Category Archives: Feedback

A dialogue about Hillary

23 Replies

Hello Mr. Warthen:

    Thank you for your reply. I posted to this effect in response to the blog entry in question, the one along the lines of "Watch Out, Hillary’s in Victim Mode." With all due respect, I feel it was totally unprofessional, snarky and uncalled for. Several others flamed you for it in the comments section, and you replied apologetically, to your credit, to one of them – "redd," I think it was.
    As I said in a second comment, in response to your apology of sorts, I know Mrs. Clinton. I had the pleasure of working on her campaign staff in 1992 on the Clinton-Gore ’92 campaign. She was kind, gracious, courteous and considerate to us several young ‘uns from around the country who had dropped everything to come help her and him. I have seen a side of her you most likely have not. She is not a two-dimensional cartoon villainess. She is a very bright, forceful, intense advocate for the causes in which she believes, and yes, she can be tough as nails. When was the last time that was a fault in a political leader.
    I could go on – but the notion that she is somehow evil and that Obama is pure as the driven snow is a bit much to take. Did you see where he turned his back on her last night, even as she had the good grace to extend a hand in friendship and good grace to Sen. Kennedy, who had just endorsed him? Do you forgive his campaign for fanning the flames of a race war so as to win South Carolina, based on Bill Clinton calling his claims of purity on the Iraq War a "fairy tale"?
    All I am saying is they’re both playing tough, at times dirty political hardball. Neither campaign is peopled with saints. They will, however, either of them, almost certainly do a better job than has Mr. Bush, given the opportunity. Be fair. That’s all. Personal invective of the sort you directed toward her should be beneath someone of your station.
    My two cents.

                            Christopher A. Stratton, Esq.
                            West Hartford, CT

From: Warthen, Brad – External Email
To: Christopher Stratton
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 1:00 PM
Subject: RE: Who’s the real victim?

    Thanks for going to the trouble to further share your thoughts (mind if I post them?).
    I think if you go back before this past week, you won’t find a whole lot of criticism of Sen. Clinton from me. The closest you’ll find will be my column openly worrying about the fact that a Clinton nomination would worsen polarization in the country. And if you can spot anything "snarky" in that — anything other than what I just said, an expression of concern (my distaste for our nation’s increasing partisan divisions is long-established).
    Over the past week, however, I’ve formed an increasingly negative impression. You can probably track it day by day on my blog. It really got started AFTER our editorial board meeting with Obama. I’ve just been more and more alarmed at the idea of her winning the nomination, and more and more glad we chose Obama.
    Maybe the things I’m reacting to were always there; or maybe it’s stepped up in the past week (which seems to be the conventional wisdom). Or maybe before last week, I was just trying so hard not to choose between them before our meetings that I let a lot of stuff slide. I don’t know. I do know that I’ve taken a different tone the past week, and that it reflects what I’ve been thinking…

