Last year, which is to say 11 days ago, Brick described the local cable company as reneging on its agreement with area governments by moving the local access channels from its cheapest tiers, analog cable, to the more costly digital ones. This posting provoked interest among Facebook friends. They gave conflicting stories, hence some informal […]
Author: Ben S. Pollock
Why write more when my home page
will distract you from the real me.
E-mail me here: (written out to reduce spam) ben(at-sign)benpollock(dot)com
Categories
Resolutions for the Columnist
The following is my president’s column for the January 2011 edition of monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. 1. Quit grasping onto obvious topics like “Columnist Lists New Year’s Resolutions.” 2. When writing, quit the posed, “I don’t know about you, but as for me …” or a similar phrase. Reflective columns […]
A final book list will close the 2010 year of Brick. After years of not starting then false starts, I resolved last January to keep a list of books on the home computer. It’s a vanity project — well, both the list and Brick are — but it’s been instructive: What do I like to […]
Categories
Inaccessible Cable Access
Earlier this month the cable television provider Cox Communications changed the access to the community and government access channels here in Northwest Arkansas. They sent a letter to customers (click for a PDF), and press releases to the news outlets. They’d say changed the location, but what they did is limit the access. The show-off […]
Categories
Duality in the Sun
Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock The occasional, amateur anthropologist in me has been studying the spouse for 19 1/2 years. Occasional discoveries have been made during the field work, but a revelation has occupied the study recently: There’s two of her. I’m pretty sure of this because there’s two of me. My Beloved has the […]
Categories
Savor Schnecken Like a Snail
My Reform Jewish family in Fort Smith, Arkansas, had schnecken for breakfast every Christmas. There was no recipe so every December in adulthood I’ve tried to recreate the childhood memory, with cookbooks, recollections of family and improvising. That was starting in my 20s. In my 30s, I also began cooking healthier. These cannot honestly be […]