Category Archives: Business

Where the growth is

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Just got a release today from the state Chamber announcing that “The deadline is extended until August 31, 2009 for companies to nominate their business for the Top 25 South Carolina Fastest-Growing Companies program.”

I don’t know who’s going to make that list, but SCBiz reports that 31 South Carolina companies made Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 Fastest Growing Companies in America for 2009.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that not one of them made the top 500. The highest on the list was Customer Effective, a Greenville IT services company, at No. 541 on the list.

Anyway, it’s nice to know some part of the economy in South Carolina is actually growing, so congrats to Customer Effective and the other 30 growers. It will be even nicer when some of us find jobs as a result of said growth…

Rupert Murdoch? Hey! That guy owes me money! (but not for long, I hope)

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Remember when I did that freelance gig for The New York Post back during the week of all the Sanford craziness? I covered the press conference (THE press conference, the one where everything came tumbling down) for them and worked some sources for a couple of days.

Thing is, I’ve never gotten paid for that. Finally, I think we’ve got that worked out — I may receive a check in the mail today — but before it got totally resolved, I just wanted to use that headline, because it amuses me. (I’m hearing it in the voice of Bill Murray in “Stripes,” saying to the cute MP outside Gen. Barnicke’s house saying, “Barnicke? Barnicke?! He still owes me money. Hey Barney?…”)

Once the check has been deposited, Rupert will be my bestest buddy. And it will make me feel a bit better when someone calls me from the Post for guidance on the Sanford saga (as someone did just a few days ago — the day Jenny moved out of the mansion, in fact).

If I continue in this freelance floater mode much longer, I may need to have to hire somebody to be my collector. I’m used to just getting a paycheck and not thinking about it. Dunning people is tiring work, and I think I’d prefer to outsource it. Not my core competency, and other business cliches, yadda-yadda …

Would saying “yes” incriminate me?

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Today, I’m trying to rent a car to drive, one-way, from Pennsylvania back to Columbia one day next week. I’m helping somebody drive up there, and I need a way back.

A simple matter, you think? Well, if you think that, you’re wrong.

Just now I talked with the local representative of that rental company that tries harder, and he said he might be able to find me a car, but that there would be a “drop charge” or a “drop fee,” or some such. The word “drop” was in there somewhere. I’m guessing it’s from what customers’ jaws do when they hear the fee.

He said the car, for the day, would be $58.98. Not bad, I thought. With a rate that low, even with the drop fee it might be less than what another rental company (the one that this one traditionally tries harder than) had said they’d charge. And it would be closer to where I will be geographically.

Then he added, “with a drop charge of five hundred dollars.” Really. He said that. At which point the conversation was over.

Here’s what I’m thinking: Who would say “yes” to the incidental little added charge of $500 on a $58 rental who was not involved in a major drug deal or something or that kind? Presumably, I’m paying somebody to drive the car back for me — and whack somebody on the way, for that kind of money.

If anyone said “yes” to a deal like that, I’d immediately be extremely suspicious of him. Wouldn’t you?

Do you think things are getting any better?

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Consider this another in my fitful efforts to gauge how the economy is coming along. Noting this item today:

Statewide home sales increase 13% in June

Monday, 20 July 2009
Staff Report
COLUMBIA – The number of homes sold in South Carolina rose for the second straight month. Nearly 4,200 homes were sold in June, an increase of 13% over May, according to the latest report from the S.C. Association of Realtors.

In May, home sales totaled 3,704, an increase of 16% over sales in April.

June’s figures also represent the best year-over-year showing so far this year, with just an 11.3% drop compared to June 2008 numbers.

Of the 15 regions reporting home sales for the association, 14 reported an increase in sales over May. The only area that reported a loss was the Southern Midlands Association of Realtors. It sold three more homes in May than it did in June, according to the report.

Of the state’s three major metropolitan areas, Greenville posted a 13.3% increase in June sales over May, followed by Columbia with a 10.5% increase and Charleston with a 9.4% increase, the report said.

The median price of homes in South Carolina was $147,000, up from $142,000 in May. The average number of days a home was on the market was 144, down from 155 in May.

For the full report, click here.

… which follows on news Friday that unemployment held steady, I wonder — do you see signs that things are starting to look up?

