Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, January 26, 2005: My newspaper rarely does front-page obituaries, particularly of celebrities. The last was Marlon Brando’s. Monday morning it gave top-of-2A play for Johnny Carson, the penultimate spot. The front page would have been appropriate. Carson was a significant icon of the 20th century, in American culture (popular […]
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 […]
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 […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, January 10, 2005. Just thought of another way to explain my confusion with a certain kind of column. Or blog now. The discomfort is partly from the frustration of not being able to explain, but mainly because their writers are some of my favorite people. The genre: Anecdotal essays […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, January 7, 2005. It’s important to be efficient. To not reinvent the wheel is my oft-repeated goal, likely annoying others. Definition: Coming to know what works and what doesn’t, what is tolerable and what drives you batty. It’s a process of elimination, where over the years you gain knowledge […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Jan. 2, 2005: In the paper and online today is Dave Barry’s final column as a regularly run syndicated humor columnist. He announced this a few months ago, calling it a sabbatical of indefinite length while acknowledging writing projects in other media, maybe including papers. Also in the fall, Jimmy […]