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Stuck In Traffic Issue 28
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Stuck In Traffic
"Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories"
Issue #28 - May 1998
Contents: ÿ
The Price of Oil in Cary
I learned yet another of life's lessons while
shopping at my local Wal-Mart and it started with
the Mayor of the town I live in.
_Holy Fire_: A Review
I don't usually think of this 'zine as a review
'zine. But every now and then I get so excited
about a book or movie that I have to share with the
readers. Such is the case with this book.
God Comes To Garland
The real spectacle behind God's Salvation Church
has nothing to do with Flying Saucers.
ÿ
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True Story
The Price of Oil In Cary
I've learned some of the most important lessons of my life while
shopping at Wal-Mart. I know that's a very politically incorrect
thing to say these days, but it's true. There's a little replica of
the real world within the walls of every store and all you have to do
is look around to learn about the human condition. Long time readers
of _Stuck In Traffic_ will recall that it was at Wal-Mart that I
learned about the excesses of Marketing and got a headache while
shopping for Tylenol. And it was at Wal-Mart that I learned the most
about how racial harmony is truly achieved.
The latest lesson I learned while shopping at Wal-Mart came from the
Automotive department and, like so many world events these days,
started with speculation over the price of oil.
Call me lazy if you must, but I simply refuse to change the oil in my
car on my own anymore. I used to try to change my own oil. But I
never once got proficient at it enough to be able to do it in under
40 minutes. And I never could do it without making a mess. And then
there's all that old oil that has to be taken to the appropriate
recycling center. So, if time is money, I've concluded that it's
simply not cost-effective for me to change my own oil.
Wal-Mart is by far the cheapest place in the town of Cary to get your
oil changed. If you go to one of the national chains of oil change
shops, you could easily spend $26 on an oil change. And even with a
coupon, you rarely get out of those places for under $20. And the
national chains of oil change shops are always looking for excuses to
charge you money for something extra. On the other hand, Wal-Mart
will change your oil for about $16 and that includes the price of the
oil and the oil filter. Occasionally you'll hear about a local
garage that will do oil changes for a little less as part of a
promotion of some sort. But Wal-Mart has this low price everyday.
And going to Wal-Mart has the added benefit that I can shop for
household stuff or do grocery shopping at the grocery store next door
instead of waiting in some grungy waiting room that has a TV blaring
so loud that I can't even read. The price is right. I get better
use of my time. And I can always depend on them.
So not too long ago, I got up early one Saturday morning and trooped
off to the Wal-Mart for my oil change ritual. I dropped off the car
at the Wal-Mart auto center, did my grocery shopping and by the time
I got back the car was waiting for me outside So I loaded up the
groceries into the trunk, headed back inside and got in line at the
counter to pay. And what do you know, I found myself standing in
line behind the Honorable Mayor of Cary, Koka Booth.
While bursting at the seams with growth, Cary is still small enough
that it's not too terribly unusual to run into elected officials
during the course of every day events like getting your oil changed
at the local Wal-Mart. This was by no means the first time I had
seen Mayor Booth in person. When I first moved to Cary, he and I
lived in the same precinct. He and I were always among the first in
line on election day. And we would chat a little while waiting in
line in that civic fashion that folks do on election days. I also
saw him once at a the local ice cream stand. And of course I've seen
him on public access TV extolling the virtues of voting for bonds to
pay for parks and schools, etc.
And despite his unusual name, Mayor Booth is as regular a guy as you
could ever hope to meet. Nothing about him sticks out as the least
bit unusual. Nothing about him is going to attract attention in a
crowd. But I recognized him right away as I got in line at the
Wal-Mart, even though mostly all I saw was the back of his head. But
I didn't say anything to him. I'm just not much into small talk, and
somehow standing in line at the check out counter didn't seem
conducive to a political debate on the merits of city growth versus
the merits of restricted and planned development. (Besides, he and I
pretty much agree on that subject anyway.) So I was content to leave
him alone in peace. But there was another man shopping in the
automotive department that wasn't nearly so considerate of Mayor
Booth. He rounded the corner of an aisle with a shopping cart full
of spark plugs, air filters, and kids and his face lit up as soon as
he saw Mayor Booth.
"MAYOR BOOTH," he bellowed so loud that you would have thought that
he had hijacked the PA system in the store, "GREAT TO SEE YOU!" And
he rushes up to the Mayor and starts introducing himself to the
mayor. Or I guess I should say reintroducing himself. Because he
starts going on about didn't the mayor remember him and his son at a
softball game a couple of years back and the mayor had given the
whole team some sort of award or something. The kid was awestruck
His father was gushing. And everyone else within shouting distance
was trying to discreetly check out the scene and whispering to each
other, "is that _really_ the mayor?" as if they were somehow
suspicious that this might be some sort of joke on the poor fellow
standing in line in front of me.
