Category Archives: Midlands

My laptop was stolen last night

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Folks, this is awful timing, but you won’t be seeing as many blog posts from me as you normally would, on account of this:

Someone smashed the window out on my truck last night and stole the newpaper’s laptop, the one that is my primary work platform. I do all blogging, all e-mail, most working of photos and cartoons that I handle, plus all of the video and other stuff I do for the blog. All administrative files, such as evaluations and budget info, were on the laptop, plus all of the photos I had taken of candidates for this fall’s elections.

My truck was one of 10 broken into on my street.

That the computer was in my truck was just the worst possible luck. It’s probably been years since I’ve left it there overnight, and I only did it this time because on Monday I came to work without it, which put me way behind on the week, and with the confusion of election night and all, I wanted to make sure I remembered it this morning. Add to that the fact that I normally don’t take it home during the week, but only did so last night because it was election night and I was going to be working from home. I still can’t believe this.

Now I’ve got to run out and deal with the guy who came to replace the window in my truck; he’s here now.

Back to you later.

Now watch this: Lee will blame this on Obama.

My predictions

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Here are my predictions as to what I think will happen on the contested races that we dealt with in our endorsements. As always, endorsements are about who should win, not who will win. To fill that vacuum — and to help you see the difference — here are my prognostications (in which I place far less faith, because they are not nearly as carefully considered):

  • Obama will win the presidential election — the real one (electoral college, with at least 300 electors) as well as the popular vote. He’ll win it decisively enough that we’ll know by midnight. BUT McCain will win in South Carolina, probably 55-45. We endorsed McCain.
  • Lindsey Graham will easily win re-election. No prediction on the numbers; I have no idea. In fact, I’m only doing numbers on the presidential, because I really have no idea on any others. We endorsed Graham.
  • Joe Wilson will win against Rob Miller, but it will be close. We endorsed Wilson.
  • Jim Clyburn will have a blowout victory over his GOP opponent. We endorsed Clyburn.
  • John Spratt will win with a margin somewhere between Wilson’s and Clyburn’s. We endorsed Spratt.
  • Nikki Setzler will survive the challenge from Margaret Gamble, and thanks to the Obama Effect, it will be the first time it helped him to be a Democrat in 20 years. We endorsed Setzler.
  • Anton Gunn will beat David Herndon, but it will be fairly close. We endorsed Gunn.
  • Joe McEachern will cruise to victory over Michael Koska. We endorsed Koska.
  • Chip Huggins will roll right over Jim Nelson, who will NOT benefit appreciably from the Obama Effect. We endorsed Nelson.
  • Nikki Haley will win big, again in spite of Obama. We endorsed Ms. Haley.
  • Harry Harmon will again be Lexington County coroner. We endorsed Harmon, although we again made the point that this should NOT be an elective office.
  • Elise Partin will — I hope I hope — win the Cayce mayor’s office (this is the one I have the LEAST feel for, since we’ve never endorsed for this office before). We endorsed Ms. Partin.
  • Gwen Kennedy, despite being best known for a Hawaiian junket the last time she was on Richland County council, will ride the Obama Effect to victory over Celestine White Parker. We endorsed Ms. Parker.
  • Mike Montgomery should prevail (note my hesitation) over challenger Jim Manning, who seems to be running as much as anything because he felt like there should be a Democrat in the race with Obama running. We endorsed Montgomery.

Oh, and Ted Pitts will roll to victory over his last-second UnParty challenger. We didn’t endorse in this one, but if we had, we would have endorsed Ted.

Your voting anecdotes here

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Voting2

It took me an hour and forty minutes to vote at the Quail Hollow precinct — most of it standing in the breezy fine mist of rain, which gets cool after awhile even in a camel-hair sport coat. This was the first day in more than a week that I did NOT wear a sweater, which was stupid. I had looked at the weather report on my Treo — mid-60s, it said — and it simply never occurred to me that I would spend 90 minutes of the day standing outside.

But it was OK. Here are some pictures. The one at top was looking toward the front of the line, just after I joined it. Voting3The blurry one at right is a little later, showing all the way to the front of the line. (That’s my wife in the white sweater and dark hair about halfway up, although I didn’t know that until I called her on the phone and she told me she was there; I had thought she was in Shandon watching the twins. If it had been any other sort of line, I would have gone up and cut in to join her. Somehow that seemed a violation of electoral etiquette, though.) The one below is from
about 15 minutes later, at which point the line stretched back about twice as far as the point where I had joined it at 10:08. Note that the mist was falling when those behind us got out of their cars, so they had umbrellas. Many of them did anyway; the lady colonel in the foreground did not, but she was dressed for inclement weather.

All during this there was a steady flow of old folks being escorted to the front of the line, and after a while, I must confess, I was tempted to say, "Oh yeah, right! Like you really need a walker — I’m onto you!" But I didn’t think it would be nice, so I didn’t say it.

