Up until a few weeks ago we had a Safety 1st Grip ‘n Twist Door Knob Cover on my 3-year-old’s doorknob so she couldn’t get out of her room at night. For me, it was the fear of her roaming around our apartment in the middle of the night and hurting herself, opening the front door, finding her way to the knife drawer — normal things we parents worry about — that led me to put it on her door. Once we put her in a bed, the thought of her having free rein in our apartment caused me complete anxiety. I’m Jewish, what do you want from me? [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, going parental by Jaclyn Roth
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My wife and I recently watched Donnie Brasco on cable TV. We’ve seen the film about four or five times, but we like it so much we watch it again every couple of years.

The 1997 film, stars Johnny Depp as Donnie “the jeweler” Brasco, aka Joseph Pistone, the FBI special agent who went undercover in 1976 in the New York Bonanno Cosa Nostra crime family, and Al Pacino as mobster Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero. In my view, the film is one of the two most realistic films, along with Goodfellas, about organized crime.  

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Tags: on thrillers and crime by Paul Davis
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In many respects, Christmas is just a memory, now. Variations of “How was your holiday?” are disappearing from our conversation, depleted shelves of Christmas goods (at dramatically-reduced prices) are giving way to shelves stuffed with Valentine’s Day goods, and the ‘fridge has been cleared — one way or another — of the last ripening remnants of Christmas dinner leftovers.

Considering that we’re only now, finally regaining our breath and our sanity from Hectic Holiday Hustle 2009, is this any time to talk of lingering over Christmas?
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Tags: religion & philosophy by Jeff McDonald
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Back in June, reason.com ran a story about a woman in Pennsylvania who wanted to begin a pole dancing class for exercise.  The town, Mars, was fighting her attempt in an effort to keep their streets clear of the hordes of hookers and prostitutes that were bound to descend upon them like a plague of locusts.

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Tags: advice, sports by Mike McGowan
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Dramatis Personae
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

OBAMA: Guys, what’s this I hear about you conferencing my health care bill in secret?

REID: Well, Mr. President, like they say, legislation of this type is a lot like sausage. It’s better if the people don’t know how it’s made.

OBAMA: But I promised during the campaign that all negotiations surrounding this bill would be public. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Colin Cohen
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Have you ever heard of Sisyphus? Or the Myth of Sisyphus? No? You probably have but didn’t realize it. It’s the story of that ancient Greek who was punished by the gods to push a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down to the bottom before he reached the top…for all of eternity. Why do I bring that up? A French writer/philosopher (Camus) in 1942 published a philosophical essay called The Myth of Sisyphus. He suggested that there is only one question worthy of answering: Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide? [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy by Jeffrey Maryak
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Have you ever been to a McDonald’s and been so mad about something that you felt the need to start destroying property? If you are like most people, the answer is no. Perhaps I should not say “most people,” though. Based on recent events, maybe you and I are in the minority. [Read more →]

Tags: ends & odd by Alan Spoll
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December 24, 2009
I dream I am in a hospital to participate in a study of human arousal. Before I am to begin looking through magazines with provocative images, I wander the hallway and run into my friend, Bob. He informs me that he is visiting Sylvia Fine, wife of actor Danny Kaye. I am baffled as to how Bob knows Sylvia Fine and how he happens to know she’s in this hospital. Bob explains to me that it takes a little effort to find these things out but I could learn to do it. I point out that not only can’t I keep informed about Sylvia Fine’s whereabouts, but I can’t remember to wear pants. Indeed, I am walking the hallway with no pants on.

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Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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“Directing a movie is a very overrated job; we all know it. You just have to say yes or no; what else do you do? Yes, no, yes, no — that is directing,” Lilli (the always marvelous Judi Dench) tells Guido Contini (the always divine Daniel Day-Lewis). Well, yes–and no.  Director Rob Marshall’s yes and no choices are on larger than life display in Nine, in similar ways as they were in his 2002 Chicago.  Your feelings about Chicago may be a good predictor of your enjoyment of Nine.  I enjoyed both. Nine has a glamorous all star cast, and the hard work this bevy of beauties put into the musical numbers pays off here. Day Lewis is riveting, the story is one for adults, the production numbers are big and this film looks good. And despite some melancholy moments, Nine is a whole lot of fun. [Read more →]

Tags: Gail sees a movie, movies by Gail D. Rosen
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Satirist Craig Brown of the Daily Mail has it for you:

A new biography of the film star Warren Beatty claims that he has been to bed with 12,775 women. The author adds, usefully, that the figure ‘does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on’

Thank goodness. Wait: “drive-bys?” How does that … never mind.

