Category Archives: Feedback

Re Jim Rex, whom we will meet later

6 Replies

I got this e-mail this morning from Zeke Stokes of Columbia:

Brad:
     While I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment that South Carolina’s schools are improving and that we must continue the progress, I have to take issue with your implication that only one candidate in this race is equipped to do that. I mentioned to you at Galivant’s Ferry that I am running Jim Rex’s race for State Superintendent of Education, and regardless of who the Republican nominee is, South Carolinians will have a qualified, electable alternative in Jim come November, yet you didn’t mention that in your column on Sunday. 
    I ran Inez Tenenbaum’s races for this seat, and she has proven that this is a race in  which South Carolinians will take a strong look at the candidates’ credentials before considering the Party to which they belong, as evidenced by the fact that she carried the ticket in 1998, ahead of strong showings by Fritz Hollings and Jim Hodges, as well as in 2002, when most Democrats lost their races for statewide office. If, before the primary, there is an opportunity to make this point in your coverage of the race, I hope you will do that as well. 
    In addition, I have to take issue with your assertion that Democrats should cross over to help Mr. Staton in his primary. Party primaries are designed to allow each party to select its candidates and to put forth the candidate that it thinks will best represent its views in the general election. Democrats have done that in this race, by choosing to nominate Jim Rex without a primary. In fact, when Jim entered the race, the primary field cleared, in part because his strong education background, coupled with the support of people like Dick Riley and Inez Tenenbaum, made him the obvious choice for Democrats. On June, 13 Republicans have the same opportunity, and Democrats ought to allow that process to unfold without crossing over to "sabotage" the outcome. 
    I hope you will take a fresh look at this race after the primary, regardless of who Republicans choose. As always, Jim and I are available to speak with you should you have a need to do so. The best way to reach me is on my cell at (deleted for blog purposes).

Many thanks,
Zeke

I replied to Zeke as follows:

    My column had nothing to do with your guy; he’s not, last time I looked, seeking the contested nomination. I would have mentioned the three also-rans before I would have mentioned a guy who’s not even in a primary. And I had no space to waste on them.
    Maybe you want to run against Mrs. Floyd (maybe to fire up your base or something), but given the chance that she could well win the whole thing, I’d much rather not see South Carolina take such a risk.
    We’re far better off with a choice between Staton v. Rex.
    Do you disagree?
    You seem to be concerned about parties and their prerogatives; I despise parties, and the sooner voters divest themselves from all partisan identification whatsoever, the better off our state and country will be. I care about what’s good for South Carolina, not what’s good for a party.
    By the way, I plan to post this exchange on my blog (I hate to spend time typing if readers can’t see it). I’ll leave out your cell number. I’ll be glad to put up any responses you have, as well.
    I look forward to talking with you AFTER this mess is over. One hill at a time.
— Brad Warthen

That’s it, for now.

Some answers for Lee

78 Replies

Everybody thank Lee. He’s offered a great list of the excuses that anti-public school types come up with in an effort to get everyone to be as irresponsible and nihilistic as they are.

It’s a list that he says "journalists" (a category that he means to include me, I suppose) "won’t ask themselves, much less the candidates." This, of course, is a fantasy on his part. We are constantly asking, "What works; what doesn’t?" and "What would you change?" What we don’t do is ask it in the obsessive manner of a person whose only interest in discussing the subject is that he doesn’t want to pay for it. You’ll see what I mean. It’s in the way he words his questions.

The other odd thing about the list is that we answer these questions and ones like them every day on the editorial page — do this, don’t do that; this is working, that isn’t.

Anyway, here are his questions, followed by the more obvious answers:

"Which programs don’t work and should be abolshed right now?"
    Specifically? On the K-12 level, No Child Left Behind is an unwarranted intrusion of the federal government into a state function. Like all such Soviet-style, central-control devices, it is poorly thought-out, and takes little account of what really goes on in the classrooms across the land. It is also absurdly expensive. As far as I’m concerned, you can go ahead and close the federal Department of Education; there’s no adequate reason for it to exist.
    On the higher-ed level, you have a really target-rich environment in South Carolina. Start by ditching some of the more recent idiocies, such as Clemson starting a program at the other end of the state devoted to the Hunley. Then eliminate a lot of the smaller, more duplicative campuses — USC Salkehatchie, for instance.
    Generally? On the K-12 level, eliminate about 40 school districts. Put the state department of education under the governor. Let me know when you’ve gotten those huge jobs done; I’ll have more when you come back to me.
    On the higher ed, put the whole system (which right now isn’t a system, but a loose scattering of separate fiefdoms) under a Board of Regents, which will assign complementary roles for each (surviving) institution, fostering excellence and eliminating duplication. (Does some of this sound familiar? Sound like stuff the governor is calling for? Yes. And he got a lot of these ideas from The State; we’ve been pushing them for about 16 years. The biggest reason we’re frustrated with the governor these days is that he pushes his ideological nonsense such as PPIC rather than putting his political capital more fully onto restructuring.

