Have you ever seen a female “cameraman”?  No doubt they exist.  I’ve never spotted one, however.  You can tell most all are men, by observing them in action, I doubt they’ve been instructed to focus upon good looking women as they pan crowds; but that’s what they seem always to do.  Who can  deny that a disproportionate amount of attention is paid to pretty girls during crowd shots.

That attractive women enjoy advantages and receive special attention in our society (and probably most others as well) is hardly news.  Still, the guys make it all too obvious, especially when they just happen to tighten the shot and linger longer on them.

The camera has not been invited in.  Privacy has been set aside.  But then most people so selected would not object.

“Fame” is fleeting; best to cherish the moment should it arrive.

From early on, when some of us were latch-key kids, we understood how important keys were.  They opened doors to places where we needed to be.  If we were entrusted with them it was critical that we not lose them (or hope that a neighbor, given a spare, would be at home).  As the years passed on, rings or holders had to accommodate a growing number of keys:  front and back door keys, mail box keys, office keys (including one for the bathroom), vault keys, locker keys, car keys, trunk keys, keys to neighbors’ doors and parents’ apartments.  As keys were added, key rings grew heavier and more unwieldy; and finding the right one predictably more challenging.  Fortunately, keys were not all alike and in time we learned to recognize most either by color, size, shape or teeth configurations.  Or we added a piece of tape or altered the surface area somehow for easier identification.  But then we complicated matters by adding new keys from time to time.

Every so often, frustrated by delays in picking out the right one, we’d consider lightening up, pruning our key rings.  Reduce the number we carry to more manageable levels – a worthy task to be sure.  Easier said than done.  With key congestion having long ago set in, our failure to eliminate keys only produced confusion.  On the ring were some whose purpose could not be recalled.  No doubt several were no longer needed, but how could we be sure?  Where there was no uncertainty we disposed of the key.  But that still left a few for which we could not account.  So we keep them on the ring, hoping that one day we will.  Better safe than locked out.

It’s hard to imagine any kind of real world society in which some segment of the population, usually a very small one, does not occupy a privileged position.  It may be a family, a tribe, an aristocracy, a priesthood, the ranking military or the wealthy enjoying their elevated positions while assuring everyone else this is how it should be, that their rightful position is at the top.  But rarely is that effort entirely successful; there will always be those who question such arrangements.  Still, most times the majority seem reconciled to the presence of privileged groups, although some will raise the alarm when they perceive serious abuses and blatantly unfair advantages.  It may take the form of exemption from or special protections in the law, the amassing of widely disproportionate shares of the wealth, an ostentatiousness truly offensive or a deliberate distancing from the rest of society.

A look around the world today reveals a certain restiveness within many societies, a willingness to speak out against privileged groups and their behavior.  Often it originates  not from the  lower orders but from people whose incomes are rising and who have begun to gain social traction.  Even as they benefit, their opposition to advantages enjoyed by others intensifies.  This has been given public expression of late in nations as different as the United States, Israel, Russia, China, Brazil, South Korea, Syria, Myanmar, Tunisia and many others.  There’s every reason to believe this wave of resentment will continue to spread.

Curiously one form that it takes relates to the automobile.  Remember when cars first hit the roads at the dawn of the 20^th Century, they were purchased almost exclusively by the wealthy, who then often relied on liveried chauffeurs to get about.  The general public was not pleased because as one critic back then noted, the car was no more than a “play toy for the amusement of a few millionaires.”  Another asked, “Did you see anything so outrageous as these motors?  Automobiles are such insolent advertisements of wealth!”  Meanwhile, a writer in the Atlantic Monthly wondered why ninety per cent of the people should “be put upon their everlasting guard against a luxurious pastime in which they cannot participate?”  The situation sure did change once Henry Ford started mass producing cars and ordinary Americans fell head over heels for them.  Resentment did not disappear, though more often it involved envy of the wealthy and privileged for tooling around in Jaguars, Bentleys, Lamborghines, Porsches, Rolls-Royces, etc.  Tinted windows, when they first appeared, probably produced similar complaints because they screened out an ever curious public “entitled” to view all vehicle occupants.

It’s been outside the U.S. where auto resentment has become a frequent expression of the growing unease with the privileged elements of Society.  The Chinese are rapidly awakening to the reality that while wealth has grown rapidly a disproportionate share has flowed into the hands of its business and political elites.  Chinese roadways are notoriously lawless.  Still it was considered an outrage when news of the incident circulated widely after the son of a high-level police official hit two people with his car, killing one; then brazenly drove off, but not before shouting to eyewitnesses who his father was.  Other such instances of irresponsible behavior behind the wheel by officials or by family members have made the public extremely sensitive to the arrogant attitudes among China’s powerful.  Much the same occurs regularly in Moscow where auto ownership has soared while traffic stays snarled most of the day.  Still, when someone of importance needs to get around, everyone is moved off to the side so that this special vehicle can pass by unhindered.  This phenomenon, coupled with corrupt police shaking down motorists, has produced widespread anger and fueled ongoing protests against the establishment.  In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, earlier  last year, the son of that nation’s richest man smashed his father’s $1.3million Mercedes into a bicyclist, killing the man instantly.  Now Brazil happens to be one of those places where new wealth has accumulated in dramatic fashion.  Still, the country ranks among the most unequal of nations.  No wonder then that the death of this one lower-class individual created a national furor and sparked a debate as one report put it “over wealth, influence and traffic deaths.”

So, you see, the automobile, a universal symbol of mobility, speed and modernity serves also as a proxy for inequality, glaring displays of privilege and of the arrogance of the wealthy.