Hello Again, Mr. Warthen:
    I very much appreciate your kindly following up on my thoughts and comments, and I respect that your general bent appears to be more deliberative and thoughtful than the taunt against Sen. Clinton which was my introduction to you. And yes, of course, please feel free to post my remarks from the prior e-mail below.
    I think the difficulty here is the translation between the more private, extraordinarily decent Hillary I have seen up close on several occasions and the sometimes over-intense Hillary that comes across in public. I think she may not see herself as the world sees her (as is true for so many of us, but for so few of us does it matter so much as it does for her). She has certain natural tendencies which don’t come off super well before a broad audience. She is a very, very intense figure. She is brilliantly intelligent and passionately committed to her causes. And she has the courage and the confidence of her convictions. And because of the courage and confidence, she ordinarily trusts her natural reactions, which at times are, to put it bluntly, to kick fanny and take names – to vanquish her opponent via sheer intelligence and intensity, in the first instance, and by other means at times as well. This is a role that suited her well as the wife of a major political figure, a sort of enforcer for her husband and an intellectual heavyweight who could also simply outsmart and out-argue dadgum near any foe.
    Now, though, those tendencies can come off as over-intense and scary when she is gunning to be the top dog in our country – and in the world for that matter. I think she may be starting to see that, but she is having to feel her way through this minefield in front of the entire world and is not extraordinarily sure-footed about it, and this has somewhat shaken her confidence – she doesn’t know when to trust her instincts and when not to. Add to that that she is up against an opponent who, sheerly as a stump salesman and presence, has the agility and grace of a lead dancer in the New York City Ballet. (The problem I have with Mr. Obama, whom I admire greatly and sincerely, is not with his talent, it’s with his seasoning, his reliability, his depth of experience and understanding. For me, Hillary is money in the bank on policy, a deeply smart, sensible, practical hand. Oddly enough, it is a bit of a conservative, cautious streak in me that is part of why I am supporting her. Personal loyalty is part of the equation for me, but by no means all.)
    Speaking of personal loyalty, Mr. W, please note that it is no coincidence that so many people who work or have worked for Sen. Clinton are fiercely loyal, and it’s not due to some brainwashing regimen, to that I can personally attest. She is extraordinarily gracious, courteous, respectful, considerate and loyal. She is a very fine friend to have and is widely loved, not merely liked, by those who spend more than a little time in contact with her. I have heard it said many times that people who have known them both have a pronounced tendency to favor her over her husband, and – remember – it was he who long ago said, back when they were finishing law school, that she, not he, should be the one who ran someday for president. I think he was deeply wise on many levels in that insight. (I think he was a very fine president on policy, by and large, but I think his personal flaws and weaknesses – and not just the philandering business – greatly undermined what could have been a far more successful presidency than it was.)
    So, catching my breath here for a moment, if she does win election to the presidency, Mr. W, I think Ms. Clinton will diligently and energetically do the rather extensive clean-up job that our federal government needs. She, better than nearly anyone, knows the extent of the damage and the fixes and repairs that need to be put into place across the broad expanse of our federal government. She will pursue these improvements and repairs with great energy, consideration and intelligence. With utmost respect, I do not believe Senator Obama can match her in these regards. She is, in my considered opinion, on balance, the better choice, but that is not to say that others cannot reasonably disagree. (I would, though, so love to see a ticket headed by her with him as the VP and still and yet hold out hope that this can happen – remember Sen. Kerry rather disliked Sen. Edwards and JFK and LBJ were not exactly chums.)
    Lastly, what I have difficulty abiding is numerous supporters of Sen. Obama’s viewing this as a clear cut, obvious choice between good and evil. It is not, and that is foolish. There are too many people whose tempers are running too hot. I hope we can heal this rift in our party, to which both sides have contributed far too much. It is highly counterproductive.
    That’s my bit for tonight.

                            Cheers,

                            Christopher A. Stratton, Esq.
                            West Hartford, CT

Audio: Caller mad at us for ‘supporting a black man’

15 Replies

Folks, here’s audio of the caller I mentioned in my column who was mad about the Obama endorsement purely because we’re "supporting a black man." Here’s a transcript:

"…I need to talk with someone to discuss the fact that y’all are supporting a black man for president of the United States. I am ASHAMED that we’ve got a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, one of the best cities in America, and yet we’ve got a black operation supporting black candidates, that doesn’t have any more sense of being president of the United States than I do. He may be educated with a college degree, but let me tell you one thing: He has no common sense whatsoever, or you don’t either. And if you feel like calling me, go to it, girl [the message was left on our publisher’s assistant’s line]. I am disappointed and upset that we’ve got a black newspaper right here in the city of Columbia."

If you have trouble loading the audio, let me know. I guess I could shrink the file, but we would lose sound quality — I think.

Anyway, welcome to my world. Fortunately, this caller reflects a minority view. But it’s a minority that we hear from too often.

What the Obama campaign learned about The State

3 Replies

After he saw the message from Don Fowler, Kevin Griffis of the Barack Obama campaign send me an e-mail, which I reproduce here in full:

    We did very thorough research of The State‘s editorial board’s positions over the last few years, and in addition to endorsing Democrats Jim Clyburn, John Spratt, Robert Barber and Jim Rex in the last cycle, this is what we found that the board has advocated for, among other positions:

  • Improved government transparency
  • Energy independence
  • Alleviating inequalities in educational opportunities
  • Strenthening consumer safety measures
  • Reforming No Child Left Behind
  • Adequately funding public colleges

I assume their campaign supports the aforementioned candidates and policy positions despite the fact the paper has endorsed Republicans. It makes you wonder where they draw the line for the legitimacy of your advocacy.

I didn’t realize we were being studied up on to that extent, but I see now that we were. Ordinarily, you’d expect that Don would have just known all this stuff about us, seeing as how he’s a Columbian. But he is blinded by his partisan view of the world — for him, if you ever endorsed or agreed with a Republican, you apparently are beyond the pale.

Don Fowler likens us to Lucifer

11 Replies

Well, it took him a day and a half, but Columbian and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler managed to draft a response to our endorsement of Barack Obama (I received it at 10:46 a.m. today):

Don Fowler’s comments on editorial endorsements by The State
Having The State newspaper render judgments about Democrats is like Lucifer rendering judgments about angels. The crack set of philosopher kings at The State have twice endorsed George Bush and twice endorsed Mark Sanford.  No further comment required. 

