Category Archives: Personal

Meanwhile, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean…

… my high school classmate Burl Burlingame, who actually still has a newspaper job (30 years with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin), is taking note of our governor’s doings (and what I’ve been saying about them):

Fascinating Apathy

Written by Burl on July 10th, 2009

Brad Warthen may not be a classic good ol’ boy, but he’s a good ol’ Brad. Headlong in the blogging game after being riffed by South Carolina’s The State newspaper, he’s keeping us up to date on the resident weirdness of Gov. Mark Sanford. Naturally, The State never needed him more these days.
Yesterday, the folks who want Sanford to abdicate held a rally, and pretty much no one came. Now, we have our own governor who’s acting oddly — so much so it’s a topic of discussion — but Sanford is something else.
I don’t care that Sanford is having an affair. Even if he’s a complete hypocrite about it, having viciously chastised President Clinton in the past. These Type A politicians seem to always be having something on the side. President Kennedy was boinking a different bimbo every night, Wilbur Mills was bouncing stripper Fanne Fox, Grover Cleveland was busy siring little Clevelands elsewhere, and we all know who Thomas Jefferson was galloping.
Deal is, despite all the tut-tut, affairs are a fact of life. Sometimes they might even be necessary.
The ew-ew-ew thing about Sanford is not that he’s been thrown for a loop by his heart, but that, as far as affairs go, the guy is wildly incompetent. We want our leaders to be human beings, but we also want them to be smarter and more accomplished than we are. There are meth-addict doorway dwellers who poop in public who are more capable of keeping their affairs discreet than this governor.
Sanford is acting like he needs to be wearing a helmet and a leash. His mistress is in Argentina, for cripes sake. No one would have ever figured it out if he’d had a lick of smartness. The only thing the South Carolina legislature should be debating is whether they need road signs up in Columbia that say SLOW GOVERNOR AT PLAY.

To which I felt compelled to reply:

July 10, 2009 at 9:02 am

Hey, and Burl, don’t forget to tell your readers in Hawaii that ol’ Brad is a graduate of Radford High School, class of ’71.

One thing about our governor… yes, he’s incompetent. Those meth-addicts you mention would probably put forth a more credible effort at getting the Legislature to enact their agenda. But with this governor, that’s comforting to know.

There was a time when I was distressed that he was so incompetent, because it meant he not only wasn’t getting the GOOD things he advocated done — such as badly needed government restructuring — but he was so off-putting to lawmakers that he was actually setting those causes BACK several years.

But I’ve adjusted to that, and now take more comfort from the fact that he is just as bad at getting his BAD ideas acted upon — such as private school vouchers, and trying to turn down the stimulus money that we’d be paying for anyway.

Ya gotta look at the bright side.

And Burl, if I can ever help you out with your governor, just let me know…

Did it! I’m John Adams

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Just took a “Which Founding Father are You Quiz” — and no, I didn’t give them my phone number this time — and managed to answer the right questions to have it come out as follows:

John Adams

Visionary – John Adams was one; you are too. You are very critical and you are a perfectionist. Where you find faults, however, you have good suggestions on how to fix them or make them better. You are extremely intelligent, and an excellent judge of character and situation. Your causes are often altruistic, and you have a clear vision of what the future will be like. However, people have the annoying habit of not believing you, even though you always seem to be right. You also seem to never get the credit you deserve. People often find you to be ‘obnoxious and disliked.’ Never fear! Your ideas will come to fruition, and one day you shall be remembered beautifully for your efforts. Just keep at it!

Yes, I answered the questions honestly, but there were a couple of times when I could answer honestly more than one way, and I chose the one that sounded like Adams. Once or twice, though, I bowed to accuracy and answered in a way that I thought was more Jeffersonian — but it turns out that for the purpose of the quiz, they counted those as Adams as well (I think). This of course reinforces my impression that he was the one I’m most like — particularly his more annoying, negative traits.

Anyway, I’m pleased with the result, since — whether I’m like him or not — he’s my fave.

What’s wrong with you? I’ll tell you. (What else are friends for?)

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I was going to use as my headline, “Do you know what your sin is?,” the quote from “Serenity.” But then I realized I’d done that before. Too bad, as it would have worked better here.

Anyway, I had to smile when I read this in Cindi Scoppe’s column today:

My friend and editor at the time, Brad Warthen, wasn’t convinced that joining an Anglo-Catholic parish made me Catholic, but as a Roman Catholic, he understood the power of confession, and he figured anything that might make me less of a pain to work with was worth a shot, so he happily helped me compile my list of sins. “Imperious is the word you’re looking for,” he said, before more began rolling off his tongue: arrogant, dismissive, condescending, scornful, impatient. (Most of them were already on my list.) “Don’t forget pride,” he said. “That’s one of the seven deadly sins.”

Thus prepared with my list, I went to my first confession.

Frankly, I had forgotten that incident. But it all came back when I read, “Imperious is the word you’re looking for.” Yep, that was me. I say things like that.

Now, here’s the question: What condemnatory words might someone who is inclined to judgment apply to someone who so glibly details another person’s sins? But hey, I was just trying to oblige. I’ve always done that. Ask me a question, I’ll give you an answer, with a minimum of hemming and hawing.

Back in the early days of our acquaintance, it took my poor wife about a year to realize that I would answer ANY question, whether I knew the right answer or not. She’d ask, “Why is the car making that noise?” or “Why did the weather get so cool so suddenly?” and I would launch into an explanation that sounded reasonable to me. Sometimes I would add, “That’s my theory, anyway;” other times I would forget to. Eventually, she learned to recognize my “theorizing” tone. I wasn’t trying to mislead her. I just always figured that if a person asks a question, they want an answer, not “I don’t know.” And as I said, I like to oblige.

Then, as editorial page editor, I developed the capacity to come up with something to say, under any circumstances. Since the point of an editorial board is to come up with something to say, this was a handy skill to have. It settled many an impasse on the board. We’d be deadlocked, and the inspiration would come upon me; I’d say “Here’s what we’ll say,” and essentially dictate an editorial that took into account all that had been said. Just something I did. I’m hoping to come up with another job that requires that skill, because I’m very good at it. Better at that than writing or editing. (Too bad no one’s hiring absolute monarchs these days, because that’s something they need to know how to do…)

So if you asked, “Whom should we endorse for governor and why?,” I’d come up with the answer. And if you asked, “What are my sins?,” I’d tell you that, too. Even if it made me sound disturbingly like that insufferable busybody, the Operative.

And it’s just like Cindi to remember something like that…

Are y’all having any trouble posting comments?

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I see that some comments ARE being posted, but I’m also getting cryptic messages from WordPress suggesting some of you are having to re-register and whatnot.

I had to go change some settings last night because suddenly the site wasn’t letting ANYBODY comment, and I thought I had everything fixed. But maybe there’s something else I need to change.

I’ll post this on Twitter (where I’m up to 161 “followers” now, which almost qualifies me as a cult) and Facebook, so that just in case no one can respond directly to this, those of you who follow me there can let me know by one of those routes.

And if you’d like to START following me there (I post on Twitter a lot more often), my Twitter name is BradWarthen, and just search for “Brad Warthen” on Facebook. (I’m shocked to discover there are two of us on the planet, but I think you can tell which one is me.)

On the cover of the NY Post

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I got a Facebook message today from David Henry, who worked as a reporter for me about 25 years ago, before going off to New York and writing for Forbes or some such. It was a bit of a shock:

I got on the train this morning, opened the New York Post and there was your byline on the top of the lede story. That’s great. ‘ glad your having fun with this.

I don’t know about the having fun part, but he was right — I had the lede byline. I had no idea.

Yes, I did some free-lance work for the Post yesterday — I covered the governor’s press conference for them — but they watched it on TV up there, so I didn’t think the stuff I called in to them (and I made a number of calls for them and talked to Jake and all) added all that much. Maybe they just put me up there as an excuse to have a Columbia dateline on it. I certainly had nothing to do with any of the stuff at the top of the story (the “lust e-mails”). I didn’t actually WRITE any part of that story (as you can probably tell … my style is more, um, sedate). I had figured that at MOST I’d be mentioned at the end of the story…

(That’s actually my SECOND NY Post byline. But the first one I DID write, as you already know.)

So I was surprised at the play I got. The irony of this is, as Charles Bierbauer pointed out to me later, all those years busting my hump at The State, and more people saw that byline than ever saw it here when I was EPE.

That was not my only surprise the last day or so. I know I didn’t know what to expect when I went to the press conference, although there had been inferences — particularly in the First Lady’s remarks earlier in the week. In the phone conversation in which I agreed to help the Post, the guy in New York asked me, “Is this going to be a Spitzer moment?” I had no idea. And yet it was. Yes, things had pointed that way, and the odd exchange with Gina at the airport took things right to the brink… but the actual admission at the press conference was just surreal.

All through it, I kept thinking, “And the worst thing he could say next would be…” and then he’d say it. It’s like I was expecting it, but not expecting it. Hard to explain.

I’ll tell you this, though, as I said in a comment on a previous post — I’ve spent a good bit of time today talking to friends and former staffers of the gov, including some people whose judgment I respect a great deal, and there’s pretty general agreement that nobody thought THIS guy would do something like this.

Neither did I. I thought a lot of pretty harsh things about him, but not this.

This whole thing has just felt so weird.

Sorry, but my e-mail is down

I apologize to all and sundry for any inconvenience, but on this extremely busy day — it was extremely busy before I got called in to that craziness regarding the governor — my e-mail suddenly stopped working, at exactly 4:30 p.m.

After finishing my day’s work about an hour ago, I started trying everything I could think of to restore it, but no luck. I’ll have to try to get some help tomorrow (which promises to be just as busy).

Again, sorry for the inconvenience. It’s pretty inconvenient to me, too. I’m probably missing out on some paying work because of this, but what are you going to do?

Health & Happiness today

As mentioned earlier on Twitter, today it was my turn to do Health & Happiness again at Rotary. For you non-Rotarians, H&H is when somebody gets up and talks about the health and personal news of club members, and tells jokes.

If you’ll recall, last time I did it was the first Monday after my last day at The State, and I led off with:

Did you ever hear the one about the guy who had to do Health and Happiness on the first working day after he got laid off?

And, to use the phrase of Kenny Bania on Seinfeld, on that occasion I killed. In fact, I got a standing ovation — although, truth be told, that was more an expression of support over getting laid off rather than because my material was so good.

Nevertheless, it set a high standard in my mind, so I couldn’t just go out there with some jokes copied from a “clean jokes” Web site (an accepted and time-honored H&H tradition). I needed new, original material. Or at least, new to my audience.

So I recycled some stuff from the last few days on the blog and Twitter. I used the IQ test anecdote for instance. It went over well. No standing O, but lots of plaudits nonetheless.

Anyway, in keeping with my rule of not writing anything without sharing it with as wide an audience as possible, here’s the script I worked from, which I threw together this morning:

Health and Happiness 6/22/09

Remember when our speaker last week asked, “Are you a negative person?” No one replied. So how many of you were like me, repressing the urge to answer, “What’s your POINT?” … [said with an angry, paranoid tone] ARRRGGHH …

Hey, y’all – check out my shiny left thumbnail …

Can’t see it? Well, if you’re nice I’ll show it to you after the meeting.

How many of you have been to Columbiana Mall lately? Well, somebody has, because I had trouble finding a parking space there Saturday … That’s gotta be a good sign for the economy, right? …

Anyway, I was there Father’s Day shopping for my Dad — walking through the Mall, minding my own business, when all of a sudden this pretty girl with an exotic accent grabs hold of my hand and starts buffing my left thumbnail, while giving me a sales pitch about cosmetics from Israel, from the Dead Sea.

I was completely unable to stop her. Men are not equipped to handle such situations. I felt like Barney Fife in that episode when Barbara Eden is doing manicures at Floyd’s Barber Shop. He’s all suspicious at first, saying “Not my trigger finger!” but before she’s done he’s saying Aw, go ahead – do my trigger finger …

But I finally got away. And as I’m walking, I post something on Twitter about it. Before I could leave the mall, I got messages back from two other victims. One was a fellow guy who confessed to buying several products. Another was Sunny Phillips, whom you may know as a Republican fundraiser. She reported, “she just wouldn’t let it go. She tried to stop me again on the way back up the other side 10 minutes later, even calling out for me by name!”

My former colleague Mike Fitts wrote to me, “Yes, they’re ex-Mossad agents (you know, the Israeli secret service) who’ve gone into the Mary Kay business, I’m pretty sure. Three minutes in, I told them where the explosives were hidden.”

Here’s what I’m thinking, as I contemplate my one shiny nail:

If The State had these ladies selling advertising, I’d still have a job!

But I didn’t buy anything, that time… Not that I’m bragging on my sales resistance…

Back to our speaker last week – remember how she talked about how older people fall for those e-mail scams…. You know, “Dear sir, I am the Interior Minister of Nigeria, and I’m trying to give you five million dollars…”

And I knew what y’all were thinking: Those dumb old people, falling for that…

But I wasn’t thinking it – no sir, not after my IQ test…

Have I got time to tell about my IQ test?

You know those quizzes people are always taking on Facebook — like “which ‘Friends’ character are you,” or “what’s your real nationality?” Well, I took one of those one day recently, and as I was taking it, a dialogue box popped up saying that some of my friends — one of them closely related to me — had “challenged” me to take an IQ test.

Well, this hit me in one of my weak spots. One of my few skills is that I’m good at tests. Whether it’s the SAT or a current events quiz or whatever, I tend to score way over what you would think by looking, say, at my high school transcript. I play way over my head. Some people have a natural ear for music; I test well. Just one of those things.

Add to that the fact that I was recently laid off, which makes me additionally vulnerable — all that much more eager to show off, if only to myself. You know, the “I’ve still got it” phenomenon.

So I bit. I went to take the test. And boy, did I do well. The questions were so easy as to arouse one’s suspicions under most circumstances. Sort of on the level of, “answer this correctly and you win a free dance lesson.”

One was how many states are in the U.S., and only one of the multiple-choice answers was anywhere near 50. OK?

But instead of thinking, “Hey, wait a minute — what kind of scam test is this?” I’m going, “Man, I’m really acing this! What kind of IQ do you get with a perfect score?!?”

Then, when I’m done with the test, and I’m all eager to see my score, I get a page that tells me I just need to do one thing before my score will post on Facebook — type in my cell phone number, and tell who my service provider is.

Which … I did.

First of all …

my extremely high IQ score never showed up on Facebook.

Second, I started getting these text messages on my phone. Really stupid, irritating text messages, saying stuff like “Which male celebrity from ‘The Hills’ is dating Paris Hilton?” That’s a direct quote.

I would have protested, except that, you know, I didn’t want to tell anybody how I had let myself in for this.

Anyway, earlier last week the Verizon bill came. And I had been charged $29.97 for 3 “Premium text” messages. Yes, ten bucks apiece. So now I knew what I IQ was: it was 29 point 97.

So I got on the horn to Verizon and got them to block all such messages subsequently, which they agreed to do. Of course, by this time one or two more had come in, which will be on my next bill, no doubt. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Because, you know, I had signed up for them.

When I got off the phone, I reported to my wife that I had taken care of the problem, going forward. All done. All fixed. Don’t worry about it.

She asked, how in the world I came to get such messages?

I said, “How about if we just leave it at, ‘I’ve taken care of the problem,’ and not delve into that?”

But she persisted, and I went on to explain…

and she agreed with me that yes, I had certainly flunked the IQ test.

How I flunked my IQ test

You know those quizzes people are always taking on Facebook — like “which ‘Friends’ character are you,” or “what’s your real nationality?” Well, I took one of those one day recently, and as I was taking it, a dialogue box popped up saying that some of my friends — one of them closely related to me — had “challenged” me to take an IQ test.

Well, this hit me in one of my weak spots, naturally. As y’all know, one of my few skills is that I’m good at tests. Whether it’s the SAT or a current events quiz or whatever, I tend to score way over what you would think by looking, say, at my high school transcript. I play way over my head. Some people have a natural ear for music; I test well. Just one of those things.

Add to that the fact that I was recently laid off, which makes me additionally vulnerable — all that much more eager to show off, if only to myself. You know, the “I’ve still got it” phenomenon.

So I bit. I went to take the test. And boy, did I do well. The questions were so easy as to arouse one’s suspicions under most circumstances. Sort of on the “answer this correctly and you win a free dance lesson” level. One was how many states are in the U.S., and only one of the multiple-choice answers was anywhere near 50. The hardest question was picking the 16th president — even if I hadn’t known it was Lincoln, he was the only option offered within a century of the right time. I think the closest ones before and after were Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton.

But instead of thinking, “Hey, wait a minute — what kind of scam test is this?” I’m going, “Man, I’m really acing this? What kind of IQ do you get with a perfect score?!?”

Then, when it was done, I get a page that tells me I just need to do one thing before my IQ score will post on Facebook — type in my cell phone number, and choose my service provider.

Which I did.

First of all, my extremely high IQ score never showed up on Facebook.

Second, I started getting these text messages. Really stupid, irritating text messages, saying stuff like “Which male celebrity from ‘The Hills’ is dating Paris Hilton?” I am not making this up.

I would have protested, except that, you know, I didn’t want to tell anybody how I had let myself in for this. Because as dumb as it was to fall for this, I was smart enough to see what had happened.

Anyway, earlier this week the Verizon bill came. And I had been charged $29.97 for 3 “Premium text” messages. Yes, ten bucks apiece.

So I got on the horn to Verizon and got them to block all such messages subsequently, which they agreed to do. Of course, by this time one or two more had come in, which will be on my next bill, no doubt. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Because, you know, I had signed up for them.

When I got off the phone, I reported to my wife that I had taken care of the problem, going forward. She asked, how in the world I came to get such messages? I said, “How about if we just leave it at, I’ve taken care of the problem, and not delve into that?” But I went on to explain, and she agreed with me that yes, I had certainly flunked the IQ test.

Oh, but the tale doesn’t end there.

Today, I was in the Harbison area shopping for Father’s Day for me Da. And suddenly, I got another one of those messages, from the same source, which the words “Premium Messaging” appearing in the headline field.

I immediately went over to the Verizon place, fuming, and got in the queue for service. The lady at the door urged me to call instead because I was in for a long wait, but I said no, obviously one couldn’t get this taken care of on the phone. I was all indignant.

Fortunately, the wait wasn’t long at all. When it was my turn, I went through my indignant spiel again, and the service rep took my phone, and clicked on the message. It said, “Premium Messaging to this mobile number has been blocked…”

Oh.

So I looked really stupid again. I thanked the guy, and thanked the lady at the front door, and left sheepishly.

But you know what? Deep down, I have this gut fear that it’s going to show up on my bill again anyway.

Of course, this kind of scam should be illegal. Anyone who practices it should be drawn and quartered.

But who’s going to report them? The victims know how stupid they’ve been…

SC (official) jobless rate rises to 12.1%

S.C. unemployment in May rose to 12.1 percent, compared to 9.4 percent nationally — officially. This leaves us tied for third-worst nationally, again (Michigan and Oregon are worse). And one economist notes that the true picture is worse than that:

Coastal Carolina University economist Doug Schunk said the true unemployment picture is around 19.9% for the state and 16.4% for the nation, when factoring in people who have given up looking for work and people working part time for involuntary reasons.

Encouraging, huh?

I found it interesting to learn that I live in the county with the lowest unemployment rate in the state — Lexington, at 8.1 percent. Of course, when you’re one of those who have been laid off, that’s not much comfort.

And oh, I just found a more complete version of the story, by AP’s Jim Davenport, at Forbes.com.

Comfort reading

People speak of “comfort food.” Not being all that much into food myself, that’s not what I turn to to settle me when I need settling. In times of stress, I tend to turn to certain books that are familiar and comforting to read.

Not because of…

SORRY! I THOUGHT I HAD SAVED THIS AS A DRAFT LAST NIGHT! I WOULD PULL IT IF Y’ALL HADN’T ALREADY LEFT MYSTIFIED COMMENTS.

ONLY THING TO DO IS TO GO AHEAD AND FINISH…

Not because of … the subject matter, necessarily, but because it is familiar. Sometimes “comfort books” for me are ones I enjoyed from the very first read — such as Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels, which I’ve got to get somebody other than Mike Fitts (who turned me onto them, several years back) to read, so we can exchange esoteric references, because it’s fun. Other times it’s books I didn’t even like the first time I read them, but got hooked on subsequently.

The Aubrey-Maturin books (which you may associate with the film “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” which is based upon them, but which is an inadequate summation) are so engaging because they so completely put you in another world. But it’s not a fantasy universe like in Tolkien, but a magnificently detailed recreation of the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Jack Aubrey, one of the two main characters (the other is his particular friend Stephen Maturin), is based loosely upon Lord Cochrane, and most of the naval engagements described come straight from contemporary logs and gazette accounts.

The detail, from speech patterns (both formal and casual) to politics to popular culture to social arrangements to politics to the complexities of sailing a square-rigged vessel in all conditions all around the world. is so engagingly rendered that it removes you from whatever is going on in your dull contemporary existence. And when you’ve been away from these books, you’re as anxious to get back to them as Jack is always anxious to get back to sea after another of his disastrous (and often comically so) spells on dry land.

There are 20 books in the series, which are wonderful read individually or as one long, magnificent work. Or at least, that’s true through the 16th book, which is as far as I’ve read because I dread getting to the end of them and having no more new ones to read. Having finished the 16th a few weeks ago, I’ve started reading the previous books for the fourth time, and they are as fresh as ever. They are just so rich that there’s always something new. But the remembered, familiar passages are so enjoyable that you’re glad you remembered them, and happy to be experiencing them again.

And, did I mention, comforting?

Some other comfort books, that I’ve read to tatters:

Stranger in a Strange Land — This is the one I was thinking of when I said a comfort book doesn’t HAVE to be something I enjoyed the first time. I wrote a rather savage essay about this one in high school, despising it at the start. But it really grew on me, and I’ve worn out a couple of copies. (Why, oh why has this never been made into a movie? I’ll write the screenplay if no one else will…)
Dune — ONLY the first book. I hated the sequels. I’m on my second copy. Yes, the book that inspired the worst big-budget movie ever made…
Battle Cry — Here’s a weird personal fact about Leon Uris’ opus about the Marines in WWII: I first read it at the same time I bought “Abbey Road,” in October 1969, and to this day listening to the album (especially the second side) reminds me of the novel, and vice versa. I told you it was weird.
The Dirty Dozen — You probably didn’t even know there WAS a novel. Well, there was, and it was way better than the movie (as close to a violation of the Guy Code as it may be to say that). I read it when I was 14, and it was the first “adult” novel I remember reading. Long and involved, I practically memorized it. For years, I could remember the names of every one of the dozen cons without looking at the book, and probably still could, if you gave me a few minutes. Talk about your useless information.
The Once and Future King — I’m really into Arthurian legend (hey, kids, guess why the Harry Potter story is so appealing! It only rips off the best legends of the English-speaking peoples!), and this is the best version I’ve run across. Although I also have read and reread and enjoyed an obscure attempt to place Arthur in a realistic 6th-century setting, The Pendragon.
High Fidelity — Again, a good movie, but a WAY better book. Nick Hornby is great. Probably the best-ever evocation of the differences between the way male and female minds work. We don’t come out looking too good, guys, but it’s a fun read, anyway. One great passage: The protagonist’s girlfriend is explaining that he’s just too miserable to be around, and that if he isn’t happy he should Get Happy, and she stops him before he interrupts and says, Yes, I know that’s the name of an Elvis Costello album; that’s why I said it — to get your attention… Boy, did that feel familiar.

Well, I could go on and on, but you get the idea…

100 followers, and counting…

Just reached the 100-follower mark on Twitter. So that makes me like a centurion, right? Like the one in Matthew 8:9:

For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

OK, I’ve already figured out that no one is going to do what I say just because they’re my “followers.” But as silly and insubstantial as it all is, I’ve acquired a miser’s acquisitiveness on this point. How many MORE followers can I get? I picture myself like Spartacus (just to continue with the ancient Rome thing), roaming the countryside while hundreds, thousands flock to my banner… (Warning — it ended badly for Spartacus and his followers.)

And even though there are no rules, or even conventions I can think of, I have it in my mind that, if only I can have more followers than I myself am following, I’m … I don’t know… an influential person. Or at least, ahead of the game. Whatever the game is. It’s the only way I know to keep score, anyway. And currently my score is 100 to 75.

Netflix guilt

Like I don’t have enough things to worry about, now I’m coping with Netflix Guilt.

It goes like this:

Once, a year or so ago, I put “Bloody Sunday” onto my list, figuring I should take more interest in how the Troubles started. Somehow it wriggles its way to the top of the queue, and comes to my house. I watch a bit of it. It’s shot in a documentary style. I can pick out, early on, characters who are Not Going to Make It. They are, of course, sympathetic characters. I know they represent real people, not fiction. I know there’s nothing I can do the inevitable slide toward this brief orgy of violence. It takes me about five tries to get almost all the way through the movie, and I still haven’t accomplished it, weeks later. I feel like I don’t care enough about violence in Ireland if I don’t watch it to the end, so I haven’t sent it back.

Trying to turn away from “Bloody Sunday,” I order “The Wrestler,” which has gotten all sorts of good reviews. I start watching it. I can see why it got good reviews. Have to wonder, does Mickey Rourke’s body actually look like that, or is that fake. Can see that this character’s “arc” is not upward. Quickly get tired of the seediness, and the character’s sadness, despite early glimpses of Marisa Tomei nearly nude. Feel like I have to watch it to the end, because this is a Serious Movie.

But I don’t want to.

Hence, Netflix Guilt.

I also have “Defiance.” Should I start watching it instead, if I actually get time for movie watching tonight? And… he asks with trepidation — will I like it any better? Will it be any better than the second James Bond movie he did? And if it isn’t, will I still feel like I have to watch it because it’s about a serious historical subject? Probably.

Well, at least I did the ‘About’ page

No, I didn’t do any actual blogging today. But I did finally put something on my “About” page. Next thing you know, I’ll jazz up the look of the blog, and put a few links in my blogroll.

Meanwhile, check out the “About” page. And if you’re too lazy to click on it, here’s what’s on it:

Brad Warthen is an unemployed newspaperman, until he finds something else to be. Since being laid off by The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper (those little slogans still fall trippingly from the fingers), he has been “consulting,” which means he has not yet found permanent, full-time employment.

He was the Vice President/Editorial page editor at The State, where he had worked for 22 years, the last 12 as EPE. Before that he spent a decade at The Jackson (TN) Sun, and a couple of years at the Wichita paper. He started as a copy boy at The Commercial Appeal in 1974, and would probably still run fetch you some coffee if, in an unguarded moment, he heard you yell “Copy!” in just the right way.

He started blogging in 2005. You can still see the original Brad Warthen’s Blog, but he had to leave that behind when he left the paper March 20.

If he could figure a way to make a living from this blog, he would. But so far, no one has offered any bucks for it.

He despises all political parties that actually exist, although he has proposed the creation of several parties of his own — the UnParty and the Energy Party most prominent among them. He is neither a liberal nor a conservative in the ways they are popularly defined these days. He is definitely not a libertarian; he leans toward communitarianism, but does not consent to being pinned down.

That not specific enough for you? Well, it’s complicated. Tell you what — folks often use an opinion writer’s views on a presidential election as a guidepost to his views. So go back and read his sort-of profiles about Barack Obama and John McCain from last fall. Maybe those will help. If you want more in that vein, look at the reams of copy he wrote back in January 2008, when the S.C. primaries occurred. But make sure you have some free time on your hands first, because he does go on and on.

He encourages all points of view on the blog, as long as they are presented in a civil manner. He is the judge of what will be civil, and will throw you out in a skinny minute if you violate his standard. Regulars know where the line is; if you don’t, go read this. Or this.

He is a member of St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Columbia. He and his wife of nearly 35 years have five children and three grandchildren.

Happy, peaceful D-Day, Maj. Winters

Someone mentioned recently all the personal heroes he’d had the chance to interview in his career in journalism. I’ve had some of those — such as my friend Jack Van Loan. But on this day I think of one I DIDN’T interview, because I wouldn’t let myself bother him. I didn’t feel I had the right to.

Over the last few years I had occasion to visit central Pennsylvania multiple times, while my daughter was attending a ballet school up there. Almost every time I went there, I thought about going over to Hershey to try to talk to Dick Winters, the legendary commander of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. He was the leader — one of several leaders, but the one everyone remembers as the best — of the company immortalized in Stephen Ambrose’s book Band of Brothers, and the HBO series of the same name (the best series ever made for television).

But I never did. As much as I wanted just to meet him, to shake his hand once, I never did. And there’s a reason for that. A little while ago, I was reminded of that reason. The History Channel showed a special about D-Day, and one of the narrators was Winters, speaking on camera about 60 years after the events. He spoke in that calm, understated way he’s always had about his heroics that day — he should have received the Medal of Honor for taking out those 105mm pieces aimed at Utah Beach, but an arbitrary cap of one per division had been place on them, so he “only” received the Distinguished Service Cross.

Then, he got a little choked up about what he did that night, having been up for two days, and fighting since midnight. He got down on his knees and thanked God for getting him through that day. Then he promised that, if only he could get home again, he would find a quiet place to live, and live out the rest of his life in peace.

I figure a guy who’s done what he did — that day and during the months after, through the fighting around Bastogne and beyond into Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest itself — deserved to get his wish. He should be left in peace, and not bothered by me or anyone else.

So I’ve never tried to interview him.

(The video above and below is the televised dramatization of the action at Brecourt Manor for which Winters received the DSC. I was struck by how well the actor Damien Lewis captured a quality that Ambrose had described in his book. Winters had the rare ability to stay cool under fire, and more importantly to analyze the situation instantaneously and know exactly what to do in the given situation, and convey it to his men. Nobody who hasn’t been in those circumstances knows how he would react — neither did Winters, before this day — but everyone hopes he would perform exactly the way then-Lt. Winters did.)

Camouflage skills, evasion skills … you know, SKILLS! GAH!

Just now, having recently stumbled across Burl Burlingame from my high school class, I wondered to him what happened to the rest of us. There were 600 of us, after all — a whole battalion (being military brats, many of us, we think in those terms). A whole battalion doesn’t just disappear like that. Not normally.

Burl stoically, philosophically, just said, “Military kids — they scatter to the winds.”

But I wasn’t satisfied, so I said:

It’s like we all went through some sort of Special Forces training so we know how to go to ground, blend, and disappear.
We could make a fortune marketing this skill to terrorists. Not that we would, of course. That would be wrong. I’m almost certain of that. Of course, if you got laid off a couple of months back, could people really blame you if… No, it would be wrong.
Anyway, it’s a rare skill, and one that Napoleon Dynamite would probably envy.

I’ve often wondered at this. Once or twice, I’ve run across people. Back in the mid-70s, Jeff Boyle popped up in Middle Tennessee, and we saw each other a few times. Then Steve Clark emerged running for one of those new gerrymandered GOP congressional seats in Texas that caused such a stir awhile back — then, after dropping out, disappeared like magic.

The thing is, if I found these people, we wouldn’t have much to talk about. Our lives have taken very different paths (Burl’s comes closer than most, his being a newspaperman). And we didn’t know each other that long. If we were suddenly brought face-to-face, the conversation would probably get pretty awkward after about five minutes, and we’d be looking for excuses to get away — and fade into the landscape again. I’m sure I would; I’m not the most sociable creature anyway.

But I do wonder about it sometimes. Although it’s been this way my whole life, I recognize that, compared to most people, it’s weird.

What kind of flowers are these in my yard?

As you may or may not know, I’m not a work-in-the-yard kind of guy. I’m not one of those guys who gets pleasure, or even relaxation, from mowing the yard, trimming the azaleas, raking the blasted pinestraw, sodding the bald spots, washing the car, rearranging the garage, repairing the steps to the back porch, and on and on and on and…

Hold on, and let me breathe through a paper bag for a moment…

I’m kidding here, but only a little. The truth is, I feel guilty about the fact that I go months and months without doing anything in the yard. Which is not good when you have almost an acre of land in a well-kept neighborhood, and a house built in the mid-70s. We started paying someone to do the yard a couple of years back — in fact, I sold my riding John Deere to the yard man for $400 and a couple of months free yard care — after I had to go on prednisone for six weeks after my last time stirring up great clouds of dust in the yard, I mean, cutting the grass.

But mostly with me, it’s not a health thing. It’s an aversion, and I know it’s a disappointment to my poor wife.

Anyway, though, I actually DID some things in the yard today. I actually nailed down some steps that were loose on the aforesaid back porch — which led to a great excuse to run to Lowe’s when I ran out of 16d nails. And then, a crew of men came to the door saying that they’d sprig the bald spots on our lawn with some centipede leftover from a job down the street, charging just for the labor, because otherwise the grass would die anyway. So we agreed to that.

This led to another trip to Lowe’s (the best part of working in the yard, especially if I can linger a bit in the tool section; I may hate actually working with tools, but I love looking at new ones) to get a Y-valve for my garden hoses so I could water two areas of the yard at once when the guys were done sprigging it.

Anyway, bottom line — when I was done moving the hoses a few minutes ago, on my way in, I noticed this plant in bloom. I had never seen it before. Now with me, it could have been there forever. My wife might have been slaving over it for years, because she actually enjoys working in the yard (she’s a sunshine person; I sometimes wonder where she got those genes, since she’s Irish).

But not even she knew what it was. All she knew was that it was beautiful.

Apparently, it’s a volunteer. Anyway, I felt smart for asking what it was, since she didn’t even know. For once, not knowing about something in our yard was not a faux pas on my part.

Do y’all know what it is? Looks kind of like a climatis (is that how you spell it?) — I’ve bought some of those for her before, and these flowers look kind of like that. Vaguely. But that’s a climbing plant, and this is bush-like. So what’s the verdict?

So should I do the “Hitler” gig, or what?

My agent is out of town at the moment, so I thought I’d ask y’all what I should do with this offer that came in the mail:

This September, Workshop Theatre will present its opening show of the season, the hilarious musical by Mel Brooks, “The Producers”…

… At the end of the first act, there are auditions for the individual who will play Hitler. We thought it would be fun to invite well-known members of the community to make cameo appearances during the run of the show as individuals auditioning for that part. It is not necessary that you be able to sing or even carry a tune.

We invite you to have your fifteen minutes [maybe five?] of fame on Workshop Theatre’s stage by making an appearance in “The Producers.”

It’s tempting, especially since I saw that video that Burl shared, which I feel gave me new insight into the character of der Führer. But I can sort of hear my agent’s voice saying, “Mark my words: Do it, and you’ll be typecast.”

But I’m leaning toward taking it. Directors aren’t exactly beating down my door, and so far, my calendar’s pretty open in September and October.

My former employer is having me followed

Not sure what to make of this.

One of the pleasures — for a megalomaniac — of Twitter is that instead of having “friends” (and I’ve never quite gotten the meaning of the word as Facebook uses it), you have “followers.” My number of followers has been steadily, but gradually, growing since I signed up over the weekend. Each one makes me feel slightly more powerful and influential, just because of the word.

But what am I to make of my 26th follower?

The State Newspaper (thestate) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Not Warren or Cindi or even Mark Lett, or Gary Ward with thestate.com. No, the institution itself. Its icon is an extreme closeup of the paper’s nameplate.

Of course, you know that I’ve always loved Big Brother. Even ex-Big Brother.

I guess I should deal with this by following it right back, huh?

How do they get away with this?

As you know, I’m extremely allergic to milk and all products derived from it. Fortunately, I learned long ago not to believe products that claim to be non-dairy. But not everyone is hip to that.

And in this era in which — and I’m very grateful for this — allergens have to be clearly pointed out on food labels, I have to wonder how a product gets away with that claim, when the evidence to the contrary is so clearly laid out.

Check this container I picked up at a local restaurant today. It blithely claims, in all-cap letters, to be “NON-DAIRY CREAMER.” Then, in letters that an awful lot of people my age can’t read, it acknowledges that it contains “Sodium Caseinate (a milk derivative).” The image at right, by the way, is approximately the actual size.

Then, at the end, still in tiny letters (although now slightly boldfaced), it says “Contains: Milk.”

Duh.

So how does it get to say “NON-DAIRY CREAMER” in much bigger letters? How does either the government or the marketplace let it get away with that? There is no way, in any rational way of looking at things, that something that “Contains: Milk” is “NON-DAIRY.” No way at all. Total contradiction.

Can anyone explain this to me?

Thanks, Senator Courson!

Back in my newsroom days, probably the most valuable and jealously guarded thing on my desk was my Legislative Manual. As the gummint editor, I had occasion to use it often, and if you weren’t careful it had a way of walking off. So I wrote WARTHEN in heavy block letters on the edges of the pages on three sides, so that I could easily spot it wherever it went.

Anyway, even though I can now get access to most of that info via my Blackberry from the Legislature’s Web site, it’s still a handy thing to have on your desk or in your pocket. And I’d been missing the fact that I didn’t have an up-to-date one. In fact, I was thinking about how I’d like to have one just yesterday.

Sen. John Courson must have been reading my mind, because I got a small-but-bulky package in the mail from him today at my home address, and lo and behold, he had sent me a new 2009 Legislative Manual! He’s never done that before, and what possessed him to do it now, I don’t know. But I was certainly glad to get it.

So now, I’m going to start concentrating real hard on how much I want a permanent, full-time job with benefits, and see if the good senator can send me one of those in the mail. It would probably take a pretty big envelope… But in case he can’t swing that, in the meantime I truly appreciate the Manual.

bradwarthen.com

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