Re the movie 'Lincoln': Yes, but...

If you've seen the movie Lincoln, I'm sure you'll agree it's worthy of all the awards it's bound to get.  It's an accurate potrait of Lincoln's uphill fight to get Congress to pass the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

And of course, the man himself also deserves his place in history among the greats not only for leading the cause to abolish slavey, but also for keeping the nation one nation.

But you'll have to forgive us Charlestonians if our recognition of his greatness is dimmed a bit by something else he did, by the unnecessary and useless barbarity he showed Charleston during the war's last 18 months.

After Charleston started the war by firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln ordered the Union army to attack.  Six thousand troops did, but 500 Charleston defenders repelled them.  So Lincoln had the navy attack, but Charleston repelled that, too.  So Lincoln ordered the army and navy to attack together.  But Charleston defeated that attempt, too.

So Lincoln ordered a 16,500-pound cannon be installed in a marsh a few miles from Charleston which would rain down destruction on the lower half of the Charleston peninsular - an area where there was no military presence, only civilian homes, shops and hospitals.  And although Confederate Gen. Pierre Beauregard told him he was about to "commit an act of unspeakable barbarity," Lincoln personally ordered his troops to bomb the city without end, which they did - for 540 consecutive days.

The attack stands today as the longest military siege in American history.  Lincoln smashed Charleston so hard that Gen. Sherman ignored us on his march up the coast from Savannah and burned Columbia instead.

So please understand if many Charlestonians, while acknowledging Lincoln's greatness, put an asterisk next to it.

-Skip

GOP Should Lead Legalizing Marijuana

Thank you voters in Colorado and Washington.  You voted in clear numbers, approximately 65-45 in both cases, to legalize adult use of marijuana for recreational purposes.

Thank you also voters in the four Michigan cities, including Detroit, who voted overwhelmingly to legalize, and voters in more than 40 Massachusetts cities who approved nonbinding ballot measures to either regulate marijuana like alcohol or simply to repeal prohibition altogether.

You have started the train rolling.  And if Republicans really believe what they say they believe, they should lead the way.

Republicans constantly harp on the need for small government that spends all its money only on necessary programs.  Yet, they strongly support spending countless billions of dollars on an utterly failed "war on drugs," even though they all know a definition of insanity is using the same techniques and expecting different results.

Whoever decides to engineer this now-rolling train, Republicans or Democrats, should take heed that America Will Be On Your Side.  Nationwide polls by Gallup, Rasmussen and other respected pollsters reveal that most Americans support replacing cannabis prohibition with limited legalization and regulation.  Further, nearly 75 percent of the respondants -- including 67 percent of Republicans -- oppose the federal government's interfering with state medical marijuana decisions.

And why not legalize and control a weed that grows wild on every continent on Earth except for Anarctica, and is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco?

Roll, train, roll.

-Skip