Leslie Boyd's Page

WNC for Change had a health care rally in Asheville this morning and 300 people came out. That's almost twice as many as came out last fall. People are getting worried that this won't get fixed after all, and they want to tell Congress that's not acceptable.
I was the keynote speaker, telling Mike's story and noting that he was one of about 30,000 who died last year.
Rep. Heath Shuler met with about 50 of us this afternoon and assured us he wants to fix it too, but the law says it has to be defe… Continue

I was walking back from an assignment this afternoon and chatting with an older man when it started to rain. I said something about being drip-dry and he laughed and said he's lived life drip-dry all spring.
Turns out he's homeless and his camp was ransacked recently. He doesn't know who did it, but whoever did won't be punished, even if he or she is discovered, so he shrugged it off.
I wished him luck as I crossed the street and he called after me.
"Nobody's wished me luck and meant it before,"… Continue

I've been marveling at the courage of the people in Iran, protesting in the streets a million at a time.

Unfortunately, the presence of a million people in the streets hasn't changed the Supreme Leader's mind about the recent election.

Things could turn very ugly there. All of the protesters are risking arrest or worse.

The cool thing is how nonviolent the protests have been so far. People are resolute but not threatening.

This was the very basis of protests during

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We had some pretty serious thunder storms this afternoon. The trees downtown were bent over, and limbs were down all over West Asheville.

I'm not scared of many things, but I will not go out in a thunderstorm.

The worst thing was that it canceled the baseball game, so my friend Liz and I didn't get to take in a game.

And I didn't get to work on the patio. If it doesn't stop raining every evening I'm never going to get it done.

Tomorrow is my friend, Nanci's birthday, so I made cupcakes. Chocolate with buttercream frosting. I licked the bowl, which is something I didn't get to do when the kids were little. Last time I made cupcakes, Trey was here, so he and I licked the bowl together.

I've always loved to bake -- I made my first cake when I was 9. My father joked he was going to use it as an anchor on his little fishing boat. I wasn't offended, though, because he ate a lot of it.

When the kids were gro

… Continue