Category Archives: Words

Goys will be goys

There is a saying that negroes like watermelon because…

No, that doesn’t quite capture it, does it? By comparison, it’s pretty innocuous. After all, you could end the sentence, “everyone does.” What’s the harm in liking watermelon? Rather insensitive, not the sort of thing you’d go around saying if you had half a brain and cared anything about other people’s feelings, but it’s not in the same league with Edwin O. Merwin Jr. and James S. Ulmer Jr. invoking the myth of the rich, avaricious Jew, a stereotype that helped feed the resentments that led to the Holocaust.

No, for an analogy, you’d have to reach to something that actually resulted in the murders of black people, something like, “There is a saying that black men lust after white women because…”

Where did the GOP find these guys? In case you missed it, these two geniuses Merwin and Ulmer — Republican Party chairmen in Bamberg and Orangeburg counties, respectively — wrote the following in an opinion piece published in The (Orangeburg) Times and Democrat:

There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.

I find myself wondering, What saying? Who says it?

These guys actually could make a guy sympathetic toward earmarks, which one assumes was not their aim.

Karen Floyd says they’ve apologized, and that’s that. What do y’all think?

Go co-op, or remain a lone gunman?

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Back on this post, remy enlarged upon the subject of participation on the blog with this perfectly good suggestion:

Perhaps you should broaden your blog to include entries from others (eg. some of your former colleagues…those who are employed, but would like having a forum without the hassle of creating their own blog (the blogsphere is already splintered enough) and those who are still looking for gainful employment).
It might expand the dialog, and perhaps bring even more readers (who will comment). More readers may lead to an interest from advertisers…

And then I answered him at such length that I decided to make it a separate post:

I’ve thought about it (having co-authors), but I always run into several objections, aside from my own inertia…

– First, my whole orientation toward blogging is toward the personal blog, both as a writer and as a reader. Those co-op blogs out there don’t do much for me. I like a consistent voice, a particular person whom I can picture (at least, in an abstract sort of way, not like actually picturing a face or something) when I read their thoughts. Otherwise, I have that sense of dislocation I’ve gotten in reading an op-ed proof when the person doing page design absent-mindedly put the wrong sig on the column, and I read three-fourths of it, the whole time thinking “this is really a departure for Thomas Friedman,” and sure enough it turns out to be George Will, and finally things fall into place — but I feel almost like I have to read it over again with that in mind.
– (This is actually a continuation of the first bullet, but I felt it was time for a bullet) Also, when I started the blog, it was sort of an alternative form of expression to the cooperative, consensus-based process of publishing an editorial page. Even in my columns, I was very aware of being the editorial page editor and needing to be somewhat consistent with what we said in editorials (not entirely, but somewhat), and part of blogging was to be liberated from that.
– It would be a lot of work, it seems like. Coordinating something with other people is always more complex and energy-consuming than just doing something yourself as the mood strikes you. And as it stands, I always feel like I don’t devote enough to the blog to make it as good as it should be (what with job-hunting, which really IS kind of like having a job, as the cliche has it, in terms of time and energy; and family obligations and such).
– Then there’s the problem of what do I do if I really don’t like what someone has written, at my request, to contribute. No, it’s not as bad as asking someone to write an op-ed and it’s substandard when it comes in, because you’re not dealing with finite space, but still, things are going to come in that I’d prefer not to have. Say, a conventional take on an issue from either a “liberal” or “conservative” viewpoint, when I’d prefer a little outside-the-spectrum detachment, since fostering that is sort of an aim of the blog. It’s not that I have a definite idea of what should go on the blog, but I think I’d react to something from someone else that I DIDN’T want on the blog, because it didn’t have the right feel, and then what do I do? Hurt the feelings of this person who was trying to help? Or let the blog gradually become something else…
– To varying degrees, the other out-of-work journalists who want to publish online are doing so. Robert Ariail’s got his site, and so does Jeffrey Day, to name two such friends. If I started trying to line them up to join MY blog (and I’ve thought of it for the very reason you cite, that it would make it a product more attractive to advertising), I’d feel sort of like the Dan Akroyd character in “Grosse Pointe Blank” — you know, the hit man who wanted to organize all the other hit men — when I’d rather be the John Cusack character (”Loner; lone gunman — get it? That’s the whole point. I like the lifestyle, the image. Look at the way I dress.”).

Now, all of that said, I still might try to do it, but not yet — I hope to have an idea what sort of job I’ll be doing in the future pretty soon, and what I’ll be doing will have an impact on whether I blog at all, or if I do, what sort of blog it is in the future. So why get a lot of people started on something I would just have to drop?

I just listed those bullets to explain why I haven’t done it already…

… and still probably won’t. But the thought is worth airing.