And it was a kind of a joke, in a way. Because after a minute or
two, Mr. Enthusiastic shuffled off with his cart load of kids and
Mayor Booth was left there, standing in line, with a room full of
people still staring at him, whispering at him, pointing fingers at
him. Whereas he had formerly been Mr. Anonymous just going about
his chores, now he was a public spectacle.
I caught him looking around a little and when he looked behind him,
at me and the rest of the people in line behind me, I got a glimpse
of his face. He looked like an animal trapped in headlights of an on
rushing car. Frozen out of shock and fear. I wanted to say
something like, "Man, that must suck to have to deal with that kind
of stuff everyday." But I didn't.
But as he was looking around sizing up the situation, I swear there
was a visible transformation of his appearance and demeanor. I got
an up close and personal look at his ability to morph from Mr.
Everyman to Mr. Mayor right before my eyes. I'm not sure how to
explain it. But it seemed like all of a sudden he got more animated
in his movements and body gestures. His eyes lit up as if some sort
of switch had been turned on in the back of his head. He started
making good old fashioned eye-contact with everyone he could.
Now, cynical folks may say, "Well, he was putting on a show. He
wasn't being sincere. It was obvious that he was not being his usual
self." But that doesn't bother me a bit. Of course he was. Elected
officials have to play the _role_ of an elected official. That's
what people expect of them. Who in the world doesn't act a little
bit differently when they are the center of attention? So I wasn't
too surprised by this radical change in his personality, but it was
sort of shocking to see the transformation right in front of me.
About that time, it was his turn with the cashier, and the young lady
behind the automotive check out counter began ringing up his bill
with all the nervousness of someone in trying to do their normal job
in the presence of a big celebrity. She was all thumbs. But finally
she managed to get the cash register to spit out a bill and she told
The Mayor his total for the oil change. A debate ensued.
Seems that the price was significantly higher than what the Mayor had
expected to have to pay and he demanded an explanation. "Demanded" I
say only in the sense that he simply refused to let the matter drop.
He never raised his voice. He never acted upset. But he also kept
asking questions about the bill and asking the poor little girl at
the register if she agreed that something seemed to be wrong with his
bill. Now the price of an oil change has not changed at the Wal-Mart
for the entire time that I have been going there, so I was naturally
curious to hear the outcome of this debate. The price did seem a
little high to me, by 3 or 4 dollars. Curioser and curioser.
By now, everyone in line knew that there was some kind of hold up.
And lets be honest, every single one of us was watching the
mini-drama unfold to see how The Mayor of Cary was going to handle
this apparently blatant overcharge. How was he going to handle this?
Was he going to lose his cool with the check out girl? Would he let
the matter drop and just pay it? Was he going to use his mighty
powers of Mayor to kick Wal-Mart's ass?
More debating ensued for several minutes and then an uneasy stalemate
was reached. Neither the Mayor nor the check out girl were saying
anything new. The Mayor repeatedly pointed out the advertised price
for the oil change that was clearly posted on the wall and how there
was an extra, cryptic charge on his bill that made the total higher
than it was supposed to be. The poor check out girl could only
defend herself by saying over and over that that's what the computer
had rung up for his bill and she couldn't explain it but that it must
be right if the cash register said it was.
The Mayor was very calm and cool and collected. He never once
implied that the girl was trying to cheat him or that there was any
sort of malicious activity in progress. But there was one thing
about him that I noticed. While not actually raising his voice, he
was speaking just a little bit louder than necessary. There is no
doubt in my mind whatsoever that the Mayor was putting on a show for
the rest of us in line. He was role playing.
The poor check out girl, on the other hand, was looking very nervous
and scared. Finally, FINALLY, she had the bright idea that maybe she
ought to call a supervisor to come deal with the situation. And she
did.
So while we are waiting for the supervisor, Mayor Booth keeps talking
about how the bill doesn't seem right to him and he doesn't
understand this one cryptic charge on the bill for the extra couple
of dollars. He goes on about this for another few minutes until the
Supervisor arrives. By this time, of course, everyone within earshot
knows exactly who The Mayor is and everyone knows exactly what the
situation is. Again, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that
The Mayor was deliberately repeating the situation so that everyone
knew what the score was.
Frankly, it was wearing thin. It had now been a good 7 or 8 minutes
since The Incident had begun.
The Supervisor took about 30 seconds to decipher the bill. Seems
that the advertised price for the oil change only buys you 4 quarts
of oil. The Mayor's mini-van took more oil than 4 quarts of oil and
so the cash register had added an extra charge for the extra oil.
The supervisor even pointed out the not-so-fine print on the sign
above the register that mentioned this fact.
