Tag: Asheville

bookmark_borderAsheville in the News

Posted on by PaulaO

Yay! We made the Wall Street Journal!

Is it good or bad, though?

Asheville, N.C. Debates: How Weird is Too Weird?
Topless Rally Raises Eyebrows, Questions

This city has made a name for itself as a tourist and retirement haven, known for its arts festivals, spiritual retreats and welcoming culture.

But a topless rally here Sunday prompted even locals who want to “Keep Asheville Weird” to question if weird is a sustainable economic model, especially in a downturn.

“Being strange is one of the things we have in our favor, that people feel comfortable here,” said Patti Best, who sells her paintings in downtown galleries. But Ms. Best said she worries about blurring the line between being accepting and being offensive. “Asheville has a lot of attraction for families, and they aren’t going to come to a place that’s veering so far out of the mainstream,” she said.

(…)

sheville was among a number of cities hosting Go Topless Day rallies on Sunday, the anniversary of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution’s 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The Go Topless Day event was founded in 2007 by the Raelian spiritual movement, which believes human beings were created perfect by extraterrestrial scientists. Their slogan: “Free your breasts, free your mind.” Still, most of the woman participating here and in other places across the country are not adherents of the Raelian movement.

(…)

David Roat shrugged as they passed by the busy corner where he was writing custom limericks. “Look,” he said, pointing. “You’ve got a cat over there who’s juggling a pipe wrench, a bowling ball and a knife. There’s a guy in a nun’s suit riding around on a tall bike. That’s Asheville.”

(bolding is mine)

source: Wall Street Journal

comic about the rally: Mountain XPress comic
Photos of the participants: NSFW!! Photos of GoTopless
Another rally being held at the same time: A Different Kind of Protest

We moved here in 1990. That year we attended Bele Chere, a cool event downtown. We went with Lorna’s parents and got separated from them. We decided to just sit and watch the people go by for a while. And boy howdee did we see some people. If there has ever been a fashion fad, it walked by (bell bottoms; plaid pants; spiked, colored hair…). If there was ever a kink that can be displayed in public, it went by (woman wearing leather shorts so small they were molded to her butt, with leather boots higher than her knees, a leather vest with nothing underneath, was ‘walking’ a man wearing a a leash attached to his leather spiked collar, leather pants molded to his genitalia, and boots up to his knees). It was strange. And we fell in love with this place.

bookmark_borderCesspool of Sin!

Posted on by PaulaO

No, seriously. Asheville has been called the Cesspool of Sin by a North Carolina state senator. Seriously.

Here’s what I said about it earlier somewhere else when we first heard about it:

Peter Sagal with NPR (the wonderful Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me guy) did a promo for one of the local NPR stations. Apparently, a state senator referred to Asheville as a “Cesspool of Sin”. I can’t find exactly why he said it although he did clarify later saying there are a lot of liberals and homosexuals in the Asheville area. (see my other NPR post with interactive map for proof). Forrester is also the primary sponsor of the NC ban on gay marriage constitutional amendment thing (which as worded now would mean trouble for anyone married outside a church).

Anyway, the promo is a hoot. We’re loving it here. Lorna donated just so she can get a tshirt. We would have donated twice but they didn’t come in el jumbo size.

http://www.mountainx.com/article/36171/ … ool-of-sin – audio recording of promo

http://www.wcqs.org/home-page/support/donate-now – donation page with shirt

The reference to the interactive map post is something I meant to bring up here but I got distracted (oooh, shiny…).

A new analysis of 2010 census data by the Williams Institute shows how same-sex couples are distributed across the nation. Liberal enclaves are well-represented, of course. But so are some surprising pockets of the heartland and the South. Scroll over the map to see the number of same-sex couples per 1,000 households in each county.

The map, and the quote above, are found on the NPR site. It’s a cool, interactive map that has some interesting results!

My home county, Buncombe, is the highest in North Carolina with 11.9 per 1,000 people. Meaning, for every thousand households, 11.9 of them are gay/lesbian couples. I looked over some of the other areas and Buncombe scored fairly high in the nation, too. Northern California has two counties higher (12 and 12.1). Atlanta’s county, DeKalb, has 15.1. Two counties in Massachusetts scored 14.5 and 19.6. Like I said in my other post (but re-reading it just now, I didn’t say it very well), statistics can be easily misinterpreted. For example, if in Massachusetts they did a big “LGBTs, admit who you are!” campaign, the reported households would be higher than an area that did not. Here in Buncombe, I don’t remember there being anything like that.

We did the math wrong earlier over at LFF because I just realized it is per 1,000 households vs citizens. Wikipedia says a 2000 census reports Buncombe had 85,776 households. So multiply 86 (to round up to 86 thousand) by 11.9, that’s roughly 1023 households are LGBT. With an average household size of 2.26, that’s roughly 2313 queers. Cooool. We really need to get together sometime! A pot luck meeting or something?

So perhaps Forrester had seen this map. Perhaps he was appalled that we scored so high. Go us!

##

Today I see Mountain Express has another article about it. Edgy Mama is great and I enjoy reading her stuff (when I remember to read it).

Edgy Mama: celebrating the Cesspool of Sin on All Hallow’s Eve

In past years, I’ve written about child obesity and dental decay, costume drama and expense, and the dangers of letting one’s kids take candy from strangers. But this year, I’ve decided to let go and embrace the decadence of Halloween, especially since I live in the Cesspool of Sin.

(…)

My kids have noticed the Cesspool of Sin T-shirts adorning the bodies of many Ashvilleans [did she really misspell it???] recently and asked what they mean. I explained that N.C. Sen. Jim Forrester called Asheville that because of the town’s thriving LGBT community. My kids were appropriately shocked, because, thank the witches, it’s never occurred to them that some people consider homosexuality a sin.

(…)

There are many reasons I love living here. One being that so many folks here understand satire (and those that don’t often make me laugh as well). Two being that people here know how to celebrate Halloween (Zombie walks, parties, costumed crusaders for weeks leading up to the big night). A third reason for loving Asheville is because many of us embrace being sinners.

The difficult part of my conversation with my kids concerned the relativity of sin. Yes, there are black and white rules — don’t kill other people is one of them. But wait, doesn’t the U.S. government kill other people? Why yes, it does — both in wars and in execution chambers. OK, kids, so that’s a rule that holds true for most people, but not all, because … sheesh, Sen. Forrester, thanks for putting me in this position.

Lorna ordered her t-shirt and we will be framing it and hanging it on the wall here in the Rose Room/office. It is an appropriate place to put it since the septic tank is right outside the window.