Guess who cheated on his wife?

Yep, Gov. Mark Sanford.

Case closed.

The political party of family values certainly has a terrible track record with family values, doesn't it? I'm still trying to figure out how the conservative political mantra that gay marriage is a threat to traditional families works when it seems to me that extra-marital affairs are a far bigger threat.

What the hell was Mark Sanford doing?

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was missing for more than four days late last week and early this week.

First off, how does a head of state disappear for four days, with no one, not his wife, his children, his chief of staff, his security detail, I mean no one, having a clue where he is?

This man has been in the news a lot for his opposition to the state accepting stimulus money, often for reasons that are clearly based on the fact he simply wants nothing to do with anything Barack Obama does. I think Obama could offer to heal every sick person in South Carolina, and Sanford would object simply because Obama is a Democrat.

But I digress.

When the leader of your state disappears for four days, leaving the state without anyone in charge (suppose there had been a disaster, or some other unanticipated event, that required his, and only his, signature or approval to deal with), something is wrong with that person mentally.

To top it all off, he clearly had no means of contacting the outside world, because when he finally did call to check in, he had no idea anyone was looking for him.

What? You are the governor of a state. You disappear for four days. And you think no one is going to look for you? 

Clearly, this man is mentally incompetent and should not be the governor of South Carolina, or any other state.

Now, he's apparently told several different stories as to where he was during his absence. First, he was believed to be in Atlanta. Then, his staff said he told them he was hiking the Appalachia Trail. Now, he claims he was in South America.

WTF?

Surely there's something in the law in this state that says mental incompetence disqualifies you from serving out your term. If not, he needs to be removed by whatever legal means necessary, before he severely damages his state.

Of course, he's no Rod Blagojavich. Or Elliott Spitzer (who, apparently, New Yorkers now want back in office). However, he's still nuts, and needs to go.

Rutherford County Election Commission thinks it's above the law

Well, it's chairman and a crazy member do, at least.

I was going to rant about its claim that it doesn't have to abide by state laws when it meets. Then, I read Christian Grantham's blog post on it, and decided he said it as well or better than I ever could. So, I'm asking everyone to just read that.

http://www.nashvilleistalking.com/2009/06/in-defense-of-tennessees-sunshine-law/

How bad will Gannett papers become?

It was announced today that Gannett may be laying off another 4,500 newspaper workers in July, out of a total 41,000 nationwide. This comes on top of thousands of layoffs by Gannett in the past year, including several at our local papers, combined with eliminated vacancies.

How bad has it made the Daily News Journal, my local source of news? In recent months, almost unreadable. I had noticed a steady increase in typos, grammatical and style errors, design mistakes and the like since the layoffs began, but nothing as egregious as what I read in three days this weekend.

Friday's edition misspelled "linebacker" in headline as "inebacker." Sunday's edition misspelled "European" "Europen" in a headline, and proceded to repeat, word for word, the same story in two separate sections of the paper. I'm not even going to try to count all of the mistakes I found in the body copy. 

This is abhorrent. How Gannett can think it will possibly retain readers by cutting staff to the point that the paper becomes unreadable is beyond me. I fully expect Gannett to completely collapse within two years, if not sooner. If you work for them, I hope you have a fall-back plan.

"Parish" the thought

Duncan and I were heading to taekwondo Monday night when we passed a church on Halls Hill Pike near our house. Duncan shouted out to me that there was a word misspelled on the sign. I looked, and he was right. So, we stopped to take this photo:

Now, Duncan's only 10, so he didn't get the joke that comes with this misspelling on a sign outside a church. However, I'm still proud of him for knowing it's wrong.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if someone would like to buy Dave Brown a dictionary....

The year the media died

Great parody video of The Year the Music Died that pretty much sums up what's happened to big media. If you aren't a media person, don't bother.

Sad day for my friends at The Birmingham News

The first thing I noticed in my Twitter feed this morning was the announcement that The Birmingham News is cutting all salaries 10 percent, announcing buyouts, and eliminating all part-time positions and internships.

That's a sad day for journalism, especially when you consider that Birmingham has already lost its best local daily, The Post-Herald.

Now, Birmingham residents will be less well served in terms of local news coverage than before. The News is also planning to close all of its suburban offices, which means even less coverage of local politics and news for the vast majority of subscribers, who live in those suburban zones. It had already announced mandatory furloughs and a benefits freeze in March.

I am very fearful for the many friends of mine who work there, as well as for the community that will be even less well served than before. And, given the corrupt history of Birmingham and Jefferson County politics, who is going to be left to uncover the malfeasance that permeates those two governments? Alas, I fear soon, no one will be.