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25 Jul 14:57

Statistical analysis of 67 years of Lego sets

by Jason Kottke

Legos Are Graying

Life-long Lego fan Joel Carron recently analyzed a data set containing the types, colors, and number of pieces in every Lego set from the past 67 years and graphed the results. The shift in colors is the most striking thing to me: Legos are graying.

Legos have gotten darker, with white giving way to black and gray. The transition from the old grays to the current bluish grays (or "bley") is a hot-button topic for many Lego fans.

If you look at the dominant color palettes for all of the tie-in sets they're doing now, it's not difficult to see where those darker colors are coming from.

Tags: Joel Carron   Legos
14 Jul 18:11

Why Now, Florida Man? On Craig Pittman’s ‘Oh, Florida!’

by Nick Moran

cover

Like a greased manatee, Florida eludes capture. It’s too big, too ungraspable for tidy description. Scarcely is one aspect understood (it’s the Sunshine State) before an oppositional trait emerges (it’s our fifth wettest). Yet paradoxically, Florida is also the state most in need of an explanation. Why is it so bizarre? Why is it trying to kill us? Why does it produce so many outrageous headlines, like “Florida man changes name to Bruce Jenner to preserve name’s ‘heterosexual roots’” and “Florida man who died in cockroach-eating contest choked to death, autopsy says?” In fact, why has it produced so many outrageous headlines that the phrase “Florida Man” has become a meme, a nom de guerre for a demented, often nude antihero complete with his own Twitter account and Wikipedia entry?

There’s a temptation to answer these questions like a pointillist — to list headlines, write vignettes, and enumerate the weirdest, most depraved stories one can find. One hopes that from a far enough remove, such disparate dots will blend into a cohesive whole and a central narrative will emerge. There has to be a set of qualities linking crossbow-mutilated genitals, invasive Burmese pythons, and nude face-eating zombies because if there isn’t, we’re looking at unpredictable madness. And isn’t that terrifying?

These are the questions Craig Pittman attempts to answer in his latest book, Oh, Florida!: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country. Part travelogue, history, and memoir, it’s altogether best understood as the author’s quest to establish a Unified Theory of Florida’s Weirdness, and to make the argument that none of this is new. It’s an impressively difficult task, but it’s also one that Pittman, a veteran reporter and a Floridian by birth, is supremely qualified to undertake. (Case in point: his Twitter account.)

In more than 300 pages, Pittman capably demonstrates that throughout history, Florida’s served as our nation’s testing ground, or a Petri dish from which localized events have mutated and spread into national trends. The state was the first one settled by Europeans, for instance. It was the first to preserve a national wildlife refuge. Miami’s ubiquitous cartel violence led in no small way to the modern War on Drugs, and Anita Bryant’s antagonism accelerated America’s gay rights movement. Florida begat the moon landing. During the Cold War, its proximity to Cuba almost led to our mutually assured destruction. Twice. More recently, it was where the 9/11 hijackers trained, where the housing bubble burst, and its rapidly changing demographics will surely shape our political future. As goes Florida, so follows the nation — if not the world.

(Of course, one major challenge with any Florida book is that the state moves swiftly. When Pittman submitted his manuscript to press, there were five Florida Republicans running for president; now only one part-timer remains, and not the one most expected. Furthermore, in the past month the state’s dominated the news because it was the site of the nation’s most-deadly mass shooting, which couldn’t have been foreseen, let alone by the time the book was written. Already a sequel is needed.)

To make sense of all this ignoble influence, Pittman reduces the most outlandish headlines to their basic elements, and from there he attempts to ascribe reason. Drugs are abundant because there’s so much exploitable coastline, and drugs lead Floridians to fight. Floridians also fight because the weather is hot, and they’re frequently nude (or at least shirtless) for the same reason. Additionally, Floridians fight because there are so many recent arrivals who’ve moved to the state from elsewhere, and they “haven’t yet built up any trust with the folks next door.” And when squabbles make it to court, juries are often lenient for the same reason: “so many of [them] are transient and feel no strong connection to [their] community,” Pittman writes. Meanwhile, we learn about each crime’s scandalous details because of the state’s robust open records laws, which make police reports and court transcripts accessible to journalists anywhere.

While these answers adhere to a convincing logic, the effect of learning that logic can be disappointing. It’s like a magician revealing the secrets behind his tricks — sure, now it makes sense, but don’t we wish it didn’t? Where’s the whimsy, the fantastic? Readers hoping to find some exotic cause of the state’s residential craziness — tropical brain rot, maybe — instead learn that, actually, the government is tragically awful at treating its mentally ill. That so many financial hoodwinks occur has less to do with some evil enzyme endemic in citrus groves than it does with the fact that there are a lot of wealthy retirees ripe for the swindling, and a lot of opportunistic criminals. There are so many shark attacks not because Floridians taste good, but because so many of them go swimming. In fact, a lot of Florida’s strangeness can be chalked up to simple geography:

Put nineteen million residents and nearly one hundred million tourists in such a narrow space and you’re bound to generate conflict over whose turn it is at the drive-thru or whether oak trees or palms should line the streets. Adding fuel to this fire is the discovery that Florida is full of perils to life and limb, ranging from sand spurts to hurricanes, sinkholes, and shark bites.

In this sense, Pittman’s service journalism makes Oh, Florida! an invaluable addition to the Florida canon, which urgently needs serious voices to balance out the farcical, hyperbolic works produced by Carl Hiaasen and bloggers the world over. Likewise, Pittman does necessary work to highlight the forgotten or unheralded influence of Floridians who’ve shaped modern life — both for better and worse — such as Robert Hayling and Marion Hammer, respectively. He also demonstrates that for as long as the state’s had settlers, it’s also had shady real estate scammers; and he does a nice job calling out the state’s qualities that are objectively fantastic: the beaches, the preserves, the weather. Truly, there’s a lot to like in here, and the book should be required reading for Florida completists as well as outsiders cracking jokes about the state’s foibles; don’t mock that which you don’t understand, and recognize that before Florida Man, there was something like Homo Floridius, or Floridopithecus perhaps.

And to the extent that the book has any shortfalls, they are entirely matters of personal taste – of not going far enough. For instance, while Pittman’s gaze focuses on the state overall, I would’ve liked to see more attention paid to South Florida specifically, which to my eyes serves as the state’s driving engine of transformation, and also as the best indication of America’s future: multicultural, defined by income equality, and existentially threatened by climate change. (Maybe the oversight is explained by the fact that South Florida is distinct from the rest of the state, and doesn’t fit neatly into Pittman’s central theses.)

