Reader disturbed that South Carolina has lingered without a poet laureate since 2020
Where’s our poet?
Poet Laureate is an honorary position appointed by the governor to promote poetry projects and deliver poems for special occasions. Marjory Wentworth, our previous S.C. Poet Laureate, resigned in 2020 after serving for 17 years.
In March 2021, the S.C. Arts Commission initiated applications for the vacated position. According to their office, they submitted three finalists to the Governor’s Office in April 2021,meaning it has been almost two years since the process began.
To no avail, I have contacted the Governor’s Office, Congressmen and legislators to inquire about the situation. In the continued absence of a response, I will contact city poets laureate, arts organizations and local media. If no progress is made, I will coordinate a rally at the State House in April, National Poetry Month.
It is unfortunate that this literary arts tradition has been left neglected by our state’s officials. Poets reveal and examine the things in our world that we struggle to grasp or understand.
Gov. McMaster, please select the new S.C. Poet Laureate. It matters not who is chosen from the qualified pool of finalists; only that one is finally chosen.
Len Lawson, Irmo
Futile bans
I wish I could understand what well-meaning parents hope to achieve by banning books from school libraries. If their kid has a cell phone, don’t they see the futility?
But for fun, let’s assume that a ban could somehow work. How far do they plan to take it? If the aim is to block out the Black experience in America, will they also ban history books that include the Obama presidency or burn Michelle’s “Becoming”? What about class trips to the new African American Museum when it opens here in Charleston next year?
If it’s to purge prurient sex talk, how did the Bible, with its juicy passages about “breasts like clusters of grapes” in Song of Solomon escape the cut?
Banning books in school libraries is nothing more than one group’s effort to force its beliefs on the rest of us.
Doc Ardrey, Summerville
Congrats, CRNAs
This year marks 160 years since nurses first gave anesthesia to wounded soldiers on American Civil War battlefields. Soon after the war, nurses became surgeons’ anesthesia providers of choice due to their vigilance and skill in administering anesthetic drugs to patients.
Today there are nearly 59,000 Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) in the United States; 1,400 of them based here in South Carolina, who safely deliver more than 1.25 million anesthetics to patients each year.
You may not be familiar with CRNAs, but there’s a good chance you or a family member have received anesthesia care from one. Every day, CRNAs across SC care for patients in every type of facility where anesthesia is required for surgery, labor and delivery, trauma stabilization, and other patient-care services. And not surprisingly, CRNAs are still the primary providers of anesthesia care to U.S. military personnel serving around the globe.
As president of the S.C. Association of Nurse Anesthetists, I want to recognize the original anesthesia experts for their historic 160-year run.
Marcia Iszard, Blythewood
Fiscal medicine
Not so many decades ago, politicians cared about fiscal policy, making tough decisions such as George H. W. Bush’s decision to raise taxes in spite of his promise not to. Clinton, with a Republican congress, went on to erase the deficit with the help of a Social Security surplus. Since then, no president of either party has taken a hard line on the deficit.
Last year, 22% of the money the federal government spent was borrowed. In spite of relatively good economic times and low unemployment, our national debt has risen to over $31 trillion.
The next few years will likely bring higher borrowing costs and a slowing economy, which will only hasten the process. While there are many unknowns, no one can argue that our current path is sustainable.
Many things need to be done. At the top of the list is collecting taxes that are due within our current system. The so-called “tax gap” is huge and now estimated by the IRS to be at least $600 billion.
Simultaneously we absolutely must reduce spending wherever we can. This medicine may be hard to swallow, but doing nothing will only cause worse-tasting medicine later.
William Griffith, Beaufort
