The F5 Nobody: A terrible idea to stop spree killers
When I was young, I had a recurring dream that the man who lived down the street planned to kill me. In reality, the guy worked for City Utilities and drove a green work...
Category: Television
Cracking the comments code
This may surprise you, but I know a little more about crack cocaine than the average 37-year-old guy who grew up in a semi-rural community in southwest Missouri. I know how it’s made, how...
Charles Wakefield, finally free
It was, in the jargon of my people, a scoop. I happened on it almost by accident. I had a habit of checking through probation, pardon, and parole records to see who was staying...
Responsibility, the internet’s condom
If you have the clap and somebody wants to get in your pants, whose job is it to tell that person that you have the clap? That’s the question I posed this morning as...
Sunday warrior
The Doppler radar looked like a corner man’s towel in the ninth round. Three slashes of red cut across Georgia and western South Carolina, each one more pronounced as they stepped south toward the...
Journalism and the Palmetto State of play
Union County, South Carolina was barely on the map in 1993. There was no easy way to get there by interstate highway. It wasn’t even the place drivers ended up by accident. It was...
Balloon Boy is your fault
This is your fault. Certainly, there’s a lot of blame to go around, but most of the people who are pointing fingers at the Henne family tonight should turn off their TV and look...
Mark Sanford boned me
Barbecue makes me hot, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Whether the sauce is based in ketchup, mustard, or vinegar, it might as well be Spanish Fly shaken with raw oyster liquor. I...
Robert Paul Stephens cold case comes to end
God, it was hot. Baugh Road sat right on the edge of the Pickens and Anderson County line. Everything smelled burned and mosquitoes were swimming in the humid air. I was sweating into pair...
Much atwitter about nothing
Twitter is the Keanu Reeves of the internet. I imagine a big budget film in 1994. It has big guns, big names, the perfect script, and Oscar written all over it. Spielberg already has...
If you don’t want an answer…
Journalism is at its roots a practice in asking questions. The more questions you ask, the more answers you stand to get, the more you can do your job of informing the public. Sometimes-and...
Uruguay? That’s random!
The girl who cuts my hair knows I keep an odd travel schedule. She looked at me in the mirror last week and asked, “Got any trips planned?” “Going to Uruguay on Sunday,” I...
Much ado about a monkey
Sean Delonas should be embarrassed. The New York Post editorial cartoonist has become a target of people like Rev. Al Sharpton and CNN’s Roland Martin for the cartoon you see below. Delonas and the...
When Tony comes to town: Greenville, SC
‘Deep dish is pizza like Olive Garden is Italian’ –Anthony Bourdain on Chicago pie I don’t think I’ve made any secret about my admiration for Anthony Bourdain. His ability to mix snark with cerebral...