Category Archives: Business

What’s the proper price for books that don’t exist?

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Just a couple of days after I posted a video of the director of the Ayn Rand Institute, that organization sends out this release:

Apple Should Be Free to Charge $15 for eBooks

WASHINGTON–Apple and five top book publishers have been threatened by federal antitrust authorities. According to the Wall Street Journal, they are to be sued for allegedly colluding to fix ebook prices.

According to Ayn Rand Center fellow Don Watkins, “Traditional books may come from trees but they don’t grow on trees–and ebooks and ebook readers such as the iPad definitely don’t grow on trees. These are amazing values created by publishers and by companies such as Apple. They have a right to offer their products for sale at whatever prices they choose. They cannot force us to buy them. If they could, why would they charge only $15? Why not $50? Why not $1,000?

“There is no mystically ordained ‘right’ price for ebooks–the right price is the one voluntarily agreed to between sellers and buyers. Sure, some buyers may complain about ebook prices–but they are also buying an incredible number of ebooks.

“What in the world justifies a bunch of bureaucrats who have created nothing interfering in these voluntary arrangements and declaring that they get to decide what considerations should go into pricing ebooks?”

Read more from Don Watkins at his blog.

I didn’t know what the Institute was on about until I saw this Wall Street Journal piece:

U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers

The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several of the parties have held talks to settle the antitrust case and head off a potentially damaging court battle, these people said. If successful, such a settlement could have wide-ranging repercussions for the industry, potentially leading to cheaper e-books for consumers. However, not every publisher is in settlement discussions.

The five publishers facing a potential suit areCBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster Inc.;Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group;Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc., a unit of News Corp. , which also owns The Wall Street Journal….

This is truly a fight in which I do not have a dog. I think. And it should please the Randians that my own attitude has to do with market forces. I can’t conceive of paying $15 for a book when, after the transaction, I don’t actually have a book.

So I can approach this dispassionately, and ask, to what extent is this a monopoly situation? After all, Apple has competitors — such as Amazon, which actually pioneered this business of selling “books” to people electronically. The WSJ story addresses that:

To build its early lead in e-books, Amazon Inc. sold many new best sellers at $9.99 to encourage consumers to buy its Kindle electronic readers. But publishers deeply disliked the strategy, fearing consumers would grow accustomed to inexpensive e-books and limit publishers’ ability to sell pricier titles.

Publishers also worried that retailers such as Barnes & Noble Inc. would be unable to compete with Amazon’s steep discounting, leaving just one big buyer able to dictate prices in the industry. In essence, they feared suffering the same fate as record companies at Apple’s hands, when the computer maker’s iTunes service became the dominant player by selling songs for 99 cents.

Now that sounds more like what I would think the market would bear, if the market were like me. $9.99 sounds closer to what I might conceivably be willing to pay in order to have access to the contents of a book without actually getting a book. But it still seems high.

Yes, I can see advantages to a e-book. You can store more of them in a smaller space. They don’t get musty, which for an allergic guy like me is nothing to sneeze at. And you can search them, to look up stuff you read, and want to quote or otherwise share. That last consideration isn’t that great for me because I have an almost eerie facility for quickly finding something I read in a book, remembering by context. But… once I’ve found it, there’s the problem that if I want to quote it, I have to type it — which is not only time-consuming, but creates the potential for introducing transcription errors. Far better to copy and paste. (At least, I think you can copy and paste from ebooks. Google Books doesn’t allow it. See how I got around that back here, by using screenshots of Google  Books.)

But I still want to possess the book. Maybe it’s just pure acquisitiveness, or maybe it’s a survivalist thing — I want something I can read even if someone explodes a thermonuclear device over my community, knocking out all electronics.

In any case, all of us are still sorting out what an ebook is worth to us. Let Apple set the price where it may, and try to compete with Amazon. Then we’ll see what shakes out.

Yep, that’s Bobby all right

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People wonder why I’m always late and never (well, almost never) get anything done. It’s because for me, stuff just leads to stuff. And I’m unable to resist plunging ahead to see where it all leads.

For instance, today I had a membership committee meeting at the Capital City Club. At some point our membership director said that you can now buy Smart Cards at the Club. Someone asked what that was, and I pulled mine out of my pocket to show him. This reminded me… I had arrived at the Club for a meeting before the meeting, and my two hours (it was one of the green ones, which max out at 2 hours) were probably going to run out just as we were ending the lunch meeting. And I’ve been ticketed seconds after running out before.

So I excused myself to go put some more time on the meter.

On my way out, I ran into Rep. James Smith. We exchanged pleasantries, I excused myself again and went down to the street. I put some more time on, and headed back up.

