Stuck In Traffic #3 by Calvin Stacy Powers ====================== Minneapolis Dress Code According to an AP wire story, a woman in Minneapolis was stopped by police because she looked "bizarre", arrested, and charge with "concealing one's identity in public" because she was dressed in a robe and a veil. It turned out that the woman was a Muslim and required by her religion to dress that way. The police spokesman said there was no exemption in the law for religious reasons. The press seems to have covered the story from the freedom of religion angle., and that's fine by me. Freedom of religion is important. It's one of the defining charactersitics of the United States as far as I'm concerned. But what troubles me even more is that there is a law in at least one city that prohibits you from concealing your identity in public. And furthermore that police can stop and arrest you for no other reason than 'looking bizarre'. What's next? Dress codes? Why doesn't the government just tattoo our social security number on our foreheads and be done with any pretense of sovereignty? There used to be a time when you could go about your business as long as you weren't bothering anyone. That day is long past. ======================= Where Were the Goblins? Kids just don't have a clue about how to do Halloween anymore. It's a shame really. When I was a kid growing up in suburbia, we knew how Halloween was supposed to be done. The object is to look SCARY. And frighten people into giving you treats so that you don't throw eggs at their house or otherwise play tricks on them. It's blackmail and extortion kid-style. It's one night during the year where you can be rude, crude and socially unacceptable. But the kids coming to my door during Halloween this year stood there like their moms dressed them up for Sunday school in a bow-tie and waited for my handouts. Almost all of them said "Thank-You". Arrrgh! Thank You on Halloween Eve? What's the world coming to? ======== On Haiti Just after the invasion, oops sorry, occupation, no that's not right either. Well, just after we did whatever it is we did to Haiti, I was chatting in a local coffee house with a friend of mine about the Haiti affair. I mentioned that I could not see any compelling interest that the United States had in Haiti. And my friend, in an indignant outrage yelled, "My God, man! It's the back door into the Dominican Republic!" ====================== "I also want to be remembered for taking a voluntary 92% cut in my income for the sake of my cartoons. I figure attaining immortality as an artist is a long shot, but I'm a shoo-in as a martyr." --Berke Breathed ================ On The Elections My main comment on the elections is that I expect the country to lurch in a different direction now, though not necessarily a better one. That remains to be seen. However, the Republicans' "Contract With America" has added an uncommon twist to the text two year's Washington watching. In two years, it will be perfectly clear just how well the Republicans have, or haven't lived up to their campaign promises. Of course there are many ways to go back on your promise without appearing to do so. One common tactic is the multiple competing bills tactic. Congress has been doing this for years on the balanced budget issues. The idea is to make sure there are at least three or four competing bills for basically the same proposal. Then the representatives all pick one and grandstand over it. But no single bill ever quite picks up the majority of votes to get out of committee. Then the Representatives can all go home and brag about how they supported the bill and it was really everyone else's fault that it didn't get passed. I expect this tactic to get used on the term-limits issue. =========== Term Limits If it came up for a vote among the general populace, I'm sure term-limits would pass. I might even vote for it myself. But I seriously doubt that term limits will improve our government. I believe that term limits will just reinforce politicians' primary bad habit: spending money before you have it in hand. If you are an elected representative facing a single term tenure, you have an incentive to bring get as much as possible for your district in as quick a time as possible and you have an incentive to delay having to pay for it as long as possible. In fact, the best possible scenario for a one-term elected official would be to buy on credit now, and have the bill come due after you are out of office. That's not exactly a formula for reforming Congress. Most term-limits advocates believe that term limits would encourage 'citizen statesmen' to run for office and boot out the career politician. Citizen statesmen, i.e. men and women who have other, nonpolitical careers, is a great goal. But in my opinion, term-limits do not encourage citizen statesmen from running for office because it costs so much money to run a political campaign. Under a term-limits scenario, the people who run for office will be dependent on PACS and special interest groups to get them elected. So I believe the best strategy for encouraging citizen statesmen is to make it cheaper to run for office. And the best way of doing that, without costing the tax payers a dime, is to drastically reduce the size of a representative's districts. Ideally, I'd like to see the size of a U.S. House district be about the size of a typical state house district. Since there would be so many fewer people in each district, the cost of running a campaign would be cut drastically. Running for office would still require a serious financial commitment, but someone with broad support in the community should be able to raise enough money from their constituents to run a campaign in a district that small. That wouldn't make the PACs and special interests go away of course. A candidate could still accept money from them. But it would enable citizen statesmen candidates to at least compete with them. And who would you be more likely to vote for, a candidate who raised enough money from individual contributions to fund their campaign or a candidate who is funded by PACs and special interest groups? One way to keep the size of districts small is to return to the original Constitution. Originally, the constitution called for districts of a fixed size. As the population grew, so did the number of representatives. It wasn't until later that a Constitutional amendment fixed the number of Representatives and increased the size of districts. =============================== "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." --Albert Einstein ================== Helms Steps In It! Being from North Carolina, and confessing to being something of an armchair political commentator, I suppose I am somewhat obligated to comment on Senator Jesse Helms' recent political gaffe in which he said something to the effect that President Clinton shouldn't visit any military base in North Carolina without a bodyguard. Well, it's an insult. Pure and simple. Jesse Helms insulted the President of the United States. That just isn't done. Even the bitterest political rivals in Washington maintain a semblance of decorum when addressing each other, calling each other 'Gentleman' or Gentlewoman' even when they'd rather call each other 'flaming liberal' or 'fascist pig'. Helms stepped over the line. The press went nuts over the issue and simply would not let the issue die for a long time. At the time I'm writing this, the story has finally left the front pages and now is mostly covered in the editorial page. But there are still lots of offhand remarks about the incident, especially when discussion of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee comes up. I would not want to be misconstrued as defending Helms on the issue, but it does appear that the media is showing their bias in coverage of the incident. In 1988 when Senator John Kerry, who is about as extremely Democratic as Helms is Republican, was asked by a reporter if Dan Quayle was qualified to be President. Kerry replied, on the record, "Let me put it this way, if anything happens to President Bush, the Secret Service has orders to shoot Dan Quayle." Funny thing that a big stink was not made about Kerry's remarks. An equally insulting snide comment and yet it didn't get a tenth of the coverage that Helms' remark did. To explain the discrepancy, you either have to claim either, a) the media is biased toward the Democrats and therefore covers them more favorably, or b) insulting the Vice-President is not nearly as bad manners as insulting the President. "Everyone has talent. What is rare is Courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads." --Erica Jong ================== Helms Steps In It? The press seems to believe that it is a forgone conclusion that the Helms 'bodyguard' comment was a mistake, a slip of the tongue from a borderline senile old man who doesn't have enough political savvy left to hold his seat in the Senate, much less chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But I believe it is equally plausible that the Helms remark was deliberate, finely timed, and well calculated. If I remember correctly, the Helms 'bodyguard' quote was made to a reporter by the name of John Rosen at the Raleigh News and Observer. The Raleigh News and Observer, (aka The Nuisance and Disturber) is well known for it's explicit Democratic Party leanings. It makes no pretense of being objective when it comes to political commentary. And John Rosen is not some fly-by-night reporter. He is one of the N&O's key political reporters. So when Helms was giving the interview to John Rosen in which he made his comments, he knew the biases of his interviewers. It's not like this comment was made in a back room at a GOP strategy meeting. He made it directly to a well-known reporter of a newspaper with well known biases. So, it's difficult for me to believe that the comment was an accident. I believe it was intentional. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and claim that the Helms' 'bodyguard' quote was a de facto announcement that he is running for reelection (whenever that is). My reasoning goes like this: First, Helms is getting on up there in years so running a fast-paced, whirlwind campaign is going to be difficult for him. Besides that, Helms is, to put it kindly, not the most telegenic politician that ever walked the face of the earth. So traditional campaigning is not a very good option for him. Second, whether it's true or not, Helms perceives that the media is biased against him simply because he is a conservative Republican. Certainly that is my perception also. But even if it's not true, that's Helm's _perception_. So he can't count on the press glorifying his image to get him reelected. Third, like any politician, he has to get a rapport going with his constituents. He has to get people talking about him. His name has to be on the tip of everyone's tongue. So he absolutely has to get press coverage. So Helms does something that is guaranteed to inflame the (presumably) biased media yet develop a rapport with his constituents, or at least to get his name firmly ingrained in their brain. The bodyguard quote was, in my opinion, an attempt at doing this. Now, believe it or not, most North Carolinians are not backwater rednecks. Even folks from the most rural counties are decent, civilized folks. (The redneck is a dying breed deserving federal endangered species protection.) So almost everyone in North Carolina will, publicly, speak unfavorably of Helm's remark. But, North Carolina _is_ an extremely conservative state and President Clinton, if the recent elections are to be believed, is very unpopular in this state. (If memory serves, North Carolina is one of the few states that went to Bush in the '92 elections.) So even if most folks will speak publicly against the propriety of Helms' remark, I believe Helms has earned himself a favorable place in the hearts and minds of many, many North Carolinians as 'the man who told off President Clinton.' Thanks of course to the national coverage his remarks have gotten. Helms is playing the press like a musical instrument and making beautiful music to the ears of lots of people. All this is conjecture of course. But Helms has done this sort of thing before. Remember Helms campaign against Mapplethorpe and the NEA? Here again was an issue that was guaranteed to inflame the media and generate endless coverage of Helms and yet it was also an issue that was certain to be well received by his conservative constituents. The national and local media coverage was something like, "How in the world could Helms advocate abolishing the NEA? How dare Helms suggest we impose moral standards on art?" And it was endless. Helms was in the news for months. But the message received by his constituents was the Helms was the man who wants to put an end to blasphemous, immoral art funded with the tax dollars of good, honest, hard working people. Love him or hate him, I don't believe you can write Helms off as a senile old man. I believe he is a shrewd politician that knows exactly what he is doing. ============================= "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." --Henry David Thoreau ============================================== SEVEN SOFTWARE COMPANIES ADDED TO "WATCH LIST" The following story has been circulating around the internet New York, NJ, Sept. 24 -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that seven more software companies have been added to the group's "watch list" of companies that regularly practice software testing. "There is no need for software to be mistreated in this way so that companies like these can market new products," said Ken Granola, spokesperson for PETS. "Alternative methods of testing these products is available." According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lengthy and arduous tests, often without rest for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to "break" the software by any means necessary, and inside sources report that they often joke about "torturing" the software. "It's no joke," said Granola. "Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and 'crashed' for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and are unceremoniously deleted when they're not needed anymore." Granola said the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs. "We know alternatives to this horror exist," he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corp. as a company that has become extremely successful without resorting to software testing. ================================= "When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves." --Confucius ====================== Where Are Your Papers? Over the past year the state of North Carolina has been promoting a high profile campaign called "Click It or Ticket". The police set up roadblocks and stop all cars passing the checkpoint. You have to produce identification, prove that your car is insured and you have to answer the police officer's questions about where you've been, what you were doing, and where you are going. And oh, by the way, if you aren't wearing your seatbelt, you immediately are ticketed for a $25 fine. I know because I have been stopped twice at these checkpoints. Now the state is starting up a follow on program called "Booze It and Lose It" which is basically the same thing. Random checkpoints where you have to produce identification, prove that your car is insured, and answer the officers' questions about where you've been and where you are going. And, by the way, if you show any signs of having been drinking, they grill you further and possibly charge you with DWI. There are two interesting things about these programs. First, the police have apprehended literally thousands of people wanted for various reasons. It's unclear to me just how they do this and the press has not given any details. But it appears to me that when they stop you, they check their computer systems to see if there are any outstanding warrants for you. The two times I was stopped, I didn't actually see this happening. But this past week I received the license plate renewal form for my car. In the envelope was a notice that the NC Division of Motor Vehicles requires people to supply their driver's license number when they register their car, if they don't have it already. And sure enough, there on my renewal form was my driver's license number. I strongly suspect that while I was being interviewed by the trooper, someone was looking up my license plate number, getting my driver's license number and looking up my records in their computers to see if there were any warrants for my arrest. Regardless of how they do it, there are weekly press reports about how many tens of thousands of people the police have caught, from deadbeat dads who owe child support to people who have had their license revoked, to wanted criminals. The second interesting thing about these programs is how amazingly popular they are. The press have been reporting these programs as runaway successes. Everyone they interview on TV, from the Governor down to the average Joe on the street says how great they think these programs are. I have yet to see a single newspaper story or TV news story that questioned the authority of the police much less the propriety of these programs. And this is just the sort of thing we need to be on the defense against. As James Madison put it in 1788: "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of thefreedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." I'm all for getting drunk drivers off the street. But it seems to me that a program could be designed to crack down on drunk driving without turning North Carolina into a police state. ============================= Trans-Theological Bagel Haiku Roundness surrounding nothingness in the center. It's the staff of Life. ======================= History Is Up For Grabs In terms of their ability to do harm, I used to think that politician ranked at the top of the "most dangerous professions" list. But I now think that historians, if they don't top the list, rank a very close second. I came to this conclusion after reading Pat Hartman's excellent 'zine, Salon. Issue number 22, almost all 148 pages of it, is dedicated to exploring the topic of Holocaust Revisionism. Just mention the words "Holocaust Revisionist" and you will immediately find out exactly who does and does not support the First Amendment. I personally know someone who was banned from participating in a "read in" during banned book week because he insisted on reading a revisionist book about the Holocaust. It was fine if he wanted to read a "safe" book that people had tried to ban, like Huckleberry Finn or Tropic of Cancer. But when it came to really subversive literature, they didn't want any part of it. As Pat Hartman puts it in the opening paragraph of Salon: "A characteristic of primitive societies is the existence of extensive taboos: things which are never voiced, or which are articulated only in very special circumstances of revelation, initiation, and so on. After some years of refreshing candor, the present-day world has gone retro, and humankind has managed to create a whole new realm of Things Which Must Not Be Spoken Of." It's obvious that Pat has done a large amount of secondary research on this issue and she does an admirable job of covering the breadth of the whole debate. Pat covers both sides of the debate and gives you the gist of who all the key players are and their backgrounds. Pat summarizes the points and counterpoints each side makes and points you to further reading on most topics. It won't make you an expert on Holocaust Revisionism, but it's a great place to start. You will be able to hold up your end of a conversation when confronted by a Holocaust Revisionist. So are the Holocaust Revisionists' arguments convincing? Did Pat come away from her research/oddesy with a different view than when she started. Not really. On the whole, Pat finds the Revisionists' arguments to be "pretty thin". But not entirely transparent either. Some of the assertions made by the revisionists have come to be accepted over time and the official keepers of the Holocaust history have even updated their official estimates of the numbers of people killed during the Holocaust. And the Holocaust history keepers aren't entirely without fault either. Pat Hartman does a credible job of showing how Holocaust historians have tried to thwart investigation and criticism of the official party line. Having a reference work that pretty much covers the entire scope of the Holocaust Revision debate is well worth the $5.00 price on that issue of Salon. But the true value of Pat Hartman's investigation into Holocaust Revisionism doesn't lie in the completeness of her survey. It's a stunning demonstration of just how much our view of history depends on the historians writing it. And that's why historians are so dangerous. If you are interested in getting Salon, the price is $5.00 and Salon's address is 305 W. Magnolia - Ste 386, Fort Collins Colorado, 80521. The Holocaust Revision issue is Number 22. =========================== "As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death." --Leonardo Da Vinci ================================================================== 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.