I don’t know about you, but I intend to be mentally prepared. Maybe it’s time I went back to school…
A few topics for consideration:
- USC classes you won’t believe actually exist — OK, you made me look, and it was interesting, but it did not strain credulity. Yeah a class treating the Hunger Games as literature is ridiculous, but don’t you think higher education should be preparing us psychologically for the Zombie Apocalypse? Look how traumatized Rick Grimes and the others were. You know why? Because they were not prepared mentally! As for the other courses… Suddenly I’m flashing on some dialogue from “Ghostbusters” (the real one). Dean Yeager: “Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!” Peter Venkman: “But the kids love us!”
- Costco opens Columbia store today — Seriously, did any of you consider for an instant going there today? I’ll look at the traffic density function on Waze a couple of months from now and see if it’s safe, and maybe check it out then. Meanwhile, let me know if you hear we’re getting an Apple store.
- US government blasts Baltimore police over race — And race isn’t the only problem. I saw “The Wire.”
- Even under oath, Trump struggled with the truth — The Donald, deposed. In a 2007 case.
- Is split-ticket voting making a comeback? With Trump on the ballot, some Republicans hope so. — It’s not “ticket splitting.” It’s being a rational, responsible voter. Anyone who votes exclusively for one party or the other and doesn’t consider that SOME candidates in the other party may be superior to those who oppose them should lose the right to vote. Voters have an obligation to think about each and every choice on the ballot. Harrumph.
There are other topics out there. Bring them up if you like.
Related Posts
About Costco:
Overheard at the vet’s, around 2:30, “I went out there and there wasn’t an empty parking space.”
I might have joined, if they were southeast of Malfunction Junction, but at this point, I see my dentist, off St, Andrews Road, twice a year. That is enough for me.
It’s taken Costco more than 12 years to land in Cola. The options for just one store haven’t ever had any appeal to them. The Cola area is simply too Balkanized to be of much interest to national retailers. Retailers want larger, denser and more accessible pools of similar demographics. And in Costco’s case, it wanted to be accessible to both the urban core and the suburbs. They grit their teeth and covered their noses to settle on Piney Grove Rd.
However, maybe this is actually a good thing – that the metro area’s socio-economic demographics are so scattered and (relatively) intermixed. Even in LexCo; for those who cling to a different ideal…
Yes, I do believe it’s a good thing if we’re not Balkanized…
Yeah, but if it were, say, on the site of Dutch Square, it would be way easier for lots of folks in-town (including people who live off 378 in West Cola) , northeast of town, northwest of town to access inbound and outbound….
Or off North Main Street near I-20.
If that area was seen as half way attractive, and safe, it would be a spot teaming with large national retailers.
But it’s not.
The next boom area will be exit 22 Killian Road on I77. 15 minutes from downtown and easy access from anywhere north of Ft. Jackson. They just opened a super Kroger last month. All the car dealers are out there now. There are acres and acres of cleared land right off the exit.
What we need are chain restaurants that aren’t in the city now like Cheesecake Factory, Maggianos or Buca di Beppo, plus Brad’s Apple store and an IKEA… But maybe those will go into the Bull St. development first.
Dream on Doug.
I would like to see Bull Street succeed. I wouldn’t bet on it, however. The discretionary income just isn’t high enough – and broad enough – to support specialty retail.
No chain restaurants! Ew!
Cheescake Factory is great. Tons of Columbia folks drive up to the packed Charlotte location to eat- me and my family included.
Columbia is condemned (from a retail perspective) due to its geography – physical and socio-economic.
There are no great retail locations – as every developer has learned through the decades. Retailers want homogeneity – Cola (the entire MSA in fact) is heterogeneous, and only secondarily clustered. Overall, that’s a good thing, socially. However, it probably means Amazon remains on the ascendency.
… even though, as you suggest, there are a lot of people in my county, Lexington, who dread crossing the river because they don’t want to go to THAT place with THOSE people.
