Category Archives: Opinions
Good things come to those who wait
This one falls under the heading of, “You Just Never Know.”
There is a news peg at the end, so please bear with me as I take a quick stroll down Memory Lane to give you the background.
Rewind the tape to 1974.
One night, not long after my brother Paul and I had moved to Macon, Ga., to become starving musicians, a knock came on our apartment door.
We weren’t expecting company.
It was a high school kid. Well, he was two or three years younger than us, so he seemed like a kid. I think he was a
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It was hot enough for us
I suppose, unless you live here, coming to the South from other parts in July can be a shock to the system.
It’s just something we don’t think about. It’s our normal.
But I’ll take it over cold weather. It was July 1996 in Atlanta, Ga. The Olympics were in full swing, and my cousins had tickets to the equestrian events. They invited me to go. So very early in the morning, we went to the Amtrak station in Clemson, and I took the train to Atlanta. My cousin Bill met me at the station and we drove through town to their house. Downtown Atlanta was deserted. I’d never seen it like that before. We were in one of the only
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Letters to the Editor
Looking for changes
Dear Editor,
I live near the crossroads of Chastain and White Oak roads in Central. Chastain Road is a shortcut between U.S. Highway 123 and S.C. Highway 93. Clemson workers must find this road extremely convenient, since traffic becomes heavier every year. Chastain is very curvy, with two schools at the 123 end and a SWU church with child care at the 93 end. The speed limit in front of my house is posted as 35 mph. Nowhere on Chastain is the speed limit above 45 mph. Motorcyclists love this road because of the curves, I guess.
I’ve tried multiple times to get the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office to try and slow traffic. They said they’d increase patrols, but I’ve not seen any evidence of
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Christ is the vine, we are the branches
I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about how it seems that so many people are living in fear and discouragement when he mentioned something that really made me think. He said that it was impossible to be depressed and walk in the joy of God’s presence at the same time.
After our conversation, I continued to ponder this thought, and by the way, I do agree with it. I’m not saying that developing an optimistic lifestyle is easy, but being a positive or a negative thinker are both learned behaviors. Since a healthy relationship with the Lord is associated with the level of our spiritual joy, we can know that a
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Saitta speaks on MRR settlement
Reading the Courier articles about the MRR settlement, I had the same feeling as Ron Barnett (the reporter who covered the story). After six years of employing a go-to-trial strategy, why the 180-degree turn by the county to settle out of court?
The county council voted 4-2 to negotiate with and then settle out of court with MRR. Trey Whitehurst and I voted “No,” wanting to stay the course and go to trial. Let me explain my reasoning, but first some history.
First the administrative law case.
By law, a minor modification of a landfill is a routine or administrative change. A major modification
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How many more must die?
Nineteen children of Texas,
Their futures denied.
Nineteen families in mourning,
Their faith will be tried.
How many more must die?
A class full of children,
Bright lights, all extinguished,
Along with two teachers,
For reasons unknown,
By an angry young man
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The ones that got away
The wonderful thing about vacations is everyone is different. We haven’t had a family vacation since the summer before the pandemic, and we’ve looked forward to it for months.
We no longer go to the inlet end of Cherry Grove as we’ve done for years because of the anti-canopy rule. We tried the umbrella way once, but gave it up after a woman lying on the beach was killed when a wind-tossed
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What was this fight all about?
At last, the long and winding road comes to an end. Pickens County’s fight to keep coal ash from being dumped here is over.
Actually, that fight was over a long time ago. The legal dispute with a North Carolina-based company called MRR Pickens LLC has dragged on quietly for more than six years after our legislative delegation succeeded in passing a law preventing the potentially hazardous material from being disposed of in the type of landfill Pickens County allows.
So what was the big fight that ended up costing the county several million dollars to settle about?
It was about lack of communication, or miscommunication, or — in the view of the county — intentional deceit. And about a
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Freedom is not free
Memorial means to “remember,” and every year on the last Monday in May, we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives in the line of active military service while protecting and defending the country they loved. For those of you that have family members and close friends who died fighting for our freedoms, we can know they perished for a cause greater than their own.
What do you think about when you hear the words Memorial Day, and does it have personal significance? Unfortunately, for some Americans, the true meaning of Memorial Day has been seemingly lost. It’s common for
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What ever happened to customer service?
It was a very long time ago, and though it may sound like a fairy tale today, there was once something called customer service.
In those olden days, customer service meant that if you bought something from a company and something went wrong, you could call and a human being answered the phone.
There was no recorded robotic message from an inhuman being or android, just something known as the human voice.
This voice was activated from within the human’s brain and was programmed to respond to a ringing phone by
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