Michael Morgan‘s soft voice and easy demeanor make him comfortable to talk with. The candidate for the N.C. General Assembly offers articulate and frank answers about his deeply held Christian views and his quest to reform the criminal-justice system. Yet this is the same man who spent nearly seven years in a federal prison for […]
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Hoping for humanity in Waiting Room 16
I have just returned from the Mission St. Joseph’s emergency room. I fell at the gym and injured my foot. While my foot is black and blue and hurting, I am red, hot and mad. This is my third visit to an emergency room in 10 years. Each visit was more painful than the last. […]
Middle-class man confesses
I’ve been using computers since the late 1970s, when I learned to program in Fortran. Several months ago, knowing I was falling behind the technological revolution, I purchased an e-mail and Internet service for my office. But then I canceled the order and got a refund. With regard to e-mail, it just looked like more […]
Mission St. Joseph’s responds
We at Mission St. Joseph’s would like to thank Mr. Siegel for taking the time to share his unpleasant experience at the Emergency Department. We take pride in the quality of care we deliver, and it concerns us greatly when any patient or family member has an unpleasant experience. His comments about our services are […]
Earth first
In Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong, city centers will be completely closed to cars, to draw attention to air pollution. Ditto the central streets of Sydney, Australia. And — while Asheville’s streets will still admit vehicles on Earth Day 2000 (Saturday, April 22) — our city’s 30th-anniversary celebration of this day set aside to promote […]
Earth Day at play
Amid all the fanfare of Earth Day 2000, there’ll be earfare aplenty in our downtown square. The entertainment on Saturday, April 22 will be as Earth-themed as our seemingly inexhaustible sources of local talent can provide. Much fun ought to be had by all — as well as the opportunity to hear knowledgeable (and solution-oriented […]
Quacking like a duck
Duck Soup — the Marx Brothers’ anarchistic tour de force — isn’t really about ducks. And C.L. Bothwell III’s Gorillas in the Myth: A Duck Soup Reader (Brave Ulysses Books, 2000) isn’t really about gorillas (or, for that matter, soup or ducks) — though, in a vivid sense, this book does embrace all the myriad […]
Coming home
Before I sleep John Cowan’s self-titled CD (Sugar Hill Records, 2000) is a soulful tumult of traditional genres. The musician, who appears Friday and Saturday at this year’s Merlefest, has traveled a mighty long road since 1974, when he first pulled up to Courtney Johnson’s house to audition as bass player for the seminal band […]
Lost and found
When and how does a rough-hewn rock from Georgia’s Chattahoochie River become a purse in the style to which Queen Elizabeth is famously partial? Or tattered oyster shell from the same state’s Tybee Beach metamorphose into an opera mask? Contrary to what you might be thinking, no environmentally friendly, ecologically sound sleight-of-hand is at play […]
Coming down the mountain
Like the protagonist in his best-selling novel, former Asheville resident Jeffrey Lent returned to his native Vermont after encountering, for better or worse, the “Southern experience.” In a first (published) novel that is already drawing comparisons to Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, Lent has accomplished what few other first-time novelists (or veteran authors, for that matter) […]
The cruellest month
Volatile April has always figured conspicuously in the world of poetry. It’s the month that Chaucer’s pilgrims set off on their way to Canterbury, and the month that Paul Revere made his fateful midnight ride (immortalized by Longfellow in verse). T.S. Eliot — in “The Waste Land” — offered a pessimistic echo of Chaucer, calling […]
Casualties of war
On the day Hart Squire‘s Reems Creek property was raided on suspicion of illegal drug activity, 12 law-enforcement vehicles (marked and unmarked) arrived, bearing some 25 federal, state and local law-enforcement officers who wore bulletproof vests and carried holstered guns. Squire’s mother answered the door. “Sorry, we don’t need any tickets to the policemen’s ball,” […]
Asheville City Council
The multi-purposed Asheville Civic Center has served the community for nearly 30 years; now, many feel the city’s needs have outgrown the present facility. Civic leaders hope to use the existing Civic Center site to house a convention center and a refurbished Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, while building a new sports arena consistent with downtown-revitalization efforts. […]
Notepad
Frazier at UNCA By now, Charles Frazier must be one of the most famous novelists in the South. As the author of the universally acclaimed Cold Mountain, Frazier became, with a single book, one of the literary world’s most closely watched writers. You’d think that with all the attention — and the fact that he’s […]
On criticism
Hello, Asheville — it’s me again. This time, I am doing my best to heal. In January, I sustained a rather serious injury to my left thigh that became badly infected. Hence, I was in the VA Hospital for three weeks. There is probably a column in that. So, this explains why I have been […]
Where are you, Piedmont Airlines?
The natives seem to be getting restless about airline service in and out of Asheville. (For the purposes of this article, we’re going to call it ‘service,’ anyway.) Along with that, there seems to be the belief that, if we make our displeasure known, surely the airlines — or maybe the government — will take […]
After the swarm
When cold winds dip down from the north, hinting that food will soon become scarce, the Indiana bat leaves its summer roost and heads to the mountains to hibernate. Outside its chosen grotto, the bat joins others, swarming into the air from dusk to dawn as it seeks a mate and feeds on insects to […]
What to do?
Roosting in dead and dying trees known as snags, these creatures work their tiny bodies under the loose bark, as a shelter against bad weather. But such trees are hard to come by in recently logged areas. Studies by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however, suggest that the bat may be more adaptable than […]
Asheville City Council
Determining the fate of the floundering WNC Regional Air Pollution Control Agency should be a joint decision involving both the city and county, not a unilateral one, Asheville City Council members say. At their March 28 meeting, Council members ultimately decided to write a formal letter urging the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners to confer […]
Letters to the editor
Animal Services Advisory Board is a circus sideshow Bored with Seinfeld reruns? Does the movie fare look bleak? Come on over to the old Carolina Power and Light building across from Three Brothers Restaurant, where — on the first and third Monday of each month — the Advisory Board to the Animal Shelter (recently mysteriously […]
From the Oracle at Bear Creek
[Editor’s note: Our search last year for a “skeptical reporter” turned up some memorable applicants — perhaps none more so than Richard E. Koon, M.D. While we chose to hire another journalist (two, actually) for the staff position(s), we were so intrigued by Dr. Koon’s background and writing samples that we invited him to submit […]