Reminds me of when I lived in Memphis and West Tennessee in the 70s and early 80s. Of course, Memphis itself is possibly the most racially divided city I’ve ever lived in. But it’s a great place, and after I moved to Jackson after lived in Memphis for several years, I was bemused to learn the way some Jacksonians viewed it. I seem to recall having run into more than one (white) Jacksonian who confided that he would never visit Memphis without a gun in his glove compartment.
Then, I found myself working for a year in The Jackson Sun’s Gibson County Bureau. There, I found that people in the smaller towns of Humboldt and Trenton viewed Jackson the way some Jacksonians viewed Memphis — as something big and threatening, a sort of latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
Perhaps that’s the source of the classic Johnny Cash-June Carter duet, “Jackson.”
Yes, apparently the song DOES refer to MY Jackson, a place with fond associations for me because my wife and our first three children were all born there.
So I just saw on the news at 5:40 pm that some guy is actively climbing the Trump Tower with giant suction cups. And the CNN guest commentator, referring to the possible risk this poses to Mr. Trump and Secret Service response options, said “well they can’t just shoot the guy for the heck of it.” And Wolf Blitzer calmly agreed…I’m not sure this means anything, but wow.
Climbing guy must be white, then…
I’d be shocked that climbingin the side of the building with suction cups poses any kind of risk to Trump.
Has wolf quit dancing like he was seen on camera doing when Hillary Clinton was named the Democratic nominee?
What a true professional ….
I’m sure he’s not much of a risk at the moment to anyone but gawkers lining the street below. But apparently he has a big backpack and the risk is that whatever is in it is slooowwly creeping up the wall to a room that does not have Trump in it. Even so, I have been watching elections for what seems like a long time and this one is the gift that just keeps giving.
“Voters have an obligation to think about each and every choice on the ballot. Harrumph.”
Amen, Brad.
“Anyone who votes exclusively for one party or the other and doesn’t consider that SOME candidates in the other party may be superior to those who oppose them should lose the right to vote. Voters have an obligation to think about each and every choice on the ballot. Harrumph.”
So a voter who has a set of policy preferences should vote *only* on the basis of who’s the best person in a given race–even if those she votes for wind up working at cross purposes? And if she doesn’t, Brad Warthen thinks she should be stripped of her right to vote? Sorry, but this only makes sense in the Warthen political universe, where parties get in the way of making sure that the “right” people rule, and the “right” people look remarkably like Brad Warthen. Allow me my own “harrumph,” for I’ve studied enough of the history of SC to know that this attitude (notably its eagerness to exclude people from the process) has had some pretty nasty consequences. This is the attitude that underlay disfranchisement and rule by the old Black-Belt oligarchy, and it produced a politics that failed most South Carolinians.
Lots of Republicans are well-qualified, civic-minded people of good moral purpose, and I have on rare occasion even voted for such. I voted for Bob Corker, because his Democratic opponent was a disaster. Lamar Alexander, Bill Frist and I are fellow Presbyterians, with comparable commitments to doing good. But with virtually no exception those people will advocate policies I think are bad for the state and nation, and will oppose policies that are good for the state and nation–and they’ll do that for the same reason, BTW, that they keep supporting Trump through thick and thin. They’re Republicans. And I make no apologies whatsoever for preferring Democrats who’ll support my priorities to “better man” Republicans who’ll trash them. Politics isn’t a debating society; it requires teamwork to get things done, especially in a system with as many veto points as ours. And teamwork in this context means providing the electorate with real policy choices and translating them into policy. It’s nice if it can be done across partisan lines, and I applaud people who have the chops and the breadth to do that. But the purpose of politics isn’t to reward the “best” among us; it’s to advance the best policies for the welfare of the polity. That’s what “intelligent voting” is really about for most of us, if not for you.
“Sorry, but this only makes sense in the Warthen political universe, where parties get in the way of making sure that the “right” people rule, and the ‘right’ people look remarkably like Brad Warthen.”
Again. What on Earth have I done, or said, or thought at ANY time in my life to deserve that characterization, that dismissal, that contempt? Who are these people who “look remarkably like” me? In what WAYS do they “look remarkably like” me?
All right, let’s set that aside and go to the heart of the matter…
To see the wisdom in what I’m saying, turn your attention away from yourself (and those who “look remarkably like” you, of course) and focus on those Republicans who “keep supporting Trump through thick and thin.”
Is this not a moment in history in which we desperately need for THEM to take my point to heart, and examine the candidates with thoughtfulness and discernment and without regard to party? Is it not essential to the Republic that they do so? Should we not be saying and doing all we honestly can in order to get them to that point?
I believe so. And I’m glad that Lynn, at least, is with me…
And of course, again I should probably point out that another reason why I find it unimaginable that a thinking person would vote a straight-party ticket is that I find it unimaginable that anyone could identify fully with either party. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone could conclude that either party is always right, and that all of its candidates are superior to all of the other party’s candidates.
That is such a wildly improbable proposition…
And of course, one of the things that gets me most about that “people [who] look remarkably like Brad Warthen” thing is this…
To me, it’s the people who vote straight party lines who are the tribalists. They are the ones who look at a party and see “people like them” and pledge eternal loyalty to that tribe, rather than treating each candidate they meet with discernment and without prejudice.
So it’s very weird for me to have such an accusation flung at me. It causes me to go into “I know you are but what am I?” mode. And no one is at his or her best in that frame of mind…
Looking up something completely unrelated, I ran across this post from 2008 when I was having this same argument with Alex Sanders. Or rather, with a letter he wrote. Poor Alex. It’s a shame for him that he doesn’t “look remarkably like Brad Warthen.”
I suppose that if Thomas Middleditch ran for office, I’d automatically support him. Because, according to Kathryn, he looks “remarkably like Brad Warthen.” Or, like Brad Warthen did when he was 17.
OK, I’ll drop this now. It’s just that whenever Prof. Carlton, whom I esteem, says that about me, it gets my dander right up, making me want to don my fighting trousers…
5. Sigh. Parties DO matter. It’s quite rational to vote for a given party all the time if their overall governing philosophy is so overwhelmingly superior to the opposition party. That is CLEARLY the case today. There are exceptions of course. Remember Alvin Greene? I voted Green, as in Green Party that year. I still maintain Donald Trump is the best thing to happen for the good of the country in my lifetime. He will bring the evil empire to its knees. Bunch of scoundrel deserve no quarter.
“He will bring the evil empire to its knees. Bunch of scoundrel deserve no quarter.”
The GOP is probably fighting so much because the Democrats won’t leave them alone. For every incident of intervention and getting mixed up on things where they have no business being, it just creates more GOP supporters. The Democrats have been provoking the GOP for years, and the cycle is so destructive. The Democrats really just need to leave the Republicans alone, and stay out of their affairs. That’s the only way to end this circle of hatred. Just leave them alone.
🙂
Just kidding, though. I thought it would be fun to apply your rationale in dealing with terrorists to the GOP.
I’ll note that you have harsher words and a harsher plan for American citizens of the opposing political party than you do for radical Islamic terrorists who would actually like to kill you. I just sort of find that interesting.
Have a nice day everyone, I’m off to Saluda for a hearing. (As much as I love driving to Saluda, I really wish I could do the hearing by Skype or something.)
Even more shocking for the parents of the students taking these worthless courses are the fact that it’s costing them $624 to attend the course for SC residents, 3 times that for non-residents. The administration who allows worthless courses such as this should be immediately fired. But them I’m against providing financial aid to anything but STEM courses and degrees. If you want to major in Art History or African-American Studies go ahead, just don’t expect to receive grant money to complete it.
How do we know they are worthless? They most likely teach crucial critical-analytical skills, albeit using texts the students are likely to actually read, vs. skim the Cliff Notes of…..
Does one really need the ability to discuss The Simpsons, Lady Gaga, or Brittney Spears in a crucial critical-analysis manner? Save your money and spend that 3 credit tuition on an accounting or statistics course.
Well that Washington Post article about Trump’s deposition is disturbing yet so believable. I enjoyed the poetic justice at the end.
and no one seems to care….
