Category Archives: Blotters, Ink & Otherwise

This is to classify those blogs that are defined groups, not ongoing collections. Often, these are diaries, such as travel logs.

I’m Your Vehicle, Detroit

DETROIT — Six days after return­ing home, two of the June 23–26 colum­nist conference’s field trips burn in me, tours of the Motown His­tor­i­cal Museum and the new heart-of-downtown home office of Quicken Loans. Hitsville U.S.A. The museum, infor­mally called “Hitsville,” is in the two orig­i­nal houses in which Berry Gordy cre­ated the Motown record­ing

Paneling for the Benchley Den

This col­umn also was pub­lished in the July 2011 newslet­ter of the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists. Once again, an NSNC colum­nist con­fer­ence astounded its audi­ence with infor­ma­tion and fun. The June 23–26 ses­sion in Detroit catered to would-be and pub­lished book writ­ers, gave fresh tips to free-lancers (and in “cus­tom con­tent” not just columns),

Roger and Me

Roger Ebert receives the 2011 Ernie Pyle Life­time Achieve­ment Award from the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists A ver­sion of this Brick is pub­lished at columnists.com. DETROIT, Sat­ur­day, June 25, 2011 — Fol­low­ing is the accep­tance speech of Roger Ebert for the NSNC’s Ernie Pyle Life­time Achieve­ment Award. Ebert’s phys­i­cal con­di­tion pre­vented him from accept­ing in per­son,

Folio the Leader

Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lin­coln?“ – Attrib­uted to Tom Lehrer DETROIT, 8:47 a.m. EDT, Fri­day, June 24, 2011 — Hear ye, hear ye, (swat news­pa­per) I am Ben Pol­lock, pres­i­dent of the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists. I hereby call the 35th annual NSNC con­fer­ence to order! [Swat paper? The

Uphold, or Hold Up, Standards

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sun­day, July 11, 2010 — Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity feels big­ger than my hometown’s Uni­ver­sity of Arkansas. Yep, 1,933 acres ver­sus 345 acres. It has a jour­nal­ism school not a depart­ment, a music school not a depart­ment. It is a hand­some forested cam­pus, full of sculp­tures (even a huge Calder) and foun­tains. Come Octo­ber it

Compassion Works. So Does Anger

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sat­ur­day night, July 10, 2010 — The learnin’ part of the Sat­ur­day por­tion of the annual con­fer­ence of the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists ended at noon, unless you’re a colum­nist (pub­lished or not). The usual field trip either can be writ­ten about or learned from. Lunch and and tour this time were

Creatives, Columnists and Cunning

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Fri­day, July 9, 2010 — “Get Schooled” was the colum­nists’ theme this year, our con­fer­ence hosted at a uni­ver­sity for the first time, Indi­ana. Appro­pri­ately, our infor­mal wel­come Thurs­day night was at one of the town’s old­est col­lege hang-outs, Nick’s Pub. The meat of a con­fer­ence like this is made up of lec­tures

We’re No. 37. Yeah, School!

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Wednes­day, July 7, 2010 — It was a travel day, where I wouldn’t nor­mally post any­thing, but some one-sheets in the air­port ter­mi­nal sur­prised me. A col­lege or vis­i­tors’ bureau — I for­got which and couldn’t find it again on the return to the air­port on Mon­day, July 12 — men­tioned it was

Lama-palooza III: Simple Not Simplistic

Copy­right 2010 Ben S. Pol­lock CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — The appear­ances in Iowa of the exiled spir­i­tual and polit­i­cal leader of China-controlled Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama, had a suc­ces­sive feel: first a closed recep­tion for a few dozen donors on Mon­day, May 17, a panel dis­cus­sion the next morn­ing, then finally a solo turn

Lama-palooza II: Paneling

Copy­right 2010 Ben S. Pol­lock CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — On this sunny late-spring morn­ing, two lines stretch a cou­ple of blocks from the gym. Between them was a rain­bow of ven­dor tents, sell­ing books, beads and other Tibetan items. All in the queues already have tick­ets, for reserved seats. We’re going through airplane-like secu­rity, four