Mailbag: Top 25 feedback letters ranging from Harambe to brewery style to rescue dogs

General

“Why has the Bogenda been so silent about Harambe? The press is meant to be the watch dog for democracy, and the people want answers. Does Obama really think he can bury this issue just because it’s an election year? #RIPHarambe” – A

“Scoop for y’all- there’s a great Scottish restaurant off of Central that does an amazing breakfast. They’ve also changed their menu recently so that diners can order breakfast all day, it’s that good. Really surprised y’all haven’t mentioned it yet, it’s a great spot and suprisingly affordable, it’s called McDonald’s, check it out.” – R

“Love you guys… all of my coworkers from out of town now use you to help plan their weekly visits, honestly you’re making a difference and helping build the profile of Charlotte to visitors. Now for part 2 of the backhanded compliment: please retire the use of the word – sneaky.” – P

“Ted, haven’t heard from you regarding the podcast appearance. We’d love to have you on to discuss Kid Cashew and why its literally changing the restaurant game in Charlotte. If you’re interested, give us a shout, our email is [email protected]. Hopefully together we can continue to spread the good word on the greatness that is the ‘shew. Also consider joining our Kid Cashew fan club, its called Children of Cashew, totally not a cult, not yet anyways (wink emoji).  – Chris P. Bacon”

“Turn the empty channels at the Whitewater Center into a skate park.” – D

“Is the Mailbag simply not important enough to run consistently? If that is the case, please let us know so that we can stop looking for it.” – A

Ted: We typically run it every other Friday.

In response to: Should Charlotte decriminalize weed?

“Should Charlotte decriminalize weed? Absolutely! It’s legal in other states, proven to be harmless, and in many cases shown to be helpful with pain, PTSD, and depression. This is a win-win for the city. Decriminalizing it reduces those in jail and the taxpayer costs and stops ruining people’s lives over small amounts of marijuana. No one, black or white, should have their livelihood, housing, and employment opportunities tied to a little weed.” – B

“This would be a great way to decrease the number of arrests for something that is legal or decriminalized in many parts of our country already. What a waste of time for police officers and citizens. Furthermore, anyone who is worried about people switching from weed to heroin CLEARLY has never smoked weed!” – P

In response to yesterday’s Special Mailbag

“My favorite outtakes from the special dog mailbag – I should point out that I’m 100% in agreement with the story. Who wants responsibility in their 20s, or 30s, or even really their 40s?

• “Go eat your s***ty chipotle with your annoying kids.” (The inclusion of Chipotle really takes this from being mean-spirited to a next-level insult).
• “Not that I needed another eye-roll post from Ted to remind me I’d never enjoy being in the same room with him.” (Again, just mean to an absurd degree).
• “At 28, I have never touched a cigarette. I must say, I feel a very slight sense of regret for never having done it, because your post gave me cancer anyway.” (Wow, just wow. To quote one of the other commenters: “What in the actual F”)…

…Please follow this up with a story about rescue dogs to generate maximum anger. “Rescue” dog owners act like they’re the Seal Team 6 of pet owners. No one rescues a dog unless they’re, like, walking down the street during a flood and dive in muddy rapids to save a shi tzu from drowning. Or if your neighbor is abusing his dog and you sneak in his yard in the middle of the night, free the beast and then treat it with love and kindness so it doesn’t want to hide whenever someone yells. You’re not rescuing anything by going to the pound and spending $200 on a dog. You’re adopting it.” – J

In response to: Park Road will be a nightmare for 7 more weeks

“I’m sure other people’s experiences differ, but since they closed the lanes, it actually takes me LESS time to get to and from work (my office is behind Brawley’s, just north of the closures). For the first few days, it was awful, but I think so many people decided to find alternate routes that somehow traffic has improved vs. the fully open road (I’m interested to know how SouthPark traffic has been over the last month).” – A

In response to: I waited in line to hear Hillary Clinton and Obama speak. Here’s what it was like

“You waited in line 4 hours, never actually got in… people felt scammed… that’s nothing, just wait until she’s elected!” – O

In response to our Paralympics articles here and here

“Just wanted to thank you all for your coverage of the Paralympic trials this past weekend. I was so thrilled to see the amount of support the Agenda and the Charlotte community gave the Paralympians and their families. Patrick is right: they noticed. What an honor for Charlotte.” – T

In response to: 5 spots on Tryon with the best free WiFi

“Cable Wifi, TWC Wifi, and Passpoint Protected Wifi are all from Time Warner. They are free as long as you are a Time Warner internet customer. You log in with the same username and password you use to see your online account information.” – L

In response to: Cash Confessional: A week of spending in Charlotte on a combined $161,000 salary

“Just read the Cash Confessional article and couldn’t help but think that a couple making $160k a year only getting someone a $50 wedding gift seemed a bit low. I’d love to see an article about the etiquette and unofficial rules around wedding gift-giving – and maybe some “outside the box ideas”. I also think this would play well to your 20s and 30s crowd” – B

In response to: The state legislature is getting involved with the Whitewater Center

“This was approved very quickly and within a week and half of the very tragic death, but I have two words, Coal Ash. It takes how long to get approval on coal ash cleanup which affects many more people? This is appalling misplaced governmental priorities. That’s my two cents.” – B

In response to: Charlotte brewery style is a thing. Here are 20 photos to prove it

“You can’t go wrong with a maxi dress at a brewery? You can go very wrong when you sit at a picnic table and suffer from swamp butt when the temps push into the mid 90s. Dress carefully, sweat stains can be embarrassing.” – A

“The writer of the article visited only two of the 20 plus breweries in Charlotte, Sycamore and Olde Mecklenburg, whose customer bases are pretty much one in the same, sub 25 year olds, all wearing the latest cheap summer styles from H&M. If the writer had stopped at Lenny Boy, Triple C, Red Clay, Sugar Creek (all right between her only two stops) her “southpark and music festival” theme would have been thrown out. A better article would have been to showcase and celebrate the DIFFERENT styles you find as you go from the south side breweries to the northside. Diversification is one of the greatest things about Charlotte, but unfortunately the writer felt it was easier to ignore the multitude of styles so she could write a no effort article without leaving her comfort zone.” – T

In response to: How to take full advantage of Harris Teeter’s confusing new gas discount program

“I love the gas card deal at HT. In addition to earning points to buy a discounted gas card, you can use Publix $10 off gas card coupon as a competitor coupon at HT, which brings it down to $30 for the $50 gas card. Love Harris Teeter. Not only do I buy the gas cards at Steele Croft or Tega Cay HT, I buy cheap gas down in SC as well. We live near the border so I am always down in SC for errands. Gas is 1.94 or less now in SC.” – D

In response to Katie’s newsletter intro on June 29

“Another option is to obey the law, thus, not necessitating representation in front of the law to achieve ‘justice.’ The flawed (not entirely broken) system provides a lot of good people with a living and anyone can seek the representation of a public defender should legal representation not be financially ascertainable.” – J

“The other day I went out for lunch. I waited and line got my order. When I got the register, the employee said “Your total will be $7.53″. What if I didn’t have the $7.53 to pay for my sandwich? What about poor people who don’t have $7.53? The thought crossed my mind, but there I was, swiping my card like the privileged, straight, white male scum that I am. I hate myself for being so privileged. How dare I be successful enough thus far in life to afford $7.53 for lunch, or say, a few hundred bucks to pay for an attorney. What a truly broken system we have in this country. Something must be done to allow people who can’t afford the cost of breaking the laws to be able to still break the laws like those who can. The last thing we want is people adhering to the law, especially for something so minor as the reckless operation of a motor vehicle in speeds excess of the posted speed limit. Until then I will continue to hate myself for my privilege and count the days until Hillary is elected and can fix this glaring inequality.” – A

“I had the same thing happen in New York. I ended up calling the court house and talking to the person that ran and she said don’t waste any money with lawyers. Just said challenge it… and I ended up getting a “Parking Ticket”… you nailed it. The process is broken. ” – T

“You do realize that there are free legal services such as Legal Aid and pro bono work, right? I wouldn’t call your situation ‘getting justice’. Matters of real justice require ongoing conversation, policy changes, and litigation to create effective change. Again, I feel like this opening was yet again another example of ignorance and lacking deeper thought. The fact that you’re comparing your speeding ticket to those who truly and honestly are in situations without justice is disgusting. Sort of like the time you wrote about getting pulled over and the cop letting you go as ‘white privilege’. I think the fact that you quit your job as a yoga instructor to write a blog is about enough proof of your white privilege necessary. I’m not saying all of this to be mean, but I think CA needs to put WAAAAAAAY more thought into what you write and publish and maybe do some self reflection on your work.” – A

“Once again, your perspective related to a life experience reveals and expresses your compassionate understanding toward the poor. Thank you for using this forum, without being preachy, to increase the consciousness of others toward the poor. I just want to encourage you along your journey in the ministry of daily life.” – D

“Haven’t been able to put my finger on what exactly bugs me until now, but here it is. The twitter account just tweeted not to leave your dogs in the car. I agree with this 100% and would never do that to my dog, however here’s my issue, its something that bugs me with the site in general. You guys love to ‘call out’ people for being racist/insensitive/sexist/etc, whether thats a Mexican restaurant with statues, not going to CIAA if you’re white, or like Levans’ recent newsletter intro, the justice system being unfair to the poor regarding speeding tickets. That’s great and in many ways admirable. However, what good does it actually do just to say ‘This is a problem’ and not propose any ways that anyone can help to solve this problem. Take the dogs in the car, you have just left it completely open ended, you advocate for nothing other than don’t leave your dog. What are people supposed to do though when they encounter a dog left in a car though? NC law allows certain people like firefighters to use reasonably necessary means to remove the dog from the car, but it doesn’t allow for me or you to do so. So what if someone saw your tweet and thinks ‘Hey they’re so right, and theres a dog over there in this parking lot, I’m gonna go break it out’. Bit of a problem there. Or Levans’ thoughts on speeding/justice system. It takes courage to stand up and say ‘hey this isn’t fair’, but it takes even more guts to say, we need to X, Y, and Z and do it now to fix this. Levans got incredibly defensive online the other day when people had the nerve to respond to her intro, but the fact is, its incredibly easy to just sit back and criticize. It’s a completely different thing to propose and advocate for real change, and I hope the Agenda will start doing more of the later.” – D