I left the above video uploading to YouTube while I ran back over to be there in time for the arrests.
Not much to report about that, beyond describing what I saw after dark… which I’ll do in a separate post.
This sort of thing has become routine, but I never cease to be disgusted by it.
To begin with, there is one thing that makes America special — “exceptional,” if you will — and that is our system of governing ourselves. It’s not our amber waves of grain or purple mountain majesties, as fine as those are. And it’s not that we are some master race — if anything, our glory is that we are a mongrel people. “We’re mutts” as Bill Murray said in “Stripes.”
What we are, what makes us special is that we are the country that made freedom work, on a grand scale. Over the course of two centuries, we steadily worked to perfect that, and we’re still working on it, to our great credit.
Therefore I cannot abide this constant, incessant, dripping, vituperative hatred hurled at American government by alleged “conservatives” — or for that matter by “progressives” who want us to believe that the system is stacked against the little man. But the attitude that government itself, the very notion of government, is an evil to be fought, overwhelmingly belongs to what we describe as the right these days.
Is there plenty wrong with the way our government functions? You bet. But a huge amount of the blame for that belongs to the extremists who want to possess Washington, and have no use for what anyone who disagrees with them wants. Each side jockeys constantly for absolute control of a system that was designed to accommodate the views of all. And no faction has been as vehement as those who hate government qua government.
That’s our fault, you know. We, the people. We keep voting for that garbage. Which is our right.
And the garbage will continue if we don’t stand against it. Which is not only our right, but our duty.
Today, I stand against something I saw in The Wall Street Journal.
The piece that it went with was unremarkable, the usual stuff you read on the opinion pages of the WSJ, containing such passages as this:
So why is our economy barely growing and unemployment stuck at over 9%? I believe the answer is very simple: Economic freedom is declining in the U.S. In 2000, the U.S. was ranked third in the world behind only Hong Kong and Singapore in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by this newspaper and the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, we fell to ninth behind such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland.
That didn’t bother me. Such assertions have become background noise. And while I object to the piece blaming government for everything (yawn!), I agree with the belief it is rooted in: That what America urgently needs right now is strong growth in the private sector. All for it.
No, what got me was the illustration that went with the piece. You can see it above: The shadow of Uncle Sam looming menacingly over ordinary citizens.
My Uncle Sam. Our Uncle Sam. The figure that inspired millions of us to take up arms, literally, against tyranny the world over. The greatest symbolic representation of the blessings of liberal democracy the world has known, with the possible exception of Lady Liberty. Being used to symbolize the “evils” of government. Being used the way cartoonists in this country used to use the shadow of the swastika, the Russian bear, or the hammer and sickle.
Once, Uncle Sam personified the very thing this writer advocates — America rolling up its sleeves, getting to work, exhibiting determined economic vitality in the service of us all.
Utterly disgusting. And yet, something that has become so routine that most won’t even take note of it. Which is why I just did.
Last night, before driving back from Charleston, I had a coffee for the road with Nancy Mace Jackson. As you may know, Nancy is partners with Will Folks on his blog — she handles the technical side; he does content.
While we talked about other things — as the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel and as a communication professional, she’s very interested in the unfolding scandal at her alma mater — our talk quite naturally gravitated toward blogging.
Which reminded me…
Personally, I don’t spend as much time on other folks’ blogs as I probably should in order to stay current. So it was that I had trouble helping out the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism when it came to me seeking input recently:
We are currently gearing up for the 2012 campaign/primary and election season and will be tracking political blogs in the early primary states. We are in the process of identifying potential blogs to track, and are reaching out to some bloggers that we are already aware of in these states for additional suggestions and recommendations. Any assistance you could give us in this effort would be greatly appreciated. We are interested in tracking liberal, conservative and non-partisan blogs.
Here are the blogs Pew’s PEJ was looking at already:
That list made me realize I needed to update my blogroll. It has some on it that haven’t posted in a while, while other active blogs are missing.
What have you been reading that isn’t on that list?
Also, while we’re on the subject…
I’ll be undertaking a redesign of this blog in the near future. Help me out by pointing me to blogs you like, both in terms of how they look and (more importantly) functionality. Yes, I know many of you want to be able to edit your posts — which will most likely require registration, which I’ve stayed away from thus far.
But which blogs do you find easiest and most pleasurable to read? What are some bells and whistles I don’t have now that you’d like to see?
I’d appreciate the input.
Have I mentioned that I’m participating in the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative down in Charleston? No, I haven’t… Well, there’s a lot I can tell you about that — the banner ad at the top of this page is involved — but I’ll do that later.
Right now, I want to show you something we discussed as a sort of mini-case study Monday in the class.
See the above, short-lived, Intel print ad.
See if you can find, without Googling the controversy, how many ways the ad is racially offensive.
No, there’s no right answer, but I came up with three. With more time, I’d have come with more. I just thought I’d get y’all to talking about what I spent part of my day talking about.
The amazing thing was that it ever actually found its way into print. I don’t think any newspaper I’ve ever worked at would have fouled up to this extent, been this clueless — although I’ve been party to a number of mistakes. It astounds me that something that was not produced on a daily deadline was this ill-considered. But it was, and appeared in a Dell catalog in 2007 before being withdrawn. Intel apologized.
“… is that all the strength you can muster?”
Anyway, that was my reaction to this list from the WashPost’s The Fix of 11 best and worst political lines of the year. As zingers or pithy observations go, they leave much to be desired. But I think it’s been that sort of political year so far:
11. “I don’t even know who this woman is.” — Businessman Herman Cain on Sharon Bialek, the woman accusing him of sexual harassment.
10. “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” — Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman via Twitter on the debate over climate change within the GOP presidential primary field.
9. “I am the government.” — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on being the government.
8. “Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.” — Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin responding via Facebook to the attempted assassination of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
7. “When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I’m going to say, you know, I don’t know. Do you know?” — Herman Cain on foreign policy.
6. “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.” — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann…..in New Hampshire.
5. “Corporations are people, my friend.” — Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in response to hecklers at the Iowa State Fair.
4. “Get the hell off the beach…you’ve maximized your tan.” — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) warning sunbathers to flee Hurricane Irene.
3. “His remark was not intended to be a factual statement.” — Spokesman for Sen. Jon Kyl(R-Ariz.) regarding the senator’s claim that abortions accounted for more than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.
2. “I can’t say with certitude.” — Then Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) on whether a lewd picture was, in fact, him.
1. “Oops”. — Texas Governor Rick Perry at the end of a 50-plus second (unsuccessful) attempt to remember the third federal agency he would eliminate if elected president.
See what I mean? When “Oops” is No. 1, the quality of political rhetoric, even of gaffes, has gone down…
You want to see something good? Here’s the song my headline came from:
Here’s the Robert Ariail cartoon that the smart-a__ Yankee NLRB attorneys were passing around and giggling about:
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for the federal labor agency fighting Boeing’s new factory in North Charleston, N.C., repeatedly joked among themselves about the dispute and exchanged a political cartoon portraying S.C. Sen. Glenn McConnell as a crass-speaking confederate soldier, according to internal documents released Wednesday.
They enjoyed it as much as they could, but we can take satisfaction from knowing that they couldn’t possibly have enjoyed it on the deeper, convoluted levels of meaning that are accessible to us, the cognoscenti.
Yep, he stepped in it, all right — as he acknowledged.
But Rick Perry has my sympathy on this one. I do this kind of thing all the time. Last night, I was talking with someone about city politics, and mentioned Belinda Gergel‘s successful bid for the District 3 seat, which set records for spending. And I not only drew a blank on the name of her opponent, Brian Boyer, but more to the point could not recall the name of his boss, brother-in-law and key supporter, Don Tomlin.
And if I’d done that on television, while running for city office, I suppose I’d be dismissed as a dope. But that would be unfair. Because I’m not an idiot… No, I’m not… Am NOT!… Cut it out, y’all!
And this brings us once again to the inadequacy of these “debates” as an instrument for choosing the most powerful person in the world.
The job is not about thinking on your feet on a stage with people throwing gotcha questions at you. It’s about what you do in the Oval Office, frequently when no one is watching (and no, I did not intend that as a Bill Clinton reference).
These “debates” would be a good way to pick a stand-up comedian or Shakespearean actor, if that’s what you were hiring. But it continues to disturb me that we attach so much importance to momentary memory lapses. They don’t mean much. The presidency is NOT reality TV.
What Perry did last night does not, in and of itself, establish that he is an idiot. It doesn’t indicate he’s a genius either, but I certainly hope readers make their decisions based on more substantial criteria than this.
For some reason, I can’t find the audio on the Joe Frazier story I heard this morning on NPR. I find a different (earlier, I think) version, but not the one that affected me so.
The closest I can come is to post the recording above. The relevant part is at 1:30.
The story played audio from a number of great Frazier fights, especially against Mohammed Ali. But the amazing thing happened with what NPR did with a clip from the 1973 fight with George Foreman (the grill guy, for you youngsters). They played a longer clip of it early in the report, and then, at the end, as music rises in the background, you hear Howard Cosell hoarsely screaming:
“Frazier is down again, and he may be… No! He is rising…
I had goosebumps. It was incredible. In that moment, Smokin’ Joe lived on…
Mark Sanford made his first paid appearance on Fox today.
Wow. It’s exactly like every other Mark Sanford appearance I’ve ever seen. That same lollygaggin’ manner, the same predictable nostrums, the same feeling of being slightly out of sync with the conversation. You might think that last point was because he was doing it remotely, but real conversations with our ex-gov feel like that.
Not to mention the professional on the other end coaching him and helping him through it.
I can see why they didn’t put this on prime time.
I’ve gotta get me a gig like that.
I sympathize with Roger Ebert in not wanting to see the end of celluloid. But the truth is, I didn’t even realize it was gone to this extent in the movie world — which I suppose argues that it’s not all that great a loss.
Here’s an excerpt from what he wrote on the subject yesterday:
The sudden death of film
By Roger Ebert on November 2, 2011 8:49 PM | 79 CommentsWho would have dreamed film would die so quickly? The victory of video was quick and merciless. Was it only a few years ago that I was patiently explaining how video would never win over the ancient and familiar method of light projected through celluloid? And now Eastman Kodak, which seemed invulnerable, is in financial difficulties.
Many of the nation’s remaining mail-order company that processing film from still cameras has closed, even though stills are having a resurgence in serious market. New 35mm movie projectors are no longer manufactured, for the simple reason that used projectors, some not very old, are flooding the market…
Until fairly late in the game, however, I was a holdout. I persisted in preferring the look, the feel, the vibe of celluloid. Film had a wider range–whiter whites, blacker blacks, richer colors. Besides, I explained, satellite projection of theater-quality digital would involve a footprint containing every hacker and pirate in the world. Studios would never risk it, I promised. Yes, but why did I assume studios would use satellites to distribute first-run films?
And on and on. I insisted, like many other critics, that I always knew when I was not being shown a true celluloid print. The day came when I didn’t. The day is here when most of the new movies I see are in digital. You and I both know how they look, and the fact is, they look pretty good. We’ve shown a lot of restored 70mm prints at Ebertfest, and they look breathtaking. But 70mm is no longer a viable format. (When any industry says a format is “no longer viable,” that means “it may be better, but it costs too much.”)
We live in a time few people could have foreseen on that day in Hawaii. I now view movies on Netflix and Fandor over the internet on my big-screen high-def set, or with an overhead projector on a wall-sized screen, and the picture quality pleases me. The celluloid dream may lives on in my hopes, but digital commands the field…
I have a wonderful SLR — a Nikon 8008 — in like-new condition, and it just sits in a drawer, and has for about six years now. It’s a vastly better instrument than the little point-and-shoots that I’ve used since 2005. It gave me much truer focus, and much greater control over exposures. But now, I put up with random focus and over- and under-exposed images, mainly by the strategy of shooting so many shots of everything that I usually get one or two that are pretty decent. Because it doesn’t cost me a dime, and I have the images immediately (so that I can keep trying until I get a good one).
