Monthly Archives: March 2012

Were YOU there among the 40,000?

I had a busy Saturday and Sunday, so it’s just now that I’m getting around to posting my St. Patrick’s Day in Five Points pictures.

Were you there? Did you have a good time? I had an awesome time, as usual — even though I had to work. Kathryn Fenner had guilted me into volunteering with other Rotarians to check IDs.

As it happened, when I first arrived, all of the ID-check tents were out of the bracelets that certify partiers as being over 21. For awhile, that put us out of business, so I went walkabout.

Then, some more bracelets arrived, so I worked checking IDs for awhile, until we ran out again, at which point I went walkabout again.

Then, we got the word that we could simply write “21” in day-glo marker on both their admission bracelets and the backs of their hands, so I did that for a long while. At one point, Kathryn noted suspiciously that it was odd that most of the really cute girls were coming down to my end of the tent. A few minutes later, I went over to Kathryn and asked, in all innocence, “Just to make sure I’m doing this right — if she’s cute, I give her the OK, right?”  She didn’t think that was as funny as I did.

What I learned from this experience was that most of the world was born in 1990. (The cutoff date was March 17, 1991.) I also learned that only about half of the people in the crowd were from South Carolina. There was a surprising number of out-of-state licenses. Many of them were from Virginia, and quite a few, of course, from Georgia and North Carolina. But they were from all over. One unusually large laminated ID (it was about 3 inches by 4) was from Republique Francais. Two young guys showed their (U.S.) passports instead of licenses, which seemed odd, but whatever.

Then things got slow, so I went walkabout again. That’s how I got all of these pictures.

Near as I could tell, a good time was had by all. Jack Van Loan did a great job in this, his last year heading up the festival.

So THAT’s why I don’t feel as smart as I used to

This is an interesting piece brought to my attention by Stan Dubinsky:

SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles….

Set aside the fact that this NYT piece is written by one Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, who probably speaks at least two languages, since this is written in English. It fits with what I’ve read and heard elsewhere — aside from the fact that it stands to reason.

It also gives me a clue as to why I used to feel so much smarter when I was a kid than I do now. When I was a kid, I spoke Spanish as easily and smoothly as English. I thought in Spanish, I dreamed in Spanish. I learned the language at what was probably the last possible moment for learning it as easily as I did — when I was 9.

I learned it the best way, in a sense — from being forced to speak it. From the time my family arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador, most of the people I encountered spoke no English. I did take Spanish as a course in school, but that had little effect, as I recall. Probably a bigger factor was that I took half of my courses in Spanish — including history, geography and science. That was at the Colegio Americano. I was in the Clase Especial, which didn’t quite mean what it means here. There, it meant I was in the one class in my grade that was for native English speakers, and that the classes I took in Spanish were actually a grade-level behind my English classes. Near as I could tell, that didn’t put me behind my peers when I got back to the states. And I certainly knew a lot more than the other kids back home about Latin American history. Not that anybody up here cares about that.

I learned a lot of my Spanish at home as well. My Dad at the time was a lieutenant commander in the Navy, which made us modestly middle class at home. But there, we had two maids, one of whom lived with us 24 hours a day. And no, it wasn’t like Downton Abbey. But the maids had no English, and I interacted with them constantly — I had to, to get through the day. The first word I remember learning from them by way of context happened the first couple of days we were in the country. One of the maids started working for us while we were still staying in the Humboldt Hotel on the waterfront. She took us for walk one day along the quay  (with me probably fuming because, at 9, I felt no need for a babysitter), holding my little brother’s hand. He was only 3, and of course he wanted to touch everything. She would pull him away, saying in an urgent, admonitory tone, “Sucio!” It wasn’t hard to figure out that that meant “dirty.”

Anyway, when we came back to the states two-and-a-half years later, I had this ability that I was seldom called upon to use. I only took Spanish once in school subsequently, and of course aced the course — even though my grammar going in wasn’t so hot (the result of having learned the language naturalistically, and sometimes from people whose own language skills weren’t the best). When I went to college, my skills were still good enough for me to test out of having to take any foreign language at all.

But since then… it’s been slipping away from me.

About a decade or so ago, we started having masses in Spanish at St. Peter’s. I became one of those who would read the Gospel in Spanish at mass. To do this, I read it aloud multiple times before I leave home, just to warm up the necessary muscles in my tongue and mouth — otherwise, I can’t do the accent. My accent still isn’t perfect when I get up there and read (to my critical ear), but it’s better than that of people who learned as adults. It’s good enough that folks who have no English come up to me after Mass and ask me questions, which only embarrasses me and causes me to say, “Lo siento, pero necesitas hablar con María…” and refer them to our Hispanic Minister.

Because the thing is, I can hardly understand a word they’re saying to me. When I do speak the language (and I only fully understand what I’m reading if I look up some of the words), it’s very halting. And to my mortification, whether speaking or listening, I have to translate the words or idiomatic phrases in my head — which would never have been necessary when I was a kid.

So I think being bilingual made me smarter — I remember the couple of years after I came back as a time when everything, from school subjects to popular culture, gave me a fantastic rush in my brain as I soaked it all up.

But I don’t think I’m that smart any more.

Moe Baddourah, candidate for the District 3 seat on Columbia City Council

Moe Baddourah in the office of his restaurant, with a map of his objective behind him.

Restaurateur Moe Baddourah has one thing in common with opponent Daniel Coble: An admiration for the electoral tactics of County Councilman Seth Rose.

Mr. Rose beat Mr. Baddourah in the 2010 election to replace Kit Smith, and Moe took notes. He is now applying everything he learned. If anything characterized the Rose approach, it was that he resolved that no one would outwork him. In keeping with that, Mr. Baddourah is away from his restaurant this afternoon, going door-to-door in the unseasonable heat. He’s made it his No. 1 priority to knock on the door of every district resident expected to vote, and he’s “pretty much done all of them now.”

