How the Jones ruined the Grinch

I love it when a book is adapted for a TV or a movie, if it's done well. If it remains true to the essence.

The Lord of the Rings movies were very faithful, recently. The original Dune movie was a travesty. The Dune TV miniseries on Sci-Fi Channel was very well done

For years I've been watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

A couple of years back, someone bought our son Stephen Christopher the book, and last year, I started reading it to him. It actually turned up in June and he wanted me to read it then, so I did. off and on. Now that it's Christmas, I've read it to him a few times. Yet I haven't watched the Grinch since I started reading it. I always thought it was a faithful adaptation.

I'm of course talking about the half-hour cartoon — narrated by the legendary Boris Karloff, directed by the legendary Chuck Jones of Bugs Bunny fame. Not the movie by Ron Howard, which was another travesty.

I know they had to add stuff to make a TV show. They added the wonderful "Mr. Grinch" song. 

They added all the Seussian names of the toys and instruments and sporting toys of the Who girls and boys.

Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and wumms

I get that.

They added the song that all the Whos, the tall and the small, sing with and without presents, one and all.

Fah who for-aze! Fah who for-aze!
Dah who dor-aze! Dah who dor-aze!
Welcome Christmas, Welcome Christmas,
Come this way! Come this way!"

I get that.

In the case of the cartoon, what they added, I thought, added to the essence of the original.

But this morning, I realized how wrong I'd been. Patricia caught the cartoon on the satellite and saved it on the DVR.

While I needed the sleep, Stephen woke me up,, so I put on the TV in our bedroom. We watched the Grinch.

Twice.

After the first time, I told him to get his book and to read along while I continued to snooze a bit. When I didn't want to watch it a third time. So I said, "Want to read the book?"

So we read it. And then I saw it. Read it. Stephen heard it, too, and noted it, immediately. Children note even the smallest change discrepency, distortion or bingle-macfortion..

And I wonder why they have to play with and RUIN the essence of something so quintessential.

Here it is. In the both stories, the Grinch, having completed his costume, needs a ride.

A reindeer. 

The Grinch looked around.
But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch...?
No! The Grinch simply said,
"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"
So he called his dog Max. Then he took some red thread
And he tied a big horn on top of his head. 

 We love Max, by the way.

Can you see the horror. That is the original, the true, the essential quintessential Grinch.

But ... I almost can't type this.

SEE!

Red thread.

But in the cartoon, the Grinch used black thread.

SEE!

Why do they have to mess with things? Why RUIN them?

I'm sure it was the black thread industry giving a "secret" donation to the project in exchange for the dialogue change.

So there you have it. I always thought the cartoon was a faithful adaptation. But it's a cop out. A sellout. 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the cartoon, came out just before Christmas in 1966. It is as old as me. After 44 years, can it possibly be a sellout?

OK, so I'm just joking.
The Christmas letter this year, I just wasn't up for it. I lost my job in June and was out of work until October.
I found a nice job, but it's a LONG commute.
It was a great year for Patricia. She switched jobs and is now editor of the Catholic News Herald. She redesigned it and is getting it a real website. It's an opportunity for her to grow in her faith as well as a job. I'm happy for her.
Stephen Christopher remains purely wonderful for all who know him. Harry and Annie are doing well
Have a merry Christmas. (E-mail still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)
We love you.
Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher, Harry and Annie

Happy New Year too.
 

The Trim up the tree song --

Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and wumms
Trim every blessed window
and trim every blessed door
hang up who boo who biks
then run out and get some more
Hang pantookas on the ceiling
pile pantpoomas on the floor
Trim every blessed needle
on the blessed Christmas tree
Christmas comes tomorrow
Trim you, Trim me!
Trim up your pets with fuzzle fuzz
and bliffer bloops and wuzzle wuzz
Trim up your uncle and your aunt
with yards of foofa flant
Trim every house in Whoville
from the cellar to the roof
Hang up a mile of bafflers
and three miles of snaffer snooze
Hang dang dongers on the bathtub
Trim the occuphant with floof
To every home in Whoville
and to every blessed who
Christmas comes tomorrow
Trim me, trim you!
Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and.... wumms!
Trim up the tree with bizzle binks and wumms!

Welcome Christmas --

Fah who for-aze, dah hoo dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, come this way
Fah who for-aze, dah hoo dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day

Welcome, welcome, fah who rah-moose
Welcome, welcome, dah who dah-moose
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp

Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer
Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze
Welcome all Whos far and near

Welcome Christmas fah who rah-moose
Welcome Christmas dah who dah-moose
Christmastime will always be
Just as long as we have we

Welcome Christmas
Fah who rah-moose!
Welcome Christmas
Dah who dah-moose!

Welcome Christmas
While we stand
Heart to heart
And hand in hand

Fah who for-aze
Dah who dor-aze
Welcome welcome
Christmas, Christmas Day

Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, bring your light
Ooooooo…

(You can find that song online done by the cast of Glee. They change the lyric from so long as we have we to song long as we have glee. See? Sellouts abound.)

Here's a great link to some recapping of the behind-the-scenes stuff on "The Grinch."

What you may not know about "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

Christmas pictures

 

Christmas 1

Christmas 2

YouTube - Stephen Christopher goes to McAdenville

YouTube - Stephen Christopher goes to McAdenville

"Are you John Lennon?"

The column began -- "That summer in Breezy Point, when he was 18 and out of Madison High in Brooklyn, there was the Beatles on the radio at the beach through the hot days and on the jukebox through the nights in the Sugar Bowl and the Kennedys. He was young and he let his hair grow and there were girls and it was the important part of life."
It was written in December, 1980.
The column ends,"Tony Palma said to himself, I don't think so. Moran shook his head. He thought about his two kids, who know every one of the Beatles big tunes. And Jim Moran and Tony Palma, older now, cops in a world with no fun, stood in the emergency room as John Lennon, whose music they knew, whose music was known everywhere on earth, became another person who died after being shot with a gun on the streets of New York."
Jimmy Breslin, still the best, writing about John Lennon's shooting. But he doesn't focus on the star. He focuses on a couple of beat cops.
And the gun. He focused on the gun.
Still the best. He was at home in bed at 11:20 p.m. when he got the call. He lived in Queens. He got dressed, went to the scene, found the beat cops, went to the hospital, then got back to the office to write this column by 1:30 a.m. He says in "The Wolrd According to Breslin, while admitting a mistake in a street name in the column, that he knows of nobody who can do that kind of work so quickly.
I've never come across anyone who could. I could do the bit about getting a call and springing into action. But I've not quite been able to get words so well done so quickly.
No one comes close.
John Lennon was shot dead on the streets of New York 30 years ago today.


It's on

The Gamecocks are fighting the Auburn Tigers today at the Georgia Dome for the SEC Championship. Some days, never thought this day would come.
Awesome, baby. Awesome.
4 p.m. on CBS if you want to watch what might be history.

1984 Fulton Call USC vs. Notre Dame

1984 Fulton Call USC vs. Notre Dame

Edenmoor records batted back and forth between Spratt, Mulvaney | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

State Sen. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, a candidate for the Fifth Congressional District seat in South Carolina.

Edenmoor records batted back and forth between Spratt, Mulvaney | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

LANCASTER -- The Edenmoor debacle has come back up and again been laid at the feet of Indian Land developer Mick Mulvaney because U.S. Rep. John Spratt can't talk about his record, Mulvaney said last week.
Mulvaney, a first-term Republican state senator, is challenging the 14-term incumbent congressman in the November general election. Spratt mentioned Edenmoor at a debate in Lake Wylie last month and last week began airing an ad, also available online, called "Flipped," based on the development and its woes.

The failed development is coming up again because Spratt has "nothing else to go on," Mulvaney said at a press conference he called last Thursday in downtown Lancaster.
Most Democratic incumbents facing stiff challenges from conservatives are using defense of Social Security as a big part of their playbook, Mulvaney said, adding that Spratt can't use that tactic because he has told some newspapers over the years he favors privatization of some kind.
Mulvaney said he also believes the ad is a sign that Spratt is no longer running his campaign. Some reports say this is the first time he has gone negative in his 28-year career as a politician.
Nu Wexler, a South Carolina native and Democratic operative who now lives in Washington, D.C., has returned to the Palmetto State to assist Spratt's campaign. He scoffed at Mulvaney's claim, saying last week’s press conference is a sign the Lancaster County senator is worried.
Democratic Party operatives who attended the press conference say Mulvaney did not tell the whole truth in his press conference.
York County Democratic Party Chairman Richards McCrae actually said after the press conference that Lancaster County Council Chairman Rudy Carter was "lying out of his [butt]" in defending Mulvaney.
Democratic officials are confident of their facts. One provided the Fort Mill Times with a compact disc containing a timeline, longer than a similar timeline Mulvaney prepared, an audio recording of Mulvaney speaking to Lancaster County Council, and about 34 different records related to the property in Edenmoor.
The records prepared by the Spratt campaign are lengthy.
Mulvaney also released a stack of records that he said detail his purchase of the property and the sale of it, a planned development agreement sold by his successors in the project, and records of permits issued by DHEC to those successors for initial work.
Mulvaney is still relatively unknown and has not really been vetted by voters across the 14 counties that comprise the Fifth Congressional District, Wexler said.
Wexler was upset that he and other campaign staffers were not allowed to enter the press conference, but Rainey and the other Democrats were allowed inside. The officials who went in and Wexler said Mulvaney is refusing to accept any responsibility for what happened to Edenmoor.
While Wexler took being barred from the room as a slight, Mulvaney addressed the Democrats who did get inside with cordiality at times, calling them "my Democratic friends." One Democratic aide from the state party in Columbia brought a video camera and recorded the entire press conference. That video has apparently been posted on YouTube.
A freelance writer working for the Fort Mill Times also videotaped the press conference and the entire video is available on YouTube.
Mulvaney said he hoped to put the issue behind him and move on "to the things people want to talk about, the things we need to talk about."
When asked if it indicated Spratt is having trouble this campaign season because this kind of ad was coming out so close to the election season, the Democrats at the event said it is a difficult campaign season for incumbents and Democrats.
"They could run a stray dog against Spratt and do as well as they are doing," this campaign season, McCrae said.
But as it stood, Mulvaney said that 35 days before the election, District 5 was getting half-truths and innuendo.
"This is what people hate about American politics," he said.

COLUMBIA, S.C. | No. 1 Crimson Tide falls 35-21 to South Carolina | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

COLUMBIA, S.C. | No. 1 Crimson Tide falls 35-21 to South Carolina | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

No way to know profit, but records show mlllions involved

State Sen. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, a candidate for the Fifth Congressional District seat in South Carolina, at a press conference he called last week.

Republican Congressional candidate Mick Mulvaney on Thursday, Oct. 7, provided copies of land transaction records detailing the time his company assembled the project for a development he called St. Katherine's, a development at the heart of an attack ad from his Democratic opponent John Spratt, a 14-term incumbent.
The development has failed and there is runoff from cleared land running off into a nearby creek. It was supposed to have thousands of dwellings, but has about 50. Bonds were used to build athletics fields, a cabana and an EMS station are in default.
Spratt's ad blames Mulvaney and said he walked away from the project after selling the land for a $7 million profit.
The first transaction was the purchase of 179.44 acres on Sept. 10, 1999. The land was bought for $713,715.60, or $3,977.46 an acre.
Two purchases on Jan. 5, 2005 for $39,583.33 of 36.8 acres completed the work Mulvaney did assembling St. Katherine's.
The development totaled 834.37 acres, bought for $4,928,077.56, or an average of $5,906.35 an acre.
Mulvaney also provided three records that detail the sale of the land from his to Lawson's Bend LLC, a partnership between GS Carolina and Sandler LLC Those sales were in May 5, 2005.
The records show three land sales:
• $659,277 if 36 acres;
• $10,689,260 for 179.4 acres; and
• $3,030,950 for an unspecified acreage.
That's a total of $10,689,260, according to a spreadsheet of the numbers.
The Spratt ad said Mulvaney made $7 million when he sold the property.
In his press conference, Mulvaney said subtracting the cost of his purchases from the price for which it was sold would provide a "gross" figure, but not a profit. It doesn't include the costs spent assembling the parcels, legal fees etc.
The difference between the cost to assemble the parcels and the cost to sell them is actually more than $9 million, according to the records Mulvaney provided.
Mulvaney said he would not say how much profit he made on the project, but showed select reporters income tax records from 2005 and 2006 that show a total annual income from one of his businesses substantially lower than the amount Spratt's ad claims he made.
However, Mulvaney has assembled the land for the development using several different companies.
The records Mulvaney's provided show 12 transactions, with parcels being bought by:
• K&J Partners of N.C.;
• Wedgewood Properties LLC;
• St. Catherine Properties LLC;
• Mulvaney Properties/Lancaster LLC; and
• Mulvaney Properties/South Carolina. LLC.
Those are different pieces of the Mulvaney family development business.
The records Mulvaney provided show he transferred all the land to Lawson's Bend from just two arms, K&J and St. Catherine Properties.
Spratt campaign workers provided a compact disc containing similar records. The records obtained by the Spratt campaign show slightly different prices for land transfers and acreage.
The Spratt record search apparently missed one parcel Mulvaney listed as being in St. Katherine. But Spratt's record show three sales to Lawson's Bend totaling the same amount as in Mulvaney's records.
Both indicate Mulvaney and family sold the land for about $9 million more than they bought it. Mulvaney said he owned just a 3.33 percent interest in the entity that sold the property to Lawson's Bend.
The Spratt disc also contains a number of other documents related in some way to Edenmoor.

Here are the figures from records released by Mulvaney.
Purchases

Date		Parcel size	Price
9/10/99		179.44	$713,715.60
5/1/01		294.7	$1,600,000.00
9/6/01		51	$100,050.00
9/6/01		(Same)	$259,920.00
6/24/02		13.89	$95,000.00
6/27/02		6.1	$24,757.20
7/29/02		23	$90,798.08
8/28/02		59.3	$435,000.00
8/28/02		138.24	$750,000.00
1/6/03		31.9	$188,836.68
1/5/05		12.8	$320,000.00
1/5/05		24	$350,000.00
Total		834.37	$4,928,077.56
Sale
Date		Parcel Size	Price
5/5/05		36	$659,277.00
5/5/05		630.93	$3,030,950.00
5/5/05		179.4	$10,689,260.00
Total sale			$14,379,487.00
Difference			9,451,409.44

Mulvaney holds press conference to dispute allegations in Spratt ad

State Sen. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, and his campaign staff walk across Main Street in Lancaster before a press conference.

Republican Congressional candidate Mick Mulvaney denied allegations made in a campaign advertisement by incumbent U.S. Rep. John Spratt, the 14-term Democrat he is seeking to unseat in November.

The ad, called "Flipped," makes numerous implications without giving him much to categorically deny, says Mulvaney. However, he says it is harmful not only to his reputation but to others as well.

"This is getting a little out of control, by the way," he said Thursday, Oct. 7.

"This is the type of thing that has to stop in this race," said Mulvaney, a state senator from Indian Land whose district includes parts of both Lancaster and York counties.

"It's one half-truth and innuendo after another," Mulvaney said of the ad and an old letter to the editor of a Lancaster County paper that attacked him.

Mulvaney said he doesn't like the attacks but expects them. But he said it is out of hand because others are now also being attacked.

Mulvaney said a Spratt volunteer said at a recent event "they know" Mulvaney bought off Lancaster County Councilman Rudy Carter, who has in the past defended Mulvaney's involvement in the deal.

Carter, a Democrat, also attended Mulvaney's press conference and said his father told a man's good name was his best attribute.

"Mick's been a friend of mine for a long time. John's been a friend of mine for a long time. I think the world of both of them," he said. "But if John Spratt knows some of his campaign people made comments like that, than John and I have a problem."

Mulvaney said it is going too far.

"This is my life, this is my family, this is how I provide for my wife and family, and I am being accused of some of the most heinous thing you can do in business, which is to be unethical," he said.

