Entries Tagged as ''

Mr. Sean goes to Washington

Brock Lesnar is America

When Brock Lesnar became the UFC heavyweight champ — for non-fans, that’s where the fighters get to keep the fight going when one guy hits the ground — he seemingly had the potential to be unbeatable. Crushing opponents, he dominated press coverage for the sport and set himself up a private training complex near his Minnesota home, based on the theory people could go to him instead of him going to them. Recently he took on a challenger named Cain Velasquez and was beaten like a gong. Now it’s possible Lesnar is quitting mixed martial arts and returning to pro wrestling and its bigger paydays. The weirdest thing about this? He’s only had seven fights. [Read more →]

books & writing

Lisa reads: Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo

Painters Mill is a small town in Ohio with a large Amish population.  In Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo, Kate Burkholder heads up the police force — she was raised Amish, but did not join the church, a difficult decision for an Amish teenager, but one with very ugly roots in her case.  She drinks too much (way too much, in my opinion), but she’s a good, solid police woman.  And then one night, one of her detectives makes a horrible discovery… [Read more →]

books & writing

Classics of literature — titles starting with definite articles (#1)

If you have ever watched the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, you may remember their fractured fairy tales.  Here are a few short (fractured) reviews to help you decide which classics to read. [Read more →]

announcements

Bloggers wanted

When Falls the Coliseum is looking for bloggers to post commentaries, essays, rants, satire, and reviews about current events, politics, entertainment, culture, and many other topics from a broad range of personal and political perspectives. We appreciate both serious discussion and merciless mockery. We like humor — the funny kind. If you’re interested in being a regular contributor, visit our submissions page and tour our site (see FAQ, Welcome, and History). We don’t care if you are libertarian, liberal, conservative, other, or don’t pay attention to politics. As long as you can write posts that interest readers and you want to do so regularly, we’d like to hear from you. We’re looking to increase our coverage of movies, books, TV, video games, celebrity news, pop culture, politics, current events, social issues, online oddities.

educationpolitics & government

Time to make cuts, let’s start with the Department of Education

After last night’s election, it’s time to begin thinking about where we should make the first cuts to the Federal budget.  Obviously the spending we most need to address is entitlement spending like SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, but we’re all realistic enough to know that even the TEA Party endorsed Congresscritters won’t touch that with a ten foot pole yet.  So what discretionary spending should be targeted first?

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Broadway Fred

Broadway Fred: The Merchant of Venice

A few minutes before the play begins actors enter wearing not Elizabethan, but Edwardian apparel. Gradually, they populate a stage setting dominated by a ticker tape machine, towering abacuses, and walls that appear to be assembled from exquisitely sharp blades. These blades form a cool steel fortress in which those who belong can do business and from which those who are reviled can be shut out. While it may seem irrelevant in 2010, I feel compelled to mention that in this play the reviled ones are my ancestors. And bizarre as it may sound, I can’t help feeling that if this play could prick us, my ancestors and I would bleed.

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politics & governmentrace & culture

A conversation with Mr. Hinkle: Moral duty v. self interest

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece discussing where our obligation to obey the government comes from, as a response to an article I’d read which was written by Mr. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  My thesis was that our obligation to obey the government comes from the fact that the government holds the legal monopoly on force, i.e. the government can kill you and get away with it.  Thus, when the government gives us an order, the people who obey are ultimately obeying out of fear; they’re looking out for their own rational self interest.

Mr. Hinkle read it and was gracious enough to respond.  He was also willing to allow me to continue this conversation in a public forum.

[Read more →]

Gail sees a movie

Gail sees a movie: Stone

As I watched Stone, I waited for it to get better. After all, Stone has a great cast and explores an interesting idea.  But that is not enough to save Stone from being a disappointing film. [Read more →]

diatribesMeg gives advice to famous people

Mike Bloomberg, save autumn in New York!

