Sometime around 2003, I came up with an idea that blew my own socks off. It’s like…one of those calendars where you tear off a page each day of the year. Here’s what I was envisioning …

Say it’s Monday, February 2nd, 2014. You look to see what interesting quip or fun fact may await. In anticipation you read the following, “Filipino flag art novena november allegory alligator I hate my mother cum on her face.” See, the idea is you do one of those stream of consciousness things once a day for a year, then format it and have it printed out in tear-off calendar form and give it to a friend as a present. It’s a great bonding tool that will expose the dark depths of your subconscious and help someone keep track of the day of the week.

But I digress.

My name’s Gloria. I’m going to talk with you about something that seems very important and relevant to our city of Spartanburg. I’m talking about graffiti. Often looked at as an opportunity to quickly “tag” a building with a gang sign. Stuff that is to be cleaned off as soon as the paint dries. But there’s so much more to it than that.
Let’s say, for hypotheticalish sake, that I painted an amazing portrait of a long-dead porn star on the side of the huge BB&T bank downtown (the one that looks like an Egyptian fortress), holding in her right hand the cricket from “Pinocchio” and in her left a white plastic saint. How perplexing would that be? Would you have the fortitude to just wash it off? Or would you be so intrigued that you made it your mission to find the perpetrator and discover his/her intentions?

I envision many a citizen’s life forever altered by such an encounter. Even if they don’t realize it yet. How worth it to have some husband and father of three, eating dinner with his family one November evening and that graffiti’d image just pop right in there, leaving him baffled with this fuzzy feeling that he’s been throwing his life away. Next thing you know he leaves his wife and children in order to become an artist, moves to Papeete and invents some new kind of painting technique before dying of syphilis. We’ve just created a brand new Paul Gauguin (pronounced GyOWWGWEENN). I mean the leaving his wife and children part is regrettable, but for god’s sake think of the post-impressionism!

In that one regard at least, I’m a pretty lucky guy this week, because I get to write about a topic that has literally been on my list of things to write about since I first started writing for the Spark: the Spartanburg County Democratic Party.

I’ve resisted writing about the local Democratic Party for as long as I have because honestly, it’s a really complicated, multi-faceted topic that I don’t completely feel can be given justice with just one measly column. The problems with Spartanburg’s Democrats are so massive from my point of view, that even attempting to get some of it down involves agonizing over what specifically to write about, because writing about it all—at least all at once—is not an option.

As they say though, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with…blah, blah, blah.

What prompted me to write this column now—as opposed to a year ago or never—was an article in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal last week about the local party’s biannual convention held last Monday. The article itself is a testament to the stellar journalistic work I’ve come to expect from the SH-J, clocking in at around 500 words and dropping the sort of knowledge on the reader that probably would’ve worked better as a tweet on Twitter reading something like: “This just in: local Democrats unhappy with GOP leadership in SC.”

It’s pretty easy to go after the SH-J for their coverage of that “other” political party in town. While they go out of their way to cover local GOP candidates and internal intrigue, searching for a quote from a local Democrat in one of our local paper’s political pieces is like looking for real meaning in a Taylor Swift album; it might be there, but you’re going to have a hell of a time finding it.

In my opinion though, at least part of that is the Democrats’ fault. Call me cynical if you want, but I have a hard time believing that a senior official with the local branch of one of our country’s two major political parties would have that hard a time getting at least some coverage in local media when there’s an issue being debated. For whatever reason though, most of our local political debates seem to happen without much input at all from the local Democratic Party. In fact, with the exception of what happens here on the Spark, I’d say that most of the issue debate played out in the local media happens between members of the mainstream right and the extreme right. The left is shut out completely.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I’ve always believed that the local party’s job in a region where conservatives dominate is to be the voice of progressive dissent and opposition, providing a platform for issues to be raised that otherwise wouldn’t be part of the local conversation. The Spartanburg County Democratic Party fails miserably at this job. They’re not even a blip on the local political radar.

I know what the excuses have typically been for the local party’s low profile, and I don’t disagree with them, at least not completely. I know that the party doesn’t have nearly the amount of money that the local Republicans have. I know they’re a small minority in a county that typically votes for the GOP candidate in the general election by 25% or better. I don’t even complain when they can’t find candidates to run in some local races. Asking someone to put up their name, their time, and their money campaigning for a solid GOP seat just so they can be slaughtered on Election Day is often too much to ask.

Still, I can’t help but think that problem of unwinnable seats, as well as the lack of enthusiasm and even the problem of money are at least partly the local Democrats’ fault. There are things that could be done at a grassroots level that simply aren’t being done.

The problem of local media coverage is easy enough to solve, even assuming that the party has no money, and is facing a local paper that would rather pretend they don’t exist. The Spartanburg County Democratic Party needs to join the Internet age.

Something as simple as a regularly updated blog, some video content, and a more user-friendly website would go a long way towards helping that problem. Social networking couldn’t hurt either. As it stands right now, the local Democrats have a Facebook page with 71 members that’s been updated just twice in the past month. Keep in mind, this is an election year that we’re talking about. We should be bombarded with all kinds of content right now, but we’re not. Anything that inserts the party into the local conversation is a good thing, and any content at the very least will force the people who end up reading or seeing it to consider positions they might otherwise have never considered.

Enthusiasm and money are different issues in a way, but they’re not entirely unrelated. What the local Democratic Party needs most, is some new blood.

Before you start thinking I’m solely blaming the people currently involved with the local party for the state of things, let me clarify something. I don’t think there’s been nearly enough involvement from Spartanburg’s local progressive community in the local Democratic Party. I’ve heard lots of reasons for this, most having to do with watching every candidate with a “D” beside his or her name go down in flames in election after election.

The argument that I’ve most often heard is that local progressives should hyper-localize their focus, meaning that we should deal mostly with the infinitely less frustrating City of Spartanburg, and accept conservative dominance of the county and state government. From a certain point of view, that argument makes a lot of sense. The city government, while nowhere near perfect, isn’t bound by the same sort of extreme anti-government conservatism that dominates every other level of government in South Carolina.

Trying to get even the most basic things from the county, like a reasonable land-use policy, has led to nothing but frustration among local progressives. For it’s part, the state government seems more interested in debating bills that cut taxes for people buying second homes and force welfare recipients to be tested for drugs than they do in dealing with any of the real problems facing regular people in South Carolina. For local progressives, going hyper-local means having the sort of real influence that just isn’t possible at any other level, at least not right now.

That “right now” part is what bothers me though. If we want to build a larger progressive movement in Spartanburg County, and even in South Carolina as a whole, there’s no better time to start that gigantic undertaking than right now. The longer we wait, the deeper the hole the extreme right is digging us into gets.

Focusing on the City of Spartanburg is great, but it’s also very limiting. Because of South Carolina’s unbelievably archaic annexation laws, cities like Spartanburg are much smaller than they would be in any other state. Spartanburg’s being smaller than it should be means that it has less influence than it should have, meaning that the county has far more influence than it should have. So while some great things have come from, and will continue to come from the progressive presence in city government, the county and state get even more free reign than they would have otherwise, and issues much larger than the boundaries of the City of Spartanburg are decided without even hearing a dissenting view from local progressives.

Local political parties are interesting things. They can become more or less whatever their membership wants them to become. If the Spartanburg County Democratic Party is going to become a relevant entity in Spartanburg’s political discussion, it’ll need some new people around who are more willing to speak up. It won’t solve any of those problems facing the party overnight, and many of the challenges of being a minority party may never be solved. Recruiting candidates who are willing to run against unbeatable GOP opponents just for the sake of raising progressive issues is likely to always be a challenge, and while I think the money situation could improve, I doubt that Spartanburg’s Democrats will ever have the type of funding enjoyed by the local Republican Party.

Those aren’t reasons not to shake things up though. The Spartanburg County Democratic Party needs to craft a coherent and cohesive message, and learn how to get that message out there in an age where local media bias doesn’t matter the same way it did ten years ago, or even five years ago. In getting that message out there, there’s a good chance of inspiring those city progressives out there who’ve never had anything to do with the local party. To me, that’s the best hope the Spartanburg County Democratic Party has to become relevant, and from where I’m standing, Spartanburg could sure use the extra voice.

Having ghost problems? Thank goodness the Spartanburg Paranormal research Investigation Group is on the case! Here’s a teaser for their upcoming documentary on a case they’ve taken on in Murphy, N.C.

Last week, a swarm of high school percussion teams visited our fair city for the Spartanburg Percussion Regional Review. And while there is a fair amount of video of the performances some of the teams gave, complete with things like their team names and their school affiliation and stuff, I rather prefer this clip, which features a band I can’t identify performing a “Carol of the Bells” medley that I can only partially identify. Why do I like it? It’s in a parking lot, that’s why.

If there’s one thing that’s a outdoor party bummer, it’s all those crazy rules about what you can burn and where you can burn it if you live in the city of Spartanburg. But let’s say you had exactly enough interest in Spartanburg’s open burning ordinances to give precisely one minute of your attention to learning the rules, lest the police come and ruin your bonfire shindig. Boy-oh-boy, do I have the video for you.

For this recording of the recent concert by The Consumers at the HUB-BUB Showroom, John Watson Video gets all artsy on us. Not a bad live video at all, if I may say so.

J Ghetto would like you to know that this song goes out to all “the Sparkle City chicks.” I suppose some of the lyrics are kinda not safe for work if sexually suggestive themes mean anything. Then again, I couldn’t really hear most of the lyrics because of the production quality, and the few I could make out weren’t anything worse than you’d hear fall out of the mouth of any mainstream rapper.

Know of a cool local video we missed this week? Tell us about it in the comments.

But I do have a concern about the primary tools we use to gather this information. I’m talking about the Spark’s sister site, SparkleCityBlogs.com. It’s no secret that the blog aggregator and link list isn’t particularly well-designed. Even on a good day, it’s a slow-loading, crash-prone, poorly maintained project with a lot of outdated links and a limited range of use when it comes to things like searching.

The problem is that it’s basically tricking the program that runs the site — WordPress — into acting like a blog aggregator. But since that’s not what WordPress was designed to do, and since it’s keeping track of hundreds of local blogs, the result is a glitchy, slow, crash-inclined site that is occasionally a good resource if you can ever get the thing to load. And since the whole point behind the site is to get people excited about local blogs, annoying the heck out of them when they try to read the lastest news probably isn’t much of a selling point.

Clearly, it needs a revamp. A rethink. A redesign.

So, what I’d like to do with today’s post is ask for a little help. What should we do with SparkleCityBlogs.com?

I have a few ideas …

1. Make it into a static blogroll. The advantage here would be that the site would basically never load slowly or crash. Adding new content would be easy. The downside would be that we’d lose the aggregation ability. It would be like an early website — just a collection of links.

2. We could borrow a page from a similar project, BlogAsheville, and make the site into a local blog community site. There would still be a robust and comprehensive local blog list, but individual bloggers would also have user accounts and be able to cross-post content directly onto the site. This has a number of advantages — current content being one of them — but it would also require considerable community involvement on a scale we really haven’t seen here in Spartanburg.

3. Switching formats completely, and using a more aggregation-friendly software behind it. Pligg or Elgg are both good options. Alternately, we could reformat the site to be more like the Spark’s other side project, HubCityHeadlines.com, only with a focus on local blog content.

I’m also open to other ideas. The only thing that really matters here is that the basic mission of SparkleCityBlogs.com is continued: To provide a central online resource for all Spartanburg and Spartanburg-area blogs.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts on the subject?

Of course, it would be totally selfish of us here at the Spark to expect anyone to just make us a theme song for kicks, wouldn’t it? That’s why we’re having a contest, complete with an actual, real-world prize.

This chair is 100 percent Spartanburg Spark approved, and at least 94 percent authentic chair.

Create a fantastic theme song for us here at the Spark, and it can be yours!

So, how does this contest work? It’s simple, actually. You write and record an original song, upload it to a place where everyone can listen to it for free: MySpace, Jamendo or even YouTube. Then, leave a comment below with a link to the song. (By making a song and leaving a comment linking to it, you agree that we can use the song in the future for whatever purposes we like in exchange for the prize, and we agree to credit you each time we use it.) The contest will be open from today (Friday, March 12, 2010) through Friday, April 2. At which point, we’ll pick the song we like the most and contact the winner. Easy as can be, right?

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them below, and I’ll answer them as they come.

Let’s hear some cool theme songs!

What would you do with an entire street that needed a reboot?

