Yearly Archives: 2009

GOP dark horse steps forward

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This just came to my attention, and in keeping with my efforts to begin chronicling the 2010 gubernatorial election (because the sooner we can get a new governor, the better), I share it with you:

{BC-SC-Governor-Nelsen, 2nd Ld-Writethru,0320}
{Furman professor plans GOP bid for SC governor}
{Eds: UPDATES with quotes, details from Nelsen, Bauer. ADDS byline.}
{By JIM DAVENPORT}=
{Associated Press Writer}=
   COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – A Furman University political science professor announced plans Thursday to be the first GOP candidate to formally enter the 2010 race for South Carolina governor.
   Brent Nelsen says he'll file paperwork Friday to set up his Nelsen for Governor Committee and launch a series of economic summits around the state that aim to come up with plans to increase employment and spur economic development.
   Nelsen has never run for political office and said he wants to put into practice some of the things he has taught. He wouldn't say how much he expects to raise in the next six months to wage a credible campaign in a primary that most expect will cost millions to win.
   "I'm going to have enough money in the next six months to make a run for this," Nelsen said. "I'm not going to put a dollar figure on it."
   Republican Gov. Mark Sanford is limited to two terms and leaves office in 2011. His tenure has been marked by high jobless rates – at 9.5 percent in December, South Carolina had the nation's third worst unemployment rate.
   Other GOP candidates flush with campaign cash and with better-recognized names in state politics have said they're interested but not yet ready to announce plans. Attorney General Henry McMaster is interested but isn't expected to enter the race before spring. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said Thursday he's probably running, but is too busy for now to announce his intentions. U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett has begun lining up advisers for a possible bid.
   Democrat state Sen. Vincent Sheheen of Camden already has filed 2010 campaign forms so he can begin raising money, making him the only other candidate formally in the race for governor. Other Democrats considering bids include House Minority Leader Harry Ott of St. Matthews and state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Prof. Nelson isn't quite as viable a candidate as the subject of my Sunday column, Vincent Sheheen. Nor, and this is more to the point, as viable as the most active GOP candidate-to-be, Attorney General Henry McMaster. But I pass on this report nonetheless, so that you might make of it what you will.

For more on Dr. Nelson, I refer you to this piece he wrote for us recently, which appeared on our Saturday Online Extra on Jan. 17:

S.C. GOP must reform itself
By BRENT F. NELSON
GUEST COLUMNIST
The S.C. Republican Party is in trouble. If the party fails to seek new ideas and reach out to new voters, its dominance of state politics will end. It’s time to start a new debate within the party.
    Ironically, Republicans still look strong. The party holds eight of the nine elected state offices. Republicans control the state House and Senate by comfortable margins and have both U.S. senators and four of six U.S. representatives. Just as important, South Carolina remained “McCain red” in a presidential election that saw big gains for Democrats almost everywhere.
    But scratch the surface, and significant cracks appear in the GOP’s foundation. The most obvious problem is the dysfunctional relationship between the Republican governor and the Republican Legislature. To be fair, Columbia’s broken politics stems from a state constitution that hamstrings the governor, denying him the power to implement a coherent policy. But Gov. Mark Sanford has been unable — or unwilling — to employ the customary gubernatorial tools to shepherd his proposals through the Legislature. That Legislature is indeed overly protective of its anachronistic privileges, but he often uses that resistance as a pretext for political posturing of his own, rather than engaging opponents in a search for common ground. The party has gotten away with this petty bickering, but the state now faces the third-highest unemployment rate in the country, declining competitiveness and poor educational performance. Someday voters will notice.
    And Republicans face a cascade of worrying electoral trends. Only 54 percent of South Carolinians picked John McCain for president, down 10 points from Ronald Reagan’s vote in 1984. McCain’s showing is no anomaly but another point marking a rather steady decline for Republican candidates (not counting the three-way elections of 1992 and 1996). In the 2008 contest, the Republican vote dropped in 43 of 46 counties. Declines averaged 3.6 percent but were even greater (4.4 percent) in the 11 largest counties.
    The worst news comes from important demographic categories. In 2004 George Bush won every age group in South Carolina, including 18-29 year olds; John McCain managed to win only those 45 and older. Fifteen percent of African-American voters voted for Bush in 2004; only 4 percent chose McCain. Hispanic voters are too few in South Carolina to analyze, but Hispanics increased their share of the electorate from 1 percent in 2004 to 3 percent in 2008. Nationally Obama won 61 percent of the Hispanic vote, and South Carolina was probably no different.
    Is all lost for S.C. Republicans? Absolutely not — but the party must adjust to the new realities. Republicans must reach beyond white, married, religious voters — a shrinking base. To avoid becoming the next red state gone blue, Republicans must attract more young people, minorities and not-so-religious whites. Accomplishing this without losing the GOP’s conservative base will be tricky, but not impossible.
    Here are three suggestions.

— First, the party must stress what it is for rather than what it is against. It is no longer enough to be against government, taxes, gun control, abortion, gay marriage and immigration. Uncommitted voters want to know the alternative. Republicans should focus on establishing the conditions necessary to “human flourishing.”
Strong government should establish clear boundaries for behavior and then stand back and allow responsible citizens to act freely. Public officials must identify the social causes of poverty and low educational achievement and work with churches and neighborhood organizations to strengthen families and their communities.
We need politicians who can find compassionate ways to balance the need for employers to gain access to hard-working labor, citizens to feel comfortable in their neighborhoods and immigrants to realize the American dream. Governments cannot make humans flourish, but they can make the necessary room for this to happen. That is a conservative vision.
— Second, Republicans must reconnect with young adults, Hispanics and African-Americans. Many in these groups are social conservatives who fail to see in Republicans a concern for the economic and cultural issues important to minorities. Republicans must convince these voters that the party is committed to
the flourishing of all South Carolinians.
— Finally, the party must stop fighting and start solving problems. Education, enterprise and environment might be three places to start. The state must dramatically narrow the education gap between the richest and the poorest; it must regain its globally competitive position; and it must manage responsibly the natural beauty of this state.

    If S.C. Republicans focus on human flourishing and government that works, new supporters will help reverse the party’s decline.

Dr. Nelson chairs the political science department at Furman University. He is a lifelong Republican.

‘life and prosperity, death and doom…’

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Perhaps I should begin this post with the opening words of today's first reading in the Catholic lectionary:

Moses said to the people:
"Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom…"
        — Deuteronomy 30:15

Since this last post on the subject ("TNR on the 'end' of newspapers") — when I mentioned the bankruptcies of the Philadelphia papers and alluded to that of the Journal Register Co. — the flood of bad news in my industry has continued unabated this week. For instance:

That's just a sampling.

But that's not the big story, is it? The big story is that what's killing the newspapers is the dying economy — no economic activity, no advertising, no newspapers.

As President Obama gamely tried to buck up the country Tuesday night, the picture looked grimmer and grimmer for the whole economy. Of all that I've read this week about bailouts, layoffs, losses, cutbacks and so forth this week, nothing made as big an impression on me as a piece in the WSJ yesterday about several new economic indicators.

The story began with Ben Bernanke telling us that we could start to snap out of this by 2010 — if EVERYTHING goes right from here on. It continued:

The confidence of U.S. consumers tumbled in February to its lowest level in more than 41 years, partly because people are increasingly discouraged about job prospects. Two fresh measurements suggest home-price declines are accelerating. New Fed data showed rising bank-loan delinquencies. And companies from software giant Microsoft Corp. to retailers Office Depot Inc. and Macy's Inc. reported a worsening profit outlook.

That worst-in-41-years was actually the worst ever, since consumers' pulses were first taken this way in 1967. Additionally:

The jobless rate has already risen to 7.6%, and fresh data indicate that Americans are pessimistic that the outlook will improve any time soon. The Conference Board's consumer-confidence index fell to 25 in February, its lowest level since monthly data were first collected in 1967, and 48% of people surveyed said jobs were hard to get, the largest percentage since February 1992. Some 47% said they expected jobs to decrease in the months ahead, the highest percentage since December 1973.

Almost a quarter of respondents said they expected their incomes to decrease over the next six months, an all-time high.

If only a quarter expect their incomes to decrease, it makes me think three-quarters of us are fooling ourselves.

Oh, by the way, speaking of Ben Bernanke — did you see that his boyhood home in Dillon — yes, Dillon, S.C. — was foreclosed upon? It was no longer owned by the Bernanke's, but still, as omens go… The WSJ followed up that story with a slideshow of Dillon (including pics from South of the Border).

Let me add to all this my firm belief that we can't possibly turn this around until we start feeling a little more upbeat about our prospects. So enough of the gloom and doom for today; I just needed to get that out of my system.

Anybody have any happy news to share?

For me, I'll return to today's readings, where the responsorial psalm promises this to one who hopes in the Lord:

He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.

Amen to that.

Palmetto Health comes out swinging

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Well, you're not going to be surprised to know that Palmetto Health is not a BIT pleased that Providence Hospital and Lexington Medical Center have cut a deal on open-heart and left it out. Palmetto Health issued this statement at 4:37 this afternoon, after the other two parties made their big announcement:

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 25, 2009

Statement by Charles D. Beaman, Jr., CEO, Palmetto Health

I have great respect for the dedicated professionals associated with Lexington Medical Center and Providence Hospital. However, I am surprised and very disappointed that the leaders of those hospitals excluded Palmetto Health when they negotiated a private agreement regarding health care delivery for the Midlands of South Carolina.

Palmetto Health is the largest provider of health care in the area.  We have been urging collaboration and cooperation from the beginning.

Frankly, I am at a loss to understand why a private agreement regarding health care delivery would be negotiated and announced that excludes the region’s largest hospital system.  Our goal is to provide the best, most efficient services to the families of central South Carolina.  It is simply not possible to develop a regional health care delivery plan that excludes Palmetto Health.  

Here are just a few of the questions left unresolved by the private agreement negotiated by only two of the region’s hospitals:

  • Will Lexington Medical Center agree to support Palmetto Health’s plan to build Parkridge Hospital in the Irmo area?  That plan was approved by state officials in August of 2007.  The community involved is eager to have a hospital in their area.  But progress has been blocked for nearly two years by legal maneuvers.
  • Will we have sufficient trauma coverage for our region? If open heart surgery must be provided in a hospital that has one of the busiest ERs in the area, why not consider providing trauma services in that same ER?
  • Will we have adequate behavioral health services for our region?  Right now Palmetto Health is the only inpatient provider for unfunded patients.  As the state continues to cut services for inpatients and outpatients, our regional hospitals need to work together.
  • Where are the oversight and the spirit of cooperation to provide care for the uninsured and underinsured who are showing up in growing numbers at the region’s only safety-net hospital – Palmetto Health Richland?  Is open heart surgery the only service worth sharing?

At Palmetto Health, we remain willing to cooperate and collaborate with other hospital systems to create a true regional health care delivery plan.  And we urge our colleagues in the health care delivery system to focus on the full range of services needed in these difficult economic times. 

In the mean time, our friends in Lexington County can rest assured we will continue to support them in their specialized heart care needs.  Just last week, a patient from Lexington County had his heart blockage removed within 19 minutes of his arrival at Palmetto Health Heart Hospital after being transported there by Lexington County EMS.  We remain ready and able to accommodate patients needing our care.

