Category Archives: Working

Nikki vs. Vincent, by the ounce

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As I occasionally have to clarify here, I’m about commentary, not reporting. You want reporting, go someplace else. I haven’t been a reporter in 30 years. You want an opinion writer who’s primarily a reporter, see Cindi Scoppe. She’s one of the best. (Her column today is a good example of that quality; I may post separately about that later.) Sure, I “cover” events from time to time, just so I can get my own first-hand impressions. But mainly what I do is make observations based upon the existing body of available information.

Now Corey Hutchins with The Free Times is a reporter. You’ll recall that he was the only media type to go out and track down Alvin Greene before the primary. Too bad more people didn’t read his report at the time.

Now, he has a facts-and-figures report comparing the legislative records of Nikki Haley and Vincent Sheheen. One way to characterize what he found is in this observation he posted on Facebook:

If one were to print out the list of legislative bills in the past five years primarily sponsored by the two lawmakers running for governor in S.C., Dem Sen. Sheheen’s would weigh 9.5 ounces and GOP Rep. Haley’s would clock in at 2.4 give or take a botched staple.

Of course, that doesn’t tell you much. Maybe Vincent is just wordy. You’ll get more to chew on reading his full report headlined, “Legislative Records: Sheheen More Active, Successful Than Haley,” with the subhed, “Since 2004, Sheheen Has Sponsored 96 Bills, Haley 13.”

An excerpt:

There are several ways to detail the disparity, but the easiest might be to look at the number of bills for which each candidate was listed as a primary sponsor and how far along each piece of legislation made it through the sausage maker.

Sheheen was elected to the state senate in 2004, the same year Haley was elected to the House. (Sheheen served in the House for four years before being elected to the Senate.) The difference in their legislative accomplishments since then is staggering.

According to state House and Senate records, during the 2005-2006 session, Sheheen sponsored 35 bills and was able to get eight of them passed. That same session, her first in office, Haley went zero for one.

The following session Sheheen went six for 30. Haley scored one out of seven.

During the latest legislative session that took place from 2009 to 2010, Gov. Mark Sanford signed two out of the 31 bills that Sheheen primarily sponsored. That year, the governor didn’t put pen to paper on any of the five bills backed by Haley.

Given these numbers, it would be hard to overstate the extent to which Sheheen — a Democrat in a Republican-dominated chamber —was able to navigate the legislative process in a more effective fashion than Haley. But from a philosophical standpoint — Haley being a candidate who wants government to do less — her rhetoric is at least somewhat consistent with her legislative record…

That’s a bit simplistic, a measure of Corey’s reportorial wish to be as fair to her as he can. What her record really underlines is the problem that I keep pointing to. In terms of accomplishing ANYTHING in dealing with the people who write the laws of the state (and in a Legislative State like ours, that thought could almost be framed as “accomplish anything, period”), Nikki Haley’s record indicates that, if anything, she’s been less successful even than Mark Sanford. Which is a very low standard indeed.

And remember, Sanford started out with a honeymoon, with a legislative leadership eager to work at long last with a governor of their own party. Those same leaders already know they don’t like Nikki.

Doug, of course, will turn that around into an attack on the legislative leaders themselves, which is satisfying to him but gets us nowhere. When you and I walk into the booth on Nov. 2, for the overwhelming majority of us, those leaders won’t be on the ballot (and the few of us who do live in their districts will find they don’t have viable opposition). What we get to pick is the governor. That’s how we get to affect the future course of our state.

Twitter has broken my thumbs (I think)

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I shoulda broke YOUR thumbs!

— Rocky Balboa

… and I didn’t even owe it money.

The really weird thing about this is the way I can pinpoint it in time.

When I went to bed on the night of Aug. 16, I was fine. No pain; everything functioning normally. No foreshadowing at all. Then, sometime during the night, I woke up, and as I got up out of the bed to head for the bathroom, I said “Ow.” Both joints in both thumbs hurt like crazy, and doing the most normal things — such as pushing myself up out of the bed, or even something as nonstrenuous as pinching the bridge of my nose with thumb and forefinger to rub the sleep out — caused the thumb involved to pop out of joint, quite painfully. And popping it back in was no picnic, either.

And even when I wasn’t trying to use them, the joints were painfully tender to the slightest touch. And if I did try to use them — which is pretty unavoidable; our species has pretty much built its daily activities around having opposable thumbs — to use them normally required forcing the joints past points at which they want to stop, and that forcing leads to a pop (which I think is actual dislocation), and pain. Both in the ball of the hand, and the other joint closer to the end of the digit.

I had always been double-jointed to the point that my thumbs naturally bent back, on their own, 90 degrees. No more. Now, once they hit the point where they are straight, they stop, and the slightest backward pressure on them hurts.

And it’s been like this ever since that day. This is really having an impact on my life.

There was no trauma that I can recall.

I don’t think I’ve contracted any bizarre illness that attacks the joints — at least, there are no other symptoms. All the other joints are fine — except for my knee that acts up sometimes, but that long predated this.

I haven’t taken in any exotic toxins that I know of. I remember reading once of an incident involving Allied prisoners in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines. Once they were fed a dinner of rancid fish heads, and moments after the meal, suddenly all the prisoners’ heads flopped over because they had completely lost the use of their neck muscles. After a few hours, the effect wore off. Then the next night, more fish heads, and the men’s heads flopped over again. This really freaked out the guards.

But I hadn’t eaten any rancid fish heads.

At first, I thought it was the constant typing on the laptop, and I didn’t know what I was going to do about that — both for ADCO and the blog, it’s pretty unavoidable.

Then, I finally realized: It was the Blackberry. It was the fact that I increasingly answer e-mails on it, and work with photos on it, and send text messages, approve blog comments, and… constantly, constantly, keep up with Twitter. I Tweet, I reTweet, I click on links to see what they’re about. I do it anytime I’m sitting still and not actually writing or talking or driving. Sit me down and shut me up, and I dive into Twitter.

It’s called “Blackberry Thumb.” Some of my iPhone-loving friends have told me that it’s because I use the wrong device, but they think the iPhone is the cure to every ill known to Man.

So I’m thinking that’s it. But I’ve tried cutting back, to no avail. As for cold turkey — I’m not even sure it’s possible to do that and keep up with ADCO and family responsibilities. Sure, I can avoid Googling everything in the world that I’m curious about in the course of a day, and confine Twitter activity to the laptop. But there’s a limit. There’s a good reason I pay for this data service every month.

Since I live in the good ol’ USA, it would be prohibitively expensive with my current insurance to go on a quest through various specialists in search of a cure, so I’d really like to figure this out and cure it myself. I’ve acquired a couple of braces for immobilizing my thumbs to sleep in at least, and that keeps them from waking me up from the pain of normal movements during the night — but causes them to be even stiffer in the morning.

The biggest mystery, to me, and the one thing that makes me doubt the Twitter diagnosis? That it came on, full-blown, so suddenly. Seems to me that a repetitive-motion thing would be more gradual than that. But maybe not. My goal is just to make it go away just as suddenly, and for good…

Was original draft of cartoon ‘an ethnic slur’?

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Robert Ariail, noticing that I had posted his recent cartoon on the blog, sent me the original version, which he said he withdrew from dissemination because someone thought “it would precipitate claims of an ethnic slur.”

Robert wanted to know what I thought. I responded:

I see nothing wrong with that, Sahib.

Seriously, I know where they’re coming from — they’re worried that the evocation of India might make people think you’re saying something you’re not, and distract from the message — although I think they’re being oversensitive.
I wish I could post this on the blog to see what my readers think — but that would probably put you in an uncomfortable spot, wouldn’t it? So I won’t.

But Robert said he didn’t care, so I’m asking y’all.

For comparison, here is the culturally sanitized version again, below…

Trying to get used to cartoons of a different color

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Have you checked out Robert Ariail’s most recent cartoons? Increasingly, they are in color.

He does it well, but this is going to take some time to grow on me. I prefer the classic, sharp black and white lines that are the glory of the well-executed editorial cartoon, and no one does it better than my good friend Robert. And Robert has sort of resisted the trend, being the master than he is of the traditional form.

But I’m sure he’s gotten pressure from his syndicate on this point — increasingly, the few cartoonists remaining in the country are doing color. And at some point, one must bow to fashion. Or maybe it’s just that the Spartanburg paper wanted color; I don’t know.

Suppose I’ll have to get used to it…

Say hello to Daddy Warbucks, only with hair

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"Are you talkin' to ME?..."

Had an odd thing happen just a few minutes ago, as I was leaving a local drugstore, on my way back from taping something at ETV.

As I crossed the parking lot, I heard a small voice pipe up behind me, “Do you know where there are any jobs?”

Hearing no one respond, I turned and found a cute, petite, college-age (this was near USC) girl hurrying to catch up with me.

Once it was established she was addressing me, I asked, in order to have something to say, “What sort of job?” I was prepared for her to say almost anything, but not what she said: “Administrative.” Something ran through my head that the HR director at The State once told me about how young people today have unrealistic expectations of starting at the top.

I must have looked questioning, because she added, by way of explication, “You know, office work…”

“Well,” I told her, slowly, “I don’t know of anything at the moment…” searching my brain, thinking Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to live up to this girl’s unlikely expectation of me and actually connect this question with an actual job I’ve heard about, but came up dry.

Not wanting to leave it at that, I said, “Would you like to give me a card, so that if I hear of anything…?” with the alarm bells going off in my head as I realized how much that sounded like You wanna give me your phone number?, or how much it might sound like it to someone of her age and experience in life, but it was completely innocent, just what I’d ask of anyone else who told me he or she was job-hunting…

She, continuing to move on past me as I arrived at my car — I realized that we had kept moving the whole time — patted her pocket sort of nervously as though she would normally have cards, but had none today, and said, “No, I don’t have any cards on me…”

And I said, “Well, good luck!” And that was that.

She was bold as brass, which I suppose will stand her in good stead at some point. But what did I look like to her? Like Daddy Warbucks with hair, I suppose.

I didn’t have the heart to call after her and say, Honey, you just don’t know… it took me a year to find a job for myself…

Why spoil her illusions, especially when they are so flattering to me? She looked at me and thought me a powerful and magnanimous man, able to scatter jobs across the pavement like so many doubloons from a Mardi Gras float. Why spoil that, indeed?

Joe just can’t (“liberal!”) help himself (“liberal, liberal! Pelosi, liberal!”). It’s like Tourette’s…

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When I saw that Joe Wilson had put out a press release talking about incentives to create jobs, I thought Great! Some substance! A release in which I won’t have to read any fulmination about “liberals” and how they’re the root of all evil! After all, a jobs plan has to be pragmatic thing, meant to address the broad complex of practical, real-world problems leading to our current economic malaise.

Silly me:

Wilson Urges Job Creation Incentives as Unemployment Rises

(Washington, DC) – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) today released the following statement after the Department of Labor announced the unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent and the U.S. economy lost jobs for the third straight month:

“I’m not sure where Administration officials are spending their summer, but here in South Carolina, this is certainly not the ‘Recovery Summer’ we were promised.

“For 16 straight months, unemployment has been above nine percent.  Why the Administration and liberal leadership in Congress isn’t talking about job creation plans each and every day is beyond belief.  People are hurting and the time to act is now, not later or in another 16 months,” said Congressman Joe Wilson.

Congressman Joe Wilson has outlined a job creation plan that offers incentives to small business owners to hire more employees and gives American families more money to invest.  See his plan here and pass it along to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

###

The boldfacing is Joe’s, not mine.

