Asheville Food Not Bombs blamed for latest homeless ordnance
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PRITCHARD PARK, SATURDAY - Running low on food due to a drop in contributions, the local nonprofit group "Asheville Food Not Bombs" has been forced in recent weekends to distribute bombs to homeless people in Pritchard Park.
"As our charter states, we overwhelmingly prefer to distribute food to the homeless," said a spokesperson for the group. "However, our stock of donated food is reaching dangerously low levels and we have been forced to distribute some bombs to make up for the shortage."
Though their work is greatly respected by most in the community, some downtown merchants are complaining that the weekly assembly of bomb-wielding homeless people is adversely affecting business.
"I have to dedicate one of my hostesses to laying down heavy suppressing fire while my other hostess ferries unarmed civilians below the fire-line into my restaurant," said one downtown business owner.
Others contend that the nonprofit is just facilitating the underlying causes of homelessness.
"When you just give away free bombs to the disenfranchised, they have nothing else to work toward," said one shopper downtown while hiding behind a lamp pole. "You take away their motivation."
A press release from another Pritchard Park organization, "Booze Not Food or Bombs," says that it too is facing severe shortages that might force the group to distribute mouthwash or vanilla extract, "unless some of you start coming off that spare change already."
Writers' Workshop closed after author severs arm on table saw
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ASHEVILLE, MONDAY - It can happen to even the most well meaning writers - one minute, you're tinkering around in the writers workshop and then suddenly, you've burned your own face beyond recognition.
Writers workshops are the backdrop of over 3,000 serious injuries each year, statistically placing them between Alaskan fish canneries and crystal meth kitchens for the number of injuries per capita.
"We had a poet, too proud to ask for help, who went reaching for a metaphor last year and hit his own damn foot with the nail gun," said Writers Workshop of Asheville director Stephen Faraca. "For the first few months they come in here, we tether new writers to each other in case one of them slips and falls out of the rafters."
Unfortunately, struggling short story writer David McAllister hadn't totally familiarized himself with the hazards of Asheville's Writers Workshop, creating a dangerous environment for himself and everyone nearby.
"He went to use the industrial log-splitter and leaned a stretch of awkward sentence structure against a live fuse box, damn near killing everybody," Faraca said. "Thank God he only sawed his arm off."
