Category Archives: Personal

Douglas Adams lives!

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Once at a cocktail party in Columbia, I met an editor from a British publication (The Times, I want to say) and I asked him: “Why is it that British newspapers are so much better written than American ones?” He said he rather thought it was because in the UK, they write with readers in mind, rather than for other journalists.

I think he was right. It sort of speaks to that thing that John Parish was on about, when he explained to me his disdain for journalism prizes back in 1978.

Anyway, I’m very much enjoying the great wealth of British newspapers while I’m here. My favorite bit today, from a magazine included in The Times:

IN THEORY

The big ideas, with a little twist

01 DARWINISM

In the distant past there were lumbering, old-fashioned beasts who survived for an unaccountably long time before departing the stage, like a dinosaurian Ann Widdecombe. Then they all died because they were stupid and a smart monkey came down from the trees in Africa, moved to Surrey, put on a frock coat and invented the British Empire, which was clearly the pinnacle of existence and pretty much the point of having life begin at all.

02 DETERMINISM

Watson and  Crick discovered CSI in a London pub, beating Rosalind Franklin, who had two X chromosomes and therefore was ineligible to be clever. A scientist patented his own DNA and sued his offspring for breach of copyright. Gay men had a gay gene that responded under ultraviolet light to musicals, women had one that caused them to swoon in the presence of unsuitable men with two-tone shoes, and the rich had a gene that meant their children were rich, although that was later attributed to tax avoidance. A whole new series of medical treatments was predicted by those with three copies of the optimism gene.

01 SEXISM

Sex was invented because cells got sick o talking to exact copies of themselves at parties, like accountant. It split the world into halves: women are from Venus and men are from some planet where bowel movements are considered a leisure activity. Sex is not essential (qv Widdecombe, above) but does give a chance for unsuitable men with two-tone shoes to wee in the shallow end of the gene pool. It’s energy-intensive, distracting, dangerous and so humiliating that evolution has  to give humans jolts of pleasure on the level of a three-rock crack hit to make them do it….

You get the idea. If Douglas Adams were still alive, he could sue for theft of style. In fact, that “got sick of talking to exact copies of themselves at parties, like accountants” is VERY like a gag of Adams’ to the effect of “Many respectable physicists said that they weren’t going to stand for that sort of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn’t get invited to those sorts of parties” — or at least it reminded ME of it.

I read the leader today, oh boy…

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All right, so it wasn’t properly a leader, but a column. I just wanted to add some British idiom to my allusion…

Thought y’all might be interested in this item in The Guardian today (over breakfast at our B&B in Oxford, my wife was reading The Times and I had The Guardian — which I had run next door to the off-licence to get — but she never gave up The Times).

We never got around to visiting the Abbey Road crossing in London, even though it wasn’t far from where we were staying. I sort of lost interest after reading that the local council had moved the zebra crossing so that it wasn’t the real one. But I’ve been bemused at how they do go on about The Beatles here. I had sort of thought they had faded from memory here, rather the way one never saw much about Elvis in Memphis until after he died (I know, I lived there then).

That’s mostly because there have been two recent news items. The first was that the Abbey Road crossing was recently given Grade II historic status — even though it’s the wrong place. The second was that a Tory minister wants to protect Ringo Starr’s birthplace in Liverpool from demolition.

So today’s columnist wrote a piece headlined, “I am a Beatles obsessive. But let’s cut the Fabs-worship.” And quite right he is, even though I love the Beatles. As he wrote,

Such, anyway, is yet another episode in a story that has long since ballooned into absurdity: the transformation of the Beatles into a national religion – arguably bigger than Jesus, as John Lennon infamously put it. X Factor contestants must, by law, deliver warblesome readings of Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road; each time Sir Paul McCartney ventures out to hack out his versions of the hits, the public is encouraged to think something miraculous is afoot; Yoko Ono, bless her, keeps the posthumous Lennon machine grinding on.

In Liverpool, meanwhile, delusions of post-industrialism have reached their apogee in the idea that Beatledom can be a substitute for a lost mercantile past. It’s all there: John Lennon international airport, the Hard Day’s Night Hotel, the “Magical Mystery Tour” that wends around the city, even a Fabs-themed Starbucks — though judging by the forlorn atmosphere of too many of the surrounding streets, Beatles-driven regeneration really isn’t working. Funny, that.

Yes, isn’t it? He goes on to note that not ALL Beatles music is iconic:

Moreover, the idea of the Beatles as all-dominating titans had yet to take root: well away from their legacy, music developed on its own terms. These days, by contrast, they use up so much of the cultural air that we seem little able to breathe. There must be more to life than nodding-dog piano ballads of the Hey Jude variety, but there are times when they seem to define a good 50% of the mainstream. For all their inventive wonderment, one would imagine that I Am the Walrus, Happiness Is a Warm Gun and Helter Skelter left at least some of rock’s more creative possibilities unexplored, though listening to the bulk of even supposedly cutting-edge music, you’d never know.

Indeed. Then, he ends,

In 1970, John Lennon said this: “It’s just a rock group that split up, it’s nothing important – you can have all the records if you want to reminisce.” The words crumble next to his group’s myth, but they also speak an undeniable truth — which is why the 72% of local people who are reportedly OK with the Madryn Street demolition ought to have their wishes respected, and life should go on. And one other thing: Ringo was the drummer, remember.

I’m not sure what he meant by that last bit. As “Paul’s grandfather,” the clean old man, observed in “A Hard Day’s Night,” where would they be without his steady beat. But I thought the piece was food for thought.

Pint of best bitter, please — or stout, ale, or whatever you’ve got

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Sharp's Doom Bar at the Golden Lion.

When we were on the way into town from Heathrow the other day, my granddaughter mentioned that she had forgotten to pack her best glitter. I couldn’t resist that opening, and immediately said, “We’ll just go into a pub and order a pint of best glitter!” She and my wife both looked at me blankly. Sigh. It went over as well as one of Jack Aubrey’s puns. But I was just as proud of it as he ever was…

So I’ve ordered a pint of bitter, and occasionally stout or lager, at various places in London, Greenwich and Oxford now. Also had some Peroni and Beck in restaurants without taps, but that doesn’t count.

I’ve had Spitfire (twice) and Samuel Smith Sovereign Bitter and some Samuel Smith stout as well (Samuel Smith was all they served at the Swiss Cottage pub near us in London). My very first pub was The Golden Lion in central London, where I had Sharp’s Doom Bar. (I had to walk ’round and see the tap myself, because the barmaid had a heavy foreign accent. It was THE best bitter I’ve had so far.) Sort of a posh clientele — I suspect some of those chaps of working at Christie’s, right across the road.

The most recent place we visited was The Turf in Oxford. It’s only been a pub since the 13th century, and I like to give these new places a try. Didn’t actually have a pint there (I was still drinking a coffee from down the road) — but J had a mulled wine.

I will continue to investigate this aspect of this lovely country, and report back to you, my readers. Someone has to do it.

I intend to carry on in spite of the fact that the new tax rates are going into effect within hours. More about that later.

I found “Championship Vinyl” (and you can’t prove I didn’t)

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See where it says "shop to let"? And do you see any window-shoppers?

Well, I told you I would find the former site of “Championship Vinyl,” the record shop in High Fidelity, and I did. And no one (except maybe Nick Hornby) can tell me I’m wrong.

It satisfies the criteria:

  1. It’s in Holloway.
  2. It’s just off the Seven Sisters Road.
  3. It’s in a location that guarantees the “minimum of window-shoppers” — in other words, the only customers are those geeky young males who go out of their way to seek the place out.
  4. I was looking for a vacant space, on the theory that since the book was published 15 years ago, and since Rob was trending toward changing his life for the better toward the end, that he would have moved on from running the store, or moved it to a better location, or something by now. I mean, he and Laura would have some kids by now. Any road, this is a good theory for me to have to explain that it’s not actually there, since, you know, it never really existed.

I made up that last criterion, but the first three are in the book.

So, you ladies are wondering — just how patient is my wife, to go along to places like this? Well, she didn’t. This was the one thing I did

Unfortunately, the souvenir shop wasn't open. I had wanted one of those scarves...

on my own. Today was the day we were leaving London for Oxford, and she just wanted to get up and get ready. So I got up before she did, hopped the Jubilee line down to Green Park and got on the Picadilly way out to Islington, to Holloway Road, and hiked over to Seven Sisters.

Then, after “finding” Championship Vinyl (it was the first street off Seven Sisters with some actual commercial fronts off the main road) on Hornsey Road, I walked back east until I got to Arsenal Stadium, the scene of other Hornby tales. At Arsenal, at least, I wasn’t the only geek taking pictures of the stadium — but the others were English football fans. One guy was having his wife take his picture there while she tried to keep the kids in order.

After I found the Arsenal Tube station (this required asking directions four times, twice from people who did not speak English), I rode back to our stop, and left Swiss Cottage station with sadness. I really, really love the Underground. (There’s no other way I could have gone all the way to Islington in a city this crowded and done all that walking about and gotten back in less than two hours.)

When I got back, J had packed for both of us, and we took a taxi to Victoria Coach Station for the ride to Oxford. Come to think of it, she really is enormously patient with me…

Oh, and if you wonder why I would want to do this… well, you just have to read High Fidelity. The movie was great, but the novel was much better.

Or maybe THIS is it, a couple of doors down. I can see how experts could in good faith disagree...

The UFOs of Primrose Hill (Happy 2011!)

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Sorry about the poor quality; I only had my Blackberry. Still, you can see a bunch of our UFOs, rising away from Primrose Hill toward central London. And down on the horizon, among other things, you can see the Eye of London.

J and I had this brilliant idea. We would avoid the madness of Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve, but still experience it, quietly and privately, by walking up to Primrose Hill, which we had heard afforded a great view of London.

So, after a wonderful meal at a fine Indian restaurant near our hotel in Swiss Cottage, we set out walking. I had assured her I could find the park from having glanced at Google Maps, and I hoped I was right.

Along the way, we saw some young guys on the sidewalk outside a house where a party was going on, and they seemed to be trying to make an upside-down luminaria take off like a hot-air balloon using a cigarette lighter. They were laughing like mad, and the people inside the party were watching out the bay window with great interest, and we just assumed they were half-cut, or more. As we walked past I did say, “Well, the principle is sound…”

Then, as I we walked on and I started to wonder whether I had lost my way after all, we noticed down south, over the city, some reddish lights hovering in the sky. They looked very strange. The way they acted, they couldn’t be aircraft. My guess was that someone had fired parachute flares, but they were so high that seemed unlikely.

As I was about to despair of finding Primrose Hill Road, I saw a fairly busy road ahead of us… and lots of people walking along it. Since they were walking in the direction of a church, my wife came up with a Catholic answer — they were going to a midnight Mass. But that’s not where they were going. We found ourselves part of a pilgrimage of perhaps a couple of thousand, all of whom had had the same idea — climb Primrose Hill to watch the fireworks down around Trafalgar.

There were all sorts. Most seemed 20ish, and most had bottles. But there were older folks, and parents with small kids. Most were English, but I heard German and Spanish nearby.

Everyone had a blast, and it was fun to be among them. But the most remarkable thing was that, from here and there in the crowd, these big bags with little fiery things dangling from them kept drifting up. At one time, about 25 of these UFOs could be seen, drifting high toward the Thames. It was wonderful to watch (and so quiet, by comparison to fireworks).

Then came a ragged, spontaneous countdown, and bam! The fireworks went off over Trafalgar, to the delight of all.

It was wonderful. The weather was cool and damp, but not uncomfortably cold (just as it’s been since we’ve been here, which I love — I would have been so disappointed had it been sunny).

So that’s what we did for New Year’s. What did you do? Oh, wait — you haven’t done it yet. Well, whenever midnight does reach you, have a wonderful time, and be safe and careful.

And have a wonderful 2011. I plan to.

Then came the

Ruining my “typical” English breakfast with The Guardian

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What is THE very most obnoxiously touristy thing I could do on my first day in London? Yes, you guessed right -- here, my granddaughter and I harass one of the Horse Guards.

First, an apology for not blogging more. Had major trouble connecting to the wi-fi at the hotel again. After working on it for about an hour and harassing the Polish night clerk for half that time, back in my room I finally got on. My wife asked me what I did differently. I explained that I entered the username and password with my left hand that time. True, there were other things I did as well. But the only one I remember was entering the login info with my left hand. So… there could be trouble again tomorrow.

Now, to report on a bit of my day… the very first bit… I’ll write about how The Guardian did its best to spoil the typical “English breakfast” that I had this morning. OK, modified English breakfast. First, I was eating it at an Italian bistro near the hotel (but they advertised it as a typical English breakfast). Then, I asked them to leave out the eggs and the toast (because of my allergies), and to substitute chips. Other than that, quite typical — bacon (OK, it was like bacon in the Great White North, but that’s what they called it), sausage (or should I say “banger”?), fried tomato, mushrooms, and baked beans (with a bit of HP sauce on it). And a couple of espressos. (But don’t call it espresso. I made the mistake of saying “another espresso” to the waitress — I was going by the foam — and she corrected me saying it was “black coffee.” No, black coffee was what I had at Starbucks later in the day. Whatever.)

It really fortified me for walking about all day in typical English weather (something like 45-50 degrees, totally overcast, occasional mist — which I’m loving; I’d be so disappointed if it were sunny). And I enjoyed it thoroughly.

But it was very nearly ruined by reading The Guardian, which someone had left in the restaurant. Actually, as it turned out, it was a two-day-old Guardian. But I didn’t realize that until later.

I guess you could call this post my British version of my Virtual Front Page, which I haven’t done in awhile. So enjoy.

The biggest news today, by the way, has been England winning the Ashes in Melbourne. This, apparently, is huge, since they haven’t done it in 24 years. But just try understanding the coverage of it. For instance, try diagramming the two sentences in this paragraph:

England had arrived knowing that they required four more wickets, but notionally three for the crippled Ryan Harris was never going to bat: no tail-ender in a surgical boot has ever batted out more than five sessions to secure a draw and they were not about to find out. Eventual victory did not come easily however and Andrew Strauss and his men had to wait until 40 minutes before lunch before Matt Prior swooped on to an inside edge from Ben Hilfenhaus, a fourth wicket for Tim Bresnan, and the entire team, along with a corner of a very large foreign field that was England, were able to erupt in their collective euphoria.

I don’t think understanding the jargon would help; I’m pretty sure those sentences are nongrammatical. Maybe it’s the punctuation. Anyway, we move on.

In the Monday paper, I read about Elton John having purchased a child in California. But that didn’t make much of an impression. Then, I read truly shocking news: David Cameron has called off a free vote on lifting the ban on hunting with dogs. I especially enjoyed this quote from Cameron:

Cameron, a self-confessed “shire Tory”, has said he is a country man at heart and favours hunting, but he recognises it is a highly divisive issue and would play to negative stereotypes around his party.

Bloody do-gooders. Bloody leftist rag I’m reading about it on. I mean, what’s the use of having a Tory government (or a coalition government in which the Tories dominate), if you can’t restore riding to the hounds? I mean, is this England? I wonder if Cameron was so mealy-mouthed in The Times. Harrumph.

But seriously, folks, that’s not what upset me. What upset me was this story:

The government is to follow the lead of The X Factor television programme and allow the public to decide on legislation to be put before MPs.

In an attempt to reduce what is seen as a disconnection between the public and parliament, ministers will ensure that the most popular petition on the government website Direct.gov.uk will be drafted as a bill. It is also planning to guarantee that petitions which reach a fixed level of support – most likely 100,000 signatures – will be guaranteed a Commons debate.

Ministerial sources acknowledge that the proposals have the potential to cause headaches for the coalition because populist causes célèbres – such as a return of capital punishment or withdrawal from the European Union – could come top of the list.

The leader of the Commons, Sir George Young, has signalled he wants to press ahead with government by petition in the new year.

There would be no guarantee that the government would support the most popular proposals but, subject to discussions, there would be an agreement that the issues would be converted by parliamentary draftsmen into a bill…

My God, direct democracy? Worse, reality-TV-style direct democracy. In Britain? I got here too late.

And I thought American politicians were the kings of pandering. Obviously not. I suppose this is what they mean when they say travel is broadening.

As you see, I didn't let The Guardian upset me SO much that I didn't finish the breakfast. Oh, as for the 15 quid on the tray -- that's not just for me; that's for three breakfasts, plus tip. And yes, I know The Shop Tart shows you her meals BEFORE she eats them, but I'm not The Shop Tart, am I? I'm more avant-guarde...

OK, we’re here — more later

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Got to London, but…

  • The plug adapter I spent $20 bucks on at Radio Shack only has two holes on the American side, and I need three. I just bought it Sunday and threw it in the suitcase. I’m down to 14 percent battery power.
  • The Internet connection at the hotel is fitful. I finally connected after working with the guy at the front desk for about half an hour. They tell me that tomorrow, I’ll need a whole new password.
  • Oh, yes, the lift is out of order, and we’re on the third floor. So, a dilemma — after I carried half the EXTREMELY HEAVY suitcases up to the third floor and the bellhop carried the rest, should I tip him extra, or not at all, as I stand there huffing and puffing? I gave him three pounds, as it happens.

More when I have power…

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Tourist

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Sitting in the Detroit airport, thinking about our eventual destination…

Maybe I’m not, as friends and family seem to think, Jethro. But I am an … idiosyncratic sort of tourist.

Sure, I want to see the usual things in and around London – the Tower, the Bridge, maybe Stonehenge when we get out of town. My granddaughter wants to see Mme. Tussaud’s. I will also reluctantly accompany her onto The Eye, even though the smallest carnival Ferris Wheels give me the fantods.

But I hope she and my wife will indulge me on a few somewhat more oblique digressions.

My notion of what to see Over There is heavily influenced by fiction. This means that I want to see places where people who never actually existed didn’t actually do the things that I read about. That means some of these sights aren’t much to look at, while some are entirely imaginary. But I want to see where they would be if they did exist. Hard to explain.

I’m not entirely alone in this. Some of the more esoteric (I thought) sights have been sought out by other fiction geeks ahead of me – which will save me time in “finding” them. Others are a bit more problematic.

Some examples:

  • The one that causes the most eyebrow-raising when I mention it (so I’ve stopped mentioning it) is Championship Vinyl. You know, the record shop in High Fidelity. Yes, I know it’s not real. But I want to find where it would be if it did exist. Fortunately, Nick Hornby supplies some good clues (“We’re in a quiet street in Holloway, carefully placed to attract the b are minimum of window-shoppers…” near Seven Sisters Road…). When I find the perfect location, I suspect it will be a vacant storefront or some such. Nevertheless, I’ll take a picture to prove I “found” it. And if I don’t find a likely location, I’ll console myself by heading over a few blocks to Arsenal Stadium (Fever Pitch).
  • I had thought no one else would ever think of this one, but I was wrong (link): I want to see the path in Hampstead Heath (just a few blocks from our hotel) where Gen. Vladimir was assassinated by Karla’s people at the start of Smiley’s People. Maybe I could even find the fork in the tree where George found the tattered packet of Gauloises with the crucial negative in it. If so, I’ll get a picture of that, too.
  • Of course, there’s always Smiley’s flat, and I know the actual address.
  • I’ll go see the new MI6 HQ, which le Carre called “the River House” in The Night Manager. But what I really want to see is The Circus. Fortunately, others have identified it as being this building. And it’s near some great book shops, so my wife might not mind this detour too much.
  • The Islington highway exit where Arthur Dent was dropped off when he returned to Earth at the start of So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
  • Tea at Fortnum’s. OK so this is a typical tourist thing. But here’s my reason for wanting to do it: When Percy Alleline confronts Peter Guillam in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, accusing him of consorting with “defector” Rikki Tarr, a long stream of things run through Guillam’s head in an instant (one of the best passages of that sort I’ve read outside Dostoevsky). But what he says is, “Sure, Chief. Rikki and I have tea at Fortnum’s every afternoon.” Like a couple of scalphunter tough guys would do that. His facetiousness saves him. Anyway, that’s what got me interested in having tea at Fortnum’s: I want to do something that two people who never existed didn’t even do in fiction. Also, I think my wife will enjoy it.
  • Finally, I’d really love to find some landmarks for the Aubrey/Maturin novels, but I know that after all this time it will be hard to find places that look just as they did in the early 19th century. For instance, can I find anything that looks like the Grapes, in the liberties of the Savoy? Or, is the old Admiralty building still in use, where Jack and other officers paced the First Lord’s waiting room, hoping for a ship? We’ll see…

So you see, I’ll be busy.

But you know what I want to do the most? Find and experience things I never even thought of, things I didn’t plan. The places and things I’ll just run across and be delighted by – those are the greatest rewards of travel, I find.

Don’t you?

See you — I’m off to England

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Or not. They just announced a “maintenance problem” on our aircraft. To be fixed in a “coupla minutes.” We’ll see. But it just gives me time to dash off this note.

So I think we’re ready. Some last observations before leaving:

  • One reason I didn’t post yesterday was that I had some last-minute shopping to do, such as for a carry-on bag that will also hold my laptop. And I have this question:  What happened to the day after Christmas, which is supposed to be one of the biggest shopping days of the year? I went to WalMart and out to Harbison, and did not run into crowds anywhere. WalMart had several registers given over to “returns,” but there was no one lined up at them. And the “crowd” in the store might have been a midyear weekday. And after they pushed so hard to get rid of the blue law. Harbison was practically deserted — I got around MUCH more easily than on a typical weekend. So what happened? Did that uptick in consumer spending just crash, or were they waiting until today? Surely it wasn’t that little bit of snow, none of which was on the roads…
  • Speaking of Boxing Day — here’s hoping the London Tube workers got their little strike out of their system yesterday. What worries me is that the Boxing Day holiday is actually on Tuesday this year. Here’s hoping some of the workers didn’t think that was the day, since that’s the day I arrive. If I have trouble getting around London because of labour unrest, I’m voting Tory next time. Strikes? That’s SO Old Labour. It’s like they never heard of Tony Blair or something…
  • By the way, I’m totally set for thoroughly embarrassing my wife on this trip. When she saw me last night proudly showing off my new travel vest with all the pockets stuffed, she laughed uncontrollably. Then she seized control of my bulging wallet and forced me to give up most of the cards that I “wouldn’t need,’ in her opinion. She did let me keep the one with the Our Father in Spanish on it. Good thing she’s Catholic….
  • Speaking of embarrassing my wife — in spite of Kathryn Fenner’s urging, I’ve decided NOT to put on phony British accents wherever I go. After all, I’d probably use the wrong one in the wrong place — go all posh in a working-class pub or something — and get into trouble. No, I have a better plan: I’ll pass myself off as Irish…
  • It’s totally amazing that we didn’t have any trouble checking in at CAE, the way those things were stuffed. But I did have a spot of passport trouble. It wouldn’t scan, so they had to handle in manually. Here’s hoping I don’t have that trouble everywhere. Maybe I should have brought one of the others from the safe deposit box. The Bourne one, maybe…

I will check in with y’all as soon as I’m settled at the hotel. Assuming the laptop works there.

I’m really counting on British pluck here…

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Here we are, five days from when I’m supposed to leave U.S. airspace, and I’m hearing a bunch of stuff I don’t want to hear:

Heathrow airport could remain in a state of partial paralysis beyond Christmas, its owner admitted yesterday, spelling misery for the tens of thousands of passengers who face the prospect of being stranded over the festive period.

BAA said two-thirds of flights into and out of Britain’s largest airport would be cancelled until at least Wednesday morning because it has the resources to keep only one of its two runways open.

Of course, that’s from those lefty alarmists at The Guardian, but even more sensible, conservative newspapers are saying distressing things. Even
The Times, if you’re willing to pay a quid to read it.

This morning, I was hearing that everything should be cleared up by Friday. Now we’re hearing the ominous “beyond Christmas,” which, after months of planning and years of anticipation, could potentially put a crimp in our plans.

My wife’s been reading cheery notices from the British rail system about all the salt they’ve bought, and how energetically they’re applying themselves to the problem.

And that’s what I’m counting on, you see. British pluck. Nothing like it. Go to it with a will, lads. I’ve all the faith in the world in you. Make this your finest hour, and clean up this mess. And don’t fear; I’m on the way…

I emphatically reject this vicious stereotyping aimed at people like me

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Over the weekend, Kathryn F. e-mailed me this link:

Why the “lazy jobless” myth persists – Unemployment – Salon.com

And I have to say, I was appalled at what I found there… I don’t mean this stuff:

During the recent fight over extending unemployment benefits, conservatives trotted out the shibboleth that says the program fosters sloth. Sen. Judd Gregg, for instance, said added unemployment benefits mean people are “encouraged not to go look for work.” Columnist Pat Buchanan said expanding these benefits means “more people will hold off going back looking for a job.” And Fox News’ Charles Payne applauded the effort to deny future unemployment checks because he said it would compel layabouts “to get off the sofa.”

The thesis undergirding all the rhetoric was summed up by conservative commentator Ben Stein, who insisted that “the people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.”

The idea is that unemployment has nothing to do with structural economic forces or rigged public policies and everything to do with individual motivation. Yes, we’re asked to believe that the 15 million jobless Americans are all George Costanzas — parasitic loafers occasionally pretending to seek work as latex salesmen, but really just aiming to decompress on a refrigerator-equipped recliner during a lifelong Summer of George…

I mean that gross, unfair, insensitive photograph. As a guy who spent close to a year unemployed, I deeply resent such a depiction. It’s totally unrealistic. My gut is nowhere near that big. In fact, mine is much better suited structurally to balancing the remote control on while snoozing in front of the Boob Tube. I can prove this. I have demonstrated this, time and again. And besides, I was just monitoring C-SPAN, waiting for Congress to extend my benefits…

John Parish, dean of Tennessee journalism

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That’s John in the foreground, preparing to take a picture at The Jackson Sun reunion of 2005.

Today, my friend Kevin Dietrich brought this obit to my attention:

Mr. John M. Parish, age 87, retired newsman and former press secretary to Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, died December 10, 2010….

I had not read it, but I must have received a telepathic message of some sort. Because one day this past week, for no reason, I thought of this unfinished blog post from June 28, 2007. I had started writing it after reading that David Broder piece that it mentions at the start. Then after typing away for awhile, I got sidetracked and never finished it.

But for some reason the other day, I got to thinking about John Parish. And I thought, one of these days I’ll finish it. I had no idea as I thought that that “the Bear” was already gone.

Here’s my belated remembrance of John Parish. Tennessee journalism is unlikely to see his like again…

David Broder’s column on today’s op-ed page begins with this thought:

Years ago, Lamar Alexander, the senator from Tennessee, told me of a lesson he had learned as a young man on the White House staff: It is always useful for the president to have at least one aide who has had a successful career already, who does not need the job, and therefore can offer candid advice. When he was governor of Tennessee, Alexander made sure he had such a man on his staff.

That brought back the memories, even more than seeing fellow Memphis State grad Fred Thompson yesterday.

The man on Gov. Lamar Alexander’s staff who best fits that description is John “The Bear” Parish, who became the new governor’s press secretary in January 1979, after having long established himself as the Dean of Tennessee political journalism. It was a very unusual appointment, since new governors seldom turn to such people. (Although Mark Sanford did in picking Fred Carter as his chief of staff. Mr. Carter left the office early in the Sanford administration to return to his job as president of Francis Marion University in Florence. Just as well, since as near as I could tell the governor wouldn’t listen to him anyway.)

Unlike Lee Bandy, John did not work for the state’s largest newspaper. He wrote for The Jackson Sun. The photograph above is from a 2005 reunion of folks who worked at that paper when I was there, from 1975-85. John is stepping forward to take a picture on his own camera. (That’s me in the striped shirt just over his shoulder. To my left is Richard Crowson, now editorial cartoonist with The Wichita Eagle. [But, since I wrote this, laid off like me.] On the other side of Richard is Mark Humphrey, the photographer who took the shot of me at the bottom of this post back when we were covering the Iowa Caucuses in 1980, and who is now with The Associated Press in Nashville. To my right is Bob Lewis, the former center for the Ole Miss football team who is now with the AP in Richmond. Of course, I could tell a story about each person in the picture, but what do you care, right? Well, it’s my blog, so I’ll wax nostalgic if I choose.)

John was a legend, a uniquely gifted, hard-working journalist who made a big impression on me at an early point in my own career. Frankly, I have never seen his like since. A few points from the rich mine of Parish lore:

  • He got his nickname, “The Bear,” from his days as The Sun‘s city editor, which predates me by a year or two. Office scuttlebutt was that John had been a bit too gruff to all the newbies hired right out of the University of Missouri’s excellent journalism program shortly after the Des Moines Register Co. bought the paper in the early ’70s. By the time I was there, he had definitely found his niche as the associate editor at the newspaper, and the paper was making the most of his exhaustive knowledge of state politics.
  • He wrote four or five news stories in the course of a typical day, plus — and this is the amazing thing — a daily political column on the editorial page.
  • Despite that volume of copy, he never made mistakes. I’m not talking about not having to run a correction in the paper. His copy was the cleanest I’ve ever seen. And in those days, nobody had clean copy. We’re talking IBM Selectric typewriters, not word processors. Not one strikeout or correction. After the first couple of times I read (I had joined the paper as a copy editor) raw copy from John, I asked someone whether he wrote rough drafts first. No. And there was no way he could have, producing a volume like that.
  • He couldn’t type, at least not in the way it’s taught at school. He produced all of that copy hunting and pecking, at blinding speed. It sounded like a machine gun coming from his office (John was the only person in the newsroom who had an office other than the executive editor and managing editor).
  • Sen. Thompson made a passing reference Wednesday to the case that launched his screen career — he represented a whistle-blower who helped bring down the fabulously corrupt Gov. Ray Blanton. But before, during and after that incident, the bane of the Blanton administration was John Parish. Day after day, outrage after outrage, John documented the governor’s gross abuse of power.
  • John’s wife worked for a state agency. The governor went after her to get even with John. He didn’t fire her; he transferred her job to the other end of the state. Her new commute would have been a little less than Tennessee’s full 450-mile length, but not by all that much. So she had to resign. But that didn’t stop John. Nothing stopped John.
  • In 1978, I was working in The Sun‘s Gibson County Bureau — quite a responsibility for a kid three years out of school. I covered everything that happened in several counties, including the one where The Sun had its second-highest circulation, by myself. (Well, actually, I had a secretary, which was my first taste of management.) But what I really wanted to do was cover state politics. That year I got my first chance to do that. Because of John and the high standard he set, the paper — small as it was — covered politics in a big way. The last month of the general election, we had a reporter full-time with each of the gubernatorial (and if I’m remembering correctly, U.S. senatorial) candidates. John no doubt would have preferred to be in four places at once, but since he couldn’t, that meant a big opportunity for me and a couple of other junior people. “Full-time” coverage, by the way, means traveling with them on the plane, in the car, eating meals with them — a kind of up-close-and-personal man-to-man coverage that is unimaginable today (papers don’t spend the money, and candidates don’t let the press that close). 20 hour days, because after the candidates were done, we had to write. Calling in stories and updates to stories from the road (in those days before laptops, we dictated). I spent a week each with Alexander and Jake Butcher, and I learned a great deal. The height of the experience came when John praised one of the stories I wrote from that time (and it WAS a good one).
  • Another point that year, I finagled the chance to help John cover the Democratic Mid-Term National Convention in Memphis. A conversation we had during that has stuck with me. I mentioned that some of our colleagues were in Nashville that weekend to pick up their awards at the annual state press association convention. I may have expressed my disappointment that I couldn’t be there (although I definitely preferred being at the Memphis event, working). John harrumphed. I asked what was wrong. He said he had no use for such awards, or the approval of other journalists. He only cared about the approval of the readers, and the best award they could give him was to buy the paper and read what he wrote with interest. It amuses me now to think how shocked I was at the time at this attitude. Readers? What did readers know? They weren’t professional journalists! They didn’t know what made a story good! (Mind you, I was not long out of journalism school, which fosters such silly, insular notions.) This was the first time I ever distrusted John’s judgment. But of course, he was completely and absolutely right.
  • Of course, Lamar Alexander won that gubernatorial election we had been covering. At Christmastime of that year, I brought my family to South Carolina for the holidays. When I got back, I got a call from my editor, who told me the stunning news — John Parish was leaving journalism to be Alexander’s press secretary. It was a really unusual move for someone of his advanced skill, experience and stature. I don’t remember ever hearing John explaining in my hearing why he made this move. But I guess he wanted to make a difference, and actually help run government instead of just writing about it. Whatever the reason, I immediately spoke up — I wanted the job covering Nashville for the paper. My editor said, “I sort of thought you would.” So I took my shot, went through the interviews. But… I didn’t get it. It went to Jeff Wilson instead (who was about the only person at the paper who maybe wanted it more than I did). Fortunately, my stock was high enough with our executive editor that he did an extraordinary thing, rather than lose me: He created a special position for me. He brought me in from the bureau and basically told me to go out and write about whatever I wanted to. I was my own assigning editor, and went covered every special assignment that interested me, from Tennessee to the Iowa Caucuses at the end of 1979. That was during the week. On Saturdays I became the editor in charge of the paper. This led to my giving up reporting for good and becoming the paper’s news editor (what most papers would call a metro editor, the editor supervising all the news reporters) the following year.

That editor gig worked out well, there and at two other papers, until The State decided it didn’t need me any more last year. In the last years, especially after Lee Bandy retired, I got to thinking that I was finally getting there, I was finally on the verge of becoming that gray eminence that would make me to SC politics what John Parish was to Tennessee’s. But that was wishful thinking. I never came close to being John Parish. No one could.

Another shot from the reunion. John, at right, is chatting with Kevin Barnard of The Tampa Tribune and Mark Humphrey. Mary Reed and Joel Wood are in the background.

Make mine a Yuengling. Robert’s, too

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Just to keep y’all up to date on the hep doings of the In Crowd — Robert Ariail and I gathered last evening in the official Warthen/Ariail Memorial Booth at Yesterday’s, which is one of Five Points’ greatest attractions. Or should be.

We covered such burning topics as:

  • What we’re charging these days for freelance gigs (my prices are lower than his, but then I’m not Robert Ariail).
  • My upcoming trip to England, where I hope to find a pub as homey and welcoming as Yesterday’s. (I’m not sure this tops my wife’s list of priorities for the trip, but it’s high on mine.) A booth named for me is not a prerequisite.
  • Social media, which Robert’s not into, so I tried to engage his interest by showing him this. He still wasn’t sold. So then I Tweeted this out and showed it to him — “Having a pint with Robert Ariail at Yesterday’s, in the official memorial Warthen/Ariail booth. Not everyone can do that…” — and he still wasn’t impressed.
  • Why it’s the “Warthen/Ariail” booth instead of “Ariail/Warthen.” (Guess who raised that question?)
  • How, take it all around — price, flavor, what have you — you really can’t beat a pint of Yuengling. Oldest brewery in America, you know.

Hey, Mr. Yuengling distributor, take note: Don’t you think it’s about time you took out an ad on the blog? Like Yesterday’s?

Parking Meter Santa lives! And he’s back!

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You can have your grainy pictures of Sasquatch -- here is my photographic proof of the existence of Parking Meter Santa!

It was more than three years ago that I first posited the existence of a Parking Meter Santa, going about Columbia cheerfully plugging money into meters and chucking softly to himself, thinking of the joy he would bring to the next person to park there.

I based this on having found a space, in October 2007 (it seemed to me more recently; I was shocked that it was on the old blog) on Assembly Street with an hour and 54 minutes left on it. Ho, ho, ho.

This morning, I found one with 1:09 left — 1:08 by the time I took the picture. Not as generous as the time before, but more than I needed. (Perhaps I haven’t been as good as I was in 2007.)

This leaves me feeling much cheerier about the season.

Last night I watched part of Ben Stein’s documentary in which he seeks to debunk the anti-religious gospel of such famous atheists as Richard Dawkins. Well today, we have a settler for those who don’t believe in Santa… Ha! Take that!…

Bobby Hitt at Commerce

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Pretty much everyone who follows such things has said Nikki Haley’s first big test would be choosing her Commerce Secretary. And now we see how she has chosen. And it is very… interesting.

For the last couple of hours, since I heard that she had picked Bobby Hitt, I’ve been thinking back over my long association with him and wondering what I can legitimately say that is relevant to the situation.

You see, I know Bobby Hitt. I’ve known him for years. I served with Bobby Hitt. And you, senator, are no…

Wait, wrong tape loop…

Here’s the thing: Bobby Hitt used to be my boss, back when he was managing editor of The State and I was the gummint affairs editor. We worked together in a tumultuous time, as newsroom management was in transition from the old, family-owned regime to a new breed that, for lack of a better term, I’ll call the Knight Ridder editors. Bobby was a leading light of the first category, I was the vanguard of the second (I was the first editor in the newsroom from a KR paper — in fact, I think, the first who had ever been an editor outside South Carolina — after KR bought The State). I didn’t feel like an interloper or a spy — as a native South Carolinian, I just felt like a guy who had come home — but a lot of people regarded me as such. And Bobby was the new generation of the old guard. Some sparks were inevitable.

When I came to work at The State in 1987, Bobby was away doing a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, which sorta told me he was no dummy. When he came back in ’88, he was elevated to managing editor of The State (he had headed The Columbia Record before that). In 1990, Gil Thelen replaced my good friend and Bobby’s mentor, Tom McLean, as executive editor. About a year later, Bobby left the paper. What happened in between is a bit of a whirl in my memory, as it was the year of the Lost Trust scandal, the departure of Jim Holderman from USC, and about a dozen other scandals that had my staff running like crazy to stay ahead of them. (A time Cindi Scoppe alluded to in her column about me when I left the paper.)

Working with Bobby was … interesting. Bobby is a character and a half. He’s intense, and has a manner that works well with folks who think, “This guy will flat get some things done,” and very much rubs others the wrong way.

Bobby went to work for Nelson Mullins when he left the paper, and when BMW came into the state and hired that law firm to represent it, Bobby was delegated to help the Germans negotiate the complexities and peculiarities of public and governmental relations. They were so impressed by the job he did that they hired him away from Nelson Mullins, and he’s been up in Greer ever since, playing a key role at the operation that still stands as the big ecodevo success of the last two or three decades.

His intimate knowledge of the workings of such a business and what they’re looking for in a home should stand him in good stead, and no doubt was a huge factor in Nikki Haley picking him for this job. (An anecdote Bobby told me a few years ago about why BMW picked SC… Two reasons: First, our storied tech school system, which they relied upon to train their workers. Second — a BMW exec went on a driving tour of residential neighborhoods in the Greenville-Spartanburg area. He approvingly noted the neat houses and well-kept yards, and decided that people who took care of their property and community like that were people they could work with. The first is an ecodevo asset we understand and are happy to exploit. The second was intriguingly intangible.) The BMW name is political magic, and she’s no doubt hoping some of that magic will rub off on Commerce.

Oh, one other thing of interest: I can’t really tell you for sure what Bobby’s politics might be. News people didn’t speak to each other about such things. But I know he’s Rob Miller’s uncle. Assuming Nikki knew that, kudos to her for not letting that get in the way.

I’m going to be listening with interest the next few days to what business leaders say about this pick. Not what they’re quoted as saying in the paper, but what they say more informally. They’ve mostly been VERY anxious for a new approach to ecodevo in both the governor’s office and Commerce, which is why a lot of them supported Vincent Sheheen against the Sanfordista candidate. Nikki knows that, and knowing it, she has made a rather bold and unconventional pick.

Bobby is a unique individual, from his thick Charleston accent to that slightly mad, conspiratorial, insinuating grin that explodes out of his scruffy red beard at the least provocation. He’s certainly not the standard-issue CEO type that one expects in the Commerce job. No man in the gray flannel suit is he. I feel confident he’ll grab ‘hold of Commerce with both hands, and make something happen or bust a gut in the attempt. His uniqueness will either blow up in Gov.-to-be Haley’s face, or pay off big time. I hope, for South Carolina’s sake, that the latter is the case. I’ll be rooting for Bobby (and Nikki for that matter — she’s the only governor we’ve got), and if I can ever help him get the job done, I’ll be glad to do what I can. We need a win. We need a bunch of ’em.

“Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat…”

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A reader this week reminded me of something that I may have known, but had forgotten — that long before he was the funniest deadpan comic actor in America, Leslie Nielsen was … “The Swamp Fox” on TV. She wrote:

I occasionally post on your blog as Abba.  Would you consider posting this clip from YouTube showing Leslie Nielsen, who died this week, as South Carolina’s Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, in Disney’s series from the early 1960s – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vvQJ7ZDg1Y.  Here’s a longer version – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVGN1pDzYAY&feature=related.  Leslie Nielsen never looked so good!  This clip has the catchy theme song that I remember so well from my childhood.  We used to play the Swamp Fox on the playground at school, and many of the boys in my class had tri-cornered hats with fox tails attached.  Hear the song once, and you’ll be humming it all day long!  A fitting tribute to Leslie Nielsen from our corner of the world, I think.

I loved that show, which ran from October 23, 1959 (right after my 6th birthday) to January 15, 1961 — hardly more than a year.

Like the far, far more successful “Davy Crockett” series and generally forgotten “Gray Ghost,” these shows inspired me and other very young kids to run out and play at being actual figures from history. (Anyone remember that goofy, overly elaborate way Col. Mosby saluted? I thought it was cool, and used to go around imitating it. Wouldn’t you like to see video of that?)

Actually, to take that a bit farther… to this day, whenever I hear the words “Tory” and “Patriot,” I think of first hearing them used on “The Swamp Fox.” So while my understanding of the term was to grow and expand later, I actually had a minimal working knowledge of what a “Tory” was at the age of 6. If I ran into a 6-year-old who used a term like that today, I’d be shocked. But it was common currency among fans of “The Swamp Fox.”

I can also remember a conversation I had with my uncle about “The Gray Ghost.” I was confused about the whole blue-vs.-gray thing (especially since I was watching it in black-and-white), and I asked him during one show, “Are those the good guys or the bad guys?” My uncle, who was only a kid himself (six years older than I) could have given me a simplistic answer, but instead, he said, “Well, they’re both Americans…” and went on to suggest that a case could be made for both being good guys. That sort of rocked my world. There was no such ambiguity on the Westerns I watched. This was my introduction to the concept that in war, in politics, in life, things can be complicated, that there are many shades of gray. Perhaps the track that set mind on has something to do with why I don’t buy into the whole Democrat-vs.-Republican, left-vs.-right dichotomy that drives our politics. After all, they’re all Americans. And in the wider world, they’re all humans. Even the Nazis. (Of course, this doesn’t keep me from understanding that when humans’ actions go beyond the pale — as with Nazis, or terrorists — they must be opposed, with force if necessary.)

Also, while at first I didn’t think I remembered the “Swamp Fox” theme song, as I listened to it repeated over and over on that clip above, I had a dim memory of being struck by the odd syntax of that second line, “no one knows where the Swamp Fox at” — I didn’t know WHY it sounded odd (I was just learning to read, and hadn’t gotten to grammar yet), it just did.

In other words, these shows — which presented very simplistic, often inaccurate glimpses of history — not only helped feed a lifelong interest in history, but helped foster the ability to think.

So… TV doesn’t actually have to be junk, although it’s often hard to remember that these days.

Bad Things Arising (got to shake these from my head)

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Over the weekend, I had some silly be-bop song running through my head, after hearing it on a CD my wife was playing in the kitchen. Perfectly harmless, and no permanent damage. I’ve already forgotten what song it was.

Today, something more ominous has gripped my mind… I’ve got two songs from “Jesus Christ Superstar” running through my mind — “This Jesus Must Die” (which is bad enough) and “Judas’ Death.”

This is what I get, I suppose, for not going to Mass yesterday. I had a cold, I was scheduled to administer the Eucharist, and under the circumstances I thought it best not to show.

Now this.

Sample lyrics from the first song:

Caiaphas:

Fools! You have no perception
The stakes we are gambling
Are frighteningly high
We must crush him completely
So like John before him
This Jesus must die
For the sake of the nation
This Jesus must die
Must die, must die
This Jesus must die…

And a sample from the second:

Judas
My God, I saw him
He looked three-quarters dead
And he was so bad
I had to turn my head
You beat him so hard
That he was bent and lame
And I know who everybody’s
Going to blame
I don’t believe he knows
I acted for our good
I’d save him all the suffering
If I could
Don’t believe
Our good
Save him
If I could

Now, in my defense, the first song really has some appealingly clever lyrics, before you get to the bloodthirsty ones:

Annas
What then to do about Jesus of Nazareth?
Miracle wonderman, hero of fools

Priest
No riots, no army, no fighting, no slogans

Caiaphas
One thing I’ll say for him, Jesus is cool…

What then to do about this Jesusmania?
How do we deal with the carpenter king?
Where do we start with a man who is bigger
Than John was when John did his baptism thing?

But nevertheless, this is not a good way to start the week…

November 22nd in Dallas, 47 years on

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Elections oracle Larry Sabato Tweeted this morning:

Eerie to be in Dallas on a November 22. Weather (early rain, clearing,sunny 70s) similar to 47 yrs ago. No formal commemoration.

So consider this your opportunity to share your memories of the day. And if you’re too young to have memories of day, well then who cares what you think? (Aw, now don’t go crying to your mommies about how mean the old man was to you…)

My favorite “Where were you?” story was the experience of Richard Nixon, which I read about once in a book about the 60s compiled by Rolling Stone. On this day 47 years ago, he was being driven through a residential neighborhood in an unfamiliar city, when suddenly a woman ran out of her house and looked around her desperately. She had just heard the news. Nixon, who had NOT heard the news, told his driver to stop. He got out of the car and walked toward the woman, asking whether he could be of any assistance.

The woman took one look at him, and then she really freaked out.

My own experience was atypical. I was out of the country, my Dad being stationed in Ecuador on U.S. Navy business.

We didn’t learn about it until later in the day. I was in the 5th grade at the Colegio Americano, which was way the other side of town. My bus ride home on Don Enrique (buses had names, and personalities) took about an hour. I was one of the last ones on the route. My best buddy Tony Wessler was dropped off six blocks before I was.

When I got home, I rang the doorbell at the security door at the foot of the stairs (we lived in the upstairs of a large duplex). My mom hit the buzzer, and as I started up the stairs I was startled to see Tony standing at the head of the stairs with Mom. What’s up? I asked. “The president’s been shot!” I kept walking up, and asked, “The president of what?” Mind you, I had already lived through one coup in Ecuador that year. So maybe there had been another, more violent, overthrow in a neighboring country.

“The president of the United States,” came the answer. So that was what had caused Tony to outrun the bus…

That hit hard. It was particularly strange to be in another country, as the dependent of a representative of the United States, and know that back home our president had just been killed, and we didn’t know why or by whom or what might happen next. (And mind you, since I was personally familiar with the potential instability of governments in a way that few Americans were, the feeling was intensified. “Seven Days in May” didn’t seem like such wild fiction to me.) It felt like being abandoned to fend for oneself. Wild thoughts went through my head. I thought of the .38-cal. revolver that my Dad kept on a shelf in my parents’ bedroom closet, which had been issued to him just in case. (I don’t think my Dad knew I knew it was there, but you can’t hide anything from kids.)

Then there was Kennedy himself, who personified the youthful strength, the can-do attitude, of my home country. If he could die, just like that… I had not been a big Kennedy supporter initially. For reasons I’ve written about elsewhere, I had been for Nixon in 1960, at the age of 7. But after that I had been fully co-opted into the whole P.T. 109/Camelot mystique, and was proud that JFK had various initiatives going on (to counter Castro, but I didn’t know that) to help Latin America, such as Alliance for Progress.

But not just expatriate Americans were shaken. I witnessed a generous mourning from Ecuadoreans, who identified with this Catholic president as they had no other. Our school yearbook for that year would have a dedicated page with the headline, “Kennedy Ha Muerto,” and a picture of the president and his bride and kids outside a church before or after Mass — Jackie wearing the obligatory veil on her head.

That was reassuring.

Anyway, that was my experience 47 years ago today.

It’s not always all about me, as things turn out…

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We had a little early Thanksgiving dinner/birthday celebration today at ADCO, and as we were eating I kept hearing some of my coworkers saying:

Brad paisley… Brad, paisley… Brad… paisley

Which made me a little self-conscious, I’ve gotta tell you.

But you know what? This is going to be a real shock to you, I’m sure, but they weren’t talking about the tie I chose to wear today. Go figure.

It’s not just that he’s black, because he isn’t

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On Election Day, The State ran a Eugene Robinson column connecting the Tea Party ire to the fact that the president is, well, black. He was quite moderate and reasonable about it, taking pains to say that “It’s not racist to criticize President Obama, it’s not racist to have conservative views, and it’s not racist to join the Tea Party.” This was followed, as you might expect, by a significant “But…”

And I think he makes a fair, if not airtight, case for the argument that the Tea Party would not be as big a phenomenon as it is if this president were not noticeably different from every president we’ve had before. I think that’s true. And I think for a lot of people, his alleged blackness forms a part of it. But that’s only because most Americans, black and white, seem to buy into the idea, promoted by the president himself, that he is, indeed, black.

But not I. As you know, I’ve never considered him to be black. I set out my reasoning in that double-length column in October 2008, “Barack Like Me” (in which I argued that Obama had as much in common with me as he does the average black American). Rather than revisit every word of it, I’ll give you one short reason why he is not “black” in the sense that it is used as a sociopolitical designation in this country: Not ONE of his ancestors was brought to this country as a slave. Not one. This puts him entirely outside the American narrative of race.

Aside from that, he was not raised as a black American. Blackness was something he personally decided to embrace as a teenager looking for an identity, as kids — particularly kids with childhoods as unrooted as his — tend to do.

And because of all that, I think Robinson gets it slightly wrong in his conclusion:

I ask myself what’s so different about Obama, and the answer is pretty obvious: He’s black. For whatever reason, I think this makes some people unsettled, anxious, even suspicious – witness the willingness of so many to believe absurd conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace, his religion and even his absent father’s supposed Svengali-like influence from the grave.

Obama has made mistakes that rightly cost him political support. But I can’t help believing that the Tea Party’s rise was partly due to circumstances beyond his control – that he’s different from other presidents, and that the difference is his race.

I come up with a different answer when I ask myself that same question — “what’s so different about Obama”? Sure, his being the child of an absent African father and a white mother makes him different from any other POTUS, ever. But so do several other rather glaring factors that may be related to his alleged blackness, but which could exist completely independently of the ambiguous color of his skin. Such as:

  • His name. “Barack Hussein Obama.” It’s extremely foreign. Set aside the connection with Islam and Arabic, and all the freight those carry at this point in history (such as the uncanny closeness to the name “Osama”), for a moment. Just in terms of being different, it’s easily light years beyond the name of anyone else who has even come close to occupying the Oval Office. The most exotic name of any previous president, by far, was “Roosevelt.” I mean, “Millard Fillmore” was goofy-sounding, but it sounded like an English-speaker. And I don’t think it was a coincidence that the first Catholic to receive a major party nomination had the vanilla/whitebread name “Al Smith.”
  • His father was a foreigner, regardless of his race. He was a man who spent almost none of his life in this country. He came here briefly, fathered a child, and went home. Show me the parallel to that in the biographies of former presidents.
  • While he never really knew his father (he had to learn about him at a distance, the way we learn about figures in history), he did know his stepfather, who was Indonesian. Young Barry spent a goodly portion of his childhood in Indonesia. In my earlier column I drew a parallel to my own childhood sojourn in South America, but I was there undeniably as an American. Barry Obama lived in SE Asia as an Indonesian, or as close to it as someone of Caucasian/African heritage could.
  • The fact that, to the extent that he is connected to African roots, it is a heritage that is totally divorced from most presidents’ sense of connection to Europe. I didn’t fully realize that until the Churchill bust episode, which caused some Brit to note something that hadn’t fully occurred to me: This is the first president the modern UK has had to deal with who doesn’t have the Special Relationship hard-wired into his sense of self, if not his genes. In fact, quite the contrary: Unlike any previous president (except maybe Kennedy, who spent his adult life living down his father’s pro-German sympathies leading up to WWII), Obama’s grandfather actually experienced political oppression at the hands of British colonialists.
  • His unearthly cool. His intellectual detachment, the sense he projects that he takes nothing personally. Weirdly, this takes a trait usually associated, in most stereotypical assumptions, with Northern Europeans, and stretches it until it screams. He looks at problems the way a clinical observer does. Probably more maddeningly to his detractors, he looks at his fellow Americans that way — as though he is not one of them; he is outside; he has something of the air of an entomologist studying beetles with a magnifying glass.

Bottom line, I think that last trait probably contributes most to the alienation many feel toward him. They sense that detachment, and they find it off-putting, and their minds grope for explanations, and they see all the other different things about him. That last one is one with which I can identify to some extent. I think one reason I’m a journalist (as are a lot of military brats) is that I moved around a lot as a kid, and was never quite of the place where I lived, and tended to look at a given place and its people with the detachment of an outsider. It wasn’t until I moved here to the place of my birth in my 30s (and I was only born here; I grew up everywhere else) that I embraced fully the identity of being a South Carolinian, but as a conscious act of will, rather like Obama’s decision to be “black.” I have a certain claim to it — mostly genetic (my family tree is three-fourths South Carolinian) — just as Obama has a genetic claim to blackness, but it’s nothing like the SC identification of someone who has lived, say, in Cayce his whole life.

As you can see, I still feel an affinity for Barack Obama, as I did in 2008. He has my sympathy, and since he IS my president, I hope he is successful as president — even though I supported McCain. And I in no way excuse the extreme, personal hostility to him among many of the voters who voted the Tea Party way on Tuesday. But I do find myself trying to understand it, based upon available facts. And I think the factors I listed above are at least as relevant as the color of his skin, if not more so.