We went with Holly and Frank on the 10 for our WLOSer news tonight. Here’s what they had:
Protesters arrested
Eight anti-abortion activists were arrested Tuesday afternoon on the campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College after college officials say they were disruptive.
The abortion protesters had big billboards showing bloody fetuses and were talking with college students. The college initially allowed the demonstrators, despite the fact that they didn’t have a required permit, but then called in the police after the situation “escalated,” according to college officials.
The protesters said their free speech rights were being violated. They said they’ve been cited before, but have one every case because they’re on public property.
Interesting that everybody had a video camera trained on everybody else.
New information on Wal-Mart explosion coming
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will hold a 10 p.m. press conference Wednesday in Sylva to release new information about last week’s explosion of a propane tank in the store’s camping section. The explosion injured five people.
Carolyn Ryan, dramatically waving a printout of the press release, said the cops will release photos of witnesses or people of interest that they want to talk to. Ryan also talked to one guy who said a store employee told him that it looked like somebody hit the tank with a hammer.
Elaine Lite targeted in new ads
WLOSers say the political season has seen its first negative ad, a television commercial targeting Asheville City Council candidate Elaine Lite.
The ad shows video to Lite “dancing” with pagans around the big magnolia tree down on City-County Plaza a few weeks back. The pagans were holding a ritual to give the tree strength after the county sold the tree and a small tract of land it sits on to a developer who plans to move the tree and build condos there.
The Carolina Stompers paid for the ad and played the freak card, basically asking is this the type of person you want on City Council? Chad Nesbitt was quoted in the story, which also quoted a pagan lady saying the ad is crap. WLOSers went to lengths to get reaction from Lite (we missed her repsonse at 6) and to explain why they allowed the commercial to air.
In other news…
Police in Johnson City, Tenn., arrested 40 men in a sex sting operation. The men either exposed themselves in public parks or talked about sex with undercover officers… The state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the town of Woodfin can enforce its law banning sex offenders from public parks… And WLOSers had a follow-up to a story back in July about three teens who allegedy ran away from Eckerd alternative camp in Henderson County. Turns out one of the teen’s moms was hiding the three teens in her home for several days and lied to officers about it.
In more other news…
A new state law requires that juvenile prison officials release the photos and first names of juveniles that escape from their centers. They also have to tell the public if the escapees could be a threat… Fugitive Anthony Ray Artrip is still on the loose. Now he’s wanted for robbing a bank down in Georgia…. And an NTSB report says that a small plane that crashed in Henderson County last month near Blue Ridge Community College lost engine power and went down.
No more Vance-Aycock protest
The Carolina Stompers group of Republicans says it’s scrapping a planned protest of this week’s annual fund-raising meeting of Democrats called the Vance-Aycock gathering. The event is named for two former North Carolina governors, including Charles Aycock, a known white supremist back in the day. The Dems say they’re going to meet to talk about changing the name… Also, the National Park Service released its final environmental impact study on the effects of building the North Shore Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and says don’t build the road, give Swain County cash instead.
11 Comments
This is the Couldn’t Care Less Police. We are writing a caution ticket for use of the phrase, "could care less…". Please don’t let it happen again. Be careful out there…
Screwy —
I (some other anonymous person other than bobaloo, if that even is his real name) made the original post on the Xpress blog (eh?). But, regardless of how many people may have noticed her fumbling of the interview, after listening to the interview, it is very difficult to say that this sounds like a person who is prepared, at the very least, for this interview, and, one may even argue, the position of City Council member itself. She’s green, but what else? Matt Mittan has been giving all of the candidates this week an advance look at the questions he will be asking them on-air, and his questions are all underhanded lobs that Elaine can’t seem to hit. Decide for yourselves:
Matt Mittan/Elaine Lite interview link:
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/ASHEVILLE-NC/WWNC-AM/1002%20hr2%202.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=ASHEVILLE-NC&NG_FORMAT=newstalk&SITE_ID=1283&STATION_ID=WWNC-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Matt_Mittan&PCAST_CAT=Talk_Radio&PCAST_TITLE=Take_A_Stand
Bobaloo’s going around saying this at more than one blog, eh?
I heard Elaine’s appearance on Take A Stand and found her thoughtful, respectful, and thorough.
I loved that the guys who were arrested were twenty something hipster idiots who are one broken condom away from switching sides on the issue.
They barely know anything about life in general, and yet their preaching choices about life altering decisions to others. wow. what a great idea…
I’m an AB Tech student who saw some of the event. I observed an APD officer talking to the person who seemed to be speaking for the protesters and a faculty member (one of the big shots, but I forget his name.) The officer made an introduction and basically said "He can ask you to leave, and if you don’t we can arrest you because you don’t have a permit." It seemed to me that the protesters wanted to be arrested to cause as much of a scene as possible. The images they displayed were pretty offensive to the senses, no matter what your beliefs or politics. All in all, I thought it was handled with a pretty even hand. But I admit that I didn’t observe everything. I saw people being loaded into the paddy-wagon (is that offensive?) but I didn’t see anyone actually get cuffed.
I imagine that the school makes demonstrators get permits so that events that would be more likely to cause issue, administration can then decide whether to allow the event to continue or, pun intended, abort the efforts of the demonstrators. Not a terrible compromise if I’m right; it gives people a chance to NOT cause a scene. But if they were willing to get arrested, they were willing to cause a scene. I’m there to learn; you can preach to me in YOUR forum.
"And WLOSers had a follow-up to a story back in July about three teens who allegedy ran away from Eckerd alternative camp in Henderson County. Turns out one of the teen’s moms was hiding the three teens in her home for several days and lied to officers about it."
According to the police report shown at 11, she was "hidding" 3 teens.
I have DirecTV and I couldn’t get MY40 last night. Anyone else have that problem?
Don’t you just love it, Keri? These same people are usually the ones who want women to have their babies, even in the very worst of circumstances, and then they complain about their tax dollars going to help these same families on public assistance. And I seriously doubt they’re offering to babysit while mom goes out to work. It looks like their form of "help" only applies to the unborn.
Really, I could care less about Lite dancing around some tree.
It was her overall performance on Take A Stand that was the issue. The woman basically knew hardly anything about relevant issues. "I need to look into this issue" was her reply to what seemed 75% of all the questions and had the personality of a brick. Honestly, she sounded stupid.
Sadly, she’ll probably be elected because of her hippie tendencies as opposed to rejected for her lack of depth on anything relevant. Yeah, we really need another Robin Cape.
Is it that time of year for the big abortion protests to be happening again? It’s always a treat to pick up the kids from daycare and have to drive through 20 or so of these huge signs on main street where our local catholic school allows them to gather along the sidewalk in the afternoon so the kids on the school buses can get a good look as they are heading home.Even better – the walkers who walk that direction and have to stand at the crosswalk waiting for the lights to change.
Oh joy. I love that time of year.
What Would Jesus Stomp?
http://www.scrutinyhooligans.us/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/chadjesus-1.jpg
I wrote about this a while back, before the WLOS version hit the air (with the word "candidate" misspelled, of course). It’s here:
http://www.scrutinyhooligans.us/?p=4033#comment-12432
Check the comment thread and you’ll find one Richard Bernier, self-styled a.k.a. "Dr. Dick", a Carolina Stomper, behaving in the way these people do. Bullying. Castigating.
Elaine gave a really good response to the Stompers on Mittan’s show today, essentially saying that while she doesn’t have any religious ties to the group that sponsored the event, she felt that the dirty deal to sell the parkland needed some protest.