Category Archives: Working

There’s something backward about this: Sanford’s on vacation, and I’m not

This morning, The State continued to mine the e-mails and phone records it has FOIed from the governor’s office. We learned among other things that Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor was hunting for Sanford when he went MIA last year with his girlfriend.

My former paper also had a story about what I wrote about yesterday — the fact that the governor is taking time off from work yet again. I particularly liked what Boyd Brown had to say:

“I thought he was going to focus on getting the state back on track,” said state Rep. Boyd Brown, D-Fairfield. “It doesn’t sound like he’s with the program.”

Sanford canceled a meeting with John Rainey, chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors, to discuss state revenue data. Sawyer said Sanford’s canceled meetings will be rescheduled….

Another concern is the state’s 12.1 percent jobless rate, tied for third-highest in the nation. New jobless numbers are expected Friday. E-mails released by the governor’s office show Sanford declined at least one meeting with a company looking to expand its S.C. operations because he was in Argentina.“It might be a wise idea for the governor to be out of town when the new unemployment numbers come out,” Brown said.

You can say that again.

But the most meaningful part of the story, to me, was this:

Since June 18, when he left for Argentina, Sanford has spent 12 of 28 calendar days in Columbia or on the road on gubernatorial duties, according to his governor’s office. Sanford did not work on six of 19 business days during that period.

The rest of Sanford’s time has been spent at his Sullivan’s Island home or on family retreats.

Twelve out of the last 28 days actually on the job… Folks, I’ve been unemployed since March, and I haven’t had the spare time to so much as go to the beach for a day. I’m busy on a freelance job today (which I’m about to get back to), and I’ll be busy tomorrow, and I’ll continue to stay busy until I land a full-time job, and will be busy for a long time after that.

But I’ve always had trouble understanding the governor’s work ethic. When he first started running for governor, he had been out of Congress for a couple of years. I asked him then what he had been doing. “Nothing,” he said, adding something about hanging out with the boys, changing diapers.

I think it’s great for a man to spend time with his family. A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man. And Mark Sanford right now really needs to be working on that. But at some point, we have to talk about the fact that the man is being paid to do a job, and he wasn’t doing it very well to start with …

No public schedule for YOU!

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A working journalist friend has been forwarding me the governor’s public schedule, and she’s tired of doing it, and says I should just ask Joel (Sawyer, the gov’s press guy) to send them straight to me, and I haven’t asked him yet. Do you think he’ll send me one? Am I, as a blogger, sufficiently legit? We’ll see. When I get around to it. I’m kinda busy job-hunting and stuff.

But if he’s going to refuse to send one to anybody, it will be the folks over at the state Democratic Party. I mean, the poor guy tries to take a few days with the wife (he just sent out a new schedule postponing the rest of the week’s appointments so he can have some time with Jenny) under extremely trying circumstances, and they get all over his case:

SC Dems Outraged By Sanford Second Summer Vacation

Columbia, SC – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler released the following statement today in response to Governor Mark Sanford taking another vacation after being back on the job for less than a month. Sanford canceled pending work for the rest of the week.

“A good many South Carolina families with out-of-work breadwinners had been hoping their governor would stick around and look for ways to bring more jobs to the state. He’s essentially been off the job for a month, and now he’s off again for a week’s vacation.

“Of course, unlike most South Carolinians, Mark Sanford gets paid whether he shows up for work or not. Once again it’s clear that there is one set of rules for Sanford and another set of rules for everyone else,” said Fowler.

Now, you see, Sanford’s thinking about now, this is why I didn’t put out public schedules before now…

I strongly suspect that — apart from when he was doing his executive budgets, which he was very obsessive about, and I mean that in a good way — one reason the gov never put out schedules before was because they would have looked kinda thin. I don’t know that; I just infer it from all the complaints I got from people who said this governor wouldn’t meet with them, unlike previous governors. Such as the folks over at Employment Security, who can be seen complaining about that very thing on this video.

So unless the governor starts doing a lot of gubernatorial stuff he didn’t used to do, his public schedules are going to give his critics lots of ammo. Which is why South Carolina’s Democrats are so thrilled that he keeps saying he’s not going to resign. They really, really want this state of affairs to continue through the 2010 election. It’s like Christmas every day for them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations to Samuel!

