I am inspired to respond to Mr. Alexander’s illuminating commentary on the Civic Center [“Now’s the Time,” Aug. 8] [regarding] such [issues] as overdue roof repairs, indecision in the selection process for thousands of varying event possibilities, and the astonishing fact that it sits empty at times like the Bele Chere fest. After having mixed […]
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Taking crime personally
On Friday night, Aug. 31, a group of residents in the South French Broad neighborhood were to meet for a civilian patrol when we were seriously outnumbered by participating officers who work in our district. The other two residents and myself were honored to see eight officers show up and offer their support as we […]
Credit Brownie for transit improvement
Transportation is an important issue in our community and in this year’s City Council election. As a concerned citizen and a member of the Asheville Transit Commission (ATC), I want to remind Asheville about Brownie Newman’s work to improve our transit system, first as a concerned citizen prior to serving on Council and now as […]
Brownie has led the way
I have known and worked with Brownie Newman for many years prior to his service on Asheville City Council. While I am older by a few years, I have always considered him a mentor on how to bring different kinds of people together to address complex and seemingly intractable issues. The single most important environmental […]
Truly the 11th hour
I was very impressed with Leonardo DiCaprio’s powerful documentary, The 11th Hour. The film depicts the devastating impacts of global warming, including droughts, hurricanes and flooding of coastal areas. It features interviews with the brightest minds on our planet about the causes of this man-made environmental crisis and possible solutions. A powerful solution was suggested […]
Council on Aging of Buncombe County
Participants at the West Asheville dining site doing chair exercise. For more than 40 years, the Council on Aging of Buncombe County has been helping local seniors “age well.” The Council has three major programs that reach more than 3,000 persons annually: Resource Coordination, which works to identify and find needed services; Seniors Safe At […]
Weekly Asheville Disclaimer Page: 09/12/07
• Talks with Staples headquarters last week ‘went generally as expected’
• Commmentary: What we fail to recognize, we certainly won’t
• Today’s Disclaimer Organic Recipe
• On the Green Tip: Conserving water
The Franklin Report: APD African-American Relations PDF
“The Asheville Police Department contact this consultant, Anthony Franklin regarding concerns they were having with their public relations within the African American community and their lack of participation amongst African Americans in the department’s promotional process.” Click here to download a PDF file of the report.
Weekly Asheville Disclaimer Page: 09/05/07
• If football really was religion, I’d burn you boys at the stake for heresy
• Education: Nontraditional student adjusting to dorm life
• Ron Paul’s support runs gamut from wild-eyed to sweaty and out-of-breath
• Coming Next Week…
Family Visitation Center
Sandy Boyd, Family Visitation Program director What was once the Family Visitation Center is now a program of the Mediation Center: the Family Visitation Program. It currently offers two child-centered services: Supervised Visitation and Monitored Exchanges. These services are offered to parents and families experiencing challenging interpersonal relationships who need a safe, supervised environment for […]
“Free, happy and loose”
Perry Farrell has always been a visionary. When audiences first noticed him as lead singer for Jane’s Addiction, he was melding elements of Led Zeppelin and Joy Division into a musical vision that not only helped his very un-mainstream band find mainstream success, but also paved the way for the grunge and alternative-rock revolution that […]
Music for airports
“Shouldn’t I have mutated from doing this to myself by now?” asks songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird. “What are the side effects of hurling through space?” The world is his living room: In a post-Bowl of Fire world, Andrew Bird’s musical vision still thrives. He’s talking about flying in airplanes, and specifically the aspect of […]
Reimagining fantasy
For the casual reader, the thought of a typical fantasy book probably conjures up visions of dragons, elves and various other Tolkien-esque creatures. It’s an image that makes noted fantasy author Charles de Lint bristle. “I love reading high-fantasy stories, but now I find it tiresome because I think that there’s nothing really fresh about […]
Bouldering basics
When we hear the words “rock climbing,” most of us picture climbers scaling faces of sheer rock, hundreds of feet high. But that’s not always the case. Bouldering is an offshoot of rock climbing, where, as the name implies, a climber scales large boulders instead of rock faces. Over the years it’s grown into a […]
Think globally, celebrate locally
Mountain Xpress has a policy of printing only those guest commentaries “that promote thoughtful dialogue and enhanced understanding of local issues” (emphasis mine). That’s a good policy, given that Xpress has a local readership interested in local news and events. But what are the boundaries of “local” issues? When hundreds of local people gather in […]
The dark side of The Ellington
Hey, Asheville—are you ready for three more years of construction on Biltmore Avenue, even before Pack Square is finished? Ready or not, here comes the 30-story Ellington Hotel. The Ellington is being presented as a 23-story building, but [by my calculation, it will be basically] a 30-story building at 305 feet above Biltmore Avenue. The […]
Take a larger perspective
Thank you for your coverage of the recent protests to bring attention to Bank of America’s financing of mountaintop removal. Your efforts to report from the perspectives of the activists, police and business owners are commendable. However, there was one glaring omission: the overarching context of the topic of the protest. For anyone who’s seen […]
Teach protestors a lesson
Over the past several weeks, I have been astounded by the [incidents of] local protestors who have been arrested or assaulted by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department and the Asheville Police Department. I am speaking, of course, about our infamous flag criminals, the Kuhns of West Asheville, and the more recent arrest of Mr. Jonas […]
Disclaiming the “Disclaimer”
I can’t believe you actually pay the “Asheville Disclaimer” people to write crap like the “Women in Business” piece [Aug. 29 Xpress]. While it is mildly offensive to women, I’m mostly offended by how unfunny it was. What are the jokes even supposed to be? I understand that it is supposed to be a satire, […]
We’re not that bad
While I can’t speak for all Floridians, I would like to voice my humble opinion as a recent transplant to Asheville. Please consider that while you are chasing me off the road sporting all your open-border bumper stickers and screaming obscenities over my Florida tags, I have migrated to Asheville with all the love and […]
The Other Side of the Mountain
For months we’ve endured city and county residents’ competing calls for tax equity (or perhaps I should say “county-only residents,” since city residents also live in Buncombe County). The continuing water negotiations are partly about core issues—who owns the system, who fixes it and such—and partly about what Council member Carl Mumpower calls “decoy issues” […]