On my way into the building, a sort of familiar-looking guy walking perpendicular to my path made eye contact with that “Hey, aren’t you…” look, hesitated, nodded to me with the sort of halfway nod that feels deniable, in case you’re wrong about who it is, and I gave back a similar nod. I walked on, thinking about the odd complexities of polite human interaction, when I heard a “Hey!” behind me. It was the guy. He asked me if I was Brad and if I used to run the newspaper. I told him I ran the editorial page. He asked me about a woman named Cindi who was married to someone who had been someone high-ranking at the newspaper, saying he probably was confusing her identity. He said no, not Cindi Scoppe.

I don’t know how I got there, but I eventually I read his mind enough (after he mentioned Macon, Ga.) to venture that he was talking about Nina Brook. Her husband Steve came to the paper as business editor, she joined as a political reporter, she left to go to WIS and then was Gov. Jim Hodges’ press secretary before I hired her away (the move was widely regarded as a defection) to be an associate editor. She’s now a high school teacher. Steve is now managing editor at the paper.

She and Cindi Scoppe share a number of characteristics (they used to be a fearsome duo as reporters, covering the Legislature together), which could lead to a name confusion, but don’t tell either of them that.

That settled, I confessed to not knowing his name, and he gave it. He works at the Department of Commerce. I asked how Bobby Hitt was doing. Bobby, if you’ll recall, was very ill just before Christmas, and hospitalized for quite a while. He’s back at work now, I was told, but working more of a normal schedule instead of trying to kill himself doing everything. Good to hear.

Oh, he said, since you know Bobby from way back you should probably get off the elevator on 16 and look down the hall to see the new portrait. He said it was by that lady, and he gave a first name (again, not the right one — I have days like that, too) who works with trash. I said you mean Kirkland Smith, who… drumroll… is married to James Smith, whom I had just run into. And it’s not really garbage she uses as a medium, more like… cast-off junk. It’s a recycling thing.

So on the way back to my meeting, I stopped on 16 and looked both ways. The receptionist at Commerce asked if she could help me, and I said I was looking for the picture. She told me to step inside the double doors and look down a hall, and at more than 50 feet there was no doubt — there was Bobby.

I went on down the hall to get close enough for an iPhone picture, and ended up chatting with another lady whose desk was next to it.

Eventually, I made my way back to the meeting. It was pretty much over. I hadn’t meant to miss the rest of the meeting; stuff just happens…

Anyway, I thought Kirkland’s picture was pretty cool, just like the others of hers I’ve seen. So I’m sharing it.

A new business model for journalism?

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Romenesko brought my attention to this idea today. It’s intriguing, because the holy grail in journalism today is to find a new way to pay for it, now that the old business model that sustained newspaper journalism for generations has collapsed so spectacularly.

Interest in news and commentary is as great as always, but in the past, those who demanded such commodities were not the ones who paid for it — it was advertisers, who came to the newspaper for completely different motives. Now that marketing has changed so radically, turning from mass media to targeting messaging, how do you pay people to come up with the professional-quality content that the public still desires?

Here’s one way:

I call it the eBay of investigative journalism, and here’s how I envision it:

  • Bring donors and investigators together in an exclusive online network, creating a forum where they could pitch ideas to each other.
  • Donors in the network who want specific topics covered would propose stories and agree to fund the investigations. Journalists in the network would bid on the projects, outlining how much money they need. Multiple donors could contribute to each project.
  • Project pitches would work the opposite direction, too, with investigative journalists outlining their own ideas and donors “buying in” by providing the funds. Donors could contribute the full amount to fund projects they really like or fund parts of multiple projects. Journalists also could pitch ideas as teams or recruit teams within the network.
  • The network would have a team of editorial directors whose job would be to vet the donors, journalists and ideas. Only the best would make the cut, just like applying for media jobs.

Of course that only applies to investigative journalism — or more, broadly, what we referred to as “enterprise” stories: Someone (traditionally an editor) says “go out and look into this.” Traditionally, the journalist did so because he was paid a salary. Now that the revenue source that paid that salary has collapsed, this is an interesting idea for paying for a journalist’s time and expertise to pursue a subject.

Of course, there are real problems with it. Not every worthwhile story, not everything that citizens need to know, is marketable. That’s why it worked better to pay journalists salaries so that their scope of investigation was unlimited by what attracted a paying customer.

Then, there’s the fact that it does little good for the area of opinion journalism, which has been my specialty since 1994.

But perhaps most critically, it does nothing for the most fundamental, basic, bread-and-butter kind of journalism: simply covering everything in a community — crime, public safety, courts, politics, business. If you try to cover news according to whether someone wants to pay to see that particular story, it becomes PR.

But it’s still an intriguing idea.

Midlands mayors speak optimistically of burgeoning community unity

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The panel laughs after moderator Bob Bouyea asked what should be done about traffic on I-126 and other paths into Columbia, and Steve Benjamin replied, "Everybody could live downtown."

This morning — very early this morning — I attended the latest “Power Breakfast” sponsored by the Columbia Regional Business Report. So did a lot of other people, packed into a ballroom at Embassy Suites.

