My attention was recently drawn to a discussion on a local Yahoo group Web forum regarding an issue I had some firsthand knowledge about. I was not surprised that the initiator of the discussion presented the issue in a self-aggrandizing light. But what did surprise me was the number of people without any firsthand knowledge … Read more
In a bit of a shell game, legislators continued to formulate their approach to the state’s budget deficit even as the governor announced that new projections had erased $1 billion of the originally predicted $3.7 billion shortfall for the next fiscal year. (The projected deficit was subsequently scaled down to $2.4 billion.) Meanwhile, the Legislature … Read more
Days after a break was detected in the 36-inch diameter main line that runs from two treatment plants in Black Mountain, thousands of city and county residents still had murky, brown tap water. The leak and its subsequent repair caused "near-record problems with water service," reported the Asheville Citizen-Times. According to "Asheville Water Woes Persist," … Read more
In 2001, local poet, playwright, teacher and activist Christine Lassiter died from cancer. Ten years after her death, the community she helped to form held a memorial reading of her poetry at Malaprop’s, featuring a who’s who of Asheville poets and performers. Xpress presents a few videos from that event.
It promises to be a busy meeting tonight as Asheville City Council considers an equality resolution aimed at protecting the rights of LGBT citizens, as well as a controversial Ingles expansion, among other items. Follow live Twitter coverage here.
Environmental author and activist Jeff Biggers will give a free public lecture at Warren Wilson College Thursday evening. His book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek, The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, received the Sierra Club’s David Brower award, and has been called “a world-shaking, immensely important book” by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love), who wrote of it: “If you’re an American, it is almost a patriotic duty to read it.”
