By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | There’s something about the children’s narrative of Winnie the Pooh that seems to be a good fit for South Carolina’s legislative leaders.
In one Pooh book inspired by creator A.A. Milne, the timid Piglet remarks, “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | South Carolina’s Fritz Hollings warned the nation 22 years ago. The canary in the coal mine, he cautioned Washington policymakers that the North American Free Trade Agreement was Not A Free Trade Agreement in the nation’s best interest.
He predicted job losses that would force hundreds of thousands out of work, particularly in manufacturing.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Lint is not something I ever figured I’d write about. But that changed after what I found in our family’s dryer recently.
About a month ago, I started worrying about lint in the dryer. I don’t know why — perhaps I saw something in the news about a dryer fire. Maybe there was an ad on TV about some kind of newfangled lintbuster. Whatever the trigger, I went to a store to buy something to help suck the lint out of the dryer hose, but couldn’t find anything.
By Andy Brack | Writer Pat Conroy, who died Friday night, had a way with words that can only be described as an incredible gift. Perhaps no one more aptly painted word pictures of love, loss, beauty, yearning, pain, grief and aspiration.
Whether fiction or memoir, Conroy could tell a story like no one else. Just read his ebullient description of the inimitable author and chef Nathalie Dupree, the subject of the first chapter of his cookbook, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life
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.
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.
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.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | At the risk of irritating — and alienating — a majority of South Carolinians, here’s a question: Why do we even need something called a Confederate Relic Room?
Before you spit out your coffee, consider that South Carolina doesn’t have a separate Revolutionary War Relic Room or an exclusive World War II Relic Room or a stand-alone Vietnam War Relic Room. Instead, the state has the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.
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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