Nov 25, 2022·edited Nov 25, 2022Liked by Paul Bowers
We moved to SC because I was out of work and there are, or were, only five or six anthropologists with international experience who have taught in a B school. U of SC has a fancy International Biz school, and after nine years I've made a few friends and think most of the folks there are good people. Universities are hard places to work, and in SC it's hard to get good people to come and teach because of Henry and history and a general and often incorrect view that everyone in the State is a racist piece of crap. It turns out that they aren't. West Cola is a cheap place to live with kind neighbors who care more about if we left a car light on or a door open than whether or not our fam consists of two dudes, one an immigrant with a daughter. That's good. But after working with the local Dems a little (who has time to work on this political stuff: it's exhausting), I'm burned out on the whole deal, and I need to get back to a place where the politics are not quite as ugly. I'm retiring. I guess I don't have the guts to stay around so getting a paid subscription here is one little thing I can do. I met our State Treasurer when I went out to vote, and started to have a cordial and neighborly conversation with him but it turned into him walking away and telling me to go to hell because I didn't believe that AntiFa is real, and because I said Black Lives Matter isn't really a communist plot. The fact that the Democratic party couldn't find anyone to run against someone who is clearly more than a little psychotic and dangerous really bugs me. That guy is plumb scary crazy. He lied and said he lives in West Columbia. He doesn't. He lives in the gated community that's on Lexington County ground, not West Cola, the neighborhood where our B school Dean used to live, the guy we finally got rid of at Darla Moore. Now, the Provost, who seems nice, owns his house. It's isolated from the low-income apartments and the old post-war housing where non-tenured faculty and government office workers and auto mechanics live. I guess it's pretty much the same everywhere, but I just can't keep living around the corner from that Shooter's Supply place that sold that messed up kid the gun that killed the people in that prayer meeting in your part of the country. I just can't any more. Part of it is the humidity. Part of it is the 14 hour days grading papers and no weekends since I have a higher teaching load than most. Anyhow, South Carolina's been better to me than I deserve. I sure do appreciate your work, Paul.Take time for yourself.
Floridian here and I share your sadness at the state level races
We moved to SC because I was out of work and there are, or were, only five or six anthropologists with international experience who have taught in a B school. U of SC has a fancy International Biz school, and after nine years I've made a few friends and think most of the folks there are good people. Universities are hard places to work, and in SC it's hard to get good people to come and teach because of Henry and history and a general and often incorrect view that everyone in the State is a racist piece of crap. It turns out that they aren't. West Cola is a cheap place to live with kind neighbors who care more about if we left a car light on or a door open than whether or not our fam consists of two dudes, one an immigrant with a daughter. That's good. But after working with the local Dems a little (who has time to work on this political stuff: it's exhausting), I'm burned out on the whole deal, and I need to get back to a place where the politics are not quite as ugly. I'm retiring. I guess I don't have the guts to stay around so getting a paid subscription here is one little thing I can do. I met our State Treasurer when I went out to vote, and started to have a cordial and neighborly conversation with him but it turned into him walking away and telling me to go to hell because I didn't believe that AntiFa is real, and because I said Black Lives Matter isn't really a communist plot. The fact that the Democratic party couldn't find anyone to run against someone who is clearly more than a little psychotic and dangerous really bugs me. That guy is plumb scary crazy. He lied and said he lives in West Columbia. He doesn't. He lives in the gated community that's on Lexington County ground, not West Cola, the neighborhood where our B school Dean used to live, the guy we finally got rid of at Darla Moore. Now, the Provost, who seems nice, owns his house. It's isolated from the low-income apartments and the old post-war housing where non-tenured faculty and government office workers and auto mechanics live. I guess it's pretty much the same everywhere, but I just can't keep living around the corner from that Shooter's Supply place that sold that messed up kid the gun that killed the people in that prayer meeting in your part of the country. I just can't any more. Part of it is the humidity. Part of it is the 14 hour days grading papers and no weekends since I have a higher teaching load than most. Anyhow, South Carolina's been better to me than I deserve. I sure do appreciate your work, Paul.Take time for yourself.