"Why did management make yet another mistake of starting such failed programs?"
    Well, let’s see. The president started NCLB, along with Ted Kennedy, because he wanted to triangulate the Democrats.
    The rest of that stuff started long ago under the deliberately fragmented form of government we have here in South Carolina, where instead of focusing on excellence, we waste resources giving everybody something mediocre, or worse.

"Can’t we save enough money by ending the failed programs to pay for the next batch of new programs?"
    In higher ed, you could go a long way, but it probably wouldn’t be enough. And it’s not so much about programs as the fact that if you didn’t have so much duplication in institutions, you could invest enough to make the remaining institutions better. But you’d still be spending less than the states with excellent institutions of higher learning (North Carolina, for instance), and as long as you do that, you’ll stay behind.
    With K-12, you wouldn’t come close. You’d save some money, but not all that much. And the suburban schools would be fine (they always have been) but you’d still have the problem that we’ve never invested nearly enough in our poor, rural communities.
If you don’t like these answers, grow up. Paying for such things are the price for living in a decent society.
    On the federal level, you’d save a bunch, but I wouldn’t spend it on other educational programs. I’d put it toward paying down the national debt, or paying for the war. Those are proper federal functions that are going badly neglected.

"How much more money should taxpayers spend on government schools?"
    Enough to provide the same opportunity for a good education in the rural districts as in the suburbs. As for your deliberate use of the word "government," which you mean as a pejorative — only government ever can or ever will provide universal education in those areas. The idea that "the market" will provide magical educational opportunities in places that are so poor, and so sparsely populated, that the market won’t even build a Wal-Mart is laughable. So what if you let the money follow the kid? There aren’t enough kids to attract the market. The market has already spoken with regard to these communities — it has dismissed them.

"What exact results will come from that spending?"
    Slow progress. The conditions in poor, rural districts are horrific, and every step is taken against the tide. Bottom line is, folks who don’t want to spend on these districts just want to give up on them. We can’t do that. Even if you don’t care about them, they’re dragging the rest of the state down.

"How do you KNOW that the spending will produce those results?"
    Know? How the hell can I or you or anyone else know? I know that we have no sane alternative but to try, just as I believe we have no alternative but to continue to try in Iraq. The task is horrifically daunting, and a lot up to now hasn’t worked, but a lot has, and we can’t give up; we have to try harder. I’m talking about Iraq. But the same applies to our educational challenges in rural areas.

"What will be the rewards for success of those programs? What will be the punishment for failure?"
    The reward: A state that is no longer last where we want to be first. The punishment: A state that continues to be first where we want to be last.

"How will the taxpayers audit these programs to measure their cost effectiveness?"
    The same way they do now — through a bewildering array of statistics and paperwork. Perhaps you missed it, but the whole point of the Education Accountability Act, which has been guiding education reform in this state since 1998, is precisely what you are asking for. This is how citizens (which is what I assume you mean by your choice of the word "taxpayers") do such things in a representative democracy: They create bureaucracies to track the functions of government. And then they gripe about bureaucracies. This tail-chasing habit seems to be a large part of our heritage in the American system.

Here’s hoping I’ve been helpful.

Unity08

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Tim asked, in a comment to a recent post, what I thought of Unity08. Frankly, I hadn’t really focused on it, because I’ve been so busy with state primaries.

But I should have. I think it’s an important movement.

Is it everything I would be looking for in an alternative to the pointless division and intellectual dishonesty that the two main parties represent? No. No mass movement (if this turns out to be a mass movement, which appears to be the intent) could be.

I question two things about it:

  1. Why would it concentrate its effort on the disaffected young, as David Broder noted? What about us disaffected old? We’ve been frustrated by all the partisan nonsense longer than they have. And of course, we’re wiser and all that.
  2. While I admire the determination not to get bogged down in the absurdities of the culture wars, and concentrate on the "crucial issues" of war and peace, education, health care, etc., I get a little whiff of avoidance here. What we need is for people’s positions on abortion, prayer in schools, etc. not to be dealkillers.

