Category Archives: Health

Karen had a slightly different reaction

What was your reaction to this headline when it led the paper the other day — “Haley confronts Obama on health care”?

Yeah, me too. Cringe City. Like, Please don’t tell me she identified herself as being from South Carolina. I mean, think about it: The closest thing to a qualification that Nikki possesses on this issue is a stint as fund-raiser for a hospital, which didn’t work out so well. But now the Leader of the Free World is expected to sit still and be lectured by her on the subject.

OK, so the president invited her to. That doesn’t make me feel much better about her wasting the opportunity by going to bat for a national GOP priority.

Yeah, I know she was elected chiefly by pushing these national-issue hot buttons, and not for anything central to being governor. And that’s my problem with this. That’s what produces the cringe factor. The last thing we needed was another governor who was more interested in playing to a national audience than governing South Carolina, and look what we got.

But hey, that’s what we’ve got, so I wasn’t going to say anything. Y’all have heard all that before.

At least, I wasn’t until I got this e-mail from Karen Floyd over the weekend:

Dear Subscriber

Recently, Governor-elect Nikki made a trip up to Washington DC to speak with President Obama about the highly contentious health care legislation. We are so proud to have our next governor aggressively represent the views of so many Americans.

Below is an article about the event that appeared in the Rock Hill Herald [the same McClatchy piece that was in The State, linked above]. Please take the time to read it and let us know what you think by visiting our Facebook page!

Sincerely,

Karen Floyd

SCGOP Chairman

So proud, huh? I’m beginning to suspect that Karen and I look at things somewhat differently…

Oh, and by the way — I realize that this is just business to people like Nikki and Karen, this constant sniping at the president’s attempt (however flawed) to deal with the health care crisis in this country. They just use it to yank the chains of susceptible people, and get them to vote the way they want them to.

But if this foolishness actually leads to the federal government letting South Carolina opt out of health care reform, as Obama reportedly indicated to Nikki, well then I am going to take this personally. It may be just partisan politics business, but I’m going to take it very personally.

OK, now I’m going to switch directions on you… I hope this doesn’t give you whiplash…

Nikki did something else at that meeting that I’m very proud she did: Confront the president on Yucca Mountain. That actually is a very important issue to South Carolina, and one that the president has taken an indefensible position on, thanks to Harry Reid. Anything Nikki does to get the president’s attention on that short of slapping him upside the head is OK with me. You go, girl.

And to change my tune still further… I was just about to post this when I had a phone conversation with a thoughtful friend who said, you’ve got to read The Greenville News version of the Haley/Obama interaction. The tone was a bit different. In fact, it had this bit:

Haley insisted that she is more interested in a “conversation” with the White House over areas of disagreement than “confrontation.”

That’s nice, but not quite enough to make me do an Emily Litella. I still don’t want my governor posturing on national controversies, and Karen Floyd does. Therein lies the difference.

You’ve just gotta read this one…

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Here’s Slate’s summary of a piece on Politico:

New GOP Legislator Incensed by Delay of His Government Health Care Coverage

A newly elected Maryland congressman startled other frosh at a congressional info session on Monday by growing indignant over the fact that his government-funded health care wouldn’t be active immediately, reports Politico. Republican Rep. Andy Harris, who triumphed over Democrat Frank Kratovil in his congressional race with promises to vanquish Obamacare, couldn’t believe that his policy would take a month to become active after his swearing in on Jan. 3. “He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer present at the benefits information session attended by 250 freshman, staff, and family members. “Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” said the staffer. Harris, a doctor turned legislator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, also told the audience: “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed.” During his congressional campaign, Harris vowed to “fight to repeal health-care reform.” His spokeswoman said his statements at the meeting were merely intended to highlight the ineptitude of government health coverage.

For the rest of the story, here’s the link.

I hardly know what to say, beyond the obvious — if Congress would simply let us all buy into its health plan, I’d be happy. Wouldn’t you? If only Obamacare did that much, it would be a wonderful thing.

Way to go! We’re No. 18! (I think)

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I don’t remember what I was looking for, but over the weekend I inadvertently stumbled on this Web page listing the teams from the recent Walk for Life, with what I take to be their total amounts raised.

And as I skimmed down the alphabetical list, I saw that “Brad’s Bloggers” had the highest total — $982 — up to that point in the alphabet. (We were 22nd on the list.)

Hey, I knew we had done pretty well — largely thanks to Doug Ross — but this intrigued me enough to run down the whole list and see how many teams raised more than we did.

And there were only 17 teams that did better, out of more than 300 teams. (I counted twice. One time I got 314, the next time I got 304. So I just decided to call it “more than 300,” because I’ve got work to do.)

How about that? And we got a late start. Just think what we could do next year, if we’re just a little better organized.

Anyway, here’s my list of the top 20 teams (if I missed anybody in my quick skim, I apologize):

The Pink Posse — $19,741
Pink for Michelle — $3,900
Steps for Steph — $3,728
Cancer Crushers — $3,715
Keenan Suggs — $2,531.65
Team TWC — $2,522.50
Irmo/Lexington Curves — $2,270
SCBT — $2,105
Positively Pink — $1,730
Lizard’s Thicket — $1,620
Edens & Avant — $1,540
University of Phoenix Columbia Campus… — $1,153
KICK — $1,137
SCANA Legal/Legal Regulatory/Environmental Team… — $1,100
Richland One SNS Boob Buddies — $1,071
Mt. Herman Walkers — $1,005
The Ta-tinis — $1,003
Brad’s Bloggers — $982
Richland One – Forest Heights Deb’s Team… — $900
Crusaders for the Cure — $885

The Walk was great. I’m tired now…

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Here are three of the 6,000 people who walked for breast cancer awareness this morning — Mark Stewart, Kathryn Fenner and Doug Ross.

Brad’s Bloggers. The Few. The Proud. Etc.

We had a great time. The weather couldn’t have been better. Afterward, I went to the Italian festival on Main Street, which was also awesome.

And then I took a nap. But I’m still kinda dopey.

But I wanted to be sure to thank Mark, Kathryn, Doug. And the following, who gave but were unable to walk with us:

David Knobeloch
Pat Dixon
Nick Nielsen
Buddy Johnson

Next year, we’ll do it again, and I’ll try to get an earlier start on the planning. Maybe we’ll have custom T-shirts; who knows?

But now, I’m feeling pretty good about the $932 we raised — $450 of it by Doug alone!

Tomorrow is the Walk for Life!

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Those of you who are joining me, I’ll see you at the appointed place and time.

This post is to thank my team members, who among them have raised $892 for the cause!

Doug Ross
Kathryn Fenner
David Knobeloch
Pat Dixon
Nick Nielsen
Buddy Johnson
Mark Stewart

And especially Doug Ross, who came up with $410 of that on his own! Yep, Doug gives me a hard time here on the blog now and then, but he just earned the right to continue to be contrarian. He’s definitely a made man on this blog.

As are all of my teammates…

Graham becomes incoherent when he tries too hard to sound like DeMint

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Just got this release from Lindsey Graham:

Graham Continues Push for Repeal and Replace of Obamacare

WASHINGTON – Continuing his commitment to the repeal and replace of Obamacare, United States Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has introduced legislation to repeal another major provision of the recently-passed health care law – the Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) Act.

“The CLASS Act is a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff blush,” said Graham. “It’s billed as an insurance program for long-term care, but really it’s just a huge and very costly government accounting trick.”…

“To help build momentum for repeal and replace of Obamacare, we should continue holding up all the individual pieces of this monstrosity – like the CLASS Act – to the light of day,” said Graham. “The more Americans learn about the details of this health care bill, and provisions like the CLASS Act, the less they like it. The sooner we can repeal and replace Obamacare, the better off our nation will be.”

And so on and so forth. The rest is the usual nonsense.

Why “nonsense?” Because it is patently, objectively ridiculous to be talking about repealing an incremental, half-baked mishmash reform that hasn’t had ANY appreciable effect yet (have YOU felt or seen any effects? I certainly haven’t). I think that as health-care reform this was pretty lame (can you tell?), but for the sake of all that’s logical, give it a chance to see if it does anything. Unless you’re prepared to pass REAL reform (which would be awesome, and worth upsetting a few apple carts), hush up and observe for the next few years, THEN weigh in — when you know something.

