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                             Stuck In Traffic
            "Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories"
                          Issue #35 - November, 2000
                           
         Contents: 

         Current Events:
         Vote Swapping For Fun And Profit
         The internet throws its usual monkey wrench into the 
         electoral process.
         
         Current Events:                         
         You Read It Here First
         My call on the Presidential Election
         
         True Story: 
         Observations From A Train 
         Comparing the differences between flying, driving, and train 
         riding
         
         Cultural Phenomena: 
         Movie Review:
         Nurse Betty
         
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                     Current Events
Vote Swapping For Fun And Profit

Just when you thought there was nothing new that could be said of an 
election campaign, along comes the Internet to throw its usual monkey 
wrench into things.  

Seems a canny leftist was frustrated at his voting prospects for the 
election.  Faced with the unpleasant choice of casting a principled 
vote for the let-most leaning candidate (Nader) and a power grabbing 
vote for the popular candidate who was just left-of-center, he found a 
way to have his cake and eat it too.  

It's called vote-swapping.  Suppose you are a Nader leaning leftist in 
a state where the race between Bush and Gore is very close.  What you 
do is find a Gore supporter in a state where Gore has a comfortable 
lead in that state's race.  Then the two of you come to an agreement.  
You pledge your vote to Gore, and your vote swapping partner pledges a 
vote for Nader.  

It's a win-win situation.  The Gore supporter is, in effect, 
transferring his vote from a state where his vote for Gore will not 
make much of a difference to a state where every vote counts.  The 
idea beng that it increases Gore's chances of winning in the state 
with the close race while not increasing the risk for Gore to lose the 
election by very much.  

The benefit to the Nader campaign is less clear, but nonetheless 
important in the long run.  If Nader gets a certain percentage of the 
popular vote, he qualifies for Federal matching funds.  Not too many 
people know about this little pork-barrel give-away for the politician 
class, but it's heavily used.  Basically, it's a tax-payer subsidy to 
election campaigns for the major party candidates while excluding the 
same benefits from smaller parties.  So if Nader gets enoug votes to 
qualify for matching funds, the Green Party gets a nice fat check from 
the government which it can plow into future campaigns.  

The original web site for finding a vote swapping partner was 
voteswapper.com.  But the idea quickly spread to other web sites as 
well.  The Attorneys General in several states ave declared the 
activity illegal, though it's far from clear whether such claims would 
hold up in court.  The Presidential Candidates have all disavowed 
association with the practice.  Editorialists are having a field day.  

Of course these vote-swapping arrangements are not legally binding 
contracts.  No one actually knows who you vote for once you enter the 
voting booth.  So there's no enforcement mechanism possible.  

Indeed, there are no doubt thousands of Republicans flocking to these 
web sites pledging to vote for Gore so that Nader supporters will 
continue to vote for Nader.  Of course those Republicans can walk in 
to the voting booth and go ahead and vote for Bush and no one will be 
the wiser.  

Is vote-swapping such an evil practice?  One thing's for certain, it 
violates the spirit of democracy.  The idea behind a democratic form 
of government is that we vote our conscious, based on who we think the 
right person for the job is.  Voting is not a power grabbing 
arrangement.  When you vote for a candidate, you are not buying that 
candidate.  You should not expect anything in return.  Only people who 
think they are going to get something out of a candidate would use 
their vote to ensure that they've at least voted for the winner, even 
if it's not their favorite candidate.  

The real problem that these shenanigans highlight is the electoral 
college process.  If the election were simply a popular vote among the 
entire U.S.  population, then the vote-swapping arrangement would be 
moot.  Perhaps in the days where politicians were still primarily 
responsible for representing a geographic region, the electoral 
college made sense.  Perhaps back in the days before the states' power 
was removed in favor of a strong federal government, the electoral 
college made sense.  But these days, every race is essentially a 
national race.  We vote on politicians based not so much on their 
particular policies for the home state, but based on their positions 
relative to our favorite special interest or national issue.  

The real solution to the vote-swapping fiasco is to get rid of the 
outdated electoral college process.  

The other issue that the vote swapping fiasco highlights is the 
absurdity of Federal matching funds.  There's no reason whatsoever to 
justify using taxpayer money to subsidize a federal election.  And the 
main reason the leftist Nader supporters dreamed up this scheme is to 
help the green party cash in on the pork.  Putting an end to Federal 
matching funds would remove one of the motivations for the money 
hungry power grab and maybe, just maybe, people could return to voting 
their conscience.  

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                         Current Events
You Read It Here First

Ooops.  I realized too late that the time for election predicitions 
was the October issue, not the November issue.  Oh well.  

Nonetheless, I’ll take a stab at an election prediction.  It’s 
Thursday October 26th.  I predict Al Gore will beat George Bush by 4 
or 5% of the popular vote.  I don’t follow it cloesly enough to be 
able to say whether he’ll win the necessary electoral college votes.  
But I believe Gore will win the popular vote.  

Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen and I wouldn’t 
hazard a guess.  

I’m betting that fully half of the Nader support will evaporate on 
election day and swing to Gore.  Too often, people of marginalized 
political views give up on making a principled statement and go for 
the power grab.  

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                             True Story
Observations From A Train

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do something I had 
never done before.  I took a train.  Now, strictly speaking, it's not 
the first time I had ever been on a train.  I had taken a train while 
on a vacation trip and I took a train once as a field trip in 
kindergarten.  

This time, I needed to get from my home in Cary to my parents' home in 
Charlotte so that I could rent a truck, load it up with some furniture 
I was inheriting from my parents, and drive it back to Cary.  It turns 
out that it's a lot cheaper to rent a truck "one way" than it is to 
rent a truck "locally" and drive it that far.  The train seemed like a 
good solution.  I took the Amtrak "Carolinian" from Cary to Charlotte, 
where my parents picked me up.  So this was the first time I ever took 
the train for no other purpose than practical transportation.  

I'm not prepared to claim that riding a train is better or worse than 
driving a car.  It was more expensive, and took more time.  But the 
debate on public transportation is much broader than that and it's a 
tired debate.  People have their own opinions on the merits of public 
transportation and don't tend to be swayed by argument.  

What I found impressive about my train ride was just how different an 
experience it is.  I have driven the route from Cary to Charlotte 
dozens of times over the years.  And even though my train route 
covered essentially the same territory, I got a totally different view 
of the country side.  I almost would not have believed it was the same 
state.  

Picking up the train was a relatively simple affair.  The train stops; 
you get on.  In theory you need a ticket.  And if you don't have a 
ticket, then you at least need a "reservation code." But I was 
challenged for neither.  I was just asked whether I wanted business 
class or coach and then I was directed to the right car.  

The Carolinian is a small Amtrak train.  Only about 4 or 5 cars total.  
But it was pretty full.  Nearly every seat was taken.  Seats are not 
assigned, so people are free to move around and arrange them selves as 
they want.  There are no seat belts on the train either.  At least 
none that I could see.  Certainly people were not using them.  No one 
was yammering away about the importance of wearing seat belts ether.  
This was a very good thing.  Made for a more relaxed trip.  

The Carolinian was reasonably clean, but it was obviously old and in a 
tedious state of repair.  The seats, at least the ones I tried, 
weren't exactly comfortable.  They were clean, but the cushions had 
obviously seen their better days.  The reading lights above many of 
the seats did not work, There were electrical outlets along the walls, 
which I was hoping to use for my laptop computer, but none of the 
outlets worked.  I did not see a lot of trash on the train, but thee 
was dirt and grime on the walls and windows.  I got the feeling that 
there were people assigned to keeping the train clean and in good 
repair, but they were only doing the minimal job necessary to keep 
their boss of their back.  But it was no big deal.  I'm not the sort 
that gets bent out of shape over such things.  But it was a sharp 
contrast to my experiences flying a plane.  Compared to flying, the 
train is a much more casual, informal affair.  

As the train pulled out of the Cary station, I was excited by the 
novelty of the view.  I recognized many of the streets we crossed, but 
it was amusing to see the intersections from the viewpoint of the 
train, rather than the car waiting for the train to pass.  But the as 
we headed to Durham and on to Burlington, the novelty passed.  The 
conductor passed through, taking our money and giving us tickets.  I 
could not help but notice that his system of keeping track of people 
who have and have not paid isn't the least bit foolproof.  He put 
ticket stubs above the seats when people paid.  But since people were 
free to roam from seat to seat, someone could probably slip past the 
conductor as he made his way down the aisle and avid paying.  I 
suspect that the conductor has done this for so many years that he can 
remember each rider's face and remember who has and has not paid.  I 
find that pleasantly comforting.  I'm not a "ticket holder" in his 
eyes, but a person with a face.  Nice.  

At the risk of painting a picture with too broad a brush, I have to 
say that it's a different sort of people who ride the train.  At least 
in America, trains are for people who have more time than money.  On 
the other end of the spectrum, you have people who fly airplanes who, 
in general, are people for whom money is not much of an issue, but 
time is precious.  Business men, wealthy folk, college students.  But 
my fellow train riders, judging by their dress and manners, had little 
to no discretionary money.  I didn't see much in the way of Designer 
Clothes, Brand Name Accessories, or expensive haircuts.  Nor did 
people travel with much luggage.  Most folks had just a small bag or 
two with them.  Which is not to say the train passengers were slovenly 
or ragged.  Nor were they impolite or rude.  There was one fellow who 
had his earphone blaring into his ears so loudly that it was clearly 
bothering people who sat nearby (including me).  But he was the 
exception, not the rule.  For the most part people chatted quietly 
with each other.  People were patient with each other as they got on 
and off the train and helped each other with their bags, etc.  

It was interesting to note the differences between train riders and 
plane riders.  But I was most fascinated by the differences in the 
countryside.  

For one thing, the times have turned their back on the trains, 
literally.  Most of the buildings you see from the train have their 
backs to the tracks.  Unlike the interstate where everyone is facing 
the road.  Occasionally you would see a very old house built from an 
era where trains were important and it faced the tracks, nut mostly 
everything faced away from the tracks.  

You see a lot of junk yards, trailer homes, and warehouses from the 
train.  You see lots of produce too.  More than once I saw a pick up 
truck filled with sweet potatoes driving along side of the tracks.  .  
There are no billboards as you go down the tracks.  Some would say 
this is an advantage.  But out in the rural areas, at least in North 
Carolina, you could not see much of anything.  You have this romantic 
ideal of watching the countryside flow by you as you scoot along the 
tracks.  But on the Carolinian route, the vegetation in the rural 
areas comes right up the rail way easement and it flashes by in a 
blur.  If you try to watch it too much, you get a head ache.  .  
Occasionally the vegetation would clear and you could get a glimpse of 
the country side.  And the impression you get is very rural.  People 
tend to think that the interstate represents the state of development 
everywhere.  But it's not.  Most of the country is very rural and very 
natural and thinly developed.  .  

You see lots of junkyards, chemical plants, abandoned grain silos, One 
distinct advantage to riding on the train is that you can use cell and 
mobile phones anytime you want.  It seemed that my cell phone was 
never out of range of the tracks.  I found that pleasant, even though 
I didn't actually use the phone while on my trip.  Saw tobacco sheds 
along the way.  It is true that you get to see much more life of small 
towns than I would have expected Even the back side of a small town is 
more interesting that driving down the interstate.  Occasionally you'd 
go through a small town and get peeks at huge beautiful, frame houses, 
obviously built for a different era.  You also got to see lots of 
shanty-shacks.  

I didn't get to see that many people, mostly because of the time of 
day I suspect.  But I saw a few kids around.  Let's just say these 
weren't Gap kids and leave it at that.  Went by school that was 
holding pee wee football practice.  I was surprised at how much was 
built up along the railroad tracks Even in the most rural parts of the 
state, there was almost always a road running parallel to the track.  
The perpendicular roads were often.  just dirt roads though.  

Of course this is North Carolina, so I got to see more than my fair 
share of kudzu along the way.  I saw a surprising amount of swampy 
standing water on the trip.  Would not be surprised to see it at the 
eastern end of the state, but I was travelling from mid state to 
western end.  so to see swamp like areas was strange.  Saw some big 
plant nurseries along the way.  But surprisingly did not see much crop 
land from the train.  I guess the crop lands are not right up against 
the tracks but they are out there.  

The things I didn't see from the train were also interesting.  No 
billboards trying to entice me to take the next exit for fast food and 
gas.  No speed limit signs.  No road construction signs.  No mile 
markers.  On the road everything is at a safe distance away.  The 
interstate is wide and they don't let buildings come anywhere close to 
it.  So in a way, the interstate feels emptier than the train route 
because on the train route, the things you see are much closer to you.  
Everything feels more immediate on a train.  This surprised me.  When 
you are driving a car you have to be constantly paying attention to 
what's going on around you, but you don't really get to observe much, 
so it's all kind of disconnected.  

Was riding the train better than driving?  I can't say it was.  The 
fact of the matter is, I'd take the speed in exchange for the 
inconvenience every time.  But riding the train made me realize just 
how narrow our perceptions can get when we take the same route over 
and over again.  That old adage about the "taking the long way home" 
is just as true today as it ever was.  And everyone should do it every 
now and then.  

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                     Cultural Phenomena
Movie Review:
Nurse Betty
*** 1/2

An amazingly original plot about a woman with not much going for her 
who lives for the daily episode of her favorite soap opera.  But when 
she witnesses the brutal murder of her husband, she enters a fantasy 
world in which she is Nurse Betty and she hits the road for 
California, looking for her the handsome Doctor in her soap opera 
dream.  Unfortunately, the same men who murdered her husband are now 
after her.  

Renée Zellweger plays Nurse Betty convincingly.  You are totally 
engrossed by her post traumatic transformation.  Morgan Freeman is 
less convincing as the professional hit man with delusions of his own 
to deal with.  And Chris Rock, once again, plays the only character 
Chris Rock knows how to play, Chirs Rock.  

But the best part about the movie is the non-cliche' ending in which 
our faith in the strength of the human spirit is reaffirmed and the 
dangers of living a life of delusions are highlighted.  I don't know 
why this movie was marketed as a comedy because it's a very human 
drama.  


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                 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...." 

                   Contact Information

All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and 
hate-mail should be sent to Calvin Powers via E-mail 
(powers@attglibal.net).

                     Copyright Notice 

Stuck In Traffic is published and copyrighted by Calvin Powers 
who reserves all rights.  Individual articles are copyrighted by 
their respective authors.  Unsigned articles are authored by Calvin 
Powers.  

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