Monthly Archives: February 2012

Kara should go ahead and run for SOMETHING

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She said that most of her original desire to run arose from a wish to raise the overall tone of politics. Only THIS much had to do with her personal encounters as a TV reporter with Jake Knotts.

As previously mentioned, I met Kara Gormley Meador over at Starbucks for coffee today, to talk about whether she is going to run for the state senate.

As you’ll recall, Ms. Meador had intended to oppose Jake Knotts in the GOP primary in District 23, but learned that she had been misinformed by officials who told her that she lived in that district, under the new lines. She thought she had done due diligence — she had even requested a new voter registration card, so she could have it in writing — but what she was told was wrong. Under the reapportionment, she will be in District 18, currently occupied by Ronnie Cromer.

So will she run against Sen. Cromer? She hasn’t decided. She said she even thought that maybe she would make up her mind while talking to me. I don’t know whether the talk with me helped, but in the end, for what it’s worth, I told her she should run — for something.

I say that not to endorse her over Mr. Cromer or anyone else. I just think she is a positive, energetic, knowledgeable young person who would be a positive force in our General Assembly.

Does that mean that I agree with her on everything? Hardly. As she wrote on this blog recently:

I’d like to try and propagate real individual income tax relief.

I’d like to dismantle or revamp the House and Senate ethics committee. As they stand, neither body has any teeth to penalize legislators when they act in an unethical or illegal manner.

I am for complete transparency.

I don’t believe our legislators should offer certain companies back room deals that include huge incentives and tax breaks to try and lure them to our state, while folks who have been doing business here for years get nothing.

I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to education. We need to analyze administrative costs and see where we can scale back or consolidate and make sure we pay our teachers a fair wage.

I believe in school choice to include the creation of more charter schools; and to allow children in rural public schools to have the same choices offered to students in other districts in their counties. For example: students in Batesburg-Leesville have only one elementary school in the district, but students in Lexington One have the chance to attend any of the districts elementary school if there is availability. I think a student should be able to cross district lines– especially if they are located in the same county.
(there’s a lot more to this– if you are interested I’d be happy to tell you more)

We need to cap government growth.

I feel that across the board cuts are a cop out. As a legislator in times like these, you need to make some tough cuts in order to pay the bills. I don’t use credit cards to pay for things I can’t afford. I don’t believe our legislators should spend money that way.
One way we could save money is by shortening the legislative session.

I also believe legislators should have term limits.

Those of you who know me can see some significant disconnects with my own positions on issues. For instance, as an ardent believer in representative democracy, I would neither unduly limit the voters’ ability to elect whom they like (term limits) nor use a mathematical formula to supersede the representative’s powers to write a budget (“cap government growth”).

Further, I see inconsistencies in her vision. Today, she indicated that she believed enough waste could be found in state spending to both fully fund the essential functions of state government (which she correctly describes as currently underfunded) and return enough money to taxpayers to stimulate our economy.

In a state as tax-averse as this one, there’s just not enough money there to have your cake and eat it, too, barring a loaves-and-fishes miracle. (OK, enough with the clashing metaphors.)

But she’s smart, she’s energetic, and she seems to have no axes to grind. I think she’d quickly see that you can’t do it all, and make realistic assessments of what can and should be done. Her disgust with the pointless conflicts of modern politics, and the way they militate against a better future for South Carolina’s people.

She worries about spending time away from her kids, but she wants a better South Carolina for them. And she made a point that I particularly appreciated. She said that when she wants a better future for her kids, she actually means that she wants a better one for all of the state’s kids — unlike so many other who say that. I nodded at that, because it took me way too long to realize years ago that when Mark Sanford wanted a South Carolina in which his sons could stay and have a bright future, he wasn’t referring to the boys as a microcosm — he literally meant that he wanted a better future for his sons, period. That’s the libertarian way.

Kara says she knows she sounds like a Ms. Smith Goes to Columbia, and she does. But I like that.

While she feels the pull of her children, “God has given me one life,” and “I’m extremely driven, and I love people.” She was bowled over by the enthusiastic response she got on Facebook that one day that people thought she was opposing Knotts. She told me that some of the folks she heard from were people she had reported on over the years, some of them crime victims (a particular interest for her) who appreciated having their stories told.

She likes the idea of being a voice for those who think they have no voices. “Maybe I should get in to prove to somebody that they could get in, too.”

There’s one thing that she and I agree on, based on our years of observing politics. In the end, character is everything — far more important than ideology or specific policy proposals. My impression is that Kara has the character to be a positive force in politics, whatever her current notions of specific policy proposals.

So I’d like to see her run — for something.

Throughout the interview, I could see the light of enthusiasm in her eyes as she spoke of the possibility of making a difference.

Remembering when I struggled to get a blog off the ground

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This morning I met Kara Gormley Meador for coffee (a report is forthcoming), and she got me to thinking about some stuff that happened several years back, and in trying to look it up, I ran across the following blog item, from May 22, 2005:

Journalism in South Carolina

“The Lowcountry looks like it’s been hit by Hurricane Mark.” — Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston

I first learned the trade of journalism in Tennessee, so I hope I can be forgiven if I occasionally revert to an atavistic form of that genre — the form that Mark Twain lampooned so brilliantly.

