Doors 7pm, Show starts at 8pm

$8 adv/ $10 at door

185 Clingman Ave. 28801

828-232-5800

www.thegreyeagle.com

www.thehoneycutters.com

In a world that is becoming increasingly digitalized and impersonal, the Honeycutters are building a reputation based on live performance and songs that tend to stick with you. Fitting into Americana realm, Mountain Xpress’s Alli Marshall calls The Honeycutters’ sound, “Old school country in the truest sense… free of twang and ten-gallon hats but full of real emotion, family history, quick wit and strong liquor.”

In an interview with the Folk to Folk Blog, Amanda says that part of the Honeycutters appeal is that their sound harkens back to simpler, more honest times. “In times like these, people want something real,” she said. “They’re just really craving something that’s just going to connect them to that basic human pool of emotion.”

The Honeycutters are excited to introduce their second full length studio release, When Bitter Met Sweet on June 5th, 2012. They are hosting their Asheville CD release show at the Grey Eagle on Saturday, May 5th. Copies of the album will be available at the show. Moses Atwood opens the show, which starts at 8pm sharp. The Honeycutters will also be making an appearance on WNCW’s Studio B during the 11 o’clock AM hour on Thursday, May 3rd… tune in at http://wncw.org.

Like their first release, Irene, When Bitter Met Sweet features singer/songwriter Amanda Anne Platt, who has been hailed as “one of the best songwriters coming out of WNC these days” by WNCW programming director Martin Anderson. Peter James accompanies her on lead and rhythm guitar as well as harmony vocals. They are backed up by Tal Taylor’s signature mandolin playing, Ian Harrod on bass, and Jon Ashley on drums creating an original brand of Americana that has proved equally appealing to both the musician and the music lover, the country and the city, and the old and the young.

Platt’s songs are shaped by a raw honesty that comes straight from the heart and emits a sort of melancholy happiness. The album features 11 tracks that touch upon childhood and loss of innocence, finding a sense of belonging and one’s voice, truth, love and patience, traveling and embarking on new life-journeys (and the fears that go along with these), and the understanding that comes about when life’s circumstances come full circle.

The title track, “When Bitter Met Sweet” is a song about the end of love looking back at the beginning.  Platt says, “I think it’s important not to lose sight of what was good about something even if it is ending.” “For Eleanora,” was inspired after reading a biography of Billie Holiday and reflects on a similar thought of polarities that, “It seems like so often the partners of extreme talent and specialness are self-destruction and doubt.”

The song “90 Miles (The Tennessee Song)” is featured on Blue Ridge Outdoors Trailmix for 2012 Merlefest Artists. It was written after her first trip to International Folk Alliance in 2010, an event that can be quite overwhelming at first. An admitted introvert, Amanda was faced with the challenges of how to be heard amongst all of the activity of events such as these. And make herself heard is exactly what she went on to do; becoming a finalist at 2011 Merlefest’s Chris Austin songwriting contest for her song song “Little Bird” (unrecorded). She was asked to return as a guest judge for the contest, along with Jim Lauderdale, for the 2012 Merlefest (Where The Honeycutters will also be performing a few sets this year). The same song won first place in the Great Lakes Song Contest in February 2012.

“All I Got, ” is a song Amanda calls, “a love song I wrote a long, long time ago, before I had actually ever been in love” and was selected for WNCW’s 2010 Crowd Around the Mic Vol. 14.

“Fancy Car” features Platt’s father on harmonica. He also sits in on “Not Over Yet”  which she says that when she sings it she imagines a child leaving home for the first time, wanting freedom but scared of what it might cost.

When Bitter Met Sweet was co-produced by Amanda and Peter with the assistance of Aaron Price, and was recorded at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, NC after securing funding through a successful Kickstarter campaign. Along with the full band, many special guests make appearances on the album including Matt Smith (pedal steel and dobro), Nicky Sanders (fiddle), Mark Platt (harmonica), Je Widenhouse (coronet), and on drums Mike Rhodes and Richard Foulk and for various songs. The album was engineered (and partially mixed) by Jon Ashley with the assistance of Julian Dreyer, mixed by John Keane and mastered by Dave Harris at Studio B Mastering in Charlotte, NC.

Their first full length studio release Irene, released in May 2009, has landed them in Ian Hughes’ NoDepression Podcast’s Top 20 of 2009, Fret Knot Radio Hour’s “Nine you need to know from ’09″, and #32 in WNCW’s listener voted Top 100 of 2009.

Since putting out Irene the Honeycutters have shared the stage with such Americana favorites as Tony Rice, The Greencards, Jill Andrews, The Steep Canyon Rangers, Donna the Buffalo, and The Seldom Scene.  They have been voted Western North Carolina’s favorite local Americana act (2011 Mountain Xpress reader’s poll) and delighted audiences from upstate New York to Seattle, Washington. They are currently touring around the release of When Bitter Met Sweet.

Stay tuned to thehoneycutters.com for more news about the album and their tour.

What the Press is saying about The Honeycutters:

“I can see a day when her name is mentioned alongside Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier and Gillian Welch.  She’s just that good.” –The Real Southern

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“They’ve got a sound as classic as grits… I thought of those country songs that play on those diner jukeboxes you see in movies.” –Charlotte’s Creative Loafing

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“Amanda Platt’s striking, timeless vocals form the cornerstone of her often heart-wrenching songs, while producer Pete James’ understated guitar and gentle harmonies round out the duo’s saccharine-sweet mix.” –Dane Smith, Mountain Xpress

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“Amanda’s lyrics are both sardonic and sweet, which adds a contemporary element to their country twanged Americana sound [which] is more influenced by the harmonic tendencies of country singers like Johnny Cash and June Carter” –Folk to Folk Blog.

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“I recommend the Honeycutters not only because they’re some of the best my hometown of Asheville, NC, has to offer. Their music embodies a very catchy, accessible, optimistic sort of spirit so frequently lacking in folk circles (where brooding, hyper-analytical music reigns supreme). What’s more, like Carolina Story, they’re a great band replete with tasty harmonies.” –Kim Ruehl, Folk Music About.com

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“If anyone can make this old metalhead want to whip out the cowboy boots and hat, order a couple of Budweisers and spin my woman around the dance floor, the Honeycutters can.” –Brent Fleury, Bold Life Magazine

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“Amanda’s voice sings like Carolina farmlands after a rainstorm” –Harvey Robinson, Monkeywhale productions

www.thehoneycutters.com

I always wanted to teach at a public school. I liked the idea of trying to help students from low-income families.

During my University training I worked at one such school. I witnessed some very heartbreaking stories. One child had just lost her father (he was shot during a botched drug deal), whilst another was forced to live with her grandparents while her parents underwent drug rehabilitation. While I realise none of this is new, it was extremely fulfilling for me to provide good humour and a helping hand to those that have had to endure a great deal of hardships.

But there was one problem with this dream of mine – nobody would give me a job!

I applied for 30 Public School positions over the summer and none of these possibilities turned into a job offer. Nobody in the State system was prepared to take me on. Sitting in the job interview, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was leapfrogged because of my gender. I know it seems rich for a male to cry sexism, but the selection panel was nearly always all female and on walking around schools, I noticed that nearly all the teachers were female. In the name of a close-knit staff dynamic, it wouldn’t have been such an easy proposition to disturb the status quo and invite a male into the staff room inner sanctum.

Instead, I took up a Private school position (for a lot less pay).

That’s why I am not surprised to read that male teachers are more likely to be working in the Private school system:

AUSTRALIA’S public schools are in the grip of a man drought.

But it’s raining men in the non-government sector, where the number of male teachers has grown 25 per cent since 2001.

At the same time, the number of male teachers has dropped 2 per cent at the nation’s public schools, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal.

Schools have struggled to attract male teachers to the female-dominated profession.

Teachers can earn more money in the non-government sector but there can also be more demands outside school hours, such as Saturday sport.

The New South Wales Department of Education and Communities said the national trend was reflected at the state’s schools but they also had a very low resignation rate.

Last year there were 15,274 male teachers at public schools, representing about 27 per cent of teaching staff.