Then, a few weeks ago, VCOM broke ground on the new campus, something I heard about immediately after the ceremony was over. Initially, I was upset that I’d missed the groundbreaking — a great opportunity for a video — but I decided that it was probably worth driving over to the site to see if I could at least find someone to talk to. I got there so late, that the only people there were the folks taking down the tent that had been rented for the event, clearly missing the opportunity for any kind of meaningful coverage. But, since I was already in the area, I decided to take a look around.

And … Wow.

Driving around the Spartan Mills area, two things were evident. First, it’s pretty much the definition of blighted. Dozens of homes are condemned, many more appear abandoned, and several were clearly being used as squats. I don’t know the crime statistics for the area, but I’d suspect it’s pretty high. It’s easy to see why this area has gotten a reputation as being the gateway into one of the “bad” parts of town, which — depending on who you talk to — can either mean a few blocks here and there, or the whole of the north side.

But the second thing that became evident — to me at least — was the immense potential of the area. Those same condemned houses appear to be in relatively good shape, at least by comparison to the photos I’ve seen of homes in Hampton Heights from a few years ago. And given that the neighborhood is actually pretty close to the increasingly fashionable Grain District area of downtown, not to mention things like the Farmers Market, USC Upstate’s business school and the Chapman Cultural Center, it really doesn’t take all that much imagination to see what the neighborhood could be.

Clearly, this part of downtown Spartanburg hasn’t been a priority for the city until very recently. It has the feel of a place that has been abandoned, even by the people who own buildings there. And while VCOM’s presence will certainly impact the neighborhood, this could easily be as much of a bad thing as a good one. Dozens of historic homes — mill homes, which could be part of the city’s charm if preserved — could be leveled and replaced with cheap housing or commercial storefronts hoping to cater to VCOM students. Poor families, many of them black, could be effectively forced out of a neighborhood by real estate speculation. And without some basic plan for how to deal with the coming changes to the neighborhood, many of the basic issues in this barrier area between the north side and downtown will never be addressed, meaning that what lasting redevelopments do happen will be limited to a very small area immediately around the college, rather than improving the whole area.

If all of this sounds like a set of sweeping proclamations by someone who doesn’t understand the scope of the problems facing the north side, that’s because it is. Even the Spartan Mills area is too big for me to really wrap my head around. Maybe planning for the whole of Spartan Mills is too much. Maybe trying to save all of the historic homes in the area is also too much. Maybe, just maybe, it would be better to focus on one street.

Hence, today’s big idea: Bring back Brawley Street.

Brawley Street is one manageable bite of downtown Spartanburg that's ripe for restoration, renovation and investment.

Driving around on Brawley St., you’ll notice that most of the houses on the south end are either condemned, abandoned or for sale. Many of them are actually in relatively good shape, at least from a home-renovation viewpoint. It’s just an informed guess, but I’d think many of these properties could be picked up for $10k to $20k, and passably restored for about the same level of investment. For the price of a single home in Converse or Hampton Heights, one could probably buy and restore a whole block of homes on Brawley St.

Of course, why would anyone want to?

What I’d like to do is show you a few of the buildings and properties I found in driving around Brawley Street, treating each with just a little imagination to see what they could become. I should also note that I know almost nothing about the status of these properties — who owns them, what’s currently planned for them and so forth — so this is really just a game of “what if” in a lot of ways. This whole premise should be viewed as a reason to start talking about this area’s potential rather than as a concrete plan to take a specific action.

446 Mill Street has tons of potential.

414 Brawley has uses galore.

Big, empty and capable of holding small-to-moderate sized dream businesses.

This humble building could be amazing.

A little investment, and this Brawley Street shop could thrive.

I’ve only shown you a handful of the spaces available on Brawley St. — a fraction, really — and I haven’t even mentioned some of the neat things in the surrounding neighborhood. With the right kind of attention, this area could go from blighted to thriving. What I need are your ideas. Take a look at these buildings and tell me what you think could be done with them.

What are the missed opportunities? What are the cool local projects that need a home? What projects could go into this neighborhood that might actually help to un-blight the area?

Here’s Google’s promo video, which explains the basics …

I spent a little time this morning messing around with the new feature, and decided it definitely had some potential. I imagined a ride from the future Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine campus in the now-blighted Howard and College Street area, all the way to the end of the Mary Black Rail Trail, the sole bike path Google has listed on for Spartanburg. And, just for fun, I set a special detour in the route to let it swing by the new HubCulture/Little River Roasting bookstore/cafe. After all, what fun is a bike ride if you can’t stop for a little light refreshment along the way?