A reporter with the Associated Press and some Spratt campaign staffers arrived late and were not allowed into the crowded but not packed room at a Lancaster law firm where Mulvaney held his meeting. While the Spratt staffers were barred, a couple of representatives of the York and Lancaster county Democratic parties, as well as a Democratic campaign staffer from Columbia armed with a digital camera to record the proceedings, arrived on time and were allowed in.

The Lancaster County land deal had been in the works since 1999, which Mulvaney said was the major evidence that the property had not been "flipped," as the name of the ad says.

Flipping in real estate happens over a short period of time, sometimes with property being sold twice the same day.

Spratt's ad says Mulvaney made a $7 million profit selling the failed 500-acre development near Indian Land.

Mulvaney said he sold the land in 2005 and showed select reporters two tax forms from 2005 and 2006. The total annual income listed on the records for those years was millions less than what Spratt alleges in his ad. Mulvaney did not allow reporters to copy the forms and requested they not write down the specific figures.

Mulvaney said the forms were the S-Corporation filings for one of his LLCs.

Spratt's ad says Mulvaney secured $30 million in bonds to develop the land. Mulvaney did get permission from Lancaster County to issue bonds in that amount, but those bonds were never sold. When he sold the land to later developers, they scuttled much of the plans, including the zoning he had done for it, and revamped the overall plan.  Lawson's Bend LLC got its own bonds, and those bonds are in default.

So Spratt's ad, which says the project failed despite the bonds Mulvaney got, is not factual in that regard.

Mulvaney's development would have had apartments, more homes so a higher density. The homes would have been cheaper homes. The new developers wanted to sell fewer but higher-end homes.

The land development never materialized as either Mulvaney or the second team envisioned, he said. He blames it entirely on the collapse of the housing market.

The ad also says Mulvaney vouched for the new development team and made a promise to stay involved. The ad says Mulvaney's "partners" had defaulted on a land deal in North Carolina to the tune of $72 million right before Mulvaney vouched for them to Lancaster County Council. Mulvaney said he didn't know about that failure of one of two partners, but it is easily understood and explained.

He said IBM pulled out of a research park in the N.C. Research Triangle and it ruined the park, but the company was a sound one business with ties to Sara Lee and PYI/Monarch Foods. Parts of the land company are still in business, he said.

Mulvaney said he dealt primarily with the other partner, GS Carolina, which he said is a strong business still in the area. It has another development of the size and scale of Edenmoor that is still under active development north of Charlotte.

Mulvaney said he wanted to "bid" to remain the manager of the development process, but "that never happened." He said he hasn't talked to the company official he most dealt with for at least two years.

Mulvaney denied making $7 million selling the land, but refused to answer direct questions about how much he spent to assemble the land, first for his own development company, nor how much he made when he sold it in 2005.

"Our business is private," he said. "We don't disclose our profits. I own 3.33 percent of the entity that owned this land."

He assumes that critics of his involvement have taken deed stamps for the 12 purchases he made to assemble the property and subtracted those totals from the totals on the deed stamps from the three sales he made to Lawson's Bend.

That would be a gross number, however.

"That would be like looking at the raw materials on a car and saying that was the cost of the car," he said.

He would not detail how much he spent assembling the land. In addition to the purchase prices, he would have had to pay legal fees on the purchases, pay filing fees for zoning issues, and pay for staff time.

He admitted releasing the exact figures might demonstrate what actually happened, and said he would speak to reporters off the record. During that conversation, he showed the two tax forms, but they did not have a gross total for his purchases or for his sale to Lawson Bend.

He had earlier said that kind of information is never released in his business.

"It just isn't done," he said.

The ad, by innuendo, blames Mulvaney for all that has happened to the development since. But he said his company never turned over any dirt on the project or did any land preparation.

Any of the work done in the development was done by his successors on the project. About 50 homes, soccer fields and an EMS station have been built.  The bond obtained by the second developers paid for the fields and the EMS station.

But sidewalks are in need of repair, as is the EMS station. There is runoff from cleared tracts of land going into a nearby creek.

Mulvaney said Lancaster County taxpayers are not on the hook, neither for his $30 million bond, because it was never issued or sold, nor the later bond Lawson's Bend obtained. The bonds are not general obligation bonds, Mulvaney said. The residents in Edenmoor pay a "special assessment" on their property tax bill, above and beyond their regular county property taxes.

Had the development succeeded, thousands of households would be paying the "assessment," but instead, about 50 or so families now in the development are on the hook.

Mulvaney said the development should have been foreclosed on. He said that is how such failed developments normally proceed. But the banks holding the liens on the property are refusing to foreclose because of the collapse of the housing market and the freeze on credit and financing the country has been experiencing.

It's a case of regulatory gridlock, he said.

Mulvaney's campaign released copies of deeds for the purchases and the sale, along with a timeline of the transactions. See related post.

The Spratt campaign released a compact disc with records it says establishes that the ad is true.

The general election is "35 days away," Mulvaney said at the time of the Thursday press conference.



Mulvaney has created a website to respond to the Edenmoor ad.

Here's raw footage of the press conference, in three pieces.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Some history of The Horseshoe, site of Gameday this weekend

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS Blog - SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS University Official Athletic Site


The Gamecocks will be hosting No. 1 Alabama on Saturday on CBS. Gameday will be coming to The Horseshoe to originate its broadcast. Gameday is the biggest thing in college football news these days, some say unfortunately.
It will be a big day, but not the biggest day on the 'Shoe.
On Sept. 11, 1987, Pope John Paul II stood on a stand outside the President's House and told the jammed assemblage of students packed into the sealed-off Horseshoe, "It is good to be young. It is good to be young and be a student. It is good to be young and a student at the University of South Carolina."
I remember good times on the 'Shoe.

YouTube - Happy Birthday SCG III

Stephen Christopher celebrated his Fourth Birthday with about six of his friends and family -- including his papa -- on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2010.

We had Mr. Jay from GymSport come out to provide some fun.



Stephen Christopher actually asked for a birthday cupcake. He insisted on blue frosting because blue is his favorite color. And reverting to form, he covered his ears for the song, because he apparently doesn't like loud noises, even when they are in his honor.



Can't believe he's 4.

I want my country back

I posted this one on Facebook directly a while back. But it's still worth a look.

I want my country back; the cry has become by the Republican and conservative powerless.

Well, welcome to my world. It is time, perhaps now, for you to feel the pain that many, many others have been feeling for eight years.

I am not defending the current healthcare bill or the deficit spending going on in Washington D.C. right now. Both, quite frankly, horrify me.

We need some kind of healthcare INSURANCE reform, because, while our healthcare system is in some ways the envy of the world, too many do not have full access to it. There is no denying it.

The deficit? That is a discussion for another time, but it needs to be stopped.

But those on the right who are raising non-issues like the President’s birth certificate and “socialism” are crybabies. They lost an election, and now, suddenly, they care about deficit spending, when we built up a huge deficit in the preceding eight years, one that set record after record, without even taking the costs of the War on Terror into account.

You want your country back?

Well, I’ve wanted my country back for a while now, wanted it back since it became apparent that our leaders response to 9/11 was changing us into something we absolutely are not, something we have never been.

When I grew up there was something called the Soviet Union. Today’s children do not know about it, except as a historical fact.

It was a monolithic, oppressive nation/empire comprised of several communist/socialistic regimes that surrounded what we now call Russia. We were at war with Russia for almost 40 years. They called it a Cold War, but it got hot in some places.

We lived under a threat of nuclear annihilation my entire childhood. We developed the first atomic bombs, but after we “refined” that into the hydrogen bomb, with its megaton-possible explosive potential, the Soviets developed it too, in part because of stolen technology.

We thought we could die, any day. We thought that we would look up in the sky one day and we’d see not one, but hundreds of mushroom clouds. I grew up in New York City, and even at 14, I knew I was living in a first-strike target. There was a public bomb shelter in our apartment building’s basement with Civil Defense crackers by the box load.

Once Russia got the bomb, we had to build more bombs, and they had to build more bombs, and we had to build more bombs. It became an escalating cycle that threatened not our planet, but certainly human life as we know it on the planet.

It wasn’t pretty what we did, but through it all, we had what we all agreed was the moral high ground. We built those weapons to prevent their use against us.

We were the good guys.

Nuns in a parochial school taught me that we were the good guys. World War II was not as distant then as it is now. Korea was closer, and I remembered watching the TV news when Saigon fell.

We were the good guys. We went to Europe to free those conquered by the Nazis, putting the war in Europe at a higher priority than the war in the Pacific, even though we had been attacked by Japan. But we cleaned up the Pacific too. We went to South Korea to defend it from North Korean aggression. We went to South Vietnam to defend it against North Vietnamese insurgency.

Those explanations seem very simplistic to an older person who has read much deeper into what happened. North Korea, they now say, might never have invaded South Korea if the latter country hadn’t been left out of a speech listing who our best friends were. Still, that is the county I grew up believing in, the country I was taught to love, given good reasons to love.

And we were the good guys for another reason. Because we were actually good.

The Soviets were bad. Evil.

They put their own people in prison with show trials or no trials. They would go to other countries and pick people up, putting a black bag over their heads and kidnapping them, taking them to other countries in the Soviet bloc. People just disappeared in Russia, never to be heard from again. They kept gulags in Siberia where they exiled political opponents who were too high profile to be simply made to vanish.

They invaded other countries on pretextual reasons, or for no reason at all. They just wanted to be bigger. Hungary was one. They sent troops into Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. Afghanistan was the most recent one when I was a young lad.

They killed innocent people. We still use Adolf Hitler, who killed 6 million Jews and perhaps 5 million others in death camps as the gold standard of evil. But Josef Stalin had a lot more time to do what Hitler did, and he was never directly opposed as Hitler was. He killed, they say, 17 million people.  Throw in a famine he helped make worse in Ukraine, it rises to 23 million.

And the other main thing the bad guys did that we didn’t do is torture.

We were attacked on 9/11 and while posturing a stance of strength throughout the prior presidential administration, our leaders have actually been acting out of pure terror.

When you abandon your principles and do things that you criticized the other guy for doing for years, that ranks as sheerest hypocrisy. We had a justified cause to go to war in Afghanistan. I might even say justification for going actually nuclear, the consequences be damned.

But we chose to divert to Iraq. I have interviewed a man who stormed the beach at Normandy more than once, and he has brought it up each time. He is against war. He was for the creation of the United Nations because the world absolutely needs an organization that is devoted to preventing war between the nation states of the world. He is scandalized by the war in Iraq.

We all know that our troops there have done incredibly brave things every day, have fought with distinction, valor and honor, but they shouldn’t have ever gone.

The country I grew up in was a country that defended the little guy, the little countries, from the big bad Soviet Bear, from the Nazis and Japanese imperialists.

We didn’t kidnap people. We didn’t take our own people and put them in prison camps without benefit of trial. We didn’t make people just disappear. We didn’t build concentration camps that people were never, ever going to leave from. We didn’t put black bags over people’s heads to take them or to mistreat them.

We did not, ever, torture them.

We weren’t the good guys just because we said we were. We were the good guys because we did the right thing, and while you could find examples of excesses in all our wars, those were exceptions to the norm.

But under the prior presidential administration, we did all those things.

To me, the most egregious sin isn’t actually the torture. I think that is the inevitable outcome when you first make a determination that the rules you hold will not apply anymore.

You know, I’d love to help you fight “socialism.” I won’t fight healthcare reform because we need the system fixed. But the bad parts of this proposal? Sure. I’ll be an ally in the fight for a sound fiscal policy, for budget restraint and against deficit spending.

But I won’t let you use all this vile language to do it.

You want your country back?

Go to the back of the line.  I’ve wanted my country back for eight years now.

I want us to be the good guys again.

Baxter man rolls out welcome mat for wildlife | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

Baxter man rolls out welcome mat for wildlife | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

We need a new political party

I saw an item on the Huffington Post.com in which former President Bill Clinton says the "new GOP" is making George W. Bush look like a "liberal."
I also saw a recent item there where Clinton "fired back" at Rachel Maddow, who said that Bill Clinton was one of the most successful Republican presidents ever.
I think Clinton might be referring to the Tea Party candidates who are now winning primaries all over the country. Now, the strength of this movement will be shown in the November General Election.
Is the Tea Party shifting the balance of the national debate? Or is it just fracturing the Republican Party? We can't know until the party shows its teeth against the entire electorate in a county or a state. In states where the traditional Republican voters outnumber the traditional Democrats, the Tea Party might have some strength.
In most states, the electorate is usually more evenly divided. Some Republicans are going to stay away from the polls because they don't agree with the extremes the Tea Party represents. So the Tea Party's success in primaries might ultimately help the Democratic Party.
And as for what Maddow said about Clinton, I find that amusing. He was elected because he was a "new" more moderate Democrat. He tried to swing left in his early first term, but the GOP Revolution of 1994 put an end to that. He then began to work with a hostile Congress and got a lot farther by compromising than he did by running and governing from the left.
I understand why he objected to being called Republican. But I think somewhere in the midst of these two stories, there lies the future of the United States.
If there was a political party that was immune to the extremes on both the right and the left, a true centrist political party, this country could work a lot better.
That's what we needs. Most of the people in this country agree on most things. They really do. But the moderate majority is the nice, peaceful folk who live on a fertile plain in between opposing armies.  When those armies want to duke it out, they do it on our land, leaving spoiled earth behind. They divide most of us, asking us to give up on most of the things we think important because we are told THIS one issue is more important than THAT other.
I turned 18 in 1984 and got to vote for president. I think I voted for Ronald Reagan.
Four years later, my choices were George Herbert Walker Bush and Michael Dukakis. I pencilled in a communist candidate, I think, because I knew Dukakis couldn't lead and Bush was stained by the corruption in Ronald Reagan's White House. Iran-Contra, the S&L crisis. It was too much to vote for four more years of that, even though the original George H.W. Bush was more of a moderate than anyone seems to remember. (Voodoo economics.)
I've flipped back and forth. I actually voted for Mark Sanford as governor of South Carolina, for his first term. But not for his second term.
I couldn't put on any particular hat for this election. Obama talked pretty but was being pulled by the extremes. At the same time, he had not done anything of note as a state senator or as a U.S. Senator in the two years of his office he spent before actually turning his attention to running.
I might have voted for the libertarian this time around. I can't remember.
Twice now I've vote in such a way that my ballot might be described as "sending a message."
Doesn't work.
This country needs to be put in the hands of the moderates for a while.We need a moderate political party.
Any takers?

P.S, There were two columns in The Charlotte Observer op-ed today. Not quite a call for a moderate political party. But definitely cries about the extreme voices on each side causing problems.
The GOP misreads American History by David Brooks is one.

We've let the verbal bombers hijack our national discourse by Leonard Pitts is the other.

YouTube - NotThatTHeresAnythingWrongWithThat.mov

YouTube - NotThatTHeresAnythingWrongWithThat.mov

YouTube - NotThatTHeresAnythingWrongWithThat.mov

YouTube - NotThatTHeresAnythingWrongWithThat.mov

Veteran SC Reporter Has Cancer :: FITSNews

Veteran SC Reporter Has Cancer :: FITSNews

No. 22 USC beats No. 24 Georgia 17-6 - ESPN

South Carolina Football - Gamecocks News, Scores, Videos - College Football - ESPN

USC beats Southern Miss 41-13

Southern Miss Golden Eagles vs. South Carolina Gamecocks - Recap - September 02, 2010 - ESPN

YouTube - This Thursday it begins.

YouTube - This Thursday it begins.

Op-Ed Columnist - Bush Tax Cuts - Now That’s Rich - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Bush Tax Cuts - Now That’s Rich - NYTimes.com

Journalism Warning Labels « Tom Scott

Journalism Warning Labels « Tom Scott

How to Measure the Value of Editors | Digital Book World

How to Measure the Value of Editors | Digital Book World

Ten things I know about the mosque - Roger Ebert's Journal

Ten things I know about the mosque - Roger Ebert's Journal

Nice.

It's not at Ground Zero

This issue is a tempest in a teapot.
A friend said the "mosque" is 300 feet from Ground Zero. It is not.

I have added color to this graphic I found at http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/041008_hit_piece.htm.

That is a map of that part of the city at the time of the attack.
If you look, the only way you can say it's two blocks is if you count from the corner of Church and Vesey. In addition to the six buildings on that block, there was a big plaza in the middle.
The Towers were on the other side from the spot most are using to justify the "two blocks" description. They were in the far corner.
So just pretend you are standing on that block, on Church Street. Place yourself in front of the Millenium Hotel, also marked in blue.
How far is it?
The Millennium Hilton's address is 55 Church Street, New York, NY. Do a Google map directions search for walking directions (because some of the streets are one-way or closed because of construction), and it is 2/10ths of a mile from "Ground Zero" to 51 Park Place.
That's 1,056 feet.
If you are on Church Street, looking uptown, you have to walk almost half of the Ground Zero block. You pass Fulton Street on your right. Then you come to the corner of Church and Vesey. You then walk another block to the corner of Church and Barclay. You then walk another block to the corner of Church and Park. You turn left and go down most of that block and you will see, on your left, the old Burlington Coat Factory store. Huge signs still on the building.
That is, in the reality of walking in New York, actually more than four blocks.
It is absolutely not a Ground Zero Mosque.
Some say it is not a mosque. But the tempest in a teacup begins with the idea that it is at Ground Zero.
Do street level view and here's a couple of glimpses of what you'll get -- 

View looking downtown from intersection of Park and Church.

View looking crossdown, toward Hudson River, from same intersection.

Fort Mill Times: Hwy. 160 not yet Cherry Road, but residents wary | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

Hwy. 160 not yet Cherry Road, but residents wary | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

Editorial Awards

1999 SCPA Harris Award
Secrecy subverts justice; Barnwell City Council's pay raise; Those awful numbers.


2002 SCPA Harris Award
It's one sacrifice too many.


2005 SCPA Harris Award
State school board 'don't' need this guy, Hog dogging? It's not a sport, Why didn’t council hire locally for suit?

2006 SCPA Harris Award
An unlikely hero of the G.F. fire tragedy


2010 SCPA Harris Award
Picking on the poor, Should he have mentioned it?, County wrong to threaten to sue
The judge wrote, "This newspaper does exactly what it should -- take stands on local issues in thoughtful, well-written editorials that make good cases for newspaper’s positions."

2009 Landmark Community Newspapers Better Newspaper contest
Same editorials as above, placed second.
Judge wrote: "The author tackles tough subjects such as race, corruption and poverty with reason, conviction and moral courage. He also takes on a county attorney without blinking an eye. Bravo."

2001 CNI Better Newspaper Contest (Editorial)
Of Declarations and Flags.

VIDEO, Story: Severe weather lab passes its first test | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

Severe weather lab passes its first test | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

YouTube - IBHS2.mov

OnlineChester.com video - GFTitleGame.mov

YouTube - GFTitleGame.mov

Doing well

The News & Reporter, fresh off a blowout performance in the S.C. Press Association's annual contest, received an additional seven awards in the Landmark Community Newspaper, Inc.'s annual contest.
I received some of them, and the first one is one that I am honored to have had the chance to write.
I received a first place award for Excellence in Feature Writing among papers that come out more than once a week, but not daily.
The judge wrote, "I’ve read a lot of stories about World War II veterans, and I’ve read a lot of stories about D-Day. Didn’t think I wanted to read another, but the story of Buddy Ernanadez was vivid and involving, capturing both the humor and horror of that experience. It also benefited from a nice lede that deviated from the predictable. … Guilfoyle weaves together the memories of friends and coworkers to fashion a fond and funny portrait of a beloved community figure. It also benefits from a beautiful ending that comes full-circle."
Read that story, BACK TO THE BEACH: Ernandez returning to Normandy one final time," here.
I also received a second place for Excellence in Editorial Writing.
"The author tackles tough subjects such as race, corruption and poverty with reason, conviction and moral courage. He also takes on a county attorney without blinking an eye. Bravo."
I submitted the same editorials to the SCPA, and received first place for them.
The editorials considered were, "Picking on the poor," about Gov. Mark Sanford; "Should he have mentioned it?" about former Superintendent Larry Heath; and "County wrong to threaten to sue," about the county threatening to sue county residents during the Fort Lawn situation.
I received a second place award for Best News or Feature Story Series.
The judge wrote, "A newspaper reporter hears about a state report that indicates that the county ranks second in the state for lung cancer and third for colorectal cancer. He could write the news story and move onto the next assignment. Or he could do a series on the cancer rates and risks. Fortunately for the readers in Chester County, The News & Reporter chose the latter."
The Cancer series is online in the Feature section of OnlineChester.com. The story that kicked off the series can be read here: "CANCER IN CHESTER COUNTY: County ranks in top five in some categories."
Do a search for "Cancer in Chester County" and the rest of series will come up as the first results.
I received a third place award for Best On-Going / Extended Coverage
"Guilfoyle and another reporter took a tip and a bunch of documents and turned them into a good investigative piece about questionable purchases of surplus property. The accompanying letter notes that The News & Reporter was the only media outlet working the story to routinely go to the official involved in the controversy, the chief deputy, for comment. That’s commendable."
That was the Fort Lawn controversy. It is in archives of OnlineChester.com. It started with two stories, this one by me, "State, SLED reviewing purchases, and this one by Travis Jenkins, "Former councilmen express surprise at outcome of meeting."
The paper won a third place award for Best Front Page Design; Phyllis Lucas did the work on these pages and got the award.
The judge said, "Clean design, nice use of photos and entry points. Your photo choice with the fire story was right on. But it might’ve been good to get that dominant photo above the fold, maybe in a different layout so readers don’t just see black smoke."
Here's that page ---

Phyllis also got a second place award for Best General Page Design.
The judge wrote, "The pages in this entry were well-balanced and had a good range of photos and other elements. What could take this entry to the next level would be adding more white spaces between stories and rules and having even more of a hierarchy among some of the photos."
I'd like to display the pages, but I'm not sure which ones were submitted.
Lastly, the newspaper came in second for Best Special Section. We submitted the 2009 football section, called “Big.”
The judge wrote, "The only thing that kept it from first place is that it wasn’t as comprehensive as (another paper's) section. No fear, though, I know the readers pulled it out to refer to in preparation for every Friday night."

