Carolina rants and raves

DAVID MARK HILL murdered three Aiken social workers in 1996. It took four years just to get him tried and sentenced to death. Now -- finally -- he is scheduled for execution June 6, at least 12 years after his crime. Swift justice? Hardly! Just call it better late than never.

THIS IS A RANT against Aiken Technical College's business office. At the beginning of the semester I received a refund check for $350, only to turn around and be charged $228 for their accounting error. This is, at the best, horrible service to the community to which the school is there to serve, and, at worst, is extortion of young people trying to better themselves.

SOUTH CAROLINA (and others) continues to work with "standardized testing" in public schools. Isn't it amazing how much more kids learned when school tests were written by the teachers who taught the kids?

REGARDING THE incorporation idea for Graniteville and neighbors. Don't fix what isn't broken. Is it possible that when government decides to pull something like this, the folks behind the move are hoping to build their own egos by gathering up a bit more personal power, in this case over a government bigger than the present governments?

THE WACKENHUT Co. board of directors might be coming to Aiken. Will it address sleeping guards in nuclear buildings at any of the sessions?

NORTH AUGUSTA PUBLIC Safety, please have someone replace the vandalized stop signs in Lynnhurst. We know it's turning ghetto, bless its heart, but to see the crowns, six-point stars, seven and four together, is too much to bear. It's nothing more than a constant reminder of the losers casing the neighborhood in the cover of darkness, skulking along the roads in search of trouble and destruction like the cowards they truly are. Step up the patrol and you'll see them -- losers and cowards -- the "gang" population polluting the subdivision. What a stench it is. Please, North Augusta police, please find them and take them away from us. Siskin, Canary, Robin, Hugh -- those are the streets.

THIS IS A RANT against the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, who approached a property owner when they thought someone had crossed into her yard. When she went outside to see what was going on, they told her to go back inside before they arrested her. They searched her building, her vehicle, without a search warrant or anything, and no apologies for being so rude. The officer in charge was Lt. Padgett. They need to remember the residents pay taxes to pay their bills. I think this lady needs to be apologized to.