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Stuck In Traffic #4�
by Calvin Stacy Powers
==============
Violence on TV
"Does the violence on television really have anything to do with
the violence in our society?"
While it is trendy to speculate that the well documented trend of
increasing violence on television is due to changes in societal
morals, I don't think that explanation is obviously correct by any
stretch of the imagination. I can think of at least one other
hypothesis to explain it. I'm sure this is not an original theory
on the subject, but I think when something is new, it is treated
with much more respect and dignity. As the novelty of a thing
wears off, people treat it more casually, more informally than
they used to.
For example, my parents told me that once upon a time, people used
to dress up to go to football games. Collegiate football was
still coming of age and going to a football game was a Big Event.
And I have seen pictures of my parents and relatives dressed up in
suits/ties, fancy dresses and corsages at football games. And it
wasn't just them. Everyone in the stands had their Sunday best
on. These pictures looked like something out of the Twilight
Zone! Obviously today people do not dress like that at football
games. We paint our bodies the team colors, wear strange hats,
and hold goofy signs up in hopes of getting on TV. What brought
about the change? Is this an indication of a downward spiral in
our society? I don't think so. I think it's just that the
novelty has worn off attending a football game and people don't
think of it as a Big Event anymore.
For another example, take airplane travel. When the economics of
air travel began to enable a large number of people to fly, there
was an enormous novelty to it and again, people treated flying as
a Big Event. If you watch movies that were made during the early
days of air travel, you'll see that everyone on the planes are
dressed up in their Sunday finest. Now you could argue that in
the movies people always look well dressed, but I think they
probably reflected a general attitude toward flying. But today,
now that we take airline travel for granted, we show up at the
airport in our scraggliest jeans and T-shirts. Again, is this a
sign of the general moral decay in our society? I don't think so.
I think it just shows that the novelty has worn off.
Perhaps the same phenomena is occurring with television. When
Television started to become economically viable for many people,
it was a big deal. To own a television was an immense status
symbol. Only Successful Families owned a television, which was
usually the centerpiece of the home much like the hearth used to
be. Families would actually plan their day around television and
sit down and watch TV together. It was a Family Event. And the
early days of TV programming probably reflected society's
attitudes toward this new media. Good Folks simply did not
tolerate low morals in this highbrow medium. Today, several
decades later everyone, and I mean everyone, has a TV, if they
want one. And over the years, the novelty has worn off so the
highbrow attitude has worn off. Thus the increase in violence,
looser morals, and in general a more casual attitude toward what
is and is not acceptable to show on the television.
So I think a case can be made that the increase in violence on
television is more a reflection of our more casual attitude toward
the medium of television itself, and not necessarily a reflection
of our attitudes about society in general.
==========
"The Club"
The AP news service recently reported a story about a Detroit
woman by the name of Deborah Kemp who was walking back to her car
at a gas station after paying for her gas. It seems that a man
jumped into her car to steal it and began to drive away. But Ms.
Kemp's 6 year-old daughter was in the back seat of the car and Ms.
Kemp wasn't about to let the man get a way with her daughter.
She jumped into the car on the passenger side and began beating
the man with her car's antitheft locking bar as the man was trying
to drive down the street. (This is one of those steal bars that
locks on your steering wheel known on late night TV commercials as
"The Club.") Kemp eventually caused the man to crash the car after
which she dragged the man out of the car and continued to beat him
with "The Club."
Kemp suffered only minor bruises and her child was unhurt.
Is it just me or is there something exciting about this story?
Why don't we hear more often about people standing up for
themselves against crime? Is this a rare occurrence or is this
sort of thing just not reported very often?
===================
Strange Bed Fellows
Boy has the political landscape changed. Tonight on CSPAN I saw a
press conference held by Jesse Jackson followed by a speech by Pat
Buchanan. On most issues, these two people would be miles apart
on every issue. And they are miles apart from each other on every
issue except for one: Foreign aid. Both of these men called for
a massive scale back of foreign aid. Pat Buchanan said something
to the effect that why should we be supporting foreign governments
when we have people that need help here at home. The Rev. Jesse
Jackson said why should We be paying for South Korea's defense
from North Korea. Furthermore why should we be paying for the
defense of Japan when they are better able to pay for their own
defense than we are.
I doubt that you will ever see Buchanan and Jackson sharing the
stage at any event. But It's true that politics makes strange
bedfellows..
=================================
Backhanded Compliment of the Week
In the same speech I mentioned above, Pat Buchanan called Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a "centerfold for the ACLU."
And this guy thinks he could seriously be considered as a
Presidential candidate?
=====================
Strange Bedfellows II
On second thought it occurs to me that Jesse Jackson and Pat
Buchanan have much more in common than I originally thought. Both
men represent extremist positions from their respective political
parties. In some sense their job could be viewed as firing up the
troops with extremist, baiting rhetoric and language. Then other,
more moderate appearing candidates from their respective parties
cash in on the fired up masses. Cruelty To Animals A poll on the
show TV Nation reported that 10% of Americans would pay $5.00 to
see Orrin Hatch fight a big, mean dog on pay TV. 86% would root
for the dog.
============================
But Will They Feel Our Pain?
There are times when symbolic gestures are needed and can make a
difference in social relations. For example, anthropologists
believe that "shaking hands" originated as a means for two
stranger to show that neither was armed. Today we don't really
feel the need to prove this to each other. Yet we continue the
tradition of shaking hands as a symbolic act of trust and
goodwill. But when the House of Representatives is in session, I
want more than symbolism, I want real action.
Take for example, one of the least controversial aspects of the
"GOP Contract With America," the new rule that binds the House to
following the same laws that it imposes on the rest of the
country.
Sounds great. It makes for great speeches and soundbites. The
contrarian in all of us would love to believe that when the
government burdens us, it will be burdening itself also. But, as
is the case in so many government actions, this attempt at
regaining the respect of the American people is just for
appearances.
First of all there's a conflict of interest at work. The agencies
authorized to oversee the regulations imposed on the rest of the
country are somewhat independent. But when these same agencies
are charged with the task of overseeing the government that funds
them from year to year, can anyone doubt that these organizations
will enforce inconvenient restrictions on the House less
enthusiastically? Can anyone doubt that the enforcement of these
regulations will vary widely depending on the party affiliation of
everyone involved?
More importantly, we have been led to believe that the House will
feel burdensome regulations the way the rest of us do. But in its
usual political judo, the burden of the House obeying these
regulations will be borne by the taxpayers, not by the
Representatives. In the long run, most laws and regulations
imposed on the country boil down to spending time and money.
Congress has unlimited amounts of both. If the need more money.
They just spend it. If they need more time, they just hire more
people, which ultimately leads to spending more money. And the
cost is borne by the taxpayers.
If the House of representatives were truly sincere, they would
ease our pain by repealing the burdensome legislation that's the
source of the double standard. Instead, the House of
Representatives has made a token gesture of subservience and dealt
us more.
======================
"Paranoia is better than no imagination at all ."
=====
Trees
Trees express themselves by sculpting the space around them with
their branches and leaves; defining light and shadows and the
movement of air; judging each other's lives like we judge art.
==========
Two Deaths
Frank Zappa died last year and hardly anyone noticed. Kurt Cobain
killed himself last year and everyone on the planet knows. MTV is
still playing its Kurt Cobain specials.
At first I thought this was a perfect example of how unfair life
is. But then I realized Zappa probably wanted it that way. The
question is, "What did Cobain want?"
===========================
Paradox Amid The Earthquake
The worst Earthquake since the 1920's has hit Japan. Watching the
news reports of the incident It seems to me that the loss of human
life was surprisingly low. Of course any loss of life is tragic
and I don't want to belittle the lives of the 4500 (at current
count) people who died. But it seems to me that the disaster
could have been much worse considering that it ocurred in a
country with such an extreme population density.
All the news reports I've seen so far have interviewed victims of
the disaster who are critical of the government not helping them
soon enough. And I saw an interview with a member of the Japanese
Self-Defense Organization (their equivalent of an Army or National
Guard I suppose) talking about how the government was not
establishing a central command post to coordinate things fast
enough due to the lack of information and communication.
Meanwhile, there was another interview with a civilian religious
organization distributing food supplies and clothing from all over
Japan and the world. Thier spokesman said he didn't want to
appear critical of the government efforts, but he felt the need to
point out that his organization got to the disaster faster than
the government and began distributing relief supplies much sooner
than the government efforts.
So while the Japanese government was trying to establish a
centralized command post to properly coordinate the efforts, other
people were just doing it. Amidst the disaster there's a lesson
to learn here. Spontaneous efforts of average citizens, sloppy,
informal, and haphazard as they may be are often, (I would argue
always) more effective than a centralized, organized, planned
effort. It's something of a modern paradox, but there it is on
TV, right in front of our eyes. I wish the people who are busy
criticizing the Japanese government would look around and see just
who _is_ being effective.
=========================
The Perfect Snow, Almost
Yesterday, here in North Carolina, we had almost the perfect snow.
It began snowing at about 8:00 in the morning. It was snowing in
big clumpy flakes and falling fast. There was almost no wind so
you could see snow falling everywhere. And it was falling fast
enough that you could see the accumulation on the ground
throughout the morning. By mid afternoon, there was just enough
snow to cover the ground and coat all the trees beautifully.
