There's not much there — the new blog is just taking its first, teetering, baby steps — but I urge you to go check out bradwarthen.com, and watch it grow.
I will no longer be doing THIS blog after Friday, so if you want to continue the conversation, you'll have to go there. Again, that address is:
And I promise, there will be much more to see there soon…
Robert Ariail delivered a lecture last Thursday night, as part of the prestigious Calhoun Lecture Series at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson U. It was about the history of cartooning in general, and at The State in particular.
Today, he dropped by my office to share an anecdote that he told up in Clemson, one which seems particularly apropos to share today, the day the news came out that his career at The State is coming to an end.
It's about the only other cartoonist The State ever actually employed full-time, back in the days of the Gonzales brothers, and why it took 74 years for the paper to hire one
after its first experience...
Don't know if you saw Cindi Scoppe's very touching column about me today. I pass on the link in case you missed it.
It means even more to me than you might think because, as she notes, she's not the sort to butter up the boss (certainly not one who's leaving), or anybody else. Cindi refers to herself as the "designated mean bitch" around here, which of course is entirely (or almost entirely) inaccurate. I prefer to think of her as tough-minded, which is what makes her one of the best in the business.
I'll tell you a little anecdote — Cindi was the first person (and just about the only one) to welcome me my first day on the job here. As Gordon Hirsch (a frequent commenter here) informed me, I was regarded as the "Knight-Ridder spy" because I was the first editor to come from another KR paper. It didn't matter that I had left Wichita the way Lot left Sodom. It was a lousy working situation, and I never looked back. But many here were convinced I was the corporate guy, so I got a lot of suspicious looks. (When I explained to Gordon how ridiculous it was, he shook his head and said none of that mattered. Far as scuttlebutt was concerned, I was the spy, so I might as well get used to it.) But Cindi, all of 23 years old at the time, strides through that cloud of suspicion right up to me, sticks out her hand and makes it clear that she, for one, was glad to have me here.
So it's fitting that she should bid me a public farewell. She didn't care who knew she was glad to meet me, and isn't a bit shy to let folks know she's sorry to see me go. And I've appreciated it both times.
While I'm thanking people, I have to apologize because in all the craziness of last week, I never got around to thanking Bob McAlister for the kind words that he wrote on his blog, which we published as an online-only column (online-only because we had recently run a column of his in the paper, so he was under our "30-day" guideline).
Bob, as I recall, regarded me a good deal more warily than Cindi, upon first meeting me. He was the communications chief — later chief of staff — for Gov. Carroll Campbell. It was his duty to be suspicious. But over the years we've fought a few battles together and become good friends. Bob is one of many such friends who have reached out and offered to do whatever they can to help in recent days, and in his case has actually taken action to ease my transition to … well, to whatever comes next.
Anyway, I wanted to be sure to thank both Cindi and Bob for thinking so kindly of me, from their differing perspectives.
Several of you asked whether my great friend Robert Ariail would be laid off. Well, today you got your answer. The delay because Robert was mulling an offer to stay on part-time, which he decided to decline.
Read Chuck Crumbo's story about Robert here. An excerpt:
Ariail, who joined The State in 1984, said he planned to continue
his work through United Media syndicate, which serves more than 600
newspapers and magazines.
“I
hope to find another job in editorial cartooning,” said Ariail, whose
last day at The State is Thursday. “I’m 53. It’s difficult to remake
myself, and I don’t want to.”
Among those laid off was Ariail’s boss for the past 15 years, vice president and editorial page editor Brad Warthen.
“Robert is probably one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with,” Warthen said.
One of Ariail’s strengths is his ability to needle and criticize leaders of all political persuasions, he said.
“Even
people who hate everything else on the editorial pages have to throw
him bouquets,” Warthen wrote in a forward to cartoonist’s 2001 book
“Ariail!!!,” a compilation of cartoons published in The State.
I'll post more about Robert later. I just wanted to go ahead and get this up, to give y'all a place to comment.
