Franklin, NC
North Carolina Governor Mike Easley made public this week recommended policies to help “drought proof” the state.
Most of the measures he recommended seem sensible (an Asheville Citizen-Times editorial sums up the issue here), although many policy makers are pushing for even more incentives for local governments to upgrade leaky, antiquated systems. Another “elephant in the [...]
Brothers:
Earl. Avett. Stanley.
Sarah Hipp, Social Worker
CANEY FORK–As a recent Western Carolina University graduate who’d already weathered years of true tribulation, Sarah Hipp might’ve hoped for some peace and quiet. A dose of gentle routine. But hers is a good story, and good stories tend to run along at a pace all their own.
In the weeks since graduation, [...]
With green personal score-keeping all the rage, and as more newspaper readers are getting their news fix online, the natural comparative question has arisen. Which is greener?
The Green Lantern at Slate Magazine holds forth here.
In a couple of months the summer travel season will roll in, and in weeks (for those who aren’t working year around), it’ll be time for many of our friends and neighbors to begin the long, curvy drive up the mountain to pop corks and pound nails in Cashiers and Highlands.
Gas, they tell us, will [...]
Michael Pollan, from the introduction of his 2006 best-seller The Omnivore’s Dilemma
“A country with a stable culture of food would not shell out millions for the quackery (or common sense) of a new diet book every January. It would not be susceptible to the pendulum swings of food scares or fads, to the apotheosis [...]
George Ellison is one of the region’s foremost naturalists and historians. He has a piece in this week’s Smoky Mountain News about the apparent first English words ever written to describe the southern mountains, in the late 1600’s. Two men passed through the Asheville area, then presumably across Balsam Gap, the Cowees and down into [...]
I haven’t gotten a whiff of spring yet, but it must be heading up the sidewalk. Optimistic crocuses and daffodils are peeking from under the covers, and my wife has begun pruning things.
Gary Carden holds forth on seed catalogs and compulsive gardening in this week’s Sylva Herald, and tidings arrive from Dillsboro in the form [...]
We hope Robbinsville’s girls basketball team fares well in the rare air of Piedmont basketball tonight – they travel to Kernersville for a second-round playoff game against two-time defending state champ Bishop McGuinness. But regardless, we like the mascot matchup. It’s the Black Knights versus the Villains.
POSTSCRIPT– Ah, well. It was the Villains by 30. [...]
A recent study conducted by the Director of the Children’s Hospital at Stanford University found that when children between the ages of three and five were served identical foods in fast food branded packaging and then in non-branded packaging, they preferred, by a vast majority, the food in the branded packaging, and thought it was [...]