Character education: Complaint about “The Kite Runner” raises First Amendment issues

This spring, a 10th-grade honors English class was supposed to be studying Khaled Husseini’s acclaimed novel about two boys from different social classes growing up in 1970s Afghanistan. On April 27, teacher Brooke Bowman sent a letter to parents explaining the value of the 2003 best-seller as a teaching tool while warning of its mature content. In the scene in question, a servant boy is beaten and sexually assaulted by an older boy from a wealthier family.

Those good ol’ days

I would like to personally thank Mountain Xpress and Commissioner Mike Fryar for highlighting everything that is wrong with, and will spell the ultimate demise of the Republican Party [“Building Knowledge,” Feb. 27 Xpress]. Fryar makes the woefully ignorant statement: "In the Kentucky coal mining town where [I] attended elementary school, if a breeze blew […]

The new party of change

Contrary to your Asheville letter writer last week concerning big government, I am a county resident and delighted to see our democratic rights finally exercised with two representatives from each of three districts on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, thanks to Rep. Tim Moffitt [“Moffitt Goes for Big Government,” Feb. 29 Xpress]. Maybe Asheville […]