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Stuck In Traffic
"Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories"
Issue #33 - May, 2000
Contents:
Gas Crisis 2000:
What can be done about the current "Gas Crisis"
The Killing Zone:
The dark side of Sprin exposed.
On Elian Gonzales:
Now that the Elian Gonzales case is essentially over, we can take a
minute to look at the issues it has raised.
Review: The Ninth Gate
Pretty darn hip for a horror flick.
=======================================
Current Events
Gas Crisis: 2000
A friend recently asked me what I thought about the current Gas Crisis and
I somewhat flippantly replied, "This, too, shall pass." It's not that I'm
unaware of the very real angst it's causing, but I just don't see that
anything much can be done about it. At least, not much can be done about
it in the short term.
The fact of the matter is, we're somewhat addicted to gasoline. It's not
that we have a physical addiction to carbon monoxide fumes. We don't have
any particular love affair with the internal combustion engine. But we
are addicted to gasoline in the sense that it's painful to us to be
without it. We'd rather pay higher prices than experience the pain.
Which of course doesn't stop us one bit for grumbling about it. And like
all addicts, it's everyone's fault but our own.
It's the fault of those evil gas producing countries and the menacing
cabal of OPEC. Or let's blame the nasty oil companies who care for
nothing but a fast buck. Or perhaps you'd prefer to heap the blame on
your favorite whipping-boy branch of federal, state, or local government
for not Doing Something About It. But whatever we do, we can't possibly
be to blame for making ourselves dependent on consuming gasoline.
It seems like such a good thing, for example, to carve up our cities into
nice neat zoning districts. It seems so neat and orderly. Like little
children playing house we say, "Let's put our neighborhoods over here, and
let's put all the nice office buildings over there, and those smelly
factories go way over there." And next thing you know we're all facing 30
and 45 minute commutes every day, and buying a gallon of milk requires at
least 10 minutes of driving. Please note, I'm not playing holier than
thou. I personally burn at least a gallon of gasoline every day just
traveling back and forth to work. I chose to live in a neighborhood far
away from where I work. The inconvenience of traveling that far to and
from my place of business had nothing but a dim consideration when I chose
a place to live. I like my house, I like my neighborhood, I like my
suburban community. (Well, mostly). And guess what, so do most of the
people that live here.
It seems like such a good thing, to create car-centered transportation
systems. Since we like to spread out our cities with zoning laws, we
never have the population density to be able to afford anything remotely
resembling public transportation. It's just too expensive. And besides,
we like the comfort, convenience, and security of our individual
automobiles. We can come and go at whatever hour of the day we feel like
it without having to plan around other people's schedules (same reason
car-pools never quite seem to work). We can listen to whatever music we
please in our own cars and don't have to put up with others' music,
smells, or unpleasant personal grooming habits. And frankly, we feel more
secure when we don't have to mix and mingle with quite so many strangers.
Again, I claim no moral superiority here. I've often said, only half
jokingly, that I can't wait for the government to put in a light rail
system in our area so the roads will be less crowded for me.
It's time we realized that there is no one to blame but ourselves for
whatever Gas Crisis, real or imagined, we're currently facing. We value
neat, orderly planned zoning so our local governments create it for us.
We value the comfort, convenience, and security of our cars, so automobile
companies deliver them to us and oil companies sell us the oil. Pushers
creating addicts so they addicts can be milked for every last dime.
Or at least that's the metaphor people like to use.
But I think there's another view of the situation. The "Gas Crisis" isn't
a crisis over the price of oil directly. Honestly, does anyone really
care how much an Egyptian makes when he sells a barrel of oil to Exxon?
Does anyone really care how much money Exxon makes? Not really. What we
really complain about is the challenge to the direct and immediate values
we hold. All of a sudden it costs more to drive back and forth to work.
All of a sudden it's more inconvenient to go buy that gallon of milk. And
unfortunately it hurts those who have the least margin for error in their
budgets. Families of modest means are impacted far more by the unexpected
expense of price increases than the Country Club set for example. Or, as
my friend pointed out to me, the budget processes for a typical city
government are designed to encourage the most optimistic contingency plans
possible.
In the long run, there's not much of anything we can do to affect the
price of oil. Neither price controls nor rationing have ever proven to
work or be politically tolerable. On the other hand, historically at
least, cartels such as OPEC don't tend to be effective either. We seem to
forget that our recent price spike is starting from oil prices that are
the lowest, relatively speaking, that they have been in years,
So what do we do? The angst is real. The pain is real. The cost is
real. The trick is to not worry about the price of oil. Instead, we need
to study closely the values we've held on to that helped create the
situation and ask ourselves two sets of questions. 1) Are these really
the values we hold near and dear to our heart? Do they need to perhaps be
rethought or refined? And 2) Assuming that, yes, these really are the
values that mean the most to us, how can we keep and protect these values
while at the same time reducing our dependence on oil? I doubt we'll see
much change in the answers to the first set of questions. We've pretty
much settled in on those over the centuries.
The second set of questions leads to discussions on all the usual sorts of
topics that have been integral to our public debate for years. What
zoning laws are really needed and which do more harm than good? When all
factors are considered, which is cheaper, public transport or private?
And these same questions put pressure on the business sector as well,
When, oh when, will electric cars become economically viable? Is there a
cheaper way to get goods delivered to us? Which is better, electricity
generated by oil burning plants, coal burning plants, or nuclear reactors.
On and on and on.
All these sorts of questions are worthy of discussion and debate and are,
I think, constructive and healthy. Fretting about the price of oil,
isn't. The key to getting through this year's Oil Crisis is recognizing
the difference between the two.
=======================================
True Story
The Killing Zone
Ahhhh Spring. Thank goodness it's here. I love the bright sunny days. I
love to watch the flowers break out in bloom. In our neck of the woods we
get to see Bradford Pear trees, Redbud trees, Forsythia, many many types
of azaleas, and my personal favorite, the Dogwood trees all burst into
bloom. And the weather turns warm, the sweaters get stuffed to the back
of the closet and the T-shirts are rotated to the front.
But there are a few bad things about Spring too. Bugs, for instance. I
have an irrational and irrepressible fear of spiders. But the insects
that I truly hate and despise are crickets. To most people, crickets are
those charming insects that you hear on a warm summer night. If you leave
your bedroom window open at night, you can drift off to the soothing
sounds of crickets chirping in the distance. It's a very pleasant sort of
white noise that makes the rest of the world seem far away and hazy. And
I would share these warm fuzzy feelings toward crickets and their "music"
if it weren't for the fact that sometimes they get into the house. And
then they become my worst nightmare.
Because when you bring that beautiful night time summer music in from the
yard and into your kitchen, for example, everything changes. The
crickets, I'm sure, are well aware of this. My house is routinely invaded
by evil rogue crickets. I have no idea how they do it. I have tried to
make my house as air tight as possible, and yet every now and then one
will find a way. It's a particularly determined and hardy cricket that
can make it's way past both the physical and chemical barriers I've used
to fortify my homestead. So once one gets in, I know I'm gonna have a
good fight on my hands.
The typical rogue cricket is not even a good citizen of the cricket
community. No classical, Brahms inspired music form these examples of the
species. We're talking about the punk rockers of cricket society. We're
talking about the Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious of the cricket community.
They typically set up shop in a corner of the house where the acoustics
are well suited for echoing their particular brand of chirping. A
favorite auditorium of theirs is under the refrigerator. It's dark and
the spaces between the refrigerator and the wall make a good amplifier.
The rogue punk rock cricket has no sense of style or grace. No delightful
chirp chirp chirp. Their chirps are as loud and long as they can possibly
sustain. We're talking 30 and 40 second long CHIRRRRRRRPs without a
break. We're talking wall of noise here folks.
If the crickets that invade my home were even attempting to make beautiful
music, I might find in my heart some room for tolerance. But no, they are
deliberately trying to irritate me. They are deliberately trying to
deprive me of sleep. They don't care about what their music sounds like
as long as it's as loud and as irritating as possible.
Like any cool band, they don't really get warmed up until after all the
other respectable folks, like me have gone to bed. It's a good tactical
move on their part, since I have taken my contacts out for the night and
am therefore at a disadvantage. And since I've usually been asleep for an
hour or so when they crank up the volume, I'm often a little fuzzy headed
and sleepy. But these tactical advantages don't make up for the fact that
Cricket chirping unlocks a rage from deep inside of me that totally
transforms me into a one man Holy Jihad against any and all crickets that
have ever roamed the earth.
If the punks have foolishly chosen the corner of a hall way or a room to
set u their stage, well, my job is pretty easy. If they are going to
sacrifice safety for acoustics, it's their own fault. I have a variety of
weapons for attacking crickets in open spaces. The shoes I reserve for
mowing the lawn make pretty good missiles to launch at them. Even bleary
eyed and sleepy I'm a pretty good aim. Sometimes I'll use a rolled up
bath towel to pop them into oblivion, but that's only for times when I
have the time to take delight in their demise. Most nights I want to be
over and done with the eradication of the cricket population and get back
to sleep. This calls for a trip to the broom closet. When I walk by the
crickets will usually shut up for a few seconds, assessing the situation,
then they resume their noise. Little do they know that I'm in the process
of retrieving Spider Killer, my legendary, almost magical, broom that has
led me to victory against countless evil spiders. The brush end of Spider
Killer is riddled with the body parts and gore of long dead and defeated
Spiders that have dared invade my home. What could a cricket possibly do
to defend itself against Spider Killer. Nothing. That is the point.
Which doesn't stop the crickets from thumbing their noses at me until the
very last instant. Sometimes their chirping doesn't even stop until that
broom squashes them all over the floor. Sometimes they have the good
sense to try to run and hide, but if they are out in the open it's easy
enough to keep them out in the open. I suppose that I could show a little
mercy on them. It would be fairly simple to catch them in my hand or an
empty cup or something and escort them outside. But revenge is sweet.
When the rogue cricket has planted itself under the refrigerator or other
suitably heavy appliance or piece of furniture, then I have to change
tactics. These cases call for the economy sized can of Raid insect
"Repellent" Sometimes I skimp and buy the cheap non-name brand from
Wal-Mart. But Raid has this particularly inspiring fog that issues forth
from the can. You start spraying that stuff under the refrigerator and I
can just imagine it's like some haunted fog from a Stephen King novel.
Crickets will try to ignore the killer fog as long as they can. But their
wall of noise chirps start sounding a little shaky after a while, a little
shrill, a little nervous. Then cricket panic sets in and they chirp a
series of emergency chirps that get weaker and weaker until they
eventually fade away to total silence.
The carnage is easily sucked up by a vacuum cleaner with one of those
upholstery attachments.
=======================================
Current Events
On Elian Gonzales
Poor Elian Gonzales. The kid has truly been in a no win situation. No
matter what happens to him now, he will be watched and followed the rest
of his life by journalists and anyone who has an interest in
Cuban-American relations. As he enters his teenager years, every mistake
he makes, every failing he has, no matter how typical of an adolescent,
will become the center of spin- control wars between various sides of the
Cuban-American relations debate. The first time he stays out past curfew
(whether it be Castro imposed or father imposed) will be portrayed either
as a subconscious attempt to fulfill his mother's wishes to escape or as
an desperate attempt to withdraw from the media crazed attention he
endured while in America, depending of course on the viewpoints of the
particular spin master.
One of the things I fail to understand about the media circus surrounding
the Elian Gonzales case is, why are we only talking about Elian's father?
Why are we only talking about the father's right to be reunited with his
son? What of his mother? Is no consideration to be given to the mother
who risked and sacrificed her life so that Elian might have better
prospects in the United States. Does his mother's sacrifice get no
respect at all? Do we just say, "Who cares what the mother wanted for her
son? Ship him back!"
There's no doubt in my mind that the letter of the law would dictate that
Elian should be sent back to his father. And at some level, I guess I can
understand the government's taking Elian by force. That does not make it
right. There are countless examples throughout history where we have
applauded the efforts of dedicated people who have helped others escape to
freedom even when it meant breaking the law.
Does no one remember The Underground Railroad? Does no one remember the
brave souls living in both the Confederate States and the Union who defied
the law to help men, women, and children escape to slavery?
Does no one remember the story of Anne Frank and her family hiding in the
attic of friends to escape Nazi persecution? Suppose it had been just
Anne in that attic? Suppose her mother had sacrificed her life to get
Anne to that hiding place? Would we deem it morally necessary to return
Anne to her father in Nazi Germany? Even if he appeared on television and
asked to be reunited with his daughter?
Now that Elian has been reunited with his father, this particular story is
essentially over. Yes, it will drag out in the courts for a while, but
there's no way he's not going back to Cuba. But I hope the incident will
serve as a reminder that sometimes the law does not line up with what is
right. Maybe the Elian Gonzales case was one of these times, and maybe it
wasn't. But it at least raises the issue. Should the people who tried to
save Elian from be applauded or condemned? How bad would the Cuban
government have to be before most people would support keeping Elian in
the United States?
=======================================
Cultural Phenomena
Review: The Ninth Gate
Johnny Depp plays a rare book dealer who's hired to verify the
authenticity of a rare book, which is reputed to be a book about how to
bring the devil back to earth. You might reasonably comment that nothing
good can come from this. And it would mostly be true. But there are two
interesting things about the movie that make it worth the while.
The first remarkable aspects of the storyis that there isn't anyone
particularly "good" in this film. Not a single one. We never actually
see anyone express concern over the notion of raising the Devil. In fact,
we get this distinct impression that everyone is maneuvering to make
themselves rich/powerful/.sexy from the Devil's return. Certainly the
protagoinist, as is made abundantly clear in the first scene, is at best
moraaly ambivalent. And while the movie is filled with both beautiful and
hip people, it's not at all clear if any of them are actually good .
Despite the presence of any clear hero-like person, the movie is
surprisingly engaging.
The second remarkable thing about the movie is the cinematography. It's
done so stylishly and beautifully you almost forget that you're watching a
pretty run of the mill horror flick.
=======================================
About Stuck In Traffic
Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to evaluating current
events, examining cultural phenomena, and sharing true stories.
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 occurring,
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 should be sent to Calvin Stacy Powers via E-mail
(powers@ibm.net) 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.
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Subscriptions to the printed edition of Stuck In Traffic are available
for $10/year. Make checks payable to Calvin Stacy Powers and send to
the address listed above. Individual issues are available for $1.
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