Yearly Archives: 2009

Parties playing nice

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Y'all know how I'm always trashing the parties, but when they do something even halfway nice, I do notice. And I was struck by the statement that DNC Chair Tim Kaine put out about Michael Steele becoming his opposite number:

My congratulations to Michael Steele on his election as chairman of the Republican National Committee.  Together, we have the honor of leading our respective Parties during one of the most important periods in our country’s history.   I look forward to working with Chairman Steele as we set out to put partisanship and the politics of the past aside to get our economy working again.  The American people have sent a clear message that the challenges we face are too great for us to get bogged down by outmoded ideological divides. They have challenged us to work together to find practical solutions that will put this country back on the right track. President Obama and the Democratic Party are answering that challenge, and I hope Chairman Steele will join us.

That might not sound like much, but normally the parties don't issue statements about their opposition that it not nasty or catty or worse. So this was an improvement. Yeah, I know — his definition of "putting partisanship aside" means that he wants Mr. Steele to do what the Democrats want. So you can't call this message bipartisan in a strict sense.

But he put it in an unusually nice way, and that's something. Not one slash of the claws. No, if your Aunt Emily sent out a note like this it wouldn't be especially nice, because she's nice all the time. But this is progress for the parties. And we praise children when they take those first baby steps…

Employment Security Commission and Sanford

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You may have noticed that yesterday I mentioned having met with the S.C. Employment Security Commission. Well, I wrote a column for Sunday based in part upon that, and I thought I'd go ahead and post the video that goes with the column.

We talked about plenty of other stuff, but I had terrible luck with catching the good bits on video. Seems like every time they said something interesting, I'd have switched my camera to still photos, and when I went back to video, it was Dullsville. This clip was about the only entire, coherent bit of any interest that I captured in its entirety.

In the wide-ranging discussion, there were high points and low points, for instance:

  • High point — The ESC members, after having been defiant as recently as the day before, promised they'd get the information the governor had been asking for to him — or 90-95 percent of it — by Feb. 9. They said the rest of it is just stuff they don't have because they don't collect that kind of data. Anyway, John O'Connor of our newsroom, who sat in on our meeting, wrote about that in today's paper.
  • Low point — We asked why in the world they have their own TV studio, and the answer wasn't satisfactory — to me, anyway. But then, how could it be? No, it doesn't add up to a lot of money, and it's a bit of a red herring compared to the actual reason why the unemployment benefits trust fund is out of money: Several years ago the Legislature cut the tax that businesses pay into the fund, and we've been paying our more than we take in since at least 2001. That said, the TV studio does sound ridiculous.

But the subject in the video was the thing that grabbed my attention, because it spoke to the problem of the gross failure to communicate between the Commission and the governor. After all this silly back and forth the last couple of months — and it IS silly (of COURSE the Commission needs the money the governor is trying to hold back, as anyone who has seen what's happening in our state can attest, and of COURSE the Commission was being absurdly petulant by trying to hold info back from the gov), not to mention just plain wrong — I had to ask them if they ever sat down to talk to the governor face to face.

I asked that for a couple of reasons. First, people who are sitting down talking to each other don't act the way the governor and the commissioner had been acting. Once you're dealing with someone as an actual person, rather than some faceless opponent out there, you show them more respect than this. Second, I asked because our governor is Mark Sanford. Most governors are interested enough in actually governing that they try to maintain contact and communications with the various parts of government on a regular basis. Not this guy — for him, it's about the press release, the statement, the op-ed piece, the piglets in the lobby; NOT about sitting down with people and reasoning with them.

The commissioners went on at some length about how the governor had never sat down for a meeting with them in his six years in office, and how he had never accepted an invitation to speak to their big annual luncheon — unlike every previous governor they had known. (And that latter bit REALLY rang true, as one thing I've noticed about this governor is that he has little affinity for the rubber-chicken circuit — not that I do myself, but most governors hit all those events they can.)

Anyway, what is NOT on the video is what Joel Sawyer in the governor's office said to Cindi Scoppe the next morning (and I'm copying and pasting some notes Cindi sent me):

We actually found where the gov did indeed meet with them in 2003, and had a letter from ted halley thanking him for meeting with them. he’s also had conversations with all of the commissioners over time.
we looked for more recent requests for meetings, and the only one was I guess a week before they ran out of money. at that point it was just on such short notice that the gov couldn’t attend, but scott english and joe taylor did…

Here's a copy of the 2003 Ted Halley letter
Joel mentioned.

So I called Commissioner McKinley Washington to ask about that, and he said the 2003 "meeting" was one of the incidents they talked about on the video: The commissioners were meeting with Eddie Gunn of the governor's staff, and the governor briefly stuck his head in the door and said hi, and that was about it. It was NOT a meeting with the governor, he said.

Mr. Washington also mentions on the video, and repeated to me Friday, that there was a later incident in which the commissioners were meeting with Chief of Staff Henry White, and the governor — who had apparently changed clothes for a press conference or something, "cracked the door" open long enough to "reach in and grab his denim" so he could change back. And that was it.

So I asked how come ESC executive director Halley sent that note to the governor thanking him for his time back in 2003? "That was just a courtesy statement, but he did not meet with us," said Mr. Washington. "You try to be nice."

Finally, the commissioners said that they tried to meet with the governor at the beginning of the current crisis, but were told he was unavailable, so they met with Scott English (of the governor's staff) and Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor instead (the Sawyer notes above allude to that).

Anyway, more on the subject in my Sunday column…

Katon comes in second

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Just a moment ago I noticed that Katon Dawson didn't get that job he was gunning for. As y'all know, I really don't have much to say about the parties and whom they choose to lead them. Although there are many fine individual people in each party — and I'm sorry to hear that Katon got disappointed this way — I'd just as soon the parties both sort of dry up and blow away.

I guess it's nice that they picked the black guy instead of the "Barack the Magic Negro" guy. And it's nice for the home team, just speaking chauvinistically, that Katon came in second rather than getting totally crushed. But that's as far as my thoughts take me.

But I thought y'all might have something to say about it, so I pass this on:

BC-Republicans,14th Ld-Writethru/743
Eds: UPDATES throughout, ADDS photo links.
GOP elects first black national party chairman

By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican Party chose the first black
national chairman in its history Friday, just shy of three months after
the nation elected a Democrat as the first African-American president.
The choice marked no less than "the dawn of a new party," declared the
new GOP chairman, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.

Republicans
chose Steele over four other candidates, including former President
George W. Bush's hand-picked GOP chief, who bowed out declaring,
"Obviously the winds of change are blowing."

Steele takes the
helm of a beleaguered Republican Party that is trying to recover after
crushing defeats in November's national elections that gave Democrats
control of Congress put Barack Obama in the White House.

GOP
delegates erupted in cheers and applause when his victory was
announced, but it took six ballots to get there. He'll serve a two-year
term.

Steele, an attorney, is a conservative, but he was considered the most moderate of the five candidates running.

He
was also considered an outsider because he's not a member of the
Republican National Committee. But the 168-member RNC clearly signaled
it wanted a change after eight years of Bush largely dictating its
every move as the party's standard-bearer.

Steele became the
first black candidate elected to statewide office in Maryland in 2003,
and he made an unsuccessful Senate run in 2006. Currently, he serves as
chairman of GOPAC, an organization that recruits and trains Republican
political candidates, and in that role he has been a frequent presence
on the talk show circuit.

He vowed to expand the reach of the party by competing for every group, everywhere.

"We're
going to say to friend and foe alike: 'We want you to be a part of us,
we want you to with be with us.' And for those who wish to obstruct,
get ready to get knocked over," Steele said.

"There is not one inch of ground that we're going to cede to anybody," he added.

"This is the dawn of a new party moving in a new direction with strength and conviction."

His
job is to spark a revival for the GOP as it takes on an empowered
Democratic Party under the country's first black president in midterm
elections next fall and beyond.

He replaces Mike Duncan, a former
Inez, Ky., banker who abandoned his re-election bid in the face of
dwindling support midway through Friday's voting.

Two others who
trailed farther back in the voting eventually followed suit, former
Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Michigan GOP chairman Saul
Anuzis.

In the sixth and final round of voting, Steele went
head-to-head with his only remaining opponent, South Carolina GOP chief
Katon Dawson. Steele clinched the election with 91 votes; a majority of
85 committee members was needed.

Just eight years after
Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress, the GOP finds
itself out of power, without a standard-bearer and trying to figure out
how to rebound while its foe seems to grow ever stronger.

The
Democratic Party boasts a broadened coalition of voters — including
Hispanics and young people — who swung behind Obama's call for change.
At the same time, the slice of voters who call themselves Republican
has narrowed. The GOP also has watched as Democrats have dominated both
coasts while making inroads into the West and South, leaving
Republicans with a shrunken base.

Despite the run of GOP losses,
Duncan had argued that he should be re-elected because of his
experience; his five challengers called for change and said they
represented it.

As he left the race, Duncan thanked Bush and said of his two-year tenure: "It truly has been the highlight of my life."

Another
candidate, former Tennessee GOP Chairman Chip Saltsman, withdrew from
the race on the eve of voting and with no explanation, saying only in a
letter to RNC members, "I have decided to withdraw my candidacy."

Saltsman,
who ran former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's failed presidential
campaign last year, saw his bid falter in December after he drew
controversy for mailing to committee members a CD that included a song
titled "Barack the Magic Negro" by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin
and sung to the music of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

Everything’s up to date in Pelosi city

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Obama finally has his genuine, official presidential seal to speak from behind, but when I saw what Nancy Pelosi did yesterday, the president's trappings looked oh so last century.

Nancy's hep. She's with it. She's on the information superhighway. She's a Cyberspeaker.

Kidding aside, it's smart. You might only get a few seconds on the evening news, but it you can get somebody to go to your Web site, you can unload a truckload of your worldview on 'em. Which she does.

The presidential seal, like a royal coat of arms, communicates traditional authority. A URL communicates information, all you want…

Tessio?!?! I thought Michael had you whacked…

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Don't know about you, but I was really surprised to see on today's business page that Abe Vigoda is still active and
working. In a story about Super Bowl commercials, there was this bullet item:

  • “Barney Miller” co-star Abe Vigoda lends his voice to an H&R Block ad for income tax services, playing Death.

OK, so he's portraying Death, which is not the most upbeat of gigs, but hey, he's still around. That's really saying something, when you consider that his shtick on Barney Miller was playing the really, really old guy who was falling apart with various ailments. And that was the 70s.

He'll be 88 next month.

So I guess Tom Hagen did let him off the hook for old times' sake. Good for you, Sal.

An Edwards column I had forgotten

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Looking in our internal database for something entirely unrelated (what I might have written in the past about Bill Clinton's Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, actually) I ran across a column from 2003 that I had forgotten about. It struck me as interesting for two reasons:

  • It's an unfortunate fact that if you search for "Brad Warthen" on the Web — I did it several days ago as a way of trying out the Grokker search engine — you run across a lot of stuff about a certain column I wrote in 2007 about John Edwards. That column drew 190,000 page views to thestate.com within the first week (not to the blog version — unfortunately, since the blog version was better). If you recall, it was about three incidents that, taken together, had persuaded me that John Edwards was a "phony." I didn't think all that much of the column when I wrote it, but it looks like it's going to dog me forever in what we once called Cyberspace. Anyway, this previous, forgotten column was the first time I had written about one of those incidents.
  • Criticizing John Edwards was not the point of the column. Oh, I was fairly dismissive of him; he never impressed me all that much. But the point was to criticize some young Republican protesters who had come to try to disrupt his campaign event.

Anyway, it's a mildly interesting footnote to something that caused a lot of hoo-hah, so I share it.

You'll note that I mention the very moment I later cited in the "Phony" column, and call Edwards on it for its general bogusness, which shows even then what an impression it made on me. Of course, I don't zero in on it quite as harshly as I did later, and the reason why is fairly obvious: The other two incidents had not yet happened, so while I had serious doubts about him, and especially about his populism, I had not yet put it all together and made up my mind fully about John Edwards. My impression had not yet, as I later wrote, "been reinforced with steel girders."

