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American Culture

Bowled Over

February flies by, and not just because it’s a couple of days shorter than other months. Here in Arkansas the weather at the end of the month is worse than the beginning, marked by the Super Bowl on Sunday the 3rd. Like the other 49 states, prit’ near all of us watch the game, or […]

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American Culture

As Good As It Goetz

The conversation began with me telling the handyman, who remembered I was some sort of writer, that I was going to report on Friday afternoon’s state legislators’ forum. Both social media and some news media noted that a likely topic would be the proposals to expand where concealed handguns could be carried, specifically colleges and […]

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American Culture

Brick Endorses …

I don’t get this stuff about sports­man­ship. You play to win, don’t you? Say I’m play­ing short and Mother is on first and the bat­ter sin­gles to right. Mother comes fast around sec­ond with the win­ning run — Mother will have to go down. I’ll help her up, dust her off and say, ‘Mom, I’m […]

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American Culture

Armistice Daze

While watching a local 9/11 commemoration Tuesday, a curious thought came to me, “What day was Osama bin Laden killed?” Did anyone in the audience know? I didn’t know, myself. When the Al-Qaida leader met his fusillade of bullets is the smaller query. The larger one is, Why does America obsess over its setbacks or […]

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American Culture

Johnny Be Good, Or Not

Although it’s been a couple of weeks, my mind turns back, about midnight on the weeknights since, to the PBS biography of comedian Johnny Carson. That two-hour documentary had everything — we viewers learned a lot about an American cultural icon — but for me it went two steps too far. Watch Johnny Carson: King […]

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American Culture

Who’d’ve-Thunks

Copyright 2012 Ben S. Pollock I knew what to expect of The Artist, a “silent” film, meaning no talking, though it did have sound effects and music (and beforehand, ironically, the loudest-volume trailers since those running with Avatar). Still, the teenage box office cashier warned My Beloved and me, while giving me $7 change for […]