Personally, I don’t know whether the CLASS Act in particular is well-designed or not. But that’s of secondary consideration in light of the senator’s assertion that he’s only talking about it in order to accomplish the goal of “repeal and replace of Obamacare.”

Did anybody proof this release before it went out? Did anyone say that line out loud before putting it in the lede and hed (and yes, “lede” and “hed” are spelled correctly in this context, you ignorant pedantic lubbers), and then saying it a third time later in the release? Is he really pushing for “repeal (a noun, within the context of following “for”) and replace (which cannot, in this or any other context, be anything but a verb)” of Obamacare?

Is this some crazy new mangled-English construct currently in vogue with a certain kind of Republican (the kind who says abominable things such as “Democrat Party”)? Because I’m telling ya, it makes zero sense to the rest of us. Did you mean to say you are pushing TO repeal (this time a verb) and replace (still a verb) it? If so, why not say so?

Lindsey Graham was a fairly eloquent opponent of what is termed “Obamacare” before it passed. He made his case, and explained his reasons in a respectable manner. But he lost the argument. But when he tries to fulminate about that as though he were a Tea Party ranter, all his coherence is left behind. Which is a shame.

I eagerly await the return of the real Lindsey Graham, because he’s a guy I greatly admire. Let DeMint be DeMint. One of those is too many. Don’t try to be what you’re not, senator.

Our goal? To raise more than $480 for Walk for Life

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Why $480? Well, because that’s how much my wife’s team has raised. And we can’t let her win, because she’s a girl.

And yeah, I realize some of my teammates are also girls, but I suppose they have their motivations, and I have mine.

OK, seriously, I have other, better motivations. Such as the fact that my dear wife is herself a cancer survivor — nine years after having stage 4 cancer, which had spread to her liver by the time we knew about it. A precious, walking miracle.

… which, when you think about it, gives her an UNFAIR ADVANTAGE in raising money for her team. How am I going to compete with that narrative? I mean, I may be an ad whiz, but marketing genius only gets you so far. So we’re just gonna have to work harder, aren’t we?

We’re well on our way, as it happens. If you go to the Web page where you can also sign up to contribute, you’ll see we’ve raised $305. So we need $175 or more. We can do this!

You can no longer “join” the team in terms of having your name show up on the page (I don’t know why they shut that off so early), but you can still contribute (the total on the page reflects new contributions), and still show up to walk with us at 8:30 a.m. at Finlay Park on Saturday, Oct. 2.

So come on! So far, Doug Ross, Kathryn Fenner, David Knobeloch, Mark Stewart and Pat Dixon have all signed up. David and Pat can’t walk that day, but we’re very happy to have their contributions.

So come on! But I already said that…

Last chance to walk with Doug, Kathryn and me

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Last week when I put out the call for a blog team for the Walk for Life, Doug Ross and Kathryn Fenner generously volunteered immediately.

I had intended to keep the momentum going with a reminder each day, but I’ve had very little time for blogging this past week.

And now I see that the deadline for signing up is TODAY. I don’t know whether that means this morning, or noon today or midnight. But if you’d like to join the team, go to this link NOW and see if it will still let you in.

Here’s hoping I’ll see you on Oct. 2…

Twitter has broken my thumbs (I think)

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I shoulda broke YOUR thumbs!

— Rocky Balboa

… and I didn’t even owe it money.

The really weird thing about this is the way I can pinpoint it in time.

When I went to bed on the night of Aug. 16, I was fine. No pain; everything functioning normally. No foreshadowing at all. Then, sometime during the night, I woke up, and as I got up out of the bed to head for the bathroom, I said “Ow.” Both joints in both thumbs hurt like crazy, and doing the most normal things — such as pushing myself up out of the bed, or even something as nonstrenuous as pinching the bridge of my nose with thumb and forefinger to rub the sleep out — caused the thumb involved to pop out of joint, quite painfully. And popping it back in was no picnic, either.

And even when I wasn’t trying to use them, the joints were painfully tender to the slightest touch. And if I did try to use them — which is pretty unavoidable; our species has pretty much built its daily activities around having opposable thumbs — to use them normally required forcing the joints past points at which they want to stop, and that forcing leads to a pop (which I think is actual dislocation), and pain. Both in the ball of the hand, and the other joint closer to the end of the digit.

I had always been double-jointed to the point that my thumbs naturally bent back, on their own, 90 degrees. No more. Now, once they hit the point where they are straight, they stop, and the slightest backward pressure on them hurts.

And it’s been like this ever since that day. This is really having an impact on my life.

There was no trauma that I can recall.

I don’t think I’ve contracted any bizarre illness that attacks the joints — at least, there are no other symptoms. All the other joints are fine — except for my knee that acts up sometimes, but that long predated this.

I haven’t taken in any exotic toxins that I know of. I remember reading once of an incident involving Allied prisoners in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines. Once they were fed a dinner of rancid fish heads, and moments after the meal, suddenly all the prisoners’ heads flopped over because they had completely lost the use of their neck muscles. After a few hours, the effect wore off. Then the next night, more fish heads, and the men’s heads flopped over again. This really freaked out the guards.

But I hadn’t eaten any rancid fish heads.

At first, I thought it was the constant typing on the laptop, and I didn’t know what I was going to do about that — both for ADCO and the blog, it’s pretty unavoidable.

Then, I finally realized: It was the Blackberry. It was the fact that I increasingly answer e-mails on it, and work with photos on it, and send text messages, approve blog comments, and… constantly, constantly, keep up with Twitter. I Tweet, I reTweet, I click on links to see what they’re about. I do it anytime I’m sitting still and not actually writing or talking or driving. Sit me down and shut me up, and I dive into Twitter.

It’s called “Blackberry Thumb.” Some of my iPhone-loving friends have told me that it’s because I use the wrong device, but they think the iPhone is the cure to every ill known to Man.

So I’m thinking that’s it. But I’ve tried cutting back, to no avail. As for cold turkey — I’m not even sure it’s possible to do that and keep up with ADCO and family responsibilities. Sure, I can avoid Googling everything in the world that I’m curious about in the course of a day, and confine Twitter activity to the laptop. But there’s a limit. There’s a good reason I pay for this data service every month.

Since I live in the good ol’ USA, it would be prohibitively expensive with my current insurance to go on a quest through various specialists in search of a cure, so I’d really like to figure this out and cure it myself. I’ve acquired a couple of braces for immobilizing my thumbs to sleep in at least, and that keeps them from waking me up from the pain of normal movements during the night — but causes them to be even stiffer in the morning.

The biggest mystery, to me, and the one thing that makes me doubt the Twitter diagnosis? That it came on, full-blown, so suddenly. Seems to me that a repetitive-motion thing would be more gradual than that. But maybe not. My goal is just to make it go away just as suddenly, and for good…

Who wants to join me at the Walk for Life?

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My wife, a breast cancer survivor (Thank God for his tender mercies), told me the other night that she had signed me up for her team for the Walk for Life this year.

I said, “But I was going to form a blog team!”

So she said I’d better go ahead and do it. Instead of just talking about it the way I did last year. The deadline for participants to sign up is a week from today.

So I went to the website, and set up a team called “Brad’s Bloggers.” I had no idea what to set as a fund-raising goal, so I went with the default $100. That way, if y’all don’t come through, I can cough it up myself.

But you will come through, right? It’s on Saturday, Oct. 2, starting at 8:30 in Finlay Park.

You can sign up for the team by going to this link, clicking on “Join Our Team,” and following the prompts. Once you’ve done so, please e-mail me at brad@bradwarthen.com. Then, just before the event, I’ll send all those who contacted me info on where and how to meet so we can walk together.

So how about it? Let’s show ’em we bloggers are more than just a bunch of couch potatoes sitting in front of a laptop in our pajamas. Put on some actual pants, and shoes, and walk with us.

An “ad homo-nem attack” on Sheheen?

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First, I’ll admit that I got the “ad homo-nem” joke from my elder son, who said that when he saw the same thing I’m reacting to here:

@TreyWalker: Effeminate sounding non-answers by @VincentSheheen on ObamaCare won’t cut it in this cycle. From the Post and Courier: postandcourier.com/news/2010/aug/…

Say what? Effeminate-sounding? And this from one of your more sensible Republicans, Trey Walker, a McMaster and McCain kind of guy…

Here, for the record, is what Yvonne Wenger wrote on that subject:

Sheheen said he has answered questions throughout his campaign about his national policy stances, such as abortion rights.

