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/366230
AUGUST 20-26, 2014 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WARNING! This is going to drive you crazy. As the political season moves into full swing and the fur begins to fly, here is one more thing to worry about, or — at least —to know it is out there. What if every time you went shopping for groceries, toiletries and the like, you were contributing to political candidates you cannot stand? What if you would never mark a GOP candidate but find out the folks at the company who make your favorite crackers are faithful donors to those very candidates? What if you would rather run a marathon before you voted for a Democratic hopeful, but your favorite toothpaste company's owners just love them and give them buckets of money from company earnings? And how the heck are you going to find all this out anyway? Guess what!! There's an app for that! Writing a blog for the Washington Post, Colby Itkowitz clues us in to "Buy Partisan," a new smartphone app which allows shoppers to screen the politics of the items in their shopping carts before they whip out the debit card. Matthew Colbert — I have no idea whether he is related to Stephen or not — named his startup company "Spend Wisely," and added this tagline, " Wouldn't it be great if you could spend how you believe?" Colbert says the goal of his company is to make every day "Election Day" through "spending choices." Noble as the cause may be, it would take a while if you have a full cart. What you do is scan an item's bar code, which then tells you who manufactures it and how company officials and employees give politically. Blogger Itkowtz checked out a bottle of hand lotion to learn it was produced by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, whose officials and employees gave 49 percent to Republicans and 33 percent to Democrats. Itkowtz notes that overall giving was pretty evenly distributed between the two, but that the company's board of directors gave overwhelming to Republicans, thereby skewing the results. There are certain local and area businesses I avoid because their owners' politics conflict with mine, but the thought of scanning every item in my cart is daunting. I have not investigated the "Buy Partisan" app myself yet. It may just be Too Much Information for me. … Another quirky, not to mention snarky, piece also caught my attention lately. Writing in Psychology Today, Regina Barreca addresses the difference in the number of words known to children of privileged households compared to the number known to children in less privileged or disadvantaged families. She entitles her piece, "Words Rich People Use That Poor People Don't." Barreca is reacting to the well-documented fact that some children are read to more regularly than others, and that their vocabularies reflect that exposure to language. While acknowledging that early exposure to words is critical to learning and achievement, Barreca gives some parents a pass. "If you're living below the poverty line, you don't have a whole lot of time to read to your kids." You are more focused on "trying to feed your kids, trying to keep your kids clean and healthy, and probably trying desperately to move to a neighborhood where your kids are not likely to be shot, stabbed or strangled by drug dealers." Here are a few of the words Barreca says mark "the differences between rich kids and the poor kids. Trust fund. Inheritance. Kale. Hedge fund. Investor relations. Au pair. Private wealth management. Lacrosse. Gap year. Aspen. Cotillion. Coxswain. Aubusson rug. Chevre. Canyon Ranch. Chaise lounge. Antiquarian. Conservatory. Wellingtons. Docent. Palate cleanser. Mud room. Tax-free municipal bonds. Regatta. Unpaid internship. Scuppers the Sailor Dog, a Precious Jewel reading aloud bedtime go- to book, used none of those words as far as I can recall, but Barreca has a point. "It's about privilege and the lack of it—and it's about addressing the underlying causes of poverty." Read, read, read and talk, talk talk to your children. It is how they learn. Content is less important than words. Give them that advantage. … Robin Williams' death hit me hard. His frenetic over-the-top humor was often too much for me, and I saw his work only occasionally, rarely seeking it. What I saw, though, was a glimpse into an extraordinary mind, talented yet tortured, energetic beyond belief but also empathic, a man open about the demons he continued to debate. They won. The mystery and miracle is that he brought such laughter and joy to people when he was so sad. This, That and the Other by MARGARET DICKSON MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. 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