Sorry, but my e-mail is down

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

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

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

Return of the wayward gaucho: Blog here about the prodigal governor

Finally, my browser is working again!…

Believe it or not, with the biggest South Carolina political story of the year (perhaps the decade) breaking, I’m busy this morning on a consulting project that I’ve got to get done today, while I’m busting to explore the implications of this morning’s startling news.

I’m sure all of you were just as stunned as I was to learn that the Appalachian Trail leads through Buenos Aires. I mean, who knew?

There are a thousand questions to raise. Someone asked me if the governor would be impeached. For what, exactly? His staff lying to the press? Grand theft auto involving state property? Gross irresponsibility (not sure that’s covered in the constitution)?

One thing we DO know for sure is that this puts an absolute and welcome end, post paid and that’s all she wrote, on all the ridiculous, irresponsible, utterly moronic talk about Mark Sanford being presidential timber.

I’ve got to get back to work. Anyway, here’s the latest, and I thought I’d go ahead and get this up to give y’all a place to discuss the implications. I’ll be back with you as soon as I can:

By GINA SMITH – [email protected]

ATLANTA | S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford arrived in the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this morning, having wrapped up a seven-day visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said. Sanford said he had not been hiking along the Appalachian Trail, as his staff said in a Tuesday statement to the media.

Sanford’s whereabouts had been unknown since Thursday, and the mystery surrounding his absence fueled speculation about where he had been and who’s in charge in his absence. His emergence Wednesday ended the mystery.

Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money.

Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student.

“But I said ‘no’ I wanted to do something exotic,” Sanford said “… It’s a great city.”

Sanford, in a brief interview in the nation’s busiest airport, said he has been to the city twice before, most recently about a year and half ago during a Commerce Department trip.

Sanford said he was alone on the trip. He declined to give any additional details about what he did other than to say he drove along the coastline.

Sanford, who was wearing a blue and white button down shirt and brown denim pants, said he left for Buenos Aires on Thursday night from Columbia International Airport and had originally planned to come back tomorrow.

Health & Happiness today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Health and Happiness 6/22/09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have I got time to tell about my IQ test?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which … I did.

First of all …

my extremely high IQ score never showed up on Facebook.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But she persisted, and I went on to explain…

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

SC (official) jobless rate rises to 12.1%

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

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

Encouraging, huh?

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

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

Taking Sunday off

Kathryn asks where my Sunday edition of “top stories” is. Here’s how I answered:

Taking a day off. There’s not enough news for a decent front page by my standards. If I owned a newspaper, and it took a day of the week off, it would be Sunday. I generally ignore the Sunday paper myself, since it’s all make-work gotta-fill-the-Sunday-paper stuff. Almost no news.

I realize I’m not typical.

Apart from the fact that I don’t like working on Sundays, there’s just a dearth of news. For most newspapers, it’s their biggest seller of the week. I’ve always wondered why, because I’m a newshound, and it’s almost always the least newsy paper of the week. To each his own, I guess.

Mind you, I’m not saying there’s no news anywhere. We have this out of Israel, for instance. And the situation in Iran certainly bears watching. But there’s not enough for a full, rounded front page by my standards. And I don’t feel like straining at it.

Out here in the Fifth Estate

My latest follower on Twitter (I’m up to 67) is ICFJ, the International Center for Journalists, which is dedicated to “advancing quality journalism worldwide.”

The trick these days, of course, is to figure out how to do that and make money at it. The woods are full of unemployed journalists such as myself, and we’re all for producing quality work (preferably “good-quality,” as opposed to those other kinds), long as somebody will in return provide us with the means to put groceries on the table.

While I’ve slowed down a bit on the blogging lately, I’m just Twittering and Facebooking to beat the band out here and it’s interesting and ground-breaking and all that, but where’s the paycheck. I see that the NYT can afford to pay someone to do this stuff, but beyond the Gray Lady I’m not seeing all that many opportunities.

Yet.

It’s challenging out here in the Fifth Estate (that’s what comes after a career in the Fourth Estate, right?).

Happy, peaceful D-Day, Maj. Winters

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

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

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

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

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

So I’ve never tried to interview him.

