But it's fine, everything's fine; so don't worry your pretty little heads and go about your business as if this isn't real news, as if we shouldn't all be humming "It's a Small World After All." It's just a tiny bit of radiation; a "trace" is the word The Observer used. What's a trace? Nothing really. It's like a pinch or a dash; adds a hint of spice but it's barely noticeable. So, again, you probably shouldn't even be paying attention to this warning. No, go back to your regularly over-booked schedule.
(Everything's always fine, isn't it, when large corporations are in charge of messaging? Anyone else notice that phenomenon?)
You may be wondering how radiation ended up in Charlotte (wasn't it supposed to float to Southern California?) and how Duke Energy discovered it. Well, folks, Charlotte is sandwiched between two nuclear energy plants — one on Lake Norman and one on Lake Wylie — and, you'll be glad to know that companies that own such plants conduct regular tests for radiation. So, while conducting tests near those plants the "barely there" radiation was discovered in our area.
And, uh, word is the radiation has traveled all the way from Japan ... because it's a small world after all, and what one country does affects the rest (and everyone in them). See, we can divide ourselves behind boundaries all we want but the reality is that we all share the same planet and Mother Nature doesn't recognize arbitrary lines.
It will be interesting to watch the news as the nuclear disaster continues in Japan. For instance, are other nuclear plants across the nation and world also picking up on itty bitty bits of radiation in their surrounding communities? If you run across those news stories, please share them in the comments. I feel like I watch national and international environmental news pretty closely, and I'm not seeing similar stories elsewhere ... but maybe I'm simply missing them.
Further reading:
America, the Disney Land of the universe, where we pretend everything's perfect until it melts down:
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, March 28, 2011 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Cult Movie Monday - Screening Weekend at Bernie's at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
• Comedy Class Graduation at Galway Hooker Irish Pub
• The Poetry of Shel Silverstein with Allan Wolf at Gaston County Public Library
• The Extraordinaries with Summer Night Shade at Snug Harbor
• Chubby's Karaoke at Dixie's Tavern
Come spring and come April, eyes and ears turn to Georgia. Regardless of where the Final Four is staged, the eyes of the sports world will converge on Augusta for the final-round drama of the Masters, while the ears of music fanciers will have their last loving listen the night before at the Savannah Music Festival. It started yesterday, precisely timed to coincide with the first opening buds of the azaleas outside our home.
Sue and I will be traversing South Carolina on Sunday, crossing the Savannah River, and sojourning at the Festival for five full days of eclectic music programming. No, we won’t see and hear it all in the blossoming port city, but we’ll get a plentiful earful.
We’ll have classical concerts by violinist Catherine Leonard, cellist Eric Kim, and the Ebéne Quartet. Two chamber music concerts brimful of Beethoven violin sonatas – including the glorious “Kreutzer” – plus a potpourri of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Mozart, and Joachim by violinist Daniel Hope and friends.
Tennessee Williams never explicitly said that all characters in The Glass Menagerie must be white. Nor did the folks at Dramatists Play Service, responsible for licensing the 1945 play to Theatre Charlotte for their current production. But when Williams named one of his characters Jim O’Connor and told us that he’d sung the role of the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, he was certainly hinting strongly enough.
So it would seem fairly obvious that director Tim Ross, in presiding over an all-black Menagerie is clearly violating the playwright’s intent. Yet to some extent, Williams is anticipating alterations of his text – otherwise, there must be an audible “fiddle in the wings” of every production as decreed by our narrator, Tom Wingfield, in his opening speech. Ross does more than discard that fiddle, transposing the action of the memory play a decade forward to the 50s, excising Tom’s references to Guernica and the Spanish Revolution, and discreetly changing the Gentleman Caller’s last name.
