Category Archives: News and Comment

Shall we plow some already well-plowed ground?  Why not!  It’s the 100 billionth episode of there are two types of people in this world…

• … those who mark the books they read, and those who refrain from doing so, because the next reader should be free to judge for herself what is important.
• … those who enjoy Neil Diamond, and those who keep their mouths shut when his name is mentioned in polite company, lest an argument ensue.
• … those who assert that certain dog breeds are inherently dangerous, and those who have bullmastiffs as pets.
• … first-worlders who strive to weigh less, and third-worlders who hope to weigh more.
• … those who tell stories, and those who make observations.
• … those who tell their dinner guests “I pay more taxes than you make in a year,” and those who are horrified to discover the type of people they agreed to have dinner with.
• … those who use the expression my hard-earned money, and most Democrats.
• … those who get the previous statement, and those who think they do.
• … those who watch television, and those who fiddle around on their laptop while the spouse watches television.
• … those who have to worry about malaria, dengue and ebola, and those who live in Northern Europe, Canada and the United States.
• … those who are big Elmo fans, and those who think Grover was a more complex and interesting Sesame Street character, but what do we know?  We’re adults.
• … those who watch The Bachelor, and billions of people with better things to do.
• … those who believe that black lives matter, and those who agree that they do but then pedantically insist that other lives matter too, such as those of dogs, police, whites, the homeless, vets, and — I am not kidding — robots.
• … those who are witty, entertaining and tolerable, and those for whom two-out-of-three will have to suffice, among them Ricky Gervais, Hugh Jackman, and me. (David Spade and Gilbert Gottfried represent a third type of people — those who are zero-out-of-three — but that is beyond the scope of this taxonomy.)
• … those who load forks and knives into the dishwasher tray with the sharp ends down, and passive-aggressive wives who ask their husbands to empty the dishwasher.

Another Little Town crime edition.  Really, sometimes they make it so easy.  These stories recently appeared in Citizen-Times, our remotely-published “local” Gannett newspaper.

Man assaults officer with metal wash board

Now, this is not a laughing matter, but where else would this happen but in the heart of Appalachia USA?    The text of the article did not go into detail on the washboard incident (which took place at the County Jail) but it did say that the perpetrator, one Jason Smith, was charged with “assaulting a government official with a deadly weapon.”  It gets better:

Earlier in the evening, as Smith was being arrested by two Asheville Police Officers, he refused to get on the ground and place his hands behind his back, warrants state.  He attempted to hit officers with a large piece of cardboard and threw it to the ground in the middle of the street.  Officers charged Smith with resisting a public officer and littering, which are both considered misdemeanors, according to court documents.

That littering charge is going to be especially hard to beat here in Asheville.  I hope Smith has a good lawyer.  And I hope that whoever left a washboard out in plain sight at the County Jail, where anyone could pick it up and use it to attack someone, will learn to be more responsible with deadly weapons.

Asheville man charged with several area break-ins

Joshua Frantz, a South Asheville man, was jailed by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office after being accused of breaking into a number of homes on the very street he lives on.  According to the article, Frantz “took more than $5,000 and $4,000 in valuables from his neighbors.”  (Note to Citizen-Times: $5000 and $4000 usually adds up to $9000.)  But there is much, much more to this story.  I am reposting a sizable portion of it here, so that it will not be lost to the winds of internet time:

A deputy interviewed a woman at one residence who said someone was in her house, and when she came out of the bathroom the person ran out through the backdoor, warrants state.  The woman told a deputy that her boyfriend had gotten a better look at the person.  The deputy then spoke to Frantz, who lived with the woman.

Frantz described the man as having the “same build as him but had hair and inch or two long.  He also said that he was wearing orange shorts and carrying a backpack that had red or orange on it,” warrants state.

Deputies searched the couple’s home and surrounding outside areas.  They saw a pair of black gloves sitting on the countertop in the living room, a crowbar lying on the patio table in the backyard and a backpack that appeared to have red or orange on it.

In the bathroom Frantz had been in, a deputy saw what appeared to be a towel filled with hair as if someone had just gotten a haircut, warrants state.  Hair was on the sink and all around the bathroom.   A pair of orange shorts also had been thrown on the floor in the basement, according to warrants.

When deputies went back outside the house, they noticed Frantz was wearing a cap and his scalp was white appearing to have just been shaved, warrants state. He also had some “random longer hairs on his neck and around his head that I believed would be consistent with a quick cut,” according to warrants.

After piecing details together and obtaining evidence, authorities named Frantz as the person who had broken into neighboring residences stealing various items.

I don’t know if reporter Abigail Margulis intended her story to be quite so entertaining, but I would find it hard to write this account with a straight face.  It would have been fun to be in the newsroom (in whatever city that may be) when her editor reviewed it.

As for Mr. Frantz’s neighbors, the lesson to be learned is this: if you can’t trust the guy who lives next door, you better hope that he is either very stupid or a bad liar, or both.