To the editor: A couple of other things to be careful of when renting a car – make sure you can drive to the state(s) that you want to go. I was driving to Florida and one of the car rental places (not at the airport but a national company) prohibited taking the car to Florida. Also, if traveling with […]
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The brouhaha over the next person who will sit on the U.S. Supreme Court is a political game of chess in which the people are being used as pawns.
Unless you’ve been asleep under a rock, you know the issue started with the unexpected recent death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Within hours, leading Republicans in the Senate said they wouldn’t confirm any nominee sent by President Barack Obama because they thought it was a job for the new president next year.
There’s a big difference in pictures taken at two precincts on Saturday during the Democratic presidential primary compared to two taken a week earlier during the GOP primary: There wasn’t much of a line Saturday at a James Island precinct compared to a week earlier. At left, a voter signs in at Sanders Clyde Elementary School in downtown Charleston, a […]
Artist Nick Kuszyk of New York last week painted a bright, book-themed mural on a wall outside the John L. Dart Branch Library to honor Cynthia Graham Hurd, a librarian slain in the Emanuel AME Church tragedy. Read more below in Good News. (Photo by Andy Brack)
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | With all of the finger-pointing, gesticulating, spite, retorts, nasty responses to retorts, robocalls and flood of oversized postcards, the presidential primary process has become a mess, more of a reality television show than reality.
It’s as if the grind of politics, which has been the social equivalent to a root canal for many, has become a caricature of itself. It’s as if real people are really acting like cartoon characters.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The traditional way states grow jobs is to lure new plants and investment from outside. But that strategy is being challenged by community developers who say it’s smarter to grow from within.
A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says states should build strong economies by focusing on “producing more home-grown entrepreneurs and on helping startups and young, fast-growing firms already located in the state to survive and to grow, not on cutting taxes and trying to lure businesses from other states.” The study says new data show home-grown jobs comprise about 80 percent of total jobs created in states.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | South Carolina will play the role of political legitimizer in its presidential primaries later this month. It may not anoint the next president, but it certainly will declutter the field.
Why? Because South Carolina looks like more of the rest of America, compared to contests in Iowa and New Hampshire where nine in 10 people are white. In South Carolina, just like the rest of the country, six in 10 people are white. Bottom line: Because South Carolina’s culture isn’t so homogeneous, there’s a greater diversity of views and values. And that may lead to more traditional politics.
Dawn on Sunday in the Charleston harbor was spectacular, but this photo really doesn’t do justice to the deep violets, lavenders, oranges and yellows that illuminated clouds as a ship steamed toward Wando terminal. In the shot, taken from the 12th floor of the Francis Marion Hotel around 7 a.m., you can see reflections of the sunrise bouncing off the roof of the new basketball arena used by the College of Charleston. At the middle left is the Dockside condominium tower. Photo by Andy Brack.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Simply put, Tom Johnson is a character — a Georgia-drawling, camellia-addicted, big-hearted, fun-loving, hard-working, straight-talking character.
We tell you this because Johnson, who oversees the country’s largest camellia assortment at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, is featured as “The Camellia Man” in the latest and 50th anniversary issue of Southern Living (pp. 144-149). In the article, he’s as sassy and fun as we remember during a trip to Cuba with him, wife Mary Ann Johnson and more than a dozen others last August.
Despite a blizzard that dumped two feet of snow in the Washington, D.C., area, this sentinel with the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) is part of the constant vigil — regardless of weather — at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. It is closed today to the public due to the weather. U.S. Army photo by Cpl. Cody W. Torkelson.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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