I’d like particularly to thank the friends who joined us at the ADCO table, right up front:

We were there to listen to four mayors — Steve Benjamin of Columbia, Randy Halfacre of Lexington, Elise Partin of Cayce, and Hardy King of Irmo — talk about metro issues.

Here was the dominant theme: Regional cooperation.

You may note that that was the main theme at last year’s panel. You’d be right. But last year it was more about something to be grasped at. This year there was more of a sense of something achieved.

A lot of this arose from the experience of landing Amazon. One hears that a lot among folks who work in local government, and economic development, in the Midlands. Which is interesting. It started out as such a divisive controversy, in the Legislature, with the governor not helping a bit and lawmakers at each other’s throats. I had my own ambivalence about the deal at the time, but those who are dedicated to bringing jobs to the community were undivided in their minds, and undivided in the collective sense.

It seems to have been a rallying, bonding experience that carries over into many other areas.

Time and again this morning, we heard expressions of comradeship, a sense of all being in this together, that swept aside the political boundaries that have been an excuse to get nothing done in the past. We heard it a little less from Hardy King, who tended to answer questions entirely from an Irmo perspective, but he’s new, and hasn’t been through the same bonding experiences as the other.

Last year, the mayors were still stinging over the failure to come together effectively over the Southwest Airlines matter. This year, there was more reason to celebrate — and not just Amazon, but Nephron and other economic development wins for the whole community.

A lot of other issues were discussed — Ms. Partin mentioned the 12,000-year history park in her city, Mr. Benjamin said with regard to mass transit that “It’s hard to get Southerners out of their cars,” Mr. King spoke of his town’s 0 percent property tax rate, and Mr. Halfacre told us about what his citizens ask about almost as much as they ask for traffic relief: sidewalks.

But I’ve been away from home 12 hours now, and I hear my dinner calling.

Taking a risk with a mustard seed

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I don’t often get releases like this one, so I thought I’d share it:

11 Trinity Youth Transform $1,100 into More Than $60,000

In Just 90 Days, through the Kingdom Assignment, Students Raise Money to Further the Kingdom of God

Thursday, February 9, 2012, Columbia, SC Trinity Cathedral’s Episcopal Youth Community (EYC) is making a big impact in their parish and in our community. In November of 2011, Canon Brian Silldorff challenged 11 members of EYC to participate in the Kingdom Assignment. The result? More than $60,000 to fund an array of projects, both sacred and secular.

The Kingdom Assignment is an international project dedicated to stewardship of God’s Kingdom that started some ten years ago in Lake City, California. You can read more about the Kingdom Assignment on their website, www.kingdomassignment.org.

After teaching a Sunday school lesson about the Parable of the Talents, Silldorff challenged eleven youth to participate in the Kingdom Assignment and entrusted them with $1,100 and offered just three rules: 1. The money belongs to God and is entrusted to you. 2. You have 90 days to further the kingdom of God with your talent and treasure. 3. You must report back in 90 days about your project and its success.

It’s now 90 days later and the Kingdom Assignment project will culminate during Youth Sunday School on Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 10:15am in the Workshop. Students, adults, and those impacted by the project will be present along with parishioners and the media to celebrate the impact and reach of more than $60,000.

You are invited to join in the celebration and share in the success. Please email Brian Silldorff if you plan to attend as space is the Workshop is limited. The Worskshop is located on the ground floor of the Trinity Center for Mission and Ministry located at 1123 Marion Street, Columbia, SC 29201.

Way to go, kids! I’m proud of you. Even though you’re not Roman. At least you’re catholic. You know, my cousin is one of y’all’s priests.

This reminds me of the best sermon I ever heard from my own pastor, Msgr. Lehocky. It was so long ago, he probably doesn’t remember it, but I do — the main points, anyway.

I’d always had trouble with that parable — you know, the Capitalist Parable:

14`The kingdom of heaven will be like the time a man went to a country far away. He called his servants and put them in charge of his money.

15He gave five bags of money to one servant. He gave two bags of money to another servant. He gave one bag of money to another servant. He gave to each one what he was able to be in charge of. Then he went away.

16`Right away the servant who had five bags of money began to buy and sell things with it. He made five bags of money more than he had at first.

17`The servant who had two bags of money did the same thing as the one who had five bags. He also made two bags of money more than he had at first.

18But the man who had only one bag of money dug a hole in the ground. And he hid his master’s money in the ground.

19`After a long time, the master of those servants came home. He asked what they had done with his money.

20The servant who had been given five bags of money brought five bags more to his master. He said, “Sir, you gave me five bags of money. See, I have made five bags more money.”

21`His master said, “You have done well. You are a good servant. I can trust you. You have taken good care of a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come, have a good time with your master.”

22`The servant who had been given two bags of money came and said to his master, “Sir, you gave me two bags of money. I have made two bags more money.”

