Monthly Archives: May 2005

A new U.S. Senate

I ended my Sunday column with the sentiment that the 12 or so senators who have been trying to save the republic from a "nuclear" meltdown over judicial nominations were "heroes in my book," just for trying. (Note that I say "12 or so" instead of using the even dozen cited in the column because some reports indicate at least peripheral involvement in the negotiations by more than that number.)

Since writing that, I’ve thought of another way to characterize the small band of grownups who have been working so hard to avoid damage to the Senate and Mr_smith judiciary: They are models of what the Senate should be, and has too seldom been in recent years.

In fact, here’s a modest proposal: How about we just ditch the other 80 or so partisans, ideologues and spineless sheep who are willing to let their hallowed body charge off a cliff together, and start over with just the admirable few who have been willing to do the country some good?

One Washington Post story referred to them as the "gang of twelve," but trying to identify them is about as hard as coming up with consistent names for the 12 apostles by gleaning through the Gospels. Some names appear in some contexts, others in others. The one story I saw that specifically named 12 was by the Sacramento Bee. Here are the names:

But other stories refer to others, including:

Sure, some of these are folks who have done objectionable things in the past (although some, such as Sens. McCain and Lieberman, are consistent heroes of mine). And there are some otherwise good people among the sheep who are charging toward the edge of the cliff.

But for this moment, I choose to honor the 12. Or 15. Or whatever.

As for Messrs. Frist, Reid, and the rest … well, they’re so into partisanship, maybe they could find nice jobs at party headquarters, licking envelopes or such.

There’s a good reason why they think that

Not having examined the poll itself, I’m not yet sure how much credence to give it, but I was very encouraged by the report that a survey sponsored by local business leaders found that 60 percent of active Columbia voters would ditch the city’s present Byzantine governmental structure for a strong-mayor form. I hope the commission considering changes in that structure will study the poll and take its results into consideration.

My eyebrow rose, however, at the words the political consultant whose firm conducted the survey chose to (almost dismissively) explain how unremarkable such responses are, including on the state level: “There’s been a tendency to want to give the governor top power,” said Richard Quinn. “It makes them (voters) feel government is more accountable to them.”

Well, you know why they feel that way? Because a government in which the elected chief executive is actually in charge of the executive functions is more accountable. Or at least it would be, if we’d give it a try for a change. We’ve paid too much over the years for our failure to trust democracy.

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.

Coming up Sunday…

OK, back to work. Lindsey Graham just called me back from a fund-raiser somewhere in Georgia, and gave me enough on his role as a negotiator trying to pull the Senate back from the nuclear brink over judicial nominees that I could write three or four columns on it. Unfortunately, there’s only space for one — and not enough time for that one, so I’d best get busy. Be sure to read my column on Sunday. If I have some good leftovers, I may post them here…

Meanwhile, back at Wernham Hogg

"Professionalism is … and that’s what I want." — David Brent

I haven’t had time to post anything today because I’m really behind. Fridays are horrible around here — all those weekend pages to put out, plus write a Sunday column — and I’ve just complicated things by dropping one column idea and picking up another one that I’ll have to do from scratch.

Of course, I would have had to do the other one from scratch, even though I’ve had the idea for days. Trouble is, I’m behind on everything because I spent all yesterday afternoon in one of those management training things that they make you do every once in a while if you work at a large publicly-traded company. Basically, I spent several hours being warned yet again about avoiding sexual harrassment, age discrimination, oppressing the workers, etc. So I guess I’m not going to be doing any of that stuff any more. ("So what does that leave me?" I wanted to ask, but didn’t, seeing as how I’m a vice president and all, and supposed to set a good example.)

After the session, we had to fill out a critique form, and there was space to suggest ways to improve the process. At the time I couldn’t think of one, but now I have:

These things would be a lot more fun if they were like the training day episode on "The Office" — the original BBC series, of course, not the American knockoff. In fact, since I have to do a second half-day session next Tuesday (not to mention another a couple of weeks after that), I think I might bring in my acoustic guitar and lead the group in a rousing chorus of "Free Love Freeway." Assuming Debbie doesn’t think that’s too disruptive, of course. Professionalism is … and that’s what I want.

Out of the mouths

The headline on the centerpiece of this morning’s front page, "Fast learners, little Skywalkers are," reminded of a really great thing that happened to me yesterday.

I had gone down to the newsroom to consult with The State‘s main Web juju man, Dave Roberts, about this site. Being informed that Dave was out, I was making my way back through the newsroom when I noticed a knot of elementary schoolers crowded around a reporter’s desk. A tour. I had already passed when I heard my name. Turning back, I was informed that these children were regular readers of my work and would like to talk to me. I looked around, and estimated (accurately, as it turned out) that these were second-graders. Fans of mine? Didn’t seem likely, but I was game.

The teacher standing next to me (Tim O’Keefe, I later learned) looked down at one little girl sitting cross-legged at his feet, and urged her to ask me the question she had just been asking. After a brief look of "Why did you call on me" exasperation, she said (and all quotes herein are approximations; I had no notebook with me): "How come sometimes in the paper there’s this big story about a dog show, with pictures and lots of words, and on the same day something tragic and important happens, but all there is about it is a paragraph?"

Well, it was about all I could do not to bend down and hug her. I am so weary of hearing how in order to survive, newspapers have to lure young readers by dumbing-down their content, stressing entertainment and frivolous features and such at the expense of "boring" hard news.

I just knew there were kids out there like these, and here they were. I was ready to talk to these kids all day. I launched into an explanation about how the flow of news works, explaining that you might have planned to send a reporter and photographer to the dog show for days or even weeks, and on that particular day you had the space set aside for the dog show, and you executed your plan. But then, the "tragic" news develops maybe an hour before you go to press, and the sources are busy and hard to reach, and all you can get of it is a paragraph of information, so you go with that — and if the story is big enough, you follow through the next day. I likened it to having a week for a homework assignment, so you really do that up right, but when the teacher gives you another task to do five minutes before the dismissal bell, you do what you can.

Then Mr. O’Keefe asks why something like a big coal mine disaster would only get short shrift in the paper, as opposed to ongoing coverage of the Michael Jackson trial. After making it clear that I’ve been out of the business of making such judgments for 11 years (since I moved to editorial), so I can’t really speak to recent developments, I tried to answer based on my 20 years in newsrooms before that. I explained the Journalism 101 elements of news play — that you decide based on the factors of interest, importance, proximity and immediacy (I tried to explain those terms in words the kids would understand, but I have a feeling it was unnecessary), and every story has those elements in different proportions. While noting that you won’t catch me following the Michael Jackson trial, plenty of other people have a high interest in it. Same with dog shows; I pointed out that lots of folks call newspapers to say, "Why do you splash all that ‘negative news’ over the front page, when you could be covering my nice dog show?" Different strokes for different folks.

A coal-mine disaster is important — in West Virginia. In South Carolina, we don’t have a lot of coal miners. Nor are South Carolinians in a position to DO much about a coal mine disaster. I contrasted this with the recent boiler explosion that killed a man just down the street from this office. That had proximity, immediacy and interest, and serious importance for South Carolina, since it was the only state in the union that doesn’t to safety inspections of boilers. So we played that story for all it was worth.

Yadda, yadda.

Anyway, as I’m going on, this little towheaded guy has his hand up and waving around, to the point that Mr. O’Keefe signals him to give it a rest, and he gives up. When Mr. O’Keefe says, "Well, Mr. Warthen is busy, and we’ve kept him long enough," I say, "No wait. This young man has a question. What is it, buddy?"

So he says, "What inspired you (those three words are verbatim, as you don’t forget it when a second-grader starts a question with "What inspired you…") to write that letter to the editor (meaning a column) about that man where you said he was ‘not a gentleman — translation: he’s a jerk?"

Well, the grownups all laughed, and someone asked if I was glad I had taken one more question. But I loved it, and just answered him straight: "I was inspired to write that by the fact that the man in question — Rep. Altman — IS a jerk."

"You see," I said, addressing all the boys and girls, "lots of other people had written lots of things about Mr. Altman and what he had said and done, but nobody had pointed out the rather obvious fact that basically, he’s a big, fat jerk. So I thought I should do that."

These kids were great. They’re students at the Center for Inquiry, Richland District 2’s magnet school. I told them they were all going to be great newspaper readers one day, and then corrected myself: "You already ARE wonderful newspaper readers."

Normally, I don’t connect this well with kids this age who are not my own. I find it awkward trying to get on their level. These little Einsteins saved me the trouble by getting down on MY level. It made my day. The only thing lacking was that I wish it had all been on videotape, so I could show it to my good friend Mike Albo, our circulation director. It would have been killer evidence for my side in our ongoing debate about how newspapers should go about appealing to readers, particularly young ones. Sure, these kids were exceptional. But they gave me hope.

Brad denies both Angelina, Jen!

I’ve always thought one of the most irritating things about supermarket tabloids is the way they refer to the celebrities that are their chief focus by their first names only. Like I’m supposed to know who these people are on the basis of that, even though a) they often have pretty generic names such as "Jennifer;" and b) I frequently wouldn’t know who they were even if I had their last names. The pictures are generally little help.

But it’s just as well that they don’t list surnames, seeing as how they’ve now gone to picking on me. I mean, this is embarrassing enough without blackening my whole family’s name. Just last night, I saw two of these slurs. First there was a rag called Inside TV that featured a huge mug of a wronged woman (named Jennifer, as it happens) with one of those brave, smiling-through-the-tears expressions on her rather sweet face, accompanied by the screaming headline, "Getting over Brad." Yet I assure you, I have never met the young lady.

On the same rack was Us Weekly. Its cover boasted a vampy shot of a dark-haired stunner with bee-stung lips, shown looking back over her shoulder in a way that said, "You WILL follow me." The headline: "How she stole Brad."

I’ve never met her, either. I mean it. I’m a happily married man, and if these journalistic vermin don’t cut it out, they’ll be sorry. My eldest daughter is a trial lawyer.

You go, Tony

Just got around to reading The Economist before last — part of it, anyway, the part that mattered. The part about my hero, Tony Blair, whom the Brits don’t properly appreciate. Although it is to be noted that while they did slash into his ruling majority, they Britain_elections_4 did elect him to an unprecedented third consecutive term. Consider the way they dumped Winston Churchill immediately after he saved their bacon in the war, and what the current PM just received from the British electorate qualifies as a big, sloppy kiss by comparison.

But they can’t bring themselves to work up any enthusiasm about it, which would make you think he was the kind of near-zero that the major parties keep forcing us to settle for over on this side of the pond. As the magazine-which-inexplicably-calls-itself-a-"newspaper" said of the UK electorate it in its cover story, "Like The Economist, it sees no clear alternative to Mr Blair, but it has come to wish there were one."

So they settled for a guy who most Americans would love to have a chance to vote for — a fact that The Economist acknowledges with the bemusement with which it often regards the colonies:

The strangeness does not stop there. Mr Blair’s eight years in office have won him extraordinary standing abroad, something which he plainly relishes. In America he is talked of reverently by Democrats and Republicans alike. In a country where politics has become ever more viciously polarised, it often seems that adoration of Mr Blair is the one thing the opposing tribes can agree on. Republicans love him for his unflinching support of America’s assertive foreign policy; Democrats because they see a towering figure of the centre-left, a man with the magnetism and the energy of Bill Clinton, if not quite the brains—and, would you believe it, no bimbos. They rightly give Mr Blair the credit for reinventing the Labour Party and transforming its electoral prospects. If only, they tell themselves, we could find a leader like that.

You can say that again. And who says Tony doesn’t have "quite the brains" of Bill? Mr. Clinton may have been a champion talker, but can one really watch the PM during the House of Commons’ "question period" and think that the ex-president could do better under similar circumstances? I can’t, and partly because Mr. Clinton lacked the requisite intellectual combativeness — at least in public. He wanted to be loved too much.

Note that The Economist gives different reasons for why Republicans and Democrats over here like Mr. Blair. This passage illuminates two things: Why I can identify with neither party, and why I like Tony more than any partisan could. The thing is, I admire him for both sets of reasons.

Oh, and could somebody explain to me again why it’s the Republicans and the Tories who admire him for his war stance, and not the more liberal parties? The use of Anglo-American military might to spread democracy among oppressed peoples is a Wilsonian enterprise — the sort of thing one would expect from a Roosevelt or a Truman or a Kennedy; not from, say a Calvin Coolidge. There’s nothing conservative about risking and sacrificing so much for strangers who may never fully appreciate what we’ve done. The old policy, that of maintaining the status quo so the cheap oil would keep flowing; that was a conservative approach.

I need an editor

It occurs to me that if I’m going to keep up with this business of informing you about our meetings, I’m going to have to be a lot more succinct than I am in the item below this one. Partly because I won’t have the time otherwise, and partly because you won’t read it.

Give me time; I have to figure out this medium.

Girl Scouts meeting

It occurs to me that headline might be a bit misleading. This was an editorial board meeting, not one at which we did crafts and talked about the next cookie sale. And what I just said is misleading, too. Allow me to elaborate.

First, I should explain that a regular feature of this blog will be to let the general public know with whom the editorial board has met, and what was talked about. It’s another step in my long-standing campaign for transparency for the board, which I describe by the increasingly hackneyed phrase, "lowering the drawbridge to the ivory tower." We are often accused by those who disagree with us of conspiring with all sorts of nefarious types to whom we should not be listening, so I figure, why not just tell people about our actual meetings (most of which do not lead to editorials or columns).
I doubt that anyone — scratch that, I doubt that many people will see anything sinister in this confab, but I related it anyway.

We met with Pam Hyland, CEO of the local Girl Scout Council of the Congaree Area, Inc. This meeting sort of went under the heading of get-acquainted, or "institutional" meetings. Ms. Hyland provided us with an overview of where the Girl Scouts stand today as an organization in modern society. Some of it was about the local council, but mostly about the larger institution.
In brief, she wished to debunk some of the false or outdated perceptions of Girl Scouts. If she had her way, the three Cs with which the girls are associated would shift from "cookies, camping and crafts" to "courage, confidence and character."

She was concerned, and the national organization is apparently also concerned, that "we confront a crisis of relevance. This translates partly as a drop in membership. The Scouts serve about 12 percent of available girls (those 5 to 17), a figure that is "dropping slightly." This is partly because of there not being enough volunteers. It’s also a function of the lamentable phenomenon of the radical shortening of childhood. She noted that girls don’t like to be called "girls" after about the age of 10. (I’m glad to report that they are not planning on changing the name from "Girl Scouts" as a marketing strategy to address this development.)

She talked a lot about what Girl Scouts are not:

  • They are not primarily a white, middle-class organization — it’s a VERY diversity-minded group.
  • They are not something low-income girls can’t afford to join. The only fee is $10 to join, and you don’t HAVE to buy a uniform.
  • The sale of Girl Scout cookies are an inadequate funding source, and the organization is looking to diversity its fiscal base. Former Girl Scouts will be a primary target for fund-raising appeals.
  • You don’t have to be a Mom to help out. Volunteers can be Dads, or non-parents, for that matter.

There was much more, but this gives you the gist. For more info, contact Ms. Hyland at hylandp@congaree.org or visit the group’s web site.

