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| Naked Bike Run in Asheville, 2005 |
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| Naked Bike Run in Asheville, 2004 |
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| Naked Bike Run in Toronto, Canada, 2004 |
These are not pornographic photos. They are photos compliments of Naked Bike Run Web site.
The Naked Bike Run Web site says one of its purposes in 2004 was to protest America's continued involvement in Iraq and to protest for peace, civil rights, and personal sovereignty. Since one year has now passed, we hope when the six came through in 2005 they stuck a purple finger in the air to thank this country's service people for the peace, civil rights, and personal sovereignty they brought to eight million Iraqis. For more information on life in the Middle East, see the trailer for a story on the plight of a teenage girl while living under the rule of the Taliban. No Naked Riders there, eh? Click on the title, Osama, to see the movie trailer. Or if a member, go to Netflix to rent the movie on DVD, which includes a story on the making-of the first film in a free Afghanistan, and what went on under the Taliban rule from an Afghan's perspective. The movie has English subtitles. |
The Asheville Citizens-Times (AC-T), a newspaper that sometimes reads more like the jaded New Jersey Newark Star Ledger than a newspaper whose boilerplate reads the "Voice of the Mountains," has been accused of pushing a liberal-left agenda on the innocent people of Western North Carolina. These people simply want to be left alone to their basic lifestyles that were taught to them by their parents and grandparents.
There is no large competition for the AC-T, so it is what it is, the only major news print outlet serving an entire area where local news is funneled through the eyes of a small nest of what many see as liberal editors.
This could be one of the reasons why a story of importance, one that speaks of a continued epidemic of STDs among the backbone of America's future, its youth, somehow found itself buried back near the comics by the editors of the AC-T
Someone at the paper had to point with a finger saying, "That story goes way back there." How else could that happen, since we know stories just don't float by themselves to any spot on a page?
Many of those living in western Carolina have been here all their lives, trying to get along with the outsiders who have moved into their area for reasons of retirement or to build a second-home, as many residence from Florida have already done. It's a very polite and respectful area where three religious organizations have built centers, including one by Billy Graham that you might have heard of called The Cove.
The STD information provided below, documenting the growing and serious crises of the spread of STDs among our youth and its infecting one in every two teenagers at a cost to America's medical community already in the billions of dollars, was originally released as a warning in the summer of 2004 by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of Atlanta.
Some editors of Asheville Citizen Times literally not only buried the CDC's story near the back of its paper in 2004, but also condensed it into a tiny article printed on a lower left-hand page. Any advertiser will tell you this size and position for an ad in a newspaper is the kiss of death when wanting to get a message out, as it would be for news like this to find its way to any western North Carolina parent who had a teen living in their home.
Only the graphic of a gravestone was missing from the article relating to its importance to the news editors of the AC-T But by positioning the article in this way, the AC-T could hide the message while still being able to say it had printed the information. How could it be the AC-T's fault if readers didn't take time to look for the article?
How arrogant! In essence, their hands then clean.
This was the exact response we expected from the publisher when this issue came to light in 2005. It was communicated to him from our complaint in March 2005 to the owners of the Asheville Citizen Times, Gannett Publishing, which also owns USA Today, several British newspaper outlets, and many other newspapers in the United States, qualifying Gannett as a media empire.
It was only a few months later, after the AC-T had buried the STD story, that it was ready to live up to a name some residence had given it, calling it "strange." The AC-T suddenly decided it needed to dedicate an entire front page, not to the news of an STD epidemic in America, but instead to a trite rumor that had been flooding the tiny downtown area.
The huge headline that day screamed out to the readers of western North Carolina that Steven Spielberg (might be, could be, should be,) coming to the Haight Ashbury part of downtown Asheville to (buy, rent, lease, sit in, walk in), a condo, while Mr. Spielberg himself was never actually seen, pictured, or interviewed for the full full-front page article . . . the Asheville Citizen Times even admitting the story was just a hopeful rumor.
This strangeness in reporting may be one of the reasons Asheville was recently seen as the "Freakiest City in the Nation" by Rolling Stone Magazine in 2001, which many locals just hate.
Nor should there be any surprise when one discovers the annual North American Naked Bike Run that brings the naked hineys of its riders to have wound their way across North America, but also through Asheville's "rediscovered" downtown.
The bike riders were probably not joyous that they have to cover up their potty and reproductive parts while peddling through the downtown area, one that in the past year had welcomed their arrival. In 2005 they rode through with six riders, one a very sensible and lovely young lady keeping her underwear on (see pix on left.)
Gannett publishers, as mentioned the owner of the giant national newspaper, USA Today, never did acknowledge our concern that was sent to their CEO. We had asked how could a newspaper bury a very important story on STDs away from the readers of western North Carolina, while giving front-page attention to the rumor that a movie producer might be wanting to buy another residence in Asheville's downtown.
This was at a time when Gannett had already been providing awards to the AC-T for some of its reporting, which obviously includes more than the news, and we assume well deserved.
While not commenting Gannett did forward our recent concerns, which had been sent to Gannet's CEO, onto the publisher of the Asheville Citizen Times. He, in turn, replied (with a cc: to Gannett) to us that the Spielberg issue was an important rumor that needing addressing, one that was running around the downtown.
You should know that the downtown older section of Asheville is about an eight-block square area. When compared to the rest of the western part of North Carolina, it is tiny to the 250,000 people who are said to live here. We suspect that surely almost all subscribers had wondered why the AC-T chose a rumor for its front-page news, not exactly an event that would deserve a front page like the attack or 9/11 or the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Having lived in Palm Beach, a story like Spielberg's would at best wind up on their society pages in a small local newspaper called The Shiny Sheets. But it would show up only after a condo had been purchased and Steven had been seen as a guest at a cocktail-party charity event held by one of Palm Beaches' own, possibly that of a Mr. Trump or whomever lived at the address on Palm Beach County Road.
And the Asheville Citizens Times, considering the area of misuse of the press for personal gain, never did mention what landlord benefited from the picture of the condo being enlarged and positioned on its front page when the Spielberg article ran.
You should know, however, we did write a reply to the publisher of the Asheville Citizen Times and Gannett's CEO, that we were shocked the AC-T hadn't taken the initiative to create a forum with the local hospital and doctors to study how to warn teens and their parents about the horrendous STD epidemic.
If you want to see the different STDs and how they affect the body and the ugly symptoms that go with them, which infected teenagers have to look forward to, click now on the files at the bottom of this page to be taken to a Web site run by NBC's Channel 5 in Chicago.
This public information will knock your socks off and may cause you to ask, "What is going on over at the Asheville Citizen Times, that the paper would not want people in the area to be warned of this, since getting a STD can be a lifetime event or evolve to a life-and-death event."
You will quickly understand why this might be happening if you read the problems we've had in just getting facts printed by the AC-T, which you can read by clicking here. We have confirmed with some professionals in the area that we are not the only ones with these kinds of complaints.
Through this experience, we now believe the AC-T may have an agenda to push the tiny downtown area's ideology onto the people of the western North Carolina, and why it has suppressed these STD stories through a new age or pro-gay agenda, the paper sympathetic to those living in the area. We just cannot come up with any reason other than personal negligence.
When the health of young adults and the children in this area is compromised because STD stories might be considered by the local downtown community as "homophobic," then political correctness is running amuck in western North Carolina.
The children and parents of this area have a right to know why the AC-T has kept this information from them, with the question asked why their lack of good health information is being treated now as acceptable collateral damage through what seems to be a very liberal agenda the AC-T is trying to protect.
For all we know, gays in the area may also want to know this information for themselves, the AC-T going overboard and incorrectly reading a diversity issue that just isn't there.
Suppressing news stories can be a serious threat to any democracy, with its influence being felt right now and right here in western North Carolina through suppression of these CDC and ASHA press releases.
With Asheville having one of the top 100 medical centers in the United States, there is no excuse for a newspaper to hide these important warnings from its readers, who sadly, as with many other communities, have only one major print source to depend on for their unbiased news.
After clicking on the file chart below and going to NBC's Web site in Chicago, also stopping to read the warning from the ASHA, you will have to ask yourself, "What is going on?"
There can be no logical excuse for a newspaper to suppress this kind of information except for a selfish political-correct agenda. Some heads should roll or be talked to, including a serious look at the AC-T's board of directors and asking why is this happening under their watch.
As a VP once told me when I managed a department for a Fortune 100 company, "The fish always stinks from the head."
Hey, you can't make this stuff up.