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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
News Big bucks for Charlotte energy projects
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 2:26 PM
The Charlotte Business Journal is reporting that the "city of Charlotte has selected 13 businesses to receive a share of more than $1.1 million through its commercial building retrofit program.
Find out which companies will benefit here.
In other energy news from around the globe:
BP reneges on deal to rebuild oyster beds, repair wetlands, Louisiana officials say — The Times-Picayune
Green economy needs 2% of every nation's income, says UN — The Guardian
Coal’s impacts: New study sorts out good and bad — The Charleston Gazette
New batteries fix themselves — Science News
Investing in greener economy could spur growth: U.N. — Reuters
A Lease On Solar Panels? Some States Pitch In — NPR
Germany's policies prove that renewable sources of energy are a viable option — Frontline (India)
Thanks to EnvironmentalHealthNews.org for the links!
Inside CL Creative Loafing wins 3 N.C. Press Association Awards
Posted By Cheris Hodges on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:32 AM
Call us winners! This weekend, Creative Loafing took home three 2010 North Carolina Press Association Awards.
Congratulations goes to Senior Editor/Arts Editor/Film Critic Matt Brunson for his second place award for headline writing; Brunson was honored based his ability to craft snarky and sharp headlines like: "Hairy Plodder" (regarding the film The Wolfman) and "Suffer a Jett" (which teased a review of The Runaways).
Congratulations also goes to columnist John Grooms, author of the weekly Boomer With Attitude and daily blog posts on the CLog, for his second place award for lighter columns (like "Neighborhood Heroine Patrol") and his third place award for serious columns (for pieces such as "Fully Human").
The N.C. Press Association hosts its statewide editorial competition on an annual basis. Newspapers are judged in six different divisions depending on circulation. Creative Loafing thanks the association for recognizing the great work cranked out by our staff each and every day.
Film / Film News / News Hall Pass trailer
Posted By Laura Camilo on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:30 AM
This Farrelly Brothers comedy tests the supposed pros of being single for a group of married male friends. Opens this Friday, Feb. 25.
Arts / News Exhibit: Free Radicals at Johnson C. Smith University
Posted By Anita Overcash on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:55 AM
The latest exhibit at Johnson C. Smith University’s Crutchfield Art Gallery is an excellent combo of paintings and poetry. Titled Free Radicals, the exhibit revolves around class struggle and working to improve social standing in the world today. It includes works by local artist Antoine Williams (see photos of paintings featured in the showcase) and poems by Kirsten Hemmy. Check out the reception this evening (Tuesday, Feb. 22) at 6:30 p.m. But no worries if you can't make it, because the exhibit continues all the way through the end of April. Johnson C. Smith University (Held in Crutchfield Art Gallery), 100 Beatties Ford Road. 704-378-1000. www.jcsu.edu.
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Tuesday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:33 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Feb. 22, 2011 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Botanica at Knight Theater
• The Damned Things at The Fillmore
• Tony Tone at The Comedy Zone Lake Norman
• Boots & Bikinis at Whisky River
• Gorilla Preschool Improv Comedy at Petra's Piano Bar
Monday, February 21, 2011
Film / Film Reviews / News Blu-ray Picks: Thelma & Miss Celie
Posted By Matt Brunson on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 4:11 PM
By Matt Brunson
THELMA & LOUISE (1991)
DIRECTED BY Ridley Scott
STARS Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis
THE COLOR PURPLE (1985)
DIRECTED BY Steven Spielberg
STARS Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover
Boomer with Attitude / News N.C. GOP: Taxpayers should fund beach jetties for the rich
Posted By John Grooms on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 3:46 PM
Looks like The Who had it wrong: the new boss isn’t same as the old boss; he’s worse. At least in North Carolina. The new Republican majority in the General Assembly came in with budget guns a-blazin’, threatening to cut off money for already-underfunded services for the poor, and wreck the state’s public schools (not their exact words, of course). But first ... let’s spend a boatload of money on projects that only benefit a tiny minority of the population, aka wealthy campaign donors. How much is a boatload? In this case, it’s enough money to pay for nearly 1,900 teacher jobs, or more than 4,000 teacher assistants.
We’re talking about a bill that will be considered tomorrow by the state Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee. If passed, the bill would allow as many as 10 “terminal groins,” aka rock piles, to be built on beaches at inlets between islands on the N.C. coast. The purpose is to supposedly control beach erosion and, more importantly, protect the McMansions of people who decided to build on literally shifting sands. A state study projected that each of the groins could cost as much as $10.8 million to build and $2.3 million to maintain and monitor each year. That’s at least a $100 million investment, which the bill in question would allow to be paid by tax money.
Under Democratic leadership, some big shots had their beach property helped by the state. The Dems, however, did make terminal groins illegal on ocean beaches in N.C. more than 25 years ago, and for a good reason: the big rock piles collect sand at a particular spot, but at the expense of other beaches farther down the coast, which then erode more quickly. The ban on such groins along the beaches of our barrier islands has made N.C. beaches the envy of the Atlantic coast — particularly in comparison to some South Carolina beaches, such as the formerly delightful Edisto Island, where ugly-ass groins now mar the beach while erosion nevertheless continues to take its toll.
You can read more details about the bill at the website for the N.C. Coastal Federation. Here are a couple of excerpts from their article:
To protect the beaches, which are held in public trust for all of us, policymakers and legislators wisely decided to ban groins and other types of hard structures along the beaches of our barrier islands. The policy has made our natural beaches the envy of the country.For several years now, people who built houses at the inlets that separate these islands have been asking legislators for help. Inlets are notoriously dangerous places. They change shape, sometimes overnight, and the ocean creeps closer or recedes farther away.
Property owners on Figure Eight Island, an exclusive private island north of Wilmington, have led the lobbying effort. They have given more than $100,000 to state and local politicians since 2004.
If you think it’s ridiculous for wealthy campaign donors to be allowed to ruin the state’s coastline — and at taxpayer expense, no less — at a time when lawmakers are slashing school budgets, let your state senator know about it.
As Adam Searing of NC Policy Watch wrote, “We might feel bad for folks who are trying to beat back the sea, just as we sympathize with people who invested with Bernie Madoff. But it is not our responsibility to bail them out, especially at a time when we are all being asked to tighten our collective belt.”
News NAACP prez vows to keep fighting in the Q.C.
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 3:40 PM
Let's get ready to rummmble!
Just days after he released a letter critical of African Americans who oppose his tactics, local NAACP President the Rev. Kojo Nantambu on Monday released a second letter, this one directed to elected officials.In it, Nantambu laid out a series of issues he said are indicative of racial disparity in the Charlotte community, and he vowed to keep pushing.
“Racial hatred are the fundamental causes for which all NAACP battles have been fought for over 102 years,” the letter concluded. “And we won’t stop now, ‘Forward Ever, Backward Never, On ward [sic] Forever.’ ”
Read Nantambu's letter and the rest of this post at Qcitymetro.com.
News GOP works to block coal ash regulation
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 3:21 PM
Because who really wants to drink clean water anyway ... right? Well, that depends on how much it costs. Right?
Oh, what? You want clean water no matter the cost? Well, tell that to the Republicans who've decided the U.S. Environmental Agency should be neutered.
Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and David McKinley (R-W.Va.) have offered amendments to a continuing resolution on the budget that would prohibit any funding of an EPA rulemaking on coal ash under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates hazardous waste.Last year the EPA released a long-awaited draft rule that proposed regulating coal ash -- the toxic waste produced by coal-burning power plants -- under either RCRA Subtitle C or Subtitle D, which applies to ordinary household waste.
The Subtitle C rules would set federally enforceable minimum standards for coal ash disposal and require the closure of dangerous coal ash ponds like the one that failed catastrophically at a TVA plant in eastern Tennessee back in 2008. However, electric utilities oppose the Subtitle C regulations, citing their expense. They want the EPA to regulate coal ash less strictly under RCRA Subtitle D, which would leave oversight up to the states and allow polluters to continue to dump coal ash in unlined ponds and landfills.
Read the entire Facing South post, by Sue Sturgis, here.
News Do you resemble this monkey?
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 3:19 PM
Scientists are fattening up our primate cousins in an effort to better understand why we're so fat.
“We are trying to induce the couch-potato style,” said Kevin L. Grove, who directs the “obese resource” at the Oregon National Primate Research Center here. “We believe that mimics the health issues we face in the United States today.”The corpulent primates serve as useful models, experts say, because they resemble humans much more than laboratory rats do, not only physiologically but in some of their feeding habits. They tend to eat when bored, even when they are not really hungry. And unlike human subjects who are notorious for fudging their daily calorie or carbohydrate counts, a caged monkey’s food intake is much easier for researchers to count and control.
“Nonhuman primates don’t lie to you,” said Dr. Grove, who is a neuroscientist. “We know exactly how much they are eating.”
To allow monitoring of their food intake, some of the obese monkeys are kept in individual cages for months or years, which also limits their exercise. That is in contrast to most of the monkeys here who live in group indoor/outdoor cages with swings and things to climb on.
While this research is not entirely new and has been the target of some animal rights’ group complaints, demand for the overweight primates is growing as part of the battle against the nation’s obesity epidemic, according to Dr. Grove and other researchers working with such monkeys in Florida, Texas and North Carolina, and also overseas.
Some tests have already produced tangible results. Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company in Boston, tested its experimental diet drug on some of the Oregon monkeys. After eight weeks, the animals reduced their food intake 40 percent and lost 13 percent of their weight, without apparent heart problems.
Read the rest of this New York Times article, by Andrew Pollack, here.
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Big bucks for Charlotte energy projects
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