Sanford: Federal money doesn't help the problem

The Charleston Post & Courier ran this guest editorial by Gov. Mark Sanford Friday. It's excellent.

Some background: Sanford is frequently mentioned with the Sarah Palins and Bobby Jindals as the future of the Republican Party. But he's not a pure Republican. He's really a libertarian in GOP clothing, which is probably why I like him.

Here Sanford argues that throwing more government money into the economy does not save it, but aggravates the problem instead. Well, read the article.

Mearsk loss worst news since base closure

It could well be the biggest economic reversal in Charleston since the Navy packed up and left a decade ago. Earlier this week, Maersk, Inc. announced it will leave the Ports of Charleston over the next two years, and it's anyone's guess how much it will affect the area.

Maersk spokesmen blame the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) for its the decision. According to the Post and Courier, the ILA "rejected the company's proposal to move the so-called common area of the port and allow State Ports Authority workers to perform jobs that would otherwise fall to union labor."

Although labor unions have become a convenient scapegoat (and one must admit, much of the heat is warranted), the real issue is what will happen next.

Folks who visit Charleston may not realize how busy a shipping center it is, but it's huge. Three container terminals, plus plans to build a fourth on the old Navy base. A smaller breakbulk terminal downtown. A handful of smaller, vest-pocket shipping interests, and several oil docks. For years Charleston vied with Savannah for fourth place among the busiest shipping entities in the nation.

If shipping is the largest industry in the region, Maersk is clearly the largest customer. Now, the huge Danish company -- the world's largest shipping line -- accounts for 20 percent of the containers moving in and out of Charleston, and until recently its share was 30 percent. The Wando-Welch shipping terminal, on the Mount Pleasant side of the Cooper River, has room ("berths") for four container ships. Two of those berths are reserved for Maersk/SeaLand ships, and there have been times a Maersk ship has had to borrow one of the other berths. Using that as a yardstick, Maersk/SeaLand accounts for more than half of the business at the Wando docks. All the others -- MOL, Evergreen, Hanjin, MSC -- are bit players by comparison.

While it's possible the pullout is merely a bluff by Maersk to force a better deal -- such things are possible -- you may soon hear the sound of wagons circling in Charleston. Expect thousands of jobs to be affected in the area.

Although Maersk is closemouthed about where its ships will call, I'm betting on Savannah. Apparently the ILA is not as strong there, and there is already a network of warehouses and distribution centers in the area. Charleston does not have this; there are plans to build along the I-26 corridor (including about 12 million square feet of warehouse space in nearby Jedburg). However, already-existing distribution centers are a lot more useful for storing containers and shipped goods than something that merely exists on paper. And, with Maersk planning to pull out, this may well put most of these plans in doubt.

I deal with a lot of Maersk containers on my job, and one trucking firm -- Bridge Terminal Transport (BTT) hauls the bulk of those. Six months ago, BTT had the busiest bunch of trucks at the rail yard where I work. That has slacked off considerably, and now the drivers are wondering about their future.

"I'm real curious what we're going to get now," one BTT driver told me.

Other drivers, you can bet, are looking to jump ship. That is, if there's a place to jump to. While BTT's business has slacked off considerably at the rail yard, it's been that way with most of the truckers. It's just that the decline was most noticeable with BTT and Maersk containers. For most of the drivers I deal with, the local lobs from port to rail yard are their bread and butter.

Maersk won't just affect one trucking firm. The shipping company is big enough that all haulers will feel the bite, and this is not a good time for it. Business has been abominably slow in the past few months anyway, with many truckers (and as I mentioned in an earlier post, rail companies) cutting back.

Frank, a BTT driver, says he's not especially worried. His response surprised me; he's one of those guys who will complain about anything and everything. It's just part of his personality -- even when things are going great, he'll think of something. He's one of those guys who comes in just to give me a hard time, knowing I'll give it right back.

"Something else will come along," Frank says. "Ome door closes, another one opens."

I can't muster that same sense of optimism, though. The economy has been bumpy in the Lowcountry, and things just got more contentious.

Hard times: Silver lining is in the people

This is not a good time for the economy to tank, as if anyone can find a good time for this to happen.

The bad news surrounds us. Just look at the front page of any newspaper. If you can't find any bad financial news there, then check out the business section. It's enough to make a guy want to drop out and herd sheep or something.

My area is particularly getting nailed. Over the past week, Maersk/SeaLand announced it was pulling out of Charleston's port system. And Force Protection -- which makes military vehicles -- cut its work force again. It now employs slightly more than 1,000 people, about half of what the company employed in January.

You know things are bad when military suppliers such as Force Protection are cutting back. It just goes against all the rules of the game. Historically, when you're in a war the defense (and defense-related technology) industries are supposed to boom, and last I looked we're in two wars.

Meanwhile, foreclosures are up, and many residential builders say they've pretty much stopped work. And recently I checked out the job ads in the Monday "Business Review" section of the local newspaper. That section use half-sized pages, and the want ads usually fill at least two of those pages. But this time -- about a week ago -- those ads filled half a page, and many of those jobs were of the sketchy kind.

It's a little hard to find a silver lining in all this mess, especially with the Christmas holidays coming up. But from talking to people, I'm finding some unexpected glimpses.

"I'm just glad I have a job," one trucker told me. He's working for one of the area's busiest haulers, and his firm is cutting back to three- and four-day work weeks.

And many of the folks I talk to say they're not going to do their annual budget busting for Christmas. There's no way. Places like Best Buy may have to suffer, and things may get a little slower at the malls. Though WalMart captures the discount-shopping crowd and may find things a little busier because there are more budget-conscious shoppers, any business increases may be negated by those who are cutting back beyond even that level.

Maybe folks are reexamining the holidays. And, like what happened right after 9/11, people are taking a closer look at what's important and what's not.

I asked one guy to define what would make a good Christmas for him.

"As long as I have a full belly," he says. "And time with my family."

Maybe we're getting back to the basics. Maybe. Like, for example, what Christmas is really about. And that's a good thing.

North Chuck gets national notice, sorta

While Charleston is a favorite destination for travel writers, its neighbor to the north doesn't get the same reviews.

In fact, Peter Greenberg has his won caveat about North Charleston -- don't go there.

It's the crime, Greenberg says, which puts North Chuck in the same breath as Detroit, East St. Louis, and Birmingham -- good places to avoid.

Of North Charleston, Greenberg wrote, "(its) identity includes a lot of drug-related crimes: homicides, shootings, stabbings, robberies."

Greenberg, who is a fixture on The Today Show, outlines his misgivings in his book, "Don't Go There: The Travel Detective's Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World."

Greenberg has a reputation as one of the more straight-ahead travel writers around; while many will gladly become shills or bend the truth for a price, the word on Greenberg is that he doesn't go that route.

North Charleston's Mayor Keith Summey's response was to call for a boycott of The Today Show and its advertisers.

"That jerk has never even been to our city, and he can keep his butt where he is," Summey says. "We don't want him here."

I always did like Summey. He's not one to keep his opinions to himself or his mouth shut.

North Chuck does have an image problem, and an identy problem. It's a separate city with its own government, and despite some gains here and there it's still considered the armpit of the Lowcountry. It's like every metropolitan area has a dumping ground, a place to put the paper mills, heavy industries, and people gentrified out of existence, and North Chareston it the place here. It's true there's no such place as "away," and in this case, "away" is North Chuck.

I mentioned some gains here. A year ago, North Charleston was ranked seventh most dangerous place to live. This year it ranks 10th in that dubious department. North Charleston is also the leader in retail revenue in South Carolina, and the area is looking much better than it did years ago. In this space I've mentioned new development in the Park Circle area and, most notably, the new construction going on at the old Navy Base.

OK, these are gains, but be honest. It takes a few years to graduate from armpit status to whatever the next step is. It's nice to know, though, that the arrow is pointing in the right direction.

The truth is, the traveler doesn't realize it's nearly impossible to bypass North Charleston to get to the good stuff on the peninsula. The airport is located in North Charleston, as is the Amtrak station. Interstate 26 cuts right through it. And, unless you can afford lodging rates downtown (and most can bankrupt a small country), you'll probably be staying in North Charleston.
The city is a little hard to avoid. For the time being, you might want to lock your doors.

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Other tidbits from Greenberg's book:

Worst airports: O'Hare, Miami, Cincinnati, Atlanta, LaGuardia. I can personally vouch for one of those there, having spent 10 hours at O'Hare while my connecting flight was being delayed. And I was lucky. My brother and his family ended up staying there overnight, and he wondered if he needed to file state taxes in Illinois.

Worst pollution: Vermont (really?) gets abysmal scores here, with 126 polluted rivers and lakes. "If you jump into Lake Champlain, you might want to read the book first," Greenberg says.

Bad news this Christmas ...

As if there's not enough bad news around here ...

(Thanks, Elaine, for sending this! -- Eric)

Ax swings close to home

I can't remember how the old quote goes -- something about if your neighbor gets laid off it's a recession, but if you get laid off it's a depression.

This week, my own place of business felt the nip of the executioner's ax, and for me it means I have to make some adjustments.

I got the word Thursday that our two newest employees will see their hours trimmed from 40 to 30 per week, as things have been beyond slow. A straight seniority thing, and what bites is that I'm the newest one there. Performance has nothing to do with it, the boss said (and I know he can't fault my performance, broken ankle or not, and he let me know he wants me to stick around). While the work I do says otherwise, in reality I'm low man on the totem pole.

It's not as bad as it sounds. At work, 30 hours is the magic number that keeps the benefits cooking, and that's the real incentive for working there. The pay, in truth, isn't that good, but the health insurance they have is all-league.

Anyway, there's no real news in all this because these cutbacks are happening all over. Business is dropping everywhere. Companies large and small are circling the wagons. South Carolina is particularly getting nailed -- projections have the unemployment rate doubling to about 14 percent by summer. And this is South Carolina, where the unions are not as strong and there's a cheap labor pool. Every time you open the newspaper there's more bad news -- another company folding or downsizing, more people out of work.

Right now, if a person has a job, even a piece of a job, he'd be well advised to keep it. This is not a real good time for upward mobility. Or any mobility. Changing jobs would be a mistake at this point. Even if it's for a better offer, positioning is everything now. Why ditch a so-so job where your position is established for a better one that puts you on the bottom of that totem pole? Seniority may be the new coin of the realm. Go for a second job if it's needed, but don't lose that position.

Getting back to the personal angle here. Of course I'm not happy at losing 10 hours a week. That represents money that used to me mine. Of course I'm ticked off at Bush -- he's the man in front, but I'm particularly ticked at all those baboons in Congress who set the policy that triggered this financial flameout. Bush, well, he was there, like the figurehead of a ship, and was every bit as effective.

On Friday, the mood at work was pretty somber. Most of us saw this coming, but ... well ... this is hard to swallow when it strikes so close to home.

We have a good crew at work, and each of us has a role in the chemistry. Mine, as I see it, is that I ignite things and keep the folks loose. I'm blessed with a high energy level even with my breaking-down body. Working on crutches like i have been is setting something of an example, too.

But on Friday I had a few things to say to the crew:

- "These are tough times, but it could be a whole lot worse. Some of y'all might be looking for second jobs, but you're not going to find this kind of health insurance anywhere else.

- "If one person leaves, that will probably solve the problems of reduced hours. I know it'll be tempting to make this into a reality TV show, but this isn't going to happen. Not around here. No one's voting anyone else off this island.

- "This is a good crew, and I want to see it stay together."

Pretty harmless stuff. Did I speak out of turn? Probably. I know the other crew member who saw her hours trimmed is particularly upset. She's looking for a second job. The rest of us are concerned she may leave and we're doing what we can to keep her around. As I wrote this, one of the other crew members was trying to reach her by phone. But on Monday, everyone was back on the job, and she's decided not to ditch this job.

We're not being altruistic here. Although we do come to work for the money and benefits (duh!), that's not the whole of it. Although I don't think any of us see this job as the be-all end-all what-I wanna-be-when-I-grow-up job, it's not half bad. We have this crazy idea that working in a place you enjoy, with people you like, and with bosses that are good people, is worth a lot. Especially now.

I mentioned some of our folks may look for second jobs. I'm looking at a few personal adjustments myself. I spent part of Thursday evening mapping out my personal strategy. This is from my notes:

Making up the shortfall (in order of appearance)

- Through budget cuts (stopgap)

- Through any extra hours I can get (stopgap)

- Through any freelance work (long-term)

- Sipping into savings (stopgap & limited)

- Second part-time gig (way down on the list)

I've already tinkered with my budget and squeezed most of the water out of it. Admittedly, it's easier for me because I'm single and my dog is happy with Kibbles & Bits. Someone with a family might have to use a pocketknife to cut the budget; I can use a machete. I do have savings enough to cover any shortfalls for quite a while if needed, but I'd rather not go that direction.

Freelance work looks like it'll be a key step for me, and it was part of my long-term strategy anyway. Maybe these tough economic times will give me some incentive to act here; I do have a problem in paying attention and staying focused sometimes. A second job is an option, but if I go there it means everything else is in the toilet, swirling clockwise.

Oh, did I mention I have a little time on my hands?

Mistakes a common thread in 1920s, now

Does history repeat itself?

While reading something else, I came across this quote on the Great Depression. And being a student of history -- especially as it relates to the here and now -- I had to trot it out.
"The Great Depression sprang from three fatal mistakes," William H. Peterson of the Heritage Foundation wrote in the Nov. 1, 1999 issue of Investor's Business Daily.

According to Peterson, these three mistakes were:

1) "The fed's jacking up of money-supply growth in the 1920s, which fueled the stock market boom."

2) The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, "... hiking import duties to their highest level in U.S. history and inviting deadly foreign retaliation against U.S. exports," and ...

3) Cranking up the top income tax rate, "from 24 percent to 63 percent."

OK, Peterson's article ("Leviathan's Brood: Moral Hazards:) was written a few years ago, but it gets really interesting when we dust it off. The first point really caught my attention. If it doesn't sound like the easy-financing, "$500 down, $500 per month for 500 years" direction the mortgage industry went during the past decade, where just about anyone could get a home loan, then I'm missing something.

Regarding the second and third mistakes: Maybe there once was a situation where government intervention and/or increased taxes actually solved something. I'm taking that on faith, as I've never seen that happen.

See the common thread between the 1920s and now? I sure do, and it's not pretty.
Anyway, fasten your seat belts. Keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle, shut up, and hang on. This is going to be one bumpy ride.

(Disclaimer: I wrote this Wednesday, before the ax swung a little too close for my own comfort. But that doesn't change anything. Principles are still principles, and history does not revise itself for anyone's convenience.)

Stepping outside to puff -- at the Oval Office

Barack Obama sucks a butt. Will this create security problems in his new job?

(Photo from some site called angrywhiteboy.org.)

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Barack Obama may have a problem in his new job, though it'll something personal. He might have a terrible time finding a place to light up.

To my understanding, Obama's a cigarette smoker who's been less successful at quitting than he has been at winning elections or even dodging some of his questionable friends from the past. So far, he's been pretty circumspect about smoking. Yeah, we do like our presidents somewhat free of the vices, though I do remember a TV campaign ad showing Gerald Ford puffing on a pipe, and Bill Clinton popularized intern-flavored cigars. But give Obama credit. Even though the media-happy life in high politics means the public will know if the president belches or scratches, you have to really hunt the Internet to find pictures of him puffing away.

One of my coworkers brought Obama's habit to my attention, and it's probably no accident that this is the coworker who goes through about a pack of cigs per work shift. She feels Obama's pain, in other words.

I can understand this myself. I like to smoke, though I'll ration myself to two cigars a day. One is for work (which is outdoors, in that Great Big Smoking Area), and the other is for unwinding at home. But I'm used to stepping outside for this. The idea of running into the bathroom and announcing I'm going to powder my lungs went out a decade ago.

Obama says he won't smoke in the Oval Office. I know he won't be able to smoke in the more "public" rooms of the White House. It's murky whether he'll be able to light up in the residential part of the White House. And stepping outside is going to create a major logistical headache, what with his Secret Service protection.

I know something about how the Secret Service handles smokers. Firsthand. True story: Around 1990, wen sitting vice president Dan Quayle was making a speech in Riverside, CA., I was writing for the Fontana Herald-News. This was fairly high-security stuff; I had to go through a few hoops to get my press credentials. Several forms of ID. Maybe a mini-background check. A whole bunch of security things before I was allowed to enter the auditorium at Raincross Square that day. Before Quayle came on, we media types were herded into a conference room for sandwiches. After eating my lunch, I felt like having a smoke -- cigarettes back then.
Since the only place to smoke was outdoors, and to go outside would create a security problem, I was escorted by a Secret Service man. Now, I know I wasn't the only local reporter who smoked, but I'll bet most of them did the smart thing and lit up in the boys' room. By the time Quayle gave his speech, I was already feeling fairly conspicuous and ... well, was it my imagination that the Service guys were keeping a real close eye on me after that?
I'm not near the major security priority that Obama is now. Then, it took one Secret Service agent to escort me (and he wasn't much for conversation). With Obama, it would probably take at least a couple of Secret Service teams to pull this off. Gotta sweep the area first to make sure it's safe, establish radio contact, and perhaps have a volunteer agent take a couple of test puffs on the cigarette to make sure it's not one of those exploding kinds. Hey, it might be easier to give Obama some of that nicotine gum.
The economy is not going to be Obama's most pressing order of business. It won't be our energy policy. It won't be the War on Terror. His biggest priority will be in finding a place to light up.
OK. So what?
"Obama's going to get really cranky," my coworker suggested.
Cranky enough to make weird decisions in the midst of a nicotine fit? Make manic calls on the red phone? Cuss out a few heads of state? Maybe bomb the wrong guys? Already, it sounds like the makings of a bad novel. Whatever the scenario, I'm not really sure I want to see it played out.

Think this business will make it?

(Photo furnished by my brother. He's a sick puppy.)

I can't remember the numbers, but a lot of businesses don't make it through the first two years. Or even the first, for that matter.

Now, this one is doomed to failure from the jump. You know it, too. Wherever this place is, you'll need to go there fast, before they nail the plywood and for-lease signs up again.

Automakers should show they deserve, not need, bailout

Buying gas is a lot easier these days (now about $1.60 per gallon in my neighborhood), but the hard part may be in getting a car to hold all that cheap gas.

From the way things look in the car world, nobody's buying. All of the Big Three automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) report jumbo losses over the past 12 months, and the smaller manufacturers are likewise hurting. But with the three big companies, there's talk of bankruptcy if the government doesn't hurry up and scrape up more than a few billion dollars to bail them out.

Blame the gas prices, which topped $4 over the summer. Blame tight money; what with the current fiscal crisis, it's not being lent out with the same blind trust as it had over the past decade or so. Blame the CEO's, the Arabs, the autoworkers' union, the Demopublicans. Blame anyone you please.

But much of the blame should go to the culture of the auto industry, which holds that what worked in the past will always work, that progress is only allowed in baby steps if at all. The culture that profits from the status quo.

Right now it's nearly impossible to separate the oil from the auto; they're like evil twins. When gas was on its record-breaking run, truckers -- especially owner-operators -- were wondering if they could make enough to fill up. But at least in the trucking industry a fuel-cost surcharge is tacked onto shipping bills. That surcharge was as high as 34 percent; now it's around 15 percent. (This surcharge, by the way, is eventually picked up by the consumer at the end of the line, which is part of why you were paying more for a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.)

But now I have to laugh when I hear folks talk about how cheap gas is. Cheap compared to what? And how long will it stay at this level? Has the price bottomed out? Will the price go up to new levels if some head dude in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, or Mexico breaks wind? And since we've already shattered the $4 barrier once, a hike to $5 or even $6 per gallon doesn't sound so outrageous. That price barrier does tend to warp public perception of how expensive gas could get.

Now hear this: Fossil fuel as energy should have been rendered obsolete at least a generation ago, and the internal-combustion engine should have been thrown onto the scrap heap with the 8-track players, dial telephones, and electric typewriters.

A little over a week ago, the Big Three tried to beg for some of that suddenly-available bailout money in Washington. In a rare act of common sense, the folks at Capitol Hill determined that without a real plan to get the industry's stuff together, there will be no bailout. Didn't help that the heads of the auto companies each went to D.C. in their own private corporate jets; it's a little hard to plead poverty unless the CEO's are taking the Greyhound to Washington. As I write thisthe CEO's are back at The Hill, hats in hand, perhaps taken down a peg, and trying to show how badly they need the money. Maybe they should try explaining how badly they deserve the money instead.

Gee, and why shouldn't the government bail out an obsolete industry, I ask with more than just a little sarcasm.
Better to let one of the companies go bankrupt. If nothing else, it'll send a message to the other automakers that they'd better get serious about the future. OK, you can blame the union wage rates -- and they are ridiculous -- but with the current product line an automaker would be hard pressed to make the right kind of money pushing the same old product line, even if they went completely to foreign help at a buck an hour.

Now, I'm kind of interested in GM's proposed Volt car (providing it stays alive long enough). Allegedly, it's a step up from the hybrid. Gee, I hope it's about four or five steps up from the hybrid. You compare miles-per-gallon numbers between a hybrid and the standard Detroit rolling iron, and the difference is not that great. Plus, I understand the hybrid's special battery is so expensive that it's not worth replacing. Kind of like swapping out batteries in a laptop computer -- you might as well just get yourself another computer. If the Volt is merely an incremental improvement over the old stuff, then the industry probably deserves to go into the tank.

Unfortunately, here's the usual script for a company teetering on the brink: Make cuts, by laying off whatever workers they can get away with, and cutting Research and Development right between the eyes. I can understand that logic -- better to show some short-term gains and keep the stockholders happy while anything long-term takes a hike. Good engineers cost a ton of money, they're highly impractical, a bunch of dreamers. The company line holds that they don't do any actual work (read: They don't generate anything that will help the short-term profits).

I see Ford's recovery plan involves investment toward the future, while GM and Chrysler are looking at the old menu of cutbacks. OK. One of the problems with deep R&D is that profits are not immediately apparent. Maybe use the money to build a loan program to help companies over the hump when developing products with a long lead time, for example.

If government money must be pitched to industries and companies, why not package it for companies that are growing, developing, researching ... showing a pulse ... instead of those that are at death's door?
This is a critical time on a number of fronts, and the company or organization that stays hidebound may -- and should -- fall by the wayside. Just like real life.

Injury little more than a pain in the ... ankle

(Photo courtesy of the folks at Roper Urgent Care, Mt. Pleasant, SC. They just don't know about this, heh-heh!)


I'm fortunate. It's not often I have to go to a doctor; just for a patch-up job every so often.



I had one of those situations about a week ago. It's kinda hard to explain, unless you know me pretty well. But I'd come across a desk at the common dump at my mobile home park. I needed a desk, this one looked pretty solid, so I grabbed it. While carrying it, my left ankle went out from under me. I heard a loud grinding noise, the kind that tells me something is seriously wrong.



The next day, Monday, I was over at Roper Urgent Care, one of those oddball medical places. Not quite an emergency room, not quite a doctor's office. There's radiology equipment on site, run by some third party. Anyway, they shot pictures of the ankle and found out it was fractured.



Now I'm in what they call an "air cast," and supported by crutches. Kind of an interesting rig, this air cast. Hard plastic shell, sectioned bladder liner. The lower half of the liner -- around the ankle -- carries some goo that you can freeze. Kind of like those Blue Ice things you stick in your freezer overnight. The upper bladder of the air cast contains, well, air. It's a fairly compact thing; you can put a shoe on over it if you unlace it first and take pain meds about a half hour before forcing the shoe on.



The crutches, well, no new technology there. I've used them years ago, and no major design changes. Fortunately, getting around on crutches really is like riding a bicycle. After a fast shakedown run, it does come back to you. (And like on a bicycle, I am just a little reckless on the crutches. Already they're kind of scarred up, I've knocked a little paint of the walls, and my dog keeps her distance while I'm using them.)



One of the things I thought was so cool from my visit to Roper Urgent Care is how they package their X rays. They're on CD-ROM, and they come with some sort of viewing program. Of course, Windows-based, so when I got home I went straight to the .jpg files and saved them to my hard drive. I don't have the CD-ROM now; it's now in possession of the orthopedic clinic where I had my follow-up visit. What you're looking at is an intercepted .jpg file; I hope I don't get in trouble for showing it. Can I plead First Amendment for something like this?



In all, had two days off while seeing doctors. On Wednesday, I got my work boot on over the air cast (see procedure above), made it to work, and pulled a full shift without problems. My boss, bless his heart, asked if I "should be doing this." Thursday and Friday were paid holidays, and in fact my unused personal leave kicked in for the two days I missed. So I worked 40 hours, according to the paycheck.



Well, I'll be hobbling off now ...

Americans do poorly in civics, history quiz

I'm not real sure what it is they're teaching in public school these days, but a test/survey run by the Intercollegiate Study Institute (ISI) indicates the basics of citizenship are not really in the curriculum.

According to the ISI, the vast majority -- about 70 percent of those who took the test --flunked the 33-question, multiple-choice civic literacy quiz touching on American history and its institutions. The national average score stands at 49 percent, a good solid F. And considering the multiple choice questions carry five possible options, a chimpanzee could score 20 percent just by blindly selecting answers.

These questions are pretty basic, too. Things like which inalienable rights are mentioned in the Declaration Of Independence, or what the three branches of government are. Hey, it's not like it's a test on nuclear physics written in Russian.

What I find interesting is how broad-based the failure went. It doesn't seem to matter much where you went to school -- Harvard seniors scored 69.56 percent on the test, a D-plus. Doesn't even really matter whether you went to college; there was little difference in the percentages there, and as any teacher will tell you, an F is an F.

While only 21 percent could recognize an Abraham Lincoln phrase from the Gettysburg Address, 56 percent could tell you Paula Abdul is a judge on American Idol. This tells you a lot about our education system, but says even more about how people think (and this may become the basis for a future diatribe in this space).

Also interesting: Elected officials did even more poorly on the test than the general public. This bears out my suspicion that so few elected types know so little about our Constitution and laws. Maybe some of those aforementioned chimpanzees were elected to public office and we just didn't know it.

All of this is very interesting and makes good water-cooler debate, but so what? And why is it important to know this stuff anyway?

Even the best human govermnents are not all that trustworthy, or efficient. Even the best-hearted officials will forget the people who voted them in office and start following their own agendas. Human nature is just like that. And we, among the masses, have precious few weapons to shortstop this process, to hold our leaders accountable. The best weapon is information, and a good working knowledge of how our government operates is a real good start.

Those without the knowledge of how our country works are more likely to believe any ol' promise that comes down the pike, especially if it sounds good. Without this knowledge, folks are more likely to become mindless sheep instead of citizens, and at some point sheep will get what is usually expected at the hands of slick politicians -- sheared.

OK. That covers the civics. Now what about knowing our country's history?

Now, this is a funny thing. History was not among my strongest subjects in school (I did best at recess, lunch, and going home). And even the history as presented in school was so dry, detached, and meant nothing in my world. Who wants to read about a bunch of dead guys in powdered wigs anyway?

As I've gotten older, I've become more interested. In journalism, I began to realize how important the background issues are in researching and writing a story. And living in history-laden Charleston made much of the stuff I managed to learn in grade school come alive. It's one thing to read about, say, Fort Sumter in your third-grade textbook. It's another to set foot in the fort, climb those same walls, to get the lay of the land.

Now, much of my recreational reading comes from the historical and biographical stacks -- I'm currently reading two; "American Caesar" about Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and "Telsa, Man Out Of Time" about the scientist/inventor.

Write this down: The more you know about the past, the more you'll know about the future.

History does repeat itself. Although the stage props will change with each new era, there truly is nothing new under the sun. Humans are still humans after all, and even with new props they'll still face the same core issues over and over again, and even with the new props they'll still go to the tried-and-hopefully-true to solve those human problems. A year ago, I posted a blog based on 13 American arguments, and what's so interesting is that these arguments were, with few exceptions, just as volatile in colonial times as they are now. They're just as meaningful as when man came into being and started to get organized.

The names change, the props change, but the core stuff remains the same.

But as far as predicting the future?

Here's an example: A good handle on the history of the Great Depression of the 1930s will give you a good look at how our leaders will try to solve our current economic crisis. And another example: I'm able to tell the folks in my neck of the woods about our immigration problems here, because I've seen it 25 years ago in California.

Out there, it's called history. In the southeast, it's called current events.

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Personal footnote: I took the test a few minutes before posting this entry. Got 29 of the 33 correct, for a score of 87.88. The five I missed were more in the economic realm, something in which I've never claimed to be a rocket scientist.

The national average score for November was 77.9 percent.

Test yourself: Here is a link to the quiz. How did you do?

NFL bucks can't be real

I'm beginning to think the folks in professional sports are really using play money.

Seeing the price of your favorite baseball or football star, it can't be real money. No way.

Think of it. Last I looked, the President of the United States makes a salary of $400,000, not counting perks, pretty nice housing, office space, and a gigantic expense account. But that $400K is about what the third-string shortstop for the Seattle Mariners makes, and I don't see Barack Obama doing shoe commercials either.

It just can't be real money.

This came to my attention (again) a few days ago when I read that the National Football League fined Randy Moss $20,000. The fine was later rescinded, but it makes you wonder what he did. Step on a defensive back's face, perhaps? Assault a referee? Moon the fans?

Nope. Moss, an insanely gifted wide receiver for the New England Patriots, criticized the referees in a recent game. That's all. And it wasn't even strong criticism.

I'm not going to take the obvious free-speech angle or our society's aversion to the thought of offending anybody (although no one seems to be squawking about those issues; must be the money doing that), but the indident is worth exploration even for the non-NFL fan.

Moss said the refs made some "iffy" calls, which is certainly mild. No questions about their eyesight, ancestry, or whether their family trees forked. Mone of the usual juicy stuff. Just "iffy."

OK, he said it to a few sports reporters. But he was venting, and pretty mildly at that. The League recognized that fact. Now, if Moss said the referees were of the same caliber as those found in the National Basketball Association, that would be a different matter -- apparently likening the two leagues is considered fighting words according to the NFL.

Even if the fine stood, $20,000 is a drop in the bucket for Moss. An NFL player of his caliber can make upward of $1,000,000 per game. For Moss, 20K is pocket change.

No, this isn't even a diatribe about sports salaries, even though the wage rates are scandalous -- especially at times like today, where non-athletic people merely hope their job doesn't disappear next month and their next egg doesn't disappear next year.

Of course pro athletes are overpaid, but it's one of the things about a free market. Your favorite ballplayer makes $20 million a year because somebody decided he's actually worth that much and is willing to pay that much. Clear? If someone else decides he's worth $25 million next year, your ballplayer is perfectly within his rights to go for it.

In 1970, when I first started paying attention to such things, Willie Mays made the highest salary in baseball -- at about $135,000 per year, and many midlevel ballplayers sold insurance during the off-season. OK, $135K was big money back then, and older baseball fans are reminded that in the early 1930s Babe Ruth made more money than the President (which made sense to The Babe; he did have the better year).

Really, it's no different from the real world, even though the numbers are different. Way different. But if you're making $15 an hour and someone else offers you $18, of course you're going to at least consider it.

Not much difference except that Monopoly money is the coin of the realm in pro sports.

(Side note: Air Obama shoe commercials? Man, I'd better get my medication changed around, and fast!)

How widespread is the flu? Google it.

The flu is making its rounds here in coastal South Carolina, and it's not pretty. The good news, for me anyway, is that with the exception of an occasional sniffle, I've dodged that bullet so far. And this is while working in a place where I'm in contact with a lot of diseased people.

But I'm taking precautions. Lots of rest. Eating reasonably healthy. Loading up on the Vitamin C.

Every few years there's talk about how the annual flu outbreak will be the Next Big One, extinguishing millions of lives, all that dramatic stuff. It's old business, really. In my own lifetime we've had the Hong Kong Flu, Swine Flu, and a handful of others that have fallen pitifully short of the post-World War I outbreak that occurred long before there were halfway decent drugs.

But the merely curious -- and the totally paranoid -- may want to check Google's offering on flu trends. It's interesting, though certainly not the most scientific in the world. No numbers from the Center for Disease Control here; Google's stats are based on search engine inquiries.

Which makes some sense, actually. The rationale is that someone is more likely to do a Google search for influenza when his throat hurts, his body aches, he's carrying a pound of snot, and and it feels like the Minnesota Vikings are pounding on his skull -- from the inside.

Anyway, enjoy. And don't forget the Vitamin C.

Sanford tells how GOP mailed it in

Although he's likely to blurt out nearly anything when the cameras are whirring, I really like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

Earlier in the year, Sanford gained a lot of mention as a possible vice-presidential candidate (and not just in the local press) before nominee John McCain opted for Sarah Palin. But Sanford, although listed as a Republican, is not a "pure" one. His thinking and politics are more libertarian than that, which makes him an interesting political species. But he's got a future.

Recently, Sanford wrote an essay for cnn.com giving his take on how the GOP let the whole thing get away in the Nov. 4. election. The Ted Stevens debacle is the Cliff's Notes version of why the Republican Party went off the rails, he suggests.

His article is definitely worth a look.

Seven post-election questions asked

In another posting I gave my input on what we're likely to see in the next few years, after Barack Obama's election as president and equally stunning victories for Democrats all over.
But I'm not alone in this guess-the-future game. Jennifer Rubin, a writer for pajamasmedia.com, posed seven interesting questions soon after Tuesday's groundbreaking election.

Here are Rubin's questions, along with my own comments:

= Will Obama be a moderate centrist or liberal extremist?

(My take: The latter, whether he wants to or not. But his voting record in the Senate was liberal enough without thhe help of the folks running the houses of Congress.)

= Who will get the blame for the Republican wipeout?

(My take: There are plenty of possibilities here, and already Sarah Palin is getting consideration as scapegoat of the year -- have you seen the news reports on her lately? But if I was to place blame, I'd have to lay it at George Bush's feet. Although he tried to stay out of the way during the campaign, that wasn't enough, and Obama got a lot of mileage in trying to portray McCain as another Bush.)

= What will the Republican minority do now?

(My take: Not much. The minority will try to choose its fights, but it'll be like trying to put a duck in a cockfight. Not pretty.)

= Will continuity or change be the watchword in our national security policy?

(My take: This will be interesting, and a lot will depend on who Obama chooses for Secretaries of State and of Defense. And there were several names mentioned by the Associated Press. Some scuttlebutt has Obama keeping Robert Gates in charge of Defense. And among those mentioned for State is Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana. Although Lugar clearly rode the short bus to charisma school, he's brilliant. He knows international affairs; in fact off the straight credentials he'd be the best choice. And Obama said he'd try to reach across party lines for some of his cabinet.)

= Who becomes the Republican frontrunner for 2012?

(My take: Several contenders here ... but none that will capture the imagination like Obama did the Democrats. Palin's a maybe, though she has a lot of baggage after the recent campaign. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is intriguing. Mitt Romney is the likeliest, though he probably shot his wad in the '04 primaries. Too bad my man, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- who feeds his jail inmates corn dogs and issues them pink underdrawers -- is probably not going to run for the White House. A tragedy, that.)

= Will there be a crack-up of the conservative punditocracy?

= What will happen with the mainstream media?

(My take: Excellent question. The mainstream media, truth be told, did not do its job during this campaign. In fact, it did the public a grave disservice. But I've seen that coming for years.)

After election: A fuzzy look at what to expect

The people have spoken, the votes are counted, President-elect Barack Obama is meeting with his brain trust, and campaign signs will disappear from the landscape this year or next.

And my magic fortune-telling 8-ball is on the fritz.