I managed to shy away from that temptation in editing today’s lead editorial, which quoted recent headlines about Gov. Sanford’s vetoes in the Charleston and Greenville papers, to wit:

— “Sanford vetoes funds for local groups,” The Greenville News

— “Veto Storm Hits Lowcountry,” The Post and Courier

But this is my blog, and in the vigorous spirit of my 19th century journalistic forebears, I feel free to give vent to my righteous indignation at the cupidity of those greedy poltroons in the Upstate and the degenerate hedonists of the Lowcountry. (One must particularly admire the hyperbolic hyperventilations of our brethren down on the coast, who led their report — an apparent news story, not an editorial, mind you — thusly: “Only a hurricane could do more damage to the Lowcountry than Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto pen.” They did attribute that sentiment to local lawmakers, but we all know that dodge.)

I, me, mine — that’s all they think about. Here we are in Columbia doing our best to think about the interests of the state as a whole — our energies are devoted to nothing else — and all they can do up and down the road from us is whine about their petty, parochial little local goodies. Well, it’s enough to make a decent man blush with mortification at the state of the human race.

Of course, being eaten up with intellectual honesty as we habitually are here in the true heart of the state, we do have to acknowledge that there weren’t any local goodies in the budget for the Midlands. To which we must ask, why? You would think that, as tirelessly selfless as we are in doing good for Sandlappers everywhere, the solons could throw us an occasional budgetary bone.

Why, if only some farsighted lawgiver had thought to, say, build us a AAA minor league ballpark on the old CCI property, with a fully stocked skybox for the ladies and gentlemen of the press, we might have joined our sagacious counterparts on the coast and in the foothills, and denounced the cruel pecuniary strangulation perpetrated by that shortsighted penny-pincher in the governor’s office.

But since they didn’t, we continue to take the long view.

What’s interesting about this to me is that I tried so hard in writing that. It was only my fifth day as a blogger, and I went to all that trouble to craft a (rather stilted) Mark Twain impersonation — or rather, impersonation of his impersonation of the backwoods journalism of his day. (You have to read the linked short story, “Journalism in Tennessee,” to get the joke.)

I was trying so very hard, and for such little return. First, you’ll note that I was rewarded for that post with only one comment. I went into the guts of that old blog just now, and found that I only received 218 page views that entire day.

How far we have come. Yesterday, I had 12,432 page views. Last month, I had a record 272,417.

And without straining so hard at the writing.

Thank all of y’all for your support thus far. Here’s to comparable, or better, future growth…

Davy Jones, 66, catches last train to Clarksville

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Yeah, that’s a pretty cheesy headline, but it was the first thing I thought of. I guess I could have said, “Davy Jones heads for the locker,” but that would have been worse:

Davy Jones — forever young and forever beloved by fans the last 50 years — has died, according to Reuters. Age: 66. The cause of death was apparently a heart attack.

Jones and his band the Monkees were in a brief moment and time very nearly as popular as the Beatles — whom they so gently satirized and idolized in that long ago NBC hit. (“The Monkees,” by the way, bowed Sept. 13, 1966 — five days after “Star Trek” launched.)…

Anyway, it’s sad. Especially for those of us who were in junior high (the perfect demographic target) when the Monkees came on the scene. Because we mourn for our youth, and how easy it was to get excited over the smallest things, even a pre-Fab Four. And I suppose it’s particularly sad for those who were girls at the time, since Jones had the faux “Paul McCartney” role in the quartet.

How strange that just yesterday, we were talking about Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork. I suppose that at this point, just to round things out, I should mention Mickey Dolenz.

You know, it’s just impossible that this much time has passed…

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning again, doctor: the clinical return of the ‘nervous breakdown’

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In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

Scott Fitzgerald had one. Since then, we’ve been required to call “nervous breakdowns” by more (perhaps misleadingly, I suspect) precise terms. But in these parlous times, some of us cling for reassurance to the old ways, the WSJ reports (“Time for a Good Old-Fashioned Nervous Breakdown?“):

Fifty years ago, Ms. Shapiro’s experience would have been called a “nervous breakdown”—an unscientific term for personal crises ranging from serious mental illness and alcoholism to marital problems and stress.

Today, psychiatry is more precise. A sudden inability to cope with life’s demands could be classified as one of dozens of specific mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or major depression. There’s no official term for milder forms of “nervous breakdown,” though some patients and clinicians wish there was still a name for a temporary state of being overwhelmed by outside forces without an underlying mental illness.

“I hear the term ‘nervous breakdown’ from a patient at least once a week,” says Katherine Muller, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Integrative Psychotherapy in Allentown, Pa. “The term lives on in our culture, maybe because it seems to capture so well what people feel when they are distressed.”

“Given the economic mess we’re in, a lot of people are coming in saying they think they’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” says David Hellerstein, research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He says it can be challenging to tell immediately if a patient is having an acute episode of mental illness, or a predictable reaction to extreme stress. Symptoms may be similar—including heart palpitations, chest pains, shortness of breath, uncontrollable crying, dizziness, disorientation, exhaustion and a feeling of “going crazy.”…

I like the return of the folksier, archaic term. More “scientific” terms suggest a precision, a specificity that seems to me impossible in dealing with anything so complex, so messy, so organic, so spiritual as the human mind.

In any case, when mine comes (perhaps I should say, when my NEXT one comes), I hope everyone calls it a “nervous breakdown.” That sounds so much more human — friendlier, somehow — than the more clinical terms.

Virtual Front Page, Tuesday, February 28, 2012

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Been awhile since I’ve done one of these. Let’s see if I still have the knack:

  1. Sponseller’s body found with self-inflicted gunshot wound (thestate.com) — As discussed previously today.
  2. Dow Closes Above 13000 For First Time Since 2008 (WSJ) — More good news, unless your name is Mitt Romney.
  3. House slam-dunks Haley’s ports veto (thestate.com) — One member votes her way — Ralph Norman.
  4. Romney: ‘Mistakes’ have hurt my campaign (WashPost) — Gee, do ya think? Tonight we’ll see whether Santorum will beat him on his home turf. And then, this thing is really wide open.
  5. Senate confirms Haley’s pick to head DHEC (thestate.com) — The story says it happened “Thursday,” but it means “Tuesday.”
  6. Third Ohio school shooting death (BBC) — Meanwhile, it’s being reported that the shooter chose his victims at random. “This is not about bullying. This is not about drugs.”

Let’s hear it for the flip-floppers — compared to the rigid ideologues, they are a breath of fresh air

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My friend Bill Day in Memphis sent out this cartoon, which depicts the main rap on Mitt Romney — that he changes his mind.

To me, that’s the man’s saving grace, to the extent that he has one. It’s what made me able to settle for him after Jon Huntsman dropped out of the SC primary — I believe he’s free of slavish devotion to any man’s ideology. That makes him anathema to the extremists in his party, but that’s not the only think I like about this trait.

Whatever else you can say about a man who changes his mind, at least it proves that he’s thinking. Even if all he’s thinking is, “I need to change on this to get elected,” he’s at least thinking.

Here’s my take on Romney: He simply doesn’t care deeply about the kinds of things that left and right tend to get angriest about, such as the Kulturkampf issues that I wish would stay out of our elections. Basically, he sees himself as a manager — he wants to run the United States as he has run other enterprises in the past, no matter what burning issues happen to be at the fore when he’s in office. He believes his executive experience makes him better able to run the country than Barack Obama.

Set aside whether I believe he’s right, I appreciate that that’s the way he seems to approach this.

To some extent, this is akin to what appealed to me about “No-Drama Obama.” I saw him as essentially a pragmatist, particularly on the thing that matters most in picking a Commander in Chief — international affairs and security. His adoring supporters heard something that they liked in what he said on the stump about war and peace and international relations, but I listened a bit more closely than many of them did — it was (as always) the first thing I asked him about when he was sitting next to me in the editorial board room, and I was satisfied with his answers. And I was not surprised when he embraced continuity once in office (although I was surprised when he became even more aggressive than George Bush in prosecuting the War on Terror).

I get a certain amount of that same vibe from Romney, and that’s what reassures me when I think of the possibility (not a very strong possibility at this point, but still a possibility) that he could replace Obama. I don’t think we’d see any dangerous shifts in the policies that matter. And when faced with an unforeseen crisis, I think he’d approach it with sober deliberation.

I am not, however, convinced at this point that he would do a better job than the incumbent. But I’m still watching.

The stunning news about Tom Sponseller

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Last week, I had been set to have lunch with my friend Bob McAlister, but he suddenly had to cancel because of a new client — he was representing the S.C. Hospitality Association in dealing with the media with regard to the disappearance of its CEO, Tom Sponseller.

Today was the day that we’d set for the rain check. We had just sat down with our food from the buffet at the Capital City Club when another diner came over, smartphone in hand, to tell Bob: “They’ve found Tom’s body.” In the parking garage. And Bob had to run out.

Later, on the way back to the office, I saw The State‘s John Monk and Noelle Phillips outside the building on Lady Street that houses the Hospitality Association’s offices. Chief Randy Scott had just given reporters the barest of details, and now the Association’s employees were being told what was known.

I asked John and Noelle the most obvious question: How do you not find a body for 11 days in a parking garage? The reporters told me they had searched the place themselves last week, and that there were several doors opening off the garage that they were unable to enter.

This is what little has been released so far:

The body of missing lobbyist Tom Sponseller has been found, according to Columbia police.

Sponseller killed himself, said Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott. His body was found in a lower level of the parking garage at 1122 Lady Street just before 11 a.m., said Jennifer Timmons, a Columbia Police Department spokeswoman. The S.C. Hospitality Association where Sponseller was chief executive officer has its headquarters at the building.

“It’s very devestating,” said Rick Patel, the vice chairman of the S.C. Hospitality Association.

Investigators found the body in a double enclosed room as they were conducting a follow up check of the building, she said.

Police have searched the building multiple times, including a search with dogs trained to find cadavers, Timmons said.

A 2 p.m. at Columbia police headquarters is planned, Timmons said.

As John and Noelle headed over to the police department for that presser, I left them. I’m sure they will have more to share soon.

One reason I found the reporters out on the street is that they were barred from entering the building where the SC Hospitality Association has its offices.

One thing’s getting deeper for sure — the rift between Nikki Haley and legislative leaders

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With regard to this:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley today has vetoed a measure aimed at retroactively stripping the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control of the authority to approve a permit needed by Georgia to dredge the Savannah River.

The controversial permit is needed for the Port of Savannah’s plan to deepen the river to accommodate larger container ships. Opponents — the state House and Senate unanimously approved the measure Haley vetoed — say the DHEC water quality permit approval is bad for the environment and the competitiveness of South Carolina ports.

