Oy vey! Mr. (Dr. Carl) Mumpower begins his commentary (in the Nov. 9 edition of the Daily Planet) by quoting from Isaiah 66:2, which I guess was intended to set the “abominations” tone for all that followed. 

And he ended his extensive, overt and covert litany of condemning homosexuality by finally inferring that only “Christian conviction” can save our nation’s foundation of faith.  

Everything he wrote in between, start to finish, is typical “love the sinner” Christian feel-good atonement.  

It must be hard being an authority of the word of God and try to skirt the edges of acceptance and compassion without expressing blatant abhorrence for homosexuals.  

Instead, sprinkle in a little condemnation, a little love, a little preaching, and a little “the Bible says it’s so,” and — “voila” — the Christian equivalent of line dancing occurs.  

Disdain and non-acceptance cannot be intellectually disguised under the banner of conservatism, Christianity, faith or what’s “normal” because it’s putrid stench is evident and settles over believers and non-believers alike.  

Damn if his commentary didn’t stink. 

Homosexuals are aware of hatred, fear and prejudice from all quarters —  and we’ve known that some Christians can be as threatening as were the people who tied Matthew Shepard to a fence in a Christ-like pose and left him to die in the cold 25 years ago.  

We know Christian hypocrisy and sanctimonious hyperbole when it is expressed; we’ve heard it all before, and will likely hear it again.     

On bike lane issue, question is: What options were considered?

Read your paper (the Daily Planet) for the first time yesterday (Nov. 6), enjoyed it. I hope you keep publishing.

Glad that the bike lanes was on Page 1, since there’s a lot to dig into there.

If we want to encourage and support bicycle transport (and I think we all do, within reason) we should be asking: “What options were considered”

Did they even consider using Kimberly Avenue to Charlotte Street? 

Those might well be the smartest, safest and lowest impact options, landing riders into downtown with a cost far lower than $1 million.

As a biker who wants the option of riding to work, I have no interest in riding on Merrimon (Avenue) beside a line of cars spewing carbon monoxide. 

I also would never ride at night or in the frigid cold, so eliminating car lanes at those times is true stupidity.

Bureaucrats are not engineers. Where were the traffic engineers in the planning phase?

So, in cost-benefit analysis, bike access tops hurting businesses?

I read your article (in the Daily Planet) on the traffic changes to Merrimon (Avenue) with great interest, as we are business-owners along the stretch of Merrimon that has been impacted.

It’s not difficult to imagine when traffic is backed up in both directions, that many drivers who aren’t just on a normal daily commute, will choose not to travel that route or to frequent a local business in that area going forward rather than deal with that frustration.

As an aside, we see little if any bike traffic along Merrimon, although to be fair, we haven’t monitored it on a daily basis. Having said that, and after reading your article on how we got here, it’s extremely difficult for me to see how the Asheville bike community benefits from this more than the economic impact this may cause businesses on Merrimon, after weathering the pandemic and now the uncertainty of our economy going forward. 

Please let me know what if anything we can do to address this concern, and if any options exist to get this returned to its original state after the refinishing has been completed. Thank you!

Oddly, GOP wins House, taking control from Dems 

This was the oddest election ever. 

I read all the themes about election-deniers, amid the news, yet many folks were denied — if not totally misdirected — to voting stations, such as in Hawaii, or folks who came into voting stations being told they were out of ballots, to the ballot counting machine mishaps, or the other clerical errors later caught that one involved a single vote for a supposed win.

These articles tell me repeatedly the people’s votes are being denied. 

It’s a sad state of affairs when folks are misdirected to head to a voting station that isn’t there, turned away and told of ballot errors or no ballot forms…. 

It’s sad to to see percentages of votes counted slowly and still not called with percentages showing lower tabulations counted in the total received by deadline votes called in other states. 

Then there’s that Republican who needs this amount when we know the deal struck has other independents counted as Democrats yet are not technically Democrats at all.

Then you have (U.S. Sen. Joe) Manchin always in the news, as vulnerable yet what would happen if he crossed the aisle to lean more with Republicans? 

I don’t think it will ever happen, but why call any Democrat right now as vulnerable, when they could switch versus having promised deals they had in place sunk or portrayed as a bad seed for standing up for the people that voted them in top interests in their precincts? 

We didn’t have a red wave, but that’s not to be downplayed on how divided our county is right now and how poorly the vote counting was handled. North Carolina was predominantly red.

As for election-deniers — there’s so many categories in that topic. I do believe the votes were impacted with the low margin win of electing (President) Joe Biden due to the corruption of waylaying his son’s (Hunter’s) investigation... same as Biden being tied to allegations in certain business deals, or the turn of the cheek on Biden when women accused him of inappropriate actions.

I have a problem with political leaders saying nobody is above the law and to still investigate Trump and, in the same breath, refuse that same action against Biden and the Biden family allegations. 

Ooops! She did it again! GOP leaders must discipline Amy Churchill for disloyalty  

Republican Buncombe County School Board member Amy Churchill has been angering parents and constituents for years.  

Now she has exceeded all expectations Jeff Rose (chairman of the Buncombe County Democratic Party) had set for her by endorsing, donating to and campaigning for Democrat candidates, while actively campaigning against the Republican candidates for those seats.

 As you would suppose, the state GOP Plan of Organization refers to that as “party disloyalty,” and it states that:

 “Any Committee Member or Officer of a County, District or State Republican Executive Committee campaigning in person, on social media, or in any other manner for a Candidate, in any race, who is a not a member of the Republican Party and is running in opposition to a member of the Republican Party, shall have been deemed to have automatically resigned from the committee and any position.”

 Like a Soros-funded DA (district attorney), local GOP leadership is hunting for some way to let Mrs. Churchill off the hook for her latest stunt. 

They seem to believe they can convince she/herDem to suddenly change her mind and start standing up for conservative values. 

If they succeed, it would certainly be a feather in their caps!

I don’t see them being able to extract anything but heartfelt justifications from Mrs. Churchill for her complete disregard for conservatives over the years. 

Like her feckless buddies in county government who demand that we call a man in a dress a woman, she must believe that she is a Democrat trapped in a Republican’s body.  

She appears to think that we are misguided for expecting her to act like a member of the party with which she freely registered to join.

I expect and demand Buncombe GOP leadership to keep elected officials in line with the party platform; otherwise, why do they exist?  

This new party leadership has worked harder to engage with the community than the last team.  

That’s the “fun” part of strengthening the party. Now it’s time for tough decisions and actions that will show that its leadership is worth following.  

Life is too short to follow leaders we aren’t convinced deserve our loyalty.  

Why should we put effort into supporting a plan for victory that is afraid of what others will think?  

Where is the genuine commitment to conservative values?

I urge local Republicans to contact their precinct chairs and ask them what is being done to show some strength in the face of this blatant party disloyalty.  

Contact Buncombe GOP headquarters at 828/253-5800 to learn who your precinct chair is and how to reach them.  

Tell them that turning the other cheek is not an effective strategy.  

Demand that they discipline this arrogant and omniscient representative (Churchill) who acts like (Joe) Biden and (Nancy) Pelosi... by doing whatever she feels like doing.

 Inaction does nothing to change the status quo.