We’re Hiring! ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT COORDINATOR/WRITER Mountain Xpress, Asheville’s award-winning alt-weekly newspaper and website, is looking for the right person who • gets Xpress’ community-oriented journalism; • loves Asheville’s locally focused, grassroots exuberance; • has management skills and works well collaboratively and with deadlines. The ideal candidate is a highly organized person who is fascinated with the region’s arts, entertainment, music, craft, food and beer scenes; loves interacting with the community; and can manage a team of staffers, freelancers and public contributors. The job entails assigning, tracking and keeping the stories flowing at a fast pace. The coordinator will also write some A&E stories, so demonstrated compelling magazine/ newspaper reporting is a must. Benefits include group health, optional dental plan and IRA. Email cover letter explaining why you would excel in this position, your resumé, references and examples of published writing to: editor@mountainx.com (put “A&E Coordinator” in the subject line) or mail to Managing Editor, Mountain Xpress, PO Box 144, Asheville, NC 28802.
FOOD WRITER
Xpress is seeking a full-time food writer (and also seeking freelance writers) to: • enthusiastically embrace the local food scene; • curate and write savvy, thoughtful content for our weekly print edition, as well as for our website; • make connections, keeping up with breaking food news and promoting community submissions; and • converse with community members on social media. You must be comfortable talking with the full range of community members, including celebrity chefs, street vendors, grandmothers, children and virtually anyone who cooks. Must be self-motivated and able to write engaging, clear, colorful copy. Benefits include group health, optional dental plan and IRA. Email resumé, cover letter, clips and three story ideas to editor@ mountainx.com (put “Xpress food writer” in the subject line). Submissions without writing samples will not be considered.
HEALTH AND WELLNESS WRITERS Xpress is seeking part-time and freelance health-and-wellness writers to: • Curate and write content for our weekly print edition, as well as for our website; • Make connections, keeping up with breaking health-and-wellness news and promoting community submissions. • Develop stories through social-media conversations with community members and experts; and • Passionately enjoy exploring healing modalities, from alternative to traditional to high-tech. We are looking for people who are comfortable talking with the full range of community members: activists, health practitioners and therapists of all modalities and worldviews, community leaders, philosophers, scientists, degreed professionals, yogis and shamans. Must be self-motivated and able to write engaging, thought-provoking, colorful copy. Email resumé, cover letter, clips and three story ideas to editor@mountainx.com (put “Xpress health writer” in the subject line). Submissions without writing samples will not be considered.
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SEPtEmBER 4 - SEPtEmBER 10, 2013
Community dialogue from mountainx.com
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by Jaye Bartell
Government grilled cheese The Council of Independent Business Owners (CIBO), a consortium of local proprietors established to “provide a conduit for the flow of information between business and government” hosts semi-regular “power lunches” in downtown Asheville. The event is named as much for the hurry-up, multitask idiom as for the guest, often a person of some significance in politics or business. On Aug. 26, Gov. Pat McCrory joined CIBO members and guests at Magnolia’s, an occasion for which there was “little notice,” as David Forbes reported, noting that the “announcement from the governor’s office went out two hours before the event, but more than a dozen protesters still gathered across the street, criticizing the governor’s passage of voting restrictions, rollback of environmental regulations, and legislation that would take away the city’s water system (McCrory let the related bill pass without his signature).” Readers responded to McCrory’s surprise visit on mountainx.com and Facebook, some of which is excerpted here. Join the conversation at avl. mx/ze. via mountainx.com They felt they had to sneak the Governor of the Great State Of North Carolina in the back door to avoid a handful of well-behaved protesters across the street from the front entrance. CIBO/Magnolia’s actually went through the charade of holding all the parking spots in front of the entrance for his entourage, and then pulling the barricades aside minutes before his arrival and looking up the street expectantly ... only to have the SUVs pull around back for [McCrory] to sneak into the building out of sight. Profiles in Courage he ain’t. — bsummers Gov. Pat “Pinocchio” McCrory lacks profiles in honesty as well. — Lamont cranston So, government should run more
mountainx.com
CIBO welcomed quest Gov. Pat mccRoRy at its Aug. 26 “power lunch.”
like a business, eh? OK. I’ll take that as a directive ... — jonathan wainscott Don’t worry, business owners/ people who have means. I got your back. And what’s good for you is good for me, so as far as I can tell, [and] that’s good for everyone because everyone is subjective and we’re everyone that matters. There. I wrote his platform. — mike Colleges don’t create jobs. How do you judge a school based on something they don’t do and your legislators refuse to do? — kristine cole The word sleazy comes to mind when I read about this guy’s tactics. Really? Running a government like a business? Last I checked, nine out of 10 businesses go under (fail) in their first year. Doesn’t exactly sound like a sure thing, eh? It makes me wonder how those Greeks enjoyed the fruits of democracy because as we know, Adam Smith, the “godfather of
capitalism” wasn’t even born yet. How the hell did they manage to run a country, develop fancy math, philosophy, debate each other and write fine stories without a modern business model? Hopefully history will be the judge. Will the NCGOP’s sleazy policies last for thousands of years like the Greek contributions to the world without using a business model as their template? I can’t wait to build a time machine to travel, say, 2,000 years into the future to read a North Carolina history textbook where “welfare queen,” “widespread voter fraud,” “feminazi” and “the sinister gay agenda” are still actually given credence. — boatrocker via facEBook McCrory’s comments sound semi intelligent and reasonable, as all good lies and misinformation does. The trickle-down bias and pandering to the retired, wealthy, six-month tourists who will do nothing except drain resources does not work and never has.