Haley called the joint resolution “an unconstitutional legislative overreaching into an agency’s ruling,” a ruling that “was based on law and scientific benchmarks.” She also said the resolution was legally flawed…

I received the following this morning:

Columbia, SC – February 27, 2012 – Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell today issued the following statement on Gov. Nikki Haley’s veto of H4627, a joint resolution that reverses DHEC’s disastrous decision on Savannah River port permitting:

“I am disappointed that Governor Haley is choosing to hide behind a flawed separation of powers argument in defending her agency appointees’ disastrous decision to sell out the interests of South Carolina to Georgia,” McConnell said.

“This isn’t about a conflict between the executive and legislative branches – it’s about what’s right for South Carolina. It is not only within the legislature’s purview to act to protect the environmental and economic future of South Carolina, but also its duty to serve as a check on renegade state agencies that act beyond their power and against the interest of South Carolina. This resolution passed the House and Senate unanimously, and I have no doubt it will be overridden quickly and with similar voting margins.”

###

There’s seldom any love lost between Glenn McConnell and any governor, but this ports thing is driving the wedge ever deeper. And when you set the powers and prerogatives of the executive against those of the legislative, in Glenn’s book, you’ve gone to messin’.

Key to awesome BBQ: You start with the wood

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CUT/CHOP/COOK from UM Media Documentary Projects on Vimeo.

One of the highlights of the weekend in Hilton Head was when we got to taste the wares of Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway, served by Rodney Scott himself.

But the event’s organizers did a cruel thing to us: They showed us the above film in the morning, and we didn’t get to eat the barbecue until that night. But when the time came, we made up for the wait.

I was deeply impressed by the craftsmanship, passed from father to son, that goes into this awesome pork. Starting with cutting the wood. I was surprised (perhaps because I’ve been influenced by Memphis style) that the wood wasn’t hickory. But it’s selected and hand-cut by the pitmaster.

And you can taste it.

All work and no play make Brad a dull boy. Which he is not, as amply demonstrated by Exhibit B

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Here I am with the birthday girls in Hilton Head. Or is it “on” Hilton Head, or “at”? I don’t know. First time I’ve ever been here.

In any case, this is by way of full disclosure. It was not all work at the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Inititiative graduate weekend in that locale.

Here I am with Clare Folio Morris of the Clare Morris Agency and Susan DeVenny of First Steps. You see another picture of us on the previous post, with Clare and Susan looking deadly serious and me seeming to Tweet every word they’re saying. Well. Choosing photos for publication is an art, you know. You can show what you want.

Alert photographer Jim Hammond captured both moods well.

Here, I’m joining the ladies in celebrating their birthday this weekend. They’re both 30 or something.

This was at an awesome barbecue on Saturday night, with pulled pork from Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway and from Henry’s Smokehouse in Greenville as well, and lowcountry boil from Conroy’s, and oysters, and other good stuff. I think that’s a Palmetto Charleston Lager in my right hand.

The blog will now return to being serious…

What I was doing all weekend

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Gerrita Postlewait, Fred Washington, John Simpkins and Terry Peterson discuss "Education, Poverty and Equity on the Ground in South Carolina" with moderator Mark Quinn.

Y’all probably think I haven’t blogged in days. I have; it was just microblogging. One of these days I’m going to get social media totally integrated into this blog so y’all can immediately see my posts on Twitter, because when I’m away from my laptop, that’s where I’m sharing observations.

From Friday through Sunday, I was at the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative graduate weekend in Hilton Head. When I arrived, Cindy Youssef of the Riley Institute asked me to Tweet as much as possible, and to use the hashtag #onesc.

It’s dangerous to tell one of the Twitterati to Tweet as much as possible. There were others putting the word out there, but I was probably the most manic, as you can see by looking at the hashtag results. There was a respite of a couple of hours when I took my iPhone up to my room to recharge it, but other than that I didn’t slow down much.

Here you see most of my Tweets from the weekend. I left out some asides that had nothing to do with what was going on, but also left a couple of those in, for flavor.

For a complete roster of who was there, you can look here.

Most of the Tweets were when people said something I agreed with, although not all (as I’ve explained before, I favor single-payer NOT because people have a “right” to health care, but because it’s a more rational system for society overall than what we have now; but I thought it very interesting that Ed Seller thinks it’s a fundamental right).

When someone else’s Tweet is quoted, I use that person’s handle in front of it, and then insert my own as it goes back to my voice. I hope that makes this easier to follow.

Anyway, enough explanation. Here you go:

Brad Warthen ‏ @BradWarthen

Listening to Marlena Smalls singing to Riley Institute Diversity Leadership graduates in Hilton Head… He’s Got the Whole World…#OneSC

I was listening to Ken May talk about folk art traditions in SC when the coffee started to kick in… #OneSC

Just had an enjoyable political chat with Alston DeVenny, husband of Susan & law partners with the uncle of @fitsnews in Lancaster.#OneSC

Will Folks aka Sic ‏ @fitsnews

@BradWarthen ha! my uncle Robert is a good dude …

Brad Warthen ‏ @BradWarthen

Don Gordon talking about the need to transform the two South Carolinas into One… #OneSC pic.twitter.com/PQNaC7Qc

Harvey Peeler ‏ @harveypeeler

What is it about Starbucks that makes people want to tell you they are there and does the Drive-thru count ?

Brad Warthen ‏ @BradWarthen

@harveypeeler @Starbucks is awesome, they have time to kill, they’re caffeinated, and no, it doesn’t count.

In reply to Harvey Peeler

Harvey Peeler ‏ @harveypeeler

I think I can remove my “Tweeter training wheels ” when @BradWarthen pays attention to what I Tweet.

