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: https://www.epageflip.net/i/103721
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 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. 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 antisocial media cannot provide true communication and the trend toward conducting our lives that way continues to take its toll Fayetteville's Weather Forecast Thursday January 17 Friday January 18 4 High 50° Low 33° Partly Cloudy Sunday January 20 Saturday January 19 UCW JANUARY 16-22, 2013 High 50° Low 36° Mostly Sunny 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 of 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 BILL BOWMAN, Publisher, Up & be getting together Coming Weekly, COMMENTS? editor@ any time soon. upandcomingweekly.com. Call 910.354.1679 24 / High 56° Low 31° Showers Free Wheelin' Feelin' ....................... 18 Horoscopes/Advice Goddess ......... 19 Classifieds ........................................ 20 Games .............................................. 22 Monday January 21 Tuesday January 22 High 53° Low 34° Partly Cloudy High 53º Low 32º Partly Cloudy High 54º Low 31º Partly Cloudy 7 Forecast available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM