===================================================================== Stuck In Traffic "Independent Comment on Current Events and Cultural Phenomena"ÿ Issue #11 - February 1996 ================== The Friendly Skies During January, I had the opportunity to fly to Florida for a long-weekend vacation and managed to get a great deal on a round trip airplane ticket on Delta airlines. As I was getting settled on the plane, the flight attendants were making all their usual announcements. You have to have your seat in its full, upright position. Tray tables have to be locked out of the way. All your carry on baggage has to be stowed in the overhead bins or under the seat in front of you. Anyone who has flown recently knows the routine. But one of their announcements caught my attention. The flight attendant told us that "current federal regulations" prohibit the operation of "certain portable electronic devices" while on the plane. She further mentioned that a complete list of the devices allowed and disallowed could be found in the back of the Sky magazine that could be found in every seat. The reason this announcement caught my attention is that I have been lusting over laptop computers for a couple of years now and have just about decided that this is the year I'm going to give in to desire. I thought that as I shopped for a laptop, it would be useful to know which brands were allowed to be used while in flight and which ones weren't. Even if I never actually use one on a plane, (I rarely fly), the certification says something positive about the design of the laptop with regard to pesky radio emissions that can interfere with TVs and other stuff. So I thumbed through the magazine and found the "In Flight, On Board" information section the flight attendant had referred to. As it turns out, the federal regulations don't mention specific brands of devices like I had hoped. Instead, they classify equipment into three categories: devices which are always prohibited, devices which are only allowed while the plane is airborne, and those devices which are allowed at all times. The lists in the first two categories were rather unsurprising. Radios that can transmit as well as receive are always prohibited. I suppose they don't want some aviation enthusiast joining in the chat between the pilot and the control tower. Also radios that could receive certain types of broadcasts were disallowed, I didn't recognize the sorts of frequencies that were listed, but I can guess that they'd rather not have people finding out that there is engine trouble by listening in on the pilot. But mundane AM/FM radios seem to be allowed. Laptop computers and electronic games are not allowed during takeoff and landing, but are allowed once airborne. However, peripherals such as printers that are attached via a connecting cable aren't ever allowed, presumably because many cheap cables have very poor shielding and pose a risk of generating radio interference. But the third category in the federal regulations, the category of devices that are permitted at all times, had some surprises. Current federal regulations, in their generosity I suppose, permit at all times the operation of electronic pace makers and "personal life support systems" as long as "the equipment conforms to the Federal Aviation Administration's criteria." How generous and thoughtful of them! Or perhaps they just wanted to spare the flight attendants the unpleasant task of requesting the elderly to turn off their pacemakers during the flight. ========= Whiplash! Watching the President's State of the Union address, I couldn't help but wonder if this was the same man that took office in 1993. It sure looked like him. But it sure didn't sound like the same man that addressed the nation in 1993. Here's a couple of excerpts from his 1993 State of the Union address: "To create jobs and guarantee a strong recovery, I call on Congress to enact an immediate package of jobs investments of over $30 billion to put people to work now, to create a half a million jobs." "With a new network of community development banks and $1 billion to make the dream of enterprise zones real, we propose to bring new hope and new jobs to storefronts and factories from South Boston to South Texas to South Central Los Angeles." "But all of our efforts to strengthen the economy will fail -- let me say this again; I feel so strongly about this -- all of our efforts to strengthen the economy will fail unless we also take this year -- not next year, not five years from now, but this year -- bold steps to reform our health care system." "For the wealthiest -- those earning more than $180,000 per year -- I ask you all who are listening tonight to support a raise in the top rate for federal income taxes from 31 to 36 percent. We recommend a 10 percent surtax on incomes over $250,000 a year...". "Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy.... I recommend that we adopt a BTU tax on the heat content of energy..." Compare that with his 1996 State of the Union address: "We know big government does not have all the answers. There is not a program for every problem. We know we need a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington -- one that lives within its means." "The era of big government is over." "I believe our new, smaller government must work in an old-fashioned American way -- together with all our citizens, through state and local governments, in the workplace, in religious, charitable, and civic associations." Not even George Bush's reversal on his "No new taxes" pledge matches Clinton's 180 degree about-face on the role of government. And we're supposed to take this man seriously? Which speech represents the real Bill Clinton? Does anyone know? Since the 1993 State of the Union address was Clinton's first after being elected, I have to conclude it is the speech that best represents Clinton's political agenda and his "vision" for the role of government. Clinton's 1996 State of the Union, I have to conclude, was a bold and obvious pandering for votes in the upcoming election. ================================= "It is unfair to bore someone who doesn't have the opportunity to bore you right back." -- Garrison Keillor =================== The Blizzard of `96 I'm sure everyone will be relieved to know that I survived the "Blizzard of `96." But I have to confess that it really wasn't that big a deal for people where I live. Geographically, Raleigh seems to lie at the very northern edge of what we call "the sun belt." Most of the time, we don't get bad winter storms, and when we get them at all, we just get the southern edge of them. So while most of the northeastern part of the country was digging out from heavy snowfalls that might legitimately be called a blizzard, we in North Carolina got only about 4 inches of snow and ice. But we didn't let that stop us from pretending we were suffering through a blizzard! Oh no! We made do the best we could with the meager deal we got from Mother Nature. While it is true that North Carolinians aren't particularly accustomed to dealing with snow and ice, feigned hardship was the order of the day for about a week. It seems that the first concern everyone has when it starts snowing is the condition of the roads. As a rule, North Carolinians don't really know how to drive on streets covered with ice and snow. We just never have to do it. We don't have snow tires. It's rare that anyone has chains for their tires. Likewise, the state and local governments aren't really prepared to clear the streets. Oh sure, they have winter emergency plans which they carry out. They dump salt and ashes on the major roadways. They run snow plows through the streets. But despite their best efforts, they didn't seem to be able to clear even 4 inches of snow and ice off the major roads. And clearing the roads in residential areas is simply out of the question. They simply did not have the manpower of equipment to do so. I don't bring this up in order to criticize the state and local governments. Far from it. Considering how rare it is for us to get winter weather severe enough to impede road travel, I think it would be a waste of tax payer money to buy that much snow clearing equipment and supplies. I bring this up in order to criticize or local media reporters. Just as we are inexperienced at driving on snow covered roads, and just as the governments are inexperienced at keeping the roads clear during a winter storm. Our media reporters are inexperienced at covering the events. They are desperate to find a way to sensationalize the story, but they come across sounding like hypocrites. On the one hand, they constantly report on the state of the roadways. One local TV station even periodically had a camera crew out by the side of the road giving you a close up shot of the road outside their station so you could see for yourself how bad the roads were, as if you couldn't look outside your window and see the same thing. On the other hand, they media reporters reported how many millions of dollars was being spent every day with panicky tones in their voices like this was going to bring financial ruin to our government. And I kept thinking to my self, "Well, which is it? Do you want them to clear the roads or not?" And the media coverage went downhill from there. Toward the end of the storm, our local TV newscasts were running stories about how to deal with the cold, that were offering advice like, "Don't spend to much time out in the cold," and "Don't let your feet get wet," and "Don't drive!" Most businesses were closed for 2 or 3 days at least. Schools in North Carolina were closed for about a week. I can't blame them, considering the amount of busing that's done in North Carolina and the state of the roadways. But people acted like children were being victimized by their inability to go to school. But try as they might, they were unable to interview a single kid willing to say they missed school! Imagine! The Wake County School board issued edicts to parents to encourage them to make their children do something educational. They recommended things like, have your children watch educational shows on Public TV, rent an educational video, and try to get your children to read a book. All sensible suggestions, but never did they suggest that parents ought to review their children's school lessons with them or do anything related to their children's actual school activities. The conspiracy theorist in me speculated that this was because the teacher's unions did not want the parents to realize just how much of their children's education they could handle on their own. The media frenzy surrounding North Carolina's relatively modest snow storm was more than a little silly, but it wasn't an entirely bad thing either. In fact, after observing the media coverage of the snowstorm, and watching the people in my town, I had the sudden realization that people were _enjoying_ the snowstorm. They _looked_forward_ to the dealing with the challenges that the snowstorm brought. Once I realized this, all the silliness suddenly made sense. For example, when people down here hear that there is a storm coming, they rush to the grocery store and stock up on food. Lots of it. I saw entire families descend on the grocery story during the hours before the storm and walk out with multiple carts filled with groceries. Now in the worst snowstorms of the past, people might be home-bound for 2 or 3 days, but these folks looked like they were stocking up for a month! And even _during_ the storm, many of the grocery stores advertise that they're still open. And people will bundle up and "hike" to the grocery store in order to get a loaf of bread, as if they couldn't live without it. Why do people do this? Because they _like_ to do it, not because they're going to starve. Driving was the same way. There was a parade of 4 wheel drive vehicles in my town during the snow storm. It seems like every person that had a vehicle equipped to drive in these conditions all of a sudden had a need to do so. As I was hiking along one of the major roadways in my town, I saw some people driving back and forth multiple times. My parents have friends with a 4 wheel drive truck who spend their time during winter storms driving around and helping people pull their cars out of ditches. They don't charge people money and refuse it when offered. They _enjoy_ doing it. Likewise, I hear of people with these sorts of vehicles that drive people to the doctor or hospitals of they can't get there during the storm. They take hospital personnel to and from their jobs and things like that. It seems kind of silly at first. And I suspect that there's more than a little jealousy in those of us who aren't able to drive in the snow. But we have to keep in mind that many of those people