Giveaway: movie passes

Want to see a free movie?

Well, I snagged four passes from my colleague Theoden (I love his "Just You Watch" blog) and I'm giving them away. For a chance to get one, all you have to do is post a relevant comment or question about Charlotte to my blog and e-mail me a copy along with your name and daytime phone number. I'll draw winners 10 a.m. Monday.

Thanks for reading!

Getting schooled

Given my new job I am embarrassed to admit that until today I had never made it over to the Levine Museum of the New South. But at least I've corrected that.

I met up with staff historian Tom Hanchett this morning.

"It's a really good place for people to come to figure out where they've come to," he said as he started to guide me through the place.

The permanent exhibit, "Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers: Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont in the New South" covers 8,000 square feet and takes visitors through the Charlotte area in the post-Civil war era to Charlotte as a banking center.

It's an interactive, not on-the-walls exhibit. Visitors -- there were 54,000 of them last year -- can step inside a one-room tenant farmer's house and run their hands through a pile of see cotton. They can sit in a pew from Good Samaritans Hospital Chapel, one of the first African-American hospitals in the South, or at a lunch counter and listen to personal accounts from the Piedmont's Civil Rights era sit-in leaders.

"This is an area that people don't think has history, but it really does," Hanchett said.

The museum also has special exhibits. "Comic Stripped: A Revealing Look at Southern Stereotypes in Cartoons" runs until April 13. It examines six cartoons, including "Snuffy Smith," one of the first Southern-themed strips to start in the 1930s and that is still running worldwide. The others: "Li'l Abner," "Pogo," "The Mountain Boys," which ran in Esquire magazine in the '30s; "Kudzu," drawn by former Observer cartoonist Doug Marlette, who died in July; and Fox television's "King of the Hill." The museum got its hands on original artwork from the cartoons.

My 70-minute tour piqued my interested. I can't wait to go back for a closer look.

More info: www.museumof thenewsouth.org.

Are you a newcomer?

I've been on the newcomer beat less than a week and here's a question: What is a newcomer?

The answer no doubt varies by the person. So I want to hear from you. How long have you been here and would you still consider yourself a newcomer?

What will make you feel settled?

And if you are an old-timer, think back to the time when you no longer felt new around town. What was that turning point?

Please post your thoughts here. I might follow up in the paper with a column on the subject.

Oh, and what about me? Well, I'm not exactly a newcomer seeing as I've been here nearly five years -- the longest I've lived anywhere post college. But I don't feel like a native either.

Moms night out

I woke up this morning with a stamp on my right hand. So, you'd think I'd been to a bar or music hall uptown, right? Nope. I was out in the burbs -- Ballantyne/Pineville area -- where getting your hand stamped is proof of early shopping privileges at a big kids consignment sale. Par-tay.

My friend Cristina, who tipped me off about the sale, and I walked away with a decent haul. My kid has more designer clothes than I've ever had. Yeah, I'd like to have been chilling out at a bar. But last night, Ralph Lauren trumped Tom Collins.

Oh, and the kicker: On our way out the door I spotted something that readers of my last post about cars in Charlotte will appreciate. It was a kiddie set of wheels: a silver BMW convertible.

That's so Charlotte, I told Cristina. Definitely, she said.

Hey Jealousy

When I moved to Charlotte at the end of 2003, this was one of my first observations: People here love their cars and especially big ones – Hummers and SUVs of all kind, but particularly luxury makes by Lexus, Cadillac and Mercedes.

Was I jealous, driving around in a Chevy Malibu, even if it was new? No. I’m not really a car person, which is why noticing other people’s wheels was notable. (Of course, I had also just moved from New York, where every other car was a taxicab.)

But this is a city that runs on envy, says Forbes. For what it’s worth, the magazine has named Charlotte the second most jealous city in the U.S. Memphis, Tenn. tops the list of 10 most envious cities.

Forbes says it based the rankings on the country’s 50 most populated cities, with the highest per capita incidences of personal property crimes, as measured last year by the FBI. For every 100,000 people in Charlotte, there are 6,989 property crimes committed – about 19 percent fewer than in Memphis. Auto theft accounted for 7,150 of those crimes.

Numbers aside, what do you think? Is Charlotte a breeding ground for jealousy?

Forbes identified top cities for the other six deadly sins – lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, pride and wrath. But Charlotte didn’t make any of those lists. Should it have? You tell me.

Click here to read the full Forbes report on sinful cities.