Category Archives: Confessional

How were YOUR election stats? Here are mine

On Tuesday, I almost, but not quite, posted a list of exactly how I voted on everything. Blogs are confessional in nature, and now that I no longer have a newspaper to embarrass, why not let it all hang out?

But then, my latent respect for the confidentiality of the voting booth kicked in. It’s one thing to be honest with people, and to tell them ALMOST everything. But to go all the way? I don’t know. I’m still pondering.

When I was at the paper, by the way, I generally voted a straight editorial board ticket. (This is NOT the same as voting a straight-party ticket, a sin for which the punishment should be immediate, permanent loss of the right to vote. A straight-party vote means the voter has surrendered his right to decide to another entity. The paper’s endorsements largely reflected my own careful discernments, aided by interaction with other smart folks.) Not always, though, because I didn’t always win the endorsement arguments (and despite what they say about me, I DID sometimes bow to a consensus, even though my colleagues were, of course, wrong). And sometimes I’d do quirky things like decide to vote for a write-in, whereas I had insisted that the board choose the lesser of two undesirable candidates who had a chance. But usually, a straight ticket.

I was conscious of that in the booth on Tuesday, and made note of the degree to which I agreed with my former colleagues this time. And I ran other dichotomies as well — Democrats vs. Republicans, won-lost, etc. I sort of got into the habit of doing this with The State’s endorsements several years back at the paper. And then each year, I’d add new stats to the running totals. One grows tired of people spreading the canard that one’s candidates always lose (when close to 75 percent of the paper’s endorsees won), or that one “always” endorses Democrats, or “always” endorses Republicans (the cumulative over 12 years was almost exactly 50-50, with the Democrats slightly edging out Republicans, but with the paper never breaking its string GOP endorsements for president — although we came very close in 2008). You can see a discussion of those stats back here, and here is my simple little spreadsheet.

So here’s what I found:

Here are The State‘s endorsements. Among the very few candidates they endorsed, I agreed on three and disagreed on one. So congratulations, Cindi and Warren, y’all were 75 percent right.
Ditto with the four constitutional questions. The paper went “no, no, yes, no,” and I went “no, yes, yes, no.” More about that in a moment. Of course, I agreed with the paper on the sales tax referendum, but since I live in Lexington County, I didn’t get to vote on that.
I voted for four Democrats, and seven Republicans. None of the Democrats won. Of course, one was a write-in. All but one — also a write-in — of the Republicans won. (The paper went with one Democrat and three Republicans.)
Not counting the two write-ins, which wouldn’t be fair to my stats, five of my choices in contested races won, and three lost.
I didn’t vote for either treasurer, where Loftis faced no opposition, or for secretary of state, where I knew nothing about Mark Hammond’s opponent (but knew he would win). I DID vote, however, for Gen. Livingston even though he had no opposition, because I’ve heard many good things about him.
About the write-ins… I voted for Joe Riley for the U.S. Senate. Hey, if he’s not going to run for governor, I might as well vote for him for something. Then, trying to think of a Republican (to balance out Mayor Riley) in the 2nd Congressional District as an alternative to Joe Wilson and Rob Miller, I went with Nathan Ballentine. (He does live in the district, right?)
Finally, a confession. And don’t tell Cindi Scoppe about this. But I did something I would never have done as an editorial page editor… I voted on a constitutional amendment according to my own political attitudes, rather than in keeping with the larger principle of not cluttering up the constitution with political statements. I voted “yes” on the amendment to make union-vote ballots secret. Yeah, I know it will be invalidated by whatever Congress does, and the constitution is not the place for empty gestures. But I agree with Lindsey Graham on this, and I said so with my vote. Maybe I was influenced by that “Johnny Sack” video I saw a year or two back. I’m kinda embarrassed about it — it smacks of voting my “gut,” which is unseemly — but there it is.

Mind you, I was keeping track of all this stuff, making little notes to myself, having little internal debates on several of the candidates and issues, even while being distracted by that little drama going on in the next booth. So I was in there awhile. I always am. I take my franchise VERY seriously.

I would discuss this, but I don’t have time

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The Juan Williams mess led to a long and provocative thread about normal fears and irrational prejudices, and what we should feel free to express about certain situations in modern life without getting fired for it.

And at some point, I posted the following in that thread, and it was so long I decided to make it into a separate post, even though, once I post it, I really need to move on to other stuff… Anyway, what I said was”

You know, there’s a whole conversation I’d be interested to have here about the way a healthy human brain works that takes this out of the realm of political correctness-vs.-Angry White Males, which is about as deep as we usually go.

But in the last week of an election, when I’m having trouble blogging at all, much less keeping up with all the election-related things I need to be writing about… I don’t have time to set out all my thoughts on the subject.

But to sort of give a hint…

What I’m thinking is this: There are certain things that we decry today, in the name of being a pluralistic society under the rule of law, that are really just commonsense survival strategies, things programmed into us by eons of evolution.

For instance, we sneer at people for being uneasy in certain situations — say, among a group of young males of a different culture or subculture. And we are right to sneer, to a certain extent, because we are enlightened modern people.

But, if our ancestors weren’t uneasy and ready to fight or flee in such a situation, they wouldn’t have lived to reproduce, and we wouldn’t be here. Thousands of years ago, people who felt all warm and fuzzy and wanted to celebrate multiculturalism when in the company of a bunch of guys from the rival tribe got eaten for dinner, and as a result, those people are NOT our ancestors. We inherited our genes from the edgy, suspicious, cranky people — the racists and nativists of their day.

Take that to the next level, and we recognize that such tendencies are atavistic, and that it’s actually advantageous in our modern market economy governed by liberal democracies to be at ease with folks from the other “tribes.” In fact, the more you can work constructively with people who are different, the more successful you will be at trade, etc.

So quite rightly we sneer at those who haven’t made the socio-evolutionary adjustment. They are not going to get the best mates, etc., because chicks don’t dig a guy who’s always itching for a fight. So they’re on the way out, right?

However… the world hasn’t entirely changed as much as we think it has. There are still certain dangers, and the key is to have the right senses to know when you need to be all cool and open and relaxed, and when you need to be suspicious as hell, and ready to take evasive or combative action.

This requires an even higher state of sophistication. Someone who is always suspicious of people who are different is one kind of fool. Someone who is NEVER suspicious of people who are different (and I’m thinking more of people with radically different world views — not Democrats vs. Republicans, but REALLY different — more than I am people wearing funny robes) is another kind of fool.

The key, ultimately, is not to be any kind of fool. The key is to be a thoughtful, flexible survivor who gets along great with the Middle-eastern-looking guy in the airport queue or the Spanish-speakers in the cereals aisle at Walmart, but who is ready to spring into action to deal with the Middle-eastern-looking guy in seat 13A who’s doing something weird with the smoking sole of his shoe (or the Aryan guy doing the same, but my point is that you don’t give the Arab pass in such a situation just to prove how broad-minded you are), or the Spanish-speaking guy wielding an AK-47 over a drug deal…

This may seem common sense, but there are areas in which we will see conflicts between sound common sense and our notions of rigid fairness in a liberal democracy. For instance, I submit that an intelligent person who deals with the world as it is will engage in a certain amount of profiling. I mean, what is profiling, anyway, but a gestalten summation of what you’ve learned about the world in your life, applied to present and future situations? The ability to generalize, and act upon generalizations — without overdoing it — are key life skills.

There are certain traits that put you on guard and make you particularly vigilant under particular circumstances, or you are a fool. If you’re in an airport and you see a group of 20-something Mediterranean-looking males (and young males from ANY culture always bear more watching than anyone else — sorry, guys, but y’all have a long rap sheet) unaccompanied by women or children or old men, and they’re muttering and fidgeting with something in their bags… you’re not very bright if you don’t think, “This bears watching.”

Now of course, knowing this, if I’m a terrorist organization, I’m going to break up that pattern as much as I can. (I’ll have them travel separately, wear western clothes, coach them not to seem furtive, etc. I’ll recruit middle-aged women if I can, although they generally have far too much sense.) So if you’re watching this scene, and you are intelligent, you’re bound to think, “These guys look SO suspicious that they must be innocent, because terrorists aren’t that stupid…” Well, yeah, they can be. Let me submit the evidence of the guy who set his underpants on fire… So there’s such a thing as overthinking the situation. I mean, how bright is a guy who wants to blow himself up to make a point? People who do that ALSO don’t reproduce, so evolution militates against it…

Anyway, I’d go on and on about this, and examine all the implications, and endeavor to challenge the assumptions of people of all political persuasions… but I don’t have time this week.

Did Sheheen really score a knockout last night?

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That’s what Sheheen’s campaign claimed this morning. At the same time, they released the results of a new Crantford poll showing Vincent well within the 3.8 percent margin of error, right on Nikki Haley’s heels:

If you were able to watch the debate that just ended, it’s clear on who should be your next governor. Vincent Sheheen scored a decisive victory. He showed that he’s the only candidate that understands the issues and more importantly, the one candidate voters can trust.

The debate is not the only victory for Vincent this week. A new poll released today shows Vincent Sheheen continues to capture the momentum in South Carolina’s race for governor. The news comes a day after pre-election campaign contribution reports demonstrated Vincent Sheheen raised more contributions than Nikki Haley from South Carolina donors.

South Carolinians are now paying attention to this race. Voters are informing themselves about the candidates, and they are excited about Vincent Sheheen.

The new survey, conducted by Crantford & Associates, shows Haley’s lead has dropped to just two points, 43%-41% with 16% undecided. While Vincent’s support is growing, Haley’s continues to decline drastically.

Well, I missed the debate last night, and all day I’ve been catching flak about that (not “flack,” Kathryn) from people who think Sheheen thumped Haley and want to see me write about it.

I’ve mumbled something about how I advocated for debates for all those people who for whatever reasons had not focused on the candidates’ relative strengths and weaknesses, not for my benefit… which hasn’t gotten me anywhere with anyone.

So now, near the end of the day, I’m finally about to view the debate at the WSPA website. I’ll offer some thoughts when I’m done. But if y’all would like, you can go ahead and weigh in now.

… which means I would never leave there

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I don’t think of myself as a particularly materialistic person, or a sensualist per se (except within certain parameters). And I am most definitely, certainly not a foodie. Personally, I find foodism… off-putting.

But there are two things that I look forward to every day, and that are hard for me to forgo — coffee in the morning (and sometimes in the afternoon), and beer at night.

And now Kathryn brings my attention to this:

Starbucks Explores Possibility Of Selling Beer & Wine

Hey, you can have the wine. And I’d rather that the cheese not be in the same building. But the best coffee in the world, followed by beer? I would never want to leave.

Coming up on “The Brad Show:” Vincent Sheheen

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My plan was to keep pressing until I got a commitment for a time that Vincent Sheheen would sit still long enough for us to shoot an installment of “The Brad Show” with him, and then to turn and press Nikki Haley for an interview as well — having heard she was reluctant to do such things. Sort of the way I’m currently playing Joe Wilson and Rob Miller off against each other. (Oh, wait — you don’t suppose they’ll read this, do you?)

But the strategy fell all apart today, when the Sheheen campaign called and said, “What about today?,” which set off a scramble to act on that opportunity. Jay and Julia gathered up the equipment, and at 4 p.m., we spoke with him in the conference room over at James Smith’s law office, a few blocks from ADCO. The interview ran about 23 minutes, same as the one with Dr. Whitson.

The show should be up on the blog by the end of the day tomorrow, if nothing more arises to prevent Jay from getting it ready.

To whet your appetite, I share with you the list of questions that I prepared as a crutch before the session. Back when I was at the paper, I almost never prepared questions (or anything else) ahead of time. In keeping with the Fremen dictum to “Be prepared to appreciate what you meet,” and being a believer in the Dirk Gently holistic method of investigation, I liked to go in and see where the interview would go. And often it went in interesting directions that I could never have anticipated.

But with video, I’m a little less confident still, and like to have some questions in front of me in case I freeze up and can’t think of anything to dispel “dead air.”

So I prepared this list ahead of time (it took no more than five minutes) — and we actually got to most of the questions, as you will see tomorrow:

Questions for Vincent Sheheen

“The Brad Show”

October 13, 2010

At the Columbia Rotary Monday, you said this is the most important gubernatorial election in SC in 40 years. I concur. Or at the very least, it’s most important since we missed our chance to have Joe Riley as our governor in 94. But what are YOUR reasons for saying so?

Early in 2009, you jokingly asked me, “Am I making you hopeful?” Well, at this point I would say that depends: Can you win this election? Elaborate.

Why should you win it? Compare and contrast.

One beef I hear from readers on my blog is that sure, maybe Vincent Sheheen is a nice guy from a good family, but what would he DO? Talk about your vision for South Carolina. What do you want to accomplish as governor?

I particularly enjoyed hearing you speak Monday about one of my favorite topics – reforming state government. You have a plan for doing that that originally I wasn’t too crazy about – it involved a lot of sweetener for the Legislature. But since then, I’ve reached two conclusions: One, that’s the only way we’re going to get reform, and Two, your approach actually points to an important difference between you and your opponent.

Could you summarize that plan for our viewers?

Issues, plans and programs aside, elections are, to some extent, about character. Is this one more so?

How do you deal with all the revelations coming out about your opponent without seeming to be too negative? Do you think you’re hitting that note at the proper “Goldilocks” point – neither too hard nor too soft?

And your opponent aside, what the most important thing voters need to know about YOU?

What are you hearing from voters?

Where do you go from here?

By the way, with both Caroline Whitson and Vincent Sheheen, I did an unconventional thing. I gave each of them a brief glance at the questions I had prepared before we started, just so they could be thinking about the answers as we proceeded. I’m more interested in getting thoughtful answers than I am in ambushing sources.

I’ll gladly do the same for Nikki, if she’ll sit down with me — while at the same time telling her what I told Caroline and Vincent, that the questions were not an absolute guide. If things start to move in a promising direction that I didn’t anticipate, I revert to form and run in that direction.

That wonderful, marvelous Adam Smith

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I said something about “Adam Smith sermonizing” in The Wall Street Journal back on this post.

Speak of the devil, I just happened to read a book review in that paper this morning about the book, Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life (I am not making this title up), By Nicholas Phillipson.

Talk about your gushing. The reviewer writes, breathily,

Even his appearance is a mystery. The only contemporary likenesses of him are two small, carved medallions. We know Adam Smith as we know the ancients, in colorless stone.

