Category Archives: Midlands

It was good to see the monks pass through town

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Technically, I didn’t see them, although a number of people I know did (such as the pastor of my church). But you might say I felt their presence.

I was on my way to Lowe’s Saturday morning between 9:30 and 10, and had some trouble getting there. My elder son and I were aiming to pick up some more lumber for a project, and Highway 1 was jammed because the monks were on their way from Lexington toward downtown. But we eventually got what we needed, and I shot the pictures you see above and at the bottom while on the way to my son’s house, of the people waiting for the monks.

What monks? Well, these monks. Not your Mepkin Abbey kind of monks, but the kind I ran into in Thailand. They were hard to miss there, because they were everywhere. My daughter who was then serving in the Peace Corps lived across her country road in Khorat province from one of their wats. You also run into them on public transportation, where they have preferred seating.

Speaking of preferred seating. On a bus to Kanchanaburi, I met a retired roofer from England who had settled in Thailand with a Thai wife and kids (a lot of farangs do that, it seems. He and I had a high old time sitting and chatting on the back seat. The very back seat is of course the coolest seat on any bus, as I had learned in school. (You’re too far back for the teacher on bus duty to see you, and it bounces more than the forward seats, which is cool when you’re a kid.)

Alas, my wife and daughter were forced to sit farther to the front, because women are not allowed to sit on the coolest seat in those parts. (I think the reason why is because monks sit there.)  I felt bad for them, but Mark (I think that was the retired roofer’s name) and I had a good time anyway, bouncing along, and at one point I took a selfie that included the monk sitting next to us, also enjoying himself. I’m sorry I didn’t manage to get the monk beyond that one into the picture, but you can see his robe:

But I digress….

Anyway… I can’t say I’m fully hip as to the details about the monks’ walk across the South in the cause of peace and mindfulness, but for what little I know, I’m for it. Y’all know I’m not on the whole very fond of public demonstrations, but this is the kind that seems to have its head in a good place. They’re not out to bother anybody (except for maybe slowing down traffic, and what are we in such a hurry for, anyway?).

And you know what? I really liked seeing my fellow Lexington Countians turn out to stand along the road and wait to see them. Some of y’all across the river don’t think we’re cool enough to get into something like this, but we are.

And now you know that…

The beauty of knowing where you are

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One nice thing about ebooks is that you can keep them always handy.

I don’t have a temporary relationship with books. I think public libraries are very wonderful things, essential community assets, but I don’t often borrow books from them. If I read a book, and enjoy it or learn something from it or both, I don’t want to give it back. I want to have it handy to refer to, always.

This has led to a good bit of bookshelf-building on my part, but also a gradual turn toward downloading some of my favorite books to my iPad, using the Kindle and iBooks apps. This way, I always have a few of my favorites with me, because that’s where my iPad stays. This enables me to indulge, in quiet moments, my great weakness — rereading books I love. It’s something I can do for five or ten minutes, then move on to something else. And I almost always gain something that I didn’t fully get before.

This morning, at breakfast, it was one I’ve mentioned before — Rose, by Martin Cruz Smith. I’ve praised it before, said some of the same things before, but I promise I’m making my way to a different point today. Above is one of the passages I read this morning. It’s a good reminder of why I’m so into this book. Of course, this has been a forte of Smith’s work ever since Gorky Park. As I’ve said before, of both him and Patrick O’Brian, they are “capable, to an extent I’ve never seen anywhere else, to take their readers to an alien place and time and make them feel like they are really there.”

That passage above helps me to connect closely to Blair with a certain fondness (despite his extremely off-putting personality), because while I lack his skills as a mining engineer and explorer, I have always loved maps myself — even when studying one involved pulling it out of the glove compartment, and then enduring the challenge of trying to fold it back properly when I was done. Now, of course, Google Maps and Google Earth are always right there, the apps ready for reference as I read a book, or serving as a constant guide on my car’s dashboard. Blair would have loved interactive maps.

Today, though, I’m really focusing on something about entirely familiar places rather than exotic ones — although places I wish I knew as well as I know 19th-century Wigan from Smith, and Port Mahon circa 1800 from O’Brian. This is inspired by a paragraph that appears a bit after the one posted above:

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That immediately brings to mind a place where I have have actually been: Wichita, KS, which is where I lived and worked before returning to South Carolina. It’s a city like Columbia in some superficially impressive ways. For instance, it’s located at, and sprawls across, the confluence of two rivers, the Arkansas and Little Arkansas (pronounce “ar-KANSAS,” not “arkansaw”). The place where the rivers came together to form one had been an important gathering point for pow-wows between Indian tribes before the whites arrived. A cultural center sits on the joining delta today. (I’ve witnessed a pow-wow there.)

Wichita is nothing like Wigan, except in this one respect: It is historically sharply divided, by class and culture, by the river at and below the confluence. The West side was like Smith’s miner side: When the city developed in the 19th century, that was where the stockyards, saloons and brothels waited eagerly to welcome exhausted, filthy cowboys who had driven their herds hundreds of miles to get them to the railhead. They had a lot of steam built up when they got there, and Wyatt Earp was among those lawmen trying to keep them in line until they left.

Across the river to the east were the respectable folk — the people who owned those stockyards, saloons and brothels — where they lived comfortable, proper lives with their families, insulated by the river from their rowdy source of income.

An ironic thing about that… we all know that newspaper editors are, or at least do their best to emulate, “liberal elites,” right? Just full of politically correct values. Well, one of the first things I learned about my fellow editors at that paper was that they all lived on the proper, safe, smug East side of the river, largely in a Shandon-like area called College Hill.

All of them but one, a guy named Tom Suchan. I liked Tom, naturally enough. He was a Catholic like me, and had four kids, as I soon would (my fourth was born there, my fifth not until we got here). And he lived as far West as possible while remaining in the city. Across the street from his house there was a wheat field, and nothing else visible beyond it for miles and miles of prairie.