More revelations in the totally corrupt Richland County Recreation Commission.
http://quorumcolumbia.org/2016/08/11/howards-church/
Using county resources and employees (on the clock) to clean the church of Rep. Leon Howard and Recreation Commission vice chair Barbara as well as providing free tires and other auto maintenance services at RCRC garages.
Seriously, what will it take for ANY of the supposed law enforcement agencies looking into this to do something? They’ve basically got the equivalent of a bank robber walking out of the bank with bags full of money right in front of the patrol car and yet nothing is done. The longer the “investigation” drags on, the more questions will be raised about whether there is something going on behind the scenes to protect people in power. The lengthy delay also allows potential witnesses to be coerced or threatened and for evidence to be tampered with.
Barbara Mickens is RCRC board member accused of the misdeeds.
I see Rep Leon Howard is playing the race card again- against Joel Lourie of all people.
I really wish people could be sued for playing the race card so cavalierly.
Rep. Leon Howard evidently believes that if you question someone in authority that happens to be black, you have to be a racist. Even if the person in authority commits misdeeds that harms other people, and other black people.
What a disgusting human being.
I thought the NYT story showing the cross-contamination between the State Dept. and the Clinton Foundation was worth a mention.
I think I figured it out. Hillary is Tony Soprano, and Trump is Paulie Walnuts.
Tell yourself whatever you want, putting Hillary into the Oval Office is going to be terrible.
Hillary and Bill are multi millionaires. Ask yourself how that happened. They didn’t have anything to sell to achieve that other than their influence.
Say what you will but Trump has built buildings and created jobs on his path to becoming a billionaire. He may have been a tough boss, an arrogant businessman… but he did something the rest of us could never have done even if we started at the same point. How many jobs have any of US created? My count is at 2.
I agree with your comment Doug but I have to ask one question. Is the fact that he built buildings and created jobs enough to warrant being elected POTUS?
I know Billary (or is it now “Hillbilly”) never built buildings or actually created jobs and they became multi-millionaires after he left office, broke and in debt (pants on fire for that one).
How did the Clintons earn their new found wealth? 20 minute Wall Street speaking engagements?
OK, I’ve got a question to ask people on the left and the right who keep bringing that up…
What’s wrong with that? If the Wall Street types wanted to hear what they had to say, and it was worth that much to them, what was wrong with letting the marketplace work and pay them what the market would bear?
I understand — objectively — that Bernie Sanders and the Occupy types thinks anyone in business is inherently evil, and one is polluted by having interactions with them.
But why would anyone else have such strong objections to people who have the celebrity power to do so to make money on the speaking circuit?
Not that I agree with the objectors, but one might get co-opted by the folks one gets lucrative speaking fees from, much as one starts to see that the extreme right-wingers at Rotary aren’t half bad people….one might look more favorably on their opposition to a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, or such…but to say that because something happened in the first Clinton administration and then a decade later the former Secretary of State and former First Lady was paid what seems like a lot (in those worlds, you can easily subtract three zeros from any amount of money to get a more realistic view of how much money it seems like to them) to speak….that’s a mighty long con in an industry ruled by stock tickers
Because maybe the speaker would end up becoming President one day and be able to influence legislation and regulations that would benefit Wall St.
It’s an investment that if Hillary loses will be a small price to pay for the potential BILLIONS she could deliver for a Wall St. firm. Her 250K for speaking wasn’t for her knowledge but for what she might deliver later on.
Surely you know that? I guarantee you there wasn’t a single word spoken by Hillary in any of her speeches that made a difference to the people who attended.
That’s a really long con for folks who watch the stock tickers…
No, Bart, it is not a reason to vote for Trump. But the reality is that thousands of people owe their livelihood to Donald Trump. People of all races. How many of the people who get paychecks with his name on them WON’T vote for him?
Oh, I’ve had a number of bosses I wouldn’t vote for. Especially for POTUS. They might have been OK at what they did, and I may not have had any particular objections to working for them in that particular context. But that doesn’t mean I’d vote for them.
For that matter, I’m not sure I’d vote for ME — for president. I’d vote for me for the Legislature, or Congress. But then I’d want to observe me in office for awhile, see how I deal with issues in real life and real time, and then I’d still have quite a few questions to ask of me before I’d make me POTUS….
