Here’s a fun one:
Stay in school, kids. pic.twitter.com/xWWqzbt0H6
— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) March 21, 2018
Not that I have room to talk. I had a typo in this one last night. I’m just so embarrassed…
As long as I’m throwing tweets at you, let’s contrast Henry McMaster’s fatuous nonsense with what’s going on among people at the State House who actually care about issues that matter to South Carolina.
We’ll start with this:
Today, I along w/@petermccoyforsc @repjohnrcking @MPowersNorrell @NathanBallentin @beth4house @NancyMace @reprussellott @RepRutherford @garyclarysc & others work to pass job saving, job expanding rate payer protecting solar policy for a brighter future. https://t.co/nZ2sGkRGGv
— James Smith (@JamesSmithSC) March 21, 2018
Oh, there goes that Brad Warthen promoting James Smith again! Well, not just him. We’re talking about a bipartisan coalition of actual leaders who are standing up to the pro-utility interests that brought you the Base Load Review Act.
This is what’s going on in the State House in this universe, as opposed to the one Henry lives in. In this universe, there’s a battle going on between people who continue to push the narrow interests of the utility industry and those who’d like us to be able to declare independence from them.
As a blog post over at the CVSC site says:
Let me set the scene for a big showdown that’s about to take place at the Statehouse…
There are two bills…
One bill was practically written by the utility monopolies. Not surprisingly, this bill would reward them for their role in the disastrous V.C. Summer debacle. Also, not surprisingly, this bill was introduced and rushed through subcommittee almost overnight by House members who’ve received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from utility monopolies.
The other bill would promote the growth of solar energy in South Carolina. This bill rewards consumers by treating them fairly and ensuring that our state’s solar energy market will continue to produce good-paying jobs and affordable energy for our families. Not surprisingly, this bill has been challenged at every step….
Here’s a comparison of the two bills:
Speaking of “intellectually-bankrupt campaign materials,” this is the first thing you see at the McMaster for Governor site.
This bit of nonsense just sort of floored me last night:
South Carolina is one step closer to banning Sanctuary Cities and standing tall for the Rule of Law! Tonight our bill received key approval from House Judiciary Committee (1/)
— Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) March 20, 2018
I responded thusly:
A reminder, once again, to anyone living in a reality-based universe: There are NO sanctuary cities in SC. Henry’s like a guy standing on the corner of Assembly & Gervais, snapping his fingers and claiming it’s keeping the elephants away… https://t.co/r29zEWnwbU
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) March 21, 2018
I mean, come on, people — who can possibly take seriously, for even a second, the governor of South Carolina celebrating his great “victory” (or initial step toward victory) over a completely imaginary foe?
“What’s next?” my own representative, Republican Micah Caskey, asked. “Are we going to require cities to certify that they didn’t rob a bank?”
He added: “There is no one, other than politicians, who have suggested this is something we actually need and should waste our time on.”
And I would add, only a certain kind of condescending, pandering politician, completely lacking in shame.
This morning, Micah added this via Twitter: “Sanctuary cities are already illegal in South Carolina. (See SC Code Ann. 17-13-170 and 23-3-1100.) The governor should read more of our laws already on the books and less of his intellectually-bankrupt campaign materials.”
Amen to that. And I suppose he meant this sort of campaign material…
Remember the Pew political typology quiz of a few years back? It was an attempt to classify people by their actual beliefs, getting beyond simple “left” and “right.”
It posed a lot of questions with only two answers and both of them wrong, but I found it intriguing. It placed me in what it called the “Faith and Family Left.” That bugged me because I didn’t like the “left” part — but I thought the “faith and family” part was fair enough. In fact, I liked it. And how often are any of us comfortable with the ways others describe us? Here’s how that category was described:
The Faith and Family Left combine strong support for activist government with conservative attitudes on many social issues. They are very racially diverse – this is the only typology group that is “majority-minority.” The Faith and Family Left generally favor increased government aid for the poor even if it adds to the deficit and believe that government should do more to solve national problems. Most oppose same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana and most say religion and family are at the center of their lives. Compare groups on key issues.
Sounds kind of like me, doesn’t it? Even though it’s the group with the highest percentage of African-Americans (I joked at the time that Pew thinks I’m a black preacher) and I’m the whitest white boy at Bypass High, it felt more or less right. I chafed at some of it, but not all.