Don Fowler

No, that’s not an excerpt. That’s the whole message, except for his phone number and e-mail address at the end.

Apparently, we didn’t endorse Don’s preferred candidate. For those of you who don’t know Don, you should. At least you should know that his wife, Carol, is the present state party chair. But in his day, Dr. Fowler has operated on a much grander stage.

Over the years, Don and I have disagreed strongly over one thing: He thinks the political parties are a wonderful, essential part of our political system (hence all the time he’s spent serving one of them). I see the Republican and Democratic parties as anathema, the ruination of the country, destructive forces that foster intellectual dishonesty and prevent the deliberative process from functioning as the nation’s Founders intended. Don is a Democrat, through and through. I am the founder and most ardent proponent of the UnParty.

Given that divide between us, it was pretty much inevitable — looking at it now in retrospect — that we would endorse Barack Obama, the one candidate seeking the Democratic nomination with the goal of leading the nation beyond the nauseating polarization that has characterized the Bush-Clinton years. And it was just as inevitable that Don would disagree most vehemently, and in the hyperpartisan terms that he chose.

Don doesn’t even see the truth, which is that this newspaper has endorsed slightly more Democrats than Republicans in the years I’ve been on this editorial board. We haven’t done that on purpose; party is not a consideration in our deliberations. I wasn’t aware of it until I took the time in 2004 to do a study of the past decade’s endorsements. It just worked out that way. (In fact, in 2006 we endorsed 12 Democrats and 5 Republicans — again, not intentionally. And while that skewed our running average toward Democrats, we sometimes go just as strongly for Republicans, depending on the candidates that year.)

But Don’s apparently not a guy who can understand, or forgive, anyone who has backed a Republican ever. And the partisan filter through which he perceives the world is what divides us.

Health care advocacy with, um, gusto

10 Replies

A regular commenter sent me a message saying "Now this is a universal healthcare lobbying group that has some real ‘cajones‘…"

Assuming that he meant "cojones" (a "cajón" is a chest or locker or box of some sort), I have to agree. This is from the group’s ad in USA Today Monday. Below a newspaper clipping with the headline, "Cheney Treated in Hospital for an Irregular Heartbeat," the ad said:

If he were anyone else,
he’d probably be dead
by now.

The patient’s history and
prognosis were grim: four
heart attacks, quadruple
bypass surgery, angioplasty,
an implanted defibrillator and
now an emergency procedure to
treat an irregular heartbeat.
For millions of Americans, this
might be a death sentence. For the
vice president, it was just another
medical treatment. And it cost him
very little.
Unlike the average American, the president, vice
president and members of Congress all enjoy
government-financed health care with few
restrictions or prohibitive fees. They are never
turned away for pre-existing conditions or denied
care for what an insurance company labels
“experimental treatments.”
The rest of us deserve no less.
We call on the presidential candidates to support
HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act—
an expanded and improved
Medicare for all that:
• provides complete medical,
dental, vision and long-term care
• eliminates deductibles, co-pays,
hidden fees
• allows you to choose your doctor, lab,
hospital, health care facility
• is completely portable and not tied to
employment
• is free from interference or second-guessing by
insurance companies.
Let’s talk about real solutions. Forcing people to
buy insurance doesn’t provide better or more universal
care. It just pads the pockets of the insurance
companies. Medicare for all puts health care
decision-making power back where it belongs—
in your hands.
Traditional Medicare for all—the single best
cure for what ails us.

This was brought to us courtesy of the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee. The Web address of their effort is http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/.

Pay no attention to that man on the blog

10 Replies

Folks, please disregard the error published on this CBS News blog yesterday, headlined "S.C. Paper Asks Thompson to Drop Out," which said:

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — The largest newspaper in South Carolina is asking Fred Thompson to drop out of the Republican nomination and endorse John McCain. 

    “It’s time for him to do the principled thing,” writes The State’s
editorial page director, Brad Warthen. “He should bow out, and support
McCain. And he should do it now; now is when he can make a difference.”

    The editorial from the Columbia, South Carolina, paper comes at a
time when Thompson is getting ready to focus all of his attention on
South Carolina, after finishing third in Iowa and admitting he is “not
competitive” in New Hampshire…

First, it wasn’t "an editorial." Editorials actually DO speak for the newspaper as an institution, and reflect the consensus of the editorial board, NOT of an individual. So the headline is wrong — this "S.C. Paper" said nothing at all on the subject.

