Snead 303

Movin' On Up

So if you pay any attention around here, you know I never write about anything terribly personal. This blog, since it's inception, has never had many aspirations other than the occasional informative or amusing post. You may ask, "Informative and amusing for whom?" For me, I guess. I've always loved my sense of humor and I really enjoy the articles, videos, clips, interviews, parodies, links and everything I run across on the Internet. So, if nothing else, this blog is a great place for me to visit and I know I can always count on myself to deliver fantastic content.

But, in my humble opinion, it has certainly evolved. And it has undoutedly helped me grow. In trying to join the conversation of a surprisingly large political blogosphere in the Palmetto State, I had to educate myself. Sometimes I get down on myself just for not knowing a lot of stuff, mostly because it's too passe to blame my parents, or the education system, or anyone. If you want to know something, you have to learn it. Simple math. But it's incredible how much goes on behind the scenes, between the lines of newspaper print and press releases. I don't understand how people involved in politics keep track of everything, let alone the common folk who just want to know what's going on in their government. But the learning process has been nothing if not entertaining.

And frustrating. It's disturbing to see that a lot of political discourse in South Carolina is controlled by partisan consultants, people who aren't necessarily tied to any discernible values other than what their "client" (i.e. elected or wannabe officials) dictates. So while the theatrics of South Carolina politics are incredibly entertaining, the impact of reducing important debates to vacant drivel is just sad. In the last year alone we've seen South Carolina catch national attention for rejecting a gay tourism campaign and supporting state-sponsored Christian license plates. There was also that time some asshat called me a traitor. It's hard to figure out if politicians around here are pandering to a reliable base or if they're really just that backwards. In the end, stupid is as stupid does. When given the opportunity, I moved most of my political rants over to Indigo Journal. IJ was fun and I'm grateful to Tim and Jennifer for the community they are building. Liberal and progressive South Carolinians are behind the eight ball at the ballot box, but it's not for a lack of trying. It's just going to take a lot of hard work, communication and leadership, but I have no doubt SC will eventually be pulled kicking and screaming into modernity.

One of the best parts of hosting a blog is that it's like moving into a new neighborhood where you can pick your neighbors. I haven't met many "blog friends" over the years (They probably wouldn't like me anyway. My teeth can be frightening...) but it's great to know that while I'm moving 1600 miles from Columbia, they will still be just a click away. I really don't want to list everyone in my Google Reader, but I do my best to feature posts in the Snead Feed. That certainly won't change.

Obviously this is why I don't write many long posts; they get way too long way too fast. So here's the deal: I'm moving from Columbia to Denver, enrolling in the University of Colorado at Denver's School of Public Administration and going after a Master of Public Administration with a planned concentration in nonprofit management. Katie Rose, the girlfriend, is moving with me and starting her social work career and campaign to save the world. It's very exciting and although our two-day road trip doesn't kick off until next week I'm already surrounded by boxes and waiting for our ReloCube. After this post I'll put a more permanent "We've Moved" sign here and then it's time to put the finishing touches on my new blog home, Snead 303.

The idea behind Snead 303 is that I'll be writing more often, with more personal events/observations/experiences and, for now at least, I'll be leaving South Carolina in my rear view and immersing myself in any and everything Denver, Colorado and the West have to offer. There might even be some of this and I can only hope more of this. Advice on people to do and things to see while I'm out west would be greatly appreciated. The majority of my life has been spent between Walterboro, Beaufort and Columbia, and from what I've been told it's a big world out there.

As always, thanks for tuning in. I hope you'll follow along at Snead 303.

For the Dads

The exact saying eludes me at the moment but today we're thinking about how anyone can be a father but it takes a man to be a dad. Or a poppa, pops, daddy, pa... you get the point. I don't say it enough, but I hope my old man (which I would never call him to his face, of course) knows what he means to me. Credit for everything good I've ever done goes to him and my mom; the bad should be blamed on too much fast food or something.

Happy Father's Day to all the real men out there.

• Father Meets Son/Son Meets Father (NY Times)
• My Father's Words (NY Times)
• President acknowledges military fathers' sacrifices, contributions (AFPS)
• Father's Day, from a military brat (The Times and Democrat)
• Lost for 12 years, a prodigal father is found (LA Times)
• Blind father, son find their way (Denver Post)
• Sophia's Song: Elite angler Steve Kennedy celebrating first Father's Day (ESPN)
• Very special Father's Day for Falcons' Nicholas (ESPN)

Colbert Doesn't Ask, Doesn't Tell in Iraq

South Carolina's favorite son, Stephen Colbert, took his Comedy Central show to Baghdad last week for a first-of-its-kind USO show, performed, taped and aired from Iraq. One of the best moments was Stephen's debate against himself over the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which bars homosexuals from openly serving. In the end, this was just a comedy bit. But I thought it was brave of Colbert to tackle the subject in front of an all-military crowd and his tongue-in-cheek performance really captures absurd arguments of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" supporters.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Formidable Opponent - Don't Ask, Don't Tell
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

For more:
The Colbert Report Clips and Full Episodes (Comedy Central)

Documentary, S.C. veterans target anti-gay Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (Snead 101)

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Should Be Next DoD Program Cut (Indigo Journal)

Will Obama be Truman on Gay Rights? (RealClearPolitics)

The American Debate: Obama needs just a bit of Truman's courage (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Just Another Day In South Carolina

GOP activist says escaped gorilla was "ancestor" of Michelle Obama (WIS)

SCGOP Activist Posts Remark Disparaging First Lady (FITSNews)

Don't get me wrong, not every South Carolina GOPher is a racist. Just the ones who use the Internet.

Thursday Afternoon Cinema: 'Prop 8 - The Musical'

According to my calculations, I'm the 4,160,395th person to watch this on Funny or Die. The same folks who brought us "A Gaythering Storm" took home a Webby Monday night for this video. Enjoy.

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

Join the SC Pride movement HERE.

A Belated Congratulations

This is old news but apparently my head has been in the clouds the last few weeks and I would be remiss if I didn't say something about President Obama's selection of Major General (ret.) Charles Bolden as National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator. Lame title, right? Maybe "Charlie" will jazz it up...

The Columbia native, Naval Academy grad, Marine fighter pilot obviously has the right stuff (despite his PhD from the other USC) and he's going to need it at the helm of NASA. News reports first named Bolden as the expected successor to former NASA chief Michael Griffin in January and his selection gives him the biggest job for any Palmetto Stater in the Obama administration. One of South Carolina's U.S. Senators, Jim DeMint, has given Bolden's nomination a thumbs-up although given DeMint's personal philosophies he'll probably suggest eliminating NASA funding during the confirmation hearing.

So congrats, happy happy, and good luck to General Bolden. And Sir, just in case you're reading your clippings, it's one thing to put a man on the moon but isn't it about time to put a Gamecock in space? I'll keep my schedule open for you.

Stimulate Me!

Before we pack our bags and head west, Katie Rose and I are trying to unload some extra furniture. If the price is right, of course. Do yourself (and me) a favor and check out these AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! deals on craigslist, before our attorney general shuts it down.

Student Desk $30 OBO Sold!

2 Rocking Chairs $50 Sold!

50" Rear Projection HDTV $1000 OBO

Kitchen Table $50

I hope they have these in Colorado…

But I doubt it.

If there’s one thing all South Carolinians love, it’s food. And I’m not talking about some tofu, seven-grain, low carb or low calorie or low anything dishes. We love good food and we’ve gotten pretty good at making it. Hot spots for South Carolina’s best cooking can usually be found close to the coast, where Lowcountry folks have spent generations passing down, and honing, their family recipes. Today the New York Times featured just such a spot in its “Dining & Wine” section.

AT 3:45 on a recent Saturday morning — as frogs croaked into the void and a mufflerless pickup downshifted onto Cow Head Road — Rodney Scott, 37, pitmaster here at Scott’s Variety Store and Bar-B-Q, gave the order.

“Flip the pigs,” he said, his voice calm and measured. “Let’s go. Some char is good — too much and we lose

him.”

A. J. Shaw, a college student home for the summer, and Thomas Lewis, a onetime farmer, left their seats and joined Mr. Scott in the pit room, a rectangular shed dominated by two waist-high concrete banks, burnished ebony by wood smoke, ash and grease.