Anyway, here's the forgotten column:

EDWARDS HAS HIS FAULTS, BUT THE PROTESTERS MADE THEM HARD TO SEE
State, The (Columbia, SC) – Sunday, September 21, 2003
Author: BRAD WARTHEN Editorial Page Editor

I DON'T GET protesters.
    I'm not talking about political debate, or dissent, or seeking redress of grievances. Those things are part of what our country's all about. They're what my job's all about. We definitely don't want to curtail any of that.
    And I believe that there are rare cases when taking to the streets – in an orderly, peaceful manner – is perfectly justifiable, even imperative. Laws would not have changed in the United States if not for the forceful, nonviolent witness of Martin Luther King and thousands of others.
    What throws me is people who whip up signs and take to the streets at the slightest provocation – or no provocation at all.
    I've expressed my puzzlement about such behavior at the dinner table, only to have one of my children make the very good point that of course I don't understand; I don't have to take to the streets because I have my own bully pulpit on these pages. True enough. But everyone has available more constructive means of political expression than making a public spectacle of themselves.
    Even revolutions can be conducted with dignity. Compare John and Samuel Adams. John, who started as an unremarkable farmer and lawyer from Braintree, Mass., persuaded the Continental Congress to formally declare independence. Cousin Samuel, by contrast, preferred whipping up mobs in the streets of Boston. Who accomplished more? I would say John.
    All of this is on my mind because I went to hear John Edwards announce his candidacy at the Russell House Tuesday. What did I see when I was there?
    Well, a lot of silliness, mostly. But it was to be expected. There are few things more unbecoming than a millionaire trial lawyer presenting himself to a crowd as the ultimate populist. Huey Long could pull it off; he had the common touch. So did George Wallace. But John Edwards is one of those "sleek-headed" men that Shakespeare wrote of in Julius Caesar. He may be lean, but he hath not the hungry look. Mr. Edwards is decidedly lacking in rough edges. Not even age can stick to him.
    His entrance was predictably corny. Other speakers had unobtrusively climbed the back steps onto the platform. Mr. Edwards snuck around to the back of the crowd, then leaped out of his hiding place with a huge grin and his hand out, looking for all the world like he was surprised to find himself among all these supporters. He hand-shook his way through the audience to the podium, a la Bill Clinton , thereby signifying that he comes "from the people." Watch for that shot in upcoming TV commercials.
    His speech was laced with populist non-sequiturs. For instance, he went way over the top exhibiting his incredulity at Bush's "jobless recovery," chuckling with his audience at such an oxymoron – as though the current administration had invented the term. (A computer scan found the phrase 641 times in major news sources during calendar year 1993 ; so much for novelty.)
    Despite all that, I came away from the event with greater sympathy for the Edwards campaign than I might have had otherwise. That's because he and his supporters seemed so wise, thoughtful, mature and dignified – by comparison to the protesters.
    These were, I assume, members of the University of South Carolina chapter of College Republicans, based on that group's stated intention to be there in force. I suppose I could have confirmed that by asking them, but like most of the folks there – Edwards backers and disinterested observers alike – I tried to ignore them. It wasn't easy. When one speaker praised Mr. Edwards, they would yell, "Bush!" When another said Elizabeth Edwards would be a fine first lady, they hollered "Laura!" The signs they carried were equally subtle. Some called the candidate an "ambulance chaser." Two were held side by side: One said "Edwards is liberal"; the other, "S.C. is not." Deep stuff. It apparently didn't occur to them that conservative people don't act this way.
    They settled down noticeably when Mrs. Edwards politely called for a display of "good Southern manners." But the heckling resumed when her husband started speaking. I had made the mistake of standing near the back of the crowd, and some of the young Republicans took up position behind me. Therefore, when the candidate noted yet again that he was born in Seneca, South Carolina, and a heckler hollered a sarcastic "No kidding," it was right into my ear. I was similarly well situated to get the full brunt when someone started shouting some of Mr. Edwards' more well-worn stump speech lines along with him.
    What makes people behave this way? Yes, they were young; I understand that. But why is it that political dialogue has degenerated to the point that even young people find it acceptable to act like this?
    Agree with him or not, John Edwards is running for president of the United States. Why can't people just let the man have his say? What compels them to rush out into public and show their fannies this way?
    Not that anyone did that literally, although there was this one young man off to the right of me who did lift his shirt to flash his ample belly at the rostrum. I have no idea what that was about. Maybe he had something written there; I didn't look that closely.
    What I did see was the huge, cherubic grin on his affable face. He was having a whale of a good time. I suppose I should be glad that someone was.

Write to Mr. Warthen at P.O. Box 1333, Columbia, S.C. 29202, or bwarthen@thestate.com.

Now, about that ‘zero Republican votes’ thing…

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The last time they did this, I had no doubts that the Republicans were wrong. When not one of them voted for Clinton's Deficit Reduction Act in 1993, it was about as pure an example as I can recall of partisan mule-headedness and populist demagoguery. Not to mention the fact that they were wrong on the issue. Argue cause and effect all you like, the passage of that legislation WAS followed by dramatic deficit reduction. And the way the GOP went to their home districts and told everybody about how those awful Democrats had raised their taxes was unconscionable. Especially when South Carolina Republicans said it — most people in S.C. did not see their taxes increase, unless you count the 4-cent rise in gasoline tax. And what importance can you honestly attach to 4 cents a gallon when monthly fluctuations in price are usually far more than that? (Of course, you know what I think about gas taxes.)

I remember actually watching TV news — something you know I don't often do — during that vote. Somebody had Al Gore on live, and Al was as stiff and awkward and priggish as only he can be as he talked about how wrong the Republicans were not to support it, with the roll call going on in the background (I'm thinking it was the Senate; in any case not one Republican in Congress voted for it). But he was right.

This time, I'm not as sure. I'd LIKE for our elected representatives to get together on anything as big as spending $819 billion, rather than splitting along partisan lines. I mean, if we're going to do it, let's do it together — doing it divided increases the chances that it the stimulus will fail. I say that because Phil Gramm had a point — so much of the economy is psychological. If the country sees this as THE plan that everyone agrees on, the country is more likely to have its confidence boosted. If it sees every member of one of the two major parties (for now) decry it as a waste doomed to fail, we could be looking at some self-fulfilled prophecy.

That said, I don't know but what a Republican — or UnPartisan, or anyone else — who says this plan isn't going to do the job doesn't have a point. After all, Paul Krugman says it won't, and he's no Republican.

On the other hand, their reason why this package isn't quite the thing is all bass-ackwards. They complain that only about a third of it is tax cuts. Well, I'm worried that a third of it IS tax cuts, and that those tax cuts will have zero effect on stimulating the economy. I haven't seen figures yet on exactly what the tax cuts will mean to the average American, but as I pointed out before, in an earlier version, the amount we're talking about would have given each worker only about $9 a week — which is just barely enough to go to a movie. By yourself. If you don't buy popcorn.

