![\"1930s](\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/pgh.jpg\" "\\"1930s")
<\/a>\u2022 The City of Pittsburgh is planning to redevelop the site where its Civic Arena once stood, the venue where I saw The Doors (once) and Chicago (twice) from up in the crow’s-nest section.\u00a0 The plan calls for restoring part of the Lower Hill street grid<\/a>.\u00a0 If\u00a0and when they do, I hope they bring back Epiphany Street.\u00a0 Who wouldn’t want to live on Epiphany Street?\u00a0 It would be…\u00a0 what’s the word I’m looking for?<\/p>\n\u2022 Television shows (like Dr. Phil<\/a>, CBS News<\/a>, The Today Show<\/a> and Ellen<\/a>, among others) have to stop anointing themselves as family-reunion facilitators.\u00a0 I thought this genre had exhausted itself fifty years ago<\/a>, but some producers still seem to think it is all right to manipulate people and record their raw emotions for others’ entertainment.\u00a0 If reuniting lost relatives is such a noble endeavor, it is worth forgoing the proceeds of broadcasting their tears.<\/p>\n \u2022 The harder the winds of change blow, the deeper the diehards dig their storm shelters.<\/p>\n \u2022 The Pittsburgh Pirates are leading major league baseball<\/a> in batters hit by the pitcher — the team is averaging one hit batsman every 14-plus innings.\u00a0 Some maintain that this is part of the game — if so, then the game they must have in mind is hockey.\u00a0 For the sake of avoiding injuries and dugout-clearing brawls, I concur with those (going back at least as far as Carl Furillo<\/a> of the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers) who have called for awarding two bases, not one, to the batter who is hit by a pitch.<\/p>\n \u2022 The only thing I can say about being dead is that I wouldn’t know what I was missing.\u00a0 Other than that, how can I, or anyone, speak with authority about that state of un-ness?\u00a0 For instance, will I need to be fitted for my halo (I mean, horns) or is it one-size-fits-all?\u00a0 How will I keep from accidentally stepping on thin spots in the heavenly clouds and falling back to earth?\u00a0 Does God speak English or will I have to learn Esperanto<\/a>?\u00a0 If we are stuck with silly answers, we may as well ask silly questions.<\/p>\n \u2022 MLB baseball teams that lead after five innings go on to win the game 80% of the time [2015 data<\/a>].\u00a0 NFL football teams that lead at the half go on to win 77% of the time [2007<\/a>]. NBA basketball teams with a six-point lead at the half win 80% of the time [1993-2009<\/a>].\u00a0 The protagonists and major antagonists of Shakespeare’s tragedies die at the end of Act V 85% of the time (Julius Caesar<\/a> dies at the start of Act III and Marc Antony during Act IV).\u00a0 It may not be over till it’s over, but most of the time, it is.<\/p>\n \u2022 As I make art, my forces and intentions are in tension: surprise but do not indulge; inspire but do not impose; intrigue but do not ingratiate.\u00a0 Some artists (Mapplethorpe, Duchamp, Picasso, Warhol) were determined to reject those tensions, to break the cables.\u00a0 So we remember them, for having broken them — just as we remember bridges that fell, and not the ones yet standing.\u00a0 It is my nature to be among the ones yet standing.<\/p>\n \u2022 I am going to stop using the perfect and past perfect tenses for a while.\u00a0 I have had it with all those haves<\/em> and hads.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2022 In films about The Holocaust, Jews have at times been depicted as complacent, or even complicit, with the horrors being inflicted upon them.\u00a0 If you ever find yourself asking the outsider’s question, why didn’t Jews fight back, I would invite you to watch the Academy Award winning film Son of Saul<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 Certain scenes in that film had a greater impact on me than any other drama or documentary on this subject.\u00a0 Asking why Jews didn’t fight back is plainly the wrong question, as well as the wrong conclusion, when one sees that the real fight was to preserve humanity, not humans.\u00a0 That fight, Jews won, conclusively.<\/p>\n I encourage you to read this interview<\/a> with the producers of Son of Saul<\/em>, conducted last year by Terry Gross of Fresh Air<\/em>, after you see the film.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2022 Whenever I eat baby carrots, I feel like I should apologize to the mother.\u00a0 “Your son is tasteless — but crunchy,” I would say to her, offering a slim ray of hope. \u2022 The City of Pittsburgh is planning … Continue reading <\/a>\u2022 Politics knows only the logic of politics.\u00a0 As with the addition of positive whole numbers, the domain of political operations is closed: the outcome of any\u00a0 political calculation is another political result.\u00a0 The real political revolution that we need is for people to solve problems, not jockey for power.\u00a0 But just as adding whole numbers can never yield a fraction, this is not a result politics alone will ever produce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nChristopher Hitchens, from Arguably.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n