Leon, Leon, He’s Our Man ·
You have no idea how badly we wanted to be the first local news outlet to release Charleston County Council Chair Leon Stavrinakis’ (D) announcement that he was running for John Graham Altman III’s Dist. 119 seat in the state House of Representatives. We’d been riding Stavrinakis so hard to announce that we probably should have bought a saddle. Anyway, we ended up with confirmation from the same “unnamed sources on condition of anonymity” as everybody else that Stavrinakis will definitely announce this Thursday, one day after we hit the streets with our latest edition. Until he officially throws his hat in the ring, head down to Manny’s, his brother’s place in West Ashley, and order something Greek. Yiasou! —Bill Davis
No … Have a Cow, Man ·
According to a study quoted last week by the Associated Press, Americans know more about The Simpsons than they do about the five freedoms guaranteed them by the First Amendment — great news for newspapers. The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum’s study found that 22 percent of all Americans could name all five Simpson family members, but only one in 1,000 could name all five First Amendment freedoms. More Americans could name more American Idol judges than freedoms, too. One in five thought the First Amendment extended to the right to own a pet. We are all doomed. For those interested, the First Amendment protects the freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition for redress. It does not extend to the right to cable television or singing the blues, no matter what Steve Gutenberg might have said in the first Police Academy. —BD
History No Longer Under Siege ·
The Civil War Preservation Trust, a nonprofit that fights for Civil War battlefield preservation around the country, announced last week that Morris Island is no longer on its most endangered list. Morris Island, the setting for the movie Glory, had been placed on the list because of a potential golf course development on the transient barrier island located just north of Folly Beach. But last month, the Ginn Co., an enormous resort development group, purchased the northern tip of the island for just short of $7 million and quickly inked a deal to sell it for $4.5 million to the Trust for Public Land, so it could be preserved. Just so we don’t come off like we’re celebrating the Civil War in any manner, a la The Post and Courier, it should be noted that active battlefield preservationist Ben Stein (Win Ben Stein’s Money), a speaker at the press conference last week, was a Nixon speechwriter, and there were only two people of color we could find pictured on the CWPT’s
website. So there. —BD
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