If you're going to have a stimulus package, either SPEND enough to really kick-start the economy (and this doesn't appear to be enough), or target tax cuts to where they are likely to stimulate some real activity. Unfortunately, in trying to provide something for everybody — and then going to woo the GOP in person — Obama may have produced a solution that doesn't do enough of anything. And then, after all that trouble, you fail to get the bipartisan support that you were trying to buy with that $300 billion in tax cuts.

As for what you will probably hear them yammer about most on TV news (and in the rest of the blogosphere) — what partisan political effect this vote will have — I don't have a dog in that fight. Whether the Republicans have cooked their own goose by voting against a plan that will work, or set themselves up to be blamed for it NOT working, or are poised to recapture the House because they were the only ones to see it wouldn't work, or whatever… I don't care. I'd like to see both parties suffer in the next election, just on general UnPartisan principles. Unfortunately, I might get my wish: The stimulus could fail, and both parties be blamed — but that be the least of the nation's worries. You know what I'd be worried about right now if I were a Republican? I'd worry that my caucus just invested its hopes in economic failure — just as Harry Reid et al. bet all their chips on our failing in Iraq. That's not a position you want to be in — your nation having to fail for you to be right. But that's their lookout, not mine.

For my part, I hope the stimulus works. Or that something we do soon works. And as long as it does, I don't care who gets the credit — even a political party.

How porky can stimulus be, if Clyburn’s not getting his bridge?

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There's a certain irony — not necessarily a contradiction, but irony — in the fact that Republicans are pinning their opposition to the ginormous stimulus bill the House passed yesterday on allegations that it's just a bunch of pork for Democrats' home districts…

… while the favorite public works proposal of the third most-powerful Democrat in the House is NOT included.

Yes, I get it that Jim Clyburn says it's not for a lack of political will to fund it, but rather a matter of those pesky environmentalists tying it up with a lawsuit. He maintains that if it weren't for the blasted tree-huggers, he'd have gotten the span between Lone Star and Rimini funded.

But it's still ironic. If this project that he has wanted so badly for so long can't make it into an unprecedented, extraordinary $3.2 billion infusion of federal funds into South Carolina, it's probably missed its best chance ever.

As for what IS in the $819 billion extravaganza, I have not audited it to see whether it's pork or not. It does occur to me that just about anything that would meet the standards of what the stimulus is supposed to be — extra spending, on stuff the federal government would not normally spend on, "shovel-ready" and labor-intensive — it would probably be something that someone could legitimately call "pork" if they are so inclined. Think about it: What IS pork? Generally, it means something spent in some elected representative's district that would not meet normal standards of being a national spending priority (or state priority, when we're talking pork on that level of government). Well, presumably if it were something that had been determined to be a national priority, it would have been funded already.

Bottom line, I don't know what the percentage of overlap between the two sets (good stimulus projects on the one hand, "pork" on the other) would be — say, 80 or 90 percent, just to venture a wild guess? — but it seems like there would be very strong correlation.

Or am I missing something?

Anyway, I made that point to a colleague earlier today, and he said, "Yeah, well what about this mandate that NASA spend on fighting global warming — that's not a job-producer." I said, "well, it would probably mean jobs for the engineers and techno-geeks required to implement it." He said, "but NASA already has engineers." And I said, "Yes, but if what I was reading in The Economist this morning is correct, a lot of them would otherwise be losing their jobs because Obama doesn't want to follow through on the Bush goals of going back to the Moon and on to Mars." That's gotta mean some latter-day Werner von Brauns joining the unemployment lines. (Which is a whole nother debate I may raise in a separate post.)

I don't know; we're probably both right. Which means Democrats can say this is a great stimulus bill, and Republicans say it's a bunch of pork, and nobody be lying…

This goes straight to the bottom of my list of worries (and does not pass ‘GO’)

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Yesterday this notice came in from the International Trademark Association:

SUPER RISK OF COUNTERFEITS AND KNOCK-OFFS AT SUPER BOWL
Trademark community tackles problem and offers defense for consumers
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                           CONTACT: MATTHEW SCHMIDT

 
NEW YORK, NY – January 28, 2009 – With Super Bowl XLIII only days away, The International Trademark Association (INTA) today issued a warning to the legions of fans hoping to buy official Super Bowl gear and offered tips on how to spot fake merchandise.
 
This year, Super Bowl Sunday will be one of the biggest days of the year for sports fans around the world, as the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals face off in what is destined to be an incredible football game.
 
At last year’s Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, counterfeit NFL gear was widespread, and hundreds of consumers left the game with cheap, fake football jerseys and merchandise. According to federal, state and local authorities, there were more than 6,000 pieces of counterfeit goods totaling more than $300,000 sold out of trailers and vans at Super Bowl XLII.
 
Counterfeiters are planning on taking advantage of loyal NFL enthusiasts again this year, and INTA is committed to raising awareness on these fake goods and apparel. Illegal counterfeit goods promote child labor and fund organized crime. Counterfeit and knock-off goods also use sub-par materials that leave consumers with second-rate merchandise.
 
“Super Bowl Sunday is more than just a sporting event; it is an American pastime shared by families and friends, and we want all fans to be aware of the fake jerseys and other phony NFL merchandise being peddled by counterfeiters. Nothing can replace the memories of a fantastic Super Bowl, just like nothing can replace the quality and value of authentic NFL gear,” said INTA Executive Director, Alan C. Drewsen.
 
To help fans, INTA has compiled tips on what to look for when purchasing Super Bowl apparel and merchandise. Consumers should:
 
1. Shop in established stores and be wary of street and out-of-trunk vendors.
2. Research goods beforehand to know exactly what you want.
3. Do not buy items of poor quality that have irregular stitching or uneven coloring.
4. Avoid items without an authentic logo or with an awkward looking label.
5. Do not buy items with prices that are uncharacteristically low.

To learn more about trademarks and how they protect businesses and consumers, please visit www.inta.org/go/mediacenter.
 
            ####

Folks, I'm a big believer in copyright and the protection of intellectual property, but I gotta tell ya, I'm not going to buy ANY NFL merchandise, real or fake. So this is a bit of a theoretical question for me.

And I find myself wondering how many people out in the NFL-merchandise-buying public are deeply worried about "authenticity" in the sense of worrying about the NFL getting its cut — at the same time they're worried about keeping their jobs… Does Joe Sixpack football fan say, "Oh, no! That jersey that I already know was not actually worn by that guy who makes millions playing football, but merely a copy of it, might not be 'authentic'!?!? In fact, I'm running a Super-Risk! I gotta do something!"

