News + Opinion
Did Ken Lewis Learn from Ken Thompson's Mistakes?
Number one, $4 billion vs. $24 billion [the former being the price for Countrywide, the latter the price for Golden West]. Number two, Countrywide has the exposure in the mortgage market, but it’s not as heavily concentrated in those option-adjusted…
Ken Thompson Ousted--Now It's Real
A couple years ago, we did a quick photo shoot with Thompson for the cover of our last Power Issue. We ran a split cover that year--half of the covers featured BofA's Ken Lewis; half featured Thompson. I missed the…
Crossing the Line
Lelia and I sat quietly in the attorney's office on Central Avenue. Ruth Gorman—a naturalized United States citizen born in Nicaragua—had clearly explained to Lelia her options. I sat in stunned silence, but Lelia, I could see, was not willing…
Ditch Your Car
Kabby-Oke-KabWHAT As cabbie Billy Rivera chauffeurs you around, you and your friends have thousands of songs to sing to with his built-in karaoke-machine, complete with monitors. WHEN TO USE IT En route to this summer’s Cure concert or to an…
The One Rule
I was young, very young, when the new family, the Majorses, moved into the mansion next door. By American standards, the mansion was ancient, built by a mill owner who had drowned himself in Mountain Island Lake in a time…
South Tryon Rising
This is what Charlotte does. It builds things.But never like this.Right this very minute, even in the face of a bleeding economy, thousands of workers are furiously constructing the most ambitious, most transformational series of uptown developments that this city…
Hey, We Won Some Awards
This year, we took home six awards from MAGS for work published in 2007. Full shout-outs go to Melissa Hankins, who authored the four-part series Charlotte Has a Problem With Crime, which garnered a gold award. Here is what the…
Yoga Guru Baron Baptiste Comes to Charlotte
Tell us a little bit about the All-Day Immersion that you’re doing in Charlotte? The title is personal revolution immersion. A revolution is a kind of revolt against status quo. In the sense that often people get stuck in a…
Letters - May 2008
Firing BackRecently, we received a copy of your magazine containing the article about Dr. Michael Brown ("Leap of Faith" by Mike Giglio). What a strange article! It was amazing that someone who knew so little about his subject could write…
James Jack Returns
"Who will take this declaration to Philadelphia for us?" cries the man on the steps. Thundering down Tryon Street on horseback comes James Jack. To the crowd's amazement, he rides up to the courthouse steps, shouting, "I will!" Jumping from…
Of Kings and Kids
Beep—beep—beep, and everything stops.There is the Earth overhead, or many different earths, each halted on its axis: a papier-mâché sphere, a Styrofoam orb, a regular globe, a basketball.A suspended battle floats in midair—black against white, carefully executed. It is waged…
This Could Get Ugly
As the letters pasted below indicate, the Fourth Ward neighborhood group and CCCP opposes the Coyote Ugly on the same grounds that neighborhood groups usually oppose nightclubs--noise and unsavory types milling about. Never mind that there is a nightclub cater-corner…
Crime Is Getting Worse? Now Where Have I Heard That Before...
Well, in March, violent crime jumped. And property crime keeps rising. (Wouldn't it make sense that an increasing property crime rate would eventually lead to an increasing violent crime rate?) Among the reported reasons: well, see above. Now, I really…
Now It's BofA's Turn. Plus, Bob Johnson Knows Everything
Revenues at the consumer bank rose 17 percent. Yea, fees!Meanwhile, and this slipped past me a couple weeks ago, BofA is paying Countrywide's David Sambol $28 million to stay on and run the mortgage unit after BofA's $4 billion acquisition…
Duchess Marden comes to Charlotte
Jeffre Scott Apothecary is now the exclusive retailer of the ultra-luxurious line, which has been an obsession of beauty editors at W, Lucky, Allure, and more for years. And now it's mine, too. For good reason—once you smell the Rose…
Ken Thompson on the Hot Seat? Finally, Someone Said It
"I will never touch [Wachovia shares] again. I think there are a lot of people who feel the same way," said Nancy Bush, a longtime banking analyst who runs NAB Research LLC in Aiken, S.C. "This board has to somehow…
So Do Pulitzers Matter?
I bring this up for two reasons. One, the Observer's investigation of Beazer Homes and the subprime lending mess was one of three Pulitzer finalists in its category this year (the WP's investigation of Walter Reed hospital won the award).…
Registering Voters in Obamaland
When you look official—which we did with our Obama stickers and clipboards that read “Register to Vote” on the back — you expect your encounters with people to be, well, official. I’ve since come to find that expectations should be…