Also, instead of generalizing or exaggerating, Pittman’s journalistic instincts often limit his arguments to those that can be fact-checked and confirmed, which means he stops short of some key points. This is a particular hindrance when it comes to Florida Man and his origin story. Left unanswered in Oh, Florida! is the question of why we’ve become so fascinated with him in the past few years. Why now, Florida Man?

To some degree, the answer lies in the proliferation of social media, which provides a platform for turning small town news headlines into viral content. But there’s got to be more to it.

Perhaps the answer can be gleaned from trashiness, one of Florida Man’s most inextricable features, and a trait made evident to viewers of the recent Florida Man documentary, or readers of John Lingan’s convincing piece for Pacific Standard:

Florida Man could only come from our most geographically self-contained, ecologically forbidding state, the one full of sinkholes, swamps, wild gators, and urban coastal flooding. Florida Man is a Yankee nightmare in human form. He is everything frightening about white trash life in one meme — particularly the fear that your poor, aimless life will beget little more than a backwater local news curio and subsequent jail time.

Yet while both of those examples focus on a particular brand of trashiness — that is, white trashiness — I submit that the conditions responsible for creating Florida Man are more egalitarian. And while Pittman lays some groundwork to establish the foundation of this argument — breezily recounting the struggles of early Florida Crackers, and identifying the state’s long history of enforced impoverishment on members of certain races and ethnicities — he doesn’t quite make the leap necessary to sure up class’s overall influence on Florida Man.

It’s a fact often ignored when weird Florida news makes the rounds that the subjects of those stories are so often poor people being arrested for crimes associated with poverty, such as those motivated by addiction, or linked to domestic violence, larceny, or burglary. It’s also not a coincidence that the most archetypal Florida Man stories originate in counties more similar to Polk than Dade; indeed, the flavor of a Central Florida Man story is distinct from that of South Florida Man story. If tragedy is comedy plus time, then an archetypal Florida Man story is trashiness plus irony — and a South Florida Man story is all of that plus ambition. Put another way: the ideal Florida Man story involves a woman named Crystal Metheny firing a missile into a car, while a South Florida Man story involves bodybuilding ex-soldiers getting their international Molly ring busted because of a pornstar’s temper tantrum. While the ideal Florida Man candidate bought a bunch of houses he couldn’t afford before the 2008 Recession, the prototypical South Florida Man is probably the former bartender who sold those homes to him. Do you see the difference? At the same time, do you see the similarities?

Whereas South Florida’s infamy stems from botched get rich quick schemes and deliberate, organized crime, the lifeblood of the more typical Floridian weirdness originates in something more intimate and tragic still. That’s why for every one of Florida Man’s calamities, there are a handful of more despicable and humorless episodes — like Quran-burning pastors and outright hate crimes — that originate from a similarly dark, sad place. All trashy Florida stories are alike; each trashy Florida Man story is ironic in its own way. That only the ironic ones make national news tells you more about the audience than the perpetrators.

So why have Florida Man stories drawn so much more attention since, say, 2008? (Pittman traces to “modern” era of Florida’s influence to the 2000 election; in that sense, 2008 marks the start of our post-modern one, and years henceforth could be known as A.F.M.: After Florida Man.) Well, since that time Florida’s been dealing with ground zero of the nation’s housing crisis, an ongoing raid of government programs, a rapidly deteriorating ecosystem (which in turn leads to more polluted waters, more contaminated water sources, more powerful natural disasters, etc…), a stagnant job market, and an escalating opioid epidemic — all factors affecting disadvantaged populations more than their better-heeled peers. And against that backdrop, those same disadvantaged populations have become more desperate.

Meanwhile, rather than paying attention to Florida Man’s originating factors — such as Florida’s abysmally run state government — outsiders have preferred paying attention to Florida Man only as a source of amusement. It’s a particular kind of amusement, too, that’s motivated by a need for the comparative reassurance that, bad as it is for them in their states and in their hometowns, at least they’re not at a point that low. At least they’d never do that. The nation at large looks at Florida Man in much the same way privileged, yuppie audiences look at contestants on Jerry Springer or Maury.

Yet the scariest thing about Florida Man, and what gives his mythos such sudden traction, is that his originating factors could be coming for us all, and I think on some level we all recognize that. As Florida goes, so follows the nation. As Florida’s shoreline is eaten away by rising seas, so, too is the rest of the East Coast’s. As income inequality in Florida becomes more and more pronounced, so, too widens the divide between the nation’s rich and poor. From 2000 to 2010, Florida was the most corrupt state; that other states recently surpassed it in the rankings doesn’t mean Florida got better so much as it means the rest of the country got worse. So on and so forth. It’s possible that the conditions leading to Florida Man’s creation are rapidly becoming more common elsewhere, and before long California Man and Texas Man will rise to their own infamy.

Get your laughs in now, America, because Florida Man’s coming to a town near you.

The post Why Now, Florida Man? On Craig Pittman’s ‘Oh, Florida!’ appeared first on The Millions.

14 Jul 15:13

NORTH CAROLINA: Duke University Basketball Team Faces Scheduling Problem Over Anti-LGBT Law

by Joe Jervis

The 2015 national champion Duke Blue Devils have a “hole” in their basketball schedule due to North Carolina’s hate law. The Associated Press reports:

The Blue Devils were supposed to play Albany on Nov. 12 as part of the Hall of Fame Tipoff tournament but there’s no opponent listed on that day in Duke’s schedule that was released Wednesday.

Holly Liapis, spokeswoman for the State University of New York system that includes Albany, says that game won’t be played because of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order banning publicly funded, non-essential travel to North Carolina. Cuomo’s order is in response to a North Carolina law that opponents say can allow discrimination against LGBT people.

Liapis said SUNY and its campuses continue to support Gov. Cuomo “on taking this stand.” With Albany out, the first version of the schedule released by Duke had the Blue Devils playing Marist on Nov. 12. An amended version issued roughly an hour later had a vacancy for that day and indicated that the Hall of Fame notified Duke that its opponent has not yet been confirmed.

The post NORTH CAROLINA: Duke University Basketball Team Faces Scheduling Problem Over Anti-LGBT Law appeared first on Joe.My.God..

12 Jul 19:49

Counter Culture Opening in Los Angeles; Seattle, Dallas and Miami are Next

by Nick Brown
counter culture silver lake los angeles
North Carolina-based roaster Counter Culture Coffee is opening its 11th training center this week, in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the company today announced plans to open three more...
12 Jul 19:49

Larry’s Coffee Returns to Retail With 42 & Lawrence in Raleigh

by Howard Bryman
Larry's coffee 42 and Lawrence
Longstanding sustainability-obsessed North Carolina-based certified B-corp roaster Larry’s Coffee hasn’t had a standalone retail location in nearly 20 years. That changed earlier this month as the paper came off the windows...
12 Jul 14:47

AUSTRALIA: Scientists Declare End To AIDS Epidemic

by Joe Jervis

But not AIDS itself. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Australia’s peak AIDS organisations and scientists have announced an end to the AIDS epidemic, as the country joins the few nations in the world to have beaten the syndrome.

The number of annual cases of AIDS diagnoses is now so small, top researchers and the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations have declared the public health issue to be over.

Since the 1990s, treatment that stops HIV from progressing to AIDS – which damages the immune system to the extent that it can no longer fight off infection – has become more effective.

AFAO CEO Darryl O’Donnell said AIDS cases have dropped to small enough numbers to no longer be routinely recorded.

“AIDS is over in the way we knew it,” he said. “We’ve got access to treatment that has had extraordinary effect, and community activism since the very early years of AIDS in the ’80s and ’90s has helped the efforts to fight it.”

O’Donnell cautions that Australia still sees around 1200 “entirely preventable” new HIV infections each year. The AFAO is calling on the government to subsidize Truvada.

The post AUSTRALIA: Scientists Declare End To AIDS Epidemic appeared first on Joe.My.God..

07 Jul 17:38

RALEIGH: City Could Lose $40M Over Hate Laws

by Joe Jervis

From Raleigh’s NBC affiliate:

Raleigh could lose as much as $40 million in convention business from the state’s controversial law on transgender rights.

Statistics from the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau show that 16 trade associations or corporate groups have canceled gatherings in Raleigh because of House Bill 2, causing an estimated economic loss of $5.6 million. Raleigh is no longer in the running for another 13 conventions, worth an estimated $2 million combined.

The CVB also reports “pushbacks” from dozens of other groups concerned that House Bill 2 could jeopardize conventions planned for Raleigh. CVB data shows those gatherings would total $32.6 million in economic activity for local businesses.

The latest cancellation comes from a 1500-member epidemiologists association. Last month the North Carolina legislature ended its session after having made only a minor change to HB2.

The post RALEIGH: City Could Lose $40M Over Hate Laws appeared first on Joe.My.God..

29 Jun 12:15

NORTH CAROLINA: State House GOP Seeks To “Refine” Anti-Trans Hate Bill, Activists Leap To Denounce

by Joe Jervis

From the Charlotte Observer:

New legislation drafted by leadership in the N.C. House of Representatives seeks to walk back portions of a controversial bill passed during a special session this spring restricting the rights of transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their gender identity. Among the draft bill’s biggest changes is the creation of an official document that would recognize a person’s gender reassignment. The new document, which is treated as the equivalent as a birth certificate in the draft legislation, is referred to as a certificate of sex reassignment.

The draft legislation is the result of months of conversations between leadership in the state legislature, including the Speaker’s office, and officials from the NBA, On Your Side Investigates has learned. Charlotte is set to host the 2017 NBA All Star Game, an event whose future has been uncertain since the passage of HB2 this spring. A person with knowledge of the league’s plans, who asked not to be identified to discuss details of the ongoing discussion surround the 2017 All Star Game’s future in Charlotte, said passage of the proposed legislation would be a big step in helping the league to make the decision to keep the game in Charlotte.

From the text of the draft bill:

“An individual who (i) was born in another state or territory of the United States that does not provide a mechanism for amending a current certificate of birth or issuing a new certificate of birth to change the sex of an individual following sex reassignment surgery and (ii) resides in this State at the time of the written application may request a certificate of sex reassignment from the State Registrar,” the legislation reads. “The State Registrar shall issue a certificate of sex reassignment upon a written application from an individual accompanied by a notarized statement from the physician who performed the sex reassignment surgery or from a physician licensed to practice medicine who has examined the individual and can certify that the person has undergone sex reassignment surgery.”

From the Human Rights Campaign:

“This is nothing more than ‘HB 2.0,’” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Anyone who cares about equality must reject this ridiculous proposal out of hand. This despicable bill would continue insidious policies targeting LGBTQ people for discrimination and do nothing to fix the mess HB2 created. It’s past time for North Carolina lawmakers to listen to the overwhelming chorus of voices from across North Carolina and around the country calling for full repeal of this hateful law.”

“Legislative leadership must stop digging their own hole ever deeper. North Carolina can’t afford it,” said Equality NC Executive Director Chris Sgro. “This leaked draft is the result of another backroom deal that does nothing to fix the problems of HB2. We need to repeal HB2 immediately. The legislature cannot cut and run.”

The new proposal doubling down on HB2 does not address in any way the anti-LGBTQ discrimination perpetuated by the law and would not restore the ability of cities to pass LGBTQ inclusive non-discrimination ordinances. Appallingly, this proposal would still offensively and dangerously require the overwhelming majority of transgender people to use restrooms that don’t correspond with their gender identity.

The discriminatory proposal being offered by lawmakers today does not change the harmful status quo for nearly every transgender person in North Carolina. In fact, it would only allow access for a minority of transgender people in two states – Tennessee and Idaho — who may be living in North Carolina. According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, only 24 percent of transgender adults have birth certificates that correspond to their gender identities. Many states, including North Carolina, require transgender people to have gender reassignment surgery to update their birth certificates. However, only 33 percent of transgender people actually have gender reassignment surgery. This is due to a variety of factors – including but not limited to cost, age, health and medical needs, and access to skilled providers.

From Equality North Carolina:

We are in the the last days of the legislative session, and have not heard a word from Republican leadership about repealing HB2 for months. Just a few minutes ago we got word that a backroom deal is being cooked up by Republican leaders in the House and Senate that still discriminates against transgender North Carolinians and does nothing to restore the common sense protections passed by the Charlotte City Council earlier this year. We need you to tell them “NO DEAL! ONLY FULL REPEAL!”

The NC General Assembly will end this year’s Short Session any day now, and yet they continue to ignore the thousands of North Carolinians who have rallied, called, emailed, or signed petitions or postcards, the hundreds of business leaders who have spoken out, the numerous celebrities and performers who have canceled shows, and the sporting events that have issued statements, all with a singular demand — full repeal of HB2.

The post NORTH CAROLINA: State House GOP Seeks To “Refine” Anti-Trans Hate Bill, Activists Leap To Denounce appeared first on Joe.My.God..

15 Jun 15:28

The Pitch Meeting for Ghostwriter

by Abbey Fenbert

GENIUS: Ghostwriter manipulates letters of text in books, newspapers, what have you, to form clues that help the youths solve mysteries. His abilities transcend anagrammar. Most likely because he is a ghost.

SUIT #3: What does he look like?

GENIUS: Kind of like a feed icon.

Read more The Pitch Meeting for Ghostwriter at The Toast.

10 Jun 16:49

What's the most "normal" place in the US?

by Jason Kottke

There's been a lot of talk in this election cycle about "average Americans" and "real Americans". In a piece for FiveThirtyEight, Jed Kolko used age, education, and race & ethnicity to find the city most demographically similar the US as a whole. Here's his top 5:

1. New Haven-Milford, CT
2. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
3. Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT
4. Oklahoma City, OK
5. Springfield, MA

Economist Lyman Stone thought Kolko's methodology was flawed:

See, he used 3 variables: race, education, and age, to proxy for "normalcy." His method looked at how typical a given "race" group in a given city was on educational/age factors, and a given educational group in a given city on race/age factors, etc. In other words, he didn't truly ask "What city is most normal?" He asked "In what city is each group of people most typical of that group of people nationally?" That's a cool question, but it's totally not "normalcy." The reason is simple: as best I can tell, Jed doesn't fully capture the role of aggregate composition. He's trying to get specific and avoid calling a place "abnormal" just because it has one weird demographic lump; he wants cell-specific abnormality. But nobody cares if Graduate-Degree-Holding Native Americans happen to be much younger in St. Louis than elsewhere. We care if St. Louis has a weirdly large number of Graduate-Degree-Holding-Native-Americans. Composition of the population is the most important measure of normalcy, and one that Kolko's method will tend to under-emphasize.

Stone ran his own analysis with that in mind, using 20 different demographic variables, and came up with a different list of the most normal places in America:

1. Oklahoma City, OK
2. Tulsa, OK
3. Jacksonville, FL
4. Spokane-Spokane Valley, WA
5. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ

The above table shows the places with the lowest weirdness-scores. Two of them are in Oklahoma. I'll talk about them together. Oklahoma City is less than 1 standard deviation from the mean on every single variable. It is exactly the mean for the poverty rate, and almost exactly the mean for educational attainment. It's biggest oddity is housing costs compared to income, which are a bit high, and the percent of households with a car, which is also just a teentsy bit high. Other than that? If you're looking for "Normal America" then look to Oklahoma City. Tulsa's story is the same, except it also has a bit of a low share of civilian government workers.

Among the weirdest places on Stone's list? San Jose, NYC, and Jacksonville, NC.

New York is up next. Again, a large foreign-born share makes New York weird. But the real weirdness is actually in New York's transit access. New York's car-ownership share is a whopping nine standard deviations below the national average. New York's housing costs also make it weird, as does the percent of people who are renting. In other words, New York is weird because it's just so darn urban.

Tags: cities   Jed Kolko   Lyman Stone   USA
10 Jun 16:45

World map of the origin of agricultural crops

by Jason Kottke

Crop Map

From the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, a map showing where the world's most used crops originated. Potatoes and tomatoes are from the Andes, watermelon from southern Africa, bananas from south & southeast Asia, and blueberries from North America. (via @CharlesCMann)

Tags: food   maps
09 Jun 18:43

North Carolina’s Coffee Scene Responds To HB2

by Anna Brones

north carolina hb2 bill lgbt coffee cafe counter culture slingshot politics sprudge

Back in 2013, Asheville’s Firestorm Cafe & Books decided to have custom bathroom signs made with the text “this restroom may be used by any person regardless of gender identity or expression.” Instead of a female or male depiction on the sign, Firestorm used the transgender symbol, created by local Asheville activist Holly Boswell in the early 1990s.

Flash forward three years, and in the wake of North Carolina’s passing of the discriminatory bill HB2, the bathroom sign discussion has been elevated to new heights. Public bathroom signs have become a call to action for businesses looking to take a vocal stance against HB2, and no group of businesses is more indicative of public space than cafes.

“It’s pretty basic: we don’t support HB2,” says Jenny Bonchak, Founder and CEO of Slingshot Coffee Company. In response to HB2, Slingshot created their “Coffee makes you go, no matter who you are” sign, a tongue-in-cheek way of tackling a serious issue. “This is a small way that we could say, ‘listen, we don’t support this bill, we love and support anyone no matter who they are’,” says Bonchak.

Slingshot is not alone. Cafes and other members of the coffee community across North Carolina have found ways to come out publicly against HB2. Durham-based Counter Culture Coffee changed bathroom signs to gender neutral at all of the company’s regional training centers. At The Root Cellar Cafe you’ll find a “no birth certificate required to enter” sign above the bathrooms, and at Joe Van Gogh you’ll find “Bathrooms for Human Beings” post-its added to the bathroom doors.

“We are an LGBT-owned business, and we are proud that our restaurant has a history of being a welcoming space for all,” says Susan White, co-owner of The Root Cellar Café & Catering. “We wanted to convey to our customers, many of whom are transgender, that however they identify is OK with us. All we want is for them to enjoy our food and atmosphere.”

Robbie Roberts, owner of Joe Van Gogh, which has locations in Hillsborough, Durham, and Chapel Hill, has a similar attitude, pointing out that the post-it notes are just a way to remind customers of an open and welcoming policy that has always been in place (their Durham location has long featured a gender neutral bathroom sign). “We have always had a diverse staff and our customers are our neighbors, who are also as diverse as the world at large,” says Roberts. “No one is singled out or expected to be anyone but themselves.”