But Pew has a new typology quiz now, and I hate it. (Actually, it’s relatively new. I tried last year and hated the results so much I didn’t even write about it. Today, I decided to give it another chance, but it came up with the same stupid answer.) The questions demanding one of two wrong answers are even more egregious, and I simply refused to answer some of them. Which means Pew assessed me on the basis of incomplete information. And this time, it decided I was one of the “New Era Enterprisers,” which right off sort of makes me want to gag.
I ask you, does this sound like me?
This relatively young, economically conservative, Republican-leaning group tends to be relatively moderate on immigration and views about America’s engagement with the rest of the world. Most say U.S. involvement in the global economy is a good thing and that immigrants strengthen the nation. As is the case with other GOP-leaning groups, a majority of New Era Enterprisers reject the idea that racial discrimination is the main reason many black people are unable to get ahead. Nearly two-thirds favor societal acceptance of homosexuality. New Era Enterprisers are less critical about government than other Republican-leaning groups.
Really? “This relatively young, economically conservative, Republican-leaning group?” I try to picture that person, and I see John Dean before he started ratting out the Nixon White House. And if I were really a member of this group, I would have little memory of Howard Dean, much less John.
OK, yeah, I favor engagement in the world. But doesn’t that make me more of an old school postwar internationalist? More of a John McCain type? Or a Scoop Jackson, among the Democrats? And yeah, I’m less critical about government — but how does that put me in this group?
The only way it fits, overall, is that this category seems to be less ideological all around.
Pictured above and below are two of the questions I refused to answer. How could I?
Of course the country can do more to help the needy — such as passing single-payer. And it does NOT have to go further into debt to do it. False choice.
The one below is worse. I don’t think racial discrimination is “the main reason” many black Americans have trouble getting ahead. Nor would I for a second say that folks trapped in multigenerational poverty are “mostly responsible for their own condition.” There are many forces that can frustrate a poor person’s best efforts, and to say racism is “the main reason” is to blind yourself to all the others.
Anyway, I don’t have time to think about this any more. I need to run out and start a tech company and make a billion dollars. Because that, apparently, is the kind of young fella I am. A New Era Enterpriser. Sheesh…
As unsuccessful as I was trying to find out who (other than the three people he’s named) is backing Phil Noble, I ran across a Marguerite Willis supporter the other evening without even trying.
Sorry about the bad resolution. It was dark…
I carefully smudged out the license number, so the individual supporter is anonymous — although you get a feel for the issues that motivate this voter from the rest of the information freely shared with the world. This is a maker of statements.
I have no idea whether this means the typical Willis voter is a Bernie supporter (frankly, I would have thought those votes would go to Noble) or believes war is not the answer. As y’all know, I’m way intuitive, but a sample of one falls a little short of what even I need to extrapolate from.
In the end, though, beyond this one sticker, I’m even more in the dark about where her support comes from than I am with Noble. But perhaps we’ll see some endorsements coming at some point…
No, I really want to know. That’s not just an indirect way of saying, “Phil Noble has no support.” I’d really like an answer to the question.
I have this vague memory that someone — perhaps someone here on the blog, or elsewhere — told me several months ago about having seen a list of Noble supporters. At the time, I dutifully hunted for such a list — on Google, on his website — and came up dry.
I got to thinking about it again today when I got this release:
Friend,
Awesome news: Today, Former SC State Senator McKinley Washington, Jr. endorsed my campaign for Governor.
I’m incredibly humbled to have Senator Washington’s recognition—he’s a true blue community leader with over 25 years of public service under his belt and I respect him deeply.
He had this to say about the endorsement:
“[Phil]’s commitment to civil rights, equality, and the economic and social advancement of the African-American community is unmatched. It is a sense of duty and humanity that I know to have been deeply rooted in his upbringing. Phil’s father is a Presbyterian minister and civil rights legend who went toe to toe with the Alabama KKK back in the 1960’s. He set a courageous example for Phil as he stood unwaveringly as he rose to the top of the KKK’s Alabama hit list.
Phil has been courageous enough to call out failure and corruption and then do something about it. Seeing the mass disenfranchisement in our state back in 1984, he started the Palmetto Project and one of the first initiatives helped register over 150,000 new voters in SC. Seeing the toll high prescription drug costs had on the poor and the elderly, he started Welvista to provide free prescriptions and preventative care to those populations. I’m endorsing Phil Noble because his track record proves he is the best person, Democrat or Republican, to lead our state.”
