Category Archives: Working

Pictures of what I’ve REALLY been doing

Or at least, from SOME of what I’ve been doing…

I feel like I’ve really been dropping the ball on the blog the last couple of weeks. I’ve been giving you quick and easy posts based on stuff that necessarily passes quickly through my hands during the day — an e-mail here, something from a proof there, maybe a quick take on a headline — and encouraged y’all to talk amongst yourselves while I chug along in meetings with candidates and others, one after another.

The thing is, if I were doing what I started this blog to do — giving you extra, in-depth, raw material that is over and above what I’m able to give you on the printed page (and South Carolina stuff at that, based on access I have to newsmakers by virtue of the job, stuff you can’t possibly get elsewhere) — I’d be writing about the meetings.

The trouble is, I’ve had no time to think about the meetings, or review notes to pull out highlights, or edit video from them, or anything. I’ve just chugged along, out of one meeting and into another. Again we see demonstrated the principle that you can either blog, or you can have experiences worth blogging about; you can’t have both. It’s frustrating.

So accept this quick-and-dirty photo essay, just to give you a taste of what’s been going on here in the editorial offices since Monday the 12th. Here you see at least one photo from each meeting I’ve had these two weeks with a guest or guest from outside the building (staff meetings are not documented), with the briefest possible summary. (I’ve got to get this done and move on to reading proofs for Friday’s paper.)

(In all this time, I’ve had one meeting outside the building. Tuesday afternoon I visited Providence Hospital to get an update on what’s happening there. I had a camera in my pocket, but it all went so fast I never had it out — more of a rush job, unfortunately, than a similar visit to Lexington Medical several months back, when we weren’t as rushed or as shorthanded.)

Here we go…

Monday, May 12, 11 a.m. — John Scott, Senate Dist. 19, Democrat:

Tuesday, May 13, 9:30 a.m. — Kit Spires, House Dist. 96, Republican:

1 p.m. — Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, Democrat:

2 p.m. — Katrina Shealy, Senate Dist. 23, Republican:

Wednesday, May 14, 10 a.m. — Tony Lamm, House Dist. 79, Republican:

11:30 a.m. — Don Purcell, Richland County Council Dist. 9, Republican:

1 p.m. — Barbara Scott, Richland County Clerk of Court, Democrat:

Thursday, May 15, 9:30 a.m. — Jimmy Brazelle, Lexington County Sheriff, Republican:

11 a.m. — Kendall Corley, Richland County Clerk of Court, Democrat:

noon — Sheri Few, House Dist. 79, Republican:

1 p.m. — Damon Jeter, Richland County Council Dist. 3, Democrat:

Monday, May 19, 11 a.m. — Johnny Bland, Richland County Council Dist. 7, Democrat:

4:30 — Our own James D. McCallister, as part of a delegation advocating the 5 Points parking garage/multi-use development:

4:30 — Columbia City Councilwoman Anne Sinclair, in the same meeting as James:

Tuesday, May 20, 9:30 a.m. — Jake Knotts, Senate Dist. 23, Republican:

Wednesday, May 21, 11 a.m. — Tom Comerford, Lexington County Clerk of Court, Republican:

4 p.m. — Gloria Montgomery, Richland County Clerk of Court, Democrat:

Thursday, May 22, 9:30 a.m. — Val Hutchinson, Richland County Council Dist. 9, Republican:

11 a.m. — Kerry Johnson, Lexington County Sheriff, Republican:

1 p.m. — Napoleon Tolbert, Richland County Council Dist. 7, Democrat:

Sheri Few touts ability to raise funds as advantage in House 79 primary

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Although she was a candidate for the GOP nomination for this seat two years ago, this is the first video I’ve posted of Ms. Few — in fact, I don’t think I shot pictures of her either, since I didn’t post any at the time. She was the second candidate to come in for an interview in 2006, and it apparently had not yet dawned on me to take my camera into those meetings for blog purposes.

This time around, I have an embarrassment of riches — so many images and clips on candidates that they keep threatening to crash my laptop. And yet, they’ve been coming in so fast I haven’t had time to post many on the blog. But at least I’m doing this one. (Truth be told, if I weren’t under the gun to produce a video clip of something for the Saturday Opinion Extra by midnight, I wouldn’t be doing this one, either — it’s been a tough week, and hours to go before I sleep.)

In this clip, Ms. Few is talking about her proven ability to raise money, which she suggests (and she’s probably right) is considerably greater than that of her two opponents, David Herndon and Tony Lamm.

Up to now, contributions to her campaigns has been a source of controversy, since she attracts a considerable amount from out-of-state sources pushing private school "choice." But she says Republicans should consider that the party is in danger of losing the seat currently held by Bill Cotty, and that the likely Democratic nominee — Anton Gunn, who played a key role in the Barack Obama campaign in South Carolina — might be able to raise some out-of-state money of his own.

Here’s the clip:

Broder takes buyout from WashPost

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We keep getting complaints about the whole no-opinion-pages-in-Saturday’s-paper thing, and when anybody complains to me personally, I ask them what they’d do, given the imperative of cutting expenses. Given our staff cuts over the last few years, I was faced with either doing pages of lesser quality seven days a week, or doing fewer pages, maintaining quality, and staying here really late every Friday night putting a bunch of Extra stuff online for you ingrates.

No, really — I’m humbled by folks missing our pages so much.

But it might be helpful if people had a bit more understanding of the problems newspapers are having lately. I’ve been saving up stuff for a post, such as:

Staff buyouts at the Raleigh News and Observer, which is owned by McClatchy, which also owns The State.
The announcement of buyouts at The Charlotte Observer, another McClatchy paper, as well.
The fact that the International Newspaper Marketing Association is changing its name to drop the "newspaper" part. I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say.

Actually, I had meant to gather a bunch more pieces of similar string for you to help you gain a little perspective on all this. But I can’t wait for that, on account of the latest.

David Broder, the dean of Washington political columnists, has announced he’s taking a buyout from The Washington Post. You’ll still see his columns, but he’ll be a contract employee. Here’s a memo he sent to us today:

{DAVID BRODER COLUMN}<
{(ADVISORY FOR BRODER CLIENTS)}<
{(For Broder clients only)}<
<
Dear friends:<
I want to give you a heads-up that later this week, The Washington Post will be making an announcement that, along with many other longtime employees, I am taking the buyout offer — and to tell you what it does and does not mean.<
The column you have been running will not change at all, and you will continue to receive it from The Washington Post Writers Group. I will continue to write from the same office in the Post newsroom and will continue to travel the country to wherever politics is happening. You will find me at the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer and on the campaign trail this fall, just as I have been this winter and spring.<
As of Jan. 1, I will become a contract employee of The Washington Post Company. For the last two years, the bulk of my reporting has gone into the column, rather than the news pages of the Post. This change will allow me to focus entirely on the column, while freeing up the Post to use its budget for other news-section salaries and expenses. It will not diminish my ability to be out where news is happening.<
I look forward to being part of your paper for many years to come….<
Many thanks,<
David Broder<

Get the picture? The biz is changing. Small wonder that some people come to me as a blogger, without even knowing I have this newspaper gig…

Anyway, I wanted to make sure you knew about the Broder thing as soon as I knew.

Don’t worry; it’s 10 ’til 8

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A few minutes ago Mike warned me that there appeared to be a problem with the op-ed page (which is, until we print it out as a negative and a plate is made 10til8_002
from it, just a big QuarkXPress file) — one of the ads hasn’t shown up. This could mean I’ll have to finish it later in the evening because Mike has to leave soon.

I told him not to worry: It’s 10 til 8.

Earlier, as Warren and I were talking about the need to rewrite his column for tomorrow in light of new developments, and he had just told me we were expecting a fourth candidate today on top of the three I had noticed on my calendar, and Cindi started telling me we were facing a "train wreck" on our schedule if we didn’t start endorsing some candidates this week, I said don’t worry; it’s just 10 til 8. Plenty of time.

Some would say the clock in our hallway is broken. Others would say it needs a new battery. I say it’s just perfect the way it is. As I go into meetings with my colleagues and candidates, full of worry about how we’ll get it all done today, I see that clock, and am deeply reassured: It’s just 10 ’til 8.

10til8_001
Ten minutes before 8 is just a perfect time of day, no matter whether it means a.m. or p.m. It means that I’m either about to have my first cup of coffee of the day, or pop open a beer. It doesn’t get better, or more soothing or relaxing, than that. Oh, look: It’s 10 ’til 8. Ahhhhhh.

Some would say it’s right twice a day, and call themselves optimists. But the way I think about it is much more positive: I choose to believe that it’s always right.

I need to go now and see about these pages for tomorrow. But fortunately, I see by the ol’ clock on the wall that there’s no hurry, no hurry at all…

10til8_004

Candidate interviews continue…

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Yesterday, it was Rep. Kit Spires, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott and Senate challenger Katrina Shealy.

Today, it’s House candidate Tony Lamm, Richland County Council candidate Don Purcell and Richland County Clerk of Court Barbara Scott.

But before that ….aieeee, Cindi’s coming to get me for the first one! Gotta go…

The Idiot

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No, this isn’t about Dostoevsky. I’m just responding to a blog post about me (and you don’t have to thank me for boosting your traffic, NVB). I ran across it because I was looking for the URL to provide a link back on this post.

An excerpt:

I started wondering today what qualifications are needed to be an
editorial writer at the state’s largest newspaper. I don’t mean this in
any petty, mean-spirited, Brad-Warthen-is-an-idiot sort of way. But I
know what qualifications are needed to be a doctor or a lawyer or a
brick mason or a fast food worker. I don’t really know what they are
for an editorialist.

It can’t just be that you have opinions. We all have those. It’s got
to be the quality of the opinion that determines, at least as an
initial matter, whether someone is good at that particular job. And
after that, the ability to persuade someone else of that quality.

I’ve criticized Warthen and the gang over at the State with some
frequency not because I disagree with them on the issues, although I
often do, but because, well, either the judgment or the persuasiveness
is often so lacking in what they write. And on top of that, the
reaction from them when they are disagreed with is telling….

It goes on in that vein. And on account of the fact that it’s Friday evening, and I have hours and hours of work ahead of me doing the Saturday Opinion Extra thing that so many people hate, and I want to put THAT off as long as possible (a great deal of blogging is explained by this factor), I responded, as follows:

“Bingo?”

Tell you what, I’m gonna have to go ahead and do what the bingo caller does here, and ask to see your card, to make sure you have five squares lining up.

In other words, it would be nifty if you, or Doug, or “Silence” (and in a completely unrelated point here, I gotta say that I respect Doug WAY more since he uses his real name, and because he recently paid for my breakfast)…

… where was I? Oh yeah, it would be nifty if one of y’all would provide some examples of this failure on the editorial page just one, or two. Or five, if you think you can go all the way to “bingo.”

[I’m looking for examples on] the editorial page, mind you, since what you question is our abilities as editorial writers/editors. I can accept service on the “Brad Warthen the blogger is an idiot” implication, because, well, he’s a blogger.

Not so much on the “editorial page editor is an idiot “implication, though. For that, I seek evidence….

The Chicago Tribune on beating dead horses

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You may or may not know that our own Robert Ariail was a leading contender to replace the late Jeff MacNelly at The Chicago Tribune. In fact, he was rumored to be the candidate, which had me pretty worried. But fortunately for me (and you, the reader, I would assert), the Trib decided not to replace MacNelly.

In light of that, and with regard to the cartoon some of y’all got so worked up about, you may find this passage from a Tribune editorial of this week interesting:

The only filly in the crowded field crossed the finish line second, but the fans who’d bet on her still had one last gasp of hope. Perhaps some fortuitous technicality would disqualify the first-place finisher. But things got worse instead of better. We’re talking about Eight Belles, who was euthanized Saturday after almost winning the Kentucky Derby. But we’re thinking about Hillary Clinton….

And here’s the schlag atop the analogy: Tribune ombudsman Timothy McNulty (not MacNelly, McNulty) took offense at the editorial:

Notwithstanding the playful, even clever, writing of the editorial, it
was wrong, I believe, to use language that conflates the presidential
race and the sad need to euthanize a female horse, ending with this
sentence: "There’s no reason to wait until August to put Clinton, and
the rest of us, out of our misery."

Of course, not being into either sports or horses, I didn’t know that the euthanized horse was "the only filly" in the race, until "not very bright" pointed it out. And Robert wasn’t equating Hillary to the horse — the horse, transmogrified into the Democratic donkey, was the thing she was beating, not her (i.e., the party). To put it another way, Robert did not imply in any way, shape or form that anyone should put Hillary Clinton "out of her misery." That would have been creepy.

But other than that, though, an interesting coincidence. I wonder how Mr. McNulty would have felt about a cartoon, rather than mere words.

They euthanize horses, don’t they?

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As Bill Murray said so wisely, in "What About Bob?":

There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don’t. My ex-wife loves him...

But I’m here to tell you about another dichotomy that may constitute a much greater cognitive divide:

Really serious animal lovers.

The rest of us.

Robert Ariail has been hearing today from some folks who love animals — horses, especially, I suppose — the way Bob Wiley’s life loved Neil Diamond. Maybe more so.

The category that consists of "the rest of us" is large and broad. I suspect it’s the majority, but I don’t know, and I’m certainly not going to claim that it is, much less imply that greater numbers have any moral significance, because I’ve noticed that members of the other group of people can get very indignant. I just know that this group of people includes Robert, and me, and lots of people who range all the way from folks who like animals just fine (which includes me, and probably Robert, although I don’t know, because I haven’t been interested enough to ask, which is probably proof positive that I’m not a member of that other group of people) to those who have outright hostility toward other life forms (include, quite often, other people).

I am often even fond of animals. I like dogs, in the aggregate. I don’t much like cats. I’m not actually hostile to cats; I’d just rather not be around them (and not just because I’m severely allergic to them). They just, for me, lack something that dogs have — let’s leave it at that.

Some of you may remember a column I wrote about a dog of which I was very fond. Some folks projected some of themselves onto that column, thinking that I, too, must be a really serious animal lover. But compared to the folks I mean when I say "really serious animal lovers," I definitely am not.

I do not consider this to be a moral failing on my part. I am not ashamed of it. I say this to draw a distinction between the way I may feel about myself with regard to other human beings. I frequently have occasion to chide, berate and even be ashamed of myself because I have failed to be insufficiently thoughtful of other people and their needs and wants and interests. But aside from feeling a little bad if I forget my dog’s dinner time until WAY late in the evening, I can’t say that I have such pangs with regard to animals. I just go ahead and feed him, and pat him on the head and say, "Sorry, boy," and leave it at that. This is of course facilitated by the fact that the dog forgives me COMPLETELY, which is one of the great things about dogs. Just try getting away with that with a cat, for instance.

I have also felt bad when I’ve lost my patience with my dog — hollering at him to "cut it out" on occasion when he scrabbles at the door with his claws. I feel bad about that because my wife tells me I should, so I do.

But that’s about it.

I don’t feel what one correspondent said I should feel about Robert’s cartoon today: "Shame, shame, shame." In fact, I was puzzled at the assertion.

I’ve had a busy day today. I didn’t see that message until this afternoon, but it immediately reminded me of something that Robert had said to me this morning as I was on my way into a meeting with a candidate: He said some folks were really getting on him about today’s cartoon, the way they had about that Obama cartoon recently. I sort of said, "Uh-huh" or something, but as I went into my meeting I tried thinking about it, and tried to imagine what the widely misinterpreted Obama cartoon and this one had in common, and I couldn’t. I just came up dry.

Several hours later, when I saw the messages I got from a couple of readers — including our regular Randy — about it, I was bewildered again. I had to ask, "OK, I give up — what is it that upsets you about the cartoon?"

Then I went and looked at Robert’s Web site and saw the comments and figured it out — but I don’t think I would have guessed otherwise. Then I came back to my blog, and saw that Randy had confirmed the impression I had just gained: "The cartoon makes light of the horrific pain and suffering of an animal."

Personally, I don’t think it makes anything of "the horrific pain and suffering of an animal" one way or the other. It basically just takes the "beating a dead horse" expression, links it to an event in the news, and uses it to say — very accurately, I believe — that that’s what Hillary Clinton’s doing with her insistence upon continuing to pursue a nomination that is out of her reach.

And I know this for sure — the cartoon itself does not do any harm to any horse or any other animal. It doesn’t even hurt their feelings, on account of — and I hope nobody thinks I’m stereotyping animals or anything here — they don’t read the paper.

All it does is upset some people — some of them very, very nice people (perhaps I should even say MOST of them are very nice people) — because the death of this horse the other day was apparently an event that was freighted with strong emotions for them. At least, that’s what I gather. Since it was not a particularly emotional event for me, I can only surmise this. It’s not that I don’t think it’s sad for a horse to be put down; it is sad. But that’s about as far as it goes with me. It was not a shocking event. If you put horses that have been bred for speed rather than durability under that kind of stress, this can happen. And when it does happen, as the saying goes, they DO shoot horses. Sad, but not what you’d call shocking, and not something I’m going to be brooding about the next day.

I’ve seen things in the news since that race that are a LOT more awful and tragic. Take, for instance, all the dead and displaced in the country formerly known as Burma. But you know what? Nobody — not one person, that I’ve seen — has criticized Robert for "making light of the horrific pain and suffering" of as many as 100,000 Burmese under the dual tragedy of the cyclone and their oppressive, uncaring dictatorship. And yet, one could as easily have drawn that conclusion from this cartoon as the animal lovers did with this one.

And I reflect on this, and there seems to be something wrong here, and it’s not with Robert…

Cartoon1

I feel like Batman

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And not even a cool, respectable sort of Batman, like the one in "Batman Begins," or even the quirky-hip Michael Keaton Caped Crusader in the first big-budget movie version (best moment — when he answers the crook who demands to know who he is with an edgy "I’m Batman!" that lets you know our hero’s wound JUST a bit too tight).

I’m talking Adam West here.

The thing that’s got me feeling this way is that I’m in the middle of candidate interviews for the June primaries — legislative, county council, etc. — and the same characters keep cropping up.

And no, this is not a plea for term limits. It’s the challengers, some of whom are perfectly normal people, but some of whom have these, um, idiosyncrasies that stick out a mile, and they keep coming back, no matter how many times they’ve been defeated. It’s like:

It’s you! the Joker! Again!…

… or the Riddler or the Penguin or Catwoman or whoever. No, wait, Robin, not that Catwoman — let’s bring in Julie Newmar!

On the one hand, it’s sort of comforting and homey. On the other hand, you keep thinking NEW people will crop up to challenge these candidates. And they do. But then, as soon as your guard is down — "YOU! Again!"

Oh, and by the way — if you’re a candidate who’s run before who’s about to come in for an interview — this post is NOT about you.

Desperately seeking video tech help

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Today, I forgot to bring my camera to work. Normally, I remember all my school supplies (mainly because I keep them in the briefcase out of which I live), but this morning I left my Canon PowerShot A95 on the kitchen table.

Since I had two interviews this morning — with Vince Ford, who’s seeking Kay Patterson’s Senate seat, and Rep. Joe Neal, defending House District 70 — I had to stoop to a desperate measure: I used the Sony Model DCR-SR40 camcorder that the nice folks at thestate.com gave me awhile back.

This is a pretty cool video camera, with a built-in 30-gig hard drive. It shoots pretty nice video, with MUCH higher resolution than my little Canon, which is actually intended to shoot still pictures.

There’s just one little drawback — its format is (as near as I can tell) MPEG-4, and I do not have any software that can edit MPEG-4 video. Nor can I convert these files into a format that I CAN use. That means the only way I can share video with you is if I keep it really, really short and load it onto the blog unedited, as in the clip you see above, which as short as it is, almost crashed our VMIX thingie when I loaded it.

That’s not terribly helpful when I want to share video with you from interviews that last 30 or 45 minutes or more.

This, I suspect, is the reason why the nice folks gave me this camera — they couldn’t figure out what to do with the files, either.

Anyway, I’ve wasted absurd amounts of time searching the Web for help with this problem, looking for codecs and such. Apparently, I am the first person in the history of the world to have this problem, because I’m not running into any helpful support out there.

I even got desperate enough to e-mail Sony for help, and did so, after getting through all the barriers manufacturers erect to letting you ask a direct question. Here’s the only answer I’ve received so far:

Thank you for contacting Sony.

This message confirms that your e-mail has been received and your request is currently under review. Thank you for your patience as we strive to provide you with the best service and support possible.

