Charles Bukowski

So, you don’t like poetry? Well, maybe Charles W. Bukowski will ring your chimes. Talk about ugly? This guy was so ugly, people actually cringed when they met him. As a teenager, his acne-ravaged face had to be “retouched” for class photos.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Western North Carolina boasts more people of Scottish descent than Scotland itself — and for that Franklin hosts its annual Taste of Scotland this weekend, June 16 and 17.

Craig Buchner and his father didn’t say much during their weekends in upstate New York checking spigots on sugar maples, chopping wood and boiling sap to make syrup, but the Western Carolina University student found comfort just spending time with his dad.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

N.C. Geological Survey staff hopes to finish its survey of Macon County’s landslide prone areas by the end of this month and present its research to county commissioners.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s public hearing regarding the recently released draft environmental assessment of Duke Power’s hydroelectric projects on the Tuckasegee and Oconaluftee rivers held last Thursday (June 8) began quietly enough.

The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area has announced its 2006 Heritage Grants Program, which will provide and leverage funding for innovative projects that preserve and promote the heritage of Western North Carolina.

Wade Reece, a member of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority and a Maggie Valley businessman, was in a motorcycle accident Saturday (June 10). Reece was listed in critical condition at Mission Hospital in the Neurotrauma ICU unit as of press time Tuesday.

By Marshall Frank

Imagine having a fathers of all varieties. Step, biological and adopted? Here’s a story about such a person.

Not everyone’s life is utopia, complete with white picket fence, family barbeques and one set of happy parents. No one knows that better than Russell.

By Eric Larson

Where I grew up, you had to choose sides early: You were either a University of Alabama football fan or you pulled for the Auburn “War Eagles.” I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but some people were actually shot and killed over arguments that arose from this bitter, storied rivalry.

By Stephanie Wampler • Columnist

The dark is a strange creature. It has so many faces.

“Dark” is how we have always described our worst times. Thousands of years ago, the phrase “the valley of the shadow of death” was coined, and it still strikes a deep chord. We can all think of some dark time in our lives.

After last week’s surprising meeting of the Haywood County Council of Governments regarding the tourism board, perhaps there is finally an end in sight to the controversy regarding this board.

Rafting fans have only two more shots this year at a trip down the Cheoah River, a rugged river in Graham County that has just recently been opened to rafting.

By Michael Beadle

As springtime visitors flock to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to see the phenomenon of synchronous fireflies, researchers are hoping to learn more about how and why these beetles produce such amazing light shows.

It may well be the most beautiful mating ritual on the planet.

Nestled in the northern center of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Elkmont was once a thriving logging community that inspired Walt Disney’s screen image of Snow White’s cabin and now serves as a key research site for studying synchronous fireflies.

In a 9-0 vote last week, the Supreme Court upheld the right of states to demand mitigation from hydropower companies for the damming of rivers under the Clean Water Act.

A new cycling tradition begins this summer with the debut of the Tour de Tuck Bike Challenge on Saturday, Aug. 19.

By Chris Cooper

Late Friday night, after the festivities died down and the crickets had begun a serenade for the wee hours, I asked Jason and Karin Kimenker to imagine what they might say 40 years from now about their experience as proprietors of Soul Infusion Tea House. Jason waxed poetic about the whole thing; describing the reciprocal nature of giving and receiving he’s learned from a community he’s grown to love. Karin said she’d just laugh.

By Michael Beadle

Growing up in South Carolina, Robert Lathan remembers how just about everything and everyone was named after Wade Hampton — schools, parks, hotels, towns, and especially children. More than a century after Hampton’s death, this wealthy landowner, Confederate general, governor and senator of South Carolina continues to cast a long shadow on the lands and the people he encountered — including the Cashiers community in Jackson County.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

As a child in Diana Fisher’s music class at Camp Lab School in Cullowhee, I never held the mountain dulcimer in very high regard.

The Pool

There is a lot to be said for going out into the woods, finding a quiet, isolated stream, and taking a refreshing swim in the cold pure water.

On the other hand, a visit to your neighborhood pool can result in just as satisfying an afternoon if you enjoy people watching as much as cooling off on a hot day.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

A month into her new job as Franklin’s Main Street Program Coordinator, Nancy Deeks is just starting to get things organized.

She helped out with the town’s annual Taste of Scotland Festival, held this past weekend. And now, with town aldermen having recently appointed the last remaining board members to which Deeks will answer, Deeks is sorting through the bylaws of eight other Main Street organizations trying to come up with something specifically tailored to Franklin’s needs.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Faced with a $20,000 budget cut, the Downtown Sylva Association is re-examining its plans after Sylva aldermen voted 3 to 2 last Thursday (June 15) not to renew the town’s annual contribution to the group.

By Avram Friedman

In January of 2006, Jim Hansen, a climatologist advising the Bush Administration, said that we have “at most 10 years” to make the drastic cuts in emissions that might head off climatic catastrophe. Hansen was speaking to just one major threat to our existence on earth. Likewise, the continued use of fossil fuels and nuclear technology poses the threat of other disastrous consequences such as acid rain, excess nitrogen deposition, mercury contamination and radioactive materials saturate the environment and endanger public health for generations to come.

Sylva town officials have OK’d a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that has just about eliminated funding for the Downtown Sylva Association (formerly SPIR). That’s a mistake the citizens of Sylva and the downtown business community should not tolerate.