The other editors gave him constant grief for being such an outcast, a wild man beyond the pale. Oh, they did it kiddingly, but I felt the jokes covered something of a real difference between him and them, one that reflected to his credit, in my book.

When I moved to Columbia in 1987, I immediately perceived a similar dynamic. When we had our daily editors’ meetings, I looked around at the dozen or so crowded around the table, and knew that most of them lived in Shandon (while I lived over here on the West side). But a starker difference was that all of them were alumni of USC (I had never encountered such a uniformity at a newspaper). Well, all but one. Tom Priddy (who ironically had almost the same job as Suchan, being over the photographers and artists at the paper) had gone to Clemson. No one ever let him forget — joshingly, of course — what a pariah that made him.

I don’t know where he lived while he was here. But the similarity in the situations was striking.

But there was an important difference. Although I know South Carolina overall so much better than I do Kansas, I can’t sum up the central narrative of Columbia nearly as well as I can that of Wichita. There, it was simple: Cows, the railroad, cowboys and the townspeople who lived off of them. It was hard to forget, with historical reminders such as that Indian cultural center, and the “Cowtown” attraction that was located, of course, on the western side.

I know lots of things about Columbia. By the way, when I use that name, I’m referring to the overall metro area, which is stunningly fragmented, legally and politically — two counties, about 10 separate municipalies, five school districts, and so forth. Wichita has one advantage over that. Despite the historic split, it’s all one city (except from some odd little conclaves similar to, say, Arcadia Lakes. It’s all in one county. And there’s one public school district (although my kids attended a parish school in the large, separate, Catholic system).

Consequently, it’s a community that finds it easier to get its act together. For instance, its riverfront areas were completely and beautifully developed long before I there. Progress has been made here, but it’s been fitful.

Of course, there’s that huge similarity in the Big Split between East and West. And I can give you all sorts of reasons why that alienation exists here. And it’s very long-standing. It has to do with why the first editor of The State was shot and killed by the lieutenant governor in broad daylight, in front of a cop, across Gervais Street from the State House in 1903 — and his lawyers got him office by obtaining a change of venue to across the river, where folks reckoned he had it coming.

But this post is already too long for me to elaborate. I know the division exists, and you know it exists. The difference is that I can’t explain it as simply and starkly as I can the split in Wichita. The causes are more complicated here on the Eastern Seaboard. There are things we know and could explain if we were willing to talk about them, and other things we have trouble fully wrapping our heads around.

I’d like to be able to do that. I’d like to be able to explain it — to myself, to my neighbors, and to outsiders — as clearly as I can explain Wichita (or at least, how it formed).

Can anyone recommend a book that treats this entire community in a way that makes that manageable? The author doesn’t have to be a Patrick O’Brian or a Martin Cruz Smith. Just someone who explains us and the place we live clearly, coherently, accessibly, and most of all accurately.

If y’all don’t know, I’ll check with friends at the libraries on both sides of the river. I don’t check out their books much, but I know what a valuable resource they are…

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All Good Books: the best-named business in town

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On the previous post, Paul DeMarco mentions All Good Books in Five Points. I wish to elaborate on that topic a bit.

My relationship with that store began before it existed. Several years back, my daughter gave my wife and me some gift cards to Odd Bird Books, which existed in the tiny Arcade Mall downtown. When we heard it was about to close, and we still hadn’t used our gift cards, we made a point of visiting that shop for the first and last time.

We picked up several books that day. I believe one of them was the third book in Edmund Morris’ trilogy, Colonel Roosevelt. But the main thing I remember about that visit was how very impressed I was by what was being offered in that diminutive space.

The shop was only about the size of my home office — maybe smaller. So there were not that many books. But the place possessed a virtue I’d never encountered in any bookstore, whether independent or chain — more or less every single book was one that I would like to read, if my life should last so long. It was like Ben Adams, the proprietor, had been asked to collect every book he wanted to have with him on the proverbial desert island — and he happened to have excellent taste.

In other words, all good books. No junk at all. There wasn’t room.

So when Ben teamed up with Clint and Jenna Wallace to open a new store, naturally it bore that name (although they didn’t get it from me — see the Hemingway quote in the picture below).

And it lives up to that name. Of course, since it’s bigger and there are many more books, they’re not all books that I particularly want to read. But we should consider that I’m not the only reader in the world (or even here in Columbia), and different strokes and all that.

Still, I’m deeply impressed by the selections. And if I happen to want something that’s not on the shelves (an astoundingly high percentage of what I seek is on the shelves), the folks behind the counter will quickly get it for me. And I’d certainly rather do that than order it from Amazon.

Oh, and there’s always coffee and other refreshments. And you may think this is odd to mention (you’ll understand if you’ve spent huge amounts of time in bookstores), but a very nice restroom. That’s  essential, don’t you know.

I hope to see you at All Good Books sometime. It’s located at 734 Harden St. Now that Yesterday’s is gone, it’s my one motivation to visit Five Points.

The new Steel Hands uptown location

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I guess I should have taken a shot of the area where the customers sit. It’s very nice. But all this shiny new gear impressed me more…

Well, here’s a local business that appears to be doing well.

I just share this because I ran across the new, downtown Steel Hands brewpub on Gervais Street in the Vista. I had no idea it was there — I just thought of it as that place a bit hidden away off Frink Street.

According to the barkeep, it’s been there since October, but I don’t walk up and down that street as much as I used to. I would have stopped for a pint in addition to satisfying my curiosity, but it was around lunchtime yesterday and I needed to get home.

It’s nice to see something born in a less visible part of Cayce going all uptown like that.

I wish Hunter-Gatherer would do that; I miss the loss of it from the dowtown area. Don’t get me wrong — I love the historic hangar location out at Owens Field. Bryan Caskey and I met there a few weeks back to share some pints and talk baseball. I had the ESB, which I think is the best beer brewed in Columbia.

Of course, pubs can’t make business decisions based on what I want. I’m not what most would call a regular customer. I hadn’t been out to the hangar since Election Eve in 2018, It was the way we ended our odyssey on The Bus. I didn’t even spend any money there then, but other folks brought me a couple of ESBs that night as I stepped off the bus. Which was nice after that long haul…

Thanks for letting me know about this public servant, Sam

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Earlier one of our friends posted a long and thoughtful comment on a previous post, and among many other points he noted the importance of “investigative reporting” to “help restore trust” in our society.

Well, yes and no. The investigative stuff is important, or at least it used to be. Woodward and Bernstein have been heroes of mine since the start of my career in the mid-70s. But I hope you’ll notice that it doesn’t mean as much today. Woodstein reported the truth about Watergate, and Nixon resigned rather that be impeached. Media expose outrage after outrage after outrage about Trump (which doesn’t take much investigation, since he boasts to the world of his sins — he is even impeached, twice, and gets conficted of crimes.

And what’s the public’s reaction? They cheer at his rallies, and elect him again.

And you know, an overemphasis on investigative journalism in my generation — the post-Watergate generation — has something to do with that. Every cub reporter (or at least, most of the ambitious ones) entering newsrooms since 1974  has come in busting to rip the cover off public officials, and they’ve done a lot of it, constantly. (I told one reporter who wanted to drop everything to chase after a lead because he wanted to “hit a home run” that he needed to stop swinging for the fences, and concentrate on getting on base. I wanted him to cover his beat. Even in those days of full newsrooms, I was never fully satisfied with my people’s coverage of the everyday stuff.)

And you know what resulted from all that fervent investigation? The public at large came to believe that that was all government was about — corruption. Say “They’re all a bunch of crooks” to the average guy, and he’ll nod his head.

Journalists knew better. We were out there covering public officials up close. Sure, there were slimeballs out there, but we knew most of them were decent, honest people doing their best to serve the public. But that’s not the way we covered the public sphere. Decent, honest folks don’t give you home runs.

That’s why I appreciated a feature we had at The State when I first arrived in the late 80s, back when had not only plenty of people but loads of space. We had a weekly page in the special Sunday section that included in-depth stories about the past week, the opinion pages, and related stuff (back then, all papers had these sections, and gave them names like “Perspective,” “Impact,” “Insight,” “Review” and such.) In that section, my team (governmental affairs) had a full page to fill about goverment and politics.

And we had a centerpiece feature on it that in the newsroom we called “bureaucrat of the week.” That’s because we considered it a pain in the posterior. We passed the duty around among the staff, everybody having to write one, and each reporter groaning when his turn came up again. (They’d rather be out there swinging at the fence for something on the front page.)

But I thought it was great. It was a weekly profile of one of the thousands of little-known people out there working hard at state agencies, explaining what these people did and why they did it instead of earning more money out in the private sector.

It was an example of a type of public journalism (or civic journalism, or community journalism; it was called different things and defined different ways, but I tend to think of it in communitarian terms), a movement that arose in the 90s because some editors were smart enough to realize that people were getting a skewed view of the world. It was about covering all that went on in a community, not just what went wrong, giving the public a full, holistic picture of reality.

Well, it was a noble goal, and I believed in it, but I seldom really practiced it day-to-day. Even in those flush days, resources — people, space and time — were finite, and you had to cover the plane that crashed, couldn’t afford to cover all of the thousands that land safely.

I say all that to explain why I appreciated this Facebook post by Sam Johnson, a young local attorney who was a close aide to Steve Benjamin during his years as mayor of Columbia. He wrote this about a neighbor of ours who died this week:

True public servants lie in the shadows. You often never know their name. Or, that they were even there. They weren’t there for that reason…for you to know them or the recognition. In today’s world, these types of public servants are rare breeds. They serve because they believe in something bigger than themselves.
Chris Carrizales was a true public servant. He was a brother. He was a friend. He didn’t care about the accolades. He wasn’t posting every cool interaction he had for the clout. And, while he was often in the shadows serving our country and serving Columbia, he very much deserves his flowers.
And, when you are serving together, others might just see the highs…but true brothers see your lows. Chris was there for the lows…with you. My wife, just yesterday, reminded me of several.
Chris worked in the last two mayoral administrations here in Columbia. In short, he was family. He never met a stranger. He cared. He did the work. Often it was an all day, more than a mere 9-to-5 requirement. Like I said, he believed in service. And, he did it all with style, grace, and class. My brother was special and he will truly be missed.

There was a similar accolade posted on the city website.

I didn’t know Chris Carrizales, but I miss him now. And I appreciate Sam for taking the time to bring him, and his years of devoted service, to our attention.

 

I hope all you urban types are voting today

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I won’t be, because for reasons that continue to elude me, my own long-established subdivision — which is clearly a part of West Columbia — isn’t within the city limits. So I have my bucolic existence out here in the county. Maybe that explains why we don’t have sidewalks. It definitely explains why we pay double for West Columbia water.

But I keep getting reminders that you townies are voting today. Here’s my latest text, at right. I don’t know anything about Tyler, or about his opponent. Tyler must have something going for him, though, because my daughter has a sign for him in her yard — although I haven’t discussed him with her. But I have to say it’s distressing to get something about a nonpartisan election — which are far too rare, and to me, sacrosanct — framed in partisan terms. But I don’t blame Tyler, or his opponent. I’ve seen quite a few campaign communications such as this out of Columbia in recent days and years, and its a very disturbing trend, to me.

But what do I know about Columbia, now that I’m not longer paid to keep up with it?

I’m slightly, but only slightly — since I don’t get to vote on these things — more familiar with the contests on my own side of the river.

By slightly, I know how I would vote in at least one of these races, if someone suddenly told me before the polls close that I’ve somehow been annexed into Cayce. Based on very little recent research (but more than your standard name-recognition voter engages in, alas), I can tell you with confidence that in that situation, I would happily vote for Elise Partin.

Of course, I have long been in Elise’s corner, as you will see if you search for her name on this blog. My support extends to our having endorsed her at the paper, back when she was starting her commendable service as mayor. In fact, I see we endorsed her on the same day we did John McCain in 2008. She hasn’t disappointed me since.

