By now, you’ve probably heard about the unusual social behavior of Woodfin’s bisexual police chief. Everybody has. That’s the point of a smear campaign: To get the story out to as many people as possible in an effort to destroy the credibility, reputation and, quite simply, the life of the person being targeted. But the […]
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A chronology of controversy
• Spring 2000: Department of Motor Vehicles envorcement officer Pete Bradley makes serious allegations concerning his co-workers. The SBI begins an investigation that will eventually encompass 13 WNC counties. • Shortly before he is to be interviewed by the SBI, Bradley receives an anonymous letter warning him that if he starts “digging up skeletons on […]
Asheville City Council
The winds blew cold on Feb. 26. But even the plummeting temperatures didn’t chill the anger of the nearly 50 citizens who gathered on the lawn at City/County Plaza to demand campaign-finance reform. Saying they were frustrated and disgusted by the amount of money spent in the last municipal election, they stood in front of […]
Questioning the system
The angry folks who braved bone-chilling winds to rally for campaign-finance reform on Feb. 26 were fired up about the recent revelations concerning how much some local candidates had spent in their bids to secure positions in city government. And the fact that some of these candidates also fed at the trough of the political […]
Thanks, Baxter
One of downtown Asheville’s most familiar faces has left us. Baxter Miller died this past November, and as much as he’ll be missed, he will also continue to be celebrated for having lived among us and for contributing his particular, peculiar Baxter-ness to our eclectic, unique urban culture. Baxter was one of those people you […]
The good fight
These days, the trademark black hair is frosted with silver. But the refreshing smile, bubbly eyes, angelic soprano voice and social passion remain pure. They remind us of when “Queen of Protest” Joan Baez wove music and politics into social consciousness and artistic spirit. Make that present tense: Baez will perform in Asheville Tuesday night, […]
Making a clean and dirty getaway
You can’t explain music, especially not garage rock, with words — you have to be there, jumping up and down with the bass notes thumping your chest, liquored up without a care in the world, your brain buzzing from drugs or guitar feedback. There may have only been 30-some shows in the 14 months since […]
The latest word
The Stone Flower Garden by Deborah Smith (Little, Brown and Company, 2002) There’s little doubt that Deborah Smith is a first-rate storyteller. But what I uncovered in the The Stone Flower Garden strains a bit too hard to be Southern Gothic — a mode that’s become more ubiquitous than kudzu. Certainly this book is nowhere […]
Still unbroken
I recently learned that an old friend who lives in Manhattan now plays mandolin in a bluegrass band. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised: Ignited in no small way by the O Brother/Down from the Mountain odyssey, the mountain-music revival has firmly taken hold in urban areas. And the ears tuned into the trend are […]
Key witnesses
“Stop that stuttering, Missy Miller!” I can hear my piano teacher’s voice as clearly now as when I sat scrunched up next to her on the piano bench in first grade. “Sit up straight, curve those fingers, and feel the music!” It was Sister Mary Luke’s undoubted direct connection to the divine that cured me […]
Angel with an edge
Nanci Griffith sings with the sweet, pure, little-girl twang of a Texas choir girl. But, like the harsh scrub brush and prickly pear that mark her home state, the stories she tells in song are often laced with thorns. Dubbed the “Queen of Folkabilly” by Rolling Stone, Griffith’s early performing days found her teaching kindergarten […]
Notepad
Asheville man honored for environmental stewardship The Wilderness Society has honored Asheville resident Rob Messick with the Olaus and Margaret Murie Award in recognition of his tireless efforts to document and protect old-growth forest in the mountains of Western North Carolina. “Rob Messick’s story is truly inspirational,” says William H. Meadows, the group’s president. “Though […]
Asheville’s most un-wanted
“In the wealthiest country in the world, it’s morally wrong to leave our most vulnerable people in the streets. Our children and our grandchildren will look back on this period and ask, ‘What were they thinking?’” — A-Hope Director Martha Are, co-chair of theAsheville-Buncombe Homeless Coalition They’re commonly referred to as winos, beggars, street drunks, […]
A knock on the door
“It takes courage for individuals to come forward in situations like this, and I urge anyone with information that may be useful and helpful to authorities to use this opportunity.” U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft,Sept. 11, 2001 Squeaky’s Convenience Store in downtown Black Mountain has a flag in its front window and little flags on […]
Letter from immigrant describes detention and problems with INS
[Editor’s note: The following letter is written by a Muslim who immigrated to America from India in 1990, seeking political asylum from India’s violent strife between Hindus and Muslims. We have withheld his name at his request. He wrote this letter while detained in Atlanta with Mohammed Lone. Though now released from jail and living […]
Citizen informants
On Sept. 11, hours after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Attorney General John Ashcroft urged Americans to give the FBI “any information they know about these crimes.” Ashcroft later ordered the Justice Department to follow up on every one of those tips. Hundreds of thousands of neighborhood gumshoes heard the […]
It’s the law
Is it illegal to turn your back on the flag, as Saleh Abou-Saleh was accused of doing? Can you be fined or jailed for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance? How about burning the U.S. flag in protest — is that against the law? The answer to all of those questions is no. True, […]
Asheville City Council
“It’s time for Asheville to decide whether we are going to be an elite community and whether people who work in Asheville can live in Asheville.” — Mountain Housing Opportunities Director Scott Dedman on Council’s rejection of a 35-unit affordable-housing development. Everyone supports affordable housing. At least that’s the impression one would have come away […]
Taking back the neighborhood
“We want those drug houses shut down!” With this comment, Claxton Area Neighborhood Association President Tom Hayes set the tone for a Feb. 12 meeting between concerned residents of a small North Asheville neighborhood and Asheville Police Department representatives. The choir room of the Merrimon Avenue Baptist Church (which graciously donated the use of its […]
Sound the retreat
“Unusual people walk around the streets of Asheville, and Asheville is getting a reputation.” — Council member Joe Dunn What was planned as a two-day, goal-setting retreat for the Asheville City Council quickly became an exercise in slash-and-burn budget cutting. Typically, the retreat is a time for city leaders to cloister themselves far from the […]
Touching the intangible
Drawing and painting can be learned. Using those skills to explain the world is when the creative process becomes art. Georgia painter/professor Ralph Gilbert teaches these subjects as tools to capture intangibles. The relationship between skill and imagination, the definition of art or great art: These issues are difficult, subjective — and fleeting. And understanding […]