Think what you like about those things. I have my positions on some of those things (while, admittedly, ignoring others as being entirely false choices). What should be important in a candidate should be whether voters across the political spectra (as they are variously defined) can trust him or her to deal wisely, pragmatically and morally with the issues that matter most at a given time — issues that usually can’t be defined in advance. No one would have guessed in 2000, for instance, that George W. Bush might be judged on the basis of how well, or how poorly, he engages in war and nation-building.

Anyway, this may be a bogus caveat on my part, and not inconsistent with what the Unity08 folks want at all. I just know I’m going to be watching this with interest.

Correction: It was just the opposite, partly

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Altman
I now have a firsthand report, and the previous one was exactly backwards on the second point. If you follow me.

Apparently, what Rep. Altman actually said about editors at The State was that we can’t get anything for free at any stores — even temporarily. More specifically, he is said to have said that the newspaper’s owners won’t let us get so much as a box of paper clips on credit, on account of how we’re such terrible business people.

With regard to myself, I must endorse the representative’s remarks on this score. I am not a businessman, terrible or otherwise, but if I were I’d probably be a lousy one. And while the paper clip thing may be a tad hyperbolic, he’s caught the gist of what it’s like working with Knight Ridder. I can get the paper clips, but then we have to go through all sorts of gyrations to get the expense processed.

There are many reasons why we’ll all be glad to be owned by McClatchy soon.

As for the other — well, my first source seems to have gotten it right. Of my having called him a "jerk," he seems to have observed that "that is the extent of his erudition."

So, bottom line: John Graham Altman is still a jerk, but that doesn’t mean he’s always wrong.

This is why they invented blogs

1 Reply

I’ve received the exact same e-mail twice — or dozens of times, actually. But this is the first time I’ve ever received two identical tasteful notecards.
May31_002
At least, that’s what they appeared to be at first. One is actually an addendum to the other. Come to think of it, this still marks a first for me.

Anyway, the first note takes me to task for having what I am paid to have — opinions. Seriously, I did bend over backwards to be fair to the candidates at the debate (believe me, I took more grief than this from one of my colleagues for failing to be tough enough on someone with whom we disagree on the issue in question). Maybe, after 12 years in editorial, I’m just out of practice.

Anyway, the note says:

While the interviews with Candidates for Supt. of Education were informative, your objectivity as a moderator was lacking…

… and so forth and so on. The second note gets on me because:

… you gave Staton, 8 year EOC Member, a Pass, you addressed in your questions to him and others 0 about the fact more than half state, Local, Fed taxes allocated to K-12 never get to the classroom!

Well, I hope I can be forgiven for not addressing that "fact." My only excuse is that it isn’t a fact. It’s caught on wonderfully among the anti-school crowd, though, ever since the S.C. Policy Council put it out under the pretense of being a fact. As I recall (and I’m having trouble finding the background on that; please let me know if you can locate it), this number was arrived at by leaving out the cost of buses, cafeterias, the building the classroom was in, the light bill, etc. As if all those things were fripperies or something.

Anyway, this writer (who shall remain nameless, in deference to the notes being marked "personal") could have saved a lot of trouble by just checking out the blog and giving me what-for without limits, and without having to waste another nice notecard.

But I sort of like people who insist upon tradition. It’s reassuring.

Oh, and I need some feedback here: Is it tacky for me to show pictures of the notes, and cite partial content, when they were marked "personal?" I assumed that meant "not a letter to the editor." Does a blog count as indiscretion, or is that redundant?

Thoughts on the superintendent debate?

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Feedback time.

Did you see the superintendent of education debate tonight? If you didn’t, that’s no excuse. Here’s the link to the streaming video.

If so, please sound off here. What did you think?

I’ll come back and share my thoughts, but I thought I’d give you a place to get started. I’m a little behind at the moment, as when I went to the debate, I had left our kitchen sink — faucet, pipes, etc. — in pieces on the kitchen floor. I had to finish that job before getting to this.

By the way, I got ‘er done. No leaks (so far).

Howdy, Big Brother!

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It occurred to me while reading and answering comments on this recent post that I should clarify something. Yes, I was lampooning Gen. Hayden and the NSA domestic intelligence-gathering. But I tend to make ironic comments about everyone, whether I agree with them or not. I think it’s healthyHaydencia to mock my own positions the way opponents would. It helps me to keep a sense of perspective that people with calcified points of view lack.

