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 Professional Training Required: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced in August that it had contract work for up to 2,100 language specialists to transcribe wiretaps, with immediate needs in the Atlanta field office for 144 Spanish experts, along with 12 for Vietnamese, and nine each for Korean, Farsi and “Ebonics.” Ebonics is recognized by some linguists as the “nonstandard” form of English spoken by African-Americans. (In one example cited by the Associated Press, offered by Stanford professor John Rickford, “th” endings are pronounced as “f,” e.g., “both” as “boaf.”) [The Smoking Gun, 8-23-10; Google News-AP, 8-23-10] The Continuing Crisis Texas State Rep. Joe Driver, an 18- year House veteran whose website notes his opposition to “big spending habits of liberals in government,” was revealed in August to have been routinely double-billing the government for travel expenses and to have been genuinely surprised to learn that voters and colleagues might find that improper. Wrote the Associated Press: “Driver insists he thought the double- billing was perfectly appropriate — until talking about it with the AP,” at which point he appeared to change his mind. “Well, it doesn’t sound (appropriate) now (if) you bring it up that way,” he admitted. “(To learn that) pretty well screws my week.” For at least five years, Driver had been collecting from the government for expenses already reimbursed by his re-election campaign. [Dallas Morning News-AP, 8-16-10] Every weekend for the last four years, parishioners from the New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw, Ohio, have gathered in front of The Fox Hole strip club in nearby Newcastle and tried to shame customers by photographing them and posting their license plate numbers on the Internet, and brandishing hellfire-threatening signs. Recently, however, Fox Hole’s strippers joined the duel, congregating on Sundays in front of New Beginnings, wearing bikinis and “see-through” shorts, dancing scandalously, squirting each other with jumbo water guns, and wielding their own Bible-quoting signs to greet the day’s worshippers. [Columbus Dispatch, 8-9-10] The Los Angeles Unified School District has laid off nearly 3,000 teachers in the last two years, faces a $640 million annual shortfall, and runs some of the country’s worst-performing classrooms. However, in the last three years, it has opened three luxurious “Taj Mahal” schools costing $1.1 billion, including the $578 million, amenity-rich, architecturally grand Robert F. Kennedy school, opening in September. “New buildings are nice,” said one California Board of Education member, but not “when they’re run by the same people who’ve given us a 50 percent dropout rate.” Included in these elegant palaces are a state-of-the-art swimming pool, manicured public park, a restaurant-quality kitchen, modernistic towers, a cushioned dance floor — and of course lavish offices for teachers and administrators. [MSNBC-AP, 8-22-10] COPYRIGHT 2010 CHUCK SHEPHERD 32 UCW SEPTEMBER 22-28, 2010 WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY ARIES (March 21-April 19) Some degree of self-sacrifi ce is necessary. Otherwise, nothing will be important and you won’t recognize life’s gifts. But an entire lifetime of self-sacrifi ce is too much. So this week, make it a point to do what feels good to you. That will pave the way for more good to come.. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) You like to make others happy. Make a date with yourself and formalize it so that you will know to keep the commitment sacred when other offers come along. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) You’ve set yourself up for a diffi cult road — not out of igno- rance or stupidity, but out of a deep sense of responsibility. It just so happens that the things that are worth doing aren’t easy. Since you know that you’ll make a difference, the effort is worthwhile. CANCER (June 22-July 22) Those who suffer from a disorder called Kliene-Levin syndrome, otherwise known as Sleeping Beauty disease, fall asleep for weeks at a time. In contrast, you will feel so awake and aware this week that some of your history will seem like a distant dream. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Epigenetic studies sug- gest that some major events of our lives affect the structure of our DNA and can be passed to future generations. You’ll make stellar choices this week and exercise whatever control you have over your own biology. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Life offers you one challenge after another this week. You can and will complete your task, and what’s more, you will do this in record time — because you have to. You will be remarkably effi cient. Thank goodness you were not given any more hours to spend on these tasks — they would have been wasted. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) You want to be in charge of your own progress, and that means taking hold of your emotions. When you get riled up, you will retreat and decide whether it’s the most effective mode for the circumstances. If not, you’ll make a conscious effort to change your internal settings. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) You want your loved ones to know how diffi cult your life really is. Then again, what you really want is a little attention and affection, which you should be able to attract without sharing negative stories. Besides, talking about the bad things only makes them worse. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) You can- not fully love unless your heart has been bro- ken. Only then can you know the risk involved and the value at stake. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You have plenty of work to do this week, but it’s not the only thing you should spend your time on. You are a human, with human needs. So don’t forget to eat, drink and be merry. (Yes, that last one is actually one of your requirements for survival.) AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) You have much to give, and everyone around you knows this. Beware: Selfi sh people will be deceptively attractive. The challenge of capturing their attention is exciting. For now, it is best to steer clear of beautiful and troubled souls. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)You make people feel important by giving them what they want — namely, your focused attention. And you don’t require that this gift be immediately returned. It’s amazing to you how few people are able to give the gift of attention without demanding it back within a few minutes — a testament to your generous spirit. By Holiday Mathis ADVICE GODDESS Gaunt With The Wind I’m 23, and my girlfriend of a couple months is 20. I’m taller than her, al- though I’m only 5-foot-7, and very thin (I weigh less than she does). She’s men- tioned several times that she’s never been with somebody so thin, making me think it’s a problem for her. I just have the feel- ing that she’s not that turned on by me. I know I’m not as big as my guy friends, and I don’t care. I don’t need to be as big to get their respect. Could this be a child- ish hang-up she’ll outgrow? While I’d never threaten to break up if she’s simply not in the mood (which she seems to not be a lot), I need the physical to go with the emotional. There must be something I can do to spice up our love life. — Slim Jim From the way your girlfriend’s been talking, your best bet for spicing up your love life is trying new things in bed, like the Double Down. Unfortunately, that isn’t some tantric maneuver, but the new KFC sandwich with bacon and melted cheese between two fried chicken patties. Dating a really skinny guy can make even thin women feel huge (“Do I look fat in this relationship?”). Women seem to have an evolved preference for men with characteristics that suggest physical dominance. Numerous studies Amy Alkon Your source for: show that almost all women prefer men who are taller than they are. And even though the only bear you’re likely to encounter these days is the little plastic one your honey comes in, many women want men who are built like they’d have some chance of slaying a real one — as opposed to taking one look, scaling the woman like a tree, and whimpering, “Donnnn’t hurrrrt meeee!” Sure, your guy friends are fine with your body size — because when they hang out with you, they might wake up hung over, not naked and spooning you with their face pressed into your back hair. Skinny guys can make up for a lack of beefiness by trying to date even skinnier women, or by muscling up — not to cartoon proportions; just so they’re more cruel Adonis than human breadstick. As for your recent sexual dry spell, 484-6200 there does come a time in a relationship when the old sex life cools down, but it’s not supposed to happen anywhere near the three-week mark. Maybe your girlfriend’s not that into sex, maybe she’s not that into sex with a guy built like you. She may like you, respect you, and want to want you, but lust doesn’t work that way. You just can’t train yourself to be attracted to a person like you’d train yourself to roller blade or master the subjunctive. There are women out there who’ll be really attracted to you and won’t be able to keep their hands off you — at the very least, for the first few months. They’ll probably drop little suggestions about stuff that bugs them, too, but it’ll be stuff like “Don’t snap your gum” and “Don’t leave the toilet seat up,” not “Don’t be 5-foot-7.” (c)2010, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM