Brad Warthen's Blog

Urgent call for field peas

A reader in Tennessee who apparently read this post of mine from last summer is obviously a guy who's got his priorities straight, and I'd like to be able to help him out:

I'm TN and would like to know where I can order Dixie Lee Field Pea seed for my garden.
 
Thanks Chris

Anybody know where he might be able to obtain these seeds? One of our correspondents wrote in July as follows:

A few years ago I planted a patch of these peas and I agree that they are some of the finest. I purchased my seed at Bob's Ace Hardware in Leesville, which is across the street From shealy's bbq. Also, you may want to try Consumer Feed and Seed in Lexington, which is next to Addy Dodge.

... but I don't know whether that will be helpful or not, to a guy in TN. Any other tips for a guy who knows what's good? (Actually, I'm assuming the "guy" part, and on thin evidence, it now strikes me. If Chris is a gal, I apologize.)

The slowdown: What are YOU seeing?

Peggy Noonan had an intriguing column Saturday, about what she was seeing in Manhattan in terms of real, street-level effects of the recession. Here's an excerpt:

    This is New York five months into hard times.
    One senses it, for the first time: a shift in energy. Something new has taken hold, a new air of peace, perhaps, or tentativeness. The old hustle and bustle, the wild and daily assertion of dynamism, is calmed.
    And now Washington becomes the financial capital of the country, of the world. Oh, what a status shift. Oh, what a fact.

Here's what struck me about that: She implies that -- because of the stimulus, the TARP, etc. (I guess) --  the hustle-and-bustle that's missing from the not-so-mean streets near Central Park has somehow been transferred to Washington.

And yet, weirdly enough, I had been talking to someone else last week who had made a similar observation about a loss of activity in Washington. It was USC President Harris Pastides. When he came to see us with Mayor Bob and the gang last Monday, he had just stepped off the plane coming back from D.C., and his impression was that it felt dead, deserted. Of course, he acknowledged that the contrast was particularly sharp because he had last been there for the Obama inauguration just weeks earlier, but he seemed to be suggesting that he was seeing was a loss of activity from the norm, not just from the inaugural excitement.

(I heard that with particular interest because one thing that had always struck me when I visited D.C. -- and mind you, I haven't been there in years and years -- was something that my libertarian friends can identify with. I thought, crowded onto a metro platform with well-dressed commuters, or walking past swanky shops, "There's too much money in this town." Of course, part of that is the sheer size of the gummint, a good bit of which should be devolved. But part of it is the amount that the private sector freely spends on lobbying. I have no idea how to separate it out. But I know that in my limited experience, the lobbyists are snappier dressers.)

I haven't been to New York in almost a year, and I last went to D.C. in 1998 (yes, more than a decade). I don't know what impression I'd have if I visited either today (although I'm pretty sure NYC won't be as busy as when I made this video). Come to think of it, I don't know what impression I have of right here in the Midlands. For instance:

About three weeks ago, I went to the Lowe's out on Garners Ferry for the first time since before Christmas. It was late on a Sunday afternoon. And I was shocked, because when I walked in, there were about a dozen or more of those carts you use to stack your lumber on -- the kind that when it's busy, you've got to hunt around for -- lined up in a neat row in the lumber aisle before me. So there were at least that many carts free, and an employee had had time to gather them and make that neat row. Then after I left and got to thinking about it, I thought I had seen about as many employees as customers.

I've mentioned that several times since then, and sometimes people nod their heads and sometimes they dispute it. For instance, Cindi said she's been to Lowe's (including that particular store) maybe six times in the last few weeks, and it's always been busy.

Then when she said that, I suddenly remembered that I went out to Harbison Saturday, and the traffic was the worst I'd seen in several years. I thought I'd never get there, or get home. And the stores I went into were at LEAST as busy as the norm, if not more so, so I don't think it was just a matter of my having hit the traffic at a bad time.

