Eideard

In a new variation on the “brick in a box” scam, a South Carolina woman who thought she purchased an iPad from two men in a McDonald’s parking lot discovered yesterday that the purported tablet was actually “a piece of wood painted black with an Apple logo.”

According to a Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office report, Ashley McDowell, 22, told deputies that she was approached by two black males who claimed to have purchased iPads in bulk and were selling them for $300 apiece. After McDowell explained that she only had $180, the duo agreed to sell her the device at a cut rate.

But when McDowell drove home and opened the FedEx box containing the iPad, she instead discovered the wood with the Apple logo. The “screen”–which was framed with black tape–included replicas of iPad icons for Safari, mail, photos, and an iPod. It also had what cops described as a “Best Buy sales ticket…”

Deputies have dusted the phony iPad for fingerprints. McDowell told probers that the swindlers were driving “a white Impala with no rims and no tint.” One of the men, she noted, “had a gold tooth.”

Har.

Here’s a link to the original police report. How did they keep a straight face?

An inmate holds the only book he’s allowed to read

The US Justice Department is asking a federal judge in South Carolina to allow it to intervene in a lawsuit against a sheriff who allegedly forbids prisoners in his jail from receiving books, magazines, or printed materials other than copies of the King James version of the Bible…

“The only book, magazine, newspaper, or religious publication that [jail officials] consistently permit prisoners to possess is the Bible,” the Justice Department says in its complaint. “These practices discriminate against non-Christian prisoners in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause…”

Government lawyers are asking the federal judge in the case to declare the jail’s policies illegal and unconstitutional. They are also asking the judge to order the sheriff and his staff to “permit detainees and prisoners in their custody to have outside reading material…”

The original lawsuit was filed in October by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Prison Legal News, a monthly journal covering prison law issues. PLN is distributed to inmates across the country.

The ACLU suit says that since 2008 the jail has blocked delivery of copies of PLN and books discussing prisoner rights.

David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project, praised the Justice Department for taking action against the jail.

“The fact that the Justice Department has chosen to intervene in this case should send a clear signal to jail officials that systematically denying detainees access to books, magazines, and newspapers is unconstitutional,” he said. “The policy in place at the Berkeley County Detention Center is nothing short of censorship, and there is no justification for shutting detainees off from the outside world in such a draconian way.”

I think I’m reasonably even-handed in my attitudes toward prisons and penal systems. Given the mean streets where I grew up, I’ve known a number of folks who ended up on the inside. Most of them should have been there. A number should not – mostly because of racism and bigotry.

Being locked up for crimes doesn’t entitle anyone to any perks; but, the necessities of life have to include an opportunity to stay current with news and society – and always a chance to educate yourself and try to find a path to a self-sustaining life without crime. This bible-thumping bumpkin ain’t helping anyone including society at large.

The truthful part of the commemoration
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

What is the appropriate way to mark the 150th anniversary of the political beginning of the American civil war? For about 300 people from Charleston, South Carolina, it seemed the best commemoration was a gala ball replete with champagne, period dress and dancing.

A ballroom full of white guests gathered last night, each paying $100, to mark the anniversary of 20 December 1860, the day that South Carolina became the first state in the US to declare secession from the Union in order to protect the right to slavery.

The evening began with a theatrical depiction of the secession convention in which 169 of the state’s politicians voted unanimously to break with the Union and declare independence. The show ended with a rousing speech in which the show’s narrator proclaimed: “The spirit of the south still stands. The spirit of freedom and honour gets passed from one generation to the next…”

“For us the secession is not about a racial issue,” said Michael Givens, the commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which sponsored the event. “We are not celebrating slavery, we are celebrating the courage and the tenacity of the people who were prepared to go out and defend their homes.”

But outside the ballroom a crowd of about 150 protesters convened by the largest civil rights group in America, the NAACP, had a very different take on the proceedings. “What would happen if Japanese Americans decided to have a ball to celebrate Pearl Harbour?” Rev Nelson Rivers asked the protesters. “Or if German Americans celebrated the Holocaust? For African Americans tonight, that is exactly what’s happening here.”

White Americans work really hard at ignoring the history of slavery and the institutionalized racism that followed emancipation. Though many fought hard to support the fight for civil rights, it never was part of mainstream American politics.

Though representatives of both of the tweedledeedum parties supported the struggle – mostly urbane Democrats – much American political history since the passage of the Civil Rights Act has been characterized by the mantle of racism taken over by the national Republicans – from southern Democrats.

The Three Amigos
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has earned the ire of Tea Party groups for his penchant for negotiating with Democrats, predicted this week the movement will “die out.”

Graham, who has partnered with Democrats on immigration reform and energy and climate legislation, made the observation in a New York Times Magazine profile titled “Lindsey Graham, This Year’s Maverick” to be published this Sunday:

“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said as Cato drove him to the city of Greenwood, where he was to give a commencement address at Lander University later that morning. On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious,” he recalled. During a later meeting, in Charleston, Graham said he challenged them: “ ‘What do you want to do? You take back your country — and do what with it?’ . . . Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.”

In a previous conversation, Graham told me: “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.” Now he said, in a tone of casual lament: “We don’t have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.” Chortling, he added, “Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today…”

Teabaggers are a fundamentalist religion just like their precursors in the John Birch Society and White Citizens Councils. It seems to be part of the definition that they have no clue or willingness to manage any political institution – much less a nation.

S.C. snake handler, Tony Smith

Police in South Carolina have arrested a man who allegedly assaulted another guest at a motel with a four-ft python after a row over loud music.

The alleged victim, who was not badly injured, told police he had complained about music coming from the other man’s room and they had had a row.

Hours later, the man came up to him from behind, tapped his shoulder and thrust the snake in his face, he said.

He was so shaken, he added, that he had to take a three-hour shower afterwards.

Probably took two of those hours to scrape out his shorts!

Jenny Sanford finalized her divorce from the governor
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Gov. Mark Sanford has settled charges that he broke state ethics laws, admitting no guilt but agreeing to pay $74,000 in fines. The governor also agreed to pay $66,223 to reimburse the cost of the state investigation into his travel and to pay for his use of state aircraft, pricey airline tickets and misspent campaign money.

Sanford’s use of state assets and campaign money prompted the State Ethics Commission to charge the two-term Republican governor with 37 state ethics violations in November. The violations carried a maximum fine of $74,000, the amount Sanford agreed to pay.

In the agreement, released Thursday, the Ethics Commission issued a public reprimand to the governor and disagreed with his argument that he broke no laws.

Also Thursday, a Charleston County family court judge finalized Sanford’s divorce from his wife, Jenny, after 20 years of marriage. The judge sealed the couple’s financial agreement regarding property and custody of their four children…

Sanford still faces a pending investigation by Attorney General Henry McMaster’s office into whether he broke any criminal laws. Ethics charges involve only civil charges. Sanford previously reimbursed the state $3,300 for airfare for a 2008 South America trade trip, sponsored by the state Commerce Department, during which he met his lover…

In a statement, Sanford argued he did nothing wrong and the Ethics Commission judged him by a different standard than other governors…

“I continue to maintain my belief in the innocence of my actions being judged by the Ethics Commission,” Sanford said in a statement.

Step to one side if you’re the sort who believes in lightning bolts striking down the guilty.

Poisonally, I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with a leading Christian hypocrite like Sanford, anyway. I doubt if I could stand the stink dripping from his excuses.

In many places across the South you can walk in the footsteps of slaves, and if you understand the history, it is not a happy journey. The same is true at Friendfield Plantation outside Georgetown, South Carolina.

It’s not exactly “Gone With the Wind,” but what makes this overgrown 3,300 acres of marsh and pine trees stand out is this: The family of first lady Michelle Obama believes her great-great grandfather was held as a slave here and labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields.

It makes Friendfield Plantation a symbol of something more than servitude. It’s the symbol of something that’s never happened before, one important segment of an American family’s journey from the humiliation of slavery to the very top of the nation’s ruling class.

It’s not a museum. It’s just private land, still with shadows of its past. Friendfield’s most distinctive historical feature, perhaps, is the dirt road known as Slave Street.

Six white-washed little shacks are all that remain of the slave quarters, even though rows of these houses once stood on the property. About 350 slaves lived here during the 19th century…

They would have been crowded: probably one or two families living in a space smaller than a modern-day garage…

All that’s known about Jim Robinson’s life comes from the few remaining records that mention him. Slaves weren’t documented as individuals in the census, nor in life and death certificates. They were property, not people.

It probably never crossed Jim Robinson’s mind, as a slave in a white-washed cabin, that one day his great-great granddaughter would be living in a white house so very, very different from his own.

RTFA. Well done. A few talented people still remain at CNN – a story worth reading, reading to your kids, as well.

I know there was something I was supposed to mention before I left…
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford says an extramarital affair is behind his unexplained disappearance.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, he admitted he’s been unfaithful to his wife with a friend from Argentina.

Sanford says he and his family have been working through the affair for about the last five months.

He apologized to his wife, kids and staff after his mystery trip to Argentina.

He says, “I’ve let down a lot of people.”

He says he spent the last 5 days in Argentina “crying a lot”.

Sanford also resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, but when asked if he’d resign as governor of South Carolina, he did not respond.

Har!