Award-winning columnist, writer, speaker and editor
It’s not that the women, the mothers, don’t blame both brothers Tsarnaev as law enforcement officials continue to investigate the bombings at the Boston Marathon and its aftermath, horrors that killed and maimed. There is no limit to the anger and rage aimed at the two of them.
But while the back story for the older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, provided a simplistic explanation that made it easy to keep him at a distance, 19-year-old Dzhokhar’s is a different American tale.
CHARLOTTE – On the federal level, the gun-control debate is now focused on proposed changes to gun legislation, from tightening background checks (given little chance of passage) to efforts to ban military-style assault weapons and limit the capacity of ammunition magazines (given even less).
On the local level, however, in the city neighborhoods where violence doesn’t merit the headlines of Newtown or Aurora, that debate is secondary. The concern there is concentrated on gun violence rather than gun control. At a community conversation in Charlotte on Tuesday evening, a police officer, a doctor and a minister – all experienced in dealing with the daily consequences of young men with guns – led an effort to find solutions.
Just when his apology tour was going so well, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford is in the headlines again — and not for his conservative fiscal policies. His ex-wife Jenny Sanford has filed a trespassing complaint saying that in violation of their divorce settlement, she caught him leaving her home in February, using his cell phone as a flashlight.
Jenny Sanford has confirmed that court documents obtained by The Associated Press were authentic, but didn’t give any more details. She told The State newspaper on Tuesday, “We have had a number of matters [in the divorce], and we have to deal with them in private.” Well, except that her husband is running a very public U.S. Congressional race. “The race is not a concern,” Jenny Sanford said. “I am focused on raising my children.”
This can’t be the news South Carolina Republicans wanted to see weeks before a May 7 special election Sanford has a great chance of winning.
Kid friendly Earth Day celebrations in Charlotte, and a report on my acting debut, for a good cause. On Fox News Rising:
Karnamaya Mongar is the name of the 41-year-old woman Kermit Gosnell is charged with murdering; she allegedly received high doses of anesthetic at his Philadelphia abortion clinic. The seven children Gosnell is accused of killing at his Women’s Medical Society, as it was called, didn’t have the chance to be named. They are what the trial of the Philadelphia abortion doctor is about. But in the media coverage – and the arguments over the amount and prominence of that coverage – those individuals often fade into the background.
The women and children of color, the alleged victims, need to be at the top of every story now guaranteed to be written about the Gosnell trial, not pushed off center stage, replaced by an agenda.
CHARLOTTE — The occasion was an open-to-the-public reception to introduce Charlotte’s new city manager. But everyone in the lobby of the government center was talking about the decision by Mayor Anthony Foxx not to run for the third term he certainly would have won handily, and the reports – not confirmed – that he may take a spot as U.S. Secretary of Transportation as Ray LaHood steps down.
Only that would satisfy Sandra Clory, a retired school system dance instructor who has worked with the Mayor’s Mentoring Alliance. “It’s the only way I won’t be angry with him” for leaving the mayor’s office, she said at the Tuesday event, crowded with the neighborhood, nonprofit and business leaders who make Charlotte run. Just then, Foxx walked by; Clory took his arm and asked him if he was going to Washington to work with President Obama. “I don’t know nothing,” he jokingly replied.
It mirrored what Foxx, 41, said in a more serious conversation this week. “I don’t have any comment on that,” Foxx told me. “As I’ve said before, I’ve got plenty of things to focus on in the short and medium term, and that’s what I’m focused on.”
Mary C. Curtis, Rising’s Positive contributor shares with us important details about this month’s “Book Sale” at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Library as well as the latest celebration going on in the Mint Museum.
In her statement marking Equal Pay Day on April 9, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan said, “Fifty years ago Congress passed the Equal Pay Act making equal pay for equal work the rule of law. As we commemorate this landmark piece of legislation, it is important to remember that our work is not done.”
Her words were a reminder of challenges for women in the state: “Women across America face wage discrimination, and in North Carolina women make 81 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn. In today’s tough economic landscape, equal pay is about more than just principle; it is about ensuring an economically sound future for all of our families.”
That’s what it’s about – families. For those who would relegate “women’s issues” to the sideline of political conversation, it’s important to remember the role women play in the economy and their place as a backbone of family survival.
What started as a challenge for Jordan Leeper became an opportunity for Kobi Kennedy Brinson and the North Carolina Dance Theatre. The promising young dancer was coming to the end of the first year of his apprenticeship and running out of resources. Leeper’s parents, in his hometown of Jamestown, N.Y., had already helped out as much as they could, adding to the scholarship he earned to train in San Francisco, where he completed his senior year of high school, before he auditioned for North Carolina Dance Theatre (NCDT).
That’s when president and artistic director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux talked with Brinson, who had become an active fan and friend to the company. “Surely this community can support this dancer,” she remembered saying to him. “We can’t afford to lose African American dancers because of money.” The assistance Leeper received filled the gap until he was offered a place in the company.
Luckily it didn’t end there.
As fans of Annette Funicello mourn her death at 70 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis, I realized that although the after-school, black-and-white memories belong to those who grew up with the Mousketeers (I didn’t watched the show), her smile belonged to everyone.
It’s a smile she wore even after she announced her MS diagnosis in 1992, when she greeted fans with kind words and good humor at events and shows. When she could no longer walk, and used a wheelchair, I would see photos of her taking care with each person who showed up with a doll or a lunchbox, a record or picture.
