RoguePlanet

2007-11-15T22:45:00.001-05:00

Just in case you haven't had enough of the SC Bar Exam

Here's a very nice editorial in The State . This is not something you'll hear me say often, but I think The State gets this exactly right.

This is probably the last you'll hear from me on this, unless I can think of something funny to say about it (unlikely), but NotVeryBright has been following it closely and will probably stay on it. I also recommend NVB's timeline here.

2007-11-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

More South Carolina Bar Exam stuff

As I posted below (semi-coherently), in March of this year the South Carolina Supreme Court issued an order changing the SC appellate court rule regarding bar examinations. Initially I posted, erroneously, that the new rule added a section prohibiting failing applicants (and their agents) from contacting the bar examiners or members of the Supreme Court about their grades, etc. Actually, that "prohibited contacts" section was in the old rule. What the Court did in the March, 2007 rule change was to remove the provisions allowing applicants to appeal a failing grade.

As part of my blogger public service I give you the pertinent provisions of the rule before the Court changed it:

Rule 402(i) Bar Examination

(5) Review of Failed Essay Sections Within fifteen (15) days of the date of the letter of notification, an applicant failing the Examination may, in writing, request permission to review the essay questions, model answers, and the applicant's answers for each essay section that the applicant failed. The request shall be accompanied by a filing fee of $25. The review shall be conducted in the Bar Admissions Office in Columbia, South Carolina, and the applicant will be notified of the date and time when the review will be conducted. No review or inspection of the Multistate Bar Examination will be permitted nor will the applicant be all,owed to copy or remove the essay questions, the model answers, or the applicant's answers. An applicant who receives 110 or less on the Multistate Bar Examination shall not be allowed any review of the essay questions, model answers or the applicant's answers.

(6) Re-grading. After reviewing the essay section, an applicant who feels an error has been made in grading may petition the Supreme Court to have the section re-graded. An original and two (2) copies of the petition, accompanied by a filing fee of $50, must be filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court within ten (10) days of the applicant's review of the essay section and must enumerate the alleged errors in grading. No briefing or argument is permitted. The only identifying mark to be placed on the petition is the identification number previously assigned to the applicant. Any reference to the applicant's other scores, economic status, social standing, employment, personal hardship, or other extraneous information is prohibited. If the petition is granted, the section shall be re-graded by the member or associate member assigned to the grad the section, and the Clerk shall notify the applicant of the results of the re-grading.

(7) Request for Verification of Multistate Bar Examination. While no review or inspection of the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) will be permitted, an applicant may request a hand grading of the MBE. Any such request must be filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court along with the applicable fee within fifteen days of the date of the letter of notification in (4) above.

(8) Prohibited contacts. An applicant shall not, either directly or through an agent, contact any member or associate member of the Board of Examiners or the Supreme Court regarding the questions on any section of the Bar Examination, grading procedures, an applicant's answers, or review or re-grading of any Examination. This provision does not prohibit an applicant from seeking a review, re-grading or verification in the manner provided by (5), (6), or (7) above.

As a result of the Court's March, 2007 order, section (5) and (6) above were removed and replaced with this language:

5) Access to Examination Answers; Re-grading or Other Review. No applicant shall be given access to the answers the applicant submitted during the examination. The results reported by the Board of Law Examiners are final, and no applicant shall be allowed to seek re-grading or any other review of the results of the examination.

(emphasis mine).

The "Prohibited Contacts" section was revised as follows:

(7) Prohibited Contacts. An applicant shall not, either directly or through an agent, contact any member or associate member of the Board of Law Examiners or any member of the Supreme Court regarding the questions on any section of the Bar Examination, grading procedures, or an applicant's answers. This provision does not prohibit an applicant from seeking verification of the MBE score as permitted by (6) above.

So, as a result of the amendment (read the whole thing here), applicants who can no longer review the essay exams that they failed and the model answers, and they can no longer request regrading (though they are still allowed to request verification of the "MBE" portion of their exams - the MBE is a section of multiple choice questions, graded by computer; the other bar exam sections consist of essay questions).

2007-11-14T00:28:00.000-05:00

Things you won't see Brad Warthen blogging about

See John McCain's classy response when asked "How do we beat the bitch?" by a supporter in South Carolina.

Who is that "lady," btw?

I stand corrected! Brad Warthen DID blog about this, sorta. One suspects Mr. Warthen would have been able to work up a righteous froth of indignation had it been, oh, say, John Edwards being cutesy in response to a question calling one of his competitors a vulgar name. But that's just how one is! Cranky and pessismistic. Also, one realizes that one is not in any position to criticize others for being vulgar, btw. One realize that one is coming from a position of weakness in that regard. One is not totally un-self-aware. Then again, one is not running for president, is one?

Mr. W. is going to have plenty of chances to pleasantly surprise one as this election progresses, so let's see what happens. One will not be holding ones breath, is all one can say.

2007-11-13T23:10:00.000-05:00

One of my questions answered

I posted earlier about the South Carolina bar exam flap. The South Carolina Supreme Court issued a terse statement Friday stating that the results of the Wills, Trusts, and Estates section of the exam were tossed out because the bar examiner, on October 31, reported a "scoring error" to the Supreme Court. The State newspaper reported that two of the people who benefited (by having their grades changed from "Fail" to "Pass") by tossing that portion of the test were the daughters of the state legislator who is chairman of the SC House Judiciary Committee, and the daughter of a sitting SC Circuit Court Judge. The legislator and the judge both acknowledged having contacted the Chairman of the Board of Bar Examiners.

In my post below, I wondered: "Did the examiner discover and report the error because of the communications by the legislator and the judge with the Chairman of the Board of Bar Examiners?"

According to a story The State published today, attorney George Hearn, who is the Chairman of the Board of Bar Examiners, says that he wasn't aware of anything being reported to the state Supreme Court:

The head of the board that grades the qualifying exam for South Carolina’s new lawyers says he was left out of the loop about a scoring error the Supreme Court cited in reversing grades for 20 people, including the children of a state lawmaker and a circuit judge.

S.C. Board of Law Examiners chairman George Hearn said neither the high court nor any of his board members informed him about the matter after the board submitted final scores of the July exam to the court before they were posted Oct. 26.
“Our board doesn’t have anything to do with it once we report the scores,” he told The State in an interview Monday. “Anything that happens afterward is done by the court.”

At this point your correspondent would just like to say that George Hearn is a local (Conway) attorney, and he and his firm have an excellent reputation. She herself would retain his firm if she ever needed an attorney, which she hopes she won't, and if she could afford it, which she hopes, someday, she could, whether or not she actually needed an attorney. She digresses. In short, she believes what he says here. Also, she doesn't know why she is referring to herself in the third person.

In any case, she is glad that the Chairman of the Board of Bar Examiners is clarifying his role, such as it was (nil, apparently) in the grade changing. However, as The State's reporter, Rick Brundrett, delicately puts it:

That apparently raises questions about what little the Supreme Court has said on the matter — that it was acting after “a scoring error reported by the examiner” Oct. 31.

It also would seem to put the court at odds with a new rule it imposed in March, banning any appeals and changes in grades after exam results are released.

Yes. So it would seem. Your correspondent hopes sincerely that the Supreme Court will further clarify this matter, in order to preserve the reputation of the legal profession in the eyes of the public . . . don't think she doesn't hear you giggling back there.

In related news, Rogue Planet favorite Thad the Impaler is one of the people who passed the bar exam without the Court's intervention. So, you know, how damn hard could it have been?

Clarification, or not: Maybe I'm making too much of this, but: Above, I said the examiner of the Wills, Trusts, and Estates portion of the bar exam reported a "scoring error" to the SC Supreme Court. However, if you read the Court's statement about this, it doesn't actually say that the examiner is the one who reported the error to the court. Rather: "On October 31, 2007, a scoring error reported by the examiner of the Wills, Trusts, and Estates Section, was communicated to the Clerk of Court." Thanks to the careless, or deliberately obscurative, use of the passive tense, we don't know WHO actually communicated the "scoring error" to the Clerk of the Supreme Court. The bar examiner "reported" it, according to the Court, but the Court doesn't say to whom the error was reported (Judge Burch? Rep. Harrison? The Clerk of the Supreme Court? Who knows?) If you parse the statement it's not clear the bar examiner who "reported" the error is the same person who "communicated" it to the Court. For whatever that's worth.

2007-11-12T18:58:00.000-05:00

Me blog pretty one day

Not Very Bright ran Rogue Planet through some kind of readaba - reedibbl - some kind of thing that annali - analisy - um, some thing that tells you how hard it is to read your blog. Anyway, this blog was rated "Elementary school."

Me so proud!

2007-11-09T19:09:00.000-05:00

Insert bad "bar" pun here

First of all, I apologize for my recent extended bout of non-blogging. I've been, ah, on strike. Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about something that caught my eye: Last week the South Carolina Supreme Court issued an order stating that the results of the "Wills, Trusts, and Estates" essay portion of the South Carolina bar examination would not be considered in grading the bar exam. As a result of this order 20 people who had received a failing grade had their grades changed to a passing grade. The State reported today that among the twenty are the daughter of the South Carolina House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Harrison, and the daughter of a state circuit court judge, Paul Burch.

Moreover, The State reports, the grade change came after both Rep. Harrison and Judge Burch contacted bar officials about the results. Rep. Harrison contacted the clerk of the South Carolina Supreme Court, as well as the attorney who is the chairman of the South Carolina Board of Law Examiners. Judge Burch also contacted the chairman of the Board of Law Examiners.

Here's the problem: In June of of this year, the State Supreme Court issued an order [Correction: The Court issued the order in March; the new rule became effective in June] changing the appellate court rules to remove a provision that allowed appeals of bar exam grades. The new rule (and the old one) contain this provision: *

(7) Prohibited Contacts. An applicant shall not, either directly or through an agent, contact any member or associate member of the Board of Law Examiners or any member of the Supreme Court regarding the questions on any section of the Bar Examination, grading procedures, or an applicant's answers.

You can read the order here.

Prior to that, the court rules governing the bar exam contained a specific procedure that allowed bar applicants who failed the exam to review the essay questions, model answers, and the applicants' responses, and to petition the state Supreme Court to have a section regraded. In amending the rule, the Court eliminated the appeal process, while leaving in place the "prohibited contacts" language. *

I know of two SC lawyers (one has since moved to another state) who, after initially receiving failing grades on the SC bar exam, requested to review the essay questions, and discovered errors that, when corrected, resulted in these attorneys being given passing grades. (In one of these cases, the attorney told me that the model answer actually contained an error of law, which he identified - one wonders how many people got unfairly docked on that year's exam and never knew it). As far as I know the Supreme Court has never published any information on the number of applicants who successfully appealed an initial failing grade. I would imagine that the number is small, and it's probably just a fluke that I know of two such people. But maybe there are more than I think.

Anyway, the old South Carolina appellate rules allowed bar applicants a formal appellate procedure. But on March 12 of this year, our Supreme Court changed its rules to deprive people of this option. In the order changing the rule, the Court pronounced: " In our opinion, the internal review process conducted by the Board is more than sufficient to insure that any error in grading is determined before the examination results are released."

Well, that is manifestly not accurate, then or now.

The difference is, then, if you were Joe Shmo, you could, if you had reason, appeal a failing grade. Now, you can't. But it sure looks like if you have the right parents, you can still get around the rule.

Initially, I understand, the Supreme Court gave no reason for its decision to toss out a whole section of the exam. Today, after The State ran its story, the Court issued this statement about the decision:

The results of the July 2007, South Carolina Bar examination were released on the Judicial Department website at 4 pm, October 26, 2007.

On October 31, 2007, a scoring error reported by the examiner of the Wills, Trusts, and Estates Section, was communicated to the Clerk of Court.

On November 1, 2007, the full Court was advised of the examiner's communication and determined that owing to this error the results of the affected section would not be considered.

I still have two questions: 1) Did the examiner discover and report the error because of the communications by the legislator and the judge with the Chairman of the Board of Bar Examiners? And 2) Was the error so egregious that it justified tossing the results of an entire essay portion of the bar exam?

Oh, and 3) Does the South Carolina Supreme Court still think the SC Bar examination grading and review procedures are error-proof, justifying the Court's new rule cutting off any appeals by the ordinary people taking the exam?

For all I know the 20 people who had their grades changed from Fail to Pass deserved it. But judging from the available information, it sure looks like if two of them didn't have well-connected fathers, they all would have been shit out of luck, as they say in the legal field. If there was an error in the exam or the scoring procedure I do NOT have a problem with correcting it - in fact, I think the Court was wrong to change the rule (it's not like THOUSANDS of people take the SC Bar exam every year, so it couldn't have been that burdensome). I do have a problem with the appearance created here of special treatment for people with the right connections. It just doesn't look good. I hope my impression is wrong, but until the Court and/or the Board of Bar Examiners do a bit more 'splaining, the negative impression isn't going to fade away.

By the way, here's an interesting blog post from Brad Warthen, editor of The State, on the anomymous tip he received about this story.

*Update/correction: I revised this post to better reflect the effect of the Supreme Court's rule change. The "prohibited contacts" language existed in the old rule; the main effect of the new rule was to eliminate the formal procedure for requesting review of ones' exam and re-grading.

