The antebellum planters used trains, too, to get out of the Low Country for the fever season.

There are, in the little corner of the Confederacy I inhabit, relatively few blogging pleasures. Mostly it's made up of ideologues whose only distinction is who they support for election or are being paid by and attack others for daring to ask them to defend their positions in forms other than soundbites. It is the public policy version of Mencken's the Sahara of the Bozarts and underscores why South Carolina does such a poor job of attracting smart, thoughtful people here as part of its economic development strategy. Latest example, Amazon's reportedly planning a big distribution near its server farm in Cayce.

Wiill there be any of the bright Seattle-based people who made Amazon what it is?

Nope. It's gonna be another big box warehouse, near the big box server farm where a handful of people keep the racks running and regulate the air conditioning. In the new factory employees will pack books and other products, and ship them.

Here are two bloggers I admire beyond words (well, almost, the ones that follow will be poor, and at the risk of getting them denounced for keeping such company, however remotely):

Charleston Daily Photo is really unique: its proprietor is a wonderful story tell who documents her tales every day with a photo. She even links controversialists like me and we get on famously trading items about art, architecture, joggling boards and zombies in the Low Country.

She also has a finely honed social conscience, and has once again reminded us of the Charleston company that relentlessly works to turn out low-cost water purification systems, and that with cholera breaking out in tortured Haiti, a relatively modest contribution to the venture can same a miraculous number of lives.

For a state with a church every ten feet or so, preening majority party politicos ought to be crawling up the steps on Sunday beginning forgiveness, now, especially, in the season of Scroogely indifference.

It has been one of the real disappointments of trying to engage the political consultant/bloggers of this state that only one or two have taken up this cause.

Lives saved are important, even black ones. Some day another massive hurricane will surely sweep across this state, and it will be interested to read- if we have electricity and Internet- them explain how government taking no action is character-building and sending aid to anyone would be like feeding wild animals.Or Senator Jim DeMint's insistence the opposing seeking federal funds for dredging the Charleston Harbor deeper to keep up with other southeast ports stealing our bidness is immoral (his silence on Boeing has continued to be deafening as well. If you want a senator who figures Depression-era self-reliance is a model, he's your man).

So I think Joan Perry hangs the moon.

The other is The Cotton Boll Conspiracy.

Don't know the owner. We frequently disagree. But we've had delightful, challenging discussions on line for a couple of years now. It's the sort of debate I was taught in sixth-grade civics is how American democracy works.

We've had a frequent- and always fun- debate about rail service and public transit in the US.

The latest example is here. He offers the ruination of a big locomotive company as an example of flawed government regulation, but goes no further in terms of what to do about restoring rail transit. It's just an example- albeit an old one- of bad, bad government. Thus endeth the lesson.

I've offered some other examples of how government killed of municipal and national rail transit, and how the US is looking third world in its indifference to getting cars off the road and the sexual fantasies of TSA inspectors in airports by skipping the old rail system- give it to freight- and following China's and the EU's lead in high speed rail, which would exist on a different network, especially if it uses mag lev. Crowded in major cities? As the Japanese how they've done it.

Imagine getting from Charlotte to DC in three or four hours. Air travel takes more time than that, and the food's better. Bigger seats. Oh, and remember- guns.

So I'm kinda shorting his argument to bolster mine, but here's our latest exchange.

I am grateful CBC is willing to take the time to talk seriously about issues. There is so little of this in South Carolina, and a reason why among other things, trains are part of the economic tools bypassing while North Carolina and Georgia prosper.