Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette Blogs

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The Fourth of July is a flat-out celebration. For me, it's a drive to Stellaville, Ga., and a barbecue dinner with my Grandmother's family, the Swans. The long, decorated table full of "pot luck" holds the best meal of the year.

It's easy to forget how brutal and dangerous it was for those who fought for our independence.

Lowcountry residents did their part.

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The Fourth has me thinking about another explosive topic in the Lowcountry - nuclear energy and nuclear waste. Around here, we care deeply about this because the Savannah River Site is upstream on an important local water source, the Savannah River.

Let's look at it from the nuclear energy industry's point of view. (It has a blog if you want to chime in there.)

Your daily splash of Lowcountry life:

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... ah, Paris Hilton. She's no Spice Girl, is she? Speaking of the Spice Girls ; ) ... remember back in 1996 (during the irritating Summer of Spice) when we were all left wondering what "Zigga Zig Ah" meant? Such innocent times those were. The Internet was that thing we used at the school library to research papers (when we weren't playing Minesweeper). We still used pay phones to tell our parents we'd be late for dinner. If we saw a girl whose thong was peeking above the waist of her jeans, we'd politely tap her on the shoulder to spare her the embarrassment of anyone seeing it because she couldn't have meant for that to show, right? And when the dear old Spice Girls sang "If you want to be my lover, you gotta get with my friends" we assumed that meant something about getting approval from one's peers before dating a boy. My, how times have changed.