Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/105080
STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman bbowman@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Janice Burton editor@upandcomingweekly.com EDITOR Stephanie Crider stephanie@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING/SALES Cynthia Deere cynthia@upandcomingweekly.com Linda McAlister Brown linda@upandcomingweekly.com Kristy Sykes kristy@upandcomingweekly.com Beverly Pone beverly@upandcomingweekly.com OFFICE & DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Laurel Handforth officemanager@ upandcomingweekly.com ACCOUNTING Paulette Reinhardt accounting@upandcomingweekly.com ART DIRECTOR Alicia Miller art@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Martin, Pitt Dickey, Margaret Dickson, John Hood, Erinn Crider, Karen Poppele, Heather Griffiths ––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan Street P.O. Box 53461 Fayetteville, NC 28305 PHONE: (910) 484-6200 FAX: (910) 484-9218 Up & Coming Weekly is a "Quality of Life" publication with local features, news and information on what's happening in and around the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. Up & Coming Weekly is published weekly on Wednesdays. Up & Coming Weekly welcomes manuscripts, photographs and artwork for publication consideration, but assumes no responsibility for them. We cannot accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or material. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject copy submitted for publication. Up & Coming Weekly is free of charge and distributed at indoor and outdoor locations throughout Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. Subscriptions can be purchased for $30 for six months or $60 for 12 months, delivered weekly by first class mail. ©2007 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. INSIDE Calendar ........................................... 12 Concert Connection ........................ 15 TV ..................................................... 17 Movie Review .................................. 17 PUBLISHER'S PEN Imprisoned By Technology by BILL BOWMAN Many of you read and responded to my editorial last week "Imprisoned by Technology." For those who didn't, it was on social media and electronic e-mail communications. If you missed it, don't despair. Here's your chance to read it. Why? The lack of personal communication is a problem, a really, really serious problem. I wish I had waited a week to write the original piece because the sad incident and experience I had last week was as near perfect a real-life example of how otherwise good, intelligent and gentle people become ugly, alienated and disenfranchised. Here's what happened. As always, as in this case, someone with good intentions sends out a general e-mail they want to share with their online e-mail constituents on a topic they feel is important or relevant. In this case, the e-mail was titled "Wounded Knee" and the sender (name not important) was sharing the historical story along with his views on the hot topics of the Second Amendment and gun control. (I think.) One of email recipients comments on the content negatively and hits reply to all, making sure everyone knows what their opinion is and making sure everyone on that list knows that they are a dissenter with the opinion and not sheepishly following the herd. You see where this is going. Another recipient takes issue with that response and they reply to all; again making sure they are recognized also as a valid authority on the subject. Only this time someone gets insulted and the melee begins. That endless barrage of ugly, hateful, hurtful communication that could only be spawned through e-mail and electronic social media took its toll. What a waste of time and humanity. This scenario is way too common. It is sad and embarrassing for the people who participated in it and, for the people who had to endure it. Again, please read the following. If need be, send it to a friend. They will appreciate it. Thank you, for reading Up & Coming Weekly. No doubt about it, the Internet has completely changed every aspect of our lives. Instant communications worldwide guarantees news, views and information in nanoseconds no matter how irrelevant, trivial or horrendous. Well, get used to it folks, because it's not going away. You may consider joining me in filing the first-ever class-action law suit for alienation of affection of the human race. Just kidding! Seriously, for the most part, many of the technological innovations during the past two decades have been good. However, the unintended consequences of these innovations continue to be ignored as they steadily stack up; taking a silent toll on how we, interact and communicate with one another. Perhaps I should say "fail to communicate" with one another. Fayetteville's Weather Forecast Thursday January 24 Friday January 25 4 High 57° Low 31° Partly Cloudy UCW JANUARY 23-29, 2013 BILL BOWMAN, Publisher, Up & Coming Weekly, COMMENTS? editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. Sunday January 27 Saturday January 26 High 44° Low 25° Mostly Sunny After all, with all of the electronic devices that are available why speak when you can text? Why phone when you can e-mail? Why step out and embrace a stranger when you can hide securely behind a computer screen? Why work at developing lasting friendships with compassion, trust and understanding when a simple mouse click makes that declaration for you? Why seek professional physical or mental help when your head or heart is hurting when all the answers and remedies to what ails you can be Googled in the confines of your own home or office? Sorry, I'm not buying it. I may be old school but I believe our nation became great because of integrity, hard work and an extremely good sense of what America wanted and needed and that result came from traditional face-to-face communications. Social media or anti-social media cannot provide true communication and the trend toward conducting our lives that way continues to take its toll on businesses, organizations and more importantly, personal human relationships. Why? Basically because electronic communications serve as a deterrent to personal conversation and interaction. The entire act of socializing, developing relationships, both business and personal, becomes a lost art. It takes too much effort. When there is little or no personal contact between individuals, there is no need to even try to empathize, sympathize or compromise with the other person. True feelings and intentions are often masked or at best misconstrued or misunderstood. This is sad, but true. I recently worked with an organization that could be the poster child for how to obtain mediocrity by over extending use of Internet technology. No doubt about it, hiding social insecurities behind Internet technology provides a false sense confidence and superiority. In actuality, the lack of communication with the real world only stifles growth and development, leaving the ultimate success of the business or organization buried under countless e-mails, laptop computers, iPads and iPhones. In their world they applaud these higher levels of mediocrity as achievement while real success remains elusive. Me? At my age, I'm sticking with old-fashioned values. I'm putting my time, talent and resources into those venues that incorporate personal relationships I can gauge and rely on. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. We won't be getting together any time soon. Thanks for reading Up & Coming Weekly. Call 910.354.1679 24 / High 50° Low 33° Showers Free Wheelin' Feelin' ....................... 18 Horoscopes/Advice Goddess ......... 19 Classifieds ........................................ 20 Games .............................................. 22 Monday January 28 Tuesday January 29 High 49° Low 32° Partly Cloudy High 57º Low 44º Partly Cloudy High 64º Low 52º Partly Cloudy 7 Forecast available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM