IN THIS ISSUE of Charleston Currents #11.14 | Feb. 11, 2019
FOCUS: How to cut your home’s carbon footprint, home decor tips
COMMENTARY, Brack: Let’s confront the ghosts of our past and calm things down
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Charleston International Airport
GOOD NEWS: Meet library director finalists at forum tonight
FEEDBACK: Tell us what you think
MYSTERY PHOTO: Curly hair
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: South Carolina State Library
CALENDAR: SEWE weekend is almost here!
FOCUS: How to cut your home’s carbon footprint, home decor tips
EDITOR’S NOTE: Carolina One Realtor Digit Matheny today begins a monthly column that looks at real estate trends and offers tips for homeowners. We look forward to his advice in the months ahead. Welcome!
From Digit Matheny, contributing editor | You may work to reduce your personal carbon footprint by driving less and recycling, but do you consider the footprint of your home? Here are some tips to make your home and your wallet a little greener.
Matheny
Buy efficient appliances. Appliances are getting more efficient every year, and some have better energy and water-use ratings than others. The energy rating of an appliance is easy to find and can be a great guide for those looking to reduce their electricity and water consumption.
Install low-use fixtures. Shower heads, toilets, faucets and other fixtures now come in models that use less water than others. These fixtures can lower a home’s utility bill as well as reduce the amount of water a home uses.
Plant a garden. Plants remove carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Keeping a garden can help counteract your carbon output, provide a fun hobby and supply you with homegrown vegetables or beautiful flowers. Install a drip irrigation system so that plants get only the water they need.
Landscape using climate-appropriate plants. Local plants are better adapted to the environment, are non-invasive to other species and require less water than outsiders.
Some of the year’s hottest home decor tips
Comfort is trending for 2019, a consensus of home decorators agree, with more people seeking warm colors, intimate spaces and a casual but sophisticated lifestyle.
Designers looking to pair physical coziness with emotional comfort forecast seven decor trends:
Scaled down furnishings. After years of favoring large furniture and open spaces, consumers are aiming for a ‘nesting’ environment and choosing smaller pieces arranged in more intimate settings.
Wall coverings. The return to traditionalism brings with it a return to wallpaper, fabric wall coverings and murals. Expect to see plenty of rich shades of green in fabric and wallpaper patterns.
Color changes. While blues and indigos have been huge in recent years, green is the new blue for 2019 and is likely to be used in everything from upholstery patterns to kitchen furnishings.
Color ‘pops.’ People are ditching beige minimalism in favor of fun colors, especially in family-friendly spaces. Yellow is the hottest color for small accent pieces–from ceramics to lamps to sofa pillows.
Warm woods and traditional styles. Antiques and even second-hand items are having their moment again, with consumers looking for skirted tables, wooden chests and other wood pieces with a sense of history.
Indoor and outdoor fireplaces. The coziness trend favors indoor fireplaces, working or not, with homey hearths as a nice spot to gather. Outdoors, fireplaces are preserving the joy of summertime barbecues.
Crafts and artisanal accents. In a world of increasing mass production, there has been a shift back to artisanal and boutique choices in pillows, wall hangings, quilts and other accent pieces all around the home.
Digit Matheny is a local Realtor with Carolina One. You can learn more about his business at this website.
- Have a comment? Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com
BRACK: Let’s confront the ghosts of our past and calm things down
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The ghosts of our past are boiling in a cauldron that is spewing fury and distress across America like lava jolting from a volcano.
And just like climate change, many deny or ignore how different segments of our society are colliding, getting hotter and hotter week after week. There’s an increasing sense that America is out of control, preferring dysfunction and confrontation to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Leaders in blackface. #MeToo revelations. White nationalist rallies. Priests abusing kids. A high school student staring down a native American. Deadly shootings at schools, churches and synagogues. “Gay conversion” therapy. All-white social and country clubs.
America is on edge, seemingly leaderless as ghosts seem to confront society increasingly to cause deterioration of values that have united us in the past. It’s as if there’s something new every day or three to ratchet up the heat on the cauldron which, in turn, predictably responds by launching more hot venom from the ghosts.
Don’t things seem more and more out of control? More divided than ever? Less hopeful?
You don’t have to look hard or far to find evidence of the haughty ghosts of race, discrimination, paternalism and privilege that are roiling our country.
Just this week in South Carolina, a Republican state senator working to reform the state’s backwards education system said “someone on social media ‘threatened to put my neck in a noose’ because he did not allow public testimony” during an organizational meeting on a bill that would raise teacher pay, consolidate small school districts and get rid of some of the incessant testing students have to take.
And on the same day, some 20 black lawmakers walked out of judicial elections alleging discrimination after a white attorney beat a longtime black state judge 87-73 for a seat on the state Court of Appeals. “Shame on South Carolina. Racism still lives here!” said state Rep. John King, D-York. “Until we cure what is happening in our State House, we can’t expect our citizens to do any better.”
So what do we do about this bubbling stew of confrontation? It would be great to have the ghostbusters on the scene, but it’s not going to be that easy. We’re actually going to have to bust the ghosts of the past ourselves if we want to calm the cauldron. We’re going to have to start listening better and talking with each other, instead of at each other.
“It’s as if we need to have a Reckoning Day and just confront all of this stuff,” said one thoughtful man who is trying to better understand America’s distress.
If it could only be done in a day. In South Carolina after the eras of slavery and Jim Crow, followed by dulled acceptance of things being the way they are because they’ve always been that way, we might need a Reckoning Year — or Decade. Just look at how many still don’t have much to say about the Orangeburg Massacre where three students died and 27 were hurt 51 years ago this month.
To get started, maybe we should confront our individual ghosts and make amends with people we’ve hurt. We’ve all got things in our past that we’re not proud of. Perhaps embracing and asking for forgiveness is a way to start cooling the cauldron.
But as a society, we’ve got to start responding to threats from the ghosts of days past, too.
As our friend told us, “a society or group needs to acknowledge bad behavior on the institution’s behalf. I’m certainly not a full-throated fan of Baptists, Germans or white South Africans, but it seems to me that they’ve made an honest effort to confront their past. We’ve only just begun it in South Carolina by seeing our Confederate statues with new eyes — or at least that’s how I feel.”
Let’s pick active listening, reason, community discussions and compromise over confrontation and stubbornness. Let’s choose to start healing, not to continuing to wallow in the past.
Doing nothing to heal South Carolina and America is not an option. Because if we do nothing, the ghosts win.
- Have a comment? Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com
SPOTLIGHT: Charleston International Airport
Today we shine a spotlight on Charleston International Airport, which provides a first impression of the Charleston metropolitan area to over 4 million passengers a year who visit for business and leisure activities. One of three public airports operated by the Charleston County Aviation Authority, Charleston International Airport is committed to providing an unparalleled passenger experience while continuing efforts to support economic development for the Lowcountry and State of South Carolina.
Eight airlines currently serve Charleston International Airport, which have jobs that create more than $200 million in income for workers in the region. Visiting passengers also spend about $450 million a year directly in area businesses, which sustains an estimated 6,000 jobs locally. The total economic impact of the Charleston International Airport is over $1 billion dollars to the Lowcountry and State of South Carolina.
- To learn more about Charleston International Airport, please visit iflyCHS.com.
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GOOD NEWS: Meet library director finalists at forum tonight
From left: Craig, Patterson, Tairov and Trzeciak
Staff reports | A 6 p.m. public forum tonight (Feb. 11) will give members of the public to hear from four finalists who are candidates to be the next executive director of the Charleston County Public Library. The meeting will be in the auditorium of the main branch, 68 Calhoun St., Charleston.
