Where will the new East Coast shoreline be?

COPENHAGEN -- Months before make-or-break climate negotiations, a conclave of scientists warned Tuesday that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond a forecast made by U.N. experts two years ago.

Sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007 that form the scientific foundation for policymakers today, the meeting heard.

In March 2007, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming, if unchecked, would lead to a devastating amalgam of floods, drought, disease and extreme weather by the century end.

The world's oceans would creep up 18 to 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches), enough to wipe out several small island nations and wreak havoc for tens of millions living in low-lying deltas in east Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Africa.

But a new study, presented at the Copenhagen meeting on Tuesday, factored in likely water runoff from disintegrating glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, and found the rise could be much higher.

Read the rest of this Agence France-Presse article, via Grist, here.

Yesterday, mayoral candidate Anthony Foxx and his wife Samara were on the defensive (read his statement here and hers here). They even sent a letter to Anthony's Facebook friends. It is true, Samara was hired last year as a division director for business affairs, for $100,000 per year, in the Department of Social Services during a hiring freeze after the job was only posted for one day. But, according to this Mecklenburg County press release, everything is on the up and up.

In a statement issued after its public policy meeting, the Board said Samara Foxx, Hollye Monroe and Tracey Evans each appears to meet or exceed the minimum qualifications for their jobs. Foxx was hired in July 2008 as a division director for business affairs within DSS. Monroe was hired in January 2009 as a management analyst, and Evans was hired in February 2009 as a manager of the DSS customer service unit.

Read the rest of the press release here.

Was the county's response due to QCityMetro.com aptly pointing out the obvious? Only the African-American new-hires created a stir and, as we all know, finding a good job is often all about who you know:

Samara Foxx is a cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in political science and holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, according to her husband’s statement. She and [DSS head Mary] Wilson had previously worked together at KOSA, an industrial products company. Wilson was the company’s general counsel and Samara Foxx reported to her.

Wilson has said it was that past relationship that caused her to hire Samara Foxx. As Wilson took over the troubled DSS, she said, she wanted someone with whom she had worked.

[County Manager Harry] Jones, the county manager, told the Observer he questioned why the three hires -- all African Americans -- had caused such a stir. He said DSS had hired white employees since July as well. Jones also is African American.

Read the rest of this article here.

But, as The Charlotte Observer reports today, the issue isn't so much the fact that Wilson and Samara Foxx knew each other — because Jones was well aware the intention was to hire her — it's that the public might think something fishy was going on.

Jones said the county allowed Wilson to post the special assistant vacancy for a shortened period of time because it was part of a reorganization of the department. Wilson also had indicated she preferred to hire someone with whom she had previously worked.

But Jones said he didn't know at the time that the job would only be posted for a single day, and wouldn't have approved that.

The short posting “presents a public perception issue for us,” Jones said. “And the conclusion that many have drawn is that it doesn't look good. So you need to clean up those practices where there is a potential public perception issue.”

Read the rest of this article here.

In other words, it's business as usual in Uptown Charlotte. The rules were adjusted, so, with the situation reversed, Wilson would have to wait six whole days before hiring the person she totally intended to hire anyway, the person Jones knew she was going to hire: Samara Foxx.

What's more disturbing, that Wilson hired someone she knew and trusted for a government job or that Jones is so concerned about snowing the public? (I vote for the latter.)

Tricia Childress has been the food writer for Creative Loafing since September 1995. Raised in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains; Atlanta, Georgia; and the urban NYC metropolitan area, Childress also has lived in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Cairo, Egypt, traveling extensively both nationally and internationally, visiting grocery stores, markets, locally owned restaurants and wineries wherever she travels. She is admittedly addicted to cheese, whether goat cheese made by a former nun on a small farm in New Hampshire or the magnificent Epoisses de Bourgogne from Burgundy, France. Childress is also an Assistant Professor at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, where she teaches Food Writing, the only university-level food writing course taught in the Southeast. Her memorable cuisine events include a dinner produced by a young Wolfgang Puck in Hong Kong; a lobster roll at Red’s Eats in Maine; and a Barossa wine dinner in Adelaide, Australia. She began her love affair with wine after tasting an 1869 Madeira while a teenager and now has a weakness for Shiraz, New Zealand savvies, French burgundies, and California chardonnays. Childress recently graduated with distinction (the highest form) from the challenging

intermediate level of the WSET (Wine and Spirit Educational Trust) – one (albeit small) step toward the coveted Master of Wine designation.

Scott Lucas survives his physical environment by way of building green and living sustainably. He runs a construction company in Charlotte, eats good food, tells the truth, and envies all those relentlessly kind people. Art fuels Scott. Charlotte provides both feast and famine -sometimes concurrently - and Scott writes when both stuffed and starved, and sometimes concurrently.

email: scottlucas@live.com

Scott's Complete Archive of Stories

Perry Tannenbaum has been a regular contributor to Creative Loafing since it began publication in April of 1987. That makes him the senior theater and performing arts critic/reporter in the Metrolina area. For the past six years, Perry has been the Southeast Regional Correspondent for Back Stage, TheaterMania.com and American Record Guide, reviewing performances throughout the Carolinas – with annual excursions to Canada, Europe, or across the USA. Last year, he added Dance International and JazzTimes to his clientele. Aside from concert reviews, you’ll find CD reviews with Perry’s byline in every issue of JazzTimes and American Record Guide. Beyond the audacity to scrutinize the inner workings of the Arts & Science Council, Charlotte Repertory Theatre, and the Afro-American Children’s Theatre, Perry has had the audacity – and talent – to audition and perform at Children’s Theatre, innovative Theatre, Rock Hill Little Theatre, and yes, at Charlotte Rep. The arts are in Perry’s blood as well as his upbringing. His parents met at the Metropolitan Opera – waiting in line for standing room tickets to La Traviata. He went to his first Broadway comedy, starring Imogene Coca, shortly after breaking in his first baseball glove. One of the great joys of his job is traveling to the great opera houses, theaters, and music festivals of the world. Another is to come back to Charlotte and measure us against the world-class companies and performers of America and Europe, taking satisfaction in Charlotte’s steady growth and development.

email: perryt77@comporium.net

Perry's Complete Archive of Stories

Keep in mind, oral and anal sex are still illegal in Alabama — unless you're married (and guess who can't be married) — where you could serve a year in prison for selling a sex toy. And, according to WeirdSexLaws.com, "It's against the law for a man to seduce 'a chaste woman by means of temptation, deception, arts, flattery or a promise of marriage.'"

No wonder people are in a flutter over a smut-talking preacher.

It's one thing for a church in a big city like Dallas or Atlanta to tackle the ticklish topic of sex. It blends in with the urban scene.

It's another thing when a small-town congregation puts up billboards with the phrase "Great sex: God's way" on rural highways to promote a sermon series. You can't even legally buy beer in Cullman County, and a preacher is talking about S-E-X on Sunday morning?

Daystar Church, whose congregation has grown dramatically under pastor Jerry Lawson, has run up against the sensibilities of a conservative north Alabama community with a monthlong focus on sex.

Sex just isn't an appropriate topic for church, some say, and others are upset over the church's signs, which advertise the sermon series and accompanying Web site.

"It's really stirred up the people here," said Good Hope town clerk Joann Jones.

Evangelist Roland Belew, a self-described fundamentalist and former trucker who now preaches at a truck stop, said the whole idea goes against the teaching of New Testament apostles.

"Paul said preach the Gospel," said Belew. "Talking about sex ain't gonna get nobody to heaven."

Read the rest of this News-Talk 1110 WBT article here.