I know little about her challenger Tre Bray, beyond what’s on his website. Oh, I can get a little critical about some things I find there. For instance, he complains that the town has been moving informally toward a “strong mayor” form of government (which I would love, of course, especially with an incumbent as strong as Elise)… and then he goes on to make promise after promise using “we will do this” and “we will do that” language. And y’all know I don’t like campaign promises of any kind, particularly ones stated in such definite language. But hey, who listens to me? Everybody does it. Well, almost everybody. I notice Elise’s site is more about what she and Cayce have done during her stint in office, which carries more weight with me.

And of course, that’s the traditional advantage of incumbency. But going by yard signs, Mr. Bray does have a lot of support. I don’t know what that’s about, so I’m holding myself back from assuming it’s just the revanchist sentiment of Cayce’s old power cliques, which have never fully adjusted to Elise. I just don’t know. Maybe some of y’all know.

Meanwhile in West Columbia, I know… even less. I know Iiked Tem Miles quite a bit years ago when I interviewed him for the seat representing my House district. But I liked Micah Caskey more. Beyond that, I know pretty much zip. Let me vote right now, and I’d back him — because I know a little about him, and it’s positive. But I have to admit that’s based on just a little more than name recognition.

I trust that if you live in West Columbia — or Cayce, or Columbia — you can do better. So please, get out at vote. There’s not much time left, so I’ll stop typing now…

World’s just falling apart, innit?

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I responded to this tweet from my friend Steve Millies:

But I didn’t fully express what I was thinking, because I figure that since Steve’s in Chicago, most of his followers probably wouldn’t get what I was really thinking about .

I mean, the tie is neither here nor there. I don’t wear ties much anymore. Most working days, I dress as though I were going out to work in the yard. And while I do miss Lourie’s, I think Mast General Store is quite nice as well.

But I had this on my mind:

Yeah. I mean, I’m glad it’s not going to be empty, but a chain? At least it’s one I’ve never heard of, so maybe some folks around here won’t know it’s a chain. So, you know, less embarrassing.

I mean, nothing against chains. Y’all know of my love for Starbucks. But in Yesterdays?

Back in the day: the Yesterdays 30th anniversary party, in 2008.

Addressing the abominable conditions at Alvin S. Glenn

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Attorney Stuart Andrews speaks at the press event Thursday.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, y’all. Yeah, I know you haven’t seen a post in awhile. I’ve just been busy. A lot of stuff going on, some of it quite important. I thought I’d post an example. This is about a news story I’ve been helping an ADCO client with this week.

Just wanted to make sure you’ve seen the coverage of the lawsuit about the brutal conditions for detainees with disabilities (and for everyone else, although this legal action comes at it from this urgent perspective) at the Richland County jail.

Here’s an excerpt from The State’s story by Travis Bland, “Richland jail is ‘dangerous, inhumane’ in treatment of people with mental illness: lawsuit:”

Locked up in ‘moldy, filthy, infested’ cells, bitten by rats, and strapped to chairs so long they are ‘forced to urinate on themselves.’

These are some of the “dangerous, inhumane” ways people with mental illness detained at the Richland County jail have been treated, according to an extensive lawsuit filed Thursday morning.

Richland County is being sued in federal court by Disability Rights South Carolina, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. Attorneys Stuart Andrews, Nekki Shutt and Sarah J. M. Cox of the Burnett Shutt & McDaniel law firm are representing Disability Rights SC.

Detainees with mental illnesses at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center suffer cruel punishment and restraints; don’t get needed medication; aren’t properly supervised, even when on suicide watch, and are subjected to a heightened risk of harm because of “dangerously low staff levels,” the suit says. The lawsuit asks that the federal court take over the jail and oversee that Richland County implement fixes…

And this is from the version by Mike Fitts at the Post and Courier, “Mentally ill detainees face brutal conditions in Richland County jail, lawsuit alleges:”

COLUMBIA — Richland County’s jail subjects detainees with mental illnesses to brutal conditions including misuse of restraint chairs, shower stalls being used as cells and unsupervised solitary confinement, a federal lawsuit filed April 28 alleges.

The lawsuit, the latest in a series of issues at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, has been filed to get the county to provide better care, not for financial gain, attorneys in the case said.

The special jail section where detainees with mental illnesses are kept at the jail is laden with mold, pests and standing water, thanks to broken plumbing, the attorneys allege….

Here is the full lawsuit as filed Thursday, and here is a press release about it. You can view video of the presser here. If you look at it, I call your attention in particular to what attorneys Stuart Andrews and Sarah J.M. Cox have to say. They add some details you might miss in the coverage, details that illuminate just how bad things are. Please listen in particular to Sarah’s description of how people who are on “suicide watch” are treated in ways that would make anyone, mentally ill or not, feel suicidal.

I call your attention to the fact that, as Mike notes, no one’s looking for money here. They’re looking for change. Stuart made that clear, emphasizing the plaintiffs — Disability Rights South Carolina — would like very much for the county to work with them to address these problems. Meanwhile, the complaint asks the federal court to assume jurisdiction and require that the problems be addressed.

How am I involved in this? A couple of ways. Burnette Shutt & McDaniel law firm is a client of ADCO. Beyond that, I have a very personal interest. My daughter is a public defender who spends a great deal of time visiting her clients in the jail. This is a constant worry for us, knowing what conditions are like there.

A number of things to keep in mind:

  • People in jail — as opposed to prison — have generally not been convicted of any crime.
  • People with mental illness are often there simply because they are mentally ill, and authorities have nowhere else to put them. (At this point we could go off on a long side discussion about deinstitutionalization and related issues, but for the moment I’m trying to stay on the subject of the jail.)
  • The jail is overcrowded, and alarmingly understaffed. As the lawsuit states, “It is not uncommon for a single frontline security officer to be directly responsible at one time for supervision of up to four housing units consisting of more than 150-200 detainees.”
  • People on suicide watch are not being watched. Instead, there are being subjected to forms of confinement that greatly increase their distress. But as Sarah noted, not sufficiently constrained to reliably prevent them from harming themselves. Which, you know, is why they’re supposed to be watched.

Anyway, I’m very glad Disability Rights and the folks at Burnette Shutt have taken this action, and I fervently hope it leads to real improvement.

How many ‘unblessed’ square inches are still left?

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The view from my dorm room, taken in 2006, just before they tore the Honeycombs down. This, kids, is from the days when dorm rooms were a bit like prison cells, and were located on the actual campus.

I’ve probably mentioned this a few times before, but…

Often when I pass by the defunct K-Mart on Knox Abbott (it’s between my house and my older son’s), I think of the expedition I undertook to that location during my one semester as a student at USC, the fall of 1971.

My uncle in Bennettsville, which I visited most weekends, had asked me to get some vacuum cleaner bags for his machine, and the only place where he knew he could get them was at that store. (No, kids, there was no Amazon for such things.) That being a bit far from my dorm, the also defunct Snowden, I had to find a ride. So I asked my older roommate, who knew everyone on our floor (I was a freshman, he a junior), and he referred me to a guy who, as I recall, was the only one on the floor who had a car. How I persuaded this stranger to take me there I don’t recall, but that’s how I got the bags.

Of course, today every freshman at the University drives one (and possibly more than one) SUV that is no more than a year old. As a result, any trip across Columbia requires some strategy in order to avoid the hordes of erratically driven SUVs.

Frequently, I ponder whether the city would seem to be completely choked with kids between the ages of 18 and 22 if it were not for the traffic jams. Maybe not. Maybe walking down Main Street would just feel like being in the film “Logan’s Run,” in which everyone seems to be walking around in a mall and all humans are put to death at the age of 30. But I don’t know for sure.

I just know the high rises keep rising, with no end in sight. I’m all for having a thriving university, and I know that since the Legislature no longer supports “public” universities the way it did back when we didn’t have cars, a growing enrollment is pretty much essential. So it’s complicated.

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking when I replied to this tweet from Mike Fitts:

That said, I thought I’d check and see if y’all had any thoughts on this…

How will you Columbians vote tomorrow?

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Who will succeed this guy, shown on the night of his 2010 victory?

No, not Colombians. I mean you people who live in that big town across the river from me.

I just thought I’d ask, before the election happens.

First, Columbians — and many of you are my friends, if I may use that word — please tell me you are going to vote. And too few do, in these elections. Far, far too few. And then, if you don’t mind, tell us whom you support, and why.

I’d tell you who I’d pick, but honestly, I don’t feel qualified to say. First, I haven’t kept up with city issues the way I did at the paper, when we kicked around those and other local matters every day in our morning meeting. And of course, I haven’t interviewed the candidates — even in the truncated form in which I once did it here on the blog.

My easiest-to-imagine leaning is toward Sam Johnson for mayor. But I’m aware that that’s because of — if I may use the word — he and his team are sort of in my friend circle. While I had trouble choosing between him and the late Steve Morrison during the election of 2010 — Morrison would have been an excellent mayor — I’ve been supportive of Steve Benjamin since then. And Sam and Michael Wukela have been very much his guys (Michael is doing communications for Sam, as I did for James three years ago). I like all those guys. Not that we are always on the same side.

Of course, being buds with people may be one of the most common reasons some would back a candidate. It’s not good enough for me, though. I need to know more. I need to have put in the time.

I also like Tameika Isaac Devine, although I don’t know her quite as well. I’ve been pretty pleased since she was elected — a remarkable election in that she proved for the first time that a black woman didn’t have to be gerrymandered into an easy district to get elected in Columbia. Also, I’m very impressed that while Sam has Mayor Benjamin’s support (as you’d expect), Tameika is backed by Howard Duvall. And there’s no one whose informed views of municipal issues I respect more than Howard’s.

So I’m sort of cheering for Sam, but I could see myself cheering for Tameika as well. If I were a Columbia resident, or still editorial page editor with the responsibility of endorsing, I’d have informed myself well enough to confidently propose a choice between them.

But I haven’t.

Meanwhile, I doubt any sort of closer examination of Daniel Rickenmann would cause me to choose him. Maybe it would, but my gut says no. I’ve seen anecdotal evidence that quite a few white business types in town are for him, however. As for Moe, well, no thanks.

As Bryan likes to say, your mileage may vary. Which brings me to my point: Never mind what I think. I’ve admitted I just don’t know. What do y’all think? And why?

I’ll think about that when you open an Apple Store here

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apple

That’s all I want to say, in response to this email come-on today.

The nearest Apple Store is in Augusta.

You know, in Georgia.

Augusta has an Apple Store, and we do not. So do Greenville and Charleston, last time I looked. For all I know, so does Florence by now.

And no, I don’t know what they mean by “2-hour delivery.” I turned away in disgust when I saw the Apple Store part.

Let me know when you remedy this absurd situation. Don’t send me any more ads until you have done so…

 

The kids aren’t getting smarter — or any more responsible

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queue

A friend sent me this picture a little while ago. I immediately asked whether she was still there, and could get me another shot without that car in the way.

She said it wasn’t hers; she had gotten it from a Tweet:

I checked with the guy who posted it, and he said he took the picture at about 3:30 p.m. today.

That’s the same spot pictured in this previous post, at 5:48 p.m. on Sept. 9.

The earlier shot was less… impressive, if that’s the word you want to use.

It almost seems irrelevant to ask, but how many masks do you see? No, I don’t see any, either.

What does one say about this kind of indiscriminate, homicidal behavior?

I dunno. Here’s what Chris Trainor of The State had to say:

Oh, one more thing: I don’t think they’re waiting to get into Subway. It’s about the bar next door. But that’s just a guess on my part, based on what I was told the last time. I asked Lee Snelgrove, and he didn’t know — he was just riding by…

Five Points, Columbia, South Carolina, 5:48 p.m. today

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Five Points in Columbia, SC: 5:48 p.m., 9/9/2020

Five Points in Columbia, SC: 5:48 p.m., 9/9/2020

This seemed to provoke some interest on Twitter today, when I posted it a few minutes after it was taken, so I thought I’d share it here for my readers who don’t do the tweeting thing.

The picture above was taken at 5:48 p.m. today in Five Points.

As I explained on Twitter, the kids weren’t waiting to get into Subway. They were waiting to get into the bar next door. As I said, I don’t think Subway serves beer. Although why they don’t, I don’t know — look at the crowd they could gather!

No, they were going next door.

One friend who was recently in college herself expressed some surprise at that, saying “They don’t even have a great selection!”

Yeah, well. I don’t think think they were lined up for “selection.” Unless you mean “natural selection.”

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? They think they’re invulnerable. Using the term “think” loosely, of course.

The tweet drew reactions from Bryan Caskey, Doug Ross, Phillip Bush, and “Mayor Bob” Coble. But I think my favorite was this one:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1303851673442545665

We have really nice people in Columbia, just FYI…

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screen

This was nice.

I was reading along through the Opinion section of The New York Times this morning when I found this piece headlined, “What It’s Like to Wear a Mask in the South.” So of course I had to read it. I mean, when the NYT makes the effort to offer something from a Southern perspective, you’ve gotta check it out.

It was written by Margaret Renkl, who “is a contributing opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.” She’s apparently from Nashville.

I was reading along and thinking, “I wonder if our friend, regular contributor David Carlton, knows her.” Because, you know, writers and college profs sometimes cross paths within the context of a community.

But then, I forgot about that when Ms. Renkl turned her column over to blurbs from other people around the South, and suddenly, there was an old friend from right here in Columbia. It was Allison Askins, who in a previous life was one of our two religion writers at The State. (Yes, there was a time when The State had not one full-time religion writer, but two. We were rather proud of that.)

Allison’s was the very first blurb. Here’s what she wrote:

“I have been making masks for two groups our church is providing them for — an organization that aids the homeless and the Department of Juvenile Justice. I try as I am sewing to be intentional about the act, thinking about who might wear it, hoping they are protected in some way by it and lifting up a prayer for their life, that it might somehow turn for the better in spite of this experience. I find it so sad to think that there are people who maybe are not wearing them simply because they do not know how to get them, can’t afford them or maybe really do not know they need to. It is these among us who I believe most deserve our mercy and our love.”

I just wanted to pass that on because Allison is a very nice and thoughtful person, and I thought, you know, it’s always a good time to stop and take note of the nice and thoughtful people here among us.

Not a thing you expect to see happen in Columbia

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A police car burns in downtown Columbia.

A police car burns in downtown Columbia.

Two weeks ago, my church started having live masses again. I continued to watch them online, but they were happening. Now, they’ve been stopped again — by a curfew, in response to violence.

I didn’t post about this yesterday, because I was hoping to know a lot more if I waited. I still can’t say I know a lot. Local media seem to be trying hard, but there are more questions than answers.

So I’m still where I was when I saw the first reports of violence and gunshots near the police station downtown. My reaction then was, Hold on. Something is really, really off here. Things like this don’t happen in Columbia.

And they don’t. Normally, public demonstrations — particularly those having to do with issues touching on racial tension — are very much in the dignified, MLK tradition of civil witness. I’ve certainly been to plenty of them, with regard to the flag and other matters. And there are certain things you expect — things that make you proud to live in a community such as this one.

Columbia has a long tradition of this. In the early and mid-’60s, both black and white leaders in the community looked around the country, and they began talking to each other to try to get us through desegregation without the strife seen elsewhere. This was harder than it looks from today’s perspective. There was no venue for such conversations — black and white folks coming together as equals — to take place. Then-president Tom Jones offered to let them meet on campus at USC. These conversations led, among other things, to a relatively peaceful desegregation of downtown businesses.

Out of those conversations grew the Greater Columbia Community Relations Council, whose board I felt honored to serve on for several years (until just a few months ago). We didn’t accomplish anything so dramatic during my time, but the spirit that those meetings in the ’60s represented — let’s get together and figure out how to solve this — seemed reflected in how we talked about difficult issues in Columbia.

Even when horrible, evil things happened in South Carolina — such as the murders of those nine good people in Charleston in 2015 — I remember seeing comments from people wondering why South Carolina didn’t explode violently the way other places had with less provocation. Instead, leaders came together to mourn, and then to take action, together, to get rid of the flag. Yep, all they did was something that should have been done decades earlier — which means that yes, we still have plenty to be ashamed of in South Carolina — but they did it.

So when I saw that there would be a demonstration in Columbia about the death of George Floyd, I figured it would be a demonstration that would show other places how this kind of thing is done — sober witness, a sharing of grief, an airing of frustration that would demand respect.

And, from what I have heard, that’s what happened. There was such a demonstration at the State House.

But then later, several blocks away, all hell broke loose. Violence. Police cars — and a U.S. flag — set on fire. Rocks thrown. Shots fired. Fifteen cops injured. It’s probably happened before, but I can’t remember when one cop has been injured in a riot in Columbia. Certainly nothing like this.

I’m not seeing these comments in the paper this morning, but yesterday I kept hearing from family members (as y’all know, I’m not much of a TV news watcher) that local leaders such as Mayor Steve Benjamin and Sheriff Leon Lott were saying (if you can help me with a link, it would be appreciated) the violence was the work of people from out of town.

In other words, their reaction sounds like it was the same as mine: Things like this don’t happen in Columbia.

Mind you, these are leaders who themselves had expressed their outrage at what happened to George Floyd. But they weren’t going to let people tear this town apart with pointless violence.

In Columbia, people protest. But they do it in a civilized manner, as we saw at the State House.

This was something else. And thus far, local officials are reacting appropriately to calm things down: Honoring those who express their grief and concerns in a rational manner. Stopping those who do things that don’t help any cause.

There’s a lot more to be done, locally and especially nationally. There are a lot of conversations to be had, and action to be taken. But for a community that’s unaccustomed to this kind of violence, we seem to be responding to it pretty well so far…

Watching things close down, a step at a time

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library

Each day, on my walks around the USC campus and downtown area, I’ve watched things change. Each day, I encounter fewer people. And I watch as things close down a step at a time.

For instance, last week I could still walk into the Thomas Cooper Library, get a sip of water at the fountain, use the rest room if I needed to. Maybe walk back to the Hollings annex to see what collections are on display.

Monday, there was the above sign — only students, faculty and staff would be admitted. IDs would be checked.

Then today, the below sign — closed down completely.

When I got to Main Street today, it was the first day that I felt a bit like Rick Grimes entering Atlanta. Blocks of open curbside parking. Businesses all closed — or sufficiently curtailed that they looked closed. Go ahead and cross the street without waiting for the light, because there’s no one coming.

Passing maybe one person per block, each of you veering away sideways as you approach, so you don’t come too close. Careful. You might get “bit,” and become one of them…

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

closed

How did your precinct vote? NYT has a cool interactive map

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big map

I find that the most convenient place to find that hyperlocal information, right down to my neighborhood level, is…

The New York Times. I tried finding it at thestate.com, and maybe it’s there (in fact, I feel like it MUST be), but I couldn’t find it.

Anyway, they have an awesome interactive map. And I see that in my neighborhood, my man Joe cleaned up, with a higher percentage of the vote than he got overall in Lexington County.

Here are the numbers for my precinct:

Quail Hollow

 

To get your precinct, just go to the link, zoom in on your county, and roll the cursor around until you see your own polling station.

Jack Van Loan, a hero and a friend

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Jack Van Loan, seated, at the dedication of his statue in Five Points in 2016.

Jack Van Loan, seated, at the dedication of his statue in Five Points in 2016.

I first heard the sad news last night, after my daughter saw a mention on social media, from a mutual acquaintance. Now, The State has confirmed it: My friend Jack Van Loan passed away over the weekend.

I guess I should have seen this coming. Early last year, sometime before I joined the Smith campaign, I’d had a conversation in which Jack, who normally identified as Republican, told me how he was fully on board in supporting James for governor. But then, months later when I called to ask him to participate in a presser we were doing with other veterans, I learned that his health wasn’t up to it.

So I knew the years were catching up on him.

I’m just so sorry to see it. I’m going to note his passing by rerunning this column from January 2008, about his and his friend John McCain’s experiences at the Hanoi Hilton. I wrote about Jack on other occasions as well, such as this piece showing him playing a king-making role in local politics as the unofficial “mayor of Five Points,” but I think Jack would most want to be remembered for this one. It’s the thing that looms largest in my memory of him, anyway:

What it was really like at the ‘Hanoi Hilton’

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
ON MAY 20, 1967, Air Force pilot Jack Van Loan was shot down over North Vietnam. His parachute carried him to Earth well enough, but he landed all wrong.
“I hit the ground, and I slid, and I hit a tree,” he said. This provided an opportunity for his captors at the prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton.”
“My knee was kind of screwed up and they … any time they found you with some problems, then they would, they would bear down on the problems,” he said. “I mean, they worked on my knee pretty good … and, you know, just torturing me.”
In October of Jack’s first year in Hanoi, a new prisoner came in, a naval aviator named John McCain. He was in really bad shape. He had ejected over Hanoi, and had landed in a lake right in the middle of the city. He suffered two broken arms and a broken leg ejecting. He nearly drowned in the lake before a mob pulled him out, and then set upon him. They spat on him, kicked him and stripped his clothes off. Then they crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him in his left foot and his groin.
That gave the enemy something to “bear down on.” Lt. Cmdr. McCain would be strung up tight by his unhealed arms, hog-tied and left that way for the night.
“John was no different than anyone else, except that he was so badly hurt,” said Jack. “He was really badly, badly hurt.”
Jack and I got to talking about all this when he called me Wednesday morning, outraged over a story that had appeared in that morning’s paper, headlined “McCain’s war record attacked.” A flier put out by an anti-McCain group was claiming the candidate had given up military information in return for medical treatment as a POW in Vietnam.
This was the kind of thing the McCain campaign had been watching out for. The Arizona senator came into South Carolina off a New Hampshire win back in 2000, but lost to George W. Bush after voters received anonymous phone calls telling particularly nasty lies about his private life. So the campaign has been on hair-trigger alert in these last days before the 2008 primary on Saturday.
Jack, a retired colonel whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing for more than a decade, believes his old comrade would make the best president “because of all the stressful situations that he’s been under, and the way he’s responded.” But he had called me about something more important than that. It was a matter of honor.
Jack was incredulous: “To say that John would ask for medical treatment in return for military information is just preposterous. He turned down an opportunity to go home early, and that was right in front of all of us.”
“I mean, he was yelling it. I couldn’t repeat the language he used, and I wouldn’t repeat the language he used, but boy, it was really something. I turned to my cellmate … who heard it all also loud and clear; I said, ‘My God, they’re gonna kill him for that.’”
The North Vietnamese by this time had stopped the torture — even taken McCain to the hospital, which almost certainly saved his life — and now they wanted just one thing: They wanted him to agree to go home, ahead of other prisoners. They saw in him an opportunity for a propaganda coup, because of something they’d figured out about him.
“They found out rather quick that John’s father was (Admiral) John Sidney McCain II,” who was soon to be named commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific, Jack said. “And they came in and said, ‘Your father big man, and blah-blah-blah,’ and John gave ’em name, rank and serial number and date of birth.”
But McCain refused to accept early release, and Jack says he never acknowledged that his Dad was CINCPAC.
Jack tries hard to help people who weren’t there understand what it was like. He gave a speech right after he finally was freed and went home. His father, a community college president in Oregon and “a consummate public speaker,” told him “That was the best talk I’ve ever heard you give.”
But, his father added: “‘They didn’t believe you.’
“It just stopped me cold. ‘What do you mean, they didn’t believe me?’ He said, ‘They didn’t understand what you were talking about; you’ve got to learn to relate to them.’”
“And I’ve worked hard on that,” he told me. “But it’s hard as hell…. You might be talking to an audience of two or three hundred people; there might be one or two guys that spent a night in a drunk tank. Trying to tell ‘em what solitary confinement is all about, most people … they don’t even relate to it.”
Jack went home in the second large group of POWs to be freed in connection with the Paris Peace Talks, on March 4, 1973. “I was in for 70 months. Seven-zero — seventy months.” Doctors told him that if he lived long enough, he’d have trouble with that knee. He eventually got orthoscopic surgery right here in Columbia, where he is an active community leader — the current president of the Columbia Rotary.
John McCain, who to this day is unable to raise his hands above his head — an aide has to comb his hair for him before campaign appearances — was released in the third group. He could have gone home long, long before that, but he wasn’t going to let his country or his comrades down.
The reason Jack called me Wednesday was to make sure I knew that.

Jack Van Loan, campaigning for his friend John McCain back in 2007.

Jack Van Loan, campaigning for his friend John McCain back in 2007.

Temple Ligon still pushing The Bridge

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It’s really something when someone has a idea he really believes in, and never, ever gives up.

Remember Temple Ligon’s plan to build a convention center on a bridge across the Congaree? He’ll be talking about The Bridge again tonight, more than 30 years after he first proposed it:

Tomorrow night, Friday, beginning at 6:00 pm at the Columbia Empowerment Center on Lady Street, we’ll have a lecture on The Bridge. What began as a response to the city’s request for proposals in the spring of 1987 is now part of a major real estate development proposal that includes a five-star hotel, a Jasper Johns museum, a performing arts compound inspired by Washington’s Kennedy Center, a suggested home for the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame, and other features. Property taxes taken from the private development, mostly condominiums, out of what is now thin air over the Congaree River, can be collected as part of a tax increment bond financing development district to help build the cultural amenities. Low culture, you might say, can be exercised to support high culture. The Koger Center, an awful ballet theater and a terrible opera house – I was on the board of the Palmetto Opera for six years – stays where it is as a perfectly adequate symphony hall with a band shell that works. Still, renovation of the Koger Center is in the budget.Temple Ligon

Back in 1987, while the city was wondering what to do with a homeboy proposal of world’s first triumphal bridge in the modern era, the major hotel developer, Belz Hotels of Memphis, saw Columbia as an opportunity to build a Peabody and parade it’s ducks in the same class as the Peabody in Memphis and the Peabody in Orlando, both high-end properties. Belz committed in writing to Columbia City Council, Richland County Council, Lexington County Council, and West Columbia City Council. Copies of the Belz commitment will be available. Also available will be the blue ribbon committee report from the managing partner of South Carolina’s largest law firm, Nelson Mullins, which essentially said, “Build the Bridge.

In other words, The Bridge was wildly popular and eminently practical and thoroughly doable. It just didn’t have the initial support of the Honorable T. Patton Adams and later the support of the Honorable Robert D. Coble.

Even the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce was firmly on board. The membership was invited to vote their preference, which was reported as 65% for The Bridge, although the chamber director confided in me it was actually 75%.

So we almost had a done deal. As it turned out, we got a satisfactory convention center with good attendance and plans for expansion.

Fine. But who cares?

Now let’s get on with making a city. But who cares?

Everybody cares.

Benjamin testifies before Congress on climate change

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Mayor Steve Benjamin winds up his testimony before Congess.

Mayor Steve Benjamin winds up his testimony before Congess.

I found this release in my In box, which said it was “happening now” — but I only got there as he was finishing his testimony. Maybe if I click on the link after the hearing’s over, I can see it from the start. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t.

In any case, here are his prepared remarks. And here’s the release:

Today, I’m in our nation’s capital testifying before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Environment & Climate Change at its hearing on how state and local leaders are responding to the climate crisis in the wake of President Trump’s intent to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.

In my testimony, I will highlight the challenges Columbia has faced with flooding as a result of unprecedented wet weather events as well as how cities like ours have taken leadership in addressing the issue for our residents.

It is our hope that my testimony provides members of Congress with a strong understanding of cities’ efforts to address climate change as well as some ideas that they can quickly implement to bolster local government leadership.

If you’d like to watch the testimony – happening now – you can view it here: https://energycommerce.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-on-lessons-from-across-the-nation-state-and-local-action-to.

Sincerely,

Steve Benjamin
Mayor
Columbia, South Carolina

If you’re wondering how he believes the city has “taken leadership” on the issue, here are some of the things noted in his prepared remarks:

In 2009, with assistance from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, we conducted an energy audit and implemented several of the audit’s recommendations, including upgrading lighting systems, HVAC upgrades on City buildings, and installing solar panels on fire stations. These projects reduced our greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption and saved Columbia taxpayers approximately $337,000 per year.

In addition, one of my first priorities when I took office was to upgrade and rationalize our regional transit system to increase ridership, including successfully asking our voters to approve a penny tax dedicated to transportation, including transit. I have also built on and accelerated the efforts of my predecessor to improve pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in Columbia, completing several streetscapes and extending and opening several trails. Combined with thousands of new units of housing in Downtown Columbia and other central Columbia neighborhoods, these efforts have set the stage for truly giving Columbia residents a meaningful option to the car, with the added bonus of a vibrant, lively and beautiful Downtown. Two years ago, Columbia took the next step, setting a target of powering our community with 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2035.

In addition to our climate change prevention efforts, we have been actively addressing mitigation. In the wake of Hurricane Joaquin, it became clear that we had to accelerate our efforts to improve the climate resilience of our stormwater infrastructure. We bit the bullet and increased stormwater fees to fund a wide array of projects to improve our stormwater system using both gray and green infrastructure. We also issued our first-ever green bond that allowed the City to finance upgrades and improvements to our stormwater system while protecting our environment.