I did the cover, which was a riff on the movie, "The Incredible Hulk."
Travis Jenkins did all the writing for the section.
Go to OnlineChester.com and enter "2009 Chester County Football Preview: BIG" into the search field and you'll get the stories.

Ordinations at the Diocese of Charlotte

Diocese of Charlotte Ordination 6-5-2010 from Diocese of Charlotte on Vimeo.

This is the first video prepared by The Catholic News & Herald, ably edited by my lovely bride, Patricia Larson Guilfoyle.
The ordination Mass was held on Saturday, June 5 at St. Mark Catholic Church in Huntersville, N.C.
Four men were ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Peter J. Jugis.

Newspaper brings home 13 SCPA awards, five first places

The News & Reporter took home 13 awards, including five first place awards, in the latest S.C. Press Association annual competition, with some staff members showing continued excellence in a couple of areas.
Sports Editor Travis Jenkins took home the first place award for writing the best sports columns for the third consecutive year.
"That's an actual hat trick, scoring three consecutive 'goals' like that," said Editor Stephen Guilfoyle of Jenkins' award. "It's the top prize for sports writers, so he's been the best at what he does for three years running now."
That competition was for papers that come out two and three times a week.
The judge said of his entry, "Nice tribute column to a lady who volunteered to send in race results. Feature column on singing fans made me smile, and writer offered a good opinion piece on the Bulldogs."
Guilfoyle won the Harris Award for Editorial Writing. In that competition, he went up against all the non-daily newspapers in the state.
It is the fifth time he's won the award in his career and the third time since joining The N&R in 2004.
"This newspaper does exactly what it should -- take stands on local issues in thoughtful, well-written editorials that make good cases for newspaper’s positions," the judge wrote.
The editorials considered were, "Picking on the poor," about Gov. Mark Sanford; "Should he have mentioned it?" about former Superintendent Larry Heath; and "County wrong to threaten to sue," about the county threatening to sue county residents during the Fort Lawn situation.
Guilfoyle also won first place in Profile Feature Writing or Story for 2/3 Times weekly newspaper for "Reserved Seating: Friends remember longtime officer," a story on community reaction to the death of longtime Chester Police Lt. Tommy Harrison.
The judge said, "Powerful, well-written story that leaves an impact with readers."
Guilfoyle also won a first place award for Page One Design at 2/3 Times a week papers.
"Nice use of graphics, photos and other elements," the judge wrote. "Designer has a gift for packaging lead story.
He also won the first and second place awards for Enterprise Reporting at 2/3 Times a week newspapers.
The first place award was for the story "'08 Brazil trip filled with work," on an economic development trip to Brazil.
"Interesting probe," the judge wrote of that story.
The second place award was for "$500 million incinerator," in which The N&R broke the news of the Covanta Energy project.
Jenkins also won second place awards for:
• Sports Enterprise Reporting, also an All-Weekly award, for coverage of where to play high school football's weekend of champions;
• News Headline Writing at 2/3 a week papers, and
• Spot Sports Story writing at Weekly 2/3 Times for "Downey raises the roof";
as well as third place awards for Sports Action Photo and Sports Feature Photo.
Great Falls Editor Nancy Parsons won a third place award for Lifestyle Feature Writing at 2/3 Times a week papers for "Eli touches bases and hearts."
She, Guilfoyle and Jenkins shared a second place award for Reporting In-Depth at 2/3 times a week papers for coverage of the school consolidation issue.
In all, Jenkins won seven awards, Guilfoyle won six, with Parsons getting two, including the shared award.
Jenkins' seven total awards were the most won by any journalist in the non-daily ranks.
"One thing the awards show is that we have to do a lot of different things each week at The News & Reporter," Guilfoyle said. "Travis excels at sports writing, but he also pitched in and wrote some news headlines, and those turned out to be award winners. He has always been an excellent photographer. Nancy won not just for a feature in her beloved beat of Great Falls, but also for working with the team to cover the county-wide news story that consolidation became."
"Being recognized by your peers is always good," said Publisher Buddy Aultman. "But when the economy creates an understaffed situation like we have at The News & Reporter, the awards mean even more. In recent years, we have had fewer people doing more and yet we managed to have a good 2009. The editorial awards are like icing on the cake."
In the past three years, Jenkins has won five first place awards and 17 total awards, making him one of the most honored journalists in the state.
In the past three years, Guilfoyle has won eight first place awards and 13 total awards.
In the past three years, Parsons has won five awards, including one first place.
The paper has won 68 awards in SCPA contests since 2005.
Two of The N&R's sister papers in South Carolina also won awards. The Lancaster News won seven awards including two first place awards. The Pageland Progressive-Journal won one.