The Jackson County Arts Council is proud to announce the 2020 T-shirt design winner is Josie Smoker. 

On Jan. 13, J Gabriel, Moonlight and Garbo, and Tia Dana presented the Haywood County Arts Council with a $1,200 check. 

At the annual meeting of the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre Board of Directors on Jan. 21, HART Executive Director Steve Lloyd announced the theater’s “Volunteer of the Year” would be Michelle Free. 

Tea time at Nettie’s Bakery in Waynesville raised $1,350 in support of the critically endangered red wolf during the inaugural event Tea Time for the Red Wolf Saturday, Jan. 1. 

George Ivey has joined the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation as the nonprofit’s new development officer. 

Haywood Community College 2019 professional crafts fiber graduate Hannah Mitsu Shimabukuro was recently named a Penland School of Craft Core Fellow. 

By Martin Dyckman • Guest Columnist | No one in America should be above the law, least of all the person most responsible for enforcing it. But there he is: Donald Trump, preening and posturing and scoffing at the Constitution like some latter-day Mussolini, his conceit inflamed by the Justice Department’s policy that a sitting president can’t be indicted.

Nothing in the Constitution or any law Congress made says so. 

To the Editor:

Have you a favorite president? I do, Harry S Truman (no period after the S). Truman was the first president I saw in person. In 1947 he campaigned from a caboose in my hometown (Haverhill, Massachusetts). It was after Labor Day, school had commenced, my third-grade class was at the railroad station to greet him.

Truman became president when Franklin Roosevelt died April 12, 1945, then won the presidency by defeating Thomas Dewey in 1947. One of Truman’s accomplishments, he made a sincere effort to introduce national health insurance.

Even in Harry Truman’s time (70 years ago) the deep-pocketed American Medical Association (AMA) opposed the program, wanting to protect physicians’ superior market power and professional autonomy. Then, as now, the AMA’s national network endeavored to stir up fear of “socialized medicine.” Opponents of universal coverage have relied on variations of that playbook ever since.

This is well-documented and you can verify these facts through study of William C. Hsiao, K.T. Li Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Hsiao most recently wrote on the subject for Foreign Affairs (Jan.-Feb. 2000).

Truman, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama all recognized the need of establishing effective, affordable health care. The fact remains, across the broad spectrum of health care, Americans pay more and get less .... Why?

The root of the problem (deferring to William Hsiao), as the United States became a prosperous, industrialized society in the early 20th century, it chose to treat health care as a commercial product rather than a social good, such as education. As a result, whereas government-mandated universal schooling was the norm by the 1920s, health care still remains primarily a private-sector commodity driven by the profit motive.

According to statistics (confirm them, please) 28 million Americans are uninsured and 44 more million are under-insured, contributing to an inequality in that the top quarter of American wage-earners live 10 years longer (on average) than the bottom quarter.

Finally, the flagrant fraud, waste and abuse driving up the price of health care, tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary spending year after year.  Hsiao tells us that a cottage industry has sprung up to advise hospitals and physicians how to game the claims system by fragmenting bills and “upcoding services” — exaggerating their complexity — in order to maximize payments.

Large providers employ workers whose primary task is to find ways to pad charges. Some hospitals and clinics take a blunter approach: they simply file claims for services they’ve not actually performed. It’s been going on for decades.

Some of us have experienced and reported irregularities over the years with only minimal success. Unless public attitudes shift drastically, we’ll never achieve full and affordable health care.

However, should American values and urgencies change and we decide we’ve had enough scheming and scamming, we have only to look to Canada, Taiwan, Germany, and a few other nations for guidance with systems that work.

David L. Snell

Franklin

To the Editor:

It is unbelievable that this quality paper can stand toe to toe with other publications and best them time after time. In fact, your news and list of events are much better than any Western Carolina paper currently published. I have lived all over the world and in a number of states but have not experienced the professionalism shown by your staff. There is writing and WRITING; you know the difference. Without your publication, we would be left out of timely news. I thought about writing this letter for some time but I finally got my thoughts in order. Keep on doing what you do so well and these Western Carolinians will continue being informed every Wednesday.

KG Watson

Maggie Valley

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians hopes to earn more than $1 million over 10 years by extending a $4 million loan to broadband provider Balsam West, of which it is a 50 percent owner. 

Whether you are following a vegan or vegetarian diet or just looking for a meatless or meat-free burger option for a quick meal, you will appreciate the selection of products you can find at your local Ingles Markets. 

On Monday, Dec. 30, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte published a list of several clergy the diocese found to have been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse since the diocese’s creation in 1972. Of these clergy members, two worked in the 43rd Prosecutorial District in the 1970s and 1980s. 

As an ingredient, caffeine is found naturally in coffee, tea, mate and chocolate and is added to caffeinated sodas, some “energy” waters, coffee-flavored foods like ice cream and meal replacement bars, as well as candy, gum and non-prescription medications that have added caffeine. 

In the early hours of the morning on Saturday, Nov. 30, slightly more than 500 students at Western Carolina University met in the football stadium parking lot and packed into 12 buses. What did they have in common? They all were members of WCU’s Pride of the Mountains Marching Band. Their destination? New York City.

Robert Burns is credited with saving the folk music of Scotland. He was born just a few years after England conquered Scotland in 1746. England was intent upon destroying the clan system. Edicts of proscription were issued forbidding the remaining Scottish people from wearing tartan and speaking Gaelic upon removal or death. Scottish leaders and their families were hunted down. The lucky ones escaped, some to America. Not many decades passed before the old language, except in the darkest dales of Scotland, was lost.

Robert Burns was a poet farmer in Ayreshire, Scotland, but an accomplished poet.  He began to compose a collection of poems about familiar country characters and legends. To make the subjects more human, he wrote in the Old Scots dialect that was used in storytelling. He set many of these poems to old pub ballads. The tunes would be familiar to people but with new words.

He performed this repertoire in meeting halls and salons around Scotland, attracted mentors, and became famous. These songs and poems might not have become famous if England had not been the world power in the 19th century. As their armies moved all over the globe, Burns’ songs and poems went with them.  Although many artist and writers have been honored, Robert Burns is the only one who has an annual celebration named for him. Still over 250 years later, Robert Burns Night highlighting his poems and songs are still bringing people together around the world. And he did not live long to do it. He died at 37. 

The Taste of Scotland society will hold its annual Burns Night on Jan. 25 at Tartan Hall, First Presbyterian Church, Franklin. The evening will start with a roll call of the Clans, move to a five course dinner menu. Jacobites By Name will perform after dinner. We hope to have some Scottish country dancing, and we will end the night by gathering in a circle and singing, “Auld Lang Syne,” perhaps his most famous work.

Merrilee Bordeaux

Franklin

To the Editor:

The impeachment of President Donald Trump, the most partisan political witch hunt in our American history, is fraudulent, a hoax, charade and scam. Democrats, the media and various other left-wing swamp Trump haters have been calling for his impeachment from the day he was elected ... before the man assumed any presidential duties … before he set foot into the Oval Office. At that time there was nothing to impeach him on. Oh! Sorry! There was one thing according to the Trump-hating Democrats. He beat the Democrat chosen one, Hilary Clinton, in the 2016 presidential election. With that perceived “crime” Democrat officeholders cried out for impeachment without any constitutional reason to impeach. Early on, a congressman from Texas stood at the U.S. House of Representatives podium and said we need to impeach before he is reelected ... upon her election in 2018 a potty mouth congresswoman vowed to impeach the #&%*, using the nastiest profanity. Maxine Waters bellowed out “impeach 45” just about every day from the 2016 Election Day ... still nothing valid or constitutional to impeach. This process is like telling your child I will be grounding you but I don’t know for what yet.

After trying to find a Trump crime worthy of impeachment — including a two and a half year special counsel investigation — the desperate Democrat scammers have settled on articles of impeachment that we are to believe are high crimes and misdemeanors … abuse of power and obstruction of justice. These accusations are not criminal nor are they true. Instead they are conjured up by a kangaroo court in an attempt to get rid of a president by coup rather than an election. Democrats have tried to foist this nonsense on us and while at it the Speaker of the House has abused her power by holding the impeachment articles from the Senate.

In the meantime we have a booming Trump economy where more than 7 million jobs have been added; in 2019 the unemployment rate reached its lowest level in half a century; the unemployment rates for minorities, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and those without a high school diploma are at record lows; wages are growing at their fastest rate in a decades; two existing regulations for every new regulation are slashed saving $50 billion in regulatory costs; support is strengthened for our community, border control and ICE law enforcement officers; ISIS is devastated; trade agreements are renegotiated to benefit the U.S and red lines in the sand are honored like the promise to eliminate of those responsible for attacks on our embassies and killing Americans.

It is no wonder that the left, Democrats and the Trump-hating swamp want to be rid of President Donald Trump who is making America and our citizens great again. That idea is alien to them.