It is a measure of Nicholas Phillipson’s gifts as a writer that he has, from this unpromising material, produced a fascinating book. Mr. Phillipson is the world’s leading historian of the Scottish Enlightenment. His “Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life” animates Smith’s prosaic personal history with an account of the eventful times through which he lived and the revolutionary ideas that inspired him. Adam Smith finally has the biography that he deserves, and it could not be more timely.

Smith’s fame, of course, was made by the “Wealth of Nations.” The book appeared in 1776, a good year in the annals of human liberty. Its teachings are so fundamental to modern economics that familiarity often dulls our appreciation of its brilliance.

Smith constructed his masterpiece on a few ingenious insights into the workings of a commercial economy….

He’s so wonderful, but so unknowable! His ways are so far above our ways, and his thoughts so far above our thoughts, that we know him only through colorless stone! Quick, a paper bag — I’m hyperventilating…

Of course, I must admit, I haven’t read Wealth of Nations. For two centuries and more, I’ve been holding out for the movie version. Maybe it’s all that and more. But at the moment I’m giving myself a break from nonfiction to reread O’Brian’s The Wine-Dark Sea, which of course actually is wonderful. (Speaking of the movie, I watched “Master and Commander” last night on Blu-Ray. If only someone would undertake to make a separate film on each book in the Aubrey/Maturin canon! As soon as it came out on Netflix, you wouldn’t see me for a year…)

After that, I’m going to read the books I got for my birthday, starting with Tony Blair’s new political autobio. Then there’s Woodward’s Obama’s War. Only then will I allow myself the pleasure of reading the latest Arkady Renko mystery, Three Stations.

Then, before I read Adam Smith, I will go back and finish Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, which I set aside to read Bob Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow and Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed, back-to-back. Then, sometime after Trotsky, I’ll go read Adam Smith — right after I poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick. Twice. Colorless stone, indeed.

What really happened in Ecuador (one version, anyway)

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I really hate that my only regular source of information about what happens in Latin America — now that I no longer have my subscription to The Economist that the paper paid for — is the opinion columns of Mary Anastasia O’Grady in The Wall Street Journal. They’re all written from the standard WSJ point of view — free markets good, government bad — and while I certainly prefer that to, say, the twisted neo-Maoism of Hugo Chavez, or the native populism of Evo Morales, or the demagoguery of Rafael Correa, I would still prefer my reporting without the Adam Smith sermonizing.

But whaddaya gonna do? In this country, the MSM panders so to the extreme apathy of Americans toward anything beyond their borders that the only way I’ve ever kept up with our own backyard is by reading British publications (such as The Economist).

All of that said, having Ms. O’Grady’s observations delivered to my door each week is better than nothing.

And I read with particular interest her piece this morning about what happened in Ecuador last week. An excerpt of her debunking of Mr. Correa’s claims of a “coup” attempt:

Mr. Correa says that, once inside the hospital, the police “kidnapped” him for 10 hours, in what he is calling an attempted coup d’état.

Not so, says Ms. Zaldumbide, at least one other patient, and two doctors and a nurse who were on duty at the time. They say Mr. Correa retained all his presidential privileges and was never without the protection of his security team.

They also say he was offered an armed escort to leave but refused it. Ecuador’s minister of internal and external security has also said that the president was never detained.

Nevertheless, at 9 p.m. Mr. Correa, who was doing telephone interviews with the state-controlled media during the time he was supposedly “kidnapped,” ordered 500 army troops to the hospital. The soldiers arrived with tanks and submachine guns and opened fire on the police. A fierce gun battle lasted 40 minutes, took the lives of two men, and terrified hospital staff and patients.

Wow. Although there apparently was no coup at all, what did happen certainly sounds more exciting than the real coup I lived through in Ecuador when I was a kid.

Back then, we knew how to have a revolution without our hair getting mussed. I say this because I was, like Forrest Gump and just as clueless, present as history was made.

We lived in the upstairs of a large house owned by a captain in the Ecuadorean Navy. One day in 1963 when my parents were out, they told us to go hang out with the kids downstairs, in the landlord’s part quarters. While I was there, the capitan had a visitor. A few days later, that visitor (an admiral) was the head of the junta running the country, and our landlord held some high post in the government. I want to say minister of agriculture.

When my parents told me there had been a coup, I asked what a coup was (I was only 9 years old). They told me it was like a revolution. So with some apprehension, I went over to the window and peeked out at the intersection of Maracaibo y Seis de Mayo, expecting to see violence in the streets. I saw nothing. Things looked pretty normal over across the street at the home of the chief of police, which always had a guard walking up and down the sidewalk outside. Perhaps, I thought, the fighting was elsewhere.

But there was no fighting. The story I remember hearing at the time — and it may be totally apocryphal — was that the junta waited until el presidente had a bit too much to drink, then put him on a plane and let him wake up in Panama. Presto — instant revolution.

What I saw subsequently certainly jibed with such a peaceful transfer. The only time I ever saw violence in that country when I was there was when some friends and I went downtown to see a Western movie with a title that I suppose caused a lot of people to think it was in Spanish (I want to say “Comancheros”). The crowd was queued up on one side of the theater, then a rumor spread that the tickets would be sold on the other side, and I got knocked down in the stampede. Then there was that other time when I was at some event in a park, and was pushing my way through a crowd to the front to see what was happening, and popped through the front ranks just as a line of cops pushed us back at bayonet point — but I don’t remember what that was about; I just remember my surprise at the bayonets, which seemed excessive. (Or was it just rifles without bayonets? I was so young, and it was so long ago — and a boy’s memory tends to romanticize, especially when living the sort of TV-free, Tom Sawyer existence I experienced down there. Everything was an adventure.)

Now, looking back, I read that the junta canceled elections. I don’t remember that. I do remember that they canceled Water Carnival. Water Carnival was a deeply cherished (by 9-year-old boys) tradition that involved having permission for several days to assault strangers with water balloons. To me, the canceling of Water Carnival has always stood out as the very epitome of oppression.

Of course, it may just be that my parents told me it was canceled…

Come to think of it, Ms. O’Grady’s accounts are probably more reliable than my memories. What do kids know? I later learned that several of the adults with whom I regularly interacted — including my guitar teacher — were working for the CIA, or U.S. military intelligence. Who knew?

And would ye be after havin’ a problem with this, now, paisan?

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Heading out in the cool of the morning Saturday for the Walk for Life, I put on two layers — a black T-shirt I sometimes wear on the weekends, and a long-sleeved baseball-style undershirt over it — in anticipation of putting on yet a third layer (the official Walk for Life T-shirt) over that.

Which worked fine during the walk.

But later, when the wife and my daughter and a friend and I headed to the Italian Festival on Main Street, the sun necessitated stripping down to the first layer. And it didn’t even occur to me to think what that layer was.

I was reminded of it when I got in line to buy some food tickets so I could buy some Italian sausage with onions and peppers to wash down with my draft Peroni lager. Ernie Trubiano, former sports scribe at The State, was selling the tickets. Quoth he, “You got some nerve showing up here wearing that…”

He said it in a nice way, though — more marveling at my brazenness than getting in my face about it.

Gee, I wasn’t trying to start an international incident. But that IS one of my fave shirts. I got it at the best St. Paddy’s Day ever in Five Points, the one in 2007, against which all such gatherings shall henceforth be measured.

The best part of the shirt is the side you don’t see — the back is a mock Guinness logo with the words being about the St. Pat’s event. I’ll try to remember to take a picture of that and share it later. It’s awesome.

I have to get in shape; I really do

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This morning when I arrived at the tallest building in Columbia — all 25 stories of it — the elevators weren’t working. The mezzanine area was filled with office workers who “couldn’t” make it up to their workplaces. Some went to the cafe on that level to get some breakfast and coffee.

But I had already paid for my breakfast, and it was on the 25th floor. So I headed for the stairs.

And I found out something: I am really, really out of shape. I only made it by stopping for several minutes, twice. But I made it.

You should have seen the looks on the faces of the wait staff at the Capital City Club when I staggered into the darkened (the power had gone out; that’s why the elevators weren’t working) Grille Room. They didn’t know whether to find me something to eat or call an ambulance.

But I ate, and then I headed back down. On that trip, I shot the above video. There would be narration, but I was saving what little breath I had left.

Such are the hardships of modern life. Pitiful, huh?

I wonder if I’m even going to make it through the three miles of the Walk for Life… By the way, we’re up to $707! Thanks to all of you who have contributed so generously.

Correction (sorta): I was wrong, but I was also right

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Last night, Cindi Scoppe, who as long as I’ve known her has NEVER looked at e-mail or the Web on weekends*, shocked me by writing to make an observation on one of my blog posts.

She was writing to set me straight on Act 388, which I mentioned on the penny sales tax post. She said she wasn’t sure that it WAS 388; she thought it might me 488. And she said that it only raised the sales tax one cent, not two.

I wrote back that I was sure that I was right on the name of it, but was going by memory on the two cents; and was she sure?

I had the enormous satisfaction of knowing I was at least half right. It IS 388. But with her extensive files at hand, she was able to say I was dead wrong on the two cents.

So I was wrong. Sorry about that. I’m going to go fix it now…

* This is not to say she doesn’t work all weekend; she does. She takes home long, boring documents to read, the kind of documents that I would rather suffer several pokes in the eye with a sharp stick than read on a weekend.

I get off the sidelines, and take a stand: Pass the penny sales tax for transportation

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Caroline Whitson speaks to the gathering at the Penny Sales Tax campaign kickoff.

You know that press conference that they had at the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce Thursday to support the sales tax referendum for transportation Thursday? I was there, and not as a blogger. I mean, I’m always a blogger — here I am writing about it — but that’s not why I was there.

I was there to support the referendum. Ike McLeese and Betty Gregory with the Chamber had asked a group of supporters (and I had told them I was willing to help) to show up so that the media people could see a nice cross-section of the community willing to stand up for it.

This would not be a big deal for most people, but it is for me. I’ve always been a professional observer, which is to say, I’ve always been on the sidelines. Sure, I’ve been telling people in writing where I stand on issues off and on since the early ’70s, when I was the editorial page editor of The Helmsman, the student newspaper at Memphis State. And ever since I joined The State‘s editorial board in ’94, I’ve not only written what I thought about all and sundry, but I’ve also always been clear about my views when I speak to groups in the community. In fact, since we were SO strongly against the state lottery, and we were so committed to using any venue we could in trying (against all odds) to defeat it, I actually argued against it in some public debates in the months leading up to the referendum. My good friend Samuel Tenenbaum and I had a regular road show going — he would be “pro” and I would be “anti.” I had right on my side, but of course his side won.

But this is different. I have agreed, in writing, to be a public supporter of an issue before voters on the November ballot.

Why have I taken this stand? Well, I’ll tell ya…

In some ways, it’s an unlikely place to start being involved. If I’d tried to predict it, I would have said I’d save myself for something big, and statewide — say, helping Vincent Sheheen get elected. As y’all know, I have held for many years that THE most important electoral decision voters make every four years is choosing a governor. With our state being so dominated by the Legislature, and the Legislature by nature being extremely resistant to change, the only way our state is ever going to stop being last where we want to be first and first where we want to last is for someone elected statewide to use the bully pulpit (which is about the only tool the governor has) to exert a counterbalancing force for reform and progress. And it is especially critical that Sheheen be elected rather than the Sanford disciple he’s up against. But beyond what I write here, I’m not doing anything to help him. (Disclosure: ADCO Interactive did the new Sheheen Web site, but I was not and am not involved with that project.)

But I got involved with this instead. Here are some reasons why:

I believe public transit is essential for our community to grow and prosper (as J.T. McLawhorn said at the meeting, public transit is a vital part of a community’s circulatory system, and without that, “You’re dead.”), and next year the bus system — a rather poor, lame excuse for public transportation, but it’s all we’ve got — runs out of money.
Every other venue for keeping it going has been thoroughly explored. And I think you will notice that those opposing this referendum don’t present a viable alternative. A community group spent vast amounts of volunteer time two years ago studying all of Richland County’s transportation needs. $500,000 worth of studies were done. This was the only viable way to do it, given the straitjacket that the Legislature puts communities in when it comes to taxing and spending. Ask Columbia College President Caroline Whitson, who chaired that effort: This is the way to do it. The unpopular temporary wheel tax that’s keeping it going now is not a workable permanent solution.
That revenue would also pay for a number of other needed improvements to transportation infrastructure — bike and hiking trails, and road improvements — that were identified through that same wide-ranging community conversation two years back. This answers those who say “I don’t ride the bus” (as if taxes were a user fee, but let’s not go down that philosophical rathole right now). This plan has something for everyone in the county. And it’s not a wish list; there is considerable community support behind each of these projects.
Funding from other sources for the road projects is not any more forthcoming — from state or federal sources, or anywhere else — than is funding for the bus system. This is truly a case in which a community has come together to determine it’s needs, and identified a sensible way to pay for it without asking for a handout — a handout that, as I say, isn’t coming. This is something Richland County needs to do for itself, and this is the best way available to do it.
It’s a fair way to pay for this. Some may protest that I don’t live in the county, so who am I to speak out? My answer to that is that THIS is the way to get people like me — who spend almost all our waking hours in Richland County, and benefit from its roads and other services — to pay our share. I’m more than willing to do it. Richland County residents who pay property taxes should be twice as willing, even eager.
Like many of you, I’m concerned about putting too much stress on the sales tax. Nikki Haley and the other lawmakers who wrongheadedly supported Act 388, and adamantly refuse to repeal it, badly distorted our already fouled-up tax system. They eliminated school operations taxes on owner-occupied homes by raising the sales tax by a penny. They did this on top of the fact that they had forced local communities to turn to a local option sales tax by proscribing or restricting other revenue sources. Because of all that, this is the only option local communities have for such needs as this. And of course, it also has the virtue I mentioned above. A magnet county like Richland, drawing people from all over central South Carolina, should rely more on a sales tax than other counties.
This method has been used with great success in other communities across the state — Charleston, Florence and York counties have benefited greatly. For a lot of the business leaders who are lining up behind this, watching those communities improve their infrastructure and get a leg up in economic development while we continue to fall behind is a huge motivation factor in supporting this.

There are other reasons that aren’t coming to me at the moment as I type this, which I will no doubt write about in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you might want to peruse this summary of the proposal.

