Burl Burlingame gave us a link to this back on a previous post, but I thought I’d make it more visible. He posted it on Facebook yesterday. Here is his caption:
This just in, the first images of the earthquake devastation in Virginia
Such is the bemusement with which our friends who live in Volcanoland view our excitement yesterday.
Man, these have been a busy couple of days. I’ve had a lot of stuff I’ve wanted to post — such as about Lindsey Graham’s speech at Rotary yesterday — but haven’t had time yet. But at least, here are some headlines:
Yes, I can think of some reasons, but since all of the ones I think of are… unpersuasive… I continue to wonder whether there are any defensible reasons for having devoted that choice real estate to such a purpose (not to mention putting the Strom Taj Mahal workout center in a location that only the Greeks could walk to conveniently and safely).
If you know of any, share them.
Here’s the thing about this sudden discovery by the university that fraternities tend to encourage unseemly behavior (“USC officials, Greeks debate hospital trips, strippers,” The State) — I’ve never understood why their presence is in any way encouraged at public institutions of higher learning.
At all of our colleges and universities today, administrators know that one of the most serious problems they face is binge drinking, and other activities that most of us associate with… well, Greek life. It astounds me that, in the 21st century, we even allow these organizations onto campuses, much less do anything to make them feel welcome. Not that we independents haven’t been known to chug a brew or two in college, but most of us didn’t join societies that, to the larger world, are essentially seen as drinking clubs.
I could see it if these associations had a salutary effect — say, if they militated against such irresponsible behavior. But I’m not seeing much indication of that.
Of course, I’m prejudiced. I went through college in the early 70s, which is actually the time that the cultural phenomena we associate with the 60s kicked in across most of the country. In my day, there were Greeks, but they seemed terribly anachronistic. It was something my Dad did (Pi Kappa Alpha), but not cool people in my generation. By the 70s — or at least by 1978 — they were associated with a benighted past, an object for satire. It was like, if you were in a frat, what century (or at least, what decade) were you living in? I understood that some people had their arms twisted by their parents into joining their frats and sororities, but what was the motivation beyond that? (There was this one guy who kept calling to invite me to check out his frat, and he only did it because he was bugged by his Dad, who worked with my Dad. I always came up with excuses to be elsewhere.)
The fact that people actually attached importance to this presumed bond — which is a perfect illustration of a granfalloon — has always puzzled me, and even caused me to think a little less of the human race. (While different, it’s distantly related to the way I feel about political parties.) To share another anecdote…
Once, when I was a student at Memphis State, a bunch of us were playing basketball on an outdoor court next to my dorm. Some guy got mad about something stupid and pointless, and put on a disgusting display of petulance, quickly convincing everyone that he was a total jerk. Finally, he decided to walk away, pouting. The attitude of every guy present was, Good Riddance. Every guy but one, who had to chase after him and try to… I don’t know, console him or commiserate or whatever. “We all said, what the hell, man? The guy’s a complete d__k! Come back and play.” There was some reason that his departure mattered to us, I forget what that reason was. Maybe he was taking the ball with him. Otherwise, we probably would have said Good Riddance to him as well.
Anyway, he said he had no choice but to run after that guy, because… he was his fraternity brother. We all looked on in disgust at this display of completely misplaced loyalty based on nothing more substantial than that.
But I’m sure some of you have a different perspective. Please, help me understand the ways that frats contribute to institutions of higher education.
Clue me in as to why those brick palaces, in the core of our community, add to our community.
I thought my ADCO colleagues’ imaginations were running away with them, until I read that there actually WAS an earthquake, and that it was felt in New York, and that the Pentagon was evacuated.
I never felt it. Maybe I’m desensitized because I lived on the Pacific Rim as a kid.
I especially enjoy the chauvinism indicated in this NYT report:
An earthquake sent tremors from the nation’s capital to New York City and New England Tuesday afternoon, the result of what officials said was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake based in Virginia.
Hello, New York Times! We’re down here! We exist! The world doesn’t drop off when you hit Virginia!
What did you feel? Share your experiences here…
Have you had a busy day? I certainly have. Let’s take a moment to see what the rest of the world has been up to:
Consider this sort of an op-ed. Bryan Caskey writes to me to bring my attention to his own blog post about the city’s crackdown on food trucks, which I excerpt here:
Think that job-killing regulations are just a Federal problem? Think again. Columbia is just recently experiencing a food truck revival, which has brought great food and a wonderful sense of style to our little town. However, the City Council has passed a stupid regulation:
Starting in February, any vendor who wants to set up shop on private property to sell anything from puppies to produce must have written permission from the landowner. They also must provide city officials with drawings of the sites they frequent and must meet zoning requirements, especially having sufficient parking spaces.
For the rest of Bryan’s post, visit his blog, “Permanent Press.”
You get used to a certain state of affairs — for example, the rebels with an uneasy hold on part of the country, while Gaddafi defiantly hangs onto Tripoli — and then suddenly, the tyrant’s capital falls:
Rebels Sweep Into Capital
Libyan rebels seized control over most of Tripoli on Monday amid scenes of jubilation, a day after surging into the city’s center and meeting little resistance from Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s defenses, though heavy clashes were reported at Col. Gadhafi’s compound and the leader’s whereabouts remained unknown.
Tanks emerged from the compound and opened fire at rebels trying to storm it early Monday, rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Rahman told the Associated Press. Mr. Abdel-Rahman, who was in Tripoli, cautioned that pockets of resistance remained and that as long as Col. Gadhafi remains on the run the “danger is still there.”
The rebels’ top diplomat in London, Mahmud Nacua, said clashes were continuing in Tripoli, but opposition forces controlled 95% of the city, AP reported.
Rebel leaders said Col. Gadhafi’s son and onetime heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, has been captured, according to multiple reports. Along with his father, he faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, which said Monday it is seeking his handover. Another son, Mohammed, was under house arrest, AP reported.
No, it’s not over. But things seem suddenly headed toward a satisfactory result.
When things like this happen, it gives me hope about everything. Suddenly, any intractable problem, anything we think of as being “just the way things are,” seems subject to change for the better. I find that enormously encouraging.
Here’s what we have for you at the end of the week:
Three items that almost made the page: Deal frees ‘West Memphis Three’, Egypt Registers Complaint With Israel Over Killings and New Syrian protests ‘turn deadly’.
Bill C. and Bill D.
Occasionally, I have reason to open one of the many boxes containing the roomfuls of files I brought home from The State when I left (in my last two weeks, there was barely time to load it up, and practically no time to go through it, although I did throw out a few things), and sometimes I post one of the finds here.
Looks like cartoonist Bill Day, formerly of The Commercial Appeal, has been doing something similar. He sent me this picture today, taken in the mid-90s, with this commentary:
I thought you might enjoy this photo. This was at the Detroit Free Press. He was a great sport posing and loved talking about cartooning. His staff told me that he was looking forward to talking to me because he’s a big fan. About a month later I received a White House photo of him showing it to everyone in the Oval Office. He signed it: ”To Bill Day, Thanks for the laughs! Bill Clinton”
Bill’s the kind of cartoonist who would get a kick out of meeting Clinton. Robert Ariail is more of a Bush guy — although Robert had so much fun with Clinton when he was in office (Clinton was a large part of his inspiration both times Robert was a Pulitzer finalist, if I recall correctly) that he would have enjoyed meeting him, too — to thank him for providing so much fodder.
That reminds me of a picture I need to show you that involved Bush — and Tony Blair. I’ll try to track it down tonight or over the weekend.
Speaking of serious matters of faith intersecting with politics in disturbing ways…
I was all prepared to stick up for my main man Joe Lieberman today when I saw that Taegan Goddard of Political Wire had said, “Joe Lieberman talks about what he was doing all those Saturdays… probably too much information.” I was like, Hey, I like to hear Joe talk…
But then I saw what he was referring to:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) talks to NY1 about his new book, The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath, and gives this surprising bit of detail:
“If I may come close to the edge, as I say in the book, the rabbis, in all their brilliance, did create, oh, a couple of thousand years ago, one of the things that should happen on the sabbath is that husbands and wives are to be together, sexually, just in case you missed that during the week.”
Yeah, OK. More than I needed to know.
This kind of cracked me up, even though I remain puzzled. Corey Hutchins Tweeted this out about 20 minutes ago:
Favorite scene from this week: @BradWarthen puzzled by a blank-faced John Rainey when his ‘Ricky Bobby reference’ went thud at Starbucks.
Corey always gets a kick out of me being confused and disconcerted.
But here’s what happened. I was at the Gervais Street Starbucks a couple of days ago (see that, Starbucks? yet another product placement, and y’all still haven’t bought an ad from me!), and they were done with the bold for the day and had to do me a pourover, so I went to the end of the counter to wait for it, and there I saw Corey and John. John was apparently filling in Corey on deep, dark political secrets or something.
