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/920918
4 UCW JANUARY 3-9, 2018 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM PUBLISHER'S PEN STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ EDITOR Stephanie Crider editor@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Leslie Pyo leslie@upandcomingweekly.com SENIOR REPORTER Jeff Thompson news@upandcomingweekly.com SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR Earl Vaughan Jr. GRAPHIC DESIGNER Elizabeth Long art@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Martin, Pitt Dickey, Margaret Dickson, John Hood, Erica Walls, Jim Jones, Shanessa Fenner, Paul Hall, Lau- ren Vanderveen SALES ADMINISTRATOR/ DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Laurel Handforth laurel@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING/SALES Linda McAlister Brown linda@upandcomingweekly.com ––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan St. 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 wel- comes 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. ©2007 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. Cover art/Various ads with art graphics designed with various elements from: vecteezy.com and freepik.com. Beginnings and evolutions by MARGARET DICKSON is week, Publisher Bill Bowman yields this space to Margaret Dickson, longtime Up & Coming Weekly colum- nist. Enjoy her eloquent and thought- provoking New Year reflections. A new year always feels fresh. Gone are the decorations and gen- eral holiday clutter. Our homes feel spare and open to new possibilities. We are back into our routines of work and school and doing our darned- est to live up to the resolutions we made with such determination. e new year is a blank slate that opens at midnight, one which will mark anoth- er chapter in the journeys of our lives. We also experience evolutions, changes that come slowly over time, sometimes so subtly we may not recognize them at all. One that struck me only when I read a newspaper article about it is that Christmas in America is becoming more of a holiday than a holy day. e non-partisan Pew Research Center, which polls on many aspects of American life, released findings just before Christmas on how Americans now see the two-mil- lennia old religious observance. It is now more of a secular and cultural holiday than a religious one, with only 57 percent of us professing to believe all four elements of the biblical account of the birth of Jesus. e study finds that some of us do find more meaning in the religious significance of Christmas while others of us find spe- cial meaning in gatherings of family and friends and in being kind to others, and some of us feel both aspects of Christmas observance. Just as Western Europe has become more secular, Pew Research finds so too is the United States. No American could have missed the in- creasing concern over the opioid epidemic in our country. Some of us have experi- enced it personally and painfully through our own addictions or those of people we love. Some of us have lost someone dear. Now we find that the opioid epidemic strikes women more quickly and more se- verely than men, creating a gender dispar- ity that leaves women in worse health. e numbers are startling. Opioid overdose rates for men have increased some 265 percent since the epidemic took hold, but for women that number is an eye-popping 400 percent. Some of the disparity may revolve around the reality that women are generally smaller than men and should have lower dosages of prescription drugs and some around the fact that women are prescribed longer regimens. Whatever the reasons, though, the disparities are there. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, health economist Ken Sagynbekov advocates for more extensive health care coverage, in- cluding in Medicaid and Medicare, some- thing both North Carolina and the federal government have resisted. Says Sagyn- bekov, "e long-term consequences of ignoring the gender gap in health should frighten us more than political tempests." He is right. Back to the ever-curious Pew Re- search Center polling findings. Many an American family jokes about young adult children returning to the nest, and there is truth in those jokes. For the first time in modern American history – more than 130 years – young adults ages 18- 34 are choosing to live with their parents more often than any other living arrangement, including with roommates or significant others and even marriage. Interestingly, more returnees are sons, not daughters, probably because young men have seen both declining employment rates and incomes. Living at home is a trend that predates the Great Recession, but one that has probably been ex- acerbated by it. Pew Research says the trend is fueled by young people waiting until age 35 or longer to commit romantically, whether they marry or just decide to combine households, what the U.S. Census Bureau calls "cohabitation." Another factor at play is educa- tional attainment. Less-educated young people are more likely to live with parents than their more educated contemporaries, probably because of lower incomes. Young adults with college degrees have done much better economically in the work- place, making it more likely that they are able to establish their own homes. Add to this another Pew Research finding that roughly six in 10 Americans 35 and under are living "unpartnered," and it is apparent that significant social change is indeed un- derway. Racially and ethnically, a record percentage of young black and Hispanic people, 36 percent, are living with parents. As 2018 unfolds its new, fresh and un- marked self in our lives, we may be concen- trating on what we can do to make our mark on it. We can also be mindful of outside forces, which shape our lives as much or more than anything we control ourselves. HIGH 43 HIGH 40 HIGH 47 HIGH 48 HIGH 56 HIGH 58 JANUARY 4 JANUARY 5 JANUARY 6 JANUARY 7 JANUARY 8 JANUARY 9 Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Sunny Partly Cloudy AM Showers LOW 19 LOW 35 LOW 29 LOW 15 LOW 21 LOW 36 MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. A Pew Research Center study finds that some of us find more meaning in the religious significance of Christmas while others find special meaning in gatherings of family and friends and in being kind to others, and some of us feel both aspects.