I took this picture before covering an event with Rep. Tim Scott last week on Shem Creek. There’s a cool picture at every turn in the Lowcountry.
Bulldogs vs. Eagles
I snapped photos of these two unidentified youngsters at the Georgia Southern vs. Citadel game over the weekend in Statesboro, Ga. As a GSU alum, I liked that the Citadel kid kept getting tackled by the little GSU fan. But, unfortunately, that was not a metaphor for the game. GSU just barely eked out a 14-12 homecoming win over the Bulldogs.
Coke will roll out more than a billion white cans for the holidays.
New look for Coke
Changes to the iconic Coca-Cola can are always big news in the South, so this caught my attention today. Coke announced that its holiday can will take on a white appearance, the first time the full-sugar soda will have a non-red can in 125 years.
The company will roll out 1.4 billion of the cans between now and March. That’s a lot of Coke. And USA Today reports that the company will offer consumers a way to help wildlife.
The cans will trumpet a Coca-Cola tie-in with the World Wildlife Fund. So will white bottle caps on other Coca-Cola brands. Each will include a special code that lets folks text $1 donations to the World Wildlife Fund’s efforts to protect the polar bear’s Arctic home. Coke will match consumer donations up to $1 million, USA Today reports.
Signs of fall
In the Lowcountry it’s sometimes difficult to notice the shift from summer to winter. Blink. Everything is brown. So I’ve stepped out over the last few days to find a few signs that indeed fall is here. Here’s what I’ve found. If you see other signs, send ‘em over or post them here. We’d love to see your contributions.
That huge yacht
There have been two mega yachts in the Charleston Harbor over the last few weeks. This one, however, was not hosting Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith, as some local radio DJs speculated one morning.This is the Seafair, is the world’s fourth-largest megayacht, according to its website. The ship travels the globe hosting fine art fairs. The $40 million ship was not open for tours in Charleston while here, but a spokeswoman for the ship’s operator said a formal stop in Charleston may be in the future.
The Seafair was moored in Charleston Harbor waiting out expected bad weather, the spokeswoman said. The ship was traveling from an art festival in Morehead City, N.C., to another show in Tampa.
Read more about the Seafair and its tour of the United States.
Tumblr and Mount Pleasant Patch
As the editor of Mount Pleasant Patch, there are two questions I hear every day: “When are you covering this?” and “Why didn’t you cover that?”I’ll keep working to answer those questions to your satisfaction. But starting today, I hope you’ll also consider joining me here, on this new platform that’s covering our community. Today we’re introducing beta versions of two new pages on Mount Pleasant Patch: “Eyes & Ears” (which you’re on right now) and “OffTheBus 2012: South Carolina.” And we’re opening these pages up to Citizen Journalists. (That’s you!)
Citizen Journalism, if you’re not familiar with it, is the simple idea that people who care about issues can help cover them. As our neighborhoods become networks, every snapped photo or link shared by neighbors can be a form of journalism, because it helps us all learn more about what’s going on nearby. Citizen Journalism efforts often succeed or fail based on the tools citizens are given, so I’m happy to tell you I think we’re using Tumblr, which we thought was the best tool available today for easily posting content online. [I used Tumblr to shoot this pic and upload on Ninth and Prospect, and while we’re in beta I’m going to be having fun myself playing around with this new platform. Please come join in.]
What’s Tumblr?
It’s a microblogging platform, which is probably the easiest, most fun way to publish content today. You could go there now, submit a photo your neighbors might like to see, and be done in sixty seconds. Whether you’re visiting our website on your computer or a mobile phone, Tumblr makes it easy to send in a post.
You said there were two new sites. What’s “Eyes & Ears” for?
This is a place to submit anything you’d like to see on Patch: A picture from a football game, video of a parade, a quote you heard at a town hall meeting, or a link to anything locals ought to be talking about. Just click those buttons at the top of this page to submit them.
OK. Then what’s OffTheBus 2012: South Carolina?
This is a place explicitly devoted to politics, pulled from Citizen Journalists across the state, and it’s part of a collaboration with the Huffington Post. (Remember when then-candidate Barack Obama got in trouble for saying Pennsylvanians “cling to guns and religion”? That quote was reported by a Citizen Journalist for OffTheBus!) This is a page for the fliers from visiting candidates, videos of their speeches, pictures of the media hordes moving in a herd around our town. If you hear a candidate say something newsworthy, you can submit it and make national news yourself!
Isn’t this blogging, something I could already do on Patch?
There are a lot of ways Citizen Journalism and blogging are the same. The best way to differentiate them is to think of Citizen Journalism as a great place to share information, photos, and videos, while blogging on Patch is a great place to share longer works of opinion and analysis.
Can I submit text from my smartphone?
Yes! Download the Tumblr app or just visit our pages in your mobile browser.
Who looks at all these submissions?
Today, me. Tomorrow, me and whoever else wants to join me. I welcome anyone who wants to help out with Eyes & Ears. (OffTheBus 2012: South Carolina, by contrast, will always be vetted by a Patch editor. As you’ve seen from our comments section, usually political coverage needs a ref who’s above the fray.)
