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.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/28067
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD 21st-Century American Exports? In strife-torn Sudan (land of the Darfur murder and rape atrocities and a per-capita annual income of $2,200), an epic, year-long Ponzi scheme engineered by a lowly former police officer has enticed nearly 50,000 victims to invest an estimated $180 million (according to a March dispatch on Slate.com). At the height of the hysteria, even militia fighters in Darfur rushed to invest. (As Bernard Madoff was initially, perpetrator Adam Ismael is lounging comfortably under house arrest.) And in February, NPR reported that the United States government will soon be asked to bail out yet another bank that dramatically overextended itself with bad loans — and is now $900 million short: the Bank of Kabul in Afghanistan. [Slate.com, 3-1-2011] [NPR 2-28-2011] Cultural Diversity The essential uniform of super- ambitious Chinese businessmen nowadays includes a leather designer purse, reported the Los Angeles Times in a February dispatch from Beijing, and high-end sellers “can’t believe their luck,” now that “(b)oth sexes in the world’s most populous country adore purses.” The Coach company will have 53 stores in China by mid-year, and Hermes and Louis Vuitton are so optimistic that they built stores in less-obviously prosperous reaches of the country. (Apparently, only authentic designer items lend businessmen credibility. For the export market, China remains a world leader in trademark-pirating knock-offs.) [Los Angeles Times, 2-7-2011] Ewwww! The government of Malawi’s proposed environmental control legislation, introduced in January, was thought by some advocates to be broad enough to criminalize flatulence. The justice minister said the section about “fouling the air” should cover extreme flatus, but the country’s solicitor general insisted that only commercial air pollution was punishable. [BBC News, 1-29-2011] Only 20 percent of Cambodians have access to toilets (half as many as have mobile phones), and missions such as International Development Enterprises blanket the countryside to urge more toilet usage. In one promotion campaign in Kandal province, according to a February BBC News dispatch, an investigating team called a public meeting and singled out (“amid much laughter”) one particular farmer whom it had calculated as producing the most excrement of anyone in the village. [BBC News, 2-6-2011] Latest Religious Messages “I thought, ‘Man, is this what Jesus would do?’” said Akron, Ohio, repo man Ken Falzini, after surviving a short, harrowing ride clinging to the hood of the Lexus he was trying to repossess from Bishop Marc Neal of Akron’s Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church in January. Neal, later charged with felony assault, told a reporter he thought it “disrespectful” for Falzini to try to repossess a preacher’s car during Sunday services. Falzini said Neal was “laughing” during parts of the drive, which included sharp zig-zagging at speeds around 50 mph to dislodge Falzini from the hood. [Akron Beacon Journal, 2-12-2011] COPYRIGHT 2010 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY ARIES (March 21-April 19) You’ll stay positive this week and create fantastic luck. When you notice that your mind is going in a direction that is not helpful, happy or produc- tive, you will have the self-discipline to stop the thought process. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) You are highly or- ganized and have fantastic ideas for the future. Get ready for an array of outcomes. You won’t experience many of the scenarios for which you are prepared, but that is not the point. You’ll feel confi dent knowing that you have thought ahead and made the best possible plan. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) Though you are satisfi ed in many areas of life, there is one area that is lacking, and you no longer can ignore it. Years have gone by without you getting what you want in this regard. Enough already. It’s time to take matters into your own hands and do something about this. CANCER (June 22-July 22) Your powers of imagination are strong this week. The more vividly detailed your fl ights of fancy are the more likely they will be to come true. Dreaming gives you new direction and purpose. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) It’s so important to you to make something of your life that you sometimes place a higher value on accomplish- ment than you do on being happy. Do what makes you happy, and you just might fi nd that you still accomplish your goals — and with a big smile on your face the whole time. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) You have a stellar sense of humor. Consider that there are times when it is better to laugh inwardly instead of out loud. Such occasions arise this week, when you will be around those who take a situation more literally and seriously than you would. ADVICE GODDESS LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Know the ones you are leading so that you can predict which jobs they will be best suited for and when they might need more assistance or training. Note that just because someone is very intelligent doesn’t mean he or she will make good choices. Stay on top of your team. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) You’re some- times too modest or too focused on current work to take the time to talk yourself up. Talk about what you’ll do, what you’re doing and what you’ve done. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on a prime opportunity. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) There are those who don’t treat you in the manner you prefer. By the end of the week, you’ll fi gure out how to command the kind of attention you deserve. This will allow you to ask specifi cally for what you need from others. You will gain infl uence and dignity. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You’re a solid performer. That doesn’t mean you haven’t made mistakes — you have. But you’ve used them to learn and improve. Because you are so consistent, you will be honored with a special responsibility. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) You’ll observe how a certain “tribe” works. You’ll study the manner of dress and communication, as well as the hierarchy of power and the unspoken rules. Your observations are so thorough that you will be able to enter this “tribe” and behave as a native. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) The projects you can manage with very little supervision will be of particular interest to you. There will also be an opportunity to travel and explore. The excitement and newness of a scene makes your experience memorable. Take pictures. By Holiday Mathis Miffed Connection Two years ago, “Beth,” this attractive wom- an I see around, gave me her number and mentioned three times that she hadn’t been asked out in a long time. I called to ask her out and … silence. She then said, “I can’t … as I think I may have something else to do.” Well, that was that, as I rarely ask a lady a second time when a lady “may have something else to do.” I saw her around oc- casionally, and we were polite. Fast-forward to last week: I saw her and about 10 of her girlfriends swilling pitchers of beer and doing shots. I said hello to Beth, nodded to her friends, then rejoined my group. One by one, Beth’s friends wandered over and gushed, “I hear you asked Beth out!” I said that yes, I had — two years ago. And once! Do you think Beth painted me as a stalker or some stain that wouldn’t go away, or was I a victim of some rare chick moment? —Mystifi ed People say things for a reason. Sometimes, the reason is that they are nervous and socially awkward and burp out the fi rst thing they can that’s made of words. “I think I may have something else to do” could’ve meant “anything but go out with you,” or maybe she just couldn’t think of a good excuse for the real deal: “The lady at the clinic told me to avoid all sexual contact until the burning and itching goes away.” It’s unlikely Beth gave you her number just so she could prank you two years later. Chances are, she liked Amy Alkon you and then felt insulted that you never called again despite the strong signals she gave you: stony silence, followed two years later by a gauntlet of her drunk friends. You didn’t help matters with your little policy of never asking for a date more than once. This can be a workable strategy — if you’re Jake Gyllenhaal and you have women tossing their panties with their phone number over the booth divider whenever you go out to eat. When a woman you’ve asked out turns you down in some nebulous way, asking her out again will either get you a date or confi rm that she’s a lost cause. It helps if you can divorce rejection from how you feel about yourself. Remember, it’s called “self-worth,” not “what girls think of me- worth.” Try to see asking someone out as a procedural thing you have to go through — ask once, then repeat — kind of like “rinse, lather, repeat” directions on the back of a shampoo bottle. Why not just walk away? Because, well, sometimes the guy who looks like a giant Martian baby gets the girl. I’m talking about a guy who writes at the same coffeehouse I do — a guy the color of fresh Wite-Out, with no eyebrows, eyelashes, or hair, who has a stunningly beautiful wife. Loads of men always ogled her, he told me — and then just stood there with their mouths open, never getting to the point where their lips moved and “Wanna go out with me?” came out. Maybe some of those guys now realize that good things come to those who wait — good things like a fl eeting glance at the hot wife of the weird-looking guy who gets that far better things come to those who ask. Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. MARCH 30 - APRIL 5, 2011 UCW 23