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Stuck In Traffic
"Independent Comment on Current Events and Cultural Phenomena"
Issue #14 - May 1996
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The Meaning of Spring
Spring is happening. Even in the tiny, neglected corner of suburbia
known as my backyard, the trees have begun sprouting leaves. The
dogwood trees are blooming as are the azalea bushes. Tulips are too.
The Forsythia are showing signs of blooming. The honeysuckle vines are
blooming. The mailbox vine is blooming. Just about anything that can
bloom around here is blooming. The grass has turned green and lush
and, at least in my yard, is artistically peppered with yellow
dandelion blooms and wild strawberry vines. There is unapologetic
pollen everywhere. Caking itself in big glops on our cars over night.
We're not talking just a little bit of pollen in the air. We're
talking saturation. We're talking "Yellow Haze."
Birds have come out of the woodwork. So many birds I don't even know
their names. I recognize the Cardinals of course. And the finches.
And the Robins. And the Bluebirds. And the Woodpeckers. And the
black Crows. But there are birds roaming about that I couldn't begin
to identify. I think maybe my favorite birds are the crows. They roam
the front yard in packs of 6 to 8 as if it were their own. Neither my
car coming in and out of the garage nor the yappy dog across the street
faze them. Oh, if you insist, they will lazily flap up to a nearby
branch to get out of the way. But they make it clear they are doing so
for your benefit, not theirs. There are also some very small brown
birds, whose name I don't know but they are very small and very fat
looking and they have a dark brown band around their throat, whom I'm
quite fond of. I had a dream once in which I was at school walking to
class and one of these birds flew right up to me and perched on my
finger that I had held out. In this dream we stared at each other for
a few seconds and then I shook my finger very gently to tell it to move
on now, but it didn't. It actually grabbed on to my finger harder
because it wasn't ready to leave.
The birds are out in force because the insects have emerged from
wherever it is they lay dormant for the winter and are crawling all
over the place. Unfortunately, it's not in the nature of most insects
to survive more than one Winter. So it is always necessary to teach
the new crop of freshmen just what is and isn't off-limits around here.
The house, for example, is strictly off limits to all insects,
arachnids, amphibians, and reptiles. I try to make this clear by
spraying a thick border of insecticide around the base of the house and
around all the doorways and windows. Still, there seems to be a
failure in interspecies communication and I find myself periodically
having a showdown at 20 paces in my hallway, with a big black spider at
one end and me wielding my spider killing broom on the other end.
There is usually a two or three minute dramatic pause as we size each
other up, waiting for each other to make the first move. Me and my
spider killing broom have won every battle so far. But you know, it
can't last forever. Crickets are another of the thick headed species
that have to be taught the hard way. They sneak into the house from
who-knows-where and set up shop, chirping away incessantly in the
middle of the night. They do not seem to grasp the concept that the
sounds of crickets chirping in the woods is a pleasant and soothing
sound but the sound of crickets in my bedroom is maddening and drives
me to bloodlust for cricket killing. Frogs on the other hand are
really quite considerate. They stay outside and will gladly hop out of
the way while you mow the lawn, though sometimes they get confused and
you have to direct them to the safe side of the yard.
People are not immune to the seasonal change either. You can see
couples who obviously haven't been out of the house in months taking
walks together and packs of wild kids are scavenging around for
excitement on bicycles and roller skates and skateboards. And everyone
is working in their yards to some degree of enthusiasm or another.
Some folks attack their yard with all the gusto of a drill sergeant.
Azaleas over there! Tulips over here! Daffodils over in that bed
_neatly_ please! Some of us wander around the yard scratching our
head, trying to figure out the difference between a weed and a flower.
So what's the point of Spring? The point is that there is no point.
It just happens. No one has to be told. There aren't any rules for
this stuff. Everyone and everything just does what comes naturally.
It's called living.
=========
"The world moves on a woman's hips.
The world moves and it swivels and bops.
The world moves on a woman's hips.
The world moves and it bounces and hops."
--David Byrne
===============
Looming Dangers
April 17th, 1996 - TOKYO (Reuter) - President Clinton said
Wednesday he was worried the Internet was aiding
international terrorism by making it too easy for sinister
forces to learn how to make bombs or produce nerve gas.
"Are people learning, for example, from the Internet how to
make the same sort of trouble in the United States that was
made in Japan with sarin gas?'' Clinton said at a news
conference with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.
"Isn't it a concern that anybody, anywhere in the world, can
pull down off the Internet the information about how to build
a bomb like the bomb that blew up the federal building in
Oklahoma City?'' he added.
In a word, Mr. President, no. It's not a concern.
And I resent your panic mongering. Your statements are nothing but
pure propaganda aimed at transforming people's fear of terrorists into
a fear of the Internet. Why would you want to do that Mr. President?
You and your fellow politicians have been waging a campaign for months
now to build a negative perception of the Internet in people's minds.
I have seen you and your cronies make statements linking the Internet
with terrorists, pedophiles, and drug smugglers. Clearly, you want
people to be afraid of the Internet. Why? Do you get some sort of
perverse satisfaction from this? What are you trying to accomplish?
When you visit a city and speak to the people living there, do you
speak only of the dirty book stores and ignore the museums? Do you
speak only of the city's urban crime and ignore the civic
organizations? Do you speak only of the city's drug addicts and ignore
the city's religious institutions? Of course not. Then why are you
doing this with the Internet? People are using the Internet in so many
happy, wholesome, good-hearted ways that I find it shameful that you
ignore them with such impudence.
Before you try again to scare us with tales of religious fanatics
making nerve gas, you might check out the Alzheimer's Network. It's an
online community of mostly elderly folks who have to take care of their
loved ones who are suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Using
Cleveland's FreeNet and very inexpensive computer equipment these folks
are able to talk to each other and share their experiences and advice
with each other, despite being tied to their homes caring for the
Alzheimer's spouse. And they don't just trade information about
doctors, and treatments, and how to handle the insurance. They talk to
each other about the painful decisions they have to make, like when or
if they should put their loved ones in a nursing home. They offer
moral support to each other literally in the middle of the night when
they are feeling lonely and scared. It's the very best of what a
community should be, people helping other people.
Before you try again to scare us with tales of children being exploited
by pornographers, you might check out Le Louvre Online. Or perhaps the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City would be more to your taste. Or
perhaps you share my fascination with the folk art of Howard Finster?
Or maybe the plastic arts don't interest you as much as literature.
You might check out the African counterpart to Aesop's fables, the
stories of Ananse. The poetry of William Carlos Williams? Kids
stories to read to your grandchildren someday? All these things are
available on the net. Mr. President, the art you find is the art you
look for. If all you see on the internet is pornography, it is a
reflection of yourself, not of the world. On the Internet everyone's a
publisher; everything is out there.
Before you try again to scare us with tales of terrorists using the
Internet, you might check out what people are saying to each other in
the thousands of forums on the internet. Every conceivable cultural
viewpoint, from the Pashtun Afghans to the Shona Zimbabweans, is
represented. Debates range in scope from major religious schisms to
the trivial. If you want to debate whether Messianic Jews are really
Jews or heretics (because they believe Jesus Christ is the messiah)
there is a forum for you. If you want to debate "Tastes Great!" vs.
"Less Filling," there is a place for you on the Internet. And through
all the cacophony of voices on the net, some of which are clear and
level-headed some of which are not, there emerges a respect for other
people, sometimes a begrudgingly earned respect, but a respect that
transcends disagreements nonetheless. It has been said that when goods
and services don't cross borders, armies do. I would add "words" to
"goods and services." As long as words are traveling across the
Internet, crossing geographic borders, crossing cultural borders,
crossing religious borders, there is hope for peace.
Frankly Mr. President, I am not much worried about people learning
from the Internet how to make bombs and nerve gas. I am far more
worried that you and your cronies seem to have no use for people
helping people, for putting a printing press in everyone's hands, or
for fostering lively, open dialogue. I am far more worried about your
motives.
=============================
Buchananism In Thirty Seconds
"Let's see. On the one hand, Buchanan is running to the left of Bill
Clinton on trade, Wall Street bashing and industrial policy as a
substitute for marketplace competition. Buchanan's heartfelt critique
of downsizing by remote corporate big shots is reminiscent of Micahel
Moore's "Roger and Me," which pictured laid-off GM workers skinning
rabbits while company brass dined at the country club. That part of
Pat's message sounds a lot like socialism.
On the other hand, Buchanan is patriotic, isolationist, anti-immigrant,
and clearly a bellicose defender of "America First." That's called
nationalism. So, Buchananism is this odd mix: nationalism and
socialism. Gee, that doesn't ring a bell, does it?
-- Thomas W. Hazlett, Reason Magazine, May 1996.
============
Spring Myths
Spring is its own unique phenomena. It's bigger than mankind. It's
literally as big as the world. But that does not stop many people from
trying to impose their human bound concepts on the phenomena of Spring,
creating some myths that are badly in need of debunking. I'm eager to
oblige.
Myth #1: Spring needs your help.
No, it doesn't. While it is true that participating in the rites of
Spring is one of the great joys of life, let's try to get over this
pretentious notion that it won't happen without us. Spring is going to
happen one way or another. We humans are merely allowed to play in it
if we so choose. It's like playing in the ocean. You can sit and
watch the waves if you want. You can catch the waves for a ride if you
want. You can try to stand up to the waves if you want. But the waves
are going to come regardless. And so with Spring.
Myth #2: Spring is on a schedule.
Wrong. I am sick and tired of hearing people, newscasters in
particular, commenting on whether or not Spring is "on schedule". This
year, the general consensus seems to be that Spring is "late." There
seems to be this somewhat arbitrarily decided date that Spring is
supposed to arrive on and if Spring "arrives" earlier than this date,
it's "early". If it arrives after this date, then Spring is "late".
In either case, the newscasters win because they can hype up the fact
Spring is early or late into some kind of feeble attempt at dramatic
tension. Note that you will never hear a newscaster telling the world
that Spring has arrived "right on time" this year. It will always be
early or late. And it will always be causing trouble for the farmers
in one way or another.
We have to keep in mind that Spring is an evolving process that takes
literally weeks and weeks. It's not some 24 hour over night miracle.
It has no clear beginning and no clear end. It's a mutation. A
metamorphosis.
Myth #3: Spring is obligated to be spectacular.
No way, no how. Who you gonna sue? As beautiful as it is, Spring is
not some cosmic show put on for our benefit. It's missing the point to
compare one year's Spring to another year's Spring and rate them in
terms of how spectacular they are. It is a process of life. It is
literally a rebirthing process. And just as some births are quick,
easy, and clean; others are laborious, messy, and sometimes even
dangerous. The wonderful thing about Spring is not how beautiful it
is, but that it happens at all.
==============
"Most verse is dead from the point of view of art....Now life is above
all things else at any moment subversive of life as it was before --
always new, irregular. Verse to be alive must have infused into it
something of the same order, some tincture of disestablishment,
something in the nature of an impalpable revolution, an ethereal
reversal, let me say." --William Carlos Williams
===============================
What's Wrong With This Picture?
by David Price
On Saturdays, I work in a bakery thrift store as a sales clerk. On any
given Saturday morning, you can go to a supermarket in NE Georgia and
buy a loaf of thin-sliced sandwich bread for anywhere from $1.39 to
$1.89 a loaf. That loaf will have been baked the previous Wednesday or
Thursday afteroon, and placed on the shelf Thursday or Friday morning.
Saturday afternoon, after the routemen have replenished their stores,
I'll sell you that same loaf for 43 cents. But that's not the point.
At those prices, we get a LOT of thrift-minded customers. Some of them
own small restaurants around town. Some of them buy the stuff to feed
their hogs - or dogs - or ducks - or whathaveyou. Some of them buy for
church dinners and family reunions, and some buy for their own personal
daily requirements.
