Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, July 27, 2005. Three cheers for Harry Potter and his inventor. J.K. Rowling may well be this generation’s Dickens. I’m not saying she is a perfect novelist or storyteller, although yes I am implying Dickens can be difficult, especially140 years later. But enough about Chuck. The Harry Potter series remains …
Monthly Archives: July 2005
Can’t get no (Supreme Court action)
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, July 21, 2005. When we say the president names a nominee who then gets the appointment following the advice and consent of the Senate, we mean everyone from the Cabinet and a few top Executive Branch positions to all the federal judges. So far as those who work in …
Rent: Closer than the show
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, July 18, 2005. Some Rogers officials are getting nervous about the growth of apartments in their fair city. They are candid enough to worry aloud about any resulting increase in crime, not to mention increase in poorer people and lower surrounding property values. If I were just to discuss …
How you get there
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, July 15, 2005. It would take some nerve to call myself an avid bicyclist. I pedal more than most, and a lot less than others. I biked for fun and for commuting as a teenager, even though I could borrow Mom’s Beetle almost whenever I wanted. I liked the …
A block is not a brick
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, July 13, 2005. So what I do is just admit my fear. Look at this gap in time: days since the last Brick, feels like a month. Why? A lack of topics as well as a lack of opinions? No. It was the feeling of a block. It came …
Shhh: Fight Club
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Sunday, July 10, 2005. A few days ago I finished “Fight Club,” by Chuck Palahniuk, and now have seen the DVD. I’ve been dancing around reading more of this extraordinary writer since he was interviewed on NPR, mocking their style more acutely than something on “The Daily Show with Jon …
No trash cans in London
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, July 7, 2005: No need to add excessive verbiage about the London mass-transit attacks. Suffice it to say that America shouldn’t forget the Madrid attacks, which have been scarcely mentioned in the news media today. This sort of terrorism has an evening effect. Whether it is thousands killed in the …
Can’t see the lights
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, July 5, 2005: For a few weeks, newspaper house ads and broadcast public service announcements have proclaimed that the city of Fayetteville would host a Fourth of July celebration at Baum Stadium of the University of Arkansas. It would succeed the ones held for years at the local mall. …
Auld friends
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Sunday, July 3, 2005: Several times a year I do a book report, oops, a book review (I am a grown-up), for the paper. This last one, critiquing the first full biographical treatment of poet Ogden Nash, brought out a couple of e-mails from old friends who had to put …
Lead the press to water
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, July 1, 2005: In this morning’s papers, we read again of local officials asking people to informally not waste water, before conservation steps are ordered. Again, they say there is no shortage, just that it’s summer and yada, yada, yada. In previous summers, though, there have been no mummers like …