Yes, blog regulars, you did read much of this piece earlier in the week. But people who don't do blogs (a much larger number among newspaper readers) missed it, and there is some new material in it, at the beginning and the end. Not much, I'll admit, but some…
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
ONE OF THE tough things about getting laid off in a very public way is that you can’t get your work done — you can’t even walk down the street — for all the wonderful people who come up to you and say kind things. (Never mind the phone calls, e-mails and letters.)
Of course, it’s also the best thing about the experience, so don’t stop, folks. It doesn’t get old.
I’ve heard from everyone from Gov. Mark Sanford (yes, he was very kind and cordial, despite all those things I say about him) to old friends I worked with decades ago, far away from here. And I appreciated every one of them.
For those of you who missed it, I was in the news last week, along with a lot of my colleagues. To quote from thestate.com:
My last day is March 20.
For those of you who ask “why,” the answer is simple: The money’s just not there, and somebody had to go. I was one of the 38. You might say, to borrow a phrase from the Corleone family, this isn’t personal; it’s strictly business.
I’ve tried to keep readers on my blog in the loop about the profound changes going on in the newspaper industry, which have been accelerating. I’ve written about everything from the departures of longtime friends and colleagues who are not replaced, to the horrific news sweeping the industry more recently, with some newspapers going under.
This has not been a comfortable thing for me to do. For one thing, I always wonder how much my readers will care. Someone I respected in college — actually, he taught a course in editorial writing that I took — warned us that when one talks about one’s own industry, one runs the risk of boring one’s audience.
(So, what I try to explain when I do talk about it is that this is about you, too. Newspapers reflect their communities in more ways than simply publishing news and commentary. We also reflect our surroundings economically. Newspapers went into this recession in a weakened condition, and now we’re like the canary in the coal mine. If you’re hurting, we’re hurting. And vice versa, whether you realize it or not.)
For another reason, I recognize my own lack of detachment.
Finally, there is such a delicate balance to strike between telling all that I know or imagine I know, which is my instinct as a journalist, and respecting the confidentiality of things I know only because I’m an officer of this company — which gives me both an unfair advantage and a responsibility to those I work with. It can be awkward.
Anyway, in spite of that, I’ve tried to be frank about the situation whenever I’m asked — and on the blog, even when I’m not.
I leave here with a deep love for this newspaper, which I hope has been evident over the past couple of decades. It seems to have been evident to my boss — President and Publisher Henry Haitz — judging by the kind and gracious things he had to say about my service in his note on this page on Wednesday. (Sample: “He is a remarkable journalist and writer, with keen understanding of the issues most vital to our community and our state.”)
And I appreciate that.
What will I do next? I don’t know. I’ll be spreading my resume around, online and otherwise. In the meantime, give me a holler if you hear of a suitable position. One advantage I have over so many people who are looking for work now — more than 200,000 in South Carolina, I heard last week — is that a huge portion of the state has watched me on the job and formed a pretty detailed impression of my capabilities. (Of course, whether that works for me or against me depends on the individual reader.)
I can tell you this much — I have zero intention of “relocating,” to use an ugly word. When I came to the state of my birth in 1987 after years in this business in Tennessee and Kansas, I did so with the intention of staying for good. My days as a newspaper vagabond were over. Either things worked out at The State, or I would find some other line of work. And the thing is, things worked out very well.
The day I was interviewed here (for the job of governmental affairs editor), I told then-Executive Editor Tom McLean that my ultimate goal was to become editorial page editor. I believed that position offered the greatest opportunity to serve my state, which I believed needed its largest newspaper to have a strong, frank, lively editorial page. Thanks to Tom, I got my chance to do just that 10 years later, and I could not be more proud of the team I have had the privilege of working with, or the excellent job they have done — and that those who remain will continue to do, if I know them. (And I do.)
Obviously, this is a stressful time, but beneath it all is something that I don’t quite know how to describe, a sort of anticipation driven by curiosity. I wonder, with great interest, what will happen next. (That sounds either terribly trite or unintelligible; I can’t tell which, but I explained it as well as I could.)
So much for this subject today. This will not be my last column. For one thing, I promised you last week to write something about U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett’s candidacy for governor. I was going to do that for today, but I got distracted again. I’m sure you’ll understand.
For now, please visit thestate.com/bradsblog/ for more about this subject and everything else. Watch there to learn about my future blogging plans.
How dedicated am I to my craft? This dedicated: with the conflict between the governor and the Employment Security Commission being a burning issue in our state, I went and got myself laid off so I could go undercover and find out how the unemployment system in this state really works. I'm a regular Alec Leamas or something. That's my story anyway.
I learned an awful lot about it today — so much that I'm too tired now to sort through it all; I'd be writing all night. But it will produce a lot of fodder for the blog in the coming days, I expect. For tonight, I'll just pass on this tidbit…
The State invited representatives from various agencies who provide unemployment services — Employment Security, Commerce, and another program that I need to go back and clarify under which umbrella it falls — out to the paper to get the 38 folks laid off started on filing for help in finding a job, retraining, and getting those checks the ESC processes if you don't find a job right away. (And believe me, those checks are so small that you don't want to be unemployed and dependent upon them for five seconds more than absolutely necessary; they're a tremendous motivation to find a job.)
I spent about three hours with these various folks, and took copious notes. And I want to say that they were all very helpful and knowledgeable and professional and encouraging, which really helped me learn a lot for only three hours spent.
But you should get a chuckle out of this part: Someone was explaining to us about WorkKeys. Do you know about those? Basically, you take a battery of aptitude tests, and you get scores on a range of skills, and employers tell the gummint they want X number of workers who have scored at least a 4 in each category, or whatever, and you get matched up.
The gummint administers the test for free, and will even help you get training to get a higher score where you're lacking. You get certified, I think he said, with a rating of Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum. (There aren't many platinums, he said.)
But here's the best part. He said, "You also get a certificate, signed by the governor, saying that you are work-ready."
Now see, if I'd known this yesterday when the governor called me, I could have saved myself the time it will take to take those tests. I could have pointed out that if anybody knows what I am capable of, it's the governor. He probably would have whipped me out a certificate of work-readiness on the spot. So I guess I missed my chance.
Sorry not to have posted today. Aside from doing the work I usually do to get the opinion pages out, I'm dealing with a lot of e-mails and phone calls related to my personal and professional news — mostly very kind and thoughtful (although not quite all — hey, you know my public).
When I came in this morning, I was going to write something about our governor's latest, which is pretty wild and crazy and outrageous. I decided the headline was going to be, "Can you believe this guy?" I was going to say, he only wants the stimulus on his terms? Oh, yeah, it's all about him, all right, yadda-yadda…
But before I could write it, I got a call from the governor himself, in which he was very kind and gracious — which actually didn't surprise me a bit. On a personal level, I think he's a fine person, even though I wish he weren't our governor. Can you follow that (because a lot of people have trouble with it)? I said so here on the blog back when we endorsed his opponent in 2006:
I mean, I was kidding around a little when I said I was willing to put my life in his hands back here, but I was also being serious. The fact is that on a personal level he is a fine gentleman. Hand in hand with the fact that he places WAY too much faith in the private sector is the fact that in his private LIFE I see him as a good father and husband and so forth.
Anyway, he was very gracious in saying this morning that while we have had our differences, he had a certain respect for me and my colleagues, and he went on to pay us a compliment that you might find curious, but which I appreciated.
He cited the Teddy Roosevelt saying that "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena." Now, if I stopped there, you would think he actually meant to malign me and aggrandize himself, because here is the context of that portion of the speech TR delivered at the Sorbonne in 1910:
As you can see, it would be easy to cast me and those like me as the "critic," and the governor as the man in the arena.
But his purpose in saying that was to say that he sees me — and my colleagues on this editorial board — as also being in the arena, as among those who take risks, who strive valiantly, "who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause." I thought that was very generous of the governor, and perceptive, too — in that it's smart of him to know that I would LIKE to be described that way.
When I was 22 years old and starting out in this business, I wouldn't have wanted a politician to suggest I was in the arena. I was filled with all that J-school stuff about detachment and objectivity, and would rather have been cast as the critic. But along the way, I started to CARE about what happened to my community, my state, my country, the world — which ruined me as the kind of journalist I once aspired to be, but which I truly hope made me more useful to society. I have worked hard with that goal in mind — that of being useful, of trying to make a difference.
And I truly appreciate the governor recognizing that, and taking the time to tell me.
So, can you believe this guy? Only in this case, I mean that in a nice way.
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
ONCE, NOT so long ago, serious people decried the reduction and trivialization of political ideas to the level of a bumper sticker. Some days, I long for the coherence, the relevance, the completeness of bumper stickers.
Let’s knit together a few of the unraveled threads that have frayed my mind in the past week, shall we?
Thread One: A Colorado congressman who takes pride in his technological savvy claimed partial “credit” for the demise of a newspaper, saying, “Who killed the Rocky Mountain News? We’re all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it’s mostly for the better…. The media is dead and long live the new media.”
Thread Two: Last week, I started working out again. I can’t read when I’m on the elliptical trainer because I bounce up and down too much, so I turn on the television. This gives me an extended exposure to 24/7 TV “news” and its peculiar obsessions, which I normally avoid like a pox. I hear far more than I want to about Rush Limbaugh, who wants the country’s leadership to fail, just to prove an ideological point. The president’s chief of staff dubs this contemptible entertainer the leader of the president’s opposition. Even more absurdly, the actual chief of the opposition party spends breath denying it — and then apologizes for doing so. See why I avoid this stuff?
Thread Three: Two of the most partisan Democrats in the S.C. Senate, John Land and Brad Hutto, introduce a mock resolution to apologize to Rush on behalf of South Carolina so that our state doesn’t “miss out on the fad that is sweeping the nation — to openly grovel before the out-spoken radio host.” The Republican majority spends little time dismissing the gag, but any time thus spent by anyone was time not spent figuring out how to keep essential state services going in this fiscal crisis.
Thread Four: At midday Thursday I post on my blog a few thoughts about the just-announced candidacy of U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett for governor, and invite readers to share what they think of the Upstate Republican. As of mid-afternoon Friday, there were nine comments on the subject, and three of them were from me. By the same time, there were 66 comments about the Rush Limbaugh flap.
Thread Five: A colleague brings to my attention a new Web site called SCTweets, where you can read spontaneous “Twitter” messages from such S.C. politicians as Anton Gunn, David Thomas, Bob Inglis, Nathan Ballentine and Thad Viers, with a number of S.C. bloggers thrown in. It’s the brainchild of S.C. Rep. Dan Hamilton and self-described GOP “political operative” Wesley Donehue (which would explain why Rep. Gunn is the only Democrat on the list I just cited). They see it as “a creative way to showcase SC’s tech-savvy elected officials.” It sounds like a neat idea, but when you go there and look at it… well, here’s a sample:
annephutto had a great lunch
AntonJGunn Having lunch with the Mayor of Elgin.
mattheusmei Prepare to have your mind blownaway http://tinyurl.com/b6w8w9 #sctweets, simply amazing!!!
RobGodfrey Beautiful day in Columbia. #sctweets
thadviers just had lunch with little Joe at Jimmy Johns.
Perhaps this will be useful to someone, and I applaud Messrs. Hamilton and Donehue for the effort. But so far I haven’t figured out what Twitter adds to modern life that we didn’t already have with e-mail and blogs and text-messaging and, well, the 24/7 TV “news.” Remember how I complained in a recent column about how disorienting and unhelpful I find Facebook to be? Well, this was worse. I felt like I was trying to get nutrition from a bowl of Lucky Charms mixed with Cracker Jack topped with Pop Rocks, stirred with a Slim Jim.