You can’t tell by me, since I still don’t have a job. For that matter, you can’t really tell by South Carolina. The state Board of Economic Advisors called for more state budget cuts last week.

But South Carolina lags, and I am a South Carolinian, so I guess that means I lag, too. Still, even I have seen positive signs in recent weeks — such as packed parking lots out in the Harbison area.

What are you seeing?

Don’t judge too quickly (clever ads from extinct company)

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A friend shared with me these video ads that have apparently been making their way, in a viral form, across the Internet. First time I had seen them, though, and I enjoyed them enough to pass them on to you.

Ironically, the service it advertises — Ameriquest Mortgage — ceased to operate under that name two years ago. So I guess cleverness isn’t everything.

Otis to Sanford: It’s not personal; it’s strictly business

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You may recall that a while back I chided the head of the state Chamber for not taking a stand against (or for, for that matter) our governor during the stimulus farce (“Otis, tell him what YOU think,” April 30).

Well, Otis Rawl has gotten over his shyness about the gov, of so this item seems to indicate:

State chamber exec: Sanford’s departure now or later could benefit I-85 project

Embattled Gov. Mark Sanford’s woes could be good in the long run for a development off Interstate 85 and State 14 in Greer that legislators have said may include a Bass Pro Shop, according to the president of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

Sanford opposed special tax breaks for magnet retailers, such as Bass Pro, and “if everybody was playing by the same rules, that’s fine,” state chamber president Otis Rawl said.

But other states offer incentives, he said, adding “If we don’t play the game, we lose jobs.”

“I think that all that’s happening around Sanford and depending what Sanford does will lend itself positively to whether Bass Pro Shop decides to locate here,” Rawl said. “It’s awful hard for a company to look at South Carolina and your governor, who’s supposed to be your biggest cheerleader, not supporting trying to get a company that would create anywhere from 500 to 1,000 jobs in the community.”

A Sanford resignation would put Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer in power, who would be “one of our businesses’ biggest cheerleaders,” Rawl said.

If Sanford does not resign, “It’s got to be a step forward for us to look toward 2010 to have a new governor that focuses on jobs and economic development,” he said.

In other words, whether sooner or later, Otis — like many in positions of business or political leadership — is really looking forward to the day when Mark Sanford is out of office. And it’s nothing personal. It’s strictly business.

Tom Davis appointment a case of qualification trumping connection

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Here’s something you don’t see every day in South Carolina:

Columbia, SC – July 6, 2009 – South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler announced today that he has recommended State Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) for appointment to the State Ports Authority Legislative Oversight Committee.  The 10-member legislative committee was recently created with the passage of the port-restructuring bill to help ensure stability and efficiency in state ports operations.

Tom Davis is one of Gov. Mark Sanford’s closest friends and advisers, and has said the gov should stay in office. Harvey Peeler was one of the first GOP senators to call on the governor to step down. Tom served previously on the Ports Authority, as a gubernatorial appointee. And he holds up the Jasper port deal with Georgia as a key achievement of the Sanford administration (when I suspect it is actually a key achievement of Tom Davis).

But Sen. Peeler appointed Sen. Davis anyway. We need to see more of that in South Carolina, a lot more: People being chosen for office because of their qualifications, rather than who their friends are.

Anyway, good choice there, Sen. Peeler.

How I flunked my IQ test

You know those quizzes people are always taking on Facebook — like “which ‘Friends’ character are you,” or “what’s your real nationality?” Well, I took one of those one day recently, and as I was taking it, a dialogue box popped up saying that some of my friends — one of them closely related to me — had “challenged” me to take an IQ test.

Well, this hit me in one of my weak spots, naturally. As y’all know, one of my few skills is that I’m good at tests. Whether it’s the SAT or a current events quiz or whatever, I tend to score way over what you would think by looking, say, at my high school transcript. I play way over my head. Some people have a natural ear for music; I test well. Just one of those things.

Add to that the fact that I was recently laid off, which makes me additionally vulnerable — all that much more eager to show off, if only to myself. You know, the “I’ve still got it” phenomenon.

So I bit. I went to take the test. And boy, did I do well. The questions were so easy as to arouse one’s suspicions under most circumstances. Sort of on the “answer this correctly and you win a free dance lesson” level. One was how many states are in the U.S., and only one of the multiple-choice answers was anywhere near 50. The hardest question was picking the 16th president — even if I hadn’t known it was Lincoln, he was the only option offered within a century of the right time. I think the closest ones before and after were Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton.

