By Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene, republished with permission | We’ve been conducting interviews for an alarmingly long time and the last 25 years of have been largely devoted to talking with state, county and city officials. Based exclusively on personal experience, we’ve developed a solid sense of the things that our interviewees can do that will optimize their chances of communicating their message well.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | If you’re like most people, there’s a neighbor or two nearby who you could easily do without. He or she might even be a full-fledged jerk.
A friend in another state (yes, I really am describing someone else’s hell, not anything around my home) has a real jerk for a neighbor. This guy’s antics have gotten to be just too much in recent days. …. What would you do? How do you deal with jerk neighbors?
By Ben Fanning, contributing editor | You can learn a lot about work burnout from poison ivy.
My neighbor once pointed out the itch causing, three-leaf plant at my daughter’s birthday party. I acted surprised that it was there, but really I just was embarrassed I hadn’t done anything about it yet. I’d seen it there before (I’m an Eagle Scout, for goodness sake), but it just seemed like it was too much trouble to deal with at the time.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | With so much that could be done to protect the South Carolina’s special places and put the state on a stronger, more renewable energy footing, you may sometimes wonder whether we just have too many environmental cowards.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh. But look at some recent stories that show that technology exists to transform how we power our economy from the traditional dirty oil and coal to a blend of renewables plus nuclear power with natural gas as a backup for peak usage.
By Michael Kaynard, special to Charleston Currents | Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 30 years, you have undoubtedly noticed that good customer service is a thing of the past. In most places, you could set off firecrackers and not one employee would respond.
Kaynard
Perhaps some small mom and pop stores still value service but the larger, corporate businesses have too few employees and many are untrained about their products. Most could not care less whether you buy.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Last year at Elvis Presley’s boyhood home in Tupelo, Miss., I was thrilled to see a white metal bowl with a red rim. It was the same kind of bowl my grandmother used to make biscuits.
A lot of things in the two-room home looked familiar – an oilcloth on a kitchen table, the icebox, pieces of furniture, a butter churn, a metal flour sifter.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Count me as a guy who doesn’t get what’s going on with men’s clothes these days.
Jackets, shirts, pants – too many that are too small and too tight. Whether it’s the guy in front of me at church, the hipster at a civic club meeting or the hero out and about at the grocery store, I don’t need to see that much of any guy.
Clothes need to fit, not be plastered onto a body. And plaid needs to be reserved for a special place in hell.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | With scandal swirling throughout Washington and more indictments stemming from a corruption probe in Columbia, it is becoming harder to keep up with what’s really happening in government and politics.
Part of the problem is the Internet, which overturned the news apple cart by diversifying and segmenting sources of news into so many streams that it can be difficult to figure out which are credible. There are traditional media – newspapers, magazines, radio and television – which operate under an old model of hiring professionals to report news as they see it and digest information critically to make it understandable.
By Ben Fanning, contributing editor | Most leaders don’t leave a legacy. They are never mentioned again when they leave an organization, especially if they die or get fired.
Then there are the ones who leave a negative legacy. You know, the leader who had the going away party but wasn’t invited.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The General Assembly’s 2017 legislative session is sure to be remembered for a long time as a wild ride.
Two things stand out. First, who in the world would have thought the Republican-led legislature would have given millions of dollars in tax relief to working people in South Carolina in a bill to hike taxes to fix roads? Most of the time, tax breaks go to the rich.
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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