==================================================================== Stuck In Traffic "Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories" Issue #27 - November, 1997 Contents: ÿ Diana's Death The world's reaction to Diana's death reminds us of the strange relationship between fame, beauty, and power. On Fame and Virtue Lessons learned from the life of Mother Teresa Hear Them Roar, What Are They Saying What's the significance of events like the Million Woman March and The Promise Keeper's Gathering? Edgy, Heavy, iNSULATED A review of iNSULATED's debut album, Fence A Day At The Races NASCAR. It's not just for red necks anymore. ==================================== Current Events Diana's Death It's rarely recognized as such, but beauty is a powerful, driving force. From the mythological stories like Helen of Troy, whose rare beauty started wars and "launched a thousand ships." to modern starlets like Marilyn Monroe who set the stage for our everyday pop culture, our culture is full of examples of the power of the beautiful. To dismiss a woman as "just another pretty face" is to ignore history just about as far back as history goes. Likewise, to dismiss the worldwide impact of Princess Diana's tragic death simply on the grounds that she had nothing to offer "but a pretty face" is to miss the point entirely. When hundreds of millions of people, from every corner of the globe tuned into their TV's to watch Diana's funeral, it wasn't just a lurid, onlooker motivation. To dismiss Diana as a nothing more than a media creation hyped up by the paparazzi into a bigger than life image is to mistake cause and effect. Yes, Princess Diana was largely a media creation. Yes, she had little to offer the world other than her beautiful, down-to-earth smile. Yes, her claim to fame is based almost entirely on the fact that she married into royalty. But royal connections can't explain Diana. After all, her popularity easily eclipsed that of the Queen and the rest of the royal family. Her royal connections put her into the public spotlight, but it was her beauty that captured the world's attention. But as Helen of Troy, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana all found out, it takes a strong woman to bear the burden of a pretty face. When the pubic spotlight first fell on Diana, we saw a young, overwhelmed woman, frightened and unsure. But she stood up to the demands of being a fairy tale Princess and by the time she married Prince Charles her command of our attention was sealed. During her marriage, Diana alternated between showing signs of breaking down under the pressure of the public spotlight and basking in it. We watched her perform the duties expected of royalty by speaking at all the right charities, attending all the right events, saying all the right things. But it was always Diana's personal life that interested us. The world was more interested in her struggles with bulimia, her rocky marriage, and her conflicts with Prince Charles over how to raise their sons. And of course there was her continued struggle for privacy against the incessant attention paid to her by the paparazzi. It wasn't until her divorce from Prince Charles that Diana finally started showing signs of being the master of her beauty instead of a victim of it. The royal family was unable to show Diana how to use her fame and beauty effectively. In fact, Diana's death has showed that the royal family is a much a victim of their inability to deal with public scrutiny as any other fallen beauty queen. But where the royal family failed, Diana's assistants and advisors succeeded. They taught Diana that the media attention that had caused her so much stress in the past had now become her only asset. And she learned how to use her fame and beauty as an asset to command the media attention and use it as a tool. One may disagree with the organizations and charities that she publicized and promoted. For example, one might complain that her campaign against land mines was perhaps just a little too much of a photogenic publicity campaign. But it's indisputable that the month's after Diana's divorce were her most successful. With minimal incident, she managed to continue to raise her sons in the way she thought best while successfully using the media to promote well deserving causes. In some sense, she was the ultimate working Mom, the most popular member of the royal family (even having been kicked out of it), and the world's most beautiful and eligible woman all at once. Whether or not it is ever proven that Diana's death was a tragic result of the relentless pursuit of the media, the worldwide outpouring of grief shows that Diana had finally mastered her fame and beauty and used it rather than allowing herself to be destroyed by it. It's too early to tell if her sons are going to inherit the worldwide attention that their mother did or if they will become merely members of the royal family, but hopefully they will learn this lesson from their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. ==================================== Current Events On Virtue and Fame Since the death of Mother Teresa, some people have said that it is unfortunate that Mother Teresa died so shortly after the car accident that killed Diana. Despite being honored with a full state funeral by the Indian government, despite her funeral being attended by dignitaries from around the world, despite the worldwide broadcast of her funeral, they say that the tribute paid to Mother Teresa was inadequate. As the theory goes, Mother Teresa didn't get the proper tribute that she deserved because the world's attention was still focused on Diana's death. These people have no idea what they are talking about. Princess Diana deserved and received the tribute of a beautiful, famous woman. Mother Teresa deserved and received the tribute of a virtuous woman. Comparing their respective tributes and comparing the world's reaction to their deaths is unfair to both Princess Diana and to Mother Teresa. If Teresa's tribute was something less than a worldwide media circus, it was more dignified for the same reason. Mother Teresa was drawn to the work of the Catholic Church at an early age. Born as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiuin 1910 in Macedonia of Albanian parents. She moved to Ireland to join the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto when she was only 18. She was assigned to teach at a girls High School in Calcutta and it was there that she discovered her mission. She became terribly distressed at the many sick and dying people she saw in the streets and she has said of that time: "I realized that I had the call to take care of the sick and dying, the hungry, the naked, the homeless - to be God's Love _in_action_ to the poorest of the poor. That was the beginning of the Missionaries of Charity." She was granted permission to leave the Loreto congregation and establish her now worldwide Missionaries of Charity. The Missionaries of Charity believe firmly in going directly to the problem. They aren't lobbyists for government action. They aren't shame mongers to the rest of the world. They go directly to those in need and help them. Their work is not pretty. Every day, they have to confront the most unpleasant sights that the world has to offer. People starving in the street. People dying of extremely unpleasant disease like leprosy. In the book, _Something_Beautiful_for_God_, Mother Teresa described the first time she helped a dying woman in the streets and how her mission started: "The woman was half eaten up by rats and ants. I took her to the hospital, but they could do nothing for her. They only took her because I refused to go home unless something was done for her. After they cared for her, I went straight to the town hall and asked for a place where I could take these people, because that day I found more people dying in the street. The employee of health services brought me to the temple of Kali and showed me the "dormashalah" where the pilgrims used to rest after they worshipped the goddess Kali. The building was empty and he asked me if I wanted it. I was very glad with the offer for many reasons, but especially because it was the center of prayer for Hindus. Within 24 hours we brought our sick and suffering and started the Home for the Dying Destitutes." It takes an immensely strong person to care for these people but Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity found strength and satisfaction in this work that the rest of the world can only at best tolerate. As Mother Teresa said: "I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?" Of course there are many people doing charitable work throughout the world, both inside and outside of the Catholic Church. What set Mother Teresa apart from the crowd was her focused dedication to her work that never faltered, never wavered for her entire life. What set Mother Teresa apart was that she directly confronted the worst problems in the world head on without letting it get her down. Thoreau wrote in "Civil Disobedience" that "There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man." Perhaps that partly explains the worldwide tribute she received after her death. Perhaps there are 999 people talking about "helping the poor", perhaps there are 999 people voting for "helping the sick and dying", perhaps there are 999 people sympathizing with the lepers plight for every one virtuous person actually doing something about it. Because if nothing else can be said of Mother Teresa, she was a virtuous woman. One doesn't have to be Catholic, or even religious, to recognize that. And in addition to giving hope to the sick and the poor, Mother Teresa's death gives hope to everyone else in the world because her life is proof that one does not have to be rich to accomplish great goals. One does not have to be famous to have an impact. Anyone can change the world through virtue and dedication. ==================================== Current Events Hear Them Roar, What Are They Saying? On Saturday October 25th, 1997 hundreds of thousands of women, perhaps more than a million of them, converged on Philadelphia for the much anticipated "Million Woman March". While police public information officers, the media, and African American Activists squabbled over whether or not there were actually a million women in attendance, the real message of the gathering has been largely overlooked. The march was organized by Phile Chionesu and Asia Coney, two African-American ladies in Philadelphia. And while not exactly new to activism, they aren't career activists either. In a large sense, they are ordinary women inspired by the Nation of Islam's Million Man march last year. The official theme of the march, was "Repentance, Resurrection, and Restoration," which is perhaps too close to the theme of Men's march to disassociate itself with Louis Farrakahn. And like the Million Man march last year, the speechifying had an unusually mixed message. While speakers spoke in general terms about the power of their collective strength, the specifics preached about empowerment of the individual. They spoke of recapturing their inner city neighborhoods from drug dealers by forming community watches. They spoke about confronting the bad elements of society head on, and not tolerating violence. They spoke of revitalizing local businesses in those communities by starting new businesses and investing in locally owned businesses. They spoke of the importance of being their own bosses and being in control of their own financial destiny. They spoke of mentoring teenage girls, which in effect means simply taking an interest not only in ones own children, but taking a concerned interest in the well being of all the children in the neighborhood. They spoke of establishing independent schools to replace the failed government schools. And why not? More and more people are learning that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to educate children. It mostly takes time, patience, and dedication. They spoke of helping recently released prisoners reintegrate themselves into society. The list went on and on. And there wasn't a single bad suggestion in the whole lot. And yet there was a discomforting tenor to the gathering as well. Take for example, the singing of "Lift Every Voice And Sing," better known as The Black National Anthem. It's a beautiful, spiritual song. But one can't help but wonder how the Black National Anthem relates to everything else, especially to the nation as a whole. The lyrics don't help matters much. Take for example, the third verse: God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee, Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand. True to our GOD, True to our native land. Since it's known as The Black National Anthem, one can't help but wonder about the abiguity of the last line. It's a nit that wouldn't be worth picking at if the other messages coming out of the Million Woman march weren't also troubling. Phile Chionesu was quoted by the Reuters news service saying, "We want to prepare our women, no matter what their status in life, to look at how we can begin to invest as black women and how we can begin to vote in blocs as black women." One of the keynote speakers was Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California). This is the woman that has been spearheading charges against the CIA that they are responsible for introducing crack cocaine into inner city neighborhoods. To cheering crowds she proclaimed, "After today, we will never be the same....America be placed on notice. We know who we are. We understand our collective power. Following today, we will act on that power." Again, this is more than a little ambiguous. Is this a threat or a promise? The ambiguity reflects a crossroads that African Americans are going to eventually have to choose. Will their movement go down the path of confrontation and special interest group politics? Or will their movement go down the path of teaching empowerment, inspiration, and responsibility? In a large sense, this is a crossroads many people in America face as our nation becomes more and more diverse. The recent gathering of the Promise Keepers in Washington was equally ambiguous in its tenor. Were they preaching group politics or self-improvement? The Promise Keeper's "Stand In The Gap Covenant" sent mixed signals. On the one hand, the covenant makes statements like: "We covenant by Your grace to love and serve our wives and children. We commit to give them first priority in our prayers and schedules. Today, each of us declares, `As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' Where we have used our masculinity against others, we now commit to honor all women and value all human life through our words and in our actions." And later in the same document: "We covenant by Your grace to pray for and to facilitate unity in the body of Christ. Where our pride, insensitivities and prejudice have divided the Church, we commit to seek forgiveness, understanding, and reconciliation." But in the same document there are statements like: "We covenant by Your grace to pursue vital relationships with a few other godly men for the purpose of encouraging one another toward love and good deeds." How can this be interpreted as anything other than collectivist group action? Nothing but good can come from a million African-American women returning home from their march, charged up and inspired to tackle the problems in their community. Nothing but good can come from a million Christian men heading home from D.C. committed to revitalizing their commitment to their families and communities. The potential danger in events like The Million Man March, the Million Man March, or the Promise Keepers Gathering is not in their specific goals. Indeed, they should be applauded for their initiative. The danger in these events is that they can lead people to believe that they must think and act as a group, that they must put their own judgements aside in favor of the collective. It's events like these that can lead to the worst kind of demagoguery. ==================================== Cultural Phenomena Edgy, Heavy, iNSULATED The L.A. based trio named iNSULATED have just released their first nationally distributed album called FENCE; and when you slide it into your CD player, the first question that will pop into your head is, "Are these guys just another Red Hot Chili Peppers clone?" But by the time you listen to the album's closing track, it won't matter what the answer is. By including "Find Your Sugar" as their first track, the band is inviting, begging even, to be compared the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Find Your Sugar" mixes multiple, competing lines of tempo that capture the full steam ahead, barely under control mood with a heavy metal singsong rap. "Find Your Sugar" will likely garner then considerable air play, at least on the college stations, on those merits alone. The track that has "mass market, hit single" written all over it is "Thread." In other words, it's the track that's the most like other rock songs you've heard over the past few years. You know the drill; standard instrumentation; standard form traditional rock theme. (How am I gonna find the time to be a big rock star and still have time for love?) And while it's not exactly upbeat, but there's a sense of hope in it that makes it a satisfying listen. It's a competently performed song, but it's not unlike stuff you haven't heard before. Heck, the guitar work is even reminiscent of U2's early work. Clearly iNSULATED is trying to cover their bases. "Find Your Sugar" to invite comparisons to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and "Thread" in order to have a single that can be played on your generic Rock Station du jour. Don't hold that against them. On Fence's other tracks, iNSULATED proves that aren't just chasing after demographics. iNSULATED has become their own musical masters and carved out a sound they can call their own. Fence is all about being on the edge of major changes, major decisions. The critical moments on life and the stresses of those decisions that can seem to make seconds stretch into hours. The music, at its best, feels like important decisions bearing down on us. Something big is going to happen and you don't know quite how it's going to turn out or what you're going to decide and are you going to make the right decisions or not? The music is a reflection of the chaos that fills us when we're on the edge of making big decisions. "Waiting On A Check" starts out with a mellow musical groove, reflecting a level of self-certainty, but the music gets progressively more complex, distorted and heavy as Gabriel Careful sings about the challenges of stepping outside of "a single file world." "Frozen Over" also showcases iNSULATED's ability start with a simple line of music and pile layers of feedback and complexity on top of it until your head is swimming. The best tracks on Fence are the full force, frontal assaults like "Ooga Booga Baby", "Show No Mo", and "Step Off." iNSULATED mixes postmodern lyrics, heavy guitar and drum work, and just the right amount of electronic mixing, with the confidence to combine multiple, competing lines of music into the same song to create an energetic, edgy, panoramic sound. Fence is distributed through Navarre. iNSULATED's web site is located at http://www.insulated.com/ ==================================== True Story A Day At The Races I admit it, I'm a media junkie. I don't know how it happened. Maybe it's an occupational hazard of being a programmer; I often find myself dividing my attention between two or three computers at a time as a regular part of my job. Or maybe I'm just a product of these media-laden times. Whatever the reason, I'm into information overload big time. Most evenings you can find my in my home office, surfing the net, watching the TV out of the corner of my eye (usually CNN or CSPAN) listening to the radio. My house is full of magazines piled up waiting to be read. I'm subscribed to no less than 20 e-mail based net publications and one of my favorite hobbies is reading online newspapers from places like Venezuela, St. Petersburg, and Japan. But recently my addiction reached an all new level of depravity at a very unlikely event. A NASCAR race. At first glance, you wouldn't think that stock car racing was much of an event, especially if your only experience with stock car racing has been to channel surf past a race on TV. All you see on TV is the one or two cars on the lead lap and since the cameras are following the lead cars you don't even get a good feel for how fast they are running. Heck, you don't even get to see the drivers except during their commercials. But when you go to the race and watch it first hand, the experience is totally different. First of all, outside the race track every driver has their mobile tractor trailer displays selling every imaginable souvenir you can imagine. Caps, T-Shirts, pins, posters. Basically, everything you can put a driver's face, logo, or car number on is for sale. But these one man circuses are also full of high tech toys, You can buy cell phones, pagers, CB radios and all kinds of radio equipment. But the best thing of all is that for about $30, you can rent a radio scanner and set of headphones for the race. What for? Well, the pit crews and no longer use old fashioned chalkboards and signs to communicate with the drivers. It's all done with 2-way radios now. With your scanner and headset, you can listen to all the radio communications between the drivers and the pit crews. Listening to these conversations, you find out a lot more abut what's going on in the race. Who needs new tires? Who bumped who on the track? Which cars have the right suspension for the days race. Where are the bad spots on the track. It's a constant stream of chatter. And watching the track live, you see the all of the cars at once and you get a much better indication of which are the good drivers and which are the not so good drivers. And usually the cars are spread out all over the track, so you are constantly watching the cars jockey for position. NASCAR. It's not just for red necks anymore. It's an information junkie's dream. ==================================== About Stuck In Traffic Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to evaluating current events, examining cultural phenomena, and sharing true stories. 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 occurring, 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...." Submissions Submissions to Stuck In Traffic are always welcome. If you have something on your mind or a personal story you'd like to share, please do. You don't have to be a great writer to be published here, just sincere. 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@ibm.net) 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. 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