23His master said, “You have done well. You are a good servant. I can trust you. You have taken good care of a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come, have a good time with your master.”

24`The servant who had been given one bag of money came and said, “Sir, I knew that you were a hard man. You cut grain where you did not plant. You pick fruit where you put nothing in.

25I was afraid. So I went and hid your money in the ground. Here is your money.”

26`His master answered him, “You are a bad and lazy servant. You knew that I cut grain where I did not plant. You knew that I pick fruit where I put nothing in.

27You should have put my money in the bank. Then when I came home, I would have had my money with interest on it.

28So take the money away from him. Give it to the one who has ten bags.

29Anyone who has some will get more, and he will have plenty. But he who does not get anything, even the little that he has will be taken away from him.

30Take this good-for-nothing servant! Put him out in the dark place outside. People there will cry and make a noise with their teeth.” ‘

Not that I have anything against capitalism; I don’t. I just didn’t like it that Jesus was suggesting that the third servant had done something wrong. I mean, if someone else asks you to hold his property, shouldn’t you take every precaution to preserve it and have it ready to give back to him? Doesn’t basic honesty require that? Capitalism is a fine thing, with your own money. But do you have the right to take a risk with someone else’s, without specific (preferably written) authorization?

The risk part was what got me; that’s what seemed wrong. It was too easy to fail.

Father Lehocky urged us to look at it in a whole new way. He said people who play it safe are wasting the talents or other gifts they are entrusted with. OK, I sort of got that, but what if they fail? What if they do?, he said. Failing is part of life. You can fail big-time, and by doing so advance the cause of God. Look at Jesus himself. Was there ever a bigger failure? Look at the way he died. Charged as a criminal, whipped nearly to death, stripped naked and nailed up on a gibbet like an animal for the unfeeling community to watch his death-agonies. Abandoned by his friends, who ran like scalded dogs before the bully boys and denied even knowing him. Not a word he’d said had ever even been written down. All over, all done with, all for nothing. He’d taken a risk, and failed spectacularly, by every standard the world had for judging such things.

Except that he hadn’t, as it turned out. He’d really started something. The risk he’d taken had paid off in a way no ordinary mortal would have predicted.

That sermon made me think differently about my life and how it should be lived. It made me look at failure in a new way. Not that I’ve always lived up to that new way of looking at life. But it made me think. And now that I’m writing this, I’m thinking about it again…

Joel Sawyer joins forces with Wesley Donehue

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A screenshot from an episode of "Pub Politics" when Joel Sawyer, right, stood in for Wesley Donehue. At left is Phil Bailey, and the guest is the record-holder, making his 8th appearance.

Joel Sawyer, ex-press secretary to Mark Sanford and until recently the public face of the Huntsman campaign in SC, has a new gig:

Columbia, SC – February 6, 2012 – Two of South Carolina’s top up-and-coming political and communications talents are teaming up, with Donehue Direct CEO Wesley Donehue announcing today that Joel Sawyer would be joining the firm effective immediately as Senior Vice President.

“Donehue Direct has already established a brand as being the premier internet, social media, and political consulting firm in South Carolina,” Donehue said. “Joel is going to help take this company to the next level in terms of growing our brand and expanding our presence across the region. “

Sawyer and Donehue were recently named among Columbia’s 50 Most Influential People by Columbia Business Monthly, the only political consultants to receive the honor.

Sawyer began his career as a newspaper reporter with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, where he won S.C. Press Association Awards for spot news reporting and in-depth reporting. He then served in Gov. Sanford’s communications office for more than six years, most recently as Communications Director. He moved on to become Executive Director of the SCGOP, where he guided the state party to its first-ever sweep of Constitutional Offices and taking the 5th Congressional District. Most recently, he served as state Campaign Manager for Jon Huntsman for President.

“This is an incredible opportunity to join a growing firm that is really at the cutting edge of internet and social media technology,” Sawyer said. “Wes and his team are literally creating the roadmap for the convergence of new media and traditional political consulting – and this partnership is going to take it to new heights.”

Donehue Direct is a political consulting and technology firm with operations in Columbia, Charleston and San Francisco. The Donehue team runs campaign and internet operations for clients ranging from City Council and State Legislature to United States Senator and Governor. Last year, Donehue Direct CEO Wesley Donehue was named Republican Innovator of the Year by Campaigns and Elections magazine.

Congratulations to both Joel and Wesley. They seem poised for success in the Republican interactive services market. In South Carolina, that’s a growth niche…

Once upon a time, boys and girls, there were these things called “newspapers”…

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This newsreel, brought to my attention by Burl Burlingame, has a lot of funny lines in it, but none is a bigger hoot than, “there are a lot of writing jobs on newspapers.”

I also like the part when it says that women find it hard to compete with men for hard-news reporting jobs. And it’s so true! You know why? Because there’s aren’t any freaking reporting jobs, that’s why!

