This column first was published as the “President’s Message” in the February 2012 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Spring — OK, this is winter but I’m an optimist — is busy-time for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. • We’re halfway through gathering entries for the annual Column Contest. Have you sent […]
This column first was published as the “President’s Message” in the January 2012 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Who among us still owns a typewriter? My Smith-Corona manual portable that saw me through high school and college is in the attic, but it works. On a desk for addressing envelopes is a […]
Copyright 2011 Ben S. Pollock I met Vaclav Havel once, while he was president of Czechoslovakia. We were in a castle. Oh, and I avoided shaking hands with him. Now, he’s dead. Not that I’d ever had a chance to renew the, uh, acquaintance. In September 1992, I was in Europe for a traveling journalism […]
An excerpt of this long-form column first was published as the “President’s Message” in the December 2011 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds? Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! Croupier: Your winnings, sir. Captain Renault: […]
Copyright 2011 Ben S. Pollock DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — Crystal Britches was speechless, standing in the setting sun on a recent afternoon in a parking lot in Bentonville, Ark. “She did it. My old BFF really pulled it off,” Ms. Britches said of her periodic Best Friend Forever Alice. I, her ghost-publicist Noah Vale, had driven […]
Copyright 2011 Ben S. Pollock Reflections on the Paul Simon concert at Kansas City’s Midland Theater on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011 KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When a conversation turns to popular music, sometimes one is lectured on who has the definitive voice of the generation. Most of the time one learns it’s Bob Dylan. A […]