The Breaking Time

Defanged metropoli

London! Culturally vibrant! Economically mighty! Politically impotent! Photo by Jason Hawkes

Cities! Over half of humanity now lives in the damn things. Naturally, the futurists are f'ing beside themselves over the wonders this portends. Why, here's prosperity prophet Richard Florida, writing in The Atlantic about how "giant city-states" will own your future: 

Gradually, our great complexes of cities and suburbs are being knit into mega-regions -- giant city-states that are home to millions upon millions of people and generate billions and in some cases trillions of dollars of economic activity. Driving this is not just our individual choices and preferences but the very logic of economic development. Geographic concentration and clustering speeds the transmission of new ideas, increases the underlying productivity of people and firms, and generates powerful economies of scale.

He's got a point, of course, though for additional perspective you should read Nicholas Lemann's (paywalled, sadly) piece on the fight over urban identity. But there's one problem with dubbing this the new age of city-states, namely, the "state" part: most metropoli don't have a huge amount of say in government, often even in their own.

Why, for all their economic and cultural importance, are cities still politically impotent?

The A Word: Anarchists, hysteria and vandalism in Asheville

Boo

My take on anarchists, hysteria and the Asheville vandalism spree is up on the Mountain Xpress staff blog:

Last Saturday, May Day, a vandalism spree in downtown Asheville left several buildings damaged, including a number of local businesses. The ensuing reaction from just about every faction of the community was anger and confusion. That’s justified; the hysteria some are spreading is not.

In connection with the crime, the police have arrested 11 people, most from out of town. Two of those arrested have connections to anarchist groups, and anarchist Web sites have rallied to find bail money for “The Asheville 11,” a predictable dubbing if ever there was one. Interestingly, the comment threads filled up with locals — including anarchists — condemning the vandalism, which hit mostly independent, locally-owned businesses (as well as an RBC Centura ATM and the Asheville Citizen-Times).

Then there’s A few questions for the Anarchists in Asheville by Citizen-Times writer John Boyle, which begins “I’m trying to think of a stupider, more illogical movement than anarchy, but I’ve come up dry.”

The title of Boyle’s piece is particularly ironic, as the majority of the accused rioters aren’t from Asheville. He proceeds to up the vitriol to 11:

“To protest capitalism and government, every year on May 1 a bunch of these self-important fools get together. Sometimes they throw a party or stage legitimate protests, but this time they opted to randomly destroy stuff, the end result being a bunch of business owners and the city now having to waste money to fix it back up.”

There were indeed a number of May 1 gatherings in Asheville — it’s a traditional day for leftist political protest — some involving issues such as immigration reform. One, in Aston Park, was a party with an anti-capitalist bent (“Cause capitalism dies a little bit every time we have fun without it,” according to its Facebook page). While police are looking into the event, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, there’s absolutely no indication that a singular “they” went from there to rioting. By all indications, the vast majority of the people in Aston Park threw a party of the non-glass-shattering variety.

Now, anarchism isn’t remotely my creed, and it probably isn’t yours either, but there’s a massive difference between someone whose beliefs drive them to such nefarious actions as running a community garden or free book exchange and the beliefs of the thug busting up a local business. Such distinctions are, apparently, lost to Boyle. Here there’s just “they.”

Funny, when sports fans rampage, I never see media mavens calling for a crackdown on athletics, or issuing angry condemnations about how dangerous hockey or basketball devotees are. The rioters are just idiots, and viewed as a violent exception among the larger number of people who enjoyed the game peacefully. Nor do people confuse snake handlers, for example, as representing all Christians. An anarchist breaks a window, and suddenly they’re all vandals in our midst. Right.

Boyle also forgets something journalists must maintain, no matter how much we are angered by a crime: the presumption of innocence. The police have arrested 11 people and charged them for the destruction of that night. At the coming trial, the state will have to present its evidence and prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the 11 were not simply anarchists or in the wrong place at the wrong time, but rioters. That’s how it should work.

Intermission, with oysters

Yum

First off, a special thank you to Adriel Hampton and Tim O'Reilly for the kind words via Twitter about my Durable Infection post. That's set off some interesting insights and brought in some new readers. I should offer a welcome to anyone reading over this blog for the first time. For those of you who left comments or sent me your thoughts on the piece, I'd also like to thank you: I'll respond in the next few days and try to give them the attention they deserve.

Because amidst the President arriving in Asheville, I was traveling the opposite direction, to a long-planned mini-vacation in my homeland, the North Carolina coast, where I plan to devour plenty of tasty seafood (including my personal favorite, raw oysters) and relax. Much as a part of me misses the energetic chaos, you have to occasionally set journalism aside, just for a bit, to stay sane in this job.

Posting resumes on Monday. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Never Stop Gripin'

Mountain Xpress, where I labor in the news trenches, is fortunate to have some fantastic cartoonists working for it. I've praised Jonny Cantrell's work in this space before. Brent Brown is also an excellent satirist, and today he's crafted this gem, which gets to the heart of the sorry, sorry state of broadcast media:

Will Shuler suffer for his health care vote?

The smilin' ex-quarterback himself

Rep. Heath Shuler has gotten plenty of fire from Democrats fed up with his vote against health care reform on Sunday night, in my latest Mountain Xpress blog, I analyze the chances of a progressive backlash downing him:

Xpress’ reporting on the topic, including the explanation Shuler issued Monday, has set off a torrent of comments, many calling Shuler a DINO (Democrat in Name Only) or other epithets and many asserting that he just lost their vote. Shuler, who received more contributions from health insurance companies than any other member of Democratic delegation, is being painted by many as a corporate shill.

Given Asheville’s left-learning political culture, that’s understandable: Outside the Tea Party and other conservative activists, many of the Ashevillean criticisms one heard in the months leading up to Sunday’s vote was that the bill didn’t go nearly far enough.

Now the question, however, is if anger at Shuler will hurt his chances for re-election, especially in the upcoming Democratic primary. Probably not.

If the 11th Congressional District was limited to Asheville or even Buncombe, I wouldn’t give Shuler very good odds of going back to Washington next year. It doesn’t, however — but rather, it stretches all the way to the Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina state lines. In the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama swept Buncombe, getting 56 percent of the vote. Not so in the overall district, which John McCain won, 52-47. The Cook Partisan Voting Index, which rates how much a district tends toward one party or another, puts the 11th at Republican +6.

Of course, stats don’t predict everything. Before Republican Rep. Charles Taylor’s long reign (which Shuler ended), the 11th was alternatively held by the very conservative Bill Hendon and the very liberal James Clarke. Determined candidates with well-organized operations and a rapport with the voters can buck trends.

Aixa Wilson, who’s challenging Shuler in the Democratic primary, has become a frequent topic of conversation as the progressive backlash increased and, likely now, as Shuler’s “nay” vote helps Wilson. But there’s no evidence yet of Wilson running the sort of aggressive campaign necessary to unseat an incumbent like Shuler. His Web site is vague about his platform, mostly consisting of promises to read legislation and stay away from moneyed interests (I’m waiting for the day when a politician publicly promises to pass legislation sight unseen and love lobbyists with all their heart). There’s no announcement, for example, of a sharply defined position on health care that might rally disaffected Dems to Wilson’s banner. Instead there’s an announcement, dated March 12, that he’ll listen to his constituents. It has three comments.

Also, despite Asheville’s seeming love of all things political — and status as the largest population center in the District — there’s no tightly-organized progressive turnout operation that might throw its support to Wilson in an effort to punish Shuler.

What grassroots?

My Mountain Xpress analysis (one of the first on our brand new staff blogs) on exactly how deep Asheville's vaunted grassroots really run is up. Take a look:

In November 2009, 12,648 voters decided who would lead the city of Asheville.

To put those numbers in perspective, that’s 19.6 percent of the city’s registered voters or roughly one in five. To put it in starker terms: this number is the lowest turnout ever in a municipal election, beating 2007’s city council elections for that dubious honor. Despite economic difficulties, a mayoral race (albeit a rather one-sided one) and two of the victors putting their emphasis on large volunteer operations, four out of five Asheville voters chose to stay at home.

Looking closer at the numbers, the picture doesn’t improve. Montford, often touted as an activist hotbed, only narrowly exceeded the average, with a 20 percent turnout. Its citizenry came out comparatively well, the city’s other four most populous precincts saw turnout at or under the city average.

Minority voters turned out by lower percentages, with only 15.6 percent of black voters showing up to the polls, and just 10 percent of Hispanic voters.

It’s true that many voters don’t show up for municipal elections, even during hotly contested years. Still, added to 2007’s decline (22 percent of the city’s voters turned out for that race), this represented a fairly rapid drop in public participation in elections.

However, you wouldn’t have known it by the rhetoric.

“We rocked this city tonight!” newly elected council member Cecil Bothwell proclaimed at his victory celebration.

“I think the voters are a true reflection of Asheville,” Esther Manheimer said, adding. “I think the people have given City Council a mandate.”

This was something of a change in attitude for Manheimer. After her primary victory a scant few weeks earlier, she called the low turnout a challenge, and declared “it’s our job to reach people, to get them to the polls by any means necessary.”

