Charleston Currents #13.21 | April 5, 2021
DOGWOOD BLOOMS: Easter Sunday is a day you expect to see four-petal dogwood blooms popping in area forests and this week’s holiday didn’t disappoint, as highlighted in these flowers at Brookgreen Gardens in Georgetown County. Check out this week’s photo essay from the gardens in Today’s Focus below. See something you think our readers would enjoy? Snap a shot and send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.
FOCUS: Brookgreen Gardens offers a magnificent day trip
COMMENTARY, Brack: Get the vaccine to promote the common good
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: SCIWAY
FEEDBACK: On left lane slowpokes
MYSTERY PHOTO: Epic fail
CALENDAR: Tuesday is Bill Murray Trivia Night
Brookgreen Gardens offers a magnificent day trip
Staff reports | There couldn’t have been much more of a perfect day than a Sunday day trip to Brookgreen Gardens in Georgetown County. The temperature was mild. Humidity wasn’t anywhere around. And the sun shined a penetrating light on scores of statuaries and thousands of flowers that filled the attraction.
Brookgreen Gardens, known as one of the world’s finest outdoor museums of American figurative sculpture, has a stunning collection of more than 2,700 works by 425 artists.
Take a look at some photos below from the Easter visit. Brookgreen Gardens is about an hour and a half from downtown Charleston. The ticket price is affordable — $18 per adult — and good for seven days.
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Get the vaccine to promote the common good
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Getting immunized with a COVID-19 vaccine is a huge act of kindness to your community.
While being vaccinated will give one a high level of personal protection against the highly infectious disease, it also helps to dampen its spread around the state.
Unfortunately, not everyone has absorbed why vaccinations are vital. For one reason or another, they don’t want to get the shots or are hesitant about them. But polling shows the number of ambivalent people is dropping. A survey of almost 80,000 Americans by the U.S. Census last month showed 17 percent said they would definitely or probably not get vaccinated. That’s down from 22 percent in January, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal.
A small subset are people who are ideologically against vaccines — anti-vaxxers — who don’t believe in them for reasons often based on misinformation or wild conspiracy theories. Despite reams of medical evidence that vaccines are safe and effective, there’s not much that can be done to persuade these folks to get their shots.
But most people unsure about vaccines are just wary, despite lots of science-based evidence. Some are waiting to see what happens. Others are worried about side effects. Others are concerned that various vaccines were developed too quickly. That’s why it’s vital for people to talk with health professionals and learn about the national effort to quell the spread of the virus through a robust vaccination program.
Ford
Dr. Marvella E. Ford, director of the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement at the Hollings Cancer Center in Charleston, meets frequently with people in communities of color to reassure them that coronavirus vaccines are safe because they’ve been through lots of trials with thousands of volunteers with multiple levels of oversight.
“Nobody wants to make people sick,” she said. “Why would public health organizations in the United States want to administer vaccines if they were not good for people?
“Getting the vaccine isn’t about you — it’s about your children, your families, your neighbors, the people you go to church with. The question is how important are those people to you.”
People of color often have lower vaccination rates because of how they’ve been used in medical studies. Dr. J. Marion Sims, a South Carolina native, is known as the father of modern gynecology, but he remains controversial because of his 19th century surgical techniques that included operating on unanesthetized enslaved Black women. Starting in 1932, hundreds of Black men in Alabama died from untreated syphilis in a 40-year study.
But medicine operates differently now, in part because of the lessons learned in studies now considered unethical. Ford recalled a 1997 bioethics symposium at the Tuskegee Institute, the very place where the syphilis study occurred. She remembered a talk by a civil rights lawyer representing the surviving patients who said they wanted people of color to understand how their experiences led to safeguards now required in medical trial studies.
Past sacrifices led to new practices. Medical trial studies like those with the new vaccine now require informed consent, data monitors, safety monitors, institutional review boards and more. In other words, there is significant oversight to make sure things are done right, Ford said.
Sweat
Dr. Michael D. Sweat, who is director of MUSC’s Division of Global and Community Health, said resistance to new ways of doing things or new technologies often fades over time. For example, people used to smoke in public places and drive cars without seatbelts. Public policies changed those behaviors.
“Over the years, they’ve gotten used to it and don’t think twice about it,” he said. It’s the same with the flu shot. And it likely will be the same with the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ford and Sweat also agreed it’s a misconception that the new vaccines have been rushed. Rather, all sorts of manpower and money were targeted globally with an urgency for teams to apply lessons learned over years of study of coronaviruses and vaccinations.
An estimated 45 percent of South Carolinians currently have immunity from COVID-19 due to natural immunity after having the disease or from vaccinations. Let’s all get vaccinated soon to stamp out this community threat.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Charleston Currents, and publisher of the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com.
SCIWAY
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On left lane slowpokes
To the editor:
Traffic congestion is a physics problem: Moving solid objects through an Interstate tube. Traffic congestion is a big problem in most major urban centers. Before 2020, the average U.S. motorist spent 54 hours every year in traffic delays.
Consider the next time the blue lights or an emergency vehicle travels sirens blaring approaches. The vehicles pull right. Focus on what happens after. The entire column of right lane vehicles slows to a crawl because right lane density increased. Likewise, a blue light officer giving a ticket on the right of the road. (Maybe someone going too slow). We are expected to get in the left lane. Creating the same density condition slowing instead the denser congested left lane.
The slowpokes in the left lane legislation will actually increase the right lane density and then slow everyone down in the right lane. As the right lane density increases, the flow of the vehicles will spread to the left lane slowing Senator Harvey Peeler as he cusses at the traffic on his way home.
The tell that the (proposed) legislation is fatally flawed is in the provision, “Subsection (A) of this section does not apply: when no other vehicle is directly behind the vehicle in the left lane.” This is the operational definition of congestion that must universally occur on our highways given the vehicle volumes.
Legislators. please get some decent modeling from the S.C. Department of Transportation and Clemson Engineering on the bill before you muck up further our S.C. Interstate highways as the legislation is unrooted in what we know about congestion physics.
— Fred Palm, Edisto Island, S.C.
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Epic fail
This may be tough: Here’s an old church somewhere in the Lowcountry. Where? Send your best guess to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.
Our previous Mystery Photo
Last week’s mystery, “Natural mystery,” showed a close-up of an azalea flower, which Columbia resident Jay Altman told us usually has five stamens per lobe and five lobes in a flower.
Others who correctly identified the weekly mystery were: David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Chris Correale of Johns Island; Kristina Wheeler and Marian Greely, both of West Ashley; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; and Buddy Medbery.
Peel shared some fun facts about azaleas: “Azaleas are flowering shrubs in the Rhododendron genus, and the Southern Indica Hybrid is popular and abundant in the southeastern states in general, and in the Charleston area in particular. This is because, according to Wikipedia, the Azalea Southern Indica Hybrid was first introduced to the outdoor landscape in the 1830s at the rice plantation Magnolia-on-the-Ashley in Charleston. Prior to the 1830s, the plants were almost exclusively grown in greenhouses in the Philadelphia region.
“John Grimke Drayton (Magnolia’s owner at the time) imported the plants for use in his estate garden. The Magnolia gardens were opened to the public in 1871, following the American Civil War. It is one of the oldest public gardens in America. Since the late 19th century, in late March and early April, thousands visit to see the azaleas bloom in their full glory.”
- 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.
Tuesday is Bill Murray Trivia Night
Staff reports | The next trivia event for West Ashley’s Mex 1 Coastal Cantina is set up, and this time, the team is honoring its favorite local celebrity, Bill Murray. The 8 p.m. Tuesday trivia game will highlight everything from his cult classic films like Kingpin to his most popular roles like those in Ghostbusters and Caddyshack. Drop in with your crew for drink specials and Murray-themed prizes. Free. Menu prices vary. Mex 1 Coastal Cantina, 817 Saint Andrews Blvd. West Ashley. More: mex1coastalcantina.com
Also on the calendar:
Quiet Edge: April 9 to May 22, Redux Contemporary Art Center, 1056 King St., Charleston. This new show brings together the works of two artists who address rectangular forms that ebb and flow between depiction and abstraction: Suzanne Dittenber of Ashevlle, N.C., with the form of the book and Benny Fountain of Waco, Texas, with the window and room. Hours are Monday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet: Noon and 7 p.m., April 11, Charleston Gaillard Center, Charleston. World-renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will perform Debussy Preludes, Books I and II — that’s 24 preludes — during a much-anticipated appearance at the Gaillard. With more than 50 albums, he’s delighted people all over the world with his performances. Tickets start at $50.
Safe Sounds: Series starts April 17, Firefly Distillery, North Charleston. Here’s a list of some of the shows at the beginning of the 15-concert series:
- Saturday, April 17 – 20 Ride
- Saturday, April 24 – Randall Fowler with special guest
- Sunday, April 25 – The Allman Betts Band
- Thursday, April 29 – Sam Bush
- Saturday, May 1 – On the Border – “The ultimate Eagles tribute Band”
- Head over to citypapertickets.com to secure a spot. Tickets are available now. (Editor’s note: City Paper Tickets, which is run by sister publication Charleston City Paper, is operating ticketing for Safe Sounds.)
Ongoing
Like A Girl: Dare to Dream: Through May 2, City Gallery, Prioleau St., Charleston. Featuring portraits of more than 35 South Carolinian women, Like a Girl is a new exhibition by artist Fer Caggiano that brings attention to women who have excelled, each with unique and inspiring stories. In them, girls and other women will see on canvas their potential: they can be strong, smart and beautiful, and ready to make their mark on the world. Learn more.
Sunday Brunch Farmers Market: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., every Sunday, Charleston Pour House, 1977 Maybank Highway, James Island. While the market is discouraging people from spending too much time hanging out during the market, everyone is invited to shop their local vendors.
Bird-watching at Caw Caw. Every Wednesday and Saturday — particularly through the end of February — you can see a plethora of birds at Caw Caw Interpretive Center in Ravenel as they make their way through the Lowcountry. The two-hour regular walks, which start at 8:30 a.m., are through distinct habitats that allow participants to view and discuss a variety of birds, butterflies, and other organisms. Registration is not required. Participants are encouraged to bring their own binoculars. A paid chaperone is required for participants ages 15 and under. Max. 10 participants. Fee: $9; free for Gold Pass holders. Open to all ages. More: Caw Caw Interpretive Center.
- If you have any online events, drop us a line (editor@charlestoncurrents.com) and make sure to put “Online event” in the subject line. Similarly, if you’ve got cool ideas for stuff to do while in isolation at home, send them our way.
- ORDER NOW: Copies of our new book, 350 Facts About Charleston, are in Lowcountry-area bookstores now, but if you can’t swing by, you can order a copy online today.
As more people stay home to deal with the coronavirus crisis, people are looking for things to do. You can find some fun things to do online in our calendar section below, but let us also encourage you to FORWARD your issue of Charleston Currents to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. It’s got a great price, as you know: Free! We hope they’ll enjoy our coverage.
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