These efforts are all part of a larger movement of North Carolina businesses and individuals publicly coming out against HB2, be it with bathroom signs or otherwise. A group of North Carolina breweries partnered up to sell a Don’t Be Mean Beer and Twitter is full of the hashtag #wearenottthis, signifying not only disgust at the discriminatory bill, but banding together as a community.

While the media is currently hyper-focused on the question of bathrooms, discrimination is far from a new problem, nor is the act of cataloguing safe bathrooms a new approach to tackling discrimination. “While HB2 has ratcheted up and politicized the hostility towards those of us who are transgender and/or gender nonconforming, bathrooms have always been a site of insecurity and violence (threatened or actualized) against our community,” says Libertie Valance, a co-owner of Firestorm, which operates as a cooperative. “For that reason, creating and cataloging refuge bathrooms has been an important project of trans activists for many years.”

While businesses can vocalize their opposition and identify their own bathrooms as safe, regardless of someone’s identity or gender, for small businesses in North Carolina, the government-supported discriminatory policy also comes at a serious economic cost.

“From a business standpoint, it’s a horrific move for the state of North Carolina,” says Bonchak. “We have dozens of businesses standing up against it… but we have also seen dozens of businesses say that they are going to move here and then have pulled out because of the bill.”

It is estimated that the bill could cost North Carolina upwards of $5 billion. Much of that is in the form of federal funding, but the bill is also having a serious impact on commerce. For larger businesses that may only make a dent, but for smaller businesses it can be devastating. “Like many Asheville businesses, our co-op had a dramatic drop in revenue last month when the boycott started,” says Valance. “Asheville is hard hit because it is a progressive town that caters to LGBTQ tourists.” With fewer visitors, revenue dropped, and most of the Firestorm team took short-term pay cuts to ensure that the cooperative could pay its May 2016 rent.

Short-term difficulties could also mean long-term difficulties for these businesses. White and her wife Sera Cuni, who co-own The Root Cellar Café and Catering, “are worried about the long-term negative effect this harmful law is going to have on the bottom line of businesses, especially independently-owned businesses such as ours, and our overall state’s economy,” says White. “Even if HB2 was repealed today, North Carolina’s reputation has taken quite a hit, and it will take a long time to repair our image and brand.”

Badi E. Bradley of Caravela Coffee, a green coffee company with a base in Chapel Hill, agrees. “It is unfortunate that small businesses in North Carolina, that were not involved in passing of the bill, are being impacted by boycotts of the state due to HB2.” After the passing of HB2, Caravela Coffee posted a public statement in opposition to the bill on its website. Bradley sees these types of public statements as essential to overturning the law. “We think that businesses can have an impact, but will have no impact to overturn the law unless they make their voice heard,” says Bradley.

While the bill has garnered North Carolina the title of “the most anti-LGBT state,” let us not forget that this is not a regional issue, with states around the country considering similar bills. “This isn’t the first and only time I think that this is going to happen,” says Bonchak. “So let’s get people around the country to rally and show their support.”

In taking a public stand, businesses like these are not only helping to express the concerns of their teams and their customers, but they are taking part in the overall movement to help combat discrimination, one that we can all be empowered to take part in, no matter where we live or who we are.

“I have always felt business can be a vehicle for positive change,” says Brett Smith, President and Co-Founder of Counter Culture Coffee. “Even though Counter Culture is a small company, I felt our stand against HB2 could have a positive influence on how we view each other. If it is important enough, then it is time to voice your opinion. I felt like this was important enough.”

Anna Brones (@annabrones) is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in the American Pacific Northwest, the founder of Foodie Underground, and the co-author of Fika: The Art Of The Swedish Coffee Break. Read more Anna Brones on Sprudge.

The post North Carolina’s Coffee Scene Responds To HB2 appeared first on Sprudge.

09 Jun 18:29

Baby Bird

by james
Baby Bird - Babies

“I took my kid to get his six-month pictures taken. He was pooping the entire photo shoot. This was the only photo he was smiling in.”

(via source

“I took my kid to get his six-month pictures taken. He was pooping the entire photo shoot. This was the only photo he was smiling in.”

(via source

The post Baby Bird appeared first on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

07 Jun 19:46

Starbucks Now Has Nitro Cold Brew On Tap

by Zac Cadwalader

Pasted-image-at-2016_06_01-08_04-AM-copy

We’ll all remember May 31st, 2016 as the day we reached the cold brew singularity. Yesterday, Starbucks officially announced the launch of their nitro cold brew on tap, to be released in 500 stores across the United States by the end of the summer. Close your eyes with holy dread, for we on the nitro brew hath fed.

For those unaware of what exactly this now ubiquitous beverage is, the Starbucks press release has your back:

After handcrafting the Cold Brew recipe, baristas perfect the pour by pulling the tap and allowing the Cold Brew coffee to mix with nitrogen to deliver an entirely new cold coffee experience.

Cold brew coffee and nitrogen, a pour perfected by pulling a tap. Perfect. A tall is said to cost around $4.00 and has only five calories and zero grams of sugar. That’s 80 cents a calorie, which seems like a lot. But it really isn’t when you consider this is “an entirely new cold coffee experience,” something repeated verbatim by Starbucks CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz in a different press release, so you know they mean it.

Nitro_Cold_Brew

Look at that cascade. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Nitro cold brew isn’t exactly a new release for the Big Green Machine, though; it is already offered at the Starbucks Reserve and a few other Starbucks across Seattle. But the announcement of the nationwide campaign is pretty big news that has certainly riled up not only the coffee community but the world at large. Hell, even Buzzfeed plopped out a gif’ed out, infograph-tastic piece for those who want to “read” an article, just not the words. For press release rebloggers in the mainstream media or those nursing slow news days, it’s a big deal. For the rest of us, meh.

However, Starbucks has also released a “sweet cream cold brew” with a far different calorie metric. It sounds potentially delicious, but also potentially gross. My interest is piqued, and this story is developing…

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

*gif via of Starbucks

The post Starbucks Now Has Nitro Cold Brew On Tap appeared first on Sprudge.

02 Jun 18:51

A Collection of Kisses (28 photos)

One of the most intimate human gestures, a kiss can convey greetings, give comfort, express joy, and above all, show love. Gathered from recent news photos, this collection of kisses features playful moments, emotional reunions, public displays of affection, and some pure expressions of love.

A veterinarian kisses an 8-month-old cat, wearing a prosthetic two-wheel device, at a veterinary hospital in Chongqing municipality, China, on March 16, 2015. The cat lost the ability to walk with its rear legs after falling from the ninth to the fifth floor of a building last November. (China Daily / Reuters)
02 Jun 14:12

At 96, Dr. Heimlich Uses His Own Maneuver on Choking Victim

by CHRISTINE HAUSER
“A piece of meat with a little bone attached flew out of her mouth,” Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, 96, who is credited with inventing the technique, said of saving a woman in Cincinnati.
06 May 17:05

It is better to keep one’s mouth closed

by Christopher Howard

El-Bocon-destacado

  • Bocón – a person with a big mouth (figurative)
  • Calladito es más bonito – it is better to keep quiet
  • Del dicho al hecho hay mucho trecho – talk is cheap
  • Del Plato a la boca se pierde la sopa – talk is cheap
  • El que al cielo escupo, a la cara la cae – watch what you say or it will come back to bite you
  • El que mucho habla de lo que sabe, poco sabe de lo que dice – People who talk about what they know, often know nothing about what they are saying.
  • En bocas cerradas no entran moscas – it is best to keep quiet
  • Hablar no cuesta nada – talk is cheap
  • Hablar por hablar – to talk for the sake of it
  • Hablar por los codos – to talk one’s head off
  • La ropa sucia se lava en casa – it is better to talk about one’s problems in private
  • Las palabras sobran y los hechos hablan – talk is cheap
  • Las paredes oyen – the walls have ears
  • Lo prometido es deuda – have to keep a promise
  • Más pronto cae un hablador que un cojo – a person with a big mouth will fall faster than a person who is crippled
  • Más vale tonto callado, que tonto hablando – a dumb person should keep quiet
  • Mientes con los dientes – to lie through one’s teeth
  • Mucho rin rin y nada de helados – all talk
  • Para hablar y comer pescado, hay que tener mucho cuidado– be careful what you say
  • Perro que ladra no muerde – a person’s bark is worse than his bite
  • Por la boca muere el pez – watch what you say
  • Quien no sabe callar, no sabe hablar – have to learn to keep quiet at the right time
  • Quien tiene boca se equivoca – he who has a mouth makes mistakes
  • Uno es dueño de lo que calla y esclavo de lo que habla – be careful of what you say
06 May 17:00

Frank Bruni On Ted Cruz And Potty Pandemonium

by Joe Jervis

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni rips Ted Cruz for this week’s anti-trans ads:

“I’m guessing that Cruz hasn’t met or read much about transgender people. ‘Grown adult men’ is precisely how many transgender men appear — with beards, muscles, pants — and exactly how they’d look to little girls in the women’s rooms that the North Carolina law would command them to use.

“And such legislation tells someone who may well wear a dress to march into the men’s room if her birth certificate said male. That’s a greater invitation to potty pandemonium than letting people make their own calls when nature calls and turn in the direction consistent with the way they conduct the rest of their lives.

“How would these potty prohibitions be enforced, anyway? What species of sentry or manner of inquisition would assess the external and internal anatomy of the bathroom-bound? Shall we divert government spending to this? We skimp on money to repair America’s infrastructure, but let’s find funds to patrol America’s lavatories.

“Cruz, Schilling and many others are obsessed with — or cynically exploiting — the hallucinated scenario of male sexual predators suddenly feeling emboldened to stalk little girls in public bathrooms, presumably because they could, if caught, claim that they identify as women and belong there.”

The post Frank Bruni On Ted Cruz And Potty Pandemonium appeared first on Joe.My.God..

06 May 16:58

ILLINOIS: Former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert Sentenced To 15 Months In Prison

by Joe Jervis

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The first sentence of the original ABC News report has been changed. It now reads:

Former Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert was sentenced today in federal court to 15 months in prison and two years of supervised release after he faced one of his accusers, who identified himself publicly for the first time as Scott Cross, a former Yorkville High School wrestling student.

Here’s the original version of the story. ABC News reports:

Former Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert was sentenced today in federal court to two years of supervised release after he faced one of his accusers, who identifying himself publicly for the first time as Scott Cross, a former Yorkville High School wrestling student.

Cross, who was until now identified in court documents only as “Individual D,” took the stand and introduced himself as a father, husband and businessman. Cross described his abuse by Hastert as “his darkest secret as he [Hastert] became more powerful.”

Hastert has also been required to comply with a sex offender treatment program. The sentence follows an almost year-long hush money case hinging on payments Hastert made to a student he allegedly sexually abused while acting as a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Illinois.

Using a walker, Hastert approached the judge. “I am deeply ashamed to be standing here today,” he said. “I know I am here because I mistreated some of my athletes that I coached. … I want to apologize to the boys I mistreated. I was wrong and I accept that.”

The man formerly second in line for the presidency was wheeled into court this morning by attendants. In a January court filing, Hastert’s lawyers revealed that the former speaker’s health had rapidly declined following a stroke and a blood infection, and that he now needed “assistance for most daily activities.”

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06 May 16:55

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory: I Might Be Looking For A New Job Due To Hate Law Backlash [AUDIO]

by Joe Jervis

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has acknowledged that his reelection has been imperiled by the backlash over his state’s anti-LGBT hate law. From the Raleigh News & Observer:

McCrory commiserated over House Bill 2 with old friends Tuesday morning when he made a 15-minute appearance on “The Big Show with John Boy and Billy” radio broadcast from Charlotte.

Introduced as “the most beat-up man in America,” McCrory played off the folksy humor of the supportive pair while acknowledging that the controversy over the LGBT law could harm him politically.

The governor said he has even been asked not to attend some events because of the controversy, in which he is the central player in an election year.

“And now, sadly, in our nation if you have disagreement and you’re on the wrong side of that disagreement, according to the thought police, you’re dispensed of. You’re exiled,” he said. “I’ve even had some people call me, ‘Please don’t, governor, don’t show up to this event because I have people who disagree with you and we don’t want it.”

“That’s not America,” McCrory said. “Society is changing quickly and anybody who gets in the way is in trouble. And I might be in trouble. I might be looking for a side job over here.”

The post North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory: I Might Be Looking For A New Job Due To Hate Law Backlash [AUDIO] appeared first on Joe.My.God..

06 May 16:55

BREAKING: US Justice Department Rules North Carolina’s HB2 Violates The Civil Rights Act Of 1964

by Joe Jervis

From the Charlotte Observer:

U.S. Justice Department officials Wednesday notified Gov. Pat McCrory that House Bill 2 violates the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

The department gave state officials until Monday to address the situation “by confirming that the State will not comply with or implement HB2.”

The letter says HB2, which pre-empted Charlotte’s anti-discrimination ordinance, violates Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in education based on sex.

If that determination is upheld, North Carolina could lose millions in federal school funding. During the current school year, state public schools received $861 million in federal funding.

In the letter, Valita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general, said, “The Department of Justice has determined that, as a result of compliance with and implementation of NC House Bill2, both you and the state of NC are in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 0f 1964…

“Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating against an individual on the basis of sex and from otherwise resisting the full enjoyment of Title VII rights….

“Federal courts and administrative agencies have applied Title VII to discrimination against transgender individuals based on sex, including gender identity….”

UPDATE: From the Campaign For Southern Equality.

“This letter from the Department of Justice confirms what was clear from the start, HB2 is discriminatory and unconstitutional. We continue to call for the immediate repeal of HB2. We also call for the North Carolina General Assembly to pass full legal protections for the LGBT North Carolinians,” says Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality.

UPDATE II: From the ACLU and Lambda Legal.

“It is now clearer than ever that this discriminatory law violates civil rights protections and jeopardizes billions of dollars in federal funds for North Carolina. Governor McCrory and the legislators who forced through HB 2 in a single day were warned about these dire consequences, but they ignored the law and the North Carolinians it would harm and passed the bill anyway. The only way to reverse the ongoing damage HB 2 is causing to North Carolina’s people, economy, and reputation is a full repeal.”

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06 May 16:55

ILLINOIS: Alliance Defending Freedom Sues School District & Feds Over Transgender Restroom Policy

by Joe Jervis

Reuters reports:

Dozens of families on Wednesday sued two federal agencies and a suburban Chicago school district over a policy they said disregards student privacy and safety by allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Fifty-one families in the Palatine, Illinois, area sued the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Justice Department and Township High School District 211 for agreeing last December to provide a changing area in the girls’ locker room for transgender students. The lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent enforcement of that agreement.

Wednesday’s lawsuit, representing 73 parents and 63 students, contends the Education Department is unlawfully redefining terms of the Title IX Act, a federal statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination by schools receiving federal funding. The plaintiffs also said the federal agency is forcing its political will on school districts.

The lawsuit was filed by attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which advocates for conservative positions on religious liberty.

“Every day of the school year a certain number of girls have to share the locker room space with a biological male and it makes them incredibly uncomfortable, stressed and anxious about the things going on in their school day,” Jeremy Tedesco, an attorney for the families, said at a news conference in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

The Justice Department told North Carolina’s governor on Wednesday a new state law limiting restroom access for transgender people violates the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

See the lawsuit here.

The post ILLINOIS: Alliance Defending Freedom Sues School District & Feds Over Transgender Restroom Policy appeared first on Joe.My.God..

06 May 16:55

NORTH CAROLINA: GOP Leaders Denounce Justice Department’s “Radical Left Agenda” On Trans Rights

by Joe Jervis

From the Associated Press:

Giving no indication of yielding to pressure, North Carolina’s Republican leaders called a federal warning about the legality of the state’s new law limiting LGBT anti-discrimination rules a broad overreach by the government.

Gov. Pat McCrory and top state legislators were determining what steps to take after the U.S. Justice Department said in a letter Wednesday that the state law violated federal civil rights laws and threatened possible litigation.

“This is no longer just a North Carolina issue, because this conclusion by the Department of Justice impacts every state,” McCrory said.

McCrory and House Speaker Tim Moore [PHOTO], who helped pass the law the governor signed in March, said separately they would be examining the state’s options. Moore told reporters the letter to McCrory was an attempt by President Barack Obama’s administration to push a “radical left agenda” in his final months in office.

“Basic concepts — common sense about privacy and expectations of privacy — are getting thrown out the window by what the Obama administration is trying to do in this,” Moore said.

The post NORTH CAROLINA: GOP Leaders Denounce Justice Department’s “Radical Left Agenda” On Trans Rights appeared first on Joe.My.God..

06 May 16:55

NORTH CAROLINA: State To Defy Justice Department, Will Not Comply With Order On Anti-LGBT Hate Law

by Joe Jervis

The Charlotte Observer reports:

House Speaker Tim Moore said Thursday that legislators won’t meet the U.S. Department of Justice’s Monday deadline to repeal or stop enforcing House Bill 2.

The department sent state leaders a letter Wednesday saying that the law violates the U.S. Civil Rights Act and Title IX – a finding that could jeopardize billions in federal education funding. Those laws ban discrimination in education based on sex and employment discrimination.

“We will take no action by Monday,” Moore told reporters Thursday. “That deadline will come and go. We don’t ever want to lose any money, but we’re not going to get bullied by the Obama administration to take action prior to Monday’s date. That’s not how this works.”

Moore said state leaders are still trying to determine their next steps. “Right now we’re talking with our attorneys to see what our options are,” he said. “We’re going to move at the speed that we’re going to move at to look at what our options are.”

Mark Creech of the Christian Action League, one of the anti-LGBT hate groups that spawned the bill, is screaming on Facebook:

“At the hands of his henchmen in the U.S. Department of Justice, King Obama, has delivered his message of intimidation to the state of North Carolina.

“The Administration has taken it upon itself to declare “sex” in Title VII and Title IX includes “sexual orientation” and “gender Identity.” This interpretation goes far beyond the language adopted and intended by Congress. Nevertheless, the Great Pontiff of Political Correctness holds the educational futures of our state’s children hostage, while dangling the money bags of federal funds over their heads, demanding in exchange North Carolina bow to the madness of obliterating male and female distinctives – something foundational to every society in human history.

“The battle over North Carolina’s common sense law, HB 2, has national significance. Must every state, more specifically, 28 other states, with laws similar to our own be forced to sacrifice their fundamental right to privacy and safety when using a restroom, locker room, or shower? That is the question of the hour.

“If this doesn’t make people righteously indignant, then our culture has lost any capacity for real moral outrage. We deserve exactly what we’ll get – confusion and chaos. Either truth is something evidential and verifiable or it’s purely subjective and determined wholly in the eye of the beholder.

“It is imperative the Governor and state lawmakers remain strong and fight the advancement of this misguided agenda. No federal law, approved by the people’s Representatives in Congress requires North Carolina comply with the Obama Administration’s demands.”

The post NORTH CAROLINA: State To Defy Justice Department, Will Not Comply With Order On Anti-LGBT Hate Law appeared first on Joe.My.God..

06 May 16:48

Raleigh’s BREW Coffee Bar Displays Diversity of North Carolina Coffee

by Michael

Raleigh’s BREW Coffee Bar Displays Diversity of North Carolina Coffee by Michael

BREW Raleigh

If you mention coffee in North Carolina, most people think of one company, and for good reason. With training centers scattered across the country, two US barista champions, and unparalleled wholesale support, Durham-based Counter Culture Coffee is one of the most dominant companies in the industry. But the Pine State is home to a growing number of quality-minded coffee roasters, and nowhere is that more evident than at BREW Coffee Bar in downtown Raleigh. 

Brew Raleigh

Located in an unassuming shopping strip around the corner from William Peace University, BREW is a café with a simple concept: highlight the best in local coffee and beer. Whether it’s the matte black Synesso espresso machine or the dark wood grain of the bar, there’s an understated elegance to the interior. It’s the sort of environment one would be equally comfortable with sipping an espresso or an IPA, and at BREW Coffee Bar you can do both. BREW partners with Raleigh Coffee Company as their main roaster and features a rotating guest roaster from elsewhere in the state. When we visited the guest roaster was from Charlotte’s Parliament Coffee Roasters.  So we ordered a shot of the single origin espresso, snagged a seat at the bar, and had a chat with BREW’s head barista Marcos Iglesias.

Brew Raleigh

At the time, Iglesias was preparing for his first barista competition: the USBC Qualifying Event in Kansas City. For a first time competitor, Iglesias did exceptionally well, earning a spot at the 2016 US Barista Championship in Atlanta. We caught Iglesias’s USBC routine in person and were impressed by his confident delivery and well structured content. If his drinks were anything like the coffees he served us in Raleigh we can only assume the judges enjoyed them.

Brew Coffee Bar

In all, BREW Coffee Bar is a welcome addition to a diversifying and maturing coffee community in Raleigh.  Whether it’s beer or specialty coffee, North Carolina has an exciting craft beverage industry, and you can try it all at BREW.

Raleigh’s BREW Coffee Bar Displays Diversity of North Carolina Coffee was first posted by Michael on The Coffee Compass, The Coffee Compass - Your Guide for Craft Coffee

06 May 12:42

Contrails

Astronomy (or "astrology" in British English) is the study of ...
05 May 17:06

New maps of the growth of American slavery in the South

by Jason Kottke

American slavery, 1850

From Bill Rankin at Radical Cartography, a series of maps showing the rapid explosion of slavery in the United States from 1790-1860. Departing from previous efforts, Rankin used a uniform grid of dots to represent slave populations rather than counties.

First, I smash the visual tyranny of county boundaries by using a uniform grid of dots. The size of each dot shows the total population in each 250-sqmi cell, and the color shows the percent that were slaves. But just as important, I've also combined the usual county data with historical data for more than 150 cities and towns. Cities usually had fewer slaves, proportionally, than their surrounding counties, but this is invisible on standard maps.

A detail that struck me while cycling through the years was that the number of slaves as a percentage of the total population of the South stayed relatively steady at 33% from 1790 to 1860.

Tags: Bill Rankin   infoviz   maps   slavery
22 Apr 13:56

BREAKING: Donald Trump Comes Out Against North Carolina’s HB2, Supports Transgender Rights [VIDEO]

by Joe Jervis

Well, THIS is unexpected. New York Magazine reports:

Donald Trump says transgender people should be able to “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.” On NBC’s Today show Thursday morning, the GOP front-runner said he opposes North Carolina’s “very strong” bathroom bill, which prohibits transgender residents from doing just that.

“North Carolina did something that was very strong and they’re paying a big price. And there’s a lot of problems.” Trump said. “Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they’re going through, with all of the business and all of the strife — and that’s on both sides — you leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic punishment they’re taking.”

Trump went on to say that if Caitlyn Jenner were to visit Trump Tower, she would be free to use any restroom she chooses. Start the clip below at 18:40. What’s the over/under on the flip-flop?

(Tipped by JMG reader TJ)

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22 Apr 13:55

NORTH CAROLINA: Charlotte Loses Another Convention

by Joe Jervis

This brings the total to more than 20 lost conventions. Via the Charlotte News & Observer:

Another group has canceled an upcoming event in Charlotte because it opposes North Carolina’s new LGBT law. The National Organization for Victim Assistance was supposed to have its 42nd annual training event at Sheraton Charlotte Hotel-Le Meridien Aug. 21-24.

About 1,200 were scheduled to attend the nonprofit’s event, FOX 46 Charlotte reported Thursday. The event equated to about 1,516 room nights in the city, NOVA’s director told the news channel. NOVA’s director added that he hopes to have the training event in Charlotte once House Bill 2 is overturned, FOX 46 reports.

Earlier this week, the Association for Library Service to Children said it was canceling its September event in Charlotte because of the bill. At least 20 other groups have also backed out of Charlotte because of concerns over the new LGBT law, the city’s tourism arm says.

The post NORTH CAROLINA: Charlotte Loses Another Convention appeared first on Joe.My.God..

22 Apr 13:54

NBA To North Carolina: Repeal Your Anti-LGBT Law Or Charlotte Will Definitely Lose The All-Star Game

by Joe Jervis

From the Charlotte Observer:

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that if North Carolina’s LGBT law remains unchanged, the 2017 All-Star Game would have to be moved from Charlotte. Silver’s comments on the state’s controversial House Bill 2 came at the Associated Press Sports Editors’ commissioner meetings Thursday, according to attendees. Earlier in the day, Silver again called the law “problematic” for the league as it stands, but he said he’s confident state lawmakers will “do the right thing.”

“We’ve been, I think, crystal clear a change in the law is necessary for us to play in the kind of environment that we think is appropriate for a celebratory NBA event,” Silver said at the APSE event. And speaking on ESPN’s Mike & Mike morning radio show, Silver said the NBA is more interested in working with local businesses and governments to effect change in the law, rather than in setting ultimatums about the 2017 All-Star Game, which is to take place in Charlotte.

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