# # # # #

In those four bulleted items, Chuck Beaman sets out the biggest beefs that Palmetto Health has long held in terms of getting the short end of the stick on Midlands health care — it treats the most indigent patients, and it maintains the expensive trauma services that the other hospitals don't have to provide because IT does. That's why it was so important to Palmetto Richland to develop it's expanded open-heart program, because it brings in revenue it needs to offset those expenses.

That question, "Is open heart surgery the only service worth sharing?" is about as loaded as a question gets. Lexington has argued all along that it needed open heart because it was getting such a disproportionate share of acute cardiac cases coming into its ER. In that case, the other hospitals have said, why don't you beef up ER — which would COST money, rather than bringing it in the way open-heart does. Now, Providence isn't saying that, and is getting $15 million, and Palmetto Health is feeling very isolated and neglected.

Note that the release doesn't promise to keep opposing Lexington's CON request on open-heart, but says it will be happy to continue serving those patients at the Richland campus, which one of course reads as meaning the same thing.

Bottom line: Two of the combatants have made peace. But the war's not over.

The war is over — between Providence and Lexington Medical

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Just to briefly mention what I've been up to on this Ash Wednesday, we had a meeting this morning with representatives of Providence Hospital and Lexington Medical Center. They had come to jointly announce a major breakthrough — they've stopped fighting over whether LexMed should be allowed to do open-heart surgery.

As you know, Lexington has tried everything it could think of in recent years — regulatory, legal and political — to get around the fact that DHEC has said (in a shocking, rare instance of DHEC saying "no" to anyone) that they can't do bypasses. Providence and Palmetto Health have been on the opposite side of the table, arguing that a third such program would be duplicative and damage the quality of overall care in the Midlands by reducing the number of procedures they do below the level considered necessary for maintaining proficiency.

We have agreed with Providence and Palmetto Health on this. In fact, we also opposed Palmetto Health expanding its heart program several years back, on the same grounds, but DHEC approved it. We have maintained that yet a third such program would be insupportable.

But now two of these three parties have decided to stop spending millions fighting each other, and after months of negotiations have agreed on the following:

  • Providence and Lexington Medical will ask DHEC to "de-certify" one of Providence's four open-heart surgical suites.
  • The two will then ask DHEC to certify ONE such unit at Lexington Medical.
  • Lexington will drop its challenge to certificates for expansion for Providence Northeast.
  • Lexington will pay Providence, in three installments, a total of $15 million to compensate it for the lost revenues from de-certifying a unit.

So what's missing? Well, Palmetto Health. What we have here is a classic 1984 sort of situation: Eastasia and Eurasia have always been at war with Oceania. But now Eurasia and Oceania are friends. Does that mean they are now at war with Eastasia — I mean, Palmetto Health? Well, no — at least not at this moment. But Palmetto Health is not a part of the peace agreement, and it's hard to see how the overall battle over this issue is over until it is. We'll see in the coming days.

All of that is not to take away from what a huge breakthrough this is. This has been a very, VERY bitter battle that has distorted local politics as well as spending all that money on lawyers and such. As one who lives right behind Lexington Medical, I can tell you I've caught a lot of heat over this emotional issue, as has the newspaper. It's been tough to get people to look beyond the feelings to the larger issue. (One way I've tried to do that personally has been by pointing out that if I were having a heart attack, I'd have to be transported right past Lexington, only a mile from my house, to Providence — but that I believe that situation is best for the community overall, in terms of better outcomes for more patients in the Midlands.)

Now, suddenly, it's over? Well, this part of it is. And I find myself torn between on the one hand celebrating the end of a really destructive conflict, and wondering why it's suddenly OK for an experienced open-heart team to be replaced by a startup? Mind you, I'm sure Lexington Medical will do as a good a job as anyone could starting such a program. It's an excellent hospital, and takes tremendous pride in doing everything it does well. Still, all things being equal, would we not be better off with the established team at Providence doing that portion of the region's procedures?

The thing is, politically and financially and in other ways, all things were NOT equal, and continued conflict had its cost. So I can see why Providence has agreed to this even as I have reservations. Lexington Medical is giving ground, too, by the way, aside from giving up money — it still has objections to the wisdom and advisability of the Providence Northeast expansion. But it's dropping those concerns in the interests of agreement.

By the way, as a brief primer on the importance of money in all these considerations: When Providence started doing open-heart decades ago, it wasn't a money-maker. The Sisters of Charity did it because somebody in South Carolina needed to. Later, open-heart surgery became very lucrative. And while I fully believe that all parties believed they were also doing what was best for their patients, the money has played a big role at each step in these battles. Palmetto Richland, with the largest share of indigent care and an extremely expensive trauma unit, needed to expand into heart surgery to have something that brought in revenues. Lexington didn't want to be left out of that. And Providence, which has struggled financially in recent years after an ill-advised partnership with a for-profit corporation (which the good sisters mortgaged their convent to get out of), could ill afford to give up the revenues.

That's the simplistic, "it's all about money" explanation. There are other factors at work as well. One of them is that the treatment of heart disease is increasingly moving beyond open-heart, often to less invasive therapies. That's one reason why Providence was unwilling to give up part of a pie that was diminishing in overall size. But it also seems to be a reason why it is willing to give it up now — open-heart isn't the future the way it once was, so Providence sees no point in continuing a wasteful fight over a portion of the diminishing number of such procedures to be done in the future.

Meanwhile, if I heard it right today, Lexington is NOT giving up its objections to a certificate involving the main Providence campus. So all is not sweetness and light, with all conflicts behind us in this community.

But no doubt about it, this is a major step by these two very important local institutions. It's huge. But it's SO huge, and complicated, that much remains to be sorted out.

