Civilizati­on 3.0

Social innovation and social entrepreneurship are two terms Asheville and Western North Carolina residents are likely to be hearing more about in 2012. One of the things we might want to thank President Obama for is the White House’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. In 2010 I invited the grants manager in Rep. […]

Chris Pelly is an innovator, and that’s what Asheville needs

Transformational leadership indicates an actual capability to transform “wicked problems.” I have mostly lived in east Asheville since 1980 and the recent infrastructure improvements, for which Chris Pelly can take a lot of credit, are generating a huge positive effect. Using our public-resource pool in positive, ethical and innovative ways creates possibilities for good that […]

Keever cares about the citizen agenda

Patsy Keever is responsive, and that's the difference between her and the incumbent. That's why I'm voting for her as a N.C. House 115 constituent.  Public officials need to be more responsive today than ever. Or they need to have a plan for responding to constituent issues. Two-way communication is a critical aspect of representative […]

The morning after health-care reform

Since before Heath Shuler officially announced his candidacy, I attempted to educate him about health-care policy with books like Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from the Canadian Experience by Pat [and Hugh] Armstrong (also see About Canada: Health Care) and The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point […]

The motorcycle community needs a tuneup

Motorcycles are fine: Their riders simply need to obey the law. No one has an inherent right to generate unnecessary noise pollution. Driving on America's roads and highways is a community privilege, and producing harmful public noise is always illegal, as enumerated in a vast array of local, state and federal laws (i.e. Asheville noise […]

Count me in

“Out of a potential total of 37,425 votes, 35,802 were recorded. But some voters may have made fewer than the maximum three choices for candidates, officials said.” — “Voting Machines Banned,” Asheville Citizen-Times, Dec. 20, 2007 Some? What sort of a numerical or statistical benchmark is “some”? Few things in our democratic system have more […]