The Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute will host a program about the role of the astronomical site in the Pisgah National Forest during the historic Apollo space missions.

The Art League of the Smokies will meet at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6, at the Swain County Center for the Arts in Bryson City.  Featured artist will be Bente Starcke King, whose DVD, “Beautiful Botanicals—Painting and Drawing Flowers and Plants” will be shown. The film shows techniques and principles involved in botanical painting with demonstrations done from fresh flowers and plants. Born in Denmark, King received her degree in art and illustration in Copenhagen before relocating to the United States. For the past 15 years, she has held the position of staff botanical illustrator at the L.H Bailey Hortorium. 

The event is sponsored by Swain County Center for the Arts and Swain County Schools. 

828.488.7843 or www.swain.k12.nc.us/cfta.

Dharma teacher Trish Thompson, ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh and a certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction instructor, will offer a workshop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at St. David’s Episcopal church in Cullowhee.

The workshop will explore various mindfulness practices for health and happiness, in oneself, the community and the world. 

Sponsored by St. David’s Episcopal Church, the event is open to all. Fee is $15 or whatever you can afford, and includes a vegetarian meal. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

“Dining for The Bascom” will be from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, at the Lakeside Restaurant in Highlands. 

Diners will help The Bascom visual arts center by having 15 percent of the gross sales from their meals donated to the nonprofit organization. “Evenings at Lakeside” will continue until Oct. 1. 828.526.9419. 

The Bascom is open year-round, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. 

www.TheBascom.org or 828.526.4949.

Spencers Theatre of Illusion will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.

Kevin and Cindy Spencer present a high-tech stage show that combines drama, comedy, romance and suspense with special effects. Their unique illusions have earned them the Performing Arts Entertainers of the Year for six consecutive years. They have also been named America’s Best Entertainers multiple times and were recently named International Magicians of the Year, an award previously presented to Penn & Teller, David Copperfield, and Criss Angel.

Tickets start at $15 per person.

www.greatmountainmusic.com or 866.273.4615.

The 8th annual Sarge’s Animal Rescue Foundation Downtown Waynesville Dog Walk will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 3. Sign up begins at 9 a.m. in front of the Haywood County Courthouse.

Painter Kel Tanner will have a solo exhibition from Aug. 7 to Sept. 2 at Haywood County Arts Council’s Gallery 86 in Waynesville. An artist reception will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9, at the gallery.

The Pop Ferguson Blues Review will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at the Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center in Robbinsville. 

Legendary southern rock group, The Black Crowes, performs at 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, at Harrah’s Cherokee.

The 4th Annual Popcorn Sutton Summer Jam will be from 4 to 11 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.

To the Editor:

In a recent letter to the Editor, Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-Wilmington, changed his name for the weekly protests against Republican decisions in Raleigh from “Moron Mondays” to “Money Mondays.”

Ah-ha, the truth is out! He has to connect money to the movement because he and his Republican cronies cannot, for the life of them, connect the movement with morality. There is not a moral bone in their bodies. Talk about money. This legislature was, with the help of the Citizens United case, bought and paid for by corporate money. 

There is another movement afoot to amend the Constitution to declare that corporations are not persons. Sixteen states have signed resolutions to amend. It takes 38 states to take it to Congress. It will take some time but it will be done. Petitions are online at MoveToAmend.org.

Make no mistake about it, Republicans are terrified of these grassroots movements that are growing and coming to a city near you soon. A Moral Monday gathering will be held in Asheville at 5 p.m. on Aug. 5. Be there if you care. Organize, agitate and spread the truth.

 Joan Palmroos

Otto

To the Editor:

An article in a local paper on July 5 states that the Macon County Airport Authority met that week to get an update on the widening of runways to allow for use by larger aircraft. The news that the widening is on the way is shocking as the people who will again be most impacted, those living in Iotla Valley, had no information whatever that it was even being planned. With the county having property records and all the information means available, it is obvious that neighbors were not informed because the power brokers know they can move ahead with their schemes without the bother of hearing from people who might object and whose voices will not be listened to anyway. 

The Authority chairman takes pride that representatives from Harrah’s Casino had flown in the previous week and were happy they could fly into Franklin instead of Asheville. The comparison is ludicrous, as the Franklin airport cannot ever reach the traffic the Asheville airport has because Asheville is much more centrally located, its airport already has large carrier flights, and its location on a flat plain is conducive to further growth which Franklin’s airport — being hemmed in by mountains — precludes. 

It is also mentioned that people staying at Old Edwards Inn were pleased flying into Franklin. The widening will allow larger jets to fly in and more flights to come in daily. So gamblers for the casino and some wealthy folks will reap the benefits while the neighbors bear the brunt of more pollution, more noise, more traffic on our curvy roads, and the eventual irreplaceable loss of our beautiful valley.

Much is made of the economic windfall the airport presently brings to our county with the untested promise being that more airport growth will result, of course, in more jobs, more business opportunities, and economic ripples to benefit all Maconians. I would like to know how many local people were and will be hired by W. K. Dickson, the engineering firm that did the runway extension and now will do the expansion. With all the rosy predictions, are the jobs going to be created by turning N.C. 28 into another fast-food lane and by widening and straightening Airport and Iotla Church roads and all other access roads into our community? It is frighteningly sad that this may be the nightmarish vision that airport and county officials have for Iotla Valley.

Living in a democracy should mean that people, especially common citizens, have a say on their destinies. How can we influence what happens to our lives when decisions are made without notice by a powerful few? Trying to be heard by government these days is a futile and demeaning pursuit as those of us who protested against the runway extension painfully know. That is why citizens don’t attend meetings, that is why we are called apathetic, that is why we are silent now. 

Last question: is the widening going to take the runways closer to Iotla Valley School?

Olga F. Pader

Iotla

To the Editor:

I absolutely object to the conclusions in your article about Jake brakes in last week’s edition of The Smoky Mountain News (www.smokymountainnews.com/news/item/11190).

Jake brakes are an absolute necessity for trucks. It prevents the regular brakes from “fading,” which is the overheating of the brakes. This renders them useless and leaves the truck with no working brakes at all. It is absolutely not a matter of maintenance costs.

But I agree on one thing — trucks need to be equipped with a working exhaust system. That will keep the noise down and also will make the Jake brake more efficient.

Any truck manufacturer or truck owner can tell you this. Jake brakes are a safety measure. Wait for the first casualty, heaven forbid it will be a fatality. Without Jake breaks, a truck going downhill is like an out of control roller coaster.

Gino Deneef

Franklin

To the Editor:

The Republicans in Raleigh have approved their “tax reform” and budget, and we will suffer for both. 

According to Senate Minority Whip Josh Stein, the GOP “tax reform” cuts $500 million in revenue while their budget cuts $500 million from public education over the next several years. Sixty-five percent of the tax cuts go to the wealthiest 1 percent, while 90 percent of the cuts go to the wealthiest 5 percent. In other words, the Republican priorities are to take a half billion dollars away from public education and give it to the wealthiest and to out-of-state corporations. 

If we don’t have a well-educated populace, businesses aren’t going to be all that interested in moving here. The Republicans are destroying public education by allowing private schools to take money and some of the best students away from public schools, leaving less money to teach students who need the most resources. 

You cannot expect one adult alone to teach 20-something 5- to 7-year-old children. The Republicans’ $110 million reduction in teacher assistants is unconscionable. As for teacher salaries, we have been taking pay cuts through inflation. In addition, North Carolina has lost 5,000 teachers, and the GOP budget has locked in the money so we can’t hire more even though the population is rising.

As for our own Republican Sen. Jim Davis from Franklin, he wants to keep the salary increase for teachers with advanced degrees. He said, “They started in good faith. It’s unfair to change the rules in midstream.” Bravo. How about applying that same logic to so-called teacher tenure? He voted to get rid of that, so that in the future teachers can be fired for no given reason. Soon teachers can be let go not just because of poor performance (they always could), but maybe they don’t like a teacher’s views or politics, skin color, religious choice, any or no reason. That’s un-American.

Republicans are raising the copay on Medicaid to the maximum allowable under federal law; they are restricting women’s reproductive choices; they are taking away local governments’ control and giving it to themselves; and they are even taking away Asheville’s entire water system and aquifer and not giving them a dime for it. The Republicans’ idea of freedom sounds more like a police state.

Things have gotten so desperate that I, as a father, a husband, a homeowner, a taxpayer and responsible American chose to protest this injustice with the only moral and legal option left: peaceful civil disobedience in Raleigh. If we don’t stand up, who will?

The Republicans are proud of “scaling back state government” (cutting public services), but they are doing it on the backs of our children, our poor, our middle class, and our future.

Urge our politicians to allocate some of the $250 million “Rainy Day Fund” to keep our teacher assistants and to reinstate teachers’ civil rights for job security fairness.

Join us at Mountain Moral Monday in Asheville Pack Square at 5 p.m. this Monday on Aug. 5.

Dan Kowal

Franklin

The Haywood Chamber of Commerce Women in Business group will host “Your Performance On Stage … Flourish, Engage, Inspire” from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 8 at the Gateway Club with Susan Belcher, the wife of Western Carolina University’s chancellor.

Belcher’s performing career spans opera, music, theatre and stage directing. Her extraordinary talents have been displayed on stages across the U.S. Belcher trained at the Chicago Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, where she debuted in the role of angel Zephon in the world premiere of Pendereski’s Paradise Lost. Her musical and straight theatre performances have allowed her to be levitated by magician David Copperfield and romanced by actor John Goodman.

Cost is $25 for Chamber Members and $30 for non-members. Registration required. 

828.456.3021 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or www.haywoodchamber.com.

Keller Williams Realty of Waynesville is holding its annual children’s clothes swap next weekend. Drop off new or gently used clothing at its Waynesville office, 2562 Dellwood Road, through Friday, Aug. 9.

Then on Aug. 10 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., parents can stop by the office to pick out items for the upcoming school year. No charge and no donation requirement. School supply donations are being accepted as well. More than 100 Haywood County school children benefited from last year’s event.

828.926.5155 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Waynesville Rotary Club Foundation is looking for donors to sponsor its backpack program, which it created in partnership with Manna Foodbank to provide hundreds of needy kids with food.

The program, which runs during the school year, provides each child in need with a package of food to take home every Friday to help make it through the weekend. The foundation also collected enough money to give 107 children a bag of nutritious food every week this summer.

To support one child for an entire year, people can donate $128, though donations of any amount are accepted. All donations to Help Haywood’s Hungry Kids are tax-deductable, and checks can be made out to the Waynesville Rotary Foundation, P.O. Box 988, Waynesville, N.C. 28786.

www.MANNAFoodbank.org or 828.299.FOOD.

•••

Altrusa and Haywood Rotary members will be outside Walmart in Waynesville accepting donations of new school supplies from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3.

Requested items include single subject notebooks, backpacks for all ages, three ring notebooks, folders with pockets, pencils, black pens, red pens, round tip scissors, highlighters, colored pencils and erasers. 

www.waynesvillealtrusa.org.

•••

People can drop off gently used or new school appropriate clothes for ages Kindergarten through high school at Clothes To Kids of Haywood County at 177 Weldon Way in Lake Junaluska. If no one is there, just leave in bags on table under covered porch.

828.456.8990.

By Michael Beadle

Miss Daisy Werthan is an elderly Jewish widow who has gotten too old to drive herself, so she’ll have to hire a driver. In 1950’s Atlanta, that meant a white woman being driven by a black man. Initially, Miss Daisy refuses, but Hoke, the driver, puts her mind at ease, and the two develop a trusting friendship.

By Michael Beadle

With the blaze of leaf season in full swing, inspiration is all around — especially for local artists.

By Chris Cooper

If you can imagine an even more ticked-off Phil Anselmo fronting a hybrid of COC and Black Sabbath, you’ll have an idea of where mountain metal outfit Southern Cross is coming from.

Sports

I’m sorry, I am an unabashed sports fan. Not one of those people who paints themselves in their team’s colors, or whose happiness or existence depends on the outcome of a particular game.

The Cherokee Preservation Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the Travel and Promotion program of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) to sustain an award-winning, multi-year marketing campaign to attract visitors interested in exploring the Cherokee culture to Cherokee and its three principal cultural attractions.

Voters who got excited at early reports that Congresman Charles Taylor and challenger Heath Shuler had agreed to a debate may have jumped the gun.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

In the race for the 119th District seat, candidates Marge Carpenter and Rep. Phil Haire have staked out vastly different issues as key campaign points.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

In some elections an incumbent candidate may face a political newcomer, like the congressional race between Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, and Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

• Mark Jones, 47, a Democrat, has been the general manager of High Hampton Inn since 1997. He began working there in 1987 as a bellman. He is divorced. He graduated from Western Carolina University with a degree in land planning.

Several groups compile score cards for state legislators based on their voting record. Queen and Presnell were both ranked by these groups during their respective years in the state Senate.

Gibbs Knotts, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, took time to address the gay marriage issue and how it might affect the upcoming election between Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, and challenger Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville.

Taylor: My position is, and has always been, that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman.

Resource managers and plant specialists with the Blue Ridge Parkway are calling on neighboring landowners to help rein in the destructive growth of exotic plants. They’re inviting the public to comment on a proposed Exotic Plant Management Plan that is open for public input through Oct. 31.

1. What specific legislation or policies are at the top of your list?

1. What specific legislation or policies are at the top of your list?

1. What specific legislation or policies are at the top of your list?

1. What specific legislation or policies are at the top of your list?

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Editor’s note: The names of domestic violence victims Linda and Anne, who were interviewed for this story, have been changed.

The afternoon Linda decided to leave her fiancé, she waited until he was asleep, put a slip of paper with the phone number of the Haywood County Reach Shelter in her pocket along with her cell phone, and walked out the back door very quietly.

This past weekend’s sudden drop in overnight temperatures into the high 20s (26 degrees and 28 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively, at our place near Bryson City) was unprecedented in our experience. That is, during the 33 years my wife, Elizabeth, and I have resided in Western North Carolina, we have never known temperatures to drop from the low 40s into the high 20s without at least a few nights in the 30s in between.

By Mark Jaben

I always marvel at people that tell me they haven’t been to a doctor in 25 years. Not engaging the health care system is a great strategy if you can get by with it. But then, they are seeing me, so what does that say.

By Chris Cooper

The stellar songwriting talents of Jim Lauderdale have been tapped by a “who’s who” of country music and bluegrass stars — anyone from George Strait to the Dixie Chicks, blues grandfather John Mayall to newer country upstarts like Shelby Lynne.

Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, Jim Stoltz first learned to appreciate nature on family camping trips.

By Michael Beadle

The marathon can be such a fickle race.

As much as you prepare for it, a lot can go wrong in those 26.2 miles. Missing a water station. Getting a blister. Maybe there’s a sudden downpour of rain or it’s an abnormally hot day. So much running and preparation builds into a matter of hours. And then disaster strikes.

Editors note: Bill and Sharon Van Horn with the Nantahala Hiking Club in Franklin recently attended a conference in West Virginia that focused on connecting children with nature. Bill Van Horn provides this dispatch on what he learned from the conference.

Democratic congressional candidate Heath Shuler’s decision to back away from a debate with Rep. Charles Taylor sent shockwaves through the mountains this past weekend. Politicos, however, say Shuler’s decision is hardly surprising given his lead in the polls, but we feel strongly it was a poor choice to deny voters the opportunity to hear both candidates debate the issues from the same stage.

A Tall One

Earlier this month North Carolina won five medals at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival Competition —

Heath Shuler: America is truly facing a health care crisis. Over 46 million Americans are currently living without health insurance — 27 million of those are working Americans whose employers do not offer insurance.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

If you or someone you know is thinking about leaving an abusive relationship, there are some things that are good to know.

By Michael Beadle

Shafts of sun pierce through a misty forest. A thick river of fog rolls through ancient mountains. Plump sparrows perch on a bare branch thin as tin foil.

By Chris Cooper

“Timeless” is one of those words tossed around a lot in reference to music. Everybody wants to write a song that’s “timeless,” right? A tune that sounds just as good today as it will 20 or 30 years down the line, regardless of changes in what’s thought of as “cool” — that’s the goal, correct?

Book By Book

Michael Dirda, a reviewer for The Washington Post Book World and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, gives readers a treat in this small volume of meditations on life and literature.

The Bridge Park Project is a community effort to create a covered performance pavilion, market space, public gardens, and improved parking at the municipal parking lot in downtown Sylva, between Mill Street and Scotts Creek.

Most of us in the course of a week find a reason to go to downtown Sylva. We may go out to eat, or to the library, post office or bank, or perhaps just shop. There’s plenty of pleasure — and necessity — to be found downtown for residents of the area. As a real, working, genuine town, Sylva functions very well.

Some voters in Swain County consider the North Shore Road a litmus test for candidates in the county commissioners race and base their decision accordingly. The Swain County Board voted 4 to 1 four years ago in favor of a $52 million cash settlement in lieu of the road.