It’s been an adventure. One voter hurled racial epithets at the Lebanese-American. Another came to the door with a gun in his hand. After Moe persuaded him that he posed no danger, the man relaxed and “was very nice after that.” The man was just that worried about crime, says Moe.

In front of his restaurant, one of Moe's ubiquitous signs.

His one concern at this point is that he’s “a little behind on fund-raising” — not that you could tell, judging by the profusion of his yard signs in the district. He got a very early jump on that — considering that conventionally, campaigns don’t trot out the signs until about three weeks out — creating an early impression of being in the lead. And indeed, of the candidates I’ve interviewed thus far, Mr. Baddourah seems most likely to make it at least into a runoff.

As for the issues, he believes the man with the gun had a point: “Crime is No. 1.”

Beyond that, “Infrastructure is a huge concern.” He tells of asking a woman what concerns she had in her neighborhood. When she couldn’t think of anything, her 8-year-old child piped up, “What about the brown water, Mama?” He says taking care of infrastructure should crowd out other priorities: “I don’t care how many parks you want — if you can’t take care of the simple services,” businesses are not going to want to locate in the city.

More than once in an interview he recited the litany of “Police, fire, services” — and by services, he meant fundamental infrastructure. Such as keeping the drinking water from turning brown. He said that preventing flooding in the Five Points area would be the sort of basic infrastructure need he would advocate. When I asked if the city could afford it, he said, “Do we have any choice?” He complained about $360,000 being spent on a fence along Blossom in Maxcy Gregg Park. “Can I have half of that” for a retaining pond to keep the creek from overflowing there, he asked?

He says water and sewer infrastructure would be in better shape if tap fees hadn’t been misspent for 10 years on other items. “This is the kind of thing that makes me want to run,” to inject accountability for such funds.

Personally, he says that as a businessman and family man, “I connect with people. I feel their pain.” Mr. Baddourah has lived in Columbia for 32 years, having come here when he was 16 because he “didn’t think Beirut was stable enough” — quite an understatement, given what was happening there at that time. He had one connection in the community — his uncle, who owned Andy’s Deli. He worked to learn the language and the customs. He built a business, married and has a son.

He found Columbia warm and welcoming from the start. He has traveled the world since then, but he’s never been back to Lebanon. “Columbia is my home.”

Daniel Coble, candidate for the District 3 seat on Columbia City Council

Daniel Coble, at Yesterday's one recent evening.

Finally, I’m getting down to writing about the city council races that are just a couple of weeks away (April 3). I’ll do my best to make up for lost time…

I’ll start with Daniel Coble, one of four candidates seeking the District 3 race being vacated by Belinda Gergel. Remember that election? It was like a battle of titans, between Belinda the historic preservationist and Brian Boyer, the young brother-in-law of Don Tomlin. Each campaign spent something in the six-figure range — TV ads, the whole works. It sucked up all the available oxygen to where hardly anyone noticed the at-large election going on at the same time (Daniel Rickenmann held off a challenge from Cameron Runyan).

This election is a lot more low-key — retail, door-to-door campaigning and yard signs. As for the first of our four candidates:

There are two things everyone seems to know about Daniel Coble: He’s the son of ex-Mayor Bob, and he’s 24 years old. The law student says his parents are very supportive of his candidacy, although his mother did complain that she just got out of politics two years ago, and now they’re pulling her back in.

When I first talked with Daniel about his candidacy back in the fall, after a Community Relations Council meeting (we both serve on the council) he said he was planning “a Seth Rose campaign,” which in part means tirelessly walking the district and knocking on doors. I caught up with him last week to see how it’s gone since then, and he told me he’d already hit every house once, and was starting over.

I asked him who he thought was his strongest opposition, and he named restaurateur Moe Baddourah, and not just because his “MOE!” yard signs so dominate the landscape. Daniel says he thinks Moe has the Republican vote behind him — which may not be a majority in that district, but could be enough of a plurality to lead in a four-way contest. (Yes, this is a non-partisan election, thank God. But I didn’t bring up party — Daniel did. And I have no idea whether that assessment is correct.)

Daniel has a lot of thoughts on a lot of issues, but as we saw at the recent forum at 701 Whaley, he stands out from the crowd on just one: his adamant support for a penny sales tax increase to pay for the bus system and other local transportation needs. I mentioned to him that some other candidates seemed ambivalent on the issue, but he said “You’re either for it or you’re not. If you’re both ways, it won’t work.” Getting such a referendum passed (and at this point it remains to be seen whether the county council will even put it on the ballot again) is enough of an uphill fight, he suggests, without supporters backing it as strongly as they can.

There’s one other issue he’s really adamant on, one that has been important to the current incumbent: Historic preservation. He supports a compromise passed by city council affecting the Hollywood/Rose Hill neighborhood that would require anyone wanting to tear down or drastically change the appearance of a home more than 50 years old to get a special exemption. He says he would strongly oppose any effort to roll back that decision.

A third issue separates him and some of his opponents: He would not immediately stop the practice of spending about 4 percent of water and sewer revenues on general fund items. He says to stop doing it immediately would mean catastrophic cuts for the police and fire departments. But he would favor gradually weaning the general budget off of that revenue source.

His says his “jobs plan” is “to make Columbia Famously Green,” and to work to build the knowledge economy, through such initiatives as Innovista and EngenuitySC.

He calls being a city councilman “a 24/7 job,” and promises to be available for constituent service around the clock. (When I noted that his being a young, single, law student might make that easier for him than for some, he objected that he does have a girlfriend. I pointed out that “compared to me, you’re single.”)

He promises not only to work hard, but to stay current on the issues. “If I don’t know it, call me out on it and I’ll learn.”

I spoke to him again by phone a few minutes ago to clear up a couple of points, and he was out in this 86-degree weather (oh no, there’s no such thing as global warming) walking the district…

‘No Irish Need Apply:’ Myth of victimization?

I read something that surprised me this morning, in a book review in The Wall Street Journal. As is fairly typical in opinion pieces in the Journal, the reviewer repeatedly expressed disdain for the author of a book about Irish politics in Boston whenever he failed to be insufficiently conservative (praising him for not dwelling on the Kennedys, castigating him for insufficiently respecting the Southies who fought busing for integration). But I was startled by this revelation:

Unfortunately, Mr. O’Neill has produced a rather straightforward recapitulation of Irish politics in the Hub, sticking to the well-established narrative of mustache-twisting Brahmins (or “Yankee overlords,” in Mr. O’Neill’s phrasing) doing battle against spirited, rascally Irish politicians. Indeed, “Rogues and Redeemers” doesn’t so much upend myths as reinforce them. In Irish America, tales of rampant employment discrimination by Yankee businessmen, who posted signs warning “No Irish need apply” are accepted as gospel. Such anti-Irish bias, writes Mr. O’Neill, was “commonly found in newspapers” and became “so commonplace that it soon had an acronym: NINA.”

But according to historian Richard Jensen, there is almost no proof to support the claim that NINA was a common hiring policy in America. Mr. Jensen reported in the Journal of Social History in 2002 that “the overwhelming evidence is that such signs never existed” and “evidence from the job market shows no significant discrimination against the Irish.” The tale has been so thoroughly discredited that, in 2010, the humor magazine Cracked ranked it No. 2 on a list of “6 Ridiculous History Myths (You Probably Think Are True).” Mr. O’Neill doesn’t inspire confidence by faithfully accepting NINA as fact…

I spent a few moments just now checking to see to what extent it is true that the NINA phenomenon is a “myth” of victimization. What I found kept directing me to the aforementioned Mr. Jensen, whose article on the subject is much cited.

But even Jensen documents that some (although not many) ads saying “No Irish Need Apply” appeared in American newspapers during the period. And no one disputes that such prejudice against the Irish was common in Britain; the only debate has to do with the extent of the practice in this country.

From the Jensen article:

The NINA slogan seems to have originated in England, probably after the 1798 Irish rebellion. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries it was used by English to indicate their distrust of the Irish, both Catholic and Protestant. For example the Anglican bishop of London used the phrase to say he did not want any Irish Anglican ministers in his diocese. By the 1820s it was a cliché in upper and upper middle class London that some fussy housewives refused to hire Irish and had even posted NINA signs in their windows. It is possible that handwritten NINA signs regarding maids did appear in a few American windows, though no one ever reported one. We DO have actual newspaper want ads for women workers that specifies Irish are not wanted; they will be discussed below. In the entire file of the New York Times from 1851 to 1923, there are two NINA ads for men, one of which is for a teenager. Computer searches of classified help wanted ads in the daily editions of other online newspapers before 1923 such as the Booklyn Eagle, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune show that NINA ads for men were extremely rare–fewer than two per decade. The complete absence of evidence suggests that probably zero such signs were seen at commercial establishments, shops, factories, stores, hotels, railroads, union halls, hiring halls, personnel offices, labor recruiters etc. anywhere in America, at any time. NINA signs and newspaper ads for apartments to let did exist in England and Northern Ireland, but historians have not discovered reports of any in the United States, Canada or Australia. The myth focuses on public NINA signs which deliberately marginalized and humiliated Irish male job applicants. The overwhelming evidence is that such signs never existed.

Irish Americans all have heard about them—and remember elderly relatives insisting they existed. The myth had “legs”: people still believe it, even scholars. The late Tip O’Neill remembered the signs from his youth in Boston in 1920s; Senator Ted Kennedy reported the most recent sighting, telling the Senate during a civil rights debate that he saw them when growing up 5 Historically, physical NINA signs could have flourished only in intensely anti-Catholic or anti-Irish eras, especially the 1830—1870 period. Thus reports of sightings in the 1920s or 1930s suggest the myth had become so deeply rooted in Irish-American folk mythology that it was impervious to evidence…

Make of this what you will.

Personally, I think it unlikely that NO such signs existed. Given what we can see even today of nativist sentiment, and knowing the nation’s history of suspicion and even hostility toward Catholics, it seems almost certain that back in a day when the “n-word” invited no social ostracism, such alienation toward an outside group would have been expressed quite openly and without embarrassment. But I’m just extrapolating from known facts here. Jensen is right — neither I nor anyone else can produce physical evidence of such signs at worksites.

I suspect that the truth lies somewhere between the utter dismissal of the reviewer, and the deep resentment of alleged widespread practices that runs through the history of Southie politics.

Statement from “Lt. Governor McConnell” (might as well get used to hearing that, if you can)

This came in a few minutes ago:

Statement by Lt. Governor McConnell

(COLUMBIA) In response to questions that have been raised about whether Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell might offer as a candidate for re-election to the South Carolina Senate, Lt. Governor McConnell issued the following statement:

“My heart has been touched by the hundreds of citizens in the Charleston area, from all walks of life, who have urged me to launch a campaign to regain my seat in the State Senate. I have dedicated the last thirty-one years of my life to serving as a Senator. Selfishly speaking, I would love to return to that position of honor. And no mere words can express how deeply grateful I am to the good people from my District for the trust they have placed in me.

However, I cannot in good conscience offer for re-election to the Senate this year. The timing of this constitutional succession makes it impossible for me to consider any other course.

On Tuesday, I took an oath of office to discharge the duties of Lt. Governor. The task of executing an orderly transition in that office and making certain its duties and responsibilities are properly organized requires a major effort over a considerable period of time. To regain my seat in the Senate, I would have to file for re-election literally within a few days and launch a campaign immediately. I cannot do that.