But the best part of the snow, was that it wasn't cold outside.
The temperature was hovering near freezing or perhaps just
slightly above. So the ground was being covered with snow, but it
was warm enough that the roads weren't being covered at all.
So it snowed just enough to give us that "winter wonderland" look
for a few hours, but it didn't make the roads a mess or disrupt
our daily schedules. The only downside of the snow was that it
didn't quite snow enough to build a snow man or make a decent
snowball.
=============
Paper Weights
The AP news service recently reported a story from a prison in San
Antonio Texas. It seems that a new rule had recently been enacted
in the prisons that forbade the inmates from weightlifting. and
the weights that they had previously had access to had been
removed from the prison.
After complaining about the removal of the weights, inmates began
to order large law books from the prison library. They strapped
the books together and used the books as weights. It seems that
Federal Law requires that all prisoners have access to the law
books for thier defense.
The prison in question is now considering whether or not they will
start photocpying requested sections of the books instead of
delivering the entire book to the prisoners.
==============================
"If you don't believe in gods, leave them alone."
--Chinese proverb
==============================
State of the Union, Why Watch?
Well, The President is scheduled to give his State of The Union
speech in less than 10 minutes and CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer has
already spilled the beans about all the major points that the
President is going to make. He's told all the themes Clinton is
going to touch on, all the specific proposals the President is
going to make, how long the speech is going to be, and he has even
quoted the highlights of the speech before the darn thing has been
given.
It looks to me like CNN is doing everything it can to make the
President's speech as boring as possible.
======================
Heroics In Chapel Hill
No doubt you have by now heard of the shooting incident that
occurred in Chapel Hill on January 26th in which Wendell
Williamson, a 3rd year law student walked through the heart of
Chapel Hill indiscriminatly shooting at anyone who crossed his
path. But why?
WXYC, the student radio station at UNC-CH, reported that
Williamson had been at the courthouse earlier during the day and
had come out angry and stating that he was going to come back
shooting. But I haven't seen any other news source confirm that
story. The Raleigh News and Observer did however mention that a
collection notice had been on his apartment door from the electric
company threatening to disconnect his electricity if he didn't pay
his overdue bills.Hardly an incident to start shooting people
over.
The local press reports immediately after the incident indicate
that Williamson had suffered some emotional trouble in the past,
but nothing that would indicate he was capable of such an inhumane
act. His neighbors report that he was a nice guy, who mostly kept
to himself. Acquaintences at the local pubs Williamson used to
visit report that he was a quiet peaceful person though he did
tend to talk to his beer while drinking. No reports about what he
and his beer discussed. The bottom line is we just don't know yet
why this man suddenly lost control and went on this shooting
spree. All we know is that two peolple are dead because of it.
But it would have perhaps been many more if it weren't for a
modern day hero, Mr. Bill Leone who risked his own life to help
other bystanders get to safety and then made a daring run at
Williamson and tackled him. As most heroes, the 26 year old Leone
downplayed his heroic acts in the national press coverage. He
said his actions were more `idiotic' than heroic. Mr. Leone was
the head bartender at Tammany Hall Bar on Henderson street where
Williamson was shooting. He reports that he had heard from inside
the bar 8 shots fired in the street. He could have stayed inside,
in the relative safety of the bar, but he didn't. He rushed
outside to help get people off the street and then began sneaking
through a parking lot to get behind Williamson. It wasn't until
after Mr. Leone tackled Williamson to the ground and held him
until the police arrived to take Williamson into custody that Mr.
Leone had realized that he had been shot, reportedly by the
police.
When pressed for to explain himself, Mr. Leone simply said to an
N&O reporter, "When I saw the people staring from the windows in
the dental building behind the gunman as police were shooting, I
saw they were in the line of fire...I was just sort of offended
someone would walk into the street with a rifle and start
shooting."
I don't want to belittle the tragic loss of two lives in this sad
incident, but I think it's important that we remember that this
incident was resolved by a person who risked his own life, someone
who took action on his own accord because it was the right thing
to do, by someone who could have said, "it's none of my business"
and hid in safety. Mr Leone is a true modern day hero.
==================================================================
Stuck In Traffic is a bi-monthly e-zine edited by, and mostly
written by Calvin Stacy Powers. Copyrights of individual articles
are held by their respective authors. All unsigned work is
authored by Calvin Stacy Powers, who holds all copyrights.
Permission is granted to redistribute Stuck In Traffic provided
that it is redistributed in its entirety (including this copyright
notice), and that no fee is charged. For commercial
redistribution rights, or for permission to reprint/redistribute
individual articles contact Calvin Stacy Powers at
powers@rdu007.pdial.interpath.net.
If you would like to receive Stuck In Traffic free by e-mail
subscription send e-mail to the address listed above.