Gimme a break: Asheville Middle School kids need a high-quality recess

I’m not going to sugarcoat this.

Attention all you cyclists, tennis players, golfers, walkers, hikers, runners, rowers, gardeners! Or anyone who likes to go outside for any reason as a break in your day when you have the chance! Yeah, you: LISTEN UP! “Asheville Middle School students no longer get to go outside for a midday break,” local mom Leslie Poplawski wrote for the the Nov. 21, 2012, issue of Xpress. “Some of them are up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus and don’t get home till 4:30. Then they have homework and dinner, and for various reasons (including, sometimes, safety), many can’t or don’t go outside after that. …”

Breeders aren’t to blame

I'd like to rebut an argument I've read in your paper, one that I hear often from animal rights people [“What About All the Other Animals?,” July 4 Xpress]. That argument is: If people stopped breeding purebred dogs, everyone who is now buying puppies from them would get a dog from the shelter instead. Not […]

Recent Xpress commentary is an embarrassm­ent

Felicia Dickson's misguided, rambling commentary on the "N-word" so clearly displayed her near-complete ignorance of racial relations, the laws of our land and normal human behavior that I felt it my duty to admonish her if not educate her [“Just Say No,” Feb. 15 Xpress]. I'm fully embarrassed on behalf of the Xpress that this […]

Racism runs deep in the human psyche

I commend Felicia Dickson on her thoughtful, well-chosen words about one of the violent actions in our community [“Just Say No,” Feb. 15 Xpress]. Her first illustration and her experience/confession were very good. Some weeks ago, a letter in the Asheville Citizen-Times argued that opposition to President Obama should not be construed as racism. Is […]

Gay is the new local

Recently, the two of us sat on Lexington Avenue reading Mountain Xpress aloud to each other. It’s something we do while we take in the goings-on in our neighborhood. We live in downtown Asheville, and while we appreciate the quirky spunk of West Asheville, the almost rural feel of Fairview, the old-school Southern charm of […]

Bill Branyon has more in common with Billy Graham than he would like to admit

For a self-proclaimed freethinker, Bill Branyon certainly seems unable to form his own philosophy [“We Still Cogitate,” March 9 Xpress]. He criticizes right-wing Christians while lauding the belifs (or non-beliefs) of Socrates, Nietzsche, Vonnegut, Ghandi and Marx … uh, that's Groucho Marx. Branyon and most fundamentalist hypo-Christians could still learn a bit from the teachings […]