Fun:South Carolina

South Carolina is too small for a republic, and too large for an insane asylum. South Carolina, "The Palmetto State", also known as "America's Germany", was the first slave state to secede from the Union and didn't fully return until July 2015.

The only thing tying the Carolinas together is their football team. The last time South Carolina was of any consequence was when people were allowed to own other people, and South Carolinians threw a fit when it was suggested that maybe that wasn’t O.K. anymore.

The good

 * Stephen Colbert grew up in Charleston, SC. He was later handed the keys to the capital city of Columbia during his brief 2007 run for the president of the United States. .  In 2015, Colbert donated $800,000 to fund teacher requested projects at public schools in South Carolina.
 * , former head of NASA (2009-2017), is from the state capital, Columbia.
 * was born and grew up in Bennettsville, SC.
 * Charleston area, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and Hunting Island State Park have very good beaches
 * Charleston also has some of the best food in the world (but see diabetes, below)
 * Pimento cheese
 * Home of superior mustard and vinegar based BBQ.
 * GO COCKS!

The bad

 * Due to a history of segregation, the collapse of the state's textile industry, poor funding of public education and language in the state constitution only requiring the provision of a "minimally adequate" education, many of the schools in rural eastern SC (along Interstate 95) are in extremely poor condition, often lacking basic necessities like maps or air conditioning, much less modern computers. The area has been dubbed the "Corridor of Shame". Meanwhile, schools in the Lexington-Richland area receive hundreds of thousands in funding, technology grants, and campuses the size of small colleges. Lindsey Graham has been one of the major advocates for improving the quality of the schools along the I-95 corridor.
 * The South Carolina Constitution doesn't allow atheists to hold any public office, beautifully violating the United States Constitution.
 * SC is number 1 in domestic violence-related murder of women.
 * Christian Exodus chose to colonize South Carolina, and instigate a second secession from the Union because the first one at Fort Sumter turned out so wonderfully.
 * South Carolina seems to have a problem with crank institutions masquerading as "educational operations" setting up shop there, like Bob Jones University and Clemson.
 * As of 2016, Charleston has the highest rate of diabetes-related amputations in the United States.
 * As of 2017, South Carolina tied for last in education with Alabama.

The ugly

 * It was the first state to secede from the Union, specifically citing slavery as its motivation for doing so.
 * It was the site of the beginning of the American Civil War.
 * It was the cause of the Civil War, because its secessionists fired the first shots of the conflict at Fort Sumter.
 * Its Governor in the 1960s, Ernest Hollings, ordered the raising of the Confederate Battle Flag on the State Capitol… to protest desegregation.
 * Hootie and the Blowfish

S.C. in the national spotlight

 * On 22 May 1856, SC Congressman Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane over Sumner's anti-slavery speech three days earlier...while his friend held off other senators with a pistol, preventing them from interfering with Brooks literally hitting a man when he was down. Ah, Southern gentlemen. Southern hospitality. Southern chivalry. Ah, yes. A long tradition.
 * On 12 April 1861, there was a bunch of shooting at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Rumor has it that the shooting lasted for four years.
 * During Reconstruction, SC's largest newspaper, The State, ran a large picture of the state legislature which at the time included many freed Blacks. The picture &mdash; which was a hand engraving, not a photograph &mdash; depicted the black members of the legislature as little more than the dregs from a low-rent minstrel show. This picture was used as a basis for a scene in the movie Birth of a Nation (1915) which depicted the blacks in the SC legislature as drinking, eating fried chicken, gambling and walking around barefoot in the chamber. A title card in the movie claimed the scene was authentic because it was based on the picture in The State. This scene is one of many in the movie credited with whipping up the anti-black sentiments that led to the re-establishment of the Ku Klux Klan.
 * After racist, bigoted, homophobic, family values-preachin' SC Senator Strom Thurmond's death in 2003 it was reported that, in 1925, then 22-year-old Strom had a daughter with his parents' then 16-year-old non-white maid. He secretly paid his daughter child support for the rest of her life, including giving her a full ride through South Carolina State University. (For our readers outside the US, you may &mdash; or may not, who knows? &mdash; be surprised to learn that there are several colleges in the south that are non-white. SCSU is one of them.)
 * The University of South Carolina has a mascot called the Gamecocks. Teehee. They are quite aware of the double entendre; indeed, some of the most popular shirts in the state are variations of "I Love Cocks."
 * On 20 March 1983, NBC-TV ran a made-for-TV movie titled Special Bulletin. The movie, shot in "real time", was about a bunch of domestic terrorists who threatened to set off a nuke in Charleston Harbor. The story included several authentic-looking "special bulletins" about the ongoing situation. Fearing a repeat of the (non-existent ) panic during the 1938 CBS Radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, NBC ran disclaimers during commercial breaks. They also placed graphics at the bottom of the screen during the movie stating that it was only a movie, not a real news broadcast. However, being that it was set in South Carolina, NBC should have had the actors periodically turn to the camera and shout "this is just a movie, dammit!" because several good ol' boys and gals couldn't read ignored the warnings and panicked anyway.
 * Jim Bakker built a sprawling Christian amusement park, Heritage USA, in Fort Mill, South Carolina just before his untimely scandal. After Jerry Falwell took over the park (along with the rest of PTL) in 1987 he slid down the water slide to raise money for the debt-ridden ministry. The park was then bought by Morris Cerullo, who lost the park to a Malaysian investment group in a lawsuit. It stands today unused and in disrepair, with portions split off into real estate developments, although a series of evangelists have tried "reviving" it. You can drive around most of it; it is very creepy and would make an excellent place to film a slasher movie.
 * In 2009, thanks to SC's governor Mark Sanford, "hiking the Appalachian Trail" is now slang for "flying to Argentina to sleep with my mistress." (Yes, he's a Republican.) His wife &mdash; who, unlike most political wives, most decidedly did not stand by her man &mdash; later revealed that 1) he refused to include the "forsaking all others" line in his wedding vows; and 2) he asked her for advice concerning the affair, as if she were one of his political advisers and not his wife.
 * Resigned his Senate seat for a job with a lifespan of a baseball manager.
 * Roland Corning, a deputy assistant state attorney general and former state legislator, was fired on 28 October 2009 for inappropriate behavior. The 66-year-old Republican was found parked in a remote corner of a Columbia cemetery with an 18-year-old stripper constituent, Viagra an energy pill, and some sex toys blunt objects that he "kept with him 'just in case'" he was ever attacked by Jenna Jameson.
 * Without campaigning, Alvin Greene won the democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
 * In March 2012, officials for the state's school athletic association announced their next great idea &mdash; make bass fishing a varsity sport, complete with school teams, leagues, varsity letters and championship playoffs. This while most public school teachers are forced to buy supplies for their classrooms because school districts can't afford to.
 * On June 17, 2015, a 21-year-old white supremacist named Dylann Roof nine people at the historic Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston.  As a direct result of this, a rather ashamed and contrite SC General Assembly finally decided to remove the Confederate Flag from the state house grounds, after it had been flying either above it or in front of it for more than 50 years.
 * Like most southern states, SC just loves beauty pageants. No doubt, any beauty pageant contestant is a heroine.
 * Like most southern states, SC just loves beauty pageants. No doubt, any beauty pageant contestant is a heroine.

Pointless trivia
In part of South Carolina in the 1970s, you could pick up two television stations off the ol' wabbit earz. One of them, the ABC affiliate in Anderson (channel 40), signed on at 10 AM. The other, the ABC affiliate out of Asheville, North Carolina (channel 13) had a fuzzy picture. Real diverse choice of programming there. On Saturday morning you watched SuperFriends and the Laff-O-Lympics on channel 13 and changed to channel 40 midmorning to watch them again with a better signal.