By Beth Young • Guest Columnist

“It’s just a phase.” “They are just being teenagers.” “I drank when I was their age and I was fine.” These are things I know that I heard as a kid and that I have heard said to kids today. The flip side of these beliefs is the misconception that adolescents cannot develop substance-use disorders.

Two people died during a three-vehicle collision at 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A ban on backcountry fires in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was announced Sept. 26 following the release of a new drought map showing that 45 counties in central and western North Carolina are experiencing moderate drought. 

Florida resident Dr. Joe Lee earned recognition recently for his role as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s first African-American park naturalist in the 1960s. That’s no small feat, said Smokies Superintendent Cassius Cash. 

Nearly 300 members of the Western Carolina University community came together Thursday, Sept. 5, to dedicate the campus’s newest residence hall in honor of Levern Hamlin Allen, the institution’s first African-American student and a woman characterized by WCU Chancellor Kelli R. Brown as “a quiet pioneer of integration.”

RALEIGH — The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is encouraging all North Carolinians to make sure they are up to date on their vaccines in light of recent mumps cases at two Triad area universities.  

Haywood County Public Health, in conjunction with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, is investigating a case of Legionella, commonly known as Legionnaire’s disease. Additional cases are also being investigated in surrounding counties.

By Kae Livsey • Guest Columnist

In the U.S., there is a common perception that there is a pill to fix everything. We are flooded with advertisements promoting pharmacological management for all kinds of conditions. There are even drugs that have been developed to counteract the side effects of other drugs, such as a pill to counteract constipation resulting from use of legally prescribed opioids. Substance use disorders may result from legally prescribed opiates, or from when people resort to opioid-based drugs as a way to self-medicate for chronic pain or mental illness that may be undiagnosed, or untreated, due to lack of access to treatment and support.

To the Editor:

Swain County Democrats recently passed a resolution in support of the county’s proposed animal control ordinance and ask others to do the same. The proposed ordinance will protect the “health, safety and welfare” of county residents and protect companion animals from “abuse, neglect and abandonment.”   

To the Editor:

In the September 4 issue of The Smoky Mountain News I was happy to see that WCU, my alma mater, was recognizing a significant moment in its history: honoring the first African-American student by naming a residence hall after her. But I was saddened to see the announcement buried at the bottom of the page in the middle of paper.  

To the Editor:

A Republican acquaintance who won’t vote for her party’s candidate for president recently said, “But I don’t want us to get socialism,” meaning, she explained, some people getting handouts from government. 

To the Editor:

My grandmother Evelyn was a stickler for just a couple of things. She was fortunate that her father, a German immigrant silversmith in Newark, N.J., made a small fortune when he took to smithing whiskey flasks for the “Dandies” of New York during Prohibition, allowing them to party on despite the law, and for his children to engage in activities with people of means, education and most importantly to her, manners.

To the Editor:

I am sickened by the thought of diverting yet another $18.4 billion for a border wall. That’s billion with a B! And for nothing but an illusion of security. No wall has ever successfully protected a nation. 

A section of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Virginia portion that has been closed since September will continue to be closed indefinitely, Parkway officials decided recently.

The U.S. Forest Service has completed an environmental analysis for the Buck Project on the Nantahala National Forest’s Tusquitee Ranger District in eastern Clay County. 

Webcams recently installed at Newfound Gap and Clingmans Dome will give visitors nearly real-time access to weather conditions and views from the highest elevations of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

A $4,500 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation is helping the Highlands Nature Center support its school outreach program. 

Delayed Harvest Trout Waters regulations will go into effect in 20 Western North Carolina counties on Tuesday, Oct. 1. 

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park recently received a priceless donation of Cades Cove artifacts to the museum collections when the great-granddaughter of Dan and Sidney Lawson — Robin Derryberry of Chattanooga, Tennessee — donated a chest of drawers, family Bible, wedding portraits and other family photographs to the National Park Service for long-term preservation at the National Park Service Collections Preservation Center in Townsend, Tennessee.  

The Smoky Mountain News’ annual Living Well special section aims to give readers a broad view of the many different opportunities for living a healthy lifestyle in Western North Carolina. Whether you’re interested in starting a new workout routine or searching for ways to improve your mental health, local health experts can help you get started.

Three years ago, few people had heard of cannabidiol (CBD). Now, it’s popular with all demographics. It’s even being used with cats and dogs. With an abundance of information floating around and a slew of products on the market, Kim Ferguson of Kim’s Pharmacy offers clarification and suggestions regarding CBD oil. 

An interview with therapist Arika Morrison 

By Tara Hogan • Guest writer

What is your health philosophy? What keeps you going? Now more than ever, we need to be looking up from our devices asking ourselves these questions. Depression, anxiety, chronic pain and lifestyle diseases are rampant. Defining a strong health philosophy may be the answer the mystery of our culture of dis-ease.

By Jerica Rossi • Guest writer

Finding it hard to get to the studio on the reg? Or sticking to your home practice while juggling work, family, fun or travel? It happens. Sometimes life has us looking in another direction and before you know it, you haven’t touched your mat in weeks. 

The man who opened fire in an UNC-Charlotte campus classroom, killing Waynesville native Riley Howell, will now spend the rest of his life behind bars, after pleading guilty to two counts of murder Sept. 19.

A volunteer firefighter who died while responding to a call was laid to rest on Sunday, after a procession made up of dozens of first responders accompanied his casket from the Jonathan Creek Fire Department to Lake Junaluska’s Stuart Auditorium. 

Magnesium tends to be kind of a tricky mineral because adequacy is difficult to assess since it is stored in cells and in the bones. 

To the Editor:

Western North Carolina’s answer to Jim Acosta — Smoky Mountain News Editor Scott McLeod in his last week’s column — frets that “never has the credibility of those of us who call ourselves journalists been under attack like we are today.”

Boo-fricken-hoo. What does the record actually show?

The Sedition Act of 1798 resulted in the arrest of the editors of the Philadelphia Aurora and the Times Piece. I wonder if they would agree with that statement.

Read Upton Sinclair’s The Brass Check, where he compares the title item — a token bought by the customer in a brothel and then given to the woman of his choice — to media owners who purchase the services of journalists.

Jefferson was instrumental in overturning the Sedition Act, but in his second term he instructed state attorney generals to prosecute newspaper editors for sedition.

Jefferson never held journalistic credibility in high esteem: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” “I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them.” “From forty years’ experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice.”

Lincoln was responsible for shutting down more than 300 newspapers during the course of the Civil War. Government officials shut down The Chicago Times for excessively criticizing the Lincoln administration. Editors were arrested, papers closed, and reporters kept away from battlefields. Secretary of War Stanton approved the destruction of the DC newspaper, The Sunday Chronicle. A number of editors were sent to prison at Fort Lafayette.

How’s that for being “under attack?”

Teddy Roosevelt tried to sue newspapers for their criticism of his Panama Canal purchase.

Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918 prohibiting printing, writing, etc. against the war effort. Under this law, Eugene Debs was prosecuted for a speech and Rose Pastor Stokes for writing to a newspaper.

Prior to WWII, Congress passed the Smith Act, the first peacetime sedition law. FDR bullied the media with threats to revoke broadcast licenses and effectively shut down Yankee Radio for criticizing his policies. The day after Pearl Harbor, FDR gave J Edgar Hoover emergency authority to censor all news and control all communication in and out of the country.

Truman famously wrote: “Presidents and the members of their Cabinets and their staff members have been slandered and misrepresented since George Washington … when the press is friendly to an administration the opposition has been lied about and treated to the excrescence [sic] of paid prostitutes of the mind.” Maybe he had The Brass Check in mind.

