By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The S.C. Election Commission is facing the possibility of a governing board that’s more partisan and beholden to the legislature after its director suggested pandemic changes to expand access to absentee voting in the November election.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The relative quiet on social media over the last month has been so loud that it’s still a shock.
Ever since Twitter cut off former President Donald Trump’s daily outlet of rage, there’s been a noticeable chilling of fractiousness in the country. Add to that a new president who is taking bold action on several long-ignored fronts and we find an America that is turning its back on constant confrontation and the politics of petty personalism.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Embarrassed by creating a controversial law that allowed utility companies to charge customers for projects that were not complete, the General Assembly wants to make it all go away.
So they essentially got rid of the 2007 Base Load Review Act after two power companies, the private SCE&G and the public Santee Cooper, suffered the humiliating failure in 2017 of a $9 billion project to build a nuclear plant in Fairfield County. Since then, a Virginia company swept in to take over SCE&G and its parent, SCANA, and Santee Cooper became the legislature’s favorite whipping boy.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | In the sweltering south Georgia heat and humidity of July 1971, there was one thing I absolutely knew: Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves was going to be at my 10th birthday party.
My hero Hank, my friends and I would play catch and swing on a backyard jungle gym. We’d gorge ourselves on hamburgers, cake and ice cream. We’d laugh and horse around. It was going to be great.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) isn’t exactly a confidence-inspiring agency.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic stretched its capacities and morale, the agency was a mess. The Great Recession of a dozen years ago caused big staffing and funding cuts. Its infectious disease unit, for example, lost half of its funding and 100 jobs, according to an April 2020 story in The Post and Courier.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Here we go again. South Carolina is wading into a divisive abortion debate before anything else happens in the state Senate to appease the GOP’s conservative base. It’s a futile effort that’s ultimately unconstitutional and a huge waste of time and money.
But these legislator knuckleheads don’t really care. They want to ram it through now that the state Senate has 30 Republican votes to 16 seats held by Democrats.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | So what’s a Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina supposed to do to keep MAGA-hat conservatives mollified? Particularly after voting against President Trump during certification of the presidential election that led a mob to storm the Capitol?
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | We are blessed in the Lowcountry to have beauty all around — green, teeming marshes filled with a bounty of wildlife, water vistas to soothe the soul, caverns of greenery in maritime forests. Beauty is so abundant here that we sometimes forget its magnificence.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Whenever there’s a letter or card in the mail from Mississippi, it’s bound to be inspirational. And it’s bound to be from a guy you might not have heard of but should know more about.
Meet former Mississippi Gov. William F. Winter, a public sector healer whose decency, goodness and vision for a better South gently motivates people to be kinder and more accepting of each other.
Staff reports | Our handy little book about Charleston-area history, the aptly-named 350 Facts About Charleston, includes lots of cool stuff about happenings during the holiday season.
** Book is a perfect holiday stocking stuffer. Order online today or ask your local bookseller.
Here’s an eclectic mix of Charleston’s history and trivia to enjoy:
Nation’s first passenger rail service started on Christmas in 1830
The Best Friend of Charleston was a steam-powered locomotive that powered the nation’s first passenger rail service following an inaugural run on Dec. 25, 1830, on a six-mile route starting in Charleston. Ironically, the Best Friend also became another first — the first locomotive to experience a boiler explosion in an accident on June 17, 1831.
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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