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The View from Mudsock Heights: Just in Time for Winter, Everything is Put Away, or So I Think

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 16, 2010 at 6:30 PM

It happens, at least to me, every spring: I’m all fired up to get and stay ahead of the lawn and the garden, always mindful of my grandfather’s advice that keeping a place looking good is a lot easier than getting it there in the first place.

The View from Mudsock Heights: A Stunning News Story that Began a Year of Stunning News Stories, All of Them Tragic

By Dennis E. Powell | Dec 08, 2010 at 8:00 PM

It was an unusual Monday in many ways. Thirty years ago today, I started work at the supermarket celebrity tabloid called Star Magazine. I was supposed to have gone to work at WOR Radio, at the time the number one radio station in the country, but that had gotten postponed a month. I’d already left Gannett newspapers. So Star was something to do until the WOR job began.

The View from Mudsock Heights: We’re Beginning an Important Sesquicentennial, and It’s an Opportunity to Learn Some History

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 22, 2010 at 5:00 PM

We’ll soon be hearing more and more about the Civil War. Or, as it is sometimes called, the “Great Rebellion,” the “War of Northern Aggression” — in some places, it is still simply called “the War.” That’s because we’re soon to begin commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities. Some of us remember the centennial of the war. I do.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Cinnamon and Sniffles Season Has Finally Arrived

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 10, 2010 at 3:50 PM

We’ve entered the time of year when things are different from how they look. As the skies and the woods and the yards turn to gray and brown, the things that stimulate our other senses grow stronger.

That’s especially so out here in the country.

The View from Mudsock Heights: On the Passing of Halloween As a Good and Innocent Children's Festival

By Dennis E. Powell | Nov 01, 2010 at 3:38 PM

It was five years ago, riding back on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River from Ashland, Kentucky, that I noticed it. We had been at the dedication of a memorial to Jack Kerouac at the Paramount Theatre there. What was stunning about the trip home was the festoonery. Every house, it seemed, had some elaborate Halloween decoration. Even fairly woebegone trailers could be counted on to have out front a 20-foot-high Frankenstein’s monster, well lit and kept inflated by a powerful fan.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Autumn We Happily Anticipate isn’t Always the One We Get

By Dennis E. Powell | Oct 23, 2010 at 7:59 PM

Shortly after I moved here I received one of those documents that make the e-mail rounds. It was based on the then-popular “you might be a redneck” comedy act, only each stanza of this one ended with “you might live in Ohio.”

The View from Mudsock Heights: Events Remind Us That Our Language is Always Under Attack

By Dennis E. Powell | Oct 16, 2010 at 4:46 AM

It’s election year, which means that the national media are dusting off their maps and trying once again to figure out exactly where Ohio is. You will note that I said “media are,” not “media is.” That’s because I’m a member of a secret organization dedicated to the preservation of endangered portions of the language. “Media” is plural — the singular is “medium” (as in “The Athens News is an unparalleled advertising medium.”) Likewise the word “data.” If someone says “that data is not available,” he or she may know whether or not those data are available, but he or she is illiterate.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Marketing Photographs in the Modern Manner

By Dennis E. Powell | Oct 08, 2010 at 6:32 AM

The project finally got far enough along that I could do something with it.

For years I’ve carried around tens of thousands of negatives and transparencies, the result of a career of writing stories and making photographs. But the digital world has so taken over photography that the real, silver-based stuff is all but dead. Soon it will be so far in the margins that any work of chemical photography will be proceeded by the ubiquitous and annoying word “artisan.” So if all those many thousands of images were to have any further life, they would need to be digitized.

A Magazine in the Age of Blogs

By Staff Staff | Oct 06, 2010 at 4:39 AM

Back when Open for Business started some nine years ago, the original purpose of this publication was not to put out original commentary on “the business of life,” but to blog about and link to useful information on Free Software. In 2010, everybody – and pretty much everything – has a blog, but over the years OFB has exited its category of genesis and taken up the mantle of the magazine. Why be a magazine in an age of blogs?

The View from Mudsock Heights: I Have Discovered I Can Remember Things From Long Ago, and It Startles Me

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 24, 2010 at 10:02 PM

When did I turn into my grandfather? No, I haven’t gotten short and bald-headed, nor do I have a desire to come out of retirement and practice dentistry using a foot-pedal drill on relatives in a dimly lit basement, though this may be due to my never having been a dentist.

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