The folks who turned out for the kickoff Thursday were a pretty good group. As I stood in the crowd listening to the speakers, I could see from where I was standing: Ted Speth (the first speaker), Steve Benjamin, Joel & Kit Smith, Barbara Rackes, Samuel Tenenbaum, Rick Silver, Emily Brady, Col. Angelo Perri, Cathy Novinger, Bernice Scott, Jennifer Harding, Chuck Beamon, J.T. McLawhorn, Candy Waites, Paul Livingston, Greg Pearce, Lee Bussell, Sonny White and Mac Bennett.

Here’s a longer list of folks who pledged ahead of the kickoff to support the campaign. But I know it’s not complete, because my name isn’t on it.

More about this as we go along. This campaign has just begun.

War and Peace in the hymnal on Sunday

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Remembering “War is Hell” Sherman reminded me of our processional hymn at Mass yesterday. For the first time since I was a kid, I think, I found myself singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

It sort of snuck up on me. I had been scheduled as “alternate reader” — in English this time, so I hadn’t studied in advance (I always have to practice, to warm up the right muscles, before reading in Spanish) — but when I arrived, all the slots were filled on the sign-up sheet, so I went to take a seat with my wife for a change. Then, just as the processional hymn was starting up, Judy leaned in to our pew to hurriedly whisper that I was needed, after all. Apparently, someone had messed up and signed in on the wrong spaces at a previous mass.

So I moved quickly to line up for the procession, Debra handed me a hymnal/lectionary, I asked “Which reading?,” was told it was the first (Good! I love doing the first; not so much the second), and was flipping through the book to check it out when I was asked if I could “double up” and serve as a Eucharistic minister, too, and I said sure, just as we stepped off to start the procession.

So it was not until then, as the congregation was starting the second verse, that I realized we were singing “The Battle Hymn.” Not knowing that verse, I wisely suppressed the urge to sing the first lyrics that came to mind:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school

We have tortured all the teachers; we have broken ev’ry rule…

Glory, glory, hallelujah

Teacher hit me with a ruler

I hit her in the bean with a rotten tangerine…

Finding the right page, I then sang with the others as we walked up the aisle:

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

And the thought occurred to me, This is what it feels like to be a Yankee, self-righteously celebrating victory over us Southerners… (And no, we didn’t sing it in a medley with “Dixie,” Elvis-style.)

You may have noticed, church gives me a lot to think about on Sundays, but it’s not always what I should be thinking about. But I try.

I focused a little better when I went to the pulpit to do the first reading, which began:

The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’
“I see how stiff-necked this people is, ” continued the LORD to Moses.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.
Then I will make of you a great nation.”…

You see why I like the first reading? Unlike all that theological abstraction you get with Paul’s letters (which is what you get on the second reading most of the year), there’s drama in the Old Testament. The readings we use from it are never boring or tedious. Lots of Sturm und Drang. You can really get into it reading it aloud. I especially like the flair in “Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them,” like the Lord’s just beside himself, indulging in such a Shakespearean rhetorical flourish (as in, “Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.“)

I found myself thinking how like a divine editorial writer the Lord sounded there. I could imagine him haranguing SC voters for being a depraved, stiff-necked people for electing Mark Sanford twice, or nominating Alvin Greene. As I walked back to my pew, I started imagining how I could rewrite that as a political satire on the blog, but decided that would be just a little too sacrilegious.

So did I ever set aside idle digression and get into a proper, worshipful state of mind during that hour?

Actually, I did. I found myself blessed by one of those rare moments of transcendence that you always hope for, whatever church or other house of worship you attend.

I don’t know if it was the way our music director had arranged it, or the voices of the choir (only about five people at that Mass) lifting above the congregation’s, or the brilliance of Jean Sibelius, or the coffee I had for breakfast kicking in. But as we sang it yesterday, Finlandia sounded like the most beautiful hymn I had ever heard. It may sound trite, like something an envious Salieri would say about Mozart’s work, but it was as though the voice of God himself were leading us.

And as we sang, I realized the lyrics were every bit as strikingly beautiful as the music. Particularly the second verse, which was the most poetic evocation of the universal longing for peace that I have ever heard:

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

This is my song, oh God of all the nations;

a song of peace for their land and for mine.

Best line of all: But other lands have sunlight too and clover…

After Mass, I said something about it, and my wife said the same. Of course, she’s not a war-monger like me — quite the opposite, in fact. So it’s not as surprising that she liked it. But it’s a testament to the beauty of the moment that I did, too. Very much.

The original Finnish lyrics, by the way, are more run-of-the-mill nationalistic stuff. Whoever wrote the English version above (and there are many songs sung to this tune), was, I believe, divinely inspired.

Say hello to Daddy Warbucks, only with hair

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"Are you talkin' to ME?..."

Had an odd thing happen just a few minutes ago, as I was leaving a local drugstore, on my way back from taping something at ETV.

As I crossed the parking lot, I heard a small voice pipe up behind me, “Do you know where there are any jobs?”

Hearing no one respond, I turned and found a cute, petite, college-age (this was near USC) girl hurrying to catch up with me.

Once it was established she was addressing me, I asked, in order to have something to say, “What sort of job?” I was prepared for her to say almost anything, but not what she said: “Administrative.” Something ran through my head that the HR director at The State once told me about how young people today have unrealistic expectations of starting at the top.

I must have looked questioning, because she added, by way of explication, “You know, office work…”

“Well,” I told her, slowly, “I don’t know of anything at the moment…” searching my brain, thinking Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to live up to this girl’s unlikely expectation of me and actually connect this question with an actual job I’ve heard about, but came up dry.

Not wanting to leave it at that, I said, “Would you like to give me a card, so that if I hear of anything…?” with the alarm bells going off in my head as I realized how much that sounded like You wanna give me your phone number?, or how much it might sound like it to someone of her age and experience in life, but it was completely innocent, just what I’d ask of anyone else who told me he or she was job-hunting…

She, continuing to move on past me as I arrived at my car — I realized that we had kept moving the whole time — patted her pocket sort of nervously as though she would normally have cards, but had none today, and said, “No, I don’t have any cards on me…”

And I said, “Well, good luck!” And that was that.

She was bold as brass, which I suppose will stand her in good stead at some point. But what did I look like to her? Like Daddy Warbucks with hair, I suppose.

I didn’t have the heart to call after her and say, Honey, you just don’t know… it took me a year to find a job for myself…

Why spoil her illusions, especially when they are so flattering to me? She looked at me and thought me a powerful and magnanimous man, able to scatter jobs across the pavement like so many doubloons from a Mardi Gras float. Why spoil that, indeed?

… and curse Sir Walter Raleigh; he was such a stupid get…

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As the man said in the song, I’m so tired… and yet have accomplished so little today. Blogwise, anyway. Progress was made here and there, but little satisfaction was to be had.

And the day began with such promise.

First, I went to an interesting breakfast discussion of clean energy at the Cap City Club, and haven’t had time since then even to peruse my notes, so I’ll just give you the press release:

Business and elected leaders gather in Columbia for energy roundtable

State and national experts discuss the tie between clean energy and job creation in SC

Columbia, SC – More than 60 business and elected leaders attended an energy roundtable this morning hosted by SC Businesses for Clean Energy. The organization is a coalition of over 100 businesses in the state seeking to create jobs and enhance national security by improving energy efficiency and developing clean-energy alternatives.