I used to be a very serious film photographer. I had my own enlarger and tanks and trays and chemical bottles and dryers and print-cutters, the whole nine yards, for doing it all at home. But I haven’t broken that stuff out in years. I might sometime, just for old times- sake. But it won’t be a regular thing.
Someday I’ll get a good digital SLR. But I don’t foresee ever going back to film. I find that kind of sad, but hey, the new stuff looks good.
OK, I gave you one good thing from The Washington Post today. Now I’ll show you something not so good — an amazingly facile headline, leading to a story to match:
A feminine face for the anti-abortion movement
When I spoke to one of the nation’s most prominent anti-abortion activists this week, she was in the car, rushing to meet her 10-year-old daughter at the school bus.
“It’s not a very neat exercise,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, when I asked how she manages her work-life balance. Dannenfelser is the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which has grown to 330,000 members since she and a group of friends founded it in her living room in 1991….
Recent news stories about the new vitality of the anti-abortion movement and its legislative achievements — more than a dozen states enacting record numbers of abortion restrictions this year alone — have glossed over one crucial fact. The most visible, entrepreneurial and passionate advocates for the rights of the unborn (as they would put it) are women. More to the point: They are youngish Christian working mothers with children at home.
Really? I mean, where is the novelty in this? Are you saying you didn’t think there were women who opposed abortion? Or are you saying they weren’t feminine enough? I mean, Helen Alvaré (the first person I think of when I try to think of someone prominently identified with the pro-life movement) always seemed plenty feminine to me.
At first, I thought it was a typo. I thought that the Tweet where I saw it had been imperfectly typed or copied, and that it was supposed to say, “A feminist face for the anti-abortion movement.” There wouldn’t have been much new about that, either (I find that there are a gazillion kinds of feminists, with all sorts of views), but I could see how a copy editor who had really been sheltered — the kind who had only ever talked about such issues with people who look at the world one way — might write a headline like that. And I know plenty of such people.
But feminine? To begin with, most of the really prominent, passionate, committed people on both sides of the abortion issue tend to be women. And it has been thus for as far back as I recall being aware of such things — to Roe v. Wade, and earlier. When I think of the issue, I don’t even think of men. (I realize fully that it is very different for pro-choice feminists, who think entirely in terms of opposition to abortion being some male plot to oppress them — the currently popular overwrought phrase being “war on women.”)
The writer of this story explains the headline thusly: “These women represent a major strategic shift in the abortion war, and not just because they are generally more likeable than the old, white fathers of the pro-life movement: Jerry Falwell, Henry Hyde, Jesse Helms and Pat Robertson…”
Say what? Who in the world cares what those guys thought? I mean, having Jerry Falwell or any of those other guys take a certain position has always been, to me (and I would think to most sensible people) a reason not to agree with that position. They weren’t advocates, in the sense of anyone who might go out there and change anyone else’s mind. Those guys were cartoons; they were not factors in the minds of serious people.
When I think back to when I was forming my own thoughts on this issue — which I roughly place at the point when I started college, a couple of years before Roe — I remember the main influences on me being very strong, committed women. Off the top of my head, I can only remember two guys with whom I discussed the issue at any length during that time in my life, and they were pro-choice (although a painful personal experience later in life changed the mind of one of them, while a similar experience confirmed the other in his original position.).
I remember one woman in particular, from a few years later than that, and she is the reason I’m writing this post — because I think she had some influence on why I have an instinctive aversion to the approach of Occupy Wall Street (how’s that for throwing you a curve?). This was back in Tennessee.
I can’t remember her name now, but I remember what she looked like. Partly because she was strikingly good-looking. No one would ever have doubted her gender, or her femininity — although it wasn’t the kind of prissy look that many associate with the word. She had a dramatically good figure, which was generally casually dressed in pants and a knit top, and dark hair with a few premature gray highlights. I’m thinking she was 30ish. She was very fit. I recall her mentioning going running at night, like around 10:30, and I questioned the wisdom of her doing that alone, but I only mentioned it once. I’m sure if her husband ever expressed concern over that practice, she was just as dismissive of him. She was very confident.
I knew her from the church folk choir. This was the early 80s, and I was a brand-new Catholic. I could strum chords on a guitar, and figured I could put that to use for my parish. She — I’d better make up a name for her, to make this easier to write. I’ll call her Beth; that seems to fit.
Anyway, she and one other woman sort of ran that group, and I mostly stood back and strummed. We were all friends, and we got along great. I was vaguely aware that Beth was involved with a pro-life group, and seemed to approach it in exactly the same way she had approached her deep opposition to the Vietnam War — in the street, at the fore, on the ramparts.
This was confirmed for me in the fall of 1982. My newspaper, The Jackson Sun, was sponsoring a debate in the U.S. Senate race between the incumbent Democrat, Jim Sasser, and Republican Robin Beard. We had rented the Jackson civic center for the purpose. As one of the editors in charge of the event, it fell to me to go out and tell the various demonstrators for various causes outside that they were welcome to come in, but only if they left their signs outside and didn’t disrupt.
Next thing I knew, “Beth” was in my face, quietly literally, loudly denouncing me as the Establishment oppressor trying to silence her authentic voice. She was immune to reason. I was shocked. I mean, I agreed with her completely on the issue, but I wasn’t going to say that, because that was not my role. I was there to foster rational debate, not this chanting in the street stuff. Sasser (the true object of her ire, which also seemed off-base, he was such a bland guy) deserved to be heard, and so did Beard, without unruly cheering sections.
She was a reasonable, intelligent, warm, personable woman the rest of the time. But put her on the street with a sign in her hand and she was — I don’t know, Madame Defarge or something.
I don’t remember how we resolved that — whether she and her folks eventually came in and behaved themselves, or stayed outside chanting. I just remember the extreme discomfort of that moment of unnecessarily emotional confrontation. I remember thinking, This is no way to express or advocate political ideas.
And I still think that today.
Before another day passes, I want to express my appreciation to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post Writers Group and the Brookings Institution, for delivering the 2011 Cardinal Bernardin lecture at USC last night.
Perhaps because he’s from my world, he spoke to me as no previous speaker has in the 12 years of the series — of faith and public life, particularly in the sense of how the Cardinal’s life and work relate to our existence today. So I thank him for that. I also thank all those who contributed to bringing about this event — the Department of Religious Studies, the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies, President Harris Pastides’ Civil Discourse Initiative, and Samuel Tenenbaum and the Tenenbaum Lectureship Fund.
For those of you who don’t know, Joseph Bernardin was a son of Italian immigrants who grew up here in Columbia, as a parishioner at my church, St. Peter’s. He would become the leading light of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the force behind such remarkable documents as “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response.” He fostered the Church’s Common Ground Initiative, and his greatest legacy (to me) is placing the Church’s pro-life ethic within the compelling — and necessary — framework of the Seamless Garment — a legacy that, inexplicably to me, remains controversial, even anathema, among some. After becoming Archbishop of Chicago, he was widely regarded as a likely first American pope before his death of cancer in 1996 at the age of 68.
E.J. is that rare bird in the higher reaches of journalism who writes regularly of matters that bear upon ultimate questions (see, for instance, “The Vatican meets the Wall Street occupiers” from last week), and does so with an intellectual vigor that not only reflects credit upon his and my faith tradition, but shows what journalism is still capable of achieving at this late date. He knew the cardinal, and has long admired him.
Here’s a rough draft of his remarks. There are typos, and it is incomplete (entire anecdotes are missing), but it gives you an idea of what he had to say. An excerpt:
I want to close with something I have been pondering ever since the Spriritan fathers of Duquesne University asked me to give a talk about immigration. I was struck when I was preparing the talk how much both the Old and New Testament had to say about our obligations to strangers. Not to brothers or sisters or neighbors, but the strangers. And it made me think that perhaps our calling is really to create a world without strangers. Yes, that’s utopian and impractical and all sorts of other things. But it is a useful objective to ponder, a useful goal to keep in front of us. It is a world in which there is no “other,” no “them” or “those people,” just fellow citizens or fellow children of God or fellow human beings. It is a world in which we share each other’s joys and sorrows, each other’s benefits and burdens. It is a world in which the fortunate realize that their affluence depends not just on their own hard work and skill, but also on luck and providence. Often, simply, the good fortune of having been born in a particular place, to a particular family. We all owe so much of who we are to our parents and what they did for us. And not a single one of us can claim to have been wise or farsighted in our choice of parents. That truly was God’s choice, or for those who don’t believe, fate’s. And the same applies to the country in which we are born. We cannot praise ourselves for being really smart to have been born in the United States of America. A world without strangers would be a better world because all of us, everywhere, would feel at home all the time. In a world without strangers, we approach the new people we meet, anticipating the joys of friendship, not the anxieties of enmity. And yes, a world without strangers would be a world more likely to heed the injunction of the prophet Isaiah, to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free. It would be a world more likely to resemble the place imagined by the prophet Amos, who, as Dr. King taught us in his “I Have a Dream” speech, imagined that justice would roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. I believe that Cardinal Bernardin spent his life trying to create a world without strangers. His mission to honor the dignity of every person was not just political but also personal. He provided us a model. So let us live by his words: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
OK, that’s heavy, I know. Hey, it was the ending. Perhaps I can show you better the spirit of the way E.J. speaks with this ice-breaker from the beginning:
Whenever someone gives me an introduction that is far too generous, I like to note what it’s like to give talks about politics and be introduced with the words: “And now, for the latest dope from Washington, here’s E. J. Dionne.”
That’s E.J. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, but he approaches the most important issues with all the respect and reverence they deserve and demand.
I hope Kathryn Fenner and “Abba,” who were both there, will weigh in with their thoughts about the lecture. I had the impression that they found it meaningful as well.
Just to let you know — I collected E.J. Dionne from the airport earlier this afternoon, and left him in the custody of Charles Bierbauer.
So he made it to town. Now, y’all do your part. Come on out to hear him at 6 p.m. over at Capstone at USC.
Rachel Maddow touted this on Twitter, saying “This ad will live forever — every other candidate can just pop themselves in at the end once Huntman’s out…”
I guess she means, “every other candidate except Romney.”
Me, I’m the eternal optimist. I think, This is the kind of ad that should give Huntsman a chance — if enough people see it.
I continue to believe — and am glad to entertain y’all’s observations to the contrary — that Jon Huntsman offers the GOP its best chance to provide a credible alternative to President Obama that independents and UnPartisans can seriously consider.
I’d put Romney in that category, too, except for the problem that this ad so ably points out. A problem I was talking about four years ago as well.
OK, so may it’s a rather obvious play, but I enjoy nautical allusions. It’s the hed on an opinion piece at wsj.com. An excerpt:
Sexual harassment claims are notoriously easy to make, and it is impossible to judge the merits of these two cases on the public evidence so far. However, the Cain campaign’s initial response was a mistake because it merely charged political bias without a firm denial. “Fearing the message of Herman Cain who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” the campaign said in a statement. “Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the Chief Executive Officer at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.”
That won’t do for a presidential candidate. Voters want to know whether such a charge is true or false. By late this morning Mr. Cain had acknowledged as much by telling Fox News that he had been falsely accused and that the sexual harassment charges were “totally baseless, totally false.” He said the National Restaurant Association may have settled the cases but that he hadn’t been aware of the settlements.
Mr. Cain’s candidacy can survive these charges if he is telling the truth. He may even get an initial sympathy backlash from Republicans who have learned to be skeptical of such accusations against conservatives. (See Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court nomination of.) What he won’t survive is a revelation that contradicts his denial.
Hey, y’all — anyone interested in hearing E.J. Dionne speak at USC tomorrow evening on the intersection of faith and public life should come over to Capstone on the USC campus at 6 p.m.
