Brick

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 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. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …