Remember when I mentioned running into Valerie Bauerlein (formerly of The State, currently of The Wall Street Journal) recently? She was having breakfast at a neighboring table with Tim Rogers, interviewing him for a story on longtime letter writer Clif Judy’s sadly successful campaign to close the Sheds to rehearsing bands.
I told her that sounded like a candidate for the page one feature read in her paper. She said that was what she and her editor hoped for. You know the story I mean — it’s generally at the center of the bottom of the front page. It’s almost always a great read, an excellent example of why the WSJ has long held the reputation of the best-written paper in the country (they told me that in J-school in the 70s, and it’s still true). According to Valerie, this story is called the “A-hed.”
Well, today Valerie’s story made the A-hed. (Although in this case, they ran it on the right-hand side rather than the middle.) So congrats to Valerie.
As for the story itself, here’s an excerpt:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — It looks like any other block of garage-sized metal storage units. But Sumter Street Self-Storage has long been the heart of this city’s rock ‘n’ roll scene.
Located on an industrial strip at the edge of the University of South Carolina, “The Sheds” are legend to local rockers — college kids with guitars, gray-beards still nursing band fantasies and hard-core professional musicians who have been cranking up their amps inside the units most nights for two decades.
It was in one of the 139 bays of The Sheds that hometown favorites Hootie & the Blowfish wrote and practiced hits like “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You.” Those songs, included on the 1994 Grammy-winning album “Cracked Rear View,” sold 16 million copies.
But thanks to a nearly two-year campaign by a local activist named Clif Judy, the music at “the Sheds” is coming to an end…
To me, it’s sad about the Sheds; two of my sons have been in bands that rehearsed there. First, complaints to police helped shut down the legendary punk club “2758;” now the Sheds. What are kids supposed to do?
At Rotary yesterday, at the beginning of the Q-and-A session with our speaker, I got a look from blog regular KBFenner (on this blog, we’ve definitely got anything that happens at the Columbia Rotary covered) that seemed to say “Are you going to ask a question, or what?”
But I don’t ask questions in those settings. One reason is habit. As a longtime newspaperman, I always felt like I could ask this or any other source any question I might have at some other time. I felt like Q-and-A periods should be left to the laypeople who didn’t have such opportunities.
Maybe I should change that habit now that I no longer have such opportunities — or no longer have them without trying, anyway. But I still feel like if I really WANT to ask a newsmaker a question, I can get it answered without taking up precious Rotary time.
There’s another reason I don’t ask questions: I tend to ask quirky questions that in such a setting might not be taken the right way. In an hour-long conversation, you can give a quirky question context (although I certainly embarrassed Cindi a few times, I’m sure), but when you raise your hand in a big group and stand to ask it, there’s no way to make it come out right.
For instance… Monday, our speaker was Brig. Gen. Bradley W. May, commanding officer of Fort Jackson. He was, as all such officers have been in my experience, a really impressive guy. Good command presence, cool, calm and collected even in the adverse circumstances of being subjected to civilians’ questions. The kind of guy whom you meet and think, “Why can’t this guy be our congressman?” Or something like that. (And the answer is, because guys like this don’t run.) Not everyone who is or has been an officer in the U.S. military is like this (ex-Marine Rob Miller, for instance, lacks that presence, as does reservist Joe Wilson), but people who rise to this level generally (no pun intended) are.
Anyway, people were asking all sorts of questions, none of which was anything I would have asked. They were either things I felt I already knew the answer to, or things that I wasn’t wondering about. What I WAS wondering about was this: How come soldiers come to Rotary in their BDUs?
Now you see, there’s no way that would have been taken right. It would have been seen as disrespectful. And I would never want to communicate disrespect, because I deeply respect and admire Gen. May and the soldiers who accompanied him, and am as grateful as all get-out for their service.
But I DO wonder about the fatigues. I mean, fewer and fewer Rotarians are wearing suits, but for the most part, it’s a business dress kind of thing. Now I know Gen. May meant no disrespect to us whatsoever; I’ve grown accustomed to soldiers dressing this way — as though they’re going into combat, or about to police the area for cigarette butts, rather than sitting behind a desk all day or going to business meetings. It’s official; it’s accepted. This is the way they dress.
What I wonder about is WHY they dress that way when they’re not in the field. They didn’t used to. I grew up in the military, so I grew up with dress codes. I know that within my lifetime, a soldier couldn’t leave the post without being in his Class As. It was all about spit and polish. Can’t let those civilian pukes see you looking sloppy, and so forth.
And while I was never in the military myself (the general on Monday referred to the fact that only 3 out of 10 Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are qualified to serve in the military; I was one of the 7), it touched me. Here’s an anecdote from my youth that I related in a column back in 2001:
One balmy night in Hawaii 30 years ago, I drove up to the sub base gate of Pearl Harbor Navy base.
I was in high school and still an inexperienced driver, and I forgot something: I didn’t click off my headlights so the guard could see the sticker that would assure him this ’58 Oldsmobile was cleared to enter. Not realizing this, I failed to understand the guard’s gesture that I douse the lights, at which point he proceeded to get my attention as only a Marine sergeant could do.
Fully understanding his command to halt, I did so and started rolling down the window. He leaned in to demand some ID, but then stopped, and gave me a stare that made me feel like a boot who had called his rifle a “gun.” In a voice like Doomsday, he demanded to know, “Are you out of uniform, sailor?”
In an instant, all of the following ran through my mind:
I was wearing a Navy-issue denim work shirt, the kind sailors wore to swab decks (not what they wore on liberty). It was in my closet, and I had put it on without thinking.
I had recently gotten my hair cut — not to Marine standards, but short enough to look to Marine eyes like a particularly sloppy sailor.
Over the shirt, I was wearing a maroon jacket that was, to say the least, decidedly non-regulation.
I had no right to wear that shirt. The sergeant had instantaneously enlightened me on this point. Though I had grown up in the Navy, I was still a member of that lowest of all categories of humanity — a civilian.
Could they throw you in the brig for just looking like a sailor out of uniform? The sergeant sure looked like he had that authority — and the inclination.
Despite appearances, there was nothing routine about entering a U.S. Navy installation. This facility was guarded by the U.S. Marine Corps, and I had to be prepared at all times to give an account of myself.
“But … but … I’m a dependent, Sarge,” I finally managed to explain as I dug my ID out of my wallet. After examining the card carefully, the gyrene waved me in, still eyeing me like the worm that I was.
A dependent. Some excuse. I drove away wishing I had been a sailor out of uniform. He would have put me on report, but I would have been less embarrassed…
Sometime between 1971 and the present — maybe about the same time that Army officers started addressing sergeants as “sar’unt” (which, as near as I can tell, they picked up from Dale Dye), all that went away. You could still see Marines dressed like that sentry — impossibly crisp shortsleeved khaki shirt with the collar open to reveal a T-shirt, dress blues pants, etc. — on recruiting duty. But soldiers, right up to commanding generals, dressed like they were on the front.
I’m not sure when it changed. The 80s, or earlier.
The funny thing is, they still HAVE the Class As. In fact, a soldier who spoke to Rotary two years ago wore his. I don’t know why the regulations would require him to wear his while speaking to Rotary, but not other soldiers under similar circumstances (I’m assuming there’s a regulation involved, of course). Not only that, but they have those blue dress uniforms that look like they’re in the Union Army circa 1863, which are pretty sharp.
But enough about the Army. Let’s talk about something I theoretically understand — appropriate civilian attire. Recently, I’ve had it impressed upon me that I am among the few, the proud, who still wear a coat and tie every day. I do this even though I’m unemployed. In fact, I do it particularly because I’m unemployed. People with secure (they think) jobs can afford to look like slobs; I have to look like I’m constantly being interviewed. That’s the way I think of it, anyway.
Friday, I had lunch with Jim Foster (of the state Department of Ed, formerly of The State) at Longhorn Steakhouse (that’s what I was doing while some of y’all were freaking out over the multiple e-mails). As we sat down, he said, “Why are you dressed like that?” I brushed off the question, because there was nothing remarkable about the way I was dressed: starched shirt, bow tie, jacket. But he persisted: No really, why are you dressed like that?
Well, I said… I always dress like this. Doesn’t everybody? Well, obviously HE didn’t. Neither did anyone at the surrounding tables. Finally, when someone walked in wearing a suit, I almost pointed him out.
Then yesterday, I dropped in on Bob McAlister over at the offices of his consulting business. You know, the former chief of staff to the late Gov. Carroll Campbell. A guy with pictures of himself with George W. Bush, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Jack Kemp and other GOP luminaries all over the office. He was wearing a rumpled blue sport shirt (untucked, I believe) that looked like he’d gotten if from L.L. Bean about 15 years ago. He had taken off his shoes — no, excuse me, his bedroom slippers, which had also seen better days.
He said he didn’t wear a tie except under the most exceptional circumstances. It was easier, and he saved a lot on dry cleaning. He said when he was about to go to a business meeting in D.C. recently, he was told to ditch the coat and tie so he wouldn’t stand out. With some trepidation he did, only to be relieved that he had. We discussed it for awhile, and agreed that in other parts of the country, the phenomenon is more advanced than here. We’re slower to change. I mentioned to him how offended I’d get when Knight Ridder executives would come visit the paper in the years after the corporate move to California — here would be these guys who make a million dollars a year meeting with us, and we’d all be in coats and ties (the men, anyway; the women wearing some distaff equivalent), and they’d be wearing unbuttoned shirts with no ties. Yeah, right, like you guys are all Bill Gates or something just because your office is close to Silicon Valley. I hated it.
At the advertising agency where I’m hanging out (and where I’m typing this), no one but me wears a tie most days. Not exactly Mad Men.
At the Capital City Club, the rules were relaxed over the summer to allow gentlemen to have lunch in the main dining room without jackets. Ties haven’t been required for some time. These must be the end days. Next thing you know, we’ll have dogs and cats living together…
So today, I succumbed to the pressure. For the first time this season I donned my black camel-hair jacket, with white dress shirt and hounds-tooth slacks — but didn’t put on a tie. I felt like I was going skinny-dipping in public or something, but hey, if this is the style.
Then, as soon as I got downtown, I stepped onto an elevator, three other guys got on with me — and they were all dressed in suits and ties. They would have put Don Draper to shame. And I looked at my reflection in the mirrored door, and I looked like I’d just gotten out of bed or something. I wanted to ask myself, “Mister, are you out of uniform?…”
That’s it. Soon as I get home, I’m putting on a tie. I might sleep in it.
This morning I had a very pleasant breakfast at the usual place with Philippe Boulet-Gercourt, the U.S. Bureau Chief for Le Nouvel Observateur, France’s largest weekly newsmagazine. I forgot to take a picture of him, but I found the video above from 2008 (I think), in which I think he’s telling the folks back home that Obama was going to win the election. That’s what “Obama va gagner” means, right? Alas, I have no French, although I’ve always felt that I understand Segolene Royal perfectly. Fortunately, Philippe’s English is superb.
It was my first encounter with a French journalist since I shot this video of Cyprien d’Haese shooting video of me back in 2008, in a supremely Marshall McLuhan moment. If you’ll recall, I was interviewed by a lot of national and foreign journalists in the weeks and months leading up to the presidential primaries here. (You may also recall that a lot of them came to me because of my blog, not because I was editorial page editor of the state’s largest newspaper. Philippe, of course, also contacted me because of the blog, although he was aware of my former association, and expressed his kind concern for my joblessness.)
He had come to Columbia from New York, which has been his home for 14 years, to ask about “this summer uprising among the conservatives, peaking with the Joe Wilson incident,” as he had put it in his e-mail.
Well, to begin with, I disputed his premise. I don’t think there has been a resurgence of conservatives or of the Republican Party, which is still groping for its identity in the wake of last year’s election. What we’ve seen in the case of Joe Wilson — the outpouring of support, monetary and otherwise, after the moment in which he embarrassed the 2nd District — was merely the concentration of political elements that are always there, and are neither stronger nor weaker because of what Joe has said and done. Just as outrage over Joe’s outburst has expressed itself (unfortunately) in an outpouring (I’m trying to see how many words with the prefix “out-” I can use in this sentence) of material support for the unimpressive Rob Miller, the incident was a magnet for the forces of political polarization, in South Carolina and across the country.
What I tried to do is provide historical and sociological context for the fact that Joe Wilson is the natural representative for the 2nd District, and will probably be re-elected (unless someone a lot stronger than Rob Miller emerges and miraculously overcomes his huge warchest). It’s not about Obama (although resistance to the “expansion of government” that he represents is a factor) and it’s not about race (although the fact that districts are gerrymandered to make the 2nd unnaturally white, and the 6th unnaturally black, helps define the districts and their representatives).
In other words, I said a lot of stuff that I said back in this post.
We spoke about a number of other topics as well, some related, some not:
He asked about the reaction in South Carolina to Obama’s election. I told him that obviously, the Democratic minority — which had been energized to an unprecedented degree in the primary, having higher turnout than the Republicans for the first time in many years — was jubilant. The reaction among the Republican minority was more like resignation. Republicans had known that McCain would win South Carolina, but Obama would win the election. I explained that McCain’s win here did not express a rejection of Obama (as some Democrats have chosen to misinterpret), but simply political business as usual — it would have been shocking had the Republican, any Republican, not won against any national Democrat. I spoke, as I explained to him, from the unusual perspective of someone who liked both Obama and McCain very much, but voted for McCain. I think I drew the distinction fairly well between what I think and what various subsets of Republicans and Democrats in South Carolina think…
That got us on the topic of McCain-Bush in 2000, because as I explained to Philippe, I was destined to support McCain even over someone I liked as much as Obama, because I had waited eight years for the opportunity to make up for what happened here in 2000. Philippe agreed that the world would have been a better place had McCain been elected then, but I gather that he subscribes to the conventional wisdom (held by many of you here on the blog) that the McCain of 2008 was much diminished.
Philippe understood 2000, but as a Frenchman, he had trouble understanding how the country re-elected Bush in 2004 (And let me quickly say, for those of you who may be quick to bridle at the French, that Philippe was very gentlemanly about this, the very soul of politeness). So I explained to him how I came to write an endorsement of Bush again in 2004 — a very negative endorsement which indicted him for being wrong about many things, but in the end an endorsement. There was a long explanation of that, and a short one. Here’s the short one: John Kerry. And Philippe understood why a newspaper that generally reflects its state (close to three-fourths of those we endorsed during my tenure won their general election contests) would find it hard to endorse Kerry, once I put it that way. (As those of you who pay attention know, under my leadership The State endorsed slightly more Democrats than Republicans overall, but never broke its string of endorsing Republicans for the presidency, although we came close in 2008.)
Anyway, when we finished our long breakfast (I hadn’t eaten much because I was talking too much, drinking coffee all the while) I gave him a brief “tour” of the Midlands as seen from the 25th floor of Columbia’s tallest building, then gave him numbers for several other sources who might be helpful. He particularly was interested in folks from Joe’s Lexington County base, as well as some political science types, so I referred him to:
Rep. Kenny Bingham, the S.C. House Majority Leader who recently held a “Welcome Home” event for Joe Wilson at his (Kenny’s) home.
Rep. Nikki Haley, who until recently was the designated Mark Sanford candidate for governor, before she had occasion to distance herself.
Sen. Nikki Setzler (I gave him all the Lexington County Nikkis I knew), who could describe the county’s politics from the perspective of the minority party.
Blease Graham, the USC political science professor who recently retired but remained plugged in and knowledgeable. (Philippe remarked upon Blease’s unusual name, which started me on a tangent about his ancestor Cole Blease, Ben Tillman, N.G. Gonzales, etc.)
Walter Edgar, the author of the definitive history of our state.
Neal Thigpen, the longtime political scientist at Francis Marion University who tends to comment from a Republican perspective.
Jack Bass, the ex-journalist and political commentator known for his biography of Strom Thurmond and for his liberal Democratic point of view.
I also suggested he stop in at the Gervais Street Starbucks for a downtown Columbia perspective, and the Sunset Restaurant in West Columbia.
I look forward to reading his article, although I might have to get some of y’all to help me with understanding it. With my background in Spanish and two years of Latin I can generally understand French better when written than spoken, but I still might need some help…
This morning I had the good fortune to run into Valerie Bauerlein, formerly of The State and now with The Wall Street Journal. She was having breakfast with Tim Rogers at the Cap City Club, working on a story that she hopes will make the “A-hed” position on page one — that’s the feature that is always such at good read at the center of the bottom of the page. (Fortunately for her, she wasn’t here to do yet another Sanford story.)
Valerie works in the Journal’s Atlanta bureau. While she spends close to half her time on regional general-assignment news reporting, her specific beat these days is the soft drink industry.
After Tim left, Valerie stopped off at my table and we had a chance to catch up. Her biggest news is that she’s expecting her second baby in November, so she has that glow about her — but then, Valerie always had that glow about her. She’s one of the nicest, most pleasant, kindest, most considerate people I ever worked with, to the extent that you wonder how she ended up in the trade. Not that news people are universally unpleasant or anything; it’s just that she was SO nice. And very good at her job, to boot.
Anyway, it was great to see her, and greater to see her doing so well. I thought I’d pass it on for those of you who remember her.
Just had a bit of an out-of-body experience at Rotary today. Our main speaker was Carroll A. “Tumpy” Campbell III. He was allegedly there to talk to us about economic development in South Carolina, which was weird enough on its face. I mean, what was his qualification to do that, other than the fact that he was on the Ports Authority governing body before Mark Sanford pushed him off, and his daddy was our last really successful governor at ecodevo?
But that’s OK, because that didn’t seem to be why he was there. In fact, I was sufficiently confused about why he was there that I began to wonder why I was there, which was way existential. Anyway, he sounded like a guy who was running for office, although he didn’t overtly say so. Finally, I had to be reminded that he is planning to challenge Henry Brown down in the 1st congressional district. The consensus among folks I spoke to who heard this Rotary speech was that Henry doesn’t have much to worry about. (Which is saying something — I haven’t really paid much attention to Mr. Brown since he went off to Congress, but unless he got a whole lot sharper when he went to Washington, which would be a singular accomplishment if you think about it, he can’t be the world’s most impressive congressman. I remember him as a forgettable state legislator, who for a time chaired the Ways and Means Committee. Same guy, right?)
Sure, he mentioned ecodevo. He said a few painfully obvious things about it, such as the fact that the Port of Charleston is really, really important to economic development. You know the drill — BMW would never have taken a second look at South Carolina without that port, yadda-yadda… and did I mention to you that it’s not a coincidence that my name is Carroll Campbell? Seriously, it was just like that, only not as funny.
I didn’t take any notes on his speech, unfortunately. I usually start taking notes during a Rotary speech when the speaker says something interesting. I mean, I’m not there as a reporter, but if the speaker says one interesting thing, I pull out my notebook and write it down. And if he or she keeps on saying interesting things, I keep the notebook out and keep writing, and maybe mention it on the blog later. Suffice it to say that I was never in danger of even thinking about taking out my notebook during Tumpy’s speech.
Until it was over. Then I realized that I wished I had a record of it. (When the video is posted on the club site, I’ll try to remember to go back and link to it.) I wanted the record because, in retrospect, this speech was strikingly vapid. It was no ordinary bad speech, but a monument to the painful mediocrity that permeates the electoral process in our poor state.
In a nutshell, the gist of it was this: South Carolina needs new and different leadership. That was wedged in among a bunch of half-stated Republican cliches. In other words, the message was We need new leadership, but I sure ain’t it, because I’ve got nothing original to say.
Someone pointed out to me that even the cliches weren’t complete, but they were so unmemorable that I can’t attest to the accuracy of that observation. But thinking back, if you had simply grabbed random phrases from the Tweets of a garden-variety South Carolina Republican — incomplete Tweets, like those I cited from Joe Wilson earlier today — and strung them together, it would sound sort of like that Tumpy Campbell speech. Down with the stimulus, and bailouts, and big gummint, and so forth and so on, and golly but we sure need some real leaders who will say down with the stimulus, and bailouts, and big gummint, and so forth and so on. (Like we’re not already et up with such “leaders.”)
Anyway, that’s my report from the front lines of the 1st District congressional race…
Oh, wait — speaking of Joe Wilson, he was there at Rotary. But he didn’t shout out or anything, so I didn’t realize he was there until later…
Ran into Steve Benjamin at breakfast this morning. He mentioned that he’s resolved to work on his penmanship after this blog shared his notes from a meeting last Friday. He also asked what I’d thought about his presentation. I told him he can’t go wrong with me talking government restructuring, but I wondered how it resonated with the voters. He said he’d been getting pretty good feedback on the overall topic. Not the “strong mayor” part, but the part where he pitches consolidation of Columbia and Richland County.
I found that interesting, but I have a burning new issue for this contest between Steve and Mayor Bob: The clock in the little guardhouse where they take your money on leaving the city parking garage at Assembly and Lady is always wrong — and always wrong in a way that favors the city’s coffers, not the driver leaving the garage.
The regular latecomers (among whom I may be counted; I’m still sort of on newspaper hours) at the place where eat breakfast most days know that when it gets past 9:30, it’s time to finish your coffee and skedaddle. Why? Because the garage, which is free in the early morning, starts charging at 10. And the latecomers tend to be retired and unemployed folk, so we don’t like coughing up that buck. (On the days that I come earlier, I park on the street and leave before 9, because that’s when Lovely Rita starts checking the meters.)
Not that I mind paying the buck occasionally. Gaming the system is one thing, but the service has to be paid for by somebody, right?
What bugs me is that the clock the garage goes by is always set several minutes ahead. I’ve had to pay at 9:57 and 9:58. I grumble, but I pay.
Today, I had a double shock. I got up from reading the paper and drinking coffee at 9:42. I was on the 6th level, so it took awhile to get to my truck and thread it down through all those levels. Then, when I got to the gate, it was down. It was only 9:51.
I asked the lady if the time for closing the gate had changed. She said it had. I asked, “What time is it now?” meaning, What’s the new deadline? She took the question both ways, answering, “It’s 9:55, and the new time is 9:30.” I double-checked: The time on my truck was still 9:51. And my truck is within a few seconds of being perfectly aligned with my Blackberry, which is perfectly synchronized with the U.S. Naval Observatory official time. At least, I think it is. Let me go check…
Oops. Somehow my phone was almost a minute behind. I’ve fixed it now. (I also checked against Zulu Time, and interestingly, the Naval Observatory time seems to be lagging by about a second. Not that I’m going to worry about it. I’m channeling Phileas Fogg enough here today…)
Still. That makes the clock in the garage three minutes fast. There was a time when there was an excuse for this — you couldn’t instantly check to see what the real, official time is. If one clock was faster than the other, you could argue which was right. No more.
I don’t mind the city moving the time to 9:30. Given the city’s fiscal problems, I’d vote to do that. In fact, I wouldn’t object it the city went to charging 24 hours. I don’t know why they don’t do that now, unless it’s just a matter of saving on personnel.
But if the understood time is 9:30, you shouldn’t get charged at 9:27. That’s all I’m saying.
See the unbelievably petty stuff that people who don’t have jobs obsess about?
We had various speakers today at Columbia Rotary talking about homelessness in our community, including Amos Disasa from Eastminster Presbyterian, speaking on behalf of the Midlands Interfaith Homelessness Action Council (which he acknowledged that, as organization names go, is a mouthful).
Saving me from taking a heap of notes, Rev. Disasa mentioned the group's Web site, at which you can read the following:
More than $9 million has been raised to build a Homeless Transition Center in downtown Columbia. Yet this badly-needed facility is facing opposition from near downtown neighborhoods as well as some political leaders.
It is our prayer that the faith community will rally behind the Transition Center. The starting point is to educate yourself on the need for the Center. You will find valuable information and perspective in the slide show above.
Then we hope you will sign the petition below and that you will get others to sign it, as well. We want our city leaders to understand that there are many more of us who support the center than those who oppose it.
When the MIHAC was formed 18 months ago, who could have dreamed that our community could have made so much progress? But we are not there yet, which is why this petition campaign and your help are so crucial. Read the petition that follows, please download it, sign it and encourage others to sign it. With your help we can light the way to end homelessness.
By the way, as I mentioned in a comment a little while ago on my Sunday column post — after Rotary, Jack Van Loan mentioned that he'd received word that the mayor is mad at him over the subject of my column. Jack said his reaction was to tell the person who told him that to give the mayor his phone number…
You know that event over the weekend I mentioned attending back here? It was a fund-raiser for Hand Middle School over at Gallery 701. And while a lot of folks did come up and converse with me about newspaper business, our dialogue was somewhat constrained by the fact that it was hard to talk over the sound of the band.