Ten butterflied pig carcasses — taut bellies gone slack, pink flesh gone cordovan — were in the pits when Mr. Lewis reached for the sheet of wire fencing on which

one of the pigs had been roasting since 4 the previous afternoon. In lockstep, Mr. Shaw topped that same pig with a second sheet of fencing, reached his gloved fingers into the netting, and grabbed hold.
As the men struggled, the 150 pounds of dead weight torqued the makeshift wire cage. When the carcass landed, skin-side down, on the metal grid of a recently fired pit, skeins of grease trailed down the pig’s flanks, and the smoldering oak and hickory coals beneath hissed and flared.

“I cooked my first one when I was 11,” Mr. Scott said, as he seasoned the pig with lashings of salt, red pepper, black pepper and Accent, a flavor enhancer made with MSG.

Working a long-handled mop, he drenched the pig in a vinegar sauce of a similar peppery composition. “You’ve got to always be on point, when you’re cooking this way,” he said. […]

The crowd that Saturday afternoon was typical: Half black and half white, half locals and half pilgrims.

Locals, many of whom work at the Tupperware plant, on the other end of Cow Head Road, came to pick up half-pound orders, pulled from various quadrants of the pig and tossed with sauce in the manner of a meat salad. They knew to ask Virginia Washington — Rodney Scott’s cousin, the woman behind the high-top order counter — for a cook’s treat of fried pig skin, still smoky from the pit, still crisp from the deep fryer.

DeeDee Gammage planned to eat her barbecue between slices of white bread, in the car, on the way home. Lou Esther Black told Mrs. Washington that she would serve her take-away atop bowls of grits on Sunday morning. “I let the grease from the meat be my sauce,” Ms. Black said. “You don’t need butter.”

Locals knew that if they dawdled until the serving table ran low, Jackie Gordon, Rodney Scott’s aunt, would break down another pig on the bone table. They knew that, with a little luck, they might score a rack of spareribs, wrenched hot from a carcass.

Pilgrims lacked the locals’ foresight, but made up for it in appetite. The average out-of-town order was two pounds.

In addition to pork, day-trippers bought sauce by the gallon, hot or mild. (They were probably not aware that the sole difference is how far Mrs. Washington dips her ladle into the jug and whether she stirs, to loosen the pepper sediment.)

At the register, out-of-towners bought quart jars of locally grown and ground cane syrup from Ella Scott, the 67-year-old mother of Rodney Scott, and wondered aloud whether any of that syrup made it into the family’s sauce. (When asked, all the Scotts will say is that it has “a little sugar.”)

Visitors took side trips to the smoke-shrouded pit house where pigs lay splayed and sauce-puddled. They stared down into the mop sauce bucket, where sliced lemons bobbed.

They ogled the five-foot-tall burn barrels, where hunks of wood the size of footstools flame, then smolder, then break down into the coals that Mr. Scott and his colleagues shovel into the pits. They traded theories about the barrels’ construction, about how the coal grates within are formed by piercing the steel barrels with a crisscross of truck axles.

“Back home they’ve just about gone to gas for cooking,” said David Hewitt of Florence, S.C., as he waited for his order. “And they serve on buffet lines. This place is the last of a breed. If you like history, this place is full of it.” […]

“This is a business for us,” [Mr. Scott] said. “We don’t do it the old way. We do it the best way we know how. That means a lot of oak. That means a lean pig, which means less grease and less a chance of grease fires. No matter which way you do it, though, some folks don’t want you to go nowhere.”

His son echoed his feelings. “People keep talking about how old-fashioned what we do is,” he said. “Old-fashioned was working the farm as a boy. I hated those long hours, that hot sun. Compared to that, this is a slow roll.”

Pig, Smoke, Pit: This Food Is Seriously Slow (NY Times)

The Scotts won’t make the trip to New York’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party this weekend, but South Carolina will be represented by Jimmy Hagood and his BlackJack BBQ out of Charleston. New Yorkers might get a small taste of barbecue done right this weekend, but they’ll miss out on the complete experience provided by the Scotts and countless other slow roll specialists found all over the Palmetto State.

For more on South Carolina barbecue, check out this article by Charleston City Paper's Jeff Allen. If you have the chance, be sure to visit the Scotts. It doesn't get more organic than this.