Whew. "Well, that explains that," I thought to myself.
But no. There was more. The Mayor of Cary and the Supervisor
proceeded to debate the price of oil. The Mayor wanted to know
exactly how much more oil above the 4 quarts did they have to put in
to the minivan. The mayor wanted to know how much they charged for a
quart of oil? Did they charge retail prices or wholesale prices for
the oil? There were many questions. The Supervisor, not having done
the actual work couldn't answer these questions.
The Mayor kept asking them in that not loud but loud enough anyway
voice of his.
Well, there was nothing else to do except consult the mechanics in
the garage. So the Mayor of Cary, The Supervisor, and the poor check
out girl all marched off in a single file line to the garage for more
Investigations.
It was very quiet in the check out line all of a sudden. And without
a show to watch, it also got very boring very quickly. We fidgeted.
We stared at each other in line.
Finally, to break the nervous silence more than anything else, I
turned to the couple waiting behind me in line and said to them, "Ya
know, if it were any other time except now, I'd be very proud to have
a penny pincher for a Mayor."
And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I realized that I
had once again learned an important life lesson in my neighborhood
Wal-Mart. I realized that. everyone, in every democracy on the
planet, feels exactly the same way.
=====================================
Cultural Phenomena
_Holy Fire_: A Review
Without a doubt, Bruce Sterling has to be classified as one of the
key figures in the cyberpunk genre of science fiction. But first
with _Heavy Weather_ and now with his latest novel, _Holy Fire_,
Bruce Sterling has evolved his storytelling into a form that, if not
outright mainstream, at least appeals to a much broader spectrum of
science fiction fan.
_Holy Fire_ reads like a traditional cyberpunk tale in the sense that
there are multiple threads of the plot interweaving with each other
and seen through the eyes of a single character. The story jumps
from one locale to the next as can only be done in a truly Global
Village setting. Like all the best cyberpunk, there are a wide
variety of exotic and sometimes scary people along the way. Like the
best cyberpunk novels, the protagonist in Holy Fire is living by her
wits, improvising, making things up as she goes along, not so much
with a plan as a goal.
But in Holy Fire, the rogue Artificial Intelligence programs are no
longer the key characters. Most of the software in _Holy Fire_ is
well domesticated and even (somewhat literally) house trained.
Unlike the traditional cyberpunk novel, cyberspace is not the primary
stage in which the players interact. Cyberspace is there, but it is
treated rather matter-of-factly by the characters in the story, much
the way we take our phones for granted.
But the thing that radically breaks _Holy Fire_ out of the cyberpunk
mold is the protagonist, Mia and her quest to relive her lost life
and to capture something elusively referred to as the Holy Fire. Mia
is a 94 year old woman, living in the late 21st century where the
world has just emerged from decades of plagues and other biological
disasters. The world Mia lives in has become thoroughly democratized
and totally focused on the preservation and the elongation of life.
Since the government in Mia's world is strictly democratic and the
population is aging more and more due to the improvements in medical
technology, the elderly population have become the majority and the
dominant voting bloc. This leads to self-perpetuating feedback loop
in which global policy continues to be focused more and more on life
extension technologies and young people become second class citizens.
Mia is a "medical economist" and as such spends her life evaluating
the cost/benefit ratios of various life extension technologies. So
we see first hand through her eyes the obsession that her world has
on preserving the body.
Early in the story, Mia attends the deathbed of one of her
ex-husbands for whom she feels neither remorse nor love. In fact we
find that she's very uncomfortable and even borderline disgusted at
having to deal with bonds of past romances lost long ago. It is
clear that in this world after you live to a certain age, people's
attitudes about personal relationships changes dramatically. Their
society refers to it as becoming "post-human". And it becomes clear
to Mia through a chance encounter with a couple of "kids" in their
early twenties, that the post-human condition isn't all it's cracked
up to be.
While she can't quite articulate it, Mia realizes that she can no
longer live in the medically obsessed world she helped create. So
she signs up for the riskiest life extension treatment there is and
walks out of it with the body of a 20 year old only to realize that
her world is not going to let her live the life of a 20 year old just
because she has the body of one. Instead they are going to treat her
like a lab rat.
So Mia not only has to escape the clutches of her medical keepers,
she has to fumble her way across Europe, trying to discover for
herself what in life is worth living for. And along the way she
finds a whole subculture, a lost generation of young people
struggling to answer the same question in a world where all the
power, success, and money is tied up in the hands of the
gerontocracy.
Bruce Sterling explores that question from the viewpoint of many
different characters in his book and with varying degrees of success
they all reach more or less the same conclusion: That a long life,
without the Holy Fire is no life at all. So while the story telling
technique in _Holy Fire_ is the tried and true cyberpunk format, the
theme in _Holy Fire_ is as universal and ancient as it gets.