He just can’t help himself. It’s like Tourette’s or something. He’s incapable of completing a thought without reference to “liberals” or “Pelosi.” Just watch, and see if I’m not right.

Mojitos: The best new thing I’ve tried lately

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Since I’ve become a Mad Man, I’ve branched out a bit in my eating out. Since for me every unknown menu is like a minefield, my usual M.O. is to approach eating out the way a cautious commander approaches a military campaign: Only on familiar terrain using proven tactics — in other words, going to three or four places where I know the menu, and only ordering one or two things from it. (And don’t even eat out, if it can be avoided. Mamanem know what you can eat.) Hey, it’s kept me alive so far.

But Lanier, Brian and Lora eat out pretty much every day, and invite me along. So I’ve come to try and enjoy new things at Al Amir, and Nick’s, and Doc’s Gumbo Grill, the Mouse Trap and other places. I still pull them toward my old faves — Yesterday’s, Longhorn and the like — whenever I can get away with it, but my horizons have been broadened.

Today, however, I must report having enjoyed the best new thing I’ve tried since starting at ADCO. It was at Mojitos Tropical Cafe on Gervais, a place that just opened a couple of weeks back. It was fantastic, especially what I had — the pulled pork with saffron rice, black beans, sweet plantains and yuca con mojo.

We also had a great chat with the matriarch of the family that runs this joint and Salsa Cabana, Jane Fishburne, whose mother was Spanish and comes by this sort of cuisine honestly (although it’s her daughter, Lynette, who does the cooking). I gave her a card and urged her to consider a blog ad. She responded by saying that the Shop Tart has brought them about half their business so far.

So I’ve been scooped. In fact, the Tart even wrote about the place before it was opened. An excerpt:

Speaking of good stuff, Tracie and the Shop Tart spent a while chatting with owner Jane, who is in the process of opening another business, Mojito’s Tropical Cafe on Gervais in the space formerly occupied by night club Hush. She is awesome and introduced them to her daughter Lynette, who will be the chef at the new place. They also met Jane’s son Gabriel and his girlfriend Crystal, who might be the best-looking couple in all of Columbia, if not the world. They noticed the Shop Tart’s empty glass and insisted on getting her next round. They asked what she was drinking. She hesitated, not wanting to be greedy. “Vodka soda,” she answered, not wanting to admit to the pricey Grey Goose she has come to love. (Thank you, Fergie.) Crystal’s response? “Grey Goose, right?,” with a wink. Perceptive lady. (And yummy vodka.)

So she was ahead of the curve on that. Not to mention being way ahead of me on the blog ad front. Oh, well — her success is well deserved.

And Mojitos is deserving of all the success the Vista can provide. I’ll be going back, for sure. And if — no, when — you go, be sure to tell Jane you read about it here. And try the pulled pork. It was pretty awesome. For one used to barbecue, the more subtle flavorings on the meat were a really nice change of pace, and a great accompaniment to the beans and rice.

Oh, and watch out — while the place wasn’t crowded when I was there, Columbia’s Mad Men are discovering it, so it’s liable to be jammed before you know it. David Campbell from Chernoff Newman came in with a couple of others just as we were leaving. Dang, just like that guy Ted Chaough tracking Don Draper — every time I look in my rearview mirror, there’s Campbell…

Kick in a buck for the critters

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Just saw this notice over on the Web site ADCO Interactive created for Pawmetto Pipeline:

Friday, August 27 is Dollar Donation Day!dollar donation day horiz

Sounds simple, but it is so rewarding. We are asking supporters and fans to donate $1 or more in our one-day dollar donation drive. The best part is that everyone can participate from your desk, home or wherever! We have over 4,000 members of our email community—imagine if each person gave $1.00 on Friday. What about $5? Or $10?

We’ll be tracking donations all day on our facebook page and posting pics of the sweet animals you’ve helped, so be sure to check in there often.

Where will all of the money go?  Once we rescue dogs and cats from the county municipal shelters they still need a lot of care before adoption.  All of our pets receive their annual vaccines, spay/neuter surgeries, a microchip, and heartworm and flea preventive before they hit the adoption events.  However, sometimes the needs are greater. Some need heartworm treatments (up to $500), some need dental procedures (at least $200) and others need to be nursed back to health.  We do not give up on any of our animals and we do everything it takes to make them healthy and happy once rescued. Help us help them this by donating $1 or more today.

Donate now

Just look what we can do with $1:

– If 20 people give $1 each, that will pay for kennel cough treatment for one dog

– If 100 people give $1 each, that will provide 3 cats with special-need diet food

– If 500 people give $1 each, that will pay to treat one dog with heartworms (we currently have 6 dogs needing treatment)

– If 1,000 people give $1 each, that will let us save 10 additional lives

Click here to donate now or follow our facebook updates.

Help us spread the word by forwarding this message to your friends.

OK, so I’m no Austin Meyer, but even I can afford to kick in a buck for the cause.

… and curse Sir Walter Raleigh; he was such a stupid get…

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As the man said in the song, I’m so tired… and yet have accomplished so little today. Blogwise, anyway. Progress was made here and there, but little satisfaction was to be had.

And the day began with such promise.

First, I went to an interesting breakfast discussion of clean energy at the Cap City Club, and haven’t had time since then even to peruse my notes, so I’ll just give you the press release:

Business and elected leaders gather in Columbia for energy roundtable

State and national experts discuss the tie between clean energy and job creation in SC

Columbia, SC – More than 60 business and elected leaders attended an energy roundtable this morning hosted by SC Businesses for Clean Energy. The organization is a coalition of over 100 businesses in the state seeking to create jobs and enhance national security by improving energy efficiency and developing clean-energy alternatives.

“There is a growing awareness in our state’s business community that we can create jobs and lower energy bills by improving the way we produce and consume energy,” said SC Businesses for Clean Energy founder Clare Morris. “Discussions like the one at the energy roundtable are just the beginning of the conversation.”