Finalists for the position, for which there has been a national search, include:
- Angela Craig, Center City Leader of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
- Jennifer Patterson, Director of Albemarle Regional Library System
- Giovanni Tairov, Director of Livingston Parish Library System
- Jeffrey Trzeciak, Director of the Newark Public Library
“These candidates are some of the best and brightest leaders in the library world and we are thrilled to have them vying for our top spot,” said CCPL Board of Trustees Chairman Andy Brack. “We are confident these finalists have the ability to continue the exciting positive trajectory of our library system in enriching the lives of our community.”
A national search began late last year after the departure of Nicolle Davies, who stepped down as executive director on Dec. 1, 2018, due to family reasons. Darlene Jackson, the deputy director, has been acting executive director since Davies’ departure.
The library’s board of trustees hired Bradbury Miller Associates, an executive recruitment firm that specializes in locating talent for libraries. The firm, which was hired in the previous 2016 selection of the executive director, had already gathered input from the library’s board, staff, community representatives and library leaders across the state to better understand the area’s needs and the issues facing Charleston County Public Library. That information was used again to develop a national recruiting effort.
Last week, the pool of candidates was narrowed to four top candidates by a special library board search committee.
- To learn more about each of the candidates, visit the library’s website.
In other Good News:
Riley Reach. State Rep. Mike Sottile, R-Charleston, has introduced H. 3928 with House colleagues to try to rename a portion of a navigational channel along the Charleston waterfront as “Riley Reach” to honor former Mayor Joe Riley.
Performance review. Statehouse Report correspondent Lindsay Street outlined an idea being pushed by Berkeley County GOP state Rep. Sylleste Davis in the most recent issue of the publication. She’s trying to get fellow legislators to sign on to a government efficiency study on how the state is spending its money. Similar studies have been done in other states, such as Texas, New Mexico and Florida. The city of Charleston has embarked on a similar review of its spending. Read more here.
FEEDBACK: Tell us what you think
We’d love to get your impact in one or more ways:
Send us a letter: We love hearing from readers. Comments are limited to 250 words or less. Please include your name and contact information. Send your letters to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com. | Read our feedback policy.
Tell us what you love about the Lowcountry. Send a short comment – 100 words to 150 words – that describes something you really enjoy about the Lowcountry. It can be big or small. It can be a place, a thing or something you see. It might the bakery where you get a morning croissant or a business or government entity doing a good job. We’ll highlight your entry in a coming issue of Charleston Currents. We look forward to hearing from you.
MYSTERY: Curly hair
This may be a pretty tough identification (who is it? And where is it?), so we’ll give you one hint: It’s in Charleston. Send your guess to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.
Our previous Mystery Photo
Our previous mystery, “This should look familiar,” looked familiar to people in Charleston. It was the roofline of the U.S. Custom House on East Bay Street. (It might have been easier if we had not cropped the photo to get rid of the cruise ship in the background!)
Congratulations to this week’s sleuths: Eric Hansel, Margaret Fabri, Catherine LaFond, Joe Mendelsohn, Stephen Yetman, Susan Highfield, Jim McMahan, Judy Hines and Kristina Wheeler, all of Charleston; Chris Brooks of Mount Pleasant; Marnie Huger of Richmond, Va.; and Bill Segars of Hartsville.
Segars added: “This week’s photo is Supervising Architect Edward Brickell White’s U. S. Custom House (it was not his design) in downtown Charleston. Construction began in 1853 and completed in 1879. Interesting building and history.”
Graf provided more context from Wikipedia: “By the 1960s, the Custom House was used by a number of federal agencies. local preservationists with the help of Representative Mendel Rivers worked to save the building.”
Send us a mystery: If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.
HISTORY: S.C. State Library
S.C. Encyclopedia | An independent state agency on Senate Street in Columbia, the South Carolina State Library assists libraries throughout the state in meeting the informational, educational, cultural, and recreational needs of citizens and to ensure adequate access for all. The State Library began in 1929 when the General Assembly created the State Public Library Association and the State Library Board to assist in establishing quality countywide library services across the state. No state funds were available, but grants were obtained to hire a field agent to assist communities interested in starting libraries. The federal Works Project Administration (WPA) was instrumental in establishing a measure of public library service to all counties between 1935 and 1943. The State Library Board inherited the library assets of the WPA and received its first state appropriation in 1943.
