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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Top 10 of 2008: In Our Lifetime
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 2:16 PM
A daily glance at the top 10 Charleston stories of 2008. Look for the entire list in this week's Charleston City Paper.
1. In Our Lifetime
Whoever said that work productivity falls off the most during March Madness has never been in a newsroom while a pitbull with lipstick talks about the terrorist ties of the man who would become our next president. Barack Obama’s win is the story of the year, but November’s election had a wealth of news. Democrats in Charleston County won several seats on the County Council and a new Statehouse seat. And Linda Ketner came surprisingly close to beating Republican Congressman Henry Brown in a hard-fought campaign highlighting Brown’s stumbles, most notably his attempts to intimidate investigators regarding a fire he started that swept into a nearby national forest.
In 2009: We’ve got City Council elections around the corner, but the real fun will be in 2010, when a new governor is selected and Brown has to face competition again, with Congressional Democratic leaders already eyeing his seat.
Time Warner Customers Losing Colbert, MTV Tonight?
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 12:32 PM
It's a game of chicken. On one side, there's the cable TV operator that doesn't want to pay big bucks for programming. And on the other side, there's the programming giant (owner of CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, etc.) that says it's not getting its fair share of the cable company's revenues.
So, if a deal isn't reached tonight, Viacom is threatening to pull all of its programming from Time Warner Cable. It's a bold move by Viacom. They're banking on customers fingering Time Warner for the impasse, but if the cable company doesn't flinch, Viacom will lose a lot of viewers.
I'd say in the end, it's a bargaining tactic. Neither is likely willing to lose the subscribers/viewers that the other one provides. There shouldn't be any channels going dark, but I'd hold on to those Colbert Report episodes you Tivo'd just in case.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Top 10 of 2008: Sir, Can You Spare Three-Quarters of a Trillion Dollars?
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 2:16 PM
A daily glance at the top 10 Charleston stories of 2008. Look for the entire list in this week's Charleston City Paper.
2. Sir, Can You Spare Three-Quarters of a Trillion Dollars?
If the buzz word of ’08 was “change,” the buzz word of ’09 looks to be “furlough.” What started with the burst of the housing bubble moved on to the bust of the credit industry and the blah of the … well, just about every other economic sector. The school district, the South Carolina Aquarium, and various universities announced mandatory furloughs — and they were the lucky ones. Private sector jobs, particularly in manufacturing, were being cut throughout the area.
In 2009: Develop a stronger stomach and start drinking. But, seriously, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and others have already made personal pitches to President-elect Barack Obama for new jobs and infrastructure that might spur development.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Market Pavillion Breaks Into Travel + Liesure Top 500 Hotels
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 3:14 PM
Travel = Leisure, a magazine that is seemingly published from our very shore, considering how much Charleston appears in its pages, has further pronounced its lust for the city by adding the Market Pavillion Hotel to the ranks of the 500 best in the world. It's one of 50 new hotels on the list.
Charleston Place, Planters Inn, and Sanctuary at Kiawah Island all returned to the list this year.
Top 10 of 2008: Sofa Store Fallout
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 2:16 PM
A daily glance at the top 10 Charleston stories of 2008. Look for the entire list in this week's Charleston City Paper.
3. Sofa Store Fallout
The June 2007 blaze that killed nine Charleston firefighters left much to be resolved in 2008. Critics had suggested that the fire department was partly to blame for the fatalities, but it wasn’t until days before a report from an independent investigation in May that Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas announced his plans to resign. The report that followed cited failures in staffing, training, and equipment at the department, as well as a careless, cavalier attitude toward fighting fires. Thomas was replaced by Thomas Carr, a Maryland fire chief.
In 2009: The Charleston Police Department has only recently handed over its finding to the county solicitor for a possible criminal case, while several civil cases brought by the families of the firefighters work their way through the court system.
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Charlie Brown Seafood
Garlic crabs we're delicious. Wish it was a small restaurant where you could sit and… -Danielle Ashe England
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Little Tokyo
ITADAKMASU = Let's eat! -Christopher Bernique
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Brittlebank Park
Tehn maybe you should go back to New York. -Chrystal McConnell
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Diamonds North
There is nothing worse than a bitter fired employee. I work at a plant near… -boeingguy51
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Pearlz
Fantastic service!
We visited on a busy Friday night and the restaurant was… -twa318
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Is S.C. State University's board of trustees really so bad?
A Matter of Degrees
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Ravenel Bridge parkour daredevils issue apology
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Author William G. Lord is a cold warrior for Christ
The thinking Baptist's Glenn Beck sees socialism as a pervasive enemy of the church
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50 Shades of Grey's most notorious scene as read by Stephen Hawking
No strings attached
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Epic parkour fail on the Ravenel Bridge
Two daredevils climb the railing, and one gets caught with what looks like a hashpipe
