Notoriously Nice ®

It's time to play "Ask the Candidates".

Before every general election I ask some of the candadates on the ballot in my precenct questions about the issues that are the most important to me. First up this year, like in 2008, are the candidates for County Council in District 6, which covers part of West Ashley and a small part of North Charleston. Vick Rawl is the Democratic incumbent and Carolyn Hughes is his Republican opponent. These are the questions:

1) Now that the SC DOT has voted to not take over the I-526 extension what do you think County Council should do? If Council decides that 526 should be finished what path should the highway follow and how should it be financed? Should it be a limited access highway like the rest of 526 or a parkway with more points of entry?

 2) Do you think County Council should approve, at least in theory, the Sea Islands Greenway? If so, how should that be financed?

 3) This is related to the first two questions. The PGA hinted that the PGA Championship could return to the Ocean Course at Kiawah as early as 2019 but that they had concerns about the traffic problems this year. Is a PGA Championship every 7 to 10 years enough reason to widen the roads leading to the island? Or were the problems mostly about getting people out of the parking lots on Kiawah and not about the roads? 

4) Should County Council approve the tax-increment financing district for the Beach Company’s Kiawah River Plantation development?

If you live in District 6 and have other questions you'd like me to ask let me know ASAP. I'll post the responses here.

Mike Courtney, Activist?

Those of you who know me know that I prefer to keep a low profile. More like an invisible profile. But after watching a crew fill the same potholes for the third time, and after watching the city repave the streets leading to the Country Club but not the smaller streets I figured that someone had to step up and since no one else volunteered, that someone evidently is me.

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't know who my District 10 council person was until a few minutes ago. I might have voted for him in the last election. Or not. (Local politics in Charleston only get attention when there is a controversy. Or when there are potholes.)

As I walked down the street taking photos, not only of the recently filled potholes but also of the numerous cracks that someday will be potholes, several neighbors came out and asked me what I was doing. After I explained they all said, "I'm glad someone is doing that." I can't fault them. Before today I had hoped someone else would do that.

I don't want Councilmember Riegel to think that this is just about my street so now that the rain seems to have stopped I'm going to go out and take photos of and make notes about other side streets.

I realize that budgets are tight and that the city is doing the best it can with street maintenance. All I want to know is if streets like mine are on the list. If now I want to know how to get them on the list.

And before anyone asks, I will not be running for office in the next election. Potholes have given me more exposure than I wanted.

Something you do at 2 AM when you can't sleep

Looking over my playlists on iTunes and Google Music (there's some overlap but they aren't the same) two things struck me. 1) Evidently I haven't listened to any new music since 2007 and 2) How drunk was I when I downloaded Hanggai's "Drinking Song" and was it because I'd had a good time somewhere that I don't remember?

You knew that the banking crisis of '08 would spawn novels

Other People's Money is the first Brit one. It probably helps if you appreciate British humour while you read it.

Everything about this novel is great until you get to the last chapter entitled, appropriately, 'The End', when Justin Cartwright ties up all of the loose ends quicky. I hate when an author does that.

Other than that it's a great read.

Sex, Lies, and a Russian Winter

Snow Drops is set in Moscow in the early 2000's. Nick, a lawyer for a Brirish law firm in Moscow, falls in love with Mahsa, only to discover that nothing in the new Russia is as it seems.

A.D. Miller was the Moscow correspondent for the Economist during those years so he's well aquainted with what life was like then. It is his first novel and it was a Man Booker Prize finanist. (If you don't know what the British Man Booker Prize is think of our Nationial Book Award, only with more sales.)

I'm looking forward to the cold war resuming. It means great fiction.

I think one of the biggest victims of the end of the cold war was John le Carre. He lost his enemy and his focus. With the rise of the oligarghs in Russia he seems to be back on track. Our Kind of Traitor isn't Smiley but it gives me hope.

Mike is reading again

It's been a long time since I did mini-book reviews (I blame Netflix) but get ready for a flood of them. Don't be surprised if most of the books I review are by British authors. That's the way I roll.

Further adventures of a single guy.

I bought two pair of Wrangler jean shorts at Walmart because 1) I needed them to replace two that I'd worn for 10 years and that now have holes in them in places that might get me arrested in South Carolina, and 2) they are the only ones I've seen that didn't hang below my knees, or worse, hang mid-calf. (Not a good look for old guys like me even if I could slam dunk a basketball.)  The only problem I had with them is that they were dark-blue-jean color and I really wanted something more bleached out like the Levi's I was replacing, but I took what I can get.

That's the preamble to today's laundry experiment. I figured that if Levi's can bleach jeans, I can too. I put them in the washer and put bleach in the dispenser. I have one of those smart washing machines that senses how many clothes are in it and adjusts the water level accordingly. I ignored the fact that two pair of shorts wouldn't require a lot of water and I added 3/4 of a cup of bleach (like you would use for a full load) to the dispenser. Then I hit the start button.

The good news is that the shorts didn't come out whiter than a Republican President. The bad news is that they came out looking as dark-blue as when they went in.

Since I'm a guy I figured that there was only one explanation. I didn't use enough bleach. So back in the washer, this time with 2 cups of bleach.

The good news? The shorts don't have holes in them. The bad news? They're still as freaking dark-blue as when I bought them.

Wrangler, I salute you! You've discovered the perfect color-fast blue dye. Please share your secret with the Mars people. Those blue M&M's keep staining my hand.

Of course it's possible that all of this time Clorox hasn't been making my whites whiter than white.

 

When you live on a golf course you don't need to buy golf balls

Golfers with wicked hooks drive them into your yard.

Speaking of my grandmother

All I know about this photo is that it was taken in the mid-to-late 1920's near Whitesburg, KY. That's my grandmother, Harriet Johanna Upington Courtney and her father-in-law (my great-grandfather) Michael Henry Courtney*. Dad is on the left, Uncle Bob is next to him. And Uncle John is the one with his fingers in his mouth. Of the five, Bob is the only one still living.

*My grandfather was William Henry Courtney. My father was William Henry Jr. I'm William Henry III. Because there were so many Williams my parents decided to nickname me Mike after Michael Henry. It stuck. Sometimes I pretend to be William but most of the time I'm Mike.