You see, it doesn’t bother me a bit that the government is engaging in a variation on the classic intelligence-gathering technique of "traffic analysis." I hope the sweeps are comprehensive enough to work, and help prevent the next 9/11. Ultimately, I think playing defense all the time will fail at some point — all the bad guys have to do is get lucky once. That’s why we need to be on the offensive on their turf, with the ultimate goal of changing the conditions that produce these nut jobs. But in the meantime, analyze phone records all you want.

Anyway, here is the response I wrote to various comments. I thought it would be better to make a separate post of them, since the points were important enough for that:

  • I first heard about the Murtha thing when I was trapped watching TV news while working out several nights ago. It was FoxNEWS. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen or read anything about it since, until you mentioned it (Of course, I’ve been buried in state and local with all these candidate interviews). It’s not about political "bias." It’s about the fact that TV always blows this type of stuff out of proportion.
  • I couldn’t care less about records being kept of phone calls. I wouldn’t care if it was actual surveillance. The G-men can listen to my calls all day if they like. I’ll say howdy to them. Does that mean I’m A-OK with the program? Not quite — I’m pretty upset with the president that he won’t work with Congress to change the stupid law so that there’s no question that what we’re doing — what we need to do, what we’d be crazy NOT to do — is legal.
  • What "rights?" Have you had anything taken away from you? Do you know anybody who’s had anything taken away from him? What are we talking about — some hyperactive, superlibertarian view of the 4th Amendment? That was about Redcoats kicking down your door in the dead of night and tearing up your house. It wasn’t about records of how many times you called Aunt Martha last month. Like anybody cares.
  • It occurs to me that I have become inured to privacy concerns by the fact of what I do for a living. Especially with this blog, I write just about anything that pops into my head. And I have this general rule — don’t write anything in an e-mail, or say anything on the phone, that you wouldn’t want published. Yeah, sometimes I slip on that. But I doubt that any such slips would interest the NSA.

Galivants Ferry II: Paul DeMarco’s terrible secret revealed!

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06stump_055Backsliding? Top UnParty Leader caught at Dem shindig!

OK, so maybe he’s not a "top leader." Maybe he’s not even a "leader," seeing as how we’re not organized enough to have leaders. We’re in such disarray that we don’t know who our candidate for governor is. Spencer Gantt thinks it’s me.

But at the very least, since he’s one of the few to have expressed sincere interest, we can certainly call him a party stalwart.

So, needless to say, I was taken aback to find him there.

But I’ll say several things in Dr. DeMarco’s defense.

First, he practices internal medicine in Marion, which is right down the road. Even if I didn’t have to go to stuff like this professionally, if I lived in Marion, I suppose I might go out of curiosity. It’s the conscientious thing to do as a voter.

Next, the first thing he said to me — after introducing himself — was "We need to get that party started." I shushed him before anybody could hear us. We will not be strong enough for pitched street battles until there are more of us.

Third, I found his presence there useful, for readers of this blog. As it wore on to 8:30, and I had decided it was time to head home, I asked Paul to keep an eye on the rest of those down-ballot candidates who speak after almost everyone else has left. He agreed, and I split. So we can expect his report at any time, possibly as comments to this item.

Of course, none of those excuses accounts for the "Willis" sticker on the lapel.

How about it, Doc?

Seriously, though — he still talks like a true Unpartisan. Referring to Joe Biden’s speech, he observed, "He talked about sacrifice. I like it when politicians talk like that."

I was about to ask him which politician he has heard say that since JFK at his inaugural, when he added:

"I’m one of the people who got the tax cut" Sen. Biden was deriding in his speech. "And I didn’t really want it."

Of course, he’s not sending it back, he admits. True UnParty ambivalence. The movement lives.

Now, I suppose, I’ll have to write about what Sen. Biden said. But first, I must run to keep an optometrist appointment.

Rationing? Even better

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Gas1"Look!" wrote my colleague Mike Fitts in an e-mail yesterday. "– an idea even less popular than your huge gas tax hike!"

"And even better, in my book," I wrote back.

He was referring to this letter on today’s page:

After reading Mike Fitts’ excellent column, (“U.S. helping to keep
oil prices marching upward,” Friday) on the woeful consequences, both
economic and diplomatic, of rising oil prices and of the inevitable oil
shortages to come, I’d like to put another option on the table: oil
rationing, which could bring a variety of benefits.