Dionne, for those of you not familiar (which you should be) is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, but you probably know him better as a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post. He’s also a professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University. And you may have seen him on the tube now and again.
E.J.’s topic is,”Reweaving the Seamless Garment: Cardinal Bernardin’s Living Legacy to American Public Life.” This is the 2011 Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Lecture. I’ve been on that committee for a decade or so. He’s brought to you by The Department of Religious Studies, the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies, President Pastides’ Civil Discourse Initiative, and Samuel Tenenbaum and the Tenenbaum Lectureship Fund.
I had the honor of making the initial contact, early this year, asking E.J. to come speak to us. He was happy to do so, not only because he’s a fellow Catholic, but because Chapter Five of his recent book was entitled, “What Happened to the Seamless Garment? The Agony of Liberal Catholicism.”
I look forward to hearing him. Assuming I get him here on time — I’m supposed to pick him up at the airport.
I first met E.J. at an API seminar. Our class had lunch with some of the WashPost opinion writers, including (as I recall) Charles Krauthammer and Robert Samuelson, and E.J. was kind enough to give me a tour of the Post. He later visited me in my office at The State when he was here covering… oh, I forget what. The 2004 Democratic primary, perhaps.
I appreciate his arranging his schedule to come speak to us. And I hope some of y’all will come hear him.
Uh, oh — Rush Limbaugh and I agree about something. Quick, Robin — the antidote! It’s on your utility belt, you young fool!
Actually, not quite — but I do see he said something that may sound superficially like something I said. Earlier this morning, I wrote,
Yeah, I heard that. NPR interviewed the Politico guy who broke the story. As he mentioned having learned about this the last few weeks, I got to wondering: Who brought his attention to it, and why?
Well, the obvious guess would be his recently-threatened opponents. But I got to think about how if that’s the case, it seems like a case of overkill. Instead, his opponents should pony up money to air his videos everywhere, and as America gets totally wierded out, their Herman Cain problem would go away on its own.
I thought that, and I also thought, here we go again, with white men perpetuating the story about how black men just can’t leave women alone…
… as though white men can or something…
Then, later in the day, I saw that Limbaugh had said,
The Politico and the mainstream media has launched an unconscionable, racially stereotypical attack on an independent, self-reliant conservative black because for him that behavior is not allowed.
So you see, not quite the same thing. I wasn’t criticizing Politico for doing the story. It’s just that, as a longtime editor, one wonders where the story originated. And one puts the fact that all of a sudden Cain’s a threat with the fact that all of a sudden, this is out there. It doesn’t matter; the story is still a story, whatever the motives of the sources. And my evocation of the Clarence Thomas, high-tech lynching charge was just an added throwaway to set up the next line.
I think Rush actually means it. And for that matter, on a certain level, I mean it, too — in that I hate to see this happen to another prominent black man. Weird how it does seem to be the conservatives among that demographic group…. I also hate that I sort of believe it, because it would mean those women were subjected the boorish behavior. But hey, I don’t know what happened.
Anyway, consider this my backhanded way of giving y’all a place to write about the allegations reported by Politico.
Now I need to run. I’ve just got time to put together a Mark Block costume. I figure all I need is a pack of smokes…
A colleague (not anyone with The State) asked me this morning what I thought about that parking garages story in The State Sunday morning:
Exclusive | USC garages $4 million in the red
Two parking facilities underutilized
By WAYNE WASHINGTON – wwashington@thestate.com
The University of South Carolina has spent $4 million over the last three years to cover deficits at a pair of underutilized parking structures built to serve the school’s Innovista research campus.
And it could be another half-dozen years before the garages break even, bringing in as much money as they cost the university each year in debt payments.
Combined, the Horizon garage on Main Street and the Discovery garage on Park Street bring in roughly $764,000 a year less in parking revenue than they were expected to generate, according to figures provided by the university.