Here’s how it turned out.

VCOM to the end of the Mary Black Rail Trail, with a stop for coffee included!

While playing with the bike routes is kind of fun, the possibility exists for this to be used as a real community service for local bike riders. Imagine an online directory of user-created routes, for instance. Someone like the Partners for Active Living, for instance, could create a simple website where folks could upload their custom routes (it’s simple enough to do if you use the “Link” code) for other folks to share, and even vote on. Maybe a contest could even be created, with the winners having their route picked as “Route of the Month” or something.

And I would think that a few e-mails to the right people at Google would help the existing bike lanes in Spartanburg appear on the map, which is something a well-informed volunteer could do. The better the access to this information is, the more that people are likely to actually use it.

Clearly, a lot of interesting things could come out of this new Google toy. It’s not too much to imagine that future city planning might even use this tool as a means of aiding future biking/walkability designs in the future. If you have a few moments, give the new Google Maps bicycle feature a test, and maybe even submit your own local routes in the comments below.

Council also voted unanimously to award HubCulture Inc, the parent organization of Hub-Bub and the Hub City Writers Project, a grant of up to $21,000 for the renovation of the lower level of the Masonic Temple downtown. The group plans to spend an additional $210,000 of its own, privately-raised funds to renovate the space. When completed in late May, the building will house the new Hub City Community Bookstore, as well as the Little River Cafe and the Cakehead Bakery.

Enthusiasm for the new development was such that the crowd in attendance erupted into applause after council passed the measure. Four full-time jobs, and several part-time jobs are expected to be created between the three new businesses.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

The other day I read a news article that quite frankly upset me even more highly then the budget woes that our state’s education system is undergoing. Currently under proposal in the SC House Ways and Means committee is deciding whether to cut funding for people with disabilities

“The budget approved by a House committee last week would provide services only for 4,800 people with disabilities living in group homes or institutions, the only type of care the federal government requires the state to provide.

Theoretically, others who need help could move to those facilities, but there are only two open slots in the entire system and those are reserved for those in most dire need.

More than half of the proposed cuts in the current version of next year’s $5 billion budget — about $113 million in all — affect Medicaid and other human services programs. The Department of Disabilities and Special Needs would see its funding slashed by $42 million, or 28 percent.” ( SC may gut programs for 26,000 disabled residents)

These cuts are huge and would impact more then the 26,000 individuals who currently get funds from the state. Their families would be forced to make some very tough decisions. So I emailed my state representatives. My original email said, “I urge you to vote an emphatic no on the proposal to cut funding for our citizens with disabilities. There are several options that can be considered that doesn’t eliminate basic needs to people who clearly cannot work to support themselves. A small increase for a sin tax, or sales tax would help offset, other cuts on true non-essentials, unpaid furloughs for legislatures and legislative staffs..all sorts of ideas. Please vote NO on this”

The response I got from Shane Martin, my senate Representative was “I haven’t seen any proposal yet, since I am in the Senate. Most of these issues are in the House Ways and Means Committee right now and I have requested a staff report to let me know what is going on over there. I should have it this afternoon.” I have heard nothing further from his office, yet.

The response I got from Derham Cole was more detailed as he is a member of the State House. He said, “The Ways and Means has voted on a proposed budget. It has not yet been voted on by the full House. I am checking into the issue, but I understand that there may be additional federal funds to offset the proposed cuts to the DDSN budget. The Ways and Means Committee has also proposed a cigarette tax to fund Medicaid shortfalls. The legislature is taking three unpaid furlough weeks this session. We took five last year.

The reality is that we are in a dire budget situation, and we are working to minimize cuts to essential services. I appreciate your expressing your concerns on this issue, and please let me know if I can be of further assistance.”

I have a very high level of doubt that Federal Funding will come through for our disabled citizens if this budget cut is approved. Why? Because I have a friend who is the parent of a son who has Cerebral Palsy and Fragile X Syndrome. The state in which they live has very little in the way of funding. Right now he gets SSI and is on Medicaid, but his mother is finding it increasingly difficult to find a doctor who takes that insurance. All other funding such as assistance for facilities he can be at while she works, food stamps, housing allowances, things that would grant this young man greater independence are gone. She fears if something happens to her, that her son would be institutionalized. My friend, has good reason to be concerned, and it is her story that has my concerns for my fellow SC citizens on disabilities on a very high level. I urge you to read Gail’s story, it could be a story we could see repeated here in our own state.

One of the problems I am seeing in all this, is that our legislature keeps cutting funding to help our balance, as well as doing tax cuts in hopes that it will spur sales in certain sectors. However there is very little in the way of looking to increase revenue. It makes little economic sense to keep cutting items in our expense column, and ignore the income column.

So I emailed Mr. Cole back. In this email, I said “I appreciate your quick response to my inquiry, and I appreciate the answers. However I am still leery of what could happen to our disabled residents. I have a friend in another state, who’s legislature did similar cuts. Her severely disabled son now gets no funding for anything except a small social security check that doesn’t begin to cover his needs. My concern is that there will be more stories here in South Carolina like this young man and his mother’s.

A increase on cigarette taxes will help a bit, but maybe adding a small tax to other items, such as alcohol, fast food, or maybe a small percentage increase in the state sales tax. I am surprisingly relieved to learn that the state has taken unpaid leave. It likely helps you understand what other employees in our state are experiencing. However, I know that we can only cut so much before serious ramifications will begin to be shown. Raising revenue is the only other way. Depending on Washington to cover our shortfall is, to me, unrealistic. It seems they are having a hard time deciding how to spend funds as it is.”

I also informed Mr. Cole that I would be writing on this topic and invited more input from him. I know that it is going to take some sacrifice, hard work, time and wisdom to get our budget back on track. I also know that South Carolina is not the only state in this boat, and that at least two other states are proposing budget cuts for people with disabilities. South Carolina’s just happen to be the most harsh. None of the other states in question are getting that budget shortfall alleviated by the Federal government. It is doubtful we will either. We like everyone else on this are on our own, with little help from Washington. They got their own “lets fix the mess with our budget” issues.

Is there an easy solution to this? I don’t know. What I have suggested may or may not help. Personally I would prefer paying an extra cent per dollar on sales tax then see the ripple effect that could be caused if this particular budget cut is passed. I am concerned that it will put even more people out of work, more people having to choose which to buy, medicine or groceries, and cause more problems then solutions. Paying a few cents more for french fries or a cute pair of shoes won’t kill us, and if it helps those who utterly depend on others then I cannot bemoan that price increase. Part of the budget proposal is another tax increase on cigarettes to help offset Medicaid. I don’t think it’s enough, and I would have to take up smoking for that tax to affect me. I only smoke if you light a match to me.

I know several people that cutting funds for people with disabilities would directly affect. I am sure that you know some too. Let’s hope that our legislature considers the people impacted by their decisions and any consequences their budget decisions may incur along with trying to reign in that budget towards a more balanced level.

You can hear the pilot episode here.

The first ever episode of HubCast. Don’t get too used to the boring name, it’s going to change and all things permitting, so will the audio and production qualities as I acquire better equipment and software. And for the record, I didn’t realize my mistake in saying the Nook e-reader was a Google product. Barnes and Noble is the actual producer, however I didn’t really feel like recording again because it was pretty freaking cold at 7:30AM.

Like the idea of a local podcast? Want to get involved? Well, you may just be in luck. Smith is currently looking for a co-host.

Yesterday I officially launched a very low-budget, low-tech podcast covering both large and small things that happened in Spartanburg. The first recording was fun, the post-production was a mess (I got angry, ranted and made a fool out of myself.) but in the end it was worth it because I felt like something great had just been accomplished. Well, with any talk show worth listening to, the best results come from two opinions and two perspectives.

I can easily produce and maintain this thing on my own, but it’d be great to have another voice on the airwaves and give listeners the benefit of the doubt of objectivity. So, if you’ve got the drive to be a part of this twice a week, here’s what you’ve got to do:

Find a topic that you really enjoy talking about and record a 10 minute segment and talk about it. But here’s the kicker, every good thought process stems from some sort of stimuli, so show us what you know about it, not just what you think.

David Smith is Spartanburg's newest podcaster.

Send the audio file to hello at iamdave d-o-t org. You may either upload it and host it yourself, or send me the audio file (the following formats are accepted: MP3, FLAC, ALAC, AAC or Ogg Vorbis) with your name in the subject line.

Keep an eye on the HubCast tumblr for the winner. The announcement will be made next Sunday at 12:00PM.

I’ll go ahead and tell you, this will be a closely judged and graded submission so give me your absolute best. You’ll be graded on clarity of thought, presentation and accuracy. Don’t worry about any post-production like enhancing sound levels or including an intro/exit audio track, however bonus points to anyone who goes above and beyond to impress me.

Definitely check out the new podcast, and keep your eyes and ears open for any other new local media projects that rise to the surface here in the next few months.

And although we’ve been following the story, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal deserves recognition here for putting together the details in a single, easy-to-digest package.

Spartanburg City Council will decide today whether to grant $21,000 to HubCulture to help renovate the Masonic Temple for a downtown bookstore, coffee shop and bakery.

Construction is under way for Hub City books at the Main Street temple. Little River Roasting Co. will open a full service espresso bar — with coffee, tea, lattes, and cappuccinos — at the same location, but will continue to roast its coffee at its Marion Avenue location, said Little River customer relations representative Joey Geier, who plans to manage the new coffee shop when it opens.

“This is big for us,” Geier said. “We always thought about doing a coffee shop, and this is a great opportunity and a great building to renovate. We’re looking forward to it.”

Spartanburg-based Cakehead Bakery will offer muffins, scones, cupcakes and other baked goods when the bookstore opens at the end of May, said Betsy Teter, chief staff officer of HubCulture.

Under the agreement with the city, HubCulture would spend about $210,000 on renovations and improvements and the city would provide 10 percent of that amount. If HubCulture spends less, the city’s grant would equal 10 percent of the documented eligible expenses, according to a city memo. The city’s portion would be taken from business corridor funds.

Of course, the bigger news here is that downtown will soon be getting what amounts to three new, decidedly local shops. The bookstore will largely focus on the HCWP’s own titles, many of which are either about the Spartanburg area or written by authors with a strong local connection. Little River Roasting is already a popular meeting place, and they seem to have a strong grasp of cafe culture, which is something that many of the previous downtown cafes have lacked. Cakehead Bakery is perhaps the least-known party involved in the new project, but having sampled their wares at the HUB-BUB Art Mart last year, I’m genuinely excited to know they have a downtown distribution point.

Think about this: Assuming everything keeps to schedule, by late Spring you could find yourself shopping for local books, walking mere feet away to buy a drink made with locally roasted coffee, and have a locally made muffin on the side. If you were feeling frisky, you could walk next door to Carriage House Wines and pick up something for later, and if you felt like crossing the street, you could even sample the latest RJ Rockers seasonal brew at the Tap Room. Of course, by that point, you might need a short walk for more coffee before heading home. All of that activity — social and economic — is taking place in an area that perhaps 100 feet across, and which was almost completely unused this time last year. It’s only a small leap to see how this activity could easily spread to other parts of downtown if the right sort of businesses — ones that support each other indirectly, rather than openly compete — move in.

If you’d like to show your support for the project, consider attending City Council tonight.

That, ironically enough, brings me to my answer to the question. For me, Spartanburg’s biggest challenge can be summed up in two words: ignorance and apathy.

A story in this past Sunday’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal brought home that lesson in a dramatic way. The article tells the story of two residents of one of the poorer areas in Spartanburg who didn’t call 911 when the house they were living in caught fire last Friday night because they were afraid they would be charged a fee by the fire department for putting out the blaze. Instead, they tried to put the fire out themselves with a garden hose. Fortunately for the two amateur firefighters, a neighbor called the fire department, and aside for a little smoke inhalation, no one was seriously hurt.

After I read the story, my first instinct was to dismiss it. It was too much. This was just a case of random stupidity, a story about a couple of people who, because of their stunning ignorance, nearly won themselves a Darwin Award. The more I thought about it though, the more I started to see this story as an extreme example of our own failure as a community, a failure in almost every sense.

