Archive By Section - Columns
Our committment to excellence
If you happen to see me or anyone else from the paper today, you'll probably catch us grinning from ear to ear. A look at the front page can tell you why: for the second year in a row, the C-I is the best non-daily community newspaper in the state.
Way better than the sum of our parts
I was attending a coaching clinic in the mid 1970s, and I got to talk with a very well-respected and successful football coach who had won a number of championships during a long and storied career. I asked him about his favorite team, expecting him to tell me about one of the numerous state championship teams he had coached. I was surprised, however, when he told me about a team he had coached that had not even gone very far into the playoffs. The coach told me he loved and valued this particular team since it had achieved well beyond ...
PTL lives on with 'supernatural debt cancellation'
Regarding our time together today, I'm reminded of two old maxims:
Farewell to Briannica in print
The print edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has been killed, and our beloved Wikipedia is said to have done the crime.
Let's make national park status happen
I recently attended the National League of Cities conference. This annual event, attended by representatives from thousands of cities, provides local leaders with resources, contacts and continuing education. The League is focused on helping cities build stronger communities. Advocacy, job creation, economic growth, effective policy making, and feasible collaboration are only a few of the topics we explored for continuing and creating sustainable, vibrant communities.
How about a 'GED' for college?
Could millions of college dropouts get a second chance through a GED-style equivalent of a college diploma? In today's age of blue-collar blues and online education, the idea of college-equivalency exams doesn't sound so outlandish anymore.
What women want
WASHINGTON -- Introducing her husband on Super Tuesday night, Ann Romney said women this election season are interested in jobs, the economy and the debt.
Political knowledge should be desired trait in leaders
"Oops." That single word in a November 2011 presidential debate endeared then-candidate Rick Perry to some voters and allowed him to be written off by others.
Public land
They put the war dead in the library. The Yankees took all of the livestock, food, and feed. The hungry rats quickly became a problem.
Brash Limbaugh
Americans praise civility, but we constantly reward rudeness. That annoying fact of life helps to explain why the blessings that Rush Limbaugh brought to the Republican base recently turned into a curse.
Heading for ‘Sunshine’ at the beach
This coming Saturday, publisher Mike Mischner, Localife/West Wateree Chronicle Editor Keri Todd Boyce and I (and our families) will attend the S.C. Press Association's (SCPA) winter meeting. If we're very lucky, we might pick up a few awards. At the very least, we'll enjoy a lovely meal, a very nice hotel and one of the better beaches on South Carolina's coast.
A sad state of affairs
Some might call Rush Limbaugh the "slut" after his mediocre apology to keep advertisers in bed with him after the Sandra Fluke debacle. Eight of his sponsors have walked out the door unsatisfied with the conservative talk show host's remarks.
More than one apology warranted
My, my, isn't Rush Limbaugh getting contrite now that his advertisers are abandoning him?
Breitbart’s culture war ends
Speak no ill of the dead. So goes a saying from ancient Greece. I must beg for an exception in the case of the late Andrew Breitbart. Like Donald Trump, Breitbart had his sweet and gentle side, but that's not what made him interesting.
Letter to Mitt
WASHINGTON -- Dear Mitt: Consider me a neighbor leaning over the picket fence. You have a picket fence, don't you? An ivy-covered wall? Fine, I'll get a ladder.
Articles by Section - Columns
Got Putin, yet?
WASHINGTON -- The new "agreement" between Russia, the U.S. and our allies is exactly what the former KGB agent ordered.
Just keep walking
Sylvia Plath said, in her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." While I do fully agree with the literary force of genius that is Plath, if that had been my statement, I would have written it: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath or a long walk won't cure, but I don't know many of them."
Giving Back
Recently, I was listening to a talk radio host railing about how public schools "no longer teach values." This issue seems to be a mantra of sorts for some folks in the media, many of whom I suspect haven't been anywhere near a public school in years. As someone who is in public schools every day, I can't for the life of me figure out what this view is based on. I know it's not based on reality.
Easter Memories and Hope
It is each of the many Easters of my life that I remember more clearly than any other holiday. Christmases blur together with only a few standing out in my memory such as the one when it snowed all day, the year I lost my voice completely, and the two times that I wasn't home – one working in Washington, D.C. and another in London.
Noted and passed - April 21, 2014
** Thomas Ravenel, the former state treasurer who served prison time for cocaine distribution, now stars in a reality television show called "Southern Charm." Ravenel stumbles through the show in a haze of alcohol and bad judgment. He and his girlfriend, who's 30 years his junior, recently had a baby in Florida. Ravenel says he intends to revive his political career by running for the U. S. Senate from the Palmetto State. The guys in Vegas would probably lay some long odds on his chances for success.
Outrageous
You know what the most commonly used word in the English language seems to be?
“Robert Mills: Designs for Democracy”
Robert Mills was the first American born and trained architect. He called himself "Robert Mills, Architect of Public Buildings." Indeed, Mills established a new scale and standard for public buildings in Washington, D. C. when he designed the Treasury Building, the Patent Office, and the General Post Office in the 1830s and early 1840s. In other parts of the country, Mills designed buildings that were sensitive to regional values and local architectural traditions. Always his attention was on permanency and fireproofing for his public buildings.
I don’t ride anything that can make its own decisions
Camden is, without a doubt, a horse town. Kershaw County is a horse county and the love for horses extends throughout this great area of South Carolina. However, it stops at my door.
My preperation for Easter
Easter is a holiday of two extremes. On one side is a covert celebration of springtime with cute bunnies and pretty dresses and Easter egg hunts and chicks and flowers and lambs. On the other is a lamb being slaughtered on Passover. There is a bloodstained cross on which a Jewish man is dying who proclaimed that he was the Son of God, and that he had to be killed so that God's wrath against my sins could be carried out not against me but against him.
Erasing the race card
WASHINGTON -- One approaches the race fray with trepidation, but here we go, tippy-toe.
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