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 The Food and Drug Administration proposed recently to limit the quantity of tiny "mites" that could occupy imported cheese, even though living, crawling mites are a feature desired by aficionados. ("Cheese is absolutely alive!" proclaimed microbiologist Rachel Dutton, who runs the "cheese laboratory" at Harvard University.) In fact, cheese is home to various molds, bacteria and yeasts, which give it flavor, and sellers routinely use blowers to expel excessive critters, but the FDA now wants to limit them to six bugs per square inch. However, according to a May report on NPR, lovers of some cheeses, especially the French Mimolette, object, asserting both an indifference to the sight of mites creeping around — and a fear of taste-loss (since the mites burrow into the hunk, aerating it and extending the flavor). [NPR, 5-11-2013] Ironies Energy West, the natural gas supplier in Great Falls, Mont., tried recently to raise awareness of leaks by distributing scratch-andsniff cards to residents, demonstrating gas's distinctive, rotten-egg smell. In May, workers cast aside several Chuck Sheppard cartons of leftover cards, which were hauled off and disposed of by crushing — which released the scent and produced a massive blanket of odor over downtown Great Falls, resulting in a flurry of panicked calls to firefighters about gas leaks. [Great Falls Tribune, 5-8-2013] Well, Of Course! (1) The Ypsilanti, Mich., City Council voted in May on a resolution that would have required the members always to vote either "yes" or "no" (to thus reduce the recent, annoying number of "abstain" votes). The resolution to ban abstaining failed because three of the seven members abstained. (2) Doctors told a newspaper in Stockholm in April that at least one of Sweden's premier modeling agencies, looking for recruits, had been caught passing out business cards adjacent to the country's largest eating-disorder clinic, forcing the clinic to change its rules on patients taking outside walks. [Associated Press via WHTM-TV (Harrisburg, Pa.), 5-23-2013] [The Local (Stockholm), 4-18-2013] The United Nations Conference on Disarmament, a multilateral forum on arms control agreements, was chaired beginning May 27 (until June 23) by Iran, which, for that time, at least, had the awkward job of overseeing resolutions on nuclear non-proliferation, which the country is widely thought to be ignoring. [Fox News, 5-13-2013] COPYRIGHT 2011 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY For the Week of June 23, 2013 ARIES (March 21-April 19) You're going to come up short if you situate yourself by the severely advantaged. Be kinder than that. Consider where you are and where you want to be, and set a goal you can hit by the end of the week. One step at a time will get you there. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) You respond best to people who have self-esteem. You feel that those who spend their time finding ways to indulge and gratify others should really be discovering what their own gifts are and developing them. You'll help facilitate this. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) You sense who respects you, and you like the easy feeling flowing through this relationship. Now, how do you get the other one, who respects few, to behave similarly? This is the question that haunts your early week SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) You're still not sure how much to trust someone. Giving faith arbitrarily won't make anyone a faithful person. Rather, it makes for foolishness. Trust is really a matter of knowing others so well that you can predict their behavior. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) You'll try something new this week and be richer for the experience. What would happen if you tried something new every week? You'd continue to be richer. There's no reason you can't do this, though it will require a bit of planning. Make your list. The timing is perfect. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) You live in a different world than the one that prompted your parents to take social and political action for equal rights of minorities and women. Yet you will still find yourself fighting for equality this week in some small but meaningful way. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You have the authority to make decisions that affect many, though this authority is not really yours. It's on loan from the people who gave it to you and can be taken back at any point. You appreciate your authority and use it well. CANCER (June 22-July 22) When stressors have your mind racing forward and backward, calm down and focus on the sounds, sights and feelings of right now. Winning choices depend on responding to the moment your body is in, not the peculiar timing of the mind. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) You're hard on yourself, expecting to do and be things that others wouldn't even dream of demanding of themselves. This is why you have achieved so much in life. Yet it may also be why you aren't so happy as some who have achieved much less. Ease up on yourself this week. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) You think you need control of this week's situation, but this is only the mind participating in a bad habit. Let them live their way, and flow freely your own way, too. If you do have one true need this week, it's not for control but for acceptance. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Even though you think it would be fun to have a compliant partner, you really wouldn't stay interested in this kind of relationship for long. A person who will fall in line with whatever you want will not pose a great enough challenge. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) You were not seeking a position of power and influence, but you'll land in one because it's how people see you. You may not want to be bothered with knowing that the group depends on you, but it's the natural outcropping of your talents. It's precisely because you are so responsible that people give you responsibility. By Holiday Mathis Take Marketing Matters Into Your Own Hands We can help market your business right and put it at the fingertips of customers in two ways. In print and online! Look for it online now at www.upandcomingweekly.com. Connecting a Community 208 Rowan St. 910.484.6200 ADVICE GODDESS Coitus Frustratus My boyfriend is a very spiritual person who practices yoga, meditation, etc. He showed me a website about karezza, which basically involves deriving sexual pleasure through long, drawn-out, non-vigorous physical contact without experiencing an orgasm. It sounds nice and all, but I would greatly miss the orgasm part of sex. Well, he recently revealed that he is a recovering porn and masturbation addict. I see from the way he talks how important it is for him that we give up traditional intercourse for karezza. I love him and want to help him in every possible way, but I'm not sure how to come to terms with giving up orgasms. — Conflicted Alice Stockham, the 19th century Quaker doctor who came up with karezza (named for the Italian word "carezza," meaning "caress"), argued in her 1896 book about it that orgasms "without cause" (such as the desire to make a baby) are "degrading." Karezza does get props from practitioners, who insist they feel way more bonded to each other Amy Alkon than when they used to give each other screaming orgasms. However, the science-y sounding claims for its benefits by some of those who publish books and articles about it seem largely unsupported by research. Also, it is not a solution to your boyfriend's compulsions but a way to avoid dealing with the issues underlying them. As addiction treatment specialist Dr. Frederick Woolverton explains in Unhooked, at the heart of any addiction is an attempt to avoid legitimate suffering — difficult emotions which are part of being alive. You could agree to try karezza for three weeks to see whether it works for you, and by "works," I mean gets you thinking, "Oh, orgasms, schmorgasms." Unless it does, it's unfair to resign yourself to the sexual equivalent of reading a 300-page crime novel … except for the last 30 pages, which you tear out and burn. And despite the spiritual window dressing around karezza, unless your boyfriend is doing as Woolverton advises — taking steps to "head straight into (his) emotional pain, which is what terrifies (an addict) the most" — what you'll likely have on your hands is a meditating, yoga-doing, spiritual-talking boyfriend who's only somewhat present. In other words, you support him by committing to help him deal with his feelings while he develops healthy coping mechanisms, not by replacing your "If the van's a-rockin'…" bumper sticker with "If the van looks like it hasn't been moved in years…" Amy Alkon all rights reserved. JUNE 19-25, 2013 UCW 23