Many lament the fact that the only ones called upon to sacrifice in
this time of war are those on the front lines (and their families).
Rationing gas would call on everyone to sacrifice, just as during World
War II, when we all had ration cards, not only for oil but for many
other of life’s necessities such as meat, clothing and tires.

Fitts tells us that demand for fuel keeps going up, despite the
steadily rising price, which means leaving it to the market to control
supply and demand isn’t working. So perhaps only the government can
bring this control.

Fitts also points out that since our country consumes 25 percent of
the world’s oil, we can’t lecture other countries on the need to
conserve. But we can lead by example.

Rationing could give us some short-term breathing space as we labor
to find alternatives for the long haul. Yes, it is a political hot
potato, but isn’t it time to at least bring it to the table for
discussion?

HARRIET KEYSERLING
Beaufort

Mike was also referring to my enthusiasm for the idea floated by such disparate voices as Charles Krauthammer, Tom Friedman and Jim Hoagland, advocating a huge increase in the federal gas tax to take the already uncomfortably high gasoline pump prices high enough to depress demand. This would in turn create an oversupply, driving down prices. But (at least in the variant I like), you’d keep the tax rate up and use it additional for such sensible things as reducing the deficit, paying for a Manhattan/Apollo-style project to find and develop viable alternatives to petroleum, and pay for other aspects of our underfunded war — you know, like, put enough troops into Iraq and Afghanistan to get the job done. And note that I call military operations "other aspects" of the war. Reducing our energy dependence and taming deficits are as important to our strategic position as our ability to project force.

Oh, yes: Krauthammer would use the revenue to cut some other tax. But he has to say that; he’s a neocon.

Former Rep. Keyserling’s idea is even better in one respect — everyone would share the pain. With a high tax, the rich would keep on driving Hummers, and the poor would have a lot of trouble getting to work. The main benefit would occur among the middle class, who would make the choice of driving less and, when they bought a car, buying a much more fuel-efficient one. With rationing, everyone would be limited in their consumption. And it would be a more overt, deliberate way of saying, "We’re all in this together, and we’re doing something about it together," rather than letting the market pressure of high prices sort things out.

But then, it wouldn’t produce the revenue. So I qualify my flippant remark to Mike: The higher tax still might be better.

Markets and health care

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Well, regulars knew that at least one person would have something to say about my last post. It was Lee, of course. Lee comments on everything, usually multiple times. This would make for a lively forum if not for the fact that all of us know what Lee is going to say before he says it. He’s going to give you the standard radical libertarian line, regardless of the subject.

You see, the Lexington Medical Center folks are counting on reactions such as Lee‘s. That’s what they were counting on from the Legislature — ""Aw, gee, who are we to say no to somebody who wants to set up an open-heart center?"

Libertarians think the market works the same way with health care as with selling soda pop.
There are a lot of folks in America who think like Lee. That’s why we pay more in this country for health care than folks in other developed countries do, and we get worse health outcomes.

The fact that a surgical team has to do hundreds of such procedures to be good at it is meaningless to Lee. He’d rather see every hospital in the state take on open-heart if they want to (and since it is a big money-maker, they’ll want to), so that NOBODY can get a bypass from a facility that knows what it’s doing, and we’ll all have to pay for all that duplicative investment.

He actually thinks that the average person is a hard-nosed, discriminating consumer of health care. He thinks that if the average person is told by his physician that a bypass might keep him alive, he’s going to ask how much it costs, and then comparison-shop.

Har-de-har.

Folks, do you realize that one of the arguments LMC has been making in favor of opening this cash cow is that patients are NOT informed? It’s actually one of their better points.

In discussion with some docs who support the proposal, I’ve pointed out that I live almost right behind LMC, and have to pass it to go to any other hospital. So if I cut myself and need some stitches, I go to LMC. Or if I need major abdominal surgery, as I did in 1993, I go to LMC. But if I think I’m having a heart attack, I’m going to Providence (and would even when LMC gets its way on the heart center). And if I have cancer, I’m going to consult the folks who practice at Richland.

I said those things to a Lexington doc just a few days ago, and his response was, "Well, yeah, that’s because you’re an informed patient." His point was that most people aren’t. They’ll just stop at the first emergency room they get to. Good point — except that if you follow that logic to its natural conclusion, every hospital with an ER should be allowed to do open-heart, whether they ever get the chance to get good at it or not.

So much for the invisible hand.

Thanks to you, it’s working

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I recall, a few months ago, being totally intimidated when I took a look at Dave Barry’s blog and saw how many comments he got on his posts. Some of them had 50 comments and more! No way I’d ever match that.