Anyway, when I saw people were being directed to my site by CBS, and followed the link to that blog item (by a guy named "John Bentley") and found the error, I tried posting a comment there, as follows:

I’d like to request a correction.

This "S.C. Paper" has not said a word about Fred Thompson. It’s just a thought I happened to share on my blog. No one else on our editorial board had anything to do with it; in fact, I doubt that anyone else is even aware that I said it, since I posted that on a weekend and they all have other things to do.

It’s OK to say the editorial page editor [and not the editorial page "director;" what is THAT, some TV term?] said it, but The State did NOT say it.

As I said in a column (which is ALSO personal opinion, and does not speak for The State), "Such are the pitfalls of blogging. Some folks mistake my passing observations for final conclusions and (an even greater mistake) my opinions for those of the whole editorial board."

For more on that subject, here’s a link:
http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2008/01/its-now-or-neve.html

Anyway, please take note of this problem. I don’t wish to embarrass my colleagues by the world thinking they are somehow responsible for my personal eruptions.

So, to play on the allusion I used in my Friday column, pay no attention to that man behind the blog — especially not the erroneous one … but don’t attach to much importance to this one either. My thoughts are what they are — my thoughts. And I wouldn’t even want anyone to think they are MY final word on the subject, since one of the purposes of editorial board discussions is to make each other think a little more — as I also suggested in today’s column.

Our man at the Iowa caucuses

13 Replies

Caucusers1

Catching up on reading comments more closely, and I noticed this from first-time-poster Tim Cottle:

Posted yesterday for the first time. Attended the Iowa caucus (also for
the first time as I am a recent transplant to Iowa) and at my precinct
Obama had exactly 1/2 the vote of 184 voters. Edwards and Clinton split
the remainder almost evenly. Observations – There was not an African
American at my caucus location thus Obama is drawing from all races.
Clinton camp was predominantly the over 50 crowd and the party leaders
in the county heavily favored her. Obama had 90% of the voters under 20
and those that had never voted and were registering at the door. Obama
had the most organized ground organization. Edwards had the support of
local law enforcement and a mix of the remaining youth, professionals,
labor and seniors. It would have been a dead heat had the youth not
been energized and organized to get out and vote. Finally, there isn’t
a lot of negativity for Obama but a little mostly from the Clinton
camp, none against Edwards from anyone, and a ton against Clinton. She
is not well liked even in her own party. She may be the only democrat
that could lose the national election. Edwards would be a shoo in.

Of course, I don’t know Tim from Adam, so I’m just taking him at his word that he’s in Iowa, he was at the caucuses, and his name’s Tim Cottle. But until somebody provides me with evidence otherwise, I thought his comments relevant enough to promote to a separate post.

Here’s what he had had to say the previous day, in response to this post (which was elaborated upon in this column):

Iowa matters and it should. Just as NH, SC and the states that follow
will matter. A state has to be first. Why not a state that forces
candidates to define who they are and what they stand for? Until now, I
never quite appreciated or supported the caucus format. Having recently
moved to Iowa from the Carolinas, I now see how it forces candidates to
get close and personal and commit to their beliefs. Commercials and
sound bites alone will not guarantee anything here. Iowans have come to
expect a discussion of the issues and solutions. Voting is a privilege
and should be entered into in an educated and informed manner. I have
heard or met all of the major candidates. Doing so has taken time (well
over two hours and more like 20 hours). This is time I have committed
in order to be an educated voter. To spend an additional two hours
tonight is a small price to pay for having the benefit of a caucus. All
of those at the caucuses tonight will have the same commitment. Food
for thought… is spending 3 hours at a football game, watching TV or a
movie more important than choosing our president?

Caucusers2

What do you want this blog to be for the next three weeks?

11 Replies

You’ll notice that today’s column — which I mistakenly backdated to yesterday morning rather than this morning, but have now corrected — was an elaboration on a blog post. Watch for more of that; over the next three weeks — between now and the Jan. 26 Democratic primary here — I plan to write more columns than usual, and as often as not, the blog will be the place where the column ideas first take shape.

I also plan to post more than usual. I’m shoving as many of my other duties aside as possible to concentrate on covering (in my own way, which will differ from what you see in news) and writing about the primaries, both for the blog and the paper. (You would have seen more last night and this morning here, but my personal life has been rather full — and joyful — the last 26 hours or so.) I will not, of course, be as free as a reporter would — I’ve got to jam in time for as many as five candidate interviews in preparation for endorsements on the 13th (Republican) and 20th (Democratic). But those interviews should produce a lot of fodder for this venue as well.

I want to make the most of all this effort, and make what I’m doing as useful as possible. I won’t just be doing this to be busy; I’ve got granddaughters to rock, you know. So I’d like y’all’s suggestions as to what you would like to see here. More video? More accessible format? More links to news and other opinions? More pictures of grandchildren (sorry, that just slipped out)? Think particularly in terms of what the editorial page editor of South Carolina’s largest newspaper might contribute that you wouldn’t get elsewhere; there’s little use in my duplicating stuff you can get already.

One thing I want to get done this weekend is replace the Stephen Colbert video that’s at the top of my main page (that guy’s campaign just went nowhere) with some sort of quick-start daily briefing. Maybe links to latest news, latest posts of interest, latest issue-oriented posts, or something like that. Something that you would find useful and that’s doable without my dropping everything else to spend my days coding.

Anyway, I’m looking for ideas, so please pitch them my way.

What Kucinich saw on that fateful night

4 Replies

Got another nice message today from a nice person who is glad I’ve been advocating for single-payer, but disappointed in me for dismissing the viability of Dennis Kucinich’s candidacy:

I want to thank you for making the case for single payer healthcare and pointing out that none of the candidates except for Dennis Kucinich is advocating any real reform of our broken system.  I take exception, however, to your suggestion that Kucinich is not a "viable" candidate.  Polls consistently show that Kucinich’s views on the issues are most in line with what Americans want:  out of Iraq, single-payer healthcare, helping American workers and industry instead of China, immigration reform, support for small family farms and the middle class, etc.  And the UFO stuff is really getting old.  Why doesn’t anyone in the media mention that Ronald Reagan, beloved by many, also reported seeing an unidentified flying object?   Neither he nor Kucinich claimed to have an "alien encounter."  Yet you and the rest of the mainstream media insist on trying to marginalize Dennis Kucinich.  Why?  He’s a man of courage and integrity with bold ideas, and he’s only "nonviable" as long as you and other members of the media keep SAYING he is.  It’s time that people started taking Kucinich seriously.  He’s our best and only hope for this country, and he has my unwavering support and my vote.  – Anne O’Berry

Two quick points:

  1. I have larger objections to the Kucinich candidacy than the UFO story, as I’ve explained. In fact, I have defended him on the UFO thing. But when I was writing the original column, and had just written the part about how hyper-libertarians act like they "believe that ‘government’ is some scary thing that intrudes on their lives from out there somewhere, like a spaceship full of aliens with ray guns that will turn us all into toads or something," the UFO thing just made for a nice segue.
  2. Although I sympathize, today was not the best day to complain about the UFO thing, since it is actually back in the news. The WSJ dug into the story beyond the cursory quote we’d heard from Shirley MacLaine. Here’s a link, if you can get to it.

And if you can’t, here’s an excerpt:

    As they sat down to a dinner, Mr. Kucinich spotted a light in the distance, to the left of Mount Rainier. Mr. Costanzo thought it was a helicopter.
    But Mr. Kucinich walked outside to the deck to look through the telescope that he had bought Ms. MacLaine as a house gift. After a few minutes, Mr. Kucinich summoned the other two: "Guys, come on out here and look at this."…
    After a few minutes, the lights moved closer and it became apparent that they were actually three charcoal-gray, triangular craft, flying in a tight wedge. The girlfriend remembers each triangle having red and green lights running down the edges, with a laser-like red light at the tail. Mr. Costanzo recalls white lights, but no tail….
    The craft held steady in midair, for perhaps a minute, then sped away, Mr. Costanzo says. "Nothing had landed," he says. "No strange beings had disembarked. No obvious messages were beamed down. When they were completely out of sight, we all looked at each other disbelieving what we had seen."
    At Mr. Kucinich’s suggestion, they jotted down their impressions and drew pictures to memorialize the event. Mr. Kucinich kept the notes, according to Ms. MacLaine, who said he promised her recently that he would try to find them….

More on McClatchy

6 Replies

Since there was so much interest in this previous post about the WSJ piece on McClatchy, I pass on this link to a previous piece in Forbes. If you already read the WSJ piece, this one will hold no surprises. But here’s an excerpt:

    Holy smokes–what happened to McClatchy?
    Just a few years ago, industry observers hailed the newspaper company and its boyishly charismatic chairman and chief executive, Gary Pruitt, for growing earnings and producing solid journalism at a time when some of its rivals couldn’t accomplish either.
    The peak: March 22, 2005, when the company’s shares hit an all-time, split-adjusted high of $76.05.
    Then the industry turned and so did McClatchy’s fortunes…

Or did y’all just talk so much about the McClatchy piece because I wasn’t providing other fodder last week? Either way, enjoy.