Mike…Mike, please hear me out…

I have nothing against Christmas. Adult though I am, I still look forward to it every year. In fact, last Christmas I bought not one but two advent calendars; one for home and one for the office, and not just because I love chocolate. Because I love Christmas. So you can imagine the joy I felt when I woke up yesterday morning and it was Christmas. I smiled as I passed the heartwarming red displays in the department store windows. I delighted in the wreaths hung jauntily off the lampposts. But encountering the holiday displays at the Duane Reade gave me pause. Why? Because it was November 1st, Mike. November 1st. [Read more →]

artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo

Sincerity: The endangered artistic ingredient

For anyone who has read a few of my pieces, I know it sometimes seems like I am on a mission to downplay the arts — to take artists down a peg and to reduce the glitter factor in the perception of the world’s audience. That’s because I am. The drama is supposed to be in the work, not in the lifestyle and in the peripherals of the performance. All that stuff is tabloid bull, not artistic expression. [Read more →]

religion & philosophythat's what he said, by Frank Wilson

The unfortunate persistence of “fear of the Lord”

Recently I linked, as I frequently do, to something Bill Vallicella posted on his Maverick Philosopher blog. Vallicella quoted the philosopher Thomas Nagel as saying that “I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

I went on to comment that this suggested that Nagel entertained “a very primitive notion of God.”

I have since regretted that turn of phrase, not only because it is an insult to primitives everywhere, but also because it is simply wrong. Nagel’s notion of God is in fact all-too-civilized. [Read more →]

travel & foreign landstrusted media & news

A short tour of the Juarez-El Paso border

I met Sgt. Ron Martin of the El Paso police department early in the morning, and was about to climb into his car when I found my way blocked by an assault rifle, propped up against the backseat like a faithful dog awaiting its master. A thorny issue of etiquette presented itself: Do I push it out the way? But what if it goes off and blows my brains out? [Read more →]

art & entertainmentbooks & writing

The life of an adjunct: an interview with novelist Alex Kudera

Interview with Alex Kudera, author of Fight for Your Long Day

I have known Alex Kudera since 1996 when he and I met in the café of Borders Bookstore in Center City, Philadelphia. A couple years later, Alex and I worked together as adjuncts at Temple University and at Drexel University. Alex has now written a novel, the just-published Fight for Your Long Day, and it is a bracing, painful, and sometimes funny look at the life of an adjunct college teacher in the early 2000’s.

Although Alex currently teaches full-time at Clemson University in South Carolina, he is quick to note that working full-time does not mean tenure. I recently interviewed him about Fight for Your Long Day, published by Atticus Books.

Below are some of the excerpts.

[Read more →]

art & entertainment

Marty digs: The Cowtown Rodeo and Flea Market

I live in Gloucester City, New Jersey, which is directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, PA. Not exactly the hustle and bustle of the big city, but still a relatively urban area complete with traffic jams, drug problems, stray dogs, and row homes. However, in a mere half hour drive south, you find yourself in what I like to call “God’s Country.” Southern New Jersey is almost all farmland and wide open space. Yes, the cookie cutter mansions and soccer mom SUV’s are starting to creep in, but it is still a peaceful, beautiful area. Regardless, a far cry from North Jersey and the smog, chemical plants, annoying accents, and rude folks that give my New Jersey its bad name.   

[Read more →]

bad sports, good sports

Bad sports, good sports: What the heck is going on at Notre Dame?

There is no more storied college football program in the country than Notre Dame. The name conjures up images of the Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus, Rudy, and the Gipper. Despite the fact that the football team itself hasn’t been particularly relevant since the early nineties, the college football world continues to pay an incredible amount of attention to the Fighting Irish. After five miserable years under egomaniac head coach Charlie Weis, new coach Brian Kelly was hired and the fan base was rejuvenated. This week, it became apparent that things have actually gotten worse than they ever were under Weis. [Read more →]

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingmovies

Top ten surprises in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

10. Harry admits he learned all his magic tricks from a book advertised on the back cover of a Superman comic

9. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger inadvertently discover each other’s charms

8. Harry is permanently banned from induction into the Quidditch Hall of Fame amid allegations of sports betting

7. Harry’s latest supernatural power: levitating his pants

6. Short of cash, Ron is arrested for shoplifting a newt

5. Harry dies at the end, making Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II a real challenge

4. After perfecting the art of Divination, Harry makes a fortune on the Powerball lottery

3. Harry gets expelled when Albus Dumbledore catches him polishing his wand

2. Hogwarts’ head witch is Senate Republican nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware

1. O’Donnell is morally outraged by that ‘wand’ allegation
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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