In 2001, male teachers made up about 31 per cent. There were 9734 male teachers in the non-government sector – about 30 per cent of the teaching workforce. In 2001, male teachers represented 23 per cent.

A department spokesman said strategies were in place to recruit more male teachers but quality was more important than gender.

The Humean Theory addresses the causal root of what occurs when an action is inspired and put into effect. The theory, Smith suggests, seeks to act as revealing of two truths, one which is more widely accepted and another which is not. Respectively, these truths are the following:
1. There is a motivation at a certain circumstance for you to buy milk only if there is milk-drinking possibility which, at that circumstance, you both desire to take part in and believe if you were to buy milk you could then drink it. (P2)
2. There is a circumstantial motivation for you to buy milk only if there is some milk-drinking possibility that the circumstance was also including of a desire for you to drink milk and a means-end belief that if you bought milk you could then drink it.(P1)
The difference between these two, Smith writes, is a difference between desire being present, as in the former, and desire being the instrumental initiating force. From this split Smith paints two camps- those who agree with P1 and those who don’t- and labeling himself not agreeing wholly with P1 as it stands but agreeing with it in part.
Smith then seeks to both elucidate and reformat P1 so that it is agreeable first by understanding whether the initial reason that you, using the above example, have to buy milk, is itself either normative or motivating. Implicit within both is that buying milk is not in itself a first-cause, that there are justifications for doing so. The precise relation of the justification to the action is at question when referring to either motivating or normative reasons.
Motivating reasons, Smith explains, create, more or less, within themselves the possibility of your buying milk as being also your reason for buying milk. However, Smith decries this as only one perspective of your buying of milk. Normative reasons, instead, demand a reason-centric explanation one which is often obviated by external perspectives, but for now it suffices to say only this and not work toward what exact string of reasons has led to your buying milk. Smith relates that P1 gives motivating reason but doesn’t mention normative reason, and proceeds to exemplify occurrences in which the normative reason approach appears to waiver in its ability to account for all occasions and thus has given supporters of P1/both premises ground. In effect, Smith reveals that a motivating reason as a motivation is not so easily dismissible.
Thus Smith is left with the problem that P1 seemingly incorporates a pseudo-cyclical if not mystical component: that there is an innate and first-cause “desire.” He confronts this by considering an

The Humean Theory of Motivation’s exact status as attributable to Hume is somewhat dubious.[1] Michael Smith, who studied under Simon Blackwell, titled the idea after philosopher David Hume, the anti-Kant, and in the following, “Humean Theory” shall be used as a title and not as denoting of the theories of Hume himself.

The Humean Theory suggests that coupled concepts of desire and belief make up all reasons for motivation.[2] To begin, consider the following example from a situation first proposed by John Gibbons of Brown University[3]:

1. You’re out of milk

2. You desire milk

3. You believe if you go to the store you can get milk

4. You have the means to act on your belief and the desire to get milk “appropriately related”[4]

5. You use your desire and means to get milk

If there is a store where you can get some milk, here, now, a little further away than you want to walk, then you probably desire to bicycle to the store and believe to get some milk. This is the second tenet, P2 (Figure I), of two principles, in what Michael Smith calls the Humean Theory of Motivation. Smith describes this theory as the “weaker”[5] of the two (92).

Figure I
Desire to get > Belief in way to get > Motivation

The “stronger” of the two principles which constitute Humean Theory is P1 (Figure II), that there is a motivation for you to have a “desire” to bicycle if there is a store you can bicycle that you can buy milk at, because you “believe” that if you bicycle to the store you can buy milk and you are so-thirsty.

Figure II
Desire to get > Belief in way to get) + Appropriate Relation > Motivation

What I represent as “desire to get,” this initial desire, is a chief complaint against Smith. Smith calls the desire “inter alia”[6], which is a catchphrase meaning “among other things.”[7] By using such a phrasing he takes the burden of responsibility off of himself to elucidate this initial concern. In itself, such an avoidance could be tolerated but it is in the context of what we are trying to solve for, motivation, that the impetus of the process cannot be so readily dismissed, disguised, or otherwise disregarded. Smith uses inter alia for a similar purpose within varying contexts in his other works as well,[8] and has taken criticism other than mine. In a rebuttal of Michael Smith, Humeans, Anti-Humeans, and Motivation, Phillip Pettit argues along a similar line. He says Smith’s explanation “does not highlight the central issue.”[9] This central problem is one of the desire. As aforementioned, Smith attempts to ensconce this issue using the phrase inter alia.
Through the rest of his Smith finishes The Humean Theory of Motivation by saying only it “can adequately explain why an explanation of an agent’s action in terms of her motivating reason is itself a species of teleological explanation.” What Smith is saying here is that the Humean Theory comes down to a teleological, or self-realizing, argument, an idea which sounds inherently fallacious. In establishing inter alia as an explanation, Smith’s teleology leads us into tautology and there is, as Mark Platt wrote in Hume and Morality as a Matter of Fact, “a crucial failing.”[10]
However, this failing should not be allowed to obstruct interest in the issue that Michael Smith has proposed and discussed with diligence, and indeed if there is not an adequate elucidation to be found with Smith himself than there are at least many parts of worth for acquisition. One additional obstacle, though, must be overcome.
There is an absurdity in enforcing a divide between psychology and philosophy in cases such as this wherein the categorical differentiation is the only actual divide. Michael Smith does reach out to psychological theory in The Humean Theory of Motivation, but does so through the lenses of philosophers like John McDowell and Michael Stocker.[11] In aiming to re-define psychology from the direction where it has headed, the late psychological theorist Peter Ossorio wrote on motivation from a non-empirical non-biological standpoint that though dissimilarly titled, both supports and sublimate Smith’s Humean Theory. Ossorio employs certain word concepts[12] in trying to construct an explanation on the barriers of intentional actions, creating a model- not to be confused with a matrix- on which to understand an individual’s psychology (Figure III).

Figure III

Knowledge

Want Performance Achievement [13]

Know-How

I suggest, however, that such a model can be reworked to account for the basic motivation that Michael Smith tries to solve for using his Humean Theory. If instead we rearrange the model (Figure IV) to represent the occasion of motivation, than we can begin to clarify what exactly Smith was trying to ascertain contemplating motivation.

Figure IV

Knowledge

Impulse (“Desire”) Motivation

Know-How

In such a format, we no longer allow desire to be an initiating force. In its place we substitute an impulse, a physical. Returning to Gibbon’s milk analogy, the first occurrence is:

1. You’re out of milk

Gibbons says, rather inarguably, that this indicates both a belief and a fact.[14] It is also a fact that has some temporal location, as it is learned only, for example, when the refrigerator is opened. If from here we consider Smith’s desire to be itself a construct initially of this impulse, this physical, and then tempered by knowledge, or the knowing that milk is what you want and quench your thirst, and know-how, or the knowing how to get some milk (in which what Smith calls “beliefs” could be suggested to exist). It is through this operation that we can create a more concrete understanding of motivation.
In conclusion, Michael Smith’s Humean Theory of Motivation, from his chapter of the same title in book The Moral Problem, considers many philosophical and psycho-philosophical components of motivation. Admittedly, much of Smith’s more withstanding arguments on individual aspects of these components have been left aside in this paper in order to allow more room to consider Smith’s understanding of a particular piece: desire. Though discussing, debating, and drawing a new for of desire I hope I have helped to illuminate not only Smith’s work but also the problems which he endeavored to solve.