The roundtable included a panel discussion featuring three experts on energy and economic policy in South Carolina:  Grant Jackson, senior vice president for community development with the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce; Russ Keller, vice president for advanced technology international (ATI) of South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA); and Suzanne Watson, policy director with the American Coalition for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The moderator was Bob Bouyea, publisher of the Columbia Regional Business Report.

“There is a realization in South Carolina that we do not have coal, oil, or uranium, and that we have to import these energy sources from other places,” said Jackson during the panel discussion. “At the same time, we have abundant offshore wind, solar, and biomass, as well as, hydrogen and nuclear energy potential. Clean energy is a path to jobs.”

Jackson cited a July 2010 poll of South Carolina small businesses that showed 68 percent support clean energy initiatives.

Keller added, “It’s going to be small, innovative companies that will lead. We need to help encourage their ideas so that they can build their products right here in South Carolina and then sell them all over the world.”

Panelists also agreed that while attitudes in South Carolina are changing, the state needs a comprehensive energy plan to diversify its energy sources and create incentives for improving energy efficiency.

“ACEEE does not argue in favor of any one energy source because every state has its own particular resources and goals,” said Watson. “But invest in efficiency first and you will reduce the costs for any new generation power source that you build.”

Watson cited efforts by the South Carolina Electric Cooperatives to weatherize tens of thousands of South Carolina homes as a positive step toward reducing energy costs and creating jobs. A state-specific report released last year by ACEEE found that overall, investing in energy efficiency could create over 20,000 jobs and save ratepayers $5.1 billion on their bills by 2025.

The ACEEE report can be found at: http://www.aceee.org/research-report/e099

“It was tremendous to see that Boeing is coming to South Carolina,” noted Watson. “But energy efficiency could create six times more jobs than Boeing facility.”

Breakfast sponsors included SC Businesses for Clean Energy, SCBiz News, the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, New Carolina, EngenuitySC, and the Quality of Life Task Force of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce.

Then, while I was trying to get some ADCO work done, I got a phone call from the guy with the Huffington Post who had sent me this e-mail:

Hi Brad,
Ben Bell from the Huffington Post here. I just came across your blog.
I am writing to alert you to an opportunity. Right now we are in the process of building a network of citizen journalists to cover specific congressional candidates/incumbents this fall all across the country.
In SC, we are trying to get citizen journalists to cover Rob Miller and or John Spratt. The job would require the CJ to submit a weekly round up submission and attend events related to the specific candidate as they can. We are flexible on the number of events attended. The start date is TBA and is intended to be something done by someone with a full-time job or other commitment.
The position is not paid, but does offer the excellent chance for the CJ to get a byline on the HuffPost, which is a fast-growing and influential site. This would be a great opportunity for everyone from professors and professional bloggers to journalism students and those just interested in politics. All are welcome to express interest.
Please let me know if you are interested ASAP.
Also, we can discuss linking to your blog it when you submit content we publish.
Best,
Ben Bell

In discussing it with him on the phone today, I found the proposition intriguing, but am still undecided whether to pursue it. Actually, I sort of wanted y’all’s input on it, and was going to write a post listing the pros (such as, he said they WOULD link to my blog, and it might boost my traffic) and cons (as in, “the position is not paid”) as I saw them and asking what y’all thought, but I’m just too tired, and right now I want to go eat my dinner, and have a beer before I hit the sack. Maybe later.

Then I ran to Al Amir with the ADCO partners for an early lunch.

Then I went to the Vincent Sheheen thing downtown.

Then Lora and I conducted an interview with a guy in Canada about a potential project for ADCO. One that will require quite a few more such interviews before we’re even getting rolling good on it. Then, I suggested some wording changes for something we were doing on an RFP for another prospective client.

Then, there was another meeting about a project that just came up which I need to get finished by the end of the day tomorrow for an actual (not merely prospective) ADCO client. Not hard, but fairly labor-intensive (which means not much blogging tomorrow, either).

Then I sat down and whipped out a press release for that same client, minus a couple of questions I hope to get answered by tomorrow morning.

Then I went over some materials from yet another client who needs some PR help, anticipating running into the client tomorrow morning and taking it to the next step.

Then, determined that I would get SOMETHING to the point of completion today, around 6 p.m. I whipped out that post about the Sheheen thing, but now that I look at it I see it is practically incoherent.

And then I came home. And on the way home, I decided I’d write this to explain why the blog was less than stellar today, and why you didn’t get a Virtual Front Page.

Because, while I don’t have a lot to show (yet) for all my busy-ness today, I’m just so tired…

It was one of those days.

The News Corp. contribution to the GOP

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Last night at the dinner table my wife was reading The Wall Street Journal, and on the side toward me I noticed the headline, “News Corp. Gives $1 Million to GOP.” Personally, I wasn’t interested enough to read the story (I’d already seen stuff about it earlier in the day), but I was curious about one thing — what page was I looking at? In other words, how far back in the paper would the WSJ, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., play the story.

It was page A4, she told me. OK, fine. I filed that away and went back to my dinner.

But I was reminded of it this morning when I saw these two Tweets from Jason Zacher:

So if GE (NBC), Disney (ABC), and Viacom (CBS) give tons of political money with no headlines, why do we care about Murdoch’s donation?about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

OH! That’s right. It’s because the rest of the media hates FoxNews for being #1.about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

To that, I had to respond, “Because it’s NEWS Corp — mainly about journalism, not making toasters. I don’t care much, but that’s why it gets attention.

Jason said back:

Sure, but a ton of its profits come from 20th Cent, HarperCollins, Fox Television, and several dozen other properties.

Yes, Jason, but the fact remains that Rupert Murdoch is mainly seen as a “press lord.” It’s a matter of image. Like my distant relative William Randolph “Citizen Kane” Hearst delving into politics.

