Easley’s budget goes wrong way on lottery
Gov. Mike Easley’s proposed budget would decrease the portion of lottery proceeds going to education — before legislators have a chance to fix an already unfair funding formula that shorts the western part of the state — a gamble that citizens throughout the state just shouldn’t support.
The day Uncle Curtis’ rabbits did the town
By Carl Iobst
Well if this don’t beat all. Over in eastern Germany where lederhosen, apple strudel, and skinheads are tourist attractions, Karl Szmolinsky is fixin’ to feed the world’s hungry. Maybe not the whole world, but you’ve got to start somewhere. And what better place than North Korea, where thousands are starving to death every day!
Moratorium will preserve building industry, not destroy it
The Jackson County commissioners should move forward with their temporary subdivision moratorium, notwithstanding all the concerns that have been raised about this proposal.
Now what will the wagging tongues talk about?
Jack Cox and Kayden Zollinger (soon to be Cox, pending paperwork) are proud — and relieved — to announce the marriage of their parents, Chris Cox and Tammy Jo Schroth. The two were married without apparent warning in an impossibly small, curiously intimate, and strangely romantic setting — the magistrate’s office in the Haywood County Detention Center, adjacent to the lesser of our three Ingles — on Jan. 26 at approximately 4:38 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Tribe, unlike Google and others, isn’t asking for a handout
By David Redman • Guest Columnist
There is absolutely no doubt about the economic impact the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and its Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel operation have in Western North Carolina.Over the past 10 years the facility has furnished our previously economically depressed area with not just hundreds, but thousands of quality jobs. And guess what? All without incentives from the State of North Carolina.
Common goal is the same – a thriving downtown
Downtown Sylva is a special place. The events of the last couple of months only reinforce that fact, and so the momentum to create a better, closer and more unified business community should continue.
Tipping one back with Baby
By Carl Iobst
Gee, what’ll they think of next. In Olympia, the capital of Washington state, there’s a state representative that’s proposing that dogs be allowed to drink in bars. Well not exactly drink, although I’m sure that some dog owners might pour a cool one in one of those collapsible doggy bowls for their thirsty purebreds now and then.
Technology can help us beat global warming
By Doug Wingier • Guest Columnist
We American consumers are richer than most in the world, and as voters more powerful. Yet as one wave of technological change after another washes over us, we tend to accept each as inevitable and out of control, and feel helpless to prevent the coming catastrophe presaged by Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Harrah’s success should prompt state to allow live dealers
Gambling at the Harrah’s casino in Cherokee is wildly successful. That success — and the state’s own actions — makes Gov. Mike Easley’s resistance to the use of live dealers slightly ridiculous and enormously hypocritical.
A real-life love story – sort of
It’s an old story, the only one worth telling, really, especially here on Valentine’s Day. It’s a love story, the lengths that we will go to, etcetera.