It is vitally important for those of us engaged in public service to keep our promises, uphold the rule of law, and honor the oaths we take. I vacated my Senate seat because the oath I took as President Pro Tempore required me to do so, Now I believe the oath I took as Lt. Governor requires me to make a good faith effort for a reasonable period of time to fulfill the duties of that office. Therefore, I will not offer as a candidate for election for Senate District 41 this year.

I know not what the future holds. All I can say for sure is that I have loved serving the people of Senate District 41. It is an honor that has occupied most of my adult life. With all my heart, I thank my neighbors for allowing me to represent them in the South Carolina Senate. And beginning immediately, I will do all I can to serve the people of South Carolina well as their new Lt. Governor.”

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So even though it means giving up the chance to “return” to a “position of honor,” he’s now committed to making the most of the Gov Lite post. I suppose we’ll now see what can be done with that position by someone who knows how.

But I just can’t get over seeing his name after that title…

Beth Bernstein to oppose Joan Brady in District 78

A Democrat has announced that she will seek the SC House District 78 seat held by Joan Brady:

(Columbia, SC) — (3/13/2012) – Local attorney and mother of two, Beth Bernstein, has decided to run for State House District 78.

“I am running because I care deeply about our district and I can’t stand by while our state moves dramatically in the wrong direction,” Bernstein said.  “The people of District 78 deserve leadership and a government responsive to their needs.”

Bernstein grew up in Columbia, the daughter of Carol and Isadore Bernstein, who were both politically and civically active in the Columbia community before their passing.  After attending the public schools in Richland School District 2, she earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia and earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She practices law in Columbia in her family firm of Bernstein and Bernstein, LLC. She has two children, Caroline, 7 years old, and Isabel, 3 years old, and is married to Rip Sanders, also a lawyer in the firm.  They live in the same neighborhood in which she was raised.

“In difficult times, good people have a responsibility to step forward,” Bernstein said.  “I’ve never thought about running for office until I noticed how badly our state government is failing us.  It’s important to make sure we are funding our public schools, taking care of our retirees, and encouraging job growth.”

“We need to change the policies in Columbia so that District 78 and the state of South Carolina can again move in a positive direction.  And to change the policies, we need to change the people in the House who make the policies.”

For more information, go to www.beth4house.com.

– END –

Ms. Bernstein tells me she doesn’t know of any other Democrat currently seeking the nomination in that district.

Between the scramble for Jim Harrison’s seat and Chris Sullivan’s run for District 77, we’re seeing quite a bit of new blood take a shot at representing Richland County in the General Assembly. It could get interesting.

Standing astride the centre of the world

Burl’s mention of Zulu time in connection with my DST rant reminds me of my experience standing at the center of space and time itself at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich last year.

The above picture was taken just after 4 p.m. on New Year’s Day 2011, meaning that the sun had gone down — none of that mucking about with saving daylight that irritates me so in this country. Hence the murky photo. Off to my right you can see the queue of people waiting in the misty rain to take their pictures in front of the astrolabe-looking thing that you see there, and some sort of plaque or sign. I don’t know what it was because I saw no reason to wait in the queue. I just went around to the other side and stood astride the Prime Meridian, precisely at O degrees longitude.

Something struck me about the patient souls waiting on the other side of the big astrolabe was that so many of them were foreign, and I don’t mean European foreign or American foreign like me, but Asians and Africans, and peoples from the subcontinent. It seemed… ironic… that people from places subjugated long ago by the British Empire should come to play tourist at the place where it all started. The development by the Brits of reliable methods for arriving at longitude — carefully documented in the museum within — played a huge role in the way Britannia came to rule the waves. Not only in terms of projecting naval power, but the domination of world trade. And this was where so much of it happened, at the Royal Observatory. Of course, the very notion that this is the 0 point is an imperial conceit. But they’re the ones who figured it out, so that’s what we go by.

Below you see some sextants I saw at the nearby National Maritime Museum — the very instruments used for determining when it is really noon in one’s particular spot on the Earth.

I purely despise Daylight Saving Time, and I don’t think we should put up with it any more

"Make it noon."

I’m beginning this post at 11:19 a.m. on the Ides of March. That is, it’s 11:19 in real time, sun time. According to every time-keeping device within reach of me, including this laptop, it’s 12:19 p.m. (OK, 12:21 now, as I stopped to look something up.) But that’s because every time-keeping device in my vicinity lies. They are required to do so by law.

The law is the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended the lying practice of observing Daylight Saving Time for four weeks more out of the year. You know why? Because Senator Michael Enzi and Michigan Representative Fred Upton thought it would be a fine idea to move the end of it later in the fall so that kids could go trick-or-treating in daylight. Really. (As if any self-respecting spook would venture forth before darkness has fallen.) I don’t know the excuse for moving the start from April to before the middle of March, but I’m sure it is also a doozy.

Lobbying for this change were “the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores, and the National Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness.” Lobbying against, unsuccessfully, were “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the National Parent-Teacher Association, the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium, the Edison Electric Institute, and the Air Transport Association.

I had no idea that my church’s bishops were against it, but of course that makes perfect sense, as all right and moral people would be.

There are few measurements of time that are based in the natural world. There is the day, and the year, which both make sense as long as one is earthbound. Divorced from the cycles of the moon, months are nonsensical — just arbitrary devices we’ve agreed to pretend are real. The hours of the day make sense in only one way — if noon occurs at the height of the sun. In the days of sail, in the Royal Navy at least, noon was the occasion of some ceremony — the official beginning of the naval day. The captain would assemble his midshipmen on the quarterdeck and they would all shoot the sun with their sextants, and when there was agreement that indeed it was noon, the captain would say to the quartermaster, “Make it noon,” and a marine would strike the bell, and the foremast jacks would be piped to their dinner. Noon was real, it was grounded, and it provided a reference point for giving every other hour of the day meaning.

