I’m not a big fan — one or two songs will do me — but Coldplay’s tour is one of the bigger ones this summer and, nope, that new booking agencydidn’t land a Charlotte stop. At least not on the first leg, which zooms from Boston to ATL in November and does not pause for the QC.
I suppose the tour could swing back thru in 09. Until then:
Lead sponsor Sprint Nextal is having a horrible time hanging onto customers. Even worse, what customers it is retaining are spending less per month on cell service, down to $55 a month.
Not good. And another sign that Charlotte hitched itself to the NASCAR star at the absolute height of its popularity.
The Christian Science Monitor is at least considering moving to a weekly format with its daily output limited to its Web site. Hooray! Someone is thinking big thoughts. Here’s an even bigger one.
Is there any reason the Uptown paper of record could not move to a Tue-Thur-Sun schedule? Watch tomorrow’s paper and tell me what you absolutely positively had to have on your doorstep. It’ll be a start.
Oh, sure I know there is huge prestige attached to a “daily paper” — but that is 20th century thinking. Besides, reporting wouldn’t stop, just the printing press. Were I a consultant, that is a five-figure Big Thought. And Meck Deck readers get it for free.
Bonus Observation: Going zoned and hyper-neighborhood did not much helpThe Seattle Times which shed 125 more employees, including suburban newsroom spots.
The community college system — as of a couple hours ago — says it’ll only admit some undocumented students, namely those who are not in “curriculum degree programs.” That little dodge means that the “change” in policy applies a little over one-third of all students enrolled in the state community college system.
Disgusted yet? Why must these meatheads play games?
In sum, that smart people think John McCain is a lock to carry North Carolina in November. I would certainly say the state tilts that direction at the moment, based primarily on past history, but to automatically put it in his column as The Atlantic does in its first electoral map of the season is premature. Numerous forces argue otherwise.
One, that once having secured the nomination, Obamania kicks into a yet higher gear, registering yet more new voters around the state. Former Charlotte city councilman Don Reid, for example, thinks this very likely, particularly in urban areas. Two, conservatives really do not like McCain. There is once again turmoil over the abortion plank in the GOP platform and the outcome cannot accrue to McCain’s favor. Mostly likely nothing changes, leaving him open to flip-flop charges. Again. Three, and the most fuzzy, Bob Barr running on the LP ticket. Does this give disaffected conservatives someplace to land? We’ll see.
As a result, I do not see how it is possible to comfortably add the state’s 15 electoral votes to the McCain total — which will make the climb to 270 a cliffhanger all the way.
ICE raided a meat processing plant in Iowa and made over 300 arrests. Fraudulent Social Security numbers were being used by 76 percent of the 968 employees at the site, the feds claimed.
In other words, this could never happen in North Carolina. There absolutely no stomach among our so-called leaders for that kind of enforcement of the law.
Can’t ever have enough documentation of the Smart Growthers letting slip that higher densities are primarily about securing ever-greater revenues for local government — because, of course, they are so strapped for revenue otherwise.
Via Piedmont Publius this little gem from a conference up in Greensboro, featuring a Ventura (Ca.) city councilman William Fulton:
The retreat this weekend at the Proximity Hotel brought together an eclectic audience from throughout the state including real estate developers, investment advisers, corporate CEOs, county commissioners, school board members, nonprofit executives, bureaucrats and academics.
There are a variety of ways to contain urban sprawl, Fulton said, but the bottom line is that growth simply costs too much if it is allowed to drift ever farther from a region’s core. … Eventually, the whole house of cards collapses because the cost of building and maintaining roads, utilities, schools and other public services can’t be supported by a landscape so thinly populated, Fulton said.
Not true. The revenue runs short not because of low population density, but because “progressives” like Fulton spend public money on all sorts of things besides essential services. Then, mindful of that the public demands those services, they turn around and lie — there is no other word for it — that “sprawl” is to blame for any revenue squeeze.
Yes, it is one of those how-long-you-been-in-Charlotte questions: Remember when Hannah Storm did sports for WPCQ, back before it was WCNC? Well, nevermind. She’s going back to sports reporting for the first time since 2002.
Storm, aka Storen, is going to anchor the new morning SportsCenter offering from ESPN. The network is supposed to announce something to that effect tomorrow.
Don’t know if Hannah’s show will differ any in format from current S-PIN fare — sure hope so. The net has gotten too gimmicky and smack talk-y for its own good and could use a more grown-up approach. Not boring mind you, just less screaming and yelling passed off as analysis.
Impolite questions from Bob Lee Swagger regarding UNC’s new chancellor. But I liked this rundown on the man already dubbed Doogie the best of Swagger’s observations:
Your entire life since age 18 has been in a college campus environment. That, Doogie, is like living in Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disney World. It ain’t real Doogie. It is fine when you are dealing with the dwarfs, munchkins, and assorted campus characters inside your collegiate theme park …. but as “The Chancellor” you must be able to relate to the great unwashed …. the untermensch …. the 100,000s of alums …. the Tar Heel lunatic fans …. the cold-bloodied thugs who kill the Eve Carsons …. the Jimmy Sextons …. the retirees that moved to Chapel Hill and hate “football game day traffic” …. the angry parents who’s Eagle Scout/Valedictorian son gets turned down by Admissions simply because of his race/gender - Caucasian male …. Oh and you must deal with “people who don’t see America thru your eyes” but aren’t bad, just different. That last category likely “be me” Doog. …. will you actually solve problems or just “hold candlelight vigils”?
Brutal, but true. Thorp is taking office at a very delicate time in the history of both the UNC system and the Chapel Hill campus. Let’s see how he does.
As we told you last week, the Charlotte city budget does include a big hike in the Uptown special taxing district levies in order to raise money for Center City Partners. True, we are talking about a few blocks of real estate and not the entire city, but this totally invalidates any blanket statement on taxes.
More importantly, city council seems quite content to play along with city staff’s fiction that Charlotte can only scrape together $500K here, $1m. there in order to address our public safety emergency. Meanwhile there sits $12m. in “extra” money from the 277 lands sale that can be put to any purpose council chooses.
This will all be over in another week and absolutely nothing will have changed.