The responsibilities of the State Library Board expanded. In 1969 the General Assembly renamed it the South Carolina State Library, with the expanded responsibility to provide public library development, services to the vision impaired and physically disabled, and library services to state institutions and agencies. Since 1990, when Congress passed the Library Services and Construction Act, the State Library has been actively employing new technologies to provide information. DISCUS, South Carolina’s Virtual Library, was created in 1998 to provide a wide range of online information to users in public, academic, and school libraries.
— Excerpted from an entry by William P. Morris This entry may not have been updated since 2006. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia, published in 2006 by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CALENDAR: SEWE weekend is almost here!
The grand annual three-day Southeastern Wildlife Exposition will be downton from Feb. 15 to Feb. 17 with lots to do fo people across the region who love to celebrate wildlife and nature.
SEWE has an incredible lineup of events – from fine art exhibits, conservation education, sporting demonstrations and parties. Learn more.
Also on the calendar:
Gullah Geechee events: There are several area events where people can learn more about the area’s Gullah Geechee roots as they commemorate Black History Month:
Tracing your Gullah roots: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Feb. 16, Mount Pleasant Regional Library, Mount Pleasant. Join a special workshop to learn about Gullah Geechee stories.
Gullah Festival: 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., Georgetown County Library, Georgetown. This event is a free morning screening of “The Language You Cry In,” a documentary about the Gullah Geechee story.
Events at the Gaillard. Check out these awesome coming events at the Charleston Gaillard Center, 95 Calhoun St., Charleston:
Feb. 19, 7 p.m.: Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
Feb. 22, 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.: Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System
Outside Agitator talk, signing: 5 p.m., Feb. 15, Blue Bicycle Books, 420 King St., Charleston. Author Adam Parker and his subject, Cleveland Sellers Jr., will offer a public book talk and signing for the recently published book, “Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr.”
Women, Wine & Shoes: 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Feb. 21, Hotel Bennett, downtown Charleston. This fun annual benefit for Florence Crittenton Programs of South Carolina will feature designer shopping, wine tasting, great food and a fashion show. Tickets are $175 per person and seating is limited. Learn more.
Commissioning of USS Charleston: 10 a.m., March 2, Columbus Street Terminal. Charleston. A commissioning ceremony for the new USS Charleston (LCS 18), an Independence-class littoral combat ship, requires anyone who wishes to attend to register this month and soon through the Navy League of Charleston. In late January or early February, the Navy will send an letter to those who registered online with further instructions. Then the Navy will send invitation tickets to successful registrants. If you can’t attend, you can watch online here. More info.
Early morning bird walks at Caw Caw: 8:30 a.m. every Wednesday and Saturday, Caw Caw Interpretive Center, Ravenel. You can learn about habitats and birds, butterflies and other organisms in this two-hour session. Registration not required, but participants are to be 15 and up. $10 per person or free to Gold Pass holders. More: http://www.CharlestonCountyParks.com.
AREA FARMERS MARKETS
SATURDAYS: Johns Island Farmers Market operates each Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. year-round with more than 50 local farmers and vendors, food trucks, music and more. The market is located on the campus of Charleston Collegiate School, 2024 Academy Road, Johns Island.
- If you have an event to list on our calendar, please send it to feedback@charlestoncurrents.com for consideration. The calendar is updated weekly on Mondays.
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Charleston Currents offers insightful community comment and good news on events each week. It cuts through the information clutter to offer the best of what’s happening locally.
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Charleston Currents is provided to you weekly by:
- Editor and publisher: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996
- Contributing editor, common good, Fred Palm
- Contributing editor, money: Kyra Morris
- Contributing editor, Palmetto Poem: Marjory Wentworth
- Contributing editor, real estate: Digit Matheny
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