All I could think of to say to this:
Ocasio-Cortez says she encouraged Senate Dems to vote “present” on Green New Deal https://t.co/zi0XcO8GRt pic.twitter.com/EavljeM5Jj
— The Hill (@thehill) March 27, 2019
Was this:
The old app: This is the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it…
Being invited by email to complete a survey for The New York Times, I said this when they asked me why I liked reading the paper best on my iPad app:
It works well for me. But I prefer the old app to the new one, for the simple fact that I can see the name of the author of an opinion piece before clicking on it. That’s important to me, because there are certain columnists I don’t want to miss. I have no idea why that feature is missing in the new app.
See what I did there? I told them what I didn’t like about it, even though they didn’t ask that. I’d been looking for a chance to get that gripe in, and I figured this was my chance. I’m putting it on my blog now on the slim chance that it might get to the attention of someone who can do something about it this way.
It’s a small thing, but it makes a big difference in my enjoyment of the paper, as well as in its usefulness to me.
The NYT keeps trying to get me to use the new app. Although I have it on my iPad, I don’t. And won’t, as long as the old one works.
Over the years, I have come to spend most of my time interacting with newspapers reading the opinion pages. I prefer that to “straight” news. I like getting my information within the context of an argument. Don’t just tell me who, what, where… tell me what you think of it, and I’ll decide what I think of what you think of it.
This is a deeper way of engaging with news than reading the front page. I’ve written about this a number of times over the years. I find that there are certain questions I want answered about an event or an issue, and too often those questions don’t even occur to “straight” news reporters. Why? Because they’re not trying to figure out what they think about the event or the issue, so they approach it on a more superficial level.
When you’re going to make an argument about something, and thousands of people are going to read that argument and judge it, you think harder about it. And yes, this process works best with people who do it for a living. The same principle seldom applies in the case of the loudmouth on the barstool proclaiming his own gut impressions to everyone around him. Not necessarily because the professional is smarter; he’s just doing it within a more demanding context. And doing it day in, day out. And when you’re doing it for a living, and even more so when you’re syndicated, or appearing in a publication with famously high standards — such as the NYT — you’ve got to prove yourself every day.
And while I will sometimes click on a piece purely because of the headline, I’m just much more likely to do so when I see it’s by someone whose thoughtfulness I’ve come to respect.
And no, it’s not about just reading people I agree with (although I’m sure it would work that way with a lot of people, such as the blowhard on the barstool, assuming he reads). It’s about reading people who, whatever they think, have demonstrated to me over and over that they will make a good case well. I like people who make me think, “He’s wrong, but he almost convinces me…”
By the way, this preference of mine came into play when I became editorial page editor of The State in 1997. I immediately started requiring my writers to write at least one column a week, in addition to editorials (which by definition are not signed, because they speak for the institution rather than an individual, and represented a consensus of the board). I did this so that readers would see the editorial board less as a monolith, and know the people who crafted our positions. But I also did it because it made the page more the kind of page I liked to read myself.
These days, some of my favorites in the NYT are David Brooks, Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat. And yes, those three have some views in common with me — they are all never-Trumpers, and none of them are Democrats.
What that means is that, in explaining the problems with the current occupant of the White House, they have to think harder about their views and how they want to express them — unlike someone like Paul Krugman, who is painfully predictable. I’ve never been able to stand Krugman, as I’ve said many times before — although if the headline intrigues me, I may read even him.
I keep thinking at some point the NYT will upgrade the new app so that it shows the bylines. But they haven’t yet…
The new app: This is NOT the way I like it.
Moisture Festival 2010, photo by Michelle Bates
I’m super busy with catching up on work, but I wanted to give y’all something new to chew on.
If you are old enough, you will remember something on television called a “variety show,” and you will also remember that periodically someone would come on such a show whose claim to fame was the ability to keep a number of plates spinning simultaneously atop spindly sticks. (And yes, young people, we actually watched this, because the Beatles might come on next — also, there was no Netflix.) Well, me pausing in catching up on work to post this is like that — another plate set to spinning.