Now, the time of day is arbitrary, and I see little reason to respect it. Particularly when it robs me of an hour of sleep on my weekend, then causes me to rise before the sun every day for most of the year. Then — and this is the thing that bugs me more — it completely eliminates any enjoyment of the evening. I don’t know about you, but I am completely uninterested in eating my last meal of the day while the sun still shines. I’m a busy guy, and I continue being busy until the setting of the sun tugs at my attention. (This is rooted, I suppose, in all those years of newspaper work, when the climax of the long working day occurred in the evening.)

So the sun goes down, and we eat supper, and… it’s time to go to bed. No relaxing evening. No downtime. It’s all over. And I know I’ll have to get up an hour early in the morning. Which I resent.

I’m feeling this with particular force this week because I recently started working out everyday (I have a new elliptical trainer at home), and this week was when I started trying extra hard to do my workout in the morning rather than at night. I get that initial boost of energy from the workout, then I eat breakfast and about mid-morning I crash, and feel tired the rest of the day. I blame this on having to do my workout before the sun is up.

Some say it’s just an adjustment. Even people who don’t hate DST say the first few days are hard. I say stuff to that. I’ll hate it until the first week in November arrives.

You know, it’s not inevitable. Since DST is a false construct of man, it can be undone by man (arrogant man, who thinks he can revoke the movement of the spheres). They don’t put up with this tyranny in Arizona:

Arizona observed DST in 1967 under the Uniform Time Act because the state legislature did not enact an exemption statute that year. In March 1968, the DST exemption statute was enacted and the state of Arizona has not observed DST since 1967. This is in large part due to energy conservation: Phoenix and Tucson are hotter than any other large U.S. metropolitan area during the summer, resulting in more power usage from air conditioning units and evaporative coolers in homes and businesses.[citation needed][disputed – discuss] An extra hour of sunlight while people are active would cause people to run their cooling systems longer, thereby using more energy.[8] Local residents[who?] remember the summer of 1967, the one year DST was observed. The State Senate Majority leader at the time[citation needed] owned drive-in movie theaters and was nearly bankrupted by the practice. Movies could not start until 10:00 PM (2200) at the height of summer: well past normal hours for most Arizona residents. There has never been any serious consideration of reversing the exemption.

Did you read that? They’ve figured out in Arizona that it costs more money, because it makes you run air-conditioning longer. Well, duh. DST might, just might, make some sense if you live in Minnesota. Or back in 1918, before air-conditioning.

But it makes no kind of sense now, in South Carolina. Where are all these neo-Confederates who want to nullify every sensible act of the Congress when it comes to a useless act such as DST? How dare those damnyankees tell us to build our entire days upon a lie against God’s creation? Why, it offends all decent sensibilities.

People just accept things, as though they were sheep. Are there no men among us anymore?

I don’t know, but I wish somebody would do something. I would, but I’m too blamed tired…

Sheheen proposes joint gov/gov lite ticket

This just came in from Vincent Sheheen, the most consistent and insistent advocate for government restructuring in the Senate (a body not exactly overrun with such) in recent years:

Sheheen Calls For Joint Governor-Lt. Governor Ticket

Columbia, SC  – State Senator Vincent Sheheen (D-Camden) today called for change in the way SC elects its Lieutenant Governor. Under legislation that is pending in the state Senate, Governors and Lieutenant Governors would run on a ticket.

Senator Sheheen made the following comments:

“Recent events have demonstrated the critical need to modernize our government. The instability of government during the Sanford and Haley eras has highlighted the chaos that can be caused by bad leaders under our current system. Let’s put this legislation on the fast track and get it passed this year.  The people deserve it.”

H. 3152 –  http://scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=3152&session=&summary=B

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It’s certainly been proposed many times before. Maybe, given recent events, the idea’s time has arrived.

Senate couldn’t have made a better choice for president pro tempore than John Courson

Here you have a very fine Southern gentleman. And Courson's OK, too. Photo by Kelly Payne

Good job, gentlemen — picking John Courson to replace Glenn McConnell as president pro tempore of the Senate.

I can think of no one I’d prefer for that honor — certainly among those who would have had a realistic chance of being elected. If you’ll recall, Sen. Courson made my official, off-the-top-of-my-head list of top ten senators. And if I had made it a Top Five list, in true Nick Hornby fashion, he’d have made that, too. Some others among my faves — such as Joel Lourie and Vincent Sheheen — wouldn’t ever have been seriously considered, being both Democrats and too junior.

Why do I like Sen. Courson so much? First, he’s a Southern gentleman — the real article. There are all sorts of people who dress themselves up and strut about impersonating gentlemen, but he’s genuine. His courtliness is unfeigned, and incorporates all the best attributes of the type (as opposed to all the negatives with which cynical postmodernists would burden it). Combine that with his distinctive booming, heavily accented voice, and he’s an original character in a time when his party tends to run more to clones. (If I want to do a Courson impression, the first thing I do is think of him saying “militerih BANnuh” the way he did so many times during the debates over the Confederate flag.)

His credentials as a conservative Republican, from back before it was cool in SC, are impeccable. He speaks of Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond (and the Marine Corps — he flies that particular military banner in front of his house) as though reciting the pantheon of his gods. And yet he has been repeatedly returned to office by his Shandon constituency, largely the same one that keeps re-electing James Smith. He accomplishes this by faithfully serving all of his constituents, and by dealing with everyone in the State House, regardless of party, with the same scrupulous fairness and courtesy.

