Monthly Archives: December 2015

I’ve been way busy on this week off

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My great-great grandparents, C.L. and Mattie Pace, with their three eldest children, before my grandmother was born.

My great-great grandparents, C.L. and Mattie Pace, with their three eldest children, before my grandmother was born.

Just to let y’all know I haven’t forgotten about you…

I’m off from work this week, ,which should mean plenty of time for blogging. And indeed, I’ve spent most of the week busy at my laptop.

My Uncle Braxton in formal uniform, about the time of the Korean War, in which he was a tank platoon commander.

My Uncle Braxton in formal uniform about the time of the Korean War, in which he was a tank platoon commander.

But rather than writing about the events of the day (and I think you’ll agree with me that these days have been pretty uneventful), I’ve been writing about things that happened 60, 70, 80 and more years ago.

My Mom has been working on family memoirs. Every since her brother Braxton suggested the project, she’s applied herself very industriously, and I am her typist. I thought I would be wrapping up the typing phase today, but Mom just handed me 20 more fairly densely-packed pages, so my goal now is to finish before going back to work Monday.

I’ve been pausing in the typing every few pages to work on scanning in a great trove of family pictures. Eventually, I plan to create a family website for relatives far and near, consisting of my Mom’s work and perhaps other members’ contributions.

This project has had precedence. I’ll get back to blogging more regularly ASAP.

Just to give y’all an extra treat… Most of what I’ve been helping to chronicle deals with things that happened before I was born (and I’ve learned a great deal from it). But on a separate track, we’re in the middle of having family home movies and videos digitized. Below you see me in a low-res image from an 8 mm film. I’m strolling in a park in Charleston in 1956. In those days, you see, a gentleman kept his bow tie on for such activities…

balloon

Let us speak frankly and openly of ‘The Force Awakens’

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Look, Chewie! It turns out Thomas Wolfe was completely wrong!

Look, Chewie! It turns out Thomas Wolfe was completely wrong!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

OK, I’ve seen the new “Star Wars” now (I deliberately waited until a quiet Monday night more than a week after the opening, and was rewarded by not having to put up with a boisterous crowd), and if you’re much of a fan you’ve probably seen it now, too.

So let’s speak openly of what we’ve seen, which means we will speak almost entirely in SPOILERS.

Well, what did you think?

I’ll start…

First, it was great. I was not disappointed. No, not as great as seeing the first one 38 years ago, when Han Solo and I were both young and roguish and I wasn’t expecting to see anything that much fun; it was a miraculous surprise. That time, I drove away from the theater — the Park in Memphis — filled with the excitement of the Death Star battle scene, and could not shake the feeling that my sad little orange Chevy Vega was an X-wing fighter. The sensory stimulation was with me for some time.

This time I was more grounded as I left. I knew I was driving a Buick. But I did catch myself humming the theme music — rather loudly, so it was hard to miss.

No, I’m not kidding: Spoilers are coming right NOW…

And it gave me goosebumps at all the right places — when the newbie heroes find the Millennium Falcon. When Han and Chewie come aboard (and Chewie was more fun than ever in this one; he’s obviously been working on the timing of his comically expressive shrugs and Wookie noises), when Leia steps off that ship and sees Han — even when C3PO and R2 show up.

And when, at the very end, The One is found. Which was a special delight for me because my son, who had seen it before, had tried to prepare me for disappointment by telling me he wasn’t in it. What he had meant was that he wasn’t really in it in the sense of participating in any sort of action or engaging with the rest of the characters. But that turned out to be a wonderful UNspoiler for me: There he was after all, and he was in it exactly as much as I would have hoped, since I was told from the start that the movie was about a quest to find him — it was in the trademark screen crawl at the start (which was the first occasion for goosebumps, I now recall). And there he was at the end! So the movie has that going for it, which, as Carl Spackler would say, is nice.

