Shuler's(D) election means end of quest to finish 'Road to Nowhere'

Fayetteville Observer, AP ^ | November 18, 2006

[John Lenin]

Regular Season Stats

					PASSING												RUSHING						RECEIVING						FUMBLES
Year	AGE	Team	LG	GP	ATT	CMP	PCT	YDS	YPA	TD	INT	SKD	SKY	RAT	RAT+		ATT	YDS	AVG	TD	LNG		REC	YDS	AVG	TD	LNG		TOT	OWR	OPR	YDS	TD
1994	22	WAS	NFL	11	265	120	45.3	1658	6.26	10	12	12	83	59.6	76		26	103	4.0	0	26		0	0	0.0	0	0		3	0	0	-9	0
1995	23	WAS	NFL	7	125	66	52.8	745	5.96	3	7	13	76	55.6	70		18	57	3.2	0	13		0	0	0.0	0	0		1	1	0	0	0
1996	24	WAS	NFL	1	0	0	0.0	0	0.00	0	0	0	0	0.0	0		1	0	0.0	0	0		0	0	0.0	0	0		1	0	0	-14	0
1997	25	NOR	NFL	10	203	106	52.2	1288	6.34	2	14	21	132	46.6	60		22	38	1.7	1	8		0	0	0.0	0	0		8	3	0	-20	0
4 NFL Season Totals				29	593	292	49.2	3691	6.22	15	33	46	291	54.3			67	198	3.0	1	0		0	0	0.0	0	0		13	4	0	-43	0

Heath Shuler

46 interceptions, 15 touchdowns. Pathetic.

[John Lenin]

make that 33 intercepts, still pathetic ...

[kylaka]

Gimmie a break.

I've often wondered why they would name a rest stop on the NJTPK after Joyce Kilmer, as opposed to something like a park, or a river or anything more befitting the world class poet that he was. I mean, well, Joyce Kilmer and Howard Stern (who also has a rest stop named after him) are not exactly in the same league, are they? I don't know about you, but if I'm taking a wiz, I'm about 50 times more likely to be thinking "Howard Stern" than "Joyce Kilmer".

[billbears]

It is a sad day when supposedly freedom loving responsible people will simply write off a entire community because well, the flowers are pretty.

So 'freedom loving responsible people' are now defined by those that want to spend over $600 million to build a road that will increase traffic in an area that doesn't need it just to visit some gravesites (even though a workable solution is already in place for less than a tenth of the cost). And it has nothing to do with 'pretty flowers' and more to do with holding onto one of the last bastions of this state, my state, that hasn't been paved over in the name of progress. I'm no environmentalist but to watch what has happened in the mountains of NC in the past 15 years in the name of 'progress' is sickening. 'Progress' is destroying my heritage. 'Progress' is doing its best to destroy the culture of the mountains. So frankly 'progress' and 'promises' by Democrats 70 years ago can take a flying leap as it pertains to this road

You have no clue why shuler is doing what he is doing.

Considering this is a divisive issue within that community and considering Shuler grew up in Bryson City and attended the high school that is located within a couple hundred yards where the Road to Nowhere enters Bryson City, I'd err on the side of caution as to why he is doing this. He, and others, have heard this debate their whole life. Somebody popping in at the end of 2006 with their 'wisdom' about this road cannot even begin to understand the complexities behind this issue.

It isn't because of his principles or even the money.

As if Charles Taylor had principles. Right. Oh I do forget he had the right letter by his name so he must have principles....

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

This is obviously a subject you are knowledgeable about, what is your position on 'The Road to Nowhere'?

[padre35]

So, those families should just be written off? That blather in the thread starter about "ferry services are available" is bunk, instead of fixing the problem, the Fedgov simply pushed the problem down the road with no solutions in sight.

Merely let's wait for them to die off, or we can pay off the county commissioners.

If the fedgov had done the right thing 30 years ago the road would have been on budget. Of course they didn't and now they have accomplices in there non action.

Your state? Really so I don't live in NC, I've never been to Fontana Dam, or hiked the Nantahala never went to the endless forest service hearings. Or talked to the forest service employees to get their take on it?

Shuler hasn't lived in WNC for years, he lived in Knoxville, were he has his real estate business.

I would not call that road "progress" at all, it was poorly thought out and the gurantees were never really satisfied.


For myself, a statement by Shuler that basically tells those folks to go pound sand isn't acceptable at all.


I live in WNC, I know some of those families whose land got submerged to build that dam.

[ReignOfError]

And also who is going to pay the lawyer bills when a pontoon boat sinks.

Dude, if you're that worried about the hazards of a half-mile journey across a man-made lake in a pontoon boat, you've really got to learn to live a little.

[ReignOfError]

I don't know. I'm torn on this one.

Yeah, me too, though I don't have the personal connection you do. I mean, a promise is a promise, and these folks were clearly screwed 63 years ago. On the other hand, sticking to the letter of the promise won't undo that. A $600 milion road through a rare relatively pristine place strikes me as a Faustian bargain -- make it easier to get somewhere, but then find out that it's not the same place, because some a-holes built a big road through it.

Also I can't see the memorial services lasting much longer (maybe 25-30 years) before the next generation just drops it off altogether.

I don't know about that. "Old times there are not forgotten," as the song goes. But it'll drop off to a few families and some historic preservation enthusiasts. I'd never thought of this before, but it would be a pretty decent Boy Scout project to take on maintaining remote cemeteries and assisting families in getting to them -- it would combine boating and camping, public service, and a potent history lesson on both the creation of the lake and the folks who were there before.

As a bit of an aside, I love walking through old cemeteries. Aside from the fact that they're a quiet place to gather your thoughts, every stone represents a life, and every life has a story. If you know the story, you can take your kids for what these days is called a "teachable moment." If you don't know the story, you can let your imagination run wild. Older and rural cemeteries, in particular, can really drive home in a visceral, emotional way how hard life was for our forebears. It's all there, if you know how to read it.

In one old (1820s to present) cemetery near me that I wander around every now and then, there's one family with a mother and father, and half a dozen children, of whom only one survived to adulthood, and then just barely (I think he was 24).

Another section is walled off, and there's a monument that simply reads "Marble Hill Sunday School." No date. I haven't been able to find out more about it. There is a stone for someone age 19, name too weathered to read. And all around are 20-30 graves, with headstones and footstones with only names -- no other information -- placed between two and four feet apart. I surmise that there was a fire, and the 19-year-old was the teacher.

The family of a friend of mine has a former dairy farm, now run by my friend's sister as an organic produce farm, in East Tennessee. I go there when I can, and should make the time to do so more often. On the property is a little family plot, and it tells a story, too. The markers date back to the 1840s or so, and the earliest ones are the ornate product of a skilled carver. In the 1860s and 1870s, the stones become homemade and more crude, because war and Reconstruction stripped away the time and money for such luxuries. More important to care for the living and leave the dead to God.

Every stone is meant to mark a life, and was placed by someone who thought that life was worth remembering. Every life has a story, and most people take most of their stories from this world with them when they leave. Every cemetery is a novel, if you have the right kind of mind to read it and to fill in the missing details from imagination.

And because of the view up there I'm not sure I'd want a road running through that area. I don't want it turning into another 441 (that road between Cherokee and Gatlinburg).

Between Miami and Lake City, TN, actually. I bring that up not to be a jerk, but because 441 from east of Atlanta, north to NC and south to FL, used to be one of my favorite roads, and it's losing its charm for me. Most of its stretch is now a 4-lane divided highway, not quite as sterile and soulless as the Interstates, but moving in that direction. A chain convenience store is hardly an acceptable substitute for the roadside stands selling boiled peanuts and apples that taste like real apples, and the stands are becoming harder and harder to find.

Franklin has been overrun, Murphy's just hanging on last time I checked, and Bryson City is one of the last (even though they have filmed a few movies up there)

Murphy lost a big cash cow when they caught Eric Rudolph, and all the Feds -- who had to be clothed and housed, after all, providing local jobs -- split town.

It's a tough if not impossible choice for any small town, and I've seen towns come to grief by going either way. If you turn away big roads, new businesses and corporate tourist dollars, the young folks move away to look for jobs and the town withers. If you embrace big roads, new businesses and corporate tourist dollars, you become another Pigeon Forge or Cherokee, or just another truck stop on the way to them.

[Lurker]

There's no such thing as a "Federal Contract" you putz.

The decisions of one Congress are not binding on any future Congress.

L

[Burma Jones]

This appears to be a very emotional issue for a lot of people, but seriously -- if these folks get their road because FDR made their grandparents a promise, then I sure as h*ll want a balanced budget, which FDR promised my grandparents and the rest of the country in the 1932 campaign. Kind of like the "middle class tax cut" in the 1992 campaign.

[ReignOfError]

It is a sad day when supposedly freedom loving responsible people will simply write off a entire community because well, the flowers are pretty.

There is no "entire community" being written off here, at least not in the 21st century. The valley was flooded in 1943, the residents were relocated, and this isn't about a road to bring economic opportunity.

The issue is how best to allow people to visit their ancestral homes and their kinfolks' graves. Another goal is to preserve the character of those places as much as practical.

Every so often, I drive up to Mount Airy, Georgia, where my grandmother was born. It's a special place to me, and all the old family stories come back to me most sharply when I'm there. The home site is now part of a state park, because my great-grandmother deeded it to the state in her will.

The house was in poor repair, and her kids and grandkids would have stayed there to keep it going -- that's why she gave it away. They'd all moved on to their own lives in various cities, so she cut the cord.

Just down the road is the Grandview cemetery. Three generations of my family are there, and I will be one of the fourth generation. "There" is kind of a philosophical question, actually. My g-gmother is buried there, alongside her husband and firstborn child. Most of the rest of us decided to be cremated and scattered, but with a marker placed in the family plot.

The family plot wasn't that big to begin with, so we decided to stack the headstones (along the surface of the ground; I'm not talking about treating them like Legos) to save space.

Some future anthropologist will be really puzzled when he finds one grave in the usual proportions, another, then another, then a row of headstones arrayed one above the other (y-axis). They might think that we were buried one on top of the other (z-axis). I kinda like to think that I will confuse future anthropologists.

But I digress.

After that visit, I stop by the local school, still standing and strong, which has my g-gfather's name on the cornerstone (he was on the town council, and later served as mayor) and where my g-gmother worked as teacher and principal for three decades.

These are dear places to me. They take me a little effort to get to. And I would chain myself to a bulldozer before I would let someone carve up the countryside to build a gazillion-dollar highway to them and pave over some of it to make it easier to get to the sliver that's left. You might as well put neon beer signs on the Parthenon, fly Golden Arches over the Grand Canyon, or rent out the Ellipse for BMX races.

[Dane]

Just down the road is the Grandview cemetery. Three generations of my family are there, and I will be one of the fourth generation. "There" is kind of a philosophical question, actually. My g-gmother is buried there, alongside her husband and firstborn child. Most of the rest of us decided to be cremated and scattered, but with a marker placed in the family plot.

And I bet you there is a road to the cemetary, isn't there.

[Dane]

I think that fact that Shuler is on the right side of this issue and the GOP representative was wrong, is a sad commentary on today's GOP.

Why is fullfilling a promise being "wrong".

JMO, your above italicized shows your true mindset.

[Dane]

BTW, if you were true to your intentions about these oeople on Fontana lake not having this road, why don't you show the way and having the road going to your family cemetary torn up and replaced by a trail maintained by the Boy Scouts.

[ReignOfError]

BTW, if you were true to your intentions about these oeople on Fontana lake not having this road

Okay. Leaving aside the fact that you're almost completely incomprehensible, let's move on.

Why don't you show the way and having the road going to your family cemetary torn up

That's a good point, except for the part where you missed every atom of the point and couldn't find the point with both hands and a flashlight if it had a bell tied to its ass.

I didn't talk about tearing up any roads, because the whole point -- have you been paying attention at all? -- is that there is no road. The question is whether or not to to build a new road. At a cost of six hundred million dollars in federal money.You could give each of the aggrieved families a million bucks in tax-free cash, and that would be far less expensive.

If the folks living on the banks of Fontana Lake are really, sincerely tied to that patch of land, then they can adapt. If not, they can take a check.

[McGavin999]

If they're going to do that, the $52 million ought to go to the families.

[Dane]

You could give each of the aggrieved families a million bucks in tax-free cash, and that would be far less expensive.

I think there is something like 1,300 familes and at a mil apiece that would be 1.3 billion dollars.

Building the road that was promised would be cheaper.

[Dane]

I didn't talk about tearing up any roads, because the whole point -- have you been paying attention at all? -- is that there is no road.

JMO, your attitude about the Fontana lakes families is basically, "screw you, I've got my road to my family cemetary, but you can't have one".

Sounds kinda of limosine liberalish to me.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Odd that a former NFL quarterback would become a scumbag Democrat.

Back in the Dark Ages Sports Illustrated had an article on the psychological profile of the various positions in football. On defense, a sense of responsibility is especially needed in your defensive backs since if they allow the ball carrier to get past them, it's a touchdown. Whereas the defensive linemen tend to be very aggressive. On offense, the linemen tend to be responsible types to protect the quarterback. Wide receivers tend to be showoffs (T.O., anyone?). And quarterbacks come in two flavors - either Broadway Joe or Straight Arrow. Venture a guess which kind would become a Democratic Congressman??

[Knitebane]

The road was promised but times change as well.

Yeah, and I promised to mail in my tax check but, you know, times change.

I wonder how that would fly with FedGov?

If the government wants its citizens to obey the law, it needs to set the example.

They promised the road. Build it and move on.