“My answer is the same: I support life. I have always supported life and my voting reflects that,” he said.

Likewise, Sheheen said he has laid out his position on the new federal health care law, including his concerns about the expense and the burden to small businesses. But the new law has components that will remedy long-standing issues in the country that only a “bitter partisan” would find fault with, such as denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.

“I think it’s the next governor’s job to stand up against things that aren’t helpful to South Carolina within the health care law,” he said, adding that he would do just that if elected.

It is unclear where Sheheen stands on the individual mandate that Americans have health insurance and whether he supports the court challenge on the new law by the state Attorney General Henry McMaster, a Republican. Sheheen’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to questions Tuesday on the matter.

On thing that astounds me is that MSM types will actually go along with the Haley strategy of distraction by asking questions about inside-the-Beltway GOP litmus tests of a candidate running for governor of South Carolina. Abortion? Immigration? Obamacare? (This kind of mindlessness — the phenomenon whereby reporters exercise no judgment whatsoever about what matters, slavishly going along with any idiotic topic that gets brought up by either of the two “sides” you’re falling all over yourself to be fair and impartial to, whether it’s relevant or not — is why I gave up news and switched to editorial in 1994. In editorial, you’re allowed to think, and call B.S. “nonsense.” Unfortunately, we still couldn’t call it “B.S.” Not in a family newspaper. Or on a family blog.)

There is no frickin’ way I would expect a governor of SC to have an overall opinion on Obamacare. Hey, I don’t have an opinion on Obamacare (if I did, you’d have read it here). But maybe that’s because I sort of quit paying attention to Obama on health care way back during the primary campaigns back in the Year Seven, when it became clear that he was too timid even to suggest doing what ought to be done. (Seriously, folks, have you seen any effects from this massive health care “reform” yet? Neither have I.) Since that’s my position, I tend to look at these Republicans who keep wetting their pants about their imagined “government takeover of health care” as though they were recent arrivals from Venus. (Which, in case you missed the implication, is an “effeminate” planet. Your more masculine delusionals come from Mars.)

Another thing that astounds me is that Vincent stays cool and doesn’t get totally ticked off about it. I certainly would.

Maybe that — the fact that Vincent stays cool — is what Trey thinks is “effeminate.” Maybe Vincent should take a swing at reporters when they ask stuff like that. Not at Yvonne; that wouldn’t be manly. How about Tim Smith of The Greenville News? He’s the one who always wears the cowboy hat. It’s always manly to hit a guy in a cowboy hat. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a codicil in the unwritten Guy Code that if a guy’s wearing a cowboy hat, you’re allowed (and perhaps required) to hit him, whether he’s done anything to provoke you or not. OK, that should be Vincent’s strategy from now on: Whenever anyone in the MSM asks a particularly stupid, irrelevant or irritating question, Vincent should just take a big swing at Tim Smith. After a few times of doing this, the TV cameras would be ready and watching for it, and reporters would be making up stupid questions just to see Vincent pop Tim a good one. The voters would all see this on their boob tubes, and that would lay this “effeminate answers” non-issue to rest for good.

Anyway, I was standing there during the exchange that Yvonne was writing about, which you can see pictured in this image from a previous post (that’s Tim in his cowboy hat, and Yvonne at the left). You can also see Yvonne with me back on Episode 2 of “Pub Politics,” the one entitled “Wesley Sounds Like Crap.” But that’s sort of a digression, isn’t it? Although not nearly as much of a digression as asking candidates for governor of SC about abortion, immigration and national health care policy.

Vincent can stay cool in such absurd moments, because his staff gets all ticked off for him — the way I would. Below, you can see Campaign Manager Trav Robertson intervening to tell the reporters in no uncertain terms to can the stupid, irrelevant questions — and to arrange a time for an extended interview if they want to talk about irrelevancies. Good for you, Trav. Go get ’em…

We have the best blood! (Or at least the best Red Cross)

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Congratulations to our local Red Cross blood services. I just saw this release:

South Carolina Blood Services Region of the American Red Cross Ranked #1 in the Nation

Columbia, S.C.— The South Carolina Blood Services Region of the American Red Cross has been named the top performing region in the national Red Cross system. The South Carolina Region is one of 36 Red Cross Blood Services regions in the United States.

