Weekly Asheville Disclaimer Page: 01/02/08

GPI’s Gingerbread Houses fulfill city’s affordable housing requirements

ASHEVILLE, MONDAY — When you think of “workforce housing,” you likely picture off-brand, Stalin-esque graham-cracker walls sitting atop crumbling fruitcake foundations.

However, a good number of local developers, many of whom have promised to produce mixed-use projects that provide housing for the working class, are now making good on those promises by snatching up the high-quality gingerbread houses recently featured at the Grove Park Inn.

“In the past, once Christmas was over, the houses quickly went into disrepair,” said Mayor Terry Bellamy. “It would be a shame to let these houses crumble, when working families need affordable places to live, with walls and fixtures they can eat.

“I know people expect to see lowerquality construction when new developments are required to include affordable housing,” said Bellamy. “But these feature 2,100 square-centimeter floor plans, two to three bedrooms, vaulted sugar ceilings, gum-drop fixtures, chocolate roofs and licorice fences.”

“We don’t need more gingerbread condos and cookie-cutter gingerbread McMansions,” said City Council Member Robin Cape.

“After telling the working class for years that they’re getting affordable housing in town,” says Bellamy, “and then to see the look on their faces when we bring them a gingerbread house is … well, it’s just inspirational. With a look of disbelief, many ask, ‘What the hell am I suppose to do with this?’ I just tell them, use it start your life over. Use it to reach for your dreams.”

Cold & Flu Precautions for Children

• Wash hands constantly until they are red and raw with cleanliness.

• Don’t forget hand sanitizer — it tastes much better than paste.

• When coughing, always cover your mouth using another child’s face.

• If you’re feeling bad but a teacher doesn’t believe you’re sick, eat several Alka Seltzers and some cigarette ashes.

• Remember: Cooties are all too real. If you get a sick girl in a headlock, remember to wash the crook of your elbow.

Sex education could soon go beyond abstinence
‘Maybe even as far as second base,’ some worry

RALEIGH, MONDAY — Taking into account a new study of teen pregnancy and sexual behavior, North Carolina may soon implement a controversial “fact-based” sex education program in its public schools.

Many, however, have voiced displeasure with the idea, saying not only would the plan promote promiscuity, but also that abstinence-based sex education helps prevent dangerous outbreaks of secularism.

The study, citing “facts and statistics,” shows that children who get sex education have lower rates of pregnancy and start sexual activity at a later age. Some students even hold off all the way until prom night.

The Old Testament on the other hand, critics point out, has not provided any new studies to back up its claims in several thousand years.

Local educator Marsha Bimington vigorously defends the current policy, which teaches students about contraception failure rates, the power of swearing on a Bible and the benefits of washing out their own mouths and their privates with soap whenever they think about sex.

“Technically, the information we give them is incorrect, which is technically a lie, and, technically speaking, does lead to younger children having sex and babies — if you want to get technical about it,” said Bimington. “But ignorance is such a smashing success in so many other areas of our lives, abstinence-based education is bound to pan out. You know the last thing on Magellan’s mind as he sailed off the edge of the earth? Not science, I can tell you.”

“I honest-to-God thought they were using reverse psychology to sell us on sex,” says Tommy Adkins, a youthful and astonished father of three. “Everything the teachers said was so clearly false, it just seemed like a really clever use of irony.”

Tommy’s dad, a youthful and astonished grandfather of three, is irritated with the current state of affairs in schools, as well as in the Adkins’ cramped living quarters.

“All this lying to kids has turned oral sex from a stand-up triple into first base,” said the eldest Adkins, age 35. “I just wish slugger, here, had taken a few of these girls out of the line-up and ‘brought a right-hander in from the bullpen’ if you know what I mean.”

The new plan looks to go forward over any objections, particularly those raised by parents of children miraculously found under cabbage leaves or delivered by storks.