Category Archives: Opinions
Guard yourself against AI tricks
The year is off to a roaring start when it comes to scams. To hear the experts tell it, we have AI to thank for a lot of it. AI, or 
artificial intelligence, is enhancing some of the scams that were already out there and creating more as the technology increases.
Our goal: to get through 2025 without losing a single dollar to the crooks.
Last month the FBI put out an alert focusing on scams created by artificial intelligence and ways to protect ourselves.
AI-generated text creates fake social media profiles, emails, websites and texts that push financial frauds like investment
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Letters to the Editor 1-8-25
A civic resolution for the New Year
Dear Editor,
Would you consider a totally different kind of New Year’s resolution? One that increases your ability to affect your local government?
Would you resolve to attend a single meeting of local elected government body? You have many to choose from — county
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It’s a scary New Year
The New Year is scary because you don’t know what it’s going to bring. It is like Halloween and Christmas mixed together. You have the “monsters” of bad habits you need to fight off while the “ghosts of past mistakes” swirl through your head, 
keeping you awake at night.
As the New Year begins, it is time to reflect on those mistakes and resolve to do better. Making resolutions is a way to commit ourselves to doing better. We
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Making God’s will a priority
Are you confident that God is watching you, listening to your words and searching your heart during times of difficulty or making a request?
It’s not that uncommon to hear people say that sometimes they feel their prayers are bouncing off the ceiling and cannot explain why or how this could be happening. These times of spiritual discouragement are fairly common, but it does not mean that our messages are going to voicemail. He is Omnipresent which means He sees and hears everything instantaneously. Others will testify
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Heavy metals in our dark chocolate
It appears that our beloved dark chocolate candy bars can contain dangerous amounts of lead and cadmium — the dark chocolate we intentionally chose for its health benefits like lower blood pressure and antioxidants that protect cells from 
damage.
Consumer Reports did research to test the levels of lead and cadmium in dark chocolate candy bars. Of the 28 different dark chocolate bars
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New life insurance premium discount
If you have life insurance through the Department of Veterans Affairs, you’ll be pleased about what’s coming in 2025: a discount in your premiums.
Whether you are insured with Veterans’ Group Life Insurance (VGLI), Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) or Family Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (FSGLI), your premiums will be
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A guide for a veteran’s New Year’s resolution
Although I have been using variations of these ideas for the past 12 years, the main credit for them come from Army combat 
veteran Rob Kennedy, who works with the Greenville VA and whose work “The Warrior’s Journey” is helping hundreds of veterans in their civilian lives. The Vantage Point Foundation, a veteran nonprofit, has also been
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Traditional traditions
Stressful holidays are often caused because there is so much stress during the holidays.
The stress of having to find the perfect gift, bake the perfect cookies, make the perfect gravy (that means no lumps) and decorate the perfect tree. Then, Mother Nature can hit you with a snow storm, or some other weather glitch, and put a real damper on any holiday travel plans.
However, the Christmas traditions of sipping hot chocolate, twinkling lights, and stealing kisses under the mistletoe, make the holidays the perfect setting
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Courier Letters to the Editor
A cleanup well done
Dear Editor,
I would like to say “job well done” to Pickens County, SCDOT and FEMA for all their hard work and long hours in cleaning up after the Sept. 28 storm.
They have worked tirelessly seven days a week and 12 hours a day to clear the trees and debris left by that horrendous storm. I myself had two large piles in front of my house, which they picked up on a Sunday afternoon.
I live very close to where they are dumping all of the cleanup for later mulching. The piles are huge. I was by there today,
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Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
Editor’s Note: In 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages. We offer the letter and editorial response to you in this week’s issue. Merry Christmas.
Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, 
whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
