Yesterday, Gov. Perdue declared a state of emergency on the North Carolina coast, which automatically triggered the state’s price-gouging law. Attorney General Cooper said, “We’re warning price gougers that you can’t use a storm as an excuse to make an unfair profit off of consumers.” Anyone who was in Charlotte after Hurricane Hugo hit remembers the stories of people having to pay exploitative hustlers ten bucks for a bottle of water, a hundred dollars for a flashlight, a thousand for a small chain saw, or up to five thousand for a generator.
So a law against price-gouging is a good thing, right? Protecting ordinary people from predators and so forth, it’s all good, right? In normal times you would think so. But these are far from normal times, and free-market fundamentalists are in full roar. They believe any restrictions on business are evil — even apparently, restrictions on “business” practices that ruthlessly take advantage of others’ misery. No, we’re not kidding.
As BlueNC reminds us today, the Ayn Rand-worshipping ideologues at Raleigh’s John Locke Foundation think that banning price-gouging is a terrible restriction on business transactions. Again, no, we’re not kidding, and unfortunately, neither are the Lockers. Their reasoning? “Higher prices encourage conservation just when it’s needed the most,” and “In terms of public welfare and social order, it is important to allow the price system to work freely during times of natural disasters and emergencies.” Great God Almighty, what is wrong with people like that? I’ve heard of, and met, people whose devotion to their ideology was so strong it blinded them to common sense; but, saying that letting scumbags take advantage of people after a natural disaster is just off the charts.
John "Mr. Smirky" Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation
If you’re of the progressive sort with a kinda dark sense of humor, here’s a little something to get your Labor Day weekend off to a good start. Anti-Muslim fever, as you know, is being stoked across the country by the likes of Gingrich and Limbaugh, but it was just a matter of time before some bigot’s hatred backfired on him. Specifically, it’s probably not a good idea to mix alcohol and right-wing talk radio.
The New Haven Register reports that last Thursday, Kevin Morris, 31 and really drunk, came barreling into a West Haven, Conn. hookah lounge, which he apparently thought was a Muslim-run business rather than a hipster refuge, and began shouting profanities and racial and religious insults at customers, including black and Arabic people. Morris may have been confused about what a hookah lounge is, but, as TalkingPointsMemo writes, “One thing is clear: it ain’t a mosque.”
Sure enough, after Morris the Drunken Bigot had insulted everyone in the place and grabbed the bartender by the throat, outraged customers gathered ’round and proceeded to beat the shit out of the guy. As the Register reports, when police got there, Morris “was bleeding profusely from the face.” He was treated at a hospital and is still in police custody, charged with intimidation due to bias and breach of peace. Peace and love, everybody (wink, wink). Peace and love, and have a great holiday.
While an hour-long dance with 11 scenes doesn’t qualify as epic, Justin Mann’s Breaking Silence at Knight Theater last week was certainly ambitious. Telling the story of a contemporary romance imperiled by temptation, fear of commitment, and peer pressure, Mann’s choreography convincingly fused elements of modern dance with the idioms of hip-hop and gymnastic floor work, often climaxing with the splashy ensemble tableaus we’ve all known so well ever since Michael Jackson and Thriller revolutionized MTV.
Such sustained vitality is not often seen from the renowned companies that perform at the American Dance Festival in Durham, Spoleto USA in Charleston, or here at the Knight, where we’ve already seen Parsons, Ailey, and our own NC Dance in the new venue’s inaugural year. Nor are we talking about mere pep when considering Mann and principal dancer Kelsey Orem, who starred as the lovers. Their artistry and fluid technique were echoed deep into the troupe, which I venture to say is largely comprised of students from Mann’s home studio, Fancy Feet Dance, over in Matthews. The stylishly distorted B&W photos in the program may have deceived me, but I’ll single out Aimee Otte, Chance Benson, Jarvis Garvin, and Ashley Rogers as consistent standouts among the 20 supporting players. Read the rest of this entry »
If you thought a business’ practices were immoral and dangerous, would you give them your money? How about if you had conducted national campaigns against the specific practices that benefited the business in question? No, didn’t think so. Good for you for being consistent. That’s apparently not a priority at the Tea Party Express, for some reason.
Although one of the Tea Party Express’ “founding principles” is that bank bailouts are “dangerous,” “immoral,” and, of course, “socialist,” they’re keeping all their funding at Bank of America, which received $45 billion in bailout money from the feds. Specifically, the TPE keeps its money at Bank of America in Corona, Calif. FYI, Corona has at least six other banks that didn’t receive any bailout money.
According to ThinkProgress, the TPE has specifically slammed Bank of America in the past for taking bailout money, but hey, that was last year. So why is there such a disconnect between the Tea Party Express’ “founding principles” and its own business practices? One ThinkProgress reader came up with what we think is a reasonable explanation: Someone finally got through to the Tea Partiers that the bank bailouts were set up by the Bush administration, not Obama, so it was probably a good idea after all. Sounds about right — after all, no Muslims or socialists were involved in Bush’s decision, right?
Check out these events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area this weekend— as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
Friday, Sept. 3
Contemporary Mosaic Art
Ciel Gallery
Mosaics have always thrilled me. The way in which tiny multi-colored objects like glass, porcelain and other materials come together to form unison and detail as art is fascinating. I could spend hours staring a mosaic down, taking in piece-by-piece of its content. Needless to say, I’m more than a little excited about Ciel Gallery’s exhibit Contemporary Mosaic Art. It features works of varying styles (from landscapes to portraits — and some funky ones like the pictured “Morning After,” by Gila Rayberg) by artists from across the U.S. and beyond. The first of two receptions — Sept. 3 and Oct. 1, from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. — will go down tonight at the gallery.
• Festival The annual four-day festival known as Matthews Alive kicks off today. If you’re actually in town on Labor Day weekend and looking for something to do, this fest features 150 arts and crafts vendors, a quilt show, a parade, a 5k, food, music, games, rides, interactive activities for children and more. more…
• Special Event The All Arts Market invades Neighborhood Theatre for an extravaganza of affordable and original handmade art, including paintings, prints, sculptures, jewelry, pottery, stained glass, knits and more. Stop in for some cool finds. more…
Saturday, Sept. 4
Festival of India
Knight Theater
Curry and Indian cuisine go hand in hand, but there’s a lot more to the culture than spicy-filled aromas. During the two-day indoor/outdoor Festival of India, folks can experience a taste of India (better than watching Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love) through the many food choices and be delightfully dazzled by the sights and sounds of traditional dances and music from the heart of that spirited faraway land. Arts and crafts, displays and visual arts exhibits, yoga demonstrations and more will offer an informative glimpse into the culture too.
• Festival With a band name like The Pimps of Joytime, you’ve got to be curious, right? I was, so I took a listen to the Brooklyn-based group. Their sounds are soulful, groovy and full of relaxing melodies that you might just wanna let loose and dance to. Hear them live when they stop into Charlotte to perform at Neighborhood Theatre tonight. more…
• Party The Global Fever party series pays tribute to Moscow tonight, with a blend of house music from the heart of Russia at Dharma Lounge. more… Read the rest of this entry »
So, you’ve probably heard by now that a guy in Maryland, James J. Lee, took a few Discovery Channel employees hostage yesterday and was subsequently killed by police. You may have also heard about his list of demands, posted at SavethePlanetProtest.com. Those demands include things like:
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
And
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
He also wrote:
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Real charmer, that one. A real, scary charmer.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be held hostage, nor do I want to. And, I can’t imagine killing anyone, or attempting to, over my beliefs (although that’s what we humans have done since the beginning). I feel for everyone involved and in no way support the actions of Mr. Lee.
At the same time, as I watched the news unfold yesterday, I couldn’t help but think back to a long ago conversation with an ex-boyfriend. He said something along the lines of this: The more people there are in the world, the more of every category there will be. Translation: If one in 1,000 humans are nuts, the greater the overall population, the greater the number of nuts. Make sense? Ironic, isn’t it?
It does feel like there are more nuts willing to slay or maim people because of their beliefs these days, especially since their antics are broadcast live via traditional and “new” media sources. I’d also like to remind you that there are a lot of caring, generous, conscious people in the world who are working very hard to make a positive impact in a variety of ways. And, thank goodness for that. Let’s hope that population is growing.
Now, if establishing world peace and saving the planet were as easy as programing a cable television channel …
Here’s an interesting video that depicts how the world’s population has grown since 1 A.D.:
It’s a damn shame that people have to get sick before politicians will even consider requiring the food industry to adopt safer, healthier practices. But, that’s America for ya. Go corporations! (Until we sense lawsuits coming, then let’s pretend we care about the average person and enact some arbitrary rules to cover our asses.)
Victims of foodborne illness and their family members are set to descend on the Capitol next week to lobby Senate offices to pass a stalled food safety bill.
Food safety activists — energized by a massive salmonella outbreak and the recall of more than a half-billion eggs — have launched a media blitz, circulating a video of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promising a 12-year-old girl in October 2009 that the Senate would “do everything we can to get this legislation,” which is designed to improve food safety, “done.” The bill was approved by the House in July 2009.
Read the rest of this Politico.com post, by Meridith Shiner, here.
From a YEAR ago … though food safety issues are much, much, much older:
There’s more news out about leaders of corporations behaving badly then walking away with fat wallets which would set most people up for life.
This type of payout makes no sense to me on a variety of levels, but here’s one bit of dissonance I can’t get past: These same companies will cut every conceivable corner, send jobs to other countries to take advantage of cheap workers and lay off the people who actually run their companies (you know, the worker bees) so they can squeak out another penny for shareholder dividends and, at the same time, pay their misfit CEOs lottery-size amounts to go away — sometimes more than what they pay competent CEOs to actually do something productive.
Case in point:
A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies.
The report, from the Institute of Policy Studies, found that the 50 layoff leaders received $12 million on average in 2009, compared with an average compensation of $8.5 million for chief executives of companies in Standard & Poor’s 500. Each of the 50 companies examined in the report laid off at least 3,000 workers between November 2008 and April 2010.
Read the rest of this MSNBC.com article, by Roland Jones, here.
Why aren’t the shareholders revolting?
Carly Fiorina, another canned HP CEO given an enormous — $42 million — severance package (who also happens to be running for Congress in California) said, in a 2008 interview, the shareholders wanted her to get paid off big when the company shooed her away:
Four Segways are just sitting on the sidewalk outside a nondescript building across from the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
No one’s around but you’d assume they’re secure and just when you get close enough to investigate, you’re greeted warmly by employees of Charlotte NC Tours.
The company is a little over three years old and have been doing van, bike and walking tours of the city for a while but their Segway tours, which they’ve been doing for a year, are what people are really buzzing about.
At first, you feel silly strapping on a bike helmet for some quick Segway training as cars and passers-by gawk trying to figure out what’s going on. And after some shaky first few minutes, the strange burning sensation in your feet and advisement from guides Rodney Bauguass and Tremaine Tyson, you get the hang of it.
Bauguass loves this stuff. Once the tour begins, he zips around effortlessly, way in front of the pack, looking back to make sure the flock is all there.
With us for this tour were Jason and Renee Geiger, celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary. The couple, who transplanted to Charlotte from Buffalo, got the hang of the Segway almost immediately and seemed enthusiastic about learning more about the city they’ve been in for a while now.
First stops: NASCAR Hall of Fame, Charlotte Convention Center and Harvey B. Gantt African-American Cultural Center. All were interesting but were really just to get our feet wet and to get us used to Bauguass’ style as a guide. See, for what he may have lacked in historical accuracy and architectural insight, he more than made up for with interesting tidbits and perspective. He had a story for everything; it was amazing. Tyson, our other guide, was really the history buff. Following from behind, he’d chime in occasionally with some details on what used to stand on this land, who built what and when, and its significance to the city.
After I took a spill on our way through The Green (see video below), we made a brief stop to explain the Radcliffe’s Flowers history and façade before we segued (pun intended) into the Wells Fargo Campus, including the Knight Theater and Bechtler Modern Art Museum.
Bauguass explained the meaning of the red clay before Tyson discussed the Bechtler family’s relationship with Andy Warhol, pointing out their family painting done by the legendary artist.
Tyson’s understanding of Charlotte’s history really stood out at Bank of America Stadium. Now, the home of the Panthers, it was once the site of Good Samaritan Hospital, the first privately funded, independent hospital in North Carolina built exclusively for the treatment of Blacks. (Randomly, also the birthplace of my Mom).
From there we whizzed down Tryon Street, a little more challenging to navigate through people walking, kids skating and traffic, making stops at Civil War sites, celebrity condo locations and the Square, before heading down toward Discovery Place and through Fourth Ward.
Bauguass was excited to show us one of the most underrated views of the city in Fourth Ward while cruising to and through Settler’s Cemetery.
The tour’s last stop was EpiCentre, where its only relevant historical nugget was its recent foreclosure.
What was nice was how everybody had something to contribute to the experience. Whether it was a story about a restaurant or landmark we passed or someone on the street curious as to why a Segway gang was roaming the streets, it was a fascinating time.
For natives, it’s an awesome experience to see places you probably haven’t stopped to admire to since you were a kid, while also getting some historical background on newer things you see every day, For transplants, it’s an invaluable crash course in Charlotte history and fun time to playing with $5,000 toys you’d never buy yourself.
Tours start at 401 E. Martin Luther King Blvd. (across from the NASCAR Hall of Fame) and include walking, Segway, van, bike, historical, African-American and beginning this Friday, ghost tours.