Oh, y’all didn’t know Hearst and I were related? Yep. The Hearsts were originally from South Carolina, you know — way back. Another distant relative who was into genealogy once told us that my Dad was Patty’s fifth cousin. Which means we didn’t exactly come in for a piece of San Simeon.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. While it doesn’t interest me very much that Murdoch wants to make a political contribution, if it DID, I’d mainly be ticked that he whips out his checkbook so readily for them, when it took him months to send me a measly amount when I had covered one of the hottest political stories of the year for him. But that would be petty of me, wouldn’t it?

I did arch an eyebrow when I read this passage in the WSJ story:

News Corp. spokesman Jack Horner said the contribution was intended to promote the company’s core beliefs. “News Corporation has always believed in the power of free markets and in organizations like the RGA, which have a pro-business agenda and support our priorities at this most critical time for our economy,” he said.

He added, “The corporate donation has no impact on the reporting activities of our newsgathering organizations. There is a strict wall between business and editorial and the corporate office does not consult with our newsgathering organizations … before making donations.”

But for a very esoteric, inside-baseball kind of reason. Basically, the passage is unclear because of the terminology. “Editorial,” used by a business-side guy, is a vague term meaning “news,” and only peripherally, “editorial” in the editorial-page sense. He’s trying to say that the NEWS side is unaffected. And I believe that’s true, aside from the fact that they’re no doubt embarrassed at having to report this, even on Page A4.

But what about the wall between news and editorial (one that is rhetorically erased by using “editorial” to refer to both), or the wall between editorial (as I use the term, meaning the opinion folks) and business side? Obviously, neither of those critical divisions is important to Mr. Horner.

Of course, at the WSJ, the point is rather moot. That paper’s editorial board was totally on board with “the power of free markets” LONG before they were owned by Rupert.

Gee, I just can’t WAIT to buy me some of THAT

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As a newly minted Mad Man, I’ve really gotta hand it to the ad wizards who managed to sell Camel on THIS campaign. Mind you, it’s the sales side that’s impressing me here, not the creative.

I mean, you only come away from this item wondering two things:

  1. Does “Snus” rhyme with “news” or with “fuss?” And whichever it is, what the heck does it mean? Where’d it come from (I get the “snu-” part, just not the “s”)? Does it describe or suggest something camels do?
  2. Come on, can’t you GUARANTEE that I’ll suffer gum disease and tooth loss? That “can” seems a bit weak.

I mean, really — if the warning’s gotta be that bold and so much more readable than anything else on the document, why go to the trouble of crafting this item? Are you TRYING to lose market share? Or is it that you assume that anyone who uses your product is so amazingly stupid that they can be relied upon to ignore the warning, and be dazzled by the garish colors? Or, is it that you’re assuming that they know ALL such products will give them horrible diseases, but you think this will still inspire them to choose your product over the others? And if so, what precisely in this particular communication do you think is going to reel them in?

The coupon, perhaps. Yeah, that’s the ticket. It’s gotta be the coupon…

Big day for Pawmetto Lifeline

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First, a disclaimer: Pawmetto Lifeline, previously known as Project Pet, is a client of ADCO. We did their new Web site, which launched today. I wrote some of the copy for it. That’s why I was at the groundbreaking today.

Now, to my report…

Project Pet has been around since 1999. It started with the activism of some well-connected local folks such as Deloris Mungo, Samuel Tenenbaum and a host of others. With the groundbreaking today for the organization’s new home on Bower Parkway (near Harbison), it’s about to take a giant leap into realizing the dream of the founders and others who have worked to advance the cause over the past decade. Here’s an excerpt from the Web site:

In 2008, more than 23,000 companion animals entered the municipal animal shelters in Richland and Lexington counties. More than 19,000 of these animals were euthanized.

What we are all about is reducing that number to zero. That’s the dream, and we’re going to make it a reality. Actually, perhaps “dream” is too insubstantial a word. We are approaching our goal systematically and pragmatically. We have developed, and are well on the way to implementing, a solid plan employing specific, identified solutions – solutions that have been proven to work. Wishful thinking is not our way.

How will we know we’ve succeeded? When no healthy, treatable, adoptable pet is euthanized in Lexington or Richland counties. A giant leap in that direction was the ground-breaking Aug. 12 on our new facility on Bower Parkway – the Meyer-Finlay Pet Adoption Center of Lexington and Richland Counties.

Of course, we’ve already accomplished a great deal. Since 1999, Project Pet – now Pawmetto Lifeline – has been the conscience of compassion for the Midlands community and a vital area resource for humane care for our abandoned and homeless animals. Our legacy is one of devotion to responsible and compassionate care for the homeless animals of our community, and of fostering the animal-human bond. The core purpose of Pawmetto Lifeline is to promote and practice the principle that every life is precious.

Since our founding, we have rescued over 6,000 animals that would have been put to death otherwise.

When our new home is ready, we’ll be able to do so much more.

We will be able to rescue an additional 2,200 cats and dogs annually from shelters – up from our current rate of 800 annually – which means 3,000 animals that otherwise would not have a chance will live full and healthy lives. More than that, we will be working to break the cycle that has in the past led to hopelessness for so many helpless creatures: With the addition of full-time vets and a medical clinic housed in our new building, we will be able to spay and neuter more than 30,000 animals annually.

In our new building, one staff veterinarian will be able to spay or neuter 7,560 animals each year. But we aren’t going to have just one vet – eventually, we will house four. That adds up to a potential 30,240 procedures per year!