One of the fun things about political punditry is in reading all the signs of the times and trying to make predictions -- and naybe some sense -- out of all of it. Nothing unusual there; to some extent most voters try to look four years into the future before deciding who gets their consideration.

But, Obama's campaign pitch was about change. That's about the only information available right now, that change is coming. Whether this change is good or bad, that's a big question. Obama is a totally unknown quantity. We only have his words, his associations, and his senatorial track record to go with here. Everything else is a throw of the dice.

It's an easier call in both houses of Congress, which is, in reality, where the action is. The Republicans received a major butt-thumping all over the country -- in fact, presidential nominee John McCain fared much better than his party did Nov. 4. Congress had been decidedly to the left, but headed deeper into that territory after winning just about every race of consequence there. And with folks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leading the way, you just know Congress will be playing in deep left field during the next two years, at least.

So, fueled in part by my own news-watching habits, plus that large pepperoni pizza I ate just before going to bed last night, here's what I see happening:

= Obama will be pulled several different directions at once. The House and Senate will try to pull him into their turf. The people who voted for him will holler for their entitlements, financial crisis or not. Obama will try to strike a balance between the centrist coalition builder a la Bill Clinton and FDR-style liberalism, and my guess is that he'll take the latter course.

= As I mentioned in an election-night mini-posting (via Twitter), the populace will scream for the head of Barack Obama very soon. Give this about 18 months to materialize.

= The financial crisis will remain a crisis, and it will probably get worse. Obama won't make a lick of difference here. But we have the same players in Congress -- Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank -- so the inmates are still running that asylum. And the atmosphere that created the financial crisis will continue. About the only real action you'll see is more bailout money being thrown at the problem.

= Vice President-elect Joe Biden called this one, and I wrote about it at length, but it bears repeating. We'l be hearing from old enemies, new enemies, and fair-weather friends. Iran will try to borrow a nuclear bomb from somebody ("I'll pay you tomorrow for a warhead today") and maybe try to lob something at Israel. North Korea will continue fresh rounds of trash talk. Russia will try to see what Obama's made of. Obama will find out what it's like trying to negotiate with world leaders who are nuttier than squirrel scat. Things might get real interesting in Mexico -- that nation is probably a bigger supplier of oil than the Middle East, and one of our biggest suppliers of drugs and illegal aliens. Call me crazy, but I really expect some sort of fireworks along the Rio Grande.

= While you're calling me crazy, here's another: Expect a facelift among the Republican party. While this is a no-brainer -- the GOP just got its butt handed to it and is trying to become relevant again -- I'm gonna take this even further than most pundits. I really see the Party splitting in the next few years. Hey, it's happened before, even if for a short time (George Wallace in 1968, the Dixiecrats in 1948, the Bull Moose Party in 1912, the madness of the 1860 election) -- and I really see this happening. I expect the conservatives to part company with the more liberal Republicans in the next few years. The Democrats won't be unscathed here; its more conservative element may hook up with the liberal Republican branch, especially the element that does not identify with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid troika.

= For the next two years, the Republican party will be pretty impotent. Maybe not as bad as it could have been -- they did manage to avoid being on the wrong end of a 60-40 supermajority -- but in effect we'll have a one-party system right here in America. Maybe a one-and-a-half party system, but that's just splitting hairs at this point. And that kind of system is always scary, always chilling.

That's it. I really need to get that magic 8-ball fixed. It's scaring me.

Political godfathers gone bad: It's all in how you play them

Despite the media's love fest with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, much has been made of his association with Bill Ayres, founder of the old Weather Underground.

It's been tossed around in debates, and aired on (mostly conservative) talk shows. The most frequent version of the story says Obama basically started his political career in Ayres' living room, with his full backing. Folks who still have memory cells left from the 60s may remember the Weather Underground as a ragtag band of revolutionists who made halfway decent explosives and targeted several public buildings like the Pentagon. Although Obama says he was eight years old when Ayres was at his peak, this should leave a bad taste in the mouth of any voter.

Strangely enough, very little has been made of Republican candidate John McCain's personal skeleton in the closet, but it may be instructive of a fundamental difference between the two candidates.

If Ayres, as it seems, was Obama's polital godfather, McCain's own godfather was a rather nefarious character in his own right. When the Navy man was taking his first stabs at politics, he befriended one Danforth "Duke" Tully, publisher of the Arizona Republic.

Tully was, by all accounts, an outstanding newspaperman and a real character. He was known as a war hero, and had the medals to prove it. A fighter pilot. He sensed a kindred spirit in returning POW and Navy pilot MccCain. The two hung around together. Their families became close. Tully stood as godfather to at least one of McCain's children. And Tully, publisher of the most powerful newspaper in the state, threw his support behind McCain.

There was a major problem, though. Tully was not a war hero. Never served. He made up his whole background and milked it for all it was worth. When he was exposed, he was forced to leave the Arizona Republic. Disgraced, Tully drifted among several tiny newspapers in Arizona and California. McCain, though, landed on his feet.

I did not know Tully. I've never met him. But you can say I do know him, indirectly. With the Republic, his chief lieutenant was a salty old newsman named Verne Peyser, who followed Tully to such outposts as Cottonwood, Arizona, and Ojai, California.

The newspaper business can be a lonely one, but many news crews do stick together through the years. I can tell you about that. I have worked on three newspapers in two states with my old managing editor Greg Bucci. He's still writing in Arizona, and we've sent a few emails back and forth. I still keep in touch with Charlie Hand, although it's been 20 years since we've worked in the same newsroom. He's since tried to get me back on his staff, and I've conspired to do the same thing with him. If I should turn up in his newsroom ready to write one day, I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

Anyway, in 1990 Greg recommended me for a job in his newsroom, with the old Booster in Bullhead City, Arizona. It's now called the Mohave Valley Daily News. Our managing editor was this leathery old guy who chain-smoked those long brown More cigarettes, spoke with enough profanity to make sailors and truckers cover their ears, and brought out some of my best work ever. I loved Verne Peyser.

Verne was also a walking treasury of newsroom lore. He had a coffee cup he'd filched from Air Force One. He'd fielded calls from Lyndon Johnson when the president had his late-night bouts of telephonitis. He'd consumed cheap whiskey with retired President Harry Truman, and took the Nebraska bar exam as part of a news story (and passed it, despite a seventh-grade education). And he had many stories about his man, Duke Tully.

But Verne's stories about Tully didn't have much of a McCain hook. Understand, this was the early 1990s. Then, McCain was still a fairly minor player in the Senate. He was replacing a legend in Barry Goldwater. Outside of Arizona, McCain was unknown except for his standing as a former prisoner of war. He hadn't developed his power base yet, or his reputation as a maverick. Besides, McCain probably wasn't the only political star Tully had created or backed.

As far as the McCain connection to Tully, I had to go no further than McCain's own autobiography, "Worth The Fighting For," published a few years ago. In it McCain devotes several pages to his relationship with the publisher, including how he bought into Tully's tales and his own initial outrage at Tully's lies -- a real war hero doesn't take kindly to folks who claim that status without earning it. But in his autobiography, you can tell McCain held compassion for Tully -- it seemed the publisher's father was a decorated military man, Duke felt a lot of pressure to follow in his footsteps, and never could get around the fact he couldn't meet Dad's standards, real or imagined.

So the McCain-Tully connection is old news. It has been covered. Straight from the horse's mouth, in fact.

So that's a fundamental difference between the two candidates. McCain wrote freely of his asociation with a disgraced publisher who helped start him in politics. He's been straight-ahead about it. Obama, in discussing Ayres, is still trying to baffle you with ... well, you know.
Both candidates have skeletons stashed in their political closets. The real difference is in how they handled these skeletons. And you can bet that difference will also show in how McCain and Obama will handle day-to-day business in the White House.

Random thoughts: Will it be over soon?

Here's a favorite question these days: Is the media biased?

My answer: Of course it is. While the ideal media outlet is straight down the line in its reportage and has room for strong opinion on the editorial page, good luck finding any that can achieve this. Nearly all so-called "objective" newspapers, magazines, Web sites, TV, or radio stations will let their bias show, some more blatantly than others.

The good news is that you can choose your bias. If you're conservative, you've got Fox News to watch, any number of foaming-at-the-mouth talk show hosts to listen to, and conservative Web sites. If you're liberal, you've got the New York Times, Huffington's blog, the Daily Kos, and about a zillion others. Pick your poison.

In some regions -- such as the Midwest -- newspapers are aligned with a certain political party. This is standard operating procedure. My last newspaper job, in southwest Indiana, was with the Posey County News, a Republican paper. Our rival in the county was the Mount Vernon Democrat, which was ... well, the first two guesses don't count. Party affiliation is taken more seriously in that area, and voting a straight ticket (a practice I do not endorse) is a lot more common there.

Even with a Republican paper, I tried to keep my reporting as balanced as possible. On Page 4, though, that's a whole 'nother story. One of the things I've always pushed for in every newspaper I've ever worked for was a strong editorial page. That page is the guts of the newspaper.

Based on my years in the news business, you can pretty much write this down. Above all else, the news media loves an underdog. And there's nothing underdoggier, on the surface, than someone like an Obama. All the ingredients are there. A fresh new face. A studied Miles Davis cool. Lots of well-phrased rhetoric. Young. And black. Man, that's a story! From a pure news standpoint, that mix puts established senator/military man in the shade.

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After almost a month of waiting, my voter's registration card has arrived.

This is partly my own fault.

It was really close to deadline when I sent off all my paperwork, and you can bet the voter's registration offices are swamped. More so given the interest in this election -- I would be very surprised if this one does not set turnout records.

Early voting is catching on here, and folks are reporting hour-plus waits to get through the line to the polling booth. For early voting, not for Election Day itself.

Not only do I expect a record turnout, but I also expect unprecedented clusters in the voting/counting process this year. Methinks the Charleston County voting system is already overwhelmed, and we're still a few days away from Election Day.

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I'm not sure which I like more -- politics or debating said politics.

It's been kind of slow at work this week, so we had our share of discussions about the presidential race. One of our yard-truck operators was sounding off yesterday about how the economy went south and why he's going to vote as often as he can for Obama. Elaine, my supervisor, said she doesn't like to debate him 'cause his mind is so made up. Of course, I had to get my innings in with him. Made my points, presented my supporting arguments, and he kept steering the subject over to how Bush screwed up Iraq. When in doubt, change the subject.

It was fun, but not as much as it could have been.

Moral: Never debate with a Kool-Aid drinker. Like the saying goes, it's like trying to teach a hog to sing -- it wastes your time and annoys the hog.

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One of the fun memories of covering elections was hanging around the Mohave County elections office, shooting the breeze with then-department head Paul Post, waiting for the Colorado City/Arizona Strip vote to come in.

Colorado City is a Mormon stronghold, and was the headquarters of Warren Jeffs' sect back then. It's also physically cut off from the rest of Mohave county. Situated on the Utah line, there's no straight drive to the county seat in Kingman from there. The west end of the Grand Canyon is in the way. Ballots are driven to an airport in Utah (St. George, I think), then flown from there into Kingman. Election nights ran late out there.

Especially the 1994 election. This was a mid-term election, though Governor Fife Symington (who later did time) was running for reelection against Democrat Eddie Basha. Anyway, the ballots from Colorado City were taken to the Utah airport, flown down to Kingman, loaded into a car for counting ... and the car was crunched in an accident en route to the elections office.
Which made for a *very* long night.

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I've always liked Charles Barkley, even though there are times I think he's full of it. But he's definitely his own man, and he's not afraid to say what's on his mind.

Anyway, Sir Charles says 2014 is the year he'll run for governor of Alabama. This has been talked about for some time, even when he was still a force in pro basketball.

Anyway, from Barkley: "I am (serious). I can't screw up Alabama. We are Number 48 in everything, and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere."

We need more candidates like that.

The government couldn't run a ... ?

(Note: This from an email my Dad sent. "This does warrant serious thought," he added. And yes, I remember when this all happened, and I laughed my butt off then, too. --ericsomething)

Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed.

Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whorehouse and selling booze???

Just something to think about....