But instead of thinking, “Hey, wait a minute — what kind of scam test is this?” I’m going, “Man, I’m really acing this? What kind of IQ do you get with a perfect score?!?”

Then, when it was done, I get a page that tells me I just need to do one thing before my IQ score will post on Facebook — type in my cell phone number, and choose my service provider.

Which I did.

First of all, my extremely high IQ score never showed up on Facebook.

Second, I started getting these text messages. Really stupid, irritating text messages, saying stuff like “Which male celebrity from ‘The Hills’ is dating Paris Hilton?” I am not making this up.

I would have protested, except that, you know, I didn’t want to tell anybody how I had let myself in for this. Because as dumb as it was to fall for this, I was smart enough to see what had happened.

Anyway, earlier this week the Verizon bill came. And I had been charged $29.97 for 3 “Premium text” messages. Yes, ten bucks apiece.

So I got on the horn to Verizon and got them to block all such messages subsequently, which they agreed to do. Of course, by this time one or two more had come in, which will be on my next bill, no doubt. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Because, you know, I had signed up for them.

When I got off the phone, I reported to my wife that I had taken care of the problem, going forward. She asked, how in the world I came to get such messages? I said, “How about if we just leave it at, I’ve taken care of the problem, and not delve into that?” But I went on to explain, and she agreed with me that yes, I had certainly flunked the IQ test.

Oh, but the tale doesn’t end there.

Today, I was in the Harbison area shopping for Father’s Day for me Da. And suddenly, I got another one of those messages, from the same source, which the words “Premium Messaging” appearing in the headline field.

I immediately went over to the Verizon place, fuming, and got in the queue for service. The lady at the door urged me to call instead because I was in for a long wait, but I said no, obviously one couldn’t get this taken care of on the phone. I was all indignant.

Fortunately, the wait wasn’t long at all. When it was my turn, I went through my indignant spiel again, and the service rep took my phone, and clicked on the message. It said, “Premium Messaging to this mobile number has been blocked…”

Oh.

So I looked really stupid again. I thanked the guy, and thanked the lady at the front door, and left sheepishly.

But you know what? Deep down, I have this gut fear that it’s going to show up on my bill again anyway.

Of course, this kind of scam should be illegal. Anyone who practices it should be drawn and quartered.

But who’s going to report them? The victims know how stupid they’ve been…

Wednesday’s top stories

So where was my virtual front page Tuesday? Hey, I’m not getting paid to do this, so get offa my back! Be grateful for what I give you.

Harrumph. You may now join me in harrumphing. Harrumph, harrumph. (I didn’t get a ‘harrumph’ outta that guy…”)

Where was I? Oh, yes, today’s virtual front page:

National/International

  1. Lede: Obama Would Take Bigger Role in Markets — OK, this is not a perfect “Buzz” lede because it didn’t quite HAPPEN, but the event was the president proposing it. And it’s more important than the gay benefits thing, and more new than the  continuing Iran story. And nothing local or state was really lede-worthy.
  2. Iran Regime Cracking Down — Continued post-election strife in Iran. Look for a sidebar to go with it. Lots to inform readers about here.
  3. U.S. to Extend Gay Benefits — Just another turn in the screw of the Kulturkampf, but a fairly significant one.

Local/State

  1. Handcuffed Tax Study Commission Created — OK, so I threw in an editorial modifier there. The thing is, you sort of need that to see why what happened is important. Two things were essential to making it possible for comprehensive tax reform to happen: There must be no sacred cows, and the Legislature must have a straight up-or-down vote on the final result — no tinkering. That’s the only way anything could pass that would really clean up the tax code. So what did they do? They passed a bill that walled off as sacred the biggest, baddest immediate problem in our tax system — the 2006 property/sales tax swap. (This demonstrates why a commission is needed, because the Legislature itself is too invested in bad policies it created.) Whether they required an up-or-down vote, I could not learn from the coverage I saw.
  2. Vetoes sidebar — The XGR (that’s wire-service jargon for “legislature,” by the way) overrode all 10 of the governor’s vetoes. But that’s pretty much a dog-bites-man story now, isn’t it?
  3. Tenenbaum Draws Bipartisan Praise — This good-news story (anytime you can document bipartisan consensus, it’s good news) is one where local and national intersect.

Should lawmakers override payday veto?

Here’s one of those issues where I’d be better informed were I still at the paper: I would ask Warren Bolton what to think about the payday lending bill, and whether the governor’s veto should be overridden. Warren has kept close tabs on the legislation, and I have not.

Not that I see any merit in the veto itself; it’s standard Sanford ideology, nothing more.(For him, at bottom, it’s not that there are better ways to regulate, but that one should not regulate.) No, the issue is whether the governor’s wrongheadedness offers a chance to let an inadequate bill die.

Gerald Malloy’s suspicion about Advance America wanting the bill so badly gives me pause, too.

I’d like to talk to Joel Lourie about this. And maybe this offers a good excuse to go visit my friends at The State.

In the meantime, what do Y’ALL think?

Well, now, THAT’S pretty tacky

After my previous post all about the traditional sense of what “news” means, I thought I’d share this item that just came to my attention:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Vampires have taken over the Los Angeles Times.

Beneath the masthead of Friday print editions is a full front-page ad for HBO’s “True Blood.”

A black-and-white close-up of star Stephen Moyer with blood dripping from his mouth dominates the page, which is all that’s visible in newsboxes around town.

No other stories or photos appear on the cover, which is actually a separate four-page broadsheet touting Sunday’s season premiere. Readers remove the wrap to find the regular front page, anchored by the Lakers’s Thursday win over Orlando.

Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan says it’s the first time newspaper has put its masthead above an advertisement wrapping the paper. She declined to discuss how much the paper charged for the ad.

You can see the paper in a rack at this link.

By the way — on that second link, someone observes, “They’ve gotten flack for running advertisements on the front page before.”

Of course, that’s wrong. A “flack” is a publicist or someone who works in public relations. What he or she meant to say was “flak.” It comes from the German word, Fliegerabwehrkanone. Get it? FLiegerAbwehrKanone. It referred originally to anti-aircraft artillery. “Catching flak” meant to be on the receiving end of such fire. It later came to refer to receiving criticism to an extent that felt like getting hit by triple-A.

I love knowing stuff like that.

Time-Warner spins off AOL, restoring order to the universe

Did you see this news?

Time Warner to spin off AOL, ending ill-fated deal

By RACHEL METZ – AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK — Time Warner Inc. is dumping AOL after spending nearly a decade trying to build a new-age media empire only to wind up in a weaker position than when the marriage began.

The divorce, announced Thursday, will spin out AOL as a separate company run by former Google Inc. advertising executive Tim Armstrong. He was hired in March to try to restore the luster to a brand once known as America Online.

Although AOL has been eclipsed by Google and other Internet stars, Armstrong still can try to build on a wide-reaching online ad network as well as AOL’s Web sites, which remain a relatively big draw.

I’ve always looked at the deal where AOL essentially bought Time-Warner as the ultimate example of the Dot.Com bubble’s madness. And this isn’t me as an old-media guy being phobic about new media. The problem was that AOL was lame new media. I mean, AOL wasn’t anywhere near the cutting edge of dot.com at the time, but rather a relic of the early dialup days of the PC. It was, as I recall, actually sort of late to the Web.

And here it was swallowing Time-Life and Warner Brothers and cable TV and all those old media giants, which still had demonstrable value. It just didn’t make any kind of sense.

And now, for some time, Time-Warner has been trying to rid itself of the death-grip of AOL. Which for me, sort of restores some order to the universe.

How do they get away with this?

nondairy

As you know, I’m extremely allergic to milk and all products derived from it. Fortunately, I learned long ago not to believe products that claim to be non-dairy. But not everyone is hip to that.

And in this era in which — and I’m very grateful for this — allergens have to be clearly pointed out on food labels, I have to wonder how a product gets away with that claim, when the evidence to the contrary is so clearly laid out.

Check this container I picked up at a local restaurant today. It blithely claims, in all-cap letters, to be “NON-DAIRY CREAMER.” smallnodairyThen, in letters that an awful lot of people my age can’t read, it acknowledges that it contains “Sodium Caseinate (a milk derivative).” The image at right, by the way, is approximately the actual size.

Then, at the end, still in tiny letters (although now slightly boldfaced), it says “Contains: Milk.”

Duh.

So how does it get to say “NON-DAIRY CREAMER” in much bigger letters? How does either the government or the marketplace let it get away with that? There is no way, in any rational way of looking at things, that something that “Contains: Milk” is “NON-DAIRY.” No way at all. Total contradiction.

Can anyone explain this to me?

A “garnet-red teardrop falling from the cheek of the future…”

Dan Neil won the Pulitzer in 2004 for his automotive column in the L.A. Times, and you can see why in his piece earlier this year about Honda’s hydrogen car, the FCX Clarity. A colleague shared it with me today, and I just had to share it with y’all — both in the interests of promoting talk about hydrogen and alternative fuels, and just to celebrate the words. A sample:

Perhaps obscured by questions of practicality and cost is the fact — and it is a fact — that the FCX Clarity is the most beautiful car to ever wear the big H on the nose. It’s just gorgeous, a big garnet-red teardrop falling from the cheek of the future, a sweet stanza of robot-written poetry.

You might be able to infer from that passage that Mr. Neil was essentially trashing the practicality of hydrogen elsewhere in his piece. His objections ranged from the general — the energy cost of producing hydrogen to start with — to the specific, which in this case involves pointing out that each one of these little beauties costs Honda $2 million to make. He reckons that a large part of Honda’s motivation is simply to reach California’s quota for emission-free cars sold by 2014.

But not entirely. As he acknowledges, Honda is learning some practical lessons from this exercise. Mr. Neil argues that the future is more likely to involve plug-in electrics (and I find that persuasive, which is why I’m anxious for Detroit to start mass-producing the affordable electrics it already knows how to make, and for clean nuclear plants to start popping up to power them). But Honda is learning a lot about how to better make those from making these:

The second reason Honda might have had for building the FCX Clarity: Nothing invested in this project goes to waste. The car’s state-of-the-art fuel cell can be amortized in Honda’s portable power generation division (the company makes awesome generators). And since a fuel-cell vehicle is essentially an electric vehicle with a hydrogen heart, all the technology — the glossy aerodynamics; the powerful, quiet and compact 100 kW (134 hp) electric motor; the new space-saving coaxial gearbox — can be rolled into future electric and plug-in electric projects.

And it has loads of interior space and a huge trunk.

Me, I’m all for efforts such as Honda’s, and if it takes a little utopian prodding from California to make it happen, then great. The Left Coast has gotta be good for something, right? What I generally hear from hydrogen experts is that automobiles are unlikely to be the most practical application, but they do dramatize the possibilities. And you learn from trying to build them.

Beyond that, I’m reminded of something I learned at Rotary Monday. Our speaker was the manager of the new Starbucks roasting plant in Sandy Run. He explained why Starbucks uses only arabica beans grown above 4,000 feet — such conditions make the plant work harder to grow and produce “cherries,” and that makes the coffee better.

The harder we push on hydrogen and every other promising source of power other than oil from countries run by tyrants, the better the result is going to be. So we need to keep pushing. In California, that means making “unreasonable, impractical” demands on automakers. (And maybe it will soon mean the same thing in Washington, with the gummint taking a big role in running Detroit.) And in South Carolina, it means continuing to push to be at the fore of hydrogen and alternative fuel research.

Just for fun, while we’re on the subject, here’s a link to one of my most popular videos ever, the one I shot in Five Points on St. Patrick’s Day 2007, the critically acclaimed “Who Resurrected the Electric Car?”

Congrats to Inez!

Well, I think the president made a good choice in picking Inez Tenenbaum to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. So do a lot of other people.

I got a release from the S.C. Democratic Party saying Carol Fowler and Jim Hodges and John Land were pleased, but you sort of expected that, right? More to the point, Lindsey Graham, and, even more than that to the point, ex-rival Jim DeMint both issued supportive statements.

So with no one to say her nay, I’m guessing Inez is in. And that’s good news for America’s consumers. I think she would have been a fine Education Secretary, but I know Inez will do a great job at this as well. She’s that smart, and that hard-working.

Otis, tell him what YOU think

A few moments ago, I got this release from the state Chamber:

As the unified voice of business, the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce serves as your advocate at the State House and with regulatory agencies in the state. Currently, one of the biggest issues is if, and how, the state will use the $8 billion allocated to South Carolina in the federal stimulus bill. Governor Mark Sanford is opposed to accepting a more than $700 million portion of the money unless it is used to pay down state debt.

