Category Archives: E-mail of the Day

This turbulent priest

A reader, Matthew Butler, sent me this e-mail today:

Obviously I’ve read the news (over the top) about the actions of Fr. Newman
in Greenville, what appears to be NOT over the top is the type of echo
chamber that St. Mary’s is. This is Fr. Longnecker’s, the pastoral associate
(and a married priest!), response to the election. I know we’re supposed to
‘speak truth to power’ and sometimes that involves harsh words, but really?
 
 
Just wanted to get your opinion on the matter.

Here’s the reply I sent:

St. Mary’s is
a very conservative parish. I’ve been to Mass there. I know we’re not supposed
to make judgments about people based on outward appearances, but I have to admit
that that was the most WASPish, Republican-looking, country-club congregation I
ever remember seeing in a Catholic church. It gave me a sense of dislocation.
Not that any of that should matter.
 
As for Fr.
Longnecker (sounds like a guy you’d want to have a beer with, just going by the
name)… in his position, as a person who admittedly doesn’t think much about
politics, I could see having his attitude.
 
I like Obama.
But to like anybody, there’s always something you have to overlook. With Obama,
the biggest thing I have to overlook is his position on abortion (plus the
mental gymnastics he goes through to justify his position constitutionally). If
I did the opposite, if I looked at Obama primarily through his position on
abortion, I would be horrified by him. And being horrified, I could see myself
using some pretty strong language to describe him (although I’d probably be more
likely to invoke Henry II than Herod). Obama does have a cold-blooded view of
the issue that is disturbing
, considered in a vacuum.
 
Obviously,
Fr. Longnecker’s view of Obama is untempered by any consideration of him beyond
abortion.

Ironically, that exchange occurred while I was working on my Sunday column, which is all about POSITIVE thoughts I’m having about the president-elect…

Mayor Bob’s update on bus funding

Just now getting to my weekend e-mails, and I see this one from Bob Coble:

I wanted to give you an update from the City County RTA Committee that met at City Hall last Thursday. City Council members include me, EW Cromartie, and Kirkman Finlay. Belinda Gergel also joined us. County Council members include Damon Jeter, Val Hutchinson, and Joyce Dickerson. Chairman Joe McEachern also attended. The Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and other groups also were in attendance. The first meeting had four presentations from staff on a variety of background issues. Joe Cronin of the County gave an excellent overview of how our RTA compares to peer cities. I believe that all the Committee members strongly agree on two fundamental points. First that transit is an essential public service that is critical for those who depend on bus service to get to their job and the doctor; an essential environmental tool to prevent non-attainment status and become a green community; and is vital to continuing economic development. Secondly, that the County and the City have the capacity to provide funding currently and it would be unacceptable not to do so.

Frannie Heizer, as the attorney for the RTA, presented the current legal options for funding. She made the following points: First, a sales tax referendum could not be held until November 2010 (Richland County Council could call the referendum now for 2010). Secondly, Frannie believes that the use of hospitality tax for transit would require a change of state law in the 2009 Legislative Session. The County has asked for an Attorney General’s Opinion to see if hospitality tax could be used now without a change in state law. Thirdly, neither City nor County property tax can be used without a referendum and then property tax would be limited by the cap on milage. Fourth, the mass transit fee by the County and the vehicle registration fee by the City and County are available now (both fees are different legally but to the taxpayer are paid in the same way and the same amount). 

When we establish a funding plan, other issues that were discussed included the need for other governments and partners to participate in funding the RTA; doing a comprehensive operations analysis; and changing the RTA organizational structure to have advisory members for those governments that are not providing money to the system.

The next meeting will be Friday November 14th at 9:30 am at the RTA headquarters on Lucius Road. We are inviting three members from the Lexington County Council to participate.

Thanks. I will keep you updated.

Kind reader offers me a way to spend some of that ‘free-time’ that I’m just eaten up with

Now that most people have gone home for the day, I can find a few secs to skim through some of my e-mail from the last day or so, and I run across this:

To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Why is it that the press does not press on for info on the items below?

Missing Obama information…

1. Occidental College records — Not released
2. Columbia College records — Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper — ‘not available’
4. Harvard College records — Not released 
5. Selective Service Registration — Not released
6. Medical records — Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule — ‘not available’
8. Law practice client list — Not released
9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None
13. Your Record of baptism– Not released or ‘not available’
14. Your Illinois State Senate records–‘not available’

Oh hey listen! I know you are busy! Is this too much for you now? I mean tell you what. I will come back tomorrow. Give you some time to get these things together, you know? I mean, I know you are busy, so I will just let myself out. I will be back tomorrow.

To which I can only respond: Yeah, get back to me in about five minutes. I know I’ve got that stuff sitting around here somewhere….

Holding my breath

Sometimes as I’m making my way through the scores, often hundreds, of e-mails I get in a day, I sometimes wonder who the people sending me some of these press releases think is going to be interested?

An example:

Economists Grade Presidential Candidates
A to F on 10 Issues Vital to Women

 
Audio Press Conference This Thursday, Oct. 23

A network of more than 40 economists from across America have graded McCain and Obama on 10 issues vital to women, from taxes to retirement security and pay equity. 

Noting the importance of economic issues in a time of financial crisis, the report finds the candidates’ stands on several issues give valuable insights into how they would handle the crisis.  The report card also gives an overall composite grade.

AUDIO PRESS CONFERENCE

Economists’ Policy Group for Women’s Issues

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23

1 PM EASTERN TIME

SPEAKERS
Professor Nancy Folbre, Chair.  University of Massachusetts Amherst; staff economist, Centre for Popular Economics; author Family Time: The Social Organization of Care and Who Pays for the Kids?; MacArthur fellowship for pioneering work in economics.
Professor Randy Albelda.  University of Massachusetts Boston; Vice-President, International Association for Feminist Economics; coauthor Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits:  Women’s Work, Women’s Poverty and Unlevel Playing Fields:  Understanding Wage Inequality and Wage Discrimination. 
Professor Robert Drago.  Pennsylvania State University and University of Melbourne;  co-founder and chair of Take Care Net; past president, College and University Work-Family Association; moderator, Workfam newsgroup; past Senior Fulbright Research Scholar; author of four books, including Striking a Balance, and over 70 articles.
Dr. Lois B. Shaw.  Senior consulting economist, Institute for Women’s Policy Research; previous research positions, U.S. General Accounting Office and Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research; co-editor Warm Hands in Cold Age: Gender and Aging.
     # # #

I mean, I saw the headline and actually scrolled down to satisfy my extremely low level of curiosity as to what a group of feminist economists or whatever choose to say in connection with such a publicity stunt. And if I weren’t a blogger always on the lookout for the offbeat, I wouldn’t even have done that.

Then I saw that they were merely trying to whet my appetite for something coming up on Thursday.

Come ON, people! Who is going to put this on a calendar and tune in two days from now??? Who is sitting there thinking, Golly, I wonder which candidate will get the higher grades?

Be sure to register… Deadline? What deadline? DOH!!!

We all know what a huge effort Obama has put in to registering new voters — in S.C. before the primaries, and everywhere since. It’s one of the main keys to his success in securing the nomination, and will probably win him the general election. Normally, one could discount his being ahead in the polls on account of the fact that self-identified Democrats often don’t show up on Election Day. This time, they will. And they’ll be registered.

So it’s kind of pathetic to see the two e-mails I received over the last day or so from GOP sources:

  1. The first one I saw  (even though it came in second), from Mike Huckabee, just made me think "He’ll use any excuse to strike up a conversation; guess he still has a lot of campaign debt." It was headlined, "A friendly reminder; register to vote," and had a link to this site. It provided a link to this Web site. It came in today.

  2. But the true desperation was in this one that came in from McCain yesterday : "Emergency Voter Registration & Get-Out-The-Vote Effort," it was headlined.

Fellas, fellas… how can I break this to you? The deadline to register to vote in the November election was Saturday in South Carolina. And you know what? From my moving around the country over the years, I seem to recall that 30 days out is not a particularly unusual deadline, in spite of all those efforts out there to make it easier to vote on short notice (you know, the moves that you Republicans usually oppose).

This is lame, guys. Just lame.

Huck WOULD like Sarah, wouldn’t he?

Just got this in a release from Mike Huckabee (Yes, he’s still sending out e-mails, raising money for his "Huck PAC."):

I hope that you had a chance to watch the Vice-Presidential Debate tonight and that it reaffirmed all of our beliefs that Sarah Palin is the knock-out punch the McCain-Palin ticket needs to win in November.  Governor Palin is a bright, articulate, talented woman.  She has what I consider to be the most important experience – she is  a Governor and the only one in this race that has actually ever signed the front of a paycheck….

Huckabee would like Sarah Palin, wouldn’t he? Aside from the governor thing, she’s the one person still out there with his populist, common touch.

Of course, Huckabee was a much, much better speaker — probably the most articulate candidate we saw in the past year, with the possible exception of Obama. Obama doesn’t talk to Joe Sixpack quite the same way that came naturally to Huckabee, although he has his own distinctive sort of populist appeal. It was no accident that both of them won Iowa, riding much the same wave.

The United States of France

A thoughtful reader shared this with me, from TIME magazine:

How We Became the United States of France

By Bill Saporito Sunday, Sep. 21, 2008
This is the state of our great republic: We’ve nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We’re about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they’re a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future in which too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national health care? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.

Note the piece that the phrase "We’ve nationalized the financial system" links to. That one photo of Henry Paulson is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. I used it for the Daddy Warbucks thing, and I also put it on tomorrow’s op-ed page with a column by Robert Samuelson headlined "Paulson’s panic."

Hey, that’s the United States of Freedom to you, mon ami.

How Kristof arrived at the $17,000-an-hour figure

Just to show you I don’t just shovel this stuff into the paper…

You know the Nicholas Kristof column I bragged on, which calculated that Richard Fuld was making $17,000 an hour to run Lehman Brothers into the ground? Something started bugging me about the math when I was reading my proof, so I went to Mr. Kristof’s blog and posted the following:

URGENT QUESTION:

I’m the editorial page editor of The State, the newspaper in Columbia, SC. I’m using your column on tomorrow’s op-ed page.

But I have a problem: How did you arrive at $17,000 an hour from compensation of $45 million? That would work if it were $35 million (assuming a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, and how else would you do it?), but at 45, you’d have to assume he was working 51 hours a week, which is an odd assumption to choose.

I need a quick answer. I’ve got to let this page go….

— Brad Warthen, Columbia, SC

That was at 4:34 p.m. At 5:12, I got this reply:

brad, thanks for your note, which was forwarded to me.
    I used 50 hours a week and then rounded. Failing to round seemed to me to suggest a false precision when the whole effort is so rough….
    allbest, nick

So he was being generous and assuming Mr. Fuld was working better-than-banker’s hours (which is a pretty safe assumption, whatever else you say about the overpaid so-and-so). Ol’ Dick’s got no room to complain, then…

Makes sense to me. I pass this on in case you read the piece and wondered the same thing. 

Maybe because he really, REALLY is?

Working on catching up on e-mail — just getting started, really; I probably won’t get it done today — I ran across this one:

Dear Mr. Warthen,
    I thought you might be interested in a piece I’ve written for Governing Magazine’s blog, pondering why Gov. Sanford is so frequently described as a libertarian: http://ballotbox.governing.com/2008/08/south-carolinas.html .
All the best,
Josh Goodman

Before following the link and reading the post, I hazarded a guess as to the answer: "Because he IS?"

I suppose Josh has a point in noting that more and more people are calling him that these days. I remember when I was the only one I knew of. That’s because I got an early start. One day in his first months as governor, I was visiting him in his office, and after we had touched on various topics that seemed to have a recurring theme, I blurted out, with the tone of one who just realized he’d been a chump, "You ran as a ‘conservative Republican, and you still call yourself that. But you’re not. You’re a libertarian." As I recall, he nodded soberly — I guess "soberly" is how you describe the expression in my mind’s eye. In any case, he didn’t argue about it.

As for people using it as a "pejorative" — perhaps they do. I know I wasn’t thinking happy thoughts when I realized the sort of governor we had. You see, a libertarian is not a good thing to has as governor of one of the most undergoverned states in the union. Maybe it would be a good thing to be in Massachusetts. But in a state that lacks so much in the way of basics that citizens of other states take for granted, the anti-government stance is at best superfluous, and at worst positively malevolent.

Of course, some purists may do what Josh does and quibble that not all of his views are purely libertarian. But you can say that about Ron Paul, too; that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s America’s best-known libertarian.

Noble offers to bet Dawson Obama will win S.C.

Remember a few weeks ago, when Phil Noble predicted on our pages that Barack Obama would win in South Carolina in November?

There’s been some Republican scoffing since then. So today, I received a copy of this message:

                    July 24, 2008

Mr. Katon Dawson
SC Republican Party
P.O. Box 12373
Columbia, SC 29211

Dear Katon,
    Recently, I wrote an op-ed that appeared in a number of newspapers in South Carolina entitled "Why Obama Will Win South Carolina."
    It seems to have caused quite a stir among some of your Republican friends who confidently dismissed an Obama victory as an impossibility. You have been quoted in newspapers as saying "We’ve got South Carolina taken care of." and the idea of Obama winning was ‘a pipe dream’.
    A ‘pipe dream’?
    To quote Robert Kennedy, "Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ — I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’"
    Along with millions of people around the country, we in South Carolina are working to make our dream come true…and it will happen.
    I’m so confident of victory that I would propose a friendly wager — as representatives of our respective candidates — the loser buys the winner a dinner of the finest South Carolina barbeque, with all the trimmings, at any restaurant of the winner’s choice in the state — except Maurice’s.
    I look forward to hearing from you…and having a great dinner on you.

Sincerely,

Phil Noble
President
SC New Democrats

Hey, I could relate better to the $16

Just got this e-mail from Amanda Belcher with musicFIRST:

Although $16 would be bad enough, it’s actually $16 billion a year that
the radio industry makes on advertising revenue while paying performers zero.
Apologies for the typo in my previous email.

Actually, I could relate better to losing the $16. That’s an amount I might actually have in my wallet sometimes, so I can imagine having it taken from me. Billions are an abstraction, as Uncle Joe might have said

Aw, let ’em have the 16 lousy bucks

Still making my way through e-mail, and I run across one from the musicFIRST Coalition, which is apparently "a partnership of artists and organizations in the music community who support compensating performers for their work when it’s played over the year. Anyway, the thing that grabbed my attention in the release was this:

S. 2500 was introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). It would close a loophole in the law that allows AM and FM music radio stations to earn $16 a year in advertising revenue without compensating the artists and musicians who bring music to life and listeners ears to the radio dial.

So what — Jon Bon Jovi can’t let the poor radio stations make a lousy 16 bucks a year off his stuff?

Yeah, I know it’s got to be a typo. But hey, maybe they should stick to music if they can’t communicate any better than this.

Michael on the Confederate flag

Michael Rodgers, longtime correspondent here and founder of the Take Down The Flag blog, wrote this to me today, and I share it with you:

Dear Brad,
I am writing for two reasons: to point out some common things people often say that are wrong and to describe the stunning lack of leadership from our state government on this issue.

First, the things that are wrong:

1) Our issue in SC is just like the issue in Mississippi or Georgia.  Wrong, because our issue in South Carolina is about the third flag we fly, not about our state flag.
2) The 2/3 vote requirement for this issue is insurmountable.  Wrong for two reasons:

  a. The 2/3 requirement is a legislative hurdle can be taken out of the way with a simple majority (1/2).  Then a simple majority would be able to change rest of the law.
  b. Our state government votes 2/3 all the time when they override Gov. Sanford’s veto, so in fact 2/3 routinely occurs.

3) No one in our state legislature is interested in resolving this issue.  Wrong, because H-3588, a bill to resolve this issue, has seven sponsors. (And as a personal opinion, I think H-3588 completes the compromise).
4) This issue is between flag supporters, who are happy, and flag opponents, who are unhappy.  Wrong for four reasons:

  a. The issue is the FLYING of a third flag from Statehouse grounds, so the camps are flag flying supporters and flag flying opponents.
  b. Flag supporters are unhappy – why else would they get so worked up all the time about this issue?
  c. This issue is between the leaders of our state government, who are happy, and South Carolinians, who are unhappy.
  d. The issue is actually the story (the why!) we tell when we fly or when we don’t fly the flag.  (And as a personal opinion, H-3588 provides a completely consistent clarification of the story of the compromise of 2000).

5) This issue is not worth our time to resolve.  Wrong because this issue is

  a. a defining issue for our state,
  b. tearing our state apart, and
  c. diminishing our state’s stature.

Second, the stunning lack of leadership.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/

Gov. Mark Sanford said, "Everybody has a different perspective. It is a deeply dividing and complex issue that we’re not going to try and open and re-examine. Somebody is going to have to place a tremendous amount of political capital to pry open a compromise. This administration is not going to be doing that."

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to react viscerally.  And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping:  It’s a deeply dividing issue that affects everybody.

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to have enormous confusion as to the reason for this action.  And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping: Everybody has a different perspective.

Our state government is causing deep division that confuses everybody, and what does Gov. Sanford propose to do about it?  Nothing.

Gov. Sanford says that this simple issue is too complex for him to re-examine.  He says what he always says, which is if we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to throw out everything we’ve been given and start fresh — new constitution, new government structure, new approach to property taxes, new approach to education, etc.  No wonder he doesn’t have the political capital to spare for this issue!

I say that we can solve this issue by respecting the compromise and by clarifying the confusion.  Our state government made a compromise in 2000, where they decided a lot of things under a lot of pressure.  By and large, they did a fantastic job, under the circumstances.

One part of this compromise, the flying of the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds, is deeply dividing everybody because everybody has a different perspective on this action. We can focus on solving this last remaining issue because the complex parts of this issue have already been solved.

We can solve this last remaining issue, the simple one, with H-3588.  This bill says that confusions about racism and sovereignty can be resolved by flying our state flag in place of the Confederate flag.  This bill says that confusions about respect for heritage can be resolved by commemorating Confederate Memorial Day every year by flying the Confederate flag at the flagpole where it is now.

H-3588 respects the compromise of 2000 by honoring the Confederate Soldier Monument, Confederate Memorial Day, and the Confederate flag.  H-3588 clarifies the message about why our state honors the Confederate flag: because we respect the service and sacrifice of the Confederate soldiers and not for any other reason.

Because H-3588 respects the compromise and clarifies the confusion, H-3588 completes the compromise.  A leader can easily solve this problem.  Who’s going to step up to the plate?  The governor’s mansion awaits.

Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC

Samuel notes progress on 55 mph

Samuel Tenenbaum, author of the Energy Party’s 55-mph plank and ardent advocate of that idea (just ask anyone who’s had a conversation with him in the last year or two), writes a hasty note to inform us of progress on that front:

Senator John Warner has asked the Energy Dept to give him info on 55. Time to write… about it again.I was interviewed on Spart. TV about 55 yesterday ! Have you read "Energy Victory " yet . This is the foremost issue of the time ! We need energy security first, not indepence for that is a long way off . Energy security means getting out of the grip of the thugocracies. 55 mph , flexfuel (M85) mandated that all cars and trucks sold here in 2010 and tax credit to excellerate the trade in of old clunkers . Like if you buy flexfuel car that gets 35 mpg then you get half the price back and have a system that decreases until you hit 26mph which then you add a  $ 1,000 per mpg below . So if I want a Rolls or Hummer , I can pay for its abuse of the planet . You still have the freedom , but it costs you !

Yes, he’s still on me about the book he gave me. It’s on my desk! It’s on my short list of stuff to read! But right now I’m reading The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, which my older son gave me for Father’s Day. At least it’s a related subject…

I’m up to the part where Osama and those who agree with him have just been thoroughly humiliated by the U.S. coming into the Arabian peninsula and kicking Saddam’s butt out of Kuwait and back to Baghdad, thereby illustrating their country’s helplessness and utter dependence on the West.

Of course, it’s a symbiotic relationship — or perhaps I should say, mutually parasitic relationship. We’re just as dependent on their oil, which is the condition that Samuel and the rest of us in the Energy Party would like to change.

Last of the Cosmic Ha-Has

Just got a note from Bill Robinson about the post featuring his farewell message:

Your post about me was truly "Cosmic." …. Ha-Ha!

Get it?

Indeed I do. At the going-away gathering for Bill and the other 10 on Thursday, it suddenly occurred to me that he was (by my reckoning, and I stand ready to be corrected) the last of the Cosmic Ha-Has in the newsroom.*

Bill thought for a moment, and realized I was probably right. He was impressed: "That’s sort of like being the last of the ’27 Yankees."

Sort of — if you really stretch the point.

The Ha-Has were a slow-pitch softball team that consisted mostly of guys who worked in The State‘s newsroom in the 1980s. It was a team that, had you seen it play, would have convinced you that here was a team totally focused on the pitcher of beer after the game.

Not that we didn’t have some serious players. I remember this one kid who worked in sports (guys who work in sports, being frustrated spectators, can be some of your most intense players of slow-pitch softball) who hit hard and was a super-fast base runner, something he was not modest about: "I’ll teach ’em to throw behind me," he fumed after the opposing team had tried, late, to throw him out on second, and he zoomed around for an inside-the-park homer.

But most players — while having a love of the game, and preferring winning to losing, so long as it did not involve violating the laws of physics — had a certain ironic detachment about the team and its chances. Hence the name.

I joined in the late 80s, which — if the original Ha-Has were the ’27 Yankees, and I ask you to indulge me for the sake of making a point — would have been more like the late Mickey Mantle era. My best hitting days (when I played for the Knights of Columbus team in Jackson, Tenn., in the 70s, it was a bad night that I didn’t go at least 2 for 4) were behind me. Even in slow-pitch, which is a small step up from T-Ball, I no longer had confidence in my ability to hit line drives wherever I wanted. I was an undistinguished member of the pitching line-up, who was happier playing catcher. The qualifications for pitcher in slow-pitch are to be willing to a) have guys hit the ball back at you really hard from alarmingly close range, and b) suffer the humiliation of streaks in which you cannot get the ball to fall through the strike zone from the approved trajectory, thereby walking several batters in a row.

(I will add that there is nothing more infuriating than pitching in slow pitch and being up against a strategic-thinking team that would just as soon walk in runs as get hits. The entire point of slow pitch is that anybody can hit. You’re supposed to put the ball in play. If you want to walk, you can, because the truth is that it’s a lot harder to loft a ball up in the air and have it drop through a strike zone than it is to throw it overhand. In fact, it’s easier to throw strikes underhand in fast pitch than it is to throw slow-pitch strikes. Having guys stand there and take balls was enough to make me want to bean the batter, but in slow-pitch, who’d notice?)

The greatest humiliation that the Ha-Has suffered during my tenure had nothing to do with my pitching ability, though. One year, we were in a commercial-industrial sort of league. You have not seen lopsided until you’ve seen a bunch of scribes, some of whom were possibly passable athletes in high school (and that’s the best you can say), up against a bunch of hairy mesomorphs who spend their days tossing anvils to each other or something. If you play, say, church-league, you might see one guy in a season hit the ball over the fence, and that guy will be legendary — at least, in the church leagues I’ve played in. Different story in commercial-industrial.

You may think I’m making this up, but it’s true. In one game that year, every single member of the opposing team hit at least one home run, and some more than one, before the game was over. I think the "mercy rule" — if you’re more than a certain number of runs ahead after a certain number of innings, the game is called — was eventually invoked. Either that, or the "mercy rule" was invented because of this game; I forget. Something had to stop it, because we couldn’t, and if things had kept going at that rate, one of those huge specimens would have keeled over from the sheer exhaustion caused by running around the bases.

Some Ha-Has who played with Bill back in the Golden Age:

  • Charlie Pope — Who now works in the Washington bureau of a paper from the Pacific Northwest. Charlie was The State‘s environment reporter back when I was his editor. In those days, Charlie’s favorite movie was "A Flash of Green," in which Ed Harris plays a reporter who writes about environmental issues, and at a climactic moment in the movie stuffs his editor into the trunk of a car. I don’t have a current picture of Charlie, even though he dropped by recently because his son was thinking of going to USC. But to me, Charlie always looked vaguely like Tommy Smothers. You know, the funny Smothers Brother, not the straight man. I don’t think I ever told him that, come to think of it…
  • Dave Moniz — A player with his own personal language. Once, as I ran out to start warming up in the outfield before a game, Dave greeted me with a chipper, "Key lid!" It took me a couple ofMoniz_2 minutes to realize he meant that he liked my hat. Dave is now a civilian PR guy for the United States Air Force, with a civilian rate that is the equivalent of a brigadier general. The picture here shows him from a recent visit to our editorial board, at which he was joined by two guys wearing Air Force "yoonies" which was the way Dave used to say "uniforms." (Teams that had nice uniforms had "key yoonies," and so forth.) Dave was our military reporter before leaving to do the same for USA Today.
  • Jeff Miller — Also went to Washington to work in another paper’s bureau, but now does something else, also out of Washington. Miller Which reminds me — I owe him a call back. Anyway, Jeff’s first job for me was covering the 1988 Republican presidential primary, for which we brought him up from the Newberry County bureau (the journalistic equivalent of AAA ball at the time). He was still covering politics last time I saw him. One of his colleagues took the picture at right, of Jeff and me on a New York street on the last night of the 2004 GOP convention. This picture reminds me, for some reason, of the opening credits of "Saturday Night Live."

And now Bill moves on. But the legend continues.

* Note that I said "in the newsroom." For those of you who are still confused about the difference between news and editorial, I haven’t worked in the newsroom since 1993, so I don’t count.

Sales tax polar opposites (heads-up, Paulistas: This post mentions Ron Paul!)

One of our regulars sent this from out of town (I’m not identifying him for now on account of his being out of town):

Brad,
    We’re up in New Hampshire visiting my mother.  Thought you’d be interested to  hear what I have observed — in four days of driving around the small towns of NH, I’ve yet to see a yard sign for McCain.  But I’ve seen at least ten for Ron Paul.  No Obama’s either. 
    And I don’t know if you’ve ever been up here but it’s a somewhat unsettling experience to go into Wal-Mart and buy $99.75 worth of stuff and pay ZERO sales tax.   And on top of that, NH has no income tax either.   How do they manage to survive without taxing everything?  (yes, higher property taxes but with much less government also).  If it weren’t for the snow, I think my wife and I would consider retiring here.   I hate snow almost as much as I hate taxes.

This message reminds me of something I meant to pass on from my recent trip to Memphis, which is the polar opposite of New Hampshire when it comes to sales taxes.

The first day we were there, I was driving to the new home of one of my wife’s kinfolks — way out past Collierville, I believe, to the very limits of suburban development, which if you know Memphis means way out East — and traversing all that sprawl caused me to work up a powerful thirst. So we stopped at a new Kroger (right across from a new Starbucks, of course), and I got a bottled water, and a diet Pepsi for my youngest daughter.

It got my attention when the total was exactly $3.00, so after I fed the three ones into the self-checkout apparatus, I looked at my receipt: Yep, 22 cents of it was sales tax. (See the receipt below.)

The reason Tennessee has such outrageous sales tax rates is that the state has no income tax, and none on the horizon (when ex-Gov. Don Sundquist tried to get one enacted, he had his head handed to him). We do have an income tax, but we are hard on Tennessee’s heels when it comes to sales tax. If Richland County manages to pass the penny for local transportation needs, we won’t be far behind.

The reason, in our case, is the severe restrictions placed by the state on local governments’ ability to raise revenue through other means, combined with South Carolina’s utter failure to come to grips with road construction needs at the state level. In the Volunteer State, local governments have wheel taxes and the like to fund roads and other transport needs and wants. (Also, local governments build and maintain far more of Tennessee’s roads; the state of South Carolina reserves to itself the right to mismanage most of our roads.) Or at least they did back when I lived there. If someone has more up-to-date info, it will be welcome.

Memphis_sales_tax

 

‘Top of the world, Ma!’

Circledoug

T
hat was the headline on this e-mail sent by blog regular Doug Ross. Here’s the text:

FYI, my picture is on the front page of the Sunday paper today… that’s
my son’s baseball team playing at Brookland-Cayce and that’s me sitting by myself down at the bottom of the stands behind home plate.   Some might say it’s my best side.  🙂

-dr

And that’s I believe, is the picture above. I doctored it Officer Obie-style, with a circle indicating Doug (I think). Doug, let me know if I’m circling the wrong guy.

Congratulations! Not even Grandmaster Bud has made the front page, so that’s saying something. Don’t ask me exactly what it says, but it must say something.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t recognize Doug’s movie allusion — it’s James Cagney in "White Heat." Here’s a clip.

Nothing like fan mail, is there?

After spending an inordinate amount of time trying to provide a little extra perspective on the Richland County Council runoff (stuff you couldn’t possibly get elsewhere, for whatever it’s worth), I decided I’d better check and see if there was anything urgent in my e-mail the last couple of days before dragging myself home late as usual. At that point I ran across this:

We can solve the financial problems of the city,
the transit problem, the big dig on Main St., etc.  Just hire relatives of Rep.
Clyburn.  Where is the indignation from the paper on the editorial pages? 
Between naming things for his legacy and money for "relatives of Jim" – seems
rather hypocritical.  Oh wait – he’s a democrat and black – must be
untouchable!  Larry

What do you say to someone that clueless? Basically, I say nothing. I just thought I’d share it with y’all as part of my usual campaign to let y’all know what goes on behind the scenes around here — and "fan mail" such as this is part of the gig.

Of course, if I did answer, it would be along the lines of:

  1. You’re kidding, right? You’re writing this ONE DAY after the news report (less than a day after I read it, since this was sent at 7:39 a.m.), and already all worked up about not seeing an editorial yet?
  2. What newspaper did you read it in? The paper reports it, and YOU think this is evidence that the paper is looking out for Jim Clyburn? It was, in fact, the lead story in Monday’s paper. Bet ol’ Jim appreciated that, huh?
  3. You want to see criticism of black Democrats (and obviously, this is what matters to you)? I don’t suppose the thing I just frickin’ finished typing (with video) counts, huh?

But just so you know, that missive from ol’ Larry wasn’t one of our more hostile or least-well-reasoned bits of fan mail. Here’s one of the bad ones. NOTE: Don’t read this if you’re easily offended — or even moderately sensitive, for that matter:

Sir:
Generic news reader/bureau chief/flesh-colored dildo Tim Russert is dead at 58.
Of all you awful people, he was possibly the most oleaginous — as unctuous to the
likes of Bush, Cheney and Madeline Albright as any human dildo could possibly be
. . . a real Uriah Heep, brought to life and plopped down like a steaming pile of
shit onto our television screens each Sunday to "interview" the powerful.
Good riddance, fathead.
You mediocrities at The State can lower your ass-licking tongues to half-mast.

Ray Bickley

That was sent to me, by the way, at 6:44 p.m. on Friday, the very day Tim Russert died.

You can see why I just love e-mail.

Classy response to defeat

Candidates who lose elections seldom do this sort of thing, so when they do I am favorably impressed. After a fairly bitter campaign that featured mutual character attacks, it struck me that D.J. Carson was moved to send this out:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY

June 15, 2008
    D.J. Carson congratulates Joe McEachern and challenges South Carolina to continue to make public education a priority.…
    Richland Co. – I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Joe McEachern and offer my support to him and all Democrats running for office in November. Though the media has reported our differences on the issues the past three months, we now must come together as a party, a community, and continue to find solutions to the many challenges facing District 77 and South Carolina overall.
    When I started this journey nearly three months ago, I did so on the foundation that our public schools are the single most important factor to making South Carolina a more successful and more productive state. I truly believe there is a direct link between public education, low crime, and economic development. I am pleased to see that through this campaign private school vouchers, tuition tax credits, and home-school tax credits and their negative impact on public education came to the forefront.  These types of misguided solutions would take valuable resources away from our public schools and put our children at a disadvantage. I along with all residents in District 77 challenge Mr. McEachern and the South Carolina General Assembly to champion public schools and public education over the next two years.
    Finally, I offer my sincere appreciation to the educators, parents, volunteers, campaign staff, and most importantly the voters who believe in my message and vision. Though we came short in our ultimate goal, we were able to push the message of supporting public education to the center of the debate. Working together we will bring needed change to District 77 and South Carolina as a whole.

Thank you all and God Bless!

D.J. Carson

Yeah, I know — you can call it just crass "party loyalty" or some such (he doesn’t wish any Republicans or independents well, you’ll notice), or a CYA move to keep his political options open in the future, or both. And yeah, it’s kind of preachy for a congratulatory message.

But when a guy does something more generous than I expected, I tend to want to make note of it. If we don’t encourage good sportsmanship, we can expect it to die out completely.

Nowadays, there are so few classy gestures that I care less about why they are extended; I’m just glad to see them.

Now THAT ought to be a short program

Forget Lieberman-Warner. This is my e-mail of the day. I got a release from S.C. ETV saying that on "This Week in the House with Speaker Bobby Harrell,"

… Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell will host  Rep. Jim Merrill, House Majority Leader, and Rep. Harry Ott, House Minority Leader, as they discuss this Session’s accomplishments…

I’m sort of guessing they’re going to drag out the introductions, greetings and sign-off, because they certainly won’t have any other content.