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.
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NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD Officials at England's 12th-century St. Peter's Church in Seaford, East Sussex, which is renowned for its eerie quiet, created a 30-minute CD recently of near-total silence, first as a small-scale fundraising project, but later for general sales (since word-of-mouth had attracted orders from as far away as Ghana). Those who have heard it said they could make out only the occasional squeaking of footsteps on the wooden floor (and the very distant hum of passing cars). Said one admiring parishioner, "People sometimes like to sit down and just have a bit of peace and quiet." [Daily Mail (London), 1-27-2013] Government in Action France has seen its wolf population gradually increase from near-extinction in the 1930s, but still classifies the predator as a "protected" species. However, sheep farmers increasingly complain that wolves' attacks are reducing their herds. Therefore, in a recently proposed "National Wolf Plan," the government boldly gave headline-writers around the world material for rejoicing: a national program to "educate" the wolves. Individual wolves known to have attacked sheep would be caught, marked and Chuck Sheppard briefly detained, with the hope that they would learn their lesson from that trauma and from then on, pass up sheep and turn instead to rabbits, boar and deer. (Said one critic, "You might as well try to educate a shark.") [TheLocal. fr (Paris), 2-7-2012] Updates: The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration revealed in January that twice as many fraudulent income tax refunds were paid to inmates in 2011 (173,000) as for the tax year 2010. However, the IRS claimed that the fraudulent returns it did manage to stop totaled $2.5 billion (almost half of which was disingenuously claimed by two inmates). Also, the Department of Health and Human Service's inspector general revealed in January that Medicare was illegally billed for $120 million from 2009 to 2011 for services used by inmates and illegal immigrants — neither category of which is authorized to use Medicare. [Associated Press via Tampa Bay Times, 1-18-2012] [Associated Press via New York Times, 1-25-2013] Not Expected to Fly Off the Shelf: Iceland's menswear designer Sruli Recht's autumn/winter 2013 collection, debuting in Paris in January, included a ring made from a four-inch slice of his own skin (removed during recent abdomen surgery, then salted and tanned to give it sturdiness). The ring (called "Forget Me Knot") carries a price tag of $500,000 — considering that the rest of the ring is 24k gold. [Huffington Post, 1-22-2013] COPYRIGHT 2011 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY For the Week of March 3, 2013 ARIES (March 21-April 19) A good salesperson knows not to waste time trying to convince people who can't or won't buy. You may not be selling an actual product, but you'll be selling something this week — maybe your ideas or personality. Qualify potential "buyers." Make sure the relationship would be a good fit. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Learning can be hard work, especially if your inner voice is like a chattering classmate. Quiet your inner voice. Agree to have fewer problems and opinions. Your open-minded, receptive approach to life will augment your fortunes. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) Scientists disagree about how birds find worms in the ground. Do they use their ears? Peck at random? Similarly, you have a talent that comes so naturally to you that no one, not even you, knows how you do it. Someone new will be fascinated by your process. CANCER (June 22-July 22) There are specific dating websites these days. Whether you want to date a farmer, a clown, a person your exact age or even someone whose face maps out similarly to your own, there's a site for it. However, in matters of the heart, nothing beats your own basic instincts this week. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) There have been times when your status depended on your ability to persuade another person to see and do things your way. Thankfully, now it's not your job. It's much easier to simply acknowledge another person's point of view. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Good friends are not magic gifts that just come to you. You have to create and earn relationships. That's why this week you'll derive great satisfaction and pride from your strong ties with others. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) You may crave attention and recognition more than usual. Can you think of a way to give it to yourself? You are, after all, best qualified to acknowledge what you've done in regard to your projects and goals, because you know everything that went into them. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Money is a form of communication. Money acknowledges the worth of a service or the work that went into making an item. You'll think carefully about the various trades you make this week. Your accounting will yield surprising conclusions. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) The secret to getting things up and running is to make that your primary aim. People who are more concerned with being right than they are with fixing the problem won't be effective. You've made that mistake in the past, and now you know better. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You'll wisely get focused on one relationship. If you were to have a successful outcome in this regard over the next 60 days, what would it look like? Knowing the specific, measurable determinants of success you would like to see will increase your chances of a positive outcome. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Negativity isn't always nasty or sad. Often it just lacks any positive features. Avoid falling into the trap of doing less than you could. There won't be a prize for turning in neutral or merely good work. You'll have to be great to get noticed. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Sometimes your life mirrors the parable of the prodigal son. You are so consistently excellent that your excellence is taken for granted while weaker characters get all of the attention. Remind yourself of why you are so committed to doing right. It's not because you want everyone to throw a big party for you. By Holiday Mathis ADVICE GODDESS Gratitude Adjustment My wife needs a medical test that will involve her being naked in unflattering positions in front of another person, possibly male. I know she won't enjoy this and it certainly isn't sexual, but I want her to request a female gynecologist. She says she's embarrassed to do that, refuses to be controlled by me, and says having a male doctor doesn't bother her. Well, it bothers me terribly. I'm fairly young and not religious, but I was taught that a couple's bedroom — what happens there, their nude bodies, etc. — is for them alone. I'm not insecure, and I know she isn't leaving me, but I strongly feel that her being seen naked by a male practitioner violates the sanctity and intimacy of our marriage, and I can't help but feel like it's cheating. — Distressed Stamping your feet and denying the obvious — that there's a vast difference between medical touch and sexual touch — helps you manipulate your wife with this ridiculous notion Amy Alkon that she "violates the sanctity" of your marriage by getting a male doctor in rotation. So, according to you, what's special about your marriage is just that since you tied the knot, no other man has been assigned to see your wife naked (in a setting more in keeping with performing an autopsy than staging a seduction). Take your "logic" a step further and your wife is two-timing you by even speaking to people who aren't you, and never mind that she isn't exactly revealing her deepest hopes, dreams, and fears to some man in line behind her at the mall. People in loving relationships will often accommodate their partner's ridiculous requests simply to make them happy. Your wife might've been more willing to do that if only you'd appealed to her sympathy instead of demanding that she do all the changing while you lift nary a brain cell to consider whether your position might be unreasonable. (Refusing to even consider another person's point of view generally causes them to cling even more firmly to it.) Of course, if only you'd look at this through reason-colored glasses, you'd probably acknowledge the reality: If somebody does come between you and your wife, it's unlikely to happen while she's upset, afraid, and grossed out during a medical test. And give doctors a little credit. If you're a doctor, a woman will take her pants off for you because you drive a sports car. There's really no need to come up with some ploy about scraping her cervix for cancerous cells. Amy Alkon all rights reserved. MARCH 6-12, 2013 UCW 23