2007-09-12T23:07:00.001-04:00

Ju Neyre

Fun with literature. Teh Invisible Woman is so talented!

2007-09-06T22:42:00.000-04:00

Networking, Republican-style

There's the restroom scene.

And then there's this:

Thursday, September 6, 2007

COLUMBIA — Former state treasurer Thomas Ravenel pleaded guilty this morning to a federal charge of possessing with intent to distribute cocaine.

Ravenel said he would buy cocaine occasionally and then might not do it for a month or a couple weeks. It was all about sharing it with people he was partying with and making contacts.

2007-09-06T22:32:00.002-04:00

45-year old Republican Blames Parents' Divorce For Coke Habit

that he claims started when he was 43.

Ravenel pleads guilty.

By ADAM BEAM and JOHN O’CONNOR, Staff Writers

Former state treasurer Thomas Ravenel admitted he’d been using cocaine for the past two years this morning in federal court in Columbia, as he pled guilty to conspiring to buy and distribute less than 100 grams of cocaine.

Ravenel, according to federal prosecutor, held parties at his home where he bought cocaine and gave it to party goers. Prosecutors say Ravenel on several occasions bought cocaine from co-defendant Michael L. Miller, a Charleston disc jockey.

Flanked by attorneys, Ravenel at first told Judge Joseph Anderson that he had not been treated for drugs, but then clarified that the treatment was more about his “childhood issues,” and “why I was engaging in reckless or immature behavior.”

This afternoon, Ravenel released a statement through his attorneys clarifying what he meant by “childhood issues.”

“The childhood issues I referred to are the ones that arose when my parents divorced 35 years ago when I was just 10 years old. A divorce is always hard on young children and, through counseling, I am learning that I am no exception to that rule,” he said.

[coughBULLSHITcough]

I wonder how long it will be before he's back in our faces again.

2007-09-06T22:32:00.001-04:00

Geez

It's been so long since I blogged I almost forgot my password.

Boy, that would have been a huge loss to the blogosphere . . .

2007-07-12T22:05:00.000-04:00

Churlish signs

I was driving on Highway 501 today and stopped for gas at Sparky's, pictured above, located a few miles west of Galivant's Ferry. Sparky's is one of those joints that line the roads into Myrtle Beach; it sells fireworks, moccasins, shells, Myrtle Beach t-shirts, hats, bumper stickes, and other such, well, shit.

So I thought this sign near the gas pumps was refreshing example of truth in advertising:

When I went inside to pay for my gas, a hand-lettered sign greeted me. It said:

NO Heelys
or rollerskating!
NONE!

And in tiny letters underneath:

For your safety

Inside Sparky's, a dozen or more hectoring signs festooned the walls. And the support posts, and the display cases, and the cash register.

This was actually the most polite one:

On a post near a stack of styrofoam cups customers can fill with peanuts, handlettered signs warned, "If you overfill cup and lid does not fit, YOU WILL BE CHARGED EXTRA!!!"

Over some clear bins containing candy sold by the pound, signs read, "IF YOU SCOOP CANDY YOU MUST PAY FOR IT!!" and "DO NOT MIX CANDY!!"

And so forth.

I was a little put off by the angry tone of these interior signs. The implied accusation that I would overfill my peanut cup insulted me. I mean, what kind of ill-mannered person does Sparky's think I am? But I do appreciate the candor of the outdoor sign. We need more of that kind of honesty in the retail business.

(Don't give me any grief about those pictures. I never said I was a photographer)

2007-07-12T21:58:00.000-04:00

Bush's Al Qaeda-rebuilding initiative a huge success!

See here.

Credit where credit is due.

2007-07-12T21:17:00.000-04:00

Two degrees of separation from Atrios

Atrios links to (the Republican-ish) Palmetto Scoop's post linking to NotVeryBright's post (by Silence Dogood) about Junior DeMint's empathizing with poor Senator Vitter.

Congrats, NVB! And condolences also - you wuz robbed of your rightful link!

2007-07-05T22:50:00.001-04:00

Tell me how you really feel, God

Last week, You killed a kitten I had been feeding. Sure, I probably had some kind of divine punishment coming, but did You have to take it out on the poor kitty?

A few days later I was driving east on Highway 501. There were big fluffy cumulus clouds in the sky. One cloud, looming directly over the highway, was shaped like a forearm, extending a clenched fist. It was giving me the finger.

Was it something I said, God? Or maybe You were flipping some other motorist off?

2007-06-30T14:03:00.000-04:00

The straw that broke the camel's back for the GOP base

Brown people speaking Meskin.

Here in South Carolina the far-right Republican base was already ticked at Lindsey Graham for helping engineer the "Gang of 14" compromise on Bush's judicial nominations, among other things, but his support of the now-dead immigration bill has driven them into a blind, frothing rage. Just check out the comments at Brad Warthen's blog here.

I think these remarks by President Bush, posted June 3, 2007 on the official White House website, pretty much sum it up:

President Bush Rigorously Defends Immigration Bill to His Rapidly Imploding Base of Xenophobic Crackers

Folks, we've been together through a lot. And you've stood by me through it all. Through the illegitimate election of 2000. Through the double-dip recession. Through the terror attacks of 9/11TM. Through Enron. Through the botched war in Afghanistan and failed hunt for Osama bin Laden. Through the clusterfuck kickoff to the Iraq war in 2003. Through the Patriot Act and illegal wiretapping of innocent Americans. Through "Mission Accomplished." Through Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and a policy of torture. Through Katrina. Through failed Social Security reform. Through Armstrong Williams & Jeff Gannon. Through Terri Schaivo. Through Tom Delay. Through Mark Foley. Through Scooter Libby. Through $3.00 gas. Through Walter Reed. Through "the Surge". Through Alberto Gonzales. And now even through 3500 US troops killed in Vietraq.

And after all that, the thing it takes to get you folks pissed at me is letting a few million Mexi-Ricans pour over our borders and steal your jobs so you can't afford to put Ramen on the table? Well, I think I understand your problem. On one hand, you correctly accept that I'm practically Jesus. But on the other hand, you can't help but feel a surge of simple-minded, paranoid racist hatred every time you hear one of those dirty Spics yammering away in that nonsense gibberish of theirs

Sure enough:

GAINESVILLE, GA -- Stephanie Usrey strode up to her local Wal-Mart store the other morning with the steely look of a boxer about to step into the ring.

A stay-at-home mother of two, Usrey has dreaded shopping at this particular branch ever since a Friday afternoon about five years ago, when she said she suddenly noticed she was the only non-Latino customer.

“That was the first time I looked around and said, ‘Man, I didn’t realize how many Mexicans there were here,’ ” Usrey, 39, recalled. “And they don’t seem to feel any discomfort when they’re, like, six inches from your face and talking to each other in their language, either. I just felt very encroached upon. . . . It was like an instant feeling of ‘I’m in the minority, and if we don’t get control over this, pretty soon all of America will be outnumbered.’”

Yep. Lindsey Graham may well be facing defeat in the next election due to his failure to apprehend the desire of Americans in elastic-waist stretch pants not to hear any funny languages.

I myself was in the local Wal-Mart Superstore recently (I know, I know. Sorry). When I got to the checkout line, I looked around and realized that every other person in every checkout line, not just mine, was hispanic. And yes, they were speaking in Spanish. I didn't have time to become irate at all those people speaking not-American around me, because I was too busy enjoying the realization that I was the tallest person in the whole front of the store. At five feet three inches tall, I don't get to experience that sensation very often. So I'm all for more immigration, for people of smaller stature than me.

However, there is a progressive, non-xenophobic case to be made against the immigration bill, and here it is.

(WaPo article via Sadly, No! )

2007-06-30T13:28:00.000-04:00

Thad Viers, victim

Thad the Impaler's supporters, all three of them, write The Sun News.

The first letter comes from Ms. D__ M_________ of Socastee:

Viers is 'big enough person' in situation

I was very happy to read the article on Rep. Thad Viers and to know it is over. The testimony given by Viers speaks of what a gentleman he is and how he took full responsible [sic] of the charges against him.

Well, no. Mr. Viers continued to blame unnamed "friends" for making some of the calls. The accounts I've read of the tapes from reporters who have heard them mention only one caller, so I think Mr. Viers is full of baloney when he blames others. But whatever.

James Zeigler was not man enough to say whether or not he is still seeing [Viers' estranged wife, Natalie] McKelvey.

Not sure how that is relevant to Mr. Viers' criminal charges.

Viers is a big enough person to offer to take the paternity test, as the story stated now McKelvey is pregnant.

No news accounts have said anything about Viers offering to take a paternity test, and he and Ms. M have been separated for some time. This statement is just a bizarre non sequitur, and I can't imagine why The Sun News didn't edit it out of the letter. Then again, they'll print anything in their letters section.