Energy Party position on Keystone pipeline

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Meant to post about this yesterday, but there’s just so much going on…

You know the Democratic position on the Obama Administration’s rejection of a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. And you know the Republican position.

But what, I’m sure you’re wondering, is the Energy Party position? It’s not all that complicated. You can break it down into three elements. The Energy Party:

  1. Wants this project to happen. Not for the jobs everybody is talking about, although the jobs are great. Encouraging the development of domestic, or at least friendly, sources of energy is key to the nation’s strategic security, and therefore of the highest priority to the Energy Party.
  2. Is deeply disappointed that the permit has been rejected at this time. Were this decision to stand, it would be bad for the nation. Fortunately, there appears to be time to reconsider, as there are other obstacles to the project that will take time to work out.
  3. Is much encouraged that the permit was not rejected on the merits. The fact that the president cited a technicality — Congress not giving enough time to properly consider the permit — is highly encouraging. Maybe he can turn this around and get it right.

See how matter-of-fact things can be when you’re not blinded by the ideology of either the left or the right, and you don’t care whether Democrats or Republicans have the upper hand?

I want my, I want my, I want my Wikipedia

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OK, so that doesn’t quite work, poetically speaking. What’s MTV? Is that a dactyl, or what?

My alternative idea for a headline was “Money for SOPA, money for dopa.” Which do you like better?

Anyway, I’m pretty ticked at somebody, I’m just not sure who, for the fact that I can’t use Wikipedia today. At least Google’s working (having opted for a purely symbolic “blackout”), but what good is it when the best source it keeps sending me to is Wikipedia?

Just a moment ago, trying to look up “dactyl,” I of course clicked on the first thing Google gave me, and for a split second saw the Wikipedia entry on “dactyl” before I got the above brick wall.

This would be OK, if I could just tell myself that Wikipedia isn’t available today, and not try to use it today. But I could hold my breath that long more easily. Using Wikipedia is an autonomic response. I think. I mean, I think that’s the term, but I can’t frickin’ check on Wiki!

At whom am I ticked? Jimmy Wales? Or the gigantic coalition of old-media companies lined up in favor of SOPA? For the last two days, I’ve been hearing in-depth reports on NPR from both sides, and I’ve heard all sorts of claims, but one thing I haven’t heard is an explanation of what on Earth the legislation does. This is the simplest explanation I’ve found:

Under the current wording of the measures, the Attorney General would have the power to order ISPs [internet service prividers] to block access to foreign-based sites suspected of trafficking in pirated and counterfeit goods; order search engines to delist the sites from their indexes; ban advertising on suspected sites; and block payment services from processing transactions for accused sites.

If the same standards were applied to U.S.-based sites, Wikipedia, Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, Google and Wired could all find themselves blocked.

Such requests would need to be reviewed and approved by a judge. But accused sites would get little notice of a pending action in U.S. courts against them, and, once blacklisted, have little effective means of appeal.

But then, I heard advocates of the legislation this morning on The Takeaway (they were being interviewed by a woman who belongs to one of the associations backing SOPA, by the way) insist that it wouldn’t do that, that it had been amended to remove all objectionable characteristics, and that they’d be happy to have it amended further, etc., etc.

I just don’t know. But I do know this: Today, I’m inclined to cast my vote on Saturday for whichever candidate convinces me that he would keep Wikipedia up and running. SOPA or no SOPA, I don’t care.

(At this point, imagine Sting’s voice fading out, repeating “I want my, I want my…” At least I think it’s Sting. How am I suppose to check?)

Huck and Newt speak locally, think globally

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Gingrich arrives, with that Newtish look in his eye.

Newt Gingrich had the limelight to himself today at a gathering at the Columbia Hilton devoted to foreign policy.

Well, almost to himself — the featured speaker was actually Mike Huckabee, whom former ambassador to Canada David Wilkins introduced as “an alum of our primary.” But Newt was given a slot to speak as well.  The occasion was a U.S. Global Leadership Coalition luncheon, and the crowd was a mix of academic and business types — it was co-sponsored by USC, the Columbia World Affairs Council, and the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce. The Columbia Chamber’s Ike McLeese had some smart words to say at the outset about how “foolish” isolationism is in today’s world, and Huckabee later used the same word. I guess that’s why Ron Paul wasn’t there.

Between Huck and Newt, I preferred the comments by Huckabee, but then I’ve always sort of liked Huck. Basically, he was channeling John Donne. He didn’t actually say the words, “No man is an island,” or that if a bell tolls anywhere in the world, it tolls for us, but it amounted to the same thing.

He said that Americans — particularly those who consider themselves Christian — can’t sit by and let people in other parts of the world starve or be oppressed. And not just on moral grounds. Basically, he suggested that the world is so intertwined — and this is where the Donne stuff comes in — that our own interests and fates cannot be extricated from those of people in other parts of the world. At the very least, he said, a country we help feed tonight just might be one that we need to fly some planes over, in defense of our strategic interests, on a later date.

Huckabee graciously announced at the beginning of his remarks that whenever Gingrich showed up, he’d shut up and cede the floor. As it happened, he finished before Newt swept in.

Newt had some good stuff to say, too. He’s a smart guy — just ask him; he’ll tell you. But he was also…  more bombastic, more jingoistic, as is his wont. Which can get off-putting.

Like when he condescendingly complained about the better, higher societies — you know, Northern European ones — being dragged down by the obviously inferior ones. He didn’t think it right for America to be “trying to prop up the Germans so that they can prop up the Greeks.” Who, you know, are so worthless… “This is the country the Germans want to learn to be Germanic?” Why, he asked, should the Greeks want to be German. Their choice, as he explained it, is to sit on a beach drinking ouzo, or be miserable applying themselves like the Germans.

Then there was this: “No American president should bow ever again to a Saudi king.” He was making a good point — that we need to achieve energy independence. But there was just that unsettling tinge of complaining about having to be accommodating to the wogs.

I agree with him when he says he doesn’t want his grandchildren living in a world dominated by China, an oppressive regime. I agree that the world is, indeed, better off with the dominant country being the world’s biggest liberal democracy. But I could do without the attitude, such as when he said he would hire the most aggressive trial lawyer he could find to be trade representative to China, and he’d want that rep to get up every morning thinking about how he could maximize the other side’s discomfiture.

And with Newt, it’s not what he says (for me; I’m sure that for some of my liberal correspondents, it is what he says), but the way he says it. The president needs to be cooler than that.

Mike Huckabee addresses the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition gathering.

The big news in South Florida tonight

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This is the big news in these parts tonight:

The company that manufactures Mercedes-Benz luxury cars unleashed outrage among Cuban-Americans in Miami and other cities on Thursday for using the image of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara to promote their vehicles.

While Daimler AG, the German company which controls Mercedes-Benz, quickly apologized for the use of the image in a presentation in Las Vegas this week, the damage was done.

Many Cuban exiles in South Florida who have fled the island since Fidel Castro took power with the help of Guevara in 1959 not only rejected the ad campaign but also expressed disgust that such a prestigious company would use the image of the revolutionary blamed for executions and implementation of communism on the island…

Oh, one other thing. Apparently, Mitt Romney was down this way (remember, I’m in Key West) today campaigning. Sounds like somebody’s taking South Carolina for granted, a little bit.

Ayn Rand is alive and well in the Club for Growth

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It’s been really interesting to see his rivals tear into Mitt Romney for being some sort of heartless capitalist. And it’s been equally interesting to see the Mark Sanford wing of the GOP defend him.

I didn’t have time this morning to finish reading the front-page piece in The Wall Street Journal (which unfortunately is hiding behind the pay wall) about this phenomenon, but I can share with you this release from the Club for Growth:

Statement On Newt Gingrich’s Attacks On Mitt Romney And Bain Capital
Club for Growth President Chris Chocola: “Newt Gingrich should stop his attacks on free markets and apologize to Governor Romney for them”

Washington, DC – The Club for Growth PAC issued the following statement today in reaction to Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Governor Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Yesterday, Gingrich said “Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that in fact the whole goal of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation…we find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company, leaving behind 1,700 families without a job.” (Source: New York Times, 1/8/11) Gingrich’s attack was echoed that same day that by the Democratic National Committee, which also attacked Romney for his job creation record at Bain Capital. (Source: Democratic National Committee YouTube Page, 1/8/12)

“Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital are disgusting,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “There are a number of issues for Mitt Romney’s Republican opponents to attack him for, but attacking him for making investments in companies to create a profit for his investors is just wrong. Because of the efforts of Bain Capital, major companies like Staples, Domino’s Pizza, and the Sports Authority now employ thousands of people and have created billions in wealth in the private economy. Attacking Governor Romney for participating in free-market capitalism is just beyond the pale for any purported ‘Reagan Conservative.’ Newt Gingrich should stop his attacks on free markets and apologize to Governor Romney for them.”

Ayn Rand, high priestess of the cult of Self, may be technically dead, but who needs her when we have the Club?

No word, by the way, on whether Chris Chocola is related to the Count. Probably not, given the spelling difference.

What Romney said about NLRB was technically wrong, but his message was accurate

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Late last week the Obama re-election campaign brought to my attention a PolitiFact piece that said something Mitt Romney said about Obama’s NLRB was untrue.

And it was, technically. But what he was trying to say was essentially true.

Politifact described the Romney ad this way:

In the ad, Romney stands in front of workers on a factory floor and says that “the National Labor Relations Board, now stacked with union stooges selected by the president, says to a free enterprise like Boeing, ‘you can’t build a factory in South Carolina because South Carolina is a right-to-work state.’”

Here is Politifact’s ruling (and go ahead and read the entire explication that precedes it):

The Romney ad claimed that the NLRB told Boeing that it “can’t build a factory in South Carolina because South Carolina is a right-to-work state.”

The NLRB’s complaint started a legal process that could ultimately have resulted in a factory closure, but the NLRB as a whole didn’t tell Boeing anything. What’s more, the legal basis for the action centered on whether Boeing was punishing the union for staging strikes, not that Boeing had opened a factory in a right-to-work state. We rate the statement False.

Bottom line, Boeing had said it wanted to get away from all those strikes, and that’s that got it into trouble. Well, one good way to get away from strikes is to go to a “right-to-work” state, where you are less likely to be dealing with a union.

So… as an editor, if someone had written for publication the words spoken in the Romney ad, I wouldn’t have allowed it. I’d have reworded it. But I would have understood what he was saying.

Is Runyan taking a responsible stand, or avoiding taking a position?

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I can’t decide which. See what you think. I just got this from Cameron Runyan, the only candidate so far for the at-large position on Columbia City Council that Daniel Rickenmann is vacating:

The debate over the proposed Capital City Stadium sale reflects the need for a much larger discussion about the future of our city. We have an opportunity to use the energy around the current debate to create an enforceable vision for a clean, safe, vibrant economic engine for our citizens and a model for progressive and sustainable development. Only by working together can we make that happen.

This is an emotional issue. As such, I encourage council, community leaders and engaged citizens to take a step back, come together and work toward building a comprehensive plan for our corridors – including the Assembly Street corridor. I believe the sale of the Assembly Street property must be held until this plan is created.

It won’t be easy. If it were easy, it would have been done already. But it is necessary. It is necessary for the future of Assembly Street and for the future of our great city. If we want to have good urban growth, we need great planning.

From Rosewood Avenue to the university, the Assembly Street corridor is primed for growth. So it is imperative that we create a thorough plan for development that embraces our city’s vision for the future.

This plan must be a community effort that reflects the various concerns of all of Columbia.

This plan must be a comprehensive plan that focuses on maximizing economic growth, protecting neighborhood integrity and preserving, enhancing and embracing the natural environment.

This plan must be a transformative plan that addresses the antiquated zoning laws that have caused confusion and allowed for unacceptable permits for things like a porn shop on Devine Street.

I’ve spoken with business leaders, environmental leaders and community leaders. To a person they agree the city needs better planning for urban growth and we need it now.

I am working to bring together other stakeholders, experts and leaders to develop a plan. As a member of council, I will continue to play a very active role in these discussions and I will do so until we have a strong plan that will benefit our city for generations to come.

Comprehensive strategies sound good, but this also seems a convenient way to avoid a decision before the April election.

But if Cameron’s dodging this, he has my sympathy to an extent. I remain torn about it. I’d be happy to have the convenience of a Walmart downtown, but I’m sympathetic to the businesses’ and neighbors’ concerns…

Let’s talk about porn

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Just briefly…

First, we really look bad as a community that we wait and we wait for a really classy, upscale business like Whole Foods to locate here, and BAM! the only porn superstore in the metropolitan area suddenly materializes right in front of it. Seems like there should be some way for the city to stop this. If we can’t, then private business would have a legitimate beef with the city.

Second, and this is the thing I really wonder about…

Who, in the 21st century, actually needs to go to a physical store to get pornography? I mean, really? Back before spam filters got good, we were all smothering in the stuff in our inboxes. And as things stand now, any kind of porn you can imagine is a few keystrokes away.

OK, so maybe you’re a traditionalist, and you like to own the DVD. Fine. You can still order it on the Internet, with the added bonuses of convenience and privacy.

How does a “superstore” fit into the business model of the porn industry? What is the need for retail outlets? And if it does work for them, what must the markup be?

Basically, this is a problem that has NO reason to be. And yet, we have it, right here in River City…

Court unanimously finds against McMaster

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Kathryn, to whom I think the topic is near and dear, brings this to my attention:

Former state Attorney General Henry McMaster on Monday lost his legal challenge as a landlord of Columbia’s law that barred students from creating mini-dormitories in residential neighborhoods.

In a 5-0 vote, the S.C. Supreme Court rejected McMaster’s argument that the city’s zoning ordinance capping at three the number of unrelated people who may share a residence. McMaster, through his PJM Properties, contends the ordinance violated the state constitution’s due process clause…

For those who wish to delve deeper, here’s a copy of the actual decision.

NLRB to SC, Boeing: Never mind…

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Have you seen this?

NLRB Withdraws Boeing Complaint

The National Labor Relations Board dropped a high-profile complaint against Boeing Co., a move that was expected after the aerospace company’s 31,000-member machinists union approved a sweeping contract extension earlier this week.

The NLRB said Friday that it withdrew the April complaint, which charged the aerospace company with illegally retaliating against the union for previous strikes by opening an aircraft-production line at a non-union plant in South Carolina.

