Category Archives: Business

It’s beginning to look a lot like pushing the season

Above is a cropped shot taken of three of my kids in Central Park in NYC on Nov. 23, 2007. It was the day after Thanksgiving, the day merchandisers call “Black Friday.” It was bitterly cold, and those cups of hot coffee were welcome.

I show you this in order to note that, to the best of my recollection, that was the first time I ever saw the red Starbucks “holiday cups.” Ever since then, I’ve been happy to see them come out again each year, because I have pleasant associations with that trip to New York.

I was a bit less delighted than usual to see them come out this year on Nov. 1, All Saints Day. Yes, when kids had hardly dented their candy hauls from Halloween.

That, to me, is going too far.

Nor was I thrilled to receive the below promotion on Veterans Day. The text with it said:

One Cyber Monday a year just isn’t enough. That’s why it’s a month-long event here at Musician’s Friend…

No, actually, one is quite sufficient, thanks. Or if you must have two, have the second after the usual one. Have three or four, if you like. I’m all for everybody making a living. But wait, please…

No, the iPhone screen does NOT need to get bigger

Would Halfacre be good candidate for McLeese job?

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Speaking regionally: Randy Halfacre, speaking at Reality Check kickoff event in June.

This morning, I was talking with a Lexington county politico about Lexington Mayor Randy Halfacre’s re-election loss yesterday — we were both surprised, in varying degrees, at that outcome.Neither of us knew enough about the winner, Councilman Steve MacDougall, to have a clear idea of what happens next in the town.

Then, as has been the trend in such conversations the last couple of weeks, we talked about all the prominent deaths the Midlands have suffered.

I said, yeah, with Ike McLeese gone and Halfacre out as mayor, that’s two losses among advocates for regional cooperation.

My interlocutor reminded me that Randy Halfacre is still the head of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce. Then he added, “Who knows? Maybe he’ll come over here.” (We were standing in downtown Columbia as he said it.)

I found that intriguing: What if Halfacre were to become McLeese’s successor? There’s a certain logic to it. They were close allies, and he’s already invested in Ike’s regional initiatives — in fact, he has led them.

Halfacre was one of the four — along with Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, retired Maj. Gen. Abraham Turner and USC Athletic Director Ray Tanner — who eulogized McLeese at the Friday funeral. He told the story of how Ike was the one to realize that the region had to get its act together after it lost Southwest Airlines to Greenville and Charleston. He asked Halfacre to lunch, and proposed that local chambers needed to work in a coordinated manner going forward. Halfacre said sure, he’d help Ike any way he could. Ike said no, you misunderstand: You’re going to lead it, because it won’t work if it’s seen as Columbia asserting hegemony over the region. So he did.

Anyway, given that history, it’s an intriguing idea, now that Halfacre is no longer to be mayor of Lexington.

I have spoken to no one in a position to know whether Halfacre is, or might be in the future, under consideration for the job. Or whether he should be. I just found it to be an interesting suggestion…

Ike McLeese, longtime Chamber chief, dead at 69

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I ran into Bobby Hitt this morning. I had last seen him at Lee Bandy’s funeral Saturday.

I asked Bobby how he was doing, and he said he hesitated to say for sure. After all, about five people he knew had died in the last week or so. We then chatted a bit about Steve Morrison, that having been the latest shock at the time we spoke.

Now, there’s another:

Ike McLeese, the President & CEO of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce, passed away Tuesday.

McLeese led the Chamber for 19 years. He announced earlier this month that he would step down from his duties as CEO at the end of this year.

McLeese suffered a heart attack in September. When he announced plans to retire, McLeese said he would still work with military installations in the Midlands to help them through any future base realignment processes.

Many in the Midlands know McLeese for his leadership helping Midlands military bases avoid cuts in the 2005 rounds of base closings….

There was so much more that Ike led the way on — most recently last year’s penny tax referendum for transportation, and the current campaign for a strong-mayor system for Columbia.

Ike was everywhere, leading on everything, for almost two decades. We already knew we were losing that leadership, but we didn’t know we’d lose him, personally, so soon after the announcement of his retirement.

My greatest sympathy goes to his wife, Sue, and all his many friends.

My favorite store in the universe is closing!

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As y’all know, one of my very favorite leisuretime activities is to go to Barnes & Noble, get a cup of coffee, and browse. And sometimes blog — it’s one of my favorite remote locations for that.

I’ve done this in lots of Barnes & Nobles — such as in Memphis; Myrtle Beach; New York; Florence (SC); Charleston; Harrisonburg, Va.; Camp Hill, PA — but my favorite, my essential, my default, has always been the one in Harbison.

I wrote one of my favorite early blog posts, headlined, “The Caffeine Also Rises,” at a Barnes & Noble. An excerpt from that over-stimulated ramble in 2005:

This is blogging. This is the true blogging, el blogando verdadero, con afición, the kind a man wants if he is a man. The kind that Jake and Lady Brett might have done, if they’d had wi-fi hotspots in the Montparnasse.

What brings this on is that I am writing standing up, Hemingway-style, at the counter in a cafe. But there is nothing romantic about this, which the old man would appreciate. Sort of. This isn’t his kind of cafe. It’s not a cafe he could ever have dreamed of. It’s a Starbucks in the middle of a Barnes and Noble (sorry, Rhett, but I’m out of town today, and there’s noHappy Bookseller here). About the one good and true thing that can be said in favor of being in this place at this time is that there is basically no chance of running into Gertrude Steinhere. Or Alice, either.

I’m standing because there are no electrical outlets near the tables, just here at the counter. And trying to sit on one of these high stools and type kills my shoulders. No, it’s not my wound from the Great War, just middle age….

There’s nothing like writing under the influence of your first, or second, coffee of the day. Especially back then, before I had built up resistance.

But the best of all was at the B&N at Harbison. It just had the perfect feel to it. I wrote this and this and this there.

The one at Richland Fashion Mall (or whatever it’s called now) is OK in a pinch, but not the same. Maybe it’s that there’s no video and music department; I don’t know — but I’ve never been inclined to spend much time there.

Anyway, you get the picture. So you can imagine how dismayed I am at this:

By KRISTY EPPLEY RUPON — krupon@thestate.com

COLUMBIA, SC — Barnes and Noble on Harbison Boulevard will close at the end of the year, leaving the Irmo area without a traditional bookstore selling new books.

A manager answering the phone at the store Monday morning said she could not give details to the media. Efforts to reach a spokesperson Monday morning were not successful.

However, employees are telling customers that the store at 278-A Harbison Blvd. will close at the end of the year because its lease is not being renewed….

If I were a guy whose favorite recreation was jogging in the park, and the park got paved over, I couldn’t be more upset.

This is just wrong.

Maybe I should have bought something now and then when I was there browsing. Or maybe I shouldn’t have fallen into the habit of buying my coffee at the actual Starbucks across the parking lot before entering the store.

But surely I’m exaggerating the impact of my own behavior — right?

Come to the Reality Check Results Summit TODAY

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This is just a quick word to ask y’all to come on out to The Zone this afternoon for the following:

Growing by choice, not by chance:
Envisioning our region’s future

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Midlands is expected to grow by roughly 450,000 people in the next 30 years. That is equivalent to putting slightly more than the population of the four-county Asheville, N.C., metropolitan area into the Midlands by 2040. Will we grow by choice or by chance?

Yesterday, over four hundred diverse leaders and volunteers from business, government, the military, education, environmental, civic and other sectors came together to create a new vision for the Midlands of South Carolina. A full release with images from Game Day can be found below.

The results of yesterday’s Reality Check Game Day will be summarized and presented tomorrow, Oct. 24, when those who participated in Game Day and the general public are invited to the Reality Check Results Summit to hear an analysis of the Game Day exercise. Attendees at the Results Summit will have the opportunity to participate in live audience polling to rank the findings.

This is the wrapup session from the Reality Check exercise on Tuesday. And just to recap this, here are a few observations about that process. (If you want a real synthesis of what happened, come to the Summit. Since I was roaming around from table to table Tweeting — which is what I was asked to do — my impressions are necessarily somewhat fragmentary.):

I sort of marveled that complex, three-dimensional input from so many tables could be synthesized in time to have the Results Summit so quickly. I was told that when Charlotte did this, they had the exercise, went to lunch, and got results right after that. So this is a more deliberate process by comparison. The key appears to be the coordinators at each table, taking notes on the discussions in real time, on laptops.
I was interested to see the wildly different patterns of the Legos representing residential and commercial development at the different tables. For instance, this group really went vertical, stacking up residential development in the downtown area. Another spread residences more broadly across the Midlands. I noticed that the table where Ryan Nevius of Sustainable Midlands was participating, there were more green spaces marked off with green yarn.
After the exercise, we heard a keynote speech from MItch Silver, chief planning and development officer of Raleigh. He provided a lot of food for thought going forward. He spoke of the need to prepare for the “Silver Tsunami” (in Japan, more diapers are now sold for adults than for babies), the fact that fewer young people are marrying will mean a lower demand for single-family dwellings, and a high-rise office building is way, way more valuable to a community, in terms of good jobs and tax base and intelligent land use, than a Walmart. That last is probably obvious, but he flashed up a slide that broke it down statistically, and it was pretty impressive — although I failed to get a picture of it before it moved on. Sorry.
What, doubters may ask, is the value of such an exercise, if nothing about the plans made at the tables is binding on participants? Also, some participants said to me, how would we pay for all these grand plans were they to be implemented? Frankly, I think the value is the process itself — people from many backgrounds in business, government and nonprofits, getting together and having a discussion about how to guide growth going forward. A lot of these people would never have such discussions about overall regional goals. Also, there’s a ULI committee that will remind participants of their discussions going forward.

Here’s more thorough coverage from The State, and here’s video from WLTX.

Anyway, come on out and hear the results later today. Here are some pictures from Tuesday…

: I was impressed by this group’s highly vertical downtown residential development.

: By contrast, this group (where you see Samuel Tenenbaum holding forth on guiding principles) went for more evenly-spaced development across the region.

: Black yarn represented transportation arteries.

: As the time got short, more hands got into the act.

