Category Archives: Personal

Is that a promise, Sen. DeMint?

My attention was drawn to this SCBiz headline:

DeMint says public option would destroy nation’s health care system

… to which I automatically responded, “Is that a promise? Are you sure? You’re not just teasing? All right! When do we get started?”

We’ve heard a lot of silly back-and-forth about health care in recent weeks, but this is the first time I’ve heard anyone suggest the one thing that makes the most sense to me: Blow up what we’ve got entirely and start over.

As my long-time readers will know, even back when I HAD good conventional health care coverage, I was agitating for this. Why? Because as I documented in this column and this one and elsewhere on the old blog, most folks who discuss the health care problem in this country focus on the wrong thing. They focus on the people like me who no longer have private employer-provided health care (although for a limited time I have access to the same care via COBRA thank God, at just under $600 a month — to go up over $1,500 after December, if I’m lucky).

But the real problem is that (note the numbers in my parenthetical above), medical coverage has gotten way too expensive even for the lucky ones who have it — and certainly far too expensive for the businesses that try to provide it.

My problem with Obamacare all along has been that the president is too timid on this subject, and this is not a situation for tiptoeing. This nation desperately needs a do-over on the way it pays for health care, because we are paying too much for results that just aren’t good enough for an advanced nation.

So thank you, Sen. DeMint, for getting the conversation started in a more productive direction. Even if you didn’t mean to…

Something I didn’t need to hear today

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Here’s the way the world works. I’ve been out of work how long now — five months? I’m pressing on all fronts to get a job while doing freelance things when I can. I’m trying all kinds of things — for instance, I’ve started putting out some feelers to people who I hope might help me with getting some ads on my blog.

Also, the last few days I’ve started camping out in an empty office at a local ad agency, which I will not name at this time in order to protect the innocent. The president of the company is a friend who is trying to help out, and who also thinks some synergy might emerge from my hanging here; I might have some ideas that could be helpful to some of his clients. Hasn’t happened yet, but I just started this Monday.

I haven’t actually given the synergy thing much time to work, though, as personal business has called me away from the office in the middle of the day each of these three days so far. Monday and Tuesday it was fun stuff — I was watching the twins back at my house. (So if I write about that, does that make this a “Mommy blog?” Or maybe a “Mr. Mom blog…”)

But today, I’ve got to be back at the house by 2 p.m. because of something that is pretty much the opposite of fun. My wife says the people she called out to find out why the sump pump under the house has been running constantly recently have told her that we have a burst water line under the master bedroom, which has been liberally spraying the underside of our floor and apparently done all sorts of damage. So I’m meeting plumbers, and then I’ll have to meet insurance adjustors, then contractors, then who knows?

When it rains, it pours. Even upside-down, under the house.

You know what? I’m starting to wonder how I ever found time to hold a full-time job in the first place…

Best toys from today’s job fair at Fort Jackson

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Today, at the suggestion of my unemployment caseworker, I went to the job fair out at Fort Jackson. It was mainly for prospective employers to talk to military personnel thinking of entering the civilian workforce, but civilians such as myself were welcomed as well.

This was my first job fair ever, and although I had been warned not to expect much (my private outplacement advisor said the next client of his who got a job from a job fair would be the first), I found it to be enjoyable and rewarding. I talked to a lot of nice folks from a variety of companies and agencies, and may actually have gotten some leads on a job.

In the small world department, I had a nice time talking with Steve Kelly from the State Department (there’s a foreign service exam coming up in our area in October, and I may take it), who worked for The Charlotte Observer long ago, and who knew some folks I know — such as Carl Stepp from Bennettsville, whom I had just e-mailed earlier this morning to see how he was doing (after running into someone who mentioned him at a restaurant last night).

But the most fun part, which I share in the video above, was the gadgets and toys that the prospective employers brought with them.

Seriously, I passed out a few resumes and business cards, and collected cards and brochures from:

OK, on that last one, I just got some info on how to find out when there would be a Tupperware party in my area. But with the others, I plan to follow up and explore the job opportunities on their Web sites.

Next week, I intend to attend a job fair at the state museum. But I doubt it will top this one for cool gadgets.

Rupert Murdoch? Hey! That guy owes me money! (but not for long, I hope)

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Remember when I did that freelance gig for The New York Post back during the week of all the Sanford craziness? I covered the press conference (THE press conference, the one where everything came tumbling down) for them and worked some sources for a couple of days.

Thing is, I’ve never gotten paid for that. Finally, I think we’ve got that worked out — I may receive a check in the mail today — but before it got totally resolved, I just wanted to use that headline, because it amuses me. (I’m hearing it in the voice of Bill Murray in “Stripes,” saying to the cute MP outside Gen. Barnicke’s house saying, “Barnicke? Barnicke?! He still owes me money. Hey Barney?…”)

Once the check has been deposited, Rupert will be my bestest buddy. And it will make me feel a bit better when someone calls me from the Post for guidance on the Sanford saga (as someone did just a few days ago — the day Jenny moved out of the mansion, in fact).

If I continue in this freelance floater mode much longer, I may need to have to hire somebody to be my collector. I’m used to just getting a paycheck and not thinking about it. Dunning people is tiring work, and I think I’d prefer to outsource it. Not my core competency, and other business cliches, yadda-yadda …

Well, we made it, despite the odds

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Just got back home after driving up to Pennsylvania yesterday and back to Columbia today. I’m decompressing from the pressure. After all, 273 miles of today’s 573-mile haul were spent in Virginia, where we faced the threat of immediate annihilation from the air if we went a little too fast.

I don’t really know how else to take these signs you find throughout the state. They don’t say that you are monitored from the air or anything, they say the speed limits will be enforced from the air, which I can only imagine being done with air-to-ground missiles, or maybe one of those remarkable machine-cannons they have in the A-10 Warthog that fires like 4,000 depleted uranium rounds per minute.
Anyway, I feel lucky to be home. And I’m too tired to blog. I’ll just update you with my Tweets from the way up and back:

About to drive to Pennsylvania again today, and boy does the weather ever look dirty to the north…8:45 AM Aug 14th from web

Germany and France have pulled out of recession, but US and UK lag. Let’s get it in gear, Anglophones…8:59 AM Aug 14th from web

Stopped for a few minutes at the Barnes & Noble in Harrisonburg, Va., again. Gotta get back on 81 and flog that Yaris on up to central PA…5:57 PM Aug 14th from web

“Magical Mystery Tour” on the CD player, cruising up the valley…6:01 PM Aug 14th from web

I’ve been driving all day; my hands wet on the wheel. Literally — I’m not paraphrasing lyrics. Don’t know why my palms are sweating so…7:20 PM Aug 14th from web

Unless I’ve made a miscalculation, this rental Yaris is getting 43.599 mpg!7:23 PM Aug 14th from web

I’m in Carlisle, PA, home of the US Army War College, the place that launched Jim Thorpe, and home of a top ballet academy. A town of im …about 22 hours ago from web

… Meant to say, “…a town of impressive parts…”about 22 hours ago from web

Another cool thing about Central PA — I sat outside a country house near Carlisle & enjoyed a leisurely beer under the crisp stars: not …about 22 hours ago from web

(Cont.)…not one mosquito bite in the wonderfully cool night air…about 22 hours ago from web

About to eat at my favorite place in PA — the Middlesex Diner, with those nice, fat sausages & home fries!about 13 hours ago from web

Man, but that Central Pennsylvania breakfast was good! About time to mosey back to SC now…about 13 hours ago from web

Glittery-clean rest area in Virginia — literally. They’ve got like flecks of mica in the floor…about 10 hours ago from web

Do you have a dry cleaner you trust?

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Lately, I’ve had a streak of bad luck with my dry cleaning. First, the collar of my good blue blazer got messed up — lost its shape, become all puffed up or something (hard to describe). I took it back, and they kept it for awhile before telling me there was nothing they could do about it.

Then, they shrank the pants of a seersucker suit. Maybe the jacket, too, but definitely the pants. I just had them taken out a year or so ago and they fit perfectly just before I took them to the cleaners. Now the waist is tight, and that pulls the cuffs up toward my ankles.

Both the blazer and the suit are from Lourie’s, and therefore irreplaceable. Not that I have any money for buying new suits anyway.

Now, my OTHER seersucker suit needs cleaning. It was really steamy warm at Bud Ferillo’s house the other night when I was there for the Jim Rex fundraiser (which I still need to blog about, I just realized), and you know, even in seersucker, if it gets hot enough a gentleman will perspire. It was a very Old South experience.

But I’m afraid to take it to my usual cleaners.

Do you have one to recommend, one you really trust?

I’m happy to get a mention from Kathleen Parker

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Having been out of town over the weekend, I didn’t see this until now. But now I’m glad I resolved to read the papers I’d missed over lunch today, because otherwise I would have missed this in Kathleen Parker’s Sunday column:

WASHINGTON — Maybe it’s the dog days, but three friends recently got in touch within a 24-hour period to catch up. Or more like it, to catch their breath.

One reported the onset of panic attacks. Another is seeking treatment for depression. The third began an e-mail asking for help with: “Reports of my employment have been greatly exaggerated.”

The first two were women, 40-something and 50. The third is a man in his 50s. They all have one thing in common: No job….

The “man in his 50s” is me. Considering the circumstances, I suppose I come off all right — as the stiff-upper-lip sort who has preserved his sense of irony. I almost sound cool in the face of unemployment. I’m not sure what I and the other two friends have to do with the people who’ve been disrupting town hall meetings — which Kathleen goes on to opine about — but I appreciate the mention. Maybe she thinks I might go to a town hall meeting and make oblique little wisecracks based on literary allusion, thereby messing with everybody’s heads. And now that she’s given me the idea…

Anyway, that little play on Mark Twain — “Reports of my employment have been greatly exaggerated” — is from a semi-form letter I’ve been sending out to a lot of friends. I realized late in the summer that a LOT of folks thought I had found permanent employment. This was not a good thing for me, because it meant I had lost the edge I had in March.

In March, I was fortunate enough to be laid off in a VERY public way — in one version of the first day’s story on thestate.com, I was the only one of 38 people being laid off to be mentioned by name — and under circumstances that generated a lot of support for me in my search for new employment. But my good luck in quickly finding some temporary contract work unfortunately made a lot of those people, who were all willing to augment my own eyes and ears in my job search, to think, “Oh, he’s OK now.” Whenever anybody ASKED me, I’d tell them no, I DON’T have a full-time, permanent job yet. But I didn’t start actually systematically contacting people to tell them this until the contract ran out on June 30 and I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands.

Anyway, here’s the latest version of that note that I send Kathleen and others, minus a passage with contact info I’d rather not share THIS broadly:

August 12, 2009

Dear Friend [except that I always sub in the actual name of the friend],

The rumors of my employment have been greatly exaggerated.

Like most of my friends and acquaintances, you probably know that I was laid off in March from The State, where I was a vice president and the editorial page editor. This happened as part of a trend of severe cutbacks at the paper, and throughout the newspaper industry, with which loyal readers are sadly familiar. I had the honor of being the person most prominently mentioned in published reports about that round of layoffs (that is, of course, until the departure of my far more talented and popular friend and colleague Robert Ariail was announced).

The outpouring of support and even affection that I have experienced since then has been gratifying and humbling.

What you may not know is that I’m still looking for a job, and more urgently than ever.

Yes, I’ve done some temporary communications consulting work that was very satisfying, and which helped me slow down the expenditure of my severance pay. But as I have explained all along to friends who heard about that and congratulated me on having landed a job so quickly, the contract ran only until June 30 – which a glance at the calendar will confirm has come and gone.

Now I’m back to job-hunting full-time, and I could use your help.

So if you know of a good job to which you think I would be suited – or if you know of someone else who might know of such a job – I would greatly appreciate a heads-up. And while full-time employment is my goal, until I find it (and perhaps even after I do), I’ll be very interested to know about any free-lance or part-time consulting work that might be suited to my skills. What skills? Well, I’m hoping in particular to make use of my communication skills, my knowledge of South Carolina and my understanding of public policy.

Finally, I’d like to hear from you whether you have any tips to pass on or not. My e-mail address is brad@bradwarthen.com…. When you have time, please visit my blog, https://fpp.3be.myftpupload.com/.

Thanks for reading this far, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Brad Warthen

I’ve heard from a lot of people, and some of them have offered some really thoughtful advice. Following up on the leads has kept me fairly busy, although not quite as busy as I want to be. So I keep sending out the updates, and keep hoping — and do a little freelance work here and there as occasion offers.

Where I’ve been, in less than 140 characters at a time

So do you have a better phone than Obama?

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You know how I mentioned that I’ll be driving back from Pennsylvania on Monday?

Well, because of that I called the local Employment Security office. They sent me a letter a while back saying that they would call me at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 3, and that it was really important. I just realized that was when I would be traveling, so I called today to see if we could set another time.

I was told no, if I couldn’t be available then, it would be at least September before anybody could talk to me. I think the lady on the phone wanted to be helpful, but she didn’t quite understand why I was worried about the call — it’s a cell phone, right? So why would it matter where I was?

Well, yeah, but — here’s why I’m worried:

On a previous occasion driving this route — I want to say it was summer 2007 — Barack Obama tried to call me. It was a previously arranged call, set up Kevin Griffis of the Obama campaign. I had read some briefing papers to be ready for it, and I got my son to take the wheel at the appointed time.

But we had just entered the mountains in Virginia, and the call kept breaking up. I kept hearing Sen. Obama say, “Sir?… Sir?” (He’s very polite.) But he couldn’t hear me. He called back a couple of times, and then just gave up.

No, he wasn’t the president yet — not even the nominee. But hey, if not even he could get through…

So that’s why I’m concerned. But I didn’t think I should tell the lady at the unemployment office that story. She might think I was topping it the nob, putting on airs, and so forth. So I just let it drop…

Would saying “yes” incriminate me?

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Today, I’m trying to rent a car to drive, one-way, from Pennsylvania back to Columbia one day next week. I’m helping somebody drive up there, and I need a way back.

A simple matter, you think? Well, if you think that, you’re wrong.

Just now I talked with the local representative of that rental company that tries harder, and he said he might be able to find me a car, but that there would be a “drop charge” or a “drop fee,” or some such. The word “drop” was in there somewhere. I’m guessing it’s from what customers’ jaws do when they hear the fee.

He said the car, for the day, would be $58.98. Not bad, I thought. With a rate that low, even with the drop fee it might be less than what another rental company (the one that this one traditionally tries harder than) had said they’d charge. And it would be closer to where I will be geographically.

Then he added, “with a drop charge of five hundred dollars.” Really. He said that. At which point the conversation was over.

Here’s what I’m thinking: Who would say “yes” to the incidental little added charge of $500 on a $58 rental who was not involved in a major drug deal or something or that kind? Presumably, I’m paying somebody to drive the car back for me — and whack somebody on the way, for that kind of money.

If anyone said “yes” to a deal like that, I’d immediately be extremely suspicious of him. Wouldn’t you?

Wish me luck (and iron): I give blood today

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I’m starting to slosh, I’m drinking so much water. And I doubled up on my iron pills yesterday, to make sure I don’t get rejected (I hate it when that happens).

I’m giving blood over at the American Red Cross on Bull Street at 11:30 today. Hopefully (if the iron is high enough), I’ll get to do the double-red-cell thing.

You should come join me…

Meanwhile, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean…

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… 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.