Some topics:
After our tour of Ford Island in 2015, we dropped by our Alma Mater to pay respects.
Y’all know I’m not a big Facebook user. So I had to return to America to learn that my high school friend and blog regular Burl Burlingame had died suddenly on the Ides of March — just two days after we left for Ireland.
I had just gotten into the office this morning, and Lora said she had been looking for Ireland pictures on my Facebook (there were none — I was putting them all on Twitter), and she noticed that my friend had died. That’s how I learned about it.
His most recent FB profile photo, from 2018.
WHAT?!?!?
“Sudden” was the way his passing was described. It was certainly that from my perspective.
Wow. The world has lost an extraordinary person. Even in high school, Burl was a Renaissance Man — writer, photographer, cartoonist, musician, actor. Wherever you looked, Burl was there and playing a major role. Larger than life. Before I had even done so much as work on a school paper, he wrote, illustrated and published his own underground newspaper in which he regularly referred to our principal, Mr. Yamamoto — who was seldom seen by students — as the Ghost Who Walks. He used to carry around a briefcase with multiple harmonicas in it, which he could really, really play. When he portrayed the secret policeman in the senior class production of Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water,” his was easily the most memorable performance.
Burl in 1971.
As an adult, he just expanded on all of that. Like me, he spent 35 years as a newspaperman, but while I was concentrating on that one thing, Burl was making his mark in other spheres — writing books on military history, becoming a master modeler (of course, like most of us, he had taken up that hobby as a kid, but then turned pro), and establishing himself as probably the leading expert in the world on Japanese minisubs. So it was perfectly natural when he left the paper to become staff historian at the Pacific Aviation Museum.
I feel privileged that I got to reconnect with Burl, through this blog, almost 40 years after we graduated from Radford High School together. And I’m glad I got to see him twice in recent years, first when he gave my wife and me a personal tour of his museum and Ford Island, and again when he came to Columbia for an international modelers convention.
And I’m having trouble absorbing the fact that I’ll never see him again in this life.
On Ford Island in 2015. Note the rainbow.
Cindi Ross Scoppe shared her good news with me last week, but told me to embargo it while she and the folks at the Post and Courier decided how to announce it. So I did. And then, she went ahead and scooped me herself on social media!
It’s those kind of killer instincts that have made her the finest political journalist working in South Carolina today.
And yes, she is indeed back working. As she wrote:
I’m starting my new job on Thursday, as an editorial writer for The Post and Courier. I’ll be working with a great team, writing editorials and columns primarily about state government and the Legislature. And yes, I’m staying in Columbia, where I can keep a close eye on everything. I’ll have a column in a few days introducing myself to readers, and I’ll share that here.
This is tremendous news — the Charleston paper creating this new position, in Columbia, and hiring Cindi for it is the kind of fairy-tale ending that just doesn’t happen for experienced journalists these days. It’s wonderful for Cindi, and even better for South Carolina.
Y’all might not know this, but the Post and Courier is the last daily newspaper in South Carolina that actually employs an editorial department (with an editorial page editor and everything), offering opinions on the issues that affect our state. The State, as you know, doesn’t do it — they didn’t even bother to have an “opinion page” today, which is just as well, since when they do run it it’s just canned stuff from elsewhere and a few letters. And I learned during the campaign, when I was checking around to set up endorsement interviews, that the Greenville and Spartanburg papers don’t do editorials any more, either.
Cindi told me that the Charleston folks asked why, toward the end of her career at The State, she wrote only columns and no editorials. The answer was as obvious to me as it was to her — there was something vaguely false about offering editorials when you’re the last member of the editorial board. Might as well sign them. (For those still confused about the difference, I’ll explain further on request.)
I’m just so happy for Cindi. But I’m thrilled for South Carolina. We all needed her back on the job.
Doug keeps asking Bud how a “soak the rich” plan would work. (Yeah, they’re having that argument again.)
I thought I’d step in and help. I’ve got it all worked out:
Carnivals would be set up in each county across the country. Each one would feature a dunking booth. The richest people in each county would be placed, one at a time, on the seat in the booth. In large metropolitan areas, only billionaires would be used for this purpose. In the nation’s biggest markets, such as New York and Los Angeles, these would be famous billionaires. Mind you, we’re not just talking Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, but some REALLY irresistible targets like, say, Kylie Jenner and Justin Bieber.
In Washington, it would be Trump in the booth.
Members of the middle class would be charged $100 a throw, folks below the poverty line only $20 (Doug will object to this approach, but he should reflect that if they can’t afford the $100, we don’t get anything). Some of them would be so eager, they would take out loans in order to throw until their arms wore out.
With the proceeds, we could have single payer.
We could have these carnivals periodically — say, once a month — and my next way to spend it would be on a 600-ship Navy.
Then, I’d start socking it away to save Social Security.
Oh, and we’d finally have those bases on the Moon and Mars I’ve been wanting.
The sky’s the limit. We’d be rolling in dough….
You don’t have to thank me. Just give me 1 percent of the proceeds. I’ll make do with that, and be content…
If we’re ever REALLY desperate for funds, we can take this approach.
This is a recent shot from an event in Mandy’s home town. I think it was called “That ’70s Gala”…
No, it’s not me saying it. I would never say such a… I mean, not that I disagree!… I mean… well, I don’t quite know what to make of an article that describes my former boss in those terms.
But Mandy wants it to go viral, so I’m happy to help. Here’s the piece, in a publication called News Growl, and here’s an excerpt:
When it came time for South Carolina gubernatorial candidate James Smith to pick a running mate in May 2018, he chose fellow Democrat and South Carolina House member Mandy Powers Norrell.
“I have found a woman who has the experience and strength of character that we need, a woman who shares our core values as South Carolinians, a woman who is ready now to serve and to lead South Carolina,” he said at the announcement.
What Smith did not say (but could have) is that he had found a running mate who also had an unusually keen sense of fashion and enough glamour to make a Kennedy blush….
It goes on in that vein.
For her part, Mandy was a bit bemused that her attire caused such a stir:
Okay I need some help making this go viral! I never imagined anyone would accuse me of being “glamorous,” but that’s a reputation I want to have! Of the outfits discussed in the article, two were hand-me-downs and two were Goodwill finds! https://t.co/W9XmwS6vPZ
— Mandy Powers Norrell (@MPowersNorrell) March 8, 2019
Of course, Republicans get terribly envious when Democrats get such positive press, which is what I suppose stirred my own representative to respond:
I mean, it pretty much writes itself: “Caskey’s sartorial tastes range from bureaucratic gray to politiciany navy. Whatever the season, his off-the-shelf suits almost flatter his unflattering frame. In today’s world, where words don’t mean things, Caskey is redefining glamorous.” pic.twitter.com/RYv96ZQTbY
— Micah Caskey 🇺🇸 (@MicahCaskey) March 8, 2019
The jockeying for partisan advantage just never ceases, does it?
So I suppose that, as the communications director, I missed a major opportunity not making Mandy’s appearance a talking point in the campaign. No doubt if I had, it would have put her and James over the top. Well, it’s their fault, not mine — for hiring a campaign novice for such a crucial position. As I keep telling Doug: Experience counts!
Shazam! No, wait — that’s the other one…
Some possible topics:
Y’all remember Clare Morris, don’t you? She’s our correspondent who gave us the inside reports on Mark Sanford’s political comeback several years back.
Well, I ran into Clare this morning, and she notified me that she had done a crazy thing: Applied to join the Richland County Election Commission. Making her one of the 100-plus to do so.
I told her how crazy it was. Apparently, many others had told her, too.
But I paid her homage as well. Somebody has to run for it, if it’s ever to be fixed.
I wished her luck, if she was sure she wanted to sacrifice herself in this way.
I’m not sure anyone’s going to be elected to it today. Lynn Teague reported this a short while ago:
Harpootlian begins Richland delegation meeting on Richland Election candidates by noting the absence of a quorum. Members present so far are Chairman Bales and representatives Harpootlian, Rose, Ballentine, Garvin.
— Lynn S. Teague (@LynnSTeague) March 7, 2019
This was tweeted yesterday by my own favorite legislative libertarian, the inimitable Sen. Tom Davis:
My #MedicalMarijuana bill — proposing the most tightly regulated MMJ law in the country— has traction and is moving through the legislative process, so opponents are now sending anonymous mailers like this. Pathetic. pic.twitter.com/vCbheWVOLi
— Tom Davis (@senatortomdavis) March 6, 2019
Needless to say, it’s getting a lot of response.
First, I thought it was a hoot. Next, I had other thoughts:
Here’s an explanation of my “Dark Money” bill H3045. With your help, we can get this passed this year! Thank you friends!!! #scpol #DarkMoney pic.twitter.com/ccuSoCVZYm
— Mandy Powers Norrell (@MPowersNorrell) March 5, 2019
And finally… here’s another such mailer (or, I suppose, the other side of this one):
My brother-in-law, Patrick Cooper Phelan, in 2007.
As long as I’m wishing you appropriate holiday sentiments, I hope y’all all have a great St. Patrick’s Day. I see tickets are available for the Five Points bash, and you get a discount if you buy them in advance.
I urge you to go to Yesterday’s and buy one, have a pint and remember me to Duncan and my other friends there.
However, I won’t be joining you on the day of. I’ll be in Ireland.
See how I just reeled that off so casually, as though going to Ireland is a small thing that I do all the time? Well, it isn’t. I’ve never been before. But my colleen and I will be boarding a plane for Dublin a week from today, and we’re kind of excited about it. We’ll spend a couple of days there, and on St. Paddy’s Day we’ll be in Waterford, which is my wife’s ancestral home. She’s a Phelan, which is to say she’s an Ó Faoláin.
We have tacitly agreed that while in Waterford, I won’t mention my descent from the guy the hard cider is named after. Although while in Dublin I plan to quietly go to the National Gallery and see his wedding picture, which depicts his taking Irish Princess Aoife Ní Diarmait as his bride. (And if anyone asks me, I’ll stress that I’m just as much descended from her as I am from the Norman. Ahem. So don’t blame me.)
And it promises to be a great St. Patrick’s Day, because my wife’s brother and his wife will be with us. And the most fun I ever had at the Five Points celebration was in 2007, with that same brother-in-law.
Having the two Phelans with me should give me all the cred I need among the Irish. Or so I hope.
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to it. So much so that I started reading Ulysses a few weeks back, to get into the mood. But a couple of “chapters” in, I decided that was unnecessary, and that having read Dubliners is more than enough preparation….
On Ash Wednesday, I usually wait until the Mass at night to go get my ashes. Of course, I do that with any holy day that comes in the week, such as… well, I guess Ash Wednesday is the main one… because it’s convenient: Get through the working day, go to Mass, go home.
But I know that a small part of the equation is that I don’t want to go around all day with the ashes on. And this is evidence of being a bad Catholic, I think. I mean, the whole point is to spend the day wearing an outward sign of penitence, right? Show everyone you’re sorry for your sins. I think.
It’s not that I’m embarrassed to show my faith. I do that all the time. In fact, I disobey Jesus’ admonition not to pray in public, by briefly saying grace wherever I sit down to eat. If there are people who are inclined to say, “Look at the crazy Christian,” they have ample opportunity. (Which is worse — praying in public, or failing to be grateful for one’s daily bread?)
But the ashes… They call for explanation. My mind goes back to a time shortly after I first became Catholic. It was Ash Wednesday, and I went into a Chinese restaurant with my ashes on. The proprietor helpfully told me in broken English that I had something on my forehead. I told him it was supposed to be there. This perplexed him, and I started trying to explain, but there was enough of a language barrier to make that impossible. Eventually, apparently deciding that the crazy foreign devil was making fun, he laughed. I gave up.
That was 30 something years ago, and I’m pretty sure that on some level I’m still trying to avoid having that conversation again. Partly because living in the South, many Christians don’t know about Ash Wednesday, much less other folk. So you have this situation where people are looking at you, and you figure they’re wondering about the ashes, and you can’t decide whether you should assume that and offer an explanation (evangelicals certainly would, if they followed this practice), or just let them wonder.
So I go at night, which minimizes interaction with the uninitiated.
And I feel a little bad about that.
I feel especially bad on this Ash Wednesday, because at breakfast I saw the guy above on a TV set, standing in front of the world with his ashes on. The sound was off, so I don’t know if he offered an explanation of his ashes or not.
Well, good for him. I applaud him. Among other things, he’s showing the world that journalists are not all a bunch of godless barbarians. And this one is on MSNBC, no less! Take that, all you alleged Christians who voted for Trump!
Anyway, I just looked at the schedule, and while I don’t think I’m going to make it to the noon Mass, I see there’s one at 5:30! I could go to that, instead of the 7:30!
Baby steps…
Madman Theory? THIS guy could do Madman Theory. And I don’t mean Elvis.
How long has it been since I’ve done one of these? Near as I can tell, I haven’t done one since July 23 — and I led that one with one of our campaign talking points (might as well kill two birds). After that, I decided I was going to have to bow out of blogging for the duration. It was just too awkward.
It wasn’t James’ fault. Whenever I said “If I were blogging, I’d write about this” in his presence, he’d say, “Aw, man, I hate for you to give up your blog.” But I had to, once I fully realized anything I said would reflect on him and Mandy. I couldn’t do that to them; they deserved better. Also, there was no time.
But let’s get this started up again:
This is “the boy who cried wolf.” Not very self-explanatory, is it? Needs word balloons. Sorry. Best I could find.
There’s nothing stupider in political discourse than the game left and right play in trying to catch each other out for being hypocritical, or inconsistent, or unfair. I’m talking about the kind of J’Accuse! assertions that the ones asserting them think are devastating, but are persuasive to no one but the already brainwashed. These facile, leap-to-judgment “arguments,” generally found on social media, sort of make me feel ashamed to be a human in the 21st century.
I find it doubly irritating when news media are being unjustly accused of the above sins (this is from the right 90 percent of the time). But that’s me; your mileage may vary. (Sorry, Bryan — you hadn’t used that today, so I grabbed it.)
This is not even an extreme example, but it’s one at hand, so I share it:
Readers of the print edition of the Washington Post found not a word this morning about the charges brought last night against Jessie Smollett. The news broke about 8 p.m. Because democracy dies in darkness.
— Brit Hume (@brithume) February 21, 2019
I had a number of thoughts in quick succession about this when it appeared the other day:
Personally, I like what the NYT‘s David Leonhardt said about cases such as this, two days before Hume’s Tweet:
Ms. Harris said in response to the question about her use of the ‘modern day lynching’ phrase,” as Katharine Seelye of The Times reported. “After a moment, she said, ‘I think the facts are still unfolding and I’m very concerned’ about the initial allegation by Mr. Smollett. She said ‘there should be an investigation’ and declined to comment further until it was complete.”
Her final instinct there was the best one. Making sweeping pronouncements about unverified criminal allegations isn’t a good idea — not now, not three weeks ago. It’s especially problematic with matters involving race, gender and sexuality, which ignite particular political passions.
Everyone — and definitely anyone running for president — should know by now that it’s O.K. to wait before weighing in on a hot topic. As the most recent Democratic president famously said, “I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”…
Good advice, that.
The main thing about the SC primary, of course, is that the right candidate runs and wins it. Hint, hint…
I mean in terms of the presidential primary process.