: Hey! The Shop Tart was there!

: As the groups finished up, there were sidebar discussions — such as this caucus between Reps. Beth Bernstein and James Smith.

Tweeting from ULI’s Midlands Reality Check

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Here’s what the Midlands look like now, translated into ULI’s Lego language.

That’s where I am this morning, so excuse me if I’m not keeping up with y’all for a few hours.

It’s a worthwhile exercise, I believe — 300 community leaders from across eight counties gathering to talk about growing by choice, not by chance.

I’ll catch up with y’all when the exercise is over. If you’re interested in the meantime, follow @BradWarthen on Twitter…

Hey, that’s Duncan MacRae of YESTERDAY’S, y’all…

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Thought it was sort of odd that thestate.com showed my old friend Duncan MacRae in a montage of mugs of people who spoke out about violence in Five Points last night, but didn’t identify him beyond his name — although other speakers were identified by their roles in the district.

For the record, Duncan, who was a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam, is one of the founders and co-owners of Yesterday’s, my very favorite Five Points spot.

Duncan has always been deeply involved in seeking solutions to challenges faced by the district. I identify him as much with Five Points as I do Debbie McDaniel (also pictured) and Jack Van Loan.

I’d like to know what Duncan had to say. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quoted in the story. Guess I’ll have to go by and see him to find out.

Anyway, now you know who that is, in case you didn’t already…

Columbia’s homeless issue makes the NYT

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Kathryn brought this to our attention on a previous thread, so I thought I’d elevate it to a separate post:

South Carolina City Takes Steps to Evict Homeless From Downtown

COLUMBIA, S.C. — In South Carolina’s capital, officials declare that their tree-lined Main Street, clogged with shops, banks, restaurants and hotels, is evidence that a long-sought economic revival has arrived.

But mere blocks north, a dozen or so of the county’s approximately 1,500 homeless people sit on a short wall near an empty parking lot, waiting for private shelters to open. They sporadically shout curses at passers-by while they smoke cigarettes and endure the summer humidity.

With business owners sounding increasingly worried about the threat they believe the homeless pose to Columbia’s economic surge, the City Council approved a plan this month that will essentially evict them from downtown streets….

Here’s my favorite part:

In Columbia, which has branded itself “the new Southern hot spot,” residents say the city’s time has come….

Go, ADCO! Hey, publicity is publicity.

So what is Amazon suggesting that Jeff Bezos buy next?

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The credit for that headline goes to our own Bryan Caskey, who tweeted it to me yesterday (playing off of my earlier post wondering why Amazon would think I want to buy “geek” merchandise). How, indeed, would his own algorithms predict his future purchasing behavior based on his latest acquisition?

What, pray tell, is the founder of Amazon going to do with The Washington Post? Does he think he can make money where everyone else has failed? Does he seek influence? Or did he buy it as a hobby, sort of the way other people collect matchbooks or the like?

From his perspective, it doesn’t much matter, since he got it at such a bargain: $250 million. Less than 1 percent of his wealth. It’s about like me buying a single copy of the Post.

Let me elaborate on that figure.

Knight Ridder paid $300 million for The State and its smaller properties in 1986. As recently as 2006, when I speculated in a column about buy the paper myself, I was figuring it would still cost hundreds of millions — balancing the decline of the business against inflation. Mind you, this was just before the bottom dropped out of retail advertising.

Now, I just don’t know what it would cost. But I do know that, historically speaking, Bezos got the WashPost dirt cheap. Since the paper hasn’t changed hands before in modern times, we should look to the sale the other day of The Boston Globe by the NYT. Twenty years ago, New York bought The Globe for $1.1 billion. They sold it for $70 million. They ate a billion-dollar loss, and for all I know, consider themselves lucky.

So what is Bezos going to do with The Post? I don’t know. I wondered the same when Warren Buffett bought Media General. From what I’ve seen and heard, he hasn’t made any startling changes in the business operations.

But Bezos is more of an innovator. Is it possible that the guy who built a new kind of retail empire from the once-novel idea of selling books online has figured out, or will be able to figure out, the new business model for the news biz? I hope so. He’s got his work cut out for him. The collapse of newspapers’ business model is based on an economic trend that’s bigger than Amazon — and one of the secrets of Amazon’s success.

Newspapers — and local TV and radio stations — are the victims of a long-term trend in marketing (dating from direct mail in the early ’80s to the increasingly sophisticated targeting of the Internet) away from advertising in mass media to going after specific, individual customers. Advertisers became less interesting in reaching whole communities, choosing to be far more picky.

Since Amazon is the ultimate direct marketer to individuals, Bezos has to understand the phenomenon better than almost anyone. It will be very interesting to see how he applies his insights to The Post, if he chooses to do so…

Trees, both old and new, in South Carolina

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Some of the few old-growth trees left standing, in Congaree National Park.

Heard a pretty cool story out of South Carolina on NPR this morning:

Like much of the United States, South Carolina was once covered in old-growth forests. By the mid-20th century, virtually all of the virgin wood in the state was gone, either hauled away on trains or floated down rivers to be cut into lumber at saw mills.

