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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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET This and That THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON The kind of weather we have just had — bone-chilling cold, wet, icy, with lingering snow people morphing into puddles — sends me into the kitchen to cook comfort food. So far, this urge has produced split- pea soup with wonderful, salty ham, black bean soup with tangy salsa, a vegetable beef concoction with extra seasoning called taco soup, spicy chili, Brunswick stew with chicken but no squirrels or any other non-grocery store critters, creamed spinach and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I do not include all the water I had to boil after the PWC water line break, since water, however necessary to sustain life, does not qualify as comfort food to me. On the list to be cooked pronto are macaroni and cheese for an incoming Precious Jewel, more soups since it is still cold and pasta with shrimp and marinara sauce. I have mentioned my cooking frenzy to several friends who confess to the same comfort food behavior, but most of them have been too busy cooking to discuss it at length. I am looking forward to fi nding out what they produced in their kitchens so I will be ready for the next bout of winter. ******************** With the news from Tucson’s catastrophe still fresh in Americans’ minds and with updates still coming, I suspect we will be pondering its “lessons” for a long time to come. The most debated so far, often with plenty of the very vitriol under discussion, is the level of incivility and verbal and written aggression permeating American politics today. That is a debate that needs to be had and a number of elected offi cials are indeed tackling it, but there are other lessons as well. One is the critical importance of the availability of high quality emergency trauma care following such an incident. Of the six dead in Tucson, only one, 9-year-old Christina Green, died at the University Medical Center. The others fortunate enough to have been taken there have survived, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was in surgery within 40 minutes of being shot in the head. We will never know, of course, but the outcome of this attack would likely have been far more tragic had a Level 1 trauma center not been in close proximity. Another lesson is the close connection between our military services and trauma medicine. Dr. Peter Rhee, whom we have all seen on television in recent days, went to the University Medical Center in Tucson after 24 years as a Navy surgeon serving on the battlefi elds of Iraq and Afghanistan. This connection is a long-standing one in our country, and it has advanced our treatment of trauma for generations. My own great-grandfather was an Austrian physician who came to the United States in the 1870s to study following the Civil War. He never went back to Vienna, instead practiced medicine in rural eastern North Carolina until he died. And then there is the whole issue of mental-health treatment throughout our country. Budget constraints in most states, including North Carolina, have slashed mental-health spending. The man accused of the Tucson massacre, Jared Loughner, reportedly suffers from serious mental health conditions in a state with one of the lowest per-capita spending rates in the nation. The question for every taxpayer in every state now is how much we are willing to pay for treatment for those suffering from mental-health problems, some of whom are clearly dangerous to all of us. ******************** This month brings us a signifi cant American anniversary. There is nothing like a warm bowl of soup on a cold winter day. All in the Family, the sitcom that gave us our most beloved bigot, Archie Bunker, turns 40. Before Archie, we kept our prejudices largely private, but blue collar Archie, generally in heated conversation with his hippie college-student, live-in son-in-law whom he called Meathead, became a network television equal-opportunity offender. He tossed around what we now call politically incorrect terminology for people of different backgrounds, religions and sexual preferences. The character of Archie dropped out of high school to support his family, served in World War II and was intended to be a product of his era. The show’s creator, Norman Lear, apparently thought Archie and his bigotry would offend Americans, but Archie turned out to refl ect many of our own prejudices, and the series was a tremendous hit, watched, enjoyed and talked about over water coolers throughout our nation by Americans of all colors and heritages. We all knew an Archie or two, no matter who we were, and just like other Americans, Archie moderated his views over the decade plus that the Bunkers came into our living rooms during prime time. So iconic did the Bunkers become that the chairs Archie and his long-suffering wife Edith sat in to watch TV are now in the National Museum of History. I can still hear Edith and Archie at the piano singing the show’s theme song, “Those Were the Days.” MARGARET DICKSON,Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upandcomingweekly.com writ-er [rahy-ter] – noun 1. a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., esp. as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist. If you see yourself in that light, Up & Coming Weekly would love you to join our creative, talented, community-oriented line-up of contributing writers. If you are interested in joining our writing team, e-mail sample articles or questions to: editor@upandcomingweekly.com For more informtion, call 910-484-6200. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM JAN. 26 - FEB. 1, 2011 UCW 5