USC contractually is pledged to use its “best efforts” to cover $1.4 million a year in debt payments on the two garages…
I had to confess I hadn’t read past the top of it, because it didn’t tell me anything new. I mean, we’ve been over this ground before, many times, right? I mean, the reason so many of y’all spit on the ground every time “Innovista” gets mentioned is because USC made the mistake of building those buildings right as the economy was about to crash — causing them to be under-occupied, and therefore for the parking garages attached to be underutilized.
I guess the news in this — the “Exclusive” news — is that there are some actual numbers attached to what we already knew. I guess.
I mean, this is the same ground I covered, yet again, in an exchange with Doug this morning. In an effort to rain on the Nephron parade, Doug wrote:
I really hope this doesn’t turn into another Innovista marketing hype venture like so many of the announcements made by USC over the past few years…
Of course, Doug was trying to head off exactly what I DO say about the Nephron deal, which is that it is one small step in the direction of success for Innovista. I responded to him thusly:
Let me say it again:
Innovista is not about those buildings.
Innovista is not about those buildings.
Innovista is not about those buildings.
Innovista is not about those buildings.
It just isn’t.I curse the day those buildings were conceived, because they distracted everyone from what the Innovista concept is. It’s about all sorts of investments that will take place in all sorts of physical locations, mostly centered in an area bounded by the new baseball field and the State Museum along the river, and then up to Assembly Street — but NOT limited by that. It’s about leveraging that proximity to the University to promote high-tech development throughout the Midlands. Some will locate in the Innovista proper; some won’t.
As Innovista succeeds, many large and small investors will invest in all sorts of ways in infrastructure — from existing buildings to new. And the types of investors will include living space, restaurants and retail stores for the people who work in the research-related businesses there.
That’s IF it succeeds. Which is hard to do when so many people spit on the ground every time its name gets mentioned.
This IS a case of Innovista succeeding, by the way — one step in the right direction. A business first got involved with USC through Innovista, and is now expanding its business in our area, producing jobs that pay well. This is one of a number of ways that one would expect Innovista to contribute to our economy.
Back to the garages story. For me, the pertinent part, the real perspective on this, comes at the bottom, when Wayne quotes Don Herriott, the guy hired to clean up the Innovista effort after the last guy got pushed out the door:
… Don Herriott, director of Innovista, said the two 110,000-square-foot buildings already constructed are 40 percent occupied by researchers.
One of those buildings should be 60 percent occupied by early next year, Herriott said. The other should be 100 percent occupied in two to three years.
The economic downturn, which struck as the university was moving forward with Innovista, has made it difficult to get the other two buildings planned constructed, Herriott said.
Those buildings still could be erected at some time in the future, Herriott said. But rather than stick with its original, expansive vision of Innovista, USC officials are moving forward with a stripped-down plan that focuses more on selling the benefits of having a high-tech corridor and moving researchers into existing space.
“ ‘If you build it, they will come’ is not a business strategy,” Herriott said when he was hired last year.
Last week, Herriott said Innovista is coming together.
“It’s prime real estate,” he said. “There are people who want to have close proximity to the university.”
That’s the real perspective. That’s what’s happening here. And for my part, I look forward to Innovista — the real Innovista, not those stupid buildings — continuing to take off, to the point at which the $4 million shortfalls will look like a very small price to have paid.
The “smoking” one wasn’t the only one to make you wonder about the nature of that grin on the candidate’s face at the end.
Have you seen this one? What do you think?
Listening right now to my fellow granddad at hunterherring.com.
The picture above shows Hunter with our youngest granddaughter (his daughter’s, my son’s) at a Lunch Money concert in front of the Columbia Museum of Art several months ago. (Hunter’s wife works with us at ADCO, and Lunch Money’s drummer is with ADCO interactive, and the cameraman for “The Brad Show.” How’s that for cross-promotion? Back off, Jack — I’m a professional…)
Right now, Hunter’s playing Mary Wells singing “You Beat Me to the Punch.”
Listening to Hunter’s web station is like experiencing Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” in real life. I’m pretty sure that most of the songs on the fictional Rob’s Top Five lists would eventually be played on hunterherring.com.