With his endorsement, Sen. Washington joins a growing list of leaders—including Alabama Senator Doug Jones and Anderson Mayor Terence Roberts—who believe my campaign is the best choice for our state because of its unwavering commitment to economic, racial, and social equality for all.
… and so forth. And no, there was no link to a list where it said, “a growing list of leaders.”
I had wondered the same last week when I got a release about the other South Carolinian he mentioned above:
Dear Brad,
The mayor of Anderson, Terence Roberts, just announced his support for Democrat Phil Noble’s campaign for governor.
At the Anderson County Democratic Party convention Tuesday night, Roberts told the crowd he is impressed with Noble’s background as a business and technology consultant and that Noble “is not a politician — he’s a businessman.”…
… and more of the same. That one, of course, mentioned the Doug Jones endorsement.
When I got that one, I responded to the email asking, “Who else, besides Doug Jones and the mayor of Anderson, have endorsed Phil? I heard there was a list somewhere of Phil’s SC supporters, but I haven’t been able to find it…”
It’s been seven days since I sent that question, but I’ve received no reply. Maybe it’s one of those “no reply” addresses that you can’t answer — although that would be weird, since it was a fund-raising email.
And now, there’s this additional announcement, bringing his official total support (that I can find) to three. One of whom can’t vote in South Carolina. (James Smith has a prominent supporter like that, too — Joe Biden.)
Oh, wait — I think Bud said he might vote for him. So that’s four.
I seriously doubt that that’s it. But it’s weird I can’t find more than that.
Can you? If so, please share…
This has engendered a certain amount of discussion on social media, so I thought I’d share it here as well:
OK, that’s it. I’ve had it with cutesy little emoticons in tweets. They are a barrier to communication — my eye glides over them as so much noise. Use your words. I will not go gentle into a post-verbal world…
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) March 18, 2018
Of course, I meant “emoji,” because I wasn’t just talking about faces. I had thought “emoji” was just the cutesy shortening of “emoticon” — and my purpose was to wage war on cutesiness — but Wikipedia said not to confuse them.
“Emoticons” are just the hypersimplistic, stylized representations of human facial expressions. And while I don’t much like them, they don’t irritate me the way other tiny images placed in Tweets and texts in place of words do. Things like slices of pizza and party hats and such…
Years ago, I read an article about how Umberto Eco — the semiotician who is best known as the author of The Name of the Rose — was predicting the advent of a post-literate society. This was a couple of decades ago, long before emojis. I seem to remember him talking about the Medieval days when, say, a pub called “The Fox and Hound” would mark itself with images of those animals instead of words, since the proprietor knew most prospective patrons would be illiterate.
Eco predicted we were headed back toward that darkness.
Lately, we hear regularly about the post-literate world that’s coming into being. Increasingly, our devices respond to voice and facial recognition more than typed input.
Well, I’m not going to sit still for the dying of the word. I’m going to rage, rage against it…
No doubt some will cite this as evidence that my Ménière’s has reached the point at which I need a hearing aid.
But in my defense, my wife was out in the hallway when she said this, and I was in the bathroom with the exhaust fan running — although the door, I admit, was open.
Anyway, she had come upstairs to tell me that her youngest brother was on his way to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Memphis (my wife’s family, the Phelans, are real Irish Catholics, not pretenders like me), and that he had told her something alarming about that parade.
She said the people on the floats throw catechisms to the crowd.
At least, I thought that’s what she said. I considered it a bit odd — most such parades aren’t that, shall we say, holy — but nevertheless arguably appropriate, since St. Patrick converted the heathen Irish to Christianity.
Then my wife said something odder. She said she thought that sounded “dangerous.” I reflected that maybe so, if they were hardbacks. But they could throw paperbacks, and maybe there are some abridged, pocket-sized versions…
Then she said other things that made me wonder. I asked her to repeat the first thing she’d said.
This time, I thought she said they were throwing “catechists,” and that did sound dangerous. If you go throwing people, religious education teachers, off of floats, someone could get hurt.
But something about this version sounded even more suspicious, so I finally asked her directly whether she had indeed said they were throwing catechisms or catechists.
She roared with laughter at this point (which frankly I don’t think is the kindest way to deal with my affliction). She had been saying, “cabbages.” They were throwing cabbages from the floats.
Yeah, OK. That could be dangerous.
You can stop laughing now…
Look out! What’s that they’re throwing? The St. Patrick’s Day parade on Beale Street.
I was digging around in the closet in my home office, trying to find a staple-plucker to use on some multi-page documents I was digitizing, when I ran across these.
They are:
Halcyon days…
Andy Brack of Statehouse Report contacted me yesterday saying he was working on a column about Catherine Templeton and wondering whether I had any comments to share. He suggested in passing he might see a parallel between her and Phil Noble (in terms of their stress on corruption in Columbia).
Within minutes, I replied:
The last thing South Carolina needs right now, with the challenges facing it, is someone with no experience in elective public life. And she is wearing that as a badge of honor. Why? Because Donald Trump, which is the worst of reasons, since the man demonstrates every day how important qualifications actually are.
Phil Noble is doing the same. Why? Because Bernie Sanders. Which is another bad reason, when you’re talking about leadership for South Carolina.
More appalling is the fact that I doubt Ms. Templeton is nearly as clueless as Trump. She seems to be an intelligent woman. She’s not a moron, but is willing to play one on TV to get elected.
Which implies that if elected, she’d be willing to govern like a moron. When she knows better.
A person who stoops to conquer makes for an unseemly spectacle. In her case, she’s stooping so low it’s hard to see how she gets back up.
Of course, I’m talking about the gun stuff, and the “my ancestors didn’t fight for slavery (except they did)” stuff. You’re talking more about the anticorruption angle, which causes you to make the comparison to Noble.
There’s an anticorruption case to be made, with the Pascoe probe continuing and the nuclear mess. But it becomes dishonest, and destructive, when the pitch becomes, “Everyone with experience is corrupt, so elect me.”
Whether you find that particular brand of populism on the left or the right, it’s harmful to public life, and undermines hope for our democracy…
Which caused Andy to do a sort of “Whoa!” and say, “well, I guess you have an opinion!”
Yup. A bunch of ’em.
Here’s Andy’s column. An excerpt:
Just as a burglar might throw drug-laced meat to a vicious guard dog to make it go to sleep, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Catherine Templeton is using every trick she can to lull voters that she’s right for the state’s top job.
She’s not. She’s a political burglar. And she’s dangerous.
Templeton doesn’t have the temperament, experience, tact or moral compass to lead South Carolina to better times. After months of campaigning, she seems to want to lead South Carolina backwards to a time that embraced racism and the plantation….
The Horseshoe.
Part of my daily routine of getting in at least 10,000 steps (and preferably 15) is to take an afternoon walk around downtown, usually through the USC campus and around the State House before heading back to ADCO.
This has been particularly peaceful this week, with the kids gone for spring break — even though it’s not, you know, technically spring.
I suppose I’ll be tripping over them again next week. But it was nice to have it mostly to myself for awhile…
The Russell House — a student center with no students.
Thomas Cooper Library.
I thought that all through his State of the State address back in January, but I don’t think I said so here at the time.
It’s one thing to quote Henry saying some awful things. It’s another to watch the video above. You forget what he’s saying because you’re so fascinated by the way he says it. Or at least, I do.
The problem, you see, with those high school kids walking out of class the other day is that “Ah unduhstayund that theyah’s a left-wing group that is, uh, co-awdinading this around the country…”
They’re being used as a “tooool,” you see. (Actually, I don’t know how to represent the way he says it phonetically, but the “oo” sound is wholly unlike the way I say it.) At least, that’s the conclusion he’s drawn from the “infuhmation” he’s seen.
Every time I listen to him, I’m sort of struck with awe. I feel I’m transported back in time, although to where or when I’m not sure. I hope a museum somewhere in South Carolina is saving good recordings of this.
Mind you, I’m not pointing to the way he talks as a bad thing or a good thing. But it’s definitely a thing, and it seems to be unique. I don’t know anyone else who speaks quite the way he does.
I know some other folks in public life who have thick, distinctive accents, some of them very smart people — folks such as Jean Toal and Alex Sanders, and to some extent Dick and Joe Riley. And let us not forget Fritz Hollings. But none of them sound like they’re from the same place Henry comes from.
I notice that the folks I mention are a few years, or even a generation, older than I am. (They also, with the exception of Henry, are Democrats. Don’t know why, but thick-accented Republicans don’t leap to mind as readily. Joe Wilson, for instance, is virtually accentless.)
That make me think it’s to some extent a TV thing. These folks’ speech patterns had just enough time to take hold before television taught all of us to sound like we were from Nebraska, or wherever the geographical home of Standard American English is located.
