In the midst of the most important and crucial presidential election in my 39 years of existence in this country and, perhaps, also that of my now elderly parents and long-gone grandparents, I decided to order a New York Strip Steak, medium with sautéed onions. 

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein spoke to members of Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council Monday, during which he touted some of his accomplishments over the last eight years while also laying out a vision for the future of the state. 

To the Editor:

No wonder some of us do not want to talk about nor listen to what we loosely call politics. At least not politics in this country at this time in the USA.

We folks over 70 often make mistakes — forgetting and confusing names, places, dates. So when Joe Biden mistook President Sisi of Egypt as the president of Mexico I didn’t worry too much about it. Woops! 

To the Editor:

Nikki Haley, in a February 21 interview with National Public Radio, said: “I think what’s really important is to know that the majority of Americans dislike Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” she said. “So we think that there needs to be an alternative.” 

To the Editor:

Beginning a new year during a cold winter, and an election year, I find myself soulful and introspective. 

I wish to respond in a general way to the two columns on the Opinion page of the Dec. 27-Jan 2024 edition of The Smoky Mountain News — to Scott McLeod’s and to guest columnist Rob Schofield’s. 

If 2024 were a table laid out before you, how would you imagine it: a beautiful, feast-laden smorgasbord of rich and tasty dishes with succulent sides, or an after-dinner wreck piled high with crusted up dirty dishes, overturned wine glasses and already eaten carcasses of dead birds and picked-over porcine bones? 

A study conducted by the scholarly journal, Science, found that lack of human connection can be more harmful to your health than obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. Experimental and quasi-experimental studies of humans and animals suggested that social isolation is a major risk factor for mortality from widely varying causes. 

As President Trump’s administration continues to descend further into chaos with each passing week, there are a few truths that we will have to reckon with when it comes to an end, whether that occurs in a few years, a few months or a few weeks. The biggest of these is also the most obvious: we are a nation divided. Though polls show that Trump’s support is dwindling slightly, there remains a solid core of Trump voters who still support him and believe that his problems are essentially the fault of the media and of sore-loser liberals, who in their view refused to accept the legitimacy of his presidency and are thus undermining any chance he has of being productive or successful.