American Red Cross Blood Services regions across the country provide blood and blood products to more than 3,000 hospitals, making the Red Cross the largest single blood provider in the United States. The South Carolina Blood Services Region serves 54 hospitals in South Carolina and parts of Georgia.

The South Carolina Region was rated for high performance in areas including growth of red blood cell donations and distribution to hospitals, quality control, cost effectiveness and hospital satisfaction.

“We’re proud to be named the Red Cross Region of the Year,” said Delisa English, chief executive officer of the South Carolina Blood Services Region. “This accomplishment is only made possible by the tremendous support of our staff, volunteers, blood donors and blood drive sponsors who work hard each day to ensure blood products are available for patients in the South Carolina Region and across the nation.”

Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs blood. The American Red Cross South Carolina Blood Services Region must have 500 people give blood and platelets each weekday to meet hospital demand. Accident victims as well as patients with cancer, sickle cell disease, blood disorders and other illnesses receive lifesaving transfusions every day. There is no substitute for blood and volunteer donors are the only source.

How to Donate Blood

Simply call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or visit redcrossblood.org to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed to ensure a reliable supply for patients. Blood can be safely donated every 56 days. Most healthy people age 17 and older, or 16 with parental consent, who weigh at least 110 pounds, are eligible to donate blood and platelets. Donors who are 18 and younger must also meet specific height and weight requirements.

About the American Red Cross

Governed by volunteers and supported by giving individuals and communities, the American Red Cross is the single largest supplier of blood products to hospitals throughout the United States. While local hospital needs are always met first, the Red Cross also helps ensure no patient goes without blood no matter where or when they need it. In addition to providing nearly half of the nation’s blood supply, the Red Cross provides relief to victims of disaster, trains millions in lifesaving skills, serves as a communication link between U.S. military members and their families, and assists victims of international disasters or conflicts.

# # #

First we have the national champion baseball team; now this.

Personally, I’m going to claim a measure of credit for this. No doubt the blood that I have given has contributed mightily, if only in terms of sheer quality of the blood collected here.

We still aren’t collecting enough of it, though, so get on down there and roll up a sleeve…

I gave blood again. So should you (he said with an inflated sense of his own moral superiority)

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Yep, those are my shoes. They need polish...

Sorry about no Virtual Front Page last night. I was giving blood instead.

I did the Alyx system again, the process in which they draw out TWO pints of blood, take the red cells out of it, and put what’s left back (along with a tad of cool saline, which chills one ever so slightly on a hot day). Nice things about this: The needle is smaller (I don’t know how, since it has two channels, but it is) and therefore less uncomfortable — and you don’t get called to give again for 16 weeks, rather than the usual 8.

It was fine. I’m feeling a tad iron-poor this morning (I can sense that there are fewer things carrying oxygen to my brain, or something), but I think I did sleep a little better last night. And the iron will return.

Anyway, they’re short of all sorts of blood as always, not just my “universal donor” O positive.

So you should give, too. Be like me. ‘Cause I’m such a heckuva guy.

Is that the best Haley can do? Bring up Obama? Wow, that is truly lame…

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There wasn’t much new in The State‘s recap Sunday of how Vincent Sheheen is pretty much thrashing Nikki Haley on her signature issues (transparency and business savvy) — nothing much you couldn’t have read here the middle of last week.

But I was struck by the unbelievably lame response recorded from the Haley campaign:

For its part, Haley’s campaign has argued Sheheen, a state senator from Camden, is ducking questions about whether the Democrat supports recently approved national health insurance law and the Obama administration’s lawsuit challenging Arizona’s immigration law, two issues Sheheen could have to deal with if elected governor.

Really? That’s the best you can do? He’s totally crushing you on transparency, and making a mockery of your desire to run government the way you run your business, and that’s your response? You retreat to the current GOP playbook? That book only has one play these days, you know. It goes something like this:

When cornered, talk about Obama. Don’t worry that it has nothing to do with the office you’re running for. Just cry, “Obama! Obama! Obama! We hate Obama! Do you hate Obama? If you don’t, you’re not one of us, because we really, really hate him…” Yadda-yadda. Just keep going; don’t worry about repeating yourself or not making the slightest bit of logical sense, because your base will eat this up…

As for the last phrase in that excerpt from The State — “two issues Sheheen could have to deal with if elected governor” — it’s hard to imagine a more transparent case of news people bending over backwards to act like a source is saying something rational when he or she is not. Yeah, you stretch a point and sure, health care reform affects every state (just as it does business and many other aspects of life) and a governor will govern in an environment in which a lot of people insist that immigration is a huge state issue. But you could say that about almost any hot-button national issue, from Afghanistan to the BP oil spill — it still wouldn’t be central. Everyone, but everyone, knows that the Haley campaign putting out that response has absolutely ZERO to do with what faces the next governor, and everything to do with the fact that if it isn’t in the Sarah Palin songbook, they can’t sing it.

Anyway, we are left waiting for a substantive response actually bearing on the two things that are allegedly Nikki’s strong suits, and why we should believe anything she says about them. And Vincent didn’t pick these issues — Nikki did.

Want to see a REAL cigarette tax increase?

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Just so you know what a real, honest-to-goodness, serious cigarette tax increase looks like, check this out:

Cigarette taxes in New York would jump by $1.60 a pack under a tentative deal reached between Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders, which would give New York the nation’s highest state cigarette taxes.

The proposal, which officials said Mr. Paterson would include in an emergency budget bill due for a vote on Monday, would also raise wholesale taxes on other tobacco products like chewing tobacco, bringing the tax on those products closer in line with those of cigarettes.

In New York City, which levies steep taxes of its own on tobacco products, a pack of cigarettes would come with a tax of $5.85, making it the nation’s first city to break $5, antismoking advocates said. That would bring the overall cost of a pack of premium cigarettes above $10 in many stores in the city.

And we’ve been patting ourselves on the backs about the one big achievement of the 2010 legislative session — a whopping 50-cent increase from our lowest-in-the-nation 7-cent tax, which we had to wait about a decade for.

That means our TOTAL state cigarette tax, after our increase, is just over ONE-THIRD of the INCREASE that New York just did in one little hop. And the tax on a pack of cigarettes in New York City is MORE THAN TEN TIMES the new tax here in SC.

Yeah, I know; you have to crawl before you can walk. But still.

Mind you, I can’t really point to anything else our lawmakers tried to do this year to catch us up to the rest of the country in any regard. We just have this one tiny bit of progress. I was suitably proud of us for it. At least it meant we had done ONE of the things that was on my list of “South Carolina’s unfinished business” I wrote about when I left the paper. Sure, it was one of the two really easy ones I tacked onto the end of the column, as suggestions for something to warm up on before we really got down to work. But it was the first actual, measurable progress I had seen on anything in years — probably since Mark Sanford became governor.

So New York goes and makes our accomplishment look ridiculous. This is humiliating.

You suppose they did it on purpose? Those Yankees do like to mock us…

Big Pharma should be paying me to do this

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I’m conducting an experiment.

I just took some extra-strength Tylenol that expired in 2002. (Maybe I should have stuck to the non-alcoholic “beer” the way Thad Viers did at “Pub Politics” last night — although actually I think this is more of a sinus congestion thing.)

So far I haven’t keeled over. No hallucinations. I haven’t grown a third arm or anything. Wait…. no, that was nothing.

If I can get some funding from Tylenol, I’ll write up the results, assuming there are any…

Play it safe; drink your water from the tap

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Did you see this today?

Bottled water contains more bacteria than tap water

…some brands found to harbour levels 100 times above permitted limits, according to new research.

A team of scientists found that 70 per cent of popular bottled water brands available in shops had high levels of bacteria.

The researchers from Ccrest Laboratories in Canada found that tap water had less bacteria than bottled water.

Microbiologist Dr Sonish Azam, of Ccrest Laboratories, said bottled water did not live up to its claims or purity.

She said: “Heterotrophic bacteria counts in some of the bottles were found to be in revolting figures of one hundred times more than the permitted limit.”

