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Stuck In Traffic
"Independent Comment on Current Events and Cultural Phenomena"
Issue #12 - March 1996
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Early Call on the GOP Race
Here it is at the beginning of March, the campaign season is just
underway, and the race for the GOP nomination looks like a three man
race between Dole, Forbes, and Buchannan, with Alexander no too far
behind the pack. The political pundits are already speculating on the
implications of a "brokered" convention, in which none of the
candidates goes into the convention with enough delegates to win the
nomination on the first ballot.
Some are saying that a brokered convention will further factionalize
the GOP to such an extent that the Republicans won't be able to beat
Clinton. I presume that the idea behind this line of thought is that
infighting between the factions will sufficiently dampen enthusiasm for
whoever the nominee might be to such an extent that GOP fund raising
and other campaign activities will be hurt. I think even the most
bitter Republican will vote for the Republican nominee in the general
election, but he or she might not be willing to write a $1000 check to
the Republican nominee. But we shall see.
The big game right now is predicting who the nominee will be. Of
course I reserve the right to change my mind as events unfold so it
looks like I'm an accurate pundit, but my current call on the GOP
nomination race goes to Dole. It's too early to say whether the
convention will be brokered or not, but I think Dole has the best
chance of winning a brokered convention. The reason I'm willing to
predict Dole getting the nomination, despite the more or less equal
showing among the leading candidates has to do with why I think people
vote for Dole and why I think people vote for the other candidates.
Each of the three candidates has a different appeal, but Dole's is the
one that will win in the end.
Buchannan's brand of big-government intervention and isolationist
policies are well out of step with modern ideas about what a Republican
form of government means. But it doesn't matter. The people who
support Buchannan tend to support big government intervention as long
as it is a big Republican government intervention. They see
Buchannan's agenda as a big weapon in their culture war, both at home
and abroad. But more importantly, Buchannan draws his support from
people who are swayed by passion and oratory. Of the three candidates
in the race, Buchannan by far is the liveliest speaker. He knows how
to turn a phrase, having been a speechwriter himself for Nixon and
having been a columnist for years. He knows how to turn people on. He
knows how to fire up a crowd. He has just the right fervent timber in
his voice, controlled yet passionate.
Forbes, on the other hand, comes across as someone who sits in an
office for months at a time analyzing policy and then uncomfortably
calls a press conference to present the "right" solution to the public.
If candidates one on their positions alone, Forbes would be way ahead
by now. Of the three leading candidates, his overall message and
positions in particular issues is the most consistent and well thought
out. He's my personal favorite in the race. Having heard is stump
speech multiple times now, I find myself agreeing with virtually every
position he takes. And disagreements I have with his stump speech are
matters of degree, not direction. But Forbes doesn't seem to realize
that campaigns are not won by policy positions alone. They are won
with rhetoric. They are won by winning over the emotions of people as
well as their minds. Very few people pick a candidate by reading his
positions on issues.
Dole lacks both the Buchannan's fire and passion and Forbes'
consistency of message. But he has a huge advantage over the other
two. He has his reputation and incumbency. While it is fashionable
for voters to claim that they hate Washington insiders and to claim
that they want someone from "outside" D.C. to go there and shake
things up, historically they haven't backed up their words with
actions. Over and over again, voters reelect the incumbent. In terms
of the GOP nomination, Dole has, in a sense, the incumbency since he
has been watched as a Presidential possibility for a long time. In
fact there were times when pundits were saying that there would be no
contest for the race if Dole entered. But in addition to his
incumbency, Dole has the most credible reputation of the three
candidates. One may not like the "deals" the Dole has put together
while in the Senate, but no one can claim that Dole is not a skilled
politician or that he wouldn't make a skillful statesman. The party
leadership is clearly behind Dole, they haven't even tried to pretend
that they are impartial. "Credibility" is a nebulous term, hard to
define. But Dole has more credibility with the GOP activists than
Buchannan and Forbes put together. In a brokered convention, the GOP
leadership will be able to focus all their resources and influential
people on the delegates and sway them to their side.
