The Union County lake that all reasonable people thought had been put to rest in 2008 is somehow, like Dracula, back from the dead.

Let me refresh your memory if you've somehow forgotten this important environmental issue: In 2004 Union County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entered into an agreement through the Planning Assistance to States program to create a feasibility study for the potential creation of "Patriots Lake," a 5,000 acre reservoir on private and public land along the Tyger River.

There's been so much talk in Spartanburg about Mayor Junie White issuing a proclamation making June 19th, 2010 "Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Day" that I too wanted to weigh in.

My friend Jack Byrne was in the upcountry last week to teach a sustainability workshop at Furman University. Jack's the director of Sustainability Integration at Middlebury College in Vermont, one of the leaders in academic responsibility in the area of climate change.

"Did you like AVATAR?" my friends ask when I tell them I finally saw it, the blockbuster James Cameron 3-D film. How could I not? I'm "green" to the core, an environmentalist, and my favorite Bible story as a child was always Eden.