What do you call someone who clings to his ideological purity even if it means others will literally suffer for it? You call that person, let’s see ... Osama bin Laden. Or Mao. Or maybe Jim DeMint. That’s it: Jim DeMint, the Tea-hadist. The junior senator from South Carolina, representative from the 1950s, and avid hair-coloring aficionado, DeMint is catching grief for sticking to his Tea Party guns rather than save U.S. taxpayers billions and help 300,000 dialysis patients.
Dr. David Cull, a vascular surgeon in Greenville, S.C., has invented a new valve system that could spare 300,000 dialysis patients across the country enormous suffering — and save American taxpayers billions of dollars in Medicare costs. When Cull applied for a $249,479 Therapeutic Discovery Grant — a part of the health care reform law designed to encourage cutting-edge biomedical research — DeMint, Cull’s hometown U.S. senator, refused to write a letter of recommendation and support for the grant. Why? Because the grant was part of “Obamacare,” which, as we all know, is evil and socialistic. Never mind that Cull’s invention is a major advance in its field and could save taxpayers a bundle. Here is an explanation of Cull’s invention and its importance, from the original McClatchy story:
Cull's valve system would replace a plastic stent that's been used for a half-century for patients with acute kidney failure. Once inserted under the skin, blood flows through the tiny tube all the time, even though a kidney patient undergoes dialysis only nine hours a week on average.The constant blood flow causes numerous painful complications, among them circulation impairment, clot formation, gangrene, finger ulcers and severe arm swelling. A typical dialysis patient will undergo 10 to 12 operations over a lifetime to treat the complications, with 1 million performed each year — all paid for by Medicare.
Cull, meanwhile is readying to start clinical trials with 12 patients of the new Hemoaccess Valve System. No thanks to Sen. DeMint, the Tea-hadist whose personal ideology trumps anything so practical as saving lives and tax money.
This weekend is your last chance to check out Cirque du Soleil's extended run of Totem. The tented extravaganza — which mixes theatrical and circus-like elements — contains an assortment of skilled acrobats (including ring tossers, trapeze artists, unicyclists, jugglers, skaters and more). Thematically, it centers around the evolution of mankind from a primordial state. A range of thought-provoking myths and music is dispersed throughout the performance, giving it a magical feel. March 25, 4 p.m. & 8 p.m.; March 26, 4 p.m. & 8 p.m.; March 27, 1 p.m. & 5 p.m. Charlotte Motor Speedway, 5555 Concord Parkway South, Concord. For more information, click here.
In a media briefing Thursday morning, Charlotte mayor Anthony Foxx said he doesn't understand why U.S. Congressman William Keating continues to press for further investigation into security lapses at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Keating, who was the district attorney in Milton, Mass. — where the body of Charlotte teen Delvonte Tisdale was discovered after he fell from a US Air jet — has been vocal on finding out what happened at the airport since he arrived in Washington.
On March 3, Keating further probed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about lapses in airport security.
“Last month we had the opportunity to discuss the aftermath of the death of 16-year-old Delvonte Tisdale ... to date, there has been no video surveillance that has surfaced to detail how Mr. Tisdale was able to breech airport operations," Keating said. "The case surely suggests that there may be perimeter- and air-field vulnerabilities in other airports as well.”
Foxx said he's never spoken with Keating and "there have been multiple investigations at this point ... it's a tough situation for all concerned. We want to make sure that our airport is the most secure in the country. I think what the city manager [Curt Walton] and the police chief [Rodney Monroe] have outlined in broad terms are the exact steps we need to get there. I don't know why Congressman Keating continues to berate that point." Adding that he doesn't know if Keating has spoken to city officials or if he knows about the CMPD report.
In CMPD's report, they cited the following:
But even while CMPD was investigating how Delvonte got on the plane, other security breaches continued at Charlotte Douglas, including a former employee who was seen jumping the fence at one of the airport's employee entrances.
According to The Charlotte Observer, on Feb. 13, Trenton Meadows, 38, had forgotten his security badge, jumped through three strands of barbed wire instead of going through a turnstile, according to an airport incident report.
Meadows had his security clearance for the tarmac revoked following the incident.
In mid-March, two separate breaches happened at the airport. According to Charlotte Douglas Airport police reports, on March 12, someone cut the perimeter field gate fencing causing $200 in damage and stole about $150 in diesel fuel from Phoenix Solutions.
Also, on March 12, police received a report about a construction gate, which was left open, allowing someone to walk in and steal more than $13,000 worth of landscaping equipment.
Foxx said he's confident in airport safety. "I think that as unfortunate and horrible as the death of this young man was that it has given our airport and our police department a chance to really look at security in a much broader way. And I think that we're going to be safer because of it."
But he couldn't answer specifically if the suggested changes to strengthen airport security, which Walton said in his report would be "implemented in an expedient time frame," have been put in place.
"I know that our police chief, our airport director and our city manager understand that gravity of that issues and they are working to implement the things that they are talking about. So, I have no concerns about the urgency there. I'd be foolish to say that our airport or any other airport wouldn't have another incident, but what they are doing out there is to prevent another incident like that from happening."
In a story published by Creative Loafing on Feb. 22, Tisdale’s family lawyer Christopher Chestnut said the family wants to see safety become a priority at the airport and don’t want another family to face the what they are dealing with.
"Obviously, US Air, Charlotte [Douglas] — you have some gaping holes in your security. And how is it three months later, you still don't have any answers?" Chestnut said. "If you don't have any answers, then you don't have any improvements. If you don't have improvements, that means it could happen again."
Foxx said because of the steps that the airport is taking in light of the Tisdale situation everyone is safer."I am highly confident that the steps that the airport is taking will help us in other situations."
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, March 25, 2011 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Doug Benson at McGlohon Theatre
• Yes at The Fillmore Charlotte
• Trash O Rama, featuring The Needles at Tremont Music Hall
• Charlotte Symphony: Light My Fire at Knight Theater
• Latin Spring Break Mardi Grass Party at Kazba
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules - Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick
Sucker Punch - Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish
Check out these events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area this weekend— as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
Comedian Doug Benson sits on a throne (well, for his Comedy Central series The Benson Interruption, that is) puffing out heckles at comics just as fast as you can say Super High Me. After gaining some attention as a contestant on the fifth season of Last Comic Standing, Benson starred in the documentary (playing on Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me) about the effects of smoking weed for 30 days. Luckily, the ordeal (habit-forming or not) didn’t spawn him into producing half-baked jokes. Usually hilarious and sometimes offensive — c’mon Canadians, he said he’s sorry — Benson is a comedian in high demand.
• Film Expanded to eight days and four viewing venues, the third annual Gay Charlotte Film Festival is even more inclusive than ever before, with enough time and space to allow for all manner of LGBT titles. Among the movies being screened are A Marine Story, Eyes Wide Open, Gen Silent, and You Should Meet My Son. more...
• Art Through images and words, the local non-profit organization Silent Images hopes to put a face to those suffering from poverty, oppression and persecution. Its latest book, Voice of Beauty, celebrates the strengths of African women struggling for survival on a daily basis. An exhibit bearing the same content and title as the book is currently on display at Evergreen Studio; it features photography by David Johnson and Elizabeth Marx. more...
Patricia McBride & Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance
Don’t let the title scare you away. Gastonia dance troupe Caroline Calouche & Co.’s premiere of pi: personal integrity is more focused on humanity rather than mathematical constants. The troupe combines dance and aerial acrobatics with the use of ropes, bungee chords and other materials as aids. But the life of pi is more than that. Slam poets and vocalists add an extra spin.
• Sports It’s time for another roller derby bout for the Charlotte Speed Demons. This time they’ll go up against the Greenville Derby Dames at First Ward Recreation Center. more...
• Nightlife Ouzo Productions’ Global Fever: Persian New Year Edition revolves around the Nowruz, the first day of the New Year in the Iranian calendar. Music will be provided by DJ DIM and DJ Meisam DBK from Washington DC. more...