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Stuck In Traffic #5 �
by Calvin Stacy Powers
=================
My Favorite Comic
Of the comic strips currently being published, my favorite is
Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin is something of a role model for me.
He's the alter ego I never had, but wish I did. Calvin is the
center of his own half-real, half-imaginary world. He's the Don
Quixote of the grade school crowd, tilting at modern-day
windmills, getting in trouble only when reality rears its humdrum
head. You have to understand that I was entirely too well behaved
as a child. I am not proud of this. So Calvin and Hobbes, for
me, is a blue print for the childhood I should have had.
With the possible exception of pelting little girls with
snowballs, Calvin is not intentionally malicious. He can't help
it if the mistakenly sees his math teacher as an evil slime
monster from Venus. If his vegetables turn in to a carnivorous
ooze, who can blame him for throwing them across the dinner table
in disgust? He's inventive. Scientific progress goes Boink! He
an adventurer! Spaceman Spiff to the rescue!
But my all-time favorite comic strip is the now defunct Bloom
County. Berke Breathed had a knack for gently poking fun at our
modern day foibles without being insulting like so many comics
strips are today. And Bloom County is far less shrill and far
less cynical than Doonesbury. Like the best comic strips always
do, the characters in Bloom County rang so true that you could
think of real people that were exactly like the personalities of
the cartoon characters. Even its darkest, most cynical moments,
Bloom County had a deep underlying sense of optimism.
I'll never forget the Bloom County political scene, with it's
"Meadow Party" running a drunk and a Penguin for it's Presidential
ticket or Steve Dallas imitating Julio Iglesias in the Shower.
Who can forget Cutter John? To my knowledge he's the first
handicapped (wheelchair bound) cartoon character to play a major
role in a comic strip. Remember when he, Opus, and the other
meadow critters used to play Star Trek on Cutter John's wheel
chair searching the galaxy for the Forbidden Planet of Bimbos?
Remember Binkley and his infamous closet of anxieties? Remember
how he used to wake his dad up in the middle of the night worried
about the latest Hollywood gossip? And then there's Milo. You
know I could never quite figure out how old Milo was supposed to
be. Certainly he seemed younger than Steve Dallas and Cutter John
but he didn't seem like a kid either. I used to love how he'd
make up stories with outlandish headlines for the Bloom County
newspaper. But my favorite Milo based strip was a Sunday issue
where he walks up to the Lost and Found counter at a Sears store
and asks, "Excuse me, I seem to have lost my sense of optimism.
Have you seen it?" And of course there's everyone's insecurities
personified, Opus. He's the road-kill of pop-culture. He's the
victim of Ginsu knife commercials. He's the orphan in all of us.
He's the flightless bird in all of us. He's the Romantic we keep
hidden away in our psyche.
===================================
"Even with the explosion from the grass roots, there's still going
to be a need for mass culture, for truly great entertainment that
transcends all the little niches and links people together."
--Scott Sassa, from an interview in _Wired_
==============
Stamp Act 1995
The U.S. Postal Service wants to control your e-mail. It has
recently unveiled a plan that would but electronic versions of a
U.S. postmark on e-mail. From a recent story written by Darren
Chervitz for the San Francisco Examiner:
"`The electronic postmark is the first step in transforming these
incredible electronic networks into official pathways of
communication,' says Robert Reisner; vice-president of technology
applications for the Postal Service.
Reisner said the Postal Service is negotiating with software
companies and computer networks like America Online to offer the
postmark service, which would involve stamping electronic messages
with a private digital signature.
The postmark, which would be embedded in commercially available
software, would help certify e-mail and protect the privacy of
customers, securing one company's market-sensitive information
against prying eyes from competitors, for example, the agency
said."
Baloney.
First of all, there is nothing the U.S. Postal Service can do
that isn't already available to anyone that wants it. There are
many low-cost ways to secure e-mail, certify its authenticity, and
protect the privacy of the contents already. And they don't
require a government bureaucracy to implement.
Second of all, the article makes clear that the electronic
postmark would give e-mail all `the same legal protections against
fraud that regular mail has.' Maybe, but there is a heavy price
for that protection. It also means that all the government
restrictions on mail will be enforced as well. Mark my words, the
day will come when the government declares electronic mail to be
part of the postal monopoly. The government will try to tax us
for each message we send to others. Furthermore, the government
will assure us that it will only read our mail with `due
authority'.
Finally, of course, the government doesn't propose to `protect' us
for free. Oh no. Reisner made it perfectly clear that the Postal
Service intends to charge for this service. While he would name a
specific price. He noted that current commercial services charge
between 75 cents and $1.50 to certify e-mail.
It's kind of sad actually to see the Postal Service trying to drag
itself into the Information Age. But mostly it's scary.
===================================================
Notes About An Obscure Field Of The Performing Arts
Imagine for a moment a girl in her senior year of high-school.
And imagine that she has discovered the theater and more than
anything else she wants to be a dramatic actress. Her dream is to
be a star on Broadway. Academics don't interest her that much.
Though not openly hostile to them, she's just not very interested.
Her dream is acting.
What advice does a her highschool counselor offer her? Can you
imagine a counselor who tries to talk her out of pursuing a career
in acting? Can you imagine a highschool counsellor telling her,
"You know that only a tiny fraction of people who pursue a career
in acting are ever able to support themselves with acting.
Perhaps you should choose another career, one that's safer, on
that you can be assured of supporting yourself with."
What if her parents discourage her from pursuing her dream? What
if they tell her, "Society just doesn't respect actors and
actresses. You should train for a career that's respectable. You
can always enjoy acting as a hobby." Would you think of her
parents?
Suppose, despite the negative feedback from her parents and
counsellors, this young woman decides to pursue acting anyway.
She wants to go to college to learn more about acting, and the
theater, and all aspects of putting on dramatic theater. Suppose
every college she tries to get into tells her, "Sorry, you can't
pursue acting as a career. It's not an subject worthy of this
institution. You can, if you like, pursue acting as a strictly
extracurricular activity. As am amateur endeavor." Suppose all
colleges treated acting this way? What would this young woman do?
She would probably look around at all the colleges that had the
best opportunities for learning about the theater and enroll in
it. Not as a theater major of course, since the college won't let
her. Instead, she'll pick the easiest major she can find, say,
Communications or Sociology. Or perhaps some major that has a
tangential relationship to her intended career.
So off she goes to her chosen college, on paper at least she's
going to get a `respectable' education in a `respectable' subject.
But her heart is still set on becoming an actress of the grandest
proportions.
Imagine that, as you would probably expect, this young woman pays
only minimal attention to her declared major. She spends all her
time at rehearsals for her the plays that her amateur theater
group puts on. Her grades are mediocre at best. But she earns a
reputation for becoming a promising actress. But instead of being
lauded for her talents, most people look down their noses at her.
"What's she doing wasting her time trying to pursue this foolish
career of acting? Doesn't she realize that only a very small
handful of people ever make successful careers in acting? And
doesn't she realize that even the best actresses have relatively
short careers? She's throwing her life away!"
And imagine that society in general shuns even the most successful
actresses. "They make too much money! It's obscene that actors
make such incredible amounts of money for mere entertainment!"
Can you picture the incredible gumption and perseverance this
young woman would have to have to pursue her career in light of
such obstacles? I would say it's borderline criminal. As a
society, we should be encouraging people to follow their dreams,
no matter how fanciful, unrealistic, or "unsafe" they may seem.
"But," you may respond, "we don't treat the acting profession in
this way." But we _do_ treat at least one career path this way.
In case you don't recognize it by now, I'm talking about
Athletics.
I fail to understand why we treat athletes as second class
citizens when it comes to their career. I'm unable to discern the
fine reasoning that would classify Acting as a reasonable endeavor
for a career and worthy of pursuit at an institute of higher
learning but would classify Athletics as an unsuitable field of
study.
Are Athletes any less earnest about their dreams? Do Athletic
endeavors not take the same dedication, practice, and gumption
that any other artistic field? And while it's true that only a
very small percentage of the people who attempt a career in
Athletics ever make a living from it, this does not mean that
athletes shouldn't be allowed to try. Besides, professional
Athletics is a huge industry with many opportunities for the
Athlete past his prime. Just as there are many
not-quite-successful artists making the rounds of starving artist
shows, just as there are many unsuccessful actors and actresses
making a living on the business side of the theater, just as many
a would be novelist makes a living editing technical manuals,
athletes that don't hit the big-time can earn a living by coaching
others, by training other athletes, by promoting sporting events,
by running the business side of sports teams.
It's time that colleges dropped their pretensions and allow
students to declare a major in Athletics. Let them study their
sport just like the rest of the students are allowed to study
theirs. Let them study about the business side of their industry.
Let them study the basics of contract law so they can represent
themselves. Let them study nutrition, sports medicine, and
physical training so they can get the most out of their talents.
Let them follow their dreams, wherever they lead. Any institution
that stands in the way of a person pursuing their dreams is sick
and needs to be changed.
=========================
Marketplace of the Future
The Information Age as been aptly named. It is the driving force
behind most progress of recent decades. Certainly there has been
a great explosion in the sheer amount of information being
produced as well as the quality of that information, in terms of
usefulness.
But there is another aspect of the Information Age that has
perhaps been underlooked slightly, and that is the huge increase
in the efficiency of propagating information. It's getting to the
point where you can tell anyone anywhere anything, at costs so low
as to become borderline insignificant. And we see the effects of
this increased efficiency in some of the big stories. Not only do
we have on the spot news coverage of breaking stories with CNN
etc. but we get word-of-mouth news propagation almost as fast and
efficiently.
During the worst of the Rwandan refugee crisis, there was a doctor
working as a volunteer in one of the camps who was faxing first
hand accounts of the tragedy to friends and relatives to a bar in
New York. During China's failed struggle for freedom, fax
networks, satellite news feeds and international telephone lines
played a key role in keeping the freedom movement alive. And I
don't think there's anyone who could dispute the fact that
television coverage of the events was what prevented wholesale
carnage in Tianamen Square. The Chiapas uprising has been
publicized more on the Internet than in the news media. (I don't
know if it still exists, but for a while, there was a WorldWideWeb
Home page for the Indigenous peoples of Mexico) A recent issue of
Wired magazine had a story about the Czech Republic's struggle to
throw off totalitarian rule. During the worst of the turmoil, an
unidentified Japanese man somehow showed up in Prague with a case
full of cheap modems to help the democracy movement there set up a
communications network of sorts. No one knows how the man got
there or even what his name was, but people suspect he was somehow
affiliated with the Japanese government.
Governments are getting smart about this sort of thing too and now
we have Made-for-TV wars like the Somalia "mission" and the Haiti
invasion. Call it Soap Opera News if you will. Nonetheless, the
point remains, there's a very short distance between you and the
news these days, thanks to the Information Age.
OK. OK. I know this isn't exactly an earth shattering
revelation. Even Time magazine has had a cover story on this
subject.
But what fascinates me, and what isn't talked about so much, is
the effects this vast increase in the efficiency of transmitting
information will do to our daily lives. And in particular, how
will it affect markets? Today, the stock market can rise and fall
minute by minute based on up to the minute events from all over
the world. No doubt when a Colombian coffee bean farmer has the
sniffles, the price of coffee stocks rise or fall appropriately.
And as more and more people get plugged into this up to the minute
changing stream of information, how will it affect us? Will we
shop in the future they way stocks are traded today? Well why
not? I can imagine a day in the future where we will buy and sell
options to buy a box of Wheaties at the corner grocery. I can
imagine a day when we will place electronic bids for razor blades
and see which merchant will sell them to us for that price. And
if I run out of blades for someone accepts my bid? Well, I'll
just have to raise my bid then. I live for the day where I can
publish my shopping list online someplace and send it out to the
merchants in my area as a "Request for Bid." As the bids come in,
I can decide which one I want to accept and close the deal with
whoever offers me the best price. I don't just want "pay per
view" movies on cable. I want "pay by the minute" TV that way a
true marketplace in the TV arena will emerge. I want competition
in Telephone companies. I want to pick up a phone, dial a long
distance number and have multiple long distance phone companies
bid on that call. (And I want my phone to automatically select
the company with the lowest bid.) No more calling circles, reach
out plans, package deals, volume discounts. Just place a bid on
my call.
People usually talk about the benefits of the Information Age as a
corporate tool for increasing margins and increasing corporate
profits. But I think the Information Age can give the average Joe
an economic boost as well.
=======================================
"Reality is trivial, a mere proving ground for ideas."
David Keirsey & Marilyn Bates
=============
A Ghost Story
I have seen a ghost, but I don't believe in them.
One Saturday afternoon, I was walking through the living room, in
a hurry for some reason, and out of the corner of my eye, in the
center of the living room, I saw a ghost. I only saw it for a
brief second, But I swear to you I could see it as clear as day,
in minute detail. It was the ghost of a tall man, dressed in a
black and white tuxedo of a past era. He was standing very tall,
stiff, and straight. He looked as if he were standing at
attention or posing for a formal portrait or something. He was
slightly turned to one side, but his head was turned facing me,
looking directly at me. He looked very serious and maybe in a
little bit of pain. He didn't look like he was trying to be
scary. He was just standing there. But I freaked. The hair
stood up on the back of my neck and I got this huge rush of
adrenaline and an urge to run out the front door. It only lasted
a second or two, but it shook me up for hours.
The ghost, as it turned out, was a pile of brown boxes. A few
months ago I had brought home 4 large empty boxes from work to
store my ever growing pile of magazines in. The boxes were
stacked up in the middle of the floor in the main room of my
house. And like most projects I start, I never quite get around
to finishing up. As a result, those boxes sat in my living room
for weeks and weeks. They had essentially become a 4-5 foot tall
piece of furniture that I no longer paid attention to. I've read
about how the brain is able to fill in the details of things we
don't notice too clearly and I think this is what happened to me.
I think that the stack of boxes caught my eye as I was walking
through the room but I didn't get a good enough glimpse of them to
register in my brain. So my mind just made something up to
explain the image.
I've also read that some researchers are hypothesizing that dreams
are essentially the same thing. During sleep, your brain goes
through phases were it sends out burst of seemingly random signals
through the brain. No one knows why this happens. But some
researchers are hypothesizing that dreaming is what happens when
your brain tries to interpret these random signals and it fills in
the details as best it can using your memories etc.
But there's a world of difference between reading about this
phenomena and experiencing it! The thing that blows my mind about
this incident was the intensity of the experience. I really could
feel the presence of this ghost in the room. And for that brief
instant, I could see every single detail of this ghost, down to
the buttons on his coat. And while the rational side of me looks
on this incident as a failing, a losing touch with reality,
there's also a part of me that is amazed an fascinated that our
minds have this incredible capability.
=============================
A Public Service Announcement
I would like to think of myself as someone who is basically
earnest and helpful, who doesn't have to be asked to do his fair
share of the work. Perhaps I'm fooling myself by thinking I
posses this quality to any significant degree, but I hope not.
Since the last issue of The Junto, I have, on more than one
occasion, been manipulated and unkindly made use of by another
individual. Being used in this manner always hurts, no matter the
circumstances. But what made this incident particularly
distressing is that this person used this positive trait of being
helpful AGAINST me in order to reduce that person's workload as
much as possible. In other words, the more this person could
manipulate me into volunteering, the less that individual had to
do. Call it a social form of Judo. In fact, looking back on the
incident, I believe this person deliberately tried to see just how
far I could be pushed.
At the time this happened, I couldn't verbalize my feelings. But
it definitely didn't feel right. I was angry at myself. I was
telling myself, "You're such a wimp! How did you get yourself
into this mess? Why isn't anyone else in this situation? Why are
you the only one helping out?" It wasn't until several days
later, after much introspection, that I realized the problem
wasn't an inherent character flaw in myself, but rather that I had
been the victim of a cruel though skillful manipulation. The very
trait that I had once been proud of, but had been angry at when
this incident occurred, was STILL something to be proud of. The
thing to be angry at was the person who had played this deceitful
trick.
I publicize this incident in The Junto, not to solicit sympathy
nor to lobby others to pass judgement on the incident in my favor.
Indeed, I have no intention of going into the details at all.
You'll just have to proceed on the assumption that I'm giving an
accurate accounting of the facts. I'm writing about it here for
two reasons. First, putting it down on paper forces me to
conceptualize the situation and engrave it into my brain so that,
hopefully, I'll be better prepared to avoid it next time. Second,
well, think of it as a sort of Public Service Announcement to my
friends so they may benefit from my bad experiences.
A Public Service Announcement To My Friends:
While most people naturally remain distrustful of strangers for
fear that they may be a mugger or thief, many people aren't aware
that the most insidious and sinister of threats can come from
well-known individuals, often posing as acquaintances and even
friends. These people are particularly versed at a style of
stealing known as Passive Aggressiveness and can steal a person's
time and talents, often without the victims even being aware.
The Passive-Aggressive perpetrator is characterized by always
speaking in Passive voice, never volunteering action, but creating
a void for action which they hope you will fall into. Thus
creating a trap for their `friends' to fall into. If a friend of
yours starts using lots of passive verbs in their speech and
laments about work `that needs to be done' or `ought to be done'
or `will have to be done by somebody' Beware! You are being
approached by a Passive-Aggressive thief. Don't speak. Let the
huge pauses remain empty and silent. Let the conversation drag
and slowly pass you by. Those passive verbs and awkward silences
are the jaws of death and must be avoided at all costs if you are
to remain free from the clutches of the Passive Aggressive.
Should you feel an overwhelming desire to enter the conversation,
RUN!, don't walk to the nearest fallout shelter. Crouch on the
floor with your face on the ground and your hands behind your
neck. Close your eyes and hum your favorite tune until either the
Passive-Aggressive perpetrator has left the vicinity or you no
longer feel the urge to converse with the perpetrator.
========================
Stupid Is As Stupid Does
Since Forrest Gump cleaned up at the Oscar's, and since certain
friends of mine, who shall remain nameless to save them
embarrassment, refuse to go see the movie, I thought I'd reprint a
review of Forrest Gump I originally wrote for Claustrophobia
magazine.
Forrest Gump chronicles the extraordinary life of a man
handicapped with an unusually low IQ from his early childhood in
the 40's through the '80s. But it's far from being a standard
wise-fool movie because we don't just see the world through
Forrest's eyes. Racial desegregation, the Vietnam War, the peace
movement, multiple presidential assassination attempts, the drugs
and disco scene, Watergate and the health and fitness craze all
serve as chaotic backdrops to show us how well he and the people
close to him handled those turbulent decades. Some people made
their own destiny. Others didn't. Forrest Gump is a movie about
what it takes to make your own destiny in a world filled with
chaos.
Tom Hanks masterfully plays Forrest, who's geeky appearance,
awkward mannerisms, and heavy, slow southern drawl immediately
make him the target of local bullies in his rural Alabama home
town. Apparently doomed to a life "special schools" and
persecution, Forrest's future doesn't look too bright. Sally
Fields nicely plays his mother who accepts that her son is 'a
little slow', but believes her destiny is to see that Forrest has
the same opportunities as everyone else. And she takes drastic
measures to ensure that Forrest gets admitted to the "regular"
schools". But more importantly, she teaches Forrest those
fundamental values that the rest of the world only pays lip
service to. As Forrest says, "Mama always had a way of explaining
things so that I could understand them." On the other hand,
there's Jenny, Forrest's first friend and on-again-off-again
girlfriend played by Robin Wright. Haunted by her father's abuse,
she is ill-prepared to deal with the crazy times ahead of her and
is never quite able to put her troubled past behind.
Forrest is then better prepared to deal with life better than
Jenny is. Because his mama taught him self-respect he is able to
treat others with respect. While George Wallace and President
Kennedy are having a showdown over the desegregation issue at the
University of Alabama, Forrest immediately and unquestioningly
accepting the two black students trying to enroll. After all, his
mama told him, "Don't let anyone ever tell you that you are any
different from anyone else." Meanwhile, Jenny's lack of
self-respect gets her caught-up on the bad side of the sexual
revolution and eventually thrown out of school.
During the worst of the Vietnam War, Forrest joins the Army, more
by default than conscious decision. Jenny gets caught up in the
fad and fashion of the peace movement. Forrest's simple, literal
interpretation of everything around him and his intense loyalty to
others turn him into a model soldier earning him the congressional
medal of honor, a future business partner and a friend for life.
Jenny on the other hand falls into the hippie subculture filled
with lots of revolutionary slogans, mean spirited stereotyping.
She moves from one place to the next, abandoning her friends at
the drop of a hat.
And after the war, Forrest is determined to buy a shrimp boat and
start a business because he promised a fellow platoon member,
Bubba, to do so. It didn't matter to Forrest that Bubba had died
in the fighting. His mama had taught him to always keep his
promises. On the other hand, Jenny has sunken into heavy drugs
and stealing from one-night stands to get by. While the rest of
the country seems to be caught up in a frenzy of snorting cocaine
in discoteques, Forrest is fighting hurricanes in the Gulf of
Mexico, trying to get his business off the ground. He eventually
does with the help of his former commanding officer, whom Forrest
saved, both physically and emotionally.
Time and again, Forrest succeeds in his world-gone-crazy
surroundings where others fail because self-respect, loyalty,
discipline, and long-term dedication are the only things he
understands. But what about love? Despite all his successes, the
toughest one of all to achieve is his love for Jenny. And Forrest
can't really feel like the master of his own destiny without
Jenny. Are the simple things his mama taught him enough to win
Jenny's love in a crazy world? Yes. No. Maybe. Depends on how
you look at it.
But one thing's for sure. Because Forrest Gump stuck to the
fundamentals that the rest of society seems all too often to
ignore, he had no regrets. So it's highly ironic that people kept
asking Forrest throughout the movie, "Are you crazy or just plain
stupid?" To which he always replies, as his mama taught him,
"Stupid is as stupid does." You got that right Forrest.
==========================
So THAT's Their Secret!
The AP news service ran an article about David Weeks, a
psychologist from the University of Edinburg who has been studying
"eccentrics" for over 10 years. His conclusions after 10 years of
study? Eccentrics are happier than normal people.
And he poses an interesting question: "Why should we continue to
groom ourselves properly and comport ourselves according to social
convention while those who flout convention seem to be having the
time of their life?"
But there's hope for normal folk. According to Mr. Weeks, people
can learn to become an eccentric. He suggests that people wanting
to become an eccentric first quit their job. Because they need a
lot of leisure time. Who would have thought?
The closest I've ever come to meeting real live eccentrics has
been at science fiction conventions where there are more than just
a few people who are half-in and half out of this world. But they
see themselves as perfectly normal and refer to the rest of the
world as `the mundanes.' I like it.
==================================================================
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.