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Category Archives: The Course of Words

Thoughts on literature, well, anything people write

Certifiably

First published in the November 2010 issue of the e-Columnist By Ben S. Pollock President, National Society of Newspaper Columnists “Politics make strange bedfellows” goes the quote by 19th-century newspaperman Charles Dudley Warner, and this fall it’s been columnists getting renown for jumping on the mattress. Columnists, commentators, news analysts, bloggers, interest-group hacks, cable yaks — [...]

But Seriously, Folks

The following is my column for the October 2010 edition of the monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.” – Robert Benchley To avoid betraying my idol, Mr. Benchley, I’ll rationalize. This is not analysis but a lesson on creating humor. Books I’ve [...]

‘Beware, Brother, Beware’

News clipping from the Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: WEHCO Newspapers has signed a contract to work with Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas, which files lawsuits against website owners who post copyrighted newspaper articles without permission. The agreement covers all the company’s papers. Righthaven is currently looking for violations of copyrighted material published by [...]

The Future Just Showed Up: Like

The following is my column for the September 2010 edition of monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Last year I asked my Facebook friends on my “Wall,” where conversations are texted (Is this English?), “Why are people so upbeat on Facebook?” I’d been on Facebook a few months, having been sold on [...]

Newspaper, Paper or Plastic

My first “President’s Column” for columnists.com. Thank you for electing me president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Didn’t you hear? I have not published a running column since Sept. 16, 2001. Instead I’ve written at www.benpollock.com/brick for nearly seven years. After the first year, the water warms up. Blogging is how I’ve coped [...]

Columnist Sympathizer

A nice thing just happened. On Jan. 31, I was elected vice president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. I’ve been a card-carrying columnist since 1991, joining during the run of my column Mirthology, in the old Arkansas Democrat. The post is interim, to cover after a resignation, until the annual membership meeting in [...]

A Great Night for Poetry

Copyright 2009 Ben S. Pollock Last Tuesday, May 26, the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective hosted the noted, and local, poet Miller Williams at the independent Nightbird Books in Fayetteville. What a turnout for such a space. The reading area — Nightbird just moved to a larger space, the fondly recalled Ozark Mountain Smokehouse, and [...]

Newspaper Stat, NSNC Stet

There’s been e-talk among the membership about renaming the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. I was for it, liked some of the proposals, but now I’m agin it. It’s not that I’m sore that my suggestion, International House of Toast (nod to Bob and Ray) was ignored. We would be following the path of a [...]

Free Blockheads

Copyright 2009 Ben S. Pollock A newsmagazine commentary from a couple of weeks ago stopped me cold. I still think about it, in a similar way a comic panel from last year comes up, which has put me off Outback’s Bloomin’ Onions. These are like cloying old songs that once heard reverberate for days within [...]

Duma Me

Book report: Duma Key by Stephen King I can be a snob sometimes: I enjoyed most movies based on Stephen King novels but read nothing of his until seeing a short story or two early this decade in The New Yorker. The plan’s not to catch up on everything he wrote, but so far I’ve [...]