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

My former employer is having me followed

Not sure what to make of this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I surrender to Twitter

OK, I did it. I signed up for Twitter. After months of dismissing and abusing the very notion of it, I gave in yesterday and signed up.

The last straw was that Tim Kelly told me last week that you could arrange it so that when you post on your blog, the headline goes out on Twitter. Haven’t figured out how to do that yet, but seems like it would be pretty cool. He said there’s also something clever I could do with Facebook vis-a-vis the blog.

I need to either get serious about this blog — fix up the appearance, promote it more, and most of all post more often — or give it up. As I’ve mentioned before, I actually find it harder to blog without full-time, permanent employment. As busy as I was at the paper, I was sitting at a computer (actually, two computers, or even three if you count the Blackberry) for about 12 hours a day, and I could post any time things slowed down a bit — when I was waiting for copy, or for somebody to call me back, or for proofs, or whatever. I had to go through tons of e-mail each day, and frequently things that came over the transom that way made for quick-and-easy blog fodder.

Now, as I run hither and yon trying to earn a living, I might have ideas for blog posts, but I don’t have time to sit and write them. I need to either figure a way to do that, or the blog’s gonna die on me.

Thanks to those of you who have stuck with me thus far. And suggestions, as always, are welcome.

Thanks, Senator Courson!

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

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

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

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

Blessed are the poor…

… because they give more generously than the rich, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Did you see that story?

Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America’s households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.

The figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.

None of the middle fifths of America’s households, in contrast, gave away as much as 3 percent of their incomes.

Did this surprise you? It didn’t me — at least, not after I thought about it for a moment. It’s the identification thing. The more affluent one is, the more likely one is to think of the poor as the “other,” to think of poverty as “a way you’ll never be.” This can lead one to think there must be something wrong with the poor on a moral level — that they’re lazy and just don’t try or whatever.

Not that I’m a paragon of sensitivity or anything, but I’ve never had that attitude, mainly because God blessed me with a tendency toward depression. He’s given me a taste of what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and unable to meet the challenges before me. Just a taste, mind you — I always manage to cope, and have never had that crippling kind of despondency that keeps people in their beds. But I’ve seen through that door, and I can easily see how dysfunctional I’d be if I’d never been successful at anything, had no education, no home, no real prospects. In fact, it causes me to marvel that people who are down and out manage to do ANYTHING, as so very many do.

So I didn’t really need to get laid off to see into the abyss, but now that I’ve had THAT experience, and am still having that experience — no permanent, full-time job with benefits at hand yet — I’m less likely than ever to be dismissive of the plight of the poor.

That AP story raised another interesting explanation for the relative generosity of the poor:

Herbert Smith, 31, a Seventh-day Adventist who said he tithed his $1,010 monthly disability check — giving away 10 percent of it — thought that poor people give more because, in some ways, they worry less about their money.

“We’re not scared of poverty the way rich people are,” he said. “We know how to get the lights back on when we can’t pay the electric bill.”

Now there’s an instance in which I do suffer from a malady of the bourgeois: I do have that middle-class horror of not being able to pay the bills. The prospect, which gets closer each day that I don’t have a steady job, is more than a little appalling. There’s that middle-class voice in my head that goes, “The electricity turned off? OHmyGod, NO!” Whereas Herbert takes it in stride, and keeps on giving.

Which ought to teach us something.

So how should I act now?

Sunday afternoon, I dropped by a fund-raising reception for Vincent Sheheen‘s gubernatorial campaign, just to check it out the way I always do.

It was at the Hunter-Gatherer. Kevin Varner from that establishment was my fellow guest on “Whad’Ya Know?” several weeks ago, and I told him then that I’d never been to the place but intended to do so sometime. This seemed like a good chance to follow through on that.

So I did what I usually do at such events — breeze by the sign-in table and start chatting with the guests, without signing in, and without making a contribution. Because I’m press. That is, I WAS press, for my whole adult life until very recently. Now, the closest thing I am to “press” is that I’m a blogger. But it feels natural to keep going to events such as this one for various candidates so I can keep up with what’s going on. After all, over the four years since I started blogging, I’ve gone to such events primarily as a blogger, not as an editorial page editor. So what’s different now?

I don’t know, but I recognize the potential for awkwardness. For instance, the next day I saw Boyd Summers at Rotary, and he mentioned seeing me at the Sheheen thing, and said isn’t it great that now that I’m not an editor, I can “do things like that.” Obviously, he thought I was there to be involved, that I was declaring my support for Vincent by being there. Which I wasn’t, so I set him straight on that. (Incidentally, I also saw Boyd at the “tea party” protest recently, and he didn’t assume I was supporting that, so what’s the diff? I was reminded of that yesterday when someone on Facebook called my attention to this picture of me and Boyd at that event. If you follow that link you’ll see that someone mistakenly identified Boyd as Mark Quinn from ETV.)

Anyway, I had a nice time for the half hour I was there (and yes, you CAN have a nice time even if you’re actually working). Had a pleasant chat with Vincent’s wife, Amy. We talked about the pope and other Catholic stuff for awhile. Then I excused myself, explaining that I was going to see “Star Trek” with my younger son, and she totally understood, because she and Vincent went to see “Star Trek” for their anniversary.

Anyway, others who were there included James Smith, Joel Lourie, Vincent’s dad Fred and others whom you would expect to find there. Maybe 30 people. I don’t know if there were speeches, because I left so soon.

But I had to wonder — did anyone else there make the mistake Boyd made? And how can I prevent that? Should I wear a sign that says, “I’m Just Blogging,” in letters big enough to be seen across the room? Or should I simply not go to political events? If so, how do I write about them? How do I have those critical casual conversations with people, the kind where you find out what’s really going on (as opposed to those stiff, “I’m calling you up to interview you” conversations)? Do I have to rely entirely on running into them by chance at Starbucks? I don’t mind, but as a strategy, that seem iffy.

Anyway, I’m still figuring out this “I used to be a newspaperman, but not any more” thing.

“Star Trek” was really good, by the way.

Should I make my move now?

Did you see the news? Ted Pitts is going to run for Gov Lite.

Ted Pitts is my representative (and a pretty good one). I live in his district. Legal resident and everything.

So what do you think? Should I take advantage of this pending vacancy to make my move? Is it put up or shut up time for the Unparty?

I could never run for office before, as it’s strictly against the rules for newspapermen. But now? Who knows? When election year rolls around, I could be working at something else that would present a conflict — either in my mind, or that of my future employer.

But it is an intriguing thought, nonetheless. As much as I’ve written over the years about what legislators should do…

Apt words from the prophet Nathan

Speaking of Nikki reminds me of her fellow Lexington County rebel Nathan Ballentine, and the nice thing he sent to me when I got laid off.

I should mention, of course, that Nikki was quite kind and thoughtful to me as well — in fact, both Nikkis were. Rep. Haley and Sen. Setzler both called me and said the nicest things (along with a lot of other politicos I’ve written about over the years, ranging from Lindsey Graham on the federal level to former Columbia city councilwoman Ann Sinclair, and lots of nice folks in between — including the gov).

Anyway, my point is to share what Nathan sent me. He e-mailed me to say I should consult Jeremiah 29:11. Which I did:

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.

Just the right words, the ones I needed to hear. In this context I also love to read Matthew 7:7-11. (Look it up.) But I already knew that one. Nathan pointed me to a source of inspiration I had missed, and for that I am very grateful. I bookmarked it on my Blackberry, and take heart from it each day.

My caricature (an Ariail original, I’ll have you know)

My colleagues from the editorial department (both past and present) had a going-away party for Robert and me Sunday night, which was really, really nice. (Why so long after we left? It was the first time that Cindi, who hosted the shindig at her place, could round up enough of us.) Aside from the present crowd, the blasts from the past included Kent Krell, Nina Brook, Mike Fitts, Claudia Brinson and John Monk — plus former publisher Ann Caulkins, who came all the way down from Charlotte just for the party, which really touched me. And a special appearance by Lee Bandy.

Actually, I’m deeply touched by everyone who played a role in the event (some would say, of course, that I am just “touched,” period). It was really great. You know, an awful lot of people just keep doing things to prevent me from feeling bad about getting laid off, so I don’t know when the shock sets in.