The band was pretty good, and in fact their opening number was one I think I’ll add to my band’s playlist — The Band’s “The Weight.” That song would fit right into my band’s ouevre, or idiom, or what have you.
Oh, you don’t know about my band? Well, it’s just in the planning stages, where it’s been since about, oh, 1971. The thing is that first I’ve got to come up with a cool name for it. I mean, you’re not going to see me settling on something like “Sugardaddys” just to move things along. No, I’m taking my time; I want to get this right. For awhile there I was sort of enamored of “Wireless Cloud” as a name, but I’ve moved on. Suggestions are welcome (up to a point). I may end up with the one that a friend suggested many years ago, after inadvertently learning my first name: “Donnie B. and the All-Night Newsboys.”
But I did draft a preliminary playlist of cover songs a couple of years back. I meant to post it on the blog, but didn’t get around to it or something. I ran across it the other day, and here it is:
Lawyers, Guns and Money (hey, it was on the list before James mentioned it)
The Pretender
Desperado (Don’t know how this got on here)
One More Cup of Coffee
This list, now that I look back on it, is WAY incomplete and poorly thought-out. For instance, as I say, I don’t know how Desperado got on there (watching too much Seinfeld, maybe). If I went with anything Eagles-related, it would have to be Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” And when it comes to Beatles covers, I’d do “I Should Have Known Better” way before the one listed above — or “Eight Days a Week.”
And this doesn’t even get into my original material (perhaps mercifully).
Anyway, once the name is set and the playlist is all worked out, I’ll see about trying to line up some actual musicians. Oh, and a manager. Don’t be bugging me with gig requests; that’s for the manager to deal with. All in good time.
Old Jack raked the cinders together with a piece of cardboard and spread them judiciously over the whitening dome of coals. When the dome was thinly covered his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly re-emerged into light….
— from "Ivy Day in the Committee Room," by James Joyce
In the middle of a brilliant, unusually warm February afternoon (Thursday), I was holed up in an Irish-themed pub talking local politics. Jack Van Loan was holding court at his "office" in a booth at Delaney's pub in Five Points. And when I say office, I mean "office," with his files and organizers on the table before him next to his coffee, and his briefcase opened on a bench close at hand. From such locations Jack makes and takes his multiple calls getting ready for the big St. Paddy's Day event (March 14) and talks Five Points politics.
Last year, he was pushing Belinda Gergel for the 3rd district council contest that she eventually won. Today, he was conveying his blessing upon another (potential) candidate — this one for mayor.
The candidate, or potential candidate, sat in the dark with the bright light coming in the window behind him so that I was talking to a silhouette — a little like the effect when you talk to Joe Riley in his office down there at the Four Corners of the Law, with that huge cathedral-like array of windows behind him, and the fluid light of the Holy City radiating all about him. This was a little more prosaic than that, but then this wasn't the mayor yet, just a potential candidate.
Who was the candidate? Well, that's him in the very bad phone picture above, with Jack at his right. Shouldn't be hard to figure out. The thing about this candidate was, I needed no introduction. We've endorsed him for statewide office in the past. But my friend Jack wanted to introduce him as his candidate for mayor in next April's election, and I wanted to hear what Jack — a force in the influential Five Points Association since 1991 — had to say about him. It wasn't exactly Joyce's "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" and we didn't talk about Parnell, but by Columbia standards it would do.
Anyway, the rest of the story will be in my Sunday column, so tune in.
Just to briefly mention what I've been up to on this Ash Wednesday, we had a meeting this morning with representatives of Providence Hospital and Lexington Medical Center. They had come to jointly announce a major breakthrough — they've stopped fighting over whether LexMed should be allowed to do open-heart surgery.
As you know, Lexington has tried everything it could think of in recent years — regulatory, legal and political — to get around the fact that DHEC has said (in a shocking, rare instance of DHEC saying "no" to anyone) that they can't do bypasses. Providence and Palmetto Health have been on the opposite side of the table, arguing that a third such program would be duplicative and damage the quality of overall care in the Midlands by reducing the number of procedures they do below the level considered necessary for maintaining proficiency.
We have agreed with Providence and Palmetto Health on this. In fact, we also opposed Palmetto Health expanding its heart program several years back, on the same grounds, but DHEC approved it. We have maintained that yet a third such program would be insupportable.
But now two of these three parties have decided to stop spending millions fighting each other, and after months of negotiations have agreed on the following:
Providence and Lexington Medical will ask DHEC to "de-certify" one of Providence's four open-heart surgical suites.
The two will then ask DHEC to certify ONE such unit at Lexington Medical.
Lexington will drop its challenge to certificates for expansion for Providence Northeast.
Lexington will pay Providence, in three installments, a total of $15 million to compensate it for the lost revenues from de-certifying a unit.
So what's missing? Well, Palmetto Health. What we have here is a classic 1984 sort of situation: Eastasia and Eurasia have always been at war with Oceania. But now Eurasia and Oceania are friends. Does that mean they are now at war with Eastasia — I mean, Palmetto Health? Well, no — at least not at this moment. But Palmetto Health is not a part of the peace agreement, and it's hard to see how the overall battle over this issue is over until it is. We'll see in the coming days.
All of that is not to take away from what a huge breakthrough this is. This has been a very, VERY bitter battle that has distorted local politics as well as spending all that money on lawyers and such. As one who lives right behind Lexington Medical, I can tell you I've caught a lot of heat over this emotional issue, as has the newspaper. It's been tough to get people to look beyond the feelings to the larger issue. (One way I've tried to do that personally has been by pointing out that if I were having a heart attack, I'd have to be transported right past Lexington, only a mile from my house, to Providence — but that I believe that situation is best for the community overall, in terms of better outcomes for more patients in the Midlands.)
Now, suddenly, it's over? Well, this part of it is. And I find myself torn between on the one hand celebrating the end of a really destructive conflict, and wondering why it's suddenly OK for an experienced open-heart team to be replaced by a startup? Mind you, I'm sure Lexington Medical will do as a good a job as anyone could starting such a program. It's an excellent hospital, and takes tremendous pride in doing everything it does well. Still, all things being equal, would we not be better off with the established team at Providence doing that portion of the region's procedures?