From where I sit, there's plenty of evidence of our economy tanking in the aggregate, from the state unemployment figures to the horrific effect that reduction in advertising has on newspapers and TV. We can quantify the cuts that have occurred already and are coming in state government, or local school districts. And I know of quite a few specific cases of people close to me -- personally and professionally -- who have lost their jobs or are facing the high probability of such losses.

But then we still see the anomalous things, such as all that activity out at Harbison. And not just there. Over the weekend I thought, not for the first time, that the Vista is just TOO successful. Yes, I'm being ironic, but it's frustrating when that district has become so popular that you can't park within a block of Starbuck's.

So I'm wondering -- what are YOU seeing out there, as a worker, as a businessperson, as a consumer? What's the true picture of what's happening thus far in the Midlands? Maybe we can get a snapshot -- or better yet, a panorama -- of that right here on the blog. So how about it? What are you seeing?

What IS that heavenly body?

Any astronomers out there, amateur or otherwise? I feel really stupid asking this question -- in earlier centuries, any educated person would have known the answer to this, but in our light-polluted modern era, we take too little note of the heavens -- but I'm going to ask it anyway. After all, the valedictorian of my high school class used to ask the stupidest questions I ever heard -- our physics teacher's jaw would actually drop with incredulity -- but those of us who were too cool to ask dumb questions didn't get to be valedictorian. (My wife says her class valedictorian, her friend Mary, was the same way. And look at her today; she has a giant flat-screen HDTV and I don't.)

Where was I? Oh yes -- what in the 'verse is that superbig, superbright, object in the sky at about 30 degrees elevation, a little south of west as of 8 p.m. Eastern? Is it Mars? Venus? Some other planet, that has just wandered closer than usual? (I'm thinking Mars, because it seems to have a bit more of an orangish cast than the other, far less bright, stars and planets.)

It's the biggest, brightest thing I can ever remember seeing in the sky aside from the sun and moon.

Who can tell me what it is?

Retail watch: How's business, as of this Cyber Monday?

Just a few minutes ago, I was reading a piece at the WSJ site that attempts to get a handle on how retail sales went across the country on Black Friday, and over the weekend. (Short version: Better than expected, but a lot of that was the loss-leader items on Friday, and once folks bought those up, sales slowed.)

That's a hard thing to get a grip on. But it occurs to me that it would be interesting to enlist you blog readers in a reporting effort. And what better time to do it than on Cyber Monday? We know that one piece of the economic crisis is the reduction in consumer confidence -- and, more substantially, in consumer spending. Hank Paulson a couple of weeks back starting emphasizing that at the expense of bailing out Wall Street.

Everyone expects this holiday season to be a bummer for the consumer economy, so let's see if we can gauge, through our own experiences, how that's going.

I'll kick it off with some of my own purely anecdotal observations:

• I started thinking about this weekend before last. It was the weekend after Circuit City had filed for bankruptcy and Best Buy had "sent a shiver through the retail and financial markets Wednesday as it sharply reduced its profit forecast due to plummeting sales." I was at Best Buy -- the new one near Lexington -- picking up my first Chrismas gift of the season. It was about 6 or 6:30 p.m. on a Sunday. I didn't have to wait in line, so it occurred to me to ask the clerk whether they had been busy earlier in the weekend. He said they had. But you couldn't tell by me. We also went to Lowe's (the one closer to I-26) to pick up a couple of things and to look at charcoal grills, and I pointed out one to the wife that I would like very much to have.
• On Thanksgiving, my kids who were in town and I were over at my parents house, and after dinner there was a good bit of looking through the ads in that day's paper and discussion about who planned to shop Friday and who did not (I did not, since I had to work), which I'm sure would have pleased the folks down in advertising. One of my daughters, evidently shopping for things Dad might want, kept pointing things out in a neutral sort of way and asking what I thought. One idea stuck with me, and I later mentioned it to my wife (I didn't want my daughter spending that kind of money on me). It was a loss-leader "door-buster" USB turntable -- you know, a thing for turning all my old vinyl albums into MP3s -- at J.C. Penney. It was $78.88, I think. Unfortunately, by the time I found the ad again and showed it my wife, I realized it was bit late for a "door-buster" price. Anyway, I'm worried that talking about that may have put the grill out of her mind, which would be a tactical error on my part.
• Then we went back to Alice's and had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat... no wait; wrong story... (But I did get to hear that part on the radio later that evening.)
• Yesterday, the wife and I did a full-bore Harbison run starting around 3:30 p.m., and I'm sorry to report it was way easier than it would have been if retail were booming. (It WAS raining, of course.) We went to Verizon first, because she had left her phone charger in Memphis, where she had visited her Dad for Thanksgiving. We had perhaps the shortest wait I've ever had there -- not even long enough to browse. We then hit the mall itself, and there were large swaths of parking lot empty. It was bustling, but not Christmas-season bustling. Long line at Starbucks, but that's always the case at that Starbucks. My wife stopped at several kids-clothing shops looking for Christmas outfits for the twins, which struck me as impractical, but anything in the name of boosting the economy. She was disappointed not to find more bargains, except at Sears, where she made a purchase. Hot Topic didn't have the thing my youngest daughter had specifically requested, but the clerk (who may have set a Midlands record for body piercings on the face alone) suggested we look on-line. We then went to Ross, Marshall's, T.J. Maxx (all places where at least one of my daughters likes to shop), Best Buy (where I found a Sony USB turntable was $164, but that's not why I was there), Publix, and home.
• At home, I spent a good bit of time trying to find the item we couldn't get at Hot Topic. I found it at the chain's Web site, but then spent a bunch of time trying to find something my daughter might like just as much, but which I would not find as objectionable. Most of what I found, unfortunately, was in the UK rather than here at home, and I wasn't sure how to negotiate pounds when I have dollars in my debit card account.

Anyway, that's for starters. What do y'all have to contribute? I'd particularly like to hear from our own resident retailer, James D. McCallister. In fact, I might check to see whether he can get that item I've been searching the Web for...

Whither the blog?

Seems like this comment I put on this comment string is worth a separate post, since I'm looking for feedback:

Above we have 32 comments. Seventeen of them are by or about Lee Muller (10 by him, including the first and the last; seven about him.)

That means the majority of comments are not about the subject at hand. The subject at hand, of course, is my effort to elevate public discourse above the level of polarization and pointless shouting.

I'd like to thank Harry, Karen, Phillip, Bart and, eventually bud (once he decided not to "harp on the past") for engaging the topic positively, and Randy and David for at least engaging the topic.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what do do with the fact that most of the string was occupied with polarizing distractions? This is a serious question, because now that the election is over I'm evaluating how much energy to put into the blog, given that we are so short-handed and I'm so harried these days.

When I started this blog, I had a staff of six full-time people (including four associate editors) and one part-timer to write for, edit and produce the editorial pages. And even then it was extremely difficult to squeeze out the time from a 24-hour day to blog. Now I have three full-timers (down to two associate editors) and one part-timer in the editorial department. Finding time for the blog long ago reached the point where most people would say "impossible."

My Sunday column spoke directly to why I do this blog. It's about carving out a place that is an alternative to most of the hyperpartisan blogosphere, which reflects the style of nondiscourse framed by the parties, the advocacy groups and the shouting-head television "news." A place where people can interact constructively, and even listen to each other.

I deeply appreciate those of you who try to have a constructive conversation in spite of all the shouters in the room. Unfortunately, there are many, many people of good will who simply won't try that hard.

Anyway, anybody have any constructive suggestions for going forward?

Of course, the very first comment I get it likely to be from Lee. But after that, I'd very much appreciate some relevant feedback from the rest of you.

Your voting anecdotes here

It took me an hour and forty minutes to vote at the Quail Hollow precinct -- most of it standing in the breezy fine mist of rain, which gets cool after awhile even in a camel-hair sport coat. This was the first day in more than a week that I did NOT wear a sweater, which was stupid. I had looked at the weather report on my Treo -- mid-60s, it said -- and it simply never occurred to me that I would spend 90 minutes of the day standing outside.

