As my custom late afternoon, I was enjoying a few double gin and tonics and watching CNN, the Situation Room. The big story? Rev. Jesse Jackson was beside himself with apologies for something he said about Barack Obama and was captured on a “hot microphone.” Whatever that is. Probably should ask George Allen, late of the Senate from Virginia.

After an hour or so of listening to CNN promote this — and interview experts about the political fallout real or imagined, what did Jesse say? Here’s the story, as reported on the CNN Web site.

NEW YORK (CNN) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for “crude and hurtful” remarks he made about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama after finishing an interview with a Fox News correspondent.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized to Sen. Obama's campaign Wednesday over "hurtful" remarks.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized to Sen. Obama’s campaign Wednesday over “hurtful” remarks.

Jackson told CNN’s “Situation Room” that a “hot” microphone caught a part of conversation he was having with a fellow guest at the studio.

He said he made a comment about Obama “speaking down black people” followed by a crude remark.

“It was very private” he said, adding later, if “any hurt or harm has been caused to his campaign, I apologize.” Video Watch more of Jackson’s apology on CNN »

The Obama campaign had no immediate comment.

Jackson’s apology came a few hours before Fox News planned to air the remarks.

“I feel very distressed because I’m supportive of this campaign and with the senator,” Jackson told CNN. “I was in a conversation with a fellow guest on Sunday. He asked about Barack’s speeches lately at the black churches. I said he comes down as speaking down to black people.”

He said Obama’s message to black voters must be broader and serve as more than a “moral challenge.”

The black community is faced with high levels of unemployment, home foreclosures and violence, “so we have some real serious issues — not just moral issues,” he said.

However, Jackson said after finding out about the open microphone, he immediately contacted the Obama campaign to apologize.

So what did Jesse say? I don’t know. CNN — and NBC — told me everything else except that. Guess I’ll have to wait for it to appear on YouTube.

And truthfully, I don’t give a rat’s ass what Jackson said. But why won’t the networks report it? “The public’s right to know.” He,he, he, he. I think this says a lot about what has killed journalism in this country. Lack of guts. Did he say something so offensive that it can’t be reported? Good grief. Wonder what Don Imus has to say about this?

I also think it is interesting that reporters criticize PR people for not disclosing everything, including the secret formula to Coke. Is there any group that caters to its own self-interest more than journalists? Don’t think so. They even employ “reader advocates” to spin the company line. Gee. Wonder if a PR guy could get away with the spin we see in those columns? (I’m grumpy today. After my run I had to go to the dentist. Couldn’t that be considered a modest form of waterboarding?)

OK gang. Let’s see who is going to step up and tell the truth on the Jesse Jackson story. Bet it won’t be the traditional media. Although I have some hope for Howard Kurtz and The Washington Post. And then there is always Drudge and Huffington. Are they traditional media these days? Or new media?

We’ll see.

Update: Well, I guess O’Reilly has the story on Fox News.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for saying Barack Obama is “talking down to black people” during what he thought was a private conversation with a FOX News reporter Sunday.

Jackson was speaking at the time about Obama’s speeches in black churches and his support for faith-based charities. Jackson added, “I want to cut his nuts off.”

Uh, “cut his nuts off.” Ouch.

Oh Sweet Maria. Can things get any worse? The Cleveland Indians are in last place. Houses in Cleveland are selling for less than used Yugos. And GM is teetering on bankruptcy. While A-list (ha,ha) blogger Bob Lutz of FlastLane fame is on summer hiatus.

Well, yes. The Pittsburgh Steelers are on the block. Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal online (don’t even try without a subscription):

Steelers Shopped to Potential Buyers

By JOHN R. WILKE
July 7, 2008 7:07 p.m.

The storied Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise has been secretly shopped to potential buyers amid continuing divisions among the five sons of the team’s founder, Art Rooney Sr.

The talks affect not only one of America’s iconic sports franchises, but one of its most fabled sports families. Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, who helped build the National Football League and is the oldest of the five sons, wants to consolidate his control by acquiring most of his brothers’ shares in the Steelers over 10 years, those briefed on the talks said.

[Image]    
Reuters   
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger leaps into the endzone to score against the Cleveland Browns last November.   

In a statement Monday afternoon, Dan Rooney confirmed these efforts and said, “I have spent my entire life devoted to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football League. I will do everything possible to work out a solution to ensure my father’s legacy of keeping the Steelers in the Rooney family and in Pittsburgh for at least another 75 years.”

The statement said the company is restructuring its ownership to ensure compliance with NFL rules. Dan Rooney “wants to stay in the football business while some of his four brothers plan to get out of the NFL and focus their business efforts on their racetracks and other interests.” The statement said that Dan Rooney and his son, Steelers President Art Rooney II, are arranging a financing plan to buy Dan’s brothers’ shares in the team in order to continue substantial ownership of the franchise by the Rooneys.

But some of the brothers and younger third-generation family members are asking whether a better deal can be put together, if there is to be an ownership change.

However its fate is decided, the Steelers franchise is a rich prize. The team has won five Super Bowl titles and been among the most dominant in the league for 30 years. They play in a new riverfront stadium that routinely sells out its 65,000 seats. And their fan base is famously loyal, reaching far beyond western Pennsylvania.

The Steeler Nation stands on guard tonight. For me, I’m heading to the closet and pulling out the Terrible Towel, the original circa 1972. And all this following the death of Myron Cope.

Conspiracy theories, anyone?

Who gave the “brothers and third-generation family members” a vote? This is important. It’s Pittsburgh Steelers football. It’s not a democracy. WTF.

To my KSU college roommate, still Pittsburgh resident and former co-owner with me of Steelers’ season tickets Tom Kollar: c’mon man. Get off the retirement bench and get back in the game. This is important stuff. Hi diddle diddle. Rogel up the middle. (You had to have been there. Trust me.)

Wonder how much the median price is for a  new — or used — car? Probably could find that somewhere. But not really worth the effort. But I was thinking about it while running this morning because of a story I read in The Plain Dealer yesterday.

“Has The Cleveland Housing Market Finally Hit Rock Bottom?” — by Mark Gillispie. The subhead: “Local prices plunge as glut of vacant homes are snatched up cheaply by outsiders looking to turn a quick profit.”

Gee. Another great story for the Cleveland economic development guys. The pitch: Cleveland. Home of cheap homes.

Well, probably not. Here’s a key paragraph:

The median home sale price in the city of Cleveland has dropped an astonishing 75 percent compared with the first six months of last year - from $62,000 to $15,500.

Ouch. And sad. Particularly for the residents of Cleveland and for the families involved. Folks, again, we’re facing some big problems here in Northeast Ohio and throughout the country. And we better start thinking about what we are going to do in a city where apparently you can now buy a house for about the same price as a car. And I wonder what the declining home values will mean in terms of school revenues — in Cleveland and elsewhere? I digress. And I wish I had something humorous to add here. But I don’t.

And since I am talking about The Plain Dealer I should mention that the management (publisher and editors) sure seem to be serious in doing what they need to survive as readers continue to abandon print for newspapers online. The printed version is readable — focused very much on local news (check out the front page any day) — and organized in a way that provides readers with information quickly and at a glance. Whether that will win over the young people and others who have abandoned the printed newspapers is doubtful. But The Plain Dealer is going to survive — online, with what is really a very good digital version. IMO. There is another newspaper closer to my home in Northeast Ohio that could learn some lessons here. And hopefully it will — sooner rather than later.

Well, I came back from my run this morning to find out that the major league baseball season in Northeast Ohio is all but kaput. Cleveland Indians GM Mark Shapiro tells the Akron Beacon Journal:

“I believe if guys hadn’t gotten hurt — even with the offense struggling and the disappointing bullpen — we would still be in the hunt, though maybe not in first place,” he said. “Next year, I think we will be contenders, as well.”

Oh, as Brando lamented in On the Waterfront: “I coulda been a contender.” Couldn’t we all.

So I guess that leaves cornhole as the only game in the area. It appears that Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is organizing a statewide cornhole tournament to finance his campaign. (Good grief. Is he running again. Already?) Here’s from the Akron Beacon Journal story:

And Gov. Ted Strickland has let it be known he will soon hold a cornhole tournament to raise money for his campaign, with regional competitions around Ohio, including one in North Canton.

Not familiar with cornhole? It’s a bean bag-tossing game that’s popular on campuses and at tailgate parties.

First Obama says he won’t accept public money for the upcoming presidential campaign. Now Strickland is going to travel around Ohio and toss a bean bag for dollars.

I’ll just offer one tip to the governor. If the game is close, don’t bring in Joe Borowski, released yesterday as the Indians’ bullpen ace. If that happens, it’s likely the Republicans will sweep Ohio and the nation.

And for the Indians. Hillary was able to hang in there until the bitter end. Couldn’t you have at least faked it until the end of September? By then the Browns will have been eliminated as well.

Wait till next year.

I’m cranky this morning. Got up at 4 a.m. to run. And it’s raining. So now what? Might as well go ahead and write about GM, Starbucks and nation-building. There’s a link here. Trust me.

“As GM goes, so goes the nation.” I’ve heard this saying for years — and if it’s true, look out below. Unless we as a nation do something — and quickly. Despite the best efforts of Bob Lutz and his FastLane blog, the price of GM common stock closed yesterday below $10 a share. That’s the lowest it’s been in more than 50 years, back to the days when Ike was in the White House and I was a toddler barely out of baby diapers. Let’s see what FastLane has to say.

June 27, 2008

Business Taking a Little Break

Greetings, everyone. Well, it’s starting to get a little quiet around here as GM gears up (or is it down?) for the annual summer shutdown period observed by U.S. automakers every year. As such, we won’t be posting much to the blogs for the next two weeks, but not to worry, we’ll be back in full swing following shutdown. I think you’ll like what you see. More to come on that later.

For our U.S. readers, have a great 4th of July weekend. - Adam Denison, GM Social Media Coordinator

Gone fishin’. OK. I know. FastLane is not designed to opine on corporate financial issues. And all the A-list social media and PR bloggers froth over it. I know I’m missing something. So let’s hope it returns after the summer shutdown. In fact, let’s hope GM returns as a company that isn’t in bankruptcy protection. New York Times: “Merrill Says GM Bankruptcy Possible.”

Oh well. Maybe I can walk to Starbucks. That’s if the Starbucks close to my house is not on the company’s soon-to-be-closed list. Looks like people won’t be waiting in line anymore at as many as 600 stores — and this follows a previous announcement that 100 stores were being shuttered. Uh, I’ll take my grande (is that large?) nonfat soy lattee with double sugar and cinnamon to go. According to the article in The Times:

A cavalcade of economic troubles, from imploding housing markets to rising gas prices, has pinched consumers, hurting not just Starbucks but nearly all retailers. The chain is struggling to attract customers for the afternoon frappuccinos they once bought eagerly, said Sharon Zackfia, an analyst at William Blair & Company.

“I don’t think it’s overly surprising,” she said of the announcement. “These stores were in aggregate unprofitable.”

Looks like the days of the afternoon frappuccinos are over. Mom, apple pie, frappuccino and Chevrolet. Something like that. For the one or two of you out there who read this blog regularly, you’ll recall that I advised Starbucks months ago to organize its stores so there would be two lines: one for douche bags like me who just want a cup of coffee and The New York Times and another for those willing and eager to pay $5 or more for a cup of coffee by another name.

Anyway, this gets me back to a theme that I have written about previously and will continue to write about. We need to have an honest, candid discussion during the upcoming election campaigns about the economy and the future direction of this country. When both big industrial corporations like GM and well-managed retailers like Starbucks are in the dumper we clearly face some problems. And we have some hard choices to make about jobs, education, housing, energy and a host of other issues. I hope the news media — what’s left of it — will write and talk about the important issues and hold the candidates to do the same. Another couple days of Wesley Clark campaigning to be vice president on cable TV and I’m going to lose my lunch. And I don’t eat lunch. His point: McCain isn’t necessarily qualified to be president just because he was a war hero and a resident of Hanoi Hilton. OK. Let’s move on.

As Maureen Dowd wrote in her column yesterday in The New York Times:

Maybe instead of refighting the Vietnam War while we’re still fighting the Iraq war, the candidates can figure out how to feed the world, find enough fuel for everyone and oh, yeah, catch that bin Laden fiend who’s running around free.

And it is possible to have a discussion of the big issues important to our nation. Check out last Sunday’s NYT column by Thomas Friedman, “Anxious in America.” He writes:

I do not believe nation-building in Iraq is going to be the issue come November — whether things get better there or worse. If they get better, we’ll ignore Iraq more; if they get worse, the next president will be under pressure to get out quicker. I think nation-building in America is going to be the issue.

Yeah, nation-building in America. Let’s talk about that.

Well, it took me long enough to write this that it is not raining any longer. Might as well hit the pavement.

And tomorrow is Independence Day: Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet.

I’ll admit I’m glad to be back in Northeast Ohio. At least from the standpoint of my morning runs. Big difference between 56 degrees here in Akron and better than 74 degrees and high humidity in Hilton Head. I was thinking this morning that I want to start talking a little more about some of the issues I’m working on now with Corporate Voices for Working Families.

Here’s one of them: paid parental leave. It’s an important issue for working parents and families. It’s also a controversial one with many businesses, nonprofit organizations and government.

First, here comes the disclaimer. What I write — and post — on my blog doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of Corporate Voices for Working Families. The reason I am saying that is I don’t intend to review with anyone what I have to say on issues or anything else for that matter. To do otherwise takes me back to the corporate gulag — and that ain’t going to happen. And I figure if I stray too far into left — or since we’re dealing with politics, right — field, someone at Corporate Voices will let me know about it.

So here goes. Corporate Voices has two interns working in its Washington office this summer: Amy Simon and Allison Keyser. Since I guess I’m still not ready to totally retire from teaching, I’ve been encouraging and helping them write blog postings.  Here’s what Amy and Allison wrote about on the issue of paid parental leave:

The federal government is the country’s largest employer, with over 2.7 million employees.

Many years ago, working for the federal government was seen as a badge of honor. But today with the lack of benefits offered to governmental employees the sheen has begun to tarnish. In the past, the federal government recruited the best and the brightest, but today these high- caliber graduates are finding employment elsewhere.

Today, with 40 percent of federal employees expecting to retire in the next 10 years, the federal government will struggle to find highly educated individuals to take their jobs if the benefits offered to the employees do not improve. In particular, the benefits regarding parental leave.

Currently, federal employees are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, guaranteed to them by the Family and Medical Leave Act.  However, for most employees, taking time off without pay is not economically feasible.

The lack of paid parental leave also makes it hard for federal agencies to compete with the benefits packages provided by top-tier U.S. firms.

For instance KPMG, offers 12 weeks of paid parental leave and believes that
“continuing success depends on attracting, retaining and motivating high caliber people. To put it simply, our rewards and benefits have to match or exceed what the professional marketplace is offering.”

The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which has recently been passed in the House, guarantees that “of the 12 weeks of unpaid leave guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act, federal employees be allowed to substitute 4 weeks of paid leave, as well as any accrued annual or sick leave for the birth or adoption of a child” according to a fact sheet provided by Representative Carolyn Maloney’s (D-New York) office.  (A post on blog, Moms Speak Up, has some additional details.)

The federal government does not offer any paid time off specifically to care for an infant or newly adopted child, putting the United States in the extreme minority of industrialized countries.

This bill is long over due and is vital to the continued success of the federal government.

By Amy Simon and Allison Keyser.

Amy is a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in Spanish and international studies at Penn State University.

Allison is a senior majoring in psychology and women’s studies at Dickinson College.

I’m heading back to Ohio tomorrow. And I’m miss the daily runs in Hilton Head, although it took three days to get used to the heat and humidity at 5 a.m. I probably would done better this morning by not reading e-mails and the online newspapers before my run. Here’s why.

The Wall Street Journal (at least the online version) printed a really negative — but unfortunately, truthful and accurate commentary about Ohio by Chester E. Finn Jr: “ The Self-Inflicted Economic Death of Ohio.” (By subscription; if you can’t get it, e-mail me for a copy.)

Ouch. Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to live in Ohio. And, well, that’s one of the points in the article. Finn writes:

Once known as the Mother of Presidents, Ohio is now getting poorer, older and dumber – and making all the wrong moves to reverse the situation.

Didn’t someone once opine that it doesn’t matter what they print about you as long as they spell the name right? Bet it wasn’t the economic development folks throughout Ohio. Publicity like this in one of the leading newspapers in the world you could do without. Team NEO — please make sure no one circulates this to member organizations as an example of a national media placement about Ohio.

More from Finn:

But as a formula for economic revival, it is madness. Ohio already has the fifth-heaviest state and local tax burden in the country (up from 30th in 1990) and finds itself stagnating. Its unemployment rate, 6.3%, is above the national rate of 5.5%, even as the state’s work force shrinks as people emigrate. Ohio’s median household income is also falling – in 2006 it was $44,500, down 0.5% from the previous year – while the national figure ($48,500) was up 1.6%. During the closing decades of the 20th century, incomes rose twice as fast across the country as in Ohio.

The state has been deindustrializing for ages – the sprawling General Motors and NCR plants of my Dayton childhood are long gone. Every metropolitan area has seen manufacturing employment plunge. The state lost more than 200,000 nonfarm jobs over the past seven years alone. Of Ohio’s 10 largest corporations (including Procter & Gamble and other well known companies), just two have posted positive returns so far this year. A surefire way to have one’s portfolio underperform the market these days is to invest in Ohio.

OK. Can it get any worse? Ah, yeah.

But the distance to be covered is vast. Ohio ranks 41st in the percentage of adults with bachelor’s degrees. Though it has many fine colleges, their young graduates don’t stick around. They head for the coasts or for “happening places” in between, none of which (with the partial exception of Columbus) happens to be in the Buckeye State.

Bright Ohio kids aren’t even enrolling in nearby colleges. The Cincinnati Enquirer recently reported that almost half the top seniors in local high schools were headed for out-of-state campuses. As jobs and young people exit, the remaining population ages. The Census Bureau projects that Ohioans over 65 will rise to 20% by 2030, up from 13% in 2000.

Gee. Just like Florida — but without the sunshine.

Too bad, really. I’ve lived in Ohio now for 40 years. And these aren’t new issues. When I was working at BFGoodrich, we spent a lot of time — and a lot of money — working on our own and with organizations to “sell” living in Northeast Ohio. It was very difficult to recruit talented individuals - although the area had and still has plenty going for it: inexpensive housing (relative to other cities/states), generally short commutes, good public and private schools and major league cultural activities and sports teams (discounting the Browns, of course). Shorthand view: good place to raise a family. But it was always an uphill fight.

And the perception is that it is a fight that the state is not winning despite the best efforts of many talented and committed people, including those at Team NEO (now headed by a former Goodrich associate Tom Waltermire) and similar organizations throughout the state.

I was thinking a lot about that as I was running this morning. Mary and I are going to make a decision soon about whether to stay or go. And I expect that will be true of a lot of people — young and old — in the next few years. For the young, probably will come down to jobs and communities that offer a better quality of life beyond raising a family — which most communities offer if you really think about it. For the old (more mature?), there will be a lot of decision points, but here’s two: (1) can’t afford to leave because housing values in Ohio make it virtually impossible to relocate to certain areas where the housing prices are much higher, and (2) relocate to a place where you can enjoy a higher quality of life now that raising a family is no longer an issue.

And actually I’m rooting for Ohio here. This weekend in Columbus some of my friends are attending PodCamp Ohio, an event that I’m sure is bringing together plenty of young, talented and enthusiastic young people — just the kind we need to keep in the Buckeye State.

Maybe they can put together a podcast for Gov. Strickland and others. Here’s the message: Get your economic act together. Make it a priority to keep young people in the state. Set aside the usual politics that are a roadblock to accomplishing anything. And do it now. If young people continue to flee the state today — Ohio is Florida without sunshine tomorrow.

Some thoughts while I was motoring around Hilton Head Island this morning. Most relate to the economy. Some involve communications as well.

We’ve been coming to Hilton Head during the same week in June for about the past 10 years. No where near as many people — or cars — here this week than in past years. Maybe the $4 a gallon price for gasoline is keeping people at home. And I expect it will get worse before it gets better — if it ever gets better. An article in USA Today this morning pretty well sums things up with the statement “ fewer expected to drive, fly for 4th of July.” If, in fact, one of the reasons we are in Iraq is become of oil — well, the failure of that strategy should be pretty clear by now.

But if we can’t go anywhere, at least we can stay home an ponder the future of our economy: high food prices, increasing gasoline prices, crashing stock market. Oh, boy. Even if you are inclined to view the glass as half full, Steven Pearlstein’s column in The Washington Post this morning, “ This Recession, It’s Just Beginning“, is enough to send you to the gin bottle.

Pearlstein writes:

So much for that second-half rebound.

Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal.

It ain’t gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter.

This thing’s going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We’re caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of.

Oh, mama. I hope that McCain and Obama have a truthful discussion with all of us during the upcoming campaign. Our nation faces some big challenges — and I really believe there are some tough choices ahead. And I don’t worry about this on a personal level. I have an ample pension and I’m close enough to getting Social Security that even Bush and his jolly group of advisers can’t screw that up. But I do worry for many of my friends who read this — many of whom are in their 20s like my son and daughter. Demand more from our candidates and elected officials this time around.

And if things aren’t bad enough nationally, consider what is happening here in Hilton Head. The best beer http://prontherun.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/dscn2220.jpg and rib joint on the island — Smokehouse Bar and BBQ — is on the verge of — oh, my — being leveled for a parking lot. I guess if Budweiser can end up as part of multinational brewery, then anything is possible. Although the sign near the door going into the Smokehouse does kind of, ah, jab you in the ribs.

Oh, well. I guess I agree with country singer Alan Jackson on this one. Next thing you know there will be a Wal-Mart overlooking the ocean, replacing the Piggly Wiggly and the Hemp Store. So it goes.

Well, maybe the death of newspapers isn’t being over-stated. I was thinking about this while circling Hilton Head on foot this morning. Did you ever call the customer service number of a U.S. company and talk to someone who, well, you figured wasn’t living in Iowa? Or anywhere else where Budweiser is still considered the Great American Lager. I have. And it hasn’t always been that pleasant.

And I recognize that we live in a global economy. But folks — here’s one that makes me gulp (and snicker) a little.

The Orange County Register in California, according to an Associated Press story printed in Business Week online, is going to outsource some of its copy editing and page layout work to a company in India, Mindworks Global Media, on a one-month trial basis.

“This is a small-scale test, which will not touch our local reporting or decision-making. Our own editors will oversee this work,” Fabris [John Fabris, deputy editor, Orange County Register] said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “In a time of rapid change at newspapers, we are exploring many ways to work efficiently while maintaining quality and improving local coverage.”

The Orange County Register isn’t the first newspaper to outsource jobs; it won’t be the last. And something tells me this isn’t a quality-of-work issue — but a cost-reduction plan. If employees at U.S. newspapers have to compete on a cost basis with workers in India and elsewhere — well, mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be copy editors. Here’s from the AP story:

Other newspapers also have outsourced some work to India. Mindworks began copyediting and design of a weekly community news section and other special advertising sections at The Miami Herald in January. A month earlier, the Sacramento Bee, also owned by the McClatchy Co., said it would outsource some of its advertising production work to India.

Guess newspapers are a business after all. When I was a journalism student at Kent State in the late 60s that was something never discussed in class or elsewhere. In fact, many soon-to-be-journalists were proud of the fact that they weren’t going to work in business. I also believe that what I’ll call an anti-business bias carried over into news coverage — and that affected the relationships between many reporters, editors and PR people. But I digress.

Hope that view has changed today — in the classrooms and in the newsrooms.

For those who still think that newspapers — and journalism in general — isn’t a business, this Bud’s for you.

And for those like me believe that a financially strong, independent news media — staffed by journalists with skills and ethics — are essential to our nation — well, I guess I’ll grab a 12-pack of Beck’s and head for the beach.

In ran at Hilton Head this morning. And it was a fairly pleasant run. Humidity was only about 99 percent; temperature in the low 70s. At 6 a.m. that’s not bad. And yeah, I know. That’s mid morning. But when I’m on vacation I’ll generally sleep in  until 4:30 or so and try to hit the road around  5:30 or 6. No point being a slave to your regular routine.

We’ve been coming to Hilton Head for nearly a decade. Good for vacations but not so sure about living here — or a lot of other places in the South — full time. One problem: way too many old people. On the drive to Hilton Head you pass one of those Dell Webb Sun City resorts. That’s where they give you a golf cart and a package of adult diapers along with the house keys. And it’s one of those places where you’re not allowed to be on the property unless you’re over 55 or 60. Wonder if that is what Dylan Thomas had in mind when he wrote:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Also, I’m not sure I want to live in a part of the country where the only cultural advantage is right-turn-on-red. (Sorry, I shamelessly took that line from a Woody Allen movie. He was talking about California. We all have our quirks.)

But I do like the way they get right to the point in the South. Clear, honest, direct communication.

For instance, we took Snowbird Alley (I-95) from North Carolina to South Carolina. I stopped for gas in Santee and headed in to get a Diet Coke. A sign on the door said: “If your pants are hanging below your waist don’t even think about coming in.” Hmm. Thank God it didn’t say: “If your stomach is hanging over your belt, no Diet Coke for you.”

But back on the road again, as Willie Nelson might say, I was stuck in traffic. A moving van in the right lane. An old pickup truck blocking me in the left. Moment of truth. Could I pass the pickup truck on the right and squeeze by the moving van? I inch toward the pickup truck and notice a bumper sticker: “Gun control means using two hands.”

http://prontherun.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/images.jpg Whoa, big guy. Let’s ease up on the accelerator of that BMW. No point in inviting a reenactment of the final scene in Easy Rider.

Dennis Hopper after all is now pitching ads for some retirement service on TV. Hope it’s not for adult diapers.

Go figure.