I got a copy of the tentative assessed value of my home for the 2010/2011 tax year and apparently it is now worth $121,500 less than when we bought it. Good thing we aren’t planning to move anytime soon. And it seems it’s also a good thing we aren’t planning to divorce!

Breaking up is now even harder because couples are actually fighting over who gets stuck with the house. Randall M. Kessler, a divorce lawyer, said in a New York Times article, “There’s an old joke: Why is a divorce so expensive? Because it’s worth it. Now it better really be worth it.” Couples who were breaking up amicably, and treating the division of property as a matter of legality, are now fighting like cats and dogs. And in some cases have actually chosen to stay in the same house until this crisis is over. It seems that without the sale of their home many couples don’t have the money to start over — apart from one another.

Could you imagine having your soon-to-be ex living on one level of the house and you on another? Who knows how long it will take for the housing market to rebound! And how do you move on with your life? It will certainly get complicated when you start dating new people and want to bring someone home with you. Talk about awkward!

Tags: his & hers, money by Amy Boshnack
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Robert: One subject not much talked about in these days of Presidential transition is the role of Michelle Obama. She was one of the reasons for Obama’s strong appeal to black people. Black women really like her and the idea of her. They love that Barack “did not marry white,” and “did not marry light.”

I’m hoping that the black community, with all of our family problems, draws some inspiration from Michelle and Barack Obama and their children. There are kids in tough city neighborhoods who basically don’t know anyone who has a father, particularly a married father, living at home with his wife and children. Symbolism cannot overcome entrenched social trends and problems, but I’m hoping black people find a way to build upon the fact that we have some black “Cleavers” in the white house. (I’m also hoping that Obama’s tenure will help black people feel more OK about being self-critical. One of the worst aspects of having an administration in power that seems hostile is that it leads people to be so defensive. I’m also hoping that Obama’s election leads to people recalibrating expectations, such that they aspire for more, for higher positions, better positions in the work place and in public office.)

   Paula: I agree that the Obamas represent a seemingly exemplary model of family life, not just for black people but for all people. The relationship of the parents (so well matched and mutually respectful), the feisty but essentially obedient children, the sense of a loving, supportive, structured home — all this appears to be there and is what we, who have families, aspire to. But I have to admit to occasionally feeling that the Obamas look too good to be true — like the Cosbys or, going back in time, like the Cleavers. [Read more →]

Tags: conversations with Paula and Robert, family & parenting by Robert Anthony Watts
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November 18, 2008
I dream Dan and I are visiting Norway. I am impressed with the terrain, because you enter every town by going down a hill into an underground hole. You don’t feel like you’re underground because the fog above you feels like the sky. Each little underground town is different. We are about to get a shuttle bus back to our hotel, but Dan makes us miss it because he wants to purchase a Norwegian jacket. I see no jackets for sale. All is see is smoked meat and smoked fish.

October 16, 2008
I dream Gail and I are coming home from Russia on a super airplane. The cabins are nice, but because of the atmospheric pressure things behave strangely. A spray bottle in our room goes nuts and empties itself out, and when I go to the bathroom my poo spews all around the room. The highlight of the trip is when I discover that it is possible to climb up on top of the plane. It is narrow and scary and slippery up there. As I hold onto the plane in a prone position, I marvel at the snowy Russian wonderland below.

March 9, 1994
I dream I am in a restaurant and a woman I don’t know sits down to watch me eat. I feel uncomfortable but I try to appear nonchalant. Then, I order two cups of Devil Dog tea. From the monuments outside, we appear to be in a combination of Penn Station and Red Square.

Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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I didn’t vote for Barack 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 profound effect on the issue of race relations in this country. The elevation of a black man, in an open and free election, to the highest office in this land and, indeed, one of the most powerful positions in the world, is a clear indication of how far we have come.

While it would be foolish to expect the ripples from this election to be felt so soon, it is human nature to hope. The deafening silence from renowned race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over the last few months has fed those hopes.

All is not sugar and spice, however. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture by David "Preacher" Slocum
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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, which had come out the previous year

I finished the book, stared out the window for a while, then picked up the magazine — and discovered that Alan Watts had died some days earlier. It was an odd experience, if only because, in the prose I had just been reading, Watts had seemed so very much alive.

I suppose a thrice-married, former Episcopal priest with a drinking problem (“I don’t like myself when I’m sober,” he told a friend) could be regarded as a dubious choice for a guide to religion, but I continue to think that much of what Watts had to say on the subject is worth paying heed to.

In an essay called “The World’s Most Dangerous Book,” for instance, he says something that is very worth pondering. Belief, he says, is “holding to a rock.” Faith, on the other hand, is “learning how to swim.” (By the way, the book referred to in the essay’s title is called the Bible.) [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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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 Eve and I had stayed home to work on this sandwich. I cooked with maximum efficiency. While I sliced the onion, mushroom, and tomato, the first piece of bread and slices of American were already in the pan. [Read more →]

Tags: recipes & food, religion & philosophy by Tyler Samien
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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 a movie. We wanted to see and feel the spirit of the night (even though we weren’t actively participating in anything very exciting ourselves). For us that meant watching the ball drop in Times Square. I’ve been to Times Square four times to ring-in the New Year but this year I was perfectly content to be with my family; maybe even, as others have said, I couldn’t think of a single happier way to ring in the new year.

So, we chose to watch the pre and post ball-dropping commentary on television. However, I did want to be, at least slightly, entertained — and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve doesn’t do it for me anymore. Really, I just can’t stand Ryan Seacrest. So we turned to CNN. Really, we did!

Anderson Cooper had Kathy Griffin co-host the evening with him. What a ridiculously unlikely combination. We flipped to CNN thinking we were going to switch out just as quickly as we’d found them. We didn’t. We stayed. And we liked it. They had a lot of time to fill and did a really good job making people feel like they were part of the evening. I’ve never been a fan of Kathy’s — her humor just never did anything for me. However, for this one evening, she was the perfect ying to Anderson’s yang.

Did anyone else watch? Did I miss fabulous programming somewhere? Let me know so I can make note for next year!

Tags: art & entertainment, trusted media & news by Amy Boshnack
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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. Obama’s own seat in the U.S. Senate. Nothing could be more distracting or at odds with the spirit of the moment. Or so it seemed.  

Gov. Blagojovich will of course have the day in court to which he is entitled — followed, most likely, by many years of incarceration. But from the standpoint of racial harmony and conciliation, which is a key subtext of the past election, the present time, and the coming administration, I would single out another chapter of this story for its inappropriateness: something less despicable than what Gov. Blagojovich allegedly did, but in a way, more depressing. That is the reaction of some African-American leaders in Illinois and in Congress, to the Governor’s nomination of a distinguished black politician, Roland Burris, to fill Obama’s Senate seat.

Blagojovich remains governor as of this writing, with the powers pertaining to that office. He himself claims to have a legal duty to fill the seat; duty or not, his nomination of Burris is perfectly legal.

The problem is that the governor is so deeply compromised, not just by the charges pending against him but by the nationally-publicized recordings of some particularly damning evidence for those charges, that any act he performs in his remaining time as governor bears the taint of corruption. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, race & culture by Jeff Scheuer
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 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 Dean Wormer’s worst nightmare, when it occurred to me that nowhere but in Philadelphia can so many guys look like frat brothers from Animal House on New Year’s Day and consider it a way of life. What would Philadelphia be without the mummers? Another city certainly.

Mummers are the bad boys of the western world. The Deltas in an Alpha culture. Been that way since the Romans called it Saturnalia. Kings dressed as slaves. Men dressed as women. City folk dressed as farm boys. The best fool became the wisest man. It was an extended solstice festival, like Christmas through Carnival. And any bozo who dragged it out past the end of March was labeled an April fool.

Philadelphia takes care of all that in a single day, or thereabouts. And that single day identifies Philadelphia to itself. The world may not know mummers but we do. This past New Year’s parade clocked in at a record six hours and 30 minutes. It was a cold glorious day. Brilliant winter light shined on Broad Street as if the sun was a spotlight at the Navy Yard. And yet the crowds took a hike. The fans and first timers remained and had a great time. What’s not to like? A wonderful parade on a beautiful day. But there was nobody there. I’m talking nobody-deep on the west side of Broad and Pine when the ninth string band passed.

