Categories
Education, Coarsely

Your Other Right Foot

“Everybody! Step out on your right foot. “I said your right foot! “No, son, your other right foot.” Coach Malone, I think it was Bill Malone, was the admired football coach of Ramsey Junior High in Fort Smith. I remember at a school reunion where a lot of us in physical education class that day […]

Categories
News, Spin

Hot Plate, Cold War

Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock Want to fall off a tightrope, jeopardize all chances of a future, and get high, permanent placement in the Patriot Act no fly list? Say loudly (or online) that as an American you find Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s criticism of U.S. foreign policy gets many points right.If the prime minister […]

Categories
News, Spin

Half a Loaf

OK. Maybe it is a brilliant political maneuver, new Gov. Mike Beebe’s vow to cut the sales tax on groceries in Arkansas. It has given him several advantages. Meanwhile, the state is among the poorest in the Union, and reducing even an inherently unfair tax will tax what feeble services Arkansas manages to offer: education, […]

Categories
The Course of Words

“Ic,” a Loose End

A few days ago, the president made a joke at his own expense by referring to his, the “Republic Party.” He was a guest at a gathering of congressional Democrats. Days earlier, the president made reference to the “Democrat Party.” He was being inarticulate. That in large part is what got him elected to the […]

Categories
Technical Difficulties

Flex Your Plex

Speaking of technology, and these days who isn’t, how can any regular person deal with the biggest contradiction in retail (though not as big as between what they charge and what’s in my account). From not only the advertisements but consumer journalism, your living room is supposed to have flat-screen LCD plasma four-wheel-projection HD televisions […]

Categories
The Course of Words

“Good Words to You”

Fishing around for a headline to this, I remembered the above. It’s the outcue for the audio column on NPR’s Morning Edition that the late poet John Ciardi used to do in the early to mid-1980s. He considered origins, histories and roots of words in them. Posthumously, in 1987, Harper published a book of his, […]