Stories written by Mark Pellin
An award-winning journalist and former editor of The Rhinoceros Times in Charlotte, Pellin has been called everything from a misguided troglodyte to a professional agitator. He prefers the label of a realist, the guy in the crowd telling everybody that not only doesn’t the emperor have any clothes; he’s trying to steal ours. Pellin has covered the Char-Meck scene for the better part of two decades, earning his fair share of fans and more than a few critics who wish he’d move to Nome, Alaska, and be eaten by wild bears. When he’s not writing, he stays busy enjoying time with his wife and two kids. When he can break away for some R&R, he likes to fly fish (even if he doesn’t catch anything) and camp (even if it rains).

Center City Partners Piggy

Cribbing from a popular nursery rhyme, Charlotte Center City Partners is going to market, hitting taxpayers up for a cool million dollars along the way and a chance to cry wee, wee, wee, all the way home. Or at least to the former site of Reid’s Fine Foods on Seventh Street, alongside the tracks of […]

September 14, 2010 | Posted in City Beat,House Specials,Mark Pellin | Read More »

Liberals Tossing Voters Under The Bus

From the Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) campaign school of thought, Washington Post ultra-left columnist Eugene Robinson picks up on the growing meme liberals are already using to rationalize what many expect and polls indicate could be a tsunami of brutal losses for Democrats in November: It’s the voters’ fault; the public simply being too ignorant, […]

September 10, 2010 | Posted in House Blends,Mark Pellin,National | Read More »

Brick-and-Mortar Busing. Hmmmm.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re a school district that has a large number of economically disadvantaged, mostly minority kids with low academic achievement levels attending schools that are badly underutilized, some of them near half-capacity; and you have a bunch of relatively affluent, mostly white kids with decent to above-average achievement […]

September 10, 2010 | Posted in Char-Meck Beat,CMS Beat,Mark Pellin | Read More »

ICE: Catch-and-Release

More than half of a million – that’s how many illegal aliens the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) says it has released, who are now fugitives: 506,232 as of Sept. 5, to be precise, according to this report from CNSNews: Fugitive illegal aliens are individuals who were apprehended ICE for being in the United […]

September 9, 2010 | Posted in House Blends,Mark Pellin,National | Read More »

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

That’s the standard that must be met by the prosecution’s evidence to convict in a criminal trial, regardless of how horrendous the crime or suspected guilt of the accused. Just ask some guy named O.J. Or maybe Demeatrius Montgomery, currently on trial for the brutal slayings of police officers Jeff Shelton and Sean Clark. The […]

September 9, 2010 | Posted in Char-Meck Beat,City Beat,Mark Pellin | Read More »

Big Bucks For Booze Board

In the wake of a booze and debauchery scandal that ultimately claimed the resignations of the local Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s chairman and executive director, Mecklenburg commissioners have reaffirmed a salary structure for the currently serving ABC Board members and its new chairman, to align with new state ABC rules. Meanwhile, the board’s new CEO […]

September 9, 2010 | Posted in County Beat,House Specials,Mark Pellin | Read More »

NRA Pulls Trigger On Handgun Lawsuit

This seems logical and consistent, given that the same age bracket is fair game for the military – where they, um, you know, kind of use firearms. From the NRA’s news release yesterday: Fairfax, Va. — The NRA is challenging federal laws that prohibit law-abiding Americans eighteen through twenty years of age from legally purchasing a […]

September 9, 2010 | Posted in House Blends,Mark Pellin,National | Read More »

County In Hot Water With HUD? – UPDATED

This from Mecklenburg Commissioner Bill James, posted on his Facebook page: Disclosure: County has been called on the carpet for its lack of management of a HUD grant totalling (sic) $1.3 million. The result of this is that the sub-contractor of this program has been terminated (or in process of termination). I understand that the […]

September 8, 2010 | Posted in Char-Meck Beat,County Beat,Mark Pellin | Read More »

Liberal Hypocrisy Caught Green-Handed

The Rev. Jesse Jackson recently became the latest high-profile figure to receive a hearty Detroit welcome to the Motor City, and it came with an ironic twist. This from The Michigan View: Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit. Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked […]

September 8, 2010 | Posted in House Blends,Mark Pellin,National | Read More »

Chicken Little School Board

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials have released a list of 32 schools that could face major changes next year, from reconfigured student-assignment boundaries to shutting down individual schools. Or not. School officials stress the list is only preliminary, crafted around and aligned with the school board’s newly concocted set of so-called guiding principles that covers the likes […]

September 8, 2010 | Posted in CMS Beat,House Specials,Mark Pellin | Read More »

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