It’s no accident, then, that the Democrats in the Senate voted for him 18-0 yesterday, while a large majority of Republican votes went to Harvey Peeler. Nothing against Harvey — he’s an awesome Tweeter — but as the head of the GOP caucus, he has come to represent the partisanship that has infected the Senate since it first started taking note of party lines about a decade ago. As evidenced by this.

Here’s what John had to say after his election:

“I feel very honored,” said Courson, who has been a member of the Senate since 1985 and is an insurance executive at Keenan Suggs Insurance in Columbia. “This position is elected by senators themselves so it is a real honor to have my fellow senators support me. But I’m also pleased that I received bipartisan support.”

When’s the last time you heard a Republican in SC say that? Or even have occasion to?

You might say that John Courson is about as close as you can get to an actual UnParty elected official. Of course, that invites attacks on him from the RINO hunters, but such people are beneath contempt. As if they would have the right to judge Courson’s suitability as a Republican. And that’s the contradictory thing about John — he’s very UnParty, and yet it’s hard to think of anybody who’s been a more loyal Republican as he has, or for as long as he has.

Finally, if McConnell does run for his old seat and vacate the job of lieutenant governor — well, I would feel better about that particular office than I have in a long time, with John Courson in it. Although he would be missed in the Senate.

Full disclosure — about three years ago, right after I got laid off at the paper, a bulky envelope arrived in the mail at my home. It was from John Courson, and it contained a new Legislative Manual. I don’t know why he sent it to me — maybe he supposed that being unemployed, I couldn’t afford my own. But I appreciated it. It was like John was going out of his way to keep me in the loop, letting me know I was someone still worth doing this for. (I am not in his district, by the way, or even close.) Each year since then, he has sent me the new manual. The ironic thing about this is that I used to assign Cindi Scoppe to supply me with up-to-date manuals, and she hated running that errand, and used to put it off, sometimes neglecting it for a full year. So I’m better-supplied with manuals than I was at the paper.

Sheriff endorses Runyan for council

First, a heads-up — I’ve got interviews set with several of the candidates for city council over the next few days, so watch this space. The election is three weeks from tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here’s a item from Cameron Runyan that came in today:

SHERIFF LEON LOTT ENDORSES CAMERON RUNYAN FOR CITY COUNCIL

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia City Council at-large candidate Cameron Runyan has received the support of Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott in the at-large election on the April 3 ballot.

“I know that Cameron will lead the fight to improve public safety for all of Columbia,” Lott said. “I’m encouraging voters across Columbia to join me in supporting him for City Council in the April 3 election.”


Added Lott, “Cameron recently went above and beyond to complete the Columbia Police Department’s Citizens Police Academy. I applaud him for making a deep commitment to gaining the knowledge and experience necessary to understand the needs of our law enforcement officers.”

The Citizens Police Academy is a 10-week program that gives residents a first-hand look at law enforcement in Columbia.

“Cameron also understands the importance of creative community policing in our city and the need for community involvement,” said Lott. “He has made a commitment to giving our first responders the technology and resources they need to keep our community safe. And I know that on council his top priority will be working with me and Chief Scott to crack down on crime.”

Runyan thanked Lott for his endorsement and noted the Sheriff’s long record of accomplishment.

“Sheriff Lott is an incredible leader who has created a world-class sheriff’s department and has worked tirelessly to keep our city and county safe,” Runyan said. “I thank him for his dedication to improving public safety and I would be honored to have the opportunity to work closely with him as a member of City Council.”

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By the way, I should stress that it’s Leon Lott who is endorsing Cameron, not me. Seeing as how Leon is my twin and all, I just want to avoid any confusion…

But seriously, folks — I met Cameron’s opponent Robert Bolchoz (also seeking the at-large seat is Joe Azar) at Rotary today and got his card. I hope to be speaking with him soon, along with the others…

Gas prices pull GOP hopefuls even with Obama

Put this in the “maybe Democracy isn’t such a good idea after all” department…

This from The Washington Post:

Disapproval of President Obama’s handling of the economy is heading higher — alongside gasoline prices — as a record number of Americans now give the president “strongly” negative reviews on the 2012 presidential campaign’s most important issue, according to anew Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Increasingly pessimistic views of Obama’s performance on the economy — and on the federal budget deficit — come despite a steadily brightening employment picture and other signs of economic improvement, and they highlight the political sensitivity of rising gas prices.

The potential political con­sequences are clear, with the ­rising public disapproval reversing some of the gains the president had made in hypothetical general-election matchups against possible Republican rivals for the White House. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) now both run about evenly with Obama. The findings come just five weeks after Obama appeared to be getting a boost from the improving economy.

Gas prices are a main culprit: Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation at the pump, where rising prices have already hit hard. Just 26 percent approve of his work on the issue, his lowest rating in the poll. Most Americans say higher prices are already taking a toll on family finances, and nearly half say they think that prices will continue to rise, and stay high…

So basically, when gasoline prices head back down, suddenly Obama will be a great president and get credit for the improving economy? Yes, probably. Which shows how ridiculous this stuff gets.

And then, if the president’s new best friend Israel goes ahead and attacks Iran, and that leads to even higher gas prices, suddenly he’ll be a loser again, right? Yep, and the GOP candidates will probably be criticizing him for not being supportive enough of Israel’s actions, while at the same time they will pound him over the natural economic effect of Israel’s action. And the voters will probably swallow that, too.

Democracy is the worst system, except for all the others. Democracy is the worst system, except for all the others. Democracy is the worst system, except for all the others…

I’m just going to keep saying it, until I feel better…

Graham favors ‘rebate’ on Yucca Mountain

This came in earlier today:

Graham Legislation Provides ‘Rebate’ to Consumers, Utilities, and Communities for Obama Administration’s Refusal to Open Yucca Mountain

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), one of the strongest supporters of nuclear energy in the Senate, has introduced legislation, The Nuclear Waste Fund Relief and Rebate Act.

Electric utilities have been paying into the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund to construct and operate a permanent federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.  The utilities have been charging their costumers a monthly fee in each electricity bill to make these payments.  According to the latest information, South Carolina residents alone have already contributed more than $1.3 billion to the fund, which has collected a total of more than $35 billion in fees.

The legislation introduced by Graham would rebate these monies back to electric utilities and consumers.  Seventy-five percent of the amount rebated to utilities would be returned to their customers and the remaining portion will be used to make upgrades to on-site storage facilities.

Additionally, the legislation authorizes payments to states currently housing defense nuclear waste scheduled to be transferred to Yucca Mountain.  These payments begin in 2017, the date in which Yucca Mountain was to set to receive shipments of defense nuclear waste.

“No one should be required to pay for an empty hole in the Nevada desert,” said Graham.  “The decision by the Obama Administration to close Yucca Mountain was ill-advised and leaves our nation without a disposal plan for spent nuclear fuel or Cold War waste.  It was a political, not scientific, decision.  It is incumbent on the Administration to come up with a disposal plan for this real problem facing our nation.”

The major provisions of the Graham legislation include:

·         Presidential Certification: The Department of Energy has spent billions of dollars and decades studying the suitability of Yucca Mountain as the nation’s repository for spent nuclear fuel and defense waste.  Consistently, the science has borne out that Yucca Mountain is the best site to dispose of nuclear waste.  Within 30 days of passage, the President must certify that Yucca Mountain remains the preferred choice to serve as the federal repository for spent nuclear fuel and defense-related nuclear waste.

·         Failure to Certify Leads to Rebates: If the President fails to make the above certification, or revokes the certification at a later date, all funds currently in the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund shall be rebated back to the utilities.  Seventy-five percent of the amount rebated to utilities would be returned to their customers and the remaining money will be used to make security and storage upgrades at existing nuclear power plants.

·         Defense Waste: Currently, there is at least 12,800 metric tons of defense-related waste at nuclear weapons complex facilities around the country.  Unlike commercial spent fuel, this waste has no potential future defense or civilian uses.  In many states, the accumulated waste poses the largest potential public health threat.  In order to help mitigate the risk associated with the indefinite storage of defense waste, the legislation authorizes payments of up to $100 million per year if defense waste has not begun to have left the states by 2017.

·         Waste Confidence: In order to continue to renew or issue licenses for civilian nuclear power plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must have reasonable confidence that the waste will be disposed of safely.  The legislation includes waste confidence language that allows for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue to license nuclear reactors in the event the Presidential certification is not made.

“Our nation needs real options as a result of the uncertainty created by the Obama Administration’s change in policy,” said Graham.  “I will push this legislation forward and hope to have the full Senate on-the-record on this important issue.”

Co-sponsors of the legislation include Senators Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), John McCain (R-Arizona), Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin).

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I don’t know what y’all think, but personally, I don’t want a rebate. I just want want the president to shove Harry Reid aside and put the national repository where it belongs, at Yucca Mountain.

I sort of think that’s what Sen. Graham really wants, too.

Well, he’s got THAT much right…

Slate brings my attention to the following:

House Speaker John Boehner spoke with theWall Street Journal’‘s Peggy Noonan and implied there are some members of Congress who should not be in leadership positions. “We got some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of the dumbest,” Boehner said. “We got some of the best people you’d ever meet, and some of the raunchiest.”

Well, he’s got part of it right, anyway.

Let’s all be Fascist Anarchists. Or whatever. Doesn’t really matter, as long as everybody’s in.

Ferris wouldn't care if we were fascist anarchists. It still wouldn't change the fact that he doesn't own a car.

Corey Hutchins sends out a link to his ‘splainer on Ken Ard. In a nod to the cultural references of us old people, the headline begins, “An Ard Rain’s Gonna Fall…”

Corey and the Free Times are of course feeling validated by how this story came out. Or if they aren’t, they at least have reason to, as The New York Times notes:

A grand jury had been investigating Mr. Ard since July. He has already paid more than $72,000 in fines and other costs after an ethics commission found he improperly spent funds after winning election. His violation of campaign laws was first reported by The Free Times in Columbia.

But I had to take exception to a sidenote that Corey included in the email in which he shared the link. He wrote, “This story details the rise and fall of South Carolina’s first-term GOP lieutenant governor, Ken Ard, who resigned today amid a campaign finance scandal. It might serve as a caution for the idea of a one-party state…”

I responded:

Oh, I think a one-party state would be wonderful. Everyone just go ahead and say they’re Republicans, or Democrats, or Federalists, or Fascist Anarchists. It doesn’t matter what we call it (the names usually end up being meaningless as soon as parties grow large enough to win elections, anyway), as long as everybody’s in.

Then the voters will have to choose candidates based on their individual characters and qualifications, rather than according to which letter they have after their names.

One-party means NO party. Because you have to have two for the idiocy of partisanship.

Here’s what you say when you don’t like hearing good news

Just now got to this Joe Wilson release from yesterday. The headline, “Wilson Reacts to February Jobs Report,” made me curious to see how Joe would try to make good employment news sound bad, and of course make it the fault of those awful liberal Democrats. Here’s how:

West Columbia, SC – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) released the following statement regarding the latest unemployment report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning:

“For the past three years, our nation’s unemployment has remained above eight percent.  Almost one million Americans have lost their jobs since the President was sworn into office.   According to recent Congressional Budget Office study, when considering every American who is currently without a job, our actual unemployment rate is 15.2 percent.  The President promised that with the passage of his failed stimulus package in February 2009, the unemployment rate would not exceed eight percent. It is clear that the President’s failed policies and broken promises are not helping Americans find employment, but simply growing our national debt.

