Stuck In Traffic #5 ÿ 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.