There’s talk all over about America’s newfound love affair with frugality. What Time magazine has dubbed the Great Recession is threatening the American consumer culture, pundits and writers say, forcing us to re-think whether we need the biggest plasma screen television or the newest and greatest cell phone.

But it’s not just the gadgets that we’re re-thinking. Read the newspapers and news magazines and they also tell you that we’re eating out less, going less often to the high-end grocery stores, keeping the old car longer and putting off repairs to the house.

This may be new lifestyle for many, but not at my house. My wife has always been the “bring it back down to earth” person in our family. She enjoys nothing better than catching me or one of our children talking about how we “need” to get one of those or we “need ” to do that. “Need?” she’ll ask, eyebrows raised. OK, scratch that.

My wife’s point is this: for too many of us, what we “need” and what we “want” seldom diverge. They are one and the same, and so gadgets and other stuff piles up in closets and under beds as we gobble up everything the retailers throw at us.

Who knows whether this new emphasis on frugality is a fad or a permanent change, but it is interesting to note how lifestyle choices like these ebb and flow with the economic times. I’m old enough to remember the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo of the early 1970s. Price spiked, lines formed, and all of a sudden the country’s consciousness about energy and where it came from were all over the news.

Then came the late 1970s and early 1980s and inflation, job losses and more focus on our energy. Both presidents Nixon and Carter tried to raise our awareness of the country’s need to change its policies, but even during those bad economic times Americans didn’t embrace a radical new lifestyle.

But there was a rising consciousness of what was happening. Those times did signal the start of a concerted, mainstream environmental movement. The idea of using less, recycling and saving energy became commonplace, even though we didn’t all embrace it. The 1960s subculture had fomented into a fringe movement that now had advocates all the way to the White House. I remember some guy in Fayetteville who taught at the college near our house, and we’d see him riding his bike to work even in the winter.

That memory came back to me last week when we wrote a couple of stories about farmers and retailers. One story was about the growing popularity of biking to work again. Companies like Mast General Store even pay their workers to bike, figuring the benefits to the environment and their employees’ health are worth the investment.

The other story we wrote was about Whittier farmer William Shelton who has begun selling his products to individual families in addition to maintaining a wholesale business. Sign up for a share and you’ll get fresh vegetables each week from his farm.

Many growers are doing this, but Shelton is the first we’ve heard about who has been on the farm for several generations and has changed his business model to connect with the growing demand for local food. The markets also influenced his decision. Farmers like Shelton find it hard to compete against huge corporate farms and foreign competition.

And so he and others have decided to sell their food to people like you and me, counting on our desire for fresh and tasty food rather than the bland vegetables available in our grocery stores. These growers are also counting on the fact we, the consumer, will work harder to get our food. The large retailers are awfully convenient, but — just like biking to work — the benefits of eating local food go beyond taste to helping create the kind of community that most of us want to live in.

Last week’s paper brought together several of the issues arising from this new way of thinking that this Great Recession is helping promulgate. The demise of a consumer culture changes the equation of our lives. Cheaper, faster and easier don’t add up to better. The truth is that we’ve always known this, but often it takes eating a little humble pie before we remember what our parents and grandparents tried teaching us a long time ago.

(Scott McLeod can be reached in This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

I cannot remember the last time I watched a minute of a beauty pageant. I never had much of an interest in the first place, even when watching them with my family as a kid. The contestants were sparkly and had nice teeth. Some of them could sing, but I didn’t care much for the songs they sang. Mainly, we watched so we could pull for Miss North Carolina, and because in the early 1970s there were only two other channels to choose from, and programming on Saturday nights was pretty sad. It was Miss America, or the Tony Orlando and Dawn Rainbow Hour variety show.

One thing I do not remember is the contestants being asked for their views on hot button political topics of the day. I certainly stand to be corrected by our resident pageant historians, but I simply cannot remember Miss Maine weighing in on Roe versus Wade, or Miss Idaho giving us her views on the SALT Treaty. I do remember that, regardless of the question, the contestants were all in favor of working to make this a better world, and this was the gist of every answer to any question. I guess we should have been heartened to think that 50 pretty young women should be so committed to working for world peace in a turbulent, complicated world.

I never expected to see another pageant, but due to a combination of completely random events, I ended up watching the last segment of the Miss America pageant a couple of weeks ago, partially because we were channel surfing, stumbled upon the pageant, and then realized that Miss North Carolina had made it to the final five. Soon, my wife and I were comparing stories about watching the pageant when we were kids.

We watched them in their sparkly evening gowns, and then came the questions. “This should be interesting,” I said.

Some minor Internet celebrity named Perez Hilton (what, they couldn’t get Rerun from “What’s Happening!!”) asked Miss California for her thoughts on gay marriage. She began to answer as if she were going to delicately sidestep the question and come out in favor of working for the betterment of the world before finally taking a stand that marriage, in her view, was between a man and a woman.

She made it to the final two, before ultimately losing out to Miss North Carolina. The next day she said that she felt her answer cost her the pageant. She appears to feel this way because Hilton is evidently gay and because we live in a time of rampant political correctness, in which the liberal elite media has pushed its agenda so far as to infiltrate the Miss America pageant! What’s next, Keith Olbermann promoting the movie “Milk” on a box of Corn Flakes? Where will it end?

Miss California might be consoled that gay marriage is still illegal in all but three states and is not recognized by the federal government. If it is true that political correctness has put people in the uncomfortable position of disguising their bigotry in the familiar garb of “family values,” it is also true that this same bigotry is very much still in force. In the 2008 election, voters in California, Florida, and Arizona overwhelmingly voted to ban same-sex marriages.

Now, Miss California has gone to Washington, where she will become a spokesperson — or, “spokesman,” since I wouldn’t want to indulge here in unseemly political correctness in identifying her as a person — for a group called the National Organization for Marriage. They are fighting “to protect traditional marriages.”

Well, when it comes to hard hitting journalism, I’m no Perez Hilton, but I do have a question for Miss California and anyone else who sees gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage: Isn’t divorce a bigger threat?

If the conventional wisdom that half of the marriages in our country will end in divorce is true, isn’t divorce a much bigger threat to traditional marriage than if some same-sex couple down the street gets married? I’m in a traditional marriage, and I do not understand how anyone else’s marriage — gay or straight — is a threat to mine. The main threat to my marriage is forgetting my wife’s anniversary, or making one too many comments on how nice Miss North Carolina looks in her dark blue sequins.

Now, before folks go lunging for their laptops to send me quotes from Leviticus proving that gay marriage should be banned on biblical principles, please remember to show us where Jesus is quoted on the issue of gay marriage, and then explain why divorce is legal, since Jesus actually is quoted more than once on that issue.

Moreover, when can we expect groups to spring up in favor of putting to death all those work on the Sabbath, a sanction that is clearly spelled out in Exodus? If my son is disobedient, should I heed the words of Deuteronomy and have him stoned to death? When will we see groups boycotting Red Lobster because hardened sinners are inside eating shrimp or crab legs with no regard at all for Leviticus, which forbids us to eat shellfish? How can we stand idly by every fall when weekends are so cluttered with people touching the skin of dead pigs? Leviticus calls it an abomination. We call it football.

If we are going to base all our laws on the Old Testament, we had better get after it. When Miss California gets back from Washington, she’s got her work cut out for her.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

“When I first came into the Smokies the whole region was one of superb primeval forest. My sylvan studio spread over mountain after mountain, seemingly without end, and it was always clean and fragrant, always vital, growing new shapes of beauty from day to day. The vast trees met overhead like cathedral roofs. I am not a very religious man, but often when standing alone before my Maker in this house not made with hands I bowed my head with reverence and thanked God for His gift of the greatest forest to one who loved it. Not long ago, I went to that same place again. It was wrecked, ruined, desecrated, turned into a thousand rubbish heaps, utterly vile and mean.”

— Horace Kephart

As people throughout the mountains and around the country mark the celebration of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 75th anniversary, Horace Kephart’s role in this park’s creation is once again being thrust into the limelight. While his depiction of “southern highlanders” in his famous book may still be open for debate, two things about Kephart are certain: he was, as the passage above shows, a superb writer; two, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park might not exist had it not been for his advocacy.

Kephart was an outlander, a man who came to the Smokies in his middle age and found people and a place that would consume him for the rest of his life. He cherished his time in the Smokies, and his skills as a chronicler of the ways of the rural mountaineer have earned him a lasting place in Appalachian history.

But it was how he used that fame that is most noteworthy. As he witnessed the sudden change wrought by large-scale logging upon mountain communities and mountain landscapes — again, see the passage above — he began to see the necessity of preserving what at one time had seemed an endless forest.

Kephart began writing articles and advocating to whomever would listen about the need to create a national park in the Smokies. The idea riled many of the mountaineers who had become his friend, for many at that time did not see the benefit of locking away land that had for generations been hunted, fished and used for its bounty to house and feed entire communities. There was also the unheard of controversy of creating a park — in essence, taking the land — of hundreds of families whose farms and homes were in the area being considered for the national park.

As we realize now, Kephart and others who fought relentlessly for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were visionaries. They carved a jewel out of the remaining mountain wilderness, creating what has become one of the most bio-diverse habitats left in North America and the entire planet.

Early park supporters also gave this region another important legacy — an economy based on tourism rather than taking from the land. Although the logging and timber industry are still important and still a vital part of the mountain heritage, the preserved forests and wilderness also have fed generations of mountain families. People come here to connect with the mountains, to get that same feeling Horace Kephart describes in the above passage.

As we mark the creation of this great park, it’s a proper time to pay homage to those like Kephart who made it possible. This would be a vastly different place had they not prevailed.

“Gov. Beverly Perdue probably didn’t set out to give Western North Carolina a slap in the face Wednesday.

“But we know a slap in the face when we see one, and this sure qualifies.”

— Asheville Citizen-Times editorial, April 23

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial Page Editor Jim Buchanan — a Haywood County resident and a friend of mine — was right on target with this one. My sentiments exactly, and a sentiment shared by a whole lot of people in our region.

Gov. Beverly Perdue chose not to attend the first official event in the yearlong celebration of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The occasion was a Governors Proclamation Ceremony and it was held at Clingmans Dome. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen was there.

According to Perdue’s spokesperson, Chrissy Pearson, “The governor was invited and did give serous consideration but given the length of the trip and the potential travel cost involved she declined. It is so far out of the way and we are trying to cut back on travel.”

Perhaps Ms. Pearson didn’t get the significance of her words, but the “so far out of the way” line is a bit hard to swallow. Everyone out here knows how far we are from Raleigh (it’s about 6 hours from Clingmans Dome to Raleigh, and MapQuest estimates the fuel cost there and back at about $70). The distance in miles is significant, but it’s the attitude that can be read into the governor’s statement that is more revealing.

I could go on for thousands of words, but here are three important points about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the southwestern part of her own state that Gov. Perdue might need to be reminded of:

• The park is probably the single largest economic engine in the state, if one doesn’t consider the “beach” as one entity. Nearly 10 million people a year visit the park, and the surrounding communities depend on it — especially when times are as tough as they are now. But somehow Tennessee has laid claim to the Smoky Mountains. Most citizens of this country think of Tennessee when they think of the park, and its governor made sure he had time on his schedule to get to the ceremony. Perdue’s absence only solidifies Tennessee’s link with the Smokies and surely will help the towns on the western side of the park.

• The still-evolving legacy of the park— from a cultural standpoint — deserves recognition from leaders in Raleigh, including the governor. She could have stood on the podium and made note of how the creation of the park was controversial in its day because so many residents were uprooted from their homes and communities, their land forcibly “taken” (though they did get compensation, that’s the general phrase used). She could have pointed out that the initial skepticism about the park was heartfelt but that its creation has become a grand success, creating a jewel for future generations and a permanent gold mine for the economies in the state’s far west.

• Finally, she could have assured citizens here that this region, though many miles from Raleigh, is not “out of the way.” From a political standpoint, Perdue should know that citizens in the mountains have a long history feeling that they have been left out. A visit to this important ceremony would have helped establish that Perdue does indeed feel differently.

I’ve had the good fortune to live, literally, all over North Carolina — Fayetteville (south piedmont), Boone and Blowing Rock (northwest), Durham (central), Raleigh (central), Roanoke Rapids (northeast), Elizabethtown (southeast) and now Waynesville. All of those places are special, but not a single one has people imbued with the strong sense of place that is the norm for those here in the mountains. The creation of the park is an important component of this legacy, and Perdue’s no-show will have some saying that she just doesn’t understand that.

In the grand scheme of things, this probably doesn’t rank very high in terms of Perdue’s mistakes during her early months in the governor’s office. What it indicates, however, is that some things just haven’t changed much in Raleigh.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

I don’t really know when nightmares begin. I guess it is possible that babies have nightmares, shaken awake in the night by dreams of stuffed giraffes turned suddenly sinister or a nipple that you chase and chase and never quite catch up to. I remember some pained expressions on my children’s sleeping faces, but we always assumed it was gas, not nightmares.

One thing I do know is that by the time they reach the age of 4, children have nightmares — vivid, terrifying , wrenching nightmares. The kind of nightmares that shatter sleep like an errant baseball shatters a living room window. The kind of nightmares that do not evaporate on contact once they are awake, burned away by the daylight like so much early morning fog, completely forgotten before the Cheerios begin dividing like cells in the cereal bowl.

No, these nightmares linger for hours, even days, making the prospect of going to bed not only a bummer, but a source of pure and profound dread, worse, even, than eating a brussel sprout, nearly as bad as getting a vaccination shot or being hugged too tightly and too long by a well meaning relative. Dreams ... the polyester pressing hard against your face, maybe a sharp pendant scratching you, and the smells ... sweet perfume like rotting peaches, some kind of powder, too.

But dreams lately are even worse than that, a lot worse, worse than anything. You get a shot, the shot’s over. You eat a brussel sprout, you wash it down with a shot of chocolate milk and a jelly bean you smuggled in your pocket. Your great-great-whatever hugs you, you hold your breath and wait for it to pass. These are horrors, but predictable, manageable horrors. What to do about these dreams? There is no way to predict them, no way to manage them.

Worse, your mind reels and reels and reels as darkness falls, and the machinery of your nighttime ritual pushes you toward bedtime. The taking of baths, the brushing of teeth, the reading of stories, the singing of the familiar bedtime songs, the old repetition of kisses and goodnights, more kisses and more goodnights, a couple of last minute random questions designed for last-ditch stalling — yes, we may have ice cream tomorrow, no, we can’t go to the beach yet — one last good night. OK, one more.

Now it comes. Images. Sounds. Sensations. What was that? Did you see something just then, right there? You remember something you saw in a book, a monster with terrible yellow teeth. You remember the big bad wolf, the poor pigs. You remember something your friend said, something very scary about enemies and bad guys, and even though you are not exactly sure what an “enemy” is, it can’t be good, not if they’re BAD guys. You hear something outside. The dog barks. Enemies!!!

Time to go get Dad.

I know these dreams are fueled in part by popular culture. As a kid, I thought nothing of Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Aunt Rhody and her dead old gray goose, or any other of the time-honored twisted tales that parents inflict on their children, but as a parent, I look at the rich history of flat-out weirdness in children’s literature with some mixture of fascination and disgust. No wonder we’re so violent, so warped, so in need of therapy and self help books. Maybe I was more affected than I realize. I do remember tossing and turning in my bed at night, imagining always what might be outside, lurking, looking for a way to get inside. Isn’t that a persistent theme in children’s stories, after all, something out there trying to get in here?

I remember getting a CD of famous children’s songs from a family friend a couple of years ago when we were getting ready to go to the beach and spend six or seven hours in the minivan with the kids. “This will help entertain them,” the friend said. Sure enough, they listened attentively for a good while, and my mind began to wander aimlessly and quite pleasantly until the lyrics of a creepy little song about lady bugs crept into my consciousness: “Lady bug, Lady bug, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children are gone.”

And we wonder where the nightmares come from? We started skipping the “Lady Bug” song, opting instead to send the bear over the mountain about 1,200 times before we got to Charleston.

Taking the advice of another friend, I have begun using Monster Spray every night before bed — yes, it is now part of the bedtime ritual. I spray around the doors and windows, under the beds, over the beds, even give a good blast into the center of the room for good measure. According to the label, it also works well on enemies and bad guys.

Now, good night, guys. I love you, too. Yes, we can throw the Frisbee tomorrow. Good night ... what’s that? No, we aren’t having brussel sprouts tomorrow.

Sweet dreams, buddy. Yes, the spray lasts all night. Yes, really.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The Haywood County Chamber of Commerce’s Green Initiative is one of those projects that is good on many different levels, not the least of which is the admirable goal of reducing the impact the business community has on the environment.

The Green Initiative, which is being headed by Haywood Community College President Dr. Rose Johnson, is aimed at establishing a methodology by which businesses can earn a “green designation” from the chamber of commerce. A chamber committee has been working for months to set up the criteria, and the categories include recycling, water and energy.

Those businesses that earn this designation will benefit in many ways. Aside from doing what is right, it is likely that many potential customers will appreciate their efforts and choose to do business with them. As this program is formalized, more businesses will likely follow suit and try to earn the designation. That’s a direct benefit that makes the investment to attain the green designation worthwhile from a business perspective.

The fact that the chamber of commerce has put in the time and effort to set up the Green Initiative speaks well of the organization. In too many cases those in the business community pit profit and sustainability efforts against one another. What is becoming increasingly clear is that the opposite is true. Companies that save energy and cut waste make more money, and though it’s impossible to have zero impact, it is a worthwhile effort.

This initiative is one component of a critical mass of sustainability efforts currently being implemented in Haywood County. These include:

• The county Economic Development Commission is formalizing a list of tax incentives for green energy companies to entice them to open shop in the county. The catalyst for that effort was the request for a tax break by a huge solar farm being built near Canton, a project that will be among the largest of its kind in the Southeast once completed.

• Haywood Community College and Dr. Rose Johnson are taking steps to make that institution a center for environmental learning. Staff members are working to implement course offerings that infuse the college’s forestry, wildlife, construction, nursery and other programs with cutting edge sustainability courses and practices. In addition, the college is working to make itself a leader in all these resource-saving areas.

• And Stephen King, the county’s solid waste director, has been a part of the Green Initiative and is a champion of recycling efforts. He has brought great ideas that have helped the county recycling program and is also working to tap the methane at the county’s landfill and harness it for energy use.

There will be intangible benefits for Haywood County for being at the forefront of the green movement. Some areas in the Northeast and out West may be further along, but Haywood County and others in this region are staking a claim as a leader in the Southeast. That is good for quality of life and for businesses.

The chamber’s Green Initiative taps into a truth that’s very important for those of us living in this region. The forests, streams and air are what make this place special, what give the mountains their special, almost spiritual appeal.

“Natural resources are part of the beauty of where we live. That’s why people come here,” said Laura Leatherwood, director of Community and Economic Development at HCC and a participant in the Green Initiative. “We want people to live it personally but we need our business community to live it as well in their practices as they do business throughout the day.”

Every now and then a government proposal takes on such a vigorous life of its own that its intent gets clouded, those supporting it — or just discussing it even-handedly — get tarred and feathered and what started as an honest effort to do something worthwhile just blows up.

Such was the case with the proposed nuisance ordinance Haywood commissioners and their planning board abandoned last week. In the end, even what was good and right about this proposal just got lost in the noise.

The ordinance started out as an attempt to protect public health and clean up some of the junk that accumulates on private property. Cleaning up junk and protecting public health are, in almost all cases, admirable goals. The ordinance would have regulated items like open sewage, refuse, old swimming pools, garbage, junked vehicles and such. It’s intent was to prevent injuries, get rid of junk and abandoned manufactured homes and to “abate public nuisances.”

As a citizen of Haywood County, I don’t have a problem with this proposal. In plain English, the law was trying to get people to keep their old stuff from causing health hazards or looking just plain ugly.

But therein lies the problem. This ordinance, stripped of all the lawyer-speak, in essence would have codified a subjective opinion — the opinion of planners and commissioners, one would assume — as to what was unsightly, unhealthy, or, in the words of the proposal, a “public nuisance.”

As has happened time and again in counties and towns throughout these mountains, opposition mounted as the debate took a detour from the merits of the proposal to a broad fight against the erosion of property rights. The wording of this particular proposal invited protest. “The following are hereby expressly declared to be public nuisances,” it read, and went on to say “outdoor storage of .... all-terrain vehicles, toys, bicycles, ....”

County board Chairman Kirk Kirkpatrick explained that these references needed to be taken in context to public health and safety, but it didn’t matter. County commissioners and planners had no choice but to toss out the proposal. If there were supporters who thought a re-wording might make this law more palatable, they didn’t show up. From any objective measure of public opinion, the majority of Haywood citizens were against this measure, vehemently against it. And so commissioners struck it down, as they should have.

What was disappointing in this whole affair?

Well, there was the treatment of officials on the planning board and county board. Everyone has a right to get emotional in their opposition to laws they don’t support. That’s the American way, as many have said.

But to say commissioners or supporters of this ordinance aren’t adhering to the Constitution or are somehow less than patriotic is pure bluster. Trust me, there are much more stringent ordinances in many places in this country that have withstood legal challenges. Nothing at all in this proposal was unconstitutional. Bareknuckle politics are fine, but the argument should remain against the policy proposed, not the people who might feel differently about it than you.

In addition to the petty name calling and cussing, also bothersome in this debate was the way stereotypes were tossed around as if they really mean anything. Outsiders were for it, locals were against it. Rich people were for it, working class folks against it. Conservatives against it, liberals for it. This is akin to the blather from the television and radio blowhards on both the left and right who are so quick to pigeonhole those they don’t agree with and take the easy way out of a real debate on the merits of a proposal.

Of course the good part of this episode has been the real, community debate that has taken place. Many great points have been raised. It’s been a real civics lesson for the community, messy and sometimes ugly as it was.

And the continued participation in civic affairs of this new group — We the People — can only serve to bring attention to the important issues the county board, planners and municipal officials will be discussing in the near future. Too often we in the media sit in empty meeting rooms and write stories about what we think are important issues but that no one else seems to care about. This proposal shows that people do care and that they want to be engaged in the process, and that will make for good government in the long run.

That’s a pretty damn good outcome, and it’s a good bet one active citizen group will beget another that feels a little differently. Do you think, heaven forbid, that the majority of the citizenry will actually start taking an active role in shaping the affairs of the community in which they live? Wake me up, I must be dreaming.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

It seems impossible that my niece is going to have a baby. She is 20 years old, which is about the same age as my favorite pair of Levis. I remember when she was born. We all crowded around the crib and agreed that she looked exactly like my sister, which she did. The next thing I knew she was waving a magic wand in a dance recital, and not long after that she was getting her driver’s license and writing tragic poems about teenage angst in her high school English class.

Now she’s having a baby, a girl she’s naming Betty that is due to arrive in about a week, give or take, and I have just this one question, addressed to no one in particular: Where did 20 years go? Why is the distance between the ages of 7 and 27 so very, very much longer than the distance between 27 and 47?

•••

In keeping with the age, I have been following progress reports on her pregnancy — and the various moods that go with it — on her MySpace page. We have chimed in from time to time with chipper comments on her message board, where her friends congregate daily to see what is new. They offer help if she needs any, worry if she doesn’t answer the phone promptly, and gush over newly posted pictures of her belly, pushing out and filling her brightly colored cotton shirt so fully that it looks like some exotic new planet.

Oh, it will be a new world, all right. The world she has inhabited is about to go away for good, replaced by a completely foreign world in which she must learn the language, laws, and customs while trying to survive in it at the same time. One minute she seems to know this, the next she seems completely unaware of just how profound this change is going to be.

On the other hand, how could she be prepared? How could anyone? How could I? How could you? You can read all the books you can find, watch all the instructional videos, subscribe to all the magazines, write down every syllable of advice that experienced mothers give you, and still be utterly bewildered the first time your newborn gets a sudden fever, or can’t get to sleep no matter what you try.

You’ve done everything you are supposed to do, everything right by the book, everything you were told, and yet there you are, at 3 a.m., driving the back roads listening to the Eagles’ greatest hits, just hoping your baby will finally go to sleep in her car seat.

Nope, it’s not another tequila sunrise, but that won’t make it any easier in three hours when she wakes you up again, just as you are finally getting some desperately needed sleep. Welcome to the Hotel California. ‘You can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave.’

•••

Although my brother is younger than I am, he and his wife had kids before we did, so he gave me some free advice to help me prepare at least in some measure for what was coming.

“It is overwhelming in every way,” he said. “Sometimes it’s overwhelming in a great way, and sometimes it’s overwhelming in a not so great way.”

I don’t know if that really qualifies as advice, but it is a fundamental truth about becoming a parent that any new parent needs to recognize and, if possible, embrace. It is learning to live in constant fear that you are doing something profoundly, irrevocably wrong, and that even if you don’t do anything wrong, terrible things can still happen at any time. It is learning the real meaning of patience, and balance, and resolve. These are just words among other words until you have a new baby in your home, when they suddenly and forcefully take on a much more profound meaning than you could have ever realized. You only thought of yourself as a patient, balanced, and resolute person. You were nothing of the sort. Now you’ll learn. You’d better.

You will also learn the meaning of love the first time you see and hold your baby, the first time the baby holds your finger, the first time she smiles. You are going to have a year of firsts — everything will be marked, noted, photographed. It really is a new planet after all, and you are discovering all of its countries day by day, recording every one.

It is overwhelming in every way.

•••

So my niece is having a baby. I guess I should write something else on her MySpace page, while she still has time to look at it. I should tell her that this is it, the adventure of a lifetime. I should tell her to savor every minute of it, even the tougher moments. She is not going to believe how quickly 20 years can go by. Also, no matter how many diapers she got at her baby shower, she is going to need more. Lots more. Bon voyage!

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

Openly conservative Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, is blazing his own path in Congress. That characteristic is easy to admire, especially in these days of strident bickering and blind party allegiance.

Last week The Smoky Mountain News interviewed both Republicans and Democrats about Shuler and his position on the issues, and the results confirmed what many in the district already knew: most left-leaning Democrats are willing to forego Shuler’s conservative stance on social and fiscal issues as long as he continues to represent their views on foreign policy, the environment, and business policy. Many Republicans also support Shuler, agreeing with what former Macon County Republican Chairman Harold Corbin and Haywood County GOP County Commissioner Kevin Ensley told this newspaper: he represents the values of his mountain district.

Still, not all Democrats support Shuler’s record, which includes casting votes against the stimulus bill, supporting pro-life measures, supporting gun rights, and voting against stem cell research.

“I expected him to be more of a Democrat than he seems to be,” says Jane Allison, a Democrat from Swain County.

When it comes strictly to the issues, we also take exception to some of Shuler’s positions and think his district would be better served by different votes on several important issues.

Despite that truth, however, Shuler is one of those rare politicians able to vote his conscience instead of his party and do so without coming off as wishy-washy. The reason, by most accounts, is that he is sincere. His votes are who he is, and not molded by the Washington party elite and lobbyists.

“The most important thing is to be true to who you are, and what your beliefs are, and don’t change based upon influence,” Shuler told The Smoky Mountain News.

Observers call it a political tightrope that he’s walking. While Democrats are overwhelmingly in control of the House and Senate, his vote against some Democratic bills is not necessary for passage. If that balance tips and the votes are closer, some wonder if he can endure the wrath of his party and still survive.

“He has to be careful voting against a popular president,” said Western Carolina University political science professor Gibbs Knotts. “He also has to be careful that he does not upset the Democratic leadership too much. The leadership can withhold resources and make it more difficult for Shuler to advance his agenda.”

Right now, though, Shuler has carved out an enviable position most congressmen would covet: he can be himself. Here’s what he told an Asheville audience about the stimulus bill and getting money to WNC:

“I didn’t vote for it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t support Western North Carolina getting its fair share. We’re prepared to fight for that.”

Too many politicians these days are all about ideology, which squelches debate and belittles opponents. Shuler’s ability to stray from his own party while staying true to its bedrock principles make him very different from your average politician. That’s a badge of honor in this day and age, one to wear proudly.

Much as I dislike posing the question, here it is: can you imagine a future without newspapers? Would it be a dark day or good riddance to a biased blight upon the information landscape?

Well, if you’re reading this you’ve likely got an opinion. It means you’re a newspaper reader. It’s part of your life, something you can’t imagine living without. But it’s past time for nostalgia. That warm fuzzy about holding a newspaper in your hands as a cup of coffee tickles your nostrils won’t pay the bills for printing, for staffing, and for distribution if not enough people choose to read.

Make no mistake: newspapers are in trouble. Most have heard about the closings of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News. We know that a host of other large dailies are limping along. They’re being battered by the tidal wave that is the Internet and the unexpected and lingering depth of this recession, which is slashing advertising revenues.

So what does it all mean?

•••

If I — or anyone else — knew the future of the information and journalism industry, it would be a Bill Gates opportunity. Figuring out how to make money on gathering and packaging information in an age when most of us are completely overwhelmed with information is proving difficult.

Here’s what I do know: the traditional printed daily newspaper business model is broken. It was built on three streams of revenue: subscriptions, retail advertising, and classifieds. Well, classifieds have gone online or to all classified papers (Iwanna, in our case). Paid home delivery subscriptions have been declining for almost two decades, and it doesn’t appear much will change.

So daily papers are left to depend on two revenue streams that will continue to decline — classifieds, home delivery — and are having to rely more heavily on advertising to pay the bills. Trouble is, many businesses that used to buy those newspaper ads are looking at alternatives to the very expensive daily newspaper rates. Those alternatives include weekly newspapers like ours, television and local cable companies, radio, direct mail, and billboards.

And, of course, the Internet.

•••

What about papers like ours?

I tell many people that, unfortunately for dailies across the country, we are part of their problem. Free distribution weeklies with unique content like ours, Mountain Xpress in Asheville, the Independent in the Triangle, and the Rhinoceros Times in the Triad are chipping away at the advertising revenues the big dailies used to monopolize.

But we are also suffering during this recession. We depend solely on advertising revenue, and that has declined steeply. We are being forced to invent new products to help advertisers, take on smaller jobs, and generally morph into a broader media and publishing company that has a newspaper as its flagship.

•••

For our business, local advertising is the key. Another question, then, is how will the local businesses get their information out to readers?

Google is spending millions trying to figure that out, but many businesses tell us that print advertising in a local newspaper is still their best source for getting customers in the door. As the web becomes bogged down with information — search “smoky mountains” on Google and 2.4 million entries come up, while “smoky mountain real estate” will get you 163,000 entries — many advertisers who go solely to web are finding it a “needle in the haystack” gamble.

In the future, that haystack is just going to get astronomically larger. As blogging and social networking spiral out of control, navigating the web gets unwieldy.

So local papers still have a future, and that is what many analysts are now saying. Our news and our advertising still are unique and original, stuff that in many cases won’t be found anywhere else — at least for now.

•••

Everyone who goes online for news or turns on the televisions for news still depends primarily on newspapers. The most popular Internet news sites are papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The Huffington Post and the Drudge Report pick through newspaper sites, as do Rush Limbaugh, Anderson Cooper and the writers for Jay Leno and David Letterman. They put their own spin and their own reporting into it, but almost all the stories originated with newspaper journalists.

Local television news depends on a region’s newspapers for their stories. I can’t tell you how often we’ve watched WLOS reporters hit the newsstand at our office early Wednesday morning, only to see one or more of the stories show up on the news later that day. CNN has a staff of probably a dozen reporters in Washington, while the Washington Post has several hundred.

Make no mistake, those in power — whether that is in government, business, politics or wherever — will be much more insulated from public scrutiny when all the newspapers in this country are gone. No one consistently does the type of reporting we do every single day.

•••

But what about the stories, the information we provide? How can we continue investing in those type stories as information seekers migrate toward the web?

Well, several efforts are being tried. One of the most original is for local papers to all adopt the National Public Radio format and register as nonprofit organizations. Revenues would not be taxable, and donations would be tax-deductible.

A few days ago Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Maryland, introduced into Congress the Newspaper Revitalization Act, which would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes. Cardin argues that since newspapers are doing so badly, the government would not lose any revenue. He says the bill is aimed at local papers, not chains or conglomerates.

Another model is to begin charging for the online news. Many papers adopted this model, then switched to free access. Now many are switching back, putting a value on their news.

Could we get, say, $45 a year for people to access all our news and advertising?

Or, could we use another business model known as micro-payments, where a program is set up to charge someone’s credit card 5 cents for every story accessed on a Web site?

•••

Or will newspapers simply go away at some point in the future?

In researching this article I came across this nugget: “Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case. This coverage creates benefits even for people who aren’t newspaper readers, because the work of print journalists is used by everyone from politicians to district attorneys to talk radio hosts to bloggers. The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; ‘You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!’ has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?”

This particular writer, Clay Shirky, threw up his hands, admitting he did not know who would perform that function or how society would find a way to benefit from the work now done only by newspapers. His conclusion is that society needs good journalism, not newspapers, per se.

It’s safe to say we’re living in an information revolution. To the victor goes the spoils.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)