I had read that J.J. Abrams didn’t try to get fancy: He knew what the fans liked and he gave it to them. He was like Paul McCartney. You know how most rock stars hate doing their hits for their fans, and despise the multitude for not appreciating their new stuff? Not Paul. He’s always loved being a Beatle, and he’ll give you “All My Loving” ’til the cows come home.

And he delivered. No fanboy would have done it better. But at this point I will share a few quibbles:

  1. Was it absolutely necessary to follow the plot of the original quite that closely? Let’s see… Desperate character plants a software file in a droid because the bad guys are bearing down. Evil empire searches for the droid. Humble character (who is unknowingly chock full o’ the Force) rescues droid from creepy little scavenger creature. Heroes, including one who wants nothing to do with heroism, are borne to the rebel base by the Millennium Falcon, which offers mechanical trouble on the way. Then it turns out that the main threat to the rebellion comes from — a Death Star. OK, so it’s way bigger than a Death Star, but as Han says, yeah, so it’s big; so what? It turns out to have — you guessed it — an enormous, obvious vulnerability on its surface. Hit it and the whole thing blows. (Apparently.  the engineering standards in this galaxy far, far away were not very exacting.) And — a bonus — this vulnerable spot is WAY bigger than a womp rat. So you know this evil base is going to go kablooey. The only question is whether our heroes can get clear of it in time.
  2. Were those really quibbles, or were all those elements precisely what made it so much fun? I remain unsure.
  3. What a wuss of a bad guy! The first time he takes off his helmet, one can’t help thinking, What, they couldn’t get David Schwimmer? They had to go with this poor substitute nebbish? In the climactic fight, he gets beaten not just by a girl half his size, but by a girl half his size with no Jedi training whatsoever. There he is looming over her, wrestling for the light sabers, and she evidently has much greater upper body strength. My older son pointed out after the movie that he had been shot by Chewbacca’s crossbow weapon, which they had demonstrated several times during the film had quite a kick to it, so there’s that. He wasn’t at his best. But still, I’ll say it again: What a wuss of a villain.
  4. Speaking of which… We’re all looking for Luke because we need him, right? And we need him why? Because the Force was always so strong with him. But he was a slouch compared to this girl. She’s able to use Jedi Mind Control as effectively as Obi Wan himself, when she’d probably never even heard of it? I half expected it to backfire, and have the trooper slap himself in the forehead and say, “Those were the droids we were looking for!” But no. It worked. Worked so beautifully that they had a little fun with it. So what does she need Luke for? She’s got all the chops now. She’s got the mind control thing. She can already take out the baddest guy the Dark Side can whistle up. Why bother? Let him stay on his craggy little island…
  5. Oh, and the low point of the movie — when the beloved character is killed? Some people behind me gasped and cried out in shock. Really? They didn’t see that coming? I knew it was over when he walked out on that catwalk thing. I’m sad about it and all, but he was awesome to the end.

OK, that’s all — and I’m stretching to come up with those, just to get a conversation started.

Really, truly, quibbles aside, I loved it. Just as I was supposed to…

Did you read my comments in the NYT?

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Over the weekend, the NYT finally ran that piece by Richard Fausset, in which he quoted me on the subject of the Confederate flag.

Some people are nationally recognized experts on quantum physics. Others are sought after for what they have to say about macroeconomics. Me, I’m seen as a boffin on South Carolina’s cheesy, nylon, fake Confederate flag.

Hey, it’s something. And if anybody’s got an idea on how to monetize this, my super-power, I’m listening.

Anyway, here’s my bit in the story:

The museum is also full of Confederate battle flags that were used by South Carolinians during the war — unlike the flag that was removed from the State House. That makes the whole issue of honoring the State House flag in the museum particularly absurd to critics like Brad Warthen, a former editorial page editor at The State in Columbia, who now blogs about South Carolina politics.

Mr. Warthen has noted that legislators, years ago, mandated that the flag be made of nylon, rather than cotton, to keep the colors from fading. He ridiculed this as ahistorical and “cheesy.” (One of his old columns began with altered lyrics to the song “Dixie”: “Oh, I wish I was in the land of nylon.”)

