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Monday, December 21, 2009
Arts / News Art at Green Rice Gallery
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 4:28 PM
Whether you’re a last-minute holiday shopper or an art enthusiast, Green Rice Gallery should be on the list of places to go, if you haven’t visited lately. Its current exhibition, titled Small Works Collaborative Art Show, by Green Rice artists, displays a variety of handcrafted works, including jewelry, paintings, drawings, photography, pottery, ornaments, sculptures, and more, by more than 65 artists.
Open: Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Saturday, 12 p.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.-5 p.m. (Closed Dec. 24, 25, 26) Green Rice Gallery, 451 E. 36th St. 704-344-0300.
Arts / News Best bets in Charlotte comedy this week
Posted By Debbie Millwater on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 4:08 PM
As the headline suggests, here are a few of the best places to find comedy events in Charlotte — from stand-up to improv to sketch comedy and more. For a complete listing of all comedy visit www.CharlotteComedyLIVE.com.
Tuesday, Dec. 22
* Stand-Up Comedy at The Lake Norman Comedy Zone at 7 p.m.
Nationally touring comedian Ken Evans.
Galway Hooker ~ 7044 Kenton Dr., Cornelius ~ 704-895-1782 ~ $20.
* Taboo Tuesday Stand-up Open Mic at 9 p.m.
Stand-up Comedy Open Mic. This show is Rated R. No content or language restrictions. Comics, last call for sign-up at 9:30PM...all comics get five minutes.
SK Net Café ~ 1425 Elizabeth Ave. ~ $2
* Tone X and Friends at 9:30 p.m.
Tone X and Chris Robinson host. Skandalos ~ 5317 E. Independence Blvd
Saturday, Dec. 26
* Improv Comedy at Charlotte Comedy Theater at 8 p.m. Chicago-style long form. Prevue ~ 2909 N. Davidson St. ~ $10 ~For reservations, call 803-548-6824
To join Debbie’s mailing list (just one e-mail a week, I promise), e-mail DebbieMillwater@Gmail.com with the Subject Line “Subscribe.”
News The problem with some non-profits
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 3:26 PM
Greed.
In Cornelius, a nonprofit set up to help people in debt paid its chief executive more than $5 million - nearly everything it had.In Anson County, a charity that worked to keep troubled children in school paid its leader about $300,000 a year, roughly twice as much as the county superintendent of schools.
In Spartanburg, a nonprofit religious broadcaster paid its president and her husband nearly $800,000 - a third of the organization's budget.
On paper, federal law prohibits charities from awarding excessive compensation to their leaders.
But in practice, loopholes and understaffed regulators allow nonprofits to pay almost any salary, an Observer investigation found.
"The (IRS) criteria for excessive compensation are so loose that they're virtually worthless...," says Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. "The sky's the limit."
Read the rest of this Charlotte Observer article, by Ames Alexander, and view a slide show here.
Baptist Foundation of Arizona was the largest nonprofit fraud in U.S. history:
Boomer with Attitude / News Senate health bill: Why did they bother?
Posted By John Grooms on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 1:48 PM
David Axelrod, one of Pres. Obama's leading advisers, went on Meet The Press yesterday and defended the administration against accusations by progressives that health care reform has been watered down beyond recognition through compromises. The criticism from liberals has been intense, particularly after the White House "compromised" with (caved in to) Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Aetna) and Ben Nelson (a former insurance executive and insurance company lawyer). The final Senate version of the bill now contains no public option or expansion of Medicare. Axelrod "explained," as if we're all clueless, that no major law in U.S. history has been passed without compromise.
Well, no shit, Sherlock. The issue isn't whether there are compromises, it's how much compromise is acceptable before the original intent of the bill is gutted. Yes, history shows that major bills are by necessity compromised, but there's also a history of Presidents with big majorities refusing to bend too far. Take the epochal Civil Rights Act of 1964, for instance. Lots of compromises there: the final bill watered down sections that would have protected African-Americans' voting rights and guaranteed equal employment opportunities, but that was as far as Kennedy and Johnson would go. The historic bill passed, and the deleted sections were later passed as separate laws, courtesy of Johnson's large majorities in both houses of Congress.
Today, we have an administration that has kowtowed to the interests of the drug and insurance industries — not to mention anti-abortion advocates — and have wound up with a Senate bill that makes you wonder why they even bothered. If the Senate version that Axelrod was defending becomes law (thank God the House still has a lot to say about that), Americans will be saddled with a law that mandates that everyone buy health insurance, but allows insurers to charge whatever they want. As a friend e-mailed, "The alternative is that you pay $750 and get absolutely nothing. Do these clowns really think they are getting re-elected based on this crap?" Amen, brother.
Deliver Us From Weasels, a collection of articles and columns by John Grooms, is available at Borders-Morrocroft, Park Road Books, Paper Skyscraper, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, and Literary Bookpost in Salisbury, or directly from the publisher at www.mainstreetrag.com/store/NewReleases.php.
News State wastes $700,000 — pays company twice
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 1:43 PM
In news that may make you want to scream:
The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources squandered nearly $700,000 this year buying environmental restoration from a company that had already been paid for the same work by another state agency nine years earlier, according to a state legislative review released today.The state legislature's Program Evaluation Division also found that the state's losses could continue. The environmental agency has certified that the company can sell more acreage for environmental restoration that also had previously been bought by the N.C. Department of Transportation, Dan Kane reports.
"Decisions related to this controversy resulted in actual and potential future losses to the environmental integrity of the Neuse River basin," said the report.
Read the rest of this Raleigh News & Observer article here.
Could it be that some state employees are just idiots?
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Monday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 10:29 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Dec. 21, 2009 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Find Your Muse Open Mic at The Evening Muse
• Wiggle Waggons and Tater Famine at Milestone
• Christmas Town USA Lights at McAdenville
• Poetry Night at SK Netcafe
• Karaoke at Dixie's Tavern
Friday, December 18, 2009
Film / Film Reviews / News Film reviews in brief
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 2:22 PM
By Matt Brunson
So did Santa deem me a good little boy or a bad little boy this year? Hard to say. On one hand, his helpers at the Fox studio didn't screen Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel for local press, and for that, I'm eternally grateful. On the other hand, those bastards at Fox also didn't screen Avatar in Charlotte, a demeaning slap in the face to this region and its inhabitants. (Fortunately, I managed to catch up with the film.)
Here, then, are brief blurbs of seven films new to local theaters, listed in preferential order.
Boomer with Attitude / News Special Christmas Stupid Thing of the Week
Posted By John Grooms on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:42 PM
OK, they meant well, I guess. But a New Zealand church’s Christmas season attempt to “challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived” wound up pissing off everybody involved. The St. Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church in Auckland erected, if that’s the right word, a billboard showing an unhappy Joseph lying in bed beside Mary, with the heading "Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow."
Church Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the sign was meant to “lampoon and ridicule the very literal idea that God is a male and somehow this male God impregnated Mary," adding that he wanted to “get people talking about the Christmas story.” Did he ever. The topic of Cardy's billboard took over the Pacific nation’s media, a protester defaced it, and even many of the church’s supporters thought the image was “poorly thought out,” “cheesy,” and, yes, “really stupid.”
Arts / News Theater review: 'Tis the Season
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:28 AM
OK, so a couple of the stories in the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte's holiday kiddie collection, “How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas” and the Cherokee “Story of Creation,” were old-timers in the annual ‘Tis the Season ritual. There were enough new Tarradiddlers in the cast – and enough new content – to justify my seeing it anew as part of the Metrolina Theatre Association’s adjudication of their theater awards for the 2009-10.
You may feel the same if you’ve been part of the tradition before. Leslie Ann Giles is certainly a different breed of nudnik as she perpetually poises to recite “The Night Before Christmas” – even though she doesn’t remember the words. Sal Garcia, the newest Tarradiddler, is already an anklebiter comedy favorite, whether playing the Gatekeeper opposite Stephen Seay as Till Eulenspiegel or slinking around as Reynard the Fox opposite Giles’ sprightly Tomten. And Darlene Parker as Ms. C is still a treat.
But I dragged my wife Sue to this show because the Children’s Theatre website promised “This year we have also added a favorite Hanukkah story!” And around Charlotte, other parents may be snapping up tickets to ‘Tis the Season for the same ecumenical reason.
There’s just one big problem: ‘tis an absolute lie. No Hanukkah story at all, let alone a favorite.
My feeling is that we were grossly misled. Parents who have gone and experienced the same reaction have the right, in my view, to demand a refund. Those who have made plans to see the show on the strength of the bogus description may also wish to reconsider their options.
And the people who put on the shows at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte may wish to open a line of communication with the folks who market them.
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Friday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Dec. 18, 2009 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Alloy: The Extra-Special "Holiday Horror" Edition at Dammit Janet
• A Broadway Christmas Carol at Mint Museum of Art
• The Santaland Diaries at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
• Through Porchlight at Tremont Music Hall
• Casino Night at Badfish Bar & Billiards
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