Category Archives: Opinions
Courier Letters to the Editor 1-29-25
Property values skewed
Dear Editor,
By state law every county must reassess the value of each property every 5 years. This year, 2025, is a reassessment year in Pickens County. Valuations change over time, so the purpose of a reassessment is to insure property valuations are in line with current property characteristics and market conditions.
Most properties rise in value over the 5 years. The law also forbids a county from gaining a tax revenue
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Activities for a long winter
It looks like we’re in for a long winter, with extremely cold temperatures in several places. Many of us 
are already realizing that we just don’t want to go out in that. But what shall we do to occupy ourselves while we’re at home?
I don’t know how it started, but in my neighborhood this
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VA adds new presumptives
In January the Department of Veterans Affairs added several illnesses to its list of presumptives, courtesy of the PACT Act. Done in two batches, the new additions to the list make it easier for veterans 
to get the care they need without the dragged-out process of proving that where they were stationed was the cause of their current condition. The illnesses are now considered service-
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Predators eat the weak, scavengers eat the dead
Habakkuk 1:8 “Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.”
In my lingering memories are times of traveling in Africa. Being in one of the East African game parks and observing the elephants, giraffes and rhinos in their natural habitat is a forever experience.
Among the observations was to see the predator cats stalking their prey. The female lions crouched watching the wildebeests, antelope, or at times,
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Having a covenant relationship with God
The Almighty is always faithful, He never fails, and if we take a closer look throughout our past, we notice that He has been working in our lives even when it did not seem like it.
It’s been said that God’s care for His children is like the sun: it’s constant. Even though the clouds often obscure it, this does not mean it’s not there. We might not have everything we asked for, and sometimes we are thankful we did not receive the thing we begged for. I remember the song, “Thank God for
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Food safety in power outages
There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and not all of it is good. We need to be aware of what’s going on around us, especially with the important things like our food.
FoodSafety.gov has become my go-to for all types of food safety information. At this writing, the headlines on their opening page include an investigation into an outbreak of salmonella in cucumbers, lead in imported cookware, listeria in ready-to-eat (RTE) beef and poultry, and three ways to keep your food safe when you lose power.
The section “Food Safety During Power Outages” of FoodSafety.gov has
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Sign up now for ‘25 sports clinic
Registration for the 2025 National Veterans Summer Sports Clinic is now open. Scheduled to take place in San Diego this summer August 23-30, veterans who want to go should get started now on the application process. Those who are eligible could get a free round-trip plane ticket, so it’s worth the time to get started on your application. Registration cuts off on March 1.
Go online to va.gov and search for “National Veterans Summer Sports
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His love is waiting for our love
No matter what the negative naysayers declare about the absence of the love of God, do not allow these dark imaginations to be absorbed into your conscience.
Let us accept the fact that after God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it, the Almighty keeps repeating, “And God saw that it was good.” He passionately loved everything He made and still does. Take a moment and read the first chapter of Genesis for yourself. Allow these words to saturate your soul, as you realize He is also talking about you. He created you as one of His finest masterpieces, and for you to not embrace how special and adored you are, means you are refusing to accept spiritual reality.
I want to encourage you today and remind you how highly God thinks of you. Since He is infinite and knows everything that has happened and will happen,
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Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
In Matthew, 22:15-23, we read how the Pharisees challenge Jesus about the lawfulness of paying taxes to the Roman Emperor.
Though they were asking about a controversial contemporary political question, Jesus responds with a transcendent spiritual Truth, which talks about the relationship between the material and the spiritual.
As we read in Matthew 22:19, “they handed him a silver piece. Jesus asked, “Whose image is this and whose inscription? ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. He said to
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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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