Brad Warthen ‏ @BradWarthen

“Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.” Rudolph Virchow, quoted by Ray Greenberg.#OneSC

MUSC’s Greenberg: Problem of people not getting needed meds because of cost is getting WORSE… #OneSC

MUSC’s Ray Greenberg: People with higher levels of educational attainment spend more on alcohol… #OneSC

Greenberg: Stats indicate I-95 corridor is SC’s stroke belt… #OneSC

Greenberg: In many rural counties in SC, there’s not a single OB/gyn. “Deserts” of care… #OneSC

Greenberg: SC is No. 1 in people living in mobile homes. Whoo-hoo! One-fifth of us! #OneSC

Greenberg: Health disparities are NOT the result of bad habits of the poor. #OneSC

Forrest L. Alton ‏ @YoungGunCEO

Sitting at table by @BradWarthen, master tweeter… I can’t keep up, guy is good!! #OneSC #watchandlearn

Brad Warthen ‏ @BradWarthen

Ed Sellers: In SC, income does not rise with age, but health cost rise dramatically, for blacks and whites. #OneSC

Ed Sellers, formerly of Blue Cross Blue Shield: Access to health care is a fundamental right… #OneSC

That parenthetical interjection on the last Tweet was mine, not Ed Sellers’… #OneSC

Literally jumping the shark: “@CBSNews: Video: Reporter swims with sharks – without a cage (via @CBSThisMorning) bit.ly/wAhfsQ”

@wesleydonehue @harveypeeler When it comes to @Starbucks, I take a backseat to no man!

Heads up, folks: “@AnitaGarrett: Ed Sellers: “There are 55% more whites than black that will be on Medicaid.” #OneSC”

Carolyn Wong Simpkins: In US, we have best & worst health care.#OneSC

Ed Sellers: $24 billion spent on health care in SC annually. It goes up a billion a year… #OneSC

Ed Sellers: Other countries control health care costs by controlling growth of capacity, which (irrationally) is anathema to U.S. #OneSC

Simpkins: We are SO concerned to make sure no one undeserving gets care, we overcomplicate the system… #OneSC

Wanda Gonsalves highlights the crying need for primary care physicians, a “dying breed.” #OneSC

Watching a film that exhorts us to respect barbecue. But I don’t have to be persuaded… #OneSC

The takeaway: Don’t trust a barbecue pitmaster who doesn’t choose and cut his own wood… #OneSC

Huge applause for Pitmaster Rodney Scott of Scott’s BBQ in Hemingway, SC. #OneSC

BBQ Pitmaster Rodney Scott: Hemingway isn’t in the middle of nowhere; “It’s in the middle of everywhere.” #OneSC

Doug Woodward: SC productivity shot up from 90s thru early 00s, leveled off. And our income is FALLING, even when economy is good… #OneSC

Woodward: We must educate more of SC population at a higher level to be ready for 2030, when only 1 out of 6 will be working… #OneSC

Woodward: If we raise educational attainment to national average by 2030, personal income will rise by $68 billion. #OneSC

Jim Hammond ‏ @restlessboomer

#onesc Economist Doug Woodward: If we’d followed the policies Gov. Riley for the past 18 years, we wouldn’t have this (increase in poverty)

Brad Warthen ‏ @BradWarthen

Woodward: Key to prosperity — attracting and keeping the creative class… #OneSC

Steve Morrison quoting someone on poor towns in SC: We built Interstates so we wouldn’t have to look at them… #OneSC

Steve Morrison: If you want a safer and more secure South Carolina, teach a young man to read. #OneSC

Steve Morrison: We must get the greatest teachers to the students with the greatest need… #OneSC

Morrison: Recent trend in education in SC — cutting funding, while passing unfunded mandates to the districts… #OneSC

Morrison: Can we agree that teachers matter the most? #OneSC

Morrison: Take that tax base along the coast, and share it with the poor districts… #OneSC

Morrison: It’s great to have good private schools, but public education MATTERS… #OneSC

Morrison: The child gets off the bus at 5 years old with bright eyes. He’s not defeated. Yet. #OneSC

John Simpkins: The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. (“My kids are fine; yours aren’t my concern.”) #OneSC

To paraphrase Terry Peterson, we need not just a love of justice, but a hard-minded understanding of what economic dev. requires. ##OneSC

What this conference keeps wrestling with is what to do about the total triumph of “I, me, mine” in SC politics. #OneSC

Ex-Gov. John Baldacci of Maine says Riley Institute is “kind of like a focus group for the state of SC.” #OneSC

Baldacci says on his first visit to SC, “I was really blown away” by downtown Greenville. (Something for Columbia to aspire to.) #OneSC

Baldacci: “The very basic foundation of our democracy is education.”#OneSC

Baldacci: As dysfunctional as our politics may be, what we have is better than what most people have had throughout history. #OneSC

Baldacci describes the surreal experience of being in Congress on 9/11/01… #OneSC

Baldacci: You can go anywhere in the world, but you can’t become Chinese; you CAN come here from China & become an American.#OneSC

Baldacci: “You’ve gotta be yourself; you’ve gotta tell the truth and you’ve gotta work hard.” (Father’s advice.) #OneSC

Baldacci: “We all have to get over it, folks… We have to realize that we have a greatness here if we work together…” #OneSC

Baldacci exhorts us to treat people as Dick Riley always has… with dignity and respect. Amen to that; we could have no better model.#OneSC

Others call Dick Riley “secretary.” I call him “Governor.” For SC, that means the most (to me, anyway). #OneSC

Apparently, I'm even Tweeting while talking at the barbecue with Clare of the Clare Morris Agency and Susan DeVenny of First Steps.

