There’s nothing like filling your belly with a hearty bowl of delicious soup on an early Sunday afternoon. And to add a little flavor to your meal, you’re eating for a good cause! Head over to the 8th Annual Soup on Sunday Benefit for Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region for a sampling of soups from the region’s finest restaurants.
By Mike Huckabee
Trust me folks, it’s no big deal that, after suffering a number of consecutive defeats in the primaries, I’ve decided to scale back campaign spending. Instead I’ll spend the money on food.
But let’s pray the situation can reverse itself. It’s all on Florida. If I disappoint Chuck Norris, he promised to use me as a bow-flex. And I don’t know how to explain that much male on male straddling to my base.
News Groper features more than 50 parody blogs by politicians, celebrities, business tycoons, and foreign despots.
The recent death of Heath Ledger has been covered mercilessly by the media. In a rush to break the story, all kinds of misinformation was given out by "reputable" media publications and broadcasters.
Overzealous reporters and experts suggested that there were unconfirmed reports that Ledger had a drug problem, unconfirmed being the operative word. Some pontificated that his recent role as the Joker in the next Batman installment led to his spiraling into a very dark place, which may have caused him to overdose or commit suicide, even though an autopsy had yet to be performed or a cause of death determined. Others used Ledgers interviews to suggest that he had overdosed on sleeping pills, because he had mentioned previously that he had taken the prescription sleep medication Ambien to address a bout with insomnia. Depending on which media outlet you visit, Ledger's body was found naked face down in the bed, partially clothed in the bed, naked on the floor or naked at the foot of the bed.
All of this hoopla, while a young, brilliant actor lay dead, never thinking of the pain that this event, compounded by the innuendo and proliferation of false information would cause his family. He is the father of an 18-month-old who will never see her dad again. He is the son and brother of a grieving family. His humanity has been gutted in the rush to judgment to sell more advertising. It is shameful that a profession whose core values are objectivity and accuracy would go about covering this story in such an irresponsible way.
Traditional media outlets often take stabs at tabloid media outlets, but it has become increasingly clear that they are one in the same. The line separating the two has disappeared and the lengths that reporters are going to create stories is ridiculous. One reporter suggested that actor Owen Wilson's suicide attempt set the stage for this incident. WTF? What does one have to do with the other? Since the cause of death has not been determined, is it fair to attribute suicide to a man who may or may not have intended to take his life? It is unethical and unnecessary. The media has reached a new low in news coverage and should revisit the ethical guidelines of journalism that it likes to pretend still exist.
By Matt Brunson
The nominations for the 80th Academy Awards were announced yesterday, and the results panned out pretty much as expected. The year's two biggest critical darlings, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, led the field with eight nominations apiece, with Atonement and Michael Clayton right behind with seven nods. All four flicks received Best Picture nominations; the fifth slot went to Juno, which overall scored four nominations, all in major categories.
Atonement
Regardless of the ongoing writers' strike, the Academy promises that there will be an awards ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 24.
For a complete list of nominees, go to www.oscars.org. And be sure to read next week's Creative Loafing for an analysis of this year's contest.
The man whose birthday was celebrated last week, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said it best: "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." Lack of access to quality health care is a national disgrace that affects over 40 million Americans on a very real level. How real? Every year, an average of 18,000 Americans die — not "get sick and can't see a doctor," they die — because they don't have health insurance.
It may be too much to ask of our lawmakers in Raleigh take the lead on this critical issue, but hopefully they'll at least pay attention to proposals the legislatures of Wisconsin and Washington state are considering. Unlike Massachusetts' law that forces citizens to buy insurance from the usual greedy suspects, the Wisconsin and Washington proposals offer a new model. If the proposals are passed, each of those states would pool all health care spending and replace the insurance vultures with a single statewide, not-for-profit system. The money would come from a payroll tax paid by employees and employers. Patients would pay no insurance premiums, never lose coverage and pick their own doctors.
Analysis of the Wisconsin proposal by the nonpartisan Lewin Group has the state saving around $14 billion in the next 10 years. It would also save business profits, too often eaten up these days by brutal health care costs. And, for the tax hater in all of us, the Wisconsin plan directs much of the state's savings into a reduction in property taxes.
With the federal government dragging its feet on giving Americans the national health insurance every poll says we want, it seems to be up to the states to jump in and launch more just systems. We are the only advanced country that doesn't offer national health care, and no matter what anecdotal "evidence" you may hear, those foreign systems — such as in Western Europe and Canada — work splendidly. If the federal government won't get off its butt and do something about health care access, then let's urge our state legislators to emulate the progressive states of Wisconsin and Washington. The only losers would be CEOs of health insurance companies, such as UnitedHealth's William McGuire who earned $1.6 billion in stock options in one year — while his minions were denying coverage to people who need it.
And what about the two million insurance drones whose only job is to turn down as many claims as possible? As columnist Barbara Ehrenreich put it so well, "I have a plan for them: It's called unemployment. What country in its right mind would pay millions of people to deny other people health care?"
By Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
So, Mr. Bush, your trip to the Middle East has come to a close. Good! I am almost as overjoyed at the news you are leaving as I was to find out you wouldn’t be visiting me during your visit. Why wouldn’t I be happy? I was hoping that you would only have time to visit Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. That’s why I called you, (on your house and cell phones, as well as leaving messages with your secretary and Dick Cheney’s secretary), just so that I could make sure you didn’t try to schedule a visit with me.
Yes, it’s best that you didn’t even try to get in touch with me, that is for sure. Despite me texting you and all. Funny how you found time to make it to Bahrain though. I am just saying you could have made an attempt. Last I heard, nobody was ever stoned for picking up the phone once in a while.
News Groper features more than 50 parody blogs by politicians, celebrities, business tycoons, and foreign despots.
Charlotteans are famous for their winter weather meltdowns. As soon as the word gets out that we may get a flurry of snow, the schools close, and the grocery stores become madhouses. What is everyone buying? Do they know the snow will melt by the following morning? Do they know we live in the South? Legend has it that when bad weather is near, Charlotte scrambles for bread and milk; is there any truth to the myth?
Seven Harris Teeters throughout Charlotte were contacted in regards to the winter shopping extravaganza. All seven said they were extremely busy on the evening of Jan. 16 and 100 percent of them said their most purchased products were — wait for it — bread and milk.
Bread and milk seem peculiar choices for a “winter storm.” Why would a storm survivor choose to buy food and drink that wouldn’t last through power outages or stand the test of time? In only a few days bread and milk will go bad, and much quicker if power was lost. Why not buy non-perishables like water and canned goods? How will we survive Charlotte’s “winter storms” on bread and milk?
Bread and Milk myth: CONFIRMED
Amount of sense Charlotteans make: NONE
People are taking this free speech thing too far. Although we have the right to say what we want, within legal limits, there is something called common sense, and it clearly is not that common. Kelly Tilghman's comments that today’s young players should “lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley” in an effort to take on Tiger were asinine. Hiding behind the "we're friends" veil, she suggested that since she and Tiger have a personal friendship, she felt that it was something that she could say. Negative. It is not alright and never "OK" to make disparaging remarks about your friends, even if they are not man or woman enough to stand up for themselves or to you. Further, to make those comments in what my mother calls "mixed company" or while on "the job" is plain stupid. Tilghman is lucky that she was only suspended for two weeks because had she been a man, "non-friend," and unattractive, her ass would have been fired. As usual, Woods has nothing to say, which is why he is one of America's favorite Negroes — I mean caublinasians.
Speaking of Negroes, Bob Johnson needs to shut it down. As a Hillary supporter, I am appalled at his comments about Barack Obama. He suggests that his words have been misconstrued by the press, but how else is one to take his allusion to Obama's "shady" past. Whatever. A man who made his fortune in the media should know how words and meaning can be easily manipulated, although I think he meant what he said. He claims that the media is irresponsible, but it is he who is irresponsible by casting aspersions on a man's character. Hilary is doing fine without that nonsense. Know when to say when and when to say nothing.