Twitter was all a-twitter, both during the primary and general elections, with proclamations of Asheville’s grassroots coming of age and similar such hyperbole.

This isn’t to speak for or against the policies of anyone elected that night, but the victory talk needs to be tempered, four months on, by some cold facts that tell a far different story: it is absolutely absurd to pretend that a large drop in voter turnout represents a triumph of popular activism.

Of toxic water and imminent threats

Activists pepper health study author Sandy Mort with questions at last Thursday's meeting. Photo by Jonathan Welch for Mountain Xpress

My article on the clash between activists and bureaucrats over the "imminent threat" of contamination at the former CTS of Asheville plant is in this week's Mountain Xpress:

It was a tense moment in the T.C. Roberson High School theater on the evening of Jan. 21. Sandy Mort of the state Department of Health and Human Services, the author of a recent study on the health effects of contamination near the former CTS of Asheville site (see sidebar), had just told the audience that a bus stop near the site posed no hazard. For the better part of three hours, the HHS staffer had heard a litany of neighboring residents' tales of personal pain, criticisms of the study and calls to clean up the source of the trichloroethylene contamination.

"Do you have a heart? Do you hear what these people are saying?" one woman shouted.

Holding the microphone close to her mouth, Mort gave a slight sigh and said, "We work with the information we have; that's reality."

---

Residents repeatedly questioned the study's finding that although there were 64 cases in the study area of types of cancer that could be related to TCE exposure, there was no elevated cancer rate. Mort acknowledged that the study's methods do have limitations but added that her agency would continue to update its studies.

Residents, however, countered with tales of cancer and maladies that they believe are linked to the tainted ground water they unknowingly consumed for many years. Although the first EPA tests were conducted in 1991, the first wells weren't capped until 1999.

"We've had a lot of medical problems in our family," said Becky Robinson, whose home was among the first to be put on city water. "We have had no medical recommendations, no guidance, nothing. We had to get our own medical testing. My two grandchildren's immune systems came back compromised. Nothing has been done; nobody has contacted us. My daughter's had lots of medical problems. Her liver started failing, she had a total hysterectomy at 23, seizures, multiple knee operations for cysts. We drank the water for nine years; we fixed our children's bottles with this water. All of them have health problems."

Mort said she thought public-health professionals had been in touch, but Dot Rice, whose well was also capped in 1999, said she hadn't heard from any public doctors until last week.

"We've got staff that can talk to your physicians," said Dr. Doug Campbell, who heads the state agency's Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch.

"Great — what about my medical bills?" asked Robinson.

"Well, we cannot offer that," responded Campbell.

Poems for Friday: Screaming softly into 2010 edition

Take it away, Ms. Palmer

God, was I ever in trouble. After a deliciously tiring New Year's celebration, I settled down to pick a poem for today. I wanted something appropriate for the day. As it turns out, a great many poets, including some very good ones, have turned their talents to writing tributes to the changing of the year. There's a whole slew of them from the late 19th century in particular.

Unfortunately, those poems are actually pretty awful, or they just didn't strike the right chord. So, in desperation, I put the call out on Twitter for help. I got answers. Thank you Madeline Ashby for recommending the above pitch-perfect Amanda Palmer song. On a side note, this past year marked the first time I had ever seen her perform live, playing "Creep" on a ukulele in the middle of Malaprop's, of all places.

Thanks also to Rita King and xutraa for pointing me to the right poem. Since last year (that's 2009, natch) Kate Sherrod has written a sonnet a day. This is a task that puts my bitching over not being able to find a poem per week into sharp perspective. Today's is particularly appropriate. Enjoy, everyone. It's another year and we're still alive.

Now, really it is just another day.

The sun came up, we woke, we ate, we washed,

We greeted those we saw - that is to say

'Tis arbitrary, New Year's Day, b'gosh.

It has to happen sometime, lest our brains

Be overwhelmed with keeping track of time,

That piles up endlessly, that ever gains

Until we all are lost amidst the climb

Towards a summit none of us will see.

So, yearly we declare "let's start again,

Let's clean the slate, let's say today will be

An origin, and not just more, again,

Of what we've had a-going for so long."

But not forget the old stuff, per the song.

Racial profiling in Asheville?

Russell Johnson, photo by Jonathan Welch

My article on possible racial profiling in Asheville was the cover story in last week's issue of the Mountain Xpress. It's an attempt to tackle a thorny topic, taking a look at the statistics and the cases of two people with clean criminal records facing run-ins with law enforcement that they believe were partially racially motivated.

There's the numbers:

Between Nov. 1, 2008, and Oct. 31 of this year, the APD reported making 6,264 traffic stops. Of those stopped, 873 (13.9 percent) were African-Americans. According to census data, roughly 17 percent of Asheville residents are African-American. Hispanics, meanwhile, accounted for 215 of those APD stops (3.4 percent); 5 percent of Asheville's population is Hispanic. So, by that measure, the statistics give no hint of racial profiling.

Once stopped, however, African-American men are statistically far more likely to be searched. During that same time period, the APD reported conducting 509 car searches. Of those, 180 — more than a third — involved black males.

Then the case of Navy veteran Russell Johnson:

"We wanted to get away from the Bele Chere weekend crowds," he remembers. "The park rangers were breaking down a DUI checkpoint, and I was taking pictures on the Mills River Bridge. The moon was a sliver: It was red and so beautiful, and I just had to get a picture."

Johnson's car was parked on the other side of the bridge, and he walked over to talk to the rangers before heading back to his vehicle.

"When I walked up to one of the cars — there were four at the entrance — I waved and said, 'I really appreciate what y'all are doing, keeping us safe on the Parkway.' I asked how long it would take to get to Pisgah from here," says Johnson, who wanted to get more photographs before the light faded. "He told me — and this is a park ranger — he didn't know what I was talking about."

On video, Johnson can be clearly seen walking up to the car and waving, though his words aren't audible. Three rangers emerge from surrounding vehicles and direct Johnson to put his hands behind his back.

"I obliged, and they started searching me, going through my little fanny pack, which just had my flashlight, my compass — things you use in the woods," says Johnson. "One of the rangers grabbed my hands and shoved them up between my shoulder blades."

The impact was so hard that Johnson will now require surgery for a damaged disc, hospital documents confirm. "I get dizzy: I'm a disabled veteran with some nerve troubles; this didn't help things," he says.

And finally, local musician Jonathan Scales:

"I came out of The Rocket Club, I saw a friend of mine, happened to be my Realtor (I was buying a house at the time). I went to say 'hey' to him, but he was on the phone and I didn't want to disturb him, so I shook his hand," remembers Scales. "I walked a couple of blocks down and this police officer stops me and asked if I knew the man at the gas station. He told me, 'I saw that handshake; it looked kind of suspicious.'"

Scales told Officer Kelly Radford that the person was his real-estate agent.

"Basically, at that point he accused me, said, 'Well, it looked like a drug deal,'" Scales relates. "I was shocked. I've never done drugs a day in my life. He took my ID; he asked if I minded if he searched me. I told him I did mind, that I hadn't done anything wrong; he would just be wasting his time."

According to Scales, Radford then told him that if he was innocent, he wouldn't object to being searched.

"I didn't know a handshake counted as probable cause, that it was suspect," Scales says with a chuckle. "It was apparent I wasn't getting out of it. I refused it for about five minutes, then I let him search me. I was against the cop car, his hands on top of my hands, I got the whole pat-down treatment."

---

Williams, the APD spokesperson, backed up that assessment, confirming that Radford did, in fact, find Scales' handshake suspicious.

"Jonathan Scales was searched by an APD officer, pursuant to consent, based on actions that appeared to the officer to be a hand-to-hand transaction of some type (and not a mere handshake greeting) on Haywood Road," she wrote Xpress in response to questions about the incident. "No contraband was discovered, and the officer apologized to Mr. Scales for delaying him."

Comments and thoughts welcome.

Poems for Friday: The Blizzard

Asheville, seen from the courthouse as the snow comes down. Photo by Kay Privett

The entire town's almost buried. We've had over five inches of snow so far and it keeps on coming down. It's the first truly harsh winter weather I've seen since moving here.

Unusual weather is an awesome thing, both beautiful and a stark reminder of how much we remain at the whim of things larger than ourselves.

Phillis Levin has an excellent poem about blizzards, and what they bring. Read now.

Now that the worst is over, they predict

Something messy and difficult, though not

Life-threatening. Clearly we needed

To stock up on water and candles, making

Tureens of soup and things that keep

When electricity fails and phone lines fall.

Igloos rise on air conditioners, gargoyles

Fly and icicles shatter. Frozen runways,

Lines in markets, and paralyzed avenues

Verify every fear. But there is warmth

In this sudden desire to sleep,

To surrender to our common condition

With joy, watching hours of news

Devoted to weather. People finally stop

To talk to each other - the neighbors

We didn't know were always here.

Today they are ready for business,

Armed with a new vocabulary,

Casting their saga in phrases as severe

As last night's snow: damage assessment,

Evacuation, emergency management.

The shift of the wind matters again,

And we are so simple, so happy to hear

The scrape of a shovel next door.