In the years that I have known Cecil Bothwell, he has proven himself to be a man of high principle, intelligence and drive. He is well versed in local issues from his many years as an investigative reporter and editor, and from his decades of living and working here in Asheville. Cecil has always stood […]

Life is all about the choices we make—the good and the bad. It may be a long time before we know the outcome of those choices, but sometimes we know right away what the results will be. We are faced with a choice today concerning the future of Camp Woodson, a therapeutic alternative-treatment program for […]

I read Bill Branyon’s commentary [“Jack Cecil’s Serf City,” March 18]. The title is provocative, and the content is just what many of your subscribers may want to read. The article is also a classic one-sided jab at developers in general and Mr. Cecil in particular. Being a native of Asheville, and having seen large […]

I felt so sorry for these folks from Abingdon, Va., who went to hike at Warren Wilson College and found that they had parked in the wrong place and were about to be towed [“Not Just a Walk in the Park,” Letters, March 18]. With thousands of miles of trails in our area, why hike […]

For years, individual Americans representing various “truth, honesty and protest” income-tax groups, including We the People (www.GiveMeLiberty.org), FairTax (www.FairTax.org), and Truth Attack (www.TruthAttack.org), have been striking from work annually on April 15 to spend the day at their local post office—or other visible public locations—distributing various pieces of literature on the subject to fellow Americans […]

I greatly enjoyed Kristin McLeod’s March 11 column “On Bumper Stickers and Biking.” Her “rudest” bumper sticker reminded me of one I saw several years back: “I just got a gun for my wife. Best trade I ever made.” — Nancy James Seagrove Beach, FL

The opera Dr. Atomic, recently shown on public TV and at local theaters as performed by the Metropolitan Opera, reminded me of the founding of the Atomic Age. It started at Los Alamos, N.M., as a top-secret government project, under the leadership of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The people of the United States were not aware […]

I just learned about H.R. 875, a disturbing bill that has been introduced in Congress, and I want to make sure everyone knows about it. This bill is called the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. I encourage everyone to go investigate this bill. As far as I can tell, it has very little to […]

The proposed state steep-slope law, which has been [on] the minds of state legislators in recent years, just doesn’t make sense. Common sense [argues] that cities and counties know how to better regulate development than the state. Local officials see, on a daily basis, the effects growth has on their communities. As a result of […]

I rely on you for all my City Council and county commissioner news, and on that front, you have never let me down. But your choice of lead story in the last issue greatly disappointed me. Of all the news and material that’s floating about at this particular moment in time, you chose to cover […]

On Oct. 30, 1990, President George Bush signed a resolution designating March 30 as National Doctor’s Day. Since the days of the Hippocratic Oath, the physician has been held in high esteem as healer, trusted confidant and patient advocate. Technological breakthroughs have done much to advance the science of medicine; however, the patient-physician relationship remains […]