This is more than I read in your paper about Zeigler. I think it is time the people of Horry County understand the type of a man Viers is.

Oh, I think they do.

We should all be praying for him now. It is time for him to be able to go on with his life.

Yes, let us all stop holding the criminal actions of this elected official up to public scrutiny.

The second letter comes from Mr. J___ W__________ of Myrtle Beach:

Viers' complainant should expect calls

Re Rep. Thad Viers' threatening phone calls:
Enough is enough. It's not like this isn't happening at an alarming rate in our communities and our nation.

What, there's an epidemic of elected officials calling their estranged wives' paramours and making threats against the paramours' mothers? I had no idea.

Yes, Thad was wrong, and I don't condone his actions. But let's be realistic. Any man who dates another man's wife opens himself up to the cards that are dealt. How many times have we read about jealous husbands shooting their wife's lover? I think this guy played it to the hilt.

Yeah, the guy's just lucky Thad didn't shoot him with his new AK-47.

Then there's this from Ms. B______ C_________ of Myrtle Beach:

Shame on Mark Sanford [note from kc: Sanford wanted to censure Viers]. I am sure if someone researched back his or his employees' lives, they would find some bad behavior.

Thad Viers is a fine young representative. My husband and I have met him and his ex-wife. He tries to do what's right but he is human, so who can cast the first stone?
He should never have gone to trial. People say things before they think, especially when it comes to exes. Do not hurt this man's career because of a lapse. We'd like to see him run for governor one day. How would Sanford like that? If Sanford wants to do something, how about stopping these rising gas prices?

Also, there are always two sides to every story. What about this ex-wife?

"What about this ex-wife?" Geez.

Classy supporters for a classy politician.

UPDATE - or maybe I should call it a "CORRECTION": In comments, Silence Dogood (who blogs here) says he attended the hearing and that the prosecution noted that not all of the phone calls were from Viers, "but that the worst ones did seem to be his voice." Thanks for the info, Mr. Dogood!

2007-06-30T13:01:00.000-04:00

Shorter Douglas Kendall

"I was 100 percent wrong about Justice Roberts and I'm damn proud of it!"

Context here.

2007-06-30T11:35:00.001-04:00

Saturday catblogging

Romeo. He's looking good these days, fat and frisky.

2007-06-29T00:09:00.000-04:00

Growing up in Hell

This is a great post by JuBlu, nka The Nvisible Wmn. I love it. I command you to read it now.

2007-06-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

Happy cat blogging!

OK, time for a success story: The orange cat is named Romeo. He and the gray kitty both came to my house on the same day back in January. After that first day, the gray kitty went back to his original home, I guess, and I didn't see him again for a while. He reappeared in late February or early March and graced me with his sweet presence until yesterday.

Anyway, back in January, I was inside one Saturday morning and heard Rocky yowling his little head off. Rocky was sitting at the door that opens onto the deck and staring intently outside. I went over to look and there was a beautiful little gray kitten out there. I went outside to pet it; it ran off a short distance, but then stopped and rolled over and let me come up and rub its tummy while it purred like mad. It was the gray kitty in the post below. It was, I guessed, about 3 or 4 months old then.

When I stood up from playing with this kitten, I saw a big orange cat squeezing under the fence that separates my place from the crab man's house. The big orange cat strolled confidently right over to me and started rubbing on my legs. I petted it for few minutes, then went back inside.

An hour or so later I looked out the front door and the big orange cat was sitting on the front porch, staring in the house. I went outside and tried to gently shoo it away.

The cat hissed at me! "Hey, who do you think you are?" I said. "This is MY house."

The cat stayed on the porch all evening. When I opened the door Sunday morning, there it was. Staring at me with big green eyes. It was there all day Sunday, and Monday morning when I went to work, the cat was still on the porch.

"Look, I am not going to feed you," I told it. "You can just forget about that. What kind of sucker do you take me for?"

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the cat was on my front porch. It was there when I went to work and there when I got home.

"I am telling you, I am not going to feed you," I said. "Go home! Go to your own house and eat! Don't your own people have food? Stop looking at me like that!"

The cat's fur was coming out in great tufts. After a couple of days my welcome mat was coated with orange fur. Most of the fur was coming off the cat's hind end. The cat had longish hair, with a ruff around the neck, and a rather large head. Its skin was lumpy, and it had little sores and scabs here and there on the bare parts. A very bedraggled creature. Still, it carried itself with dignity. With the skinny, hairless back end and the big furry head and chest it looked kind of like a little lion.

The following Saturday, the cat was still there. It seemed to have gotten skinnier since it had started hanging around my house. As far as I could tell, it had been camping on my front porch or under my bushes day and night; it hadn't been going anywhere else to eat. I wimped out and fed it. It gobbled the food up as if it had been starving for, like, a week.

So I started feeding it morning and evening, and putting water out for it.

The cat looked like a male, but it didn't have any . . . well, you know . . . so I wasn't sure. One day I saw the crab man's daughter outside and asked her if the big orange cat belonged to them.

"Oh, that's Romeo," she said. "He's the one that started it all. That's why we have all these cats. I hope he's not bothering you."

"No, no, he's fine," I said. "I like him."

I wasn't sure if she meant that Romeo was the daddy of the dozen or so cats that hung around the crab man's place or if he was just the first cat they owned. Anyway, I started looking at him as sort of a feline patriarch after that, albeit one who had his . . . well, you know . . . cut off.

I took Romeo to the vet to get vaccinated and to have his skin condition checked out. I didn't ask the crab man first. I figured that the cat probably hadn't had his shots, even though someone had taken the trouble to get him fixed. The vet told me it wouldn't hurt him to be vaccinated more than once, on the off chance that someone had already taken care of that.

Romeo tested positive for FIV. When the vet told me that I blurted, "Well, I'm not gonna have him put down!" That wouldn't be necessary, the vet said, cats with FIV can live long lives. But the virus could be transmitted to other cats via a deep bite, so there would be some risk to other cats. The vet said it was fairly common in strays, ferals, and cats who live outdoors.

The vet estimated Romeo's age to be 11 or 12. His skin condition was probably from flea allergies. Otherwise, he seemed to be in pretty good shape.

Early in March I put my hand on his right flank when I was putting his food down and noticed that it felt slightly hardened in the area of his right rear leg. It didn't seem to bother him, though, and I didn't think much of it.

A week or so later, I noticed that he had a lump under the skin near the right rear leg. Still, he gave no sign that he was in any discomfort, and he was just an outside cat, not even technically mine, and I had already spent well $100.00 on him so I figured the lump had better just go away because what did I look like, some kind of cat rescue mission?

A few days later the lump was the size of a golf ball, and so I loaded him up and took him back to the vet. A different vet saw him, and she thought maybe it was cancer. So there I was wondering if I was going to have to finance chemofreakintherapy, for a stray cat! That was not my cat!

A few days later, the test came back negative for cancer. Phew. I went to the vet to pick up the antibiotics they'd prescribed. This was a Saturday morning, again.

When I got home, I went to pick Romeo up to put him on my lap and give him the first pill, and felt a big wet spot on his fur. When I inspected him I saw that the lump was now oozing reddish fluid. Ick. I called the vet to see what I should do, and they said bring him in. So I did.

A few hours and hundred dollars later the vet told me Romeo had a very deep and messy abcess that they'd misdiagnosed the first time. Romeo wasn't running a fever and didn't seem overtly sickly, which I thought was a good thing, but the vet said that was actually a bad sign - his immune system was compromised because of the FIV, and it wasn't fighting off the infection.

The vet prescribed an intensive regimen of antibiotics, and I installed the cat in a spare bedroom for the next couple of weeks in hopes of keeping the abcess from getting worse and so that I could medicate him and keep an eye on him. After two weeks, the swelling was down and the wound was healed. And Romeo's skin was smooth and his fur was coming back in . . . he looked downright glossy. The vet gave him a clean bill of health.

At that point I would have been happy to let him live inside, but Romeo clearly was ready to go back outside and be Lord of the Porch. So I let him, and he's out there now. He looks good and seems content, and I just hope he stays that way for a long time.

Now, my friend Anntichrist is trying to raise money for a spay/neuter organization in Louisiana. All you have to do is take a poll (and Annti's raising money too, if you're so inclined). If you like cats, go check it out. Go check it out even if you can't stand cats . . . if you don't like them, you ought to give double to a spay/neuter group!

2007-06-26T21:45:00.001-04:00

More sad kitty blogging

I might as well bum y'all out some more. This is one of a trio of cats that has been mooching off me this year. Him, the gray kitty below, and the orange cat above. Black Cat wasn't the prettiest cat I've ever seen, and he wasn't the most charming, but he did have a certain feisty appeal. He stopped coming around a few weeks ago. I went around the neighborhood looking for him, with no luck. I assume the worst. There are speeding cars, raccoons, dogs, cat-hating humans, probably a gator or too. It's tough out there for a kitty.