When we finally got inside the little building behind the church, the line waiting to check in consisted of about 10 people. Then there was a long, undulating space for a line after registering with only four or five people standing in. Apparently it didn’t occur to the poll workers that they weren’t managing the flow as well as they might. The lady checking in the first half of the alphabet was moving people along pretty well — story of my life; if there’s a way to screw over the W’s, it will be found and acted upon. My half of the alphabet had to wait while our worker was distracted by the old folks bypassing the line. (The whole curbside voting thing seemed very haphazard. They had a van for awhile, but that left. Some cut to the front of the line; some went to a side door, and I got the impression that each person who did so was a bit of a surprise, and was dealt with in an ad hoc manner. But perhaps I didn’t fully perceive what was happening.)

At the front of the line, there were seven machines (not counting the young lady holding the curbside machine — why she was in there, waiting for people to check in and then accompanying them out to the voter in the car, I don’t know). But only five were in use. One of them was specially equipped, I overheard, for the hearing impaired (what role hearing played in the process I don’t know). Maybe it was rigged for sound for the blind, and I misunderstood — it appeared to have headphones attached, which for all I knew was so that the "Rock the Vote" kids could hear loud music while voting.

Why the seventh machine wasn’t in use, I don’t know.

So how did it go for you?

Voting4

Mayor Bob’s update on bus funding

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Just now getting to my weekend e-mails, and I see this one from Bob Coble:

I wanted to give you an update from the City County RTA Committee that met at City Hall last Thursday. City Council members include me, EW Cromartie, and Kirkman Finlay. Belinda Gergel also joined us. County Council members include Damon Jeter, Val Hutchinson, and Joyce Dickerson. Chairman Joe McEachern also attended. The Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and other groups also were in attendance. The first meeting had four presentations from staff on a variety of background issues. Joe Cronin of the County gave an excellent overview of how our RTA compares to peer cities. I believe that all the Committee members strongly agree on two fundamental points. First that transit is an essential public service that is critical for those who depend on bus service to get to their job and the doctor; an essential environmental tool to prevent non-attainment status and become a green community; and is vital to continuing economic development. Secondly, that the County and the City have the capacity to provide funding currently and it would be unacceptable not to do so.

Frannie Heizer, as the attorney for the RTA, presented the current legal options for funding. She made the following points: First, a sales tax referendum could not be held until November 2010 (Richland County Council could call the referendum now for 2010). Secondly, Frannie believes that the use of hospitality tax for transit would require a change of state law in the 2009 Legislative Session. The County has asked for an Attorney General’s Opinion to see if hospitality tax could be used now without a change in state law. Thirdly, neither City nor County property tax can be used without a referendum and then property tax would be limited by the cap on milage. Fourth, the mass transit fee by the County and the vehicle registration fee by the City and County are available now (both fees are different legally but to the taxpayer are paid in the same way and the same amount). 

When we establish a funding plan, other issues that were discussed included the need for other governments and partners to participate in funding the RTA; doing a comprehensive operations analysis; and changing the RTA organizational structure to have advisory members for those governments that are not providing money to the system.

The next meeting will be Friday November 14th at 9:30 am at the RTA headquarters on Lucius Road. We are inviting three members from the Lexington County Council to participate.

Thanks. I will keep you updated.

Our congressional endorsements today

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Yesterday, I wrote the editorial that I dread each election year — the one dealing with Congress. (Actually, some years we do separates on the individual districts, but this year I decided to do it all in one piece — like ripping off a Band-Aid suddenly.) I put it off until it became the VERY LAST endorsement we did. I’m the one who had to write it, and I took advantage of being the editor to keep postponing it.

Now, before anyone gets all huffy about my dismissive attitude — I think Joe Wilson is a really nice guy who tries hard, and I know that Jim Clyburn is deeply and passionately committed to his constituents. But they are both, to me, emblematic of what is wrong with Congress and with our system for apportioning districts.

They are both deeply committed to the agendas of their respective political parties, and you know how I feel about that. Joe is just breathlessly eager to implement GOP initiatives, and Mr. Clyburn (I don’t feel I know him well enough to call him "Jim"), as the Majority Whip, is the very embodiment of Nancy Pelosi’s House. And I don’t like any of that one bit.

So why don’t I do what Doug always says I should do, and endorse the challengers? Because I have too great a sense of responsibility. (As you know, I’ll make a futile gesture with my own personal vote, but I wouldn’t feel right indulging myself that way on behalf of the newspaper.) For all their partisan flaws, Messrs. Wilson and Clyburn are obviously more knowledgeable and better qualified than the people running against them. I have the greatest respect, admiration and appreciation for young Rob Miller’s service as a United States Marine. (As some of you know, the very first thing I wanted to be as a kid — and one thing I could never be, for medical reasons — is a Marine. So the Corps has a particular mystique for me.) But I can’t see where serving as a captain in the Corps has equipped Mr. Miller for the very different duties of a congressman. I’d like to see some other things on his resume — such as service in some lower elective offices. I have a great reluctance to send people off to Washington before we’ve had a chance to see how they serve in office a little closer to home, where we can keep more of an eye on them.

And from what little I’ve seen of the lady running against Mr. Clyburn, I am deeply unimpressed. Watch the debate on ETV if you doubt me.

Now John Spratt is a somewhat different story. I’ve never been conflicted about endorsing him, because he seems to have so much competence, and his partisanship has been far more muted than either of the aforementioned gentlemen.

Those three are the only districts we endorse in, because those are the areas where we deliver the paper.

Anyway, here’s the endorsement(s).

