Middle schools in Mount Pleasant can compete in January to see which can put the most riders on the CARTA 401 East Cooper Connector Bus in a promotion called Bus Bowl being presented by East Cooper CARTA Riders (www.eastccrider.com). Starting On Jan ...  

Capitalism is justified by expectations, not always valid, that more good stuff will be produced for everyone due to the stimulating impetus of greed and the reactive lash of the market. This, however, will not get a 19-year-old across the continent ...  

Five days after Governor Nikki Haley ordered the illegal arrest of 19 Occupy Columbia activists in the rain, a few dozen protestors were gathered around the Confederate monument in the late afternoon of a perfect November day. The previous week, Gov ...  

Shem Creek Park offers the Lowcountry an inviting new public outdoor space on our community's waterfront fishing district which is already busy with visitors from a town which likes to walk. On Saturday, Nov. 12, I visited Shem Creek Park for the fir ...  

On the dark deck of our common ship, I visited five stations in South Carolina last week. Six days found me in five radically different places. Five communities wrestle with the mounting challenges of a Congress which refuses to work, an economy whic ...  

On Halloween my family will be presenting the first trivia or treat event on our porch in I'On since our son left for college. I need some expert help, because I haven't been doing it right and Halloween is really important. I have fond memories of t ...  

The people pulling together #occupycharleston, a Wall Street type protest planned for here, emerge from a culture disconnected from the traditional sources of stability and control which have dominated life in South Carolina since the end of the Civi ...  

So when you are sleeping in history, you need to keep your boots on. Joseph McGill is an African American historian and preservationist who has been sleeping in slave dwellings around the South for the past several years in order to connect with hist ...  

On a hot June evening a baby, mother and father rested nervously in the humidity on the faded wooden bench next to BI-Lo on Hungryneck Boulevard. They had already been through a lot. Unemployment, bounced checks, eviction, repossession and travel had ...  

The platform at North Charleston's aging Amtrak station was cast in the blue hue of old florescent lighting which dissipated across four gleaming rails into the humidity of the thinning remnant of a significant Sunday. Sept. 11 marked ten years. It i ...  

Charleston was enjoying a peaceful, hurricane free Saturday when a dozen local peace advocates assembled in front of the U.S. Customs House for a monthly peace march through the old city. They brought a few handbills, an American flag and a peace ban ...  

Two films recently screened at North Charleston Greater Park Circle Film Society show the directions changing technology is allowing small and in one case microscopically small independently produced film to go. These two films contrast vividly with ...  

Still, hot and humid the second Sunday in August came. Julia and I didn't expect to see much when we headed downtown to see what was happening on King Street, which is closed to traffic on the second Sunday of the month. This event started when Vinc ...  

Parents of students attending school in Mount Pleasant will have the opportunity to gain back some personal time while saving money and gasoline thanks to CARTA's new East Cooper Route System this fall. The biggest beneficiary will be Wando High Scho ...  

Cities in Ireland and Great Britain continue to move away from giving the automobile a central role in the life of their city centers. Both countries have extensive roadway systems linking their cities and suburbs full of vehicles operating on 1.50 E ...  

The Irish live up to their reputation for friendliness and humor even as the global banking system prepares to deal with their wounded, debt burdened economy. The magicians of debt had a spectacular run here apparently. We're staying in a slick, mode ...  

On Saturday in Los Angeles the Department of Transportation shut down the Interstate Highway which runs through what was once the capital of car culture for another road widening project. Before the sun set six cyclists, a transit rider and a rollerb ...  

I have greater faith in a woodworking craftsman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capacity to save the world by making a double bass than in the Transformers. We are at least thirty years into the phenomena of the summer blockbuster mov ...  

This week Gov. Nikki Haley has proposed to veto the budget for the SC Arts Commission. It is apparently one of the costs she hopes to "drive out of the system." It is a decision which may cost us much more than we save. The Arts Commission has alway ...  

Most Mount Pleasant residents drive by our hotels without ever realizing what a huge sector of the town's economy they have become. A new report indicates that hotel occupancy in Mount Pleasant has risen 10 percent since last year. The cost per room ...  

Last weekend's Sweetgrass Festival at Waterfront Memorial Park in Mount Pleasant is the most recent in a year's long effort to maintain East Cooper's sweetgrass basket making tradition and connect it to the life of our changing community. The greates ...  

Seven hundred and forty students graduate from Wando High School on Wednesday at the North Charleston Colisseum. My son Jackson will be one of them. These graduates are the products of what is East Cooper's premier civic asset, the product of two gen ...  

Because the Atlantic embraces East Cooper, our young adventures do not end at the shore. Hobcaw Yacht Club is preparing to launch another summer of youth sailing camps and classes from its60-year-old base on the Wando River. Three generations of sail ...  

Thirty days after the launch of our new bus route system East of the Cooper, it is time for CARTA to meet its obligations so that a fair trial of the new routes before the September 30 deadline to meet ridership and revenue goals can be conducted. Ea ...  

The scaffolding rises behind the alter to the Asp of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church half a block from my home in I'On. Three iconographers from Russia are painting the Virgin of the Sign on the half dome of the ceiling above the Alter, which includes ...