Your Sony Online Support Team

… which leads me to suspect that Sony has fallen into the hands of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation. Next, I’m going to ask them if they can provide me with a drink that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

But while I’m waiting for my tea, I thought I’d check to see if Y’ALL have any suggestions for me. Helpful ones, I mean…

Now I know how Dr. Frankenstein felt

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Remember how I posted awhile back on the subject of how online provides a nice forum for public officials to speak to the public? When I wrote that, I was thinking about our new Saturday online page, as a place where Mayor Bob and others could have frequent missives appear without being limited by the one-column-to-a-customer policy we have in the paper, since in-paper space is at such a premium?

Well, Mayor Bob seems to like the idea. In fact, after I told him late last week that I would feature his latest offering on Saturday, and urged him to submit material for that venue in the future, two things happened:

He has sent us yet another piece.
He’s asked me what the length limit is for online.

Feeling for all the world like Victor Frankenstein throwing the switch, I answered:

"There is none."

Alive, alive, IT IS ALIVE!

The Obama Effect: Democrats’ chances in the S.C. House

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Here’s a video I prepared for publication on the Saturday Opinion Extra page for this week. It’s from an endorsement interview with Rep. Jimmy Bales, who’s being challenged in the Democratic primary for District 80 by Stanley Robinson.

Mr. Bales mentioned in passing in the first minute or so of the interview that he hoped Democrats would pick up a few seats in the S.C. House this year. Not quite hearing him, I asked a little later whether he had said he thought Dems might regain a majority.

Actually, he did think there was an outside possibility of that, but mainly he was hoping his party would find itself in a better tactical position with a few more seats. He mentions some districts in particular where he thought Democrats might prevail.

Here’s the kicker — he’s pinning his hopes on Barack Obama. This is a theme I’ve been running into, in various forms, in these interviews so far. The Obama Effect ranges from motivating folks who were previously uninterested in politics to run. And it prompts Mr. Bales to hope to get closer to 58 Democrats in the House, from the present 51. This depends, of course, on Mr. Obama being the nominee — as does so much else.

The Democratic Presidential Primary back in January created a lot of excitement, and we’re still seeing the effects.

A little bit of inside baseball: On the video, you’ll hear Cindi jumping in to make sure I have it right, and won’t go hog-wild on the "Democratic Majority" theme. She has nothing to worry about; I’m a professional.

One million and counting!

Talk about your cheap thrills…

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Robert and I were just brainstorming about his cartoon for tomorrow, and we were looking for parallel phrases, different ways of describing the same thing — specifically, the pandering proposal by John McCain (and now Hillary Clinton) to lift the federal gasoline tax for the summer.

One way of saying it was "Cheap tricks," and we were looking for another, and for some reason my brain kept going "Cheap tricks and other delights." I knew this wasn’t right, but it seemed like it was close to some phrase I half-remembered from the ’60s, and I was having a hard time coming up with the precise wording, which is unusual for me. I kept thinking, "Big Brother and the Holding Company," but I knew I didn’t have it right. So I went to Google to try to figure out the correct wording for what I was thinking of.

Turns out I not only had the "cheap tricks" part wrong, I was confusing it with another, very different, album.

Of course, the Big Brother et al. album was "Cheap Thrills," with the classic R. Crumb cover. But I kept searching the illustration for the other part, the "cheap thrills and…" But there was no "and."

So I searched again, for "and other delights." Of course. Herb Alpert. Since I was in junior high at the time, this cover was burned pretty deeply into my subconscious. In fact, now that I realize it’s that cover, I realize that the image is all tied up in my mind with the image of the "Take it off; take it all off" Noxzema girl (see video below).

But it’s kind of weird that I couldn’t conjure it up correctly without looking it up.

Why do people compress files — or use PDFs?

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Here’s a pet peeve. I needed to share with a colleague a handful of Word files that had been sent to me. Unfortunately, they had been e-mailed to me as a compressed folder attachment, and my colleague didn’t have the unzip software.

So I had to unzip the things, save them to a folder, and then e-mail them to her.

My question is, why do people do that — create unnecessary barriers that just make work on both ends? The total size of all these files was less than a 72 dpi photo, so there was no need whatsoever. The e-mail went out in the blink of an eye.

I can only conclude that such items are generated by people who don’t know much about computers, or whose knowledge is 10 years out of date.

And another thing — why are so many things on the Web in PDF format, which takes my browser SO much longer than HTML, and can’t be searched as easily, and all sorts of other mean, nasty, ugly things? I can understand when it’s an image of a document that only exists in hard copy form — say, a 30-year-old newspaper page. But most documents these days start out in electronic form. Why not keep things simple, and keep the interaction smooth?

The usual culprits in this instance are academics.

And I get this pooge WHY exactly?

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Most people get a lot of e-mail that they delete immediately, and I am surely no exception. In fact, I get so much that I have several accounts, as a way of sorting and triaging — a published one for the world (which I get to as soon as I can, and race through as quickly as possible, which involves a LOT of instantaneous deletion), an internal one for gotta-know-this-to-get-the-paper-out-today-type business, a couple of private ones (one of them for e-bills, which I do my best to ignore) and so forth.

But sometimes I pause with my finger over the "delete" key, just long enough to think "Why did I get this?" Some of the messages in this category are cool. For instance, I’ve somehow gotten on a lot of e-mail lists for commercial artists and photographers, which I forward to my daughter who’s majoring in graphic arts. Still don’t know why I get them, though.

Then there’s the stuff that’s kind of work-related, but I still don’t know how I got on the list. For instance, this one today (from a source I get messages from daily):

***MEDIA ADVISORY***
RNC Chairman Mike Duncan to Speak at Fayette County Republican Party Reagan Day Dinner

WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan will deliver the keynote address to the Fayette County Republican Party Reagan Day Dinner. The dinner will be held on April 26 at 6:00 p.m. in the Griffin Gate Marriott’s Paddock Tent to benefit the Republican Party of Fayette County. Details are available on the party’s website: www.fayettegop.com.

WHO:             RNC Chairman Mike Duncan
WHAT:             2008 Fayette County Republican Party Reagan Day Dinner
WHEN:             Saturday, April 26, 2008 6:00 p.m. EDT

And all the way down, I’m thinking, Fayette County where? What state is this even in? Only at the very end to I get my answer:

WHERE:          Griffin Gate Marriott
                     Paddock Tent
                     1800 Newtown Pike
                     Lexington, KY 40511

Admittedly this comes from the Republican NATIONAL Committee, so I can see why I’m on their list. But what kind of doofus sends out a release nationally that doesn’t tell editors in the 49 other states that there is no way that they will EVER be interested in this. I mean, you know, I’m assuming that the purpose is that you would want editors to pay SOME attention to your releases at some point in the future, right? If not, why send out the damn’ things?

Yeah, I know, y’all don’t care about this. And even for me, it’s just one of a hundred or so petty irritations that I’ll endure today in my never-ending quest to inform and entertain thousands of Kansans. I mean, South Carolinians.

Trying to keep up with candidate interviews

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Not that y’all are likely to care, but I thought I’d clarify something. I’m backdating some posts — specifically, the ones that I’m doing on our state primary endorsement interviews — just to try to keep them in the order in which we conducted them.

For instance, I just posted this item about Michael Koska, a Republican running in S.C. House Dist. 77. I dated it as Tuesday, because that’s when the interview happened. I have one more to do from that day — Republican Mike Miller, who’s running against Kit Spires in District 96.

Since I did those, we’ve had two more — Republican John Rust and Democrat Joe McEachern, who are both running in District 77, like both Mr. Koska and Benjamin Byrd, whom we interviewed last week. Messrs. Rust and McEachern were today.

This is a classic illustration of the principle I’ve often cited about blogs — you can either have experiences worth blogging about, or you can blog. It’s often impossible to get them both done in the same day.

I’m gonna try to get one more of these done before Mamanem send out a posse and drag me home for the night. But I know I’m not going to get done with all these before I have two more interviews tomorrow.

Sigh.

Robert’s rough day

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Robert Ariail, despite appearances to the contrary, is actually a shy guy, who has trouble shrugging off criticism.

You’d think, being a satirist, that he’d have a tougher hide, but he really takes it to heart when people tear into his work.

But what really gets him, what really eat him up, is when the criticism is based in something he didn’t intend at all. Such is the case with the minor uproar over his Thursday cartoon. As he wrote on his new Web page:

Given the number of comments on this cartoon I thought it would be constructive to offer my own. My intent was not to imply that Obama is a muslim terrorist- though now that it’s been pointed out to me, I can see how some would reach that conclusion. Basically, I was playing on the name [sounds like bomb] and the possibility that his words could blow up his campaign. A number of comments implied I have it in for Sen. Obama and favor Sen. Clinton, yet my first take on this was to point out the irony of Clinton calling Obama an elitist- see previous day’s cartoon.

I told him that the kind of people who assume he’s the kind of person who would make Obama out to be a terrorist will never believe the truth — that he simply never thought of it, that the gag really was so simple as to be playing on the fact that he was committing political suicide, and "Obama" sounds like "bomber" — hence, "Suicide Obama." But he should state the truth anyway.

The awful thing is that once you think, "Oh, this is another of those Barack Hussein Obama things," it’s hard to see anything else in it. But before publication, Robert didn’t see it. Neither did I. The only discussion we had about it was when I questioned him as to whether the word balloon where he’s saying, "Uh, let me rephrase that…" added anything to the gag. Robert thought he needed to be saying something, and that having him say that emphasized that Obama didn’t really mean to sound all elitist and dismissive, and had been trying to correct that impression by explaining himself.

And now Robert’s having to explain himself. Ironic, huh? Of course, the Web being the way it is, nobody’s listening to him.

OK, so I jumped to a conclusion

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After years of Democratic and Republican seats being made safer and safer for their respective parties by way of increasingly sophisticated partisan (and incumbent-protective) gerrymandering, one forgets sometimes that members of underdog parties DO occasionally take a run at a seat in the opposing column — particularly when the seat is open.

So it is that, without thinking about it, I made a mistake when I said that Joe McEachern would be the third candidate we’ll talk to who is seeking to fill the seat John Scott is vacating. As a colleague corrected me:

Mr. Byrd is indeed the second candidate we’ve had in for H.77. But Joe McEachern is not the THIRD candidate we will meet with. He is the third DEMOCRAT we will meet with. The THIRD candidate for this seat whom we’ll see is Michael Koska — one of the two or three Republicans in the race. (I say two or three because there’s one candidate whose district is listed as 77 on one GOP document and 79 on another — and I haven’t gotten a call back from him yet).

———————————-
Cindi Ross Scoppe

So now you know.

Now that I think about it, Republicans have taken a run at that seat before — just unsuccessfully.

By the way, I was going to tell you HOW unsuccessfully (I was curious to see if the numbers indicated any sort of opening that would make a Republican candidacy anything other than purely quixotic), but the state election commission Web site isn’t providing that information today — which is inexcusable.

Legislative interviews begin today

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Late last week, I forwarded this release to Cindi:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2008
Contact:       Kerry Abel

MEDIA ADVISORY

Carson Announces for SC House
A New Generation for District 77

COLUMBIA, SC – Local attorney DJ Carson announced today his candidacy in the June 10th Democratic primary for SC House seat 77.
"I grew up right here in this community," Carson said. "This is my home, and it deserves
fresh, energetic leadership that looks beyond the daunting circumstances of what is and into the possibilities of what could be."
Though this is Carson’s first run for public office, he is no stranger to politics. He spent 2000 as a grassroots organizer for the Democratic Party’s Coordinated Campaign and has also served as an aide to Rep. J. Todd Rutherford.
   Combined with his work as a Richland County Prosecutor, these experiences have given Carson a unique perspective on some of the most challenging issues facing us today.
   "I see how much drugs, guns, and gang violence costs this community every day and I’m ready to take that fight to the next level," Carson said. "I’ve been in the trenches and now I’m ready to lead the charge."
   "The time for excuses has past. The time for change has come. The future is now!"

            ###

Cindi responded thusly:

And we get to meet
him on Wednesday, at noon.

Ohmigosh, and here it is Wednesday at 11:21. And so it begins. I haven’t counted yet myself, but Warren said he counted up the candidates running in Midlands legislative and county primaries, and we will have 52 interviews between now and June. He also noted that we will have far more interviews for primaries than we will for general elections in the fall. Such is the domination of reapportionment by incumbents and political parties.

And Mr. Carson, who will be competing with Joe McEachern & Benjamin Byrd for an open seat currently held by Rep. John Scott (who is seeking a Senate seat), will be the first.

bradwarthen.com

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OK, so I jumped to a conclusion

Legislative interviews begin today