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Journey into Grimms' tales: The brave little tailor

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Tuesday, 03 June 2025

Written by Pitt Dickey

Today we head back into the dark forest of Grimms’ Fractured Fairy Tales to learn the importance of self-confidence coupled with the ability to exaggerate. Come take a look behind the reality distortion field to learn how killing flies can lead to becoming King. Any similarity between the little tailor and current events is purely coincidental.
Once upon a time, there was a little tailor who spent his days sewing in obscurity. One day he made a jam sandwich for lunch. He wanted to finish a jacket before eating his lunch. He set the sandwich in his window.
A swarm of flies, which had been dining on the corpse of a dog, smelled the jam and flew up for dessert. They landed on his bread, aggravating the tailor. He grabbed a piece of cloth and smote the flies to get them off his sandwich.
After his smiting, seven flies lay dead on the bread. He was overjoyed at his victory. He immediately sewed a golden sash with the words “SEVEN WITH ONE BLOW” to commemorate his glorious heroism.
To show the town what a hero he was, he set out on a quest wearing his beautiful sash. He stuffed a handful of cream cheese and a bird into his vest pocket and proceeded to promenade. He ran into a Giant at the top of a mountain.
The Giant saw the tailor’s sash, which impressed him with the tailor’s boast of killing seven men. The Giant decided to test how strong the tailor was. The Giant crushed a rock with his bare hands and dared the tailor to do the same.
The tailor pulled out the wad of cream cheese and squeezed it until water ran out, telling the Giant that it was better than the Giant’s rock crushing. The Giant then picked up a boulder, throwing it into the air until it went so high it was out of sight, then eventually falling to the ground. The tailor said, “That’s nothing. When I throw a rock, it never comes down.”
The tailor pulled the bird out of his vest and tossed it into the air. The bird flew away, never to be seen again. (Giants, though big, are easy to fool.)
Bored with Giant fooling, the tailor went on his way to the King’s castle. The peasants saw his sash with SEVEN WITH ONE BLOW, and ran to tell the King. The King decided he needed to make the tailor the Field Marshal of his army due to his ability to kill seven men with one blow. The King’s army was unhappy about this promotion as they feared the tailor could kill them all. The army asked the King to rethink the promotion.
The King, who was already having second thoughts about making the tailor Field Marshal, began to worry the tailor might kill him. The King, like most fairy tale kings, had a beautiful daughter whom he promised would marry the tailor and receive half his kingdom as her dowry if the tailor would perform a little task of killing two Giants.
The tailor cheerfully agreed to off the Giants. He found them sleeping under a big tree. He climbed the tree and dropped stones onto the Giants, waking them up. Each Giant thought the other one was hitting him.
Angry, they fought each other until both were dead. Mission accomplished. The King was sincerely nervous now. If the tailor could kill Giants, what could he do to a mere king? He assigned the tailor another task of capturing a rogue rhinoceros. The tailor tricked the rhino into getting stuck in a tree and then saved him. The rhino was so grateful that he became tame.
The King came up with a final task of catching the meanest wild boar in the forest. The tailor trapped the boar in a woodland chapel, fulfilling his quest.
The King had no choice but to marry his daughter to the tailor. To quote Grimm: “The wedding was arranged with great splendor but with little joy.” (Many other weddings to this day have followed this pattern.) On their wedding night, the Princess heard the tailor talking in his sleep, saying: “Hurry up with that jacket and patch the trousers or I’ll clout you with a yardstick.”
The Princess told the King that “I think my husband is nothing but a common tailor.” The King told her to leave her bedroom door unlocked that night.
When the tailor was asleep, the King’s servants would tie him up and put him on a slow boat to China.
Word of this plot got back to the tailor. That night, the tailor pretended to be asleep when the servants came to the bedroom door. He yelled, “I’ve slaughtered seven with one blow, killed two giants, tamed a wild rhino, and captured a wild boar; I’m not afraid of quivering servants standing outside the bedroom.” This scared the Bejeezus out of the servants, who ran away.
The tailor became king and lived happily ever after with the beautiful Princess.
Moral: As George Costanza said about beating the polygraph, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)

Popes are people too

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Tuesday, 27 May 2025

Written by Margaret Dickson

I am not a Catholic, but I have always had an interest in the traditions of that faith, which now spans 2 millennia and the impact the church has had on world events during that very long time. Western culture would simply not be the same without the Catholic church, its teachings and its drama.
The world just witnessed one of its most dramatic traditions, the election of a new pope, following the death of the sitting pope. We have seen this before and relatively recently as the last pope, Pope Francis, was elected by his fellow cardinals in 2013. This month’s election of Pope Leo XIV, the 267th pope, was especially riveting for Americans because he is one of us.
An American man is now the leader of 1.4 billion people around the world.
Perhaps citizens of other popes’ home countries have been enthralled by the backgrounds of their native sons who became popes. For us Americans, Pope Leo is the first and we can’t seem to get enough of him, probably because few Americans, even Catholic Americans, saw an American pope coming.
Born Robert Prevost, called Rob by his family and raised in Chicago, Pope Leo is the youngest of 3 sons of an educator and a librarian. His maternal ancestors had roots in New Orleans with Haitian and Dominican backgrounds.
The Prevost home was in a section of Chicago where, decades later, a young Barack Obama worked as a community organizer. Brothers Louis and John are still around to see their baby brother become pope, in Florida and Chicago respectively, an event Louis has described as “mind-blowing,” and which I can hardly imagine myself.
Following Pope Leo’s election, middle brother, John, consented to an interview with the Associated Press during which Pope Leo telephoned his brother, and John addressed the pontif as “Rob.” The brothers have made it clear that Pope Leo supports the White Sox, not the Cubs. He also plays Wordle, probably much better than I do.
He has voted in both Democratic and Republican primaries. He voted in most general election cycles since 2000, except 2016 and 2020.
Sounds all-American to me.
The brothers also say the family had an inkling that young Rob would choose a career in the church. As a child, he “played priest” with his brothers and served communion with what the Prevost family had on hand, Necco wafers.
All said, young Rob, now Leo XIV, apparently did want that career in the church. From high school through seminary, he was schooled in Catholic institutions and ordained in 1982. Shortly thereafter, he was sent as a missionary to Peru.
After a few years back in the US, he returned to Peru, where he became a bishop and then a cardinal in 2023. He is fluent in Spanish and Italian and knows Latin from his church work, as well as his native tongue, English.
Speculation abounds as to what sort of pope the first American to hold the job will be. Conventional wisdom has it that Leo will continue much of his predecessor, Francis’s, emphasis on social justice, climate change, and peace, as well as seek to bridge tradition and contemporary issues. He also has a reputation as a peacemaker and is expected to be involved in international issues to promote openness and communication.
However Leo’s papacy unfolds, our American brother is a mere 69, youthful by papal standards, and may have several decades to put his stamp on one of the world’s most impactful and enduring institutions.

Publisher's Pen: Fayetteville, we are listening to you!

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Tuesday, 03 June 2025

Written by Bill Bowman

You will see new and exciting editorial changes in our hyper-local community newspaper in the next few weeks. These enhancements will continue to reflect our commitment to the Fayetteville community, providing local news, information, and insights to our base of dedicated readers.
After twenty-nine years, we are getting older and better, accentuating and showcasing the people, businesses, and organizations that define our community.
This month alone, we are introducing two new features that will provide insights and information in areas critically important to our quality of life.
In partnership with Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, we will introduce a Health and Wellness feature that will provide information on healthy living and keep residents informed of medical services and innovations.
In this edition, we are proud to welcome Troy Williams to our distinguished list of Up & Coming Weekly contributing writers.
Troy is a longtime resident of Fayetteville and a respected journalist and community activist. He is a strong advocate of the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate, and he is well-versed in effectively utilizing media to communicate with the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. For years, Troy served on the Fayetteville Observer's Community Advisory Board, penning bold and pointed op-ed columns for the daily newspaper. Starting with this edition, Troy's laser-focused insights into all facets of Fayetteville and Cumberland County will provide entertaining and thought-provoking reading. Troy is a talented investigative journalist who doesn't shy away from controversy.
We are confident you will enjoy his perspectives. Troy also hosts his own weekly radio show on WIDU 1600 AM.
Stay tuned, Fayetteville. We're listening. As I said, we're getting older and better. Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.

(Top photo: Cape Fear Valley Medical Center will be contributing Health and Wellness features throughout the month. Bottom photo: Troy Williams will be offering his perspective on Fayetteville and Cumberland County every other week in his column, Troy's Perspective.)

Cooper’s blunder still holds us back in schools

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Tuesday, 27 May 2025

Written by John Hood

Roy Cooper will reportedly make some headlines next month. I have no idea whether he’ll announce a run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. If he does, the former governor will present a formidable challenge to incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis. If he doesn’t run, it will be at least partly because Cooper believes he’ll win — and the prospect of spending the next six years in Washington may fill him with more dread than delight.
There’s one thing I know for certain, however. If Roy Cooper runs, Republicans will make sure voters remember the worst policy decision the Nash County Democrat ever made during his decades-long tenure in public service: keeping North Carolina’s public schools closed for far too long during the pandemic.
When the National Assessment of Educational Progress conducted its last pre-COVID battery of reading and math exams in 2019, North Carolina’s public schools performed comparatively well. Indeed, adjusted for student background, we ranked 7th in the nation in performance, behind only Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey, Indiana, Mississippi, and Georgia.
Then disaster struck. COVID-19 was a deadly plague, killing some 1.2 million Americans — including tens of thousands of North Carolinians. I counted some of them as friends. Perhaps you did, too.
Some of the policy responses to it, including decisions made by then-Gov. Cooper, were prudent and reflected the best-available evidence at the time. But closing day care centers and educational institutions for more than a few weeks wasn’t one of them. It was already evident that the risks of serious illness and death were strongly correlated with age, and that young people weren’t a major driver of infection.
Lengthy school closures were ill-advised. Some of us argued as much at the time. Most policymakers in the United States — and in other countries — fully reopened their schools either in late spring or during the first few months of the ensuing 2020-21 academic year.
North Carolina didn’t. Even as late as May 2021, most of our school districts were operating in hybrid mode. In neighboring South Carolina and Georgia, most had returned fully to in-person instruction months earlier.
When NAEP administered its next exams, in 2022, North Carolina suffered a significant drop in performance. Other states with lengthy school closures did, too. Two years later, some bounced back a fair amount. Alas, North Carolina’s recovery from COVID-era learning loss looks more lackluster, especially in reading. The NAEP scores of our fourth-graders ranked 32nd in the nation in 2024, after adjusting for student background. South Carolina ranked 8th, Georgia 12th. Among eighth-graders, Georgia ranked 3rd, South Carolina 14th, and North Carolina 32nd.
Harvard University’s Education Recovery Scorecard project puts the matter starkly: “Average student achievement in North Carolina remains almost half of a grade level below 2019 levels in math and three quarters of a grade level below in reading.”
By comparison, South Carolina students are about a quarter of a grade level lower in math than they were in 2019, and a third of a grade level in reading. That’s still bad news. Unfortunately, our news is much worse.
Did our lengthy closures at least provide offsetting health benefits? Nah. Some COVID-era mandates do appear to have moved the needle on excess deaths but school (and business) closures aren’t among them.
The likes of South Carolina and Georgia did experience higher death rates than we did during the pandemic, but that’s largely explained by lower vaccination rates.
Yes, vaccination was strongly associated with reductions in serious illness and death. The evidence for vaccine efficacy is at least as solid as the evidence for COVID-era learning loss. I’ve read it. Don’t bother writing me unless you’ve done the same.
North Carolina educators and policymakers recognize the gravity of our learning losses and are working hard to remedy them. That’s the right approach. We can’t just accept learning losses as a fait accompli. But we also need to hold policymakers accountable for past decisions. On this issue, Cooper blew it.

Editor’s note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).