Reactions to the president’s speech?

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As I noted, I missed the start of Obama's speech, and at this point I won't feel confident commenting on it in full until I've had a chance to go back and catch up, which I might not do until tomorrow at this rate. I don't have Obama's stamina. It's been a long day, and tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. (That Obama sure knows how to celebrate Mardi Gras, huh? What a workaholic. It's after 10, and he's still going…)

But I thought I'd provide y'all with this space to share YOUR observations, so have at it…

Oh, yeah — you can read about it here and here and here.

Did Nancy get hold of the bong?

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After dropping by to see the twins on my way home tonight and getting a late start on dinner, I didn't tune in to Obama's speech until way into it. And watching, all I could think for a moment was, "What's with that weird stoner smirk on Nancy Pelosi's face?" Did she get ahold of Phelps' bong? I pointed it out to my wife, who said maybe she had a little drink first.

Joe Biden, on the contrary, looks pretty normal. Or as normal as he can look when not talking, which of course is NOT normal for him.

I guess I need to catch up on what has been actually said here… I hope it was good.

Just now, the president promised a cure for cancer…. That certainly got my attention…

Governator vs. Sanford

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Just in case you missed this little interaction between our own governor and the one out in Collie-forn-nee-ah, I bring it to your attention:

Schwarzenegger and Crist are at odds with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Sanford called the package a huge mistake and warned that the nation will hit a tipping point by stacking up trillions and trillions in debt.

In an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Schwarzenegger took a shot at Sanford.

"Well, Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the money, the federal stimulus package money. And I want to say to him: I'll take it," Schwarzenegger said. "I'm more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn't want to take this money, I take it, because we in California can need it."

After leaving the meeting at the White House Monday, Sanford shot back.

"It's a difference of opinion that makes the world go round," Sanford told reporters.

ANOTHER social networking site? ARRGGGHHH!

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Just got this press release:

Hi Brad,

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to let you know about a unique social news service that just launched – BUUUZ.com.

Have you ever wanted access to a community of people who have the same interests as you? Where you can share artistic visions, muses and styles? Many people find social websites like Facebook and MySpace invasive and difficult to navigate. At BUUUZ registration is simple and members create virtual "islands" based on subjects of interest (islands are populated with news from websites across the internet as well as BUUUZ community discussion). Creating an "island" for a topic is as easy as picking a few keywords that best describe your interests.

As an example, if you love to oil paint like I do, you can use favorite artists, museums, etc. as island keywords to be alerted on stories and member conversations mentioning them. Then you instantly become a part of a worldwide conversation through this new service, where you can find and interact with new friends who have the same interests.

In light of the Facebook Terms of Service uproar from last week I wanted to mention:

– BUUUZ's subscription revenue model, makes it so they do not have to "fight" with the users about owning their data.
– At BUUUZ, when a user deletes their account, and their data is completely deleted
– BUUUZ has also set up automatic deletion of old messages

Please feel free to take a look at the service at BUUUZ.com and reach out if you would like images or have questions.

Best Regards,
Brent

Brent Bucci
FortyThree PR

… to which I can only say, "ARRGGHHH!" Or, perhaps, "AIIIEEEE!!!" Or somewhat more sedately, "Please; not another freaking social networking site."

Since I did that column over the holidays about Facebook, I have had even MORE "friend requests," and some of them have been from being I actually felt obliged to say "yes" to, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. (And yes, some of them were people I'd actually like to maintain connections with, but not all…) And some of them were … a tad… weird. Like, if I thought myself a target for such things, I'd think "stalker." Which is not a good feeling.

Who's got time for all this socializing? Hey, you've got time on your hands, go read a newspaper. And then, go to the mall and buy something, and tell the merchant to buy some ads. Make yourself useful.

TNR on the ‘end’ of newspapers

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Over the weekend, I was at a community gathering at which pretty much everyone I ran into expressed concerns about what's happening to newspapers these days, and particular their newspaper, The State. I appreciated the concern.

Since then, of course, we've had the bankruptcy of the papers in Philly, which along with other recent developments inspired Robert's cartoon today.

Now I get an alert to this cover story in the next edition of The New Republic, headlined "THE END OF THE PRESS: Democracy Loses its Best Friend." It's by Princeton prof Paul Starr. It begins:

We take newspapers for granted. They have been so integral a part of daily life in America, so central to politics and culture and business, and so powerful and profitable in their own right, that it is easy to forget what a remarkable historical invention they are. Public goods are notoriously under-produced in the marketplace, and news is a public good—and yet, since the mid-nineteenth century, newspapers have produced news in abundance at a cheap price to readers and without need of direct subsidy. More than any other medium, newspapers have been our eyes on the state, our check on private abuses, our civic alarm systems. It is true that they have often failed to perform those functions as well as they should have done. But whether they can continue to perform them at all is now in doubt.

Actually, I suppose I take the points Mr. Starr makes in his piece pretty much for granted, since I live and breathe them — which doesn't mean I don't attach importance to them, because we're talking about some horrific stuff from where I sit. I just find myself going, "Well, duh," a lot as I read it, but some of it might make points you haven't thought about. And he DOES bring up some ideas I had NOT thought about, such as some of his ideas on how to save newspapers — which seem to be sort of out of left field until you realize that nobody has any better ideas (that can be shown to work), which is sobering to say the least.

Just keeping y'all in the loop folks, as I've been doing. I don't know how much of this stuff you want brought to your attention, since it isn't, like, your living the way it is mine…

Caller strikes blow for George Washington and other white folks

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Just thought I'd share this voicemail from over the weekend, of a type that I get from time to time. I like to share the joy when I can.