Thread Six: Being reminded of Facebook, I checked my home page, and found that a friend I worked with a quarter-century ago was exhorting me to:
I followed his instructions. The book nearest to my laptop was the literally dog-eared (chewed by a dog that died three decades ago) paperback Byline: Ernest Hemingway. Here’s the fifth sentence on page 56:
“He smiled like a school girl, shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands to his face in a mock gesture of shame.”
Not much without context, but you know what? I got more out of that than I got out of that Twitter page. At least I formed a clear, coherent picture of something.
I just remembered that I said I would knit these threads together. OK, here goes:
It occurs to me that Twitter and Facebook are the bright new world that the Colorado congressman who claims credit for killing The Rocky Mountain News extolled. In this world, political discourse consists of partisans prattling about talk show hosts and elected officials casting spontaneous sentence fragments into the dusty, arid public square.
I was going to write a column for today about Congressman Barrett’s candidacy for governor. As I mentioned a couple of weeks back when I wrote about Sen. Vincent Sheheen entering the race, I’m trying to get an early start on writing as much as possible about that critical decision coming up in 2010, in the hope that if we think about it and talk about it enough, we the people can make a better decision than we have the past few elections.
But I got distracted.
I’ll get with Rep. Barrett soon; I promise. And I’ll try to write about it in complete sentences, for those of you who have not yet adjusted.
For links and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.
Count me among those who do NOT get worked up about city councils and other public bodies treating themselves to lunch. If you ask me whether taxpayers should have to pay for sandwiches for council members and staff during a meeting that stretches through meal time, I'll say no. But I'm not going to get worked up about it such petty-cash disbursements. It's the much larger spending decisions the elected officials make while they're chewing their pimento cheese sandwiches that matter.
I had to smile over Belinda Gergel's pot luck offering, and Mayor Bob's disclosure that he consumed two Life Savers, but paid for them himself. Mayor Bob can be a witty guy, in a dry sort of way.
But I DO get all worked up and indignant over learning that that same body, Columbia City Council, spent $3,000 on a "leadership seminar focused on team-building" at their retreat at the end of last week.
No, wait; I should clarify. It's not the $3,000 — excuse me, $2,950. It's the fact that they spent anything, including the precious time, on such an exercise. No offense to Juan Johnson, the H.R. whiz who led them through such vital activities as the one in which they had to "work their way through a maze without talking to each other," but what possible good did this do? I mean, pick an issue (say, homelessness), and the council members have already demonstrated amply that they can wander in a maze without talking to each other.
To confess, I have a deep-seated prejudice against team-building exercises. The senior staff here at the newspaper used to have to undergo these embarrassing ordeals. One year we went whitewater rafting in North Carolina. Oh, you think that's bad? Another time, we went to Frankie's Fun Park, where we — among other things — played laser tag. I was mortified at the thought that a reader would see and recognize me, and tell the world before I could zap him. Besides, my laser gun didn't work, and I kept getting killed, which did not help my morale a bit.
Now, I'll confess that I can get into a game as well as anybody, and after griping and moaning louder than anyone in the room, I might end up playing more enthusiastically than anyone. (My favorite team-building exercise ever, which I actually had to go to Miami for: We were shown the first part of "Twelve Angry Men." Then we had to guess in which order the 11 jurors would change their minds and agree with Henry Fonda. I got them all right except for like the eighth and ninth, which I had switched.) But I have never fooled myself into thinking I wasn't wasting time. I've always been aware that I had work that needed doing, and this foolishness was getting in the way.
We don't do these things any more. Why? Because we don't have the money to waste, that's why. If we DID have the money, though, and were bound to waste it, I'd vote that we spend it on paving our sidewalk in gold, or something — anything to avoid a team-building exercise. I'm not a curmudgeon about most things, but I am about this.
Do any of y'all have experience with these things? And have you, or your organization or its customers or anybody else EVER benefited from it? Maybe it's me; I've never had much trouble confronting people and telling them what I think, or working in teams, and have never seen any need for ice-breakers. Maybe they help some people. But I doubt it.
A colleague passes on this reader complaint, with the comment, "What planet does this person live on?":
Dang, and after all our efforts to keep the governor's position on this secret…
Old Jack raked the cinders together with a piece of cardboard and spread them judiciously over the whitening dome of coals. When the dome was thinly covered his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly re-emerged into light….
— from "Ivy Day in the Committee Room," by James Joyce
In the middle of a brilliant, unusually warm February afternoon (Thursday), I was holed up in an Irish-themed pub talking local politics. Jack Van Loan was holding court at his "office" in a booth at Delaney's pub in Five Points. And when I say office, I mean "office," with his files and organizers on the table before him next to his coffee, and his briefcase opened on a bench close at hand. From such locations Jack makes and takes his multiple calls getting ready for the big St. Paddy's Day event (March 14) and talks Five Points politics.
Last year, he was pushing Belinda Gergel for the 3rd district council contest that she eventually won. Today, he was conveying his blessing upon another (potential) candidate — this one for mayor.
The candidate, or potential candidate, sat in the dark with the bright light coming in the window behind him so that I was talking to a silhouette — a little like the effect when you talk to Joe Riley in his office down there at the Four Corners of the Law, with that huge cathedral-like array of windows behind him, and the fluid light of the Holy City radiating all about him. This was a little more prosaic than that, but then this wasn't the mayor yet, just a potential candidate.
Who was the candidate? Well, that's him in the very bad phone picture above, with Jack at his right. Shouldn't be hard to figure out. The thing about this candidate was, I needed no introduction. We've endorsed him for statewide office in the past. But my friend Jack wanted to introduce him as his candidate for mayor in next April's election, and I wanted to hear what Jack — a force in the influential Five Points Association since 1991 — had to say about him. It wasn't exactly Joyce's "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" and we didn't talk about Parnell, but by Columbia standards it would do.
Anyway, the rest of the story will be in my Sunday column, so tune in.
You know, I can hardly post something about the troubles in the news biz for y'all before something comes along and tops it. I tried to give y'all a roundup back in this post earlier today, and now this:
The Rocky Mountain News publishes its last paper tomorrow.
Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Rocky-owner Scripps, broke
the news to the staff at noon today, ending nearly three months of
speculation over the paper's future.
"People are in grief," Editor John Temple said at a news conference later.
Boehne told staffers that the Rocky was the victim of a terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.
"Denver can't support two newspapers any longer," Boehne told
staffers, some of whom cried at the news. "It's certainly not good news
for you, and it's certainly not good news for Denver."
This takes things to a whole new level, of course. Severe expense cutbacks are one thing, bankruptcies are another. But shutting down altogether — well, this is something new. Not only are they shutting down; they're shutting down tomorrow.
Some of us might be tempted to whistle past this graveyard. After all, what was Denver doing with TWO newspapers in the year 2009? Most two-newspaper towns went the way of the dinosaurs before any of us had HEARD of the World Wide Web. (The Columbia Record, for instance, closed in 1988, and that was toward the back end of the trend.) But that doesn't change the fact that, as Mr. Boehne said, "The industry is in serious, serious trouble."
Things are critical, and immediate, and things are starting to happen really, really fast — sort of the way they did with Lehman Bros. et al. last fall.
Over the weekend, I was at a community gathering at which pretty much everyone I ran into expressed concerns about what's happening to newspapers these days, and particular their newspaper, The State. I appreciated the concern.
Since then, of course, we've had the bankruptcy of the papers in Philly, which along with other recent developments inspired Robert's cartoon today.
Now I get an alert to this cover story in the next edition of The New Republic, headlined "THE END OF THE PRESS: Democracy Loses its Best Friend." It's by Princeton prof Paul Starr. It begins:
Actually, I suppose I take the points Mr. Starr makes in his piece pretty much for granted, since I live and breathe them — which doesn't mean I don't attach importance to them, because we're talking about some horrific stuff from where I sit. I just find myself going, "Well, duh," a lot as I read it, but some of it might make points you haven't thought about. And he DOES bring up some ideas I had NOT thought about, such as some of his ideas on how to save newspapers — which seem to be sort of out of left field until you realize that nobody has any better ideas (that can be shown to work), which is sobering to say the least.
