Rep. Heath Shuler and the Democrats were successful in ending President Bush’s income-tax cuts. Now they want to raise payroll taxes across the board. Is this the “change we can believe in”? A taxpayer voting for Rep. Shuler is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders! — John Batson Asheville
Author: Webmaster
Showing 5419-5439 of 9872 results
Pouring money into runoffs
In case you’re counting, the runoff election on June 24 cost more than $50 per vote cast for election officials to administer—about $4 million to operate about 3,000 polling places and process the results of barely 75,000 votes cast. In some counties, the cost for the local board of elections easily exceeded $70 per vote. […]
Just more of the obvious
I was just wondering if Mr. Roeten [“Your Vote Should Be Obvious,” Letters, June 25] has adopted an AIDS baby or a crack baby or even a baby with a birth defect? Or maybe he’s offered up his home as a place of support to an unwed mother during her pregnancy? Because if he hasn’t, […]
The Shiloh Community Association
Many people say it takes a village to raise a child, [and] that’s how I remember the Shiloh community when I was growing up: a village,” says liaison for the Shiloh Community Association Norma Baynes. “Many people walked from their jobs in Biltmore Forest. At night the people would turn the porch lights on to […]
The Asheville Mural Project
Photo by Zen Sutherland The Asheville Mural Project is a group of artists brought together through the nonprofit Arts 2 People, with the cooperative objective of both revitalizing existing urban environments and memorializing the diversity of experience and culture that Asheville hosts. AMP has created several small murals in the past and is currently forging […]
A few more days in the sun
To describe the music of the Sun City Girls in the short space of this article is next to impossible. Their music combined sea shanties, free jazz, Middle Eastern-inspired jams and out-and-out noise improvisations into a sonic stew that openly defied categorization. Still standing: Richard Bishop and brother Alan Bishop are completing one last tour […]
Don’t mess with the Vortex
Ask any veteran of the summer concert-festival circuit, and chances are that they’ll be more than willing to recall any number of stories about overflowing portable toilets, 100-plus-degree weather, overpriced festival food, violent rainstorms and countless bad vibes. It’s enough to keep a sane person away. But the first Vortex Music Festival offers something else […]
Fishing on the cheap
Is that family vacation to Disney World out of reach this year because of the cost? Good! There is so much right here in Western North Carolina for you and your family to discover. The price of success: Rick Jenkins believes fishing doesn’t need to cost much. Courtesy Rick Jenkins Let’s start with fishing. Everybody […]
A leader by day and night
An amazing transformation took place in Hillcrest Apartments complex on Wednesday night, June 11. Even if you live there, you may not realize it happened. Hearing cries for help, a resident named Lillian Butler called 911 to assist a woman who’d been stabbed by an angry man. After the incident, most people would probably have […]
Weekly Asheville Disclaimer Page: 06/25/08
• Ashevegas
One man’s treasure
I would love to believe that we all treat each other with respect, value our assets and privileges and help others less fortunate than us. I would love to believe that we all thrive off healthy food, daily exercise and a drive to not live at the expense of nature and our fellow humans. Alas, […]
Healing the past, directing the future
I moved to Asheville from Tombstone, Ariz., after searching the Net and coming upon the YMI Cultural Center’s Web site and information about the historic Block. “Wow,” I thought, “a town in the South where the black community still owns property. Got to see that!” I trace my roots to a black town called Pelham, […]
Buddy’s bad day
On the afternoon of Friday, June 13, I was home—rather unusually—at about 12:30 p.m. My whole purpose for coming home at that time was to let my dog, Buddy, out of the house for a little noon stretch. I would like to point out here that Buddy is a 26-pound Jack Russell mix. Buddy has […]
One on One with D.G. Martin
Walking alongside the college campus on North Main Street in Davidson, N.C., following a little ridgeline that marks the border between the Catawba and the Yadkin/Pee Dee river basins, my mother would mark the clearest days by stopping at a high point near the college entrance. Then, pointing west with one hand, she would put […]
Transparent enough for you?
If you look up the word transparency—that word that so many politicians throw around during election time—you’ll find the definition: “easily seen through, recognized or detected.” Perhaps Nathan Ramsey and the Gang of Five should have looked up the definition before their devious attempt (with the aid of County Manager Wanda Green and [former city […]
Put ‘em out to pasture
All of the county commissioners who voted to sell to Mr. Coleman the piece of property next to City Hall should be turned out of office. Whether this sale was done as a backroom deal or there was lack of knowledge on the commissioners’ part, they should be removed for gross incompetence at the very […]
Co-op means cooperating
In response to the recent letters about consumer cooperatives: The cooperative movement has experienced a lot of pressure from the capitalist system. Whenever the market for a commodity that a cooperative is providing becomes large enough, large corporations move in to capture a significant portion of that market. People are not informed enough about the […]
Waiting for fairness
Asheville may be plodding its way toward a goal of decency and fairness. Some awareness seems to be stirring out there: A headline in the May 28 Xpress tells us “Living Wage Issue Picking Up Steam.” Some Asheville businesses are already on board, displaying that fact with a notice on or in their premises. If […]
Your vote should be obvious
With two unpromising presidential candidates for election, many may not vote. But priorities count here. It’s a massive blunder if you think all issues have the same weight. One makes himself a viable candidate by endorsing our most sacred principle, specified in the Declaration of Independence: the right to life. The Conference of Catholic Bishops […]
Art that gets under your skin
Hair balls and elegance may seem incompatible, but Loran Scruggs’ “Hair Ball Gown” lends an unexpected grace to the nickel-sized spheres decorating a gossamer, flesh-colored shift. And it’s just one example of how this exhibition, the Penland Gallery’s challenging Either Side of the Skin: Work Inspired by or Responding to the HumanBody, is filled with […]
Looking down that lonesome road
I feel sad about the dialogue that isn’t happening concerning choices that have lasting, detrimental effects on our children and the planet. Sad that environmentalists are seen as a threat. Sad that the environmental community remains stuck in its own groups and doesn’t pool resources, efforts, hearts and hands to create the future we want […]