I wish I could take them all in the house and make indoor cats of them, but I already have three shelter rescues

2007-06-25T19:08:00.001-04:00

Sad kitty blogging

This little kitty has been hanging around my house for a few months, and of course I've been feeding him. He's a little sweetheart; if I'm sitting on the deck, he'll come and jump in my lap. He's lounging in a beach chair in the pic above. With a martini.

Anyhoo, he's been lethargic for the last few days and he stopped eating almost entirely this weekend, so I took him to the vet this a.m. Long story short, he's very sick and might not make it through the night (he's at the vet. hospital now). So please keep your fingers crossed for the little guy.

UPDATE: He didn't make it. The poor little thing. I feel silly being so bummed about about the death of a neighborhood stray. But he was a special little kitty.

2007-06-22T19:50:00.000-04:00

Blogrollofascism!

Fellow South Carolina blogger Notverybright has de-blogrolled me for the thought crime of not blogging. Fools! Don't you know that my not-blogging is actually an advanced form of blogging? That by posting nothing, I am speaking volumes? Obviously the left blogosphere is intimidated by the sophistication of my not-blogging, as evidenced by Notverybright's attempt to assassinate my character by de-blogrolling me.

Actually Notverybright has fallen into the clever trap I have set by not-blogging for many months. I just knew that if I not-blogged long enough, someone would de-blogroll me, thus drawing even more attention to Rogue Planet. The joke is on you, my friend!

[/Althouse]

2007-06-21T00:21:00.000-04:00

Thad the Impaler

'Member Thad Viers? Socastee, SC's Republican representative to the South Carolina House of Representatives? Mr. Viers was accused of using his cell phone to make threatening phone calls to his estranged wife's paramour. Mr. Viers claimed his buddies used his cell phone to make the calls. With friends like that, eh?

When yours truly last blogged about Mr. Viers I was expressing puzzlement that he was being allowed to enter pretrial intervention. As it turns out, a judge revoked the PTI and ordered Mr. Viers to stand trial; he pleaded no contest last week and was fined $500.00. His attorney said he was a victim of luv. Love makes people do funny things:

In copies of the recordings obtained by McClatchy Newspapers, a caller tells Ziegler to expect to be attacked and beaten. The caller repeats profanities in describing various sex acts that he claims to have performed with Ziegler's girlfriend, as well as with Ziegler's mother.

Ah yes. In the Spring a young man's fancy turns lightly to thoughts of having sex with his estranged wife's new lover's mother.

The GOP leadership of the SC House has declined to discipline Mr. Viers. The Sun News editorial board is not happy with that decision.

I don't really have much new to say about Mr. Viers . . . I just wanted to use "Thad the Impaler" before I forgot.

2007-06-20T23:29:00.000-04:00

Free T-Rav!

I have mixed feelings about Thomas Ravenel's being charged with possession with intent to distribute a bucketfull of cocaine.

On the one hand, I think cocaine possession should not be a criminal offense, and it's a damn shame that a man is facing 20 years in federal prison for a non-violent, victimless offense.

On the other hand . . . BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA! HOO-HOOOOO! HEEHEHEEEE! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

A-HEM. Excuse me while I compose myself.

Ravenel is - was - the Republican treasurer of South Carolina. He's the millionaire son of longtime SC politician Arthur Ravenel (who wanted to have the military shoot down planes merely suspected of drug smuggling and, uh . . . HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Er, sorry.). Ravenel's name was being bandied about South Carolina as a potential ultra-right-wing GOP challenger to Senator Lindsey Graham, the dread TRAITOR to the GOP ideal of no-more-brown people and one of the scurrilous Gang of 14. I guess that's out now, and we will, alas, be deprived of the fun of watching two swingin' single bachelors (NTTAWWT!) compete for the GOP nomination for Senator from South Carolina. Ah, well.

According to The State newspaper, the Ravenel investigation originated with the Charleston Police Department, which asked the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to get involved; when SLED learned of the involvement of a government official who "administers the use of vast public funds," IT asked the feds to come in. Hence the federal indictment. Fun item of trivia: Attorney Reginald Lloyd signed the indictment. Mr. Lloyd became the US Attorney for SC just last year. In March of this year, Senator Graham recommended Mr. Lloyd for a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster will surely punish me for the unseemly glee I felt when I first read the news. In fact, the FSM has already shown His displeasure: Governor Sanford has appointed would-be book-banner Ken Wingate to replace party-boy Ravenel. Let that be a lesson to me.

Update: Soaring and roaring.