Christina’s rough draft

This could just as well have appeared under another category called "Deleted Scenes," but I chose to make it my first entry under Religion. In any case, this is a scene deleted from someone else’s movie, specifically that of The State‘s religion writer, Christina Knauss. She and I had traded e-mails back and forth after my column about the new pope. I thought about publishing it on our op-ed page, but it seemed a little too late. So I saved it for the blog, and here it is:

Brad, this is a draft of a column I had written when JP II died. I thought you’d like to see it. A version of it was going to run with our papal funeral coverage, but somehow, at the last minute, we ran out of room. Thought as a fellow Catholic I’d share it with you…

    I waited until I got out of the newsroom to cry.
    The day I heard of the death of Pope John Paul II, I stared at the three TV screens we have hanging on a wall, picked up a notebook and figured out what local tribute Mass I was going to visit.
    Then, in the car, I heard National Public Radio broadcasting an excerpt from John Paul II’s 1999 CD "Abba Pater," in which his gentle voice read prayers to the Virgin Mary over a melancholic classical score by a young Italian composer.
    It was only then that tears came. In the car, alone.
    In this business, you see, we are not supposed to let other people Pope_portrait see us cry. Not the people we cover, and most of the time, not the people you work with.
    It’s called journalistic objectivity.
    It has a place.
    But not when the only Pope you’ve ever known has died. When a simple priest from Krakow has become over 26 years like a member of your own family, when a loving face on a holy card can make you feel better about life even on the darkest days.
    When that man has died, objectivity can be a hard thing.
    Karol Woltija, Pope John Paul II, was the Holy Father during every milestone of my life. Graduations from eighth grade, high school and college. The deaths of my mother, three grandparents, cousins and dozens of friends and acquaintances. First jobs and new jobs and job searches. Relationships entered and lost. My only two travels overseas. The marriages and subsequent divorces of several high school and college friends. The births of my godchildren.
    All of these things in my life, as well as 9/11, Hurricane Hugo, the fall of communism, elections, funerals, natural disasters and other crises and triumphs in the life of the world …. Karol Woltija was the man who came to a window in St. Peter’s Square and offered blessings that carried me, and us, on through all of these things.
    I am the same as thousands of other Generation X Roman Catholics. For us, John Paul II was the only person we ever thought of when we heard the word "Pope." We were in elementary school when he was elected, dealing with jobs, mortgages, families and other elements of adult life when he died.
    26 years is a long time. In the life of a woman, a man, in the life of a Church.
    But over 26 years, for those of us who called the Church of Rome our spiritual home, John Paul II was there. Unchanging in his persistent love of God, and seemingly, of all of humankind, even though his body went from the youthful, purposeful young Polish pope challenging communism to the broken and bent old man who still managed to bring a loving glint to his eyes when confronted with a child or by crowds calling his name.
    I, like many others of my generation, didn’t always agree with his conservative positions on birth control, women in the priesthood,and other issues. But for me, Karol Woltiya always seemed a bit like family, and when someone is part of your family, and you love them, you are able to disagree on certain things while agreeing on other, more basic and important values.
    For me, Pope John Paul II embodied, in his facial expressions, his writings, his gestures, his words, all that was and is beautiful about Roman Catholicism and about Christianity in general.
    When I think of him, and all the images I saw of him in all those 26 years, all I can think of is love. Pope John Paul II embodied love. He showed it to everyone he met. And he showed what can happen when a man dedicates himself to following the path of God and allows the love of God to shine through him.
    And, less spiritual but still important, in all those 26 years, we knew where Pope John Paul II stood. We knew what he believed in and what he thought was important. Unlike so many leaders who have come and gone in those 26 years, he did not have a hidden political agenda and did not feel the need to bend his ideals to fit whatever interest group was knocking at his door in a particular year. You knew what you were getting with Karol Woltiya.
    And in this day and age especially, that counts for something.
    So yes, I have cried many tears in the past week for Pope John Paul II. The only pope I have ever known. I can’t as yet imagine a Church without him at the helm. I can’t imagine that window over St. Peter’s Square without his face appearing there.
    "Be not afraid" he said to the crowd his first night as pope in October, 1978.
    I’m not afraid of life without Karol Woltiya at the helm of the Catholic church.
    But the thought of it makes me sad.
    I imagine it will for a long time.
    I can’t be objective about that.
    Rest in peace, Holy Father.