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Democratic National Convention 2012
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 Immigrant activists show 'No Fear' during Wednesday protest
Posted By Ryan Pitkin on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:18 PM
At noon on Wednesday, the No Papers, No Fears riders from the UndocuBus returned to the spot where 10 were arrested the previous day for blocking the street. The 10 riders, all undocumented, we're released early Wednesday after spending about 11 hours in jail.
The UndocuBus left from Phoenix six weeks ago and has traveled across country to advocate for immigrant rights following Ariz. Sheriff Joe Arpaio's racial profiling trial. Although two No Papers, No Fears riders were arrested during the trial and two more during a stop in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday saw the largest mass arrest of UndocuBus riders.
Democratic National Convention 2012 Obama's relocated speech throws some for a loop
Posted By Joanne Spataro on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:11 PM
Liz Kearley is mad.
She stood in line for seven hours on Saturday to receive her community credential for President Obama’s big Thursday night speech. She felt lucky - some people waited for five hours and walked away empty handed. But the retired Charlottean's once golden ticket won’t get her anywhere now.
The Democratic National Convention Committee announced on Tuesday that Obama’s renomination speech on Thursday night has been moved from Bank of America Stadium to Time Warner Cable Arena, which has been the site of official convention proceedings since Tuesday. The move was made — per today’s press release from the DNCC — due to severe weather predictions, since Bank of America Stadium is an open-air venue.
- Justin Driscoll
- Time Warner Cable Arena, where Obama will now give his speech
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 Gabrielle Douglas kicks me into high gear
Posted By Joanne Spataro on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 6:30 PM
With the Democratic National Convention officially at half-time, most of us journalists are running on fumes. I have been eating my weight in free fried-chicken fingers at Blackfinn and passing out on a hard couch at 2 a.m, too wired from catching actress Patricia Arquette chain smoking in the Epicenter before going on Hardball with Chris Matthews. I'm in a torrid love affair with the bottomless popcorn bucket at Time Warner Cable Arena.
- Joanne Spataro
- Gabrielle Douglas and me at the Kids' Health Goes Gold
So I scheduled an intervention this morning. I joined a bunch of elementary school kids for Kids’ Health Goes Gold at the Foundation for the Carolinas on South Tryon Street. It took some Olympians — including four of the Fierce Five from the U.S. gymnastics team in the 2012 London Games — to pry the free chocolate chip cookies from my hand.
Democratic National Convention 2012 DNC in photos: Michelle Obama, happy delegates, more
Posted By Kimberly Lawson on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 5:40 PM
CL Atlanta photographer Joeff Davis is on the convention floor, capturing the moments that make this "The People's Convention."
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 Obama is forcing gay marriage, Gary Bauer TV spot claims
Posted By Sam Stein on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:05 PM
The socially conservative super PAC Campaign for American Values is running an ad campaign in the Charlotte media market this week accusing President Barack Obama of forcing gay marriage on the rest of the country.
The organization, headed by Gary Bauer, has played this role before, most infamously in the lead-up to the 2004 elections, when gay-marriage ballot referendums helped drive up turnout for George W. Bush. And if there is a swing state in which this type of campaign could work, it would be North Carolina, where voters approved a ban on same-sex marriage this May.
But perceptions on the issue have changed since then — owing to the President's endorsement of marriage equality — with the black community in particular exhibiting more support.
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 How’s Your News? star Susan Harrington stops by the DNC
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 3:59 PM
I caught up with Susan Harrington of How’s Your News as she and her camera crew roamed around the convention floor Wednesday.
- Ana McKenzie
- Harrington interviewing Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick.
How’s Your News, a short-lived show on MTV produced by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, starred Harrington and other mentally challenged reporters who went around the country interviewing actors and politicians. It inspired a well-reviewed documentary in 2003. MTV axed the show in 2009 for budgetary reasons, but Harrington and some of her colleagues have continued to film. Her Boston-based team touched down in Charlotte this week fresh from Republican National Convention, where she interviewed party big wigs like Rudy Giuliani.
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 Lots of PR, plus some inspiration, on Day 1 of the DNC
Posted By Mike Cooper on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 1:15 PM
The scene around Charlotte on Day One of the Democratic National Convention was much like a music festival: hot and humid, with random rain showers and hipsters aimlessly pillaging around. There were Bible-beating mouth breathers preaching hate on street corners, graphic photos of aborted fetuses painted on trucks passing by, and undocumented immigrants staging sit-in protests on the streets.
The EpiCentre morphed into a red, white and blue colored haven for Ivy League wonks and Beltway pundits seeking shelter from the storms. The various delegates, campaign staffers, pollsters, and professional activists hovered around the MSNBC stage like moths around a flame. (Who knew Chris Matthews had a cult following?)
- Jeff Hahne
- EpiCentre crowd madness
And with the jocks and surgically enhanced sorority girls gone for a week, it sure felt like Nerd Prom around the downtown clubs — though Ashley Judd was walking the streets in a skirt to keep things attractive.
Arts / Democratic National Convention 2012 Citizens of the Universe presents double feature
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 12:02 PM
Up in NoDa, around the corner from the Neighborhood Theatre, Wine Up has become the capital of Queen City performance art. Not only does the venue host Charlotte's champion poetry slammers, but it's also become home to a string of one-man shows, beginning a couple of weeks ago with Hank West's Steinbeck Was Wrong.
Today (Sept. 5), Citizens of the Universe brings a pair of twin bills to the venue. This includes James Lee Walker II performing Marx in SoHo and Citizens Of The Universe founder James Cartee reprising Gonzo: A Brutal Chrysalis. The marathon begins at 2 p.m. — yes, this is a Wednesday matinee in Charlotte! — when Karl Marx returns from the afterlife to London, only to get sidetracked to NYC, where he must explain the difference between his writings and the historical aberrations of Marxism. Then, it's the 1968 DNC all over again when Cartee chimes in later at 3:30 p.m. for an over-the-top evocation of the iconic inventor of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson — in all his paranoid pill-popping, booze-swilling, gun-toting, phantasmagorical-prose-spewing glory.
The double feature repeats with Marx at 8 p.m. and Gonzo at 9:30 p.m. In between the COTU twins, DJ Crabtree sings until 7:30 p.m., and after Thompson trashes his final typewriter, The Collectives play until 1 a.m. $10 suggested donation. Marx In SoHo: Sept. 5, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Gonzo: A Brutal Chrysalis: Sept. 5, 3:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. Wine Up, 3306 N. Davidson St. 704-372-2633. www.wine-up.com. For more information, visit www.citizensoftheuniverse.org.
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 Five things you didn't know about the DNC: Day 1
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:45 AM
1. There were about 10 cops to every pedestrian in downtown Charlotte. As I walked around, I kept thinking old women muttering in some indiscernible eastern European language would approach me for change. I mostly kept my head down and used pigeons to communicate messages to my comrades on the other side.
2. The Secret Service agents I came across were very nice. Sure, their friendliness could have had something to do with the fact that I was without umbrella and in a white silk blouse when a hurricane moved through town in the afternoon. But I don't look Colombian, so I won't flatter myself.
Democratic National Convention 2012 Planned Parenthood rally encourages support for Obama
Posted By Joanne Spataro on Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 10:32 AM
When Louise (name changed to preserve anonymity) found out she was pregnant, the 29-year-old single mom in Cincinnati, Ohio, knew she could not afford to have another child. Without insurance and a steady income, she turned to Planned Parenthood, a national organization that provides general healthcare services for women, including access to abortion care. Louise wrestled with the decision, but in the end decided to end her pregnancy. Now living in Charleston, S.C., Louise supported Planned Parenthood at a Tuesday afternoon rally in front of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
“After that experience [having an abortion], I felt bad about it,” she said, “but I had the choice to make and I made that choice.”
About a hundred women and men came to the rally — a lower number than expected due to credential security checks, even though organizers planned to make it a non-credentialed event for attendees. Speakers included comedian and Planned Parenthood board member Aisha Tyler, Georgetown University Law Center student Sandra Fluke, Wisconsin congresswoman Gwen Moore, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, and Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America since 2006. She encouraged the crowd to re-elect President Barack Obama instead of electing Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his vice-presidential running mate Paul Ryan.
- Natrice Bullard
- Aisha Tyler speaks to a pumped crowd
“We have come too far to go back,” said Richards, who will be speaking at the Democratic National convention on Wednesday night.
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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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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.
