The Opinion Blog

Weekend Update

In case you missed it, an update of some of The Sun News' best opinion content of the past couple of days:

Mande Wilkes started what we hope will be a regular column in Sunday's paper. Her first ("From heroes to hoodlums?") focused on the recent scandals involving U.S. troops. Read it here.

Eugene Robinson penned an interesting take on the immigration issue in the nation, focusing on the latest study that says illegal immigrants are leaving the country faster than they're coming in. Read it here.

One letter to the editor ("Time to outgrow Obama") suggests that anybody still supporting Obama is like a child who hasn't yet grown up. Another suggests that Social Security overpays wealthy retirees.

Another letter ("Public officials educated beyond their intelligence") suggests that lawmakers rely too heavily on the opinion of lobbyists. And finally, a letter from Dr. Dunn makes the argument that the president's health care plan doesn't go far enough.

Enjoy.

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CCU Deserves a Doctorate



Sunday’s editorial urges senators to agree with their compatriots in the House and make it possible for CCU to offer a doctoral program.

Coastal Carolina University wants to begin offering the school’s first doctoral degree, in marine science. The idea makes sense. The school’s main campus sits just 10 miles from the ocean. The university already has well-respected undergraduate and master’s programs in the field. And the school is aiming for a focused, niche program that’s not available elsewhere, potentially making it a draw for students from across the nation. The problem? State law says they can’t.

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Jesus at the ballot box

Today's editorial is basically just a rehash of earlier blog posts on Atlantic Beach, so rather than repost it, I'll direct you to an insightful column today by Brad Warthen. He tackles the topic of what Jesus' political views might have been, a topic that has also come up in letters to the editor in recent months (see here and here and here) and which apparently is on the minds of voters elsewhere as well. The whole column is worth reading, but here's a tantalizing snippet:

In a sense, it’s a stupid question, in that it really can’t be answered authoritatively.

We are hobbled by the fact that Jesus wasn’t into politics. In his day, that simply wasn’t in the hands of the people, and therefore there could be no moral imperative to shape one’s society. He taught people how they should live their lives in the world as they found it.

Such issues as “the size of government” (which has always seemed like a ridiculous thing to talk about, as though there could be an objectively ideal “size” — of course, that’s me talking, not Jesus) simply were not anything an average person had any control over. That was up to Caesar. Or the Senate. Or on the more local level, the Tetrarch or Pilate. Or the Sanhedrin. In His day, government actually was what libertarians imagine it to be today. It was “they,” something outside of and apart from the individual.

Read the whole thing.

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More good news for Georgetown

Also worth briefly noting this morning, this short graf at the end of a Post and Courier story about the Charleston port:

[Sen. Lindsey] Graham said the Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations Act also contains $20.4 million for continued operation and maintenance of Charleston’s navigable waterways; a provision making Georgetown’s port eligible for some of $30 million in a federal account for small harbors; and $400,000 to study further renourishment on Folly Beach.

At the AB Corral

Atlantic Beach's election standoff continues. In case you didn't catch it, current Mayor Retha Pierce told a local TV station last night that she simply doesn't think the governor was within her power to order a new election and the town can do what it wants.

 

Talking to WBTW, she said, "I don't think the governor was within her boundaries in the first place to set a date without first consulting the officials of the town. ...We have a conflict May 22. I don't see anybody coming from another domain or municipality and coming into a fully chartered municipality and making us change our schedule."

 

Responding this morning, Gov. Nikki Haley's spokesman, Rob Godfrey, offered me a rather different view. “This is not at all an unusual for the governor to set a new election. It’s been done a number of times with cooperation from local officials. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened here, but the governor’s authority to set a new election is clear.”

 

Godfrey's got it right. The governor clearly has the authority here. Any attempt to say otherwise and put off the election is going to only look like a sad, last-ditch attempt to hold onto fading power.

Higher Ed Deserves Higher Funding



Friday’s editorial urges us to devote more money to higher education in our state:

If the price of Big Macs rose at the same rate as tuition at Coastal Carolina University over the past 25 years, you’d be paying about $15 for that sandwich these days. The cost of attending HGTC has also risen dramatically in recent years. Student loan debt in the nation has topped $1 trillion. CCU students who graduated in 2010 did so with an average of $31,907 in debt hanging over their head.

The numbers are scary. And much of it is our own fault.

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