We go around on things like this, My Beloved and I: Consumer Reports likes the Great Value ground decaf. Not the whole bean and not the regular coffee, where the magazine prefers Eight O’Clock whole bean. The Wal-Mart house brand Great Value in other foods seems very much like the more expensive name brands.
Then why [...]
OKLAHOMA CITY — Assorted thoughts. The professionals among the conferees and the speakers all were pessimistic about the future of the newspaper business. It was just a matter of degree. The most hopeful see journalism shifting mostly to the Internet with a minority paper presence. The dourest — and they actually were in a position [...]
Will Rogers Writers’ Workshop, OKLAHOMA CITY — Susan Driscoll, CEO of iUniverse, spoke first, following a hot breakfast buffet to which the self-publishing firm treated us. I see why friends have published books, several of whom have gone the print-on-demand route, yet it’s not for me. No books. I’m more of a pamphleteer. But after [...]
Will Rogers Writer’s Workshop, OKLAHOMA CITY — This Friday-Saturday set of seminars concerned humor writing — for newspapers, magazines, books and in one session greeting cards, covering the writing of funny essays but also sound feature reporting. Improving one’s marketing skills was featured in several ways. The impact of the Internet must have been mentioned [...]
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Will Rogers Writers’ Workshop began with an evening reception Thursday, March 15, 2007, at the Gaylord headquarters, aka Oklahoma Publishing Co., aka The Oklahoman newspaper. The firm is far bigger than that, reminiscent of Donrey Media but older and broader, with TV stations besides newspapers of course, but also hotels. Old [...]
Copyright Ben S Pollock 2007
I was looking for The Charlie Rose Show. Honest. It was a little after 11, and I was bored with Dave and Jay. It was pledge week for the state’s PBS conduit, AETN (Arkansas Educational Television Network), though so I realized Rose might be delayed or pre-empted.
Most pledge drives in the [...]
DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY, Monday July 2, 2007, hypothetically — The Arkansas State Police arrested the executive editors, managing editors and editorial page editors of two prominent newspapers at 11 this morning, no one being in their offices before that.
At 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the measure forbidding the spelling of the possessive of Arkansas as “Arkan—’” became law. [...]
I make good eggs. Of course, I ran a bed-and-breakfast for a year. Making muffins and, yes, eggs got me hired. But that’s not what I mean.
I make good eggs. A year and a half ago, I put up a Brick that toward the end included my daydream that family and friends just humor me [...]
As a ranking official of the Arkansas Contrarian Liabilities Union, it pains me to have to defend ranking rank conservative commentator Coulter. There is a move to have her syndicate, Universal Press, drop her newspaper column. Ann Coulter in a speech (not a TV commentary or published essay) called a Democratic presidential candidate a homosexual [...]
Somewhere in Brick, and more than once I’m sure, I have opined that the reason the Iraq war has weak grassroots opposition is its distance from U.S. These thoughts are far, far from unique.
For one thing, the Pentagon prevents photos being taken of caskets of military personnel being brought back to America, among similar P.R. [...]