The growing demand from researchers wanting access to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park prompted recent renovations to the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center with an expansion of accommodations and quarters.

By Chris Cooper

There’s an age-old argument that rears up whenever there are multiple acts on the roster for a show: who goes first? Nobody wants to go first. It’s like being “volunteered” for the chore everybody else skillfully avoided. So what to do when you find your group in this somewhat unenviable position?

Pictures of the Week

Every Friday CNN features on its Web page a small link to Offbeat Photos and Time’s Pictures of the Week. Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, but always interesting, the pictures carve out a little slice of the world made for sharing.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Gary Carden was in fifth grade when he learned to be ashamed of his accent.

His teacher, perhaps meaning well, said simply, “‘Gary, you need to change the way that you talk. Your dialect is associated with ignorance and backwardness,’” Carden recalled. “I believed her because I was raised to believe that teachers knew what they were talking about.”

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

The Stop I-3 Coalition — the grassroots organization that aims to prevent construction of a proposed interstate running from Savannah to Knoxville — has received a boost to its efforts as the Southwestern Regional Planning Commission has come out against the proposed interstate’s construction.

By Michael Beadle

Nearly two centuries have passed since the last time Cherokees held a council meeting on the sacred ground of Kituwah, the tribe’s revered Mother Town.

For most people who live and work in Western North Carolina, the inner workings of our citizen legislature in Raleigh are just about as arcane as the inner workings of the federal Congress in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, it also suffers from the same malaise — too much influence is held by lobbyists whose goal is to help themselves and their clients, not the state’s citizens.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Macon County’s Molar Roller is on the move in a forward direction. The mobile dental clinic, which travels from school to school providing service to low-income children has hired a full-time dentist and is negotiating to add on a second dentist that would enable the program to begin serving adults on a non-emergency basis.

By Michael Beadle

At first it sounds too good to be true.

Imagine being able to pipe methane gas from a landfill to heat greenhouses, run a biodiesel refinery, and power blacksmithing forges and art studios for glassblowers and potters.

“Metropolitan”

Writer-director Whit Stillman had a surprise hit with this comedy about a middle-class young man and his encounters with New York debutantes. Stillman is a director with a great eye for nuance both social and personal, and as his camera gives us these young people, we come to feel empathy for their fears of the future and for their bravado in facing a difficult present.

By Chris Cooper

A rather popular band was recently branded with the criticism of being “a small band trying to sound big.” It’s an interesting idea, because in a different context (and in regards to a different band), it could easily be taken as praise.

By Michael Beadle

As a Broadway hit, “My Fair Lady” made Julie Andrews a star. As a film, it made Audrey Hepburn a Hollywood icon.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sylva town board members should expect a heated public comment session at their upcoming meeting on Thursday, July 6, as Downtown Sylva Association members are rallying support to persuade aldermen to overturn their decision to cut the organization’s funding from $20,000 to $2,000.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Fifty years ago, Jackson County’s Greens Creek was used as a dumping ground — milk jugs, tin cans and all kinds of unwanted items, local residents say.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Late last month Macon County consultant Gary Nicholson sent out 351 letters to local accommodations owners to begin building a database of who is supposed to pay the county’s 3 percent tax on overnight lodging aimed at tourists.

By Lee Shelton

After the primary election results were in, I offered a commentary on county government and the implications of the election’s outcome. That column elicited several responses, and led me to explore the history and role of county government in North Carolina.

The North Carolina Sierra Club and Southern Environmental Law Center have filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for allowing air pollution from other states to continue to pollute the air North Carolinians breathe.

By Michael Beadle

You’ll have to excuse Greg Duff if he greets you out of breath.

If he’s not in the middle of coordinating the upcoming Bele Chere 5K, the Inaugural Lake Logan Triathlon, Jackson County’s Tour de Tuck bike race or the Asheville Citizen-Times Half-Marathon/5K, he’s busy training for his next triathlon.

The All Taxa Biological Inventory hit the 5,000 species milestone this summer in an ongoing effort to document every species in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

By Ed Kelley

If you spend much time in the outdoors, you will eventually have an encounter with wildlife. I am always on the lookout for signs of animal activity. Tracks, scat, scrapings, digging, paths through the leaves or grass, clipped-off leaves or twigs are indicators that some animal has been through the area. Some folks are afraid of going into the woods because of the possibility of meeting a wild animal. These fears are usually unfounded, as most denizens of the forest are fearful of humans.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sylva town board members’ minds are unchanged about cutting the Downtown Sylva Association’s funding from $20,000 to $2,000 after a heated public comment session pitted local merchants against budgetary conservatives.

When Louis and Talitha Mes put up a 100-foot windmill two weeks ago in the Crabtree community of Haywood County to generate electricity, which will go along with the solar panels that heat their home and water, their plan was simple: to reduce their impact on the environment. In the world as it should be, that’s a goal we all would abide by.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is inviting kids and their families to participate in a selection of summer programs that offers more than a dozen hands-on fun activities through a new and expanded Junior Ranger Program.

Rebel records, the venerable bluegrass-only imprint that’s as much a home to royalty like Ralph Stanley as it is young upstarts like Steep Canyon Rangers, has issued a slew of fine CDs in the last few months.

By Michael Beadle

Dee Dee Triplett is a woman of the cloth. Her husband, Robert, is a man of strong metal.

Instant Sociology

Ever had one of those days where nobody, I mean nobody, made much sense? Baffling behaviors everywhere? Here’s my solution: research!