There was a thought-provoking news story on public radio the other day about gender-based pricing disparity in France.

It seems that many products identical in materials and ingredients are priced more for women than for men. For example, it was found that disposable razors identical in every way except for color are more expensive for women than for men. Pink disposable razors are priced a good deal more than blue ones. They are different only in color.

Do you think it really costs more to color razors pink than it does to color them blue? That argument doesn’t fly. And an investigation of this situation has resulted in sad news. Razors are just the tip of the

Thank you to veterans

Dear Editor:

To all our veterans who have served in our armed forces of the United States of America, our family salutes each of you.

We know that freedom is not free and that each of you were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice to protect this freedom we hold so dear.

Pickens County has a rich heritage of military heroes, and on this Veterans Day we wanted to say thank you and we

This morning when I took the puppy outside, I heard what sounded like a thousand birds all singing at once. Then with a whir like helicopters taking flight, hundreds rose from the field across the road and were airborne in such numbers as covered a large patch of sky.

At first I wasn’t sure what they were. They looked black from a distance but were much too small to be crows. As they whirled and flew across the housetop, I could see they were truly black.

I stood outside for perhaps 15 minutes just to watch.

They appeared to be migrating, and they had all the characteristics of blackbirds. A little research confirmed my guess. Blackbirds they were.

This made me realize that the predicted cold snap is really going to

Readers, you knew it was only a matter of time before this liberal Yankee from Miami reared her leftist head. Of course, I imagine you all know me well enough by now to know that I do so only to offer another perspective, not to create conflict or point fingers.

Covering the school board debate in Six Mile recently felt a trillion light years away — like I was completely out of my element. I haven’t covered a school board meeting in how long? And I had to ask intelligent questions about issues that I haven’t spent much thought on in quite some time.

Luckily, some issues remain the same regardless of the passage of time: poverty in Pickens County will, I fear, never be out of vogue when it comes to conversational hot-button topics.

I’m not certain who said this, and who said it doesn’t matter, but

Thank for support for festival

Dear Editor,

A little more than a week ago, our school hosted a very successful Fall Festival. The PTA would like to take a moment to thank all who contributed to this event.

First and foremost, we thank Mrs. Terry, principal of A.R. Lewis Elementary, for her support of the festival. We also wish to thank the teachers, the staff and the parents who donated their time to set up the event, run games, snap pictures, sell balloons, serve food and clean up the event. We also wish to recognize the following sorority sisters from Clemson University who volunteered time to work our event: Megan Meadows of Kappa Delta and Mary Gamble and

It’s time to plant bulbs. This is a wonderful time in the gardening season in that the slate is wiped clean. There are no weeds screaming to be pulled or invasive pests devouring leaves… It’s over. Yes, there are a few scraggly petunias hanging on, and the roses are blooming again, but we know their cycle is almost done.

This year’s garden will soon be last year’s garden, and the time is right to forgive ourselves for things left undone in August and September and to plan anew.

Each fall brings a vision of what could bloom next spring. In mind’s eye are thick clumps of heathy tulips, untouched by ground squirrels and other vermin. Daffodils are nodding their bright heads in sunlight. The smiling faces of pansies greet us

My health problems associated with this wound that never completely heals seem to be close to coming to an end. Each week I go to the doctor and I am told that the wound is improving. Then they wrap me up in bandages that cannot be changed until just before the next week’s appointment.

The leg must be getting better, because nobody enjoys seeing me that often. So with the leg finally getting healed, I need to move on to my next health problem. My weight.

Since I have been disconnected from my former position, I’ve put on a few pounds. I’m not sure how many, because our bathroom scale at some point does not tell the actual weight. It just politely says, “One

Terrorism revisited

Dear Editor,

It’s always been a difficult thing to think about: terrorism, massacres, genocides, beheadings and such. But we’ve known about them for generations. There have been the extermination camps of Nazism, the killing fields of Cambodia, several mass killings scattered around the world from Africa to South America to Yugoslovia. In the Middle East nations, it seems one group or another has been killing people for decades. Well, it’s not just the Middle East nations either — might as well say in some parts of the world. I suppose one of the downsides of old age is to have witnessed by television images most of the worst in human history.

For sure, this latest terrorist group is a bad crowd. They must fancy themselves greater than the worst of what has been. Maybe they are in proportion to the region’s population. They make videos of their actions and post them on the Internet for the world to see. That makes me wonder how World War II would have played out if the Nazis had

God’s Law vs. Man’s Law

Dear Editor,

God created the Heavens, the Earth, all living things and created man in His own image. He created male and female and charged them with replenishing the Earth — not male and male or female and female to do the job, but male and female.

He said He would be their God and they would be His people. In Deuteronomy Chapter 28 verses 1-14, He tells how He

Global warming has so many far-reaching effects that just listing them is almost impossible.

The sad thing is many people with the authority to address the problem are blinded by concerns, largely to do with profit and loss, that encourage denial and defensiveness.

When big problems aren’t addressed, they lead to others.

For example, due to the fact that we’ve had some milder winters, there have been bumper crops of acorns. Why is this