Andy Brack

BRACK: Return to government dullness lessens national anxiety

BRACK: Return to government dullness lessens national anxiety

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  The relative quiet on social media over the last month has been so loud that it’s still a shock. 

Ever since Twitter cut off former President Donald Trump’s daily outlet of rage, there’s been a noticeable chilling of fractiousness in the country.  Add to that a new president who is taking bold action on several long-ignored fronts and we find an America that is turning its back on constant confrontation and the politics of petty personalism.  

by · 02/15/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
BRACK: Lawmakers need to ask right questions on Santee Cooper

BRACK: Lawmakers need to ask right questions on Santee Cooper

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher    |  Embarrassed by creating a controversial law that allowed utility companies to charge customers for projects that were not complete, the General Assembly wants to make it all go away.

So they essentially got rid of the 2007 Base Load Review Act after two power companies, the private SCE&G and the public Santee Cooper, suffered the humiliating failure in 2017 of a $9 billion project to build a nuclear plant in Fairfield County.  Since then, a Virginia company swept in to take over SCE&G and its parent, SCANA, and Santee Cooper became the legislature’s favorite whipping boy.

by · 02/08/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
Aaron in 1974

BRACK: Boyhood hero Aaron continues to inspire

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  In the sweltering south Georgia heat and humidity of July 1971, there was one thing I absolutely knew:  Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves was going to be at my 10th birthday party.

My hero Hank, my friends and I would play catch and swing on a backyard jungle gym.  We’d gorge ourselves on hamburgers, cake and ice cream.  We’d laugh and horse around. It was going to be great.  

by · 02/01/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
BRACK: DHEC has trouble walking, chewing gum in pandemic

BRACK: DHEC has trouble walking, chewing gum in pandemic

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) isn’t exactly a confidence-inspiring agency.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic stretched its capacities and morale, the agency was a mess.  The Great Recession of a dozen years ago caused big staffing and funding cuts.  Its infectious disease unit, for example, lost half of its funding and 100 jobs, according to an April 2020 story in The Post and Courier.  

by · 01/25/2021 · 1 comment · Andy Brack, Views
From a 2016 rally.  Photo provided.

BRACK: Mind-numbing, time-wasting abortion bill on table again

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  Here we go again.  South Carolina is wading into a divisive abortion debate before anything else happens in the state Senate to appease the GOP’s conservative base.  It’s a futile effort that’s ultimately unconstitutional and a huge waste of time and money.

But these legislator knuckleheads don’t really care. They want to ram it through now that the state Senate has 30 Republican votes to 16 seats held by Democrats. 

by · 01/17/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
Scott speaks at a 2016 news conference

BRACK: Scott may face 2022 challenge from his own party

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  So what’s a Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina supposed to do to keep MAGA-hat conservatives mollified?  Particularly after voting against President Trump during certification of the presidential election that led a mob to storm the Capitol?

by · 01/11/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
Marsh at Botany Bay, by English Purcell.

BRACK: Protect the magnificence of beautiful, local places

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  We are blessed in the Lowcountry to have beauty all around — green, teeming marshes filled with a bounty of wildlife, water vistas to soothe the soul, caverns of greenery in maritime forests.  Beauty is so abundant here that we sometimes forget its magnificence.

by · 01/04/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
Winter, center, at a Mississippi church service.  Images courtesy of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation.

BRACK: We need more inspirational leaders like William Winter

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |   Whenever there’s a letter or card in the mail from Mississippi, it’s bound to be inspirational.  And it’s bound to be from a guy you might not have heard of but should know more about.

Meet former Mississippi Gov. William F. Winter, a public sector healer whose decency, goodness and vision for a better South gently motivates people to be kinder and more accepting of each other.

by · 12/21/2020 · 2 comments · Andy Brack, Views
Lisa Pelletti Clark Co-President, International Peace Bureau Nobel Peace Laureate 1910 ,delivered the prize to Beasley on behalf of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Photo: WFP/Rein Skullerud

BRACK: Beasley sets great S.C. example for world to see

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  All South Carolinians should be proud of the display of leadership and the example set by former Gov. David Beasley when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the United Nations World Food Programme.

by · 12/14/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views
BRACK: Legislature needs to wake up on environment

BRACK: Legislature needs to wake up on environment

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  About a dozen years ago, a think tank challenged Southern legislators to engage on multiple environmental challenges.

Unsurprisingly, they mostly just nibbled around the edges, tweaking this and slapping putty on that.  They haven’t confronted climate change seriously or done much to truly embrace renewable energy.  Seeking environmental justice for the downtrodden is mostly just a good idea – still.  Preserving land and cleaning up pollution get a lot of lip service.  In the years since the book, other challenges have emerged — flooding, infrastructure, old dams — but they never get the priority they deserve. 

by · 12/07/2020 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views