For years I’ve been functioning at a two-computer workstation for various reasons.

Since I blog, I do most of my browsing on the laptop, which runs Windows XP. That way, whether I’m here or not, I’m using the same platform when blogging. Gradually, I’ve started using it for other things — for PhotoShop (both for blog and newspaper use), for editing video, for storage (it’s connected to an external hard drive), and even for my office e-mail. For some reason, Outlook has never run right on my desktop.

My desktop runs Windows 98, because it is what we call a "pag station" (for "pagination"). That’s the machine I have to use to write columns for the paper, and to edit my colleague’s stuff, because it’s the only platform I have that runs DewarView, and that’s our system that connects text to pagination. Finally, it’s the machine on which I run QuarkXPress, which is the pagination software. I can put a page together, hit a button (several buttons, really) and out comes a page-size negative downstairs, from which the plates that go on the press are made. All that stuff was written for Windows 98.

Anyway, sometimes I need to get information from one platform to the other, and you know what the easiest way to get that done is? Post it on the blog (as a draft if I don’t want it public yet), then go to the other machine and call it up on the browser. In fact, I’ve gotten so used to doing this that I don’t use a flashdrive or anything like that anymore. If I want to keep working on something at home that I was doing on the desktop (say, the speech for the Cap City breakfast, which I wrote at the office the night before), I put it on the blog.

So anyway, Cindi sent me a contribution for the blog rail we run in the paper on Mondays. Trouble is, she sent it as e-mail. So I’m posting it on the blog, so I can turn to the machine four feet away and put it in a Dewarview file (after, of course, washing it through Notepad to get rid of the invisible Web coding). Here’s what she sent me, from Paul Hyde’s blog:

Howie Rich trashes S.C. public education
    Howie Rich, the rich New Yorker who’s trying to buy the S.C. Legislature, hates public education.
    At least that’s the impression you get from hearing him speak.
    Rich, who spent a half million dollars in our state’s primary election trying to put school voucher advocates in the S.C. Legislature, drips elitist contempt for S.C. public schools.
    In a fawning interview (posted on You Tube) with S.C. Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson, Rich describes public education supporters this way:
    "The other side is in it for one thing – taxpayer dollars. They love it every year when the Legislature gives them more money for what they call ‘education.’"
    What they "call ‘education’"? (In the interview, Rich supplies the quotation marks with his curled fingers.)
    Well, that’s a nice slap in the face to 46,000 dedicated and hardworking South Carolina public school teachers, not to mention hundreds of thousands of parents and other supporters public schools.
    Contrary to what New Yorker Rich suggests, teachers and administrators in our state do not become educators for the sole purpose of lining their pockets with taxpayer dollars.
    On the contrary, most educators dedicate their lives to trying to help 700,000 South Carolina young people become thoughtful citizens and productive members of society.
    That’s not "education," in the sense intended by Rich’s sarcastic quotation marks.
    That really IS education, in the most profound sense.
    Rich shows his disgust and disrespect for public education and its supporters through name-calling. His favorite labels: the "educrat establishment," "the opposition," "the other side" and "the monolithic institution."
    No one disputes that public schools have problems. But South Carolina teachers and administrators deserve better than to have their hard work, sacrifices and commitment dismissed with the sneering contempt that Rich so richly displays.
    Has the man ever met a South Carolina teacher?
    Does Dawson, the GOP state chairman, and Gov. Mark Sanford – who recently called Rich a "patriot" – really want to align themselves with an extremist who has such a nasty attitude toward public education?
    Rich spent a lot of money in the primaries through about two dozen companies. Some South Carolinians are beginning to examine the legality of that.
    You can bet Rich plans to spend a lot of money in the general election here.
    In the interview, Rich admits to ideological motivations.
    "You might call it ideology," says Rich. "I believe in something strongly and I want to make it happen."
    So much for why Rich wants to impose his will on South Carolina.
    But does it matter to Rich what South Carolinians want for their own schools?
    Most of us in this state attended public schools. Many of us know teachers and some of us have family members in public education. Many of us have children in the public schools.
    We know first hand of the dedication and hard work of educators.
    We know also that public education is one of the sturdy pillars of whatever prosperity we as individuals and as a state now enjoy.
    Sorry, Howie, but we South Carolinians are not about to roll over and play dead while you trash our public schools.

Actually, I guess I could have just sent myself the link. But she sent me the whole thing, so there it is… Now I’m going to go get it on the other machine…

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