Daily Archives: June 6, 2012

Virtual Front Page, Wednesday, June 6, 2012

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Here are the top stories:

  1. New ‘massacre’ in central Syria (BBC) — No good news from that front.
  2. Dow Jumps 286.84 Points in Broad Rally (WSJ) — Just to throw you a little good news.
  3. Wisconsin Vote Underscores Challenges for Democrats (NYT) — There are a bunch of stories out there like this today, and it’s ridiculous. This was a recall vote over the prerogatives of public employee unions. Not exactly the realm where the Dems compete for swing voters. About like saying that because Wisconsin rejected a bill to roll back millionaire’s taxes, the GOP is in trouble.
  4. Ray Bradbury, Author Of ‘Fahrenheit 451′ And Other Classics, Dies (NPR) — Kind of a long headline. Hey, if you have to be told who Bradbury was, you probably don’t want to read this.
  5. 68 years later, and Hitler is still dead (Various) — Hey, I couldn’t let the day go by without an acknowledgment of the day we put more than 150,000 men on a beach in spite of the deadliest efforts of the Third Reich to keep us off of. And then liberated Europe.
  6. Columbia clears way for Walmart (The State) — This is old now, but it’s still the biggest local story.

The State roundly rejects Kara for the Senate

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Yes, the endorsement of Ronnie Cromer today in The State discussed him and the other two people challenging him as well, but I take interest in what was said about Kara Gormley Meador in particular because I’ve written about her here.

Here’s what the editors said:

Kara Gormley Meador promises to shake up the status quo without the anger that often accompanies such pledges. Yet despite the fact that our state has some of the lowest taxes in the nation and our Legislature has a fixation on tax cuts, “tax reform” in her mind must include cutting taxes. Even after years of budget cuts, she’s convinced we need spending caps. And while she makes a point of saying she wants to strengthen the public schools, every time we asked her for specifics, she turned the conversation back to home schooling and private schools, and the need to excuse parents from paying their taxes if they take their kids out of public schools.

Dang, I really can’t argue with any of that. Right down the line, she advocates some really ill-considered ideas. And I was sort of vaguely aware of that when I wrote about her.

But it’s interesting to me to be reminded how differently I would have seen her if I had been talking with her for the purpose of deciding whether to endorse her — and the words in that editorial seem consistent with what I would have concluded, given the same evidence. But since I hadn’t been trying to judge Kara — since I was writing about her within the context of it just being interesting that this local personality had tried to vote in one district, then had to run in another — the picture didn’t gel in my mind. I even encouraged her to run.

Not that I was blind to her faults. Here’s part of what I wrote before:

Those of you who know me can see some significant disconnects with my own positions on issues. For instance, as an ardent believer in representative democracy, I would neither unduly limit the voters’ ability to elect whom they like (term limits) nor use a mathematical formula to supersede the representative’s powers to write a budget (“cap government growth”).

Further, I see inconsistencies in her vision. Today, she indicated that she believed enough waste could be found in state spending to both fully fund the essential functions of state government (which she correctly describes as currently underfunded) and return enough money to taxpayers to stimulate our economy.

In a state as tax-averse as this one, there’s just not enough money there to have your cake and eat it, too, barring a loaves-and-fishes miracle. (OK, enough with the clashing metaphors.)

But she’s smart, she’s energetic, and she seems to have no axes to grind. I think she’d quickly see that you can’t do it all, and make realistic assessments of what can and should be done. Her disgust with the pointless conflicts of modern politics, and the way they militate against a better future for South Carolina’s people.

Ohmygosh, do you see what I just said? “I think she’d quickly see that you can’t do it all, and make realistic assessments of what can and should be done.” And then later, I wrote, “My impression is that Kara has the character to be a positive force in politics, whatever her current notions of specific policy proposals.” Wow. Those are the same excuses I used to make about a certain other attractive young woman with a lot of energy and a nice smile. You know, the one who never really learned much of anything, and takes pride in the unchanging nature of her mind. The one who is now our governor, if you need me to get specific.

Once again, I’m reminded of the value of the endorsement process, properly done (and my regret that newspapers do so few of them now). Its value to the journalist, and to the reader. In that process, you get past vague impressions and force yourself to ask the questions that help you evaluate your initial impressions more systematically. Which The State did today.

I still like Kara personally, but that has little to do with whether she’d be a better senator than Ronnie Cromer.

The Pete Best of the E Street Band makes good

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I’m not all that much of a Bruce Springsteen fan, or a golf fan, either. (I like to play golf. I have no interest in watching other people play golf, or in following their doings on or off the course.)

But I enjoyed this story, which I was turned onto by Twitter:

SUMMIT, N.J. — Bruce Springsteen had fired him in 1974, and as he stood outside the Canoe Brook Country Club, stood there as a caddie who helped his man qualify for the U.S. Open, Vini Lopez did not blink when asked why he was banished by the Boss.

“I’m not a sheep,” he said. “I didn’t blindly follow Bruce. In fact, the only person I’ve ever blindly followed in my life is standing right there.”

The original drummer and founding father of the E Street Band was pointing at Mark McCormick, a 49-year-old club pro from New Jersey who needed to throw down some Advil during a morning rain delay to temper the arthritis flaring up in his right knee and to somehow make it through 36 all-or-nothing holes.

McCormick had never played in a Grand Slam event. He said this was his fifth and final crack at a sectional qualifier, his last shot at playing in an Open, and he brought with him a 63-year-old caddie who could’ve been the biggest star in the field.

Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez met Springsteen in the late ’60s, played with him in a band called Steel Mill, and later with what would become an iconic American act. Lopez ended up in a dispute with Springsteen’s manager, and a year before “Born to Run” became the game changer for the E Street Band, Bruce decided he needed a new drummer.

“He did it face to face,” Lopez said. “Bruce just said, ‘You’re out,’ and there weren’t going to be any second chances.”…

You should read the whole thing.

I know who Max Weinberg is — in fact, I know his daughter. Never heard of Vini Lopez, though. Translating it into terms I might better understand, I guess Vini is sort of Pete Best to Max’s Ringo Starr. (Except that the Beatles didn’t have the nerve to fire Pete — they made Brian Epstein do it.)

I’ve always felt bad for Pete Best. But how cool would it be to learn, decades later, that Pete had been doing something else for all these years, and had done it so effectively that he was about to hit the big time doing that? Very cool, actually.

Take a $19 pill and call me in the morning — assuming that you can still afford a phone

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I’d had something like a cold for close on to a month, when it started causing my asthma to kick in. So I went to see my allergist. He suggested that I increase my routine meds that I take for allergies and asthma.

And then, on the off chance that the cause of all this was bacterial and not viral or merely allergies (and probably because I kept insisting that it was more than allergies, and that I was afraid to get near my new grandson), he prescribed an antibiotic. One I hadn’t heard of — Avelox.

“Is it expensive?” I asked.

“Tell you what,” he said, “let me see if I have some samples.”

So he went and rooted around the office, and came back with five individually wrapped pills. And when I say wrapped, I mean each pill was contained in one of those things with plastic on one side and foil on the other (you punch them out through the foil), and then in its own box.

Since it’s a one-a-day thing, that would get me through five days. But he wanted me to take it for 10 days.

So a couple of days later, I went to get it filled, and those five pills cost me $94.62. Which means each pill cost almost 19 dollars ($18.924, to be exact).

This is by no means the most expensive medication either I or a member of my family has taken. It just struck me that here’s something I’m just taking on the off chance that I have something it will help with. We’re not talking cancer or something like that.

In fact, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about a $19 pill today, really. Which is why I thought I’d take note of it. So that somebody 20 years from now can read this and laugh that I thought it was a lot of money. Just as I think how innocent we were in the early 80s, when we marveled that Tagamet cost a dollar a pill.

Oh, here’s the kicker — almost from the hour I took the first one, I’ve been feeling better. A lot better. I’m kind of tired feeling, but the sore throat and coughing and wheezing are gone. So… if you ask me, would I spend $19 a day for five or even 10 days to get over feeling the way I did?… I’d say yes.

But I thought I’d still make note of it.