Which is not to say that younger people don’t have accents. For instance, no one would doubt that James Smith, to name but one, is from the South. But their accents tend to be softer, less in-your-face, than the older folks I mention above.
Of course, I’m talking about smart, educated people. I notice their accents more than I do those of people who are neither of those things, because I expect education to have sanded off the rough edges of their manner of communication. Which is generally the case.
But not with Henry. His accent is perfect, untouched, and really something special…
Well, this was kind of disgusting:
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster wasn’t a supporter of National Walkout Day.
The Republican criticized the event, which involved schools across the Palmetto State and several in Columbia as well as the Midlands. He called it “shameful,” and something that was orchestrated by a “left-wing group.”
“It appears that these school children, innocent school children, are being used as a tool by left-wing group to further their own agenda,” McMaster told ETV….
“This is a tricky move, I believe, by a left-wing group, from the information I’ve seen, to use these children as a tool to further their own means,” McMaster said. “It sounds like a protest to me. It’s not a memorial, it’s certainly not a prayer service, it’s a political statement by a left-wing group and it’s shameful.”…
Really? What’s “shameful” about it? Mind you, I’m not a big believer in walkouts and other kinds of protests. I prefer for people to use their words rather than their feet (because, you know, I’m a word guy). And this is not the place to come to if you want to hear about how much wisdom we can learn from the children if only we’ll listen. You know me; I’m an “Alla you kids get offa my lawn” kind of guy, a believer in experience and the perspective that comes with it, the founder of the Grownup Party. I was born a crotchety old man, and thank goodness, I’m finally getting to the age where it doesn’t seem out of place.
But I certainly don’t doubt the sincerity of these kids. There’s a purity in it that experience tends to dilute, or at least temper. They may think and speak as children, but they really mean it.
And yeah, I know Henry means the — shall we use the phrase “outside agitators?” — who he claims put the kids up to it are the “shameful” ones rather than the kids themselves. But I see little indication that the kids have been manipulated. And if they had been, what’s “shameful” about persuading kids to stand up and say, “protect us?”
But Henry says that it is shameful, and sure, he’s a guy who knows all about doing and saying shameful things. Consider:
All pretty shameful, right?
And now, he’s the guy impugning the integrity of the student movement against school shootings, calling it “shameful.”
Well, he should know…
Yeah, you’d BETTER look away, making more money than the queen…
This may not have engendered outrage at your house, but it did at mine:
If there is a lesson to take away from the first two seasons of “The Crown,” it is that no sane person would dare cross Queen Elizabeth II. Netflix seems to have learned this too late, however, as it was revealed on Tuesday that lead actress Claire Foy made less than co-star Matt Smith for her work on the show.
Variety reported that producers Suzanne Mackie and Andy Harries were asked during a discussion at the INTV Conference in Jerusalem whether the actors playing Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, were paid the same amount. The pair said Smith made more because of his “Doctor Who” fame, saying that the inequity would be amended in the future.
“Going forward, no one gets paid more than the queen,” Mackie said…
I would certainly think not.
All through those two seasons, my wife said over and over that this Matt Smith guy was a case of appalling casting — such a strange-looking dude playing such a handsome — or at least normal-looking — prince. And it wasn’t just an attractiveness thing. She thought the actor’s manner and overall oddness were distracting.
So she really, really thought it wrong that he should be paid more than Ms. Foy, who did an excellent job of embodying my 16th cousin once removed — that is to say, the queen. (I’d have been outraged, too, if only she’d invite us over to the palace more. Or even once.)
It’s weird the way these things work. I’m not a fan of Doctor Who — I tried watching the very first episode with the first Doctor once, and gave up after a few minutes, failing to see the appeal — but even if I were, I doubt I’d be overly impressed by an actor for having played the role. I mean, at this point, who hasn’t?
It’s the strangest salary decision I’ve seen since Rob Lowe was initially paid more than the actors who played Leo McGarry, C.J. Cregg, Josh Lyman and Toby Ziegler on “The West Wing.” (When they caught up to him in pay, he quit because he didn’t get a raise to stay ahead of them — which showed he really had an exaggerated sense of Sam Seaborn’s role in the great scheme of things.)
But despite the insult to Ms. Foy, we can take comfort from the fact that the next actress to play Her Majesty (they’ll change every couple of years in order to be age-appropriate) will not get stiffed. And that’s good, because the next actress is Olivia Colman, who is wonderful.
Did any of you see her in “The Night Manager?” The producers of that le Carre adaptation did something I normally hate — they significantly changed an important character, in this case by turning him into a woman. Leonard Burr, the recruiter and case officer for the title character, became Angela Burr, who was — just in case you didn’t quite notice the change — pregnant.
She totally made it work, imbuing the usual care that a case officer has for his (or her) agent with a maternal aspect that intensified the relationship. The parallel between a mother harboring vulnerable life in her womb and agent runner trying to keep a “joe” alive in the field was powerful.
And I doubt a lesser actress could have pulled it off and made this obsessive le Carre fan applaud. The miniseries was just much better than had Burr been a man.
I expect her to bring similar depth to the portrayal of Elizabeth Windsor. And it’s good to know she’ll be fairly paid for doing so…
Olivia Colman as Angela Burr in “The Night Manager”
Conservative Outsider and Republican Gubernatorial candidate Catherine Templeton (which I’ve come to think of as her full legal name, based on her campaign’s releases) is talking tough on guns again:
“I’ll be on the Bobby Mac show on 106.3 WORD radio at 5:07 pm today to discuss tomorrow’s statewide school walkouts. They’re designed to push the liberal gun control agenda. As your Gov, I won’t allow our children to be used as political pawns for the Left. Tune in tonight!”
— Catherine Templeton for Governor (@TempletonCath) March 13, 2018
Yeah, those darned kids, lacking the gumption to stand up for their God-given right to get gunned down in geometry class…
Anyway, guns are kind of a theme for her at the moment.
Over at the Greenville paper’s website, you can find video of her squeezing off a few rounds at a local range.
She’d better hope folks only watch the video, and don’t read the story that goes with it. An excerpt:
SLED disputes Catherine Templeton’s claims…
In a campaign ad posted online last week, Republican candidate for governor Catherine Templeton said she “ruffled so many feathers” after starting work for former Gov. Nikki Haley in 2011 that state law-enforcement officials grew concerned for her safety.
“The State Law Enforcement Division actually called and said, ‘Catherine, we need you to get a concealed weapons permit; we need you to start carrying, and we need you to protect yourself because of you’ve made a lot of people mad,'” Templeton says in the ad.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry said he could find no evidence that his agency told Templeton to obtain a concealed-weapons permit or carry a gun.
“It is not our practice to tell, instruct or order a person to obtain a concealed-weapons permit,” Berry said in response to questions from The Greenville News and Independent Mail….
Both SLED Chief Mark Keel (through Berry) and his predecessor Reggie Lloyd deny having made such a recommendation to her.
Berry confirms that she did take a concealed-weapons class organized by SLED in 2011, along with some court officials.
Which makes this part even more embarrassing:
Before Monday’s interview, Templeton took a .38-caliber handgun that belonged to her grandfather out of her purse at the gun range. As two campaign aides, a photographer and a reporter watched, Templeton tried to fire the weapon several times but it repeatedly malfunctioned…
But there’s a happy ending for this campaign’s pistol-packin’ mama:
Using another .38-caliber handgun provided by an employee at the business, Templeton struck a body-shaped target in the head and chest with several shots.
That’s in the video. After which, she says of the man-shaped target, “Yeah, he’s done…”
No, it’s not Ted Cruz makin’ machine-gun bacon, but she does what she can…
“Yeah, he’s done,” she says of the target.
Here’s what I don’t like about ideologues is that they don’t know when to make an exception to their rules.
Folks on the left and right dismiss those of us in the middle because they think we don’t believe in anything. I believe in quite a few things — but I know when to make an exception from the principles I espouse.
Cindi Scoppe’s the same way. She and I hold quite a few principles in common. One of them — which you can describe as subsidiarity, or devolution or decentralization or federalism or some other word that’s not coming to mind because I had a beer at lunch — is the idea that, generally speaking, governing decisions should be made as locally as possible.
But there are exceptions. And personally, I prefer the term “subsidiarity” because it assumes exceptions, since the rule is that “matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.” The key word being “competent.” When the smaller entity can’t do the job, the larger one needs to step in. Which came into play in Cindi’s column today about the state Supreme Court jumping on Richland County for misspending penny tax money:
But honestly, even as someone who believes passionately that local governments should have broad authority to act without state interference, I can’t help being relieved to know that there are going to be some grownups looking over the county’s spending.
Not all of it, of course. The County Council still has control over property taxes and restaurant taxes and all sorts of other revenue the county collects.
It still has the ability, unsupervised by grownups, to sell prime real estate at a ridiculously low price without marketing it, or even announcing that it was on the market, as it did with the former sheriff’s department site on Huger Street.
It still has the ability, unsupervised by grownups, to hire a new transportation director with absolutely no experience in … wait for it … transportation.
It still has the ability, unsupervised by grownups, to spend $1.2 million to renovate its own meeting and office space, and then announce less than four months later that it’s relocating its chambers and the whole complex, bulldozing the adjacent building (to build a new courthouse) and turning the just-renovated space into a ceremonial courthouse.
And to secretly concoct a plan to move some of its offices to a nearly abandoned mall — which might be a good idea, but for the “secretly” part, which applies not just to the specific property being purchased but also to the whole plan. And to wrap it all up with a gaudy “Richland Renaissance” bow that also covers such dubious projects as a business incubator, a critical care medical facility (don’t doctors usually build those?) and, my personal favorite, a competitive aquatics center.
For which the cost is at best speculative. And no funding source has been identified. And about which it agreed to hold a legally required public hearing only after one of my colleagues in the news department kept hounding the county.
But I digress….
Maybe she got that from me. The digressing thing. (In her defense, she’s far more disciplined about it than I am.)
But back to her original point: Yes, it’s good to see the county get some adult supervision. And it could probably stand with a little more. Vote Grownup Party!…
The way we’d determine the time in a perfect world.
I can’t let this week go by without mentioning the abomination which has yet again been visited upon us:
When I got up in the dark for my morning working on this miserable Monday, my abiding hatred of Daylight Savings Time came fully to the fore…
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) March 12, 2018
This morning I had to get up even earlier, which means it was even blacker outside. I actually seriously considered skipping my morning workout, which would have meant the rest of the day would be a mad scramble to try to get in my 10,000-15,000 steps. I hate starting the day behind.
And it’s all so unnecessary, as well as unnatural.
I hate, positively hate, going through the whole day with all timekeeping devices telling me it’s an hour later than it really is, and everybody expecting me to go by that lie.
Oh, and for those of you who think the hours of the day are an artificial construct anyway — you’re right up to a point, but one thing about the concept is (or used to be) grounded in the natural, physical world: Noon should be the midpoint of the day, the moment when the sun is at its zenith.
Here’s the way things should be: The person in charge at the U.S. Naval Observatory should step out onto a terrace — preferably one made to look like a quarterdeck in the Age of Sail — with a group of midshipmen. They should all shoot the sun with their sextants, and tell the boss when the sun is at its peak. He (or she) will then say, “Make it noon,” and someone will press a button that instantly resets every mobile phone, tablet, laptop or other device that keeps time and is synced to official time in the country.
We would then live in a saner, more grounded world. And I would cherish that.
That’s my dream, anyway.
Somewhat closer to the real world, there are reform moves afoot in the Legislature. When I first read of his proposal to do away with this annual change, I resolved to write a post saying, “Harvey Peeler is my hero!” But then I saw that as far as Harvey is concerned, we could have DST all year — it’s just the changing that bothers him.
That, of course, would be worse than what we have now — there would be no normal, sane months under that scheme. How the senator can equate the two is beyond me…
Trashed: A room in my parents’ beach house after the 2016 break-in.
I received a release this morning from something called “SafeWise” announcing the “20 Safest Cities in South Carolina,” based on “2016 FBI crime report statistics and population data.”
I immediately assume that this report is using the term “city” loosely, since I was not aware South Carolina had that many of them.
And my assumption is correct, as the No. 1 safest “city” on the list is Isle of Palms, population 4,419. My home town Bennettsville has a population of 9,425, and I have never thought of it as a major metropolitan area.
Anyway, only one place most of us think of, right off the bat, as a “city” in SC makes the list, and that’s Charleston. It comes in 20th. Mount Pleasant, an actual city we are slightly less likely to think of, comes in 6th. So nice going, there.
I was amused to see that Surfside Beach came in third. That’s because in 2016, the year the statistics cover, my parents’ home there was broken into and completely trashed in the search for things worth stealing. The same suspect apparently broke into my uncle’s house nearby — twice.
But I guess such things happen in other places more frequently.
And no, I’m not entirely sure what “SafeWise” is. The release is only moderately helpful. It says, “SafeWise helps families and communities make informed decisions about safety solutions.” As you see, some words are missing. It should say, “SafeWise is a _____ that helps families and communities make informed decisions about safety solutions.”
