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/29614
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD A 200-exhibit installation on the history of dirt and filth and their importance in our lives opened in a London gallery in March, featuring the ordinary (dust), the educational (a video tribute to New York’s Fresh Kills landfill, at one time the world’s largest), the medical (vials of historic, nasty-looking secretions from cholera victims), and the artistic (bricks fashioned from feces gathered by India’s Dalits, who hand-clean latrines). Dirt may worry us as a society, said the exhibit’s curator, but we have learned that we “need bits of it and, guiltily, secretly, we are sometimes drawn to it.” Capping the exhibit, leaning against a wall, was what appeared at a distance to be an ordinary broom but whose handle was studded with diamonds and pearls. [Reuters, 3-25-2011] Government in Action! The CIA recently won two court rulings allowing the agency to refuse comment about its former contractor Dennis Montgomery — rulings that issues involving him are “state secrets” (despite strong evidence that the main “secret” is merely how foolish the agency, and the U.S. Air Force, were to pay Montgomery at least $20 million for bogus software following 9-11, according to a February New York Times report). Montgomery, a small-time gambler who said he was once abducted by aliens, convinced the two agencies that his sophisticated software could detect secret al-Qaida messages embedded in video pixels on Al Jazeera’s news website. According to the Times report, Montgomery has not been charged with wrongdoing and is not likely to be, since the agencies do not want their gullibility publicized. [New York Times, 2-28-2011] For about a year, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has been facilitating Mexico’s increasingly bloody drug wars by turning a blind eye to U.S. gun sales to the cartels — even though those very guns account for some civilian deaths as well as the December fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. According to the senior ATF agent who supplied evidence to CBS News, neither the Mexican government nor many U.S. officials were aware of the program (called “Fast and Furious”) until mid-March. ATF allowed the sales so it could track the guns’ locations, to facilitate, at some future date, bringing indictments against drug traffickers. [CBS News, 3-3-2011] Until recently, many pregnant women at risk of delivering prematurely could be aided by an obstetrician-recommended workup of a chemical compound, at a cost of about $10 to $20 a dose. However, in February, the Food and Drug Administration approved a specific commercial version, K-V Pharmaceutical’s Makena, which K-V began pricing at $1,500 a dose (citing its need to recoup “research” costs). K-V also began threatening dispensers of the workup compound, since FDA had anointed Makena with “market exclusivity.” (Update: FDA changed its mind in March and announced that providers of the workup compound could continue to offer it.) [Los Angeles Times, 3-9-2011; FDA statement, 3-30-2011] COPYRIGHT 2010 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY ARIES (March 21-April 19) The effort you ex- pend carrying out responsibilities and tending to the wishes of others takes you far away from your original intention. When the voice of your inner will is a distant echo, it means it’s time to remember why you started this journey in the fi rst place and make your way back. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) The only problem with this is that you don’t know your own strength and have made comments that assess your strength inaccurately. Say no more on the matter. You will be offered challenges, and you will fi nd it rewarding to take them on. You will learn that there is more to you. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) This week, you’ll gain greater levels of self-control. Coming from your higher mind, set an unusual short-term goal for yourself — like eating only green foods or speaking strictly in the most positive terms. Tell yourself it’s just for one day. You can do anything for one day. CANCER (June 22-July 22) Things are chang- ing in an organization, and your whole group is affected. Imitative and rule-bound behavior used to be an asset in this environment. Now this is precisely the mindset that will sink the ship. Get creative. Innovation is what’s needed, and you’re just the one to shake things up. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) You’ll put a fun twist in the way you approach a friendship or manage a responsibility. You’ll call for a different kind of participation than is usually required. It’s premedi- tated to some degree, and yet you also improvise. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Your courage ebbs and fl ows this week. Just remember that the fear of rejection is practically universal. That’s why people admire those who are willing to put them- selves on the line. Most people want to say “yes.” So have the chutzpah to ask for what you want. ADVICE GODDESS Nodding Off Hill LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) People who say that “it never hurts to ask” are not taking into account what happens after the question leaves the lips. There’s a risk involved. Emotions hang in the balance. Taking this into account, you won’t “ask” until the moment feels absolutely right. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Your awareness of what people need and want helps you predict the next big thing. These talents will be put to good use this week, especially since some of your friends and colleagues are so clueless about pop culture and the state of the arts. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) A past letdown has infl uenced you to view your pres- ent circumstance in a less than helpful way. This week, you’ll rethink and rewrite your history. Your new fantastic attitude will make you lucky. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You know yourself. It has taken a long time to get to this point, and you’ve earned the feelings of satis- faction and confi dence that come with the terri- tory. Furthermore, you may realize that you’re not the least bit worried about what anyone else thinks of you. You are freedom personifi ed. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) You’ve held a certain unfulfi lled dream for a long time, and now you’re wondering whether you might be happier if you were to just give it up. The answer is no. But it is time to come at them from a different angle. Brainstorm alternative approaches to making your dreams come true. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) You are who you are, and you’re doing your best. You may feel that you’re stuck with certain people or circum- stances, and you may be right, more or less. But when you surrender to the reality of your current situation, you’ll see what’s absolutely great about it. I’ve been married for 10 years. I’m 43, well-educated, fi nancially well-off, and fi t. My husband and I are wonderful friends, and I love him dearly. However, for reasons he won’t tell me, he decided eight years ago that he was no longer interested in sex. He says it’s “too much work.” He refuses to discuss it further. Also, for work reasons, we live apart. So, I have taken lovers. My husband doesn’t like this, but I pay all his expenses so he can live his dream life, so he doesn’t complain much. Four years ago, I moved to be with a man I got involved with, but the relationship felt more like a bridge than a destination, so I went back to my husband. Now, I love a man who wants to marry me, but I fear that ALL relationships degrade into roommate situations. I do fantasize that there’s one perfect soulmate for me, and with him, I’ll be able to commit. For now, I guess staying married helps me keep up appearances that I’m stable and normal while I hold on to the fairy tale that marriage is a forever relationship. — Compartmentalizing I must have missed that fairy tale — By Holiday Mathis Friday, April 29 at 8:00 pm Robert Lee Smith Th e Craig Woolard Band One University Drive Pembroke, NC 28372 1.800.367.0778 910.521.6361 Visit www.uncp.edu/gpac for all the details of the 2010-2011 Season APRIL 20-26, 2011 UCW 27 & The Original Tams the one where the couple get married and go off to live happily ever after in the house with the white picket fence and the 2.5 boyfriends. Two years into your marriage, your husband took early retirement from sex, deeming it “too much work.” Well, sure, it takes some elbow grease, but it isn’t exactly picking lettuce in the hot sun for $3 an hour. Although he refuses to even discuss this any further, you keep him on staff — as your Vice President of The Illusion of Safety and Security. Keeping him on your payroll allows you to play both sides of the street — married and taken and single and available. Single and available allows you your fl ingy fun. Still being married allows you to stay in himbo limbo — avoiding anything more emotionally risky or stressful than retreating to your couch to wait for your mythical soulmate to fall into your life like a meteorite. The truth is, there are probably various men who are compatible with you in important ways, but there is no such thing as a soulmate — no one perfect partner whose mere presence in your life will dry up all your problems like a big tube of Clearasil. Amy Alkon No matter how compatible two people are, things will never be as hot long term as they were at the start, but they’re the unhottest for those who think a great relationship will just happen to them. Those are the people who wait until the urge strikes to hug or kiss their partner. Bad idea. Just do it — several times daily. And make a pact that you’ll keep having sex regularly — even when one of you doesn’t totally feel like it. Sex researcher Rosemary Basson found that arousal is “triggerable”; just start making out, and you’ll get turned on and get into it. Ultimately, you have to fi ll a marriage with loving and sexual acts, and love and sex should continue — assuming you’re with somebody whose idea of sex in marriage isn’t sending his spouse out to bars to score it off somebody else. Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. One Night Only