We are all familiar with the Three R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic).

Three events have occurred this week to remind us there are also Three C’s:

City: Our City’s mayor resigned in a hail of self-inflicted wounds less than eight hours after he hurled scatalogical profanities furiously at a sincere, concerned citizen, and he allegedly stalked and threatened the executive director of Historic Beaufort Foundation.

County: Our county council confirmed on Monday its firing of former County Administrator Eric Greenway for numerous alleged sexual and financial transgressions.

Courts: Judge Clifton Newman on Thursday sentenced local Beaufort attorney Corey Fleming to 20 years in state prison for fleecing millions of dollars from clients in connection with similar charges against convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh, himself the scion of the Murdaugh family of Hampton that for generations operated as their fiefdom the state’s criminal courts here and in surrounding counties.

There is also another C, namely Community.

Community: Rhetoric carelessly, irresponsibly, and shamefully proclaimed in our Community by apologists for these fallen “heroes” has come home to roost. No longer can they claim that “outsiders” who have actually lived here for generations, nor “good old boys” who are actually far more open-minded and sophisticated than they, nor “elitists” who actually work hard here to provide jobs in the private sector instead of on the public payroll, are responsible for the ills of our Community. On the contrary, it is their conniving and backstabbing that have brought the Beaufort community together to see that it is they who are poison.

Our Community was taken over by a cabal in the City, the County, and the Courts. Now that the facts have been revealed, the Community is pouring an antidote on the poison: resignations, firings, and imprisonment.