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News, Spin

Pentagon Toilet Seats: Coming to a Head in 2012?

It’s been a lot of years since talk of military excess rose up. Pentagon overspending once was a talking point every bit as common as welfare, Social Security, crime and abortion rights. We know what happened, 9/11. It may not have been that the U.S. military could do no wrong in the eyes of good […]

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News, Spin

The Paper’s Back

The newspaper is here. It’s unopened in its yellow rain bag, middle of the driveway. I’m savoring the moment, the anticipation. Also, I wanted to write my rationale first. This being Northwest Arkansas, it’s really two newspapers bundled. If this was elsewhere in America, it would be one newspaper with a zoned local (or hyperlocal) […]

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News, Spin

It’s Health Care, Still

Today’s Supreme Court decision that affirms most aspects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act has two main positives — besides the obvious, setting up universal, fairly priced health insurance for Americans. The first is more micro: The worker is not as enslaved to his job now. Over the last four or five decades, the main […]

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News, Spin

The Future, Exactly

Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock. “Today is your birthday.” (This is the special section of the Daily Newspaper Horoscope. You remember newspapers — impartial facts, reasoned commentary, comics for the kiddies, and a Zodiac that isn’t truth, comment or let’s face it healthy for children. Now more than ever, Newspapers Are the Future, especially this […]

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News, Spin

It’s Just a Show

Here we are, 2010, a week before the national midterm elections. Where does the president appear to support his party and his policies and other endeavors. Not an interview with Katie, Brian or Diane — or their seconds, even though they’re all trained journalists. He didn’t drop in on Dave or Jay. The prez is […]

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News, Spin

Helen Thomas, Ripped in Pieces

A statement on Helen Thomas from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, written by Ben Pollock as its vice president, edited by informal committee: For decades, Helen Thomas has been a paragon for younger journalists and her closing her career as a bad role model provides lessons as well, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists […]