More People Discover Andre Bauer

South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, with whom I’ve been fascinated for many years, is now making national headlines (again). If you’re unfamiliar with the guy I used to cover, this is what I wrote of him in 2006 :

“SC Lt. Guvnah Andre Bauer is a guy who uses the word “super”, but not ironically. He’s a guy who likes to drive fast and fly planes, and he gets into trouble for both. He’s a guy who barely survived physical death… and now he’s barely survived political death… more than once. I don’t know quite what to make of him. I can’t help but wonder if he’s Powder. Remember Powder? Maybe, like Powder, Bauer was struck by lightning before he was born and now he has mysterious powers. Only Bauer’s power is the ability to come back from near self destruction.”

Which is to say, he’ll likely recover from this:

South Carolina’s Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who is running for Governor of the state on the Republican ticket, said a bunch of monumentally stupid and ignorant things that would shock even the most cynical person at a luncheon the other day, like:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

Let’s be absolutely clear, here: Bauer’s remarks are not appalling because they’re offensive or “un-PC” or a Biden-esque “oops!” They’re reprehensible because this man who currently holds office in South Carolina and is making a bid to run the state is demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn’t possess even the very most basic understanding of the biggest problem in his state, which is poverty. Deep, ingrained, historical-legacy style poverty.

Read more: South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer Compares His State’s Poor Children to ‘Stray Animals’

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Tim Laan Party Planner

Oh hey! We’re back from the trip to Amsterdam to visit Mom. While there we spent one action-packed day checking out the wedding venues. I scraped together random bits of free time to put together a chronicle of our day with Tim Laan party planner, the Dutch professional who’s taking care of nuptial preparation and making sure no one gets arrested during wedding weekend.

Some Recent Outrages

You know how much I love a good outrage. Being outraged is probably one of my favorite things besides profanity and politics. For some reason I am outraged by many things at once right now, which is kind of inconvenient because I can’t concentrate fully on one particular outrage this way. Anyway, a short list:

1.) Another Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice “crossover event”

Both programs are pretty awful, I know. IMHO, Grey’s peaked at the end of the second season with the whole Denny-LVAD wire drama. It’s been downhill ever since, and I watch for pure pop melodrama pleasure. Stiles banned it from our DVR so I usually have to watch it online.

But the Grey’s spinoff,  Private Practice,  is even worse. Last season, the creator and EP of both shows married the two for a crossover episode where you had to watch PP in order to follow the storyline of Grey’s. It’s an obvious ploy to help the ratings of the lesser program. But also a waste of my time, because if we were interested in the characters and storylines of the other show, WE WOULD WATCH THE OTHER SHOW.

Now, next week, the producers are doing it to us again. Another crossover event. That’s an outrage.

2.) Luke Wilson shilling for AT&T

Here’s the cerebral star of many of my favorite films, including-but-not-limited-to The Royal Tenenbaums. He doesn’t appear to be that interested  in  fame or money, but ended up with both.  Now he appears to be blatantly selling one for the other. AND FOR AT&T, the phone/internet provider that’s locked in a battle to keep the U.S. broadband network from getting upgraded to much faster speeds. This is perhaps more of a shame than an outrage.

3.) Subscription cards in magazines

This one’s just unacceptable. I can’t believe I haven’t written every single blog post about this particular outrage. I can’t open a new magazine without eighteen subscription cards falling out, and then a week later re-open the magazine to find another subscription  card in there. Seriously, what percentage of new subscribers to magazines mail in a little card,  in some instances where postage is required? And in many instances, where another piece of mail must be sent (like a check) in order to activate the subscription?  Since this happens to all of us, I’m sure subscription card litter winds up everywhere. OUTRAGE.