The thing is, politically and financially and in other ways, all things were NOT equal, and continued conflict had its cost. So I can see why Providence has agreed to this even as I have reservations. Lexington Medical is giving ground, too, by the way, aside from giving up money — it still has objections to the wisdom and advisability of the Providence Northeast expansion. But it's dropping those concerns in the interests of agreement.
By the way, as a brief primer on the importance of money in all these considerations: When Providence started doing open-heart decades ago, it wasn't a money-maker. The Sisters of Charity did it because somebody in South Carolina needed to. Later, open-heart surgery became very lucrative. And while I fully believe that all parties believed they were also doing what was best for their patients, the money has played a big role at each step in these battles. Palmetto Richland, with the largest share of indigent care and an extremely expensive trauma unit, needed to expand into heart surgery to have something that brought in revenues. Lexington didn't want to be left out of that. And Providence, which has struggled financially in recent years after an ill-advised partnership with a for-profit corporation (which the good sisters mortgaged their convent to get out of), could ill afford to give up the revenues.
That's the simplistic, "it's all about money" explanation. There are other factors at work as well. One of them is that the treatment of heart disease is increasingly moving beyond open-heart, often to less invasive therapies. That's one reason why Providence was unwilling to give up part of a pie that was diminishing in overall size. But it also seems to be a reason why it is willing to give it up now — open-heart isn't the future the way it once was, so Providence sees no point in continuing a wasteful fight over a portion of the diminishing number of such procedures to be done in the future.
Meanwhile, if I heard it right today, Lexington is NOT giving up its objections to a certificate involving the main Providence campus. So all is not sweetness and light, with all conflicts behind us in this community.
But no doubt about it, this is a major step by these two very important local institutions. It's huge. But it's SO huge, and complicated, that much remains to be sorted out.
Ran into James Smith this morning at breakfast, and expressed my surprise that Vincent Sheheen was running for governor and he was not.
He said he just couldn't afford the time away from his family. As you'll recall, he was separated from the wife and four kids for about a year and a half, most of it fighting those folks President Obama calls the Tolly-bon. He said his wife was supportive, but he couldn't stand to miss the time with his kids. He said a Soapbox Derby event over the weekend (or was in Pinewood Derby? I get those mixed up) underlined that for him; if he were to run for gov, he'd miss such events.
On other matters, I mentioned I had thought of him and the other guys of Team Swamp Fox last night, because I've been watching (via Netflix) the HBO series "Generation Kill," based on the book by the same name by a Rolling Stone correspondent embedded with Force Recon Marines on the tip of the spear in the Iraq invasion in '03. The Marines, who were veterans of Afghanistan, talk about that experience a lot, and are sometimes nostalgic because the way they had fought on that front made more sense to them.
Anyway, I need to get together with Rep. Smith sometime and talk at greater length; I haven't had a chance to do that since he got back.
This afternoon we were visited by a rather distinguished and diverse group of business, academic and political leaders who have been putting their heads together to see how our various interlocking existing community ecodevo initiatives — Innovista, the 3 rivers greenway, hydrogen and fuel cell efforts, and so forth — can position our community to take advantage of the stimulus funds once they start flowing to achieve some of our existing goals.
As Lee Bussell said when he asked for the meeting:
With the first mention of the stimulus bill we pulled together a working group of about 25 people representing business leaders, USC, the city, counties, Midlands Tech, Central Midlands, The Chamber, Good to Great Foundation, SCRA, Columbia USC Fuel Cell Collaborative and a number of others . Our purpose was not just to make sure Columbia participated in the creation of jobs through this special program. We identified that for the last 5 years we have been working toward building a sustainable and green community with the creation of an economy based on alternative energy solutions. Sustainability and green jobs have become a central part of our community development strategy. I am asking on behalf of all of these groups that you consider pulling together a group at the State that we could come meet with next week. We think it’s critical that you understand what we are attempting to accomplish. It could truly enable our regions to find opportunity to not only create jobs, but also to create an everlasting impact on the sustainability of our community and a whole new economic approach.
Lee didn't actually make today's meeting (he's out of the country, I understand) but the following folks did come (starting with left to right in the photo above, from my phone):
… and several other folks who I know I must be forgetting as I try to reconstruct who was sitting around the table (or whose names I missed).
Basically these folks represent a lot of different efforts that will be combined and coordinated as the situation warrants to seek funding for things they were going to do anyway, with the goal of long-term economic transformation for the community. As Harris Pastides said, the test of success will be whether, after the construction workers are gone, we still have jobs here that put us on the cutting edge of the nation's move toward a greener economy and greater energy independence.
Toward that end — and with Congress not yet decided toward the final shape of the stimulus — Mayor Bob has set up a War Room in his office at City Hall. Pres. Pastides says he'll be doing the same at USC. The watchwords, says Coble, will be nimbleness, persistence and resources as opportunities are seen to match local projects with stimulus funding streams.
The group was very optimistic that the sorts of things they're working on here in the Midlands are a good match, and at a good point in the pipeline, for matching up with priorities they're seeing in the stimulus, and also with longer-term priorities of the Obama administration.
That's what I recall off the top of my head; I haven't gone back through the recording I made. (Sorry, no video; I took out my camera last night for a family birthday party, and forgot to put it back in my briefcase.) I expect some of the news folks who were there will have something in the paper that will flesh this out a little. I just wanted to go ahead and get my contact report filed…
(And no, in case you're wondering, neither the governor nor any representative of his was there. As Coble said, our governor is seen as an obstacle in this process; whether that obstacle will be surmountable or not remains to be seen, but the folks in the room seemed determined to try…)
Obama has sided with Republicans and biz types in opposing congressional Democrats' "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill, much to the chagrin of the Big Labor lobby.
But when I mentioned that this morning, one of my colleagues strongly disagreed. She said (helping you guess who it was) that if taxpayers were putting up the dough, of course it should stay in this country.
Me, I don't want to take the global economy back to a bunch of little protectionist islands. If the economy starts to recover anywhere, I want the growth to flow freely. But I saw my colleague's argument.
Then, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins (below) came to see us this afternoon, and he talked about how our good friends in the Great White North — our biggest trading partners, the people we get the largest amount of oil from, etc. — are absolutely freaking out about the "Buy American" thing. And with good reason, from their perspective. And they are our good friends and allies. So I value their opinion.
Looking around, I see that Paul "Nobel Prize in Economics" Krugman is no help — on his blog, he argues it both ways (although I admit, I understand his anti-protectionist argument better than his wonkish one to the contrary).
So you think all this stuff about Geithner and Daschle and their taxes is a bunch of Republican spin? Well, maybe it is, but I got an earful about it from one ardent Democrat this morning.
Samuel Tenenbaum, key Energy Party think-tanker, dropped by my breakfast table this morning. This is always an occasion for me to find out what is at the top of his mind — which can range from his 55-mph speed limit plan to endowed chairs (which were also his idea) to, well, almost anything. Samuel reads a lot, and cares a lot, about a heap of stuff.
But today he was fed up with Obama over the tax deadbeats he's been choosing for his administration. He was going on about how this was not the Change he had believed in when he supported Obama. At first, I thought he was mad because the new POTUS wasn't cutting these people loose once the news broke about their failure to pay. But no, he blamed Obama for not having sufficiently vetted these guys to begin with.
Paying your taxes is basic and fundamental, he maintained, and there's just no excuse for nominating people who haven't done that.
Anyway, Samuel convinced me of one thing for sure — that I should at the least put up a post to give y'all a chance to sound off on the subject. Yeah, I'm a little late, since Daschle withdrew his name today, but hey, I was out on medical leave yesterday (nothing serious; routine testing).
One day last week I was pleased to run into Charleston Mayor Joe Riley (one of the finest examples of Joe-ness holding office today) on an elevator downtown. He was in town to lobby the Legislature for his crime bill — of which I had to admit I had not heard (how's that for an awkward avoidance of a dangling preposition?). He was joined by Attorney General Henry McMaster and SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd in pushing the legislation.
By the time we had arrived at his floor, he had given me a brief outline of it. Fortunately, he also had a staffer send me this release about it
, since I wasn't taking notes on the elevator. The group was pushing for legislation that would, among other things:
Allow law enforcers to search people on probation and parole without warrants.
Deny bail for repeat offenders.
Forbid convicted felons to possess handguns or assault weapons.
Increase the penalty for Assault and Battery With Intent to Kill. (On the elevator, the mayor had said something about S.C. lacking an effective attempted murder statute.)
Create a separate offense for possessing a firearm while selling, manufacturing, or possessing drugs for distribution.
The mayor seems to be pushing separately (going by the wording on the release), more resources for courts, Solicitor's offices, Probation and Parole, DJJ, and Corrections. Specifically, on that last point, increase funding for drug rehab in prisons.
Most of that stuff makes common sense to me, although as with a lot of things that make sense, I wonder where the money will come from with the state cutting back on everything. Anyway, since I ran into the mayor and he shared these proposals with me, I'm sharing them with you.
You may have noticed that yesterday I mentioned having met with the S.C. Employment Security Commission. Well, I wrote a column for Sunday based in part upon that, and I thought I'd go ahead and post the video that goes with the column.
We talked about plenty of other stuff, but I had terrible luck with catching the good bits on video. Seems like every time they said something interesting, I'd have switched my camera to still photos, and when I went back to video, it was Dullsville. This clip was about the only entire, coherent bit of any interest that I captured in its entirety.
In the wide-ranging discussion, there were high points and low points, for instance:
High point — The ESC members, after having been defiant as recently as the day before, promised they'd get the information the governor had been asking for to him — or 90-95 percent of it — by Feb. 9. They said the rest of it is just stuff they don't have because they don't collect that kind of data. Anyway, John O'Connor of our newsroom, who sat in on our meeting, wrote about that in today's paper.
Low point — We asked why in the world they have their own TV studio, and the answer wasn't satisfactory — to me, anyway. But then, how could it be? No, it doesn't add up to a lot of money, and it's a bit of a red herring compared to the actual reason why the unemployment benefits trust fund is out of money: Several years ago the Legislature cut the tax that businesses pay into the fund, and we've been paying our more than we take in since at least 2001. That said, the TV studio does sound ridiculous.
But the subject in the video was the thing that grabbed my attention, because it spoke to the problem of the gross failure to communicate between the Commission and the governor. After all this silly back and forth the last couple of months — and it IS silly (of COURSE the Commission needs the money the governor is trying to hold back, as anyone who has seen what's happening in our state can attest, and of COURSE the Commission was being absurdly petulant by trying to hold info back from the gov), not to mention just plain wrong — I had to ask them if they ever sat down to talk to the governor face to face.
I asked that for a couple of reasons. First, people who are sitting down talking to each other don't act the way the governor and the commissioner had been acting. Once you're dealing with someone as an actual person, rather than some faceless opponent out there, you show them more respect than this. Second, I asked because our governor is Mark Sanford. Most governors are interested enough in actually governing that they try to maintain contact and communications with the various parts of government on a regular basis. Not this guy — for him, it's about the press release, the statement, the op-ed piece, the piglets in the lobby; NOT about sitting down with people and reasoning with them.
The commissioners went on at some length about how the governor had never sat down for a meeting with them in his six years in office, and how he had never accepted an invitation to speak to their big annual luncheon — unlike every previous governor they had known. (And that latter bit REALLY rang true, as one thing I've noticed about this governor is that he has little affinity for the rubber-chicken circuit — not that I do myself, but most governors hit all those events they can.)
Anyway, what is NOT on the video is what Joel Sawyer in the governor's office said to Cindi Scoppe the next morning (and I'm copying and pasting some notes Cindi sent me):
We actually found where the gov did indeed meet with them in 2003, and had a letter from ted halley thanking him for meeting with them. he’s also had conversations with all of the commissioners over time. we looked for more recent requests for meetings, and the only one was I guess a week before they ran out of money. at that point it was just on such short notice that the gov couldn’t attend, but scott english and joe taylor did…
Here's a copy of the 2003 Ted Halley letter
Joel mentioned.
