Got a letter in the mail today. Goes a little something like this: Dear Milenko Budimir, (Oh, hi there, Mr. Chase Credit Card Company… Financial Services… Big… Company… Person… er, Entity) We want to be your number one credit card. (I see. Go on…) We noticed that you recently made a large payment to your [...]

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Is there anyone out there, ANYBODY, who knows just what the hell is going on with the economy? No matter who I hear talking about this mess, whether its a politician, a talking-head journalist, a supposed “expert”, or someone in the financial sector, no two stories (or 10 for that matter) match up. Is it [...]

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Apparently, nowhere to be found pre- or post-debate. After her rough week, she’s probably secluded somewhere, studying real hard for her debate with Biden next week, cramming before the big exam. The polls seem to indicate that the new-car smell is fading fast. As Jefferson Starship so aptly put it: Sarah, Sarah/ storms are brewing [...]

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I came home from work today, opened my mailbox, and found this DVD. Granted, it didn’t come from either of the two major political campaigns, but still… Apparently, some group called  The Clarion Fund ponied up the money to flood swing states with 28 million copies of this pre-release, one-hour edition of the full movie. [...]

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Is there truly something to be said for this analysis of the McCain-Palin combo? (The magazine, n+1, is a very young, four-year old pub, but features writing like you’ll find nowhere else.) Ironically enough, the right’s constant drumming of the “culture of life” seems to belie the underlying death-wish culture that seeks out war, supports [...]

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then who do these presidential candidates represent? Obama – He was the cool black kid in your high school. Or, as they would have called him back then, a mulatto. He was smart as hell, probably more serious than your average teenager, but still drank and even smoked some pot now and then. You knew [...]

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until the presidential election. And I have to confess, I’m being swept up in all the election happenings; the daily snipping from both sides, campaign stops (Palin was even at Karl’s Inn of the Barrister’s on W. 6th today, my old breakfast haunt when I worked across the street from the Justice Center many, many [...]

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Today is September 11th and I am thinking of a guy named Nikola Kavaja. Who is Nikola Kavaja? The short answer may be that he is a man of much experience, but mostly a professional assassin. A few years ago, The Paris Review published an interview Christopher Stewart conducted with Kavaja, which is reprinted here [...]

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I only recently stumbled upon the ClevelandPoetics blog which went online some time in July. But that’s what happens when you’re out of the country, far, far away from the green, green grass of home; you tend to miss things like this. Anyway, I’m glad I found it. They have a great feature each week [...]

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Autumn Sundays have always been special for me. As a lifelong Browns fan (and more generally, a fan of the game of football), the first regular-season Browns game is always a big event. I’ve even hauled TVs into wedding receptions to catch the Browns season opener. But today, as I type this with the Steelers-Texans [...]

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