I’ve used pressure cookers for 25 years. My current beauty is this “Fagor Splendid” 4-quart model. We eat delectables from it two or three times a week. My pressure cooker is unlicensed, and it’s gonna stay that way. The gummit better keep its cotton-pickin’ hands off it and out of my kitchen. How did I get …
Category Archives: News, Spin
If Soldiers Are Quartered, Only Militias Will Be Regulated
The Second Amendment has had a free ride for too long. Sure, laws and regulations on firearms purchases have been developed from it, but numerous events indicate their effectiveness is minimal. Now that it’s 72 hours after a 20-year-old whacko killed his gun-loving mother and took her guns to a nearby grade school, killed 20 …
Nothing to See Here, Folks. Let’s Move Along
For the sake of our own sanity, let’s turn off the televisions and Internet news, unless viewing them is part of your job or you have a vital direct interest. Check back when facts are firmed up. May I suggest, this being early afternoon, checking the smartphone, tablet or TV set about 4 p.m. If you …
Pentagon Toilet Seats: Coming to a Head in 2012?
It’s been a lot of years since talk of military excess rose up. Pentagon overspending once was a talking point every bit as common as welfare, Social Security, crime and abortion rights. We know what happened, 9/11. It may not have been that the U.S. military could do no wrong in the eyes of good …
The Paper’s Back
The newspaper is here. It’s unopened in its yellow rain bag, middle of the driveway. I’m savoring the moment, the anticipation. Also, I wanted to write my rationale first. This being Northwest Arkansas, it’s really two newspapers bundled. If this was elsewhere in America, it would be one newspaper with a zoned local (or hyperlocal) section. …
It’s Health Care, Still
Today’s Supreme Court decision that affirms most aspects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act has two main positives — besides the obvious, setting up universal, fairly priced health insurance for Americans. The first is more micro: The worker is not as enslaved to his job now. Over the last four or five decades, the main perquisite …
The Future, Exactly
Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock. “Today is your birthday.” (This is the special section of the Daily Newspaper Horoscope. You remember newspapers — impartial facts, reasoned commentary, comics for the kiddies, and a Zodiac that isn’t truth, comment or let’s face it healthy for children. Now more than ever, Newspapers Are the Future, especially this …
It’s Just a Show
Here we are, 2010, a week before the national midterm elections. Where does the president appear to support his party and his policies and other endeavors. Not an interview with Katie, Brian or Diane — or their seconds, even though they’re all trained journalists. He didn’t drop in on Dave or Jay. The prez is …
Helen Thomas, Ripped in Pieces
A statement on Helen Thomas from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, written by Ben Pollock as its vice president, edited by informal committee: For decades, Helen Thomas has been a paragon for younger journalists and her closing her career as a bad role model provides lessons as well, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists finds. …
Robo Fall
Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock Dear Democratic and Republican parties of Arkansas, and all the interest groups at sea: On behalf of the news media of the state — and independent blogs such as this, seeing that the corporate media don’t pay me to represent them but instead to shape text — I want to thank …