Not that they shouldn't be worried about it — respect for rule of law and all that — but how worried will they be? And that's what I thought of when I got this release: I thought, if I'm in charge of protecting the NFL's cut, do I think I'm going to accomplish that more by asking the general public to watch out for my interest, or am I better off working with the folks who run the teams and the stadiums and the police in those cities?

I guess they're doing both. I don't know. I know I just spent more time on it than it was actually worth in light of what I need to do today. Something just struck me as a little off about this, but it was harder to explain than I thought it would be…

Columbia’s sin was not knowing

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Did you read Adam Beam's story this morning?

    Columbia is expected to have at least a $10 million shortfall in its general fund for the 2008 budget year — the largest for South Carolina’s capital city, preliminary audit figures show.
    Taxpayers will have to cover the deficit from the city’s rainy day fund — which could have been avoided had the city adjusted its employee health insurance plans two years ago to cover rising costs, Deputy Finance Director Bill Ellis said.
    But two years ago, the city’s finance department was in such disarray that city officials did not realize they were spending millions of dollars more than they had budgeted for health care.
    The city spent $18 million over budget from the fiscal years 2005 to 2007. In 2008, which is still being audited, Ellis estimates the city spent more than $8 million over budget for health insurance.

The sin wasn't spending more than projected on health care. Everybody's had that happen year after year, in the private and public sectors. The sin was NOT KNOWING the city was overspending on health care, and not reflecting that in subsequent budgets, or in terms of requiring a contribution from employees. (And note I didn't say an INCREASE in the contribution from employees — Adam also notes that most employees pay nothing for coverage: "Single employees with no dependents — who make up the majority of the city’s work force — don’t pay for their health insurance.")

Add to this the overview Adam did over the weekend of what we know so far of how messed up the city has been under Charles Austin and under this council. And you may then see why we gave Austin a failing grade on his evaluation (our eval, since the council couldn't seem to get one together), and the council a failing grade on supervising him, and called yet again for a system of government that the voters can hold to account.

I have a hunch something exciting is going to happen in the pork belly market

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That's about all I wanted to say, after I saw this item on thestate.com:

    This recipe is the Bacon Explosion, modestly called by its inventors “the BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes.”
    The instructions for constructing this massive torpedo-shaped
amalgamation of two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds
of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce first appeared last month on
the Web site of a team of Kansas City competition barbecuers. They say
well more than 16,000 Web sites have linked to the recipe, celebrating
or sometimes scolding its excessiveness. A fresh audience could be
ready to discover it on Super Bowl Sunday.

Don't anybody tell Paula Moore over at PETA. Or George the Lobster, either.

Even I might want to pass on this carnivorous extravaganza. Although, on the upside, I'm not allergic to the recipe, which is not something I can often say about junk food…

Pork bellies, of course, are where we get bacon, which you might find in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich…

Letter II: Writer gets it about DHEC

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While I'm at it, allow me to call your attention to another letter on today's page, which makes a good point worth considering about the crying need to restructure government on the state level:

Aughtry big fan of current DHEC setup

I applaud Bo Aughtry’s call for a discussion on the structure of the Department of Health and Environmental Control (“DHEC professionals, board don’t bend to politics,” Sunday).

But it looks as if he doesn’t want to lead it, since all involved in it are very good and adept at what they do. Everyone is doing their best — considering they don’t get paid (as we’re reminded).

But I was wondering: How would the votes fall when developers are wanting to build, build, build, and taxpayers want to attach conditions to building permits to protect their community? The “home builder/developer,” “the attorney in the land business,” the one in “the land business” and the “real estate developer” might be conflicted — it’s only human. (Remember we are not paying them, so why would they hamper the very industry that is providing them a paycheck?)

I could be accused of being cynical, but it seems that lately those in positions of power and responsibility are simply saying, “Mistakes were made, but don’t quote me.” Who can say, “The buck stops here”?

NELIDA CABALLERO
Columbia

Excellent point about the makeup of that board. Allow me to elaborate: The DHEC board could well be as wonderful and public-spirited and as interested in protecting our health and environment as Mr. Aughtry maintains, in spite of the appearances raised by their lines of work.

But we don't know that. Why? Because we don't know them, and had no role in choosing them, much less any chance to vet them. Quick, name the members of the DHEC board. Yeah, some smart-aleck will do so, either by virtue of being an insider or having cheated by going to the Web site. But most of you don't know, and couldn't begin to tell me or anyone else how they have voted on issues or what overall influence each of them has had on policy, for good or ill.

The fix is to put someone we know and have elected in charge. No, that doesn't guarantee that things will be hunky-dory. But it at least gives the electorate a chance to demand results, and have some hope of being heeded.

Letter I: Riley a stumbling block to reform opponents

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One point I'd like to make with regard to this letter on today's page, which takes exception with our advocacy of a strong-mayor system for Columbia, most recently articulated in our Sunday editorial:

City’s government should remain as is

I read
The State’s Sunday editorial, “City should change system, not hire
another manager,” with dismay concerning your recommendation that
Columbia change its form of government.

Choosing a strong-mayor
form over the council-manager system could have dangerous consequences
for the city. These involve the likely emergence of a cult of
personality and abuse of power by individual council members.

Early
in the 20th century, the council-manager system was formulated (some
say for the first time in Sumter) to bring professionalism to city
administration and to distance politics from the daily operation of
municipal functions.

Overall, the hiring of professional managers
to carry out council policy has been successful. Even cities as large
as Dallas have city managers. Philadelphia has a strong-mayor form of
government.

Selecting the strong-mayor form would be ill-advised
because a less-than-stellar mayor (after all, how many Joe Rileys are
there in South Carolina?) could make matters much worse.

Columbia
is now seeking a professional manager and then should work to ensure
that he implements goals of efficient and effective government while
letting council set policy.

JOHN A. HUFFMAN
West Columbia

There is one thing that opponents of strong-mayor always have to confront when they try to dismiss the idea: Joe Riley. They always have to say, "There's only one Joe Riley," or "Joe Rileys don't grow on trees," or "Joe Riley isn't going to move to Columbia."

