This weekend, Asheville on Bikes is hosting a supported ride to the LEAF festival at Lake Eden. We’ll meet at the baseball parking lot just off Bell Road at 4:30 p.m. Park your car for the weekend, as AoB has a truck ready to haul your gear while you get to pedal your bike. On […]

I was sad to hear Kurt Vonnegut [had passed] a couple of weeks ago, but as they say: So it goes. I know some people thought his books depressing and crazy, but isn’t life?  Here are a [couple of] quotes from Kurt: “Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil […]

Recently I [received] a warning ticket from the Asheville Sanitation Division for not cutting down the bushes and vines that grow thickly together in my back yard. I thought it should be the opposite. The backyard area is not visible from the street, and the front yard is cut, landscaped and maintained according to average-white-male […]

In times of uncertainty, I have noticed a will to find other reasons for why activities are surfacing at a rapid pace … . One of the biggest worries plaguing us is global warming. Unexpected elements of surprise by weather have always frightened us. Not being able to control weather and hoping it’s man causing […]

News 13 has been around for a long time, and they probably have thousands of viewers in Asheville and the surrounding areas. However, they can [now] subtract one from that number. I was absolutely appalled at the way they handled the tragedy of a young man from Alabama who fell from a waterfall to his […]

Many years after the doors of Black Mountain College closed forever, the school’s cofounder Theodore Dreier became founding trustee of another cutting-edge educational institution, where I had the pleasure of serving with him on faculty. Dr. Dreier pursued his dream of a holistic approach to higher education by joining with the founder of [the] Transcendental […]

Asheville is a beautiful city. It has a rich and diverse history. In part, I moved here because there is such a push towards an environmentally friendly direction, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. However, when I look around, I grow increasingly concerned about the direction the sustainability movement is taking. […]

I read in your paper recently about a comment Congressman Shuler made about resolving the North Shore Road issue [“Shuler’s First 100 Days,” April 11]. Swain County has a legal, binding contract with the federal government to build our North Shore Road. You know, until the government fulfills their contract, then and only then will […]

I was born and raised in Swain County and am a registered Democrat, but sometimes I get disturbed about the [Democratic] Party operations. I read your paper’s article about Heath Shuler [“Shuler’s First 100 Days,” April 11]. The part that is most disturbing is about the North Shore Road project. Heath has never met with […]

After reading Cecil Bothwell’s article [“The Lease of Our Worries,” April 11], I was not surprised that the Woodfin Zoning Board of Adjustment turned down Progress Energy’s request for a conditional permit to proceed. But what did surprise me was information about the lease that has not been discussed in the sunshine—or the Xpress—and should […]

In response to “May I See Your License?” [Commentary, April 11], I will agree that Western medicine does not have all of the answers and that complementary and alternative medicine have much to contribute to health care. However, if the intent of Ms. Bennett’s commentary was to convince me that alternative health care should not […]

[I] was just wondering if Council member Mumpower went undercover at the recent Kenny Rogers concert to sniff out illicit drug deals and users? Or did he think of them as “good ol’ boys and girls,” out for a night of drinking overpriced beer and other alcohol and then set free on the streets of […]

The recent Supreme Court decision restricting [late-term] abortions was doubly disastrous, not just for the reasons cited elsewhere, but also because it was done without an associated victory for state’s rights. As a federal regulation, these new restrictions apply not just to South Dakota and Alabama, but to New York, Vermont and Hawaii, as well. […]

I’ve seen bear, deer, wild turkeys, squirrels, chipmunks, a ground hog, rabbits and a variety of birds including cardinals, blue jays and Baltimore orioles on my four acres along Chunns Cove Road. I thought that I had just about seen everything, until my granddaughter Jeana coaxed me out of my comfortable easy chair to stroll […]

Speaking at Virginia Tech about the killings there, President Bush said: “It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Mr. Bush could have said the same words about the more than […]

I was sad to hear Kurt Vonnegut [had passed] a couple of weeks ago, but as they say: So it goes. I know some people thought his books depressing and crazy, but isn’t life?  Here are a [couple of] quotes from Kurt: “Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil […]