Winyah Bay Heritage Festival

The old adage about March coming in like a lion certainly held true for the weekend of the Winyah Bay Heritage Festival on March 3 and 4. Though rainy and blustery, the event went on as scheduled and attracted many visitors to East Bay Park for a celebration of our rich Low Country heritage.

For hundreds of years, Winyah Bay and the river systems of Georgetown County have provided a bountiful harvest for our enjoyment, a haven for sportsmen to hunt and fish, and a natural environment of unmatched beauty to appreciate, live and raise families.

The Palmetto Dock Dogs were undaunted by the weather and performed amazingly well. The Department of Natural Resources virtual shooting trailer was a big hit. Fishing guides, Birds of Prey demonstrations, decoy painting for children and youth duck calling contests were all part of the weekend's activities. Exhibitors offered a variety of old and new items connected to hunting, fishing and outdoor life. Beautiful carvings, paintings, pottery and handmade oyster knives were featured by outstanding artist and craftsmen.

The Georgetown County Historical Society extends its heartfelt thanks to the many in our community that helped make this year's festival a success.

As in the past, Georgetown County Council and Council Chairman Sel Hemingway have been most generous. The Parks and Recreation and Department of Public Services provided the tents, facilities, and manpower needed to support having the Festival at East Bay Park; kudos to them for a great job. Mayor Scoville and The City of Georgetown Staff assisted with the Dock Dogs' set up and recognized the festival through the media and revenue contributions from Hospitality Tax. Despite the weather, things ran smoothly.

Of course, the festival could not have happened without the boundless energy of our volunteers from the Historical Society, the Winyah Bay Heritage Festival Steering committee and countless others from throughout the community.

The Winyah Bay Festival Committee worked tirelessly over the past year to put together a quality event for our community. Even more, their hard work represents a gift for tomorrow; an assurance that we and our children will continue to have the opportunities to enjoy and celebrate the rich heritage of Winyah Bay and the Low Country.

All proceeds go to the Georgetown County Historical Society's Museum. We have outgrown the present site and plan to move into a new building at 120 Broad Street, where we can implement our plans to share our history and educate our children in the rich heritage of Georgetown. Thanks to the many visitors at the 2012 Festival, we have moved a little closer to that reality.

Please save the date of March 2 and 3, 2013 for next year's Winyah Bay Heritage Festival. Your continued support is needed to make our Georgetown County Museum a major destination to show others our true heritage.

Dan Ray - Co-Chair

Debbie Thomas - Co-Chair

Georgetown

Detours

I'd like to offer the suggestion that for any future major disruptions of traffic flow in Georgetown that the detour routes have a little more planning than just being jotted down on the back of a napkin late one night at a Front Street drinking establishment … and instigated the next day.

Charles Wells

Georgetown

In defense of Sandra Fluke

Recently, this newspaper published a letter by a reader who agreed with Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute. What kind of paper is this? Do you have no shame, no sense of decency?

Ms. Fluke testified before a Congressional committee on behalf of others, not herself. She spoke up for women who work for religiously affiliated colleges and institutions, suggesting that many would have undue financial, emotional, and medical burdens if contraceptive coverage was not covered by the employer’s health insurance plan. Fluke spoke of a woman who needed contraceptive medicine to treat polycystic ovarian syndrome. She testified about the need for access to contraceptive medicine after a woman was raped.

Limbaugh, the Grand Ayatollah of the Republican Party, said "What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [wrong first name], who goes before a Congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex." But Fluke said nothing, one way or another, about whether contraception was a financial burden on herself. And she certainly didn't ask to be paid to have sex.

With no evidence and without even knowing her correct first name, Limbaugh strongly implied that Fluke had been sexually promiscuous in sixth grade and junior high school. He wrongly accused her of expecting the government to pay for recreational sex. He also pushed the strange and inaccurate idea that the more sex a woman has, the more birth control pills she will need.

Some letters are unfit to print. This was one of them.

Larry Gates

Pawleys Island

Penny sales tax

First let me thank the Georgetown Times for its excellent reporting on the proposed penny sales tax.

Secondly, I want to let our elected county council members know that we also will remember who proposed such a stupid tax at a time when most people, obviously not council members, are struggling to get by. This will be obvious when the next council elections are held.

Mr. David Light sums it up very well. If we knew what this money would be used for it would be different. Bob Anderson is the last person I would have expected to vote for this. I was the last person to vote at Waccamaw High and Bob talked me into voting for him. Was I mistaken or just conned again?

Please citizens of Georgetown County let your county council members know what we think of such stupid legislation. I cannot imagine any one would vote for this tax now or ever in the current economic times. I can barely afford gas now.

Gordon McNeil

Pawleys Island

First amendment

We are traveling down a bumpy, pot-holed filled road to the presidential election. On the left side of the road, we see billboards that promise a false Utopian life filled with European-style medical care, a variety of entitlements, and a list of class warfare slo-gans. On the right side of the road, we see a group of flawed-uninspiring candidates for the Nation’s highest office. Towards the end of the road we arrive at a fork where we see a billboard that depicts a painting of George Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge praying for God’s help for his poorly equipped army’s campaign against the British army that was superior in numbers and equipment.

The left branch of the fork takes us to Progressive/Liberals led by Obama. This group forgets that our God had a hand in our country’s establishment by our religious founding fathers that had the strength and courage to break away from the tyranny they were living under. The right branch of the fork takes us to areas where we can pray for God’s help in overcoming the serious problems facing our Nation today. Remember, in return for His help, our founding fathers were able to provide a refuge for people from European countries that put a restriction on the manner in which their religious citizens worshipped. This is a not a complicated concept to understand in our Nation’s history.

Unfortunately, the Progressive/Liberals, led by Obama, in this country are ignorant, forgetful, or deliberately trying to invoke “CHANGE.” I leave it up to the reader to choose which branch of the road they will take.

All we hear from the liberal mass media is that “separation of church and state” is stated in the Constitution. The First Amendment protects the church and we over-taxed citizens from an oppressive national government. The First Amendment means that government will not establish a state religion, which we must belong in order to be a citizen. What is so hard for this group of misinformed leaders to understand? Please, someone out there tell them about the Church of England. One other thing Progressive/Liberals should consider is that allowing a candidate’s religious beliefs to be the basis of his or her integrity and ethical standards is not forcing a particular form of religion on the population.

The First Amendment was not intended to prevent public prayer, the posting of the Ten Commandments in the public sector, or the exhibiting of the nativity scene in the public square. When the present government, the liberal media, and the Progressive/Liberal hangers-on seek to abridge our First Amendment rights, we must vigorously oppose this action.

The Progressive/Liberals overlook that this country is based on freeing religion from the grasping claws of government and the present left-leaning judicial activists. Religious freedom is the primary reason that the first Europeans settled here. Religious freedom was such an important issue, that the Founders addressed the matter first in the list of Amendments.

The First Amendment clarified what a government could not do. The efforts of the Progressive/Liberals to remove God out of our everyday lives has directly led to the moral decline in the Nation which is the direct cause of the economic issues we should focus on. Obama, his unelected czars, his cabinet, left-leaning members of the judiciary, unbalanced leftist mainstream mass media have bred a good work ethic and moral foundation out of most of our citizens and replaced within them a sense of entitlement and irresponsibility for their actions.

A Navy chaplain once told me that going through life things happen that make believing in God difficult, but not believing in God makes going through life miserable. Guess what direction in life Obama and his Progressive/ Liberal followers are forcing on this Nation?

Art Blenk

Pawleys Island

Mojo applauds progress on dredging the Port of Georgetown

Mojo is putting his paws together as he applauds the progress that has been made in getting the Port of Georgetown dredged. Mojo does not often applaud. It really is important when he does.

Mojo and I sat in on a meeting at which The Honorable Yancey McGill, a state senator who represents the Georgetown area, reported on the progress of the dredging project. It was exciting to hear that of the 33 1/2 million dollars the Corps of Engineers says will be needed to dredge out the port, 18.5 million has been promised by the state and federal grants are looking very promising. Senator McGill touted the bipartisan effort at the federal level led by U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn (a Democrat) and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (a Republican). This bi-partisan cooperation is one reason that Mojo is clapping. Would that all of Congress worked in a bi-partisan way on the issues that face us.

Another reason Mojo is wearing his paws out is that our tax dollars are coming back to us and they will be joined by other folk's tax dollars. The state money represents all the citizens of South Carolina, not just those who live in Georgetown. The federal grants will include contributions from all the states. We are truly one nation. And when we see it work, its a beautiful thing. (Note: It is important to underscore that when we talk about the funding package for the dredging of the port, we are not talking about the referendum on the 1 cent local option sales tax proposed by the county council. If that referendum passes, any capital improvements that involve waterways will be a project at Murrells Inlet. The dredging of the Port of Georgetown involves NO new taxes. Now you see why Mojo is practically beyond himself with ecstasy.)

A fourth reason that Mojo is jumping up and down is the project will get underway in the near future and that means before long the new port will be operating. Once completed, companies that have already expressed an interest in establishing distribution centers around our highway of water, will move in. With them will come jobs, good jobs, with good benefits.

A fifth reason Mojo is now leading cheers behind my chair is his faith in public service has been restored. Ironically, the meeting with Senator McGill occurred shortly after the Lt. Gov. resigned. One more scandal in South Carolina threw mud on the high calling of public service. It was refreshing on the heels of that sorry news to be with a public official who serves his constituents rather than himself. And because of his seniority, he knows how to get things done . As Barbara Jordan once said, "If you are going to play the game, you had better know the rules." Thank you Senator McGill.

Finally, Mojo is flat-out relieved that he is not going to have to put his canine colleagues to work on the project. Some of you may recall, Mojo had offered to help with the dredging. He was pulling together a team of terriers to do the digging, Newfoundlands to do the pulling, poodles to do the design work, etc. He was making progress on organizing the project, but it was going more slowly than he had anticipated. As hard as it is for him to admit, sometimes dogs are as difficult to herd as cats.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Dr. Jim Watkins and Mojo

Pawleys Island