Shirley Slaughter

Cashiers

To the Editor:

It is my understanding that the state legislature and the governor are at an impasse over the state budget because of a refusal by the General Assembly to expand Medicaid, which Gov. Roy Cooper has strongly supported. 

Here’s the thing: For the past five years North Carolina taxpayers have paid $8.3 billion in federal taxes to support the cost of expanding Medicaid in 36 other states and the District of Columbia. But our legislators refuse to take action to provide coverage to over 464,000 North Carolinians, which federal funding will fund up to 90 percent.

Expanding Medicaid would make health care available to many working North Carolina adults whose employers offer neither health insurance nor wages sufficient to purchase coverage on the private market. Many of these working adults are parents whose lack of health care directly affects their children, often resulting in poor school performance and a less promising future.

The injection of billions of dollars of federal funding into the economy will spur North Carolina’s business activity and create an estimated 34,000 jobs in this year, 2020. With Medicaid expansion, at least 665 additional people in Macon County would be covered, more jobs and more tax revenue would be created.

And also in this unpassed state budget is a plan for retired school personnel to receive a one-time .5 percent bonus. You read that right: 5 tenths of a percent ... bonus. The Macon County North Carolina Retired School Personnel have asked for a cost-of-living increase to try to keep up with inflation. For our efforts, we have received a 1 percent increase three times in 10 years, yet the cumulative inflation over that time period has been 18.10 percent. 

We didn’t serve the children of North Carolina in order to become rich, but it would be a real bonus if we retirees could keep up with inflation.

Nancy Scott 

Franklin

Lake Junaluska to draw down water levelsLake Junaluska has opened its dam to draw down the lake. The lake drawdown, which happens every few years, allows for removal of silt from the lake’s floor as well as repairs, maintenance and litter cleanup. The lake will be filled again by Easter.

In the post-holiday frenzy we hear a lot about making resolutions regarding our health and fitness. Many of us start with good intentions, but our aspirations fall flat after just a few weeks because we never figured out a plan to execute our resolutions. 

Several changes to hunting, inland fishing and trapping licenses structures and fees went into effect with the start of the New Year. 

Eight area land trusts protected a collective 8,598 acres in 2019, equivalent to 13.43 square miles, bringing the total protected since 2016 to 30,478 acres.

Tim Petrea, program supervisor for the Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department since 2013, will be leaving North Carolina for a position as director of county parks, recreation and leisure services in Wyoming. 

A 17-acre bog in Burke County is now protected for consesrvation folowing a Dec. 16 purchase by the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina. 

Duke Energy will move forward with excavating nearly 80 million tons of coal ash at sites in North Carolina following the signing of a settlement agreement with community and environmental groups that ends appeal litigation. 

To the Editor:

On a recent ride into town, I found myself behind a car with a bumper sticker that read “Support Our Troops.” I imagined addressing the driver: “What exactly does your bumper sticker mean? How are you supporting our troops? Do you send them gifts for Christmas? Donate to veterans causes? Do you vote for candidates who will keep them safe by providing arms for them in battle or for candidates who will keep them safe by staying out of conflicts? Are you implying that I don’t support our troops because my car does not display the same message?”

It’s been decades since I’ve met anyone who does not respect the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect us.

And what about the bumper stickers that say “Peace”? “What statement are you making? That you are for peace? As opposed to what? Have you ever met anyone who is against peace?”

The truth is that these bumper stickers have nothing at all to do with our troops or world peace. Rather, their sole purpose is to let others know what side you’re on. They are no different than the colors worn by rival gangs in cities across America.

So, at the dawn of this new decade, perhaps it’s time to begin dismantling the social and political divisions in our country. The bumpers of our cars may be the best place to start. And if you must display something, may I suggest “I am human — just like you.”

Jeffrey Zalles

Southport

To the Editor:

Recently, a prolific contributor of letters to editors asked how much longer we could stand to have Donald Trump as President. I’ll make this short and sweet. We can stand to have him as long as it takes to clean out the corruption in the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and other agencies with bleach and a fire hose. As long as we have unelected agencies illegally trying to overturn the results of an election we can stop worrying about any foreign adversaries. The enemy is us, or at least a certain subset of arrogant functionaries and their enablers that have forgotten what democracy is supposed to be. Four more years!

David Parker

Sylva

The search for the driver of a silver/grey Dodge Charger with white strobe lights who allegedly held a woman at gunpoint in December has not resulted in any new information.

Southeast Tourism Society has named the Hook, Line and Drinker Festival in Sylva one of the STS Top 20 Events in the Southeast for May 2020.

After some 18 years in business, there will be a special closing celebration for Soul Infusion Tea House & Bistro in Sylva. Though the business will open at noon on Saturday, Jan. 11, the “Soul’s Last Stand” will be from 5 to 11:30 p.m. that day.

This time of year there seems to be a lot of talk about eliminating foods. How about if instead we let talk about ADDING more food from plants to our meals - this is actually the recommendation of the US Dietary Guidelines and My Plate!

To the Editor:

Mr. Waldrop, as always, nails the truth to the sticking-place in his last letter to The Smoky Mountain News. Fellow citizens, are you not beyond sick of having your mind constantly invaded by President Trump’s hate-filled, childish insults even to his own appointees? By his obsession with money alone? By his complete inability even to understand basic morality? By his enraged face?

No wonder over 20,000 psychologists and psychiatrists wrote Congress explaining that his behavior is so flagrant, so public, that it is unquestionably that of a dangerously mentally ill person? And just this month over 700 historians have petitioned Congress to impeach, explaining how the president is a grave threat to national security? Their letter was quoted in Forbes Magazine Dec. 17 and elsewhere.  

The president’s mental state, regardless of politics, has clearly been abnormal since way before the 2016 election. Psychiatrists at Johns Hopkins Medical School and Yale even wrote books explaining in detail the nature of Trump’s escalating mental illness, so extreme that it makes him unfit to hold any public office. Twenty-seven mental health professionals contributed articles to another book explaining how his behavior shows him to be unquestionably mentally. 

Never mind politics, people. This man should resign for reasons of ill health. 

Mary Curry

Cullowhee

The Blue Ridge Parkway is now 53.3 acres bigger thanks to the Conservation Trust for North Carolina’s recent donation of the Pinnacle Ridge tract in Haywood County. 

The Asheville-based cooperative Kudzu Culture has launched an online store offering locally harvested kudzu products. 

As we ring in the New Year, The Smoky Mountain News likes to look back and reflect on the last year of news. 

The headlines that have graced our pages in 2019 have had an important impact on the people of Western North Carolina, and our staff has taken its job of reporting and analyzing those issues seriously.

Calcium carbonate comes from limestone. You may know it in over-the-counter medication to relieve heartburn or for indigestion (antacid) or as a calcium supplement in tablets or in various beverages like plant-based beverages that have no naturally occurring calcium. 

Pledging their utmost dedication and respect to this nation’s natural resources, 17 graduates from Southwestern Community College’s National Park Service Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy program walked across the stage on Friday, Dec. 6, at the Public Safety Training Center in Macon County.

Seasonal closures in the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests will begin on Jan. 2. Planned opening dates may change depending on weather. 

A 51-acre conservation purchase in the Highlands of Roan will protect a prominent ridge near the Appalachian Trail. 

For the ninth year running, Western Carolina University has made The Princeton Review’s list of North America’s most environmentally responsible colleges. 

By Mark Jamison • Guest Columnist | In Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, the political philosopher Michael Sandel discusses the tension between concepts of citizenship as a participatory responsibility and concepts of government as merely a transactional entity, another business from which we obtain services. In later work, Sandel bemoans our slide from a market economy to a market society, an all-encompassing concept that everything is for sale. Sandel’s discussions came to mind as I read Scott McLeod’s recent opinion piece Time to face reality regarding the Smokies.

To the Editor:

Only a few short years ago Americans criticized Russian leaders for their overt political philosophy: “The end justifies the means.” In other words, whatever we do is OK as long as we get what we want.

Yet, is this not exactly how Donald Trump has dealt with Ukraine officials in his quest to “dig up dirt” on Joe Biden (his likely presidential opponent in 2020)?

Today I re-read the Ten Commandments along with Proverbs 6:16-23. You can read them for yourself in the King James version of the Bible. The Ten Commandments are a key component of Christian belief. Didn’t the erstwhile Moral Majority brandish them? They (Moral Majority politicians) said little, however, about the seven things that the Lord hates as stated in Proverbs. But! But! Where is the Moral Majority today? Can they not step up and condemn the flood of lies put forth by Donald Trump? After all, lying is specifically covered by the ninth commandment. It is also specifically one of the seven things the Lord hates!

How much longer can Washington politicians (predominantly Republicans) justify the lies and other forms of deception/abuse that Trump uses daily? How much longer can America be the beacon of democracy so desperately needed by the rest of the world if we refuse to walk the path of truth?

How much longer?

Dave Waldrop

Webster

To the Editor:

Five years ago, shortly after partnering with the Sheriff’s Office to begin a Safe Kids coalition in Macon County, I went through a 5-day course to become a certified car seat technician. During the rigorous five-day course, taught by experts who traveled here from Raleigh, I learned all about the most common mistakes when installing a car seat, I learned which car seat is best for a child’s age or size, and even which seat is best based on a specific vehicle. We practiced installation on dolls before finishing the week with a free car seat safety inspection station for the community. 

Over the last five years, as the Chairman of Safe Kids Macon County, I have organized a dozen car seat safety events that have checked over 500 car seats. Sometimes those car seat checks were for me friends or coworkers, but most of them were for complete strangers who I have not spoken to since. It is widely known that car seat safety is a great passion of mine and something I constantly advocate for. 

On a recent Friday, all of those years of car seat safety and helping others became my own reality when I got a phone call that my mother and my 4-year-old niece were in a rollover accident. Their vehicle didn’t just rollover, but it rolled off the bank and landed upside down in a creek. My husband and I rushed to the scene and by the time we got there, both my mother and niece were safely out of the vehicle. Seeing that car upside own with water rushing through the inside was gut wrenching. I immediately began searching for my mother and niece who were in the ambulance. Worst case scenario flashed through my head. The car was so damaged, I was terrified of how I would find them. 

When I opened the ambulance door, I saw my niece. She had a few scratches on her cheek from the broken glass from the back windshield, but otherwise she was safe. And that is when it hit me. She was safe because her Graco five-point harness saved her life. Had she been in a booster seat, or had the seat not been properly installed, there is no question in my life she would have been seriously injured in that horrific accident. But she wasn’t. A man passing by shortly after the accident jumped in the river and cut the seatbelt that was holding her into the car. She was dangling upside down in the car, but the five-point harness of her seat kept her secured. He carried her out of the creek, still fully secured in her car seat. 

As her aunt, I am beyond grateful for the string of events that kept her safe that day, as a car seat technician, I know it was no coincidence. My sister had made the right decision of keeping Wren in a five-point harness car seat. That means on impact, there were five-points of impact that lessened the injury across her body and helped absorb the impact during the accident. Had my sister made the mistake, which is all too common, of transitioning Wren to a booster seat too early, we would not have had the same outcome. The car seat was properly installed inside the car. It’s as secured with a seatbelt, which was locked, which kept it secured against the car seat even though the car was flipped upside down. The straps were snug against Wren’s body, and the harness was by her armpits, which ensured that her little body didn’t slip out while it dangled upside down. All things I have preached and scolded and annoyed my sisters to do for their children, and even strangers to do for theirs … while they seem nitpicky or aggravating at the time, in the event of an accident those are the very things that will save a child’s life, as they did for my niece on Friday. 

My mother was also able to walk away from the accident with a minor concussion and a few scratches, undoubtedly because her seatbelt also kept her safe. 

Car seat safety is something that you never think you need it … until you do. That is why as Chairman of Safe Kids Macon County, I have worked with incredible volunteers to grow the list of local technicians available to check your child’s car seat for free at anytime. If you haven’t had your seat check, please do so today. Christmas time is a heavy travel season and ensuring your child is in the right seat, and the seat is properly installed could mean the difference in life and death. 

To have your child’s seat checked, contact the Macon County Sheriff’s Annex, the Franklin Police Department, or the Highlands Police Department, the Franklin Fire Department, or the Otto Fire Department, all of which have made it a priority to have certified car seat technicians on staff to help.

Brittney Lofthouse 

Safe Kids Macon County Chairman 

To the Editor:

Thank you for reporting on the recent animal cruelty case in Haywood County. The suffering of so many animals is truly horrific. Perhaps the silver lining that can come from this terrible tragedy is recognizing and then fixing the corruption that exists within the Haywood County system that is supposed to be protecting animals. Cory Vaillancourt’s excellent investigation points fingers at Jeff Stamey, Doyle Teague, and Frank Queen. They are bad seeds within the system, and it’s time to spit them out.  

Nancy Kay, DVM

Sebastapol, Calif.

Southwestern Community College’s new $21 million Health Sciences Building is starting to take shape on the west side of the Jackson Campus as construction remains on schedule to finish by the summer of 2021.

The Nantahala Health Foundation has announced its initial grants awarded to local organizations in Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties, and the Qualla Boundary. 

Constance Owl’s master’s degree thesis is more than a means to a graduate degree in American history. It’s a portal to understanding, and perhaps saving, a disappearing language.

A flurry of last-minute sign-ups means that 2020 will likely be a lively election season in Western North Carolina and beyond.