Welcome to our Wellness issue

In this first part of a two-issue look at both broad questions and specific ideas, we give Buncombe County a check up, explore where alternative and traditional medicine meet, note Asheville City Council’s adoption of a Food Action Plan, and report some of the health-and-wellness news that comes across our desk each day. We invite you to explore the topic with us.

Stand up to Progress Energy

As I guided a group of paddlers 117 miles down the French Broad River over nine days last summer, we passed dozens of boaters, fishermen, tubers, swimmers and other folks out enjoying the river’s beauty. Our trip marked a watershed moment: the opening of the Western North Carolina Alliance’s French Broad River Paddle Trail, whose […]

Target someone less vulnerable

Given the public's lack of information on government in our country at present, the "Cecil Bothwell emails" cited in the Jan. 23 "Asheville Disclaimer" constitute attack. So much of public discourse has become hostile and deliberately misleading, it is indistinguishable from parody. City Council member Bothwell has been deliberately maligned and demonized by his opponents. […]

Be respectful or be gone

At the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Peace March I noticed a group of white, teenage boys … taking turns posing and laughing while taking pictures with an African-American man who was holding a large Confederate flag (and wearing a jacket with the same flag on it). It was clear to me and those around […]

Allow the thirsty to drink

For years my wife and I have traveled to Hot Springs (flinging cash in every direction while traveling through Asheville) to soak and bring back some of its fine spring water for drinking. Imagine our surprise when we found the state of North Carolina has banned the use of this pure, healthful water which has […]