Just keeping y'all in the loop folks, as I've been doing. I don't know how much of this stuff you want brought to your attention, since it isn't, like, your living the way it is mine…
Just thought I'd share this voicemail from over the weekend, of a type that I get from time to time. I like to share the joy when I can.
It's from a reader who wanted to see more about George Washington's birthday in the paper. I thought at first maybe this was someone who had missed the point that this year was Lincoln's 200th, and thought Washington should have gotten as much play as Honest Abe. But no; that wasn't the caller's problem.
Here's the audio, and here's my transcription of the money part of the message, in case you can't hear it:
At 11:02 a.m. today, I received a release from Jim Clyburn's office with the following headline on it:
Then, at 11:33, I got the corrected version, which makes me feel so much better:
Still awaiting the next correction; I'll let you know when I see it…
For once, I am ahead of the game. I have now interviewed ALL of the declared candidates for governor in 2010, and have written about them in my Sunday column.
Of course, there's only one so far: Sen. Vincent Sheheen, Democrat from Camden.
I don't know who will be the next candidate to declare, but I'll tell you who's running the hardest among the undeclared: Attorney General Henry McMaster, Republican. Hardly a day goes by that I don't get a release about him speaking to this or that Republican group in some nook or cranny of the state. In fact, I got this one just yesterday about his appearing on Sen. Sheheen's home turf:
In fact, looking at the old clock on the wall, it looks like I'm missing that as I type this. And that would have been a good one for me to go to, had it not been on a Friday. I look forward to seeing Henry and/or Vincent and whoever else out there stumping soon, because we can't get to 2010 soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of reading AP stories describing network news interviews with Mark Sanford promoting his (shudder) national ambitions, just so I can find out what our governor's up to.
One of the things my Sunday column talks about is the candidate's views on government restructuring. On the same day, we'll have a column co-authored by him and Anton Gunn on the same subject (continuing a string of me writing columns related to op-eds that day, such as last week's on Mark Sanford, and the recent one on DHEC). As further background material on that subject, here's a post from a little over a year ago from when Vincent came to talk about his restructuring plan (yes, I actually wrote about something other than the presidential primaries in January 2008), and here's video that goes with that.
And just to show you the subject's been on him mind a while, here's a 2007 post that's sort of related.
Of course, he hasn't been thinking about restructuring as long as I have; at least I hope not (even though he does claim to be something of a "geek."). He was in college when we did the "Power Failure" series.Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have here a gubernatorial candidate who was born in the year I graduated from high school. I still remember vividly our editorial board interview with the first gubernatorial candidate I'd ever interviewed who was younger than I was — David Beasley in 1994. Since then, every governor we've had has been younger than I am.
And now this. These kids today…
Just to keep you in the loop on troubles in my biz, check this piece in the WashPost about the NYT:
When Arthur Sulzberger Jr. refused to talk to his own reporter about the financial condition of the New York Times Co., it was the latest sign of an industry in deep trouble….
And mind you, the NYT's one of the healthier papers. As Kurtz notes, it "has barely cut its 1,300-person newsroom, the largest in the business."
And to remind you that it's not just newspapers, but anybody who depends on advertising, check this from Advertising Age about CBS:
by Brian Steinberg
Published: February 18, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — CBS Corp. said the roiling economy sparked a downturn in advertising that prompted a 52% decline in fourth quarter net income and said the broadcasting and publishing company would slash its dividend while the economy remained in turmoil.
"We are operating in a very difficult environment; some say the worst since the 1930s. Clearly, the market has been sharply affected by the recession, particularly in the last quarter of the year," said CBS CEO Leslie Moonves on a conference call with investors. "Our advertising business, obviously, has been caught in this downturn, especially our local business is having a significant impact on our TV and radio stations, as well as outdoor."…
Just by way of completing a loop…
Remember my column of Jan. 25, in which I wrote, in part:
That ran something like 10 days after I'd heard that we were going to get that "clarifying" op-ed.