Somehow we got on the subject of Rick Perry and his idiosyncracies, and someone (John? Corey?) said something about Perry praying to the Baby Jesus. I had not heard about that. My reaction was, “What? You mean, like Ricky Bobby?” Corey laughed, but as soon as I said it, I realized that John Stringer Rainey, sitting there in his pink-and-white seersucker suit looking every bit the Old Line South Carolina patrician that he is, probably did not go to see “Talladega Nights.” And you know, you feel kind of stupid even trying to explain something as dumb as Ricky Bobby to someone who isn’t interested, because it makes you look kinda lowbrow. So we moved on to another topic.
I still don’t know where the Baby Jesus reference came from. Google hasn’t shown it to me…
But whatever. Shake ‘n’ Bake!
Sorry there was no “page” yesterday. I was in a rush to go home and go to the movies for our anniversary. Here’s what we have today:
I didn’t really notice Phil Noble’s release earlier about Rick Perry and Ben Bernanke (I’m drowning in email), until it was also forwarded to me by Samuel Tenenbaum today. Here’s the full release, and here’s an excerpt:
In response to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s continuing suggestions that South Carolina born-and-bred Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is not acting with America’s best interests at heart, SC New Democrats president Phil Noble is calling on the GOP front-runner to apologize.
“In the last few days,” Noble said, “Rick Perry has called our native son Ben Bernanke ‘treacherous’ and ‘treasonous’ and has questioned what his ‘true goal is for the United States.’ Somebody needs to tell Mr. Perry that we don’t talk that way about central bankers here in the South Carolina, and we certainly don’t talk that way about central bankers who happen to be Jewish.”
Noble continued, “The stereotype of the ‘treacherous” or ‘treasonous’ Jewish banker is one of the most poisonous slurs in all of recent Western history. And whether Rick Perry is exploiting this anti-Semitic stereotype today out of true malice or simple ignorance of that long and tragic history doesn’t really matter. Either way, it’s completely unacceptable, and he needs to apologize to Mr. Bernanke and all the people of our state for this grossly inappropriate attack on one of our most distinguished native sons before his Texas boot heel touches South Carolina soil again.
“Or, to put this in terms that even the Governor should understand: Gov. Perry, don’t mess with South Carolina.”
Samuel offered his own observation, which I’ve heard him make before in different contexts:
Remember Campbell and his political anti-Semitism [a reference to the campaign against Max Heller]? It is the old nod and wink game here. Call it the “nink.” Those who have the correct receptors get his message and those who do not, never would associate anti-Semitism with his statement.
True, as a goy, I did not at first associate what Perry said with Bernanke’s Jewishness. But then, I had not initially heard that one bit of comment from Perry, “… I think there will continue to be questions about their activity and what their true goal is for the United States.” To a Catholic, that sounds familiar. But still…
Samuel and I have a lot of discussions about stuff like this. We went to see “The Passion of Jesus Christ” together, along with Moss Blachman, on Saturday in 2004, and then we all went to lunch and debated it. We did not see it the same. But we agreed about one thing: We didn’t like the movie.
Bottom line, I don’t think Perry is going after Bernanke because he’s Jewish any more than because he’s from South Carolina. I think Perry is going after him because a section of the electorate he’s trying to woo deeply dislikes the Federal Reserve, and Bernanke just happens to be its current chairman. The Fed chair could have been a gentile from Oregon, and for that matter could be pursuing policies completely different from Bernanke’s, and Perry would still be on his case.
That’s what I think.
I don’t get to the actual movie theater anymore. Even though I’ve largely cut off the firehose flow of entertainment into my house, between Netflix and the DVDs I own (most recent acquisition: a Blu-Ray of “True Grit”), I’ve got more movies to watch than I really have time for — without paying those ridiculous ticket and concession prices.
But I have seen five movies this summer, which is unusual for me. Here they are, in order:
Oops, did I give you whiplash there? Did you think you knew where you were going and then, WANG!, a sudden change of direction.
Well, I went to the first four with my son, because of our shared interests in comic books, and the last one was my wife’s idea. We went to see it for our anniversary last night.
I went thinking, “This is my anniversary present, because this is a chick flick,” but I enjoyed it. And not just because of the views of that social outcast “Celia.” It was just a well-told, real-life story about people. Of course, I guess a lot of things would look like that after the other four movies I saw before it. (Best of the bunch? “Captain America.” But I expected that. The one that most exceeded my expectations? “Thor.”)
Something that struck me at the end, though: During the credits, I got up and looked around, and noticed two things. Most of the audience was female, which I had expected. And most of the audience was white. I found myself wanting to interview the audience, to get their impressions, and ask how it spoke to them and their lives. Did it match their memories? How do they think life has changed since then, and how stay the same?
More than that, I wanted to ask black folks who weren’t there: Why not? I can guess some reasons why not, but I’d probably be off-base. Then again, this audience, while numerous, may not have been representative. This was out at Harbison. Demographics would have been different somewhere else. Probably.
But I didn’t bother anybody with questions. It was our anniversary.
Last anniversary, we went to a bourbon tasting at the Capital City Club. That is to say, we went out to dinner at the club for our anniversary, and before that there was this bourbon tasting that was free to members (I think I’m remembering that right), so I managed to talk my wife into attending. It was fascinating. The speaker was a great-grandon of Jim Beam, and a very colorful and knowledgeable guy.
This year, we decided on a more low-key celebration. And “The Help” served the purpose well. It was particularly meaningful because the central character has the same last name as my wife’s maiden name. OK, that’s just a coincidence, of no interest to you, but we found it interesting… sort of like the family in “Driving Miss Daisy” being named “Werthan.”
A screen grab from an official Starbucks video...
Perhaps that headline was a bit too alarmist. Because that would be TOO cruel — cutting anyone off from the black nectar. But to politicians, if not to normal people, being cut off from the cash flow would be as bad as losing the coffee itself. Because, you know, their priorities are seriously out of whack.
Thanks to Steven for reminding me of this item I meant to post a day or two ago (it was first brought to my attention by ADCO’s Lanier Jones:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is fed up with Washington.
And he is doing something about it.
Spurred by what he describes as a failure of leadership on the part of lawmakers, Schultz is mounting a one-man bull rush against apolitical culture that has “chosen to put partisan and ideological purity over the well being of the people.”
What does that mean? No more political donations — not for anybody.
And he’s recruiting other CEOs to join him…
If only Starbucks could run Washington. It would, at the very least, smell much nicer. And imagine if we could address the nation’s problems in the efficient, pragmatic way in which baristas fill orders. I’d want to hang out in Washington all the time. And then, and then… we could open more Starbucks governments in the state capitals! And so forth…
Why hasn’t the Coffee Party been pursuing this idea? Must the UnParty do everything?
Folks on the left in South Carolina, few as they are, have really been cranking out some videos lately.
Now there’s this one, above, from SCForwardProgress, which rips into Rick Perry for calling our homeboy, Ben Bernanke, “treasonous.”
And yeah, I felt pretty indignant, too. Ben’s one of us. He’s from the county right next to mine. He worked at South of the Border when he was in school, for goodness sakes. And he was appointed by George W. Bush, not that Obama feller or any other blamed librul.
And of course, in all serious, speaking that way of the fed chair is in NO way appropriate coming from someone even thinking of becoming president of the United States. The remark was, not to put too fine a point on it, gross.
But on the other hand, if you’re surprised, you haven’t spent much time around the Tea Party. They talk like this.
(Oh, one last thought, about the latter part of that video. We SC boys aren’t in much of a position to get on other people’s cases for talking secession. Puts us at a disadvantage…)
I’m really scratching my head over this one today:
Frustrated Trey Gowdy says he may not run again
He says polarization in Washington surprised him
SPARTANBURG — After six months on the job, U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy said he has come to the jarring realization that politics doesn’t necessarily mean clarity and, while he is inclined to seek re-election next year, it isn’t a certainty.
“I really did not have a frame of reference because I’ve never served in the Legislature before,” Gowdy, a Republican and former solicitor, told GreenvilleOnline.com. “I come from a system where there’s a referee and a jury that gives you immediate feedback on whether or not you have won the argument.”
In Congress, the system is different, he said.
“There is no referee,” Gowdy said. “There’s more fairness in a court proceeding than there is in politics. There’s more civility in a criminal trial than there is in politics. So it’s been an adjustment.”
He added, “The issues are challenging. The country is divided. And I miss home. I think that’s probably the best way to put it.”…
No, I did not make that up. Follow the link.
I liked this part, in which Gowdy mentions the meeting I covered here:
At a Rotary meeting in Columbia, he showed a PowerPoint he called “fact-centric, fact-based”
Afterward, Democrats came up to him and said, “‘Look, I don’t agree with what you said, but I appreciate the manner in which you laid it out,’” Gowdy said. “It wasn’t hyper-partisan.”
OK, Kathryn and Rick — did y’all really say that?
I'm picturing sawed-off shotguns -- but no federal marshals like Sean Connery to stop you from using them as you like!
Bart had to know he was going to set me off on a laugh-fest when he shared this:
Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.
Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch–free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be “a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.”
Wowee. If you want to read the whole story, here’s where Bart got it. And here’s where they got it.
the part that really cracked me up about this particular libertarian fantasy is where they envision “looser building codes.”
You’re going to be living on, essentially, an oil platform — an extremely physically limited space — in the middle of the ocean? You’d better have the strictest building codes in the history of the world. In fact, while you’ve got me going — “building”? Really? You’re saying that these Überflakes would be able to take it into their heads to build new structures, according to the whims of each Ayn Randian individual, in a shared space that exists on the oceanic equivalent of the head of a pin?!?!?
For the engineering even to be feasible, you’d have to design the whole sovereign city-state all in advance, on shore. I’m talking physics here, not political philosophy. Sure, you could allow for expansion, but only within the context of the original design, or the whole thing would become untenable. A desert island, maybe — if it’s really huge, so these cranky individualists can spread out and not get on each others’ nerves. But on one of these tiny things? Really? You mean, somebody thought about this for more than five seconds, and is still considering it? And this guy gave them a million and a quarter?
But yeah, let’s roll with this! Go ahead and eliminate building restrictions entirely! Stick planks out over the edge like on a pirate ship and put condominiums on them! Who’s to stop you?
Combine that with the “few restrictions on weapons,” and these few individuals should be able to make a lot of money in the Reality TV market by putting cameras in every nook and cranny (if they can suppress their strong libertarian prejudices against such things — which I think they could for enough moolah, which libertarians crave). As entertainment, it would rival anything the Roman Colosseum ever dreamed up. And it would be perfectly legal! No one could say thee nay?
Imagine it, those of you who have actually been paying attention to the way humans behave in reality. Surely we’ve all encountered the phenomenon of neighbors suing each other over minor infractions of the neighborhood covenant. The ill will gets to bad that people move away from their dream homes. Imagine the tensions in this super-tight space — no rolling lawns to act as a buffer — with “looser building codes” and everyone packing an arsenal!
Sawed-off shotguns. That would be my weapon of choice in such tight quarters.
Anybody ever see “Outland,” with Sean Connery? It’s “High Noon” transferred to a mining colony on one of the moons of Jupiter. No ray guns, but sawed-off shotguns. (That was the touch that made the movie.) Awesome.
That’s what a Seastead would be like, as envisioned. Only without the federal marshal, which was Sean Connery’s role (and don’t ask me how a Scot got to be a federal marshal — it’s the future!). I suspect Thiel knew all this when he gave them the money. It’s pocket change to him, and maybe he thinks it would be fun to watch.
A bit late, but here it is:
I’d never seen this before, but I certainly saw it tonight. I was wandering through the men’s clothing section (did you know you can’t find plain white boxers at Walmart any more? this was the fourth one I’d tried), and I started hearing something that could only be live music. So I flipped on the video on my phone and kept approaching, and above is what I saw.
I’d heard Walmart was troubled. Remember, I put this WSJ story on my Virtual Front Page last night:
Wal-Mart Loses Edge
Perception That Retailer No Longer Has Best Prices Undercuts Sales Turnaround
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is losing its longstanding reputation for offering consumers the lowest prices, complicating its efforts to end a two-year sales slump in the U.S.
The Bentonville, Ark., retail colossus became the world’s largest store chain by avoiding sales gimmicks through “every day low prices” on everything from food to sporting goods under one roof.
But surveys by retail consultants, analysts and brand experts now find that Wal-Mart’s aura of price leadership has faded since the recession, because customers who searched for better deals sometimes found them at competitors such as Dollar General Corp., Aldi Inc. and Amazon.com Inc….
It certainly didn’t look troubled tonight. Based on my difficulty in finding a checkout line that was neither too long (the “express” lanes”) nor featuring people with more than one filled cart. (I wrote on Twitter while waiting, “Waiting in crazy lines at Walmart. Apparently, a lot of people are simultaneously planning polar expeditions…”)
Not that I’ll mourn if Walmart suffers a bit. Walmart is just one of a bunch of factors that killed the newspaper business. You’ll recall a time when grocery stores were a huge newspaper advertiser, along with department stores. Well, Walmart threatened and undercut them both with a strategy that did not require regular local advertising: With “Everyday Low Prices,” you don’t need to advertise any specials. You just have to let the word get around town, and you’re permanently set. And a lot of traditional newspaper advertisers were permanently shafted.
But the live music makes it all worthwhile, right?