Here comes a different kind of summer swarm: The Beehive Collective — a grass-roots, arts-and-education group based in rural Maine — and a local “hive” called Wezeltown in Old Fort are celebrating their latest campaign through an elaborate storytelling and illustration project. Firestorm Café & Books (48 Commerce St.) will host the release party on […]
Author: Susan Andrew
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New summer swarm: The Beehive Collective lands in Asheville
The Beehive Collective, a grass-roots arts and education group with origins in rural Maine, and a local “hive” they call “Wezeltown” in Old Fort, is celebrating its latest campaign, employing an elaborate story-telling and illustration project, in a release party at Firestorm Café & Books (at 48 Commerce St.) on Friday, August 6, from 6 to 10 p.m.
The Green Scene: Getting off the banks
"You cannot know the river by simply sitting on the level banks," historian and author Wilma Dykeman wrote in her influential 1955 book, The French Broad. Something’s fishy: Riverkeepers Donna Lisenby (Upper Watauga) and Hartwell Carson (French Broad) collect fish tissue samples for lab analysis. photos by Michael Muller In late June, Mountain Xpress joined […]
Busking for Brother Wolf
We get to listen to a lot of music while we’re working here at MX. Live music comes drifting through the front windows of our offices in the Miles Building, adjacent to the Flat Iron sculpture on Wall Street. There’s almost always someone busking down there – but yesterday’s theme was refreshingly different. Photo by Jake Frankel.
The Buzz: The end of suburbia
Ever ponder what life would be like without your car, a large grocery store with countless food items from around the globe, and dozens of box stores providing every gizmo you might need at any moment — much of it shipped from China? The group Transition Asheville does, and they have a plan. In this […]
The end of suburbia: Transition Asheville’s planning for the future
Ever ponder what life would be like without your car, a large grocery store with countless food items from around the globe, and dozens of box stores providing every gizmo you might need at any moment — much of it shipped from China?
The group Transition Asheville does, and they have a plan.
Great Outdoors, Asheville: Building on Roosevelt’s legacy
You know it, your friends know it, and area visitors including Barack Obama know it: Western North Carolina offers many high-quality opportunities to recreate in the great outdoors.
That’s why the administration launched its Great Outdoors Initiative’s Listening Sessions here in Asheville today, along with a handful of other locations across the U.S. It probably helps that North Carolina is a national leader when it comes to investing public funds in land protection and conservation—even in tough economic times. photo by Jerry Nelson
Listening for the Great Outdoors: public forum today
Obama’s back in town Thursday, July 15 – or at least, officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, and the White House’s own Council on Environmental Quality are – for a Great Outdoors Listening Event, a public forum aiming to gather information about successful conservation efforts in the region and to receive input on how the federal government can partner with communities in conserving more land and reconnecting American families to nature. The forum will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. today at AB-Tech. But on Wednesday, July 14, area officials gathered at Carrier Park for a preview.
The Green Scene: As the Globe turns
It’s been some time in coming, but recent reports indicate that the USDA Forest Service will soon reach an accord with stakeholders regarding the Globe timber sale, a 200-acre project proposed back in 2006 near Blowing Rock. Local environmental groups quietly applauded the news, particularly since one soon-to-be-approved change in the plans would preserve an […]
The Green Scene
Paddle trip down the French Broad takes the river's pulse Last Wednesday, Xpress joined French Broad Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson and a group of paddlers organized by the Western North Carolina Alliance on day six of their 11-day trip down the French Broad River. Something fishy going on: River advocates Donna Lisenby, left, and Hartwell Carson, […]
The Green Scene: Hands Across the Sand
At noon on June 26, Asheville residents will have a chance to symbolically join hands with folks around the globe to draw a "line in the sand" against offshore oil drilling. Help is on the way: Stewart, 9-year-old Haley, and Sherry Johnson have collected donations of supplies and cash to aid in the cleanup of […]
The Green Scene: Aging In Place, Sustainably
Think of it as the greening of aging. The fourth annual Mountain Green Sustainable Communities Conference will bring together building-industry professionals, educators and others interested in exploring best practices in sustainable and green construction, development, planning and design. The event, a project of Warren Wilson College's Environmental Leadership Center, will happen Wednesday, June 23, on […]
Renewable energy 101: ASU offers summer workshop series
Ever wondered what it would take to get “off the grid?” Refine your own biodiesel? Install a photovoltaic system in your home or business? The public is invited to explore these things and more at a series of renewable energy workshops at Appalachian State University this summer.
The Green Scene
When the Defense Department abandoned its high-security satellite-tracking station deep within the Pisgah National Forest in the mid-1990s, neighbors southwest of Brevard continued to believe there were top-secret government activities continuing at the site. Xpress reporter Susan Andrew visited recently to learn more. Deep space: In 1968, the Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory in Chile captured […]
The Green Scene: Keeping coal ash contained
Coal ash — a waste product of many power plants including the one overlooking Lake Julian in south Asheville — may be federally regulated for the first time: On May 4, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed changes to how the material is stored and monitored. A smidgin of ash: In part due to a tragic […]
School-calendar law unfairly burdens the mountains
I am writing to ask our state legislators for their help in changing the school-calendar law in North Carolina. Schools in the mountains are unfairly burdened by the calendar law, and the "waiver" system currently in place does not provide sufficient relief. In the event of winter weather like we've had this year, Buncombe County […]
Disturbing the peace
This is in response to the letter from J. Daley regarding the city’s noise ordinance [“Making a Joyful Noise,” Feb. 6]. I’m a co-author of that ordinance, written in 2000-2001 by a team of citizens, noise-abatement professionals, police and a city attorney. For a year, I also chaired the quasi-judicial board that oversees citations and […]
Coming to America
In light of the recent discussions concerning what to do about illegal immigrants in our community, I am compelled to share the following. Most of us have stories like this in our family histories, if we take time to look them up. The heartbreak and struggle our ancestors endured in traveling to these shores are […]