I feel like Gladys Kravits, Dr. Bellows, or Lt. Brennan reading the staff reports for the next Asheville City Council meeting at UNCA today. It started when I opened the report requesting council permission to sell booze for special events. One of the festivals was Asheville Earth Day & Health Kids Day. The connection between beer and kids’ health is, of course, unquestionable. Another event was the Big Love Fest. That sounded interesting, to say the least. Love has so many meanings. Now it also means supporting shoot-yourself-in-the-foot economic activities. The event is put on by Just Economics – that same group that partnered with ACORN to push for a living wage in Asheville. Despite a local paper’s inability to find space to print any of my comments on the subject, the activities of this group reek of seductive poison. Information about the event is lifted from its web site:

Just Economics has teamed up with the Asheville Grown Business Alliance and The Big Crafty to bring their homebrew competition, held last year at the Wedge Brewery, to the Big Love Fest. Awards will range from “people’s choice” to “brewgasm” awarded by Anne Fitten Glenn. Celebrity judges will include Cecil Bothwell and Gordon Smith of Asheville City Council and prizes will include a chance for the winning beer to be brewed commercially by Highland Brewery.

For brewers and tasters alike, JUST BREW IT is a chance to celebrate Asheville’s home-grown culture, living-wage certified businesses, and local community. Drink beer for economic justice at the JUST BREW IT festival!

Another event is the Clips of Faith Beer & Film Tour. Their web site gives no inkling of a purpose or cause. It looks like people are just out to have a rockin’ good time. Consider this old lady’s bewilderment with Asheville culture, in spite of extensive training against ethnocentrism, merely as freedom of speech about the way our youth pursues happiness. Ain’t America grand?

After all, walking into the library, one passes a stack of the latest edition of the campus newspaper. The cover is devoted to the Queer Conference. Promoters want “queer” to be an active verb. Among other things, participants in the conference complained about discrimination in pursuing healthcare. I find that hard to believe. With all the people who can’t afford to pay, the illegals taxing the system, addicts riding the revolving door, etc., I have never known the Hippocratic Oath to deny anybody treatment. Now, I could understand if, say, somebody wanted an examination of body parts that he/she had mentally but not physically. Regardless, a portion of the event pertained to the “the damaging effects of the negative attitudes queer men and women face” living in the Bible Belt. Oddly enough, the word on the street is that Asheville became a mecca for the LGBT community because all the Christians opened their hearts to treat AIDS patients. The event appeared to be one of those attempts to mainstream subjects with high shock value. I’m one of those old-time folks that doesn’t want to know what others do in their bedroom.

Anyway, beyond the newspaper stand was a sign advertising university performances of “Reefer Madness: The Musical.” This piece of work makes fun of a 1936 film intended to shove morals on kids by warning them about the dangers of smoking pot.

Needless to say, as I approached the lobby to verify my facts before typing this up, I ran head-on into a swarm of women dressed like, or more promiscuously than, belly dancers.