Hey, Gordon… tell this guy about me

8 Replies

Just got an e-mail from a puzzled reader, as follows:

Brad,
    We get the concept that editorials are
supposed to be opinionated and stir comment, but just what media are you a
part?
    Three weeks ago you excoriated ‘the media’ while conveniently
ignoring the reality that you’re kinda the media, too.
    Today (Wednesday
12/19/2007) you assail ‘TV "news" channels’ and denigrate reporting on John
McCain as ‘a conspiracy on the part of major media and poll respondents.’   ‘A
conspiracy’??  Good grief, is it that easy to dismiss the possibility that
voters could actually be concerned about McCain’s age, health, and core
commitment to his party’s concerns? 
    I’ve seen the gamut on blaming the
media, but can’t remember it ever being from someone whose name is on the
masthead of a statewide paper. 

James Hill
Columbia

James, I’m a contrarian who is just barely tolerated by his colleagues on account of … well, I don’t know why. Ask Gordon — he used to be my boss, in a previous life.

Anyway, you should congratulate me. Not many paranoids can concoct a conspiracy that involves everyone who responds to polls. You gotta hand it to me — that’s inspired.

LOOKEE HERE! ALL LOST COMMENTS RESTORED!

4 Replies

Folks, I just learned of a way to dig your "suspected spam" comments out of limbo and publish them on the blog.

This is a really tedious workaround for the excessive, dysfunctional security measures that TypePad recently enacted, but it’s all I can do for now.

Here’s how to proceed: If you try to post a comment, and get a message saying it’s being stopped as suspected spam, don’t bother trying again. Just drop me a quick line at this address, and as soon as I see your e-mail, I will cross the virtual river Styx and save your comment. It’s there, I just have to fetch it.

I will endeavor to be as on top of this as I can, what with trying to get pages out this week with half an editorial staff.

Thank you so much for your patience.

Is anybody able to post a comment at all?

9 Replies

Folks, I’ve only received one comment on this blog today — despite lively page-view traffic — and I think I know why. It’s probably because of the thing that one of y’all complained to me about today via e-mail:

Repeatedly i got this message:

An error occurred…
We’re sorry, your comment has not been published because TypePad’s antispam filter has flagged it as potential comment spam.

Spam my a__.

Pardon his French, but I understand the frustration. It frequently blocks me, too, and I can’t seem to get the folks at TypePad to understand that this is a problem.

I started suspecting that the problem was worse today than usual when I got three e-mails in a row commenting on today’s column, but there were no comments.

Anyway, if you try to comment, and can’t (or just find the stupid anti-spam requirement that you enter a nearly illegible code unnecessarily inconvenient), please take a moment to write to me about it here. I’ll pass on your complaints. Maybe they’ll listen to you, since they don’t listen to me.

Why don’t you read the blog on weekends?

10 Replies

Yes, I know that it’s conventional wisdom that people don’t go online until they arrive at work on Monday, but conventional "wisdom" is so often a crock, I thought I’d go straight to the source and ask y’all: How come you flock to the blog in droves Monday through Friday, but disappear on Saturday and Sunday?

Allow me to put some numbers to this:

  • Over the last six months, page views have numbered an average of 1,665 a weekday, ranging from a high of just under 9,485 to only 365 on Thanksgiving.
  • The daily average on Saturdays and Sundays during the same period has been around 700 (the way I have the speadsheet set up, the weekends are harder to calculate, so I’m just eyeballing it). The weekend daily traffic has only exceeded 1,000 three times during that 26-week period.
  • Oddly, though, daily traffic has only dropped below 500 on three occasions on Saturday or Sunday. So there is a weekend core audience, even when I don’t post on the weekend.

So what gives? I’m curious about this. I tend to think of blogging — for y’all, if not for me — as a leisure-time activity. But y’all are most tuned in when working stiffs like me are busy. So what’s the story? Are you all self-employed, or retired? Or (and this is one of those rare cases in which I would understand why someone would comment anonymously), is it a matter of using the boss’ computer, on the boss’ time?

Conventional "wisdom" says it’s the latter — but I’m curious as to what the facts are, as you know them.

Talkin’ trash about Adam and Eve

8 Replies

Back on this post, Gordon sought to discredit Mike Huckabee (at least, I think that’s what he was trying to do; correct me if I’m wrong, Gordon) by noting that he has been quoted as saying that Adam and Eve were real people.

