Poem: Midlands September

Photo illustration by S. King. Mosquito image credits.

Some day soon
Mosquitoes will lie dormant
And the water in the air
Will retreat
To clouds, lakes, and rivers.

Some day soon
I will walk outside
Briskly
And my shirt will not
Stick to my back and chest.

Some day soon
A breeze will make me shiver
And I will open
Every window in my house
To let it in.

Some day soon
Summer's tyranny will end
And we will dance in the streets,
Wearing jeans,
Rejoicing in the victory of Fall.

Poem: Spartanburg Dim

I wrote this poem a few months ago, but waited too long to post it, and now it's no longer relevant. However, I still think it's pretty good, so I'm posting it anyway. While Spartanburg, SC may have slain their dragon at the polls, there are plenty of other places across the USA where the advice in the last four lines still applies.

The town is plain, unadorned
A model of the civic norm.
But look: inside
Its borders something hides.
Stupidity is sheltered there,
Ignorance has made its lair.
It sprawls, it rules,
It gibbers, shouts, and drools.
The light of knowledge flickers dim,
A brown-out of the brain within
This town. But wait,
It's spread across the state!
The people there have set it loose
To grow, breed, reproduce.
Who can suppress
This plague of foolishness?
Just like a fungus, like a mold
It's taken root and taken hold.
Look out! Despair!
The crazy's everywhere.
The folks back home now hold the key
To break the spell and set us free:
One man, one vote.
And while I breathe, I hope.

Poem: Forgotten

My socks are cotton,
Not silk;
White,
Not black or argyle or paisley.
When I sit with legs crossed
My ankle is exposed.
It's obvious I don't belong
Here among stone columns
And gilt ceilings
And echoing marble floors.
In theory, I own this building.
In practice, it belongs
To the silk-sock comped-lunch hunt club crowd,
Those men who know and recognize
Others of their kind.
Me, they can safely ignore,
Sitting and waiting
In this elegant hallway:
A forgotten stranger
With white cotton socks.

Song: Straight Ticket Voter

This year, with South Carolina's elections being so messed up, with so many write-in and petition candidates, it's especially important to think about who you're voting for. If you vote a straight ticket, you may be giving up your chance to vote for some offices, as well as voting for some real lemons.

Here's a little song I wrote about straight-ticket voters:


Here are the lyrics, in case you can't hear them very well over the twangy mandolin.

Straight Ticket Voter

CHORUS:

I'm a straight ticket voter, 

Don't want to think it over

'Cause I believe the party line right to my core

I just push that button 

And I don't worry 'bout nothin'

'Cause I know our crooks and liars are better than yours

Well this candidate is shifty 

And he isn't very thrifty

He drove his daddy's business straight into the ground

His nanny is illegal

And he shot his neighbor's beagle

But he's one more vote for our side, so let's keep him around

CHORUS

Well this candidate ain't stellar

But she's written a best-seller

Her list of wealthy donors is half a mile long

To the party she is loyal

Though she has some friends in oil

But the ethics charge against her really isn't very strong

CHORUS

Yes, I know our crooks and liars are better than yours

The Irony of InnoMobility

In South Carolina, "transportation" means cars. "Public transportation" means government-run buses and vans for people who are too poor to have cars. "Transportation infrastructure" means roads for cars to drive on. Sidewalks are a genteel amenity, and walking and cycling are recreation, not means of getting from one place to another. Trains are those things that carry shipping containers to and from the port in Charleston and tie up traffic in Columbia.

State funding for transportation infrastructure comes from the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank. Theoretically, they have a list of funding priorities created by experts at the SCDOT and they dole out funds accordingly. In practice, the SCTIB board funds projects in the districts of the legislators who appointed them, regardless of what's actually needed. FITSnews has a good example of this cronyism in Senator Harvey Peeler's summary of the I-526 debacle.

Last week I wrote to you about the horrible system of highway funding in this state, and how our state continues to funnel funding away from the areas that actually need it. The prime example of that was what recently went on down in Charleston with the I-526 extension – where the State Infrastructure Bank promised money above our borrowing capacity to pay for road a lot of people in the area didn’t even want.

Into this morass, we welcome InnoMobility 2012, an international conference for "industry, academia, entrepreneurs, and investors who are interested in exploring partnerships to develop emerging business opportunities from the global transformation of mobility." [1] Why, one might rightly wonder, is a conference about cutting-edge transportation being held in South Carolina, of all places? According to the conference web site,

The southeast region is an epicenter of a large, transforming global mobility industry with an innovative ecosystem of forward thinking mobility companies and academic centers.

On this morning's South Carolina Business Review, John Warner listed some of these companies and academic centers: BMW, Michelin, Clemson. Granted, they are car-centric, but change has to start somewhere. At the very least, we do possess the knowledge and expertise to drag our state's transportation network into the 21st century. But do we have the will? I doubt it. We can't even figure out how to actually fund the road projects we mean to, or how to run buses in our state capital.

So on November 7, InnoMobility will come and show off exciting creations that could change the way people and goods get around, innovations that could change our way of life for the better. Meanwhile, on the same day, the people of South Carolina will be voting to maintain the status quo. And then on November 8, everyone will pack up and go home, and nothing will have changed. 

Making an Abstract SC Poster

I recently saw this picture of Mickey Mouse on Pinterest:

Source: imgfave.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Looking closely at it, I realized it was made with Photoshop brushes. Simple, but effective. I decided to see what I could create with my new Ps Defaults watercolor brushes.

I used both the watercolor and the dust particle brushes to create this abstract picture of South Carolina. I especially like the way the background turned out. I made the image big enough that it can be printed as a 16"x20" poster.

If you like this design but want to see it in different colors (garnet and black, for example), just let me know and I'll be happy to customize it for you.