Why do they have to say that? Because, when they look around for examples to support their point, if they were to say, "Why, look at the only other major city in South Carolina that has a strong mayor," they would immediately have to say, "No, DON'T look at the only other major city in S.C. with a strong mayor," because in that city, the system is a generally acknowledge success. And by generally acknowledged, I mean that Charleston gets all sort of national recognition for being a well-run, well-led city. And while Mr. Riley always has opposition (which you would expect a Democrat to have in a city with so very many Republicans in it), he wins re-election time and again with about three-fourths of the vote.

No, Joe Riley is NOT going to move to Columbia (he decided that for good when he decided not to run for governor in 1998, which was a terrible shame for our state). But let me tell you something just about as certain — if there is another Joe Riley out there, he isn't going to run for mayor of Columbia unless we make the job worth running for. And right now, it isn't.

Yes, folks, I know that council-manager was considered a "reform" when it came along, an alternative to bossism and the like. So was, in its day, the city commission form, which I had the opportunity of studying up close and personal in Jackson, TN, long ago.

But look around you: This system is NOT WORKING, and it has not worked under the last several city managers. The city is a mess, and no one can be held accountable for fixing it. Each member of the council (including the mayor, who has no more say than any other member) can point to the other six and claim, quite truthfully, that he or she lacks the power to do anything without a majority.

So everybody skates when we have the kind of mess we have now, except for the city managers that come and go.

This needs to change. And the first step is putting someone accountable to the voters in charge.

If you love books, dig my tie

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Recently some of you had disparaging things to say about traditional men's neckwear. Well, this should
turn you around — at least, it should win over those of you who have enjoyed our discussion of good books back on this post.

Both p.m. and I put pretty much anything Mark Twain wrote on our favorites list, and I doubt that we're alone.

Anyway, I acquired this cravat a couple of years ago — it was a Father's Day present that I sort of picked out myself. I had seen it in the gift shop of a museum/performance hall in Harrisburg, Pa. I don't know where you would find it closer than that. The label says "Museum Artifacts," which led me to find one on this Web site. Just don't wear it to any event I'm likely to attend, 'cause I found it first!

There's a tantalizing detail on this tie: One of the book covers at the bottom is of a book called Innocents at Home, which I had never seen or heard of, much less read. And I find few references to in on the Web, although Amazon does seem to have a line on A copy.

Something to add to my "to read" list, for sure — if I can get my hands on one. I loved Innocents Abroad.

Alternative versions of me keep cropping up in WSJ — which is freaky

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A week or two ago I noticed something in The Wall Street Journal that gave me a start. Then this morning, I saw something else in that same publication that took things to a whole new level of seeming impossibility, prompting me to write this e-mail this morning to one Ben Worthen:

Just recently noticed your byline in the WSJ, and it was sort of startling. When I first went to work for my college paper in the early 70s, my editor told me I had a good "byline name," a bit of undeserved praise I've always cherished, and believed.

And I always thought it was unique. Then I see yours, which is SO close to mine it's freaky.

Then, to complete the trifecta, this morning your paper had on the front page a story featuring a line drawing of a guy named "Bill Worthen:"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123309302911621329.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Something very odd is happening in the universe. I sense a disturbance in the force.

Anyway, we're probably cousins or something, like those people you occasionally run into named "Wathen" or "Worthin" or whatever…

So, hey.

Unless you are a Warthen — and unless you are a member of my immediate family, it's reasonably safe to assume that you are not — you have no idea how extremely rare it is to run into anyone with your name, even with an alternative spelling. (And for those who don't know, "Warthen" is pronounced the way "Worthen" is spelled. For those who have trouble remembering, I say it's pronounced as the two words "war" and "then," assuming you pronounce "war" the way most English-speakers do, and not the way Bob Dylan does. If I want blank stares, I say, "Think of 1945: First there was the war, then it was over.")

When I lived in Memphis in the 70s, there was a pitcher with the local minor league team, who later went to the Show and then coached in the majors, named "Dan Warthen," which was particularly weird, because my Dad's name is Don. His name frequently appeared in stories on the sports page. That stands still as the most prominent stranger I've run across with the name, and I'm 55 years old.

And now this, which is very startling. "Ben Worthen" and "Bill Worthen" are so close to my own name, right down to the monosyllabic nickname starting with a "B," that they sound like me in an alternative universe, or what a writer of fiction who based a character on me might use as the thinnest of fig leaves to be able to deny that it was me.

Whoa.

Oops, it’s Brooks again — this time with a squitchy-good communitarian column

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OK, I promise to try not to overuse "squitchy." Or at least, not to misuse it. I've coined a new use with my "squitchy good" thing, whereas Melville meant something else by it. (I actually use it correctly, as Melville intended, in a comment on this post).

Where was I? Oh, yes… A few days ago, Cindi shared with me a laugh at herself. Somehow, she had gotten the impression that I had chosen a George Will column for the next day's op-ed page, and when she read her proof, started into it without noticing whose picture was on it. And she thought, "Wow, I can't believe Will wrote this! This is really a departure for him!" That was because it was written by David Brooks. (OK, so maybe that's not much of a laugh to you — too esoteric. Think of how, in "Amadeus," all those people at the party laughed at Mozart playing "in the style of" various other composers. Not very funny unless you lived and breathed that music, his comical mugging aside. So to us, seeing a "Will" column "in the style of Brooks" is a real knee-slapper. It takes all kinds.)

Anyway, I had just grabbed a bunch of columns off the wire — a George Will, a Trudy Rubin, a Bob Herbert, a Cal Thomas and a David Brooks — and then called them up again in quick succession to read further and try to pick one.

Well, I was doing this in a hurry the way I have to do everything these days, and I THOUGHT I had clicked on the Herbert column, and as I read it I was amazed. It wasn't his usual partisan rant that turns me off in the first paragraph. It was really different. It was really thoughtful. And best of all for me, it was really communitarian — overtly and obviously so. Hey, I was going to enjoy running the first Herbert column I had run in a while.

I got all the way to the bottom before realizing I had NOT clicked on the Herbert column, but on … yes, another David Brooks, which happened to be right next to it the Herbert. A slip of the mouse. Oh, well — hey, maybe the Herbert column would be good, too. But here's how it started:

What’s up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies
have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so
divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly
believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other
forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to
this deplorable state?

Yes, another flat, two-dimensional partisan rant, nothing original, nothing to appeal to an UnPartisan. Hey, if I wanted that kind of nonsense, I could run the Cal Thomas piece, which said in part:

   The president has commendably met with Republican congressional leaders during the early stages of his push for an economic “stimulus'' plan, but now comes the hard part. There remain two distinct and possibly irreconcilable differences between traditional Republicans and traditional Democrats. Republicans once believed and encouraged doing for one's self and approaching government — if at all — as a last resort. Democrats see government as a first resource and people as an expanding pool of victims who are incapable of independently bettering their lives (and if they do, they are to be taxed to subsidize those who don't).

