A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

In Spain, soccer is a wild, no-holds barred contest January 26, 1989 Alex Diaz-Granados Columnist SEVILLE, Spain (CCIS Program) When one is in Spain, one must do as the Spaniards do, or so we've been told by the College Consortium for International Studies Center staff when we ask about how to enjoy our free time here. This applies to everything -- from eating lunch at 2 p.m. and dinner between 9 and 10 p.m. to drinking tall glasses of "cerveza Cruzcampo" (the Spanish Budweiser) with tapas at one of the billions of bars in the city. And for those of us with a desire to be athletic (even if it's once during a 12-week term), it applies to playing sports. Because soccer is the national sport here, it was only natural that we, too, would want to catch a little "futbol fever." Most of the time we watched soccer games on Spanish television, although quite a few of us went to see the Spain-Argentina exhibition game or the Spain-Ireland game,

Study abroad is more than educational: it’s an experience Alex Diaz-Granados Columnist (Originally published in the December 1, 1988 issue of Catalyst ) SEVILLE, Spain (CCIS Program) Over the past six weeks of my stay here in Seville as a participant in the College Consortium for International Studies’ Semester in Spain program, I have come to understand how challenging studying abroad really is. Several other students from this campus are also taking part in this program. In many respects, studying abroad is no different from studying at our home college or university. We have our schedule set up much like we do in the U.S. with lectures and reading assignments. We have midterms and finals, of course, although in some classes final exams are given at the director’s discretion. Unlike studying in the U.S., we’re learning about a different country’s history, culture, government and economic system, not by reading about these in a textbook, but by living in it. “It’s be

It is late spring, 1940.  It's been nine months since Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland plunged Europe into general war. France and Great Britain, which had hoped to appease Hitler the year before at Munich -- and practically gave away Czechoslovakia to Germany in order to stave off war -- have been forced to fight. After a period of uneasy waiting called "the phony war" by the American press, Hitler's armies have quickly overrun Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg and thrown the Anglo-French forces back into France in less than six weeks. British forces are forced to leave their heavy equipment on the beaches and evacuate from the port city of Dunkirk. Only the English Channel, units of the Royal Navy and less than 1,000 fighters stand between Hitler's conquering legions and the British Isles. As the new Prime Minister says in a speech before the House of Commons, "What General Weygand calls the Battle of France is over, the Battle of Britain is about

November 22, 1963 is one of those dates that, like December 7, 1941 or September 11, 2001, has left its mark on the collective memories of Americans who, for good or ill, were alive and at an age to be able to remember exactly what they were doing and where they were when they heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had died an hour after being shot in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza shortly after 12 PM Central Standard Time. JFK’s assassination has, of course, been one of the most chronicled and hotly-debated crimes in American history; hundreds, perhaps thousands, of non-fiction and fiction books, articles, documentaries and movies have been produced since the mid-1960s, each one with its own spin on how and why the 35th President of the United States was murdered as he rode in a motorcade through downtown Dallas on the last leg of a political trip to Texas. Along with the many non-fiction books that stick to the “Lee Harvey Oswald-did-it-alone” account, there are man

1. Who were your best friends, or were you a friendless geek? What was the most interesting fun that you had together?   My best friends at that age were Richard de la Pena* and Betsy Matteis, with whom I had gone to school in elementary, junior high, high school, and on to community college. Richard and I still hang out every so often; he visits when he has a day off and we watch movies on the DVD player and talk about the "old days" of the early 1980s and women.  Betsy used to hang out with us until a few years ago, when she dropped out of sight. I am still very fond of her, not only because she's very smart and was instrumental in my early success in college, but because she has the distinction of being the first woman to French kiss me.  As for the "most interesting fun" part of the question, I don't recall anything particularly memorable, except maybe Betsy's 18th birthday party, which was when we played "Spin the Bottle" and I got t

The Lady Loses The best story about Coolidge's taciturnity, told by his wife, concerns the society woman who said, as she sat down next to him at a dinner party, "You must talk to me, Mr. Coolidge. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you." "You lose," said Coolidge. How to Charge Once when Lincoln was in the War Department an officer who was in a big hurry slam-banged into him, then offered "ten thousand pardons" when he saw who it was. "One is enough," smiled Lincoln. "I wish the whole army would charge like that." -- From Presidential Anecdotes, by Paul F. Boller, Jr. One of the most curious -- and vexing -- flaws in the U.S. public education system is the way that American history, especially its political history, is taught in all the 50 states. Having attended public schools in the 1970s and 1980s, I still have vivid memories of (a) textbooks with tons of illustrations but dry, boring

Love Unspoken, Love Unbroken Dedicated to everyone I've loved, past...and present No Absolution: February 1998 It’s quiet here. But then again, it’s supposed to be quiet. Cemeteries, even those in the heart of a city, tend to be full of silence. The sounds of the neighborhood – barking dogs, laughing children, even the traffic on the adjacent streets – are swallowed up by the silence of the graveyard. The walls around the perimeter of the cemetery – imposing redbrick walls six feet high and adorned with a black iron fence – have something to do with it, I suppose. I’m a historian, not an acoustical engineer. I’ve been here some fifteen minutes, but it seems as if I have been here for hours. It has been twenty minutes since I drove into the parking lot, walked into the main office, and asked one of the dark-suited employees where Marty’s grave is. The employee – or Service Representative, as her desktop nameplate so eloquently states her job title – quietly tapped a few