"They're Coming Across the North Charleston Line!"

Why would I worry that it might be a while before the Post and Courier provided another "newsless" article? How silly of me; there were three to choose from today alone. Where to begin?

"Hanahan shootings stir fears: Town that rarely sees slaying is abuzz" by Prentiss Findlay, first page of Local and State section, June 6, 2006.

"They." Would that be the same they that called it the ParaPro (see previous comments)?

Prominently featured in this article were comments by the denizens of Pappy's restaurant on Remount Road, just inside Hanahan from the city of North Charleston. The buzz regarded two murders in Hanahan. Problem is, the reporter perhaps has a poor sense of geography. We'll be generous here, since the paper itself showed exactly where the murders took place in a small map attached to the end of the article.

It's easy to understand the comment of one of Pappy's customers (i.e., "They're coming across...") as ill-informed and probably racist in genesis (on the other side of Remount is Charleston Farms). However, the reporter need not have reported it, knowing that the murders took place in a part of Hanahan MILES north of the "line," in fact, north of Hanahan High School.

Further, the suspects in one slaying (of a resident of Summerville) were from Dorchester County and Summerville. The other victim lived in Hanahan but had a Georgetown address on his driver's license. Since the Hanahan police said they had no suspects in the second slaying, the North Charleston connection is BOGUS. Here we have in addition to the newsless paper, the factual error paper.

Now, if he had just said, "They're coming across the Summerville line," the comment might have been factually correct, if still fatuous!