OK, part of it is your track record, not just what you say today

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Now that I’ve actually tried to implement the new comments policy for nearly a full day, I’m realizing something more fully than I did before. Yesterday, I wrote of my dilemma:

I see, for instance, that WordPress provides the option of “Comment author must have a previously approved comment,” which sounds nice, but what good is it really? I prefer to judge a comment by its own merits, not by who posted it. Lee, for instance (and Lee really resents being picked on, and he’ll probably see this as being picked on, but let’s face it; his name is the one my readers most frequently bring up as an irritant), sometimes posts perfectly fine comments that add to the conversation. I’m not saying it happens every day, but it happens. So, going by my own preferred standards, I would approve that one good comment — and under the “Comment author must have a previously approved comment,” he would then have carte blanche to return to his habitual ways.

See, at that point I was undecided: Under this new approach, should I reward Lee, or “Mike Toreno” or “BillC,” by posting their comments when they behave themselves? Or should I just ban them for their past sins?

When I first posted the new rules, I was leaning toward the former. But I find I’m implementing the latter.

That’s because my goal is to make this a more comfortable place for people who are not shouters or trolls or flamers or whatever to air their thoughts without being dismissed or insulted, which has kept a LOT of good people away. The three I mention above — Lee and “Toreno” and “BillC” — sometimes seem like the only readers of my blog, because of the way they dominate conversations. Especially Lee, who posts early (generally first) and often (alarmingly often). After awhile, they have more impact on the general tone and feel of the blog than I do. Which will sort of make a guy wonder why he’s bothering.

So — even though they may be trying to post some comments that provoke thought without insulting anyone, so as not to be barred, I’m reluctant to approve anything by those three. And so I haven’t. If I let them back in now, I know that gradually they’ll push a little more, and a little more, and my attention will wander, and pretty soon we’re back where we were. I’ve been here before with repeat offenders, and I know the trajectory that these things follow.

If one is of a legalistic mind, this will seem unfair. After all, the judge and jury are only supposed to consider whether the accused committed THIS crime, rather than convict him on the basis of his past offense (right? you lawyers, feel free to jump in at this point).

But folks, I am not obliged to approve anybody’s comment, ever. I don’t even have to allow comments. I do it because I want to. And if somebody has created an ugly disturbance in my living room too many times, I’m not going to invite that person any more, lest my more desirable guests stop coming (and who would blame them).

So I haven’t approved anything by the three I mentioned above, even though they have tried several times. Not for the foreseeable future. They will no doubt find this frustrating. Well, they can go start their own blogs, and dedicate them to trashing this one, if they are so inclined. And if they can get anybody to read them, then more power to them. I’m not going to let them feed off of, and undermine, my ability to draw an audience any longer. They are personae non grata.

(And yes, I know that they can always come back under a new pseudonym — actually, I suspect one of the three of having done so quite a few times before — but that’s why I’m also monitoring the content of comments, rather than simply barring those names.)

Now, for the rest of you, you’re being judged by each comment. Yeah, some others among you aside from the banned three have contributed to ugliness on this blog. So, many of you will accuse, have I. But you’ve also contributed positively, and by approving some of your comments and not others, I hope to get all of us into the habit of listening to our better angels, and reflecting that in our writing.

If it seems like I’m making up the rules as I go along, then you’re very astute. But I’m doing the best I can. If you don’t like it, again: Go to another blog, or start your own. But if you want to be part of building a better public forum, welcome.

Columbia’s pay raises, or, How do I get me one of THESE jobs?

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A former colleague asked me if I had done anything on the blog about the Columbia city employee pay raises. Come to think of it, I had not. Here’s the story in The State he was referring to.

I don’t know about you, but I had trouble sorting through all the numbers in the story — which is why I didn’t post when I first tried to read it. I found it confusing. I had trouble finding the one figure I wanted most, the one I could hang my hat on: The average percentage increases each year. You tell me they were getting raises of 10 percent, and I get upset. If it’s more like 2 percent, I’m just jealous.

You can sort of guess at averages, but I couldn’t quite arrive with the available data. For instance, we’re told that between 2004 and 2009:

The number of employees making more than $50k rose from 172 to 412.

Employees making more than $50,000 a year had a combined total of $5,078,016 in raises.

OK, I don’t know how many there were over $50k in each year, but we can perhaps say that those 412 employees had a combined total of $5,078,016 in raises over five years (I think it’s saying that, but I’m not quite sure — how do you read it?). So if I’ve got those numbers right, they received an average of about $12,325 in increases over the period, or about $2,465 a year. An employee making $60k a year who got that much got a 4 percent raise. An employee making $120k receiving a $2,465 raise in one year got an increase of about 2 percent. Which is better than I got in my last couple of years at the paper, but not wildly out of line. But it’s at least debatable for anyone to get a 2- 4-percent raise in hard times.

Trouble is, one gets the impression that guesstimates of average percentages don’t mean much here, because some people got WAY more than that. And that’s the hardest, and most eye-opening, information in the story, to wit:

Valerie Smith, whose annual pay grew to $79,000, about a $26,000 increase, with a promotion from executive assistant to office manager, where she supervised five people.- Shirley Dilbert, whose annual pay grew to $60,000, about a $24,000 increase, with a promotion from executive assistant to the city manager to public services coordinator.

