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/621048
DECEMBER 30 - JANUARY 5, 2016 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM The week bet ween Christmas and the New Year makes me feel increasingly fresh and clean. Out with the golden glitz and Manheim Steamroller CDs. Out with the droopy, shedding poinset tias and st ale crumbling cook ies and Hollandaise sauce. Good riddance to the tree and all it s weeping needles, even though I do love it s lingering scent . In with green plant s, white dishes, simple green salads, and peace and quiet . The transition week also brings on mediations about the year that was and the year to be. Traditional media do a great job of news recaps — who did what to whom and who died, much of which seems amazingly long ago even though it has been less than a year. Other recaps are more off beat, including one from the blog , Est ately, which recount s what Americans are most interested in, as ev idence by what we Googled in 2015 st ate by st ate. We Tar Heels were most interested in concealed carr y permit s, Blake- Miranda divorce (I had to Google that one to f ind out who these folk s are — countr y music st ars married to each other who announced in 2015 that they would divorce) and the meaning of the Confederate f lag in that order. Resident s of other st ates were interested in these topics as well, but not ever yone. A labamans' top Googles were same-sex marriage, Ken St abler (I did not k now him either — a football player who died in 2015), Ben Carson, and Laverne Cox (another Google — an actress). Iowans must be serious v ideo consumers as their top Googles were Elizabeth Bank s (an actress) and t wo realit y telev ision shows, "The Bacheloret te" and "The Bachelor". Michigan resident s wanted to k now more about transgender and marriage equalit y, while Nor th Dakot ans Googled the NFL draf t . Our neighbors in Virginia apparently have an international outlook as they were interested in Eg y ptian President Abdel Fat t ah el-Sis, terrorist organizations Islamic St ate and Boko Haram, and the president s of Turkey, Nigeria and India in that order. And brief ly, South Carolinians wanted to k now about the nae nae dance. Texans were interested in lion hunting and Jade Helm, which another Google reveals is a conspirac y theor y that the annual U. S. milit ar y training exercise is act ually a f ull-scale invasion of Texas. Californians' top search was for K im Kardashian but they also wanted to k now about Ben Aff leck 's nanny and Donald Trump's hair. I have no idea what any of this means except that it really must t ake all k inds. As 2016 looms, I feel tot ally safe in predicting we will have elections for ever yone from President of the United St ates to Cumberland Count y Commission. Predicting who these people will be is much trick ier, so I will pass on that one. A troubling sign for 2016 and beyond is the recent f inding that America's middle class has shrunk and is now a minorit y in our nation. In other words, there are more rich and poor people than people in the middle. The non-par tisan Pew Research Center announced it s f indings in December and said shrinkage of the middle class has come about in par t because of the rise of high earners. In 1971, only 14 percent of Americans qualif ied as high earners, meaning those bringing in more than t wice our nation's median income. At the other end of the f inancial spectrum, more Americans are slipping back ward. In 1971, about a quar ter of us fell into the lowest earning tier, def ined as less then t wo- thirds of the median income. Today, that percent age is 29 and climbing. The growing spread bet ween those at the top and those at the bot tom has become more pronounced since the t urn of the 21st cent ur y, with the Great Recession causing serious and lingering damage for many. The percent age of upper earns is now 21-percent, meaning households of three who make at least $126,000. Should we be worried? It is hard not to be, even though some economist s say it 's no big deal. The American middle class is where most of us believe we are, whether that is true or not, and it is the manifest ation of the American Dream of securit y and bet ter lives for succeeding generations. The American middle class is about optimism and the hope that things will get bet ter, if not for us, then for our children. It is true that things are bet ter for some of us who are mov ing up the income chain, but it is also true that some of us are going in the other direction, shrink ing the middle from both sides and mak ing common ground as Americans harder to f ind. Elected political leaders who make decisions for the rest of us used to speak of ten about "Middle America" and what was best for most of us. It seems to me that we hear less about those in the middle these days, and if there are fewer middle class folk s around to vote, who do we think the decision makers are going to cater to — the rich or the poor? W i s h i n g y o u a n d y o u r f a m i l y a h a p p y, h e a l t h y a n d p r o s p e r o u s 2 016 ! Ready or Not — Here Comes 2016 by MARGARET DICKSON THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET MARGARET DICKSON. Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910.484.6200. As we greet 2016, it's hard to know what this year will hold.