“Over the past year, House Republicans have passed dozens of job creating bills, most with bipartisan support.  A majority of these pieces of legislation remain stalled in the Senate.  Just yesterday, the House passed the JOBS Act, a collection of legislation that will help small business startups grow and expand, which will lead to job creation.  It is my hope that the liberal-controlled Senate will take immediate action on the pending legislation in efforts to spur economic growth.  It is past the time for Congress to work together to offset the failed policies the President has implemented and help put Americans back to work.”

There’s an art to this. A crude, lumpish sort of art, but an art nevertheless, with conventions to be followed. For instance, do you notice how he pointedly avoids the fact that President Obama supports the JOBS Act that he praises? That’s standard procedure in this genre. The president can only be mentioned in terms of “failed policies.” One must never, ever acknowledge that he supports the same policy that you do, because then you can’t paint politics in terms of a black-and-white battle between pure good and pure evil, and you don’t get to whip up your contributors as to how horrible the opposition is, so that they keep writing checks.

One grows so tired of this sort of thing.

Glenn McConnell’s full statement

Trying to catch up with my e-mail, I see that Wesley Donehue sent me this yesterday. I quoted McConnell’s statement in part earlier (or rather, quoted The State quoting it), but here is the whole thing. Hope you can read it OK:

As I said, he’s a guy taking a bullet for principle. He’s not enjoying himself.

A Gov. McConnell might be a GOOD thing for SC

Now I’m going to get WAY out ahead of events, and do some real blue-sky speculating.

Glenn McConnell is now, to his great chagrin, our lieutenant governor. That means two things:

  1. He’s had to give up arguably the most powerful position in our government.
  2. If the governor leaves office precipitously, he will be our governor.

Several people have already speculated that, knowing Nikki Haley as we do, they would not be surprised if she suddenly left office, and not in the way she may fantasize about doing. What might be the final straw for her? I have no idea. But after the stuff we’ve seen around here the last few years, I’m not sure anything would surprise me any more. None of us who knew him thought Mark Sanford would be off in Argentina cheating on his wife. (Although, of course, he weathered that.)

Some have even speculated that McConnell is privy to information that could lead to such an eventuality. I don’t believe that.

But let’s just say it did happen. And it wouldn’t have to involve scandal. Say, for instance, Jim Demint were named Romney’s running mate (shudder) and she appointed herself in his place.

Then, we’d have a Gov. Glenn McConnell. Which is something I have never had cause to contemplate before. I couldn’t imagine him ever lowering himself (by his lights) to seek the office. But now we have at least the possibility that at some point it could drop into his lap.

So I’m thinking about it.

And what I’m thinking is that it could turn out to be a positive thing for South Carolina.

Oh, he’d often be pretty maddening, because of his ideological idiosyncrasies. But he would take the job of governing well seriously — just as he has always taken the job of senator — and would have a better idea of what that means than anyone who has held the office since Carroll Campbell, or even Dick Riley.

The last person even to run for governor who had as clear an understanding of how government works in South Carolina was when Joe Riley ran in 1994. Of course, Joe would have been a wonderful governor, far better than McConnell, because he also has a deep understanding of the state’s needs, and no ideological objections to using the power of government to address them. And for that matter, knowledge of the system isn’t everything. Take Vincent Sheheen. Vincent has more understanding of the system than most senators (which is why he has been a thoughtful reformer), just not as much (I think) as McConnell. But Vincent would be far more interested in using the bully pulpit of the governor to help our state catch up to the rest of the country economically and in other ways.

But while McConnell would be more reactive, and much more parsimonious in the exercise of power, when he did act, it would be with a sense of responsibility and wisdom, which are things that have been in short supply in that office.

You may not realize that about him. People tend to caricature him as the guy who likes to dress up and play war, and spend money on Hunley.

But while I’ve given him grief over the years for resisting reform (at least, when it involves empowering the executive branch), I know that he has been a significant reformer in his own right. He is responsible for tremendous improvements, for instance, in our judicial selection process, making it much more merit-based. It’s not the reform that I would want — I want the governor to appoint, and the senate confirm, making the political branches co-equal partners in shaping the third branch. But as a defender of the legislative prerogative, he nevertheless saw the need to inject merit into the system, and reduce the influence of mere political popularity and horse-trading. He succeeded in doing that, which was a considerable achievement, and we reap the benefits today.

I think he would do things like that as governor. He wouldn’t want to change things, but when he saw the need for action, he would act to the best of his ability.

And the best of his ability, as the most skilled parliamentarian of his generation, would greatly exceed the skill we’ve seen in such a position in many a year. Once he made up his mind to reform something, it would flat get reformed.

Sometimes — perhaps all of the time — in politics, the best candidate for an office is the person who would never, ever seek it. In a Gov. McConnell, were such to come about, we just might see the truth in that.

Topping off today’s news, Ard pleads to 7 counts

After the ground-shaking news of Glenn McConnell surrendering power, this is sort of anticlimactic:

Columbia, SC (WLTX) – Former South Carolina Lt. Governor Ken Ard pleaded guilty Friday to seven counts of state ethics violations.

Ard appeared in a Richland County Circuit courtroom at 2 p.m., about an hour after South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson revealed the state grand jury’s indictment against the embattled politician.

Wilson told reporters that a state grand jury indicted Ard for what Wilson calls the “creation of a fictitious campaign.”

Here’s the indictment that Alan Wilson told about at his presser, along with video.

From that event:

Wilson said Ard was trying to create the impression of a groundswell of support for his candidacy. The contributions were what Wilson called “phantom” contributions –and unusual for South Carolina.

“To our knowledge, the creation of such a fictitious campaign had never been criminally charged before in this state’s history,” Wilson said.

The charges are misdemeanor charges….

As misdemeanors go, though, it was a lulu.