So I called Commissioner McKinley Washington to ask about that, and he said the 2003 "meeting" was one of the incidents they talked about on the video: The commissioners were meeting with Eddie Gunn of the governor's staff, and the governor briefly stuck his head in the door and said hi, and that was about it. It was NOT a meeting with the governor, he said.
Mr. Washington also mentions on the video, and repeated to me Friday, that there was a later incident in which the commissioners were meeting with Chief of Staff Henry White, and the governor — who had apparently changed clothes for a press conference or something, "cracked the door" open long enough to "reach in and grab his denim" so he could change back. And that was it.
So I asked how come ESC executive director Halley sent that note to the governor thanking him for his time back in 2003? "That was just a courtesy statement, but he did not meet with us," said Mr. Washington. "You try to be nice."
Finally, the commissioners said that they tried to meet with the governor at the beginning of the current crisis, but were told he was unavailable, so they met with Scott English (of the governor's staff) and Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor instead (the Sawyer notes above allude to that).
Have you noticed that it’s been awhile since I posted video? Like, since the election? Well, there’s a simple explanation: As I told you at the time, my laptop was stolen from my truck on election night. That meant I lost both all of my raw video from those last weeks before the election, AND the platform on which I produced the clips for posting.
I got a new laptop (well, it’s new to ME) over the holidays, but was too busy either to shoot or to edit anything, what with folks being on end-of-year time off and such around here.
If all you want is the stuff about Nikki and Nathan, it starts about 3 minutes and 18 seconds into the video (it starts with a question from me; you can probably hear the effects of my cold on my voice). Were I a TV “journalist,” that’s all I would have given you — the controversy, the sexy stuff. And admittedly, it IS the more interesting part.
But I decided to be all wonky and include Bobby’s extensive explanation before that of HIS position on transparency in voting, and what he’s tried to do about it. You’ll note, if you watch all of it, that at one point he handed us a document in support of what he was saying. Below you will find a photograph of that document. I hope you can read it OK.
The Legislature convenes next Tuesday, and in anticipation of that, House Speaker Bobby Harrell came by to see us yesterday afternoon.
On his mind were the following:
Number one, the economy. Emphasizing the state's alarming unemployment rate, he said he recently met with Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor to express the speaker's willingness to provide him with whatever tools he needs. After I brought up his past criticism of the agency, Mr. Harrell insisted that we not report him as being critical of Commerce now. The closest he came to anything disparaging was the observation that Commerce had been "scoring points, not winning the game" lately. Other than that, he was Mr. Supportive.
Employment Security Commission. You may recall that before Christmas, Mr. Harrell said, "It is inconceivable that Governor Sanford hasn’t already made this
request of the federal government, and it would be tragic if he allows
jobless benefits to run out, particularly at this time of year." Now he was at pains to point out that he believes the agency should supply the info the gov wants, and he said he'll sign a letter next week calling for an audit. This is not inconsistent; it's not far from our position — yes, the agency should provide such info readily, no, the governor shouldn't play "chicken" with unemployment benefits.
Cigarette tax. As one who once opposed the increase outright, Mr. Harrell now counts himself among those reconciled to its inevitability. The sticking point, as always, is what it should be spent on. (As you now, our position is that whatever you spend it on, it should be passed, because it undoubtedly will reduce teen smoking.) He noted that he supported the governor's veto last year on that score. He would like to see the money (and the federal Medicaid match) spent on making health insurance more available to small businesses. He said Oklahoma has recently shown a way to do that — it would require a waiver from the feds.
Education funding formula. My notes were sketchy here, but he was talking about revamping the whole funding system. I'll check with Cindi later to remind me what he said about this; in the meantime consider this a placeholder — I mention it only so that you know it was one of the things that was on his mind. All my notes say is "Education formula… The whole pot… They've been melting… a lot." And I confess that makes little sense to me, much less to you.
Roads. He wants more money for road maintenance, but he does not want to raise the gasoline tax, which is how we fund roads in SC. He would instead devote car sales taxes — what little we get in sales tax, given the $300 cap — to roads. He did not specify what he would NOT fund from the general fund to do that.
Restructuring. He promised to push for a Dept. of Administration.
Tax reform. He said a BRAC-style tax reform commission would be a good idea, but he offered two amendments to what biz leaders have advocated. Rather than have no legislators on the commission, he would have about a fourth of the panel be lawmakers. His reasoning is that lawmakers could school other members as to the feasibility of the ideas (which sounds suspiciously like a way to keep out good ideas the Legislature doesn't like, but maybe that's just me and my suspicious nature). He also said that rather than making it impossible for lawmakers to amend the plan, he would allow for amendment with a big supermajority — say 75 percent. His stated reasoning on that is to prevent some minor technical flaw from sinking the whole plan. He believes the supermajority requirement would eliminate the danger of narrow interests killing the overall plan. One more point on tax reform: He thinks it should be done in two stages — deal with the host of sales tax exemptions first, then the rest of the tax structure.
Those are the main topics he brought up. In answer to questions, he said:
A payday lending bill — one to more tightly regulate the industry, but not out of existence — will likely come out of the session.
He likes the governor's idea of eliminating the corporate income tax — an idea he traces to Ronald Reagan (at which point all Republicans murmur "Peace Be Upon Him" or something equally reverential). But he doesn't like the idea of eliminating economic incentives.
In response to our noting that the governor seems to want to step up his voucher efforts, the Speaker said he's supportive, but doesn't think it will pass.
Roll call voting. He defended his rules change to increase transparency, which he believes addresses the "key concerns" — such as spending legislation, the budget overall, anything affecting lawmakers' pay or benefits, ethics or campaign finance and the like. He totally dismissed the idea that his handling of Nikki Haley and Nathan Ballentine was out of line, or anything personal. As for his not telling Nikki in person he was kicking her off the committee, such has "always been done by sending a letter."
Cindi was just starting to ask about the one thing liable to occupy most of the House's energy this year — passing a budget in light of plummeting revenues — when the Speaker said he had to leave for another interview for which he was already late (Keven Cohen's show). Rest assured Cindi will follow up. (If I'd realized how short on time we were, I would have insisted we start on that overriding topic earlier.)
One more thing worthy of note: This was the first time Mr. Harrell asked to come in for a pre-session board meeting. Predecessor David Wilkins did it as a more or less annual ritual, bringing his committee chairs (including Mr. Harrell) along with him.