But it was OK. Here are some pictures. The one at top was looking toward the front of the line, just after I joined it. The blurry one at right is a little later, showing all the way to the front of the line. (That's my wife in the white sweater and dark hair about halfway up, although I didn't know that until I called her on the phone and she told me she was there; I had thought she was in Shandon watching the twins. If it had been any other sort of line, I would have gone up and cut in to join her. Somehow that seemed a violation of electoral etiquette, though.) The one below is from about 15 minutes later, at which point the line stretched back about twice as far as the point where I had joined it at 10:08. Note that the mist was falling when those behind us got out of their cars, so they had umbrellas. Many of them did anyway; the lady colonel in the foreground did not, but she was dressed for inclement weather.

All during this there was a steady flow of old folks being escorted to the front of the line, and after a while, I must confess, I was tempted to say, "Oh yeah, right! Like you really need a walker -- I'm onto you!" But I didn't think it would be nice, so I didn't say it.

When we finally got inside the little building behind the church, the line waiting to check in consisted of about 10 people. Then there was a long, undulating space for a line after registering with only four or five people standing in. Apparently it didn't occur to the poll workers that they weren't managing the flow as well as they might. The lady checking in the first half of the alphabet was moving people along pretty well -- story of my life; if there's a way to screw over the W's, it will be found and acted upon. My half of the alphabet had to wait while our worker was distracted by the old folks bypassing the line. (The whole curbside voting thing seemed very haphazard. They had a van for awhile, but that left. Some cut to the front of the line; some went to a side door, and I got the impression that each person who did so was a bit of a surprise, and was dealt with in an ad hoc manner. But perhaps I didn't fully perceive what was happening.)

At the front of the line, there were seven machines (not counting the young lady holding the curbside machine -- why she was in there, waiting for people to check in and then accompanying them out to the voter in the car, I don't know). But only five were in use. One of them was specially equipped, I overheard, for the hearing impaired (what role hearing played in the process I don't know). Maybe it was rigged for sound for the blind, and I misunderstood -- it appeared to have headphones attached, which for all I knew was so that the "Rock the Vote" kids could hear loud music while voting.

Why the seventh machine wasn't in use, I don't know.

So how did it go for you?

Who (if anyone) is John Vierdsen, and why does he want to be my 'friend'?

Call me a mossback, but I admit it: I don't get Facebook. It's not that I ain't hep! Blogging is second nature to me. Almost everything else about the Internet, from Google to e-commerce, I do as though I've always done them. I've essentially been instant-messaging since the early '80s.

But Facebook foxes me. It doesn't make sense. I don't understand why information flows the way it does on that site or is structured the way it is; I have trouble obtaining the simplest information from it.

But most of all, I don't get the whole "friends" concept. Mind you, I'm not the world's most sociable guy. There's family. There's co-workers. There's sources. There are nice people I see at church or at Rotary. But friends? Not so much. We're not encouraged to have "friends" in my business. I've been the recipient of disapproving remarks from colleagues on the rare occasions I've called someone a "friend" in a column. It's considered unprofessional.

But ever since I set up a Facebook account (I did it when my youngest daughter's boyfriend died last year, and I'd heard his sister had set up a page where a lot of people had said nice things about him), I've had this steady trickle of e-mails saying

(Name) added you as a friend on Facebook.  We need to confirm that you know (name) in order for you to be friends on Facebook.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:

Sometimes these are people I know, usually professionally. I usually confirm them, if only to keep open the lines of communication. Some are members of my immediate family, such as my children. I approve those, of course, although "friend" seems an awfully inadequate way to define the relationship. Some are people whose names are only vaguely familiar, although I generally recognize them when I go to their pages. Then I have a dilemma -- should I snub this person who has asked me to be his or her "friend," or potentially compromise myself by declaring to the world that this person is a "friend?" (This category includes a lot of people, usually younger ones, who work in politics professionally.)

Yeah, I get it that the site using the word "friend" to describe a range of relationships much broader than the original meaning, but I'm still not sure what to do.

Then there are the total strangers asking me to be their friends -- some of them attractive young women (and some of them young men whose motivation I wonder about, but never mind). The very first person who asked to be my "friend" was an attractive lady (which I knew from the glamor shot) who lives in Germany and is married. I "confirmed" the friendship just so I could send her a message asking, as delicately as I could, whether we knew each other. She said we did not. OK. Whatever.

That was a year ago, and I still don't understand what's going on.

Now, along comes a message saying that "John Vierdsen" wants to be my friend (that is allegedly a picture of him at right). That rang a bell. Sure enough, I went back and found this e-mail I'd received from Randy Page of SCRG on Oct. 13, to wit:

Brad,
I trust that you are doing well.  I noticed that “John Vierdsen” is quoted in the S.C. Blogs section again today.  From all accounts, “John Vierdsen” is a pen name because no one knows who “John Vierdsen” is.  Rumors swirl about his possible identity, but no one really knows....

So I decided to make use of my vaunted "social network." I went to the page on Facebook where I was being asked whether this John Vierdsen is my friend, and saw that we had a number of "friends" in common. I noticed they were mostly Democrats or fellow travelers, such as Bob Coble, Joe Darby, Joe Erwin, James Smith, Laurin Manning, and so on...

... and former colleague Aaron Sheinin. So I sent e-mails to both the mayor and Aaron asking if they knew who, if anyone, this guy is. The mayor responded with possibly the shortest e-mail I've ever gotten from him:

I do not know him.

I haven't heard back yet from Aaron.

So can any of y'all shed light on this guy? Basically, I just want to know whether we got hoodwinked on our Monday blog rail, as Randy alleges.

And then while you're at it, maybe you could advise me as to whether I want to be "friends" with Darrell Jackson (his is the only "friend suggestion," rather than "friend request," which I take to mean that HE didn't want to ask me, sort of like getting a third party to ask whether you want to be friends, which sort of takes me back to the 5th grade), or Tom Fowler, or Scott Sokol, or a lovely young lady from Connecticut named "Tiffany..."

Manholes in the Midlands

Back in the early 90s, I was one of a handful of editors who helped shape a drastic reorganization of The State's newsroom, challenging and in some cases throwing out fundamental assumptions about what we covered and how we covered it. (I was also the first one, months later, to say the new system didn't work, but no one was listening to me at that point.) We came up with some pretty wacky, high-concept beats, but there was one I could never get the others to go for, one that I still think would be a good one -- the "driveby beat." Basically, it would involve assigning a reporter to answer the kinds of questions that occur to you driving around the Midlands -- What are they building there? How long will I have to take this detour? Whose responsibility is it to fix that pothole? What do all those people waiting for the library to open do the rest of the time? Essentially, just about anything that might occur to you to wonder about when you drive by it, and that normally you would never get an answer to.

For instance, Sunday morning I wanted to know why I couldn't get anywhere closer than a couple of blocks from the Gervais Starbucks in my truck. It apparently had something to do with people riding around on bicycles in silly outfits, but I had to wait until this morning to get an answer. And I'm still not satisfied, by the way (that is, I'm not satisfied that was worth diverting traffic for, but then I'm a real curmudgeon about these things).

One of the letter writers on our Monday page got me to thinking about another one that I usually forget by the time I get to work. Here's the letter:

Manholes are hazards around Columbia

Why is it that with the technology to provide a smooth, correctly profiled, beautifully laid asphalt roadway, no one seems able or willing to address the numerous manholes that seem to dot every block of roadway on our main thoroughfares?

When you ask a paving contractor about it, he or she sounds like Freddie Prinz of “Chico and The Man” — “It’s not my job!” How about, at least, a composite disc to raise the low ones to the roadway elevation?

With so many diverse utilities — the water and sewer department, SCE&Grab, Bell South/Southern Bell (whatever), etc. — nobody wants to take the time, expense or effort to raise (or lower) these units to the proper elevation before paving, and they are legion. Ride over to Forest Drive and take a look.

There is one in front of the State Museum (outbound lane) that would knock the treads off an Abrams tank if hit at 30 mph.

BEN BOATWRIGHT
Columbia

More specifically, here's what's on my mind: I've grown accustomed to the periodic indentations along Sunset Blvd. in the left-hand land heading down to the river through West Columbia. It's been like that for years, and I either stay in the right lane, or dodge the manholes, or put up with my truck being jarred into rattling every few seconds.

But now, on the days I take that route, there's a new barrier -- coming up from the river on Hampton. You know, the part that's several lanes one-way? It got repaved last month, and apparently it got ground down WAY below the manhole covers before repaving, but was not paved back UP to the manhole covers. The pavers dealt with that by constructing volcano-like slopes around the manholes, creating a sort of slalom situation -- particularly right at the top of the hill, at Hampton and Park -- if you don't want to experience the equivalent of multiple speed bumps.

I am as sure as anyone can be of something like this that this situation did not exist BEFORE the repaving. I'm pretty sure I'd remember it if it had been like that.

If I we had created that driveby beat, and if I still worked in the newsroom, and if I were that reporter's editor, I'd have him or her call around to find out who's responsible, and whether anyone plans on doing anything about it.

Or if I were an editorial page editor in another state, one where government isn't impossibly fragmented, I'd just call City Hall and probably get an answer.

But since I'm an editor in South Carolina with half the staff he used to have, I'm going to use the same technique I used to check Nicholas Kristof's math -- post the question on a blog, and see if I get an answer.

Now I've got to run; there are proofs on my desk that need reading.

Why do these conventions run so late?

So once again, the only thing of the evening I want to see at the convention is on at 10 p.m. Like waiting for my man Joe last night. These people are keeping me up past my bedtime.

And why is that? It's certainly not for the benefit of the delegates. The state delegations -- South Carolina, anyway -- have their daily meeting at some ungodly hour like 7:30 a.m., and then the next thing worth paying attention to is some speech at 10 p.m., and they all go out afterwards. No way to live, even for a week. It's never made any sense to me.

Do the parties not think that maybe, just maybe, kids ought to be able to watch these things and learn a bit about their country's political system? Yeah, I know, that's a setup for cynical jokes about things not being fit for children's eyes, but seriously -- for good or ill, it's educational.

Anyway, the schedules make no sense to me. But neither do a lot of other things about political parties.

But I'll stay up. Hey, if I hadn't stayed up last night I would have missed Joe, and that was the best speech of either convention so far. No, Joe's no barnburner of a speaker, but it was what he had to say. The partisans in the hall didn't know whether to clap or not at his best lines, because it was an UnParty speech, and not their sort of thing at all. I loved it.

Why isn't it the Peking Olympics?

Being pretty sure that I've had this explained to me before, and I just forgot the explanation, I'll ask again: How come we say "Beijing" instead of "Peking" now?

Here's the thing that puzzles me about this: It was supposed to be a phonic representation of the way the Chinese name sounds. So how could the West have been so wildly wrong about the way the name of that place was said for so long? "Peking" doesn't really sound anything like "Beijing," or at least not enough so that if someone said "Beijing," we would make the mistake of writing it phonetically with a "P" and a "K."

And if his name was Mao Zedong, why did we hear Mao Tse-tung for all those years?

My theory is that one version of Chinese somehow won out politically over another. Like Mandarin over Cantonese or some thousand other variations, because I know there's a bewildering array of them. Another theory is that the Chinese are just messing with the heads of us foreign devils, and maybe at the height of the Olympics, while they have the attention they've been craving, they'll suddenly announce that the city's name is pronounced "Vei-ling" or something, just to see if we'll start calling it that. Then they'll laugh their heads off.

But I suppose that's just the paranoia of the Westerner who never truly understands the East, try as he might.