Category Archives: In Our Time

Now we know how debates can be stupider

Dems1

"I think this is a ridiculous exercise."
— Joe Biden

Amen.

If the frontiersmen who trashed the White House after Andrew Jackson’s inaugural had had YouTube, it would have looked like what we saw out of Charleston Monday night.

No, I take that back. The yahoos who had to be lured back out of the mansion with ice cream in 1829 were not this insipid. They were real; they were who they were, and I shouldn’t malign them by comparing them to the "Ain’t I cute" questioners on the "YouTube debate."

Gail Collins has it exactly right on today’s op-ed page, as I’ve said before (sorry; can’t show it to you — you know how the NYT is. You can’t have a serious debate with five or six or — come on, eight? — candidates on the stage. But there are worse things than the debates we had seen up to now — people who would occupy the most important job in the world being subjected to "Reality TV," and having to be deeply respectful of this abuse. (Certainly I think it’s a very important question," said Chris Dodd to the first one. It wasn’t.)

Joe Biden was only answering one of the questions that came out of this process in the quote above, but it easily applied to the evening — or most of it. Some of the questions were questions that should have been asked. But they would have been better asked by people who did not see themselves and the message. And they say politicians are narcissistic.

I like YouTube. I love YouTube. It can be fun. It can be useful. But unless it is applied much better than it was in this case, it cannot bring intelligence or coherence to a format that is far too fragmented and distracting already — the free-for-all debate among anyone and everyone who says he or she wants the nomination.

If you wish to learn what was said — and I certainly don’t blame you if you didn’t watch it — without the distractions of the posturing, mugging, simpering and snideness of the the questioners hitting you full in the face — here’s a transcript. But it doesn’t help much.

Did I get anything out of this debate? Yes. I saw once again that behind all the "I want to get out of Iraq faster than Cindy Sheehan does" posturing by this crowd seeking the affections of the angry base, serious people know that it’s not that simple. Obama: "At this point, I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." Of course, he went on to promise a quick retreat, but I think he knows better (at this point, I’ll grasp at any straw for hope that someone who might be president might have a clue). Biden: "You know we can’t just pull out now." Of course, he then quickly proposes a pullout, but at least he has a coherent plan. I think it’s an extraordinarily dangerous plan (creating an independent Kurdistan on Turkey’s border?), but it’s a plan.

I could go into other "issues," such as Chris Dodd’s white hair, or Anderson What’s-His-Name’s white hair, or whether John Edwards is better for women than Hillary Clinton (his wife says so, but let’s not go there), or how black Barack Obama is. But I think it’s safe to say that we’ll hear more about such things as the months grind slowly on.

Bottom line: We didn’t learn anything more from this than the middle-school slam-book stuff we had known before: Hillary projects presidential; Obama is smart and charismatic; Biden and Richardson are experienced, Gravel is certifiable, Kucinich is irritating, Edwards is a demagogue, and Dodd is uninteresting.

But hey; I can pander to the masses as much as the next guy: What did you think?

Democrats2

God Bless Robert Samuelson

1 Reply

This is just to make sure you saw this important piece in the paper this week. Some people get all excited about taxing or spending or this or that public policy. But Robert Samuelson took the time to write about something that is very dear to my heart, and to my daily life. Study it, and become wiser:

We are, it seems, too busy to pause
By ROBERT J. SAMUELSON – Washington Post

I have always liked commas, but I seem to be in a shrinking minority. The comma is in retreat, though it is not yet extinct. In text messages and e-mails, commas appear infrequently, and then often by accident (someone hits the wrong key). Even on the printed page, commas are dwindling. Many standard uses from my childhood (after, for example, an introductory prepositional phrase) have become optional or, worse, have been ditched.

If all this involved only grammar, I might let it lie. But the comma’s sad fate is, I think, a metaphor for something larger: how we deal with the frantic, can’t-wait-a-minute nature of modern life. The comma is, after all, a small sign that flashes “pause.” It tells the reader to slow down, think a bit, and then move on. We don’t have time for that. No pauses allowed. In this sense, the comma’s fading popularity is also social commentary.

It is true that Americans have always been in a hurry. In Democracy in America (1840), Alexis de Tocqueville has a famous passage noting the “feverish ardor” with which Americans pursue material gains and private pleasures. What’s distinctive about our era, I think, is that new technologies and astonishing prosperity give us the chance to slacken the pace. Perish the thought. In some ways, it seems, we Americans have actually become more frantic.

Evidence to support this hunch hasn’t been hard to find. Exhibit A is a story a few months ago in The Washington Post headlined, “Teens Can Multitask, But What Are Costs?” We meet Megan, a 17-year-old honors high school senior. After school, she begins studying by turning on MTV and booting up her computer. The story continues:

Over the next half hour, Megan will send about a dozen instant messages discussing the potential for a midweek snow day. She’ll take at least one cell-phone call, fire off a couple of text messages, scan Weather.com, volunteer to help with a campus cleanup (at the local high school), post some comments on a friend’s Facebook page and check out the new pom squad pictures another friend has posted on hers.

Whew! And remember, she’s also studying. Naturally, the story includes the obligatory quote from a brain scientist, who worries that so much multitasking will turn young minds into mush. “It’s almost impossible,” says the scientist, “to gain a depth of knowledge of any of the tasks you do while you’re multitasking.”

In reality, multitasking isn’t confined to the young. It’s hard to go anywhere these days — including restaurants and business meetings — without seeing people punching furiously on their BlackBerrys, cell phones or other handheld devices. More mush, maybe. At the least, serious questions of etiquette have arisen. In one survey, almost a third of the executives polled said it is never appropriate to check e-mails during meetings.

Next, there’s work. Unlike most rich nations, the United States hasn’t reduced the average workweek during the past quarter-century. In 2006, annual hours for U.S. workers averaged 1,804, barely different from 1,834 in 1979, reports the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. By contrast, the Japanese cut annual hours by 16 percent to 1,784, the Germans 20 percent to 1,421 and the French 16 percent to 1,564. A study by economists Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan argues that long working hours, especially among the well paid, may be an addiction, akin to alcoholism and smoking. (The paper is titled “The Economics of Workaholism: We Should Not Have Worked on This Paper.”)

I could go on, but the column is only 800 words, and more evidence would simply reinforce the point: de Tocqueville’s “feverish ardor” endures. There’s always too much to do, not enough time to do it. The comma is a small victim of our hustle-bustle. If we can save a few seconds a day by curtailing commas, why not? Commas are disparaged as literary clutter. They’re axed in the name of stylistic “simplicity.” Once, introductory prepositional phrases (“In 1776, Thomas Jefferson….”) routinely took commas; once, compound sentences were strictly divided by commas; once, sentences that began with “once,” “naturally,” “surprisingly,” “inevitably” and the like usually took a comma to set them apart.

No more. These and other usages have slowly become discretionary or unacceptable. Over the years, copy editors have stripped thousands of defenseless commas from my stories. I have saved every last one of them and piled them all on a secluded corner of my desk. They deserve better than they’re getting. So here are some of my discarded commas, taking a long-overdue bow: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.

I’m not quitting quietly. By my count, this column contains 104 commas. Note to copy desk: Leave them be.

Mr. Samuelson also writes for Newsweek.

God bless Robert Samuelson. He is fighting a battle I’ve fought for over 30 years now. I thought I was alone.

Back in the early ’80s, I had a reporter covering the Jackson, Tenn., city commission who just wouldn’t use commas. She was in a hurry, of course — the commission met at midmorning, and it was our policy to have a story about that meeting in the edition that was actually on the streets downtown at noon. As I edited her story, I would call her over and point to all the places where I was inserting commas (among other changes, of course).

This was at the very tail end of the typewriter era. One day, she strode impatiently back to her desk — I can see her now — and sat back down at her IBM Selectric. Less than a minute later, she whipped out the paper, strode back over to me and handed the page to me with a flourish. It was a page full of commas. She urged me to hang onto them and insert them into her copy at my leisure, rather than bothering her about it when she was busy.

Ellen Dahnke went on to write editorials at The Tennessean. In the spring of 2005, I saw her at a reunion Reunion
of Sun staff from those days when everyone was young. That’s where I got this picture (with Wichita Eagle cartoonist Richard Crowson and Washington lobbyist Joel Wood). She was fighting breast cancer. She and my wife, a survivor since 2001, talked at length about it.

We lost Ellen back in December.

I like to think that on the editorial board, in those later years, Ellen had the chance to slow down and think. I like to think she had time for the commas. Silly, I know, but I think it’s a thought that would make Ellen smile.

The coward that roared

If only Haig WERE in control…

4 Replies

Everybody makes fun of poor ol’ Al "I’m in control" Haig, but the general has a lot of sense, and we could do worse — and would probably be much better off — if he were in charge now.

Admittedly, I’m just basing that on this short op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal today, but common sense seems in such short supply these days, I get all worked up when I run across it. An excerpt:

John Quincy Adams warned us against going abroad "in search of monsters to destroy," and some argue that the war on terror is just such a case. I disagree. On 9/11, the monster found us asleep at home and will continue to find us inadequately prepared unless we muster more strength and more wisdom. Unless we break with illusionary democracy mongering, inept handling of our military resources and self-defeating domestic political debates, we are in danger of becoming our own worst enemy.

Actually, that was a tough piece to excerpt in a truly representative manner. I recommend you go read it. It won’t take long.

‘love me some fred’

6 Replies

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got nothing against Fred Thompson. I like that ol’ Tennessee boy just fine. But I can’t help marveling at the extent to which others get excited about him.

Sometimes, they achieve a sort of frenzy that positively cracks me up.

Compared to a staid forum such as, say, an editorial page, the comments on this blog may seem wild and woolly to some — despite my occasional attempts to encourage decorum. But when it comes to sheer intellectual rigor, this is the Algonquin Round Table set against some other places out there on the ‘net.

Such a place is the comments feature on YouTube. I glanced today at one of the video clips I had posted of Sen. Thompson earlier this week, having noticed that it had already joined my top ten most-watched videos. (It had even bumped my least-watched Thomas Ravenel clip, so Mr. Ravenel now occupies only four of the top ten slots.)

There were only three comments so far, but one respondent had gushed:

For Gods sake Fred!!! Please annouce your candicacy!! We are all ready to support you anyway we can. I’d go along with that flat tax too igloo54! GO Fred GO!!!!!!

My absolute favorite, though, was the one before it:

Love me some fred

That’s it. No punctuation. This literary innovation allowed the beholder multiple interpretations. I assumed it meant, "Love me some, Fred!" A colleague took it as saying, essentially, I’m really loving that Fred! Either way, the tension created by its very sparseness, the fact that this writer is excited beyond the ability to articulate, is what strikes me: Don’t have to make sense! Doesn’t matter! I’m just so excited!

Increasing my enjoyment was a movie that I watched as much of as I could stand last night: "Idiocracy," starring Luke Wilson. I had rented it just because Mike Judge was behind it, and I really loved "Office Space."

It was, after a while, hard to take. But the premise was hilarious, and painfully true-to-life. It was based in the idea that in this generation, we have started reversing the evolutionary principle of the fittest surviving, at least in intellectual terms. With high-I.Q., educated people making a fetish of delaying having children, often until it’s too late, and everybody else fully attuned to a culture that increasingly spurs them to copulate like rabbits, the species is bound to get dumber and dumber.

So it is that Owen Wilson, as average a guy as you could find, wakes up from a frozen state 500 years in a post-literate future, and finds himself easily the smartest man in the world. In that new world, "Love me some fred" would pass as Shakespeare.

Unfortunately, "stupid" jokes do get old very quickly. And… well… some of the hyperbole wasn’t all that far beyond today’s reality — especially today’s reality TV. That made it it sort of painfully close to home. Is a show called "Oh, my Balls!," consisting entirely of some poor schmuck getting hit repeatedly in the yarbles, all that much dumber than today’s fare? I fear not.

Lawmakers stub out smoke-free workplace movement

18 Replies

As communities across South Carolina have rushed to protect workers and patrons in restaurants and bars — in response to public demand, and a recent Surgeon General’s report — they have faced one major barrier: The Legislature doesn’t want them to do it, and passed a law several years back forbidding them to do so.

If the General Assembly as a body were not actively hostile to public health, all it would have to do to foster a new dawn is get out of the way — repeal its pre-emption of local governments.

Instead, in actions that might baffle Machiavelli, it has taken idealistic legislation that would place a statewide ban on smoking in such public accommodations, watered it down to meaninglessness, and included even more emphatic language making sure that local governments can’t go beyond the meager changes in this bill.

In the attached video, you can hear some women who have been working hard to get this far on a workplace smoking ban, only to find it blow up in their faces — in multiple ways.

For instance, the legislation now:

Bans smoking in restaurants, but not bars.
Allows bars to pretty much define themselves AS bars, rather than setting rations of food-to-alcohol or some such.
Allows such establishments to buy their way out of the ban with a one-time fee. All they have to do is call themselves a bar, and ban kids for part of the day — letting the kids breathe the poisons from the upholstery during the hours that the joint goes BACK to being a "restaurant."
Put enforcement of the provisions, such as they are, under the Department of Revenue — there is, after all, that fee to collect — rather than the Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Leaves those workers at places that decide to call themselves "bars" completely unprotected from this workplace hazard.
Most of all, makes sure local standards can’t be any better than the state’s.

That last part is what has public health advocates ready to kill the bill altogether — which has some of our relatively-benign-but-less-thoughtful lawmakers (and that’s a large subset of the General Assembly) — dismissing them as soreheads not willing to take "half a loaf." But it isn’t half a loaf; it’s a serious setback.

The whole country is fed up with being forced to breathe the toxins put out by an obnoxious minority in public places, and finally laws across the nation are starting to reflect that. The movement has been strong in South Carolina as well, with 11 bills moving through the Legislature that among other things raise the cigarette tax (a lamentably pitiful amount), and ban smoking on school property, in cars that have kids as passengers, and in the aforementioned public accommodations.

There were originally something like 19 bills, which testifies to the fact that this was a movement welling up from the people of South Carolina through their representatives, not a focused campaign by any interest group. "It’s not health Nazis dictating policy," said Lisa Turner of the American Heart Association.

That actually presents a tactical liability to those working in our behalf and against the skillful, deep-pockets, recently-reinforced tobacco lobby. They know that if they kill the bar-restaurant bill, the bad stuff will just be tacked onto one of the other bills they are counting on passing.

All the momentum out here in the real world is on the side of those of us who want to breathe clean air. But the local lobbyists for tobacco companies, who tend to be some of Columbia’s best — from Dwight Drake to Tony Denny — have been making highly effective use of their close relationships with key decision-makers in the State House.

They are like highly skillful generals on the losing side of a conventional war — giving ground in ways that make their opponents pay the maximum for every inch, while all the time looking for the main chance that will suddenly tip the balance back in their favor, despite all the odds.

To see how this works in microcosm, check the video, in which a lobbyist for the American Lung Association describes her shock at first, seeing House Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison attend a subcommittee meeting on the restaurant bill, then seeing the members chat back-and-forth with the tobacco lobbyists across the room whenever they had a question, ignoring the experts from the state health department that were sitting there.

The women in the video went on and on about how their phones have been lighting up with folks from their national organizations wanting to know, what in the world is happening there? Georgia, after all, not only bans smoking in any place that EVER serves kids — which pretty much covers all restaurants — and has 27 local ordinances that go farther than that. All of this, remember, is in response to the public demand — to which local governments tend to be more sensitive than state lawmakers.

Since these health advocate met with the editorial board, North Carolina has voted NOT to ban smoking. So at least South Carolina isn’t totally alone in its backwardness.

Democratic Debate Column

52 Replies

Orangeburg debate just
a start, but a good one

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
AS BOB COBLE walked out of a breakfast meeting Friday, the bearlike New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson placed him in a loose, amiable headlock and asked what he would have to do to get him to support his bid for the presidency.
“You’ll have to squeeze harder than that,” I thought. As the governor knew, the Columbia mayor is a John Edwards man.
But for those who had not made up their minds, the “debate” in Orangeburg Thursday night was a better-than-expected opportunity to begin the winnowing process.
Eight candidates in 90 minutes is patently ridiculous. But those who planned and executed it, from South Carolina State University to MSNBC, can take pride in making the most of the situation.
National media, as expected, focus on which of the “two candidates,” Hillary or Obama (like Madonna, they no longer need titles or full names), came out on top. Some stretch themselves and mention ex-Sen. Edwards.
OK, let’s dispense with that: Sen. Clinton presented no surprises, rock star Obama came across as pretty stiff playing in this orchestra — nothing of his usual, charismatic rolling thunder. Ex-Sen. Edwards did his usual shtick.
But some of us tuned in to learn something new. I did. And I didn’t care which of the overexposed, anointed titans of fund-raising would be a more ideologically pure party standard-bearer. Those of us who spurn both parties — in other words, those of us who actually decide national elections — were looking for someone we might vote for (if such a person survives the partisan gantlet far enough to give us the chance). We’ll be looking for the same when the Republicans meet at the Koger Center May 15.
I don’t think any of us got any conclusive answers. But the questions posed were good enough to provide some impressions, however scattered, that at least made the event worth the time invested:

Best new impression: I had heard good things about Gov. Richardson, but not met him before. The debate, plus his call-in to a radio show I was on Friday morning, made me want to find out more. I liked the fact that he was real, honest and unscripted, perhaps the result of being a governor and actually dealing with real problems instead of living in Washington’s 24-hour partisan echo chamber.

Best old impression: Could Sen. Joe Biden contain his gift of gab well enough to play well with others on such a crowded stage without his head exploding? “Yes.” Since I’ve heard him speak in our own board room for two hours almost without pause, this was a pleasant surprise. I’ve always liked the guy, but this is one Irishman who didn’t just kiss the Blarney Stone; he took it home with him.

Commander in chief? I expected the candidates to compete to see who was most against our involvement in Iraq and for the longest time. But if it’s fairly judged, Dennis Kucinich wins that pointless contest hands-down. It’s also a barrier to me, since I consider giving up in Iraq to be anathema. So I looked to see who was leaving themselves any room to present a more credible position in the general election, when it’s no longer necessary to court moveon.org. The winners of that contest: Sen. Biden, followed by Sen. Obama.

Second funniest moment: The look in John Edwards’ eyes when he acknowledged being filthy rich, just before going into his nostalgic boilerplate about having been poor once upon a time. This is a much-rehearsed look for him, intended to look like wide-eyed candor. But it struck me like, You bet I’m rich, and lovin’ it, too. Probably an anomaly in the camera angle.

Making Kucinich sound reasonable: A writer on Slate.com summed it up better than I can, as follows: “When the candidates were asked who owned a gun, (Ex-Sen. Mike) Gravel was one of those who raised his hand. ‘I was worried that he meant he had one with him at the moment,’ said a senior adviser to a top candidate.” I hadn’t gotten around to including a link to this particular candidate on my blog. After Thursday night, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Common sense: You could tell who really wanted to be president. They raised their hands to say they believed there’s such a thing as a global War on Terror, and didn’t raise their hands to support Dennis the Menace’s move to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Outside of partisan blogs there’s something we call the real world; everyone except Rep. Kucinich showed that they live in it at least part-time.

The most enduring litmus test: Even after all the times I’ve seen and heard this, the grip of the abortion lobby on the Democratic Party still strikes me as astounding. Is there any greater demonstration of the power of party uber alles than hearing a Roman Catholic such as Sen. Biden emphatically saying, “I strongly support Roe v. Wade,” and asserting complete faith in the existence of a right to privacy in the Constitution?

South Carolina’s shame: Only one thing was mentioned all night that let you know this took place in South Carolina — the Confederate flag at our State House. So much for our wish to build a new image based on hydrogen research and the like.

The event helped me begin to focus on this process, which has been easy to ignore with everything going on in South Carolina. There will be many debates, interviews and other opportunities before the winnowing is done. Whether this newspaper will support, or whether I personally will vote for, any of these candidates is a question that it is far too soon to answer.
But this was a start.

That is SO last decade, senator

8 Replies

The McCain campaign sent me a fund-soliciting e-mail pushing "John McCain Mousepads:"

We are asking that you join us today by making a generous contribution
of whatever you can
afford. With your contribution of $75 or more, we
will send you one of the official John McCain 2008 mouse pads below as
a special thank you. If you are not able to give $75 at this time,
please select the additional contribution options below. Thank you for
your support!

My question is, in a time when even the hand-me-down mouses I get to use here at work on my Windows 98 desktop are optical meeses, who on Earth still uses mouse pads.

Some have tried to make an issue of Sen. McCain’s age. This doesn’t help. It’s like he said, "Let’s put out something high-tech, that shows we’re ‘with it,’" but you know how grandpa always embarrasses himself when he does that.

What’s next, Walkmen? How about a $1,000 buggy whip?

Anyway, if you actually do want any McCain stuff, the coffee mug is much more reasonable, at $15.

Here’s a memorial worth the effort

10 Replies

All the energy spent raising that flag every day at the State House would be better spent on this kind of war memorial, one that would have meaning for all of us:

Brad,
I firmly support your move to get the flag off the state house grounds. Its value, however meaningful, pales in comparison to the negative emotions it creates.
I hate to bring up another topic in the midst of this movement, but I wanted to talk to you about how we plan to honor the Marines and soldiers from South Carolina who have died in Iraq. I am a former Marine officer and every day I wake up I thank God that I am fortunate enough to be in my own house and only concerned about unimportant things like work and domestic responsibilities. Whereas, those in Iraq are patrolling every day in hostile terrain and hoping they get to see their families back home again. I think we have a responsibility to honor those who have died to the best of our ability.
I am also the reforestation technician for the city of Columbia, which means I am in charge of all the trees that get planted in the right of way. I know a good bit about trees, so I propose we plant a tree on state grounds in memory of each serviceman or woman who has died in Iraq or Afghanistan. I can provide trees myself, or find them elsewhere. But I am willing to organize this entire effort. Since I see this as something I can do, that’s my idea, but if someone has something better, I will support that as well. We just need to do something. I have emailed the governor’s office a couple of weeks ago, but failed to get a response. What are your thoughts on this idea? I know you are probably overwhelmed with flag emails this week, but mull it over and let me know what you think. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Carroll Williamson

Sounds like a promising idea to me. I told Carroll I’d put it up on the blog to see what folks think of it. So here it is.

Civility 2007

17 Replies

Imus3

A society relearning how to behave

Free speech is enhanced by civility.
            — Tim O’Reilly,
            who recently proposed a
            “Bloggers Code of Conduct”

Here’s what David Brooks of The New York Times, a writer I usually respect highly, had to say in defense of the fact that he, and others I admire, had been an enabler of trash over the years:

“You know, most of us who are pundits are dweebs at some level. And he was the cool bad boy in the back of the room. And so, if you’re mostly doing serious punditry, you’d like to think you can horse around with a guy like Imus.”

Imus Perhaps, having been the sort who sat in the back of the class and created distractions while the dweebs were grinding away trying to get into Harvard, I don’t have that deep-seated need. I got it out of
my system. Some of it, anyway. Enough that I don’t need to match “wits” with anyone who makes a living off suckers who tune in to see how creatively he can trash other people.
But the weakness of Mr. Brooks and others caused media critic Philip Nobile, who once authored something called “Imus Watch” on TomPaine.com, to observe that “Imus had made cowards and hypocrites of some of the best minds in America. I hope they do penance….”
I’m not proposing to add to the already-considerable body of commentary on the downfall of an infamous loudmouth. I’d rather reflect today on a culture that would make such a pathological creature marketable.
I mean a culture that holds its breath to find out which “man” among multiple possibilities fathered the child of a dead former stripper — not whispering about it among the guys at the bar, but treating it Imus5
as mainstream, matter-of-fact fodder for polite conversation in front of the kids.
I’m talking about “reality” shows peopled by sad morons whose every utterance contains something that, even today, gets bleeped — not because the producers are sensitive or think that you are, but because the jarring “bleeps” themselves, audible from any room in the house, make content that would bore a brain-damaged goldfish seem titillating. Ooh, that must have been a good one, we’re supposed to burble.
I’m referring here to a political marketplace in which most participants long ago ceased to listen in order to reach practical consensus with those who disagree, preferring to gather into ideological tribes that huddle in the darkness, patting each other on the back for the rocks they heave at that other tribe, the “enemy” who will always lack legitimacy.
In other words, this is a happy upbeat, “good news” sort of column. I thought you could use that to cheer you up on this fine April morning (disregarding the thunderstorms forecast as I write this.)
Really. There is good news out there. In fact, we may even be seeing a trend. I once worked with a labor-averse assistant metro editor who loved to see news repeat itself to the point that he could say: “That’s twice that’s happened. One more time, and we can call it a trend and send it to ‘Lifestyles’.”
Jerry, this one’s almost ready to go to the Features Department.
A few months back, I boldly asserted in this space that “Standards are making a comeback. We may be able to get a civilization going here after all.” As evidence, I cited the facts that Rupert Murdoch himself had just canceled plans to publish a book by O.J. Simpson giving the details of how he “didn’t” kill his wife; the Michael “Kramer” Richards apology; and a column in The New York Times by a doctor bemoaning the low-cut tops and miniskirts worn by some of her younger colleagues. (Yes, that last one was weak, but I enjoyed the pictures. And it was a legitimate trend, because it was in a feature section.)
Well, the trend continues. The Imus dismissal, although it came decades too late, was yet another positive sign. This jaded society of ours got up on its hind legs once again and said “enough.”
The best, the very choicest thing I saw last week containing the word “Imus” was a column in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, which began, “And so it came to pass in the year 2007 that a little platoon came forth to say unto the world: Enough is enough.” There I read once again about a new phenomenon, known as the “Blogger’s Code of Conduct,” that in draft form begins:

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility.

Those who read all my hand-wringing last year about the nasty trolls on my blog will know why such a statement, and such a code, would appeal to me. I’m farther along in my quest for civility now. I don’t wring my poor, dry digits so much any more; I just take action. I banned another of my more unruly correspondents on Friday.
You polite souls who stay out of that forum (you who tell me, “I read it, but I don’t leave comments”) for fear of being abused, fear not. I don’t think the bad boys are the least bit cool, and I won’t let them pick on you.
This is all good news — a good trend. Come to thestate.com/168/ and read all about it, before it gets shoved to Lifestyles.

Imus2

Abortion column

54 Replies

Abortion in America:
the antithesis of consensus

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
THE SOUTH Carolina General Assembly did a number of important things last week:

A House panel slam-dumped a proposal to keep the Barnwell nuclear waste facility open past 2008, sending a clear, 16-0 signal that our state does not want to be seen as the nation’s trashcan.
The full House dramatically rejected the latest attempt to slip tuition tax credits for the affluent and vouchers for everybody into the new superintendent of education’s public school choice bill.
The House missed a chance to meaningfully reform the state Department of Transportation, passing a bill that leaves an accountability-diffusing commission in the driver’s seat. The Senate did something much worse.
The House sent 4K back to a committee for further consideration. Remember last year, when it seemed we had a consensus that the state had a critical role to play in early education for the neediest children? That’s in danger now.

Lawmakers did other things, such as move toward some improvements in DUI law, ditch the idea of a Confederate Memorial Month, and discussed requiring that women be shown an ultrasound before they get an abortion.
That last one certainly caused a lot of talk. But our editorial board didn’t take a stand on the subject, and probably won’t. Why? We adopt editorial positions on the basis of consensus, and on abortion, our board is like America: We have no consensus. Abortion in America is the antithesis of consensus.
Witness the insanity that Roe v. Wade imposed on our politics: You can’t be a Democratic nominee for president unless you’ll stack the Supreme Court to protect it, and you can’t be a Republican nominee unless you’ll stack the court to overturn it — as though there were nothing else to being president. And hardly anyone pipes up to say the court shouldn’t be stacked.
Even if I believed abortion should be available on demand, I wouldn’t think it worth this price. But I don’t. For me, the only ethical position is that it should not be available at all except in a question of a life for a life.
That doesn’t mean I’m for this bill. Or against it. Logically, it shouldn’t be causing all the fuss it is. But logic is out of bounds in abortion “debates.”
Why do other abortion opponents bother with this? Do they really think the woman seeking an abortion doesn’t know what she seeks to do? Yes, they do.
I’ve heard that said critically by opponents of this measure, which is ironic, because they have no more respect for the woman’s intelligence than advocates do. They not only think these images will give the woman information she doesn’t have, they don’t want her to have it. Feminists can be quite paternalistic.
The measure doesn’t seem to me very likely to produce the effect that advocates seek and opponents fear. The ultrasound, the showing of the pictures, the hour’s wait, and the abortion itself would all occur at the same place — the abortion clinic. I imagine it being treated by all parties present rather like those stupid HIPAA documents we’re required to swear in writing we’ve examined:
“OK, well, you’ve got to sign these — you’re over 18, right? Here are some brochures we have to give you, and some pictures we took you have to see. I’ll be back in an hour and get you to sign some more forms and we’ll be ready.”
The fuss is even less logical when you look at the law being amended. Anyone seeking an abortion already must receive brochures about organizations that offer alternatives to abortion, and then wait an hour. Logically, anybody who wasn’t swayed by that is unlikely to be turned around by fuzzy images. But it’s not about logic, is it? There’s something about pictures.
Given the irrational power of the graven image, it might save some lives, and for that reason I have no particular objection to the bill. I give little credence to arguments that it’s “coercive” or “burdensome.” I would hope that any medical professional about to perform an abortion would want to do an ultrasound anyway, as basic pre-op. If not, maybe “safe, legal and rare” isn’t so much about safe. Or rare. But if an ultrasound is done, why not show the images to the patient? You would with any other kind of procedure.
If it does save a few lives, some will be miserable. If your mom can be persuaded whether you should live or not on the basis of some odd pictures, she’s not likely to be what you’d call a rock-steady nurturer — especially when you give her affection reason to waver, as even the best children do. That can make for a hell of a childhood. It’s no reason to have an abortion — there is a moral emptiness in saying that because a life is likely to be unhappy, that life should not be.
But if you advocate for that life, if you pass a law in a frank bid to save that life, you have a burden of responsibility to do what you can to see that child has a chance for something better.
If the state intervenes to urge that life into being, the state can’t just wait for these kids to show up at its prison gates.
Any lawmaker who advocates this ultrasound measure should therefore be just as strong a proponent of early childhood education. He should beef up child protective services, and increase Medicaid coverage. Etc.
Pro-choicers are so obnoxious when they sneer, “They don’t care about the child after it’s born.” What’s more obnoxious is that it’s so often true. In the second trimester, it’s lawmaker to the rescue; 10 years later, it’s “That’s not my child.”
Why do “bleeding-heart liberals” not care about the most powerless? Why do anti-government types want government intervention at this time and this time only? You would think things would be the other way around.
But nothing about the whole left-vs.-right divide in this country makes any sense. And it hasn’t, for the past three decades.

A whole bag, just for you

33 Replies

As a public service, I’m going to elaborate more prominently upon what I just said at the end of a response to some comments…

Some folks are unhappy with my increasing aggressiveness with people who are determined to make this blog into something that is the opposite of what I founded it for. I’m not going to let that happen, and I’m determined to convince you of that.

My whole purpose here is to provide an alternative to the hyper-partisan, bad-faith, yelling-past-each-other game that far too many people believe is political discourse. I’m certainly not here to play that game with you. You try to play it with me or anyone else here, and your comment will disappear.

If you don’t like that, go someplace else. Most of the blogosphere
is set up for just what you want to do. If you stay here, and don’t
change your habits… well, to quote Dr. Evil, "I have a whole bag of ‘Shhh!’ with
your name on it."

I experience a miracle

19 Replies

I‘m having lunch at a LongHorn Steakhouse in Savannah. It smells better than our LongHorn in the Vista.
Here’s why:

When I walked in, I asked for a table in nonsmoking. The hostess dismissed my request with the finest words I’ve ever heard in a restaurant:
"There’s no smoking in Georgia."

AND SHE WASN’T KIDDING!
I am stunned. This is so fantastic. I’m just sitting here, breathing freely and deeply, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Which, if you actually THINK about it for a change, it actually IS, even though it is a departure from what I’ve experienced my whole life up to now.

Why, in the name of God and all that makes any kind of sense, did I have to wait 53 years for this? Why will I NOT be able to experience it when I go home?
I can think of no reason.

Out with the UnParty, in with ENERGY!

57 Replies

Nobody’s proposing a comprehensive energy plan, so I guess we’ll have to do it ourselves.

I’ve had this idea percolating lately that I wanted to develop fully before tossing it out. Maybe do a column on it first, roll it out on a Sunday with lots of fanfare. But hey, the situation calls for action, not hoopla.

So here’s the idea (we’ll refine is as we go along):

Reinvent the Unparty as the Energy Party. Not the Green Party — it’s not just about the environment — but a serious energy party. Go all the way, get real, make like we actually know there’s a war going on. Do the stuff that neither the GOP nor the Dems would ever do:

Jack up CAFE standards.
Put about a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline.
Spend the tax proceeds on a Manhattan project on clean, alternative energy (hydrogen, bio, wind, whatever), and on public transportation (especially light rail).
Reduce speed limits everywhere to no more than 55 mph. (This must be credited to Samuel Tenenbaum, who bent my ear about it yet again this morning, and apparently does the same to every presidential wannabe who calls his house looking for him or Inez).
ENFORCE the damn’ speed limits. If states say they can’t, give them the resources out of the gas tax money.
Build nuclear power plants as fast as we can (safely, of course).
Either ban SUVs for everyone who can’t demonstrate a life-or-death need to drive one, or tax them at 100 percent of the sales price and throw THAT into the win-the-war kitty.
If we go the tax route on SUVs (rather than banning), launch a huge propaganda campaign along the lines of "Loose Lips Sink Ships" (for instance, "Hummers are Osama’s Panzer Corps"). Make wasting fuel the next smoking or DUI — absolutely socially unacceptable.
Because it will be a few years before we can be completely free of petrol, drill the ever-lovin’ slush out of the ANWR, explore for oil off Myrtle Beach, and build refinery capacity — all for a limited time of 20 years. Put the limit in the Constitution.

You get the idea. Respect no one’s sacred cows, left or right; go all-out to win the war and, in the long run, save the Earth. Pretty soon, tyrants from Tehran to Moscow to Caracas will be tumbling down without our saying so much as "boo" to them, and global warming will slow within our lifetimes.

THEN, once we’ve done all that, we can start insisting upon some common sense on entitlements, and health care. Change the name to the Pragmatic Party then. Whatever works, whatever is practical, whatever solves our problems — no matter whose ox gets gored. Leave the ideologues in the dust, while we solve the problems.

How’s that sound? Can any of y’all get behind that?

Diocese settles sex abuse claims

10 Replies

This afternoon was so busy, I was letting the machine get the phone, and I missed a call from the Bishop giving me a heads-up on the following news, which I will now share with you:

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston
announced Friday it will settle child sex abuse claims in South
Carolina, designating as much as $12 million for damages.

"It
is my fervent hope that this settlement will allow us, as the Catholic
community of faith in South Carolina, to bring closure to an ugly
period in our history," Bishop Robert Baker said.

The
class-action settlement has been given initial approval by a state
judge, said Larry Richter, an attorney for four victims whose claims
were settled last summer.

Peter Shahid Jr., an attorney
representing the diocese, said the church knows of at least eight other
victims although others may come forward.

Under the settlement, abuse victims could get anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000 while spouses and parents would receive $20,000.

Since
1950, there have been 50 abuse claims involving 28 clergy or others
diocesan employees settled for almost $3 million, Shahid said. Those
claims were not apart of the new settlement.

Richter, himself a Roman Catholic, said it is unclear how many other victims may come forward.

"What
you find in this area is people can’t just be molested and the next day
step up to the plate and say ‘I’m a victim,’" he said. "It’s often
after a very painful time in life."

Baker said in a letter
published in the diocesan newspaper on Friday that he deeply regrets
"the anguish of any individual who has suffered the scourge of
childhood abuse and I am firmly committed to a just resolution of any
instance in which a person who holds the responsibility of a protector
has become a predator."

The settlement allows compensation for sexual abuse victims born before August 30, 1980, and their spouses and parents.

The
attorneys said the 1980 date was negotiated generally to assure the
settlement would cover victims who otherwise could not sue because the
statute of limitations would have expired.

The agreement sets up an initial pool of $5 million. If $4 million of that is paid, a second pool of $7 million will be added.

Richter
said they arrived at the $12 million figure by reviewing settlements
throughout the country. An arbitrator will validate claims and
determine the amount of compensation, according to the statement.

The diocese said it was encouraging anyone who was a victim to contact Richter.

John
Barker, chief financial officer for the diocese, said the money would
come from insurance, interest on investments and, if needed, selling
church property.

"There have been dioceses that have declared
bankruptcy," Shahid said. "The faithful should understand … we have
capped our liability at $12 million. Those (other) dioceses were faced
with huge debts as a result of claims and were forced into bankruptcy."

Diocese
officials in South Carolina have said the incidence of child abuse has
been lower here than the national average during the past half century.

Statistics
released by the church three years ago show that between 1950 and 2002
about 4 percent of all American Catholic clerics were accused of abuse
compared with 2.7 percent of the clergy in South Carolina.

A
former South Carolina priest who pleaded guilty last year to assault
and battery of a high and aggravated nature in the sexual abuse of two
boys 30 years ago was the seventh former priest, coach or teacher in
the diocese to plead guilty to abuse charges.

There are about
158,000 Catholics in South Carolina, almost four percent of the state
population, according to the diocesan Web site.

A final hearing on the settlement will be held in early March.

Gerald, Saddam and James Brown

Standards column

15 Replies

Could standards, of all things,
be making a comeback?

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
STANDARDS are making a comeback. We may be able to get a civilization going here after all. You doubt me? I have several reasons for my optimism:
We’ll begin with a trivial matter. The New York Times carried an essay last week from a senior physician wringing her hands about the inappropriate attire worn by young doctors today.
“Every day, it seems, I see a bit of midriff here, a plunging neckline there,” she fretted. “Open-toed sandals, displaying brightly manicured toes, seem ubiquitous.”
She thought it was because she worked in Miami, but colleagues elsewhere assure her it’s a nationwide epidemic, from unshaven male interns in T-shirts, to females with plunging necklines.
“One colleague commented that a particularly statuesque student ‘must have thought all her male patients were having strokes’ when she walked in their exam room wearing a low-cut top and a miniskirt.”
I’ve never seen a doctor like that myself, although I’ve seen an actress play one on TV. But I agree that it’s far better for patients to have confidence in the seriousness of one into whose hands they place their lives.
I recently saw a new specialist about a chronic sinus thing, and I recall being reassured by his attire. He took propriety to places it had not been since about 1955. He had on the white coat, of course (take note, Dr. House), which helped set off his bow tie. But what made the costume was the proverbial reflector on a headband. It was so wonderfully nerdy, it helped me forget his otherwise unforgivable youth. So good for him. I’m quite sure he would never wear open-toed shoes.
It’s good that some doctors are worrying about the small things that provide us with little touchstones of order amid the chaos of life in 2006. The essayist’s employer, the University of Miami, has a dress code specifying “that students have hair ‘of a natural human color,’ among other things.” That’s got to be tough to enforce. But it’s worth trying.
On a more sensational front, someone stood up for standards last week in a way that defied belief: That it was Rupert Murdoch elevates this particular miracle to biblical, Cecil B. DeMille proportions.
A lot of people had shaken their heads and looked away, certain that the plan for a book and a TV special in which O.J. Simpson would tell us how he killed his wife — while pretending that he was speaking hypothetically — was just another incident in our society’s inevitable slide into utter shamelessness. First reality TV, now this. Nothing to be done.
But fortunately, others hadn’t given up right and wrong, and they raised enough ruckus that Mr. Sleaze himself backed off — canceled the book, the TV show, the whole grotesque mess. My own mother had told me to call the local Fox affiliate and tell them they shouldn’t air the TV part of the spectacle.
I didn’t do it, but plenty of others did, and good for them. It gives me hope I didn’t have. Next thing you know, shame will actually make a comeback in America. Not that O.J. will ever feel any, but it’s not too late for the rest of us.
“Seinfeld” was about something: Shallowness. That was the running gag, and it worked wonderfully. Everything in life, big and little, was a joke. Comedic conflict centered around the failure of the four central characters to be sufficiently serious and respectful of the things that mattered in life: Yadda-yadda.
So it’s little wonder that when Jerry Seinfeld arranged for his friend to apologize on the Letterman show for his outrageous behavior at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles a few nights earlier, some in the studio audience took it at first as a gag. Mr. Seinfeld had to interject to say that Michael Richards’ words of abject regret were not meant to be funny.
And nothing about it was funny. Mr. Richards, better known as “Cosmo Kramer,” had loosed an obscenity-laced barrage of racist insults at some black hecklers. You can see a cell-phone video of it on the Internet. Warning: It’s profoundly unpleasant. It’s as though “Kramer” had taken his Jedi-class frenetic eccentricity over to the Dark Side. A human being self-destructs with loathing on a stage, and perhaps the most disturbing aspect is that some people kept trying to laugh. They had paid good money to be amused, and were slow to adjust.
Some of you out there will write or call to say the hecklers are just as much to blame. Well, hecklers are a pretty low life form, and while I can’t hear much of what they said, these don’t seem to be much of an exception. But Mr. Richards was the one with the microphone. Listen to how he responded to that routine hazard of his profession on this occasion, and ask yourself whether you could ever justify reacting as he did. If you can, seek counseling.
That’s exactly what “Kramer” needs to do, because a public “sorry” doesn’t cure the things that lie behind that kind of rage.
It would be easy to dismiss his mea culpa entirely: A has-been comic tries to salvage what’s left of his career by offering a big dose of schmaltz to the gods of political correctness. But forget the politics. This is a guy who lost it to the point of stepping outside all the bounds — and he knows it, Jerry Seinfeld knows it, and so does David Letterman.
I appreciate comedy, and “Seinfeld” provided some of the best. But when the funnymen can sober up long enough to say, “This goes too far,” it helps us all be a little more civilized.