Starting in 1988, and ending in 2012, SC was in many ways the contest Republicans had to win. It was key to both of the Bushes especially. SC Republicans went around saying things like “We choose presidents,” yadda yadda. They did this because they picked mainstream, establishment candidates with appeal beyond the base, and our early primary helped tip the selection process in their favor.
Then, in 2012, it all fell apart with the rejection of Mitt Romney in favor of the fire-breathing Newt Gingrich. And we know what happened in 2016 — yeah, SC Repubs picked the eventual winner, but the whole national electorate had to go stark, raving mad in order for that to happen. At the time of the SC primary, it looked like Palmetto State Republicans were chasing off in another crazy direction alone, as with Gingrich. If decisions were still made in smoke-filled rooms by a party elite, SC would have lost its early primary by now. (In saner times, SC Republicans would have salvaged the hopes of the hapless Jeb! They had never let a Bush down before.)
Meanwhile, over the last few elections, this red state has gotten more important to Democrats. I was impressed by how many Dems we saw trooping though our editorial boardroom in 2003-4 (my own favorite being, famously or infamously, Joe Lieberman). And while he didn’t get the nomination, the execrable John Edwards’ win here helped get him the second spot on the ticket.
SC was very helpful in helping Barack Obama get the momentum he needed to pull ahead in 2008. The SC Democratic primary wasn’t really a contest in 2016, with Hillary Clinton winning hands-down as expected.
But this year, you’d think the Democratic nomination was going to be awarded right here, on the spot, next Feb. 29. They’ve been trooping through here in battalions, for months. (You’ve seen me complain about that distraction, and media fascination with 2020 over 2018, back during the campaign last fall.)
This is an interesting phenomenon. There have always been some aspects of the Democratic contest in this blood-red state that caused folks to pay attention nationally. That was largely because there are essentially no black voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, so Dems who won in those places would be told, “Let’s just wait and see how you do in South Carolina.”
But this thing we’re seeing now exceeds what we’ve seen in the past. With the huge field, and particularly with some of the chief contestants in it being African-American, we are looming large.
I’ve had a lot of occasions to note this; we all have. What kicked this off today was Vanity Fair’s “The Hive” making this observation about Bernie Sanders:
None of Sanders’s opponents are scared by those numbers, however. Because what Sanders was less good at in 2016 was spending his large pile of money to win votes. Particularly the crucial Democratic primary votes of women and African-Americans. Especially in the key state of South Carolina. And three years after being crushed by 47 points there by Hillary Clinton, with an even more challenging field of primary rivals shaping up, Sanders is showing little sign that he’s going to get it right this time around. True, in January he spoke in South Carolina on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Sanders has also taken every opportunityto blast President Donald Trump as a racist. Yet Sanders remains remarkably awkward on the subject…
The piece ends with a lengthy quote from our own Bakari Sellers.
I don’t know why that particularly grabbed me. Something about Vanity Fair of all entities calling poor li’l ol’ us “the key state.” Anyway, you’ll be reading plenty more like that.
This is deeply ironic, of course — a state that hasn’t been in play in the general election being so important to Democrats. But it’s increasingly a thing, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out going forward.
In short, will this story have a happy ending (with Joe Biden deciding to run, winning in SC, and going on to win the White House), or not? That’s my perspective, anyway… 🙂
The stream of Dems who came through our editorial board room in 2004 was impressive. Since that was pre-blog, this is the only photo I have from that time. It was shot by a Dean fan when my assistant Sandy Brown and I were escorting the governor from the building after meeting with him…
I’ve been meaning to write about this, but when it was timely — on Inauguration Day, and when we had the State of the State — I was too busy to blog, and let it slide.
But now I’m thinking about it again, so…
A number of times lately, I’ve thought, Hey, at least one voter out there was listening to us during the campaign: Henry McMaster.
At least it seems that way. Everywhere we went, James and Mandy touted their plan to raise teacher pay and take other measures to make all our schools places where kids were well educated and teachers loved their jobs and didn’t want to quit. And James had a crowd-pleasing line he used with regard to his opponent that went kind of like this: The only thing Henry McMaster has offered our schools is to arm teachers with guns. I want to arm them with better pay, and with the tools they need to be effective.
The line worked, because Henry offered nothing to counter it. He didn’t talk about schools. Any reasonable person could be forgiven for assuming that he didn’t give a flying flip about schools.
Now, he’s all on fire for education reform. Which is why, after the State of the State, Mandy Powers Norrell tweeted this:
Got this text from my awesome husband during the State of the State address last night: Congratulations to the Smith-Norrell ticket for setting the 2019 executive and legislative agenda! #ManyWaysToMeasureAWin
— Mandy Powers Norrell (@MPowersNorrell) January 24, 2019
It’s great. It’s gratifying. But don’t think I think we deserve the credit (and I don’t think Mandy does, either). I don’t flatter myself that Henry is taking his cues from the Smith campaign. I do think he’s taking them from House Speaker Jay Lucas. And that’s a good thing.
(Oops, I forgot to use The State newspaper’s recent style. On first reference, and sometimes even in headlines, it’s always “powerful House Speaker Jay Lucas.” It’s become such a part of his title, I expect them to start capitalizing the “P” next. Back in the old mainframe days when we were on Atex terminals, we would have said, “they’ve got it on a SAVE/GET key…”)
Lucas has been wanting to get serious on helping our schools for several years now. Even though the Supreme Court has backed off on forcing the Legislature to provide all the state’s students with a better-than-minimally adequate education, Lucas really wants to do something about it.
And he’s willing to let Henry get in front of the parade and take credit for it.
And to his credit, Henry for once is acting like a leader and stepping out to do something, to lead, to be a governor.
His first two years in office, we saw no sign of that. In fact, when Lucas and others in the State House tried to lead, Henry lay down in front of their efforts. He only cared about the upcoming election. It was painfully evident that, on a twist of another of James’ campaign lines, Henry would rather keep the job than do the job.
The way he tried to block leadership on the roads bill was the perfect example. Rather than support the lawmakers in the risk they were taking, he vetoed the bill, and neither tried to offer a viable argument why nor made any effort to get lawmakers to sustain the veto. He knew they would override him. He just wanted zero responsibility for what happened. (Which reminds me of a postwar German phrase: Ohne mich. They could do what they liked, but without him.)
Now that he’s been elected governor for the first time, he seems to have decided he’s going to act like one. For a change.
I worked so hard to get James Smith elected mostly because of my tremendous respect for him, personally. I’d have been for James even if Henry had been a fairly decent governor. But I worked even harder for him because Henry gave no sign of being any kind of governor at all, decent or otherwise. It was an extra spur to my efforts.
And when we lost, we had little reason to hope for anything better going forward.
Which is why it’s so encouraging to see Henry accepting the mantle of leadership that the Speaker has offered him. It’s not as good as having James as governor, not by a long shot, but it’s something.
I applaud this unexpected development. And I’m daring to hope that something good will come out of it. After all, Dum Spiro Spero…
I accepted some time ago that I was never going to be a world-shaker on the weekly Slate News Quiz. Aside from the fact that it tends to value news that’s a little outside my areas of interest (like, you know, sports), it’s timed, which tends to rattle me. Because I never ever do nothin’ fast, to paraphrase Tina Turner.
And today, I met my own low expectations, missing five questions and scoring a miserable 313. (I did, by way of consolation, beat this week’s designated Slate staffer, but this was a feature writer, not a hard-news type, so no real honor in that.)
But as I say, I no longer expect to break records. This week, for instance, the top score was from a reader with the alias “LiberalViewer,” with a perfect 600. (How does one get a perfect score on a test in which time counts against your score? Get all 12 questions right in zero time?)
So I’ve started using the quizzes for something else — to test and train my brain. Now that I’m on Medicare and all, I suppose I should think about keeping the ol’ gray matter humming — or making whatever noise it makes.
So right after I score my usual dismal score, I go back and take the same test again, with two aims — to see if I remember all the correct answers and to see how much faster I can do it.
After all, since my annual physical last week was my first on Medicare, they gave me a mental acuity test. The nurse gave me three words to remember and asked me to draw a clock on which the hands pointed to 10 ’til 2. She left the room, and I set to work drawing my clock (the circle part was already drawn, thank goodness). Later, suddenly and without warning, she asked me for the three words. They were “sunshine,” “banana” and “chair.” I aced it — this time. (She never got back to me on the clock thing.)
Anyway, this week I did the quiz again several minutes later and got a 580. Which is good, I think. For a slowcoach like me, anyway. That’s about as fast as my fingers will click…
I’ve blurred names and faces to protect the innocent. It’s not their fault LinkedIn does this…
Several years back, I was persuaded to sign up for LinkedIn, on the premise that it would be good for me in my post-newspaper life.
I’ve given it every chance; I really have. I’ve got more than 1,500 connections without having tried all that hard. (I know a lot of people; a lot of people know me.) And I’m sure that any day now, this will come in handy. For something.
But today, as I labor to empty my IN box, I’m wondering about one specific aspect of this thing.
Who congratulates people on their work anniversaries? If you do it, why do you do it? Do you think they want you to? Does anyone have work anniversary celebrations? When you do so, do you worry whether your message will push the recipient into a state of despond, having been reminded that he or she has spent yet another year in that job?
Is this notion of work anniversaries some sort of holdover from when people actually spent whole careers in the same secure jobs, and happily counted down the years until they got that gold watch? Seems to me that the period of time in which LinkedIn has existed corresponds with the years in which more and more of us have been thrown, unwilling, into the gig economy. Is that it? Is the idea that we’re to congratulate the few, the happy (but endangered) few who still have actual jobby-jobs, like Daddy used to have?
I’m just curious whether this is a thing. Or whether LinkedIn is just trying to make it a thing (and, I’m guessing, not succeeding) in a desperate bid for relevance.
All I know is, I’m tired of the emails…
It might be simpler.
Anyway, I thought y’all might be interested in seeing the interactive graphic The New York Times has published showing the Democrats, or sort-of Democrats, who are definitely or maybe or possibly running for president next year.
(And no, the image above is not interactive. It’s just a screenshot from my iPad, although it links to the real one. The interactive one is here.)
Apparently, there’s a heap of hubris out there. All sorts of folks think they’re qualified to be POTUS, many of them on the thinnest possible grounds.
Personally, I’ve decided we need a good rule of thumb for winnowing the field, and I have gone ahead and come up with one, The country can thank me later. Here it is: No one younger than I am should be allowed to be president. Sure, that young fella Obama did pretty well, but we just can’t take chances with our country. Too much is at stake.
So, let’s see… the following youngsters are disqualified among those who are running or are likely: Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Harris, Klobuchar, Yang, Bullock, Landrieu, McAuliffe, Merkley, O’Rourke.
I’ll figure out how to disqualify Sanders and Warren later. Hey, I didn’t claim my system was perfect. It’s just a starting point. I’ll continue to work on it until achieves my desired purpose of eliminating everyone other than Joe Biden.
(And no, Trump’s being older than I am doesn’t qualify him, since mentally and emotionally he’s about 3 years old.)
Anyway, as Bryan likes to say, your mileage may vary. 🙂
Spanish Flu Pandemic
As the man who is, to our everlasting shame, president of the United States makes a mockery of the concept, I thought I’d start a discussion of actual national emergencies from our history.
It’s not that easy. I’m sure I’m forgetting something big, but just to get the ball rolling, here’s my quick-and-dirty list of Top Five Actual National Emergencies:
Honorable mention:
The burning of Washington.