Like many here, Mr. Warthen believes that spending millions to display the flag makes little sense in a state that is struggling to find funds for road and infrastructure repairs (much needed after catastrophic flooding in October), educational initiatives and changes to a scandal-plagued Department of Social Services.

“Our state’s spending needs are legion,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter how you feel about the flag. It’s a ridiculous waste of resources.”…

I tweeted about this Sunday morning, and Phillip Bush responded:

Yeah, it’s pretty cool. This may be my first time in that august publication. I’ve been in the WSJ once or twice, but not, as I recall, in the Gray Lady. It’s nice to be quoted in a paper where they call you “mister.”

But think about it: Donald Trump is in there every day. So, you know…

Personally, I’ve never seen a Telnaes cartoon I liked

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cruz23n-2-web

Last night, Bryan Caskey brought the above cartoon to my attention. Apparently, it was presented in a context that indicated that the monkeys represented Ted Cruz’ young daughters.

My only reaction was this:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Ann Telnaes cartoon that I liked. Don’t like her style, and I can’t recall when she’s ever had a good idea. I never used her in the paper…

In other words, I think the cartoon stinks. But then, that’s my standard reaction to her work. With actually good cartoonists losing their jobs to cost-cutting in recent years, it rather surprises me that she has kept hers.

Today, it seems, that cartoon is a huge deal in social media. And Telnaes’ editor has withdrawn it from the Post‘s website, with this explanation:

Editor’s note from Fred Hiatt: It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.

So, it seems that even an editor who does normally run her cartoons won’t run this one.

Cruz has used this as a way of damning all journalists, because, you know, we’re all responsible. Just one, big, colonial animal. It plays well with his base.

But hey, a guy gets to rant a bit when defending his kids…

Oh, yeah? Trying cutting it by $5.3 million

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The last time I saw the flag in question. I'd be happiest if it remained the last time.

The last time I saw the flag in question. I’d be happiest if it remained the last time.

Don’t know whether you saw this story this morning:

The Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum Commission on Tuesday lowered to $3.6 million a proposal for displaying the Confederate battle flag that was removed from the State House grounds in July.

The new proposal is about $1.7 million less than what a consultant proposed earlier this month. The new plan also reduces projected annual operating funds to $234,000 from the consultant’s proposed $416,000.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the plan, which includes opening a new wing at the Relic Room, which is located in the same renovated textile mill as the S.C. State Museum. The proposal also includes an electronic presentation of the names of all 24,000 South Carolina Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War and the conservation and display of period Confederate battle flags now in storage. The war began when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and was fought from 1861 to 1865….

Folks, it’s still an outrage until you get down to something under $100. Actually, spending anything on displaying this inauthentic nylon knockoff is an outrage, especially at a museum containing genuine military artifacts.

Poll: Only half of voters would be embarrassed if Trump were president

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Oddly, the news accounts I’ve seen leave out the “only.” Yet to me, the fact that no more than half would feel such mortification is the startling, and alarming, news in this report.

Meanwhile, a quarter say they’d be “proud.” To quote from the wisdom of Dave Barry, I am not making this up…

Open Thread for Monday, December 21, 2015

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GrahamCoalColorAriailW

Man, the day goes by fast when you have an office Christmas party, as we did at ADCO today. But here’s some stuff for y’all to chew on. If y’all know of any better topics, please share:

  1. 6 U.S. Soldiers Are Killed by Taliban Attack in Afghanistan — Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the Taliban is “close to taking” the town of Sangin in Helmand province.
  2. WATCH: Obama Says Trump ‘Exploiting’ Anger, Fear Among ‘Blue-Collar Men’ — No wonder they cling so to God, guns and anti-immigrant sentiment. Don’t you love it when Obama explains the white working class to us? It’s like he’s looking at ants under a magnifying glass or something…
  3. Christian conservatives coalesce around Cruz — I think The Washington Post is just leading with this at the moment because the editors are so proud of the alliteration. The copy desk chief is probably sitting at his computer working on the next story and repeating it to himself over and over in a soft chant.
  4. The Risks of Long-Term Regular Drinking — Yeah, like you really wanted to know about that this particular week…
  5. Graham drops out — Well, y’all already knew about this. But to see something new, here’s a “heartfelt” video tribute Slate did to the senator’s failed campaign. Check it out below. Slate notes that “Graham, by the way, was one of the only Republican candidates with an actual plan to defeat ISIS that differed from what the U.S. is already doing.”

Graham drops out, opens up SC opportunities for others

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As you may have heard by now, Lindsey Graham “suspended” his moribund campaign for the Republican nomination for president this morning.

He congratulated himself on having pulled other candidates more toward talking about national security, pre-Paris.

But he should also take some pride that, while his poll numbers were even lower than fellow amigo Joe Lieberman’s were in 2004, he was the star of the undercard debates, to the point that a couple of pundits in this, the last week of his campaign, have called for the rules for eligibility for the main events to be changed, so that Lindsey could shine at the big table.

Beyond that, the main significance of his exit is that suddenly, key talent and support in South Carolina is now up for grabs for other mainstream Republicans such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or Chris Christie.

A lot of people have been sidelined by the Graham candidacy, such as campaign consultant Richard Quinn and former SC House Speaker David Wilkins (who played a key role in the past in Bush primary victories here).

Graham’s departure leaves just barely enough time for those players to have an impact before the Feb. 20 South Carolina primary.

It was fun, Lindsey, but you probably made the right call.

graham video

Your Virtual Front Page for Friday, December 18, 2016

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Some items that may start some conversation, although this being a Friday so close to Christmas, perhaps not:

  1. Syria war: UN Security Council unanimously backs peace plan (BBC) — One thing to note before we get all excited: It doesn’t address what happens with Assad.
  2. Congress Approves $1 Trillion Spending Bill, Opening Wallet (NYT) — That new boy Paul Ryan is flat gettin’ it done, isn’t he? One thing, though: I doubt he’ll be thrilled with that headline.
  3. Obama Commutes Prison Sentences For 95 Nonviolent Offenders (NPR) — And bringing it home a bit, three of them were from South Carolina.
  4. Who’s going to see Star Wars this weekend? (thestate.com) — Personally, I’m going to wait a bit; I don’t like crowded theaters. A weekday matinee, perhaps, sometime after Christmas. But I’m curious: How many of y’all have tickets for tonight, for instance?
  5. Asteroid flamed out passing over Lake Murray (thestate.com) — That was what caused that flash in the predawn sky over the lake. It was most certainly not an alien spacecraft. I’m quite sure about this because I and other local journalists were told this by some very official-seeming guys in black suits, right after they flashed their own bright light in our eyes. Now everybody go see Star Wars and don’t bother thinking about this.
  6. Sainthood for Mother Teresa (WSJ) — Pope Francis checks off on a second miracle. You go, girl!

Here it is: The last license plate South Carolina will ever need

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plate

Is this beautiful or what? Has South Carolina ever had a license plate that looked this good? If our state leaders had the good sense to adopt it, could you ever imagine us wanting to change the design again? I can’t.

Thank our own Mark Stewart for putting the image together, based on a conversation he and I had on an earlier post.

Reacting to the blah new design we’ll have to start putting on our cars next year (it lacks lust; it’s so lackluster), Mark said:

I see they are still designing license plates by committee over at the DMV. Another dreadful effort is on display here. Better than last year’s; but that isn’t saying much as those were clearly DOA.

When you have a flag like SC’s for inspiration, how hard is it to bollocks it up?

Absolutely, said I:

I know! We need a dark blue plate with white letters and a white Palmetto tree and crescent moon in the center. How complicated is that? It would be beautiful, and we would never need a redesign, because it couldn’t be improved upon…

I have a lot of respect for states like New Jersey, who have a simple design and just stick with it. You can tell a NJ plate at quite a distance.