I know why, of course. Who would bring their family out to watch a parade that might not happen? Or if it does happen there might be a work stoppage? Or if there is a parade it might turn violent if the fat, drunk and stupid parts of both cultures act up. So the bad press about the mummers-City Hall conflict cooled off the size of the crowd as much as the cold day. And boy what a great show they missed. But one thing is for sure, the mummers are as big a part of Philadelphia as any sports team and the thought of a New Year’s Day without a parade is as unthinkable as a spring without the Phillies or an autumn without the Eagles. And the powers that be ought to accommodate that reality into the annual budget instead of acting like the mummers can be put on double secret probation.

Photo of Clark the Mummer by Chris Dwyer. Photo of Fat, Drunk and Stupid by Clark DeLeon.

Tags: ends & odd, money by Clark DeLeon
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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 not very creative. I’ve been trying to stick it out, but I find myself surfing around online all day and I’m afraid that I’m going to get caught and fired before I find something better. Should I stay or should I go?

Ken

Dear Ken,
You didn’t tell me whether or not you are supporting a family, but I’m going to try to answer in a way that would address both situations — stay.

Put down the letter opener, I don’t mean forever. What I do mean is, end it like a man. End it honorably, like an agreement, like a marriage, like any obligation. You need a plan and a timetable, so I am providing you, free of charge, Ruby’s patented 3 Weeks to 2 Weeks’ Notice program:

Week 1: Get some real work done.
On Monday morning for two hours, figure out what you need to accomplish in the coming week to get caught up on your work, or at least close to it. Close your office door or tape off your cubicle opening, turn off your phone. You could even send out a “please do not disturb me from 8-10” email to those likely to disturb you. If your boss gives you crap about it, tell him or her that it’s something you read about in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and you hope it will help you be more organized. It is likely that your screwing off has already been noted and this explanation will give your boss hope that you are getting back on track and that he or she will not have to fire you. It is false hope, but you don’t have to explain that.

I know what you’re thinking — if you could get yourself to work more you wouldn’t be in this position. The problem was that you weren’t incentivized. Here’s your incentive. After every 2 hours of work you complete, you get to spend 20 minutes on your resume and you get to pick one personal item to take home. Maybe it’s 20 minutes reading an online article about interviewing or maybe it’s 20 minutes of writing out a really flattering description of your current position. By the end of a week, you should have a spiffing resume in progress and a desk drawer or two cleaned out.

At night, it goes without saying, you’re Facebooking, LinkedInning, and hitting the job boards. Hard. But, only at home, where you have time to write carefully compelling cover letters and catch the errors before you hit “Submit.”

Week 2: Hanging curtains in the escape tunnel [Read more →]

Tags: advice, all work by Ruby Mac
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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 in between Callie yelling for us to all come out to the balcony because the “Fire Man” was doing “sparkles” again (fireworks on the beach).

Neither of my parents actually made it to midnight. Mom went down around 10 p.m. and Dad followed at 11:30. But Callie stayed up the whole time until the ball dropped. I think it’s the first time she’s been up until midnight other than when she was an infant and routinely woke up at all hours of the night. She and I alternately watched the intermittent fireworks from the back bedroom of my parents’ condominium, which overlooks the Intercoastal Waterway, and from the front balcony, which overlooks the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. Not a bad place to spend New Year’s Eve.

Of course, in years past, it was the absolute last place you would have found me on the biggest party night of the year. [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting by Stephanie West
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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 run in easy mode, which is totally pathetic.

I am discouraged.

Rest assured that there is an abundance of gross incompetence, general stupidity, and blatant disregard for truth and justice in the world that I would gladly comment on. At this very moment there are dozens of diatribes dancing around in my head fighting to find a direct pipeline to my keyboard.

This is not a case of writer’s block. There are big, big, big things going on that piss me off and I, like thousands of others in the blogosphere, have opinions and judgments that I think are unique, brilliant, and deserving of being blasted throughout the universe because, well, um, I am right and you are wrong.

No, this is not writer’s block. My deserving diatribes on the big issues are not absent. My truth is out there. But unlike everyone else in the blogosphere, I am the victim of a cruel conspiracy. My rage has been stolen and broadcast as a ‘special comment’ by Keith Olbermann. [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch, books & writing by Jody Lane
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