Monthly Archives: July 2012

Actually, they didn’t believe in factions, period

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I have to take issue with this Independence Day message put out by Vincent Sheheen:

Independence day is a time to remember what our forebears fought for and believed in.  They believed in an independent country where citizens could join together in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.   They did not believe in a government dominated and controlled by one faction.

Unfortunately, that’s what we have here in South Carolina.  And all I can say is – a government controlled by one party dominance in the Governor’s office, House, and Senate does not work.

Sheheen

Instead of working on improving public schools, these people are fighting to take away public money and send it to private schools.

Instead of fighting to protect the environment, these people are working to undermine it.

Instead of trying to bring the citizens of South Carolina together, black and white, rich and poor; they are continuing to divide us.

While regular people have been struggling to make ends meet, our state government has been using public taxpayer dollars and time to fly all around the country and world.

Instead of seeing honest leadership, South Carolina has continued to see scandal at the highest levels of government.

Nothing will change unless we change it.  Let’s all work together, Democrats and Republicans, for common sense solutions.

I am still a believer in America and South Carolina.  Happy July 4!

Actually, Vincent, they didn’t believe in ANY factions. In other words, the “healthy” two-party system you seem to be invoking here was not their aim.

Of course, they turned right around and, practically in the same breath, created two parties that ripped into each other with a viciousness that we would recognize today.

But, in terms of what the Framers thought right for the country (before Madison and Hamilton became the driving forces behind our first bout of hyperpartisanship), they wanted as much as possible to limit the influence of parties:

Madison

Madison

AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular Governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular Governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American Constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our Governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true…

Thus spake “PUBLIUS.”

Sadly, it didn’t work out that way. In fact, it SO didn’t work out that way that it’s a bit hard to believe that James Madison, who would so soon be the chief hatchetman of the Democratic Republicans, wrote those words.

Oh, as for wishing us all a happy Fourth: One of the Founders I regard as most consistently sincere in despising faction, John Adams, thought we’d celebrate on the 2nd, which after all is when the Congress voted for independence. Which makes sense. But I suppose I’m picking nits here.

The side of Andy we don’t choose to remember

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I just thought I’d put this up to remind everyone what Andy Griffith was actually capable of as an actor.

This was the only time he showed this kind of scary depth. And I suppose the reason for that is, people preferred his lighter, friendlier side. People didn’t want to be frightened by Andy Griffith. If I had been his agent, I confess, I’d have recommended he keep on being Andy Taylor, so I can’t blame anyone that he never developed a Robert De Niro/Edward Norton kind of rep. His being typecast made the world a warmer place.

But he had this talent, so it should be acknowledged.

God rest you, Andy Griffith

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Well, I reckon it had to happen someday, but I declare I wish it wasn’t so:

Beloved actor Andy Griffith died this morning.

Former UNC President Bill Friday says The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock actor died at his home in Dare County, North Carolina around 7 a.m.

Friday, who is a close friend of the actor, confirmed the news to WITN News.

Some will think back on ol’ Andy and remember such irrelevancies as “Matlock,” which I never took any interest in. That image is apparently indelible, though. On Saturday, I was sitting out in the 108-degree sun at a wedding, and the guy in front of me commented on someone up ahead wearing a seersucker jacket, and said something like, “Somebody went with the Matlock look.” (If he’d turned around, he’d have seen someone wearing a full seersucker suit, which of course was the only thing to wear. This guy was in black, if you can believe it.)

But that’s not the impression Andy left on me, or on most people, I suspect.

To me, he’s the character of his youth. He’s the enthusiastic innocent of “No Time for Sergeants.” He’s the really scary, dark side of that character in “A Face in the Crowd” (in an awe-inspiring performance that I never saw him equal since — although few would want to remember him for that).

But mostly, he’s Andy Taylor, the Sheriff Without A Gun. And I mean the early Sheriff Taylor, in black and white, with Barney Fife, before he got jaded and bored with the character (his portrayal is unrecognizable in the later episodes, after Opie stopped being cute).

For the Andy Taylor I know, there’s a perfect heaven. It’s on the front porch of his house in Mayberry, just a-settin’ there rockin’ with Barney after one of Aunt Bea’s Mmmm-mmmm! dinners. Maybe he’s strumming the guitar a bit, but not too energetically. And he’s engaged in this sort of conversation:

Andy: You know what would be a good idea? If we all went up town and got a bottle of pop…
Barney: That’s a good idea, if we all went up town to get a bottle of pop.
Andy: You think Mr. Tucker would like to go?
Barney: Why don’t we ask him… if he’d like to go uptown to get a bottle of pop?
Andy: Mr. Tucker?
(No response from Mr. Tucker)
Andy: You wanna lets me and you go?
Barney: Where?
Andy: Uptown to get a bottle of pop?

That’s the sort of peace most anyone would like to rest in…

Your Virtual Front Page, Monday, July 2, 2012

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Kind of a mushy news day, but some interesting stuff:

  1. GlaxoSmithKline ‘guilty of fraud’ (BBC) — Not usually the sort of thing I’d lead with, but it’s about the hardest news going.
  2. Peña Nieto: Mexicans have given party a second chance (The Guardian) — Yep, I had to look to a British publication for well-played coverage of the election in the country that shares a huge and porous border with ours. As usual.
  3. US Justice Department again nixes SC voter ID law (AP) — And so it is that more human energy is wasted on this more or less pointless battle between the parties.
  4. Experts find ‘God particle’ … sort of (AP) — Scientists expected to say they’ve found evidence of the particle, even if they haven’t seen the particle itself. Sounds kind of like the scientific equivalent of seeing a burning bush. Or something. I’m not the one to explain it.
  5. Romney campaign, at odds with GOP, says mandate is not a tax (WashPost) — This is the freakiest development of the day. Essentially, Romney’s campaign is agreeing with Obama, and refusing to go along with the gathering Republican consensus on the Excuse of the Day for hating Obamacare.
  6. Anderson Cooper says he’s gay (NYT) — I’m sort in an SDII position on this one, in that I only halfway know who Anderson Cooper is (I knew he was a TV guy with white hair). Frankly, I thought the reason he gave in this report for not talking about his sexuality ere now a good one. But nobody’s asking me.

So is fishin’. And eatin’. And watchin’ TV…

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This morning, I saw something that made me feel good, in advance, about any tag lines or campaign themes I might come up with for ADCO this week.

“Huntin’ is good!” it insisted. Not just hunting, but huntin’, which I suppose is meant to convey a certain deep and informal intimacy with this particular activity.

What really grabbed me was the registered trademark symbol, which seemed to assume that this phrase was just so darned clever that it was inevitable that some unscrupulous varmint would be tempted to try to steal it…

But I declare, I don’t believe I’ve ever run across anything as vanilla as that in my life. There was no indication why huntin’ was good, or why anyone might think it wasn’t. It didn’t say it was particularly good in this or that locality, or at any particular time. Nor did it bother to reach for any adjective more descriptive or precise or evocative than good.

It was a marvel, and I had to look it up on my phone during the morning meeting at work. That’s where I found this website, huntinisgood.com, which offers all sorts of merchandise, such as the very decal I had seen.

The website seems dedicated to perpetuating the art or hobby or whatever of hunting at a time when the number of hunters is dwindling in our once rugged, intrepid nation of pioneers. I had known that. I had read before about how the industry was worried about how few children of hunters were taking up their forefathers’ outdoorsiness, and how marketers were trying to entice the kids, as well as women, to the pasttime with such innovations as pink rifles.

But I had never seen such a full litany of threats to hunting as what were detailed on this site:

Hunting Industry Under Attack

Tracking Down An Industry-Wide Problem. Across the United States, and for well over three decades, the population of hunters in our country has been on the decline. Since 1975 alone, the number of hunters in the field has been reduced by over one third.

Since the issue of attrition within the hunting community has only recently become a cause for serious concern, usable research is still limited. But just as writers, industry experts and retailers all speculate on the causes, we have developed our own list of suspects which have created a negative impact on the hunting culture.

Erosion Of The Family Unit. With divorce rates and single parent families on the rise, the number of Dads and Grandfathers in a position to mentor our youth, and pass on an appreciation for the hunting culture, are dwindling fast.

The Anti-Hunting Community. Highly organized, with seemingly unlimited budgets, their goal, simply put, is the elimination of the hunting industry.

The Lure Of Technology. These days, our children are “jacked-in” to video games, hunting only in Cyber Space. They’ve become masters of Wi-Fi and pixels, not the way of the woods.

Industry Fragmentation. We have evolved into a highly fragmented industry… bow hunters, turkey hunters, rifle hunters, safari hunters, duck hunters, muzzle-loaders, gator hunters, low-fence, no-fence, high-fence… it’s all become a lot of nonsense!

One thing we can all agree on 100% is that:
Huntin’ Is Good!®

The day is fast approaching when we all must decide a course of action, or face the reality that our industry, and the way of life it represents, may become extinct.

It’s time we draw the line! The Hunting Tradition, and its’ Way of Life, needs your help! Please wear your HIG gear soon and often. This will let other’s know, what you already know, Huntin’ Is Good!

Whoa. Huntin’ may or may not be good — I’m neutral on that point — but it certainly seems endangered. Either that, or paranoid. (Of course, if some outfit as ominously named as the Anti-Hunting Community got after you, you’d be paranoid, too!)

I’ve never gotten into it myself. I like to go out shooting now and then with my uncle in Bennettsville, who does hunt, but I prefer to shoot at tin cans and pine cones to living things. On account of the fact that pine cones don’t have to be skinned and dressed and butchered and put up in some freezer bigger than the one I have at home. They’re just a lot less trouble.

A new record — thanks for reading, & keep it up!

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I’m still sort of scratching my head, trying to figure out what went right, but the blog set a new traffic record in June — actually, it blew the old record away.

The old record was 272,417 page views, set in January. That was understandable. It was the month of the SC Republican presidential primary. The record month on my old blog — the one I had at the paper — was set in January 2008. Interestingly, that record was only about 85,000 page views. I continue to marvel that my readership is so much greater than when I had my name on the masthead of South Carolina’s largest newspaper ever day. Such is the power of social media, I suppose.

It took me three years to log my first million page views. Now, I’ve done better than that in the last four months (1,023,091, to be exact). Or perhaps I should say, we’ve done better. Our growing community of regular contributors are a solid part of the blog’s appeal, based on anecdotal evidence.

News that draws in readers from outside SC — such as presidential primaries — always means a bump in traffic. For instance, the first time I drew a quarter of a million page views was the month that Alvin Greene and the allegations against Nikki Haley broke nationally — June 2010. It was a long time after that — August 2011 — before I exceeded that mark again.

Now, it’s well on its way to becoming routine.

So what was the number in June? It was 282,271, which beats January’s record by almost 10,000. Actually, it was more significant than that, because it was a 30-day month going up against a 30-day record. The daily average page views in June was 9,409, as opposed to 8,787 in January. In other words, if there had been 31 days in June, the total would have been more like 291,680 — closer to 20,000 over the previous record.

So what’s causing this? I don’t know, other than that readership is just steadily ratcheting up. Looking back, I see nothing in June that would have drawn much national attention — in fact, nothing much at all out of the ordinary.

So all I can say is, thanks for reading. And please keep it up.