Pssst, Palin ... Sports fans vote, too

Pity Sarah Palin. The Republican vice presidential candidate must be telling the truth when she says she's an outsider to East Coast politics. She apparently hasn't learned that sports fandom has rigid boundaries that may be invisible to outsiders but are very real.

On Thursday, speaking in Erie, Pa., in western Pennsylvania, she made the mistake of praising the Philadelphia Phillies, who the night before won the World Series.

Trouble is, that part of Pennsylvania is the Pittsburgh Pirates' territory (or the Cleveland Indians'). Pirates-Phillies tension is right up there with Tar Heels-Duke-Wolfpack tension. Some in the crowd booed at the mention of the Phillies. (Watch the video below.)

Speaking of which, Palin's due to appear Saturday in Raleigh. That is trecherous territory. She'll have to praise the Heels, Devils and Pack with equal vigor -- or maybe punt, and praise the Panthers?

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Sad signs of the times for bear cubs

Poor bear cub! Poor momma bear! (See "Dead bear cub closes freeway" about a cub killed by a vehicle on Interstate 26 near Asheville.)
But at least this dead cub didn't get swaddled in Obama campaign signs like another newsworthy ursa Americanus from the N.C. mountains a week ago. (See 2 WCU students charged in dead bear incident.)
Or, as one wag said, there weren't any Obama signs left in that part of the state.
-- Posted by Mary Newsom

The jokes were on McCain and Obama

The 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner was held in New York Thursday night, and those of us who saw parts of it on television were in for a treat. Dressed in tuxes, both presidential candidates got a chance to publicly and goodnaturedly crack jokes about each other, themselves and others at the charity event. And they each got in some good ones, giving us a refreshing view of their human side, and their humanity.

GOP Sen. John McCain might have been the most surprising. At this event away from the campaign trail, he wasn't stiff or forboding but funny, relaxed and genuine. Some of his zingers: "Where's Bill, by the way?" he asked of Hillary Clinton, who attended. "Can't he take one night off from his tireless quest to make the man who defeated his wife the next president?" And this: "Events are moving fast in my campaign. And, yes, it's true that this morning I dismissed my entire team of senior advisers. All of their positions will now be held by a man named 'Joe the Plumber.'" And this joke: "This campaign needed the common touch of a working man. After all, it began so long ago with the heralded arrival of a man known to Oprah Winfrey as 'The One.' Being a friend and colleague of Barack, I just called him that one."

Sen. Barack Obama got in some good ones too. They were so funny to him that he couldn't resist snickering as he told them. There was this joke: "I do love the Waldorf-Astoria," he said of the place where the dinner was held. "You know, I hear that from the doorstep you can see all the way to the Russian tearoom." And then there was this joke: "The mayor of this great city, Michael Bloomberg, is here. The mayor recently announced some news - made some news by announcing he's going to be rewriting the rules and running for a third term, which caused Bill Clinton to say, you can do that?" And this one: "Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jorel to save the Planet Earth."

They both also chucked the partisanship, and sincerely praised each other. They sounded a lot like good decent men, who were friends. Three weeks before the election, it was a wonder to watch. To read, their entire comments go to http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/15091

It's on the Internet, so it must be true?

We've seen a lot of bogus things flying around the Internet about both presidential candidates. But there's one floating about now that is so far-fetched, no one could believe it's real. And yet gullible readers are lapping it up.
An e-mail making the rounds purports to quote Democrat Barack Obama on the Sept. 7 "Meet the Press" television show.
Supposedly, Obama said on the show that he wants to:
-- Change the national anthem to "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" to placate our enemies;
-- Redesign the American flag to placate our enemies;
-- Disarm America to a level that makes "our Middle East Brethren" happy;
It also quotes Obama as talking about "hatred" for America, his wife's disrespect for the flag and how they have both attended several flag burning ceremonies. This is all reported, in the e-mail, by one Dale Lindsborg of the Washington Post.
Come on, people. You're e-mailing this to all your friends, in a panic, in disbelief that this man is leading in the polls.
Here's an idea: think for yourself! Spend, oh, 10 seconds on Google and see if there really is a "Dale Lindsborg" at the Washington Post. Spend 30 seconds seeing if Obama was even ON the Sept. 7 "Meet the Press."
Are you so predisposed to one candidate or the other that you can't think critically?
- Taylor Batten

Uh, it's Obama, not Osama

Oops! In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for “Barack Osama” for president, not Barack Obama. The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County did identify John McCain correctly.
Elections officials have apologized and shredded the remaining "Osama” ballots, and mailed corrected ones to the 300 or so people who got the erroneous ones.
The officials called the situation "human error," "very unfortunate" and "an embarrassment". Could it also have been a Freudian slip? These days, Obama opponents at rallies have taken to calling him a terrorist, or an associate of one. The best known terrorist, and the most despised in the U.S. is named Osama - Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.

Time postcard: Charlotte not 'trifling' now

"In 1791, George Washington called Charlotte, N.C., a 'trifling place.' In 1941 an author scoffed that the city had as much use for high-rises 'as a hog has for a morning coat.' By 1991, Charlotte was still a minor-league city without major-league sports, a cultural wasteland with a central business district that died every weekday after work."


So goes a Time magazine "Postcard from Charlotte" you can find online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1844558,00.html. OK, so they got it wrong about Charlotte being "without major-league sports" by 1991. The city's first NBA team, the Charlotte Hornets, had already completed two seasons before 1991. So Charlotte wasn't as "minor league" then as the writer assumed.


But it's our two big banks that have pushed the city into the national spotlight of late. As the nation's financial system teeters, Bank of America donned a white hat and came to the rescue of Merrill Lynch. Wachovia was ready and in talks to help Morgan Stanley.


So it's hardly surprising that a lot of people want to know more about what makes Charlotte tick - and prosper. Interesting reading.

Prez politics in N.C.: A kid's perspective

National politics is becoming very accessible to Charlotte residents, especially now that some polls and pundits have tagged North Carolina a battleground state in this year's presidential race. Emma Elizabeth Churchyard wrote to the Observer about the excitement she feels after Barack Obama's visit Sunday. Here's what she had to say:

"In April, my mother, my sister and I walked up the street to hear Hillary Clinton speak. As soon as the rain started, Rowan and I ducked under the platforms (which kept us dry) while my mother got soaking wet. Then the sun came out and so did Hillary. She talked about gas prices, education (stopping EOG’s - I liked that one) and stuff a kid wouldn’t understand. When her speech was over, she came to shake everybody’s hands. I felt like a squeezed mouse, but I got to the rails and she signed my T-shirt. Being there made me feel independent. I want to be kind of like her someday.
So when my mom told me Barack Obama was coming to Charlotte, I was like "Let’s go! Let’s go! I was ready to climb in the car and wait in the rain again. I had a T-shirt and a sharpie. But I had to wait until Sunday.
On Sunday, we drove up to see a line four blocks long. All you could see was "Obama" on everyone’s T-shirt, hat, button, bumper sticker and body writing. I was EXCITED. I felt like I was gonna get up close to him, just like I did with Hillary Clinton. And then, I saw that the next block was covered in people. And the next. And the next. And the next. I saw babies, I saw kids, I saw teens, I saw adults - in every skin tone you could think of. And all I could think was, "We’re never going to get in."
We finally found the end of the line and joined it. After a good 30 minutes of mapping out what we could do if we couldn’t get in to see Obama, the motorcade arrived. People ran for the street. They were screaming "Yes, We Can!" (Apparently that’s his motto.) I was hopeful - people left the line! But not enough. I never saw so many people in my entire life.
A lady campaign worker urged people in line to give up and go to the corners, where they could at least hear Obama. The rally was supposed to start at 1 pm, and it was already close to 2 pm. I urged my parents to go to the corner. We did.
I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear much either. But it was better than where we were and it was better than staying at home. All those people gave me hope that somebody young and smart, who likes kids, might be President. Just being within 200 yards of Obama made me feel important, independent and made me want to be just like him. (If he wins.)"

Still bigots around, says new prez poll

No one wants to talk about race in this presidential election, least of all Democratic nominee Barack Obama. But a new poll puts a laser on racial attitudes and how they may affect the outcome. The poll results may be unsettling for Obama.

The AP-Yahoo News poll http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gehjsXjRU6cEer94pOkWWCmJEOAAD93B2O300, conducted with Stanford University, found that 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view of blacks and about one-third of white Democrats do. According to the poll, many call blacks "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.
More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.
The survey focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The Best and Worst of Pat McCrory?

Mayor Pat may be zooming up the polls in his race for N.C. governor, but his local popularity is lagging a bit - at least among the "critics' panel/copywriters" and the readers of Charlotte's "Creative Loafing", a weekly news and entertainment tabloid. In it's recent 21st annual Best of Charlotte issue, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory was named both the "Worst Member of Local Government" and the "Best Member of Local Government". The Creative Loafing staff and critics gave him the "Worst" title. But the readers picked him for "Worst" and "Best".

One pundit said he may have made both the best and worst in readers' minds because he may be the only local politician they've heard of. Could be.

At least, he didn't win this title: "Public official most in need of Tasering". The winner of that appellation? Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board member Kaye McGarry. Find the Best of Charlotte listings at http://www.charlotte.creativeloafing.com/.