who are showing off their trucks are often providing a valuable community service at the same time. And why do they do this? Because they _want_ to do it, not because they _have_ to do it. They enjoy the challenge that the snow storm brings. Even mundane tasks take on a whole new meaning during a snowstorm. Taking out the garbage all of a sudden becomes a battle between you and nature to see whether you can take out the garbage without breaking your neck or catching a cold. I confess that I found myself doing things I wouldn't ordinarily due during nice weather. I found myself buying birdseed and spreading it out in the backyard for the birds. I was unusually sociable with my neighbors. Not that I don't get along with them during normal circumstances. I do. But I don't usually go out of my way to visit with them. But during the snowstorm, we would compare notes on the latest weather reports and road conditions, looking after each other in a sense. The kids in the neighborhood were, of course, having a blast. My street happens to be the best street in the neighborhood for sledding because it's a dead end street with a long sloping hill starting from the dead end, where I live, and running for about half the length of the street. Since there is no through traffic and the hill ends well before you reach the connecting street, you don't have to worry about running into cars. There was a steady stream of kids sledding down my street and I have to confess to trying it a couple of times myself. It's great fun. But, I couldn't help but notice that sledding down a hill is far from the most exciting ride available these days. Kids today have go carts tracks, amusement park rides, bicycles, and all sorts of other types of rides that are faster and more exciting than a sled ride. But they love to sled anyway. Why? I suspect that partly it's the novelty. But I also think the fun in sledding is not that you ride fast, but that you cam make it work _at all_. The fun is in the challenge of making it work. On about the third day, I began to get cabin fever, so I bundled up and walked a few blocks to my friends' house and visited with them. Like everyone else, I over did it. I bundled up _way_ too much. The temperature was only in the mid 20's but I had enough layers of clothes on to survive the arctic. I wore my heaviest hiking boots. Simply walking through the snow and ice became a big production. I was determined not to fall. I took small steps, firmly planting my foot before shifting my weight to it. One learns to appreciate simple everyday concepts when walking on the snow and ice. Concepts like traction, momentum, and center of gravity. The sense of accomplishment I felt when I successfully navigated my way through the treachery and made it to my friends' house was indescribable, and, I have to admit, probably overblown for the amount of work and danger actually involved. After watching how people in my town deal with the Blizzard of `96 for a few days, I've realized that all the silliness, all the hype, all the overblown preparations stem from a fundamental craving for challenge. We _want_ to test ourselves against nature. Our comfortable, easy suburban lifestyle hasn't killed our basic pioneering spirit. ========================================== Running for Office in the Land of the Free Opponents of the death penalty hold all night vigils before an execution. While there is an outside chance that the media will cover their vigil, there is next to no hope that their vigil will belay the execution. But they show up anyway. Why? Right to life activists congregate outside abortion clinics, risking arrest and imprisonment. They will be the first to admit that it's highly unlikely that their gatherings will prevent a women from having an abortion or a doctor from performing one, but they gather there anyway. Why? They do it in order to bear witness to the injustice they see and speak out against it. As Thoreau put it, "Say the thing with which you labor." This is an obligation that every moral person has. In the same light, I must bear witness to an injustice I've seen first hand in my home state of North Carolina. Good people, sincere and honest people, average people like you and me are being prevented from participating in North Carolina's electoral process. "It's unthinkable in this day and age!" you might say; but you would be wrong. I have seen it. This misperception stems from the fact that when most people think of participating in the electoral process, they think of voting. And the civil rights movement has certainly seen to it that everyone that has the slightest inclination to do so has the opportunity to vote. The barriers to voting have been obliterated. There are no more literacy tests. There are no more qualification criteria. You don't have to even have a permanent home. The homeless are just as eligible to vote as anyone else and there are civic organizations whose purpose is to help the homeless register. Furthermore, there are watchdog organizations that keep an eye out for attempts to keep people from registering to vote and other obstructionist activity. While we have been vigilant about protecting our right to vote, we have lost our right to run for and hold elected office. We have this romantic notion in our head that, in the United States, the land of the free, average citizens can run for office, managing their election campaign from their home, raising support from their community. We have this romantic notion that a group of citizens, dissatisfied with the policies of our "representatives" can exercise their first amendment right to free association, form their own political organization, and run for office. If this was ever true, it's no longer true in North Carolina. Today, unless you are a career politician and unless you have the blessings of the political parties in the state, it's virtually impossible to run for office or start another political party. State laws in North Carolina are written to make it very difficult to put a candidate on the ballot for statewide offices. Both independents and candidates of new parties have to collect tens of thousands of signatures to "qualify" for the ballot. This is an extremely expensive task, most people estimate that it costs at least a dollar a signature to collect. And I have heard rumors that the Ross Perot organization has paid as high as $5 per signature in the past. There are several reasons why collecting signatures is so expensive. First, not all of the signatures a petitioner will collect will be valid. This occurs for several reasons, either the person thinks they have registered to vote, but hasn't. Or the person has recently moved and the voter record haven't been updated. Then general rule of thumb is that only about 65%-70% of the signatures actually collected will be validated by the boards of election. Another reason petition drives in North Carolina are so expensive is that the law requires that these signatures be collected from every county in the state. So a start up organization has to spend lots of money and time traveling around the state to make sure signatures are collected from every county. Furthermore, state law dictates the wording on the petitions such that it sounds like the signer of the petition is actively working on organizing the new party or actively supporting the independent candidate. This discourages many people from signing the petition because they may want to see the party or independent candidate on the ballot, but they may not want to actively work for the candidate. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, collecting signatures take thousands and thousands of hours of labor. Hard labor. Labor that could otherwise be directed toward participating in the debates on the issues and getting the candidates message out to the people. And most areas that have high amounts of "foot traffic", i.e., people walking by on foot, are private property like malls and shopping centers which do not permit solicitations on their property. (And as frustrating as that is for petitioners, I can't blame the owners of these places.) If you've never worked on a petition campaign, it probably doesn't sound like a big deal. It probably doesn't sound like that much work. But I would point out to you that the laws have loop holes written into them so that the Democrats and Republicans do not have to endure this rite of passage. That should be proof enough that the requirements are an unfair burden. So unless you've got a spare couple of hundred thousand dollars to devote solely to getting on the ballot in addition to the funds you need to actually run a campaign for office, and unless you have a statewide network of people who are willing to go door to door collecting signatures for you, it's highly unlikely that you, as an average citizen, can run for office in North Carolina. It's difficult for me to understand why we will not tolerate any obstruction to the voting process, but we will tolerate obstructions to running for office. The state laws are defended, of course, by those who benefit by them. In court cases in which North Carolina's ballot access laws have been challenged, the state has defended its laws saying that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the citizens of North Carolina from "frivolous" candidates and "cluttered" ballots. I have never once heard anyone in North Carolina claim that they have "too many" choices on the ballot. I have never once heard anyone complain that a candidate was running a "frivolous" campaign. Does this simply mean that the state is doing a good job with these laws? No. Because all too often, I hear people express dismay at the quality of the candidates they can vote for. Furthermore, many of the races in North Carolina go uncontested every year so there is literally no choice among candidates for those races. I have been told that in some districts, as many as 30% of the races are won by uncontested candidates. If the ballots in Russia can contain candidates from as many as 42 political parties, why can't North Carolina? If the state does in fact, have a legitimate interest in protecting citizens from frivolous candidates and cluttered ballots, do they not also have an equal interest in ensuring that there are vigorous and meaningful election races? Which is more important, keeping the ballot uncluttered and convenient to tabulate by the elections board or ensuring that the average citizen can run for office? The plain fact of the matter is that North Carolina's election laws are written to protect the interests of the major political parties, not the interests of North Carolina citizens. And just like the death penalty protestors holding vigil before an execution, and just like Right to Life advocates who assemble at abortion clinics, there may not be anything we can do about the situation, but we can at least bear witness to the injustice. I urge you to look into the laws where you live and find out how difficult it is to run for office in your home town. Do not assume that just because you have the right to vote, you also have the right to run for office. ===================== Divorce of the Decade I suppose that any publication the purports to comment on cultural phenomena is obligated to comment on the fact that Lisa Marie Presely has filed for divorce from her husband, Michael Jackson after an 18 month marriage. What does it all mean? Does this mean that pop music and rock and roll are forever incompatable? Does it show that interracial marrieages are unworkable? Are marriages between high profile celebrities inherently doomed? I don't think it means anything like that. I think it just means that they didn't love each other. ====================== About Stuck In Traffic Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to independently evaluating current events and cultural phenomena. Why "Stuck In Traffic"? Because getting stuck in traffic is good for you. It's an opportunity to think, ponder, and reflect on all things, from the personal to the global. As Robert Pirsig wrote in _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, "Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now ocurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce...." Contact Information: All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and hate-mail about Stuck In Traffic should be sent to Calvin Stacy Powers preferably via E-mail (powers@interpath.com) or by mail (2012 Talloway Drive, Cary, NC USA 27511). Copyright Notice: Stuck In Traffic is published and copyrighted by Calvin Stacy Powers who reserves all rights. Individual articles are copyrighted by their respective authors. Unsigned articles are authored by Calvin Stacy Powers. 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