Stuck In Traffic #4ÿ 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.