Dreams Orgs Have For The Future

Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding (CATR Farms) has a dream. This amazing organization dreams of having a covered riding ring for the kids they serve.

A covered riding ring is crucial in the volatile weather conditions of the South Carolina Lowcountry. And when disabled school children travel all the way to John’s Island to CATR Farms, from surrounding areas, for their lessons, lessons they are so excited and anticipatory about, and then it starts pouring rain and there’s no sheltered arena, their lessons must be canceled.

And the kids are sent home for the day… very disappointed needless to say.

Of course, covering for a riding ring is not some inexpensive item you can run off and buy from Home Depot. I wouldn’t venture a guess at how much they cost, but let’s just say it’s a lot more than CATR Farms currently has in their coffers.

Wednesday September 16, 2009, was a special fund raising day for the good folk at CATR Farms, which was founded in 1991 by (retired) professional riders/jockeys Meta Carter (my aunt) and Eileen McGuffie of Charleston, SC. A cousin, veterinarian Dr. Grayson Carter Hudgins, serves on the current CATR board too.

On Sept. 16, CATR Farms held a fund raising luncheon at the famous Mills House Hotel in Charleston. I couldn’t be there for that in person, but I made a little presentational video about one of the many unique programs at CATR Farms, interactive vaulting, they showed during the luncheon.

You can see that video here too:
http://vimeo.com/6593557

Please think about making any kind of donation to CATR Farms in your financial planning for this year or next! Or sharing this on your Facebook Wall.

You’re going to love the way those kids will smile… all day long… under that covered riding arena!

CATR Farms is on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1018796403&ref=ts

Wasted Multimedia Opportunity For S.C. Newspaper

Let’s put this one in the why-newspapers-are-dying cat: so the Rock Hill (South Carolina) Herald gets a line on a truly amazing story… that the white racist who beat John Lewis at a bus station back in 1961 was seeking John Lewis’ forgiveness for his (white racist dude’s) ugly past actions. Amazing, eh?! You better believe it is.

So the white man/former racist travels to Washington to visit with Lewis, to ask Lewis’ forgiveness in person.  (The pathetic creature didn’t even realize that the black man he’d beaten-up back in 1961 was a longtime, famous Congressman now. That’s how ignorant and small-minded the racist dude really was.)

So, back to my mostly media point here, and I do have a BIG one today. The white man is from Rock Hill, SC. His story makes its way to the Rock Hill Herald, the local newspaper. The newspaper sends a reporter, Andrew Dys, to Washington, DC with the white man to document him seeking Rep. Lewis’ forgiveness.

Great story, right? And you, if you were the Rock Hill Herald, pretty much have an exclusive, except for a pesky Good Morning America crew that weaseled their way into Congressman Lewis’ office too for this great story.

Thing is, the Rock Hill Herald shows-up to their story with a pen, paper… and a still camera. Considering that you can pick-up a video camera for about $100. at Wal-Mart on your way to any interview, wherever, that strikes me as just plain backwards – with no multimedia thinking whatsoever about the Rock Hill Herald’s website presence in this near-exclusive. And we wonder why newspapers are dying…

GMA was there in Lewis’ DC office with a camera crew. (See the Herald’s slide show.) But as of 2pm on Feb. 5, 2009, GMA has yet to broadcast their version of the story, presumably captured on some kinda video format.

Meanwhile, the Rock Hill Herald could have had their video version, whipped-up cheap, all over the Internet by now if they’d taped something. Anything! The lil ‘ole Herald could have had a serious exclusive by now.

I know for a fact CNN, for instance, would have loved to have acquired any videotape of the Washington encounter, had there been any to acquire. That way, CNN too could have beaten GMA to their own “exclusive” in the process.

Come to think about it, there’s really not much you can label “exclusive” nowadays… unless you neglect to bring along a video cam. So watch GMA Friday morning if you gotta have your “exclusive” modern moving images.

Scenes From My Hometown: Kershaw, South Carolina

A few scenes shot in my hometown of Kershaw, South Carolina on 1-19-08. Song used to set the appropriate mood is “Useless Desires” from the 2004 Patty Griffin LP, Impossible Dream.

more about “Scenes From My Hometown: Kershaw, Sou…“, posted with vodpod

Marxist Revealed

Dude who’s done these posters, including that most iconic image of this election year of Obama in the above style, is from Charleston, South Carolina. Who’d have thought?!

Georgia’s In Play

Very latest IA/PP poll says Georgia is a “toss-up” state. For the presidential and Senate races. Whatever happened to being a “swing” state? Or “battleground” state? Guess that was soooo last week.

10/24/08 – A new InsiderAdvantage / Poll Position survey shows Georgia is a toss-up state in both the U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns.

In the presidential race, Barack Obama has a slight edge over John McCain, although it is within the margin of error. In the U.S. Senate race, Saxby Chambliss has a 2-point edge over Jim Martin, although it, too, is within the margin of error.

The two polls were conducted last night, each with 615 registered, likely voters. The margin of errors for both is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Full story/poll results here. Still, anyone holding their breath for the South to rise again on Nov. 4 had better look to the situation in South Carolina. There’s whisperin’ goin’ on though that’s fer sure. SC wants their Obama appearance bad.

Keeping Eyes On The Prize In SC

more about “Keeping Eyes On The Prize In SC“, posted with vodpod

Mental Health Care History and Treatment in the South

Dr. Dorothy Fowles Kendall of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, a debutante-turned-psychiatrist from S.C. talks candidly about the history of treating mental illness in the South. And the impact of mental illness on homelessness, her area of expertise.

About 33 minutes into the discussion, the conversation turns to mental health issues as they related to veterans. Kendall notes that our history of warfare in the South offers an interesting and unique aspect to the area of post-traumatic stress disorders.

Dr. Kendall proceeds her discussion with SCETV’s Walter Edgar with the disclosure that she became interested in treating mental illness when an uncle of hers committed suicide when she was a child. That uncle of hers was one of my father’s best friends growing-up in S.C.

The podcast can be downloaded here for the next few days. It’s titled: Dr. Dorothy Fowles Kendall of South Carolina…

South Carolina – Please Try Secession. Again.

South Carolinians… whatcha gonna do with ‘em?! Two prime examples moving along through the Internets are here and here. Someone put a fence around that place. And soon.

H/T to Grift for signage video.