photo courtesy of The Boggs Collective

The Boggs Collective, located on London Road near Biltmore Village, is using the grant to advance a networking enterprise for fine woodworkers and develop a cooperative workshop, woodshed, woodworking school and virtual ga…

Saturday, Sept. 4
• Shortwave Society from Knoxville “uses elements from orchestral and electronic soundscapes to create a unique accompaniment to their off-kilter pop songs. Violin, cello, and a sea of vocals weave intricate tapestries while guitar and pianos pulse, and electronic bleeps and blips fill every nook and cranny of your subconscious.” They’ll be at White Horse (105C Montreat Rd., Black Mountain, 669-0816) at 8 p.m.

A one-week special filing period for the seat of N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Jim Wynn, who moved to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ended on Aug. 31 with 13 candidates signing up — five of them on the last day.

And for Buncombe County voters, a second instant-runoff contest will be on the ballot due to the three-candidate contest for Superior Court judge, the result of a special late-filing period necessitated by Judge Dennis Winner’s retirement (for additional information,

“My communications with upper management have been limited and future plans for the hookah bar & 828 are uncertain, but the hookah bar is closed at the moment,” writes Brad Lovejoy, former marketing manager for both clubs. He says his main concern is to direct “music fans to see their favorite groups at the newly assigned venues … tomorrow always offers another opportunity in Asheville. We have a lot of talented music industry professionals here and I expect to see good things in the near future.”

You Don’t Know Dicks Creek Falls map (approximate)

From Dicks Creek Falls

The longest and most popular trail everyone knows about in Georgia is the Appalachian Trail. It’s a great trail and I’m glad we can lay claim to part of it. But there’s another great long trail that Georgia lays claim all to called the Bartram Trail. I like the Bartram Trail  in at least one way better than the AT, namely the extra solitude you get on it because of its lesser use. And there are great sites to see on this trail. With this post, I will introduce to you the nicest waterfall I have found on the trail, namely Dicks Creek Falls in
Rabun County.

Now don’t confuse this falls with Dukes Creek Falls or other falls that flow on Dicks Creek. This one sits at the very terminus of the waterway as it dumps into the Chattooga River. It is a 1.4 trek along the Bartram Trail just at the point where Georgia ends and South Carolina begins. Now don’t let this distance thing fool you, the trail head sits just less than two and a half hours Northeast of Atlanta up Interstate 985, near Clayton, Georgia.

To get there, you turn right on Rickman off 985 (which has become 23), and take a quick right onto Warwoman Dell. After 5.3 miles you turn right onto Sandy Ford Road. You are going to travel this road for about 3.5 miles. There is a right turn you need to take about a quarter mile up to stay on the road. You will cross Dick’s Creek once on a bridge. The second time you cross Dick’s Creek it will be a splash through, which you can cross to get right next to the Bartram Trail head, or you can park in a field just before it which will add about 1/3 of a mile to your journey on foot (one way). You cross the creek and then begin to look for the signs. The trail to the waterfall is opposite the rock marker for the Bartram Trail.

You walk the Bartram Trail until you get to the bridge. On the opposite side of the creek you turn right and walk until you see the top of the falls (a little more than a half mile away). The trail to the point is relatively easy, except that, as we experienced, it is not well maintained. There were several spots where we had to cross in, around, and through felled trees along the way. The most difficult obstacle, however, was the fact that the bridge was out so we had to make our second and more difficult wet foot crossing, so be prepared. The trail brushes right up against the top of the trail but there is not much of a view from there. You will want to climb down to the river at one of three quick side trails. These trails are tight and at a good incline which will add another quarter mile to your trek and elevate the path from easy to moderately difficult, parts of which you will need to use your hands as well as feet. But, it is well worth the effort.

The first walk out takes you to the base of the falls and offers the best view of the falls and the rocks at the base. Dicks Creek tumbles with a pretty steep drop 60 feet into the river below. I would rate this falls up there with anything I have seen before. The side trail furthest away from the top, prior to the trail turning left, takes you to one of the most beautiful spots in all of Georgia. You get this awesome 180 degree view of the Falls and the Chattooga River. The sounds of the rushing river are actually louder than the falls itself. My suggestion is you go to this place first and work your way back toward the falls.

So what you get is quite wonderful: quiet time in a pristine wilderness, a mild adventure try to find the trailhead, good healthy exercise crossing the creek and climbing up and down to the base of the falls, and a gorgeous view of a fantastic waterfall and the incredibly scenic Chatooga River. If in Rabun County or a waterfall lover, or curious about beautiful places in Georgia, Dicks Creek Falls is a must see.

Trail Essentials
Approximate Time: 1.5 hours
Approximate Distance: 1.6 miles
Features: Remote Wilderness, River Views, Waterfall
Overall Rating: A+

Scenic Quality: A+
Athleticism: A
Solitude: A+
Value: A+
Parking: Free, but limited
Hours of Operation: Daylight hours
Facilities: None
Maps: None found, follow directions in Post
County: Rabun

See, geographically, El Paso is part of a bigger metroplex area—it’s all one big city with Ciudad Juarez, with a very thin Rio Grande and the mountain pass it cut (the Paso that gave El Paso del Norte its name) separating the Mexican side from the American side.  Juarez is the much bigger city, but both cities sit in the valley of their little spate of Rocky Mountains.  The entire area suffers from dryness, hot sun, and unreal amounts of smog that is trapped by the mountain range and hangs over the city, giving me a sore throat by day #3 there.  Most of my life, I felt like the fates of Juarez and El Paso were intertwined in such a way as to be functionally inseparable.  People traveled back and forth with ease, both commuting for work (as my Spanish professor for summer courses at UTEP did), and for fun and shopping.  That changed a little after 9/11, when the government revoked the right to cross the border without a passport.  But things didn’t really get weird until this functional civil war with the drug cartels broke out.

Now it seems like El Paso and Juarez are worlds apart, even as they look even more like one city.  (In the past, at night, you could see a clean border between the cities because Mexico had a different standard light bulb than the U.S., which led the lights in El Paso to be a light yellow but the lights in Juarez to be a greenish white.  Now they all look the same, though the Mexican side of the border still twinkles because fewer people have their lights on.) El Paso is peaceful and quiet, and it’s consistently in the top 5 safest large cities in America. This, despite its outrageous poverty, the ability of criminals to border hop to escape detection, and of course, the fact that it’s in the same spot on the globe as what is becoming the most dangerous city in North America.

You can hear from a distance how bad Juarez has gotten, or you can hear it up close.  The murder rampage is simply on people’s minds.  What used to be a regular part of visiting El Paso—going to Juarez for a drink and some shopping—is basically unthinkable now.  The people of El Paso are as content as the people of Juarez are fearful, and that feels dramatically off, almost impossible, really.  But what really blew my mind was when we were standing in the hotel lobby waiting for our cab to take us to the airport, and I saw they were giving away copies of the El Paso Times.  I casually picked one up and saw this story.

Juárez cancels Sept. 16 celebration

For the first time since the Mexican Revolution, Juárez city government has canceled the festivities of one of Mexico’s most patriotic holidays.

“First comes the safety of the population,” said Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz. “Because of threats, because of criminal activities that exist in Juárez, we don’t want to take any risks.”

On the eve of Sept. 16, mayors in Mexico lead crowds at city hall esplanades in the traditional ceremony of grito de independencia, or call to independence.

¡Viva México! were the words shouted the same day by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1810, when he launched the rebellion against the Spanish crown.

It’s basically like canceling the 4th of July.

Read the rest of this post at Pandagon.

I don’t believe in “Hell”, but if there was one this guy would be going there. Maybe one of his predecessors with experience in burning innocent women at the stake (not all that long ago) would do the honor of striking the match for Pastor Robertson’s bonfire.

Read more at News Junkie Post

The American people are angry and frustrated. The primary driver of that anger is the economy. Yes, there are myriad other factors at work, included some still-unpopular legislation, a prolonged war in Afghanistan, a nasty oil spill, and near-one party rule (60 votes is apparently necessary to qualify as one-party rule, yet 59 is enough to convince the opposition that ALL the blame for the country’s woes can be placed at the feet of the majority party).

But the major factor, in the end, is still the economy. It’s true that the major drop in support for Obama and the Dems occurred during the health care debate. But that does not explain the more recent plunge in support. As the Gallup chart shows, the Dems actually recovered quite well in the late spring, when a brief stint of positive economic news lifted the majority party’s electoral fortunes. Since nobody has uttered a peep about health care in the last month or two, one cannot help but blame the more recent disappointing news in jobs, housing and exports for the Democrats’ woes.

So, unless things suddenly turn around, which seems quite unlikely, the Republicans will very likely win the House. The Senate is still a longshot, but it’s certainly possible.

What then?

Read the rest of this post at The Moderate Voice.