________________________________________
[1] Millgram, E. (1995). Was Hume a Humean?. Hume Studies, XXI(1), 75-94.
[2] Holton, R. (Fall, 2009). III belief/desire psychology & the Humean theory of motivation. Proceedings of the Moral Psychology: 24.120 MIT.
[3] Example situation taken without replication from Gibbons, J. (2009, October 14). You gotta do what you gotta do. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Retrieved from: http://www.unl.edu/philosop/people/faculty/gibbons/GottaDo.pdf
[4] Pg. 92: Smith, M. (1994). The Moral problem. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
[5] Smith, M. (1994). The Moral problem. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
[6] 125: Smith, M. (1994). The Moral problem. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
[7] inter alia. (2010). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
Retrieved March 11, 2010, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inter alia
[8] Smith, M. (1995). Internal reasons. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LV(1)
[9] p. 530: Pettit, P. (1987). Humeans, anti-humeans, and motivation. Mind: New Series, 96(384), 530-533.
[10] Platt, M. (1988). Hume and morality as a matter of fact. Mind, XCVII(386), 189-204.
[11] P. 120. The Moral problem. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
[12] Ossorio, P. (1995). Place: the collected works of peter g. ossorio, volume iii. Descriptive Psychology Press.
[13] Schwartz, W. (2010) Harvard University
[14] Gibbons, J. (2009, October 14). You gotta do what you gotta do. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Retrieved from: http://www.unl.edu/philosop/people/faculty/gibbons/GottaDo.pdf

OTTAWA — Postal workers have walked off the job in Hamilton, Ont., Canada Post confirmed Saturday morning. The job action in Ontario continues a rolling strike started in Winnipeg Thursday.

Employees went on strike at midnight Saturday morning, a spokeswoman for the postal service said. The workers are expected to stay off the job for 48 hours.

The spokeswoman, Anick Losier, said talks between the two parties are “ongoing” and workers in Winnipeg are back on the job. She added that service in other parts of the country was unaffected.

Negotiations between Canada Post and the union representing thousands of its workers were short-lived Friday as the strike action prepared to move from the Prairies to Ontario, but both sides pressed toward a deal throughout the day.

The parties met at a downtown Ottawa hotel Friday morning, but left the brief negotiation session no closer to a solution to end their dispute.

Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton said “there was not much in terms of progress” during the meeting between the parties, but said the corporation is aiming to strike a deal to benefit everybody without hampering the consumer.

“We’re committed to talking any time,” Mr. Hamilton said Friday afternoon. “We’ve got a team at the hotel that’s ready to hammer out a deal, but it’s got to be a deal . . . that ensures our employees are better off than they are today, but doesn’t put us in a position where we will become a burden on the taxpayers or have to go to our customers for highly increased rates. Neither of those is an attractive option, so we need to sit down and negotiate something that makes sense,” he said, noting that Canada Post volumes have decreased 17% in the last five years.

The membership of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said it will continue with rotating strikes as negotiations with the Crown corporation continue. The union has also said it remains open to talks with Canada Post during the rotating strikes and the parties were expected to resume talks throughout Friday evening.

Mark Platt, president of CUPW local 548, said that pickets will go up at a mail processing plant in Stoney Creek, Ont., about 20 kilometres east of Hamilton.

The rotating strike at the facility will end at midnight Sunday, Platt said, noting that about 400 union members are involved. The local has a membership of about 1,400 people, but that also includes carriers and other staff that work only during the week.

Although the workers there will be back to work Monday, he said the flow of mail in Hamilton and surrounding areas will feel the effect of the labour action.

“The mail that would typically get delivered on Monday, there will only be a trickle of it,” said Mr. Platt, adding that other unions in the area, as well as CUPW members from other cities, are expected to come out and support the line over the weekend. “It’ll take into the week to actually get all that mail delivered.”

At a Friday news conference, CUPW president Denis Lemelin said rotating strikes will continue to forge out a deal.

“We must put pressure on Canada Post,” Mr. Lemelin said. “We think (a rotating strike) is the best way to proceed.”

Canada Post said it believed its latest offer — a last-minute offer on Wednesday night — was reasonable and offered the union concessions; the union said the offer didn’t go far enough to address concerns.

Sticking points include workplace safety as a result of new mail-processing machines, wages for new employees and sick leave. Canada Post wants to change the traditional model of building up sick days to a model that includes short-term disability.

Mr. Hamilton said the union’s complaints about workplace safety issues related to new mail-processing machines are unfounded and should not factor into the negotiation process.

“Health and safety is not up for negotiations — that’s a priority each and every day,” he said. “The equipment we’re putting in is state-of-the-art, it’s used safely by postal systems around the world.”

Despite strike action gripping one major Canadian city and prepared to move on to another large centre, Canada Post isn’t expecting customers to notice any changes.

The union has not announced other strikes venues besides Winnipeg and Hamilton and said it would re-evaluate the situation on a daily basis.

“We’re still talking, so we shouldn’t be continuing to see this,” Hamilton said. “If this is what they want to continue doing, we’re going to continuing doing everything we can to move the mail.

“Canadians shouldn’t see any difference. Our facilities are open, our people are on the street, our trucks are delivering and the mail is moving.”

About 200 striking workers were circling the Canada Post building in Winnipeg on Friday morning, wearing white placards reading: “CUPW on Strike.”

“I think there’s a lot of relief this has finally occurred,” said Darren Steinhoff, acting chief steward of the Winnipeg local CUPW and a truck driver for Canada Post. “The tensions have been building between the membership and Canada Post for quite some time.”

Winnipeg was chosen as the first site of the rotating strike because its postal plants were the first ones to introduce new mail-processing machines, which have been the source of grievances for the union. Bob Tyre, president of the CUPW local in Winnipeg, said the new machines have caused repetitive strain injuries for mail carriers and the loss of daytime jobs in plants.

“Winnipeg is the first to bear the brunt of modernization with this plant, it’s only fitting we go first,” Mr. Tyre said.

“This is a historic moment,” he said in reference to the first postal strike in 14 years.

If a general strike is called, regular mail delivery will stop. However, approximately 9,000 Canada Post employees have volunteered to continue processing welfare and other social-security cheques for those government departments that use the service.

Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security and Child Benefits cheques will be delivered on one day each month.

Provincial governments are making separate arrangements for delivery of cheques and documents. For example, the Nova Scotia Pension Agency and the Quebec Ministry of Employment mailed cheques out early to avoid delays. In Alberta, the province will arrange for residents to collect documents at Service Alberta locations in the province.

Some courier deliveries to rural areas also could be affected because, in certain cases, Canada Post carries these documents and parcels for the last few kilometres of their journey.

FedEx, however, said it has a contingency plan in place and deliveries to rural areas will not be affected.

With files from Gabrielle Giroday and Carol Sanders, Winnipeg Free Press

WICKED, The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, Pantages Theater, Hollywood
Client: LA INC., Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau for The Pantages Theater
Project: Creative
Creative: Featuring Winnie Holzman and Mark Platt,
Commentary by Elphaba and Glinda
Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Written and Produced by Artcast Productions

The producers of WICKED developed an LA company of the hit musical for the Pantages Theater in Hollywood and partnered with LA INC, The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau as part of a citywide marketing campaign. LA INC asked Artcast to develop a promotional podcast as part of a “WICKED Getaway LA” ticket and hotel package promotion. Twelve hotels participated in the promotion. Artcast wrote an original script and worked to procure the rights to use original music, commentary and interviews from the theatrical production. Artcast added a unique hotel tag at the end of the promotional podcast for each hotel participating in the promotion. The WICKED LA Podcast was posted on the LA INC website, on the twelve participating hotel websites, on iTunes and other podcast directories.

So much happened before Dorothy dropped in! The WICKED LA podcast takes you behind the emerald curtain of the hit musical WICKED, The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. The WICKED Podcast features commentary and interviews with playwright Winnie Holzman and producer Mark Platt, and includes music and lyrics from the Tony award-winning musical. The Witchcraft is as fresh as ever and the show truly creates a glittering universe of its own! Written and Produced by Artcast Productions for LA INC., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Brisbane university student Mark Platt, who is running for Labor in the far north Queensland seat of Hinchinbrook, admits he is not going to bother campaigning there.

Mark Platt, a Brisbane university student said that he once drove through the seat between Cairns and Townsville but had no intention of returning.

But Mr Platt, 23, who has placed a media gag on himself, told ABC Radio off-air he hoped voters would take him seriously despite his lack of on-the-ground presence.

The major political parties often run university students in unwinnable seats, but Hinchinbrook is held by Liberal National Party shadow minister Andrew Cripps by 1.9 per cent.

Disgusted Comrades