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News, Spin

Coming to term limits

Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, January 19, 2005. In reading in the papers about another piece of embarrassing proposed state legislation, I realized finally, after many years of consideration, a single reason to support term limits. Overall, though, holding legislators from the community through state levels to a maximum number of terms is fundamentally […]

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News, Spin

Ex-executive privilege

Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, January 17, 2005: Days ago, George II brought in George the First and Bill Clinton to lead private fund-raising for the south Asian tsunami disaster of 12/26/04. This is life imitating art! "Saturday Night Live" has a periodic cartoon by one of its staffers– Robert Smigel — that is […]

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News, Spin

He truly won

Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, November 5, 2004: I don’t know my precise opinion on the presidential election today, except that we who think we are smart better think again. I resent those commentators who blame Kerry: no personality, poor campaigner, bad presentation, because, well, none of this is true enough to have cost […]

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News, Spin

Editorial bias, of course

Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004: Maybe I’m taking a terrible personal risk putting out my thoughts on the World Wide Web. Even with fewer than the 14 “hits” I assume I get, I worry about not just offending someone who may have some authority over me (someone at work, someone on […]

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News, Spin

A long night just ended

Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004. It is, absurdly, nearly 3 in the morning. My newsroom did not bring in boxes and boxes of mediocre pizza but decent barbecue for the Election Night crew. Unfortunately, I don’t eat meat, so the slaw and beans kept me going until I left the office […]

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News, Spin

Thinks he’s a comedian

Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, October 27, 2004. "The Wall Street Journal" today in a feature recalled Gracie Allen’s 1940 run for president, noting also Eddie Cantor’s in 1932 and Will Rogers in 1928 and also 1932. And it mentioned Pat Paulsen’s runs in 1968, ’72 and ’76. No comic is doing so this […]