An important thing to note: This operation is a public-private deal. Richland and Lexington counties have formed a partnership with Pawmetto Lifeline to address the over-population issue of companion pets in the two counties. The counties are depending on the organization to provide:

  • an aggressive spay and neuter program that includes a mobile component that will focus on rural areas.
  • a no-cost spay/neuter voucher program
  • adoptions for a minimum of 2,400 dogs and cats from the two counties’ animal shelters.
  • an education program that focuses on proper care for companion pets, including not only such basics as food, water, and shelter, but proper annual medical care.
  • animal behavior training.
That’s why there were several officials from the two counties at the ceremony. From Richland County Council there were Jim Manning, Norman Jackson and Bill Malinowski. From Lexington County Council, Debbie Summers, Smokey Davis, Johnny Jeffcoat and John Carrigg.
Also sitting front and center was Austin Meyer, who with his wife gave the biggest chunk of money to build the new center — $1.5 million. Which is why the center is named for them and their family. Austin, a member of the prominent local Finlay family, is quite a story on his own. He’s the creator of the wildly successful X Plane flight simulator — which I hear recently ran the Microsoft version right out of the sky. And he lives here. Bet you didn’t know that.
Anyway, it was a big day in the lives of thousands of critters in the Midlands — and folks who care about them. It was hot, but there was quite a celebratory atmosphere now that this big day has arrived. The center is to be up and running in Fall 2011.

bradwarthen.coffee

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Who’d like to invest in a coffee shop in Surfside Beach that is designed purely as a place for people to take their laptops and connect via wi-fi?

There’s a real gap in the market there. And the public library that was my refuge last week has its limitations. For instance, my son-in-law, who is a economist/consultant, needed wi-fi in a place where he could simultaneously talk on the phone — so he ended up going to a Starbucks way up in Myrtle Beach. (Even there, I don’t know how welcome he was, talking into his cell phone in a public place, which suggests the need for a better place that is all ABOUT connectivity.)

OK, maybe “bradwarthen.coffee” is a goofy name for the place — maybe I should get my fellow ad wizards at ADCO to work on it — but I was thinking that it needs a name that tells people it exists for bloggers (like Tim Kelly, who also vacations there and has to go to McDonald’s of all places to get connected) and others who can’t get through their vacations without a reliable place to connect.

This is a bit of a throwback — a decade or two — to the old “Internet cafes” that existed before access was widespread. But I think that in a vacation spot like that that lacks a Starbucks or a Panera, it would have a real chance to catch on.

The money would be made from coffee and snacks, as one certain source of revenue, but they would not be the main attraction. And while my first instincts are that the wi-fi must be free, if it were inviting and accommodating enough (with amenities like LOTS of electrical outlets so you don’t have to jockey for those spaces, and maybe soundproof booths for those needing to teleconference and such) perhaps the market would bear a small fee for the access. I don’t know. This is just the beginning of an idea…

Just ran into Nikki Haley. She looked well…

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I ran into Nikki Haley at lunch today, at M Vista on Lady Street. She was there with Rob Godfrey and Tim Pearson of her campaign.

I think it was the first time I’d conversed with her since that time at Starbucks on Gervais shortly after the 2008 election. That day, she had a young woman in tow whom she introduced as being “with my campaign,” and I thought that was odd. The ’08 campaign was over, and it was early for a House candidate to be having meetings about the next campaign. I was probably the most shocked guy in South Carolina when it came out a month or two later than she was running for governor — it just seemed so totally unlikely that she would see herself as ready for that. It was the beginning of me seriously wondering about Nikki…

Anyway, Nikki was pleasant and charming as always when I went up to chat with her today. I don’t think Rob or Tim were all that thrilled to see me, though. They certainly didn’t smile, but then we guys don’t, do we, under such circumstances? Nikki did, but then ladies do.

We didn’t talk shop. She did the standard thing polite people do when other topics are awkward — she asked after my family. Then she asked how I was doing, and I told her that I was with ADCO and having lunch with my colleagues over there, and gave her one of my ADCO cards. She said I was probably glad not to be at the paper any more, and I thought that was perceptive of her. Or a good guess. Maybe it was just an understated slap at the paper; I don’t know. So I asked how she was holding up, and she said great, and I said something about how things had probably gotten a lot less crazy in the last few weeks, and she agreed. And then she asked me again about my family. So I began to dismiss myself, thinking I should wish her all the best but wanting to be honest, and ended up saying something totally inane like, “Well, as long as you’re enjoying yourself; that’s the thing…”

My ADCO friends thought it odd that I had gone to speak with her. Maybe they thought I was showing off, as in That Brad! He’ll just do any crazy thing! But that’s because they only know about Nikki and me through what I’ve written on the blog lately. They don’t realize that I’ve known her for years, and we’ve always had a very cordial relationship. I’ve happily endorsed her twice — in 2004 and 2008 (those were the only elections in which she had opposition), and always enjoyed chatting with her. I always had good hopes for her — before she embarked on her quest to become the new Mark Sanford and darling of the Tea Party, South Carolina’s answer to Sarah Palin. Which is deeply unfortunate.

So it was nice to see her, even though there was that slight awkwardness.

There is nothing wrong with this cartoon

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In fact, it’s quite awesome.

I missed it when Robert put it out week before last, and I’m glad it’s been called to my attention now. It’s hard to imagine a more pointed evocation of exactly what’s wrong with Nikki Haley. Or one of the things wrong with her, anyway.

What might be harder to imagine, to a sensible person who understands the concepts of satire and the idioms of topical visual communication, is the controversy it engendered.

It wasn’t all that much, of course. Just intimations that he was essentially calling her a “raghead.” Or check this one out, helpfully headlined, “Reminder: Nikki Haley is a Secret Muslim Whore.” An excerpt:

Now, just a month after Haley’s victory, one Republican cartoonist has emerged from his gutterto dredge up the same vile race-baiting and sexism that failed to derail her primary campaign. In a cartoon published Tuesday (pictured above), Robert Ariail portrays the Indian-American gubernatorial candidate as a bikini-clad pageant queen in the first panel and a niqab-clad Muslim in the second.  The cartoon explicitly echos previous race-, religion-, and gender-based attacks against Haley, a practicing Methodist raised in the Sikh tradition by her immigrant parents.

Ariail depicts Haley as a radical Muslim posing as an all American pageant contestant so she can put one over on voters.  He claims that’s totally different than when State Senator Jake Knotts described Haley as “a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons.”

All utter … let me think of a nice word… nonsense. An ironic side note: Robert’s used to getting this kind of … nonsense… from the left, so at least this is a change of pace, reflecting the extreme right’s recent and sudden discovery of the power of Identity Politics.

Silly as it all was, Robert was nevertheless asked by a local TV station to account for himself, which he dutifully did:

The cartoon on Ms. Haley is, I think, pretty straight forward: It contrasts her campaign’s message of open government and transparency ( which I support ) with her recent closed-door meetings, her refusal to release House e-mail accounts and her explanations on consulting fees and what she did to earn them. The cartoon is neither salacious nor an ethnic or religious slur. I came up with the idea of her as “Miss Transparency” wearing the title sash and bikini and chose the burqa as the best clothing metaphor representing the opposite of transparency. The burqa is a visual metaphore I’ve used before to make similar points. It is not about Ms. Haley’s religion- after all, she was a Sikh, not a Muslim, before she became a Christian. Anyone who claims this cartoon is an ethnic or religious slur is deliberately misconstruing its simple, issue-oriented meaning.

Robert Ariail
robertariail.com

I appreciate Robert’s extreme patience in providing this “hold-you-by-the-hand-and-explain-the-obvious” explication, but it almost ruins the cartoon for me that he had to. Explanation is death to comedy. And if there must be an explanation, I prefer the one that Robert suggested to me when I told him this morning I might post something about the foolishness that some chose to read into the cartoon. He suggested that I tell y’all, “Robert’s not thinking about s__t like that” when he does his thing. Please excuse his technical newspaperman jargon.

My message is, this is everything a cartoon should be: It makes an excellent political point that needs to be made, and it provides a laugh along the way. Good job, Robert.

Oh, one other thing. Today Wes Wolfe raised a new question about the cartoon (which is what got me to thinking about it): After saying that “After discussing the piece with friends, we decided that was perhaps not the best way to go” (which suggests to me he might need some new friends), Wes suggested that the cartoon may have had something to do with Robert parting company with The Nerve, the S.C. Policy Council Web pub Robert had done some cartoons for recently — since, you know, Nikki’s their kind of gal.

Well, that seemed unlikely to me, and Robert confirms: When you go back to work for the MSM, you can’t still be associated with what is essentially a propaganda entity. It’s just not a good fit. So he chose, wisely, the Spartanburg paper over The Nerve — and those folks understood, and they parted on good terms — as Wes notes. And now Robert’s back doing what he ought to do.

Finally, a bonus: Robert’s gotten into hot water over burqas before, ALSO over a hilarious, pointed cartoon that had absolutely nothing wrong with it. It was the one making fun over the controversy in the Legislature over young female pages being dressed too provocatively. The hoo-hah over that one at least led to something good — a conversation between me and Robert about how everybody seemed to be after him with the torches and pitchforks, which in turn led to the cover of his last book.

Anyway, for your enjoyment, a look at that earlier “offensive” cartoon:

From Honest Abe to Opulence: awesome adverts

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First, unlike more typical folks here in the eighth-laziest state in the nation, I don’t watch all that much TV. When I turn the box on, it’s usually to watch a DVD (0ften of TV shows, but is that the same as “watching TV”? I don’t know). And when I actually do surf the broadcast and cable offerings, I have a very itchy finger on the channel-changer, and commercials are occasions for launching another circuit of my options.

So when I actually see an ad that makes me stop and watch it, and want to watch it again, and call family members in to see it — that’s a rare occasion.

There are currently two such ads on the tube these days. One is above, and the other below. Hats off to the ad geniuses who made these; every detail is perfect. I particularly love the conceit of making the Abe Lincoln clip old and scratchy, sort of stretching the facts of history to pretend moving pictures were available in the days of Matthew Brady.

But the Russian mafioso and his miniature giraffe — that’s also to bust a gut over. Who dreamed that up? Who thought of the giraffe, or his goofy paroxyms of joy as he smooches it? It’s so riveting you almost don’t notice the babes next to him, which is amazing.

So hats off to the agencies that I THINK are responsible for these gems: the Martin Agency for the Honest Abe (those guys are awesome — whoever heard of so many totally separate, memorable, highly creative campaigns going on for one client at the same time? And they keep it up year after year), and Grey Advertising for the “Opulence — I has it” advert.

Good stuff, folks. As an aspiring ad man, I will try to emulate your brilliance.

Robert Ariail’s new gig!

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I know y’all will all join me in congratulating the Spartanburg Herald-Journal for having the good sense to hire my great friend Robert Ariail.

As Robert says, “I think the Herald-Journal is showing a lot of faith in the future of newspapers and of editorial cartooning.” Indeed. At a time when papers are jettisoning cartoonists left and right — in fact, ALL of my cartoonist friends have been laid off over the last couple of years — this is a tremendous expression of right-thinking. It shows Spartanburg understands what newspapers are about.

Unlike me, who after 35 years of newspapering have moved on to do new things, Robert never lost faith in his desire to keep doing what he does best — what he indeed does better than practically anyone else in the world.

This is very good news.

Problems with “Mad Men” season opener

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Well, I don’t really know how to put my finger on it; I just found it lacking. As my wife said, if this is an indication of what the new season is going to be like, we’ve waited a long time for nothing good.

A writer for Advertising Age is much more specific in his objections:

I felt George’s pain in the opening scene of Sunday’s episode, however. Don Draper is at lunch with an Ad Age reporter, and our guy’s first line is: “Who is Don Draper?” Don doesn’t know what to say, so he asks how other people responded to such a question. “They say something cute,” our reporter says. “One creative director said he was a lion tamer.”

The Ad Age reporter is taking notes for his story in shorthand. He asks about a Glo-Coat ad that caused “a bit of a squeal,” then says he has enough for his story. “It’s only going to be a few hundred words. The picture may be bigger than the article.” At that point other members of the agency show up, including Roger Sterling, and when the reporter gets up to leave he turns his leg entirely around and explains he lost his real limb in Korea. When he departs, Sterling quips, “They’re so cheap they can’t afford a whole reporter.”

What’s wrong with this picture? No. 1, we never did interviews over lunch; No. 2, we didn’t take notes in shorthand; No. 3 we didn’t ask cute-ass questions; and No. 4, our pictures were never bigger than our stories.

OK, dude; lighten up. It’s a TV show. But yeah, it was lacking.

There was one part I liked. It was when Don Draper makes a pitch to unappreciative clients (or potential clients; I doubt that anything had been signed), and then gets so ticked off at them he storms out of the meeting. Then, when one of his associates follows him out to say something about trying to salvage the situation, Don essentially says Hell, no and marches back in to summarily throw the philistines out of the office.

My wife sort of went, “Whoa!” at such extreme behavior. Which was my cue to say, “That’s essentially what I do at ADCO. That’s my role.”

I can get away with stuff like that now. When I was at the paper, she could see what I did every morning. Now, I can be more mysterious.

“Graham’s courageous stand for the republic”

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After I got done stewing about having screwed up on the Biden thing, I remembered that I owed Cindi Scoppe a phone call. Speaking to her reminded me that I meant to call your attention to The State‘s editorial yesterday, “Graham’s courageous stand for the republic.”

It was really, really good. So good that after I read it at breakfast yesterday, I e-mailed Cindi to say:

Excellent lede today. Did you write that, or did I?
It needs to be said loudly and often.

OK, so maybe that wouldn’t be a compliment to you, but I think Cindi saw it as such. You know, knowing my ego as she does.

But it really did say pretty much everything I would have said — of course, one of the great things about working with Cindi over the years was that she could do that. There was a time when I felt like I had to write any important edit about state government or politics to get the message just right, and the right tone and feel into it (to please me, anyway). But I realized shortly after I brought Cindi up from the newsroom that if I just spent a few minutes explaining to her what I wanted, in a few minutes she’d turn it around into an edit that was everything I had wanted, and just as good as if I’d written it — and several hours faster.

The great thing about this was that I didn’t have occasion to tell her what I wanted (you may have heard, I don’t word there any more), and yet I got it anyway. But more important than it being what I wanted, it’s what South Carolina needed to hear about Graham’s decision to vote for Elena Kagan’s nomination, and his cogent explanation of his reasoning.

An excerpt:

THROUGHOUT the first two centuries or so of our nation’s history, what Sen. Lindsay Graham did on Wednesday when he voted to confirm President Obama’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court would have been thoroughly unremarkable. What would have been remarkable would have been for a senator to do otherwise — to vote against confirming a nominee who did not have serious ethical, legal, mental or intellectual problems.

But as Sen. Graham told the Judiciary Committee, things are changing…. What matters today are individual agendas, and punishing anyone who doesn’t agree with their every opinion.

That’s a threat not just to the independence of the judiciary but to the republic itself…

As when he voted to confirm Mr. Obama’s first Supreme Court appointment a year ago, Sen. Graham said Wednesday that Ms. Kagan was not someone he would have appointed, but Mr. Obama won the election; the job of the Senate is merely to stop a president from appointing people who are objectively unfit to be judges.

Will Ms. Kagan join the liberal wing of the court? Probably. Just as President Bush’s appointments joined the conservative wing. We wish there weren’t such clearly defined wings…. But that’s a political preference we have; not a constitutional standard appropriate for senators to consider. As far as confirmation goes, there’s nothing wrong with Ms. Kagan. Just as there was nothing wrong with Sonia Sotomayor. Or with John Roberts. Or with Samuel Alito. And any senator who votes or voted against any of them was simply wrong.

But go read the whole thing. And share it with every South Carolinian you know.

Eat your heart out, George Costanza

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Sorry I haven’t posted today, but I’ve been busy.

I’m just branching out into all sorts of new fields of endeavor since becoming a Mad Man and joining ADCO — exploiting latent talents I didn’t even know I had.

Here’s the latest: Hand model. Soon, you might be seeing my hand on a billboard down in the Lowcountry. That’s because we needed background art — of anonymous hands operating office equipment — for a board we were doing for a client. Karen and I ran over to the client’s showroom to shoot it earlier this week, and she shot a bunch of exposures of my hands pretending to push buttons. I shot some of her doing the same, but it was Karen’s camera (a very nice Nikon SLR) and she’ll be picking the image we use, and in my experience, when given a choice, photographers prefer their own work.

So this is my big shot. A number of years ago I pressed The State to include in a billboard campaign several boards highlighting the faces of my associates Cindi Scoppe, Warren Bolton and Claudia Brinson. I thought then that someone in Marketing (The State actually had a marketing department back then) would say, “We need one of Brad, too!” But they didn’t, drat the luck. So my colleagues got famouser and I didn’t.

But this is my big break. And I’m going to be really careful with my hands. I’m not going to mess them up the way George Costanza did his. (Yes, now I, too, have “hand,” George!)

And in a way, this kind of notoriety is sweeter than having people know your face. I won’t be pestered for autographs. I’ll be able to sit in a restaurant, for instance, undisturbed and overhear women at an adjoining table:

FIRST WOMAN: Have you seen that wonderful new office equipment ad?

SECOND WOMAN: Those hands! They’re so… so hot!

FIRST WOMAN: Yes! They make me all quivery…

… while I smile enigmatically, perusing the menu.

Just please — don’t hate me because my hands are beautiful.

Here's pointing at YOU, kid...