Anyway, a highlight of such events is always the reading of the mock page, which I won’t go into, except to say that it was full of relatively inside jokes. Some of it was a little more mainstream, such as this excerpt from a column in which I am announcing my plan to run for governor on the Unparty ticket:

Thus validated, I concluded that
there’s no way South Carolina can
get anywhere without the leadership
of my Un-Party, which we’ll
begin to demonstrate just as soon
as we can settle on what
we believe in.
We’re for a strong,
energy-independent
America, respected
worldwide. As is everybody.
We’re for a South Carolina
that pays workers
the same wages that people
expect in the rest of
America. As is everybody.
We’re for a South
Carolina that takes care
of its citizens, and makes
sure that all its children
have a good education.
As is everybody, except
Gov. Sanford.
I talked about my idea with the
governor, who listened to indulge
his self-image as political scholar.
“At the end of the day, Brad,
you’ve got to decide if South Carolina
now has the right soil conditions
for you to grow your political
endeavor,” he said.
“Well, you’ve certainly added
fertilizer to our soil,” I replied.
“You’ll have a problem convincing
voters that your Un-Party
will be as good at un-governing the
state as I have been. After all, I’ve
given the state a new definition of
un-leadership,” he said.
I then took the opportunity to
take a few quick photos and a
video for the Web. Quality wasn’t
so good, as it turned out, since this
was a phone conversation.
“The question, to me, at the end
of the day, is whether you hate
government enough to want to run
it. I don’t think you do, Brad, but
so it goes. To be continued.”
As I disconnected my telephone
headset, I looked up to see Robert
Ariail waiting for me, sketches in
hand. He might well have been
standing there for 15 minutes, just
waiting. Cartooning is not a profession
for the sane.

I should stop there, because I know most of the stuff my colleagues never intended to see published. Oh, all right, one more sample, and then I’m going away. Here, the wiseguys were making fun of my weakness for pop culture allusions (particularly The Godfather) and my propensity to digress, parenthetically, to an absurd degree:

But just as useful for the purpose of creating thinly connected
film-derivative metaphors about politics, government, society or
whatever we might be struggling to make a coherent point about
is the warning that “When they come, they come at what you
love,” with its implicit imperative to preserve and protect the
family. It is an imperative that is made unmistakably explicit in
the words of Don Vito Corleone in the initial 1972 film, The Godfather,
by far the finest movie ever produced (South Carolina, of
course, does not have a don. The governor should be the don,
and others in the organization should tremble at his approach.
But because he does not have the power to rub out discordant
rivals on a whim, instead we must endure the endless gang warfare
we see at the State House.), when he asks apostle Luca
Brasi, who was very handy with a garrote: “Do you spend time
with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn’t spend time
with his family can never be a real man.” (Of course, if Luca
Brasi had spent all the time that he should have with his family,
the core unit and strength of our society, then maybe he wouldn’t
have ended up sleeping with the fishes.)

OK, so you had to be there (like, in the office for the last 22 years). I thought it was a hoot.

And of course, the don didn’t say that to Luca; he said it to Johnny Fontane. But you knew that.

Finally, there was the cartoon — the original of which Robert gave me, framed. Which is very cool (no one on my block has an original Ariail caricature of them, ha-ha). Yet another thing that makes getting laid off worthwhile.

Check out Jeffrey Day’s ‘Carolina Culture’ blog

Lots of folks have said very kind things in expressing their dismay at my having been laid off from the paper. But I don’t think the outpouring I’ve received has been quite as intense as the feeling in the arts community over the loss of my colleague Jeffrey Day. I saw an e-mail calling for a letter-writing campaign to protest his departure within 24 hours of the news breaking — and unlike me, Jeffrey wasn’t even mentioned in the news story. The arts grapevine just moved that fast. The gist of the message I saw was, we may have hated what he said in some of his reviews, but we’re going to miss the serious attention he gave the arts. Or something along those lines.

Well, Jeffrey’s back — with a blog he unveiled today. I urge you to go check it out. There’s something to be said for taking a little time before launching your blog. Jeffrey’s is certainly more esthetically pleasing than mine. But you’d expect that.

You know, once Robert gets the bugs worked out of his new blog (he actually has a Web guru going to his house to cast spells over it tomorrow, I hear), between that and mine and Jeffrey’s, you’re practically going to have a reconstituted Stet Pepper online. Just add water.

bradwarthen.com

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