The agency had filed the complaint on behalf of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers after siding with the union’s allegations. Boeing contested the charges, saying it had made a business decision and didn’t retaliate against the union. The case drew heavy criticism from the business community and some Republican lawmakers, who said the NLRB should not be interfering with companies’ choices about where to open factories….

The action makes sense — certainly a lot more sense than the agency’s previous position. I kept wondering where NLRB thought it was going with that. I mean, try to imagine the agency actually making Boeing pull back out of South Carolina. A federal agency telling a major corporation where it can do business within the United States? It would have been like nothing that I can recall in U.S. labor history. It would have required a complete rethinking of the role of government in the economy. It would have been way more radical than what GOP politicians seem to think Obamacare is.

Speaking of Republican politicians, this decision has left some of them off-balance. There they were in full outrage mode, and now, “Huh?” They’re like Wile E. Coyote, who suddenly realizes there’s no mesa beneath him.

Lindsey Graham is demanding an investigation:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is calling for a congressional investigation into collaboration between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union against The Boeing Company’s decision to build a second 787 Dreamliner production facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Graham’s announcement comes after the NLRB announced it will drop its complaint against Boeing.

Graham also reaffirmed today he will continue to place an indefinite Senate hold on nominations to the NLRB Board.  Beginning in January 2012, the NLRB will have just two members.  The Supreme Court last year ruled that an agency board with just two members lacks the authority to issue case rulings.

More to the point, the senator said, “For the sake of the Boeing South Carolina workers, I’m pleased to hear the frivolous complaint that has put a cloud over their operations has been lifted.  However, it’s hard to celebrate an event which never should have happened…”

By the way, I THINK this is the new Boeing plant. I shot this in North Charleston yesterday, near the airport. There were no signs to confirm, that I saw...

Where the synapses meet: AT&T’s switching center

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First, let’s take a moment to welcome new advertiser AT&T. You may have heard of this outfit. It only employs 2,477 people in South Carolina, with a payroll of $173 million. Not to mention handling all those billions of texts. And now it’s hit the big time — advertising on bradwarthen.com. (See the new ad at the top of the stack on the right.)

Today, coincidentally, I visited the nerve center of it all, the very synapses that handle 90 percent of AT&T’s wireless traffic in South Carolina. Where was that? Well, I can’t tell you. That was a condition of my going there. Very hush-hush.

But here are some pictures I managed to smuggle out. That’s OK; you don’t have to thank me. I live to serve.

AT&T’s Pam Lackey and other officials had invited a number of media and economic development types out to let us know that the company has spent $125 million this year in SC to improve wireless service, including new cell sites and the upgrade of dozens of others. For instance, Forest Acres should see improved service from a new cell site at Trenholm Road and North Beltline. Meanwhile, 60 towers in Richland County have been upgraded with “enhanced backhaul connections,” which has something to do with enabling 4G speeds.

AT&T was showcasing its processing power today because increasingly, that’s what it’s about, explained Laurent Therivel, AT&T’s vice president and general manager of Mobility & Consumer Markets for North Carolina and South Carolina. Consumers are less interested in, say, how many songs they can store on a device; they want to make sure they have a good connection to Pandora. Even such apparently device-specific functions as Siri are all about the network. Smart as she is, if you don’t have a good network, Siri can’t think.

As we toured the facility, I heard a lot about MTSOs and RNCs and MSCs, and GSM vs. CDMA, and I nodded and hoped there wouldn’t be a quiz at the end. And tried not to bump into anything. And I kept my mouth shut as to what I was thinking: A bunch of wires running in and out of boxes, and that’s what enables my iPhone to work as it does? I still think it’s magic.

What’s the most interesting thing that I actually learned and absorbed, aside from the fact that AT&T is really serious about enhancing customer service? This: The whole thing runs on batteries.

Really. At  one point, we were in this room that was like all the others, except a little chillier and darker. But the stacks of electronic paraphernalia in that room consisted entirely of batteries rather than high-tech switching equipment. Basically, the idea is that it doesn’t matter whether the grid is working or backup generation, so long as the batteries get recharged. If there’s an outage, the network never knows the difference.

I would never have guessed that, although I suppose that’s one way to make sure the call — or text, or data — always goes through.

This is one customer satisfaction survey I’ll be sure to take the time to fill out

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Just got this email, following up on my adventures earlier in the week:

Dear Brad,

Recently, you contacted our online customer service group for assistance. We are conducting a study that will help us evaluate and improve our levels of customer service, and would like to include your opinions. The survey will only take a few minutes, and will help ensure that our customers receive the best possible service.

Please take a moment to tell us about your experience. You can be assured that your responses will be used only for research purposes, and will be held in strict confidence.

We value your input, and thank you in advance for your participation.

Click here to take our survey

Sincerely,
Toys”R”Us / Babies”R”Us!

I’m saving this for tonight, when I have some time to spend on it. I hope there’s an essay question on it…