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Thursday, July 1, 2010
News Obama 'ready to move forward' with comprehensive immigration reform
Posted By Laura Camilo on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 2:30 PM
The wheels have been put into motion; President Obama’s speech at American University in Washington, D.C this morning acknowledged the nation’s broken immigration system and the frustration that has come with it. As usual, the president presented the issue eloquently; for those who have forgotten, he urged us to be mindful of America’s long-standing tradition as being a “beacon of hope,” an alleged land of milk and honey that, as immigrants often found out the hard way, was not always as welcoming as expected. “The politics of who is and is not allowed to enter this country, and on what terms, has always been contentious, and that remains true today," said the president. "And it’s made worse by a failure of those of us in Washington to fix a broken immigration system.”
President Obama blamed the lack of action concerning immigration reform taken at the federal level on “the polarization and the frequent pettiness of our politics,” recognizing that immigration reform is an issue that “has been used to divide and inflame, and to demonize people,” making it a topic to either be avoided or sensationalized, particularly in election years such as this one. He demanded accountability, from the government that has failed to fix the system, from the businesses that have lured illegal immigrants for decades, and from the immigrants themselves.
Obama stated his belief that “a program of mass deportation would disrupt our economies and communities in ways that most Americans would find intolerable”; his tentative proposal asks that the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country admit to breaking the law, take steps to register for legal status, and put forth an effort in learning English if they have not already. He recognized that;
“The legal immigration system is as broken as the borders” and that “our task now…is to shape a system that reflects our values as a nation of laws and as a nation of immigrants. And that means being honest about the problem and getting past the false debates that divide the country rather than bringing it together…We can create a pathway for legal status that is fair, reflective of our values, and works…The question now is whether we will have the courage, and political will, to pass the bill through Congress, to finally get it done.”
The 34-minute speech was stirring, if somewhat vague. Regardless, President Obama has established a dialogue about immigration with the American people. Skeptics may say all he’s done is started to secure the vote for Democrats in November, but hopefully some changes will begin to be seen from now until then.
Arts / See & Do: The Weekender / News Weekender, July 2-4
Posted By Anita Overcash on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:38 PM
Check out these events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area this weekend— as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
Friday, July 2
Green Rice Gallery
Green Rice Gallery’s new exhibition Aotearoa: Land of the Long White Cloud – featuring a colorful showcase of acrylic paintings by Jay Thompson, who was inspired by a backpacking trip across the New Zealand – opens with a reception tonight.
• Benefit Tonight at Closet Nightclub, folks are encouraged to dress in their nighttime best for Positive Pajama Party. And though comfy clothes and zzz’s go hand in hand, don’t even think about falling asleep. There will be enough entertainment to keep you wide-awake, including a performance by comedian Dave Martin and more. Proceeds from the event are for a good cause and benefit Artists And Angels Against Aids/HIV outreach programs. more...
• Party Kick off the Independence Day festivities with Red, White & Bam at The Scorpio. There will be a fabulous divas show, featuring a sexiest patriotic underwear contest and free cookout. more...
Saturday, July 3
ImaginOn’s Wachovia Playhouse
The Bad and the Beautiful: 8 Films by Vincente Minnelli continues Saturday with a screening of 1952’s The Bad and the Beautiful, with Kirk Douglas heading a terrific cast (including Lana Turner, Dick Powell and the great Gloria Grahame) in this absorbing tale about a ruthless Hollywood producer. The picture went 5-for-6 at the Academy Awards (only Best Actor nominee Douglas lost out), with its major victories going to Best Supporting Actress (Grahame) and Best Screenplay.
• Festival Spend your Fourth of July at the US National Whitewater Center during its two-day festival. It includes activities for the whole family, live music from Acoustic Syndicate, Eric Lindel and Simplified, and a fireworks display. more...
• Music In honor of Independence Day join the Charlotte Symphony for its free “Celebrate America” concert at Symphony Park this evening. more...
Sunday, July 4
The Forum
Yes, we know The Forum is officially closed, but they’re opening their doors for the This Is It: 4th of July Shindig. The special event features the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff to spin an eclectic mix of hip-hop, soul, rock and whatever else he damn-well pleases.
• Festival Red, White, and Boom is a daylong celebration that offers loads of activities, games and prizes for children (and adults), as well as food, music and fireworks — simulcast with music tracks provided by WKKT 96.9 Kat Country. more...
• Music In celebration of the 4th of July, Penguin Drive-In presents its 10th Annual Pig Pickin’ with food, cold drinks and live music from Appalucia, Parodi Kings, Truckstop Preachers, Andy the Doorbum and The Flat Tires. more...
Boomer with Attitude / News 20 great things about America: Part 1
Posted By John Grooms on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Fourth of July weekend is upon us, and as we’ve done before here, we want to celebrate some of the great things about America. There's a long-overdue debate coursing through the country about the meaning of patriotism. For way too long, the mainstream image of American patriotism has often been confused with blind nationalism, chest thumping, and military “adventures.” I suggest another way to love the United States. Let's celebrate our heritage of independent thought, our underlying, wild, democratic instincts, and our national belief in progress. Let's honor our exhilarating popular culture, our love of athletics, and our role as a haven for other countries' outcasts; our brassy expansiveness, gorgeous landscapes, and our astonishing cultural variety. In that vein, here's a Top 20 list of great things about America, none of which have to do with going overseas to shoot foreigners. Think of it as a way to remember that the country belongs to all of us. Here is Part 1 of our list, comprising numbers 11-20. We’ll post the rest of the list tomorrow. Happy Fourth!
20. America's great college towns like Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor, Madison, Amherst, Athens, Lexington, Bellingham, Ithaca, Northampton, Berkeley, Oxford and lots of others — places where the sense of open-mindedness and possibility is almost tangible.
19. The Vietnam War Memorial, for its egalitarianism, the ambience of loss, and the way it ennobles war deaths without glorifying the politicians who caused them.
18. American cranks and quirky thinkers with transformative visions: Henry Thoreau, Margaret Sanger, Martin Luther King Jr., Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Cady Staton, W.J. Cash, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Phillips, Jack Kerouac, Gertrude Stein, Thomas Edison, Robert Rauschenberg, Dorothy Day, Harriet Tubman, John Cage, Thomas Dorsey, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, Josephine Baker, George Carlin.
17. Apple computers.
16. The beauty of Western landscapes, particularly the sweeping desert vistas of the Southwest, and the sight of the Rockies rising up out of the plains as you head west.
15. Rock 'n' roll's early pioneers, who were braver than they're given credit for, in the vanguard of both rhythm and race relations: Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, and all the rest.
14. The brave women who defied some of our deepest taboos and fought ferociously for the right to vote. In the 1970s, their descendants would launch the wrenching, liberating dialogues of women's groups that revitalized feminism and changed the country for the better.
13. Chicago — often overlooked in the national mind by its coastal rivals New York and L.A., but evincing its own power, creativity, and beauty.
12. Independent bookstores.
11. All-American Athletic Heroes: Babe Ruth, LeBron James, Muhammad Ali, Babe Didrikson Zacharias, Joe Namath, Mia Hamm, Reggie Jackson, Satchel Paige, Jack Nicklaus, Serena Williams, Jack Dempsey, Hank Aaron, Billie Jean King, Mickey Mantle, Wilma Rudolph, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Derek Jeter, Bill Russell, etc.
News / Biz Today, BP's oil spill becomes biggest EVER
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:06 PM
To celebrate — scratch that — lament BP's big milestone, we've created a list of articles you should read about the clusterfuck in the Gulf of Mexico (the headlines, alone, are enough to make you want to scream):
BP spill nears a somber record as Gulf's biggest — MSNBC.com
Day 71: The Latest on the Oil Spill — The New York Times
BP plans to get rid of safety watchdog, sources say — CNN.com
BP joined investigation of itself, contractor — Anchorage Daily News
U.S. fines BP for erroneous reporting — The Los Angeles Times
Gulf oil spill: Suicide of spill worker prompts call for mental health aid — The Los Angeles Times
Oil spill's psychological toll quietly mounts — NewsChannel8, Portland, Ore.
Health of Exxon Valdez cleanup workers was never studied — The Miami Herald
'Almost All of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Workers are Dead' — The Salem (Oregon) News
Will these critters be endangered by the Gulf gusher? — Grist.org
Oil Spill Imperils Gulf Coast Fishing Industry — Bloomberg Business Week
Gulf Seafood: Who Decides How Safe Is Safe? — AOLnews.com
Bluefin tuna particularly vulnerable to Gulf of Mexico oil leak — The Times-Picayune
Biologists find 'dead zones' around BP oil spill in Gulf — The Guardian
Expert measures human cost of Gulf oil leak — Grist.org
BP Oil Spill Compensation Fund Won’t Cover All Losses — NewsInferno.com
Cleanup Hiring Feeds Frustration in Fishing Town — The New York Times
Beware scammers exploiting BP oil spill — The (Pensacola) News Herald
Further reading: Former Energy Exec Spills On "Why We Hate Oil Companies" — CrossroadsCharlotte.org
What it's like to scuba dive in the Gulf of Mexico today, "It's just globs of death out there."
News Bring it: Democratic National Convention 2012
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:00 PM
If the Queen City can handle NRA-fest, we can handle the Democratic National Convention.
But, don't get too excited yet. There are still three other cities in the running. (But, let's be real, none of them have a thing on the Q.C.)
Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis also made the list.
All four cities are in battleground states: Republican John McCain narrowly carried Missouri in 2008 while Barack Obama squeaked by in North Carolina and won Ohio and Minnesota. North Carolina also elected a Democratic governor, Bev Perdue, and a Democratic U.S. senator, Kay Hagan.
City officials on Tuesday said hosting the event could generate $150 to $200 million in economic impact for the region. It also would attract tens of thousands of convention delegates, politicians, visitors and reporters.
Charlotte’s DNC 2012 Host Committee is co-chaired by Mayor Anthony Foxx and Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers.
“The Democratic Party could do no better than to select Charlotte as the site for its 2012 Democratic National Convention,” Rogers said in a prepared statement. “Charlotte’s convention and cultural facilities are excellent. We stand ready to work with party officials to make the 2012 convention one of the most productive and exciting conventions in the party’s history.”
Foxx said hosting the DNC would “put our city, our region and our state on an international stage.”
Read the rest of this Qcitymetro.com article here.
Let's revisit the DNC's convention in 2008:
News / Biz The Big "D"
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 11:57 AM
The Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at who is using the D-word these days. "D" as in "Depression." As in the nightmare that makes your grandma want to bury cash in her backyard.
With Washington still unable to get its act together on a new round of stimulus spending, warnings about the consequences of inaction are taking on a much more serious tone. And while it may not be a full-fledged meme shift, the word “depression” is starting to creep into the coverage.Paul Krugman looked to the history books in his Monday column and found “only two eras in economic history that were widely described as ‘depressions’ at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.”
Read the rest of this CJR article, by Holly Yeager, to find out who else is mentioning the D-word.
On the obsession with deficits, ignoring the jobless and how the G-20 failed us:
Film / Film News / News Do the Shuffle this Friday
Posted By Brian Daye on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Arts / News Freeloading Charlotte misses the bus
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 9:43 AM
Walking across one of the bridges that cross the water at Symphony Park, connecting the green with the bandshell, I was the beneficiary of a pointed observation from one of the security guards maintaining order at the first-ever ticketed event in the Summer Pops Series. It was 8 p.m., 15 minutes before headliner Tito Puente Jr. was scheduled to climax an event that had begun its merriment and music-making nearly three hours earlier. One last chance for me to take a few close-in photos of the Charlotte Symphony musicians and a daylight view of the audience from the stage.
The guard looked scornfully at the green.
“This turnout is pathetic!” he said, hitting the nail right on its head. Order needed to be maintained at this?
On a beautiful evening with a lively bandleader and a salsa music machine that turned the cart path at the edge of the green into a makeshift dancehall, the vibe, the spirit, and the joy flowed freely enough. The bandshell, brightly lit in an assortment of candy colors as the sun went down, was spectacular in the dark. But compared to the masses that have flooded the greensward when the weather was far hotter and admission was free, the turnout was indeed a devastating indictment.
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Thursday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, July, 1 2010 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Five Course Love at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
• Touch One Thursdays at Wine Up
• Girlz, Girlz, Girlz at EpiCentre
• Andy the Doorbum at Tremont Music Hall
• Carnivorous exhibition at Twenty-Two Gallery
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One-night-only art show at Hart Witzen
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Question the Queen City: What lurks in the woods of Camp Greene? 1
The World War 1 training facility's tragic past lingers even today
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Live review: Moogfest, Asheville 1
Five memorable performances from the weekend.