JFK’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Bill Ruder admitted, “Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.” JFK tried to shift some of the blame for the Bay of Pigs fiasco unto the press. He called upon journalists to exercise more self‐restraint and to show support for the president as a moral responsibility in time of crisis. He attempted to pressure the media to voluntarily censor itself. Mark Watson of The Baltimore Sun wrote that Kennedy “has thrown overboard the wartime principles and practices which two world wars have justified.”

John Mitchell, Nixon’s Attorney General, sought injunctions to prevent the Pentagon Papers from being published. Nixon had his enemies list and had them audited. His administration tried to revoke the Washington Post’s television station.

When the Obama administration obtained the records of 20 Associated Press phone lines and reporters’ home and cell phones, the AP called the seizure a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news gathering activities, betraying information about its operations “that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

When Obama’s Justice Department went after James Rosen’s records, The New York Times editorial board stated, “The Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.”

The Department of Justice published a report in 2013 of their review of their practices and policies regarding issuing subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders to obtain records from journalists. David E. Sanger, chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times responded that the revised guidelines were “just formalizing what was observed in past administrations. The guidelines worked pretty well until the Obama administration came in.”

Do you really expect us to believe that current “attacks” rise to these levels?

I think your op-ed is a thinly veiled attack on Trump and I think you have it backwards. The tone and severity of attacks on the administration from the press are unprecedented in modern times. I restrict it to modern times because I am aware of the treatment of James T. Callender towards Jefferson as one of a multitude of worse assaults upon government officials by the press.

When Clark Holt, ombudsman for The New York Times left that position, he remarked on how poorly the newsroom reacted to his oversight of their work and resisted accountability. They were fine asking invasive questions, but did not like to have the tables turned and be criticized in public.

Perhaps you could consider the 1924 inaugural address of president-elect of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Paul Bellamy: “Blessed be the critics of newspapers.” 

Timothy Van Eck

Whittier

To the Editor:

Since North Carolina’s 11th Dist. Representative Mark Meadows, R, took office in 2013, 93,000 and counting US citizens have been killed by gun violence. Additionally, depending on the year, there have been from 15,000 to 31,000 gun-related injuries and each year nearly 22,000 suicides by guns. And equally as sad are the many thousands of families whose lives are forever changed due to gun-related violence.

A majority of registered voters nationwide say Congress needs to do more to reduce gun violence: 72 percent total including 50 percent of Republicans, 93 percent of Democrats, and 75 percent of Independents.

Rep. Meadows, who is suspected to be in the deep pockets of the pro-assault rifle NRA, has consistently voted “nay” for gun reform. It’s time to replace do-nothing Meadows with someone with the guts, gumption, and gonads to reduce this senseless carnage with common sense gun regulation.

Maj. Steve Woodsmall, USAF-Retired, for NC 11th Dist. Representative is that person. He’ll be part of the solution; not part of the problem.

John H. Fisher

Hendersonville

An outdoor economy initiative at Western Carolina University has been selected as a finalist in the University Economic Development Association’s 2019 Awards of Excellence competition.

After 18 years with Mainspring Conservation Trust and five years as its leader, Sharon Fouts Taylor will retire on Feb. 29, 2020.

The Cashiers Community Fund has awarded $141,000 in grants to nonprofits serving Cashiers and the surrounding region. 

It’s no secret that Western Carolina University is a growing community, with enrollment topping 12,000 for the first time this semester following an upward swing that’s seen the student body increase for eight out of the past nine years. 

Waynesville arts and cultural organization Folkmoot has reached an agreement with the Academy at SOAR, a longtime boarding school in the Balsam community of Jackson County, to move its school operations on the Folkmoot Friendship Center campus.

Blue Ridge Health (BRH) has been awarded a $650,000 New Access Point grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to open a new community health center in Bryson City.

My doctor has told me I have diverticulitis. Is there a diet I should be following?

By Marsha Lee Baker • Guest Columnist

Somewhere, sometime, and in some way, each of us thinks about peace. We might not call it “peace,” but we think about it. We wonder where or what peace is with questions like “Why can’t we get along?” and “What is wrong with this family?” We sense peace each time we say, “What a wonderful time together!” and “I’ve never felt so whole in my life!”

To the Editor:

Police drenched with buckets of water in New York, anti-police chanting as police attempt to remove a criminal held up in a house in Pennsylvania, an ICE office is shot up in Texas. I could go on and on about the recent acts of lawlessness towards law enforcement. It looks like the public has picked up on the lawlessness being allowed at our southern border. Migrants bust over our borders into our country, march up to officials, claim asylum and soon are released to go anywhere in the country with a promise to appear in court at some later date.  

True asylum seekers file in the first free country they enter so moving through Mexico to claim asylum is also against the law. Most never show up for their court dates but have made themselves at home illegally in our country. Never mind that our hospitals, schools and welfare systems are overburdened and that illegals are costing millions of taxpayer dollars. Many who have been ordered by the courts to leave the country pay no attention and defiantly stay right here. It is no wonder that some in our country take the allowed lawlessness to be an invitation to defy and break the law ... and hopefully get away with it.

The shame is that busting through our borders illegally is an example to others who now get the idea that acts against our laws and law enforcement must be OK. Illegal migrants are not being held accountable for their lawless entry into our country. President Trump is working daily, ever since he took office, to secure our borders, to deport those who are here without documentation or who have been ordered to leave, to halt thousands marching to the U.S. from Central American countries He has found legal monies to fund building the wall.  He has ordered ICE to find and deport those who have been ordered to leave the country, criminals or MS-13 gang members. But Democrats in Congress fight his secure border solutions and attempts to remove illegals every step of the way. Democrats seem to be okay with lawlessness. The answer to that is to see that Democrats are removed from office in the 2020 election so President Trump has support to permanently secure our borders from illegal entry and hopefully restore lawful behavior in the country.

Judy Milkey

Sylva

A beloved shelter on the Appalachian Trail near Roan Mountain is closed until further notice due to structural damage. 

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has reached a biodiversity milestone with the discovery and documentation of 20,000 species of plants, animals and other organisms in the park since the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory launched 21 years ago. 

The Nantahala River in the Nantahala Gorge is now open to the public for all uses for the first time since landslides on Saturday, Aug. 24, resulted in significant damage and blockages in the area. 

A ruling handed down by a North Carolina court last week declared N.C.’s legislative districts to be illegal partisan gerrymanders and ordered the immediate redrawing of maps, which should have a substantial effect on Democratic representation in the General Assembly in 2021. 

That's certainly not a black or white issue! There are many new products on the market being called "plant-based" which is often a euphemism for vegetarian or vegan products. As with any products you should look beyond the marketing and check the nutrition facts panel and the ingredients. 

To the Editor:

For the past few years I have gotten in the habit of picking up a copy of The Smoky Mountain News in Bryson City, where I live, or as we bounce around Jackson and Haywood counties. In general, I find the publication to be an excellent effort to bring local and regional news and information to residents of the area. 

That said, what’s up with the obsession Cory has of trashing Shining Rock Classical Academy week after week after week? I have read most, if not all, of the articles about this start-up public charter school, and the leadership and staff who are obviously trying to bring another viable educational choice to the students and parents of Haywood County. The paper is clearly biased against the concept of a taxpayer-funded charter school, or against some other aspect of this effort.

I’m sure these folks would freely admit that they have not done everything perfectly, but odds are they are doing their best. Trying to breathe life into a vision such as this is never easy, and in the field of public education I suspect it’s even harder than usual. And one would have to believe that this effort is based in a true desire to create something special, as I can’t imagine there is a bunch of money in it for anyone. 

As I read through the August 14 issue, I could not help but to be struck by the ironies created by other articles in the publication. On the very next page, “Teachers just don’t get enough credit” is an essay on the undervalued efforts of teachers in our society. What about the poor Shining Rock teachers who had to prepare for the new school year as SMN publicly trashed their school, which has likely negatively affected the enrollment and potentially some of their jobs? Later is “A reminder: leave something good behind,” a book review of a new book about the life of Anthony Bourdain, reflecting on his wish that we all leave something good behind. Somehow I would bet that the leadership and staff of Shining Rock are trying to do just that, against tough odds, made tougher by this paper. I have no connection with anything or anyone involved in this school, and don’t even know where it is, but the spirit of these articles just strikes me as mean and unjustified!

Mark Hanna

Bryson City

To the Editor:

In discussions with people who are clamoring for universal background checks, I find many people don’t understand how far the law goes and what it will make illegal. 

In my safe I have six guns that belong to a young soldier serving overseas who could not take his firearms with him. He put his household goods in storage and his choices were to leave the firearms in the storage unit where they were vulnerable to theft and also rust or ask someone he trusted with a safe to hold them.

Under the proposed background check law he and I would both be guilty of six felonies each once he gave me the firearms to store. One for each gun. And when I return them to him six more each. Twelve felonies total for each of us. Under the new proposed law to stay legal we would both have to travel to a gun store, enter his guns into the gun store’s books, have me fill out paperwork as if I was buying them and pay a fee that in our area averages $35 per firearm. Then repeat it in reverse to give them back to him when he returns, paying again.

More than $400 in fees and several hours wasted to do the responsible thing and have someone safely store his firearms, but he could leave them in a storage locker more open to theft without hassle or expense. And, both he and I are exempt from the background checks because we have concealed carry permits! So hours of wasted time and hassle and hundreds of dollars spent just for meaningless paperwork to avoid breaking the law for two people just trying to do the right thing and be responsible.

How would this stop crime?

There are other things these laws would make illegal. If you offer to help someone clean or repair a gun and take it to your home to do it that’s a felony. If you loan someone a firearm to go target shooting it’s a felony unless you hand it off and get it back all while physically at the range. Farmers and ranchers who have a rifle on hand to defend livestock and let their employees use it? Felony if the employee even picks it up and the owner isn’t physically there. Offer to help someone move and their firearms are in a box on your truck and they are not with you? Felony. Leave your firearms in a friend’s hunting cabin when you are not there? Felony. Ask someone to drop your hunting rifle off at the gunsmith for you? Felony. Going on a hunting trip and you carry someone’s rifle to the hunt for them? Felony.

Any time they can argue possession of the firearm changed hands, even for a brief moment, is enough to charge a felony for not doing a background check. At one time or another almost all gun owners have done something harmless along these lines that they want to turn into felony charges.

Don’t be fooled. These laws are about creating gotcha moments to turn law-abiding gun owners into felons, not about reducing crime.

Tim Glance

Waynesville

To the Editor:

Donald Trump’s only redeeming value may be that he is the shock to the system the U.S. needs to force some serious self-reflection. We have been living the American Dream for so long we forgot what it is to be awake to what is really going on in our society, especially in the sordid political arena and in the imbalance of wealth accumulation. We Americans need to take stock of the values we want to live by and act accordingly. 

The notion of justice, fairness and compassion for all has been dashed by the craven greed which now fuels our society. Current overblown military budgets came about because we lost track of what our real strengths were: a strong economy, assimilation of immigrants, a desire to live up to the cornerstone of the formation of our nation, liberty and justice for all. 

Blind ambition for wealth and the twisted idea that military strength protects us from foreign influence — along with our overblown national ego — have perverted the character of the nation such that our founding fathers would be shocked at what we have done to our country. Nosce te ipsum, America.

John Barry

Franklin

Bob Savelson • Guest columnist

Thinking about Labor Day, it has been a national holiday since 1894. Consistent with the nation’s ambivalent feelings about whether organized labor should truly be part of its social fabric, the statute was signed by President Grover Cleveland — who earlier that year had dispatched federal troops to break a strike called to support Pullman car employees protesting wage cuts. 

Until further notice, public access to U.S. Forest Service lands in the Nantahala Gorge is closed due to hazards created by recent landslides into the Nantahala River.