Well, it ran on Monday, in case you missed it. Here's a link.
By way of full disclosure, I want to tell you that it didn't take Mr. Gossett quite as long as it looks to get back to us. Cindi (who handles local op-eds these days) says in answer to my asking her today that she received it on Feb. 5. It was the right length for a Monday slot (it was short, and we usually run a short op-ed on Mondays), and she wasn't able to get it edited to her satisfaction in time to run it on Monday, Feb. 9 (content for that page had to be ready on the morning of Feb. 6). So it ran on the following Monday, Feb. 16.
Just so you know.
Anyway, Mr. Gossett had three main points in his piece:
Actually, you know what? Never mind my summary of what he said (even though summarizing what people say is kinda what I do professionally); he might claim I left out the important parts. Just go read it.
You might also want to read the Bo Aughtry piece ALSO saying his support of restructuring was not accurately represented. And then you might fully understand what I said at the outset of my Jan. 25 column:
Did you see that Ted Pitts might run for lieutenant governor? Do you realize the implications?
Ted Pitts is MY representative. So theoretically, it's time to make my move and run for office on the UnParty ticket. This is my big chance.
Except, of course, I can't. Newspaper editors aren't allowed to run for office, not if they want to keep on being newspaper editors. And I can't sing or dance, so I'll have to put the campaign plans on hold.
Dang.
Here's a little news-you-can-use info.
You remember how sick I was before Christmas? Well, I never really got over it. I had the usual resolution to start working out in the New Year, and still haven't done it once, because I haven't had a day when I didn't feel like total crud, Ferris.
It's morphed. Started out as upset stomach, turned into bronchitis, followed by asthma, followed by recurring bouts of the worst head cold/allergy symptoms I've experienced in many a day. I've done two courses of antibiotics, been on prednisone over a week in between, and in the last few weeks have been taking antihistamines and associated remedies every four hours, including in the middle of the night, and STILL haven't been able to stop my nose from running.
And when I talk runny nose, I'm talking incapacitating. Like you can't do anything but blow. Night before last, my wife was leaving the kitchen and asked me to mash the potatoes she had just cooked. I said I couldn't. Feeling guilty, I TRIED while she was out of the room, but it went like this — blow nose (and I'm talking fire hose here, not some dainty dabbing), throw away the tissue, wash hands, dry hands, pick up fork, turn to the potatoes, DROP fork, grab tissue, blow just in time, and so on. Had lunch yesterday with Clemson's President James Barker, and it was really embarrassing. I must have gone through half a box of tissues; poor President Barker.
I was taking antihistamines (diphenhydramine, Alka-Seltzer Plus) on top of other antihistamines (zyrtec, or, when I lose faith in that, allegra 180) and still couldn't stop it. The only way I could go to sleep was stop up my nose with cotton balls. Yeah, way more than you wanted to know; I getcha.
But I say all this not to gross you out or cry the blues, but to tell you about the drug that my allergist's office called in yesterday. It was a nasal spray called ipratropium bromide, the generic name (and of course, I got the generic) for something that is marketed as Atrovent.
It worked unbelievably well. No, I still don't feel great; my sinuses still hurt — but my nose is no longer like a busted fire hydrant. It's dry. I'm able to use my hands for extended periods for something other than reaching for the Puffs.
And I'm sort of shocked that in 55 years of fighting severe allergies, with all the major hay fever bouts I've had, I've never run across this before. Or if I did, I'd forgotten it.
So, in case you have similar problems, I thought I'd let you know about it. Look on this as one of those "ask your doctor about…" ads, except that I'm not getting paid for it. Which shows you what a terrible businessman I am. Maybe I should get an agent.
There's one cool side effect. All of a sudden, I understand "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Maybe that's what I've got. Seems as good a diagnosis as any. Just follow the links:
Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again…
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows…