Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville

“As a Swain County native, I have a deep, personal understanding of the issues and emotions surrounding the Road to Nowhere. The people of Swain County have

By Carl Iobst

Ed Stephens of Dillsboro recently had a problem with the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad. According to the Sylva Herald, Stephens said the railroad is abandoning old train cars on his property. Stephens “called them and asked them to remove the cars.”

By Becky Anderson

This is the time for members of the 2007 North Carolina General Assembly to follow their hearts and love for this state and approve a significant increase in funding for land and water conservation in our state as proposed by the Land for Tomorrow organization.

Swain County native Heath Shuler is doing his home county a favor by putting together a powerful congressional coalition to support a cash settlement in lieu of building the controversial North Shore Road. Truthfully, there’s little chance that this road was ever going to get built, so taking a $52 million payout seems a much smarter option than holding out hope that a decades-old promise would ever be kept.

By Michael Beadle

Jon Brown and Scott Cochran want to help a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina rebuild after a bitter ethnic war, but to get there, they’ll need to raise about $30,000.

By Sarah Kucharski

Entering figurative sculptor Wesley Wofford’s studio one is struck by the sheer size of his works.

The Cowboy Junkies have this thing that only they can do, and as easy as it is to recognize that thing when you hear it, exactly what it is remains uncertain.

Well, let’s just consider this a collection of things I would NOT recommend. But maybe reading this will constitute a “diversion” of some sort, so here goes...

Thank goodness for Don Imus.

After 25 years of gutteral lyrics in the name of entertainment, none of which was protested, banned, boycotted or demonstrated against by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the Imus faux pas has finally brought trash music to a level of national outrage where it should have been long ago.

The expansion announced last week by Smoky Mountain Biofuels and Mountain Energy will help place Western North Carolina at the forefront of a homegrown energy industry that holds great promise for the region and the country.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sitting at a workbench in the back of his gallery on Main Street in Waynesville, wood worker Dennis Ruane meticulously carves a tiny bearded man into the handle of a spoon. The spoon is a replica of one of his early pieces, being made for a collector up North who saw the work on the cover of Ruane’s novel Wooden Spoons.

By Chris Cooper

See, the primary difference between Todd Snider and Ryan Adams is that Snider didn’t get so caught up in transforming himself into a freakish “just this side of Gen-X” version of Neil Young that he lost sight of what his gig really is: consistently writing great material that doesn’t eventually disintegrate and dilute itself into self-obsessed nattering and contemplation of one’s navel.

Guests of the Ayatollah and Kite Runner

Trying to understand the Middle East? Here are two books — one non-fiction and the other a wonderfully rich novel — that will open some doors for you.

Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam, by reporter Mark Bowden, recounts the 1979 takeover of this country’s Iranian embassy in Tehran by Muslim students. The book gives interesting insights into the struggle in Iran almost 30 years ago between moderate nationalists and Muslim fundamentalists. It’s a storyline that is playing out throughout the Middle East today. Incidentally, Bowden says Iran’s current president — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — was one of the students who figures prominently in the takeover.

Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, and the first novel published in English by an author from Afghanistan. It is a wonderful story about the relationship between two boys from different classes, but an important part of the story is the backdrop. It is set amidst Afghanistan’s tumultuous recent history, including the fall of the monarchy, the Soviet invasion, and the utter hypocrisy and capriciousness of the Taliban.

Now I’m searching for a good read on Iraq. Suggestions anyone?

Family camping

As I’ve gotten older, life has boiled itself down to a few essentials: family, work, and everything else. For Lori and I, family camping remains a favorite way to spend time with our kids. We’re just back from a great trip to Florida’s gulf coast where we swam, biked, canoed, walked, and took part in all kinds of other fun together. By my estimation there is no better way to spend time with children who haven’t graduated from high school.

Jackie Robinson and Don Imus

When Jackie Robinson walked out onto the field on April 13, 1947, to play Major League Baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers, it was a milestone for race relations in this country. African-Americans couldn’t eat in the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels as whites, couldn’t vote in many states, and were treated as second-class citizens. Robinson didn’t change much by himself, but as major league sports evolved so did the country. While shock jock Don Imus apologizes and tries to save his career after making a stupid racist remark, we — African-Americans and whites — should remember Robinson and countless others who showed by example the right way. It took courage to stand out there on his own, enduring threats on his life along with racial taunts. Too few follow that model these days.

— By Scott McLeod

A traffic study was conducted to assess the traffic impacts of a new Super Wal-Mart and Home Depot complex coming to West Waynesville.

About $1.5 million in roadwork is planned to accommodate the increased traffic on South Main Street and Hyatt Creek Roads from the Super Wal-Mart and Home Depot development. There will be two entrances to the development: one off Hyatt Creek Road and one off South Main Street. Here’s a description of what the new road will look like:

U.S. 23-74 on-and-off ramps on the Anderson Auto side

• There will be a roundabout in the middle of Hyatt Creek Road. Drivers coming off the by-pass will go through the roundabout at the bottom of the exit ramp. The roundabout was chosen in lieu of a traffic light because it will move traffic more quickly. A traffic light would back up traffic all the way up the exit ramp and onto the bypass.

U.S. 23-74 on-and-off ramps on the development side

• There will be a dedicated right-turn lane coming from the development and leading up the on-ramp heading toward Asheville.

Entrance to the development on Hyatt Creek Road

• Hyatt Creek Road will be five lanes between the by-pass and the entrance to the development.

• Coming from the bypass toward the entrance there will be three lanes: two lanes are left-turn only into the development and one continues straight ahead on Hyatt Creek Rd.

• Leaving the development and going toward the by-pass, there will be two lanes: one is a dedicated right-turn lane to get on the bypass and one will be for going straight.

• Coming from South Main Street toward the entrance, there will be three lanes: one is a right-turn into the development or straight thru, one is straight-thru only and one is a left-turn only into the Huddle House.

• Leaving the development heading toward South Main Street, there will be two lanes: one left-turn only and one right-turn only.

• There will be a traffic light at the entrance.

Entrance to the development on South Main Street

• South Main Street will be three lanes around the entrance.

• Two lanes will be for straight-thru traffic, one in both directions.

• Approaching from town, there will an extra lane for right-turns only into the development.

• Approaching from the other way, the extra lane will be for left-turns only into the development.

• There will be a traffic light at the entrance.

National Poetry Month

In honor of National Poetry Month this April, here are some recommendations for poetry lovers and those seeking to learn more about the craft. First, a few books...

Access management deploys numerous design techniques to reduce congestion on clogged roads, five-lane drags being the primary candidate.

Representative Heath Shuler announced Monday that the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area has been allocated a federal appropriation of $748,955 for 2007. BRNHA’s appropriation was the third largest amount allocated to any of the 24 National Heritage areas that received federal funding this year.

Editor’s note: A group of nurses who work at the Haywood Regional Medical Center Emergency Room recently contacted The Smoky Mountain News. They said that during the controversy over the firing of Haywood Emergency Physicians, which took place last December, their opinions had never been sought by hospital administrators and never publicized in the media. A group of several nurses spoke to us about their concerns. Since their jobs could be jeopardized for speaking to us, we agreed to grant them anonymity. HRMC Administrator David Rice was asked to respond the allegations, but he said a pending lawsuit by fomer emergency room doctors prevented him from doing so. Since this story is presented from just nurse’s side, we are printing it in the opinions section.

Sitting around the kitchen table of a modest Haywood County home after a day on the job, the emergency room nurses said they just wanted their opinions on the matter heard. Throughout the controversy surrounding Haywood Emergency Physicians and Hospital Administrator David Rice, the nurses said no one had sought out their opinion.

By Dawn Gilchrist Young

“ ... and all day I turn over my own best thoughts,

each one as heavy and slow to flow

as a stone in a field full of wet and tossing flowers.”

— Mary Oliver

“Writing keeps me company living here by myself.”

— Zora Walker

What does a woman of 74 do with her spare time when her husband dies and her grown children all have lives of their own?

The Man in the Pickup Truck

You may be a man who drives a cadillac

and lives in a big house on a hill.

You may run a big corporation

and come and go as you will.

You may have a great big bank account

and think you have all the luck.

But the man who keeps the world going

is the man in the pickup truck.

He’s the man who built your big old house,

did the plumbing, electricity and all,

and if anything ever goes wrong around the place,

he’s always the man you call.

He keeps the wheels on your cadillac rolling,

works on the road on which you drive.

If not for the man in the pickup truck,

this world just couldn’t survive.

Dear Little Pluto

We don’t understand

what it’s all about.

They are putting you aside

and kicking you out.

You are one of the “nine” –

you were always there,

not to have you around

just doesn’t seem fair.