Today’s ‘other’ endorsement — Elise Partin

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Partinelise_035

The McCain endorsement, being released early today, was sort of predestined to make a splash to the exclusion of readers noting anything else. So I call your attention to the endorsement that actually ran in today’s paper — that of Elise Partin for mayor of Cayce.

Certainly I want to make sure readers who live in Cayce see it. But beyond that, I see that race as being of at least passing interest to others in the Midlands — which is why we decided to interview and endorse in that race to begin with. The decision of the current and immediately past city administrations to pursue Lebensraum even to the point of going into a neighboring county — combined with such ongoing cross-jurisdictional issues as riverfront development, the regional transit system and such — made this election worth thinking about. In fact, the very first among several people who urged us to look into this race actually lives in Columbia (although others were actual Cayce voters).

Giuglianopaul_035_3
Ms. Partin is an unusually engaging candidate who presents a sharp contrast to status quo incumbent
(Robert Malpass, shown below), and offers a better course for the future than the third candidate (businessman Paul Giugliano, right). It’s an interesting race.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure this endorsement didn’t get ignored entirely.

Malpassrobert_053

Who (if anyone) is John Vierdsen, and why does he want to be my ‘friend’?

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Call me a mossback, but I admit it: I don’t get Facebook. It’s not that I ain’t hep! Blogging is second nature to me. Almost everything else about the Internet, from Google to e-commerce, I do as though I’ve always done them. I’ve essentially been instant-messaging since the early ’80s.

But Facebook foxes me. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why information flows the way it does on that site or is structured the way it is; I have trouble obtaining the simplest information from it.

But most of all, I don’t get the whole "friends" concept. Mind you, I’m not the world’s most sociable guy. There’s family. There’s co-workers. There’s sources. There are nice people I see at church or at Rotary. But friends? Not so much. We’re not encouraged to have "friends" in my business. I’ve been the recipient of disapproving remarks from colleagues on the rare occasions I’ve called someone a "friend" in a column. It’s considered unprofessional.

But ever since I set up a Facebook account (I did it when my youngest daughter’s boyfriend died last year, and I’d heard his sister had set up a page where a lot of people had said nice things about him), I’ve had this steady trickle of e-mails saying

(Name) added you as a friend on Facebook.  We need to confirm that you know (name) in order for you to be friends on Facebook.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:

Sometimes these are people I know, usually professionally. I usually confirm them, if only to keep open the lines of communication. Some are members of my immediate family, such as my children. I approve those, of course, although "friend" seems an awfully inadequate way to define the relationship. Some are people whose names are only vaguely familiar, although I generally recognize them when I go to their pages. Then I have a dilemma — should I snub this person who has asked me to be his or her "friend," or potentially compromise myself by declaring to the world that this person is a "friend?" (This category includes a lot of people, usually younger ones, who work in politics professionally.)

Yeah, I get it that the site using the word "friend" to describe a range of relationships much broader than the original meaning, but I’m still not sure what to do.

Then there are the total strangers asking me to be their friends — some of them attractive young women (and some of them young men whose motivation I wonder about, but never mind). The very first person who asked to be my "friend" was an attractive lady (which I knew from the glamor shot) who lives in Germany and is married. I "confirmed" the friendship just so I could send her a message asking, as delicately as I could, whether we knew each other. She said we did not. OK. Whatever.

That was a year ago, and I still don’t understand what’s going on.

Vierdsen
Now, along comes a message saying that "John Vierdsen" wants to be my friend (that is allegedly a picture of him at right). That rang a bell. Sure enough, I went back and found this e-mail I’d received from Randy Page of SCRG on Oct. 13, to wit:

Brad,
I trust that you are doing well.  I noticed that “John Vierdsen” is quoted in the S.C. Blogs section again today.  From all accounts, “John Vierdsen” is a pen name because no one knows who “John Vierdsen” is.  Rumors swirl about his possible identity, but no one really knows….

So I decided to make use of my vaunted "social network." I went to the page on Facebook where I was being asked whether this John Vierdsen is my friend, and saw that we had a number of "friends" in common. I noticed they were mostly Democrats or fellow travelers, such as Bob Coble, Joe Darby, Joe Erwin, James Smith, Laurin Manning, and so on…

… and former colleague Aaron Sheinin. So I sent e-mails to both the mayor and Aaron asking if they knew who, if anyone, this guy is. The mayor responded with possibly the shortest e-mail I’ve ever gotten from him:

I do not know him.

I haven’t heard back yet from Aaron.

So can any of y’all shed light on this guy? Basically, I just want to know whether we got hoodwinked on our Monday blog rail, as Randy alleges.

And then while you’re at it, maybe you could advise me as to whether I want to be "friends" with Darrell Jackson (his is the only "friend suggestion," rather than "friend request," which I take to mean that HE didn’t want to ask me, sort of like getting a third party to ask whether you want to be friends, which sort of takes me back to the 5th grade), or Tom Fowler, or Scott Sokol, or a lovely young lady from Connecticut named "Tiffany…"

Video: Richland 2 superintendent explains why he’s against 4-day school week

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Richland 2 Supt. Steve Hefner visited us today to talk about the $300 million dollar bond referendum that will be in front of voters on Nov. 4. More about that later. While he was here, I asked him about Jim Rex’s idea of letting districts go to four-day school weeks to save money.

He had some strong objections, which you can hear by viewing the video clip above, taken in our boardroom.

Hefnersteve

Salvation Army says homeless center not moving either way

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We just remade tomorrow’s op-ed page to share with our readers a piece that I think everyone should have the chance to read (folks who live in the Elmwood area will find it of particular interest), even though it has already been overtaken by events, and could be more so by the time the paper hits your doorstep Thursday morning.

So it is that I go ahead and give it to you here and now. An explanation: We got this piece today, when Salvation Army board chief Michael Beal shared with us the letter he had sent to Columbia City Council. He wrote it before the Midlands Housing Alliance voted NOT to change its plans and move to a site being pushed by some members of the city council. That happened Wednesday afternoon.

What I don’t know at this writing is what the city council will do in light of a) this letter, which tells them that the homeless services that residential neighbor want well away from them isn’t going to move whatever the Alliance does, and b) the vote by the Alliance this afternoon NOT to change its plans.

I’ve heard one thing about the city’s plans: That it plans to discuss the issue behind closed doors tonight. Here’s hoping that the city’s leaders think better of that and deal with this in the open. For my part I’ll find out when I read the paper in the morning; tonight I’ll be watching the presidential debate (assuming I get out of here by that time tonight). When I’m going to finish reading that blasted book so I can write the column that will be the counterpart to the "Barack Like Me" column, I don’t know. But that’s not your problem, is it?

Anyway, here’s the piece from Mr. Beal, adapted from the letter he sent the council:

Killing homeless center won’t move homeless

By MICHAEL M. BEAL
Guest Columnist
On Wednesday, I sent a letter to Mayor Bob Coble and City Council on behalf of the Columbia Salvation Army Advisory Board to disabuse them of the idea that the homeless are leaving our site at 2025 Main St. If the Midlands Homeless Alliance doesn’t serve them at our current headquarters, we will continue to do so.
    I share the substance of it here.
    The Salvation Army has a 100-year history of caring for the homeless in Columbia. We believe the Homeless Alliance’s plan to build a residential homeless transition center at 2025 Main St. complements out mission.
    The selection of an appropriate location is loaded with emotion. No one wants a homeless facility in their backyard. And yet it must be somewhere.
    City Council, the Homeless Alliance and the Salvation Army all must make decisions that further their missions. Council will have to determine which homeowners to appease and which to upset (Elmwood Park and Cottontown vs. CanalSide) as well as whether to help facilitate a well-financed and well-considered solution to a problem for the greater good.
Council also has a duty to be a good steward of the taxpayers’ money. From an economic standpoint, the Homeless Alliance proposal is clearly the best option.
    The alliance will have to gauge the feasibility of abandoning the Salvation Army site for a city-sponsored alternative, which raises many questions and jeopardizes some of its financing.
    The Salvation Army’s goal is to sell the property to the alliance and become a service provider at the new transition center. To be very clear: If lawsuits or red tape kill the pending sale, we will renovate our facility and continue our residential care mission at 2025 Main St.
    We are informed that much of the financial support garnered by the Homeless Alliance will be lost if the transition center is not built on Main Street. If that occurs, we expect those who had agreed to support the alliance to support us instead, so we can continue to provide shelter and other services.
    If the new residential facility is built somewhere else, that would undoubtedly influence us, but it would not end utilization of the property for homeless services, including programs with substantial residential components.
    This is not an either-or issue. The current zoning permits the Salvation Army to use the property for up to 261 residential beds, with full support services. Infinitely. We continue to serve the homeless today even though much of our funding has been diverted to the transition center. If the Homeless Alliance contract is not closed, we will continue to own the property and will continue our mission and ministry of helping the homeless at 2025 Main St. for another 100 years, or until there are no more homeless people who need our assistance.
    If the Homeless Alliance isn’t able to build its state-of-the-art center, it will further Columbia’s reputation as a dysfunctional city where critical issues are interminably debated, not resolved.
    While we debate and litigate, little is being done to actually solve the problems of homelessness in Columbia. Homeless people (who are people) continue to sleep on the streets and urinate in citizens’ yards. Another winter will come and go in Columbia, and no answers will be provided.
    The Miami shelter, which many members of council and this community visited, has a success rate in excess of 60 percent. If the Midlands Homeless Alliance’s plans are approved and we achieve a success rate close to 60 percent, it will not take long to see a noticeable improvement in downtown Columbia. In addition, the lives of the formerly homeless will be changed forever: They will become employed, tax-paying citizens. If it happened in Miami, it can happen here.
    This is Columbia’s last and best chance to properly address homelessness.
    The alliance’s project has incredible support in the community. Hundreds showed up at the announcement at the Salvation Army this summer. Churches have pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars, and business and individuals have pledged $5 million to match the Knight Foundation’s incredible gift. The Midlands Business Leadership Group, Knight Foundation, United Way, Central Carolina Community Foundation and the faith-based community have come together in an unprecedented fashion on this singular issue to provide something that Columbia has been lacking for many years — leadership.
    We hope that council will be part of the solution and help Columbia take the first step toward becoming the great city we all believe it can become.

Mr. Beal chairs the Columbia Salvation Army Advisory Board.

The problem with ‘stakeholders’

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No, not you, if that’s what you call yourself. I’ve got nothing against you. I just don’t like the word. Aside from it being bureaucratese, there’s something … presumptuous about it. As though one can accurately identify certain people as "stakeholders" which implies (but does not necessarily mean, I suppose) that some people are not.

I have this thing about the interconnectedness of all things that bridles at the notion that one can readily identify "stakeholders."

Then again, I suppose there’s a small-R republican part of me that objects to the context in which I usually find the term. I believe in representative democracy, not the direct kind. Barack Obama and other community organizer types are probably a lot more comfortable with the word, and with the concept of including all "stakeholders" (which in a community organizer sense I suppose means everybody who shows up at your meeting) in the decision-making process. Me, I’m all for listening to folks, but at some point a decision has to be made by the folks elected to do so. And often, very often, the correct decision is going to anger "stakeholders." And far, far too often, elected officials nowadays lack the cojones to go ahead and make that decision, because they’re so terrified of the "stakeholders."

Take, for instance, the issue of establishing a comprehensive center to deal with homelessness in metro Columbia. The city proper’s government has repeatedly bollixed up efforts to make this happen, out of fear of a certain sort of "stakeholder" — neighboring residents and business people motivated by the NIMBY principle. Here’s the thing about that: This center would be good for the community as a whole, and would in fact pull homeless people OFF the streets in its immediate area and start dealing with their problems. It needs to go SOMEWHERE, and that somewhere needs to be a place that homeless people can get to.

You may recall that several sites have been rejected over the last couple of years, from the State Hospital property on Bull St. (which would have been perfect for the temporary site that was under consideration), to one right down the road from us (which was fine with us at the newspaper, but OTHER "stakeholders" objected, so it fell apart).

In recent days, the group of citizens that has been busting its collective hump to make this thing happen in SPITE of the city has been moving toward establishing the center at the current Salvation Army site on Main St. Some on city council have been pushing a site down by the canal that you and I can’t actually see from the road (at least I haven’t). Maybe that’s a good site, but there are a couple of problems: The first is that the people who’ve actually been WORKING on the issue have a lot invested in the Main St./Elmwood site. The second is that, while the city council folks pushing the canal site say theirs is better because residential neighbors object to the Main/Elmwood one (true), now that word of it has gotten out, neighbors of the canal site are ready to sue as well (specifically, one big neighbor, the Canalside development). So it’s a wash.

The other day I remarked to Warren and Cindi that what’s needed is for the "stakeholders" OTHER than the neighbors need to get their act together and unite behind a site — something that’s supposed to happen in a meeting at 2:30 p.m. today, in fact — and then deal with the objections of neighbors. Because the objection of neighbors is a constant. It’s a wash. You have to deal with it either way. And the fact that some "stakeholders" are always going to be opposed cannot be allowed to prevent anything from happening.

Too many people who say "stakeholders" a lot think everybody has to be happy with a decision. As long as you’re willing to face the fact that some "stakeholders" will be unhappy even when you do the right thing (and some of them especially if you do the right thing), then by all means, go ahead and use the word.

What, you ask, set me off on this topic? Oh, I was cleaning out my e-mail from recent days, and ran across this, which is really unrelated to my rant about the word:

 

FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oct. 8, 2008

DHEC announces water stakeholder meetings

COLUMBIA
– As part of an evaluation of the uses and quality of South Carolina’s
freshwater, the
S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control will be holding stakeholders
meetings across the state, the agency announced today.

"Stakeholders
will have an opportunity to share their thoughts on freshwater quality
standards, classifications, and uses, as they relate to recreation," said David
Wilson, chief of DHEC’s Bureau of Water. "We’ll be sharing information and also
will be available to answer questions and concerns….

I’m guessing that since this was a public announcement, "stakeholder" means anybody who shows up, although maybe I’m misunderstanding. Used to be we were "citizens," or "the public." But now we’re "stakeholders," and are we any better off for it? I don’t think so.

Christmas decorations. Already

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Xmasdecor

As long as I’m in a griping, humbuggish mood, I might as well put in my bid for winning the prize for Xmasdecor2
spotting the first Christmas decorations of the "season."

I shot these pictures with my Treo at the Walmart store on Bush River Road on Saturday, Oct. 11.

And yeah, I fully expect some of y’all to be able to claim to have seen some Christmas stuff before I did, and spoil what tiny bit of satisfaction I might gain from being the first in my neighborhood to publicly gripe about it.

Bah. Double Bah. Bah squared.

Lord help me, but I do hate crowds

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Don’t go anywhere NEAR the part of town where the State Fair is, unless you’re going to the State Fair. And if you are going to the State Fair, don’t. Pick another day and another time. Save yourself and others the aggravation.

What would you do instead with the time? Oh, I don’t know…. Let’s see, it’s the middle of the day on Monday; maybe you could GO TO WORK!!!!

No, I’m not in a good mood. I made the mistake of going to my Rotary meeting, which as always was at Seawell’s, which as you know is directly across from the main northern entrance to the Fair. That’s always difficult at this time of year, but this time was BY FAR the worst I’ve ever experienced.

I tried to be philosophical about it. I tried to make the most of the situation, get with the holiday mood for a bit before going back to the office, which I could tell was going to take awhile. I decided to walk over and get myself a bag of cotton candy to take to work with me.

So I crossed Rosewood and went up to the ticket booth, and the guy said sure, go around there and get in line and get yourself a "lunch token" for $5, and if you get it back to HIS booth by 2 o’clock, you get your money back.

It was 1:54. I couldn’t even have purchased the token, much less have gotten my cotton candy, by then. And I had only $8 in my wallet. If I had given up the fiver, I couldn’t have bought the cotton candy. (That didn’t even strike me until later, so I’m glad I didn’t try to beat the clock.) What, I’d like to know, is magical about 2 p.m.? If I hadn’t had to go to Rotary, I wouldn’t have even thought about trying to get lunch before 2 o’clock. On the days I eat at my desk (the overwhelming majority of the time, that’s what I do), I never think about it before then.

So I was already feeling pretty alienated, before I walked back to my truck, and before I fought my way out of the parking lot, and had to go a mile or two in the direction away from my office before I could turn and fight my way back past the fair again.

You know when I got back to my office? 2:21 p.m. I could have walked it a couple of times in that amount of time, and would have if I’d had any idea how long it would take. Almost half an hour of sitting still idling, with gas at its current price, with my windows open, breathing the exhaust of thousands of other vehicles.

Even if my purpose had been to go to the fair, and I’d had plenty of cash in my pocket, it would not have been worth it. As it is, I’m in a foul mood.

And the only constructive thing I can derive from the experience is to warn you that, if you’re about to try to go to the Fair, please think twice.

Stop feeding off me! Give blood

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OK, I’m just kidding with the headline — chalk it up to my having put "Cool Hand Luke" into my DVD player after Paul Newman died. That is, I’m sort of kidding.

The fact is that those of us who do give blood regularly could use a little help from those who could, but don’t.

Night before last, my cell phone rang just before 9 p.m., when I was about to watch the presidential debate. It was a staffer at the local Red Cross, saying that there was a dire need, even greater than usual, for my blood type (O positive, the universal donor — anybody can use my corpuscles), and they needed me to come down right away. "Tonight?" I asked, which didn’t seem ridiculous given his urgent tone. No, he said with a chuckle — Wednesday would do.

So I showed up for my 6:45 p.m. appointment. During the extensive private interview in the little room ("Have you, since 1980, had sex with a little green woman from Mars known to inject drugs into her antennae?" "No… wait, you did say after 1980, right?"), I mentioned the late night call, and my interviewer didn’t understand why I was called so late. But they certainly needed my blood. They always do. The Midlands area regularly has to import from other regions, because folks here just don’t give enough to meet the need.

The guy who called Tuesday night said something else I hadn’t been asked before — he urged me to bring a friend. Well, I started to, right after I got off the phone. But my wife is a cancer survivor who still undergoes regular treatments, and my daughter is nursing twins. There were no other adults in the house. The next day at work, I thought about sending out a global e-mail, but I was unsure whether it was kosher for a vice president to ask fellow employees for their blood. I briefly thought of going downstairs to check with HR (they have a list of dos and don’ts that are not always intuitive), but got busy and forgot.

But I have no reservations about urging y’all to go give blood, so you can "stop feeding off me!" Just kidding. Kinda.

‘Boogie Man:’ Atwater film coming to Cola

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Atwaterlee_2

You probably already read in the paper that "Boogie Man," the documentary about Lee Atwater, is coming to the Nickelodeon. A fresh reminder came in via e-mail from Judy Turnipseed:

This movie which starts this week at the Nickelodeon about
the famous Lee Atwater features Tom Turnipseed with a lot of other South
Carolinians.  Tom will be on a panel about the movie on Friday night. 
 
Here is a review of
it in the New York Times
 
 
Here is a link to a trailer of the movie and how to buy
tickets at the Nick if you want to see the movie.

http://www.boogiemanfilm.com/ 

 

Tom, of course, was the object of one of the most outrageously mean things Atwater ever said. Here, from a 1991 story by our own Lee Bandy, is a short version of that bit of history:

Tom Turnipseed, a liberal Democrat who ran for Congress in South Carolina, once accused Atwater of engineering a survey of white voters in which they were pointedly informed of Turnipseed’s membership in the NAACP. Atwater denied the charge, but also said that he did not want to deal with allegations made by someone who had once been "hooked up to jumper cables," referring to shock treatments Turnipseed had received years before as a suicidal teenager.

He said that in 1980, when Turnipseed was running against Floyd Spence.

Manholes in the Midlands

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Back in the early 90s, I was one of a handful of editors who helped shape a drastic reorganization of The State‘s newsroom, challenging and in some cases throwing out fundamental assumptions about what we covered and how we covered it. (I was also the first one, months later, to say the new system didn’t work, but no one was listening to me at that point.) We came up with some pretty wacky, high-concept beats, but there was one I could never get the others to go for, one that I still think would be a good one — the "driveby beat." Basically, it would involve assigning a reporter to answer the kinds of questions that occur to you driving around the Midlands — What are they building there? How long will I have to take this detour? Whose responsibility is it to fix that pothole? What do all those people waiting for the library to open do the rest of the time? Essentially, just about anything that might occur to you to wonder about when you drive by it, and that normally you would never get an answer to.

For instance, Sunday morning I wanted to know why I couldn’t get anywhere closer than a couple of blocks from the Gervais Starbucks in my truck. It apparently had something to do with people riding around on bicycles in silly outfits, but I had to wait until this morning to get an answer. And I’m still not satisfied, by the way (that is, I’m not satisfied that was worth diverting traffic for, but then I’m a real curmudgeon about these things).

One of the letter writers on our Monday page got me to thinking about another one that I usually forget by the time I get to work. Here’s the letter:

Manholes are hazards around Columbia

Why is it that with the technology to provide a smooth, correctly profiled, beautifully laid asphalt roadway, no one seems able or willing to address the numerous manholes that seem to dot every block of roadway on our main thoroughfares?

When you ask a paving contractor about it, he or she sounds like Freddie Prinz of “Chico and The Man” — “It’s not my job!” How about, at least, a composite disc to raise the low ones to the roadway elevation?

With so many diverse utilities — the water and sewer department, SCE&Grab, Bell South/Southern Bell (whatever), etc. — nobody wants to take the time, expense or effort to raise (or lower) these units to the proper elevation before paving, and they are legion. Ride over to Forest Drive and take a look.

There is one in front of the State Museum (outbound lane) that would knock the treads off an Abrams tank if hit at 30 mph.

BEN BOATWRIGHT
Columbia

More specifically, here’s what’s on my mind: I’ve grown accustomed to the periodic indentations along Sunset Blvd. in the left-hand land heading down to the river through West Columbia. It’s been like that for years, and I either stay in the right lane, or dodge the manholes, or put up with my truck being jarred into rattling every few seconds.

But now, on the days I take that route, there’s a new barrier — coming up from the river on Hampton. You know, the part that’s several lanes one-way? It got repaved last month, and apparently it got ground down WAY below the manhole covers before repaving, but was not paved back UP to the manhole covers. The pavers dealt with that by constructing volcano-like slopes around the manholes, creating a sort of slalom situation — particularly right at the top of the hill, at Hampton and Park — if you don’t want to experience the equivalent of multiple speed bumps.

I am as sure as anyone can be of something like this that this situation did not exist BEFORE the repaving. I’m pretty sure I’d remember it if it had been like that.

If I we had created that driveby beat, and if I still worked in the newsroom, and if I were that reporter’s editor, I’d have him or her call around to find out who’s responsible, and whether anyone plans on doing anything about it.

Or if I were an editorial page editor in another state, one where government isn’t impossibly fragmented, I’d just call City Hall and probably get an answer.

But since I’m an editor in South Carolina with half the staff he used to have, I’m going to use the same technique I used to check Nicholas Kristof’s math — post the question on a blog, and see if I get an answer.

Now I’ve got to run; there are proofs on my desk that need reading.

Michael Koska, S.C. House District 77

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Koskamichael_021

Sept. 11, 11 a.m. — When he first came to see us during the primaries, Michael Koska made a good impression — an especially good impression given that he was a newcomer to electoral politics. He had made himself expert on the issues that had gotten him involved — especially Richland County road needs — and showed a passion for learning about more.

He made an even better impression this time, and here’s one of the reasons why: As he said himself a couple of times in the interview, he’s learned and grown on the campaign trail. For instance, he expressed a tendency toward supporting vouchers. But it was fairly obvious at the time that he hadn’t really thought the issue through. Now, he doesn’t see himself supporting either vouchers or tax credits (last time he didn’t know the difference between them) "in the foreseeable future." He believes that our first priority should be fixing the public schools that need fixing.

Mr. Koska is the Republican nominee in a district that has long been strongly Democratic. But his views are not inconsistent with those of moderate South Carolina Democrats, and he goes out of his way to praise such Democrats as Joel Lourie and Anton Gunn (regarding a recent op-ed by Mr. Gunn in our paper, he said "ditto.") He maintains that if voters elect him instead of opponent Joe McEachern, he will be more likely to get things done, being a member of the majority party in the Legislature.

About the only other time he said anything about his party affiliation was when he expressed enthusiasm for his party’s vice presidential nominee. Much as Democrats have spoken of an Obama Effect this year, he predicted that Sarah Palin would do a lot of good for down-ticket Republicans such as himself.

But mostly he talked about his passion for better roads and affordable health care. His advocacy for fixing Hard Scrabble Road had won him a position on the citizen’s panel on transportation that recommended the sales tax hike, and he feels betrayed that County Council (led by Mr. McEachern) didn’t put the issue to a referendum. He said he believes the $550,000 spent on the study, not to mention the "valuable time, time spent away from their families" by the volunteers like himself, to have been cavalierly wasted. He is also critical of Mr. McEachern and the council for having bungled the county’s representation on the Council of Governments that doles out what road money there is in the area, allowing Lexington County to get the lion’s share of the funding for the next 10 years.

The council’s decision to borrow $50 million for new parks (including one in his area), and to do so without a referendum, while people are still dying on Hard Scrabble is to him an outrage.

He has a small business owner’s perspective on health care. His own personal experience and that of his acquaintances convinces him that the state must act now to make health care more affordable (he has no patience for waiting for the feds to do anything). It was like deja vu when he told about his daughter’s recent $1,800 x-ray, which sounded an awful lot like the x-rays for MY daughter, the one that ate my "economic stimulus check," if you’re recall. He was particularly incensed that when he asked the folks at the hospital in advance what the x-rays would cost, no one had any idea. Speaking of outrages, he thinks (as do I) that the stimulus checks were "the stupidest thing." If only, he says, that money had been devoted to upgrading the nation’s infrastructure…

Energy is another area where he has no interest in waiting on the federal government to act. He says the state should push to have natural gas filling stations built around the state. Natural gas, he maintains, is "probably going to be our bridge off foreign oil," but you can’t get anywhere without the retail infrastructure.

Michael Koska is a good example of what you get when a regular citizen not only gets worked up about an issue, but goes out of his way to get informed and try to do something about it. That’s why we endorsed him in the spring. Of course, we also endorsed his general election opponent, so that makes this race particularly interesting to us.

The Sinkhole

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Sinkhole

Please excuse the crudity of the photograph. I shot it with my phone a few minutes ago.

What it lamely shows in the "sinkhole" worksite on Huger Street, which seems to divert more and more traffic each day.

Would anybody be willing to bet that this thing will be filled and the streets clear by the projected deadline of Saturday? That will take some doing.

Jim Nelson, S.C. House District 87

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Nelsonjim_033

Sept. 4, 9:30 a.m. — Our first endorsement interview of the 2008 general election cycle was Jim Nelson, a Democrat who’s opposing Rep. Chip Huggins in this Irmo-Chapin district. This was the first time I’d met Mr. Nelson — and come to think of it, when Mr. Huggins comes in it may be the first time I’ve met him (and I beg his forgiveness if I’m wrong about that), even though he’s been in the House since 1999.

Mr. Nelson is an easy guy to get to know, an affable character of moderate temperament. Speaking of moderate, he was a Republican when he moved here from New York many moons ago, but was turned off by the insistence on some Kulturkampf-style resolutions at a party convention here. (When we asked for specifics, abortion was mentioned.) On another occasion, he saw an anti-tax protester at a polling place — this was the early 90s, I believe he said — and told him that in his opinion, he, Jim Nelson, didn’t pay enough taxes here in South Carolina. (He still hasn’t quite gotten over how low property taxes are here.) Around that time, he went to work for Bud Ferillo, who remarked that he couldn’t be a Republican because they agreed on two many things. (One area of disagreement he chuckled over: Bud is convinced that desegregation launched the economic growth of the South in the 60s; Mr. Nelson insists it was air-conditioning.)

Evidently, Mr. Nelson and I don’t agree on abortion, although he is not necessarily at odds with out editorial board on the subject. But we found many areas of agreement — on his opposition to vouchers, his opposition to the tax swap for school funding from the property tax to sales taxes, his support of a cigarette tax increase and his support for the governor having wider responsibility for the executive branch. He contrasted his views on vouchers and the cigarette tax with what he said were those of Mr. Huggins, but that’s all I know about that at this point.

He presents himself as a business-oriented pragmatist, who thinks South Carolina is undercutting itself by trying to do everything on the cheap: "In business, we would do it the cheap way first, and go back and do it again the right way," which he notes is wasteful. He believes this particularly applies to education. He said he told that tax protester that where he worked at the time (before Ferillo-Gregg), all the South Carolinians worked out on the loading dock. Why not, he posited, educate the S.C. kids properly so they can have the good-paying jobs "so you don’t have to import people like me."

Mr. Nelson says that demographic changes in the district make it viable for a Democrat. We’ll see.

Here’s Mr. Nelson’s campaign Web site.

Nelsonjim_040

TIME magazine features Anton Gunn

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Just got a heads-up that Anton Gunn — Democratic nominee for Bill Cotty’s House seat, S.C. political director for Barack Obama — has been featured in TIME magazine. A sample:

Anton Gunn is a first-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention from South Carolina, and he has never so much as watched a political convention on television before. Even Barack Obama’s famous keynote address in 2004 didn’t grab his attention (he sheepishly admits he still hasn’t listened to it). In fact, until two years ago, when Gunn ran for a state house seat in Columbia and lost by 298 votes, he’d never been involved in electoral politics.

Obama’s candidacy has brought a wave of new voters and volunteers into the Democratic Party, but even among them, Gunn, 35, stands out. In addition to being a Democratic delegate and a candidate once again for the state legislature, he now has a line on his political résumé few can match: political director for the Obama campaign in South Carolina, the state that more than any other launched the Illinois Senator’s successful candidacy.

You know, I don’t think I would have singled out Anton as one of those people brought into politics like Obama. I saw a number of such folks back in the state primaries, and some of them were real novices. Anton was relatively NEW to politics, but he was already in it before he met Obama. That doesn’t take away from his achievement helping Obama win the primary, a job for which he was quite inexperienced.

I guess this sort of exposure is kind of hard to match if you’re David Herndon, Mr. Gunn’s opponent in November. Of course, it remains to be seen to what extent TIME magazine readers are a factor.