Monthly Archives: May 2009

Dog Dunning Deal

Can’t blame the dog. I refuse to blame myself. If it weren’t for bash­ful kid­neys I’d start whizzing on their yards myself. It’s this let­ter we received last week. Here is the let­ter. The main thing that gripes me is that this con­sti­tutes the first notice. There was nei­ther a knock on the door by what

We’ve Met the Enemy. So What?

Copy­right 2009 Ben S. Pol­lock The Inter­net is not killing the news­pa­per. The econ­omy is. This would be obvi­ous as it’s stated in every halfway decent arti­cle on the print media, but the copy usu­ally includes com­ments by peo­ple who seem to throw their hands out and cry, “Ach, die Web” (Japan­ese for “OMG, did U

Row Cover Not (Fight) Cover

Is this week’s gar­den vis­i­tor mali­cious or just curi­ous? The greensward of our manse, Shady Hill, is pleased to house four, no, five beds this spring. The back yard has two for veg­eta­bles and one for herbs. The herb bed has one thriv­ing, 6-foot tall aspara­gus, and we hope she’s preg­nant. Next year I’ll move

Dixublican

Stereo­types are tough. Arkansas can move right along, mind­ing its own busi­ness with no Huck­abee or Clin­ton (either of them) feed­ing the 24-hour inter­na­tional news cycle in at least 168 hours, when a politico from my north­west­ern part of the state, promi­nent only here, opens his yap. State Sen. Kim Hen­dren, Repub­li­can of Gravette, a lit­tle

Turning the Economy Takes Time

Appar­ently, it’s not just the banks. It’s not just the automak­ers. Not just the news­pa­pers. This, from today’s Wall Street Jour­nal: Shop­pers con­tinue to pare back spend­ing even on basic house­hold sta­ples, result­ing in lower-than-expected sales for Proc­ter & Gam­ble Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. The consumer-products giants are respond­ing by rais­ing prices to keep prof­its from