Yet another reason to stick to drinking straight from the tap. But use a glass, please — preferably a clean one.

Obama to send troops to Mexico border

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This should absolutely thrill some of you — you know, those who think Mexican laborers are the greatest threat to the nation.

Yes, finally, the president has decided to send Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing after that foul bandido Pancho Villa…

… no, wait… wrong century. Oh, well, just to make this easier, here’s the latest news:

President Obama will deploy an additional 1,200 National Guard troops to the southern border and request $500 million in extra money for border security, according to an administration official. The decision comes as the White House is seeking Republican support for broad immigration reform this year.

The official said the new resources would provide “immediate enhancement” to the border even as the Obama administration continues to “work with Congress to fix our broken immigration system through comprehensive reform, which would provide lasting and dedicated resources by which to secure our borders and make our communities safer.”

The 1,200 troops will join about 340 already working in the border region, the official said. They would provide support to law enforcement efforts against drug trafficking by increasing monitoring of border crossings and performing intelligence analysis.

Feel better, folks? Feel safer?

Senate easily overrides on cigarette tax

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While I was at a long lunch for the Azerbaijani journalists sponsored by the Columbia World Affairs Council, I got the following two e-mails in quick succession:

scsenategop

Senate overrides cig tax veto. about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

PhilBaileySC

33 to 13. Cig Tax Veto overridden about 3 hours ago via UberTwitter

That good news was coming from the spokesman for the Republicans in the Senate and his Democratic counterpart. And while they passed it on without comment, it was an occasion for rejoicing across party barriers.

This is a rare moment when the SC Legislature actually overcomes barriers and its own inertia to do the right thing. It happens so seldom that we should celebrate it.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to denigrate this accomplishment, and I’m familiar with all of them. A few:

It took only what, a decade? In spite of the fact that we’ve known for years that three-fourths of South Carolinians favored it?

In fact, 70 percent have indicated in polls that they would have gone all the way to the national average — an increase of twice this much — but the Legislature never even seriously considered doing that at any time.

Far too much of the discussion over the years has been over how to spend the money, even though that was irrelevant to whether the tax should be raised. The point in raising it was to price cigarettes beyond the reach of teen, and experience in other states has indicated that raising the price via taxes is a very effective way of accomplishing that.

Probably more than a few legislators voted this way, in defiance of their own inclinations, just for the pleasure of stuffing it down Mark Sanford’s throat.

But let’s set all that aside. The fact is that we no longer have the shameful distinction of being the one state that does the most to make sure kids have access to cheap cigarettes. And some lawmakers understood the importance of this opportunity to do the right thing for once. For instance, I share this other Tweet from Phil Bailey:

PhilBaileySC

Sen. John Matthews just arrived. Been out with a back injury for a month. Cig Tax vote is that important to him. about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

Let’s savor that accomplishment, and then march forward to address some of the other things we should have done years ago in South Carolina.

Cigarette tax override effort under way

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This would be just a tiny glimpse into the efforts going on out there to override the governor’s veto of the measly 50-cent cigarette tax increase, but I provide it as an example:

As you are probably aware by now, Governor Sanford has vetoed the Cigarette Tax Bill which would increase South Carolina’s lowest in the Nation Cigarette Tax by 50 cents. The House and Senate may consider the veto as early as TODAY.

If you are so inclined, I would ask you as a favor to me to call your Representative and Senator and urge them to override the Governor’s veto on this important Bill. I am working with the American Cancer Society on this, and this increase will deter teenagers from beginning to smoke and encourage current smokers to quit. The increase in funds prevent further cuts to much needed health care programs.

Please take a moment and call your Representative and Senator and urge them to override the Governor. Then please forward this message to anyone else you believe may be willing to contact their Representative or Senator.

If you don’t know who you elected officials are, you can click here to find out — http://www.scstatehouse.gov/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe

To find House of Representative phone number, please click here — http://www.scstatehouse.gov/html-pages/housemembers.html

To find Senate phone numbers, please click here — http://www.scstatehouse.gov/html-pages/senatemembers.html

Thanks for your help!

Mary M. Greene

Mary Green is a longtime lobbyist. I first came to know her when she worked for the S.C. Education Association.