But not all that timber made it to its destination. Some sank on its way down the river, where those old-growth logs have been preserved for about a century. Now, these precious leftovers can be worth up to several thousand dollars each.

But getting that treasure out is no easy task. First, anyone hoping to dredge the logs, known as sinker wood, must obtain a permit from the state. The logs weigh tons and are buried deep down in the muck. Once removed, the wood must be properly stored before milling to avoid cracking. And then, there are the alligators…

I learned several things from that piece, the most surprising of which was that wood that had been underwater for generations, even centuries, could still be useful, even valuable. I would have thought it would be ruined….

Anyway, I listened with particular interest because of an interesting project I’ve been working on. ADCO is doing some work for Hobcaw Barony. If you don’t know what or where that is, it would take a lot of words to tell you. But basically: It’s a 16,000 acre tract of land, essentially the southern end of Waccamaw Neck, just above Georgetown. It was originally a land grant to one of the Lords Proprietors, had been broken up into multiple rice plantations, and had been mostly reassembled around the time of the Recent Unpleasantness. After the end of slavery made it tough for SC planters to compete with cheaper rice from out west, the owners started using the mostly wild land for hunting clubs for rich Yankees. Bernard Baruch, the Camden native who had made an immense fortune on Wall Street and would become a close adviser to seven presidents (he’s the guy who put the term “Cold War” into circulation, in a speech to the SC Legislature), bought the tract and some additional land to more or less assemble the original royal grant. He used it as a winter home and hunting preserve.

His daughter, Belle, bought it from him in chunks, starting in the mid-30s. When she died in 1964, she left it to a foundation that was to preserve the land in its natural state in perpetuity, and open it to the state’s colleges and universities for educational and research purposes. Both USC and Clemson have operated institutes on the land since the late 60s — USC studying the estuary, Clemson the forest.

Anyway, one of the projects is to re-establish long-leaf pine, which was mostly cut down for naval stores in the age of sail. One challenge in doing this is the wild hogs on the land — descendants of swine left there by some early European settlers — which love tender young long-leaf pine roots.

OK, so it’s a thin connection, but since that’s what’s on my mind these days, that’s what caused me to be particularly interested in this NPR story…

The King’s Highway running through Hobcaw, looking much as it did in colonial times.

The joys of a real bookstore

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There was a thought-provoking little piece in the WSJ today by a bookstore owner in Tennessee:

The weather in Tennessee has been unaccountably beautiful this summer, with late July temperatures in the 70s rather than the 100s. The drive from Chattanooga, where President Obama gave his jobs speech at the Amazon warehouse Tuesday, to Nashville, where I am the co-owner of Parnassus Books, is a scenic two hours.

I wish he’d come by.

Thanks to the Amazon warehouse, there are about 7,000 new jobs in Chattanooga, many of them seasonal. But to celebrate Amazon as an employer is to ignore all the jobs that have been squeezed out of the economy as independent bookstores and other small businesses have been forced to close their doors, unable to compete with the undercut pricing the online retail giant offers. And with those shuttered bookstores go a big part of our community.

In the time-honored tradition of bookstores everywhere, our store is staffed by readers—people who want to talk about the books they love. We’re not handing out algorithms based on what books other people have bought. These aren’t widgets we’re selling….

Actually, it was more of a feeling-provoking piece than thought-provoking, I suppose. And my feelings were conflicted.

First, I felt sympathy for the person trying to operate a mom-and-pop bookstore in this age. At the same time, I noticed that this person didn’t get into the business until 2011. A former editor of mine retired more than 10 years ago and started an online used book business, so it’s not like this phenomenon snuck up on this person. This is somewhat different from the character in “You’ve Got Mail” who inherited a charming little bookshop.

Second, I felt identification with someone who would rather browse books in person than buy one online. That happens to be one of my very favorite leisure-time activities, when I have leisure time. So it is that I continue to root for Barnes & Noble to hang in there with the real, live bookstore thing.

Third, I felt guilty because, well, as much as I love browsing a bookstore, I’ve always had a preference for Barnes & Noble over the charming little mom-and-pop types. Even though Rhett Jackson was a friend of mine, I seldom frequented his shop. If I went there, it was to quickly find a book and buy it. There’s something, for me, about having the vast space and great variety of B&N to wander in, while sipping a hot Starbucks coffee. (Here’s another confession: When I go to the one on Harbison, the one I frequent most, I actually go to the Starbucks over across the parking lot, rather than getting my coffee in the bookstore cafe. Partly because I can use my Starbucks card there.)

Of course, as I’ve confessed before, I usually don’t actually buy a book at the end of those browses. But when I do buy a book — as I did just this last weekend — I buy it at B&N.

Finally, I felt out-bookwormed by this woman. As you would expect from someone who sells new books, she’s very up-to-date in her reading. I seldom read a book that was written in the last 10 years, or even 50 years — there’s just too great a wealth of old stuff that I’ll never get to, I have little interest in keeping up with the best-seller lists. Since I started reading the daily book reviews in the WSJ, I have gotten a little more interested in recent books — but when I get one of them, it still tends to sit on my shelves for months or even years before I actually read it. I like to let them age a little. So much of the rest of my life has been spent keeping up with the latest, and meeting deadlines. Part of the pleasure of a book is knowing it will sit there and wait for me indefinitely, and be just as rewarding when I finally pick it up.

I use Amazon for all sorts of things. Particularly phone accessories — USB cords, earbuds — which are amazingly cheaper than in a store. Or when I’m shopping for some particular item someone wants for Christmas or birthday, and I don’t immediately find it in the first store where I look — I’ll just stand there in the store and order it over my phone.

But books I want to hold in my hand before I buy.

Glad to see the administration on board with Colombia trade

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Some of y’all — those who carry grudges — will recall that one of my reasons for endorsing John McCain in 2008 was that he supported the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. This caused some Obamaphiles to freak out, it just seemed so esoteric to them.

But to me, it was important to cite. First, the large portion of my childhood spent in South America causes me to care more about that part of the world than do most people in this country. I find Yankee indifference to the rest of the hemisphere pretty appalling, frankly. One reason I got into reading British publications years ago was that they actually covered news events in Latin America. Most media in this country do not, for the simple reason that their readers and viewers aren’t interested.

I also saw this as a little-discussed microcosm of a difference in judgment and decision-making with regard to foreign policy in general, one that for me made McCain look better.

I went into why I thought it was important in this post.

Anyway, spin forward more than four years, and I’m pleased to read this piece by Joe Biden in The Wall Street Journal, headlined “The Americas Ascendant.” It begins:

Last week, during a five-day trip through Latin America and the Caribbean, I visited a cut-flower farm outside Bogota, Colombia, an hour’s drive from downtown that would have been impossibly dangerous 10 years ago. Along the way I passed office parks, movie theaters and subdivisions, interspersed with small ranches and family businesses. At the flower farm, one-quarter of the workers are female heads of households. The carnations and roses they were clipping would arrive in U.S. stores within days, duty free.

What I saw on the flower farm was just one sign of the economic blossoming in the year since a U.S. free-trade agreement with Colombia went into force. Over that period, American exports to the country are up 20%…

Yeah, and we could have been enjoying that increase in trade years earlier, had not Sens. Obama and Clinton opposed it, to the gratification of Big Labor.

But hey, welcome aboard. I’m glad the administration gets it now.

I thought it particularly interesting that the vice president focused on the cut-flower trade. So did Nicholas Kristof in an April 24, 2008, piece that had helped focus my attention on the need for the agreement. It began:

BOGOTÁ, Colombia

For seven years, Democrats have rightfully complained that President Bush has gratuitously antagonized the world, exasperating our allies and eroding America’s standing and influence.

But now the Democrats are doing the same thing on trade. In Latin America, it is Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who are seen as the go-it-alone cowboys, by opposing the United States’ free-trade agreement with Colombia….

That piece, too, focused on the cut-flower industry in Colombia. The headline was “Better Roses Than Cocaine.” Indeed.

The vice president today writes,

There is enormous potential—economically, politically and socially—for the U.S. in its relations with countries of the Western Hemisphere. And so the Obama administration has launched the most sustained period of U.S. engagement with the Americas in a long, long time—including the president’s travel to Mexico and Costa Rica last month; my own recent trip to Colombia, Trinidad, and Brazil; Secretary of State Kerry’s participation in the Organization of American States’ annual meeting in Guatemala; the president of Chile’s visit to Washington this week and a planned visit to Washington by the president of Peru. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrives in Washington in October for the first state visit of the second term.

As leaders across the region work to lift their citizens out of poverty and to diversify their economies from commodity-led growth, the U.S. believes that the greatest promise—for Americans and for our neighbors—lies in deeper economic integration and openness.growth, the U.S. believes that the greatest promise—for Americans and for our neighbors—lies in deeper economic integration and openness.

I agree. And welcome aboard, Mr. Obama.

Cute to the nth degree: Lumosity’s ‘It girl,’ Emily Greco

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Silence complains that I had no new posts yesterday:

Brad, do you have plans to ever do a new post again, or should we just continue to battle amongst ourselves in last month’s comment threads?

He makes it sound like forever. It was just one day — and I was responding to comments. Gee, I figured that y’all were having enough fun with that rambling 153-comment thread on last Thursday’s Virtual Front Page.

I responded that “I get into these days sometimes when the only thing I can think of to post about is either a) Too trivial to post about without it being folded in among some more serious items, or b) Way too heavy and involved to embark upon on a busy day.

I had both kinds on my mind yesterday, and didn’t get to either. Here’s the one from category A…

I’m thinking about starting a new category of posts, called something like “What I Googled today,” or “Google of the day,” or just “Googling.”

Here’s the first entry.

Yesterday, after I found myself once again deliberately ALT-TABbing to and watching the Lumosity ad stuck between songs on Pandora (instead of hitting the “mute” button as I do on some of them, because they’re pretty jarring, especially when they occur on my Erik Satie station, as opposed to my Weezer station), I wondered who that unbelievably cute girl is — the one who makes me want to see the ad. I was pretty sure I was not the only one who had searched to find out, and I was right.

First, let’s pause to consider terminology. Some people misunderstand the word, “cute.” (Some also misunderstand the word “girl” when applied to someone of child-bearing age, but those people aren’t as old as I am, and/or don’t have children who are most likely older than this girl.) “Cute” does not mean pretty (although it often overlaps), much less beautiful, sexy or hot. It refers to a form of appeal, but it is not (necessarily) sexual, or related to pulchritude.

To explain: Zooey Deschanel is cute. She’s also pretty, but that’s a slightly separate thing. Ingrid Bergman was beautiful, which is not exactly the same thing as pretty. Carrie-Anne Moss is hot, especially in “The Matrix” — the first one, in which she wore the leather catsuit, which reminds us that Diana Rigg was hot in “The Avengers,” and this is not a leather thing. Speaking of cat suits, as in Catwoman, Sean Young was in her heyday sexy, hot and beautiful. Just kinda batty.

Anyway, the young woman in the Lumosity ad is unbelievably cute. This does not mean I want to have an illicit relationship with her. It just means that I look forward to seeing the ad. I am not alone, either in this, or in thinking the right word for her is “cute.” Here are some YouTube comments about her:

“For some reason,I think that this woman is really cute. And I’m a female.”
“Shes so f___ing cute”
“Emily Greco is so cute! She’s so cute I get happy just knowing the Luminosity commercial is starting. Whatever Luminosity paid her – it’s not enough now that hearing Luminosity puts me in a happy mood because I connect it with the cute woman in the commercial. I’m sure she has the same affect on most viewers.”

Those are sandwiched among some grossly negative comments, from the kinds of people who live to make negative comments. We all know the sort.

Anyway, as you see, her name is Emily Greco, and no, she’s not just some super-cute person who happened to be a Lumosity customer. She’s an actress. That naturalness is art. Here’s her agency’s page about “Our Rising Star — Emily Greco.”

What is it that defines her appeal? What is the “it” here? Well, it involves the fourth dimension, because it doesn’t come across in a still photo (although this isn’t bad). You need the video. You need to see the thing she does at the end (25 seconds) when she bats her eyes and smiles that crooked smile (proof that she’s not beautiful, since technically “beauty” is a function of symmetry, or so I’ve been told). All in one split second. And if you’ve seen the ad before, waiting to see her do that again is what keeps you watching the ad through the boring 10-second sales-pitch part, with the graphics.

Anyway, I haven’t seen an individual in an ad with that much appeal in years and years. So I take a professional interest in this. I also want to see the ad again…

Sun-Times lays off entire photo staff

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Fellow former newspaperman Burl sent me the following link yesterday, along with the message, “We got out just in time:”

Chicago Sun-Times cuts entire photography staff

The Chicago Sun-Times and its sister suburban papers have eliminated their photography staff and will ask the papers’ reporters to provide more photography and video for their stories.

Managers at Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC, the Wrapports LLC unit that owns the papers, told the photographers in a meeting this morning that it was cutting their jobs, according to people familiar with the situation. The number of full-time workers affected is about 20, but including part-time employees, it could be closer to 30, they said.

While the company, which has been trying to revive profits, still will hire professional freelance photographers for coverage, it will increasingly rely on reporters to take photos and video to accompany their stories, the sources said…

And I responded to Burl, No, actually, YOU did — you found a great job right up your alley (in an awesome location) and quit BEFORE you got laid off. Me, I got the same treatment as these photographers…

Just for the record.

There should be nothing new about reporters having to take pictures, although for some I’m sure it’s been a shock in recent years. Hey, I was usually my own photographer when I was in a rural bureau back in the late ’70s. I did a pretty good job, too. But it was always nice to have a photographer along. For one thing because, you know, some (but not all) were better photographers than I was.

But it also was helpful to double-team a source. If I was interviewing someone and needed to pause to get a picture, the person tended to tense up and look self-conscious. Whereas a photographer could get good candid shots of the subject while I was distracting him or her.

Also, it could be handy to have a partner along in a dicey, remote situation. One photog I worked with, for instance, carried a gun in his glove compartment. Just in case.

And you could learn things about people while out on assignment. Once, a photog whom I will not name but whom I had known for years and years went out with me to report on a train derailment way, way out in the boonies in West Tennessee. It had gone off a bridge over a creek a good distance from any road. We were going to have to leave the car and hike maybe half a mile over fields that had close to a foot of new snow on them.

He said we should both put on hats, since a person loses so much of his body heat through his head. I agreed — who wouldn’t? We both had knit caps. I put on mine. I didn’t realize he was building up to something. He hesitated. He said, “If you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.” About what? I started to say… and then he pulled off his hair.

I had had no idea.

Anyway, I swore I’d never tell, he put on his hat, and we set out.

Months or years later, one of the old hands in the newsroom made some casual remark about how that photographer was so sensitive about his baldness.

I said, incredulous, “You know about that?”

She was surprised at me: “Oh, everybody knows about ____’s rug.”

But I digress.

Anyway, photographers are useful (and sometimes entertaining), to have around. So I’m sorry not only for the individuals who just lost their jobs in Chicago — believe me, folks; I feel your pain — but for journalism. The craft just got even poorer.

Why does Google’s so-called “All Access” service not want my business?

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Pandora accommodates me with an iPad app. Why won’t Google All Access?

The moment I heard that Google was starting a music subscription service, I decided I would do with this one what I had not done with Pandora or Spotify: Pay for it.

Well, not right away. I saw that I could get it free for a month, and then pay at the discounted rate of $8 a month thereafter. If I didn’t like it the first month, I just wouldn’t pay.

But I figured it’s Google, right? So I’ll probably like it. Anyway, it would probably be integrated with my gmail and my YouTube account and everything else, so it would be convenient. Just yesterday, I used Google’s Hangout for the first time, for a three-way conversation that worked pretty seamlessly within my Google+ iPad app. There were glitches, but so far I like it better than Skype.

So I was all set to sign up when I saw this AP review:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Google Inc.’s new music service offers a lot of eye candy to go with the tunes. The song selection of around 18 million tracks is comparable to popular services such as Spotify and Rhapsody, and a myriad of playlists curated along different genres provides a big playground for music lovers.

The All Access service represents Google’s attempt to grab a bigger piece of the digital music market as more people stream songs over mobile phones. Such services are also meant to further wed smartphone users to Google’s Android operating system, where the search leader makes money from advertising and transactions on its digital content store, Google Play.

For a monthly fee, All Access lets you listen to as much music as you want over an Internet connection. You can also download songs onto mobile devices for smooth playback later when you don’t have cellphone or Wi-Fi access.

It’s worth a try for the discounted monthly rate of $8 if you sign up by the end of June. Those who sign up later will pay $10 a month, the same amount charged by the main competitors, Spotify and Rhapsody. Either way, you get the first month free and can cancel at any time…

Sounds good, right? Then I got to this part…

All Access works on the free Google Play Music app for Android devices and over Web browsers on computers — but not on the iPhone. (Spotify and Rhapsody work on both Android and the iPhone).

And not, as I read elsewhere, on my iPad, either.

I’ve got some news for Google…

According to Google’s own Analytics, more than a fifth — 22.48 percent — of this blog’s readers read it on a smartphone or tablet.

Of those, more than three-fourths — 75.8 percent — are reading this on an Apple device.

So, unless my audience is unrepresentative of the larger world (or unless, ahem, Google Analytics is wrong), right off the bat, Google is saying it only wants the business of less than one-fourth of the mobile/tablet market.

How stupid is that?

Does anyone at Google really think that satisfied iPhone and iPad users — who know, according to Google’s own Analytics, that their platforms are the current standard for which most software will be written — are going to switch to what they consider to be a lesser product just because they can sign up for a music service? When they can already get Spotify and Pandora? And when they know that an iTunes subscription service is in the works?

This speaks to a larger problem in the tech world: I thought the people at Apple were insane when they came out with the iPhone 5 without Google Maps. It really irritated me that they weren’t smart enough, humble enough to realize that Google did maps best, that it was way out ahead of anything Apple could do to imitate it, and if they really wanted their customers to have the best, they would serve them up Google Maps, as they had done with the iPhone 4. YouTube, too.

Fortunately, I was immediately able to download those Google apps for both my phone and my iPad, so no harm done.

And I see in this report from Wired that a third-party iPhone app that will give me Google All Access is in the works, too (although, when I tried to get it from the Apps Store just now, I was told it still doesn’t work for the new service).

But why should I need workarounds? Why can’t Apple recognize that Google does maps better, and Google recognize that Apple does phones and tablets better? Or, at the very least, recognize that three-fourths of the market out there believes it does, and isn’t going to use your product unless it is accommodated?

I just don’t get these people and their proprietary hubris…

Thoughts on the Boeing expansion?

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This release from the state Senate GOP…

Boeing has been an incredibly [sic] partner for us as a state. Despite labor unions’ early attempt to interfere with their presence here, Boeing is already creating jobs for over a thousand South Carolinians, with a multiplier effect that touches every part of our state.

We overwhelming passed a bill this week that gives Boeing the tools they need to create another 2,000 jobs here. You read that right…ANOTHER 2,000 jobs, and nearly a $1 billion more in capital investment.

It’s a great day for South Carolina not only because of the impact these jobs will have in people’s lives, but also because it solidifies our state’s reputation as a go-to destination for world-class manufacturing…

… got me to thinking I should start a thread on this major new industrial investment by our state. This thing’s moving through the Legislature pretty quickly, so don’t type too slowly if you have something to say. A quick summary of the situation from The State:

The S.C. Senate gave final approval Thursday to $120 million in state bonds, two days after the aircraft maker said it would add 2,000 jobs and $1 billion in investment at its North Charleston Dreamliner 787 jet plant. Boeing must meet those employment and investment goals by 2020 as part of the incentive agreement.

Meanwhile, the state House agreed Thursday to fast-track the incentives bill and begin floor debate Tuesday, Speaker Bobby Harrell’s office said…

“We have made a commitment to Boeing and our state keeps its word, particularly when it comes to economic development,” said Harrell, R-Charleston. “This is a good investment for our entire state that will create exciting new opportunities for our citizens and provide our state with huge returns.”…

The 15-year, state-backed bonds would pay for a 320-acre site next to Boeing’s plant at Charleston International Airport and to prepare the property for expansion. The money would not pay for new buildings, state officials said.

Who are the ad wizards who came up with the Figo fiasco?

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I was really busy last week when this broke, but when I saw it, my first thought was, Who thought this was a good idea?

Then I saw it came from ad designers in India, which caused me to think, Wow, like India’s reputation needed this.

My final thought on the subject — and no story I’ve seen fully answers the question — was, What were they trying to convey about the car? That it had a roomy cargo bay (the copy mentions an “extra-large boot”)? And this was the best way they could convey that? It may be more prosaic, but I think the line I once heard from a Toyota salesman that the Camry had a six-golf-bag trunk was more effective.

The stories I saw only went about this far in explaining:

The most controversial of three advertisements for the Ford Figo, meant to allude to the Indian hatchback’s spacious trunk, showed former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy flashing a victory sign while driving a vehicle with three scantily clad gagged women in the rear. Two other versions of the advertisement show the reality television star Paris Hilton kidnapping the Kardashian sisters and the Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher abducting three of his rivals.

The advertisements in question were never used for a Ford campaign, but were uploaded by JWT employees on Ads of the World, an international advertising Web site which gives awards for ads submitted by users. They have since been removed from the Web site. Soon after posting, they spread quickly through social media and attracted criticism for their sexist message, particularly as India grapples with numerous high-profile incidents of violence against women…

OK, one more question: Did they think the one with the guys in it made it OK? That would be from the David Brent school of political correctness: “‘Does this make my ass look big?’ It’s not sexist, that’s the bloke saying it – at LAST…”

Somehow, I can’t bring myself to worry about Michael Dell’s job situation

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The Wall Street Journal has been keeping me up-to-date on Michael Dell’s attempt to take the company he founded private.

This morning’s installment of the saga was headlined, “Michael Dell Finds His Deal, And Job, in the Cross Hairs.” An excerpt:

Michael Dell‘s DELL +2.62% plan to gain greater control of his company and take it private began to backfire, as rival bidders for the computer maker floated competing offers that, if accepted, could leave him out of a job.

Blackstone Group LP BX -0.41% and activist investor Carl Icahn delivered separate proposals to a special committee of Dell Inc.’s board before a key deadline for offers expired, people familiar with the matter said. Blackstone has been exploring the possibility of someone else leading the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But you know what? I’ve just gotta confess that it’s tough for me to be on pins and needles about the possibility of poor Michael losing his job.

Those of you who understand high finance might set me straight here, but near as I can tell, if he “loses” this fight, he walks away with one of the best severance deals in the history of the planet. His bid is for $24.4 billion. Presumably, the winning bid would be comparable. He controls about 16 percent of the stock.

Of course, a job is about more than money. There’s job satisfaction. There’s one’s place in a community; one’s sense of making a contribution.

But don’t you think the best days for all that are sort of behind him? How will he ever repeat the heady days of founding the company in his dorm room, and seeing it rise to where “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” was all the rage. Now, the company, and the industry of which it has formed a prominent part, have seen their best days.

Mind you, I am sort of rooting for his bid to take the company private, just on general principles. I say this on the basis of my own experiences working for publicly-traded companies. If I were in his position, I’d want to be private, too.

But I can’t help thinking that for him, personally, the best thing might be to lose his job. Then he could take his cash and go out and do something new and exciting. Or just chill. There’s always that option.

Vista Publix — a local success story

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Well, it finally happened, one day this week.

To be more specific, it happened Wednesday. The thing that happened was that I went to the Publix in the Vista, the one that’s sorta kinda in the old Confederate printing plant, and there wasn’t a single available parking space.

It was lunchtime, and it being Ash Wednesday, I needed some non-meat item for my midday repast, and what would be more appropriate than lentil soup in a convenient pop-top can? Even better, Publix had Progresso soups on sale, buy-one-get-one-free. So now I’m set for Friday as well.

Anyway, while the parking lot is often crowded, that was the first time I couldn’t find any space in the lot. (Rather than continue to circle with others, I went ahead and parked next to Trustus theater.)

So congratulations to the folks who run Publix for their success. But also, congratulations to those city leaders who had the vision to promote the redevelopment of the Vista into a district that could support, and be supported by, such a supermarket, starting with the late Mayor Kirkman Finlay.

More specifically to this case, I congratulate the city leaders who, during the last decade — no longer having The State’s archives at my fingertips, it’s hard for me to be specific as to the date — agreed to help Publix redevelop that property. That involved an investment of city funds in the range of about $300,000.

For years, we on the editorial board would refer approvingly to what we called “the Publix standard” for public investment in the local economy. We adamantly opposed the hotel the city wanted to invest millions to build, own and operate, seeing that as something far better left to the private sector. But the relatively modest ante by the city in return to a much bigger private investment — and particularly one as smart as the Publix — seemed like a nice, reasonable Baby Bear sort of risk (not too big, but just right) for the city to take with tax money.

And it paid off. Which is why I had a little trouble parking to get my lentil soup on Wednesday.

bradwarthen.com

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