Editor’s note: A small portion of this article, which was found to be in error, was removed on Feb. 6, 2008. In a move designed to protect viewsheds and limit erosion and runoff problems, the Buncombe County commissioners voted 3-1 to tighten regulation of big developments on steep slopes. Chairman Nathan Ramsey cast the lone […]
Author: Cecil Bothwell
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What would Vishnu do?
In a pre-game warm-up piece which appeared in these pages two years ago, I confessed my Momix fandom as well as my trepidation concerning their then-upcoming Diana Wortham Theatre Mainstage performance of Baseball. Baseball? Dance? Oh dear. Absent beer, baseball is ineluctably tedious, and Diana Wortham doesn’t run Thirsty Thursday performances. In the event, I […]
Murders, she writes
It was Feb. 16, 2004, a chilly midafternoon. Kay Carpenter, a 40-something blonde with six cats and a doctorate in psychology, was seated in her kitchen. The phone rang. Carpenter answered. “I’ve got a job for you,” a male voice intoned. “A murder. Yes or no?” “I need to think about it,” she replied. “Thirty […]
Weathering a winterless wonderland
On the first of this month, I received an e-mail from a fellow gardener (my brother) with the subject line, “March in like a lamb,” and it’s true that the month launched on a balmy note. As far as that goes, aside from a widely scattered couple of days, winter was a nonstarter this year […]
To bee or not to bee?
Hamlet was right, that really is the question, and it is far more crucial than most average folks realize. Honeybees are on the wane in North America, and that’s extremely bad news for those of us who depend on food as a regular part of our diet. Honeybees are crucial pollinators for a wide range […]
Buncombe County Commission
The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners took advantage of their Feb. 21 retreat (continued from the Feb. 7 regular session) to hear reports, weigh proposals and even dream a little. Seated at a U-shaped table and picking at box lunches, commissioners and staff discussed their druthers for the fiscal year 2006-07 budget, ranging from fundamental […]
Overseeing the overseers
A growing movement toward citizen oversight has emerged in Asheville that could foreshadow a significant change in enforcement of Asheville’s development regulations. Increasingly, activist groups are tackling development along the Merrimon Avenue and Haywood Road corridors, where road traffic is being matched by burgeoning e-mail traffic within neighborhood organizations such as the Montford and Five […]
Grower’s School rotting nicely
Brendan Gill, a legendary staffer at The New Yorker for four of its first five decades, recalled poet and novelist Robert Graves in his memoir, Here at The New Yorker (Random House, 1975). “Graves, a devoted gardener, has long been in the habit of naming compost heaps after friends. During my visit he honored me […]
Buncombe County Commission
The WNC Regional Air Quality Agency board is stacked with business-friendly appointees who are preventing the agency from protecting the public interest, former staffer Melanie Pitrolo told the Buncombe County commissioners during their Feb. 7 formal session. It wasn’t the first time that the public-comment period — which isn’t broadcast on the government channel — […]
Some seedy suggestions
Yes, it’s that time of year, when gardeners are exposed to the seedy porn of nursery catalogs proffering a smorgasbord of earthy delights. Who among us can stifle our gardener’s urges and just say “no” to the marketeer’s voluptuous offerings? Just look at the pictures! If leafy, green hope didn’t spring eternal in the human […]
Back-room discussions
“By God, I did catch him!” exclaimed Leicester resident Jerry Rice, speaking about Buncombe County Commissioner Bill Stanley. Rice says he walked into the commissioners’ office suite shortly before their Jan. 19 meeting to find Chairman Nathan Ramsey, Commissioner David Young, Stanley and County Manager Wanda Greene in the midst of a conference call with […]
Buncombe County Commission
At the start of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ Jan. 17 meeting, Chairman Nathan Ramsey asked that a moment of silence be observed for two local soldiers killed in Iraq. Army Chief Warrant Officer Mitchell K. Carver, a Buncombe County native and Erwin High School graduate, died Jan. 13 when the helicopter he piloted […]
Warm worms in winter
While this winter has (so far) proved something of a bust for the Western North Carolina snow-sport set, interminable warm weather isn’t guaranteed. That means gardeners’ efforts also must remain confined to the ski lodge, aka The Windowsill. As I have reported in these pages, I am a vermiculturist, or worm farmer, (“The Worm’s Turn,” […]
You got to move
“If the new mayor and [City] Council are serious about affordable housing, they won’t rezone it. Wal-Mart is not adding that much to the city,” declares 25-year West Asheville resident Walter Bryson, whose mobile home sits on land that is the proposed site of the retail behemoth’s latest local superstore. The owners of the various […]
Buncombe County Commission
A state-imposed deadline for ordering new voting machines was the most pressing business at the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ first meeting of 2006. The General Assembly has given counties until Jan. 20 to choose new machines from a list of approved models, to ensure that the equipment is up and running in time for […]
Cry me a river
Concerned about Western North Carolina’s immediate and long-term future? A Land Imperiled: The Declining Health of the Southern Appalachian Bioregion (University of Tennessee Press, 2005) may not make you feel better, but it will give you a much better handle on the situation — and perhaps inspire you to take action. Compiled by professor John […]
Buncombe County Commission
The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners concluded its work for 2005 with a brief meeting focused on a minor tweaking of township zoning ordinances. On Dec. 6, the board held public hearings on amendments to the Limestone and Beaverdam zoning ordinances. The changes were mandated by a new state law, which Zoning Administrator Jim Coman […]
Unshamed melody
At an age when most surviving pop groups grind out a living with warmed over retreads of greatest hits, the Bobs still shine, breaking new ground each time they tunnel out of the sanitorium. Twenty-four years together qualifies as geriatric in the music biz and it’s clear that the group never kept all its marbles […]
In the zone
A proposed Weaverville shopping center that would include two “big box” stores moved one square forward when the Town Council approved the rezoning of 35 acres of residential property at its Nov. 21 formal session. Six parcels located southwest of the intersection of U.S. 19/23/70 and Weaver Boulevard were designated commercial. The rezoned land adjoins […]
Buncombe County Commission
“The industry has changed,” Zoning Administrator Jim Coman told the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners at their Nov. 15 formal session. “When the current ordinance was written, the primary problem was billboards. Now there are lots of small, plastic signs all over the roadsides.” Coman also cited another problem with the old law, which dated […]
Unhappy in its own way
Anton Chekhov, arguably Russia’s greatest playwright, must have been miserable company. He insisted that his grim dramas about hopeless people in tortured circumstances were comedies, and he considered it his mission to rub theatergoers’ faces in their own utterly meaningless workaday lives to encourage them to do better. Oh, joy. Gloom and doom notwithstanding, Three […]