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Michael J. Solender
Michael J. Solender is a recent corporate refugee whose opinion and satire has been featured in The Richmond Times Dispatch, The Winston-Salem Journal, and Richmond Style Weekly. He writes a weekly Neighborhoods column for The Charlotte Observer and is the City Life Editor for Charlotte ViewPoint. His micro-fiction has been featured online at Bull Men’s Fiction, Calliope Nerve, Danse Macabre, Dogzplot, Gloom Cupboard, Full of Crow, Pangur Ban Party and others.
You can find more of his work at his website and also at his blog.Number of posts: 20
Email address: email
Twitter: Twitter
Subscribe to my RSS Feed: http://likethedew.com/author/tknodcmn/feed/
Posts by Michael J. Solender:
Southern Time
You’re late? Yeah, I know
I am terminally, helplessly and hopelessly prompt.
No matter how hard I try to be late for meetings, appointments or scheduled events I just can’t do it, my DNA won’t allow me to be tardy.
If you live in the South, you’ve probably never met anyone like me.
Like many Charlotte, NC residents I’m a “not-from-here” and yes, I grew up north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Granted, there the obsession with all things dominated by the clock is a bit more compulsive than it is in the South.
Southern Cities
What Charlotte Is Not
Home to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Charlotte, NC isn’t New York City, one of my artist friends reminded me the other day. We’re not Los Angeles or San Francisco, not London and we are certainly not Paris.
One extremely popular parlor game around these parts, enjoyed particularly by those from the above-referenced burghs or those even further afield, is the blood-sport of city relative comparison. The dissection of what exactly the Queen City is – or more fashionably, what it is NOT – seems to fuel endless discussion amongst those smarter, hipper and infinitely-more-urbane-than-us lowlies here in “Banktown.”
Southern Nuts
Testicles Put Brakes on SC Woman’s Joy Riding
As reported by Reuters, Bonneau, SC police ticketed a 65 year old woman for violation of local obscenity laws earlier this month. It seems the sexagenarian’s sporting of fake (thank goodness they weren’t real) testicles from her pick-up were enough to get the constabulary’s underwear in a bundle…
Southern Views
This Reality Bites
Is it me, or has this “reality TV” thing gone just a bit too far? Seriously, how long can a nation be held on the edge of its collective seat, waiting to see who is voted off the island or who will get the boot from “the Donald”? Do we really care who will win the Amazing Race or who Snooki’s next hook-up will be? There have got to be better entertainment options and a better cultural legacy to leave our children than “You’re fired!”
It seems that in momma’s generation, people actually engaged in their own lives. They knew their neighbors and were plugged into the community in which they lived…
Got a Kidney? Get Out Of Jail Free
The state of Mississippi leapt headlong onto the slipperiest of slopes as it is reportedly making kidney donation a condition of parole for a convicted armed robber. As documented by the Associated Press, Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour suspended the life sentences of two sisters convicted in 1994 of the armed robbery that netted them $11.00.
In a move that would undoubtedly satisfy even Shakespeare’s vengeful Shylock, Barbour made the 36-year-old Gladys Scott’s release contingent on her giving a kidney to Jamie, her 38-year-old sister, who requires daily dialysis.
When Muslim Garb Makes You Nervous
Islam-o-phobia in America got ratcheted up several degrees today when NPR fired veteran journalist and commentator, Juan Williams, for stating on FOX news that he “gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane” …
When learned and well respected reporters with pedigrees of scholarly writing and journalistic excellence in coverage of American civil rights state on national television that they get “worried” and anxious in seeing airline passengers who identify themselves through their clothing as Muslim, every one of us has cause for concern.
Fahrenheit 451 Redux
Is It Hot in Here Or Is Your Koran on Fire? For a wacko preacher of a church with less than fifty members, the pastor of the Gainesville congregation Dove Outreach Center Terry Jones, has proven himself a master promoter and genius in generating worldwide press coverage that corporate marketers with zillion dollar budgets can only dream about. It seems going public with his intention to stage a Koran burning and weenie roast — now canceled — from the front porch of his sparsely attended church…
