain age, say a man of about my age, who when he decides to grow a victory beard to support his team in the NFL playoffs, learns that his formerly salt and pepper beard is now nothing but a foaming white sea with occasional lonely dark flecks resembling lifeboats after a ship wreck.

This is the beard I see when I look in the mirror. It makes me look like a hobo hunched over a gurgling crackling cauldron in some train yard. The only thing worse than how it looks is how it feels. What is it that makes me think that wearing such a hideous hood ornament will help the Eagles win a Superbowl? What do I know that Andy Reid doesn’t? Apparently not a gosh darn thing.

Tags: fashion & clothing, sports by Clark DeLeon
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After watching the Titans throw and fumble away their playoff game versus Baltimore on Saturday, I was all footballed out. So for the first time in my life, I watched an entire episode of The Bachelor from start to finish. It just happened to be the season premiere, and from a male perspective, how could I be unhappy? One guy, 25 women to look at from the start, including one former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader… gotta like those numbers!

Tags: his & hers, television by Glenn Giangrande
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Let’s begin with what may well be the most awkward line of supposedly realistic written dialogue, ever, in any published book from any legitimate publisher:

“The lecture I had from my boss sure tightened my sphincters!”

I’m not going to name the book or the author because it wouldn’t be kind: The book in question is a practical guide to pain relief, not a novel or work of literary non-fiction, and the author is a compassionate professional healer, not a battle-hardened professional writer. 

So why cite this bizarre bit of dialogue, which sounds like it was badly translated from Hungarian into Esperanto into Turkish into English, at all?  Because it’s one of a series of equally ponderous “common expressions,” along the lines of “I’m experiencing such unusually high levels of stress these days it could very well be that my head is likely to explode!”, that the book lists as examples of how our words and our thoughts not only express, but actually affect, how we feel physically. 

(Incidentally, I say “along the lines of” because I didn’t actually buy the book, and the only line I jotted down verbatim, as I sat in a Barnes & Noble flipping through it, was the one about “sphincters,”  and then only because it was so unintentionally funny.  I mention this — and, specifically, the fact that I was sitting rather than standing — for reasons that will become clear in a moment.)

In any event, according to the book, if we say “she’s a pain in the neck” often enough, sure enough we’ll soon get a pain in the neck, which in turn will lead to chronic headaches. 

But how this theory applies to chronic knee pain, for example — to the best of my knowledge, there any no common expressions to the effect of, “the busy traffic flow in this morning’s rush hour is really causing my kneecaps to ache” — isn’t at all clear. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, language & grammar by Michael Antman
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In light of our selection of the first black president, there is — for good reason — lots of talk of race relations here and elsewhere. We have come such a long way to correct the mistakes of our past but there are still so many people out there who can’t even say they have had the opportunity to be friends with someone of a different race. I grew up in an urban neighborhood where some of my best friends were black and Korean. I believe those friendships helped to make me a better person. So, when I saw this short CBS piece about an unlikely bond between an elephant and a dog it made me think, if an elephant and a dog can get past their physical differences, why can’t we?

It also made me question how people will ever get over their racial bias if we continue to live in towns with minimal integration. How will the opportunities for friendships ever arise if people of different races do not live and work together? How do we see past the color of our skin if we never really get to know each other — allowing us the chance to see how similar we really are. And in friendship, my hope would be that we gain a new respect for what makes us all different. Cheesy as that sounds… white people who wouldn’t normally have voted for a black man, voted for Obama. They didn’t vote for him just because they wanted Bush out of office (although that may have been part of the reason), they voted for him because they felt like they got to know him during his campaign — and they liked him and they liked his politics. Maybe, in fact, he is the first black man they’ve ever gotten to know.

Hat Tip to Dixie

Tags: animals, race & culture by Amy Boshnack
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I don’t know about you, but I’m about green, cheap and healthy-ed out.

I’m sick of being good and sober and frugal and low-carb. If I read one more post about composting or tips on clipping coupons, I’m going to puke. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly decided to go out clubbing baby seals or even go out clubbing. I’m just ready for a little luxury. It’s freaking cold outside where I live, and it’s not so warm inside. It’s also mostly dark, and did I mention going back to work and school after vacation sucks?

Here’s what I’m going to do about it. Why don’t you join me?

1. Creme de cacao. The DrinksMixer website has about 40 things you can do with a 8 dollar bottle of this mid-winter liquid goodness. We just poured it over ice cream growing up in my family. Yep, I had a cool mom. Gets much more mileage than leftover Christmas candy.
2. Amy’s Pesto Tortellini. It’s not cheaper than a Happy Meal, it’s not particularly healthy with all the cheese and carbs and sodium, but it’s kinda green, being organic and all. Who cares? It rocks. Like, hide-it-in-the-freezer-from-your-husband kind of rocks. And, you can eat it for lunch at your desk and go home early. Take that, Regional Manager Man!
3. How’s this for a New Year’s resolution? I am never waking up my 14-year-old again. I’m not doing it. I’m sick of it. Most of the time I have to yell or throw pillows. It ruins my whole morning zen deal. I’m getting him a Clocky and if he breaks it, I’m taking the money out of his allowance. Take that, Freshman Sleepyhead Oppressor Man!
4. Gonna buy me some Macy’s clearance items. Might leave early tomorrow to do it.
5. Netflix’s Watch Instantly. Me, bed, Bailey’s, and BBC. Brilliant.

Still feeling deprived? One last luxury, Poems for a Long Winter Night.

Ruby wishes you all the best in 2009, but you should write her more. You know how she worries.

Tags: advice by Ruby Mac
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