Category Archives: Confessional

My loss of innocence, in the bicentennial year

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On my last post, I said something about how insulting I find it when someone says that my opinions would be different if my personal circumstances were different. Such as when people say, “A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged,” or “if your daughter were pregnant, you wouldn’t be opposed to abortion,” or whatever.

I was insufficiently clear, as I learned when one commenter thought I mean people shouldn’t change their minds. I’m all for mind-changing based upon new information. (And indeed, sometimes that new information is conveyed by changed personal circumstances.) What I object to is the suggestion that, if it were in your self-interest to change your mind, you would.

Part of the reason why I find this so offensive is the puritanism of the journalist. News journalists aren’t even supposed to have opinions, which I’ve always understood to be absurd, of course. But when journos are allowed to have opinions, and even paid to express them publicly, as I was for more than 15 years of my career, it’s such a special gift that the responsibility is huge to formulate political opinions according to the greater good of the community, limited only by your ability to discern the greater good. Anything that smacks of abusing that privilege for self-interest is appalling to me.

I’m a bit more wordly today than I was in the early stages of my journalism career, but the ideals are intact.

This led me to share an anecdote from the days when I realized that not everyone, not even all journalists, looked at the world as I did…

In 1976, I was pretty excited about Jimmy Carter’s candidacy. I saw him as what the country needed after Watergate, etc. One day close to the election, I had a conversation with another editor in the newsroom. She said she favored Gerald Ford. That sounded fine to me; I liked Ford, too — I just preferred Carter.

What floored me, flabbergasted me, shocked me, was that she said the REASON she supported Ford was that she and her husband had sat down and looked at the candidates’ proposals, and had computed (who knows how, given the variables) that if Carter were elected, their taxes would go up by $1,000 a year.

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe it, because of the following:

  • I couldn’t believe that ANYONE would actually make a decision based on who should lead the free world based on their personal finances. (I really couldn’t; I was that innocent.)
  • I thought that if there WERE such greedy jerks in the world, you would not find them among the ranks of newspaper journalists, who had deliberately chosen careers that would guarantee them lower salaries than their peers from college. If you care that much about money, this would be about the last line of work a college graduate would choose.
  • If there WERE a journalist whose priorities were so seriously out of whack, surely, surely, she’d never admit it to another journalist.

But I was wrong on all counts.

For a time I regarded her as an outlier, as an exception that proved the rule. But that delusion wore off, too, as I had more such conversations with many, many other people. (Although she still stands out as the must unabashedly selfish journalist I think I’ve ever met. Others may be as self-interested, but they’re more circumspect.)

Today, I have a much more realistic notion of how many people vote on the basis of self-interest. But I have never come to accept it as excusable.

How can anyone so together go so wrong?

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Have you heard the news about Don Cornelius? Of “Soul Train” fame?

“Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius was found dead at his Sherman Oaks on home Wednesday morning.

Law enforcement sources said police arrived at Cornelius’ home around 4 a.m. He apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.

The sources said there was no sign of foul play, but the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating…

Such occurrences cause me to have a thought that may seem trivial and superficial under the circumstances, but it occurs to me anyway: How does anyone that cool and collected — in terms of his public persona — go off the tracks to this extent? First the domestic violence thing four years ago, and now this?

OK, so that was a stage pose — the unflappable, calmly hip host. I get that. And no, people aren’t always the same off-stage. I mean, we once though Ike Turner was cool, too. But I wonder anyway.

I’ve often had a related, though slightly different, thought with regard to James Taylor — only I think I’m on firmer ground with that one. I look at him, and listen to him, and think, How could a guy have all those mental and drug problems over the years, when he is capable of making such amazingly mellow and soothing sounds any time? If I could do that, I find it hard to imagine that I would ever be uptight.

But what do I know about what it’s like to be these people? Not much.

Do you see South Carolina everywhere? I do

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I’ve done so since I was very young. There was this chunk of tile — one of a number of irregularly-shaped pieces embedded into the ground as stepping stones leading to the back steps of my grandparents’ house in Bennettsville — that I thought had special, mystical significance when I was a small boy. It was shaped just like South Carolina.

Our state not only has the most beautiful flag (even it if is a bit over-evoked these days), but it possesses the most perfect shape. In fact, I can’t think of any other state that has a shape that is even mildly appealing (and Florida, as we all know, looks like a flaccid you-know-what). Our triangle is made even more perfect by the fact that it is slightly irregular — it’s not a mathematical triangle, which would seem cold and abstract. It’s formed by the natural confluence of the Savannah River and the Atlantic coastline. Its third line is a sort of hat worn at a rakish angle.

I could get really mysterious and Dan Brownish and talk about the delta of Venus and such, but it’s just a perfect, natural shape, immediately appealing to the unjaded eye.

And even at my age, I still see it everywhere. Such as in this drop of water on the faucet in the upstairs restroom at ADCO. OK, it’s a bit stylized, and the top has a bit of a cowlick, but when God was designing the natural laws governing water’s surface tension, he obviously intended that someday, it would pull a seemingly random drop into something approximating the shape of his favorite state. And I was there when it happened. Because He made me to be the sort to pick up on stuff like that.

There goes my Hollywood career

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OK, uh, somebody hipped me to the news that this is NOT a movie teaser, but has to do with an upcoming Super Bowl ad. Good. This is good… it means somebody out there is thinking about it, and maybe the folks who own the rights would like to do a deal with somebody who has the right idea. Which would be me. So Hollywood, if you’re calling, here I am… In the meantime, here’s the post I wrote when I thought that was a for-real mini-preview…

I’m not being facetious. I think my project might have had a chance — with the right connections, and with cooperation from those holding the rights to the first movie — and now it’s gone for good. I’m actually sort of depressed about this.

For several years, I’ve been kicking around an idea for a movie. It’s a really good idea. Good enough that my daughter gave me a “Scriptwriting for Dummies” book about four years ago to encourage me to go ahead and write it. But I was so busy then at the paper, and then I was unemployed (which is really, really time-consuming) and since then I’ve been trying to learn to be a Mad Man and develop my blog into a paying concern and occasionally doing freelance gigs, and, basically, it didn’t get written.

So now Hollywood has gone ahead with the project without me. And I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be nearly as good as if they’d heard my pitch.

My pitch would have been this…

Title: “Ferris Bueller’s Off Day.” Which is better than “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 2.” Way better.

Mine was to be a political satire. For the simple reason that I can only think of one thing Ferris would have done with his peculiar talents. He was made for it. Like Tom Sawyer. Don’t you assume Tom would have gone into politics? Of course he would have. Same with Ferris — a preternaturally gifted politician. The kind who drives his opponents insane because he has this uncanny rapport with voters, everything slides off of him, and he always comes back — kind of like Bill Clinton.

In my script, Ferris would be a member of Congress. Not a senator. That would be too grand. Just another member of Congress, enjoying the perks of office, saying what he wants, voting how he wants, and getting repeatedly re-elected no matter what he does. Which, as I say, infuriates his political opponents. Such as Edward R. Rooney.

Mr. Rooney, having abandoned education as unsuitable to his talents, is an assistant chief of staff (actually, political director) for the incumbent president. He has a wonderful office in the West Wing. Great view. Grace has accompanied him on his career, and is still his secretary. All would be right with his world, except for one thing: Ferris Bueller. Still. Ferris, through no effort or merit of his own, is talked about constantly as a potential challenger to the president in the upcoming election.  He doesn’t encourage this talk, but he enjoys it. And everything he does seems to boost him in the polls, and make the president — or at least, his assistant chief of staff — look foolish.

Mr. Rooney has collected some major dirt on Ferris. I haven’t decided what Ferris has done (and he HAS done it; our boy is not innocent), but whatever it is, he’s done it “nine times.” Instead of to Ferris’ mom, Ed rehearses saying “nine times” to the media. At some point, he says it to Ferris’ administrative assistant, Cameron, relishing the threat. (I’m toying with the idea of the scandal having something to do with contributions to Ferris’ campaign fund from Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.)

OK, I’ve set the background. Here’s what’s happening as the movie opens… Ferris is lying in bed, glassy-eyed. Only this time, he’s not faking. Some of the scandal has broken over him at a time when he’s vulnerable. His marriage to Sloan appears to finally be over, due to his proclivity for — remember how, after asking Sloane to marry him, even at the moment when his world is about to come crashing down on him, as he’s racing to get home ahead of everybody, he stops and turns and introduces himself to the sunbathing girls? Well, that sort of thing has caught up with him.

He’s convinced that all his mojo is gone. Finally, at a critical moment in his career as the incomparable Ferris, he’s having an off day. An off day when all sorts of things he got away with in the past is catching up with him. Hence the title.

Meanwhile, Cameron — who straightened himself out and become a (relative) bundle of confidence after having that little chat with his Dad about the Ferrari — is the one calling Ferris and trying to get him to stop moping and take advantage of the opportunities that lie before him. Sure, there’s a scandal to deal with, but Cameron knows Ferris can deal with it — if he’ll just snap out of this funk.

Oh, yeah — Jeannie is an investigative reporter on The Hill. Something in her childhood instilled in her a deep-seated need to catch other people doing things that they shouldn’t. And she’s not partial. Investigating Ferris is fine with her, even though they made up at the end of the last movie.

Spoiler alert: At some point in the film, Jeannie starts to look into some irregularities involving Mr. Rooney. Also, at some point, Ferris does snap out of it and find a way out of the jam he’s in. Because, you know, off day or not, he’s Ferris Bueller.

Along the way, there’s a lot of fun with cameos from real-life Washington people talking about how awesome Ferris is, plus some regular man-in-the-street interviews. For instance, there’s an interview with a guy who works in the congressional parking garage, and the first question is, “Do you speak English?,” to which he replies, “What country do you think this is?” Simone, too, will be interviewed, and her reply will be something like her “31 flavors” line from the first movie.

Remember the kid who woke up with his face in a puddle of drool on his desk? He’ll do the same in this movie, only his desk is on the floor of the House.

Ben Stein will be in it. Charlie Sheen will do a cameo…

Look at me. I keep saying “will,” when I should say, “would have.” Because my chance has passed me by.

I know I’m going to see this movie, and I’m probably going to hate it. Because I’ll know what it could have been…

That plastic banana rock ‘n’ roller Romney is letting me down

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Drat.

To borrow from an SNL skit, this is something you can put under the heading of White People’s Problems.

While others at this conference were out playing golf and having fun, I was sitting here in my room in this Key West resort overlooking the aquamarine water, sweating away over my presentation for the panel discussion tomorrow.

In their longest form, my notes were 1,825 words in length, so I pared and whittled, and got it down so it glittered and shone.

And the upshot? After all the hemming and hawing GOP voters have done over the last few months, Romney has it sewn up.

But then I started looking at these polls Gingrich has been touting today:

ICYMI: Recent Polls Show Newt as

Clear Conservative Alternative in SC

Three recent polls show Newt Gingrich emerging as the clear conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in South Carolina.

An American Research Group (ARG) poll shows Newt Gingrich closing the gap with Mitt Romney to just four points in South Carolina, while support for Rick Santorum has collapsed from 24% to just 7% in 7 days.

The results: Romney 29%. Gingrich 25%. Paul 20%. Perry 9%. Santorum 7%. Huntsman 1%. Other 2%. Undecided 7%.

These polls reinforce trends that show Gingrich emerging as the clear conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in South Carolina.

·     Evangelical Support. Gingrich has a commanding lead among evangelical Christians with 40% support compared to Governor Perry with 15% in second.

·     Tea Party Support. Gingrich leads amongst supporters of the Tea party 28% to Governor Romney’s 24%.

Meanwhile, Governor Romney is losing his support amongst independents to Ron Paul, suggesting that the Governor’s support amongst independents is not strong, and would be lost to President Obama in the general election.

Poll Results: http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres2012/primary/rep/sc/

This poll from ARG echoes the findings of two other recent polls.

An Insider Advantage Poll from January 11th shows Newt Gingrich in a statistical tie with Governor Romney with 21% support to the Governor’s 23%.  Rick Santorum has faded to 14% support, with Ron Paul at 13%, Jon Huntsman at 7% and Rick Perry at 5%.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2012/InsiderAdvantage_SC_0111.pdf

A Rasumussen Poll from January 12th also shows Newt Gingrich well ahead of Rick Santorum and Ron Paul with 21% support compared to their 16%. The poll results are available here.

###

And I started to fret. Gingrich has mo.  Here we have all these pols from all over the country ready to hear me in the morning, and what if I make a prediction that was completely off? David Yepsen is here. Today, a guy with PBS was asking me on the phone, “Who is the David Yepsen of South Carolina.” I resisted the temptation to say, “You’re talkin’ to him, baby!”

In any case, the actual David Yepsen (he’s the Brad Warthen of Iowa) is here, and I’m about to make a fool of myself in front of him.

So I started making phone calls to Republicans whose judgment I trust in South Carolina. And the very first one I reached said there’s no way this thing is sewn up, that there’s movement and Gingrich is impressing people.

He said he suspects Romney is going to fail in South Carolina for the same reason he failed with our voters four years ago.

Why is that, I asked?

“Because he’s a plastic banana rock ‘n’ roller.”

What does that mean, I croaked?

It means South Carolinians look at him and see a phony.

Oh.

Anyway, I’m scrapping my presentation for tomorrow. I’m going to wing it. Here’s hoping my “winging-it privileges” haven’t been revoked.

A closet looms before me, demanding order

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First, I should send a probe to Jupiter, to investigate the closet just like this one that has been found there...

I told my wife that today, since I’m off from work, I would clean out my closet. My rather complex, deeply messy, walk-in closet that doubles as a dressing area.

But it’s already mid-afternoon, and there are so many other things that need doing:

  • I’ve been neglecting the blog this week, and need to get back up to my usual pace of posts (why is that harder to do when I’m NOT working?)
  • I need to clean out the In boxes of both my blog and ADCO email addresses. Nearly a day’s work right there.
  • I have several good books I asked for, and received, for Christmas.
  • I have a vast number of books I’ve asked for, and received, for previous Christmases and birthdays and Father’s Days, and I really should read those, with theoretical time on my hands.
  • Then there are the comfort-reading books that I’m currently re-reading (either two, or three, depending on how you count them), and shouldn’t I finish them before starting something new?
  • My wife is out of the house this afternoon, and there are a couple of movies I’ve been wanting to watch but that she wouldn’t want to see.
  • I could even (but I admit, this is reaching into the realm of the radical) get a jump start on my New Year’s resolution to exercise by walking around the neighborhood.

And still the closet wait. Looms, actually. It stands there exactly like the monolith in “2001,” which I tried rewatching (I had not yet seen the Blu-Ray version I received for my birthday more than a year ago) last night (no one would make a movie today that requires the viewer to wait that long for something to happen).

That describes it perfectly. It stands there, fraught with meaning, with eerie music rising in the background. If I enter it, will I go on a psychedelic, mind-blowing, existential trip through space and time like the astronaut Dave in the movie? Dare I risk it?

It’s not so much the stuff hanging in there that intimidates as it is the landfill of junk piled on the floor under those things, and the rat’s nests of junk jammed onto the shelves above…

And still it looms…

My deep-seated, gut-level cultural conservatism

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New Year 027

This evening I was browsing Barnes and Noble (which, like Starbucks, should buy an ad here) and happened to look up and see this sign exhorting me to “Discover Great New Writers.”

I harrumphed to myself as I passed on, thinking, “If they are new, they are not great.”

Which, I realized on another level — the level that listens to everything I say and holds it in scorn — is irrational prejudice. It’s me thinking like a medieval man, thinking that all greatness occurred in the past, and if we see a distance, it was only because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Which is irrational — but, let me hasten to add, no more irrational than the idiotic modern idea that each generation is greater and wiser and more virtuous than the last, the foolish idea that just because our technology is smarter, we ourselves are. I utterly reject that modernist prejudice, and should do the same with its complement.

After all, great writers were all new once.

Still, I am hard-pressed to name a living writer of, say, fiction whom I regard as great. I tried, as I walked through the bookstore.

Patrick O’Brian, I thought. But no, he is dead, although his life did overlap mine. Ditto with Douglas Adams. Now, you are wondering that I consider those great, but I do. Matter of taste. O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels are not only, as other reviewers have said, the greatest historical fiction ever, they rank high among all fiction in my estimation. And Adams was the funniest writer of novels since Twain, again in my own necessarily limited estimation.

There is one living novelist I regard very highly, as you can tell from this recent post — John le Carré. But the last of his books that meant much to me was The Night Manager, and that was published in 1993. Although I did think The Constant Gardener was quite good. I just wasn’t as fond of it as of his earlier stuff. (Also, it seems to me that as he gets older he gets… preachier, in a predictably political sense. Is it just me?)

I look around me and other people seem to take great delight in current authors. Back when I started an effort to get Columbia to read a book together years ago, we stopped after the first one, because the others on the committee that formed were enthusiastic about getting the sorts of authors who might be induced to come visit and speak. The committee had gone along with me on Fahrenheit 451, but after that they wanted writers that I, reactionary philistine that I am, had not heard of. Some of it, I think, was that they wanted writers who were less male, and white, and mainstream, but mostly they wanted authors who were less dead. And I wasn’t having it.

Now, Belinda Gergel’s somewhat more successful bid to have the same sort of program is picking books more like what my committee had wanted.

But are they great books? Well, that’s in the eye of the reader, isn’t it?

My (successful) Quest for George Smiley

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Outside Smiley's house on Bywater Street. No need to knock. George knows I'm here. And where's he going to go? It's a cul de sac. It's over, old friend.

I’d been holding this back for when the movie comes out, but now that it’s passed me by (although I look forward to its being at the Nickelodeon next month), I am much embittered and have decided to go public with the whole story — the Official Secrets Act be damned. See how they like it when it’s all laid out in the papers. Perhaps I’ll go with The Guardian; that should sting. Let Parliament launch an inquiry. Let them connect me to the notorious Rebekah Brooks, for all I care. (After all, I’ve done a freelance job for that same outfit, in the time since they cast me out.) I’ve been a good soldier, put in my time, watched and waited. All for naught. Here’s my story…

As you know, I went to the UK a year ago, ostensibly as a tourist. That wouldn’t fool a real professional, of course, but one keeps as low a profile as one can. I have my own tradecraft for this sort of thing — I make a big splash, publicize my whereabouts… what spy would do that?

It’s worked so far.

My mission — to find the Circus, and more importantly, George Smiley himself.

It was quite a challenge. George hasn’t been seen since 1982. And the original location of the Circus, now that MI6 has the River House (all mod cons, as Bill Haydon would say), is shrouded in service legend. It’s not something you’d assign to some probationer straight out of Sarratt.

First, we spent a couple of days settling in, establishing patterns. One assumes that tiny Toby Esterhase‘s lamplighters are everywhere, so you need to paint them a picture, let them get complacent. This we did — from Heathrow to Swiss Cottage (the very spot where General Vladimir would have been picked up as a fallback, had he not been killed on Hampstead Heath), then all over the city on the Tube, aimlessly. Trafalgar Square, St. James’s, Fortnum’s, Buckingham, the Globe, the Tate, the Cabinet War Rooms, the Tower, hither and yon in the City.

Finally, at the end of our third full day, after night had fallen, we ambled up Charing Cross Road, affecting to be interested in bookshops. We almost missed it, but then there it was — the Circus itself. There was the Fifth Floor, and even Haydon’s little hexagonal pepperpot office overlooking New Compton Street and Charing Cross. Quick, I said, get the picture. It took a couple of tries, the way these things do when you need to hurry. Thank heavens for our “tourist” cover; it excuses all sorts of odd behavior. Then on up the street, and an hour or so of browsing at Foyles to check our backs. Found a couple of decent-looking biographies of Lord Cochrane, but didn’t buy one. (They had shelf after shelf of naval history; it went on and on.) Then we wandered about in the West End, to clean our backs as much as possible, before heading back to Swiss Cottage.

One thing down. Hardest part to come.

By this time, I had decided not to risk the actual modern HQ of the SIS. Mix fact with fiction like that, and it’s like mixing matter and antimatter. Could blow you clear across the universe, or at least to Brixton, and who wants to go there, really? That’s why they put Scalphunters there.

We played tourist for another day. Then another. The Sherlock Holmes museum. A side trip to Greenwich, to stand astride the Meridian, and see the coat Nelson wore at the Nile. Back into town for the British Museum.

Then, it was our last day in London. Had to go to Oxford the next day, and check on Connie. Connie is high-maintenance. So it was do-or-die time. We opted to do.

We thought that twilight would be the best time to descend on George. Vigilance is low. Everyone’s tired then; time for tea and meet the wife. So we went to that general part of town. Spent several hours at the Victoria and Albert. Loads of statues and the like.

We took the Tube to Sloan Square, a good half-kilometer from Bywater Street, and went the rest of the way on foot. We entered the cul de sac as night descended (which it does before 4 p.m. at that time of year). There wasn’t a soul on the narrow street. Everything went smoothly. When we got to the part where Smiley lives, I tried to throw the watchers off by shooting pictures of houses other than his. In a way, though, they were all relevant. George lives at No. 9, of course. But the 1979 TV series was shot at No. 10. And No. 11 has a Banham security system, which the book describes as being on George’s house. No. 9 has an ADT system.

Anyway, after doing what I could to distract any lamplighters in the vicinity, I had J (her workname — best watcher in the outfit, is J) quickly shoot a happy snap of me in front of No. 9. She was a bit nervous, because there were lights in the basement-level windows. She said people who lived there would wonder what we were doing. I muttered no, they wouldn’t: “They know exactly what we’re doing.” The thing was to get it over with quickly, so we did. Given the hurry we were in, I’m struck, as I look at the image, by how placid and dispassionate and, well, Smileyesque I look in the image. Like I was channeling him in that moment.

Then, it was back out to King’s Road and back to the Underground as fast as our legs would carry us, trying not to show that our hearts were pounding like Peter Guillam’s when he stole the Testify file from Registry that time. I was getting too old for this, I knew. As I looked up at the Christmas lights in the trees on Sloane Square, they were as blurry as the stars in a Van Gogh.

I can hardly remember the next couple of hours, but I can’t forget the stroke of luck that befell us later. Nothing short of a miracle, it was.

We had decided to case Victoria Station and its environs, because we knew we had to catch a coach there for the trip to Oxford next morning, and it’s good tradecraft to reconnoiter these things ahead of time. We got a bit turned-around there, and ended up touring the whole station before we discovered that the coach station was on the next block. On one aimless pass through the vicinity of the ticket windows, I looked up and there he was. George himself. Right out of the first paragraph of this passage:

He returned to the railway station… There were two ticket counters and two short queues. At the first, an intelligent girl attended him and he bought a second-class single ticket to Hamburg. But it was a deliberately laboured purchase, full of indecision and nervousness, and when he had made it he insisted on writing down times of departure and arrival: also on borrowing her ball-point and a pad of paper.

In the men’s room, having first transferred the contents of his pockets, beginning with the treasured piece of postcard from Leipzig’s boat, he changed into the linen jacket and straw hat, then went to the second ticket counter where, with a minimum of fuss, he bought a ticket on the stopping train to Kretzchmar’s town. To do this, he avoided looking at the attendant at all, concentrating instead on the ticket and his change, from under the brim of his loud straw hat…

Apparently, our appearance at Bywater Street had sent him on the run, but we had stumbled into him anyway. I left him alone, except for grabbing this picture. You doubt that’s George Smiley? Look at this picture, and this one and this one, and then tell me that. ‘Course it was him. Stuck out a mile.

But now that I’d found him, what was the point? He was just my old friend George. I could hear Toby’s triumphant voice in my ear: “Brad! All your life! Fantastic!” But I ignored him. I got the picture, and moved on. I didn’t even look to see whether he had left Ann’s lighter on the floor.

My mission had been accomplished, and then some… Why did I not exult? All I felt was the urge to polish my glasses with the lining of my tie. But I wasn’t wearing a tie…

Here’s what I would have done with regard to Occupy Columbia, had I been the governor of SC

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Apparently — and surprisingly — the Occupy Columbia folks haven’t been getting enough attention from our governor. This came in an hour ago:

ACTION ALERT!

Tent March to the Governor’s Mansion at 4pm Tomorrow

ACTION ALERT: We are calling on all Occupiers and supporters to join us tomorrow for a march with our tents from the State House to the Governor’s Mansion. Once there, will deliver a special present to Governor Nikki Haley.

Please join us at 4:00pm at the State House and bring your tents!
With solidarity,

Occupy Columbia
www.OccupyColumbiaSC.org

I have no idea what this “special present” is, or why they’re taking their tents. Not knowing that, my mind turns to other, vaguely related, matters…

You know what I would have done over the last few weeks had I been governor? I’ve been thinking about this since the Budget and Control Board meeting the other day. I would have ignored Occupy Columbia.

Well, not ignored, as such. I think I might have gone out of my office and strolled around and chatted with them from time to time, totally low-key, in a nonconfrontational manner. I would have adopted a sort of traditional Hawaiian attitude — Burl should appreciate this. I would say things like, “Ain’t no big thing, bruddah,” and “We get ’em later…”

Beyond that, I would have left the situation alone, either until the Occupiers got tired of their shtick or until the Legislature came back. And if the Legislature wanted to pass legislation affecting the use of the State House grounds, they could do so.

Because the Legislature — the source of all power in South Carolina — has made it pretty clear that it is jealous of its authority over the State House and its environs. Witness its decision back in the 90s to make flying the Confederate flag — first on the dome, then starting in 2000, behind the monument — a matter of law, to make sure that no governor took action on the matter.

Even in a state where the Legislature doesn’t dominate as this one does, I would have understood that I couldn’t simply make up rules as I went along, enforcing “laws” never passed by a legislative body.

If lawmakers, such as Harvey Peeler, didn’t like the Occupiers, I would let them pass a law, and I would, within whatever executive authority allowed me, enforce it. If the solons wanted me to act more independently, then they could grant me power to do so in the future.

In the meantime, I would just be cool, and not go all Dean Wormer on the kids.

That’s what I would do.

How do Occupiers eat? Here’s how…

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Just in case you, like our governor, are sitting up nights wondering whether how the Occupy Columbia protesters are getting nutritious, sanitary meals, here’s an explanation from Maris Burton, a member of the Occupy Columbia Food Committee:

Dear Budget and Control Board members,

It has come to my attention that the storage and cooking of food is being used in an attempt to demonstrate the need for emergency regulations to protect the public health.

I have been involved with supplying and arranging delivery of food to the Occupiers.  I have taken part in several discussions regarding how to safely handle food and how to provide nutritious cooked meals. People are not living on the State House grounds; they are Occupying the grounds as a form of protest.

Since the eviction from the State House grounds on Nov 16, 2011 and the subsequent temporary restraining order that allowed the use of tents and a 24 hour occupation as part of our right to free speech, we agreed to lessen our footprint and to focus on having non-perishable items such as individually wrapped snack packets of crackers and nutrition bars, and water available to the Occupiers.

Dry goods are kept in a sealable plastic tub, not accessible to wildlife. We have a rotating food schedule of volunteers who prepare hot meals off site and bring them to the State house. We have one cooler on site that is kept supplied with ice and sometimes contains yogurts, cheese or packaged sandwich meats or creamer for coffee.  Food is brought at set times and cleared away promptly.

Any used dishes are collected each evening and washed at a volunteer’s home and then returned to the State House.

There have been no incidents of food related illnesses, and there has not been a problem with any wildlife coming near the food.

I welcome any questions you may have.

Such things are mildly interesting to me, because of my own strong aversion to living in the open. I’ve always thought, for instance, that the hardest part about serving in combat infantry would be the bivouac thing. Storm Omaha Beach, with the Germans having presighted every square inch and ready to rain lead and high explosives on me? Yeah, OK, just as long as I get a warm dinner and comfortable, dry bed that night, preferably back in England. To me, the real horror stories of war are those about the defenders of Bastogne getting frozen, literally, into their foxholes every night for a month during the coldest winter in Europe in a century, or the extremely gross conditions on Okinawa, living in a muddy soup of human waste and decomposing bodies. The fighting, by comparison, seems far less objectionable.

But I see even optimal outdoor living conditions to be less than desirable. I am not what you’d ever call a Happy Camper. By definition: If I’m camping, I’m not happy. Comparatively, anyway.

So it’s interesting to know how they’re managing over at the State House.

The way we were — or the way I was, anyway

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On a previous post, Bud made the observation that Hillary Clinton “seemed much more presentable 4-5 years ago.” (In Bud’s defense, it was one of our distaff contributors who brought up the subject of the secretary of state’s appearance.)

I responded, “All of us were more presentable 4-5 years ago.”

In support of that proposition, I share these photos of myself that I ran across recently, and which made me smile in remembrance.

They are a tad older than four or five years. They were taken in June 1985. I’m not sure why they are Polaroids. Maybe one of our photographers was experimenting with that as a way of checking the image before capturing it on 35mm film. Remember, in the days before digital, you didn’t know know exactly how the image would turn out until you developed it later.

In any case, the occasion for these images being taken was that it had just been announced that I would be leaving The Jackson Sun to become news editor of the much-larger Wichita Eagle-Beacon.

Something about my manic grin caused Judith, one of my best friends at the paper, to assert that I looked like I was telling my new publisher at The Sun what he could do with my old job. (Alas, my relationship with him was not nearly as positive as the one with his predecessor, Reid Ashe, whom I mentioned in my last post.)

I don’t know what I said to that. I think I just smiled — a particularly cocky, self-assured smile.

He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays

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Just to cleanse the spiritual palate, brethren, I invoke Brother Tull to share with us a musical interlude.

This song has been running through my head a good bit lately. (Seeing “all the bishops” — or at least, all the Anglican clergy — lined up and harmonizing at Jason’s ordination the other day was but one instance in which it has come to mind.) You may find that interesting, in connection with my outrage at the tawdry way Rick Perry is trying to wind God up and make him toddle across the room, beating a toy drum that says “Perry for President.”

Perry’s message, considered most charitably, is after all that God has a place in the public square. He’s not supposed to be kept in a steepled ghetto. God is for every day, not an hour on Sunday.

I agree with that with all my heart and soul. God, properly considered, is for every day, every moment. (For that matter, it’s not for us to say what God’s for; it’s up to us to figure out what WE’RE intended for.) That’s one reason I like this song.

But I would submit that that includes the moments in which you try to exploit God to your own ends. You don’t wind him up then, either. Rather, you endeavor to alter yourself to fit His expectations.

This is a tough thing to talk about because we’re not supposed to judge, either — are we? So people get away with some really horrific stuff, because who are we to say? If another man testifies that this is how he experiences God, who are we to condemn?

And so people get away with all sorts of stuff, and if we protest, we are painted as being one of those who wants to keep God in a box.

And there are such people. Good, well-meaning people, quite often — although they are confused. They confuse the First Amendment with Jefferson’s views (when he wasn’t involved with it), and then go the further step of assuming that a ban on establishment of religion by Congress implies that we individual citizens (and that includes officeholders) are not supposed to talk about religion in the public sphere.

They are wrong. And their wrongness is all the more wrong because they create a space in which someone like Perry can construct a lie about a “war on religion.” And everything just gets worse. They are wrong, and he is wrong, and I suppose I’m wrong, too, for judging both.

But I feel better when I listen to the music. Don’t think you have to turn up your speakers when it starts out so soft. It builds.

The nuclear escalation of Rick Perry’s unholy war

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Wow. I inadvertently backed into that last post.

I had looked at  the CNN report (the text, anyway), and the Perry “holiday greeting” from last year that made it look hypocritical. But I had failed to look at the ad that prompted the CNN report to begin with.

I thought I had seen Rick Perry take riding God like a hobby horse about as far as he could, in the ad I showed you last week.

But if that was Perry trying to be a holy warrior, in the latest ad, that war goes nuclear.

There is no way that I could ever support for president a man who tries so nakedly to bend God to his own ends. And that is a hard thing to explain to the sort of people Perry is trying to appeal to. And that just divides our country more and more (and leaves me feeling more and more alienated, since I can neither identify with secularists nor those who could actually believe the POTUS is engaged in a “war on religion”). And it’s so unnecessary.

How can a man think it’s SO important for him to be elected that he would do this? This is stomach-turning stuff.

I ripped off the Red Cross, but it was worth it

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I was pleased to see this release this morning:

University of South Carolina Victorious in 27th Annual Blood Drive

Columbia, S.C. — Carolina and Clemson wrapped up their 27th annual blood drive Friday, Nov. 18, resulting in a four-year consecutive win for the University of South Carolina over Clemson University. The 2011 Carolina-Clemson Blood Drive took place on both campuses Nov. 14-18 with students and fans casting votes for their favorite team by donating blood.

This year’s event resulted in 7,120 donors presenting to give blood, with Carolina donors totaling 4,079 and Clemson donors totaling 3,041. The University of South Carolina will be awarded the coveted blood drive trophy at the Carolina-Clemson football game Nov. 26 at Williams-Brice Stadium.

The Carolina-Clemson Blood Drive is held annually the week before the Carolina-Clemson football game. The drive comes at the start of the holiday season when the blood supply typically weakens. Over the past 26 years of competition, the universities have collected more than 90,000 units of blood, potentially saving more than 270,000 lives.

Eligible donors can still show their Gamecock or Tiger spirit and receive a commemorative Carolina-Clemson Blood Drive T-shirt by giving blood now through Nov. 27 at the following blood drives and at the American Red Cross Donation Center, 2751 Bull St., Columbia.

11/23 S.C. Dept. of Vocational Rehabilitation 1410 Boston Ave. 9:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m. West Columbia
11/23 Lowman Home 2101 Dutch Fork Road 11:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. White Rock
11/23 Aiken Mall 2441 Whiskey Road South 2:00 PM 7:00 PM Aiken
11/25 Aiken Mall 2441 Whiskey Road South 11:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. Aiken
11/25 Dutch Square Center 421 Bush River Road 1:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. Columbia
11/23 Sumter Masonic Lodge 215 Alice Drive 1:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. Sumter
11/26 Sumter Mall 1057 Broad Street 12:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. Sumter
11/27 Corpus Christi Catholic Church 2350 Augusta Hwy. 9:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m. Lexington

Blood can be safely donated every 56 days. Most healthy people age 17 and older, or 16 with parental consent, who weigh at least 110 pounds, are eligible to donate blood. Donors who are 18 and younger must also meet height and weight requirements. Call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or visit redcrossblood.org for more information.

###

I was glad to see it because it made me feel a little better about what I did a couple of days ago…

A couple of weeks back, Mason Hardy — who was running the Columbia Rotary Club’s blood drive — gave me a long-sleeved T-shirt in anticipation of my giving blood later. I wasn’t going to be available the day of the actual drive (Nov. 1, the day I was busy with E.J. Dionne being in town), but I promised to do it later and let it count toward Rotary’s total. Mason gave me the shirt because he was worried he’d run out later.

It was a nice shirt — it’s the white one in the picture.

Of course, I promptly forgot to make an appointment to give. This happens, even to bloody Iron Men like me. But they hunted me down and called me to remind me, so I set the appointment, and showed up at 10 a.m. this past Thursday.

As I was signing in, the lady asked, “What size shirt?” I opened my mouth to say no, I already had mine, but then I saw how much nicer these shirts were. They were gray. I can’t explain it, but I have a weakness for gray T-shirts. And this one looked very tasteful.

“Large,” I said.

I clutched the acquisition guiltily to me as I went over to pretend to read that booklet of information I’ve read so many times before. I mean, I sort of read it. I looked to see that none of the headings had changed. I mean, I don’t care that my blood will be used in research. And I still have not spent more than three months in England or the Channel Islands between 1980 and 1996.

And I thought about all the reasons why it would be OK for me to keep this shirt. (It was too late to give the first one back, because I had warned it and washed it, so it was officially mine.) Such as:

I was giving double red cells, so that should be worth two shirts.

I had given many times without getting any kind of shirt.

OK, well, those are the only excuses I could think of.

The next day at lunch, I confessed to Lanier, Brian and Lora what I had done, and they told me it was OK; that I had done nothing wrong. Lanier even thought of another excuse: Every time I give, I write about it, and give the Red Cross all that publicity. So I had earned it.

True. But I couldn’t help thinking that when some addled drug addict commits a crime, his friends probably console him, saying things like, “You were doin’ that ol’ lady a favor, taking that heavy ol’ purse off her shoulder,” and “That liquor store was beggin’ to be robbed!”

I’m Catholic, you see, so you can’t say anything to make me feel totally OK about this. But still — I’m keeping the shirts. After all, a lot of Mafiosos are Catholic, too.

What I saw at the revolution, such as it was

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After the warning and before the arrests, these were the few chosen to be arrested, waiting as the rain began to fall.

There were about 100 apparent protesters milling about in the dark as the 6 p.m. deadline arrived. People in pools of harsh TV lights being interviewed, others talking on cellphones, others just waiting.

Walid Hakim was, as he has been, a center of attention. He told me — and maybe if I can get it uploaded, I’ll put up video later — that he had just learned that his great-great-great-great-great grandfather had owned the land on which the State House was located. So he said he was just hanging out on the family homestead, waiting to be arrested. He made dramatic statements about how the rights to speak and peaceably assembly that he had defended in the Marines were about to be denied him.

Brett Bursey was there, as he had been earlier in the day. “Do they take credit cards at the jail now?” he asked me. I said they certainly should, this being the 21st century and all. Then he slouched off to confer with others here and there. A few minutes later, I asked how many times he had been arrested, counting this time. He expressed doubt that he would get arrested, and acted a bit like he was being cheated. I didn’t really follow what he was saying was happening. Then he wandered off again.

The cops still hadn’t shown.

Walid and a dozen or 15 others grouped themselves around the Confederate soldier monument, with that “I’m going to be arrested” look in their eyes. At this point, I Tweeted out:

They’re so pumped up, chanting “WE. ARE. THE 99 PERCENT!” It would be rotten of Nikki not to arrest any of them. They’d feel so let down…

Eventually, some of the State House security guys showed up and announced that pursuant to the governor’s announcement, those who did not vacate would be arrested.

By then it had started drizzling. Walid and the other designated martyrs sat around the little fence enclosing the flagpole, and waited. My iPhone and camera started getting pretty wet. I went to stand under a tree. Didn’t help much.

Finally, the officers who had made the announcement came back out onto the grounds with reinforcements — maybe 20 uniformed officers. They formed a skirmish line, donning gloves, and started walking slowly toward Gervais.

I found myself walking backwards with the protesters who would NOT be arrested toward the sidewalk along the street. I realized the working media had stayed behind with those who were to be arrested. The police had simply walked past them, parting around them like a stream around a rock. I thought about standing on ceremony and demanding to be allowed back in with the other media, but a number of disconnected thoughts were running through my mind, such as:

  • I have no credentials, and this didn’t seem like a good moment, standing in the rain with everyone a little tense, to have a debate with the authorities about how I was, too still a member of the Fourth Estate, even though all I had to show was a bradwarthen.com business card. A damp one.
  • While I had bought the insurance on my iPhone, that meant I would “only” have to pay $175 to replace it if it were ruined by the rain.
  • My little Canon with which I was trying to shoot video was likely to suffer the same fate as the one before it, which was splashed by surf and never worked again. No one would reimburse me.
  • This was all moving WAY too slowly. At this rate, no one would get any cuffs before another half hour had passed.
  • What are the long-term effects of rain upon a silk bow tie?

What the line of cops wasn’t blocking, the media types still within the perimeter were. I couldn’t see what was going on with Walid and the rest.

I went ahead and crossed the street. As I did, I saw a group of protesters had gathered on the far side of Gervais under a blue tarp. I envied them their shelter as the wind suddenly picked up dramatically.

Then, it came down in buckets. I was entirely drenched by the time I made the door of 1201 Main.

I rode the elevator up, in my soaked blazer and black (formerly gray) pants and drooping bow tie and mop of thoroughly sopping hair. Everyone looked at me as though I were a lunatic. I got up to the Capital City Club and went to the bathroom to try to dry off some with the little terry cloth towels in there.

I went to a window to look back down at the scene I had left. I couldn’t see a thing. The TV lights seemed to be gone, even.

I went on into the Membership Committee meeting from which I was playing hooky. My appearance excited comment. One member asked me whether I was ignorant of the fact that there was an attached parking garage. I mumbled some explanations, sat down, and did my best to act normal.

Here’s a report from reporters who were paid to stay behind and witness the final tedious act of the drama:

Acting at the behest of Gov. Nikki Haley, S.C. Bureau of Protective Services troopers took 19 Occupy Columbia protesters in front of the State House into custody in a driving rainstorm around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Officers escorted small groups of those taken into custody back towards the State House. Officers placed band-type handcuffs behind their back. Protesters did not resist; there was no violence.

“At least you don’t have to be in rain now,” one officer said to a protester as he led a man. Protesters arrested included both men and women.

It was not known what, if any, charges those taken into custody will face.

Haley’s directive was aimed at keeping the demonstrators off State House grounds during the night. She apparently will not order state troopers to formally remove them during daylight hours.

“We the people shall never be defeated!” protesters chanted immediately before being detained…

And so forth…

Thanks for the ‘sunflower seeds,’ Mr. Weiwei

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A few of the fake sunflower seeds (life-size if you click on 'em).

Yesterday, I saw this BBC item about how supporters of one Ai Weiwei were helping him pay the $2.4 million in taxes and fees that Chinese authorities say he owes:

Thousands of people have donated money to pay a massive tax bill served on Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

By Monday, there had been donations totalling more than 5m yuan ($790,000; £490,000) to pay off the $2.4m in taxes and fines the authorities say he owes.

Many people believe he was served the bill because of his outspoken criticism of the government rather than because he had evaded taxes…

And I thought, Hey, is that the sunflower seeds guy? The story didn’t say…

And then I moved on and finished my Virtual Front Page for the day.

A few minutes ago, I went back to check — yep, he was the sunflower seeds guy!

This was an… artwork, um, installation… whatever… that I saw in London late last year, at the Tate Modern. It was 100 million fake sunflower seeds (made from porcelain, no less), strewn across the floor of this huge, warehouse-like room. Weiwei had somehow persuaded the people of some Chinese town to make them by hand. I don’t know whether overtime was involved. I think it was supposed to be an economic stimulus or something.

Here’s what we’re supposed to get out of it, if we’re the right sort of people:

The work continues to pose challenging questions: What does it mean to be an individual in today’s society? Are we insignificant or powerless unless we act together? What do our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for society, the environment and the future?

This is one of those things that make me feel like a total philistine. I see a Van Gogh, and I get it — it’s beautiful. I see a Weiwei, and I turn into a Homer Simpson. I think, That’s impressive, all right, but… you can’t eat ’em. I also think:

  • Was that the best use of those people’s time?
  • Wouldn’t it have saved a lot of money just to use real sunflower seeds, or if you wanted fakes, run them off in a factory?
  • How much do you suppose it cost to transport those things here and spread them on this floor? Did they build this part of the building just for this display?
  • How are the people who made these? Are they better off for his having done this?
  • Are you sure I can’t eat them?

And so forth. You know what, scratch the Homer Simpson analogy; that’s demeaning (to me). Seeing things like this make me more like… Mark Twain and his waggish friends in The Innocents Abroad, berating the European tour guides for showing them all that old stuff, because by golly they were paying good money, and wanted to see something new, etc.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Right after the Weiwei exhibit, I saw something that I did understand — my very first public bathroom signage that actually said “WC.” So I took a picture of that. I felt reassured.

After that, we walked downriver a bit and toured the Globe theater — which, as it turns out, is not the actual, original Globe, nor in the right location — yet another fraud! Don’t get me started…

Anyway, I hope Weiwei gets out of trouble with the Chinese authorities.

Gazillions of fake sunflower seeds.

Laurin and Nancy at the social media symposium

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Laurin is presenting, Nancy is going over her notes, and I'm trying to think up some mayhem that will get me sent to the principal's office. Just like school.

Last night, I participated in a symposium on politics and social media at Francis Marion University. Which was great. Trouble is, I was on a panel with Laurin Manning and Nancy Mace. And they were better prepared than I was.

See, I thought it was going to be just a panel discussion, so I had jotted some notes about points I wanted to be sure to hit on, and showed up. Laurin and Nancy had slide shows, and got up and made presentations. So I had to, too. No problem, really, because I can fill any amount of time… I talked about the old blog and why I started it and how it related to my old MSM job, and the new blog and how it’s going, my Twitter feed (dang! I forgot to mention I’m one of the Twitterati!), how I hate Facebook (it’s the AOL of this decade), “Seinfeld,” my Top Five Baseball Movies, and I don’t know what all.

Then at some point, I realized I’d gone on enough, or more than enough, and shut up. Which I think was cool, but it was way less polished than what the other panelists did.

You know how, when you were in school, there were these girls (and sometimes traitor guys) who always showed up with their homework done? And raised their hands and asked for more work, for extra credit? And when the teacher had been out of the room, and came back, they told her what you had been doing while she was gone? It was like that. Laurin and Nancy were good.

But I survived to the actual panel discussion part, and that went well (I think), so all’s well that ends that way. As it happened, I enjoyed it.

I especially enjoyed learning from Laurin and Nancy.

Laurin was sort of a mentor for me when I started blogging in 2005, and she was well established with the legendary Laurinline. She later was part of the unstoppable Obama social media machine of 2008. Recently, she’s blogged at SC Soapbox.

Nancy, the first female to graduate from The Citadel (how’s that for intimidating?), is founder and CEO of The Mace Group, LLC. She’s also partners with Will Folks in FITSNews— she does the technical side, and leaves the content to Will.

I’m not going to share with you all the cool trade secrets they imparted, because knowledge is power, and I want it all to myself. But I will share this anecdote that they told us about:

You know how Will started his blog? By accident. He was actually trying to post a comment on the Laurinline, and got so confused in trying to do so that he inadvertently set up a blog of his own. Really. That’s the way Laurin and Nancy tell it. The site is much more technologically sophisticated now with Nancy involved, and has more than a million page views a month — compared to my measly traffic, which has only broken a quarter of a million a couple of times. (That’s it. That was my display of humility for this month.)

Anyway, that’s why I was in Florence.

Going short at Starbucks (it can be a GOOD thing)

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Did you ever wonder why the smallest size advertised at Starbucks is a “Tall?” So did I, but I never wondered enough to ask. I sort of assumed that once there had been smaller sizes, but they had become extinct as America became more gluttonous.

I was right. I think. Because it turns out Starbucks also serves a “Short.” Really. It’s 8 ounces, as opposed to the 12 oz. tall. I’ve taken to ordering them lately, if I’m picking up a coffee in the afternoon. It’s a great way to go when you need something, but it’s just a bit late for that much caffeine.

They’re really not a part of the Starbucks routine. In fact, they don’t have sleeves for them. Instead, you get a double cup when you order one.

You have to know to ask for it.

So there’s another reason I order them, aside from being “sensible.” They make me feel cool, like one of the Starbucks cognoscenti.

As you know, I love Starbucks (a fact I appear to have at least alluded to here 54 times). It’s not just the coffee, which is the best. It’s the smell. It’s the music. It’s the sound of beans being freshly ground. It’s the fact that the women there are more beautiful than anywhere else. OK, maybe that’s the caffeine talking. But then, maybe there’s something about Starbucks that attracts beauty. If I could get a grant, I’d do a study.

So it’s just extra great to casually order something (“a Short Pike”) that none of the unwashed around me — not even the beautiful unwashed women — know about. It adds something to the already pleasant experience of being there. I walk out with a swagger, my confidence in my own hipness fully reinforced.

Can  you believe Starbucks doesn’t advertise on this blog? Maybe it’s because I have no clue whom to approach with my pitch. I’m not even getting anything for product placement. Aside from the satisfaction of knowing I’m doing good in this world…

You know what you know, you know?

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People who reach conclusions rapidly, intuitively — the way I do — may have confidence in their conclusions. Which I generally do, because when the conclusions are testable, I’m wrong seldom enough that my confidence is preserved. But I know this faculty is (like all decision-making processes) fallible, and there is a certain insecurity caused by the perceptions of others, particularly the concrete thinkers, the materialists, the folks who test as an S on the Myers Briggs scale, as opposed to my extreme N. The people who view holistic, Gestalten perception with utter contempt.

This habit of thought is extremely useful in arriving at opinions on complex, controversial issues in time to write about them on deadline. It’s why I was extremely adept at being an editorial page editor, if at nothing else (something that didn’t matter in the end, since it all came down to money). Not only for the purposes of writing opinions myself, but (much more to the point, since I was the editor) for guiding the board quickly to a conclusion. We’d be arguing, and then I would say something that paid due consideration to everyone’s seemingly disparate views, but which was coherent and followed logically and made all the people who had been arguing nod and say Yes, that’s our position.

It sounds like I’m bragging about how brilliant I am, but not really. (In  fact, to doubters I’m confessing what an idiot I am.) Frankly, I suspect most people look at me and wonder whether I’m good at anything. Well, I am, and that’s the thing. The one thing that seems to impress people most when they witness it, and when they are disposed to be impressed. The rest of the time, I think they’re more inclined to wonder who let the incompetent doofus into the room.

Conveniently, it’s a talent that also occasionally comes in handy working as a Mad Man. Much of what we do at ADCO still bewilders me, but when it comes time to sum up a message that the client has been struggling to express, I am able to contribute.

This works great, when people are impressed — such as yesterday, when a client called some modest flicker of insight of mine “brilliant.” (Which it wasn’t — I later looked at it written and there was a glaring grammatical error in what I’d said. But fixable.)

It’s more of a problem when people don’t think I’m brilliant — in fact, quite the opposite — and challenge my conclusions. You know, the way Bud and Doug always do. With those guys, I get frustrated because most of my firm assertions cannot be supported by a mathematical proof that will satisfy them, so they conclude that I’m just making it all up or something. And they assert it with sufficient vehemence — being as confident in their conclusions as I am in mine — that sometimes, like a dust mote drifting into a gleaming clean room, a tiny bit of doubt surfaces in my own mind: If I’m so right, why can’t I prove it to everyone’s satisfaction? Which I knew I couldn’t do, even before meeting Bud and Doug. Anyone who thinks his beliefs are self-evident to all (however he arrives at them) will be quickly disabused by even a short stint as editorial page editor. (Yes, Virginia, before blogs and Twitter and email there was the telephone, and snail mail, and running into detractors at social occasions. All designed to take you down a notch.)

So, I find it reassuring to read something like this, in an article in Slate about the uncertainties entertained by identical twins about whether they are identical:

As science looked for more cost-effective ways to divine zygotic history, blood tests and other lab work gave way to surveys that combined objective measurements—height, weight, tone of voice, etc.—with questions about how the pairs were perceived. Were they confused for each other by teachers and friends? Parents? Strangers? But even that proved more in-depth than necessary. In a 1961 study by a Swedish scientist named Rune Cederlof, the whole exam hinged upon a single, probing question: “When growing up, were you and your twin ‘as like as two peas’ or of ordinary family likeness only?”

It turned out that whether twins thought they’d been “as like as two peas” could predict the results of every other available test with surprising accuracy. Cederlof found that the twins’ answers to this one item on the questionnaire matched overwhelmingly with five independent measures of blood type. After nearly 100 years, our finest scientists realized that discerning a man’s zygotic origin was about as easy as discerning whether he was ill by asking if he had a runny nose.

The examination of DNA, then, may be an entirely superfluous reassurance: like searching for witnesses to a murder when the act itself was caught on tape.

Yes! All right! Go, intuitive perception!

By the way, you may enjoy taking the quiz at the bottom of the first installment of that article. It will cause you to be skeptical about  your own skepticism. (Oops. Maybe I should have said “spoiler alert” first…)

I continue to believe Twin B and Twin A are identical, despite their pronounced differences. Such as the contrasting ways they habitually pose for pictures (one makes faces; the other instinctively goes for glamour). Don't be fooled by the fact that one has shorter hair.

Well, at least Rusty liked it

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I saw Rusty DePass yesterday, and he stopped me to tell me that while my Health and Happiness routine at Rotary on Monday didn’t get what I would call big laughs, he thought it was hilarious.

I appreciated that. I don’t know what was wrong Monday. I mean, I got some laughs, but it was very low-key. The biggest laugh I got was after one of the lines I got from Herb Brasher, I said, “Come on! That was funny!” I said it with such vehemence and frustration, that it really cracked them up.

Maybe it was because a lot of people were missing, this being mid-summer, and we just didn’t have critical mass. I don’t know. I looked in that direction once and saw Kathryn Fenner laughing. At least, she looked like she was laughing, but I couldn’t hear it. It was like a mime laugh.

See, now? THAT was funny… Maybe I should have used it.

Anyway, running into Rusty and getting his kind feedback reminded me that I didn’t thank y’all for your input — particularly that of Herb (and his friend Larry) and Doug Ross, who returned from the wilderness just in time to give me the “Famously Hot” idea. (Which actually got one of my better laughs, although it was slightly delayed. Maybe it would have been bigger if I had paused longer after the punch line.)

Here are my prepared remarks:

Been looking through the news for some humor. It’s tough finding anything funny. I see Michele Bachmann is almost leading the GOP polls for president of the United States. Of course, she’s still a distant second to Mitt Romney. You know, he’s the guy whose most notable accomplishment was starting a health care system in Massachusetts that he can’t talk about in front of Republicans…

See? The topical stuff isn’t funny. So I’m going to intersperse it with some words of wisdom that my friend Herb – Kathryn knows Herb — said he got from HIS friend Larry:

I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.

If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

Back to the topical…

As you know, I work over at ADCO with Lanier Jones. ADCO is the agency that came up with “Famously Hot.” The last few days, one of the readers on my blog – that’s bradwarthen.com – has suggested that we change that slogan. He just wants to change the first word. It would still start with the same letter.

I see that China, which holds all that U.S. debt, is now watching what’s happening in Washington and thinking WE have a really fouled-up political system. The bad news is, they’re right.

By the way, in case I’m not being clear enough, I refer to those children in Washington, a.k.a. our nation’s leaders, playing games with the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

And no, I wasn’t even trying to be funny about that…

More from Larry:

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, “In an emergency, notify:” I always put, “DOCTOR.”

Back to the news:

South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian – by the way, try fitting “South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian” into a headline sometime, and you’ll see why the press will miss Ken Ard when he’s gone…

Where was I? Oh, yeah… South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said something that puzzled me the other day. He was criticizing Nikki Haley for saying, when she signed the voter ID bill, that if anyone had trouble getting a photo ID, she would personally drive them to the DMV. I don’t see any problem with that. I mean, it would be nice, right? It’s not like she’s Andre Bauer.

Oh, and for my Republican friends here today:

Look, I wanted to make some jokes about Democrats in office, but hey, gimme a break: This is South Carolina. I couldn’t find any.

OK, some more from Larry:

I didn’t say it was your fault; I said I was blaming you.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

I ad-libbed a few times. Such as, when I saw Boyd Summers laughing about the no-Democrats-in-office gag (although he, too, may have been doing a mime laugh), I said, “See? Boyd Summers gets it. Ladies and gentlemen, Boyd Summers — chairman of the Richland County Democratic Party. Boyd, you need to work a little harder…”

Thanks again for your help, folks! Your material was good. Maybe it was the delivery.