I want a plate like that, only beautiful. The flag design is the way to go.

Anyway, we riffed back and forth on the subject for a few more comments, and then Mark, fired up, went and created the above.

Isn’t it gorgeous? If only we could adopt this plate, we’d never need another. It would be impossible to improve upon.

If I were to make any change at all, I might make the blue just a tad darker. But I’d also be satisfied with it just as it is…

Thoughts on the Las Vegas debate?

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No, I’m not going to embed my dozens of Tweets, or the 60 or 70 interactions they attracted on Twitter. (Twitter isn’t deep, but it’s way livelier than blogging.)

But I’ll show you this one, which makes a good point I’d like to elaborate on:

Now, I don’t know what that means in terms of the horse race. It should move him a bit toward front, but the GOP electorate has been so extremely irrational this year that things that should give a guy a bump don’t deliver, while things that should finish him for good send him soaring.

Elsewhere, I lamented — on Jeb Bush’s account — the sad disconnect between what it takes to govern and the talents needed to shine in debates. There’s some overlap, but they’re not the same things. Jeb did better this time, but not better enough.

I felt bad for Christie, too, as another candidate who deserves a serious look who just can’t get the crowd to turn away from the sideshows and check him out.

That said, Christie and Kasich made themselves look pretty bad with their plans for dealing with Russia. I thought Kasich had gone off the reservation wanting to punch them in the nose, but then Christie wanted to shoot their planes down. Christie even managed to set up Rand Paul to sound more rational on foreign affairs, which is a hard thing to do.

So that kind of left Rubio and Bush as… well, here’s another Tweet:

Maybe that’s too harsh. Carly Fiorina didn’t really say anything extraordinarily foolish, although her assertion that people have said “no” to her all her life rang a bit empty coming from someone who was CEO of HP. But wait — come to think of it, they did say “no” to her later, and I know how that feels, so… In any case, she didn’t say much that impressed. Nobody really impressed, except the razzle-dazzle kid Rubio, who was playing the part of Lindsey Graham in the big-table debate, standing up for national defense.

Well, no, someone else impressed: Cruz did. We’re all starting to focus more on Cruz. Trump has been so distracting that few people have focused on the fact that Cruz is the real, dyed-in-the-wool, right-wing ideological extremist in the bunch — with a dollop or two of let’s-disarm-ourselves, Rand Paul-style libertarianism, which doesn’t endear me either.

Which makes Rubio look even better.

Speaking of Lindsey Graham: Philip Bump of The Fix made a strong argument for why Graham, who has dominated most of the undercard debates, should be allowed into the big ones, regardless of his poll numbers. In short, no one else could possibly be such an effective foil for Trump — and that’s something most of us would like to see:

Including Trump. Graham and Trump differ on issues, but Graham also seems to have a sense for Trump’s Achilles heel. The tycoon’s only demonstrated weakness against his opponents is when he’s the butt of someone else’s zinger — which we saw in the second debate after Carly Fiorina put him in his place. So far, the only significant on-going challenge to Trump in the debates has been questions he didn’t want to answer. He can’t be used to dealing with people who are able to spar as well as he can. Wouldn’t that be fun to watch?

 

Open Thread for Tuesday, December 15, 2015

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tag sc

Some quick topics:

  1. Threat that closed down L.A. schools appears to be a hoax, congressman says — That’s according to the L.A. Times.
  2. New SC license plate coming out next year — I think they’re an improvement, although nothing to write home about. I’d prefer the Latin: Dum Spiro Spero. Why can’t license plates be educational?
  3. Fed Poised to Mark The End of an Era — Wow, the WSJ is really excited about the expected interest-rate increase.
  4. Huckabee calls for greater monitoring of mosques — This is from the undercard debate. If you’d like to engage with me on the grownup-table debate later, go to @BradWarthen.

… or whatever else interests you.

 

Word peeve of the day

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What’s the news across the nation?
We have got the information
in a way we hope will amuse… you…
We just love to give you our views — La da tee da!
Ladies and Gents, Laugh-In looks at the news!

— “Laugh-In”

A new feature, which will appear when I feel like it.

This is a minor one, a subtle one. It doesn’t bother me as much as some others. Still, it just seems… odd.

I saw it in a cutline today in The State, but I don’t mean to pick on my friends there; I see it everywhere…

It said that “The Force Awakens” will be “opening Friday around the country.”

Around the country? Why not across the country? Or even, perhaps, throughout the country?

Say “around the country” and I picture a path that runs through Canada, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf, Mexico and the Pacific.

“Around the world” makes sense. “Across the world” does not. But ours is a continental country, one that can be seen in its entirety from one side of the planet. One crosses it; one does not bypass it.

Yeah, I know — it’s not a big deal. And it can make sense, thought of a certain way. (You could argue that the film opens here and there all over the country, or around it, as opposed to following a single, straight line across it.) It’s just a peeve of mine, not because it’s necessarily wrong but because, most of the time, it fails to be the best word…

ACROSS

ACROSS

AROUND

AROUND

Open Thread for Monday, December 14, 2015

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Soon, I can type “2016,” as my fingers have tried to do all year, and it will be right!

Meanwhile, some possible topics:

  1. Bergdahl

    Bergdahl

    Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, freed in prisoner swap, to face court-martial — I thought they’d decided against that. Oh, well — this thing was always so fishy, the matter should probably be adjudicated. So if we decide swapping for him was a bad deal, do we get those Taliban guys back? No, I guess not…

  2. State agency questions Richland County’s handling of penny sales tax — This is Doug’s cue to say, “I told you so!”
  3. US hitting IS harder than ever, says Obama — Yeah, but “harder” is kind of a relative thing, right? Still, he’s talking tough now, telling ISIL, “You are next.” Scoff at that if you like, but remember this guy’s got a list, and no end of drones. He may not be much of one for going to the mattresses, but he’s whacked a lot of guys by remote control.
  4. ICYMI: White supremacist groups see Trump bump — This story is several days old, but somehow I missed it until today. Pair this with Ross Douthat applying Umberto Eco’s definition to assert that Trump is, indeed, a fascist, and it gets really interesting.
Oh, yes... and The Force Awakens in just four days.

Oh, yes… and The Force Awakens in just four days.

A film almost, but not quite, entirely unlike anything that appeals to me

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When I saw the email from Netflix headlined “Brad, we just added a movie you might like,” I braced myself. Netflix chirpily announcing it has something I will like gives me the same creeping feeling that Arthur Dent got when the Syrius Cybernetics Corporation’s Nutrimatic drinks dispenser offered him another cup of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

And sure enough, here’s what it was offering me:

netflix

Don’t know about you, but I consider that to be one of the silliest, most ridiculously hyped films of the past decade. It easily qualifies as my least favorite Ron Howard film, and I suppose my least favorite featuring Tom Hanks as well.

It was like a cheesy retelling of Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, and I didn’t like that, either. There are people who just eat up a tale involving a conspiracy stretching over thousands of years, especially when it involves the Knights Templar (as both tales do). I’m not one of them. I’m not a huge fan of the whole paranoia thriller genre to begin with, and when you stretch it to such extremes, you totally lose me.

And don’t even bother feeding me a tale about brilliant algorithms duplicating the human mind and taking over the world. When Netflix gets a clue as to what I like, then I’ll worry…

‘Hands up, don’t shoot!’ makes list of biggest canards

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As you probably know, The Washington Post has a fact checker feature which involves regularly checking the veracity of various claims that make news, and awards “Pinocchios” to indicate the relative level of falsehood. The biggest lies get four Pinocchios.

The Post has now published a year-end list of “The biggest Pinocchios of 2015,” and as you might expect, the list is dominated by the 2016 presidential candidates. In just six months, Donald Trump has earned 11 Four-Pinocchio ratings — far more than any other candidate.

Politicians, of course, are easy targets. Their statements are regularly subjected to great skepticism and close scrutiny.

What struck me as most intriguing (and not just because it was more of a 2014 thing than 2015) is that the Post chose to include, on this list of biggest lies, the “Hands up, don’t shoot!” meme out of Ferguson. In other words, the Post is highlighting that thousands of morally outraged people who thought they were speaking truth to power were in fact perpetuating a falsehood.

The belief that Michael Brown raised his hands and said “Don’t shoot!” was embraced without question by protesters across the country, and helped to launch the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

The thing is, though, that to the best of our knowledge, it did not happen. As the Post states, “But various investigations concluded this did not happen — and that Wilson acted out of self-defense and was justified in killing Brown.”

The irony here, of course, is that there are other incidents across the country more deserving of protesters’ indignation — Walter Scott being shot multiple times in the back, the shocking killing of Laquan McDonald, Eric Garner suffocating in a police chokehold.

But unfortunately the Michael Brown killing — which was never as clear-cut a case of police brutality as other incidents — was the one that got the ball rolling. And it’s appropriate, in the interest of historical accuracy, to take note of the fact that the protesters didn’t know what had happened.

Reminds me of the Boston “Massacre.” The British soldiers involved were later acquitted, and rightly so (John Adams was their defense attorney, which took a lot of guts and a profound faith in the rule of law).

That didn’t mean the Revolution that followed was without merit. On the whole, I’d call our independence an excellent thing. But sometimes people are initially radicalized by the wrong things…

I need to pay more attention to Ross Douthat

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Ross Douthat has been out there at the edge of my consciousness for a while, but I haven’t actually focused on him. He joined the NYT‘s op-ed page in April 2009, a month after I was laid off from the paper, so he was never in the mix of columnists that I pored through and compared in choosing content for The State.

A few times, he’s come to my attention with a column or an idea that briefly intrigued me, but I just haven’t read him enough to form an impression. I should probably make more of an effort, after what I read today. His next-to-most-recent column ran in The State, and it included this passage:

I do not own guns, and the last time I discharged a firearm was on “Second Amendment Day” at a conservative journalism program many years ago. (Yes, dear reader, that’s how conservative journalism programs roll.) My political commitments are more communitarian than libertarian, I don’t think the Constitution guarantees a right to bear every kind of gun or magazine, and I think of myself as modestly persuadable in the gun control debate….

No, not the part about his attending a “conservative journalism program,” which to me sounds every bit as appalling as “liberal journalism program,” but the good bit. This bit:

My political commitments are more communitarian than libertarian…

I forget the last time a major national pundit said something like that, if one of them ever did. (It’s the sort of thing David Brooks might well say, but I don’t know that he’s ever put it that plainly.)

So I just went back and read his last few columns, before running up against the NYT‘s paywall (sorry, but I’m subscribing to three newspapers and one magazine currently, and just can’t afford to add another). I particularly liked the one examining whether Donald Trump is, strictly speaking, a fascist (spoiler: he is), but all were thought-provoking.

So, while I can’t say yet that I’m a fan, to the extent that the Times will let me, I’m going to start paying more attention…

 

I am not a total loser on the Slate news quiz!

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slatewin

Yes! In your face, Sharan Shetty!

For once, I didn’t totally embarrass myself on the Slate News Quiz, beating both this week’s designated Slate staffer (the aforementioned Sharan Shetty, who had a really good score, but is a total loser compared to me) and the reader average.

I got 11 out of 12, and would have had the 12th if this stupid test didn’t put such a high premium on speed. I had the information to get it right, and would have done so if I had taken another second.

Why am I trumpeting this pathetic minor triumph? Because normally, I totally embarrass myself on this quiz, mainly because of the time factor (which rattles me; I had being hurried) and the fact that Slate deliberately chooses the kinds of quirky news items that I don’t tend to focus on during the week — or quirky details in bigger news stories.