[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, getting older by Neil Verma
3 Comments »

As Heather MacDonald notes in her piece in the Wall Street Journal, the recession of 2008-09 has undercut one of the most destructive social theories that came out of the 1960s: that the root cause of crime is poverty and social injustice

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Tags: money, on the law by Paul Davis
2 Comments »

“The universe,” the poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “is made of stories, not of atoms.” This seems eminently sound to me. After all, what exactly do atoms amount to?

In The Nature of the Physical World, Sir Arthur Eddington notes that if you imagine the nucleus of an atom to be a grain of sand suspended halfway between the floor and the apex of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the orbit of the electrons would be circumscribed by the curve of the dome itself. In other words, the distance between the nucleus and the electrons is astronomical. A creature standing on the nucleus would likely be unable to see the electrons spinning about. [Read more →]

Tags: science, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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Ladies and gents, it seems like it’s time for a little peaceful civil disobedience.  Many thousands, maybe many hundreds of thousands, gathered in DC to protest health care and Obama’s plan to ruin America last September, and their voice is being ignored by Congress.  The polls, which show that the majority of Americans are against the health care bill, are also being ignored as the Democrats bribe, lie, and change their precious bill in an attempt to get something, anything, passed to give them the opening they need to take control of the American health care system.

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Tags: politics & government by Mike McGowan
6 Comments »

I don’t know how many of you caught this piece of horrible news for the ladies in the audience, but scientists have found that there is no evidence of the mythical “G-Spot” in women.

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Tags: his & hers, science by Mike McGowan
48 Comments »

I am going to start this week’s column by saying that I am going to hold off on writing about the Mike Leach/Texas Tech story. First, the amount of coverage of this story is way over the top at this point. Also, I am still unsure where I stand on the whole thing.  I will wait for more actual details on both sides before weighing in. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
1 Comment »

10. Car Crash on 34th Street

9. So You Think You Can Gift Wrap

8. Bob Dylan’s Hanukkah/Christmas Special

7. Bernie Madoff’s New Year’s Rockin’ Prison Eve

6. Rudolph the Downsized Reindeer

5. I Saw Adam Lambert Kissing Santa Claus

4. When Reindeer Attack

3. Drape Some Tinsel on This, Charlie Brown!

2. The Grinch Who Robbed Parking Meters

1. Don Knotts’s It’s A Wonderful Fife
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, ends & odd, television by Bob Sullivan
1 Comment »

Early in the morning a police car sped through our nation’s capital with its sirens blaring. A casual observer might’ve believed that it was in pursuit of some local miscreant; that is, until this observer could see that a car was actually pursuing it — a dark sedan, from which men were shooting intermittently. [Read more →]

Tags: creative writing by Colin Cohen
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It’s a contentious time in America. Between fighting over health care, over terrorists and TSA regulations, and dealing with standard-issue holiday stress, we all seem to be teetering on our last nerves. So for my debut column at When Falls the Coliseum, I’ve decided to start 2010 on an uncontroversial note and champion a cause we all can get behind. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, science by Matt Feltz
2 Comments »

I’ve been waiting months for Public Enemies to come out on DVD.

Reason number one: I love Johnny Depp.

Reason number 2: I love guns.

The movie was just OK, as I expected from the mixed reviews I’d read. The plot was a little anticlimactic, and the love story lacked the romance novel passion I had hoped for. But the guns, both Johnny Depp’s flesh ones, and the black, shiny, metallic ones, were all I could have hoped for and more.

And it got me thinking about parallel circumstances. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, money by Nicole Ball
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It was during the first hour of 2010 that I resolved to visit my friend Monty Gelstein in the hospital as often as possible. He won’t know I’m there, but I will. And hopefully that good karma will assuage the guilt I feel for putting him there in the first place. I’d never administered electroshock therapy and should have practiced a bit before treating my best friend. [Read more →]

Tags: creative writing, health & medical by David A. Brensilver
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