Unfortunately, you can too often summarize Thomas by saying "Republicans good, Democrats bad." And you can definitely summarize Herbert by the opposite.

So guess what I'm picking for tomorrow?

Now, before you accuse me of picking it because I agree with it, think: Seriously, I pick columns every day, and when was the last time I even had the opportunity to choose one that was so overtly communitarian? Like, practically never. No, the reason to pick this one is going by the same standard that I try to apply every single day: It says something that might help people think thoughts they haven't thought before. The communitarian thing on this one is just a bonus for me, this one day.

And yeah, I always lean toward the columns that are NOT all about "Republicans good, Democrats bad," or the opposite. You can read that junk anywhere; I'm looking for something that goes beyond that.

Moby Dick is a squitchy good read (Surprise!)

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Doug Ross mentioning The Canterbury Tales back on this post — which I never read (somehow, I escaped its being required of me in school) — reminds me of something I'm reading at the moment and sort of enjoying, much to my surprise:

Moby Dick.

For years — for decades in fact; almost four of them — I refused to read Moby Dick on principle. You see, we spent like six weeks on it in my honors English class in the 11th grade at Robinson High School in Tampa, and I never did read it, at least not past "Call me Ishmael." And yet I got an A-plus on the six weeks test on the book. How? First, because it was an essay test — which always gave me a leg up in school. Multiple choice can be such a brutally effective means of telling whether you actually know the material. With an essay, you can be careful to stick to what you know you know, and steer clear of your blank spots. And some, but not all, teachers are dazzled by a nicely worded essay. Although not all teachers — I had one prof in college who wrote on one of my better B.S. efforts something like, "Nicely written; I enjoyed it. But obviously you are not familiar with the material." Enough teachers were snowed for me to get by, though. And I confess this played a not inconsiderable part in my decision to write for a living.

Also — and this is the bigger point — how on Earth could I possibly not be familiar with all the themes, characters and plot after six weeks of listening to people talk and talk and talk about it in class, even if I was only half-listening, which was probably the case?

Anyway, I took such perverse pride in that grade — one of my most dramatic coups of skating without having done the work in my educational career — that I avoided reading the book subsequently because I didn't want to spoil the perfection of my slacker record. I had read — and enjoyed — other books years after I was supposed to have read them in school. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, for instance. But I kept myself pure on Melville.

But I picked up a copy recently, tempted by the fact that I'm such a huge fan of Patrick O'Brian's seafaring tales and thinking I might actually enjoy this one, although not having high expectations.

And you know what? While I doubt it will ever be my favorite novel, I've been really surprised by how accessible it is. I mean, I always had the impression (based on the way the people who actually read it in school groaned about the experience) that it was just something that no one in our era could possibly relate to, that it was way too 19th century for that (and not in a fun way, like Mark Twain). But on the contrary, I'm struck by how modern its tone and style is in parts. Also, it's very bite-sized — the chapters are no longer than a typical newspaper column, and each one a well-crafted nugget all by its lonesome. So you can read a chapter, think "That wasn't so bad," then read another, and really feel like you're making progress without a lot of time invested all at once. (Try that with Dostoevsky, someone I actually did read and enjoy when I was supposed to in college, but not a guy you'd describe as "accessible" in the sense that I mean here.)

Far from being some boring old guy telling us stuff in boring old language, Ishmael as a narrator is actually sort of hiply ironic. He has a detachment and amusement toward his heavy subject material that is very late-20th century. And sometimes, the language itself goes along with the tone. For instance, in this passage very early in the book, describing a painting he puzzled over at The Spouter Inn:

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.–It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.–It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.–It's a blasted heath.–It's a Hyperborean winter scene.–It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

Who'd have thought Melville could have written such a line as "A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted?" That is a very New Journalism use of language; one could imagine Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson being responsible for it. Or, to speak in fiction terms, it can be almost as modern-feeling as Nick Hornby or Roddy Doyle. It strikes me that way, anyway. Way more modern-seeming than much-later writers such as James Joyce or Fitzgerald or even Hemingway (who sounded WAY modern in the 20s, I suppose, but not so much later on).

As I read on, Ishmael is not what I'd call a likable character — he's too much of a wise guy for that, tossing out ironic comments about everyone and everything. But he's certainly accessible.

And that surprised me.

How many ‘Carnegie units’ do kids need?

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Somehow, in all the discussions I've engaged in over the years, I don't recall running across the "Carnegie unit," until I read the piece we had on our page today from a 20-year teacher, who said in part:

     I am in my 20th year of teaching, and I can tell you that our educational system is not working the way it should, not in South Carolina, not in the nation. We have tried several types of “fixes” that have not worked. We still have an abysmal drop-out rate.
    At fault is the foundation of our system, the Carnegie unit, which was developed in 1906 by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation to “standardize higher education.” To earn a Carnegie unit, the student must be in a classroom for 120 hours. S.C. students must earn 24 of these to graduate from high school….

This teacher is saying, based on her experience, something that I have thought (since my own school days) based on my own intuition: That we place too much emphasis on TIME spent in the classroom, with the widespread assumption that more time is better.

For me, the subject usually comes up in connection with proposals for year-round school, or when we see the school year extended to make sure kids get the holy 180 days in the classroom (which apparently applies to home-schoolers and private schools as well as public). This brings out memories of being bored to death in school as a kid. If my attention hadn't wandered — to reading on past where the class was in the book, or passing notes or pulling pranks or otherwise misbehaving — I would have gone totally nuts. Of course, some of you would say I DID go totally nuts, but that's a matter of opinion. I mean, if you had told me the first day I walked into a class that I would have to spend 120 hours there, the temptation to jump out the window would have been strong.

Whenever I invoke that, and say "Let kids have their summers," someone will tell me that I was not typical, that most kids struggle to retain what they learned the year before and need excessive review, etc. And I grumble and shut up. I know that a lot of things about school (testing, for instance) came easier to me than other kids, and that going on about how bored I often was (when behaving) sounds like bragging. (I say "when behaving" because I don't want to make you think I disliked school; I was frequently able to find it entertaining.)

