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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A Lunch Date with History by TERI BALLOUGH MEDINA On Monday, Aug. 16, the Museum of the Cape Fear gives you the chance for a lunch date with history in the fourth installment of their monthly series, Munch on History: A Lunchtime Lecture at the Museum of the Cape Fear. Heidi Bleazey, 1897 Poe House education coordina- tor, will present on Victorian etiquette and 1897 Poe House history. The lecture is in the first-floor conference room and starts promptly at 12:15 p.m. The 1897 Poe House, home of E. A. and Josephine Poe, is on Arsenal Avenue in the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex. E. A. Poe, not to be confused with the Edgar Allan Poe of The Raven fame, was a Fayetteville brickyard owner and politician at the turn of the 20th century. The house is a glimpse of the Poes’ life as an upper-middle-class family in Victorian times. E. A. and Josephine raised eight children in the home, gave dinner parties in the large dining room and welcomed society ladies bearing calling cards. The 1897 Poe House is unique in that the exhibits are not tied off from the public. Visitors may step up and examine artifacts while keeping a respectful distance by not touching. Though not specifically part of the lecture series, guided tours are available during the afternoons on weekdays and all day on Saturday. The Poes, like other society families of the time, were expected to follow a You Can Make a Difference by JOHN HOOD Elections matter. Keen grasp of the obvious, huh? But in my defense, many people view the elec- toral process with suspicion, skepticism and scorn. They say there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two major parties, or that political pull matters more than political ideas, or that politicians who run for office on principle often run from principle once in office. There’s truth to all these observations, of course. If you bring high expectations to politics, you are bound to be perpetually disappointed. Special interests do often exercise more power than average voters, regardless of which team is in power at any particular time. And in American politics particularly — where constitutional checks and separa- tion of powers tend to slow down governmental activity — those who seek immediate gratification through political revolution are bound to be frustrated by the system’s inherent gradualism. But elections still matter. Partisan differences matter. Look at recent events in Washington and Raleigh. During 2009-10, when liberals were solidly in power in both places, the size and power of government grew. In Washington, President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats enacted some of the most sweeping new regulations in American history and ran budget deficits that would make even the most spendthrift Republicans blush. In Raleigh, Gov. Beverly Perdue and legislative Democrats couldn’t run defi- cits, thanks to the state’s balanced-budget requirement, but they did raise taxes and grabbed billions in borrowed federal dollars to sustain public payrolls. They also began preparing a new round of mandates and regulations that would have further hampered North Carolina’s economic recovery. In November 2010, disenchanted voters yanked hard at the reins of gov- ernment. They put the U.S. House and both houses of the state legislature in Republican hands. This decision had major consequences. In the nation’s capital, Obama immediately made a deal with surging Republicans in Congress to extend President Bush’s tax cuts for another two years. Then Washington’s attention turned to the spending side of the ledger. 16 UCW AUGUST 10-16, 2011 Last spring, the president offered a sketch of a federal budget that would have guaranteed massive deficits as far as the eye could see. It was unanimously rejected by the Senate. On the House side, Rep. Paul Ryan and other conservatives fashioned a very different long-term vision for the federal budget, a vision predicated on the need to reform entitlements, downsize federal programs, and reform the tax code — not to increase its burden but to increase its fairness and efficiency. The Ryan fiscal road- map passed the House. Then, with the debt limit approaching, House Republicans passed another bill last month, the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan. It was consistent with the Ryan road- map but included more short-term cuts and a call for a balanced-budget amend- ment to the Constitution. Again, there was no substantive response from Obama or the Senate. The House then acted a third time, offering the outlines of a plan to raise the debt limit in stages, predicated on projected spending cuts of equal or greater amounts. This final plan became the basis for a bipartisan agreement. While I wish the spending cuts were far larger, and think conservatives should be wary about the details of implementation, the final debt-limit deal is clearly closer to the original House position than to the vague “Tax, Pretend to Cap and Pretend to Balance” plan the president and Senate leaders had sought. In Raleigh, where conservatives captured both legislative chambers rather than just one, the effects of the 2010 election were even more striking. The new North Carolina budget for 2011-13 cuts spending, reforms government, and allows the 2009 tax hikes to expire. Also becoming law in 2011 were major conservative bills on regulatory reform, charter schools, annexation reform, and medical malpractice, just to name a few. Whether you welcome or detest these outcomes, you should see them as evidence of the fact that political action matters. You can make a difference, through voting and other means, so don’t let healthy skepticism turn into feckless cynicism. JOHN HOOD, Columnist. COMMENTS? editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM The 1897 Poe House, home of E.A. and Josephine Poe, is on Arsenal Avenue in the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex. strict set of social rules. While some etiquette, like the curtsey, is currently out of favor, other rules of Victorian etiquette are still relevant today. Lessons from your moth- er like sit up straight in your chair, don’t put your elbows on the table and don’t reach across the table for a serving dish were standards in the early 1900s. The difference in execution is that today you may get a disapproving glare from your mother. In the Victorian era, you would have been socially banished from polite society. The Munch on History series is designed as a short, entertaining lunch break to connect museum visitors with Fayetteville’s past. The purpose, says Leisa Greathouse, Curator of Education, is “to raise awareness about Fayetteville’s place in American history.” Greathouse explains that the series is not intended to make lecture goers experts on a topic, but “to pro- voke thought and examine how history relates to present day.” Past topics in- cluded the history of the flag in honor of Flag Day and five Fayetteville events tied to U.S. history. Located at 801 Arsenal Ave., near downtown Fayetteville, the Museum of the Cape Fear is approximately 15 minutes from any destination in the city. According to Greathouse, “You can leave work at noon, arrive by 12:15 p.m., eat your lunch during the 20 minute lecture and still be back at work by the end of your lunch hour.” Bring a brown bag lunch. Beverages are provided by the museum. Just don’t put your elbows on the table. TERI BALLOUGH MEDINA, Con- tributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upandcomingweekly. com.