It's from a reader who wanted to see more about George Washington's birthday in the paper. I thought at first maybe this was someone who had missed the point that this year was Lincoln's 200th, and thought Washington should have gotten as much play as Honest Abe. But no; that wasn't the caller's problem.

Here's the audio, and here's my transcription of the money part of the message, in case you can't hear it:

…On Martin Luther King's birthday, y'all had pages and pages and pages of stuff, for weeks and weeks and weeks. I think it's a 'sgrace… your paper is not for our state; it's for the black people; it's not for the white people; you're a racist paper; that's why nobody takes you anymore. Goodbye.

Well, that’s a big releef

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At 11:02 a.m. today, I received a release from Jim Clyburn's office with the following headline on it:

CLYBURN CALLS
JINDAL’S BLUFF, HIGHLIGHTS HYPOCRACY

Then, at 11:33, I got the corrected version, which makes me feel so much better:

CLYBURN CALLS
JINDAL’S BLUFF, HIGHLIGHTS HYPOCRICY

Still awaiting the next correction; I'll let you know when I see it…

Urgent call for field peas

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A reader in Tennessee who apparently read this post of mine from last summer is obviously a guy who's got his priorities straight, and I'd like to be able to help him out:

I'm TN and would like to know where I can order Dixie Lee Field Pea seed for my garden.
 
Thanks Chris

Anybody know where he might be able to obtain these seeds? One of our correspondents wrote in July as follows:

A few years ago I planted a patch of these peas and I agree that they
are some of the finest. I purchased my seed at Bob's Ace Hardware in
Leesville, which is across the street From shealy's bbq. Also, you may
want to try Consumer Feed and Seed in Lexington, which is next to Addy
Dodge.

… but I don't know whether that will be helpful or not, to a guy in TN. Any other tips for a guy who knows what's good? (Actually, I'm assuming the "guy" part, and on thin evidence, it now strikes me. If Chris is a gal, I apologize.)

Historic Isadore Lourie speech

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Running into Joel Lourie today at Rotary reminds me of this historic speech of his Dad's that he shared with me back in January, saying, "I thought you might enjoy a speech given by my father in 1970 when I.S. Leevy
Johnson and Jim Felder became two of the first three African-Americans elected
to the SC House since the early 1900s. Given the upcoming inauguration in
Washington, it is a great example of how far we have come."

He said I should feel free to share it, and I meant to. Now, belatedly, I do so, in a spirit of gratitude for the leadership that Joel's late father gave this community:

Remarks

By the

Honorable Isadore E. Lourie

On the Occasion of the Installation
of the

Richland County Legislative
Delegation

November 13, 1970

House Chamber, The State House,
Columbia, South Carolina

 

For most of us … our youth was a
pleasant time when bare feet carried us through happy summers and warm
breakfasts carried us to schools where learning and friendship mixed to fill
our minds with new ideas and our characters with strength.  The world was at our feet.  Every one of our mothers and fathers held
out unlimited hope for our futures.  No
barriers stood in the way of our dreams. 
In every sense of the word … we were free … free to look forward to
tomorrow … free to be ourselves … free to be proud … free to harbor all of the
hopes of youth … free to daydream of conquering challenges. 

 

At the same time … some of our
neighbors felt the frustration of limited dreams.  History had written that theirs was a smaller world where hope
was rationed in small portions and daydreams were not visions of things to come
… but fantasies of wishful thinking that would be shattered by a world where
clouds of misunderstanding blackened the horizons of hope.  To eight generations of Black children … the
time between birth and death was an age of frustration and broken dreams.

 

The days of our youth were times of
different worlds when we saw things in different lights … one world illuminated
by unbounded future … the other illuminated by the dismal gray of limited
fortune.

 

The years since we were young have
ticked away waiting for those two separate worlds to confront each other.  In some places that confrontation has been
marked by spilled blood … by the clash of raw emotions that have turned
neighbor against neighbor.  In some
places … the shrill sounds of separatism and hate have been the chorus which
accompanied that confrontation.  In some
places … both worlds have been washed away by changing times only to be
replaced by even more intense bitterness. 

 

Last week … thousands of Richland
County citizens stood quietly in lines before polling booths pondering the
course of our history.  In orderly
processes … they marched one by one into gray metal machines which would
register their decisions.  Alone …
unwatched … unaided … they pulled the levers that bring our people together.  Silently … without a word … thousands in
company of only their own thoughts … reached and pulled and then walked away to
let collective judgment steer the dreams of the next generation of young
daydreamers. 

 

In an old warehouse … the men sworn
in today … waited for those secrets to become known.  Men who work with their hands … women who raise children …
lawyers … doctors … black men … white men … children and grandparents crowded
together in front of television sets which lit the campaign headquarters with
anticipation.  All eyes found a common
direction and calculated silently as returns flashed on the screen.  The favorable early returns began the crowd
buzzing … and discussions of hope started in each corner of the red, white and
blue bunted room.  Ten precincts …
twenty precincts … thirty … then forty … and finally all precincts reported
their judgments.  The two worlds had
come together peacefully.  In Richland
County, South Carolina, we had chosen the road to decision that allows every
man to take part. 

 

Jim Felder and I.  S. Leevy Johnson have become Representatives
in the General Assembly of all the people. 
Today … they are very special because they are the first.  But they will never be special again.  And that is what it was all about … making
it an everyday occurrence to be a lawmaker … making it normal to serve your
fellow man no matter what the color of your skin is.  Some newsmen have predicted Jim Felder and I.  S. 
Leevy Johnson will be very special Representatives.  But it is our hope that they will just be
Representatives … providing answers to the problems we all face.

 

Governments are established to solve
our common problems.  Lawmakers seek
solutions for all the people … and none of the people can be a special
case.  Perhaps now … it will be that way
in South Carolina. 

(Note – the speech is for the installation of
the Richland Delegation which included I.S. Leevy Johnson and Jim Felder.  Herbert Fielding, from Charleston, was the
third African-American elected to the House that year.  These three men were the first
African-Americans elected to the SC House of Representatives since the early
1900s)

Peter Beattie on ‘Buy American’

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You'll recall that when David Wilkins got back from Ottawa he shared the fact that our friends in The Great White North were highly disturbed by the "Buy American" provisions in the House version of the stimulus — and by the protectionist insecurities that fueled it. It's good that President Obama went up there to try to still some of those concerns.

I've also shared a VERY strongly worded opinion on the subject from the U.K.

Now, I see this opinion piece by Peter Beattie, in which he asserts that "Now is not the time to pull down the shutters and get all protectionist."

You'll remember Mr. Beattie, who was here last year lecturing at USC. He's the former prime minister of Queensland, our sister state in Australia. His piece is worth reading.

Leon Lott at Rotary: THREE standing ovations

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Well, I saw something I've never seen before at my Rotary Club, to the best of my memory (and fellow Rotarians, correct me if I'm wrong): Our main speaker got THREE standing ovations — before he started speaking, in the middle of his remarks, and when he finished. I've seen some war heroes and others get TWO before, but the club is generally fairly sparing with the standing Os, and the three today can be taken as a deliberate and spontaneous statement by the members of the state's largest Rotary.

The speaker was Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

And far from this being a generic, institutional, I'm-your-sheriff-and-here's-what-I-do-for-a-living sort of speech out of the can, the entire thing was a spirited, sometimes humorous, ultimately deadly serious rebuttal to the criticism that the Sheriff has received over the last three weeks over the Michael Phelps affair.

First the humorous — excuse the crude phone photo above. I didn't have my real camera with me. Fortunately, thestate.com videographer Andy Haworth was there, and he's going to give me a link once he gets what he has posted. Anyway, my crude shot above was taken after the sheriff had warmed up for his speech by a) donning a flak vest; b) saying "I've got my own damn' medals" and hanging them around his neck, then c) having quoted Newsweek as describing him as "blond and photogenic," putting on an Ellie Mae Clampett-style wig.

The sheriff then went on to explain that "I didn't have a choice" whether to investigate the Phelps photo that had been seen around the world, explaining that he didn't care about the picture itself per se, but he did care about what kids in Richland County saw when they looked at it. So he did what he saw as his duty, and carried the case as far as he reasonably could — without doing anything out of the ordinary — before closing it for lack of further evidence.

Then, in the spirit of late night television (where he has been the butt of a certain amount of jocularity), he offered his responses to the Top Ten criticisms he's heard in the last three weeks:

  1. It's "only marijuana," and everybody does it or has done it at some time. He singled me out at that point to say he doesn't normally read blogs, but he read what I wrote last week about someone close to me whose downward slide in life began with youthful dope smoking, and he said he had similar experiences in his life. "I've seen people die from the use of majijuana. You know, maybe that's why it's illegal." He mentioned a close friend in high school, a football hero, who he said is dead because of marijuana. "Don't give me that BS that it doesn't hurt anybody because it does; I've seen it."
  2. Marijuana "shouldn't be illegal." The sheriff explained that that wasn't his department — he enforces the law; he doesn't make it. Pointing to state Sen. Joel Lourie out in the audience, he proposed that those who would like the law changed to take it up with him and other lawmakers.
  3. His investigation was "a waste of taxpayer's money." He said a total of 16 man-hours were spent on the case out of his entire department for the three weeks, for a grand-total expenditure — based on the involved deputies' pay rates — of $322.48. He defended the modest outlay, saying "That's our job."
  4. That he was only pursuing the case "to make a name." Well, he said, "I have a name," and he's had it since his parents gave it to him 55 years ago, and he's satisfied with it. He explained the sequence of events this way: Three weeks ago, after the photo of Phelps with a bong created a worldwide sensation, a reporter asked him, "Sheriff, are you going to do anything about it?" He said he would investigate, and that was the LAST statement he made to any sort of media about the subject until his press conference closing the case a week ago. "I could have been on Leno" or any other of many media opportunities that were offered to him during the period, but which he turned down. In reply to an accusation that he was just trying to get his Warholian "15 minutes," he said, "I could have had 35 hours" of fame if he had wanted it. "When we were through with (the investigation) and I got through quail hunting," he had a press conference "and that was it."
  5. "I was running for re-election — Dadgummit," he thought he just got through doing that (which he did, having been re-elected in November).
  6. "I didn't have nothing better to do." Oh, yeah, the sheriff said — he is SO bored as sheriff. And here he got pretty passionate. Yeah, he said, he's got other things to do, and he's doing them. He referred in particular to the Denny Terrace attacks — the brutal beating death of Linda Derrick and the beating and stabbing of Carolyn Webb. The suspect, Elbert Wallace, is one the sheriff has described as a "crackhead," and who Solicitor Barney Giese said "really did terrorize a community for a long period of time." Mrs. Derrick's sister Susan Porth said "My precious sister’s life was taken so this man could get high." The sheriff said today, "That's why that lady's dead, because of drugs," making the point that the suspect didn't start smoking crack. His point in bringing this up was to say that he's doing his job on these more important cases, and that's what he has homicide investigators for. But he also has a narcotics unit, and it is also doing its job. And that unit did its job in the Phelps case. By the way, the sheriff noted, nobody got arrested in the case for being in the famous bong picture. Rather, "We arrested 8 people who were stupid enough to have drugs on them at the… time when we went to… talk with them." That's what they were charged with.
  7. "I'm running for governor." He thought that was pretty bizarre. He wondered what he'd do if he were elected governor — "I'd be like the dog that caught the car." Again, he pointed to Joel Lourie if you wanted to talk to a potential gubernatorial candidate (but as readers of The State and this blog know, Vincent Sheheen is running instead of either Joel or James Smith).
  8. "It was only a college dope party." Lott said cops had been to this house twice previously because of thefts associated with the fact that thieves knew there were drugs on the premises. "This was a drug house that was a menace to the neighborhood."
  9. Quoting a letter he received, "Michael Phelps is a true American hero, and you are a true American ass." He said it was from "another disgusted taxpayer" — in Michigan. The sheriff went on to repeat what he had said earlier about his national fan mail: "I don't care what a dope smoker in California thinks about me."
  10. Finally, "Why?" Why the investigation, that is. "How could I not? How could I just ignore it?" He said it was his job to take those medals from around the neck of the guy in the photo and investigate, and he did, and that was that, and "I can go to bed at night knowing I've done my job."

It was right after he finished with his top ten that the sheriff got his second standing ovation.

In response to a question, he went on to talk about the fact that "Mexico is in a war right now," with a lot of people getting killed, because of the U.S. market for drugs — that is to say, a market driven by demand from "Michael Phelps and college kids" and others in this country. "Every time we light up a joint here," we in this country are contributing to that violence.

Anyway, the support for the sheriff in that room was pretty solid. Good for Leon.

Looking ahead to 2010: Are we hopeful yet?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

Since
the current occupant has sort of put the whole
being-governor-of-South-Carolina thing behind him — nowadays you have
to track national media to know what he’s up to — let’s follow his
lead, and look forward to the time when he no longer holds the office
even technically.

    In the spirit of getting us to that point as
quickly as possible, I spoke last week with the one declared candidate
for the 2010 gubernatorial election, Sen. Vincent Sheheen.

    If you
don’t know the 37-year-old Camden attorney, you might know his daddy,
former Higher Education Commissioner Fred, or his uncle, former House
Speaker Bob. He is like them in his dedication to public service, yet
very different. His uncle was the last Democrat to run the House, while
the nephew has been shaped by having to get things done in a world run
by Republicans. It’s made him a consensus-builder, and he thinks that
has prepared him well for this moment.

    Not only does he think he
has a good chance of gaining the Democratic nomination among those who
have been mentioned — and his close allies who might have drawn from
the same base of support, Rep. James Smith and Sen. Joel Lourie, are
not running — but, “at this point in the state’s history, I have a good
chance in the general election,” whoever the GOP nominee is. Why?
“Because people are not satisfied.”

    He can identify with that: “I’ve reached this point out of frustration and hope.”

    “We
have been stuck in a rut for a long time,” he said, and “I am not
seeing things changing at all. And that’s very frustrating.” He senses
a similar frustration in the electorate. He thinks voters realize that
“if we keep… not doing anything, then we’re not going to improve.”

    So what does he want to do?

  • “Get
    real again about job creation and economic development.” He says the
    state needs a governor who will treat that as a priority, playing an
    active part in recruiting business, and working to see that the whole
    state, including the rural parts, benefits.
  • “Pulling
    South Carolina’s governmental structure into at least the 20th century,
    and maybe the 21st century.” Some of what he wants to do is what the
    current governor has said he wanted to do. But the plan that Mr.
    Sheheen has put forward (parts of which he explains on the facing page)
    actually has some traction — enough so that Mark Sanford mentioned it
    favorably in his State of the State address this year. Sen. Sheheen
    believes the time has come to move restructuring past the starting
    line, and he thinks he can do it: “I’m not knocking anybody; I’m just
    saying it’s time to have somebody who can build consensus.”
  • “Change
    the way we spend our money.” As he rightly describes the process, “We
    budget in the dark.” He wants to see a programmatic budget, followed by
    the legislative oversight that has been missing, to make sure the
    spending does what it’s intended to do.
  • Combine
    conservation with economic development. He thinks we need to move
    beyond setting aside just to conserve, but convert what is conserved to
    benefit “the humans in a community.” He points to the ways the Camden
    battlefield     has been used to promote tourism.
  • Change
    the way we fund education. Make funding equitable, based on pupils, not
    districts, so that “a similarly situated student will have the same
    opportunities … regardless of where they live.”

    When I ask
whether there’s anything else, he confesses: “I’m a geek. I could keep
going, but … I’ve got to think of something that’s politically
catchy. I’m supposed to do that.”

    At which point he proves his
geekhood by mentioning comprehensive tax reform, which he’s been
advocating “since my first day in the House.”

    But while that
issue might not make voters’ hearts beat faster, he speaks again of
what he sees as “a growing consensus that we need to do something.”

    And
he thinks the high-profile, counterproductive “contention between the
current governor and the Legislature” has created an opportunity for
someone who wants to move beyond that.

    But how would a Democrat
fare in that task in a State House run by Republicans? Quite well, he
says. He calls Republican Carroll Campbell “one of the most effective
governors,” a fact he attributes in part to the “constructive friction”
between him and the Democratic Legislature that his Uncle Bob helped
lead.

    Ironically, Vincent Sheheen seems to be suggesting that his
party has become enough of an outsider in the halls of state power that
a consensus-minded Democrat could be less threatening to, and more
successful in working with, the GOP leadership. “Someone who is not
jockeying for position within their own party could actually help to
bring together some of the different factions.”

    As a
representative of “swing counties” — Chesterfield, Lancaster and
Kershaw — he sees himself as having the ability to be that Democrat.

    Thus
far — perhaps because he’s the only declared candidate in either party
— he wears the burden of this campaign lightly. At one point he asks
me, “Am I making you hopeful?” — then chuckles when I decline to answer.

