Category Archives: Opinions
Courier Letters to the Editor 11-7-18
Five-letter words
Dear Editor,
There is a little five-letter word that is so powerful that it can’t be destroyed. No matter the depth it is buried, it will someday surface. It can be run from, but no matter how far or hard you run, it will someday find you.
It, like God, always has been and always will be. Feared by even the mightiest evil, because it can destroy that evil, yet it cannot be destroyed
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Every dog has his say
Our boxer, Boomer, aka Boom Boom, is one of the sweetest dogs we’ve ever owned. We will celebrate his second birthday in November, and although we expected him to be a mature dog at this age, it is not to be.
I was recently told by a friend that it takes a boxer four years to grow up. 
This appears to be true. There’s no harm in Boom Boom, he just has a lot of energy, curiosity and intelligence — and he likes to chew. Anything.
We expected some of this behavior when he was a puppy. After all, all puppies chew on things when teething.
He was no exception. But we are still waiting for him to outgrow this habit. Or perhaps I should say hobby, because most of his spare time is spent engaged in this activity.
Boom Boom doesn’t chew things. He rips them apart, shreds them,
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Green pastures and still waters
When we think about living on purpose, it can mean different things to different people. Personally, one of the first aspects that comes to my mind is the desire to not only love God and be thankful for who he is, but to also love my life and appreciate who I am. This is not to be confused with being arrogant or satisfied about where I am in my journey, but rather it has everything to do with having peace and contentment in our soul as we allow God to change us into his image.
It’s true that being honest and willing to embrace the anxiety and the unfairness within our everyday life is painful, but it’s also the only way we can truly become the person God wants us to be. The difficult part of being
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Courier Letters to the Editor
On Easley’s sidewalks
Dear Editor,
Can nothing be done about the lack of sidewalks and buses in Easley? There are places I’d like to go, the public library for instance, but no bus, no go. Easley is like a rural area, but instead of animals and chickens, we have automobiles running around loose.
A visit to Ingles is painful for me because of spinal arthritis and sciatica. It takes 10 to 15 minutes each way, going down Powdersville Road. In the first few blocks, some sidewalks are good, and one is all cracked up. Across the road, there is a sidewalk that ends abruptly for no apparent reason.
The last two blocks to Ingles are large patches of grass, red mud, areas that look like dried-up mud puddles, culverts and other holes in the ground. That doesn’t even include those omnipresent evergreens. There’s a whole
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Too well informed to be comfortable
I think we all are suffering from battle fatigue from trying to keep up with the news. We need some relief. I hope to goodness that Native Americans will be able to vote in the midterm elections. It’s unbelievable that now, in 2018, there are still people running around loose who are fighting to keep others from voting.
Native Americans in South Dakota who live on the reservations have P.O. boxes instead of street address. Suddenly, just weeks prior to the midterms, the state has made a new law to keep anyone without a street address from voting.
What? They’ve got to be kidding.
But they’re not. The party in power is afraid native Americans will not vote as the party would like, so they’re trying to rig the election.
Well, this is still America, and we must believe that sooner or later someone will do something that is right.
In Georgia, Brian Kemp, the secretary of state who is running for governor, is working hard to keep African-Americans away from the polls. As secretary of state, he has authority over state elections. As a candidate, he is blatantly involved in a serious conflict of interest.
In our own state and county, former Sen. Larry Martin was victimized by corrupt members of the state legislature and the state attorney general, Alan Wilson, according to evidence presented to a grand jury. Martin was working on tort reform, placing a cap on the maximum amount that could be awarded in a lawsuit. Since many in the state legislature are attorneys, this change would have cut the dollar amount of an attorney’s percentage of a winning lawsuit. It would have been helpful in reducing insurance premiums, but apparently that isn’t to be considered.
There’s nothing like a little greed to motivate some of our elected officials.
The underlying issue was that Larry Martin is an ethical person. And that’s why he was ousted. Those who worked to unseat him are not hampered by ethics. They have none.
Well, we didn’t earn the title of one of the most corrupt states in the nation for nothing.
We’ll see where this goes. I’m following it with interest. But when the fox is guarding the hen house, we can’t expect anybody to be laying eggs.
And these are just state issues.
Now, to add insult to injury, Big Bird, the original, is retiring from Sesame Street. When I heard this, I was stunned. Oh, no! we need someone like Big Bird. He is a beacon of hope for our country.
Yes, he is a Muppet. But there’s a lot to admire about the bird. He’s a giant yellow canary who is kind, caring, sensitive and honest. He tries to do the right thing.
And he always has a sunny day on Sesame Street.
The man who has portrayed Big Bird for almost 50 years is retiring. Big Bird will still be on the show, but will be portrayed by another actor.
I hope the new Big Bird will continue to live life on Sesame Street displaying the same admirable qualities shown by his predecessor. We could do far worse than to emulate him. He’s truly a bird to look up to.
Letters to the Editor
Clarion call to education leaders
Dear Editor,
Like other parents who send their teens to Pickens High School, my wife and I got a bit of a scare this past week.
As I said to my wife and those who asked, about $15 million has been spent the past decade on making our schools safer, from 1,600 cameras to classrooms having communication systems to the main office and police to student resource officers in every school.
There is not a place our children regularly go — be it the movies, church, ballfields or the mall — that has anything close to the security measures in our schools.
Having said that, this was another clarion call to our educational leaders of an unfolding problem that must be addressed.
The key to a successful, healthy and safe academic environment is students
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Data breaches show privacy rules aren’t strong enough
Despite new laws in Europe and California aimed at strengthening the privacy rights of internet users, the United States still operates with a 
messy patchwork of laws, some decades old. This tangle of regulations has failed to keep up with changing technology and the damage that can occur when personal and business information entrusted to online companies or the government is stolen or exposed to the public.
Congress has been wary of the complex technical, economic and constitutional questions involved in updating internet privacy laws. Part of that wariness may be federal lawmakers’ woeful lack of expertise — in some cases even the basic knowledge — of tech matters that they displayed at recent congressional hearings. But thankfully that reluctance to become more involved appears to be changing, even though Congress’ work is still
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Remembering the way it was
Miss Maude Moore was our sixth-grade teacher. She drove a little gray car and lived with her sister. She’d graduated from Flora McDonald College and approached teaching much like Miss Dove in the book “Good Morning, Miss Dove.”
She ran her classroom with perfect discipline, and we learned.
No one questioned her authority. We were a little afraid of her. Once, a new boy — a rarity in our little rural school — came into our class.
He wasn’t the usual farm child taught to respect his elders. The first thing we noticed about Pate Johnson was his smirk. He didn’t pay attention in class and was reluctant to follow instructions.
On his third day in class, Miss Moore, as was her custom, told him to go to
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Letters to the Editor
There are angels all around us
Dear Editor,
On Monday, Oct. 8, my husband and I were on our way from Pickens to Easley. We were on Highway 8 just past the Landmark Church sign when my car spluttered and quit. Out of gas! We were in the right lane, but not completely off the highway.
That’s when God sent us an angel — a young man around 30 years old. He helped us get our car completely off the road. We thanked him and thought that was the last we would see of him. Wrong! A few minutes later, he returned with a gasoline can in his hand, and he proceeded to put gas into my empty tank. He wouldn’t let us pay him, and I did not get his name, but I know he lives on Cedar Rock Road outside of Easley.
I just want to thank him for his help and let him know how very much we appreciate his act of kindness. May God bless you and yours, and my prayer is that when you need an angel God will provide one for you.
Again, thanks so much for your act of kindness.
Sonny and Georgia Harvey
Pickens
A spiritual awakening
When we consider the word revival and more specifically within the Christian faith, we think of a series of evangelistic meetings with the intention to increase interest in God. If we look more closely, we notice that being revived is the act of being restored and renewed back to a former place.
Similar words that are associated with being revived are reinvigorate, revitalize, refresh, restore, energize, rejuvenate, regenerate and stimulate. Within the context of our spiritual life, we see that a personal revival is a positive experience that convicts us to rearrange our priorities in order to give God a higher place in our life. This stirring of the soul brings a fresh awareness and rekindles the desire to follow the Lord with a renewed zeal and deeper commitment.
If we once had a genuine and exciting relationship with God, but now for some reason we have drifted away, our intimacy with him can be restored by humbling ourselves and calling upon him. We do not need to attend a church meeting in order to repent or draw closer to Christ — we just need a passion and determination to be with him.
Through the years, there have been some very powerful spiritual movements recorded in places other than America, such as China, Korea, India, Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia. These movements have generated enthusiasm and interest in Christ and the Bible and have helped spread the
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