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/80536
THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Fall There are always signals when one season is slipping into the next. Over the last week or so, I have begun to sense a subtle cooling. Summer remains in charge, of course, but it is not so stunningly, overpoweringly hot that just being outdoors is an ordeal. Another sign arrived in my mailbox — the September issue of Vogue magazine, all 916 pages of it, suggesting what women might don this fall, very little of it actually wearable, much less affordable. Vogue was followed by emails from the "fashion/ lifestyle" blog of a young cousin, also commenting on the clothes that appeal to her for the fall, garments no one my age would dream of wearing. Back to school tax-free Young is busy these days meeting with absentee dads to help them understand why and how they should be involved in their children's lives and helping moms see the positives of such involvement for their children, if not for themselves. I hope by next fall we will see news reports that Young's efforts are bringing absentee dads back into their children's lives. It goes without saying that the same applies to absentee moms. Perhaps the surest sign of fall, or at least of every fourth fall, can be found by turning on your television. weekend earlier this month sent students and their families out for school supplies for opening day to purchase everything from pencils to computers to clothes, but not the ones on the pages of Vogue, of course! A recent beach trip found families enjoying a final summer weekend at the coast before fall routine sets in, and newspapers have already treated readers to photos of freshmen students toting their belongings into dorms as teary parents trail behind. Even before they are ready to shop for crayons and dorm-room posters, fall brings preparations for even our youngest and most tender. National Public Radio ran a story last week about preparing very little ones for school and for life beyond. Although a bit over the top,The Campaign showcases the way negative political ads impact our votes. A Head Start center in New Haven, Conn., has hired a Male Outreach Community Outreach Worker, quite a title for a small business card. Keith Young's job is to locate absentee fathers whose children attend the New Haven Head Start and get them involved in their children's lives. Sounds great, right? It turns out that even this seemingly simple and positive goal is — well — complicated. As Young notes, many absentee fathers do not know how to be a daddy. Maybe they did not have a father or other male role model themselves or maybe they have been incarcerated and have not had any practice in what many people consider a role that comes naturally. More complicated still is that many of the mothers have had terrible experiences with the fathers of their children and do not want them in the children's lives. This is understandable, but research has consistently shown that children, both boys and girls, benefit from having fathers in their lives. being spent and all the mud being slung. And, you know what? It is our own darn fault. I could retire to Tahiti if I had a dollar for every time someone has complained to me about how much he or she despises negative political ads on TV, radio and through the mail. I understand and agree, but the truth is that negative ads work. Candidates seeking public office at any level from president on down simply would not spend the time, effort and money it takes to make and disseminate negative ads if we the people were not responding to them. It is a truism of politics that no one gets elected to anything by telling voters how fine a human being he is, what a lovely family he has, how religious he is and how much he cares for his community, state or nation. The new movie, The Campaign, set in our neck of the woods in North Carolina, is heavy-handed to say the least, but it certainly gets that point across. It is going to be this way until we the people quit absorbing the spoon-fed distortions presented by way too many candidates and do the research ourselves. I wish you and your family a safe and peaceful Labor Day weekend and a smooth transition into our next season. MARGARET DICKSON, Con- tributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. No American with eyes and ears could have missed that this is a Presidential election year, and an ugly one to be sure. President Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney are going at it tooth and nail, apparently for a very small number of undecided voters. Most of us already know which candidate we are supporting, but somewhere around 5 percent of us are truly undecided, and it is for them that all the money is WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM AUG. 29 - SEPT. 4, 2012 UCW 5