– Starr Hockett, whose annual pay grew to $56,000, about a $13,000 increase, with a promotion to administrative fiscal resources coordinator.

– Libby Gober, whose annual pay grew to $77,000, about a $23,000 increase, with a promotion to administrative liaison to City Council.

– Gantt, whose annual pay grew to $135,000, about a $22,000 increase, with a promotion to bureau chief of operations. (Gantt now is interim city manager.)

… and so on. Those are the facts that really jump out.

I don’t know anything about those individual cases, and I have no idea to what extent those promotions are meaningful. But it seems unlikely to me that that many people, in a city government with as many problems as this one had, should have gotten raises of those magnitudes.

Thoughts? I would particularly appreciate some analysis from someone who is more adept with figures than I.

The New Blog Order, Mark IV

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OK, I really don’t know how many “New Blog Orders” there have been; I just thought “Mark IV” sounded good.

Anyway, here’s the new deal, for now: Comments won’t appear unless I approve them. (And yes, we’ve been here before, in a previous regime change. The video above of me explaining this very same approach was shot during a family gathering at my house in July 2007. See how unhappy I was with having to take this approach? That’s the way I look now, only without the grubby beginning of a beard. Sort of amazing, isn’t it, that as fed up as I was then, I’m still trying? I’m nothing if not persistent.)

I’m going to do that for a few days at least, and then I hope to go to something less stringent, not that there are a lot of options. I see, for instance, that WordPress provides the option of “Comment author must have a previously approved comment,” which sounds nice, but what good is it really? I prefer to judge a comment by its own merits, not by who posted it. Lee, for instance (and Lee really resents being picked on, and he’ll probably see this as being picked on, but let’s face it; his name is the one my readers most frequently bring up as an irritant), sometimes posts perfectly fine comments that add to the conversation. I’m not saying it happens every day, but it happens. So, going by my own preferred standards, I would approve that one good comment — and under the “Comment author must have a previously approved comment,” he would then have carte blanche to return to his habitual ways.

Ultimately, the place where I think I’ll end up is that I’ll open the gates back up, but I’ll make a point of checking comments several times a day, and just delete anything that doesn’t contribute to this being a place that encourages thoughtful people who want to engage in good-faith dialogue.

And I know those people are out there. Just this morning, I was meeting with a prominent local attorney — a public-spirited guy who is a great public speaker and has a lot to say — mentioned to me that there was NO WAY he was going to spend any of his life wrestling in the mud with a bunch of trolls on a blog. And the bad thing about that is, he is just the kind of person I wish would join in with our dialogues here — I want lots of people like him, from across the political spectrum (and those of you on the left or right who think there are no thoughtful people with something worthwhile to say on the opposite end of the spectrum; well, you’re part of the problem).

So in this latest effort to foster the kind of place that he and other like him would consider worthy of his time, I’m going with a standard that goes beyond the mere absence of incivility. I’m going to look for posts that actually contribute something. I’m going for positive attributes, rather than just the absence of negative ones. Because serious people (or for that matter, people who like to have a little fun, just not at other people’s expense) deserve a blog that answers that description.

At this point, some of you are furiously writing to me to say, “You just want comments that agree with you!” which is ridiculous. That’s a ploy to get me to back down on enforcing standards, and post something that calls me and people who agree with me names just to prove how “fair” I am. Well, you know what? I’m not falling for that. I’ve heard it too many thousands of times from people who just can’t be bothered to disagree in a civilized manner.

I know that I’ve always given precedence to people who disagree with me. And anyone who’s followed my career and is not seriously challenged in the reading comprehension department knows that about me. But from now on, you’re going to disagree in a way that it doesn’t run off well-behaved people. You’re going to disagree in a way that makes people think, “Maybe he’s got a point” instead of “What a jerk!” I realize this is going to be a challenge for some, but I hope the rest of you will appreciate it.

And if you don’t, or if you just can’t bring yourself to meet the new standard, you are completely free to go start your own blog. This one’s mine, and I’m not going to waste time with it unless I think it’s getting better, and providing a worthwhile forum.

What I said to the Five Points Rotary

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I forgot to post my comments to the Five Points Rotary on Friday. As you know, I hate to write anything (for public consumption, that is) without posting it here. And since it elaborates on a discussion we’ve had on a couple of recent posts (about the sorry state of the newspaper industry), I might as well go ahead.

Some of you will note that I’ve used the little self-mocking anecdote at the beginning before. Hey, it got me a laugh the first time, so why not stick with it? Only one person in the crowd had heard it before — a fellow member of the Columbia Rotary who was attending the Five Points club as a pre-emptive “make-up” in order to skip listening to Gov. Mark Sanford at our club on Monday (name withheld to protect the guilty). Anyway, here’s my speech:

Current and Future Challenges in the Newspaper Industry

Rotary Club of Five Points

10/9/09

Here’s a story that went over well during Health & Happiness at my own Rotary Club:

One Saturday several months ago, I was walking through Columbiana mall when I was accosted by a pretty young woman with an exotic accent who grabbed my hand and started buffing my left thumbnail with some device in her hand while extolling the virtues of a line of cosmetics from the Dead Sea in Israel. I was helpless in her grasp – how do you pull away from a pretty young woman who’s holding your hand insistently and standing so close that you smell the sweet fragrance of her chewing gum as she breathes into your face?

But, being unemployed and having no disposable income, I did manage to resist buying anything. Moments later, I posted something about the encounter on Twitter. By the time I left the mall, several acquaintances had Twittered back to say that they had encountered the same young woman, and had been less successful at resisting the sales pitch. My friend Mike Fitts wrote, “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.”

Bottom line, and the moral of the story:

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

As you may know, I’m the former vice president and editorial page editor of The State, where I worked as an editor for 22 years. I was the best known of the 38 people who were laid off in March. The reason I don’t have a job now is that the newspaper couldn’t bring in enough revenue to pay my salary. I suppose I’d feel picked on and persecuted if not for the fact that, as a vice president of the company, I had sat in on senior staff meetings in which, for the last few years, each week’s revenue figures were worse than the week before – sometimes dramatically worse.

There was no way that the newspaper could continue paying all the people it once paid to write and edit the paper. People had been laid off before me, and people have been laid off since then, and while I’m no longer privy to those dismal weekly reports, I have no particular reason to believe the industry has hit bottom yet.

Note that I say, “The Industry.” This is not a problem peculiar to The State. In fact, sad to say, but The State is probably somewhat better off than the average. Other newspapers have closed, while still others – most notably The Chicago Tribune, have gone into bankruptcy.

Nor is it a problem confined to newspapers, or to papers in this country. I was interviewed by a journalist from France’s largest weekly newsmagazine earlier this week, and he spoke of how his publication is suffering. Nor is the problem limited to print: Conventional television stations, once gold mines for their owners, are suffering as well. But the problem is most acute in print.

What is the problem? Well, it’s not a lack of interest in news. The demand for news – indeed, for news conveyed by the written word – is a great as always. And it’s not competition from the Internet – not in the simple sense. But the Internet does play a huge role, just probably not in the way you think.

The fact is, no one is better positioned to bring you news on the Web than newspapers. They still have far more reporting resources and expertise than any other medium in local and state markets. And it’s the easiest thing in the world for newspapers to publish their content online – far easier, and far, FAR cheaper, than publishing and delivering the news to you on paper. Eliminate the need to print and distribute the paper version, and you eliminate half of a newspaper’s cost (most of the rest being personnel).

There are a couple of problems with that, though: While newspaper circulation is down everywhere, there is still enough of a demand for the paper version that newspaper companies can’t simply abandon the traditional medium. If they did, someone else – most likely a bare-bones startup without the traditional paper’s fixed costs – would step in to take that money off the table.

The second problem is that without the revenue from print ads, as reduced as such revenue is, newspapers would have even more difficulty paying their reduced staffs.

And that points to the main way in which the Internet is killing newspapers: While it’s easier and even cheaper to publish content online, and newspapers can provide more such content than anyone, newspapers can’t maintain the staff levels it takes to do that with Web advertising.

The problem is that on the Web, the market won’t bear prices comparable to the prices newspapers have been able to charge for print ads. Sell just as many Web ads as you did print ones in the past, and you lose huge amounts of revenue.

Basically, that’s the problem facing The State and every other newspaper in the country. There’s no problem in the relationship between journalist and reader; that’s as strong as ever (and the people who mutter about newspaper’s dying because they’re “too liberal” or “too conservative” – and believe me, I’ve heard both of those many, many times – simply don’t know what they’re talking about). The demand for news, particularly U.S. political news, has never been greater.

The problem is between the newspaper and a third party – the advertiser. That’s what has always supported newspapers in this country. If you think you’re paying for it through your subscription you’re wrong – that pays for maybe an eighth of the cost of producing the newspaper. The problem is that the advertising is going away.

The business model that has made newspapers so prosperous in the past – not long ago, owning a newspaper was like having a license to print money – is simply melting away.

And no one that I know of has figured out what the new business model will look like.

I firmly believe the answer is out there somewhere – the demand for news will eventually lead to a profitable way to pay for gathering and presenting it – but no one has found it yet.

QUESTIONS?

By the way, the topic was suggested by the Rotarian who invited me to speak. I try to deliver what is requested when I can.

I left a generous amount of time for questions, and was not disappointed. That’s always my favorite part of a speaking engagement. I’m never completely at ease during the actual speech part, because I can’t tell whether I’m reaching my audience or not. That’s one reason I speak from notes, or even write it out as I did here, if I have time. Otherwise, I can get flustered and lost as I stand there wondering, Is anybody even interested in this?

So to keep that suffering to a minimum, I keep the formal speech part short, and as soon as I start interacting with the audience, I’m completely comfortable, whatever questions come up.

In this case, the questions were mostly directly related to my topic (which is slightly unusual; generally the topics are across the board), although I did get one or two about Mark Sanford and Joe Wilson.

A good time was had by me, and I hope by all.

State GOP links itself to Wilson more closely than it has to

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Just got a tweet from Karen Floyd — remember Karen? she’s the state GOP chairwoman now — calling my attention to this item about Joe Wilson “thanking the Upstate’s ‘talk radio community’ that he said sparked a critical shift in his approach to fighting Democratic health care reform efforts and ultimately led to his now-celebrity status among some conservatives across the state.”

As I’ve said before, I wasn’t bothered nearly as much by Joe’s Tourette’s Moment during the president’s speech as by his subsequent behavior. We all lose control now and then. No, the thing that is really, profoundly offensive is the way Joe has embraced the extremists who embrace him, and decided to make the foolishness of a moment his new guide for political life.

OK, but even that is understandable to a certain degree. It merely illustrates a weakness common to politicians. It’s related to the “dance with the one that brung you” phenomenon. Since the talk-radio screamers are the only ones asking Joe to dance these days, he’s decided to go home with them. It happens, all across the political spectrum. If these are the only folks who will support him, he’ll support them back, under the logic of political survival.

But you’d think that a state party would want to maintain at least a certain neutral aloofness from this process. Not that I expect them to cast him into the darkness or anything; you’d just sort of think they’d stare into space and try to act like they didn’t notice the faux pas. Think about it: Karen is the chair of a party that contains both Joe Wilson and Bob Inglis, who voted for the resolution to express “disapproval” of Joe’s big moment. In fact, Joe was visiting Inglis’ part of the state to deliver this collective hug to talk radio.

Seems like the state chair would just want to stay out of that, and call as little attention to it as possible. I mean, as silly as the action of the S.C. Democrats often are, do you see Carol Fowler putting out a release to call attention to a Democrat who is making a career out of the most embarrassing moment of his life? Maybe she would. There’s no accounting for parties, and I gave up long ago trying to make sense of their doings.

But this sort of stood out, to me.

Like Jane Austen writing about television

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Today, I’m listening to Jethro Tull on Pandora, the virtual radio station site. I’m often disappointed by Pandora because it seems their collections don’t go very deep. And sometimes they don’t even touch the surface in the spot where I want them to. For instance, I created a 10cc channel that keeps throwing Queen songs at me on the grounds that they are “like” 10cc. On my Donovan and Elvis Costello stations, they keep playing Beatles. Hey, I love the Beatles, but when I want to listen to them I’ll tell you.

Then there was the time that I had a hankering to hear Roger Miller’s “Dang Me,” so I created a station by that name. And it played me a couple of Roger Miller songs that I didn’t want to hear, and then other songs “like” Roger Miller. But so far, no “Dang Me.”

I strongly suspect Pandora to be a subsidiary of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, famous for its drinks machine that produces a substance that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

But I’m enjoying the Tull station a bit more. Not that I’m getting pure Tull, of course, but the stuff that Pandora judges to be “like” Tull is mostly enjoyable. Led Zeppelin’s “Rain Song.” Some live Who. And, I’m happy to say, quite a bit of Tull.

Including recent Tull, which is a bit of a shock, because I didn’t know such an animal existed.

For instance, did you know there was a Jethro Tull song titled “Dot Com?” Seriously; I’m not making it up. This is a surprise coming from a band that I associate with “Aqualung.” And no, not the one that the kids listen to. To me, Tull is quintessential 70s. I hadn’t even thought about them in years. It was only when a real radio station (94.3) played “Thick as a Brick” this past week that I was reminded of their existence, and created the station just to, shall we say, do a little living in the past.

The Jethro Tull of my memory lived in a universe that had not thought of, and could not even have imagined, anything called a “dot-com.” It was, I don’t know, like finding a previously unknown Jane Austen novel that’s about television. You know, like:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sitcom in possession of a laugh track must be in want of a joke.

I’m picturing Mr. Darcy earning his “ten thousand a year” hosting “So You Think You Can Dance,” on which he repeatedly refuses to dance with attractive young women on the grounds that they are “tolerable,” but not “handsome enough to tempt me.”

Anyway, what I’m saying is, it was weird.

Some truncated messages from Joe “You Lie!” Wils..

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Joe Wilson’s hip, y’all. He does Twitter and everything.

