Categories
American Culture

Crustacean of the Month

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal had a great profile on McDonald’s chef, Dan Coudreaut. McDonald’s. Chef. Make that “director of culinary innovation.” McDonald’s. So you read along, and this being the Journal, the line of his career development and outlook all has a business or marketing focus, but it’s fascinating all the same. Mickey D’s grows […]

Categories
The Course of Words

Good Golly

Earlier this century — hah! — I created a master’s thesis on how newspaper humor columns have changed. In figuring out how to tackle this, how to quantify the research to make it as solid as possible, I hit a problem: Not all humor writers are alike. Some seem to write with the intent of […]

Categories
The Course of Words

Death by Edit

A news release from the public relations office of the University of Arkansas, the “University Relations,” recently announced that noted writer Ellen Gilchrist, of the UA Creative Writing and Translation Program, had an essay published in last November’s Smithsonian Magazine, “Watching Water Run: My Kind of Town.” The essay is vivid; she explains why she […]

Categories
News, Spin

Thumb

It’s another skirmish between Israel and the Palestinians: “EILAT, Israel (AP) — A Palestinian suicide bomber killed three Israelis at a bakery Monday in the first such attack inside the country in nine months, and the two radical groups that claimed to have sent him said they were trying to end weeks of Palestinian infighting […]

Categories
Brick Bats Reportage

Peek at Peak, Pique Experiences

Pinnacle Hills Promenade, the new shopping center in Rogers inspired by The Truman Show, is wonderful to mock. It features Muzak-like music via outdoor Bose speakers. It markets itself as upscale while including tenants like Payless Shoes and Dairy Queen. Sunday marked my fourth visit — and the first time My Beloved and I visited […]

Categories
The Course of Words

State of Deniers

Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock Saturday was the 62nd Nazi Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the anniversary of the Soviet army’s liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. The holiday was set up a long time ago by the United Nations. It’s not a sis-boom-bah holiday of course; if compassionate Americans note it at all, it’s like Flag […]