I was disappointed in the Valentine's photo spread in last week's Xpress [Feb. 10] for only representing heterosexual couples. Asheville is lucky to have a diverse and thriving GLBTQ community, and by choosing not to represent this community in these photos, Xpress is reinforcing a hetero-normative culture that isn't a true representation of our town. […]

I was disappointed and dismayed while watching the televised Asheville City Council meeting over same-sex domestic-partnership benefits being extended to Asheville city employees. It seems that a good part of the African-American community is in opposition to this measure, including Asheville's African-American mayor. I find this disheartening. The gay and lesbian community has stood up […]

I thought that Asheville was a progressive city where every citizen would enjoy the same benefit(s) and that your homosexual community was accepted as equal in citizenry. It now appears that I was wrong. I live in the heart of bigot country (Columbia, S.C.), and yet our City of Columbia leaders have had in place […]

Bravo to Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt and Mountain Xpress for the Feb. 4 online story celebrating the success of students from Asheville Arts Center and MusicWorks! at the 2010 Junior Theater Festival. These young artists may have earned awards and recognition at our national festival, but they received a more important prize back home: support and encouragement […]

I want to say "thank you" to the city of Asheville for doing such a "great job" of pushing the snow on the street in front of my driveway, building a mountain of snow — frozen snow — so nobody can enter the driveway. The city is solving one problem, freeing the streets of snow, […]

As we walked down Haywood Street on Feb. 1 to Waking Life Espresso (which has a great scene and great coffee), we were bothered by having to walk in the street in front of the West Asheville police station and the library on Haywood, because the sidewalk was piled high with an icy snow mix. […]

The piece in the Asheville Disclaimer page about Mills River Presbyterian Church ["World's Largest Puzzle Completed," Jan. 27] was tasteless and crass. I appreciate creative satire and humor, but this spoof was neither. It sadly demonstrated the extreme lack of creativity and poor judgment of managing editor Jon Elliston and the entire management staff of […]

I strongly support domestic-partner benefits for gay public employees, as Asheville City Council member Gordon Smith is proposing. However, I favor restricting the benefits to same sex-partners only, as several North Carolina towns already do. The reason for this is that I don't know the mean fertility rate of opposite-sex domestic partners, and without that […]

I agree with [recent letters] to the Asheville Citizen-Times arguing that the "teabaggers" have it twisted. The original tea party protested transnational corporations that destroyed local colonial businesses. We must engage in revolution against mega-corporations of banking, Wall Street and other special interests that have already appropriated our government through billions in contributions and lobbying. […]

Rep. Heath Shuler has consistently opposed much-needed health-care reform because he considers it "too expensive." And yet he is willing to spend $13 million of taxpayers' money on a divisive and highly questionable highway project in Swain County. I had previously been a Shuler supporter, but after two terms in Congress, it is clear he […]

The Republicans say that they want to be heard, but they haven't earned that right. They never listened to the Democrats when they were in power, and not one of them has ever apologized for the mess they left this country in. To the party of "No," I say, forget it until you have earned […]