Welcome, folks. After Friday, there will be no Brad Warthen’s Blog (or no new entries, anyway). It will be replaced by this, the much spiffier bradwarthen.com. Or at least, it WILL be spiffier when I have time to prettify it a bit. It is very much under construction now. But it’s a start.
Well, it is a pleasure to visit your new digs. I hope for spirited conversation (that means two sides) without the vitriolic JUVENILE name calling that all too often characterized the earlier residence.
By the way, and its really none of my business, do you hope to get sponsers or is this strictly an out of pocket exercise?
It looks like all comments have to be approved by you before being posted. A good way to increase the civility quotient if you so choose.
Long live the Blog! I will be very interested in seeing who transfers.
BTW, the Hartford Courant does not have a blog that comes close to the activity yours generated. Credible blog masters are also hard to come by so your new blog is more than welcome.
I’m here, waiting for the group. Glad you’ve got the new blog going.
I am really going to miss you in the paper but I’m glad you are going to keep blogging! Please keep posting pieces about the candidates for governor. You are exactly right – we do need to think very hard and pay attention to who is running in 2010.
Say it ain’t so, Brad! You have been my “go-to” guy for reliable reporting. I will ditto what Cindi said very eloquently in her column yesterday andl just add, “Thank you, thank you, for all your work to shine light on important issues here in South Carolina”! The state and Columbia and I will be feeling a great loss. Keep on blogging!
Glad to see you have your new page up and running. I’m sure you will enjoy personalizing it.
Test comment number 4.
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I tried to post on the blog but it did not appear.
You were gone for such a short time I am not sure I had time to miss you. Now we can still have fun and get information at the same time.
This is my first venture into the blog world so be gentle.
I am inspired to start blogging by the leavings of Ariail and Warthen from the STATE paper. I expect that within a short time that the STATE will no longer be worth reading and the only alternative will be stumbling around on the internet to find out what is going on and how that impacts my life. Sixty years of reading print to inform and entertain is going to require a major shifting of gears, this note represents at least the pushing in the clutch.
Both Ariail and Warthen now reside comfortably in my favorites awaiting daily reference to put in perspective what is going on in the world.
News flash!
White House press conference is closed to white reporters.
You can’t make this stuff up:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/
The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press.
From the president’s official schedule:
“Later in the afternoon, the President and the First Lady will attend a reception with the National
Newspaper Publisher Association in the State Dining Room, where they will be presented the Newsmaker of the Year award. This event is closed press.”
Maybe they’ll let the newspaper people pass the award through the fence.
Welcome to the shooting gallery, Brad.
Good to see your new blog is up and running. Too bad the traditional press is having such difficulties making ends meet. Still, I think your combination of media has been the right one. Blogging does allow you to get a feel for what people are thinking right now. Too bad our state has so many confederates in the attic eager to walk over the bodies of those who have been evicted from their homes are starving in the street.
I hear the governor is having trouble selling his house. Who would want to live there and risk the opprobrium of a governor clearly shooting for a Republican nomination he may get.
I hope he does, too. It will ensure the certain defeat of a party everyone knows is in the pockets of the wealthy who, if they just have the right combination of tax breaks, just MIGHT deign to engage in job creation for us peasants.
Correction: The State (newspaper) is dead; long live Warthen & Ariail…
Mr. Warthen, I am one of the many State readers who will miss you. As others have said, we haven’t always agreed but you did make me think about the issues that are important to South Carolina and the Columbia area. Question…have you thought about seeking political office yourself? You certainly know more about most issues (than most politicians), and hey you might be able to make some of the changes you have advocated for. Just a thought.
Is there a way to turn off text justification in WordPress?
Justified text can look good on documents that are for printing with proportional spacing, but the extra blanks to justify text on the web is noise on the eyes.
I prefer to see a ragged right end for reading articles on the web.
Thanks,
Ralph
Good luck. We’ll be keeping up with you.
I’m so glad to find that you are still on the scene.
The State has been sagging in such an obvious manner these recent years that the editorial page was about the only part of it that I really enjoyed, and that was mainly because of it’s diversity of opinion and attention to important detail, both of which should be taken for granted as normal from any decent newspaper in any decent world.
The civil yet unyielding tone of your commentary amidst the vitriolic climate that is present at ground level here in South Carolina will be missed at the Paper. It seems that The State has willingly shed it’s incisors, yet has chosen to keep it’s fluff.
A frequent reader of The State, myself, I’ll be especially critical and sceptical about it’s commitment to addressing local issues now that it’s floundering around. Honestly, I don’t have much faith in your succesors to deliver the depth of coverage and thought that I ‘ve been accustomed to reading. Hence my comment on this newborn blog.
Whenever I next pick up a copy of The State, I’m sure to wonder how homeliving tips and gardening ideas are deemed more important to a publication that used to have some open eyes and some teeth to chew on what was seen.
My take on the handwritten Sanford note:
He’s enough of a gentleman not to rub your face in it, he leaves it to you to find your own proof that God is great, without offering you any false sentiments.
I trust that you will, and please don’t let up.