    But
I will say this to you, the reader: He’s talking about the right
issues, and he’s talking about them the right way. That’s a start.
Here’s hoping that the candidates yet to declare, in both parties, do
the same. Then perhaps we can have a gubernatorial choice, for once,
between good and better.

For links and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Sunday preview: A look at gubernatorial field for 2010 (all one of it)

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For once, I am ahead of the game. I have now interviewed ALL of the declared candidates for governor in 2010, and have written about them in my Sunday column.

Of course, there's only one so far: Sen. Vincent Sheheen, Democrat from Camden.

I don't know who will be the next candidate to declare, but I'll tell you who's running the hardest among the undeclared: Attorney General Henry McMaster, Republican. Hardly a day goes by that I don't get a release about him speaking to this or that Republican group in some nook or cranny of the state. In fact, I got this one just yesterday about his appearing on Sen. Sheheen's home turf:

COLUMBIA – Attorney General Henry McMaster will be honored for his service to Kershaw County at a BBQ dinner and rally this Friday, Feb. 20th at 6:00 pm.  The rally will take place at: KCMC Health Resource Center, 124 Battleship Rd, Camden.  The public is invited to attend.  There will be a media availability immediately following the rally.

In fact, looking at the old clock on the wall, it looks like I'm missing that as I type this. And that would have been a good one for me to go to, had it not been on a Friday. I look forward to seeing Henry and/or Vincent and whoever else out there stumping soon, because we can't get to 2010 soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of reading AP stories describing network news interviews with Mark Sanford promoting his (shudder) national ambitions, just so I can find out what our governor's up to.

One of the things my Sunday column talks about is the candidate's views on government restructuring. On the same day, we'll have a column co-authored by him and Anton Gunn on the same subject (continuing a string of me writing columns related to op-eds that day, such as last week's on Mark Sanford, and the recent one on DHEC). As further background material on that subject, here's a post from a little over a year ago from when Vincent came to talk about his restructuring plan (yes, I actually wrote about something other than the presidential primaries in January 2008), and here's video that goes with that.

And just to show you the subject's been on him mind a while, here's a 2007 post that's sort of related.

Of course, he hasn't been thinking about restructuring as long as I have; at least I hope not (even though he does claim to be something of a "geek."). He was in college when we did the "Power Failure" series.Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have here a gubernatorial candidate who was born in the year I graduated from high school. I still remember vividly our editorial board interview with the first gubernatorial candidate I'd ever interviewed who was younger than I was — David Beasley in 1994. Since then, every governor we've had has been younger than I am.

And now this. These kids today…

Fair warning: I’m back on the hard stuff

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Remember the miracle nose-drying drug I told you about yesterday? Well, forget that. I spent the night snuffling, blowing, practically drowning. And this morning I had to hold my breath to eat, because I couldn't breathe through my nose at all.

So nothing had worked. Not the zyrtec, not the allegra, not the Alka-Seltzer Plus, not the diphenhydramine, not the Afrin, not the celebrated ipratropium bromide, even in various combinations.

Those of you who have suffered, really suffered, with hay fever probably know what that means. Yes, I had to Go Nuclear. I called the doctor's office, and they told me to go ahead and take the prednisone that I keep on hand for severe asthma — but which will work just as well on hay fever, itchy eyes, etc., when you run out of other options. I took 60 mg. (six pills) as soon as I got off the phone, and will take another 40 tonight, and then it will take nine more days to taper off of it. You can't just quit this stuff all of a sudden.

This is the second time in two months, after I'd managed not to resort to it since 2007. Dang.

You ever take this stuff? I don't know what it does to you, but it jacks me up. As an uncle once said when he first took it, "It revs my motor." It stimulates appetite (causing weight gain), interferes with sleep, and has various other effects on the bod that are less than pleasant. Although it's not a hallucinogen, for some reason it puts me in mind of what Wolfe wrote about Owsley Blues: "with a picture of Batman on them, 500 micrograms worth of Superhero inside your skull." Or imagine swallowing little Three Mile Islands and feeling them start to glow inside you…

But I exaggerate. Of course, that's one of the side effects.

So I thought I'd warn you that posts such as this one, written on my last prednisone experience, could be coming at you.

That's the bad news. The good news is that it freaking works. It always does. Also, it's cheap — like aspirin. You just hate to have to resort to it.

Troubles at NYT, CBS

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Just to keep you in the loop on troubles in my biz, check this piece in the WashPost about the NYT:

How Low Will Newspapers' Ad Revenues Go?
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 19, 2009; Page C01

When Arthur Sulzberger Jr. refused to talk to his own reporter about the financial condition of the New York Times Co., it was the latest sign of an industry in deep trouble….

And mind you, the NYT's one of the healthier papers. As Kurtz notes, it "has barely cut its 1,300-person newsroom, the largest in the business."

And to remind you that it's not just newspapers, but anybody who depends on advertising, check this from Advertising Age about CBS:

CBS Income Off by 52% Due to Weak Ad Market
Auto, Financial, Retail Down; Pharma, Telecoms Up

by Brian Steinberg

Published: February 18, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — CBS Corp. said the roiling economy sparked a downturn in advertising that prompted a 52% decline in fourth quarter net income and said the broadcasting and publishing company would slash its dividend while the economy remained in turmoil.

"We are operating in a very difficult environment; some say the worst since the 1930s. Clearly, the market has been sharply affected by the recession, particularly in the last quarter of the year," said CBS CEO Leslie Moonves on a conference call with investors. "Our advertising business, obviously, has been caught in this downturn, especially our local business is having a significant impact on our TV and radio stations, as well as outdoor."…