And this nebulous credibility is also what the general electorate votes
on as well. That's why so many elections boil down to the candidates
attacking each other's credibility with negative smear ads.
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The Great Wal-Mart Expedition In Search of Tylenol
I think there is nothing more uniquely American than the discount,
general merchandise store. Better than any sort of philosophical
treatise, better than any economic data, the general store proves that
a free market economy works better than any other economic system yet
devised.
I happen to prefer Wal-Mart. But there are many other companies that
are good also. In my area of North Carolina, we have K-Mart, Roses,
and Target, just to name a few. The reason I like Wal-Mart is that
they stay open late at night, which is when I do most of my shopping.
And some of them are open 24 hours a day. They have a little bit of
_everything_ at Wal-Mart, including stuff that I never knew _existed_.
In the sports and hunting section at a local Wal-Mart, I once found a
product called "Dominant Male Deer Pee." I'm not making this up.
Judging from the box, it's something that you use to attract deer when
hunting for them. Wal-Mart is where I bought my Space Shuttle Spoon,
which is a plastic model of the Space Shuttle the size of a small toy
with a cereal spoon on the front end. Presumably this is a modern
twist on the old "here comes the airplane" trick of getting toddlers to
eat their strained beans. I don't know why the heck I bought it, but
the instant I saw it I knew I could not leave the store without it. I
confess that on more than one occasion I have gone to Wal-Mart late at
night, just to roam the aisles and see all the interesting, odd
products I could find.
But Wal-Mart's forte is not the odd, unusual products it carries, but
the baroque array of absolutely mundane products they offer. The
variety of the ordinary is Wal-Mart's true claim to fame. If you want
to buy plastic storage containers, Wal-Mart is the store for you. They
have aisles full of ever shape and size of plastic bowls, containers,
and utensils. If you are a sock, underwear, or T-shirt connoisseur,
Wal-Mart is the store for you. (Wal-Mart is where I bought my
"Sandinista pajamas", but that's another story.) If you are in the
market for motor-oil, Wal-Mart is the store for you. I'm pretty sure
they have every brand of commercially available motor oil there is. It
seems like they have every type of everything at Wal-Mart. Household
cleaning supplies, tires, automotive products, fertilizer, potting
soil, fish, birds, hamsters, video games, pot holders, toasters, coffee
makers, crock pots, blenders, mixers, video games, computer software,
blank diskettes, school supplies, office supplies, greeting cars,
books, magazines, chips, dips, TVs, prescription drugs, bandages, cold
medicines, cough medicines, laxatives, hearing aids, crutches,
eyeglasses (and eye exams), rifles, shot guns, fishing rods, bicycles,
tricycles, roller blades, exercise machines, free weights, hunting
caps, baseball caps, wading boots, trampolines, floor waxes, car waxes,
indoor thermometers, outdoor thermometers, fish tank thermometers, oral
thermometers, anal thermometers, the new ear thermometers, bird seed,
wind chimes, potting soil, sand box sand, gravel, rocks, mulch, swing
sets, children's clothes, women's clothes, men's clothes, unisex
clothes, shoes, socks, underwear, winter gloves, work gloves, hunting
gloves, driving gloves, golf gloves, board games, card games, travel
games, etc. etc. etc. I could go on for a long while.
It's awe inspiring.
It's also a little bit crazy. I realized this a few weeks ago when I
went shopping for a "pain reliever," i.e., something for headaches.
Now, before I had even gone into the Wal-Mart, I had narrowed my
choices down to Tylenol, which my doctor had recommended to me the last
time I saw him. I was thankful for this because otherwise I would have
had to choose between Bayer, Bufferin, Anacin, Nuprin, Ibuprofin. etc.
etc. etc. So I thought I was in good shape as I walked into the
Wal-Mart that night. Tylenol. I needed to buy some Tylenol. OK. No
problem. How difficult could it be?