I now laugh at 50 comments. Ha-ha!

Take a look now and see how we — thanks to you hard-working respondents — are now regularly exceeding ol’ Dave’s level of participation, at least on a per-post basis.

Sure, he posts more often than I do. But he puts less work into most of those posts. He relies on talent to get him through, the pitiful slacker. If he had as much actual work to do as I, he wouldn’t post as often. I know, because I sometimes do post as many in a day as he does, and I know how little of my regular job I get done on those days.

By the way, about that last sentence — it’s OK for you and me to know how little I get done on those days, just as long as neither my boss nor my expert time-management coach hear about it. Capiche?

Eating smokeless

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A little extra data with regard to my post yesterday wondering why we have smoke-free restaurants but not bars or nightclubs.

Here is an official list of such restaurants, helpfully compiled by those evil "statists" (to hear some of my respondents tell it, as they go off on diatribes having nothing to do with the subject at hand) at DHEC.

One day it would be nice to see such a list of places where one could have a brew and hear live music, and still breathe. Anyone? Anyone?

‘Mary’ stands accused

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I’ve decided to set before this "community" an interesting proposition. Buried deep among the record 108 comments on my lengthy March 26 column is the following, from fellow Unpartian (I think) Paul DeMarco:

Thanks for trying to keep the debate civil. Personal attacks simply
demonstate that the attacker’s argument won’t stand on its own merit.
Mary’s "worthless piece of garbage" routine is tiresome and mitigates
any impact the substance of her message might have. If I were Brad, I
wouldn’t stand for it. I’d warn her and her like and then ban them from
the site if they continued. If not, I predict, the ugliness will only
worsen.

As you can see, the Unparty — assuming I’m right about Paul’s affiliation — is not for libertarians. We believe in the rule of law.

The thing is, the shifting community that has formed on this blog has no laws as yet. And we are still small enough that we have not formed a republic, therefore to the extent that we deliberate, we must do so through the "town-meeting" sort of direct democracy.

But now Citizen DeMarco has proposed not only a law, but presented its first test. He says that Mary Rosh‘s behavior is unacceptable in these virtual parts. He proposes a community standard, and a means of enforcement — a warning, followed if necessary by excommunication.

This is fascinating. We are present at the birth of a society, however rudimentary it may be. I’d like to see where the group will take this. I expect a wide variety of viewpoints to be expressed, but I’m curious to see whether we can nevertheless move toward a consensus — one way or the other, or in between somewhere.

Since I have a rather unique role in this society — you might say I’m sort of a unitary executive in a very liberal (in the classic sense) democracy — I’m not going to say what I think about Mary’s case at this point.

Anyway, we have the bill before us. Let’s debate it.

We need some smarter idiots

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In response to a recent post, regular contributor "Lee" cited the oft-repeated, but seldom true, statement that "Any idiot can raise taxes."

If he’s right about that, then we have extraordinarily substandard idiots in the S.C. General Assembly. Most of them were not members in 1987, which was the last time this state had any kind of general tax increase. (It was a couple of pennies in the gas tax.)

The current members of the General Assembly act as though they are unaware of the concept of raising taxes. It’s something they’ve never done, and they don’t ever intend to do it. When some vital state need (say, keeping our overstuffed prisons guarded) is underfunded, their stock answer is, "We WISH we could fund it, but we just don’t have the money." They say this with a straight face. It simply doesn’t occur to them to either cut something else, or (God forbid!) raise a tax, to GET the money.

So apparently, they are much, much stupider than any idiot Lee knows.

The only way the cigarette tax increase was even under desultory consideration was that it was NOT a general tax increase. It would essentially be a user fee paid by a minority, and it would not have hurt anyone in the world. Even the people who paid it could only benefit, because more expensive cigarettes MIGHT encourage them to smoke less. Win-win-win.

If it had involved anybody having to give up anything of value — whether for a good reason or not — they would not even have considered it.

Antiwar folks! Please answer this question

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In response to my Friday column, Doug goes off on an odd tangent (as I’ve noticed a lot of antiwar people do) and suggests I’m asking him to "ignore" all sorts of mean, nasty, ugly things that he sees as having happened on the run-up to war, and since then.

What?!?!? I’m not asking anybody to ignore a damn’ thing. I have even specifically brought up some of the things you mention. I insist that everyone be fully cognizant of all the facts, including all the screwups of Bush and company. How much clearer can I make that? Where we seem to jump to separate planets is when I insist that everyone also recognize the two most salient facts: There are good reasons to be in Iraq (whether the president understands them or not), and even if you disagree with that, there is no alternative now but to persevere in that endeavor.