Rather than mocking them, I think we should all be asking ourselves why these people didn’t know that they weren’t going to be charged for calling 911. There’s a lot more than just one answer to that question, but all of the answers get right at the heart of what’s wrong not just in Spartanburg, but all over America as well. The answers all detail a failure of the individual and the community, both probably in nearly equal measure. It’s ugly. It’s complicated. It’s a cancerous growth on our democratic society.

The failures of the residents involved in the incident are pretty easy to point out, and pointing out those failures gives us a way to inoculate ourselves against anyone who might suggest that there’s a larger blame to go around. It’s undeniably true that these people’s ignorance nearly killed them, and that the lion’s share of responsibility for that ignorance rests with the people themselves, but it’s also true that we live in a time when civic involvement, and the knowledge that usually accompanies it, aren’t valued very much in our society or our community. In many ways, this incident is basically an extreme example of that fact.

That’s where I think our failure is. Things like this happen at least partly because most of us don’t care enough about local politics and issues to keep up with it at all. Because so few people seem to care about thoughtful local issue coverage, information on those topics becomes more and more scarce, and before long rumor—always the least reliable source of information—becomes the only source of information a lot of people get.

Everyone is to blame for this in one way or another.

We have an education system that breaks civic involvement down to little more than a quad-annual sporting event. We’ve got local media outlets that cover car accidents, shootings and drug busts, but fail to tell people about the things that actually affect their lives. Their political coverage is most often limited to the “horse race” of a campaign or the sensationalizing of a scandal. We have politicians at almost every level who would rather play to people’s ignorance and fear than elevate the discussion by talking about civic responsibility. Finally, we’ve got the individual who can’t be bothered to pull away from the TV for a few minutes to actually read what little real coverage is out there.

The level of ignorance needed for a person to try to put out their own house fire rather than call the actual fire department doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from everywhere. It’s so pervasive, and so difficult to combat, that even thinking about it gives me a headache. What can we do? Getting accurate information out there to the citizenry is obviously one piece of the puzzle, but there’s a much larger question: How do we convince people that not only is it their right to be involved in their government, but it’s also their responsibility?

Assuming that the problem of making information available to the people is straightforward enough that it could be handled if we had the will to handle it, What would it take to get someone who can’t tell you the difference between county council and city council to use that information? How do you convince people that their voices matter when current circumstances would seem to lead a lot of them to the opposite conclusion?

How do you make someone care?

It’s a question that gnaws at me far more often than I’d like for it to, and most of the time, I’m pretty cynical about the whole thing. Sometimes, I don’t think it’s possible to make anyone understand. Sometimes, I even wonder if we should bother.

Still, if we really believe in citizen rule, if we believe that our government is truly ours, then we must bother. The only hope for the future of Spartanburg lies in its citizens, and in our ability to convince more of them to care. I doubt there’s any sort of magic solution out there to make that task an easy one, but I believe it’s the job of each of us to keep trying. With a little luck, maybe we’ll at least be able to stop people from trying to put out their own house fires anyway.

For instance, I wouldn’t say this video of two guys eating at Spartanburg’s Fuji Restaurant outstanding video production, but they’re clearly trying to do something interesting. In fact, I don’t know of anyone doing reviews of this kind of fast food in the area, so maybe it’s a niche worth exploring. And they appear to be having fun, which is half the point of doing any project you’re not being paid to do.

Don’t think it’s even plausible that someone could put together a daily local news video blog? Well, just take what these students at Spartanburg Christian Academy are doing with their daily school news broadcast, replace goofy student chatter with local content and — bang! — instant news vlog. Or you could just mess around with a video editor and enjoy yourself.

Ever wondered what Spartanburg’s South29 dance club is like, but afraid to go lest you accidentally catch “the gay”? Well, thanks to Dallas-based musician Brandon Hilton, you can take a peek inside without risking your precious sexual identity or whatever. Totally safe for work, unless your workplace has something against voguing.

Since we’ve got music, how about a little dancing to go with? I know this was filmed in Spartanburg — the title alone tells us that — but I have no other details beyond that. It looks like it was a fun party.

And let’s close with a rendition of a traditional Irish song that probably isn’t spelled the way musician Brittany Dobson thinks it is, as a Google search came up empty. Still, it’s a nifty little tune that she learned right here in Spartanburg.

Looking for more local videos? Click here to see the most recently uploaded YouTube videos from the previous week. Know of a cool, recently posted local video we missed? Tell us about it in the comments!