Trouble is, he’s having a little trouble spitting out his message on that medium. Here are his last four:

Wilson gets warm welcome at Hilton Head GOP picnic: U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson told members of the Hilton Head Island.. http://bit.ly/Wzwqx

Okra struts its stuff in rain: Midway through Irmo’s 36th annual Okra Strut parade, a misty rain began to.. http://bit.ly/tNLWw

Wilson rallies in Aiken: U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., got an enthusiastic welcome from about 250 supporters in.. http://bit.ly/19tDr6

U.S. Rep Joe Wilson said he wanted to make it clear Saturday that Republic.. http://bit.ly/2dgmb9

Odd, isn’t it, that Joe would have a problem with brevity, given that the one thing for which is is nationally known consisted of only eight characters, if you count the exclamation point.

Actually, I’m not sure why he’s getting cut off like that, since those messages (especially the last one) seem to be under the character limit. Maybe it’s intentional. Maybe it’s to get us begging for more so we’ll follow the link. Maybe Joe’s on the edge of the new wave…

Clowning around with health care

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Maybe you can help me out with something. I was driving down Sunset Blvd. in West Columbia this morning, and sorta kinda saw something for a fraction of a second, and I’m not sure I know what I saw. If you saw it, maybe you can clear this up.

I was driving past Joe Wilson’s office, and as I whiffed by, happened to glance at a clump of three people (at least I think there were three) loitering on the sidewalk at the corner. One was sitting on a bicycle. I don’t remember what the second person was doing. The third was holding up a sign that said “Stop Clowning around with our Health Care.” I think. We’re talking split-second here, and I turned away before any of it registered on my mind.

The person holding the sign was wearing a blue outfit with white designs on it from neck to toe. It may have been a clown outfit, but I’m infering that from the sign. He or she may also have been wearing clown makeup, but I have no idea at all about that, because his/her face was blocked by the sign during that tenth of a second or whatever it was.

As I drove on, a number of questions occurred to me:

Did I read the sign right?
Was the person dressed as a clown? Possibly not. The power of suggestion from what I think the sign said overwhelmed what other information was available to me.
Were the other people involved in the demonstration, or just curious passersby?
Was this person working for Joe Wilson, and saying President Obama was “clowning” with our health care? (If so, hasn’t Joe called enough attention to himself?)
Was this person protesting that Joe Wilson was the one “clowning around with our health care?” (I’ve noticed that one of the favorite epithets hurled at Joe from leftist bloggers is “ass clown,” for some reason) If so, he or she was going to a lot of trouble to send a confused message. You’d have to stop and talk to find out, which not many are in a position to do at that stretch of road at that time.

I was in a hurry to get downtown just then, but I went back that way later to check. No one there. No clown. No guy on a bike. No third person who barely registered. All gone. Must have been a drive-time thing. Or my imagination. I wonder what I saw, and what it was supposed to mean?

Anyway, right after I saw them, as those questions were going through my mind, I reached a stretch where orange roadwork cones were jamming the traffic into one lane. I found myself behind a big white pickup truck. It had a bumper sticker on it with a message that there was no mistaking:

OBAMA

SUCKS

Such is the state of political discourse these days in the 2nd District…

Graham hits the wrong note

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I was surprised, and disappointed, by this release this morning:

Statement from Senator Lindsey Graham on President Obama’s Health Care Address to the Nation

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made this statement tonight after the presidential address.

“I was incredibly disappointed in the tone of his speech. At times I found his tone to be overly combative and believe he behaved in a manner beneath the dignity of the office. I fear his speech tonight has made it more difficult — not less — to find common ground.

“He appeared to be angry at his critics and disappointed the American people were not buying the proposals he has been selling. The president’s confrontational demeanor increased the emotional and political divide. I hope the President will learn that true bipartisanship begins with mutual respect. Criticism of a public official is to be expected and not all criticism is demagoguery.

“When it comes to the public option, the President is either being disingenuous or misinformed. The public option, contrary to the president’s claims, will eventually lead to a government takeover of our health care system.

“One could easily be led to believe tonight’s speech is the beginning of a ‘go it alone’ strategy. If the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.”

On a Member of Congress Accusing the President of Telling a ‘Lie’:

“The president’s combative tone did not justify a Member of Congress shouting out ’you lie.’ Our nation’s president deserves to be treated with respect It was inappropriate remark and I am glad an apology has been made.”

#####

I’m proud of Sen. Graham, and of John McCain, for so clearly and unequivocally calling Joe Wilson down for his insupportable behavior. But given that Joe DID what he did, and any commentary on the president’s speech is unfortunately bound to be considered within that context, Lindsey’s release this morning just seems way off-base.

You’re “incredibly disappointed” by the president’s tone? The president was “overly combative?” He behaved in “a manner beneath the dignity of the office?” The president’s demeanor “increased the emotional and political divide?” He’s the one who needs to learn a lesson about “mutual respect?”

Say what?

This was definitely not the morning to release a statement like that.

Such is my respect for Sen. Graham that whenever I find myself disagreeing with him (or Joe Lieberman, or John McCain, or Joe Riley), I stop and think again: Could I be wrong on this? So I analyze my own reaction. I think, Maybe the president was too combative. Maybe I didn’t notice it because I’m so completely fed up with the lies and obstructionism that are threatening to kill our hopes for a decent health care system in this country yet again. Maybe that’s what makes me think the president was, if anything, overly deferential to those who don’t give a damn about our health care, but want to see this issue be Obama’s “Waterloo,” because partisan advantage is more important to them than the good of the nation…

So I run those thoughts through my head, and then I think, Nah, this time Lindsey’s just wrong. That can happen, you know…

Video commentary: ‘Fin de Semana’

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Did you know there was a BobbyHarrell.com? Well, there is. And if you go there, you can read the Speaker’s letter calling on the governor to resign. There’s audio, too.

The Speaker of the House calling on the governor to resign is a significant step — or would be, if we thought there was the slightest chance the governor would listen to the Speaker or anyone else in South Carolina.

But I tend to focus on funny things. Such as this one little thing that the governor said on Keven Cohen’s show yesterday:

Bottom line, I was gone over that weekend.

Let’s see — he left on Thursday, came back on Wednesday, and that’s a weekend? Maybe in Argentina, but not here…

Not just depressed, but confused to boot…

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A radio ad about depression says, “If you think you’re alone, you’re not.”

OK. So does that mean that if I DON’T think I’m alone, I actually AM?

That’s depressing to contemplate…

Today’s reading, ripped from today’s headlines

Maybe I’m putting too much into Twitter…

1 Reply

It occurs to me that maybe too much of my energy that could go into making my blog better is going into Twitter.

Traditionally, I get a lot of my blog ideas when I’m reading the papers over breakfast in the morning. That first cup of coffee coinciding with the reading generally leads to far more ideas than I have time for. I used to stew through the morning meeting, which came right after breakfast, when I was at the paper because I was anxious to get to the computer and start putting some of the ideas on the blog before my enthusiasm (or the coffee, whichever you want to think of it as) wore off.

Now, since I started Twittering, I just go ahead and post a lot of the ideas as they occur to me, on my Blackberry, while eating. Which is great, I guess. Except that this gets each of those ideas out of my system, and by the time I’m at my laptop (It’s possible to blog on the Blackberry, but it’s a LOT harder), my mind has moved on.

So they don’t go totally to waste, bleeding off into the Twitter void, I decided to reproduce this morning’s tweets here, improved with links to the original sources of these brief comments.

You’ll see that only one was developed into a full-fledged blog post. The others I share for whatever minimal value they have:

Gov says calls to quit are “pure politics.” Let’s hope so. The alternative is the divine right of kings. (This, of course, is the one that became a blog post.)
Paper says “South Carolinians aged 18-20 cannot drink alcohol.” Actually, they CAN, but aren’t allowed to…
Twitter followers come and go so quickly. The number constantly fluctuates; the pattern eludes me…
Ad in paper touts “powerful joint pill,” which makes me think “THC,” but that’s not it, apparently…
Sanford sez other govs flew 1st Class. Yeah, but they weren’t hypocrites about it. Big difference…
Just inadvertently did a subversive thing: went to the WSJ Web site and searched for “trotsky”…
Just saw meter maid downtown, and the bag across her shoulder made her look a little like a military man…

And as a bonus, here’s one I just posted:

Gov says he won’t be “railroaded” out of office. How about “trolleycarred?” Or “pickup-trucked?” Or “little-red-wagoned?” Any mode will do.

Time for some ‘pure politics:’ Who can talk sense to our governor?

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Check it out — I have a new Webcam. And so today, I decided to go with some video commentary rather than do all that tedious typing.

But to add a little something to this clip, here are some links to what I’m talking about:

The story in The State in which Gov. Sanford complains that Andre Bauer’s call to him to resign is “pure politics.”
A dictionary definition of the word “politics.” In my commentary, I’m emphasizing sense 5a: “the total complex of relations between people living in society.”
An explanation of the divine right of kings, which I suggest as the alternative (or an alternative) to “politics.”
Video of Andre Bauer offering his one great gift to South Carolina: his conditional promise that he won’t run for governor.
Lest you ever forget, some reminders why we don’t want Andre (who tends to win elections, despite being, well, Andre) running for governor.

‘Detainees?’ Why not just call them ‘prisoners?’

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Today, reading about the latest on Gitmo and torture and prosecutions and so forth, I reached my saturation point on the word “detainees.”

Personally, I’m not too squeamish to go ahead and call them “prisoners.” Why don’t we just go ahead and do that? We’ve been holding some of these people since 2001, and many of them we don’t ever intend to let go (and if we do, we’re crazy). So why not “prisoners?”

Yes, I get it that their legal status is unsettled, and in U.S. crime-and-punishment parlance we generally save “prisoner” for someone duly convicted to spend time in a “prison,” which is an institution we distinguish from jails where people await trial or holding cells where they await bail or whatever.

But if we can’t be honest enough to say that Gitmo is a prison and they are prisoners, whatever the technicalities, could we please come up with something that sounds a little less prissy, somewhat less a-tiptoe, than “detainees?”

Whenever I hear the term, I picture a Victorian gentleman saying “Pardon me, sir, but I must detain you for a moment…”

Whose sensibilities are we overprotecting by the use of this word? Those who feel like the “detainees'” “rights” are being trampled? Those like me who are glad we have a secure place to put some of these people? (Hey, go ahead and close Gitmo if you’d like. That’s what Obama says he’ll do and it’s what McCain would have done, too. Fine. But find someplace just as secure to put the ones we need to hang onto.)

Maybe we could sort out all the rest of the mess — the legal status, the security issues, who should interrogate and how, whom to keep and whom to send home and whom to send to a third location, whether any of our own should be prosecuted, etc. — if we started by coming up with something less mealy-mouthed to call these people.

The Sanford scandal gets the glamour treatment

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Just when you thought there weren’t any ways left to look at the Sanford scandal, along comes the Vogue treatment of Jenny Sanford as the wronged woman America loves and admires most.

The glamour shot above is just the beginning. An excerpt:

Early this past summer, just as the world was savoring the news that yet another conservative Republican politician had tumbled from grace in a manner worthy of the best French farce—“hiking the Appalachian Trail” will never have the same meaning—there emerged an unlikely hero in the mess down in South Carolina. Petite, clear-eyed, strong-willed, pious without being smug, smart without being caustic, Jenny Sanford became an unlikely heroine by telling the simple truth. Her children were the most important thing in the world to her. She had kicked the lying bum out of the house when he refused to give up his mistress, but marriage is complex, life is hard, and if he wanted to try and make the marriage work, the door was open.

Her one-page statement saying as much was written without the help of spin doctors or media consultants. It came from her heart and her head. It mentioned God without making you squirm. The world took note. Newsweek dubbed her a “media genius”; The Washington Post hailed her as “a new role model for wronged spouses.” On television, Diane Sawyer called her classy, praising her “grace in the glare.” While her husband was giving overly emotional press conferences about soul mates and impossible love, Sanford kept her mouth shut and her head down. Just as the scandal was finally dying down, she agreed to sit with Vogue and set the record straight about what really happened in the low country of South Carolina….

… to which I can only say, which is it, Vogue — “hero” or “heroine?” (I would recommend the latter, but then I’m such an unreconstructed language chauvinist.) I knew that newspapers were short on editors, but Vogue?…

Anyway, more power to Jenny, say I. I’m still waiting for someone to start cranking out those special “WWJD” bracelets…

Gates saga gets treatment it so richly deserves

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Credit to Stan Dubinsky for bringing this item in The Boston Globe to our attention:

(A street in Cambridgeham. Most Exalted University Professor HENRY LOUIS GATES, freshly returned from the Land of the Asian Khan, is rattling the door of his keep. Enter a WENCH.)

WENCH: Alarum! Alarum! A thief is about!

GATES: Peace, ye fat guts!

(Enter SHERIFF CROWLEY)

CROWLEY: Stay, now! Who disturbs our peaceful shire?

GATES: I disturb no man. My key unlocketh not.

CROWLEY: Forsooth, thou breakest and enterest.

GATES (entering his castle): I break not for witless constables. Begone!

CROWLEY: Back speaks no man to the Sheriff; I arrest thee!

GATES: Knowest thou whom I am? That I am coy with the Daily Beastmistress, Milady Tina? That I am most down with Lady Oprah, the Queen of afternoon tele-dalliances? That I am sworn liege to Dr. Faust, of whom Marlowe wrote? That I unravelest literary mysteries at the Greatest University Known to Man?

CROWLEY: Of Tufts you speak? Even so, thou art under arrest.

GATES: Thou detaineth me because I am a Moor!

CROWLEY: Some of my best friends are Moors. Your pleas availeth not.

GATES: You shall rue the day you crost my threshold….

… and so forth. ‘Tis a silly tale, but enjoyable withal.

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

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Words

Goys will be goys

Go co-op, or remain a lone gunman?

OK, part of it is your track record, not just what you say today

Columbia’s pay raises, or, How do I get me one of THESE jobs?

The New Blog Order, Mark IV

What I said to the Five Points Rotary

State GOP links itself to Wilson more closely than it has to

Like Jane Austen writing about television

Some truncated messages from Joe “You Lie!” Wils..

Clowning around with health care

OBAMA

SUCKS

Graham hits the wrong note

Statement from Senator Lindsey Graham on President Obama’s Health Care Address to the Nation

Video commentary: ‘Fin de Semana’

Not just depressed, but confused to boot…

Today’s reading, ripped from today’s headlines

Maybe I’m putting too much into Twitter…

Time for some ‘pure politics:’ Who can talk sense to our governor?

‘Detainees?’ Why not just call them ‘prisoners?’

The Sanford scandal gets the glamour treatment

Gates saga gets treatment it so richly deserves

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