A video from the days before videos

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This was brought to my attention this afternoon via iTunes. I’d never seen it before, so I share it with you. (iTunes didn’t provide me with a way to embed it; but fortunately I quickly found it at YouTube.)

My memory is that the first thing I recall seeing that was anything like a “music video,” defined as what we came to know and love in the early ’80s (an art form that sadly faded as MTV turned to other, far less appealing kinds of programming) was the one that John Lennon used to promote “Imagine” during his appearance on the Dick Cavett Show — the day before I ran out and bought the album.

Of course, we could count the manic musical sequences in Richard Lester’s “A Hard Days Night,” but those were not intended to stand alone.

And now that we have YouTube, all sorts of old clips have been pared to old music, or forgotten television appearances revived, to create sort of after-the-fact music videos.

I don’t pretend to know where it started. But real Beatles fans should enjoy this one. Even though it’s got Yoko in it.

Refusing to cooperate with police: I don’t hold with it, even if it’s the smart thing to do

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Here’s something I have trouble with…

Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish brings to our attention this advice: Don’t consent to police searches. As he quotes Scott Morgan:

It’s always possible that police might search you anyway when you refuse to give consent, but that’s no reason to say “yes” to the search. Basically, if there’s any chance of evidence being found, agreeing to a search is like committing legal suicide, because it kills your case before you even get to court. If you refuse a search, however, the officer will have to prove in court that there was probable cause to do a warrantless search. This will give your lawyer a good chance to win your case, but this only works if you said “no” to the search.

And if you watch the video, you see a lecturer with a ponytail advising us how to politely refuse. That runs against my instincts (and, I’ll confess, the ponytail doesn’t help reassure me that the advised behavior is consistent with being a good citizen — silly, since I grew up in the 60s and used to have much longer hair than that, but the reservation is there).

This brings back to mind the fascinating lecture that Kathryn brought to my attention sometime back, explaining with great force and conviction why we should never answer police questions at all, but rely on the 5th Amendment no matter how innocent we know ourselves to be.

It’s very persuasive — but still runs against my grain. Maybe it’s my core, gut conservatism (real conservatism, not the kind you hear Republican politicians talk about all the time), which involves a deep respect for authority. Or my communitarianism, which demands good citizenship. I don’t know.

But here’s my prediction of what would happen if I were seriously questioned by police about anything: I would be deeply torn between my own desire to cooperate fully, and all this advice I’ve heard not to. And this would make me very uncomfortable and agitated. It would show on my face, intensifying the officers’ suspicion. The police would turn up the heat, thereby increasing my discomfort over my dilemma, thereby making me seem more guilty…

I think I’ll just stay in my house from now on and not answer the door.

Even more LINsane in Chinese

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In case you’re tired of hearing about all the sports journos getting fired over their Jeremy Lin excesses, perhaps you’d like to look at the phenom from another angle, such as this one from The China Post:

Lin is a common surname in the Chinese-speaking world. According to a government count in 2005, it is the second most common surname in Taiwan after Chen. It is in the U.S., however, that Lin becomes the most popular.

Of course we are talking about Jeremy Lin, the Taiwanese-American NBA former benchwarmer who rocketed to global stardom in less than a month. The Harvard-graduate New York Knicks point guard had the world media performing some rarely seen linguistic gymnastics (at least aside from tongue-in-cheek tabloid headlines): first it was “Linsanity,” then there are “Lincredible,” “Linvincible,” “Linspiration” and pretty much the addition of “L” to any word with a positive meaning that begins with “in-.” On Feb. 14, the New York Post made its contribution: “Happy VaLINtine’s Day.” Jeremy Lin also added an entry of his own by pointing out that he likes the “Super Lintendo” — a pun on the video game console by Nintendo.

Back in Taiwan, the media are also having a good time pulling off wordsmith stunts of their own, mostly by working on Lin’s Chinese name Lin Shu-hao (林書豪).

To begin with, Lin’s given name is an apt description of Lin’s current show of strength. With “shu” meaning books or writing and “hao” leader or heroic person in Chinese, the name fits Lin’s characteristics as a leader in the Knicks’ recent winning form with an Ivy League education.

The Taiwanese puns start with a subtle translation of “Linsanity” by using the close homonym of Lin (林, wood): the English pun becomes “Lin Lai Feng” (林來瘋), with Lin substituting the close sounding “Ren” (人, people) from the Taiwanese idiom “人來瘋” (the three characters literally mean people, come and insane, respectively). The turn of phase originally refers to people who become excited or showy in front of others. Here it pretty much means what Linsanity means.

For local media, however, the character “hao” is a better source for puns because it happens to be the homonym of the Chinese word for “good” or “very” (好) in Mandarin. The Taiwanese press gave the world “Hao Xiao Zi” (豪小子, the great kid), “Hao Shen” (豪神, very amazing), “Hao Wei” (豪威, very mighty), and “Hao Bang Yang” (豪榜樣, good example). The track is actually quite straight forward, just add the term good or very (both Hao in Chinese) to any praise that fits the moment.

If there is an award for best pun, it should go to “Ling Shu Hao” (零輸豪), a term comprising ingenious puns on the first two characters in Lin’s Chinese name: the surname becomes “Ling,” meaning zero and “Shu” has it meanings transferred from its original books (書) to lose (輸). Combined it refers to Lin as the “zero lose Hao,” which was a fitting description of his leading of the Knicks to seven straight wins a few days earlier.

Congratulations, Robert, on the Verner Award!

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Today, regular contributor Bart sent me a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, which I enjoyed, since that was the best comic strip in the history of cartooning, by far. Neither Peanuts nor Doonesbury nor Bloom County nor Overboard ever came close to Watterson‘s brilliant strip, which combined unbelievably deft and communicative artwork with brilliant, unique ideas and perfect dialogue. Every line he drew was essential, and alive. It was amazing.

This reminds me of Robert Ariail, who would say the same. In fact, one big reason why he and I didn’t follow through on the comic strip we planned for years to do was that Robert didn’t want to do it unless it was going to be as good as Calvin and Hobbes — which I thought a ridiculously high standard.

But perfectionism can pay off, as it has yet again for Robert — he is the 2012 Individual Artist winner of the S.C. Arts Commission’s Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award:

Robert Ariail is a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist based in Camden, S.C. From 1984 to 2009, Ariail wielded pen and ink to capture the mood and viewpoint of the day as the editorial cartoonist for The Statenewspaper. With his entertaining and recognizable style, Ariail provoked thought, fueled controversy and poked a little fun as a satirist, storyteller and critic. He had the knack for channeling the spirit of the state, be it pride or frustration. His art and his satire continue to be available to readers through his work at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and in more than 600 newspapers across the nation. Ariail has also published three collections of his cartoons.

A two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1995 and 2000, Ariail was the first American to win the prestigious United Nations Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award, triumphing over a field of more than 1,500 cartoonists from around the world in 2009. A sample of other awards include:

  • The National Headliner Award (1990)
  • The National Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award (1992)
  • The Overseas Press Club’s Thomas Nast Award (1997)
  • The Society of Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Award (an eleven-state Southeastern regional competition, 1991, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2007)
  • The South Carolina Press Association Award for Cartooning (2007, 2010)

Says Ariail of his work: “I try to give my readers a chuckle, perhaps even a guffaw on occasion. I’d even settle for a raised eyebrow,” says Ariail. “I don’t take cheap shots, but I like to make a point. I want my cartoons to say something, or at least to show the irony of a situation.”

Full disclosure — I nominated Robert for this. He did all the rest. As always, I am proud to know him, and thankful to have had all those years to work with him.

That’s not ALL that’s wrong with that picture, ladies

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When I saw the headline, “What’s wrong with this picture?” and noticed that it was from the “Southeastern Institute f…,” I didn’t have to open the email, or even see the picture, to know what the answer was.

When you see the full name of the Institute, you won’t wonder, either. Nor will you wonder if you look at the picture in question (at right). But knowing full well the point, I watched the video anyway, and was rewarded by seeing my old colleague Andy Haworth, who shot video for thestate.com when I was there (what does it say that the one person I knew in the video was the one male, eh?).

But ultimately, we get to the place where we knew we were going — the fact that there are no women in the S.C. Senate. And I’m totally with the makers of the video that this is weird, not to mention not good.

The problem is when you talk about what to do about it. My problem is with what one young woman says at the end: “When they do find the courage to run, make sure you vote for them.”

No can do. Not if you put it that way. I just can’t vote for anyone because of gender or race. Or political party, for that matter. Either someone is the better candidate (such as when Inez Tenenbaum was running for superintendent of education — or for the U.S. Senate) or not (such as when Nikki Haley was the only woman running for governor).

You vote for the woman in the first instance, and not in the second. And if you do anything else, you shouldn’t be voting. The Senate can be all male, or all female — I’m not going to suspend judgment to address the imbalance, either way. Let the best woman win, but otherwise not.

Besides, if you ask me what’s wrong with the SC Senate, gender wouldn’t be the first concern I’d mention. If you’d give me a Senate, and a House, that would truly reform our government and our tax system and institute policies that would make our state healthier, wealthier and wiser, I wouldn’t care if they were all little green hermaphrodites from Mars. Or Venus, if you prefer.

But when you start picking them based upon demographics, or party as Harvey Peeler would have it, then you’re going down that Nikki Haley road.

Will I get all the okra I can eat? The absurdities of job-hunting in the digital age

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Back when I was job-hunting in 2009, I signed up for all sorts of services that would give me tips on openings — CareerBuilder.com, BusinessWorkforce.com, AmericaJob.com, TheLadders, and various others.

And I continue to get email alerts from all of them. They are sometimes a source of amusement — although I wouldn’t think it was funny if I were still unemployed.

Today, I’m told of 25 hot prospects, a list supposedly tailored just for me. CareerBuilder assures me that “These recommendations are based on the content of your resume.”

My favorite from today’s list is “Okra Strut Administrator:”

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS Description: Okra Strut Administrator Location: Irmo, SC Pre-Requisite: References that validate past festival coordination / management & certified by the South Carolina Festival Events Assoc. Overview: The Town of Irmo is seeking qualifications for a Festival Administrator. Interested parties should have a background in festival planning, coordinating & management. Scope of Work: Involves planning / managing of parade, street dance, amusements, craft show, food vending, safety & security along with grounds maintenance. Prepares recommendations & provides interpretations for the Okra Strut Commission & manages / coordinates financials with the Town Staff. Meets with the Town Council & other civic organizations as needed…

Yeah, that’s right up my alley. After all, I’m quite fond of okra. Unlike most people, I even like it stewed and slimy. The puzzle for me is that I don’t recall having mentioned my love of okra in my resume or any other materials that I’ve ever submitted for a prospective job.

There are one or two jobs on the list that someone who was really reaching to establish a connection to my background might see as suitable, if they sort of squinted and didn’t think about it too carefully. For instance, amazingly enough, The State is hiring a sports copyeditor. Yep, that’s a job I could easily do, although sports is probably the last department you’d want me for. It’s the sort of job that I might have done when I was 22 years old and right out of college, and would have been fully qualified for then (I covered prep sports part-time for a while for the now-defunct Memphis Press-Scimitar at about that stage of my career). But if you drew a huge square that described the universe of logical jobs based on my abilities and experience, and put this one in the bottom right-hand corner, the jobs that would be a good match for me would be in the upper left-hand corner.

In the last couple of years, on the rare occasions that I’ve actually looked at these emails, I’ve seen one job that was sort of almost kind of a good match, although it would mean moving back to news from the opinion side: The Tennessean in Nashville needed a new executive editor. That would have been something, being a successor to the legendary John Siegenthaler. It might even have provided me with a challenge, since I had not served in news at that level. But no, I didn’t apply, not least because I had no interest in moving the Nashville.

Not that jobs have to be a good match to my resume at all, since the way forward for me involves reinvention, and getting way, way out of my beaten path. From the moment I left the paper, I was more or less determined that I wasn’t looking back, but moving on. But the thing is, these tips are supposedly based on that resume. Here are some of the others I received today:

  • Executive Director of Instructional Technology
  • Loss Prevention Manager for Kmart
  • Junior Systems Performance Engineer for Windows and UNIX
  • Insurace Sales Agent
  • Occupational Therapist
  • Dentist — DDS/DMD
Really. Dentist.

All of this pointless mismatching would be pretty harmless except for one thing: I discovered during my sojourn among the unemployed that an awful lot of the hiring process these days is done by algorithms rather than people — at least in the initial stages. You submit your information electronically, and if the software doesn’t see in your resume what it wants, you don’t get to the stage of talking to humans.

This is unbelievably frustrating, because I found that these software applications have tapioca for brains. There was this one job with a major corporation that was by no means a perfect match, but any human looking at my background and qualifications would at least have been intrigued and wanted to have an exploratory chat.

I submitted my stuff electronically, and the next day received an email (the “do not reply” kind) congratulating me and saying that I looked like a very good match for what they needed, and I would be hearing from a human soon. This was on my birthday, and I was very encouraged.

Two days later I got another disembodied email telling me that the first one was wrong, and that I wasn’t a good match, so goodbye and thanks for applying.

This infuriated me to the point that I determined that I would talk to a human whatever it took. I started with NO contact information — no email for a human, no phone numbers. I just started talking to people I know who knew people who might know people who would know. My thought at the time was that the job called for someone who would do just what I was doing. A person who would take a brush-off from a machine wasn’t qualified for the job.

In the end, I had coffee with the person who was vacating the position, who told me the applications were closed at that point, although she would see if she could get them to reopen the process. This went nowhere, but I was satisfied. I had not accepted “no” from the stupid machine.

Gee, Harvey — let the guy get started, why don’t you?

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Wow. South Carolina creeps a little closer to Washington-style partisanship every day. Here’s one step in that direction…

Earlier today, I received a release saying that Thomas McElveen, a Sumter attorney and son of Sumter Mayor Joe McElveen, was running for the state Senate seat to be vacated by Phil Leventis. The release was a PDF file that won’t let me copy text (I hate PDFs!), but here’s a picture of a portion of the release…

Then, less than two hours after that release came out, I received this from Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, under the headline, “Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler on Democrat Thomas McElveen’s Entry into Senate District 35 Race:”

Columbia, SC – February 21, 2012 – South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler today issued the following statement on Democrat Thomas McElveen’s entrance into the race for state Senate District 35:

“Folks in Sumter are ready for change,” Peeler said. “This will be a prime opportunity for the Senate Republican Caucus to add to its growing majority. Democrats in the Senate still have the numbers they need to impede conservative reforms that people across South Carolina have spoken loud and clear on, and that’s something we need to change. Time and time again, Senator Phil Leventis has fought against the conservative agenda, and has led the effort to make sure the Senate is where conservative ideas go to die. After 33 years, we have the opportunity to wrestle away control of District 35 from liberal trial lawyers, and our Caucus will do everything necessary to make it happen.”

###

Yeah, Harvey, I understand why you want more Republicans in the Legislature, but why should the people of this Sumter district care about whom you, a resident of Cherokee County, want them to elect to represent them?

It would be one thing if you were offering them some insights into Mr. McElveen’s suitability, and suggesting another, specific person whom you believe, for specific reasons, would be a better choice for them. That might be useful. But you don’t even bother for a second to take stock of Mr. McElveen and his qualifications, or lack thereof, for this office, much less demonstrate that there exists a better candidate. No, you just instruct them that any Republican would be better than this guy, just because he has a D after his name.

Which is just beyond offensive.

How about next time you want to butt into somebody else’s district, you have something useful to offer? Or at the very least, let a guy begin his campaign and say something you object to before you attack him.

Sheesh…