So it was interesting to see this teacher playing to my own particular prejudice on the subject. I don't know whether she was right, and I'm not terribly impressed that when she asks kids themselves whether they want to go at their own pace — of course they answer in the affirmative; who wouldn't when asked whether they want school personally tailored to them? And while SHE believes she'd have no trouble teaching 20 kids at 20 different levels, I wonder how achievable that is for most teachers (I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it; but then I doubt I could teach).

But I found the piece interesting.

Critters

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At first, I thought Derrick Jackson of The Boston Globe was trying to win the prize for most extreme case of gushing about the "The One" (easily swamping my own piece about the specialness of the occasion) when I read this:

IF YOU felt a tremor, it might have been more than just the multitudes chanting O-BA-MA. It just might have been the rumble of roots, tree trunks swaying like hips, and branches stretching outward to praise the heavens. If you heard a song, it might not just have been the crowd when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said to Obama, ''Congratulations, Mr. President.'' It might have been the birds serenading as if let out of a cage, soaring to perches to applaud with their wings.<
   If you heard a roar, it was every stone lion coming to life in front of museums, libraries, colleges, and other ornate buildings around the nation. If you were on the Mall and felt something on top of your feet, it might not have been other people stepping on them. It might have been millions of ants and other insects who marched from their undergrounds to wave leaf particles and blades of grass like American flags.<
   For it was not just a human message when President Obama said in his inaugural speech that we can no longer ''consume the world's resources without regard to effect.'' The greatest effect is, of course, on untold species mowed down for our consumption.

… but then I saw he didn't mean to describe the moment in religious terms — at least, not in a conventionally religious way, as in writing the Revelation According to St. Obama — but he did mean to invoke one of our growing secular religions, in this case the anthropomorphizing of animals to the extent of imbuing them with rights akin to those of humans.

But Mr. Jackson was the soul of restraint compared to this piece that moved on our opinion wire this morning:

By Paula Moore
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
    Feel-good stories about centenarians are nothing new, but a recent harrowing tale with a happy ending about one long-lived fellow named George may have taken some readers by surprise. George was abducted from his home in Newfoundland, Canada, taken to New York City, where he was imprisoned in a small enclosure for 10 days, and then, after his captors had a change of heart, released in Maine. George was last seen swimming to freedom. <
       Did I mention that George is a 20-pound, 140-year-old lobster…

No, you didn't, but somehow I knew something like that was coming.

Sorry I can't link to the latter piece (apparently, no one has actually picked up and run the piece yet), but you can read more on the subject at lobsterlib.com, where among other things you can order "Being Boiled Hurts" stickers — as many as you need. You can also read where Mary Tyler Moore says, ""If we had to drop live pigs or chickens into scalding water, chances are that few of us would eat them. Why should it be any different for lobsters?"

To which I'm tempted to say, "because they're like, big BUGS?"

I'm really not as mean or insensitive to critters as I sometimes seem to be. It's just that, when somebody seeks to portray a crustacean as being just like people — going BEYOND saying don't eat them, to "don't even confine them," it sort of sets me off. I guess I'm just in a mood today. All sorts of things I'm incidentally running across in looking for copy for tomorrow's op-ed page is setting me off.

Speaking of critters, I even got slightly grumpy reading this piece, which frets about the Asian market for turtle meat depleting wild species in the U.S.:

    As global wealth rises, so does global consumption of meat, which includes wild meat. Turtle meat used to be a rare delicacy in the Asian diet, but no longer. China, along with Hong Kong and Taiwan, has vacuumed the wild turtles out of most of Southeast Asia. Now, according to a recent report in The Los Angeles Times, they are consuming common soft-shell turtles from the American Southeast, especially Florida, at an alarming rate.
    Some scientists estimate that two-thirds of the tortoise and freshwater turtle species on the planet are seriously threatened. Some of that is secondhand damage — loss of habitat, water pollution, climate change. But far too many turtles are being lost to the fork and the spoon.

And the thing is, I actually agree that we need to protect endangered species. But having been goaded into an insensitive mood by the first two pieces, I couldn't help thinking that I was less concerned about what the Asian appetite for turtles was doing to wildlife than I am, say, in the African market for the body parts of actual human beings who happen to be albinos:

According to the Tanzania Albino Society, at least 35 albinos were murdered in Tanzania last year to supply witch doctors with limbs, organs and hair for their potions. The violence of the attacks and the prejudices they reinforce, both about albinos and Africa, have prompted Tanzania’s government to act. It has appointed an albino woman as a member of parliament to champion the interests of some 200,000 albinos in the country. The albinos, for their part, have applauded the intervention as well as other measures, such as attempts to stamp out the use of the Swahili word “zeru” (meaning “ghost”) for albinos. Nonetheless, they say that efforts to convict albino-killers have been thwarted by a rotten judicial system, with witch doctors using bribery or threats of spells to escape trial.

Tell you what — let's work on putting a stop to that, then worry about the turtles, and then, if we have any energy left, talk about the lobsters, OK?

Why is it so hard to say ‘abortion?’

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There's nothing unusual about this, but about the thousandth time this morning, in reading an editorial from the weekend in The New York Times, I marveled at how long it took to get past all the pro-choice euphemisms ("women's health," "reproductive health and freedom," "safeguard women's lives," "free speech") and get to the one operative word upon which the issue turns:

Women’s Health, Ungagged
    President Obama on Friday began dismantling his predecessor’s broad and damaging assault on women’s reproductive health and freedom. He lifted the odious gag rule that President George W. Bush imposed on international family planning groups and began trying to restore financing to the United Nations Population Fund.
    It was a reassuring message that Mr. Obama takes seriously his duty to safeguard women’s lives and basic rights, including free speech and the choice of whether to bear a child.
    The gag rule was first imposed by President Ronald Reagan. It barred any health care provider receiving American family planning assistance from counseling women on abortion, engaging in political speech on abortion or providing abortions, even with its own money…

By my count (actually, by Microsoft Word's count — what, you think I've got time to sit and count them?), it took 113 words to get to "abortion." Which actually isn't all that bad, I guess, compared to some instances I've seen. But it strikes me as about 100 words, or two paragraphs, late, by any reasonable standard of getting to the point.

But then, I'm a word guy — and specifically, an editorial guy — so I probably notice stuff like that more than most people do. Also, I disagree with the NYT on the issue, so I'm that much more likely to notice how much they feel compelled to dress up the concept, with layer upon layer of rhetorical clothing, before bringing it out.