What is it about the English language that I can have so much trouble communicating those thoughts to people?

No, scratch that. Answer this question instead. It is critically important, and maybe if you approach it thoughtfully, we can at least get on the same subject, even if we’re not on the same page:

Whatever you think of what has happened so far, what do you want to see happen NOW?

As you answer, remember that Bush, no matter what anyone says or does, will be president until January 2009. It would also be helpful if you address in your answer this related question: Whatever course we take, do you think the nation will get through it as divided and angry at itself as it now is?

Postscript: A couple of other things, just to Doug… first, this was George Bush’s war — right up until the point the first soldier’s boot hit Iraqi soil in 2003. After that, as I’ve also made clear, it’s belonged to us. And it WILL belong to us long after Mr. Bush is gone from the scene. (That fact is at the crux of what I’ve been trying to communicate.) Second: I don’t even understand why you would ask me whether I would support Mrs. Clinton in the same situation (it must be one of those questions only a partisan mind could concoct). Of course I would, in exactly the way I "support" Mr. Bush: There’s not much at all that he’s done on other issues that I would defend, but I know that my country needs to be united for us to succeed in Iraq. Actually, I might support her on more issues than I do Mr. Bush — it would be hard for anyone to screw up as many things as he has done. A side note, though: You don’t actually think she has any chance of being elected, do you? I certainly hope not. If the two main political parties once again offer us a choice (meaning: no choice) between two polarizing, extremely partisan figures, we all might as well move to another continent, because our national goose will be thoroughly cooked.

Joe Azar on ‘The State,’ and me

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As I noted in today’s column, I was dissatisfied with what I got out of our endorsement meeting, so I went looking for his Web site, and found some other pertinent material. The Web site itself wasn’t all that helpful; it doesn’t seem to have been maintained. But the candidate has a preferred form of semi-mass communication: He has a long e-mail list, and it’s not unusual for him to send out his thoughts three or four times a day (perhaps we have the makings of a blogger). I’m on the list. Here’s what he had to say in reaction to my Sunday column:

Political season is upon us and here comes The State and Brad. One moment he praises Fisher, the next he cuts him. Of course, he ignores me as he usually does, but still gives credit to ideas I have advanced over the years. He just can’t seem to bring himself to put my name on them. Unfortunately, Fisher has gotten set up by Brad. Just read the two articles below and it is quite  apparent. I have listed the web addresses if you also want to see comments from readers.

It appears Brad is setting us up to endorse Coble. He is trying to be a king maker and affect the cityelections (and he does not even live in the city). Fortunately, The State editorials are not well read,  and Brad has lost his credibility with many. I say these both as I hear very little whenever there is an editorial such as this. In past years I would get much comment. Now, when I ask friends what they thought of an editorial, they look at me funny. I get so little feedback on State editorials that I have quit using them as a source of discussion. I dare say we get quite a lot of feedback and distribution via this email, enough that it would make The State’s editorial staff jealous. There is more to come as this is a close race, and I am willing to bet Coble does not go back in.

Classic Azar. Anyway, I should probably clear something up. I’m not about to say whom I think we will endorse at this point, but I will point out one thing, for those who have leaped to the same conclusion as Mr. Azar: As I explained on this blog, I’m the kind of guy who, forced to choose, will prefer being right — as I see the right — to being effective at something other than the right.

I can see how someone who assumes that it is always best to be effective could read my previous column and assume I’m raising Mr. Coble above Mr. Azar. But given the way I am, there is insufficient reason for anyone to be positive about that.

Anybody know the story behind this?

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In a comment on a previous post, a reader says:

Maybe this would be a more entertaining topic

Bill allows foreign prisons to house S.C. inmates

Sure, we can discuss it. Or rather, you can discuss it. I can’t tell what the bill is all about. Here’s a link to it. Apparently, all that’s happened is it was introduced today and sent to Judiciary Committee.

So, what’s it about? Anybody know?

Speaking of legislative updates, personally, I’m more interested in this absurdity, in which one of our major local institutions is pulling a fast one on two others. Remember when hospitals just took care of folks, rather than having all these high-stakes political battles?

Why don’t we just surrender, Sarge?

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The subject of personal ownership of guns came up during the discussion on a recent post, and one respondent wrote, "Never had a gun, don’t want one, lotsa people get shot with their own gun…."

Well, as I was reminded over the weekend, you don’t actually have to shoot yourself to get hurt firing a gun. Or — forgive me — I should say, a rifle.

Somehow, I had gotten to my current ripe old age without ever having fired a high-powered rifle. I had experience with pistol (can’t hit a durn’ thing with ’em), rifle (which I’m not bad at, for a civilian), and shotgun (which you don’t have to be all that good with to hit something).

But when I say "rifle," I mean .22s. Anybody can hit a tin can with a .22, I suppose.

But Saturday, I was visiting kin up in Marlboro County, and my cousin had a new .30-06 rifle he wanted to try out. So we went out to some land belonging to a friend of my uncle’s, where there was an open field with about a 10-foot embankment of earth piled up at one end of it. That’s where we put the paper target.

My cousin shot first, it being his rifle. It was a short, carbine-like weapon with a sort of built-in clip arrangement on the bottom. You swing out the clip thing, load in three rounds in staggered formation, and swing it back up until it snaps into place under the bolt-action breech.

Now, I had been thinking ".30 caliber — that’s not all that much more than a .22." Maybe, if you’re talking about an M-16 kind of .223 round. See, I had reckoned without the enormous shell behind the modest slug — one of those things about three inches long, with most of its length looking to be about twice the diameter of the slug. That’s a lot of powder. That’s a big bullet.

When the first shot was fired, I went straight to my car, opened my briefcase (which is filled with junk for all sorts of contingencies), and pulled out some foam earplugs. Wow.

I had to hurry to get back to Columbia, so I asked to go next, after my cousin had fired a couple of clips. He handed it over, showed me how the first cartridge went in, and I managed to insert the other two of those artillery shells without embarrassing myself. I asked where the safety was, and fumbled with it a bit.

My cousin had noted what a light weapon it was, and he was right. A little too light, I believe. I assumed what I hoped was a good standing position, my feet forming a line about 30 degrees from the direction of fire. I drew it up firmly to my shoulder, aimed the best I could (it was a kind of sight I’d never seen before, and pulled the trigger.

BLAM! The thing slammed into my bony shoulder like somebody hitting me with a baseball bat, while the barrel jerked way up and a little off to the right.

It hurt like an SOB. My immediate thought was, "I do NOT want to do this again." But rather than wimp out, I brought the barrel back down and got ready to fire again. I really tensed up for the second shot, making sure it was tight against my shoulder, and gripping firmly with my left hand to keep the muzzle pointed downrange. It didn’t work. It still kicked like a donkey, and ended up pointed at the sky.

I only have to get through one more round. This time I forced myself to relax, to hold it a little more lightly, and to remember to squeeze the trigger with even pressure throughout my hand, rather than jerk it. I missed the target by about a foot.

My second had missed, too. But miracle of miracles, my first shot — before I knew what I was in for — had actually grazed the black center of the target. And — ahem — mine was the first one to do so.

But I got to thinking later: The M1 Garand fired more or less the same ammunition, from a clip of eight, I believe. And the M-1 Carbine was pretty light (although I think it also fired lighter ammo; somebody tell me if I’m wrong). The average WWII Army recruit, according to Stephen Ambrose, was:

… five feet eight inches tall, weighed 144 pounds, had a thirty-three-and-a-half-inch chest, and a thirty-one-inch waist.

How on Earth did a little guy like that (a thirty-three-and-a-half-inch chest!!!) fire clip after clip of that ammunition and still have use of his right arm? Sure, they were half my age (an average of 26), and they probably knew some trick that I don’t know about the proper way to seat the butt against the shoulder, and the Garand was heavier than the carbine, but still. It makes me respect those guys — all of whom have been my heroes my whole life — even more.

Maybe I wasn’t holding it right; I don’t know. But if it hurt like that, after a day of fighting through the hedgerows, when the time came that the sergeant told us to dig in for the night, I think I might have said, "Sarge, why don’t we just let the Germans have France?"

Of course, knowing the way soldiers gripe, I’m sure a lot of guys did say that. But they still dug in, and got up and fought again the next day.

About Will Folks…

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I just wrote this long piece asking what y’all thought about Will Folks’ op-ed today — not the content, but the fact that we ran it at all. I’ve gotten a lot of flak about that today.

And just as I went to save, TYPEPAD BLEW UP ON ME!!!!

Just as well — I had written down MY thoughts on the question, and it’s probably best to see what y’all think first, and then answer you.

So, what do you think?