No one should change

what has always been true.

If I get to choose,

I’m keeping you.

Imagine how this scenario could work, if it was a reality: a state Department of Transportation in lockstep with the wishes of the state’s citizenry, an organization that went to great lengths to work with towns, counties and other entities to try to help reduce congestion by managing traffic with an eye toward quality of life instead of simply moving more cars.

By Michael Beadle

Jay Blackburn never figured he’d be competing against the best axe-chopping, saw-cutting athletes in the country when he enrolled at Haywood Community College two years ago. Now he’s planning to pursue a career as a timber sports athlete.

By Michael Beadle

Along with death and taxes, one of the most predictable things in life seems to be political scandal, and for the past quarter century few comedy groups in America have done a better job of poking fun at our elected officials than the Capitol Steps.

By Chris Cooper

Fusing soaring gospel harmony with finely tuned bluegrass firepower, Doyle Lawson has forged an easily recognizable and smoothly accessible sound over all these years. On his most recent Rounder records release he and his band display an effortless command of the music, all the while sounding as fresh and vital as any of the many “up and coming” groups.

Bill Dyar has long been interested in Native American dances.

When he was 15 years old, he formed his first dance team growing up in Georgia, and his interest in the Cherokee developed even more having a mother-in-law on the Eastern Band of Cherokee tribal roll.

By Chris Cooper

First, if you don’t already know (I sure as heck didn’t) fire up Google and read about exactly what a “strangelet” is. Pretty interesting, eh?

“The Sopranos”

Down now to the last five episodes before creator David Chase closes down the series for good, the show that changed television forever continues to be one of the few good reasons to pay for cable. James Gandolfini will probably never escape the shadow of Tony Soprano as he moves on inevitably into big budget films, but that is more a testament to the incredible intensity of his performances, and the sympathy he has for a character that is, to say the least, a flawed protagonist, than it is a commentary on his limitations as an actor. He has been at it ten years, and the character remains as complex and compelling as he was in the series’ first season. He has created one of the great characters in television history. I am still not sure where the show is heading as far as a conclusion goes — will Tony be killed? Go to prison? Lose someone close to him (I am betting on his son — “the sins of the fathers” angle)? With each episode here in the final season, the suspense continues to build, the sense of impending doom coiling around Tony more and more. The show now feels more like one long movie, a great film noir, than a television show, and what a great movie it is.

The Ponys, Turn The Lights Out

The year is still young and already there have been a handful of albums I have really enjoyed, including stellar records from the Kings of Leon and Arcade Fire and pretty good ones from Lucinda Williams and the Greencards, but this is the album I love the most, a collection of great songs from a youngish Chicago band that at first blush sounds like a savvy selection of covers of classic garage-rock gems from the 1960s. If you have heard of the Nuggets box sets, you’ll know what I mean and need this in your collection immediately. If not, think fuzzy guitars with a lot of reverb, power chords, soaring harmonies, hooks you’ll be humming all day. Think rock and roll without the frills and slick production. Put it on and turn it up.

Pablo Neruda

My favorite poet after Walt Whitman is my go-to poet when I am trying to convince freshmen and sophomores that poetry is actually worth their time after all. Last week, as I finished reading one of my favorite Neruda poems that has this as the last line—”I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees”—I looked up and saw what every literature teacher hopes to see, a classroom cast under the spell of poetry, every student paying rapt attention. Read another one, a girl in the back said. I did. You do the same, and you’ll be the richer for it.

— By Chris Cox

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Cameron Farlow, an intern at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s Oconaluftee Visitors Center, reaches down to pluck a meandering millipede from the moist, dirt bank along the side of the trail as we hike up the ridgeline.

Ronald A. Johnson, who holds the JP Morgan Chase Chair in Finance in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern University, is the next dean of the College of Business at Western Carolina University.

By Stephanie Wampler

My fluffy white dog was no longer white — his snout was grey with grease, the hair slicked back from his nose. My cheerful dog was not so cheerful — he was sprawled across the couch, stomach bloated, groaning miserably. My obedient dog was not so obedient — garbage was spread all over the porch, birthday cake crumbs and shredded paper towels littered from one end to the other.

By Kathleen Lamont

It was Saturday, March 24, and I was walking through the Greenlife Grocery parking lot in Asheville where the fourth annual Asheville Artisans Bread Bakers Festival was in full swing.

Custom jewelry business Studio 33 and its owner Diannah Beauregard won the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce Business Start-up Competition and a $10,000 prize last week.

By Kathryn Stripling Byer

Soon school will be over for the year. Students will leave their classrooms and bound out into a summer day, feeling free, at least for a little while. But free to do what?

By Michael Rey

I would like to offer some words of support for those Emergency Department Nurses at Haywood Regional Medical Center who were brave enough to contribute to the debate over recent changes there (I am referring to the article that appeared in The Smoky Mountain News on April 24). Even speaking anonymously, they have all put their jobs on the line.

Dr. Michael Ray, who worked for Haywood Emergency Physicians before quitting in summer 2006, wrote this letter to the Haywood Regional Medical Center Board after his resignation.

Roughly 45 percent of people (more than 2.9 million) in North Carolina lives in an area with unhealthful short-term levels of particle pollution ....

— The American Lung Association

Last week was Air Quality Awareness Week, and surprisingly, there is some news about air quality. At least one recently released report noted a decrease in smog in many areas of North Carolina.

Danny Bernstein still remembers her first tough hike — a three-day journey in 1969 up Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York.

By Chris Cooper

Ah ... the joys of moving. Once you’ve got everything boxed up and ready to go, there’s usually about 2 metric tons of junk left over that you just don’t recall collecting over the years.

By Michael Beadle

New York City has long enjoyed a reputation as a melting pot of music — especially when it comes to the jazz scene.

By Michael Beadle

An old German town has a very serious rat problem. Luckily, a stranger arrives with just the right solution. But how much will it cost the town?

Afternoon Naps with the Windows Open

A recent dental surgery has left me at home the past few days in recovery. And in that amount of time it’s been amazing to see the green appear outside my window.

• The ordinance only applies to development on slopes greater than 30 percent.

• Developers must file a hydrology report, geotechnical analysis and a tree survey and reforestation plan. They must also provide an assessment describing the impact of the development on the environment of the mountain.

• Earth moving should be limited to the minimum required for the footprint of the foundation, driveways and roads.

• The roofline of a home cannot must be at least 20 feet below any ridgeline.

• No wholesale clearing of trees in front of a home for views. Natural vegetation must be retained to screen at least 50 percent of a the face of a building when viewed from the nearest public road.

• Homes should use natural, earth-tone color pallettes.

• Outside light should be muted and kept from spilling onto neighboring properties.

• To avoid excessive cut-and-fill slopes for building pads, homes on hillsides should “step-down” the mountain with a split foundation to conform to the natural contour of the slope.

• Cut slopes cannot exceed a 1:1 ratio and fill slopes cannot exceed a 1.5:1 ratio. Cut-and-fill slopes greater than 35 feet in vertical height shall be benched at 35 foot intervals.

• Density follows a sliding scale based on the slope. Lots must be a minimum of two acres on slopes with a 30 to 35 percent grade; 2.5 acres on slopes with a 35 to 39 percent grade; 5 acres on slopes with a 40 to 44 percent grade, and 10 acres on slopes great than 45 percent.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Paul Bratter, a newlywed young lawyer, sits on the couch of his fifth-floor brownstone apartment after a long day at work.

By Chris Cooper

Sia: Lady Croissant

To a degree, it seems like Zero 7 makes “electronic” music for people that normally wouldn’t really dig the style. Besides the brilliant mix of orchestral, traditional pop and soul elements evident in their work, it’s their skill in casting vocalists that bring exceptionally distinct flavors and interpretive skills to the material that borders on genius.

Among those unique singers is Australian crooner Sia Fuller, who was featured prominently on the group’s 2001 release Simple Things. The tracks that featured her, “Destiny” and “Distractions,” displayed a singer with a similar tonal quality to artists like Nelly Furtado and Dido, but endowed with a bluesy grit and chops that easily eclipse the two.

Sia’s solo album from 2006, Colour The Small One expounded on her neo-soul vibe with a lush collection of songs that possessed a few things many artists in this style tend to skimp on — depth, colorful imagery and imagination.

With Lady Croissant Furler serves up one new studio track and a gorgeous (if rather short) live set from NYC’s Bowery Ballroom. The new tune, “Pictures,” clangs with bouncing mid-tempo power-pop beneath a tale that makes infatuation sound remarkably similar to a severe allergic reaction.

It’s the live set that’s the highlight here, proof that Sia (and a crack band of musicians) can deliver these songs without the aid of studio magic and trickery. The arrangements keep only the parts that really make these songs tick, and nowhere in the set does anything sound empty or lacking — if anything, many of these tunes shine a bit more in this stripped down format. “Numb” readily demonstrates this, reveling in the power and dynamics that only a live band can bring to a song.

Sia does her best Chrissie Hynde on the Ray Davies penned “I Go To Sleep,” which features guitarist Gus Seyffert laying some sly Wes Montgomery styled octaves in the verses. “Breathe,” her recent hit (featured on the wildly popular Grey’s Anatomy) surges with drama and intensity, and hearing her wail on the extended outro forces me to ponder why anyone is willing to settle for glossy, half-hearted attempts at modern soul by artists like Joss Stone when there’s an album like this just waiting to be heard.

Lady Croissant needs no butter or jam at all; it’s quite tasty just as it is.

David Gray: Shine: The Best Of The Early Years

It’s easy to forget that for the most part David Gray is a guitar playing singer/songwriter in the truest sense. This is partially due to the success of 00’s White Ladder and the single “Babylon,” which had his guitar sharing much of its space with prominent drum machine and synth burbles, blips and clicks. It’s not that those are bad things at all; it just makes hearing Gray’s earlier “folk and roll” based work that much more interesting.

Take a tune like “Late Night Radio.” It’s big. It rocks. Gray’s sensitive guy thing is fully apparent on much of this collection (culled from his first three releases) but it’s mixed up in varying degrees of production and delivery, from the aforementioned bombast to the near Americana crunch of “A Century Ends” and “Faster, Sooner, Now” to the undeniably Irish waltz of “Debauchery.” But the element that’s most consistent is Gray’s singular gift as a lyricist — a quality that prompted Joan Baez to describe him as the best since Dylan. Higher praise would be quite hard to muster up, eh?

Shine’s pacing is unusual in that it ebbs and flows in such a way that it’s tough to put your finger on exactly what period of his career some of the songs come from. “The Light” feels like a close cousin of “Babylon,” but it’s from 94’s Flesh. Sparsely arranged and bare, “Holding To Nothing” has the feel of a much earlier composition, yet it appeared on the album just before White Ladder. Despite any unintentional anachronistic trickery, it’s only the very oldest material that reveals a “young” sounding David Gray, and even then it’s more the production that gives it away than his performance, and by the end of Shine it’s hard not to imagine that Gray must’ve sprung from the womb with his talents fully realized.

The joy of both these CD’s is the opportunity to hear two musicians in settings that shed new light on the sounds you may have assumed to know pretty well. The common assumptions might be that a “session” vocalist (Sia) may not be able to hang too convincingly in the live arena, or that we only get introduced to an artist (Gray) once they’ve recorded their “best” album for a major label. But in the case of these two, they had “it” the whole time. We just had to catch up to them.

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

By Michael Beadle

World wars, civil wars, the Crusades, wars of rebellion and independence. Why does humanity continue to go to war when the cost of destruction and loss of human life end up becoming more than we can possibly imagine?

By Carl Iobst

Down in the flatlands of Eastern North Carolina there’s an Apex man that’s got a powerful interest in sheep. Now just wait a minute ‘for you get the wrong idea ‘cause this ain’t one of them kinda stories.

Swain County is drafting a set of road standards that will serve its citizens well on two levels. First, the proposed ordinances would require developers to build roads that emergency vehicles can access, thereby providing protection for property and lives; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Swain’s relatively new planning board is getting its feet wet by learning what it takes to develop land-use regulations and turn them into law.

Drivers on the Blue Ridge Parkway will be able to catch a few more views from overlooks through the Haywood County stretch of the popular scenic drive.

Warm weather brings with it a greater risk for mosquito-borne illnesses, but health officials say precautions can be taken to reduce breeding grounds.

According to public health officials, bites from infected mosquitoes are the primary cause of at least three serious illnesses common to the state: encephalitis and the West Nile Virus. 

To reduce exposure, county health officials recommend citizens take steps to reduce mosquito breeding grounds. That includes cleaning out rain gutters, birdbaths, old tires and pet dishes regularly. Other measures include filling yard holes, putting screens or other covers over rain barrels and repairing leaking outdoor faucets.

“The greatest way to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne disease is the removal of standing water around the house,” said Seth Early, environmental health specialist with the Haywood County Health Department. “So far, 2013 has been a very wet year, and that could make it easier for mosquito populations to grow this spring and summer.”

828.452-6682.