=====================================
Current Events
God Comes To Garland
Just in case you were wondering, God did _not_ appear on Channel 18
on March 25th to announce his return to earth. He did _not_, in
fact, descend from the heavens in a cloud-like UFO to the backyard of
a suburban house in Garland, Texas. And, as near as anyone can tell,
God did not take over the body of Mr. Hon-Ming Chen, leader of the
God's Salvation Church who owned the house.
It seems that Mr Chen is a little confused about the prophecies that
God is sending him in visions. . Indeed, one might even dare to
think Mr. Chen a bit touched, out of sorts, disoriented, delusional,
loony, or stark raving mad.
God's Salvation Church, aka "Chen Tao" aka "True Way", was founded in
Taiwan sometime in the 1950's by Mr. Chen a former sociology
professor and apparently dropped his profession after he started
receiving messages from God in 1992. The Church moved to San Dimas,
Californis soon after because they believe that the United States
will be spared the upcoming nuclear war that will be started in 1999.
In the frenzy that followed the Heaven's Gate suicide, the Church was
exposed and they quickly dropped "God Saves The Earth Flying Saucer
Foundation" from the many names that they used for their Church.
They also determined that God would be coming to Garland, Texas, so
they left San Dimas and bought 21 houses in a Garland neighborhood.
As the March 25th deadline for God's arrival neared, the Garland
neighborhood was swamped with news reporters from around the globe
and there was a frenzy of comparisons to the Heaven's Gate cult and
dire warniings about "possible mass suicide attempts" even though the
members of God's Salvation Church do not believe in suicide. In fact
they quite ardently believe that killing one's self is the same thing
a killing God.
And if God's Salvation Church is in fact a cult, as they have been
described to be by nearly anyone with access to publishing media,
they seem to manage to be a cult without any particularly bad habits.
In fact, by all media accounts they seem to live and coexist quite
peacably with their neighbors.
The media frenzy about God's Salvation Church originally broke out
when the Taiwanese mother of a 16 year old girl claimed that the
church had kidnapped her. But when the authorities investigated the
matter they discovered that a more proper interpretation of events
was that the girl had run away from home and gone to San Dimas
because her father, who was a church member, had recently died of
cancer there. She was apparently staying with her uncle.
And while it is true that the members look quite comical in their
white robes and white cowboy hats, neighbors in the Garland
neighborhood have steadfastly refused to say that they felt
intimidated by the cult. Amused, yes. Intimidated, no. Although
Mr. Charles Amyx, who lives next door to Mr. Chen, was reported to
have expressed concern over the fact that his homeowner's insurance
didn't cover "acts of God," and was therefore somewhat concerned
about being so close to where "the Godplane" was going to land.
While God's Salvation Church managed to coexist somewhat peacfully
with their suburban middle class neighbors, the media circus that
converged on the scene as the March 25th deadline drew near did not.
There were so many news vans and reporters in the neighborhood that
residents could not get to their houses. The police had to set up
roadblocks at the neighborhood entrances and let only residents and a
limited number of reporters in at a time. Residents complained that
their carefully cultivated lawns had been destroyed by inconsiderate
reporters trying to get to Mr. Chen's house.
Personally, I'd like to complain that the so-called journalists even
considered this event to be news. If ever there was a case of going
after the titilation instead of the news, this is it. Here we have a
bunch of harmless eccentrics finding God in their own crazy way,
living a peaceful life, mostly getting along with their neighbors.
And our news media can't leave them alone for fear of missing the
next big mass suicide.
If it were any other religion, we'd call it persecution.
As a society, we talk and talk about the importance of valuing
diversity. We talk and talk about the strength we garner from
incorporating all sorts of people, views, and cultures into our
melting-pot society. Yet we seem to be unable to tolerate harmless
religious eccentrics. We seem to be unable to stop drooling at the
thought of mass suicide. We seem to be unable to truly let other
people think and believe differently. We seem to pretty damn narrow
minded when it comes to religion.
Everyone has to find God in their own way, even the members of God's
Salvation Church. And if we find their religious practices amusing
and comical, then we should keep it to ourselves. Or at very least
we should not openly tease them about their beliefs.
And after all, if, as the the church members believe, Jesus has been
reborn and is a 27-30 year old man currently living in Vancouver,
British Columbia, well, we'll all feel more than a little bit ashamed
of ourselves won't we?
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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...."
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 Notic:
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.
Permission is granted to redistribute and republish Stuck In Traffic
for noncommercial purposes as long as it is redistributed as a whole,
in its entirety, including this copyright notice. For permission to
republish an individual article, contact the author.
E-mail Subscriptions:
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Subscriptions to the printed edition of Stuck In Traffic are
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