But if you’re really curious, you can peruse their website.
They’re back at it.
Again, I’m getting these notifications from Google Adsense:
Dear Publisher, This Google Publisher Policy Report gives you an overview of recent activity related to violations found on specific pages of your websites. As enforcement statuses may change over time, please refer to the “Page-level enforcements” section of the AdSense Policy Center for the current list of active violations.
Please note this report doesn’t cover violations that may happen on an overall site or account level. You may be notified by a separate email if site or account level violations are found. Ads will continue to serve where no policy violations have been found, either at the page- or site-level.
In the last 24 hours:
- New violations were detected. As a result, ad serving has been restricted or disabled on pages where these violations of the AdSense Program Policies were found. To resolve the issues, you can either remove the violating content and request a review, or remove the ad code from the violating pages.
Further details on enforcements can be found in the AdSense Help Center. To learn more about our program policies, please view the AdSense Program Policies.
Kind regards,
Google Publisher Policy
Of course, none of those links will take you to a page that says, here’s the problem with have with this post. No, each time I get one I have to remember the roundabout, counterintuitive way I had figured out earlier.
After I do (remember it), I find myself once more at a notification that tells me they have a problem with this post — again — which of course is ridiculous. Here’s what they say about it:
expand_less
Violations
Dangerous or derogatory contentStatus
Restricted ad serving help_outline
Enforcement date
Mar 11, 2018
Past review outcome
Policy non-compliant (Mar 6, 2018)
How to resolve this
Click on the violation name to learn more about it. You have two resolution options:
- Fix the violations and request a review
After you make adjustments to your page so that it’s compliant with AdSense policies, you can request a review.- Remove the AdSense ad code from the page
Pages without any AdSense ad code will be automatically removed from the Policy center within 7-10 days. No other action on your part is needed.If you think that these policy violations do not apply to this page, you can also request a review. Reviews typically take 1 week but sometimes can take longer.
So again, I request a review from Google. The next day, they say my appeal has been denied, and absurdly, my post continues to be “dangerous or derogatory.” Which, of course, it is not. It is a post about something that someone, somewhere, thought was derogatory, and my post patiently explains why anyone who thinks that is mistaken. Which is the kind of thing you talk about on an opinion blog.
So I click on the “Request Review” again, my theory being that if I keep asking, an actual human will review the situation and realize that yes, this is the kind of thing one discusses on an opinion blog, and therefore there is nothing inappropriate about it.
But I get another robo-answer that I remain in violation.
So the status of that post will continue to be “Restricted ad serving.”
All right, fine. Who cares if Adsense ads don’t show up on that one post from more than seven years ago? I’m willing to leave it at that.
But Google isn’t. They keep sending me the notifications.
My next step — my only ethical option I can see — will be to see if I can “Remove the AdSense ad code from the page” without blowing up my blog or something. Something I do not know how to do. But I’ll try. And then see if they’ll leave me alone.
But if I can’t figure that out, what then? The notifications, of course, come from a “noreply” email address. So I can’t have a conversation with a person. Of course…
Y’all have probably already seen this:
Former S.C. Attorney General Charlie Condon has been appointed chairman of the Santee Cooper board of directors.
Gov. Henry McMaster made the appointment Wednesday. Condon will serve out the term ending in May left vacant when Leighton Lord resigned last December and then be appointed to a full seven-year term.
“I appreciate Gov. McMaster asking me to accept this important challenge,” Condon said in a statement. “As the future and mission of Santee Cooper is debated, my goal is to provide transparent and accountable leadership of the board, with the interests of ratepayers and customers my No. 1 priority.”…
Y’all remember Charlie, right? He was the AG who used to play pandering politics so strenuously that it was embarrassing — at least, it was embarrassing in the pre-Trump era, before standards were drastically lowered. After him, Henry McMaster’s sober stewardship in that office was a great relief.
Charlie Condon
Charlie’s probably most famous for saying he’d like South Carolina to replace its electric chair with an “electric sofa” so we could execute multiple prisoners at once.
Here’s the funny thing about Charlie, though — one on one, he was a personable and fairly reasonable guy. Sit down with him, and he seemed OK. Very likable. You just didn’t want him getting in front of a microphone, at which point he seemed to lose all restraint.
Anyway, here’s hoping that we’ll see the private, sensible, one-on-one Charles Condon at Santee Cooper, rather than Press-Release Charlie. We’ve got enough turmoil on the utility front already…
