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/106363
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD "Fulton Jail Will Get Working Cell Locks," read the Dec. 19 Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline. The county commission serving Atlanta had finally voted to break a longstanding 3-3 tie that prevented buying new jailhouse locks — even while knowing that inmates could jimmy the old ones at will and roam the facilities, threatening and assaulting suspects and guards. The three recalcitrant commissioners were being spiteful because a federal judge had ordered various improvements to the jail, costing $140 million so far, and the three vowed to spend no more. The 1,300 replacement locks will cost about $5 million — but will not be installed right away. [Atlanta JournalConstitution, 12-19-2012] The Entrepreneurial Spirit! The Chinese fashion designer "Ms. Lv" told China Newsweek in November that her sales had "quintupled" since she began using her 72-year-old grandfather to model her clothing styles for girls. "(It's) helping my granddaughter," Liu Xianping said. Chuck Sheppard "I'm very old," he said, and "I have nothing to lose." [China Newsweek via New York Daily News, 11-20-2012] Challenging Business Plans: (1) British "medical illustrator" Emily Evans recently created eight pricy, bone china dinner plates emblazoned with the microscope images of tissue slides of the human liver, thyroid, esophagus and testicles ($60 per plate, $200 for a set of four). (2) In October, a shop in London's St. Bart's Pathology Museum ran a special sale of cupcakes as part of a sexually transmitted disease awareness campaign. Each pastry's icing was crafted to resemble the lesions, boils and warts of gonorrhea and other maladies. [Daily Mail (London), 12-13-2012] [The Sun (London), 10-22-2012] Leading a "jerky renaissance" is Krave, a Sonoma, Calif., company creating nontraditional flavors such as turkey jerky and jerky flavored with basil citrus or lemon garlic. Actually, Krave points out, jerky is rich in protein, with low calories and fat (but with, admittedly, sky-high sodium) and could be reasonably pitched as a healthy snack. However, jerky's main obstacle (a Krave competitor's CEO told The Wall Street Journal in September) is "jerky shame," in which some male consumers remain mortified that their girlfriends might see them enjoying the snack. [Wall Street Journal, 9-26-2012] COPYRIGHT 2011 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY For the Week of February 3, 2013 ARIES (March 21-April 19) Author Francesca M. Cancian suggests, "Part of the reason that men seem so much less loving than women is that men's behavior is measured with a feminine ruler." This week it will be helpful to ponder matters of gender and work to bring harmony to male/female relationships. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) If you don't make any mistakes, you won't have any good stories. You'll also have very little to teach others, since the lessons worth learning often have to do with recovering from mistakes. So expect to make mistakes, and embrace them when they happen. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) Some around you thrive on emotionally provocative situations. It's challenging for you to relate to those who prefer the extreme highs and lows, but you'll try. Because you understand that everyone is different and you make an effort to empathize, an opportunity will knock. CANCER (June 22-July 22) You're not the best judge of your own maturity, skills and attributes right now. Life presents you with new roles just when you're truly ready to take them on and not a moment sooner. So even if you think you're not ready, take a chance this week. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) You're in a position to make some choices — all eyes on you, and fates seeming to hang in the balance. But don't worry. Whichever way you go, justice will prevail in the end. So make the decision, and don't look back. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) You will turn a simple outing into an adventure in one of two ways: Either you will go into the scene without a plan, or you will go into the scene with a good plan and a wily partner who is sure to keep you from following it. ADVICE GODDESS Vroom with a View LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) By studying gifted children, scientists have concluded that these young people do not only think along more complex lines than their peers, but they also feel differently. You can relate this week. I'm a 34-year-old woman, dating a 27-year-old guy for three months. We have a great time together, but he's balking at making an official commitment, meaning SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Some people he doesn't want to call us boyfriend and don't know how to consider you. But it would girlfriend. He says he feels we have longbe a waste of your mind to worry about such things. Instead, take a deep breath, and let term potential and doesn't want to date yourself settle in. Once relaxed, you'll naturally anyone else, but needs time to be sure gravitate toward like minds and kindred spirits. about us so he doesn't get hurt again (as SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Relationhe did by his last girlfriend, whom he felt ships may cause you to experience moments of sure was "the one"). That makes sense, disequilibrium or rapid shifts in perception: a kind of emotional vertigo. Concentrate on a fixed but the other day, he told me he loves horizon. Taking the long view will stop your mind me. How can he feel that way and still from spinning in an unhelpful fashion. not consider us boyfriend/girlfriend? I'm CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You have it in my 30s, and my friends are getting in you to solve a problem that plagues many. married, and I get down on myself You already know what problem you most want sometimes for being single. Am I selling to take on, and you are closer to the solution myself short by waiting? than you think. Now all you need is to focus — On Hold and work. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) The week brings you 10,080 minutes to use for good, to accomplish something remarkable, to make a positive impact and to change the world for the better -— unless you plan on eating, sleeping, showering, commuting, etc. Then you probably have somewhere around 6,000 minutes, which, used well, will be quite enough. Okay, it's a little weird that a guy who blurts out "I love you" is squeamish about the B- and G-words, but keep in mind that the last woman he gave his heart to slammed it in the hurt locker. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) You know what Also, people hate it's like to be flooded by unexpected waves of joy. So you go carefully and consciously, to fail and resist Amy Alkon choosing friends and love interests for their de- having their failures pendability. You need people around you whom formalized. If he doesn't call you his you can really count on. girlfriend, maybe those won't be real tears By Holiday Mathis you'll cry if you break up, and he won't have screwed up another relationship; he'll just have dated somebody awhile and moved on. But, even if he is driven by fear, his insistence on taking it slow is a good thing: It suggests he learns from his mistakes (an important quality to have in a B-word) and means he won't be that guy who calls you his girlfriend pronto and then treats you more and more like some woman he passed on his way to the men's room at the corner bar. Because you can't know how long his holding-back period will last until he stops holding back, you can start to think the worst — that he's just toying with you or, even worse, that you'll have a mortgage and three kids together and he'll still be introducing you as "my lady friend." To allay your fears, mark a deadline in your head — perhaps two or three months from now — to see whether the relationship's progressed to a point you're more comfortable with and to bail if it hasn't. During that time, try not to be so goal-focused that you forget to look critically at how compatible you two actually are and explore your own motivations. For any "official commitment" to last, you have to want him, specifically. It can't just be that he's your last chance to experience having everyone turn and gasp as you walk down the aisle — that is, unless you're in such a rush to get to church one Sunday that you put on stockings but forget to follow up by putting on pants. Amy Alkon all rights reserved. JAN. 30 - FEB 5, 2013 UCW 19