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                             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.  

   
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                         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.  Individual articles are copyrighted by 
   their respective authors.  Unsigned articles are authored by Calvin 
   Stacy Powers.  
      
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