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Monday, April 18, 2011
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Monday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, April 18, 2011 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Coheed & Cambria at The Fillmore Charlotte
• Find Your Muse open mic at The Evening Muse
• John Popper and the Dusk Ray Troubadours at Double Door Inn
• A Midsummer Night's Dream at UNC Charlotte
• The Alps at Discovery Place's IMAX
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Film / Film News / Film Reviews / News RiverRun Wrap, Part 2
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 6:25 PM
By Matt Brunson
FRIDAY, APRIL 15 — As Herman’s Hermits once sang in regard to Henry the Eighth, “Second verse, same as the first.”
Although not by design, the schedule for my second day at the 13th Annual RiverRun International Film Festival looked eerily like the first, as my selections again included one feature-length documentary, one feature-length fiction film, one block of shorts, and a filmmaker Q&A session. (To read the Day One Recap, go here.)
Friday, April 15, 2011
Boomer with Attitude / News Observer soft-pedals drastic drop in Bank of America profits
Posted By John Grooms on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 1:55 PM
About a year ago, in the middle of an article about a local bank, I wrote that The Charlotte Observer routinely sucks up to big local banks. This wasn’t a revelatory statement, and it wasn’t meant to be — just a confirmation, or restatement, of what is commonly accepted knowledge among people who don’t work on Tryon Street. Nonetheless, one of the Observer’s writers got pretty huffy about it, demanded retractions, and blahblahblah. As many problems are wont to do, my existential gloom over being dissed by someone at the daily paper eventually went away after I ignored it long enough.
All this is leading up to a simple exercise for you, our loyal, well-informed readership. Today, Bank of America, aka the nation’s largest bank, aka Uptown’s Gods of Finance, released some first-quarter information. Following are reports on those announcements, as presented by three different mainstream news sources. You be the judge.
First, the Wall Street Journal. Headline: “BofA's Profit Falls 36% as Struggles Go On.” Lead sentence: “Bank of America Corp. closed the first quarter with revenue down sharply across the majority of its businesses, sending profit falling 36%.”
Next, Reuters news agency. Headline: “BofA profit drops; foreclosure delays hurt bank.” Lead sentence: “Bank of America Corp posted an unexpectedly sharp drop in first-quarter profit as higher expenses from delayed home foreclosures weighed on its mortgage business.”
And, finally,The Charlotte Observer. Headline: “Bank of America profits in Q1; naming new CFO.” Lead sentence: “Bank of America Corp. this morning reported a first-quarter profit, a shake-up in its executive ranks and an agreement to settle mortgage loan buyback requests from an insurer.”
Quickest way to spot a suck-up: Major news outlets stress that BofA profits are down 36 percent, and that the bank’s struggles continue to plague it. The bank’s hometown daily paper somehow thinks it's more accurate to stress the wonderful news that BofA made any profit at all, and it's ostensibly taking meaningful action by shuffling its corporate lineup.
To be fair, news reporters rarely write their own headlines, and copy editors often change a story’s lead, so this disparity isn't necessarily the doing of the writers. In any case, the approach of each news outlet toward financially powerful story subjects tells you all you need to know about newsroom fears and attitudes.
Boomer with Attitude / News 'Patriotic Millionaires' want to pay more taxes
Posted By John Grooms on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 1:48 PM
I’ve bitched in the past about the super-wealthy’s class war on the rest of us, and even wrote a column titled “Eat the Rich.” So it may come as a surprise that I want to express admiration and support for a group of more than 40 millionaires. They call themselves the “Patriotic Millionaires,” and they’ve written a letter to Pres. Obama, House Speaker Boehner and Sen. Majority Leader Reid, pressing them to “increase taxes on incomes over $1,000,000.” The group includes top Google engineers, actress Edie Falco, producer/director Doug Liman, the founder of Ask.com. Their letter states, “Our country has been good to us. It provided a foundation through which we could succeed. Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have.” According to the National Journal story linked above, the group Wealth for the Common Good estimates that raising taxes on millionaires could raise $60-80 billion per year in revenue.
As I wrote in the “Eat the Rich” column, it’s well known that wealthy Americans fund many of the nation’s charity organizations, and are compassionate folks. And as I also wrote then, I offer a big, very sincere "thank you" to those people of means who do the right thing by their fellow human beings. Not everyone with money is Donald Trump or some other version of “Insensitive Jerk"; they just get much of the publicity.
Arts / News Review of CPCC's Sensoria
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 12:09 PM
When you capriciously call a bunch of previously-scheduled arts events in your town an arts festival, you get a sprawling mess like Charlotte Shout was until it asphyxiated in 2008. Or if you coordinate a little more conscientiously but still fail to strictly define or actively publicize, your inchoate celebration coalesces into something like Rock Hill’s Come-See-Me Festival, still going weak in its 48th season.
Presented at Central Piedmont Community College and originally called ArtsFest, Sensoria has more going for it than the benefit of snappy branding. It has the coherence of a campus event, bolstered by the adornments of presenters who use CP’s new and refurbished performing arts venues. A couple of distinguished collaborators, namely NC Dance Theatre and the Bechtler Museum, have also pitched in this year on a couple of special Sensoria events. With Barry Lopez headlining the literary lineup, Sensoria has also gained some PR traction.
Festival lift-off occurred last Friday at 8pm when CPCC Opera Theatre and CPCC Theatre simultaneously premiered new productions. Not exactly in a festival spirit, Op Theatre presented Verdi’s Requiem at Halton Theatre while opening night of Almost, Maine brought its northern lights to Pease Auditorium. Spangled with seasoned soloists who have appeared before in various musical and opera productions at the Halton, ranging from Tosca and Madame Butterfly to Man of La Mancha and South Pacific, this Requiem could hardly be mistaken for a student production.
Arts / News Purgatory Reunion Show
Posted By Anita Overcash on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM
Punishment is only temporary during Single Cell Productions’ Purgatory Reunion Show (happening, Sat., April 16). The former bondage/S&M party returns for a night of decadent damnation. For those with movement on the mind, DJs (Spider, Prototype 9, Triskyl, Mixtress Krikett) provide a mix of dark electro/industrial sounds. But the more adventurous get wound up for the swinging rope suspension or a walk down the human red carpet. In addition, live performances and pain stations (Dr. Spankenstein is waiting...) keep the domination in flux. For more information, visit www.singlecell.us. $10-$15. 8 p.m. Amos’ Southend, 1423 S. Tryon St. 704-377-6874. www.amossouthend.com.
News Yeah, sure. Write your own nuclear energy regulations.
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 8:42 AM
Check out this nuclear news from our friends at ProPublica.org, right after this reminder: Charlotte is sandwiched by two nuclear power plants — one on Lake Norman and another on Lake Wylie.
U.S. Nuclear Regulator Lets Industry Help With the Fine PrintBY John Sullivan
In the fall of 2001, inspectors with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were so concerned about possible corrosion at Ohio’s Davis Besse Nuclear Power Station that they prepared an emergency order to shut it down for inspection. But, according to a report from the NRC inspector general, senior officials at the agency held off – in part because they did not want to hurt the plant’s bottom line.
When workers finally checked the reactor in February of 2002, they made an astonishing finding: Corrosive fluid from overhead pipes had eaten a football-sized hole in the reactor vessel’s steel side. The only thing preventing a leak of radioactive coolant was a pencil-thin layer of stainless steel.
The Davis Besse incident has resurfaced in the wake of the ongoing nuclear crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant. Stories recounting close ties between Japanese nuclear regulators and utilities there have reinvigorated critics who say the NRC has not been an aggressive enough U.S. watchdog.
The NRC says that is not the case, and commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko defended the agency’s independence and professionalism. “I have a great staff who are dedicated to public health and safety, and people who interact with this agency, they know that and they see that,” he said in an interview.
Critics of the NRC say the problem at Davis Besse, 20 miles southeast of Toledo, is a prime example of the agency’s deference to industry. The inspector general concluded that a conflict between the NRC’s twin goals of inspecting the plant to protect public safety and a desire to “reduce unnecessary regulatory burden” on the owner led to the delay in finding the gaping hole.
In 2003, then NRC’s Chairman Richard Meserve disputed the inspector general’s report, which found that the agency’s decision on Davis Besse “was driven in large part by a desire to lessen the financial impact” on the plant’s owner. Meserve said the NRC had adequate technical grounds for the delay.
The agency insists that it vigilantly watches operations at 104 commercial reactors and frequently issues violations to nuclear companies that step out of line. Since 2001, the agency has averaged about 120 significant enforcement actions a year at power plants and other nuclear facilities it oversees.
While the Davis Besse case focuses on singular allegations of influence, critics say the industry routinely exercises its muscle in a more pervasive way: through contributions to NRC regulatory guides that advise nuclear companies about how to best follow the agency’s rules.
Large parts of the guides, issued by NRC, incorporate or endorse material written by the industry’s trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute. The guides – containing detailed technical procedures and reference materials – are a key part of NRC’s oversight. They provide the nuts and bolts advice that nuclear operators follow to stay in compliance but often refer to even more detailed industry guides.
The NRC’s guide on fatigue, for example, details how many hours employees in key jobs can work, how to respond when a worker is too tired, and how many days off employees in certain jobs need. It officially incorporates, with a few exceptions, another 60-page guide compiled by the industry group.
In an e-mail, Thomas Kauffman, a spokesman for NEI, passed along responses to ProPublica’s questions from the trade group’s director of engineering, John Butler. “NRC endorsement, with or without exceptions, of industry guidance is a common practice,” Butler said.
News / Biz ‘Spillionaires’: Profiteering and mismanagement in the wake of the BP oil spill
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 8:41 AM
From our friends at ProPublica:
The oil spill that was once expected to bring economic ruin to the Gulf Coast appears to have delivered something entirely different: a gusher of money.Some people profiteered from the spill by charging BP outrageous rates for cleanup. Others profited from BP claims money, handed out in arbitrary ways. So many people cashed in that they earned nicknames -- "spillionaires" or "BP rich." Meanwhile, others hurt by the spill ended up getting comparatively little.
In the end, BP's attempt to make things right -- spending more than $16 billion so far, mostly on claims of damage and cleanup -- created new divisions and even new wrongs. Because the federal government ceded control over spill cleanup spending to BP, it's impossible to know for certain what that money accomplished, or what exactly was done.
Some inequities arose from the chaos that followed the April 20 spill. But in at least one corner of Louisiana, the dramatic differences can be traced in part to local powerbrokers. To show how the money flowed, ProPublica interviewed people who worked on the spill and examined records, including some reported earlier by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, for St. Bernard Parish, a coastal community about five miles southeast of downtown New Orleans.
Documents show that local companies with ties to insiders garnered lucrative cleanup contracts and then charged BP for every imaginable expense. The prime cleanup company, which had a history of bad debts and no oil-spill experience, submitted bills with little documentation or none at all. A subcontractor charged BP $15,400 per month to rent a generator that usually cost $1,500 a month. A company owned in part by the St. Bernard Parish sheriff charged more than $1 million a month for land it had been renting for less than $1,700 a month.
Assignments for individual fishermen followed the same pattern, with insiders and supporters earning big checks.
"This parish raped BP," said Wayne Landry, the chairman of the St. Bernard Parish Council, referring to the conduct of its political leadership. "At the end of the day, it really just frustrates me. I'm an elected official. I have guilt by association."
Read the entire story, by Kim Barker, here.
News Good news for air breathers: Tennessee Valley Authority to 'phase out' 18 coal plants
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 8:40 AM
The Tennessee Valley Authority has decided to "phase out" 18 coal plants by 2020. Sure, that's good news for Tennessean air breathers, but, you may wonder, what does that have to do with Charlotte's air? Well, last time we checked Mother Nature — as moody as she is — doesn't recognize arbitrary and invisible boundaries like state lines. Therefore, the quality of the air above our neighboring states directly impacts the quality of the air over our state, the air we breathe.
So, the TVA's announcement is a huge win for loads of air breathers, including us.
But, that's not all: The TVA has agreed to pay millions of dollars in fines for their Clean Air Act violations.
Here's more from The Christian Science Monitor:
The Tennessee Valley Authority, one of America's largest utilities, said Thursday it plans to close 18 older coal-fired power generators at three plants as part of a court settlement in which it will pay $10 million in fines for violations of the federal Clean Air Act.When completed, the shutdowns will be one of the largest single closures of coal-fired units since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began, in the 1990s, to require emissions controls on older plants, observers say. The plan also marks a shift toward cleaner forms of energy, company officials said.
Film / Film News / Film Reviews / News RiverRun Wrap, Part 1
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 8:35 AM
By Matt Brunson
THURSDAY, APRIL 14 – It’s not exactly the same as walking into a movie after it’s already half over, but there was still something a tad disconcerting about dropping into the 13th Annual RiverRun International Film Festival with six days down and only four to go. Already past were screenings of some of the high-profile titles (including The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Weisz, and Meek's Cutoff, with Michelle Williams), the presentation of the festival’s Emerging Master award to Oscar nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, the upcoming Superman), and a handful of special events (including a free Best in Show screening attended by dogs and their human pets). But with a festival as prominent as this one, there’s certainly no worry about finding things to do for these final four days. In addition to fulfilling my festival obligation to serve as one of the jurors for the Documentary Shorts category, there are other films to see, events to attend, and blogs to post.
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Question the Queen City: The haunting of Love’s Pass
The railroad pass has claimed at least 14 lives
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More on the United Way 1
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Theater review: The Scarlet Pimpernel
CPCC's version triumphantly vindicates my original A+ enthusiasm for The Scarlet Pimpernel.
