A2 - February 2018 - Asheville Daily Planet
Following uproar, gym owner Passenger rail apologizes for posting photos of women clients’ posteriors From Staff Reports
FLETCHER — The owner of Blue Ridge CrossFit, Tom Tomlo, apologized for posting pictures focusing on the posteriors of female clients on the gym’s Instagram account on Jan. 12 — a move that triggered hundeds of women expressing their fury via Facebook postings. The video showed a morning workout session at the gym. It featured women in black workout stretch pants, bent over, performing various body-strengthening exercises. Tomlo admitted in a WLOS-TV interview that he had added emojis and phrases next to the women’s posteriors, including the phrase “dayumm” above a woman’s rear-end, “blueridgegirls” over another female member’s posterior, and “humpday” with an emoji over another women bent over, with her rear-end in the air In apologizing, Tomlo said he did not mean to offend anyone or any woman. He told WLOS that the comments and video were meant to be lighthearted and fun. He also said the women in the video knew he was recording them during the workout and knew the video had been posted. WLOS reported that a member who saw the Instagram story posted several screen grabs of the video on Facebook. Upon learning that someone had posted the screen pictures, Tomlo wrote a profanity0laced defense on Facebook, saying the person who did the posting had no right to post the stills he says are taken out of context. Tomlo’s Facebook response is as follows: “I can’t control the way this is being portrayed, and I’m regretful for it,” Tomlo said. “I feel horrible that people would feel that I would look at a woman that way and do something that would be purposefully demeaning of her.”
2nd woman’s march for equality draws 7K
From Staff Reports
The Asheville Police Department estimated 7,000 people participated in the second annual Women’s March on Jan. 20 in downtown Asheville. Organizers claimed about 10,000 people attended, noting that it is difficult to estimate the number of people crowded around corners and down side streets. It was the largest gathering downtown since Mountain Moral Monday in 2013. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands marched in hundreds of cities. Different people marched for different reasons, but a common theme was support for Democrat candidates and policies. The 2017 march had been organized to resist tyrannical tendencies and misogynist rhetoric attributed to the newlyelected president and, by extension, leader of the free world. Issues people were marching for included open borders or at least compassion for keeping families together, health care as provided in the Affordable Care Act, equality for women and the LGBTQIA community, racial justice, protections against domestic violence, state-funded abortion, environmental protection, and voting rights. People in pink hats and T-shirts that read “March ON, 2018 – Asheville, NC” peacefully walked a 1.4-mile course beginning at City Hall and ending at the Vance Memorial, where some drummed and some danced. Slogans like “#MeToo” and “Blue Wave” recurred in discussions. Speakers included North Carolina Senator Terry Van Duyn, who encouraged women and progressives to run for office, encourage like-minded people to run, and get out the vote. Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said, “I stand before you as a product of the blood, sweat and tears of our foremothers and our foregrandmothers that marched before us to make every aspect of my life a possibility. And because of the women who marched before me, I can stand here as your mayor.” She said people were marching because, “This past year is the first year of my lifetime, and in all of your lifetimes, that women did not take a step forward in their march to equality.” Nikki Harris, representing Planned Parenthood, urged people to focus on issues that unite. There was much to celebrate; for example, “the first openly transgender woman of color winning an election to public office, the first Asian American and the first-ever Latina woman elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, seven cities electing their first black mayors, and, of course, in Alabama, where black women delivered, as they always do!” The police department reported no complaints during the rally. Extra officers had been pulled from traffic duty to patrol the crowd, and the event organizers had hired additional, offduty officers to make sure participants would be safe. A small counterprotest, headed by Meredith Hunt of Life Advocates. also was staged. Life Advocates is a prolife organization — and Planned Parenthood had a strong presence at the event. The T-shirts being sold, as they were last year, raised thousands of dollars for that organization. The counterprotest was also peaceful.
Continued from Page A1 Morton said excitement about the venture ramped up when he started talking about passenger excursions. One man in Jonesborough, Tenn., even offered him “the perfect car,” according to a report in the Hendersonville Lightning. Morton said he has held discussions with five excursion rail providers, one of which was the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad, and all are very popular, doing well financially, and willing to coach Morton in this endeavor. While he visits various civic groups to drum up interest, Morton saidhe has not given much thought to what income and expenses will look like. Darl Faris, general manager of the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad, which now runs the track, told the Lightning that Morton would have to be able to convince the home office he can run his operation at a 30 percent profit before he could start using the tracks. Morton said ideally Blue Ridge Southern
would take over the project. The firm owns the tracks, so a lease agreement would not be necessary. Also, it has a dispatcher and locomotives. Another option would be to buy a parlor car and contract with Blue Ridge Southern to link it to their locomotives. The third option would be to purchase the car and a locomotive as well as rights to use the track. Morton said he does not know how much Blue Ridge Southern would charge for any of this. As of his last Lightning interview, Morton envisioned running excursions in the morning and early afternoon. The route would probably run between Biltmore Village in Asheville and the Historic Seventh Avenue District in Hendersonville. The tracks are only used occasionally during the daytime to bring a load of coal to the Duke Energy Progress plant at Lake Julian. Kimberly Clark is the only other party using the tracks, and its trains use the track only at night.