Kramerjesse

Anton Gunn’s signs

3 Replies

FYI, I just received this e-mail from Anton Gunn. This is a shame. The fact that it happens all the time is no consolation. And you almost never find out who did it, which just sows suspicion and resentment all around.

Mr. Gunn is a good guy, and I hope he gets some justice with regard to this willful destruction of his property. In the meantime, I commiserate:

I just thought that I would let you all know that tonight I filed a telephone complaint with the Richland County Sheriff’s department. The complaint involved the vandalism and destruction of my property, my campaign signs. Today, I noticed at six different locations throughout House District 79, my 4 foot by 8 foot campaign signs had been knocked down, cut in half, cut in fourths or otherwise destroyed. The damage to these signs was obliviously done by some individual or individuals. I have not been able to assess at this point whether more signs have been vandalized in the district, but I suspect there are more. I don’t know who would do such a thing, nor do I care at this point. What I do care about is the underhanded, childish nature at which some people would stoop to inhibit my campaign to bring new leadership to our district.
This vandalism is an example of what’s wrong with our political process. Destroying others property is not necessary nor does it improve the public’s perception about the process. I am an honest straight-forward person who has run my campaign in that same fashion. I offer the voters in this district the opportunity to see a candidate with character, dignity and humility. It is a shame that others are not reciprocating that behavior because of their juvenile acts.

Anton J. Gunn
Democratic Nominee
SC House District 79
[email protected]

John Kerry’s second adolescence

41 Replies

Not being overly fond of all the partisan tit-for-tat that seems to stir so many earnest hearts in the Blogosphere, I’ll first admit that I have not sought out much information about John Kerry’s gaffe.

Of course, you absorb a certain amount without trying. I know what he said, I know what he said he meant to say (which was every bit as revealing of character as what he said), I heard that he said he wouldn’t apologize, and then he did apologize — sort of.

Nothing new in any of that. It just reminded me, in case I had forgotten, why we couldn’t bring ourselves to endorse the senator for president in 2004, even though we disagreed with about 90 percent of what President Bush was doing. (Of all the Democratic candidates who had come in to speak with our editorial board, Sen. Kerry was the least engaging and the most off-putting. Take your pick — Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, and any others I can’t think of at the moment — all were more favorably impressive than he.)

But in what little I have absorbed on the subject, one thing has been missing. If someone else has said it, please point me to it.

The thing that struck me immediately at the very first report — before I knew how the GOP was hyping it or anything else; I’m talking about the moment I first heard the words he spoke to those students — I thought he was having a Vietnam flashback. Not to his days in combat, but to the much longer period when he was denigrating his own service and that of others.

Young John Kerry’s peers — to the extent that he would have acknowledged having any — thought of soldiers drafted to go to Vietnam pretty much the way Mr. Kerry spoke of today’s soldiers last week.

Yes, he took a commission in the Navy and went over as an officer and a gentleman and did his part, and God bless him for that. But based upon his actions afterward, I don’t think the preppie mindset toward the average grunt ever went away.

Anyway, that’s what flashed through my mind.

Kerryyoung

It’s a joke; he meant to say ‘Bush’

1 Reply

Poor politicians. When they say something horrible about our troops, they are reviled. When icons of the press say even worse things, it’s just a blip, if that.

Check out what Seymour Hersh said in a speech in Montreal. In case you missed it, he essentially said the "baby-killers" that so many Americans fled to Montreal to avoid becoming were nothing compared to the homicidal maniacs we send to Iraq: "(T)here has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq."

This was brought to my attention by the WSJ’s OpinionJournal. The link said, "Maybe It’s Just a Botched Joke."

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: In Our Time

Now we know how debates can be stupider

God Bless Robert Samuelson

The coward that roared

If only Haig WERE in control…

‘love me some fred’

Lawmakers stub out smoke-free workplace movement

Democratic Debate Column

That is SO last decade, senator

Here’s a memorial worth the effort

Civility 2007

Abortion column

A whole bag, just for you

I experience a miracle

Out with the UnParty, in with ENERGY!

Diocese settles sex abuse claims

Gerald, Saddam and James Brown

Standards column

Anton Gunn’s signs

John Kerry’s second adolescence

It’s a joke; he meant to say ‘Bush’