Up & Coming Weekly

NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD Catholic Youth Organization coach Michael Kman, 45, was charged in May with various misdemeanors regarding an alleged attempt over a several-month period to fi x kids’ basketball games for Kman’s Our Lady of Lourdes church team in East Pennsboro Township, Pa. According to police, Kman sent multiple text messages to referees Jay and Jon Leader, offering them as much as $2,500 if certain games reached the “right outcome.” The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg has suspended Kman from coaching. In Kman’s day job, he is a fi nancial consultant. [Patriot-News (Harrisburg), 5-14-10] CULTURAL DIVERSITY In May, Britain’s Norfolk District Council banned the traditional barroom game of “dwile fl onking” just as the inaugural “world championships” were to take place at the Dog Inn pub in Ludham, Great Yarmouth. The game, which some believe has been played since “medieval times,” calls on players to fl ing a beer-soaked rag from the end of a small stick toward the face of an opponent, and in the event the tosser misses the target two straight times, he must quickly down a half-pint of ale. The council called the game a “health and safety” problem. [Daily Telegraph, 5-29-10] Among the unique dining experiences of the Beijing Zoo is the ability of patrons to view an exhibit of frolicking hippopotamuses and then step into the zoo’s restaurant and dine on such dishes as toe of hippopotamus. Also available: kangaroo tail, deer penis, ant soup and other delectables. Animal welfare activists condemned the dining experience, according to a dispatch in London’s Guardian. [The Guardian (London), 5-21-10] LATEST RELIGIOUS MESSAGES Virginia state inmate Kendall Gibson, who is serving 47 years for abduction and robbery committed at age 18, has spent the last 10 years in the prison’s “hole,” 23 hours a day in a cell “the size of a gas station restroom” (wrote an Associated Press reporter), not because he’s a danger to the prison population, but because he won’t cut his hair. Gibson is a Rastafarian and says his dreadlocks are devoutly authorized by the spiritual Lord, Jah. (A 1999 Virginia prison regulation requires administrative segregation for long-hairs.) [The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)-AP, 5-7-10] In May, in a news reverberation heard around the Arab world from the city of Al-Mubarraz, Saudi Arabia, as a “policeman” from the notorious Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice approached a young couple in public to demand the woman’s ID, the woman beat up the cop. Charges are pending against her, but women’s rights activists across the Muslim world are reporting the incident as a watershed moment, according to the Media Line (Middle East) news agency. [Jerusalem Post, 5-17-10] COPYRIGHT 2010 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM             WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY ARIES (March 21-April 19) There will be a series of trades. It may not seem that you are bargaining with any one person directly, but you are doing business with the forces at large. Give one thing up, and another thing will drop into the space. By Thursday you will understand com- pletely what to give in order to get what you want. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Mundane tasks pile up, forcing you to push aside your higher creative calling. This is a temporary inconve- nience, and these lesser obligations wouldn’t bother you so much if there weren’t so many of them. Next time you won’t let them pile up. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) You want to mingle in a certain exclusive group. Gather more infor- mation. When you fi nally break in, you’ll do so because you attained a degree of expertise, though you’ll still manage to come across as modest and genuinely interested in others. CANCER (June 22-July 22) You’ll receive a wide variety of opinions. Even knowledgeable individu- als may be biased. Keep in mind that some profes- sions require pessimism from their practitioners. For instance, lawyers must anticipate what could go wrong in order to offer a counter-plan. As you gather information, always consider your source. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Many are drawn to the safety of investigating other people’s lives and troubles — much preferred to dealing with one’s own issues. You are courageous enough to look into your own problems this week. Your success starts with becoming aware of what’s bugging you and being willing to handle it. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Ignore the naysay- ers. They are compelled by jealousy and fear. You have an idea worthy of pursuit — develop it. If that means striking out alone, then you can add character-building to the list of positives that await you. Friday brings a new friendship. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) This giant world has so many problems. You’ll wonder what difference you could possibly make. There is only one area you can affect for certain, and that is the corner you occupy. Start there. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Some degree of worry is to be expected. Handle it with grace, and you’ll attract good fortune to yourself. It is a waste of time to try to fi gure out who started the problem. Instead, dissolve the tension. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) You want to make everything nice for your loved ones. However, your ideas and their ideas about what qualifi es as “nice” differ. Once you fi nd out their preferences, you may discover that what you re- ally want to do is make things nice for you. And that’s not such a bad idea. Why not start there? CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) The world is fi lled with contradictions that clash like wind currents, causing emotional storms. Whatever you can do to keep it simple will calm the winds, part the clouds and allow the sun to shine on you. Get organized, and clean things up. Suddenly you’ll see the clear path you couldn’t see before. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) When you con- sider the passages of life you have already been through, a feeling of uncertainty or awkward- ness, or even the sensation of being totally lost, is essentially part of the deal. You can’t appreci- ate feeling “found” — having a home and a sense of belonging — until you know what it’s like to be “lost.” PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) You’re a bit touch- ier this week than you usually are. Loved ones make requests. Colleagues need things from you. The general public doesn’t always seem to be on your side. The way things are communicated to you may get on your nerves. You need a reprieve. Go to your own little relaxing bubble for a while. By Holiday Mathis ADVICE GODDESS Thumber Romance I was on a fi rst date with this guy, and he kept texting right at the table. Amaz- ingly, he asked me out again. Is this on-date texting becoming the norm? —Ignored. There are times when your date can’t help but break away to text or take a call, like if he’s got the other half of the missile launch codes and Luxembourg just attacked Staten Island. If it could be the secretary of state or the babysitter about his kids setting the house on fi re with My Little Meth Lab, he should apologize in advance that he might have to take a call. Otherwise, an- swering is the digital version of leaving your date alone at the table and bopping over to join friends across the restaurant. Texting? You might as well whip out a pen and legal pad: “You busy yourself with that pork chop, Sweetcheeks. Got a couple letters I gotta mail out fi rst thing.” Many people think the fact that their pants are vibrating gives them a pass to put the person they’re with on face-to-face “ignore.” People with manners consider how their companion might feel sitting be- fore a full restaurant audience pretending to examine a napkin for hidden messages. Cool as it is that you can message some- body in Moscow right from the table, groovy new technology needs to be paired with groovy old-fashioned social graces. If you’re going to invite somebody to dinner and ignore them, at least have the decency to get married fi rst and build up years of bitterness and resentment. Amy Alkon Mystery Meet      This guy I met at a club seemed great, but when we went on a date, he made no eye contact. ZERO. Apparently, he needs lots of alcohol to be normal. My friend just went out with a guy who took her to the equivalent of Subway for Hawaiian food. They sat in plastic chairs, ordered from a counter, and looked out at a parking lot and a porn store. How do we stay in the dating game without becoming bitterly annoyed? —Underwhelmed. A date, as a way to get to know  P.M. SPECIALS FOR ONLY $7.99 EACH!  MON       5-8 p.m.  Big WED             f       5-8 p.m. somebody, is really fun — for anybody who enjoys a police interrogation with two-for- one well drinks. Group dating is a much better idea. There’s a site called Ignighter. com where you and some friends post a group profi le and go out with other groups of friends. Or, you can arrange this sort of thing yourself. With your friends there, you won’t be so nervous, you won’t have to hold up half the conversation, and you’ll get a clearer picture of a guy by seeing him with his friends. Should a group date be a bust, it’s like you and your friends all went to some lame party, not like you alone once again failed to fi nd everlasting love. If you must go on a fi rst date solo, meet for drinks — for an hour and a half, tops. Basically, keep it cheap, short, and local — which’ll ease the pain should it take a Hobbesian turn toward “nasty, brutish, and short.” (c)2010, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. JUNE 30-JULY 6, 2010 UCW 23 Construction Please Excuse Our Mess Outside Patio New Normal Operating Hours MONDAYS 50¢ Wings & $2.50 Pints or Draft

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