Tweet OK, so maybe it’s not everything — there’s personal pettiness, and anti-intellectualism, and an appalling willingness on the parts of too many to stoop to the lowest common public impulses for advantage — but it’s something that runs through it all, and ruins everything it touches. And besides, those things are more or less […]
TweetJust got a release from CAIR on this subject: (WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/3/13) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today distributed a commentary urging media outlets to drop the term “Islamist” because it is “currently used in an almost exclusively pejorative context.”… In this connection, the group offered an op-ed from Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s national communications […]
TweetMy favorite Jim Davenport story won’t make much sense to most people, but it always makes me smile. Jim, whom we called “Dav” because that was his login on the Atex mainframe system we used at The State back then, first came to work for the paper on a sort of unofficial basis while he […]
TweetOver the weekend, I experienced the polar opposites of cinematic achievement: First, AT&T was having a free weekend for premium channels, and while I recorded a number of films I expect to enjoy, one of those channels also showed David Lynch’s execrable “Dune.” I had not watched it since that bitterly disappointing night in 1984 […]
TweetBack in my fire-breathing days when I thought it was possible to completely transform South Carolina right NOW — say, the year that I spent directing the “Power Failure” project, 1991 — I used to rail against the politeness that characterized public life in our state. Not that politeness per se was a bad thing. […]
Tweet Since I suffered through enough of the GOP convention last night to send out a few tweets, I might as well share them here (one of these days I’m going to figure out how to seamlessly integrate Twitter into this blog in real time; until then I’ll have to do this). And “suffered” is […]
TweetOn a previous post, I noted that years ago I lobbied for creation of a “driveby beat” at The State — to have a reporter dedicated to answering people’s understandable curiosity about things they drove by and wondered about in the Midlands. It would have been a wonderful way to root the paper and readers […]
TweetSome of my readers have evinced an interest in this Fast and Furious thing that is causing such a stir in Washington. Seeking to learn more about it, I started reading the results of a six-month investigation into the case by Fortune magazine. It left me more or less as confused as I was before. […]
TweetIn advance of the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, Kathleen Parker wrote a column about the harm that Nixon did to the American spirit. The part of the column that spoke most to me, though, was this: Not incidentally, Watergate also created something else of significance — the celebrity journalist and a generation of […]
TweetThis hasn’t been a good week for Mr. Obama. First there was the “Polish death camp” thing that wouldn’t go away. (Hey, I understood what he meant, didn’t you? But just try explaining it to the Poles…) Today, there’s this: Worst U.S. Job Data in a Year Signals Stalling Recovery A dismal job market report […]
TweetOh, gee, you gotta be kidding me. I just got this from Wesley Donehue: In recognition of Andre’ Bauer’s awareness of and efforts to meet the needs of South Carolina’s seniors during his tenure as Lt. Governor, Lexington County Recreation & Aging Commission is naming its senior center in Batesburg-Leesville the “Andre’ Bauer Senior Center.” […]
Tweet The other night at the 100th episode of “Pub Politics,” Corey Hutchins was brandishing a wad of bills like the one you see above. He gave me one, which I stuck in my pocket. (I didn’t need cash right then, on account of the beer being free at this shindig.) I thought at the […]
TweetThought this was interesting. A public school administrator in Texas penned a letter (last year, but I didn’t see it until now), based on that written by South Carolinian William Barret Travis from the Alamo, describing how he was besieged by ideological “reformers” in his state. Will anyone ride to his rescue? And if he […]
TweetI read something that surprised me this morning, in a book review in The Wall Street Journal. As is fairly typical in opinion pieces in the Journal, the reviewer repeatedly expressed disdain for the author of a book about Irish politics in Boston whenever he failed to be insufficiently conservative (praising him for not dwelling […]
TweetThe State tried this morning to foreshadow the Ard resignation with two stories. One speculated on how Glenn McConnell will dodge the unthinkable fate of being demoted to the useless, meaningless job of lieutenant governor. The other dealt with the phenomenon we’ve seen plenty of over the last couple of years — the state Democratic Party’s […]
Tweet Speak out, you got to speak out against the madness, you got to speak your mind, if you dare. But don’t no don’t try to get yourself elected If you do you had better cut your hair. — Crosby, Stills and Nash Pursuant to our previous discussion of ponytails and their relationship to credibility […]
TweetI’ve seen some mealy-mouthed excuses and lazy cowardice in my late lamented newspaper career, but I don’t recall when I’ve seen anything to match the Chicago Sun-Times’ decision to abandon political endorsements, which was announced in the paper today. You can read the whole sorry mess at the paper’s website, but I’m going to copy […]
TweetAnd so in the end, it comes down to this: The only chance to prevent Newt Gingrich from going forward strengthened, with a chance of winning the GOP nomination, is to vote for the guy no one seems to actively like: Mitt Romney. Staying home does no good. Voting for Ron Paul or Rick Santorum […]
TweetEarlier this evening, Sen. Tom Davis put out this release: SENATOR TOM DAVIS ENSORSES RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT“It’s easy to campaign on lower taxes, less spending and fewer regulations – it’s another thing entirely to stand up for these limited government principles when the entire Washington establishment is aligned against you. Yet for more than […]
Tweet The SC Senate Republican Caucus is bragging on how terrific it is that people hardly have to pay any taxes to support state government in South Carolina. Great job they’re doin’ ain’t it? The thing is, that’s not news to anyone except the out-of-touch people who go around complaining about how high taxes are […]