I see a lot of food-stamp customers, naturally. One very nice lady
with a faint non-southern accent has (at least) 4 children to feed.
She's a regular. Up until a month ago, she drove a dilapidated Chevy
Citation. She's now driving a Ford Taurus (not new, but no more than 3
years old). She's still paying me with food stamps.
A couple of weeks ago, a well-dressed young woman (about 20) came in
with her mother (equally well-dressed). Both were obviously educated
and well-spoken. She had no children (at least with her). She got a
loaf of bread, a cake, some crackers, and a few other things. She paid
me with food stamps. I watched them take the stuff to her mother's
car.
A Lincoln Town Car. New. Still had the dealer's paper tag on the
back.
I can't qualify for food stamps - I make too much money and don't have
children at home. But I can't even afford a desperately-needed tuneup
on my '83 Buick, much less a new Town Car or even a late-model Taurus.
The thing that saddens & angers me most is we have a generation of
people who are well-educated and well-to-do who are teaching their
children to sponge off the rest of us instead of taking care of them
themselves.
But it's also a good example of government's incompetence in dabbling
in social issues. There are more (from personal experience).
In 1991, I was laid off from my job at System One Corp. because
Eastern Airlines went bellyup. As a former Eastern systems analyst, I
had been the primary contact/systems designer/project manager for all
of Eastern's computer systems. My pain in seeing my beloved Eastern
die and my apprehension at being unemployed were somewhat alleviated by
the fact that System One had referred me to a federally-sponsored
retraining program.
I consoled myself on the way home that day thinking: "I've
demonstrated (for 24 years) natural talents in writing, teaching, and
computer system design. Surely now I'll have some help in finishing my
degree requirements and my skills will be marketable to other airlines
or other computer companies. Maybe it won't be so bad after all."
Yeah. The first rule of this retraining program, I found out, was that
I could NOT receive further training in any area in which I'd worked in
the past. Poof! There goes my Journalism degree. Poof! There goes
my Computer Sciences degree. They offered to train me to be a welder.
Then I found out that to finally qualify for any training at all, I had
to submit a statement about prior hospitalizations; duration / nature
of illness, etc. - and have them verified by the hospital or my
doctor. Now I ask you, what would that have to do with training? And
why should it be the government's business? I walked out of there and
never looked back. So much for government retraining programs.
Later that year the government benevolently passed an "emergency
extension" to its support of the Unemployment Compensation programs of
the states that had been hardest hit by the layoffs of 1990/1991. Now,
when I got laid off I qualified for unemployment and got the maximum
benefit - $255.00 a week. That lasted for 6 months, the limit of
eligibility. With this "emergency extension", I requalified - at
$35.00 a week. We were evicted from our home because we couldn't pay
the rent. So much for government unemployment benefits.
After a year or so of pumping gas and throwing newspapers, I got a
partial settlement from one of Eastern's pension plans, and set off to
get out of the hellhole that South Florida has become and find a job
here in the South, where I belong.
Ran out of money here in Commerce, GA. Got a job at a Wal*Mart,
unloading trucks and stocking merchandise. Unloading a Wal*Mart truck
is an adventure in self-preservation; they don't use any load
restraints, so when you open the trailer at the loading dock, you have
to jump away from from all the stuff that's gonna fall out. That
includes 1-ton stacks of pet food, peat moss, potting soil, and so
forth. They ship a lot of seasonal/special sale/etc., merchandise in
advance (often without warning), so the Receiving warehouse gets filled
to the point where you can't walk, and TV sets sometimes get stacked 25
high (or better).
They're also too cheap to hire security people, except for the ones who
roam the stores looking for shoplifters. So during the summer months,
one of the midnight Receiving crew gets assigned to the "Garden
Center". The job out there is to assemble bicycles, lawnmowers,
grills, furniture displays, etc., pick up all the trash in the parking
lot and around the store, and water all the plants, as well as keep an
eye on the parking lot for suspicious characters. The "Garden Center"
person is locked out of the store; no access to food, no access to
drinking water, no access to restrooms. There's little or no refuge
from a blowing rainstorm. OSHA would love it.
Of course, Wal*Mart employees are too intimidated to complain - for the
most part, they need their jobs to survive. I never did complain -
just stuck it out. I was fired one night because, while working the
"Garden Center", I left the premises while on the clock - went next
door to a Subway to get change for a $5.00 bill so I could get a soda
from Wal*Mart's soda machine.
In a spirit of (blush) revenge, in the hopes of eventually getting some
recompense, and protecting the other people who would follow me, I
called OSHA. They wouldn't do anything; I was not an active employee.
So much for the government's Occupation Health and Safety programs.
Finally, the benevolent federal government subsidizes utility costs for
needy people. I heat this dinky little place with natural gas in the
living room and an electric space heater in the bedroom - nothing in
between. We also cook with gas. I had a situation a couple of years
ago when we were down to a few dollars in our pockets, out of natural
gas, and an overdue power bill (since we're on a well, our water supply
also depends on electrical power). We do not have air conditioning.
We were approaching winter, with a severe cold spell in the forecast.
I called the people who manage the program. The rules are that the
program will only help with electrical bills in the summer (for air
conditioning!) and heating oil in the winter. No electric in winter.
No natural gas at any time. We shivered and did without water for 2
weeks. So much for the government's utility assistance program.
Too many people seriously think that the federal government is
competent to solve problems. They're deluding themselves.
About The Author:
David Price, _the_ David Price, not that former politician by the same
name, is a native North Carolinian currently living just outside
Commerce, GA with "1 wife, 3 dogs, and 22 cats." He can be contacted
by sending e-mail to kpmm68a@prodigy.com.
===============
Oscar Done Good
Each year I dutifully hold my breath waiting to see who wins what at
the Oscar's. I don't actually _enjoy_ watching the awards show. There
is far more glitz and rented clothes and borrowed jewelry and big hair
and long white teeth than any human being ought to have to endure in
one night. So I usually just check the paper the next day to see who
won.
Personally, I was rooting (no pun intended) for "Babe" to win Best
Picture. It would have put those Hollywood phonies in their place.
But I was also glad to see that "Braveheart" won the big award. If you
haven't seen this movie, do yourself a favor and go see it.
Hollywood pundits will tell you that "Braveheart" won because it had
Mel Gibson in it and he is one hot tamale, which I suppose he is.
Hollywood pundits will tell you that it won because of the stunningly
beautiful photography. No argument for me. Any movie set in the
beautifully rugged highlands already has a leg up on the competition as
far as I'm concerned. Hollywood pundits will tell you that Braveheart
won because it tells a mythic, epic story. And it's true, the movie is
chock full of symbolism and legend.
But I recommend the movie because of its violence. That's right. The
battle scenes. I have never in my life seen warfare portrayed so
brutally or realistically. The crunching bones really seem like
crunching bones. The flesh pierced with razor sharp arrows really
seems like pierced flesh. When you see the characters marching into
battle, you know they are facing death. I don't think anyone can watch
"Braveheart" and ever again be in favor of sending soldiers off to war
without gut wrenching consideration. And that is reason enough to go
see the movie.
===========================================
"One If By Congress, Two If By White House"
_One If By Congress, Two If By White House_ is an online magazine
dedicated to Jeffersonian Conservatism, the belief that the individual
citizen is more important than government. It offers commentary, news
and discussion on American society, politics and global role with a
strong bias toward Jefferson's concept of a small, limited government.
Sometimes humorous, sometimes caustic -- never dull. It offers
constantly updated analysis of the 1996 election campaigns; regular
updates on Net censorship, in the US and around the world; updates on
pressing social and national issues, from welfare to warfare; every
political link you could want, across the spectrum. Drop by, look
around -- never know, you might like it.
<URL:http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1783>
======================
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.
E-mail Subscriptions:
E-mail subscriptions to the ASCII text edition of Stuck In Traffic are
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Print Subscriptions:
Subscriptions to the printed edition of Stuck In Traffic are available
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the address listed above. Individual issues are available for $2.
Archives:
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your zine or ad to either address above.
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