“There is a growing awareness in our state’s business community that we can create jobs and lower energy bills by improving the way we produce and consume energy,” said SC Businesses for Clean Energy founder Clare Morris. “Discussions like the one at the energy roundtable are just the beginning of the conversation.”

The roundtable included a panel discussion featuring three experts on energy and economic policy in South Carolina: Grant Jackson, senior vice president for community development with the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce; Russ Keller, vice president for advanced technology international (ATI) of South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA); and Suzanne Watson, policy director with the American Coalition for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The moderator was Bob Bouyea, publisher of the Columbia Regional Business Report.

“There is a realization in South Carolina that we do not have coal, oil, or uranium, and that we have to import these energy sources from other places,” said Jackson during the panel discussion. “At the same time, we have abundant offshore wind, solar, and biomass, as well as, hydrogen and nuclear energy potential. Clean energy is a path to jobs.”

Jackson cited a July 2010 poll of South Carolina small businesses that showed 68 percent support clean energy initiatives.

Keller added, “It’s going to be small, innovative companies that will lead. We need to help encourage their ideas so that they can build their products right here in South Carolina and then sell them all over the world.”

Panelists also agreed that while attitudes in South Carolina are changing, the state needs a comprehensive energy plan to diversify its energy sources and create incentives for improving energy efficiency.

“ACEEE does not argue in favor of any one energy source because every state has its own particular resources and goals,” said Watson. “But invest in efficiency first and you will reduce the costs for any new generation power source that you build.”

Watson cited efforts by the South Carolina Electric Cooperatives to weatherize tens of thousands of South Carolina homes as a positive step toward reducing energy costs and creating jobs. A state-specific report released last year by ACEEE found that overall, investing in energy efficiency could create over 20,000 jobs and save ratepayers $5.1 billion on their bills by 2025.

The ACEEE report can be found at: http://www.aceee.org/research-report/e099

“It was tremendous to see that Boeing is coming to South Carolina,” noted Watson. “But energy efficiency could create six times more jobs than Boeing facility.”

Breakfast sponsors included SC Businesses for Clean Energy, SCBiz News, the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, New Carolina, EngenuitySC, and the Quality of Life Task Force of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce.

Then, while I was trying to get some ADCO work done, I got a phone call from the guy with the Huffington Post who had sent me this e-mail:

Hi Brad,

Ben Bell from the Huffington Post here. I just came across your blog.

I am writing to alert you to an opportunity. Right now we are in the process of building a network of citizen journalists to cover specific congressional candidates/incumbents this fall all across the country.

In SC, we are trying to get citizen journalists to cover Rob Miller and or John Spratt. The job would require the CJ to submit a weekly round up submission and attend events related to the specific candidate as they can. We are flexible on the number of events attended. The start date is TBA and is intended to be something done by someone with a full-time job or other commitment.

The position is not paid, but does offer the excellent chance for the CJ to get a byline on the HuffPost, which is a fast-growing and influential site. This would be a great opportunity for everyone from professors and professional bloggers to journalism students and those just interested in politics. All are welcome to express interest.

Please let me know if you are interested ASAP.

Also, we can discuss linking to your blog it when you submit content we publish.

Best,

Ben Bell

In discussing it with him on the phone today, I found the proposition intriguing, but am still undecided whether to pursue it. Actually, I sort of wanted y’all’s input on it, and was going to write a post listing the pros (such as, he said they WOULD link to my blog, and it might boost my traffic) and cons (as in, “the position is not paid”) as I saw them and asking what y’all thought, but I’m just too tired, and right now I want to go eat my dinner, and have a beer before I hit the sack. Maybe later.

Then I ran to Al Amir with the ADCO partners for an early lunch.

Then I went to the Vincent Sheheen thing downtown.

Then Lora and I conducted an interview with a guy in Canada about a potential project for ADCO. One that will require quite a few more such interviews before we’re even getting rolling good on it. Then, I suggested some wording changes for something we were doing on an RFP for another prospective client.

Then, there was another meeting about a project that just came up which I need to get finished by the end of the day tomorrow for an actual (not merely prospective) ADCO client. Not hard, but fairly labor-intensive (which means not much blogging tomorrow, either).

Then I sat down and whipped out a press release for that same client, minus a couple of questions I hope to get answered by tomorrow morning.

Then I went over some materials from yet another client who needs some PR help, anticipating running into the client tomorrow morning and taking it to the next step.

Then, determined that I would get SOMETHING to the point of completion today, around 6 p.m. I whipped out that post about the Sheheen thing, but now that I look at it I see it is practically incoherent.

And then I came home. And on the way home, I decided I’d write this to explain why the blog was less than stellar today, and why you didn’t get a Virtual Front Page.

Because, while I don’t have a lot to show (yet) for all my busy-ness today, I’m just so tired…

It was one of those days.

Everything conspires against me, including myself (See you next time, Joe)

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Well, I was sort of looking forward to seeing ol’ Joe Biden again for the first time since fall 2007. He can be quite entertaining, especially when he’s talking about his old buddy Fritz Hollings. Also, I hadn’t seen Fritz in a while, and was interested to know how he was doing.

So I was glad to RSVP that I would indeed attend the dedication ceremony for Fritz’ new library, and grateful to Harris Pastides et al. for remembering to invite me. (Still am, so thanks again for including me in your plans.) Then, after I RSVPed, I put it on my calendar and put it out of my mind.

Then this morning, I had a new thought: It was Friday. I knew from memory that I had no meetings with ADCO clients. So I decided to go casual like everybody else at the office. Or casual for me, anyway. I put on some worn-out, rumple gray chinos and a sport shirt I bought several years ago for $3 at a Wal-Mart up in Pennsylvania. And a jacket from an old khaki suit. I have to wear a jacket, so I have someplace to put my stuff (wallet, keys, notebook, other junk).

And no tie. Which to me is like walking down the street naked. This is only like the second time I’ve done this since starting at ADCO.

Then at breakfast, I read that the Hollings library thing was today. OK, so I do have something to do today. Forgot that. Fine. It will give me something for the blog, maybe something good.

Then on the way out after breakfast, I saw myself in a mirror. Oh, no. I was going to have to go all the way back home and change. I looked like a seedy character from a Graham Greene novel, on acid (the strangely colored shirt being the acid part).

(At this point, you highly organized people are wondering, “Why don’t you consult your calendar every morning when you’re getting dressed, so you know how to dress ahead of time?” And you’re wondering it with that really irritating tone that highly organized people have. Well, I’ll tell you … years ago, I decided to dress in a suit and tie every day so that it didn’t matter what I had to do that day, since often things came up during the day that I couldn’t anticipate, things that weren’t on my calendar yet anyway. So I started waiting to consult my calendar when I got in. It just had not struck me, standing half asleep in the closet this morning, that deciding to do something as radical as not wearing a tie required entirely different assumptions about daily procedures. In the future, I’ll think of that.)

But I needed to get to the office and do SOME work. So I went, and feeling like I neglected the blog yesterday, I posted something quick and easy and then plunged into my e-mail and getting organized on a couple of ADCO projects. Next thing I knew, it was 11:13, with the Hollings thing starting at 12.

For a second, I thought about going as I was. That way there’d be no rush. I could walk over to the event. But then I thought, no, your invitation is at home. And this isn’t a typical university event; you’re going to be dealing with the Secret Service, and you know what obsessives they are. They aren’t just going to say, “Oh, it’s Brad; come on in.”

So I ran home, knowing I could still be on time if unless I ran into really bad traffic.

When I’m a block from the office, I realize I don’t have my camera. Damn, damn, damn. Turn around? Try to swing back by the office to get it on my way after changing and getting the invitation? Neither. I decided I’d make do with the Blackberry. I wanted to be on time. Any other event like this, the speaking wouldn’t start until half an hour into it, but the Secret Service was involved. I had to be on time.

And at this point, I would have been. At least, I would have made it by noon — fairly easily.

So I get home, a little impatient with the traffic, but it’s OK. I’m good. I change into a good suit, white shirt, tie. No problem. And then I start looking for the invitation. It’s not on the dresser. Damn, damn, damn. It’s not on the desk in my home office. Damn, damn… I suddenly remembered: Even though I had received the invitation at home, when I had called to RSVP, I had done it from the office.

Oh, damndamndamndamndamndamn.

At this point, having turned up the thermostat in the house when I’d left that morning, I’m starting to sweat in the suit. So I jump back in the car, and rave at the traffic all the way back from the office. I’ve got the AC on me full blast, but the sweat is taking hold. I go to park in front of ADCO, and for the first time since I’ve started here, there’s a guy standing right there checking meters. So I get out my SmartCard and put 20 minutes on the thing, when I just need 20 seconds. Then I rush up the stairs, tripping on one, causing a co-worker to call out, “Are you OK?” Yeahyeahyeah, I’m fine.

The invitation is not readily at hand. I start picking up piles of paper and other junk and rifling through it, dropping every pile on the floor as I finish going through it. Of course, the invitation is at the bottom of the very last pile. I jam it into my pocket and grab my camera, long as I’m here…

Damndamndamn…

I get back in the car, head over toward campus, and as I start looking for a parking space, it’s noon. Well, I failed. By now I’m sweating like a pig in the new suit, and I’ve gone to so much trouble that I figure I’ll try to go anyway. Luckily (my first bit of luck all day), I find a space only a block away, since it’s summer. I get out, put an hour and a half on the meter, take off my coat and head for the library. Sweating like mad.

As I’m heading there, it occurs to me that I don’t know exactly where I’m supposed to go, beyond the fact that it’s the Thomas Cooper library. The new thing is on the other side of the building, so where should I approach from?

I’ll bet the invitation will tell me…

Mind you, this is the first time that I had had any reason to look at the invitation beyond the time, date and place (“Noon on Friday, July 23, 2010,” it had said). I mean, what else do you look at an invitation for, aside from dress code and how to RSVP? And sure enough, there was a card inserted into the invitation with a map on one side saying to enter through the library main entrance. Good. That I can find.

Then, on the other side of the card from the map, there was a bulleted list of information, which if I had noticed before I suppose I had thought it was information about the new collection. You know how there’s usually an insert about that sort of thing. But it wasn’t. It was a list of instructions beginning with “Please bring this ticket with you to the dedication ceremony.”

Well, I had done that, but my heart sank. I had a premonition that there were going to be other requirements, perhaps requirements that had something to do with the fact that even though I was only five minutes late to an event that I knew would involve everybody being carefully checked at the front door, meaning people would still be filing in at this point… and the front of the library was deserted…

Yep. There it was. Third bullet: “Doors open at 10:00 a.m. All attendees must be in the Thomas Cooper Library by 11:45 a.m. Please allow ample time to find parking, walk to the Thomas Cooper Library, and be processed through event screening. There will be no exceptions made to this time frame.”

So that was that. After all that, I had failed to make it. I was too hot and harried at this point even to go, “Damndamndamn” any more.

But being the world’s most persistent optimist, rather than turning back to the car, since I had already walked halfway, and since I had spent a rushed hour trying to get this far, I kept going to the door.

And was turned away by a USC security guy who explained that the doors to the event were closed and the Secret Service, as is their wont, weren’t allowing anyone else in. “No exceptions.” I saw the Secret Service guys standing there, looking around with no more crowd to deal with, and reflected from long experience that no exceptions meant no exceptions. I’ve been pushed out of the way and yelled at for standing in the wrong place by these guys often enough in my career to know that they are no respecters of persons, and there is no arguing with their procedures (which is why I was never fond of covering events that involved them, since as a reporter I always sort of assumed that boundaries were for those other, less enterprising, reporters). I lamely, foolishly, gave the guy my excuse about having to run home looking for my invitation, because at a moment like that you want people to know that you weren’t being cavalier about the time, and he was sympathetic, but…

Sheesh.

Anyway, that’s why I don’t have a report for you on Joe Biden’s visit, or on how Fritz is doing. And why I’ll have to get the sweat cleaned out of my good suit even though I didn’t even make it to the event I put it on for. And why I’m feeling the frustration of knowing that the punctual people among you, the people who have judged and harangued and lectured me all my life because I’ve always tried to do to much and put myself in these situations, will smugly judge me again for this failure. Y’all are like that.

But I tried. I tried hard. It just didn’t work out.

Sorry, Fritz — I had wanted to see you again. Sorry, Joe. Sorry, Harris, for not making it to your event. I really wanted to.

Dang.

Cameras in Supreme Court? That worries me

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When I was a reporter, I used to wear an old Navy leather flight jacket of my Dad’s that was a little roomy on me (I’m a 40, it’s a 42), which was convenient. It had a map pocket on the inside, where I kept my notebook. And I slung my old Nikkormat SLR on my shoulder under the jacket. I could quickly swing it forward and use it, without removing the jacket.

This arrangement allowed me to hold back from displaying the notebook or the camera until needed.

As a journalist, I’ve always been of the fly-on-the-wall school. I didn’t like to interact with the subject until it was unavoidable. I wanted to see what was really going on first. If I could keep the people in the room from noticing that a reporter was present — or at least from being entirely sure about it — all the better. It minimized the Observer Effect, wherein observer and observed interact through the process of observation.

I wanted them to be honest. I didn’t want them holding back or grandstanding for me.

I didn’t misrepresent myself. At some point, I would need to step forward and ask someone a question, and of course I identified myself. But the longer I could observe the meeting, or event, or whatever, in its unspoiled state, the better. Or so I believed, and still do. So I avoided taking the notebook out until the last possible moment.

Of course, most of the time the main participants — the newsmakers, the people I’d be quoting — knew who I was. But even in a situation in which you know the subject knows who you are and what you’re there for, the moment when you take out the notebook changes everything. Most journalists can tell you of the tension of chatting with a source who’s being very natural and open and giving you stuff that’s truly golden, and you want to pull out the notebook so you can get it down — but you don’t want to break the spell.

And cameras have their own unique effect. Especially TV cameras. A lot of “news” is staged completely for television cameras rather than occurring spontaneously. Wherever there’s a video camera, frankness and candid expression are diminished, and an element of the pervasive falsity that characterizes “reality” TV creeps in.

So the journalist with a camera (or a notebook) is faced with a Catch-22 sort of situation. We want the things we cover to be open and transparent — to be fully available to us so we can inform our readers. And yet by pulling out the notebook or camera, by displaying the implements of coverage so that we can get it down accurately, we alter the thing. And TV adds another dimension. When a TV camera is trained upon a subject, he begins to act, to some degree. (The difference between being on TV and being on radio is very marked, at least for me when I’m the subject. Radio is pure expression. Put me on radio and I can just flow, and am not distracted by looking at the person I’m talking to, or anything else. But on TV you’re conscious of being watched, and everything changes.)

In our desire to break down barriers between the people at their government, we’ve opened most proceedings to the public — which means opening them to us, and our notebooks and cameras, and eventually TV cameras. And mostly, that’s all to the good — although it really creeps me out when I watch a video of a member of Congress delivering an impassioned speech… to an empty chamber. Talk about phony. Of course, in Congress there’s not much honest debate anymore. Just vote counting. The Democrats have this many, and the Republicans have that many? Then the bill will pass. Who needs speeches? Who needs listening to each other? It’s tragic.

But courtrooms… courtrooms are the final frontier, and they should be. When I covered trials back in the day, I knew I couldn’t bring the camera out until I left the courtroom. Once, I thought I had a good deal with the judge, who had told me (when I was covering a particularly sensational murder case) that I could take pictures of the main participants during recesses. But I nearly got thrown into jail for contempt when I whipped out the camera immediately after the guilty verdict to get the reaction of the accused. Hey, the gavel had come down, so we were adjourned, right? Didn’t matter; the judge didn’t approve, and jumped down my throat.

But I respected that. While I was trying to do my job, the judge was doing his, trying to maintain decorum (not to mention a little respect for human dignity, something reporters sometimes forget when they’re in the throes of getting a story). And Lord knows, if we can’t have some of that in our courts of law, then we really have gone to the dogs.

What ill could come from cameras in the courtroom? Look no further than the O.J. Simpson trial, in which everyone from the high-priced defense lawyers to the judge himself were playing to the cameras, and the result was a travesty, a theater of sensationalism rather than a place for rational discernment.

So it is that I read with some reservation that Elena Kagan thinks cameras in our most hallowed court would be “a terrific thing:”

The Elena Kagan confirmation hearings continue today with hard questions from lawmakers, about her decision as dean of Harvard Law School to briefly bar military recruiters from the school’s career services office because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and about her White House years.

But The Federal Eye’s ears (!!) perked up when Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) asked about allowing television cameras into the high court:

“I recognize that some members of the court have a different view, and certainly when and if I get to the court I will talk with them about that questions, but I have said that I think it would be a terrific thing to have cameras in the courtroom,” Kagan said at C-SPAN cameras rolled (see above). “And the reason I think, is when you see what happens there, it’s an inspiring sight. … I basically attend every Supreme Court argument. … It’s an incredible sight, because all nine justices, they’re so prepared, they’re so smart, they’re so thorough, they’re so engaged, the questioning is rapid fire. You’re really seeing an institution of government at work really in an admirable way.”

“The issues are important ones … I mean, some of them will put you to sleep,” she said later to laughs. “But a lot of them, the American people should be concerned about and interested in.”

If she gets confirmed, Kagan is certainly in the minority on this issue. But still, hear, hear.

Yes, it’s an inspiring sight — if it isn’t changed by the cameras.

I’m a journalist. I’m about openness. I’m about there being no barriers between the people and the functions of their government. But the different branches have different roles, and are accountable to the people in different ways. And when we talk about something that could interfere with the effective functioning by causing Supreme Court justices to act like … well, like members of the political branches … it gives me pause.

Next thing you know, they’ll be rapping their opening statements.

About all that MBTI stuff…

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The last couple of days some of us have been prattling about Myers-Briggs personality types — guessing which kinds the gubernatorial candidates are, talking about the differences amongst ourselves that make it hard for us to agree with each other, and so forth.

Kathryn suggests I post this link explaining the types, so I have. And it’s a good starting point if you find this model for thinking about cognitive differences at all helpful. I don’t know what y’all’s types are, but here’s what it says about my type, Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiver:

INTP
Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

That’s pretty sketchy. You can find much more in-depth analyses of all 16 types elsewhere on the Web, such as on this page about INTPs, which helps to explain why I can be such a pain in the … neck:

INTPs live in the world of theoretical possibilities. They see everything in terms of how it could be improved, or what it could be turned into. They live primarily inside their own minds, having the ability to analyze difficult problems, identify patterns, and come up with logical explanations. They seek clarity in everything, and are therefore driven to build knowledge. They are the “absent-minded professors”, who highly value intelligence and the ability to apply logic to theories to find solutions. They typically are so strongly driven to turn problems into logical explanations, that they live much of their lives within their own heads, and may not place as much importance or value on the external world. Their natural drive to turn theories into concrete understanding may turn into a feeling of personal responsibility to solve theoretical problems, and help society move towards a higher understanding.

INTPs value knowledge above all else. Their minds are constantly working to generate new theories, or to prove or disprove existing theories. They approach problems and theories with enthusiasm and skepticism, ignoring existing rules and opinions and defining their own approach to the resolution. They seek patterns and logical explanations for anything that interests them….

The INTP has no understanding or value for decisions made on the basis of personal subjectivity or feelings. They strive constantly to achieve logical conclusions to problems, and don’t understand the importance or relevance of applying subjective emotional considerations to decisions. For this reason, INTPs are usually not in-tune with how people are feeling, and are not naturally well-equiped to meet the emotional needs of others….

They are likely to express themselves in what they believe to be absolute truths. Sometimes, their well thought-out understanding of an idea is not easily understandable by others, but the INTP is not naturally likely to tailor the truth so as to explain it in an understandable way to others. The INTP may be prone to abandoning a project once they have figured it out, moving on to the next thing….

I’m especially bad about that last thing. If I’ve worked hard to figure something out, once I arrive at a conclusion, I’m ready to announce it and move on. And the more people say, “Hey, wait, I need you to explain this some more; I want more evidence to show me how you arrived at that conclusion,” I get extremely impatient. You may have noticed this happening in some of my exchanges with Doug, because he’s very much about the evidence and the facts and the figures (where I am an N, he is almost certainly an S), while by the time I express an opinion, I am SICK of all that stuff — some of which I may have studied years before.

You’ll note that INTPs also “become very excited over abstractions and theories.” Such as, for instance, Myers-Briggs. I first learned about it in the early 90s when all the editors at The State were tested, and then we shared everyone’s results and discussed them at a retreat. I found it explained a LOT about why I found some of those folks easy to work with, and some not. I was the only INTP supervisor in the newsroom at that time.

For folks of other types, this is probably beyond boring. But at Kathryn’s behest, I share it nonetheless. Hopefully, one of my next few posts will be more to your liking.

Big Pharma should be paying me to do this

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I’m conducting an experiment.

I just took some extra-strength Tylenol that expired in 2002. (Maybe I should have stuck to the non-alcoholic “beer” the way Thad Viers did at “Pub Politics” last night — although actually I think this is more of a sinus congestion thing.)

So far I haven’t keeled over. No hallucinations. I haven’t grown a third arm or anything. Wait…. no, that was nothing.

If I can get some funding from Tylenol, I’ll write up the results, assuming there are any…

bradwarthen.com

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About all that MBTI stuff…

Big Pharma should be paying me to do this

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