It turns out that buying Tylenol is a complex, intricate,
time-consuming task, if done correctly. There are no less than 27
types of Tylenol one can buy, and this does not account for the various
sizes of packages you can buy. In fact, the Wal-Mart store I visited,
had a free standing product display for Tylenol that had 4 color
brochures and _flow_charts_, for heaven's sake, to help you pick the
Tylenol product that's "best for you." They have tablets, gel caps,
and liquid Tylenol. They have children's Tylenol and adult strength
Tylenol, and "Extra Strength" Tylenol. They have plain Tylenol, sinus
Tylenol, cold and flu Tylenol, and allergy Tylenol. You can buy small
bottles of Tylenol or you can buy big bottles of Tylenol. And of
course there are permutations and combinations of all these choices
that have to be made. And the Tylenol company does a pretty good job
of color-coding the boxes and color coding the flow charts so it's easy
to tell one type of Tylenol from the other. But twenty minutes after
entering the Wal-Mart, after reading all the brochures and following
all the flow charts, I still had not managed to pick a type of Tylenol.
I was paralyzed with choices.
Thankfully, I had gone to Wal-Mart with a friend. He had gone to shop
for something else, but he saw my predicament on the "cough and cold"
aisle and rescued me from my paralysis. Otherwise I might still be
there today. "Here," he said as he grabbed a box off the shelf, "Buy
this. It's the same thing as Tylenol but half the price." The box he
handed me was a generic brand of pain reliever called "Equate" which
contained the same "active ingredients" as Tylenol and was just about
half the price of Tylenol. It was just in time too, I was beginning to
get a headache.
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The Seductive Nature of Crosswalk Signals
You can learn a valuable less about Law simply by crossing the street.
I discovered this a couple of weeks ago when I was bumming around
Chapel Hill, shopping for used books and records. I needed to cross
the street and was patiently waiting at the corner for the crosswalk
signal to tell me when to cross the street.
After the light cycled through, the crosswalk signal flashed "WALK."
But I could see a car barrelling down the road and it was more than
clear that there was no way it was going to stop. Apparently the
driver thought he could get through the light right after it had turned
red but before cars going the other way had had a chance to pull out
into the intersection.
If I hadn't looked, I would be dead.
After the reckless car zoomed through the intersection, my crosswalk
companions and I cautiously crossed the street, sharing some choice
words about the red light runner's cognitive abilities. There is no
doubt in my mind that, legally speaking, we had the right of way. But,
sometimes being "right" in the eyes of the law has nothing to do with
living to see another day.
By the time we got to the other side, the crosswalk signal was flashing
"Don't Walk." The flashing caught my eye and I just stared at it for a
couple of seconds. "This thing's _useless_," I thought to myself,
"Only a fool would trust a dumb signal light to get himself safely
across the street."
Driving home that night, I kept thinking about my reaction to the
traffic light? Was I being unfair to it? Was I just stressed over the
close call I had just had with the Grim Reaper? After all, signal
lights at cross walks and signal lights on roads get people safely
through intersections millions and millions of times a day all over the
world. Why should I be mad at the signal light when that idiot driver
was really the one to blame.
And it finally dawned on me that the reason I felt this anger toward
the signal light was because I _might_ have simply trusted it and
stepped out into the street. The crosswalk signal is seductive.
There's all this legal theory behind it, all this research and
development by people who spend large portions of their lives studying
traffic patterns an optimal signal light coordination, all this
standardization and conventionality that just _begs_ you to trust it.
Walk when the light says "Walk." Don't walk when the light says "Don't
walk." It couldn't be simpler.
But the plain fact of the matter is that it just doesn't work all the
time. It doesn't matter that the signal light has carefully been
coordinated with other lights by the best engineers. It doesn't matter
that the entire judicial structure of the country says that you have
the right of way. You basically take your own life into your hands
every time you cross the street.
Likewise, there are times when you simply must break the law for your
own self-preservation. If a mugger is chasing you down the block, it
would be foolish to stop for a cross walk signal that says "Don't Walk"
and let the mugger catch you. Even if you don't think about it
explicitly, there's an internal evaluation going on deep inside your
consciousness weighing the risks of getting across the street safely
against the risks of getting caught by a mugger. And sometimes
deciding to break the law and cross against the crosswalk signal's
indication is a matter of deciding that the process, the institution of
the traffic signal is simply broken. If you wait ten minutes at a
corner for the signal light to change from "Don't Walk" to "Walk" and
it never does, a reasonable person will break the law and cross against
the signals recommendation. Only a fool would stand on the corner
until a police officer showed up to direct traffic.
I don't mean to deny the usefulness of traffic signals and crosswalk
signals. They are eminently useful concepts and there are reasonable
laws backing them up. But the minute you subordinate your own
judgement to the crosswalk signal, the law, or the engineers, you are
inviting disaster.
======================
Seen Any Stars Lately?
I thought I was unorganized and unable to keep up with my belongings.
I thought the United States government was bad, being unable to balance
it's books by billions and billions of dollars every year. But these
things pale in comparison to something I recently learned. Someone has
misplaced a significant portion of _the_Universe_.
It's true. I learned this while attending a show at our local
planetarium with some friends. We had gone to see a presentation about
the discoveries that had been made by the Hubble telescope. The show
was quite interesting. It wasn't much on production values, being
little more than the "film strips" you used to see in grade school
science class. But I learned a lot.
For one thing, we learned that the Hubble telescope had taken pictures
of some of the most remote galaxies in the universe and discovered that
they were actually multiple galaxies that were so far away that our
previous telescopes had been unable to see them clearly. Based on
these discoveries, astronomers have now raised there estimates on the
number of _galaxies_ in the universe from 10 billion to 50 billion.
Another thing the show spent a good deal of time on was some of the
attempts to estimate the ages of stars and the age of the universe.
The universe is constantly expanding and you can measure the speed that
galaxies are traveling away from each other based on the Doppler shifts
in light from those galaxies and by measuring the variations of certain
kinds of stars in those galaxies called cepheid variables. The age of
stars themselves can be measured based on their size and mass and
studying spectrographs of the light they emit. Both of these methods
are, supposedly well founded in scientific principles and the methods
for gathering the data are not error prone, especially when using the
Hubble telescope to gather the data. Unfortunately, scientists have
found stars that seem to be older than the actual universe itself.
Quite a paradox that no one seems to be able to explain yet.
But the most interesting part of the show for me was the discussion
about the missing matter in the Universe. Galaxies of stars come in
all different shapes and configurations, but the most common shape for
a galaxy to take is the "spiral" shape. Our own Milky Way galaxy is in
a spiral shape. These spiral galaxies spin around a common point in
huge million light-year circles. The interesting thing about spiral
galaxies is that they don't fling their stars away. There is
sufficient gravity to keep all the stars together, rotating around that
common point. Now, as far as we know, gravity is directly related to
the amount of mass present. The more mass you have, the more gravity
you have around to attract things to each other. The only problem is
that in just about every galaxy that scientists have studied, including
our own Milky Way, there isn't enough mass of stars present to generate
enough gravity to keep all the stars in the galaxy together. All these
spiral galaxies _ought_ to be spreading out across the Universe, but
they aren't.
So scientists have had to _invent_ a concept, which they call "dark
matter." "Dark matter," as the story goes, is mass that is
undetectable to us, but still contributes to the amount of gravity
present. But when push comes to shove, the scientists are just saying
that, "We know the mass is out there somewhere, we just don't know
where it is."
Well, I checked my pockets. _I_ don't have it.
=====================
Ted, The Terrible One
By Danielle Woodrich
In my travels I have discovered that every town has a Terrible Ted.
And though Allentown (a downtown neighborhood in Buffalo, NY) has
always been known for it's colorful personalities, The Terrible One is
on his way to becoming truly mythical. One of Buffalo's sleepy suburbs
has it's own urchin, a charming transvestite with a weakness for
designer suitdresses and impeccable taste in accessories. The
univaersity neighborhood has an urchin too, a delightful old woman who
picks bagels from the dumpster behind Bagel Brothers because her sister
likes them. (She likes them burnt, so they don't have to be fresh.)
North Buffalo has one, he rides a massive tricycle, wears a public
safety badge and patrols the neighborhood -- pedaling his way through a
seventh decade of good Samaritanism.
This breed of protagonist can appear as regular as a hamburger, as
right as rain. But often these strange characters are uncommonly more
real, more substantial in form, than the average citizen. What makes
them unique is that they are completely impossible to ignore.
So how do these street-urchin heroes penetrate our glassy,
self-protective gazes? How do these people override some of the best
laid psychological defenses?
You have to be a sucker for a certain type of person: they bear a
guiless look of an excited 10 year old. Creativity and full bellies
make their faces radiate good will. They always give what's ever in
their pocket; you don't even have to need it. They will feed your dog,
even if that piece of sandwich is all they have to eat. A few have
families, who love them but don't understand them. A few have no
families, but love and understand themselves. They are an intriguing
bunch. They welcome conversations and have volumes to say. They don't
ever judge. The only thing they have physically in common is that they
have a heathenish shine.
There is no question that some of you readers may never have the
pleasure of meeting one of these types of citizens, but it won't be
from lack of their trying. It will be because you are too hard and
cold to notice them. It is because possibly, you are too afraid.
You don't have to be personally acquainted with my Herschel, Gertie,
Leroy or Terrible Ted, but chances are, you know some of your own.
Ted, friendly as a pup, would give the shirt off his back or the shoes
off his feet for someone who needs more than he. Leroy keeps his eye
on the same stretch of avenue: to every girl who's lived in North
Buffalo for the last 40 years, he delivers a cheery, "Hey! Baby Doll
Honey Bun!" Gertie will always offer you a cigarette, if you stop to
chat. Herschel, will wear only the finest of the south towns' second
hand dresses, suits and all kinds of ensembles with a far better
showing of leg and ass than even Linda Evangelista can offer.
The reason I bring Terrible Ted and his crazy life to your attention,
is that he could be any one of us. We could be him, or Gertie, or
Herschel, or even a bit of Leroy.
The truth remains that these semi-transient but completely-real men and
women are treated like unrecyclable trash. They are kicked aside as if
they were flea-bitten strays.
You might not know it just to look at him, but Ted can paint, design
and weld intricate jewelry, write prose. Herschel is no less an artist
than Yves St Laurent or Chanel; he is as concerned with the same
aspects of beauty and aesthetics. Gertie is an artist because she is a
musician, the viola, she says, winking, maybe lying. And Leroy, well,
Leroy is not an artist. Leroy is art; and unless you know him, you
will just have to take my word.
Preamble and informative clarifications aside, this is really about
Ted. With his consent, I share with you a piece of typical Ted
correspondence.
Erie County Correctional Facility
Alden, NY
Nov., 95
Hey you crazy Heathen,
It hasn't been too bad. The worst part is being surrounded
by a mass of uneducated, ignorant and just plain dumb people.
To save grace, one must blend in. As you know, this isn't my
first time in the county's country club, so I've had some
practice at this. A wise man can always play the fool; the
fool can never play the wise man. Profound, huh?
The guys in here talk of television, even cartoons. I put
one poor guy on the spot over something senseless he said.
You know what his response was? "Hell, I know it be
friction" Now I'm not the best speller, but 90% of the
inmates are grammatically bankrupt.
I look on the bright side though, I rid myself of $500.00
worth of traffic violations by staying here just 19 days. I
added some artwork for your fridge and a doghouse coupon I
thought might come in handy.
Peace, Pot and Microdot
Terrible yet tantalizing,
Ted
Terrible Ted has had several experiences with the Law. He has been
arrested for some ridiculous 'crimes'. One that comes to mind is an
old DWI story. According to legend, Terrible Ted was at a social
gathering in a suburb south of Buffalo. He had a bit of a problem with
his ride, and decided to walk home, down route 5, back into the city.
Along the way, the weather turned dangerously bad. Snow and wind
threatened to ruin Ted's plan of an uneventful, if exhausting walk
home. At the side of the road was a broken down vehicle, abandoned by
its owner probably due to the cold weather. Ted crawled in and
gratefully went to sleep.
Several hours later a law enforcement officer, thinking he was rescuing
a poor stranded motorist, came upon Terrible Ted. Through the fogged
windows of the car, the officer noticed the door was unlocked. The
officer was most likely not expecting to be blasted with Ted's
unpleasant and pungent party-breaths and other vaporous excretions.
Ted tried to explain; he had no keys, no registration, no insurance and
no license because (and this is very easy, officer) it was not his
vehicle, and he had not drive n an inch. His logical explanation,
along with the obvious truth-in-evidence fell on deaf ears. Down to
the Holding Center with you, scumbag.
With some discomfort, I am reminded of an incident just a few weeks
ago. After drinking some celebratory cocktails in the privacy of my
own home, I remembered my cigarettes were down in my car. Drunk as
Peter O'Toole between acts, I stumbled out to the street. I, with keys
in hand, made my way to my car, only falling off the curb once. The
thought occured to me as I reached under the seat, radar closing in on
the promised nicotene, that if a police officer came by and gave me any
trouble, I could go to jail just like Ted, for almost the exact same
reason. I had yet to break a single law.
I tell you my silly heatheny tale only to bring home to you how
insignificant the differences are between who you think you are, and
who you think you despise.
Please let's each take a look at our cities this winter. Do not look
at the buildings or the pot-holed streets. Do not look at the garbage
strewn along the expressways, or the construction downtown. What I
urge you to locate is only to be found in the faces of the people
around you. We must all pay closer attention to individuals, and less
to issues.
Peace.
About the author:
Danielle Woodrich, from a home base in Buffalo, NY, writes commentary
about libertarianism, rock-n-roll culture and independent films and
video. She operates a small film company called Dog Breath Pictures,
whose next work will be "Rock-n-Roll Childhood: A Defense from
Imaginacide." She can be reached at DWoodrich@aol.com or by writing
Danielle Woodrich, 64 Kail Street,Buffalo, NY 14207.
======================
About Stuck In Traffic
Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to independently
evaluating current events and cultural phenomena.
Why "Stuck In Traffic"?
Because getting stuck in traffic is good for you. It's an opportunity
to think, ponder, and reflect on all things, from the personal to the
global. As Robert Pirsig wrote in _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance_, "Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which
we assume that the stuckness now ocurring, the zero of consciousness,
isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible
situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that
Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce...."
Contact Information:
All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and
hate-mail about Stuck In Traffic should be sent to Calvin Stacy Powers
preferably via E-mail (powers@interpath.com) or by mail (2012 Talloway
Drive, Cary, NC USA 27511).
Copyright Notice:
Stuck In Traffic is published and copyrighted by Calvin Stacy Powers
who reserves all rights. Individual articles are copyrighted by their
respective authors. Unsigned articles are authored by Calvin Stacy
Powers.
Permission is granted to redistribute and republish Stuck In Traffic
for non-commercial purposes as long as it is redistributed as a whole,
in its entirety, including this copyright notice. For permission to
republish an individual article, contact the author.
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