Those evil Koch Brothers employ more than 100,000 people across the country. Think of what impact that has on the U.S. economy when you consider the multiplier effect of those employees spending their income. Think of all the Social Security and Medicare taxes Koch Industries pays. If the brothers want to try and promote candidates they think represent their interests, more power to them.
… which is kind of what I was saying earlier about Bill and Hillary racking up millions in speaking fees from Wall Street.
If they’re willing to pay that, hey, it’s their money. Let them pay, and let the Clintons receive, what the market will bear…
Yeah, but the Koch brothers are transparent about what they want to achieve whether it is for social issues or business.
I just wish Hillary wouldn’t pretend there wasn’t a reason why Wall Street paid her millions to speak. And wouldn’t pretend that she is some type of humble champion of the little guy. She’s not Jimmy Carter.
I voted Republican (!) to vote for my then recently former boss Leighton Lord for AG.
I think Trump probably has stiffed more people than he has paid, and all those employees here on visas can’t vote.
Trump, um, inherited how much from his father, who also staked him a nice Ivy League education, and then Trump went bankrupt six times? Wow.
Is he bankrupt now? Why would banks keep giving him money if they thought he was a risk?
Forbes says he’s worth 4.5 billion. How much would your father have had to give you back in the day to reach 4.5 billion today? 1 million? 100 million? 5 billion? He did it. He had many setbacks but didn’t quit. He took risks that you or I would never take and made more smart decisions than dumb ones. He has done things that the rest of us could never do.
He made more money (3.5 million) in 2014 from licensing his name for junk like cologne, coffee, and energy drinks than I have made in my career.
http://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/#d745311790be
He’s a boor. But he’s done things only a very few people are capable of doing.
Yes, he has. If only some of them had been things worth doing…
Office buildings, hotels, and golf courses are unnecessary? I’m sure all the people who work at the Trump National Golf Course in Charlotte would love to have you develop a place for them to work.
I didn’t realize he also owns the old D.C. Post Office. Worth $209 million and only $8 million debt on it. Maybe that will be his side home when the White House feels too cramped.
He lives in a world that none of us can comprehend.
“He lives in a world that none of us can comprehend.”
Ain’t that the truth! Talking about the world inside his head…
There are plenty of Trump employees who would disagree with that statement. It’s funny how people will sit back and criticize the man when he’s employing thousands more than the critics are. How many jobs has Brad Warthen created in the past 20 years?
That’s difficult to say, since that was never the point of what I did. Any jobs created — with one or two overt cases I can think of — would have been indvertent.
By the way — I’ve tried with NO success to create the job of selling ads for this blog. If you know any good candidates, point them my way.
Commission only, of course. No benefits. This is the new normal, people. Get used to it!
All I need is someone who’s comfortable in the political world — but not overly identified with one party or the other — and wants to pick up a (very) few bucks in extra cash…
Here’s the problem, as I’ve discovered…
There are some ace sales people who are happy to work on commission, but most of them are totally oriented to selling to businesses. And while I have, and have had, some good business-world advertisers — note AT&T and Palmetto Citizens, and Yesterday’s advertised for years — and I love having such customers because they’re steadier, the fact is that most advertiser likely to be interested in this venue are political. Candidates, advocacy campaigns and the like.
But they come and go, and you’ve got to be chasing them from election to election to legislative session. And I’ve found that people who are good at selling to businesses either don’t know how to talk politics, or are afraid they can’t. I remember when I started my blog at The State, I used to urge the ad department to sell ads on it. I would have made no money from it, but I hated to see the company pass up an opportunity. But the ad people seemed intimidated by politics.
And here’s the thing: It’s extremely awkward, and an ethical nightmare, for ME to do the selling, since I’m also writing about these people and their causes. I can sort of get around that by only selling ads to candidates and causes I like anyway, but it’s still a mess.
I find myself in situations like with House District 89 back during the recent primary. I really liked Micah Caskey, and he bought an ad. I also liked his runoff opponent, Tem Miles, who did not buy an ad. So I wrote about them as evenhandedly as I could, avoiding stating a preference — which is awkward and weird for me, as an opinion guy.
I really want to have nothing to do with such transactions, the way it always was at the newspaper (where, frankly, I didn’t even look at ads unless they were called to my attention).
But I haven’t found the right person to hand off to…
Brad, don’t you work for an advertising company?
Yes, but I try not to mix the two.
For instance, when advising a client, it wouldn’t be cool to say, “… and you should buy an ad on my blog.”
Trump, who sees a presidential campaign as an opportunity to promote his businesses, would do that. I would not…
/cough
The Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s State Department!
/cough
Sorry, I had something really lodged in my throat for a second. I’m all better now.
You talking about this? Synergy, dude. 🙂
Seriously, if there’s anything actionable I just hope they wait until after the election, to make sure the country is safe from Trump. Tim Kaine would probably make a fine POTUS…
Synergy? You referencing this?
If so, I’m giving you a virtual high-five.
My hand’s too big for that. You must have had Donald Trump in mind…
WTF does how many people Trump employs have to do with his fitness for office?
“Seriously, if there’s anything actionable I just hope they wait until after the election, to make sure the country is safe from Trump. ”
So you would be comfortable with the Justice Department having a different set of rules for Hillary? Well, I guess there is a precedent for that.
Who knows what Trump’s net worth is?
Banks may (or may not) bel ending his projects money because they are secured by the assets, and because we still haven’t fixed the banking climate that resulted in the Recession. Bankers make bank by closing loans. The individual bankers. They are somewhere else when the loans go bust as are the loans….
Forbes has plenty of expertise estimating net worth. They say 4.5 billion. Even if they are off by 75%, he’s still a billionaire. Looking at all the buildings he owns, they are likely on the mark.
Actually banks make much more money from overdraft fees than anything else. I started out working at a small bank and we probably sent out an average of 200 overdraft notices daily. Back then that was a $25 fee. I doubt we made $5000 per day in loan interest.
His fortune is due to his fathers connections mostly. Trumps business acumen is limited. His wealth would be greater had he merely invested in an S & P 500 fund. Go read about his Atlantic City casinos. Really a disaster.
Fred Trump died 20 years ago at the age of 94. I doubt he had much influence in the past 35 years.
Becoming a billionaire is so easy, everyone should do it.
It helps to be staked by your dad.
I’m going to invest in a fireworks store and sell Halloween masks between July and December.
Have you ever noticed the new building that went up a few years ago along Hwy 1 near the Walmart store in West Columbia? Do you think building a $500,000 building to sell fireworks and Halloween masks was a good idea, other than a business write-off it’s a horrible idea.
What may be a bad business idea for some may be pure genius for others. I know a guy who has a side business that will never make a profit, but it’s on the advise of his tax accountant to keep it up and running.
“It helps to be staked by your dad”
Probably less than being married to an ex-President.
Hillary Rodham Smith would probably be a senior partner in some Little Rock law firm…
Not Little Rock. Chicago…
How do we really know his net worth? He hasn’t released any financials.
So his father’s influence in sending him to an Ivy League school is bad, but Malia Obama’s father’s (and mother’s) influence in sending her to an Ivy League school is perfectly fine? What about the Kennedy clan?
This is the 3rd time I’ve asked this question and Brad keeps deleting it, I’m going to keep asking it until I get the wording right for his approval.
As predicted by sane people years ago, Obamacare is on the brink of crashing next year as rate increases sky rocket and insurers pull out of the exchanges. It was structured to avoid the bad news until after Obama left office. It will inevitably be judged as a massive failure that did nothing to make health care affordable.
Far more people are insured than ever before. I’d call that success .
Half as many covered as forecasted. Prices haven’t become any more affordable. Deductibles and co-pays are through the roof. Most insurers are dropping out of the exchanges. That’s success?
There are no indications that things will improve, only get worse.
Far more people are insured, at what cost? Costs are continuing to increase not decrease. When family’s start having to pay $2000/month for health insurance it may be time to look at what point is it wiser to just sock away that money in a bank account.