OK, I know that we’re building up to a huge food fight between Creationists and Darwinists, with poor ol’ Huck in the middle. But on this point, I’m confused: I thought scientists said Adam and Eve were real people, just that they never actually met…

… which, when you think about it, seems like really going out of your way to gossip about our ancestors. If I hear them right, these science chaps are saying that our honored great-to-the-nth-power grandad Adam wasn’t the daddy of all Eve’s children; that some of us came from somebody we never heard of. Such talk strikes me, as a member of the family, as unseemly after all these years.

I’m not as arrogant as I look

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Folks, it takes a certain amount of conceit to express opinions day in and day out, but it is not an unlimited commodity. I would even go so far as to say what Twain’s Hank Morgan said:

Now what a happy idea that was! — and so simple; yet it would never have occurred to me. I was born modest; not all over, but in spots; and this was one of the spots.

Well, this is one of my spots: I do not draft highly technical policy proposals. I’m a pretty fair hand at deciding what works and what doesn’t in somebody else’s policy proposals, and suggesting improvements. But I lack the confidence to take a blank sheet of paper and sketch out a full-blown projet, as the French would call it.

bud and Doug, our regular correspondents, probably have their own humble spots. This isn’t one of them. Both of them have recently sketched out a number of smart ideas about how to improve health care in this country. I admire their ability to pull something like that from thin air. I particularly admire the tiered approach that bud came up with (no offense, Doug; yours was good too).

The two of them are constantly hitting me up for projets of my own, but my brain just doesn’t roll that way — and if it did, the kind of time I would have to spend on something like that to feel confidence in it would demand that I publish it first in the actual newspaper. Dismiss me for lack of  seriousness if you will, call me the critic who never creates, just criticizes. But hey, I can praise, too. That’s something.

Part of it is the aforementioned humility; part of it is my attention deficit problem. I am endlessly fascinated by everything, and I am dependent on other people to call my attention to a particular thing in order for me to focus on it effectively. Once I’m staring at it, I can get creative and sometimes even clever. But I’ve got to have that focal point.

Anyway, back on this post bud challenged me again to come up with my own original plan, and this is all I can say in reply (I tried to post it as a comment, but my browser collapsed, and I decided then that this was worth a separate post on what this blog is and what it isn’t):

bud, if reform is dependent on me coming up with the details, we’re
sunk.

Maybe if I quit my job (thereby
losing my expensive benefits) and spent a year immersing myself and
sweating over it, I could come up with something that would satisfy you, but I’m not sure I would succeed even then. But it’s a moot point. My job, and my life, demand that I address many different things a day, every day.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. That’s one of my weaknesses. I drown in unlimited possibilities.

I can react to your details because they are finite. If I try to
come up with my own, I would never be satisfied that THESE were the
right, proper and inclusive things to consider. To give but one
example, I would NEVER have confidence in my ability to compute the
costs of a plan. A lot of people tell me they would be intimidated at having to write
a column for the newspaper. I am not. Different
strokes.

Anyway, the subject is so complex that it’s taken me a lot of years
to get to the point that I can say with confidence that what we have is
fundamentally flawed (that it’s not just case of a few uninsured; it’s
a bad deal across the board), and that the biggest thing that is wrong
is that we expect private employers to help us purchase insurance from
for-profit providers, and do so from the relatively weak position of
having purchasing pools no larger than the companies’ respective
rosters of employees.

That leads me to single-payer (and if you want to see that spelled out as a specific proposal, see HR676),
and the way I approach that — knowing how complex this is — is by
asking my readers to help me find flaws in it that maybe I’m missing.
After we go through that for a while, and I’ve heard lots of pros and
cons. I might gain the confidence to say that yes, I endorse that
bill.The bottom line is, I’m not as arrogant as I look. So if you’re
waiting for detailed plans to come from me like Minerva springing from
the brow of Zeus, you should go to another blog.

 

Sure, I’ve come up with "proposals" in the past. But when you see me set out something like my suggested platform for the Energy Party or the UnParty, what I’m doing is selecting from among ideas that are already out there, and which I’ve had plenty of time to mull over. I didn’t invent the gas-tax increase idea; I was persuaded to it by a lot of people whom I regard as smarter about it than I am.

I wouldn’t attempt a health care plan from scratch without a team of experts from various disciplines helping me.

Finding common ground on health care reform

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The dialogue on this post about single-payer started out in the predictable manner — with libertarian Doug decrying the very idea that I would want him (which is the way he reads the words "we" and "us") to be a part of what I see as the common-sense sense solution to a critical need we have in common as a society.