Since I normally test well, which is a major element in whatever feeble self-esteem I am able to muster at this point in my life (yeah, I know — lame), this quiz is a thorn in my side. And yet I inflict it on myself every Friday.

So I’m relishing this week’s score.

Polls: South Carolina, Trump, Republicans and Muslims

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These three polls just in:

Bad News: Donald Trump favorite of SC Republicans — again — This is Winthop Poll. The only reassurance I can give you is that it was mostly taken before Trump spoke of banning Muslims from our shores.

Good News: Majority Opposes Trump Plan to Ban Muslims, Poll Finds — Unfortunately, the WSJ/NBC poll finds that Republicans are more evenly split on the matter.

Bad News: Trump’s Lead Solidifies in Poll, but Many Are Nervous — This one’s from the NYT and CBS. Again, this was largely taken before Trump’s latest bad craziness.

All of which leads to this story from The Washington Post:

As Trump surges, GOP prepares for a contested convention — Time to crank up the ol’ smoke-filled room, boys. Your phony-baloney party is on the line. Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph….

Let’s look at an excerpt from that:

Republican officials and leading figures in the party’s establishment are now preparing for the possibility of a brokered convention as Donald Trump continues sit atop the polls and the presidential race.

More than 20 of them convened Monday for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, where the prospect of Trump nearing next year’s nominating convention in Cleveland with a significant number of delegates dominated the discussion, according to five people familiar with the meeting.

Considering that scenario as Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listened, several longtime power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight, in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative, the people said….

May you live in interesting times, Reince Priebus…

Lawmakers hope to see more cooperation, building upon the summer

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panel

Reps. Nathan Ballentine and Joe Neal; Sens. Joel Lourie, Katrina Shealy and Ronnie Cromer

This morning, ADCO had a table at the latest Columbia Regional Business Report’s Power Breakfast. This one was about looking ahead to the coming legislative session, and featured a panel of lawmakers — Reps. Nathan Ballentine and Joe Neal, and Sens. Joel Lourie, Katrina Shealy and Ronnie Cromer.

(Bryan Caskey joined me at the ADCO table, along with several other representatives of local law firms whom I invited.)

The nice thing about “covering” these events is that if I just wait a few hours, CRBR will put up its own report that gives you the basics and saves me from a lot of typing. An excerpt:

Next year’s legislative session will be a failure if not remembered for collaboration across party lines, state lawmakers said today.

Legislators from both sides of the aisle urged to see similar cooperation next year from the General Assembly as it did in the aftermath of the Emanuel AME tragedy. The give-and-take between Democrats and Republicans will be vital if the state hopes to finally fix crumbling infrastructure, they said during the Columbia Regional Business Report’s quarterly “Power Breakfast” networking event at the Columbia Marriott.

“I think 2016, more than anything else is going to be known as the year that we either came up with an idea to fund our infrastructure and do it in the right manner,” said Sen. Ronnie Cromer, R-Newberry, “or it’s going to be known as the year we failed the people of South Carolina. Because we couldn’t put some plan together to fund our roads and bridges.”

Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Chapin, knows it can be easy to assume collaboration as part of the General Assembly’s supermajority. But he still saw it at work when his colleagues voted to remove the Confederate Flag from the Statehouse grounds in July and expects to see more of it again next year, this time without tragedy serving as a catalyst….

And that pretty much states it. There was an air of cautious optimism that maybe, just maybe — after the miracle they experienced together over the summer (achieving near-unanimity on an issue that had previously been too controversial even to bring up), that goodwill could be channeled productively on other fronts.

Of course, the usual differences were on display — the three Republicans tended to think in terms of coming together over infrastructure; the two Democrats wanted to see some Republicans agreeing with them on Medicaid expansion. But there was also agreement on some key issues — Democrats agreed infrastructure must be dealt with, and both sides acknowledged that the state Supreme Court’s instructions to improve educational opportunity in poor, rural districts must be meaningfully addressed as well.

Beyond that, here are some Tweets that give you the flavor of the session: