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Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock . "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us," says Walt Kelly’s Pogo. (Not Gene Kelly, who never danced punk’s pogo.) That classic Cold War punch line’s almost an affirmation for those of us who consider ourselves enlightened Americans. But as such, a maxim’s never as good as […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Nov. 18, 2005: What happened to the Mall? I thought the Mall is what destroyed Downtown, not Wal-Mart. The latest batch of Wal-Mart-bashing ignores the history of American retail. I don’t know this history in a scholarly way, only that portion I’ve lived. So this is a chip of […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Aug. 19, 2005: The latest innovation in Internet advertising is a boon to humor columnists. Maybe it’s not the absolute newest improvement but now widespread is a customization factor: You open a newspaper Web site’s article on, for example, gardening, and a couple of ads on the same page […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, May 27, 2005: Here are a few tips on how to enjoy having a major museum in your area. This is advice for locals. Tourists, get on the Web or contact AAA; this isn’t for you. Bentonville’s coming Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (isn’t it nice that for […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, May 24, 2005: A Brick about Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Last Monday, Wal-Mart’s Alice Walton announced she and also her family’s foundation would build a museum surrounded by a park near downtown Bentonville, Arkansas, her companies’ headquarters. There was a clue about this a couple of weeks […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, May 5, 2005. I attended one of the things I thought I’d never see, a National Day of Prayer service at noon today. I participated in one of the sets. As a member of the Bella Vista Recorder Consort, I played on tenor recorder a traditional “Grace” melody and […]