But you have to read past that. One of the problems Doug and I have discussing issues is that he likes the "how" of specific proposals, whereas my interest lies more in the broad concept. As an INTP, I intuitively understand his frustration, but that’s the way I approach things.

And once you do get to proposals, the ideology falls away enough for Doug to say things that I agree with. For instance, he set forth these five suggestions for taming the health-care-cost monster in America:

1) Reduce drug patent lengths to allow competition from generic makers

2) Require insurance companies to offer coverage that is portable, not revokable under any circumstance, and restricted in the percentage increases in premiums to a limited range across all policies

3) Abolish HIPAA rules that only add expensive overhead costs to the system

4) If healthcare for all is a national concern, pay for it by cutting government costs in other areas rather than simply adding another tax on top of the waste already built into the government. The money is there already to easily cover every one who doesn’t have insurance.

5) Go back to the days where drug companies could not advertise on TV, radio, or print media. All that marketing cost gets passed onto consumers. I really don’t care if I ever see another commercial for Viagra, Ambien, or any other product that has "oily discharge" as a frequent side effect.

With the exception of item No. 4, which is simply a libertarian article of faith (which is why I initially read right over it), this seems like a list I could go for. (As much as I’d like to have a clean sweep,that one is just a spoiler condition. While you or I or anyone can come up with a list of federal expenditures that we could do without, that’s not how representative democracy works — such decisions are made collaboratively, and one person’s waste is another person’s essential. This fact lies at the root of so much libertarian alienation. Anyway, the bottom line is that in the real world, if you say you’ll only agree to a national health plan if you cut an equivalent amount elsewhere, you are for practical purposes saying let’s not do it at all. But in the interests of furthering dialogue, let’s set that aside.)

I was a little surprised that Doug went for No. 1 even more wholeheartedly than I would, since it’s about property rights. And I always thought that HIPAA (which I hate) was about privacy (another libertarian priority), and specifically about trying to achieve Item No. 2 by preventing insurance companies from knowing your medical history. But fine. I’m all for it. And I prefer the more direct, regulatory way of approaching No. 2 — if you insist on still having insurance companies.

I was even more pleased and surprised when Doug, later in the dialogue, proposed that we just make the plan that federal employees are on available to everybody. I would have to study this a lot more closely (and those of you who deal intimately with that system, please weigh in), but I have to applaud Doug’s willingness to do something that bold, even if it’s not single-payer.

Of course, he threw in the caveat that we could cover the cost by cutting spending elsewhere — once again, a fine idea until you try to do it, and something that can’t be an absolute condition if we want to get anything done.

But the really cool thing is that, when we get down to such specifics, we’re no longer arguing about the need for universal coverage. We’re just haggling over the price.

Oh, THAT Michael Berg…

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Bergny

When he emerged on this post sticking up for the Palestinians, I kept thinking, I know Michael Berg. Where do I know a Michael Berg from, but I just couldn’t picture him or put him in context.

Then he appeared on our Saturday op-ed page, and I had to slap my forehead. That’s Michael on the left end of the banner, marching against the war in New York City during the Republican National Convention in 2004.

The thing is, I don’t think I’ve seen Michael since that day. He left the country soon after, and I hear he was in Paraguay with the Peace Corps, or something like that. (Jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, Michael.)

Bradny
Anyway, I’m glad when I get things straightened out like that. I’m also glad when I get to use one of the dozens of photos I shot at the convention. That week was when I first decided I had to start a blog. There was so much to see and write about, and show people in pictures (I hadn’t started doing video yet), and my three columns and one "notebook" piece I did for the paper just weren’t enough to cram it all into. I finally started the blog the following spring.

The irony is, I haven’t been to such a perfect blogging opportunity as that since then. Just as well, I guess — everyday life seems to produce far more ideas for posts than I have time to write as it is.

Welcome_to_the_garden

Anybody having trouble posting?

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Time for a technical check-up here: I just got this e-mail from a regular commenter here:

Brad, just fyi … I’ve made 4-5 posts over the past several days, none of
which have appeared. No biggie, just wanted to let you know in case there is
a system problem.

Gordon Hirsch

That’s bad news, because I haven’t seen a single one of those posts. Knowing Gordon, if I’d seen them, I would have approved them. In fact, except for repeated comments from people who don’t know that (thanks to the folks to like to spoil it for the rest of us) comments don’t post without approval, I think I’ve approved everything that’s come through over the last few days.

Has anyone else tried to post a comment, and it hasn’t posted by the next day (actually, the wait should be much shorter than that, but I use this standard as a catchall)?

If so, please e-mail me about it here, and I’ll bug the techies.