This week, South Carolina Chamber President and CEO Otis Rawl sat down with Governor Sanford for a one-on-one interview. During that interview, the governor shared his thoughts on why he believes the stimulus money is bad for business. The governor also discussed his position on government restructuring, why he’d veto the cigarette tax in its current form and what he thinks it will take for South Carolina to recover from the recession. Click here to watch the interview.

And I went and watched the part of the interview dealing with the stimulus (above). But you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, I know what the governor thinks about this. I’ve been told ad nauseam and beyond what the governor thinks about this, and it didn’t make any more sense this time than the other times I’ve heard it. What I would like to know is what the head of the state Chamber thinks about it, and I’d like to hear him tell it to the governor. That’s what I want my “advocate at the State House” to do.

Unless, of course, he thinks what the governor thinks, in which case never mind; I’ve heard it. (But from what I’ve heard, Otis does NOT agree with the gov.)

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking. But that’s me.

Bring ‘stirrups’ back to baseball

OK, that last post was so heavy and depressing, I feel the need to lighten the mood by mentioning another story from the WSJ’s front page, this one about “stirrups” in baseball.

You know, the leggings — the socks you wore over your socks, the colorful ones with the heel and toe cut out.

This piece was about how the major leagues have abandoned the stirrups, mainly because the players don’t want to wear them — you may have noticed that in MLB, they wear their pants right down to their shoes, which means they don’t look like ballplayers any more — and the players are such big shots and make so much money that nobody can tell them what to do. But in the minors, discipline still reins, so the players still wear them.

Some points of interest from the story:

  • It leads and ends with a game in Myrtle Beach. You know, Myrtle Beach has a minor league team and Columbia doesn’t, in case you haven’t noticed.
  • The sole remaining source is a funky, homey little factory just up the road in North Carolina.
  • The fashion started because, starting in about 1905, there was an urban legend in baseball that held that some players had suffered blood poisoning from the dye in their socks getting into abrasions on their feet. This led players to wear white socks under their colored team socks, and that was bulky, so somebody came up with the idea of cutting the heel and toe out of the oversock. (The infections did NOT come from the dye, by the way, but from plain old germs, it was later determined.)

A story such as this appeals to my own particular sort of instinctive conservatism. I believe players should not only be made to wear stirrups but should WANT to in the same way that “woods” in golf should be made of persimmon. It was good enough for our daddies and granddaddies. Of course, as I type this, I’m looking at a picture of my own grandad, “Whitey” Warthen, pitching a game in the 19-teens. He’s wearing full colored socks, not stirrups, because in his day men were men. Me, I’d settle for stirrups. Because I’m still not sure about that blood-poisoning thing. You can’t be too careful.

I love the way the WSJ story ends:

On the field, as the Pelicans and Blue Rocks lined up for the anthem, half-moons glowed along the baselines. Kicking high, Michael Broadway pitched two perfect innings. In the fifth, Cody Johnson stepped into a fastball and sent it over the right-field fence.

It fell apart for the Pelicans in the ninth: walks, hits, errors. They lost, 9-2. “I want my $7 back,” a fan yelled on his way out. But for the stirrup-conscious in the crowd, the final score didn’t matter. On this spring night in Myrtle Beach, the socks won.

First the Hardwarehouse, now Hiller

I’m sort of enjoying getting the daily business updates from Mike Fitts, which I just signed up for last week. I cited Mike’s work yesterday, and now I come to share some sad news from 5 Points — Hiller Hardware’s going away.

An excerpt from Mike’s report:

An iconic business is heading out of Five Points. Hiller Hardware is planning to leave its longtime location at Blossom and Harden streets, making way for a new branch of BB&T bank.

If the deal goes through, BB&T will tear down the existing structure as part of a 30-year lease on the property, said Merritt McHaffie, executive director of the Five Points Association. The plans will be discussed at the May 5 meeting of the city’s Design Development and Review Commission….

Columbia City Councilwoman Belinda Gergel, who represents Five Points, said she’s been a longtime Hiller customer, buying a wide variety of items, such as rakes or candles….

Hiller has been at its Five Points location since 1951 and in business in Columbia for almost 70 years. A Lady Street location closed during streetscaping there several years ago….

He went on to report that the family business MIGHT open elsewhere, but that’s by no means certain.

The problem is the big-box hardware retailers, and I must confess that I am part of the problem because I’m a regular customer at Lowe’s. My wife, on the other hand, used to always go out of her way to do business with Ace Hardwarehouse in the Park Lane shopping center in Cayce — which closed last year.

That was another local landmark. It was also a prized advertising customer of The State. Once, years ago, a previous publisher decided that we non-business types on the senior staff needed to shadow some ad sales reps just to learn what they did. The rep I was assigned to took me first to the Hardwarehouse, where the owner or manager was so into his newspaper ads that he would put them together himself, pasting bits of file art onto posterboard at a drawing table in his office.

Yeah, the newspaper makes big bucks from big boxes (although not as big as in the past). But an important part of the community that has been dying and taking newspapers along with it consists of businesses like Hardwarehouse and Hiller. And it’s a shame to see them go.

Why didn’t I think of this?

Did you hear about the French 3M employees who took their boss hostage to try to get a better severance deal? (Apparently, they let him go last night.)

Now, why didn’t I think of that?

I’ll tell you why — I’m civilized, that’s why. Sure, I just got laid off, but I just can’t begin to identify with the kind of proletarian rage — or Gallic sense of entitlement, or whatever is being expressed here — that leads to this kind of lawlessness.

It wouldn’t even occur to me to resort to harsh words, much less violence. Not that this is violence, we’re told. Here’s an excerpt from a story during the standoff:

The stand-off, which isn’t violent, started on Tuesday when workers refused to allow plant director Luc Rousselet leave his office unless 3M sweetened severance packages being negotiated for the fired workers. Negotiations between the two sides are supposed to re-start late on Wednesday to try to find a solution.

Right. Maybe holding another person, physically, against his will isn’t technically violence, but it seems a prosecutor could make a good case for kidnapping, which in this country (to use a great Jack Nicholson line) is considered a more serious offense (I think; you lawyers correct me if I’m wrong) than simple assault. In fact, in some jurisdictions, doesn’t holding someone against his will constitute grounds for a lynching charge?

Apparently, after the workers let the boss go, negotiations on the severance were to continue. Seriously. Instead of everyone involved being hauled in and put under the jail, negotiations are to resume. What a country.

Meanwhile, workers are busting windows in Edinburgh to express their rage at a bank exec’s sweet retirement deal, so worker lawlessness is not restricted to France.

Of course, I will say that civil behavior cuts both ways. I’m parting with my newspaper amicably, and the paper is as responsible for that as I am. Robert and I received some nice tributes in the paper, and we were able to clean out our offices without armed guards standing over us. Robert tells me that another cartoonist laid off last week was told one day that he would lose his job the next, then when he came in the next morning to clean out his office, he was locked out.

As David Brent says, “Professionalism is… and that’s what I want.” Either you understand how to behave in a professional, civilized manner, or you don’t. Some companies, and some workers, don’t. Some do.

I’ll take the public sector queue, please

When I told my little tale of minor annoyance about having to get a new Social Security card a couple of weeks back (35 years I went without one, and the first time anyone asks me for it is when I find myself unemployed), some of my libertarian friends out there predictably pointed to it as a sign of the inefficiency and unaccountability of gummint. Which I expected, having handed you such a beautiful opportunity. (Don’t say I never gave you anything.)

But here’s the thing about that — it really didn’t take very long, and aside from the hassles from security guards, it all went pretty smoothly. My new SS card arrived in the mail sooner than expected. I gave it to Mamanem to put in a safe place.

Contrast that to my experience at my wireless phone provider, where I went to get my Blackberry wiped clean of stuff from the corporate server (how’s that for a band name: Corporate Server), and set up my new e-mail and such. An hour and a half. The young man who helped me couldn’t have been nicer (which is why I removed the actual name of my wireless provider, because I don’t want to get him in any trouble with his boss), and admittedly the transaction was somewhat complex. But what gets me is the wait before someone starts helping you. When I asked about whether there was a time I could come back and not find such a crowd, I was told there wasn’t. One employee mentioned that his wife calls the place “the DMV of wireless.” Which is a good joke, except for the fact that the DMV has figured out how to provide its services without making people wait forever. Maybe the cell phone companies should ask the DMV how they did it.