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Thursday, November 12, 2009
News Don't eat the fish
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 5:19 PM
Make sure you know what you're putting in your mouth. (I'm talking fish, perverts.)
You may like lemon juice or tartar sauce on your fish. What you may not realize is that another condiment is added to every serving of fish you eat: Mercury.This year, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report showing mercury contamination in every sample of fish taken from 291 streams and rivers throughout the U.S.
Worse, North Carolina has the added distinction of being on the short list of states with the highest levels of contamination in the country. South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana round out the list.
A national listing of fish advisories, available online from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, underscores this reality. Small blue dots scattered throughout a map of the U.S. indicate areas where contamination levels exceed safe thresholds.
The eastern half of North Carolina is a solid mass of blue.
Read the rest of this Raleigh News and Observer article here.
Further reading:
- The Associated Press: EPA: Toxic chemicals in freshwater fish widespread
- The Charlotte Business Journal: EPA: Mercury in local fish
- The Sun Journal: Contamination in N.C. waters ‘a crisis,' lawyer and water advocate says
Some say the benefits of eating fish outweigh the risks, or at least that's what they were saying in 2007 when this was filmed:
Real-life stories about how mercury affects humans:
Arts / See & Do: The Weekender / News Weekender
Posted By Anita Overcash on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Check out these events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area this weekend— as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
Friday, Nov. 13
Dialect Gallery
Local artist Antoine Williams’ new solo exhibition, Game Theory opens tonight at Dialect Gallery. Paintings in the exhibition explore ideas related to different perspectives of life and the perusal of happiness and freedom.
• Special Event Tease the hair (the bigger, the better) and break out your 80’s vintage gear for a special 80’s themed-party at Town Tavern tonight. more...
• Art Tonight is First Look Friday at Mint Museum of Art. What does that mean? An art preview celebrating the opening of the exhibition, Lois Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color. The evening event will also feature a lecture on the artist and music performances by students from Queens University of Charlotte and Johnson C. Smith University. more...
Saturday, Nov. 14
Belk Theater
It’s getting hot and relationships are blossoming in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's award-winning musical South Pacific. See if love will prevail during performances at Belk Theater.
• Dance Tonight is your last chance to check out NC Dance Theatre’s Innovative Works – which includes Mark Diamond’s “There Again, Not Slowly,” and Dwight Rhoden’s “Moody Booty Blues,” and Uri Sand’s “Tearing for a Cure,” and two new pieces choreographed by Mark Diamond and Sasha Janes – at Booth Playhouse. more...
• Comedy Laughter will be supreme when stand-up comedians Tommy Blaze and Jeremy Pierce hit the stage of Alive tonight. more...
Sunday, Nov. 15
Queens University
Karen Brody’s production Birth tells true stories of pregnant women in America today. It’s also for a good cause, as it raises funds for Carolina Community Maternity Center.
• Festival The Puerto Rican Festival celebrates all things Puerto Rican. This includes music, spoken word, dance, arts and crafts, and authentic foods. more...
• Music Russian rockers Mumiy Troll have crossed the sea and will bring its alternative-pop rock sounds into Alley Cat tonight. more...
Arts / News Grand opening of Evergreen Studio & Gallery
Posted By Anita Overcash on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 4:16 PM
If you're brave enough to embrace the rainy weather, get out and make your way over to Evergreen Studio & Gallery - located at 143 Brevard Ct. - for its grand opening. The new art spot features two exhibitions: Last Days of Summer, featuring photography by Virginia Dunn and Andy Chen, and Calendar Girls, featuring photography by Shane Cudahy, Scott Forrester and Buck Rackley. Receptions kick off at 5:30 p.m. and continue through 9 p.m. Both exhibitions run through Feb. 13, 2010. Check out a sample of works you can see at the exhibitions below.
Boomer with Attitude / News Yee-haw! Dubya's gettin his own blamed institute
Posted By John Grooms on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 3:33 PM
Former President George Dubya Bush is giving a speech today at Southern Methodist University (SMU). He and his wife Laura will be on the Dallas campus to unveil the programs to be offered at the George W. Bush Institute at SMU. Please, no tired coloring book jokes. Groundbreaking for the Dubster’s big, shiny institute won’t take place until a year from now, but plans are underway to flesh out programs for the scholarly forum’s “four core principles.” So far, though, no one seems to agree on what the four principles are. One report says they are democratic freedom, opportunity, responsibility and compassion. Another source says no, the core principles are education, global health, human freedom, and economic growth. It’s already starting to sound like the early planning for the Iraq war. No one asked me, nor are they going to, but I think the four principles should be making rich people richer, bungling disaster assistance, prideful arrogance in foreign policy, and how to kill young Americans through bad decision-making and sheer incompetence. Whatever principles the institute settles on, it’s nice of Dubya to take some time away from writing his memoirs; it can be pretty tedious work looking up how to spell “pretzel,” “bike ride,” or “rendition.”
Boomer with Attitude / News Liberals kissing Kissell goodbye?
Posted By John Grooms on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 2:55 PM
A lot of liberals in North Carolina are mightily pissed off at Rep. Larry Kissell, but the new congressman doesn’t seem to care. N.C. progressives are furious, not to mention feeling duped, over Kissell’s vote against the House healthcare reform bill. N.C. liberals put in a lot of hours, effort and money to get Kissell elected and now feel deceived and angry. What’s making them doubly mad is that neither Kissell nor anyone on his staff is returning calls or messages from riled up former supporters. One progressive activist put it this way, on the BlueNC Web site: “As of last night not a single person I know had heard back related to his health care vote or anything else, for that matter. It is one thing to make a vote that one national analyst described as the second most confusing vote against the bill. It is another to not have the common courtesy to at least explain that vote to people who have given his campaign money in the past.” James Protzman, one of the founders of BlueNC, describes the disillusioned former Kissell supporters as “People who listened to his happy talk and bought it hook, line and sinker.” More to come, I’m sure.
News Troops or no troops?
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 1:25 PM
The president is getting mixed messages about how many troops he should send to Afghanistan from his top advisers.
The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday.The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.
General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, the officials said. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces.
Read more from The New York Times.
Further reading: Obama rejects all Afghan war options
Meanwhile, the media is getting mixed messages from the White House leak-squad.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will discuss the four scenarios with his national security team on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Fort Hood, Texas, Gibbs would not offer details about those options. He insisted that Obama has not made a decision about troop deployments.Gibbs said that anybody who says Obama has made a decision "doesn't have in all honesty the slightest idea what they're talking about. The president's yet to make a decision" about troop levels or other aspects of the revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
Read more from Yahoo! News and the Associated Press.
There are plenty of people who would prefer for President Obama to end the war and bring our troops home:
Further reading: The Small Business Association expands veterans' programs
Film / Film News / News Opening Friday
Posted By Matt Brunson on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Pirate Radio - Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kenneth Branagh
2012 - John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor
News Sprawl leads to flooding
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 9:21 AM
Tired of flood warnings every time it rains? Do something about it. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to hear from the public about how stormwater flooding affects you. Click here for more information.
The National Weather Service issued flood warnings across the region Wednesday as rain swelled creeks in counties surrounding Charlotte. Rain was most intense north and west of Charlotte, across the foothills and Western Piedmont. The heaviest rain, up to a quarter inch per hour, fell along a line including Rutherfordton, Hickory and Taylorsville.A flood warning means that flooding is imminent or has been reported. Most flood fatalities happen when motorists drive onto flooded streets or streams and when children play in or near storm drains or streams, forecasters said.
In Cabarrus County, Pharr Mill Road Park remained closed Wednesday due to Rocky River flooding. The river, which runs through the park, rose from its banks and flooded parts of the park outside Harrisburg.
At Frank Liske Park in Concord, trails and some playgrounds were also closed due to flooding.
Roads in northern Union County were covered by puddles after hours of heavy rain Tuesday night. In at least one area, floodwaters from a low-lying field had spilled into one lane of a busy commuter road.
Flooding on rural roads, including Lawyers Road and N.C. 218, posed a threat to commuters. On Secrest Short Cut Road near the Indian Trail-Monroe border, floodwaters had spilled into the eastbound lane from a nearby field. That lane was completely submerged for about a 20-foot stretch.
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Thursday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Nov. 12, 2009 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• The London Broil Show at Duke Energy Theatre
• To Kill A Mockingbird at Davidson College's Duke Family Performance Hall
• Grand opening for Evergreen Studio & Gallery and reception for Calendar Girls and Last Days of Summer exhibitions
• Lambchop at Visulite Theatre
• 6th Annual Geek Festival at CPCC's Levine Campus
News Get your Geek on today at CPCC
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 12:56 AM
THE Geek Festival is back. Check it out today at CPCC.
Interested in technology and innovations in the field? Central Piedmont Community College will hold its 6th annual technology festival to satisfy the craving of any technology-hungry individual.THE Geek Festival will explore the latest innovations in technology as well as technical career opportunities. Learning tracks offered by the college will include innovations and technology, simulation and game development, geomatics and sustainability.
Find out more from Qcitymetro.com.
Geeks are cool.
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Question the Queen City: Hugh McManaway, the man behind the statue
It pays homage to a traffic director, friendly neighbor and one of Charlotte's most beloved local characters
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The Hangover Part II: Buzz kill 7
No use crying over spilt sequel.
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Longtime dancer to leave NC Dance Theatre 3
Mia Cunningham, a dancer who has spent 18 seasons performing with the North Carolina Dance Theatre, is set to retire.
