How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Part One

Howdy, Road-Tripperz!

While mired in my last creatively bankrupt, spiritually crippling job I used to count down the days until my next vacation.  But ever since I began my writing "career", trying to get me to take a break is harder then dragging Mr. Scott out of the engine room of the Enterprise to go on shore leave.

Still, when it came time for my better half to take vacation, I really wanted to reward her diligence by getting out of Dodge and exploring some uncharted territory.  After much hand-wringing and debate we finally struck upon the idea for a good, old-fashioned road trip.  But where to go?

We were quite keen on the idea of exploring the New England states but we didn't want to spend a lot of time in the city.  We looked at potential destinations in and around Boston and suddenly hit upon a place that both of us were fascinated with:

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS   

Why Salem?  Well, both of us have an acute interest in history and "the occult", for lack of a better term.   And, yes, it probably would have been more appropriate to go there in the Fall but we really didn't want to compete with a slew of like-minded yahoos.  

We literally made our accommodations the day before and then procured a GPS device to insure that we found it.  Then, at 8 AM the next morning, we hit the road and drove seven hours straight to Bangor, Maine.  

After checking into out hotel, our first stop was the home of renowned author Stephen King:

      

King lives in a surprisingly modest house in an absolutely idyllic neighborhood.  The only indication that one of the world's most talented fright-meisters resides inside is the batwing-n'-spider-web wrought iron gates that have been constructed to keep stalkerish weirdos like from getting in.  Curiously enough, though, the gate to the driveway was wide open when got there.  

"Well, clearly he saw us pull up and he's inviting us inside," I sez to the missus.

"If you take so much as one step towards that driveway, I'll call the cops myself," she replied, stone-faced.

"Look, it's okay!" I maintained.  "We'll just go inside, stroll around the grounds for a bit, dress up in some of his clothes and, hey, if we just so happen to run into him, well, that's just gravy.  As long we don't refer to ourselves as 'his greatest fans' we should be okay."

Yeah, she still wouldn't go for it.  Honestly, what a trespassing prude...             

Later that evening we enjoyed a lovely repast at The Olive Garden.  During the next two-hours of sinful caloric gluttony I couldn't help but take stock of our fellow diners.  A disproportionate amount of them were heavy-set folks who just kinda sat there, ignoring their table-mates and cramming an unlimited parade of bread sticks and pasta into their maws while staring off into the distance.  

Although it certainly wasn't like this everywhere, I did get the distinct impression that America is kinda feelin' a bit blue right now.  This is really sad to me because in the Forties and Fifties the United States was the new global Camelot.  It was a nation of brave, prosperous, bold, innovative people who were the envy by the world, even for green-eyed Europeans.  

After working closely with Americans over the years I know for a fact that their Middle Class (or whatever's left of it) is ridiculously overworked and criminally underpaid.  I think a lot of them hate their jobs and are clinically depressed.  This makes people sedentary and, as a result, they probably eat out quite a bit.  Honestly, compared to Halifax, I barely saw any dedicated grocery stores the whole time I was down there.

To paraphrase Yoda: "Eating out leads to obesity, obesity leads to depression, depression leads back to  being sedentary."  And trust me, I'm not just whistlin' Dixie when it comes to this vicious cycle.  Hell, I lived it for longer then I care to admit.  

I'll give you another example: we ate at Denny's the following morning for the first time ever.  The scene for our rite of passage was absolutely perfect.  The restaurant itself turned out to be a giant, chrome-hued, double-wide Airstream trailer with a red pick-up truck parked out front:

I mean, c'mon!  How effin' awesome is that?!

   

The tableau inside was even more Rockwellian.  There were kids sneaking peaks at State Troopers as if they were Jedi Knights, workaday folks planning their carpool logistics and seniors with mesh-backed, flair-encrusted baseball caps perched precariously atop their bald pates.  All of this, of course, was presided over by a waitress appropriately named "Sunny".

Thanks to Denny's human beings never again need make that soul-rending decision: 'Do I want a sweet breakfast or a savory breakfast?'  Are you leanin' towards scrambled eggs and hash browns?  Well, here's a side of pancakes.  Got a hankerin' for snausenges?  Okay, fine, but I'm throwin' in some pancakes.  Got an EMT-level craving for bacon?  Oh, you better believe you're gettin' pancakes all up in that bee-yotch.  

(OMG...I would totally eat the f#@k right outta this now...)            

   

This is all well and good but it also means that you're ingesting half of your daily allowance of calories even before you have "Elevenses".

After breakfast we went back to the hotel to check out.  As we were loading up the car, an intense-looking jackrabbit stopped by to see us off:

"I'll swallow your soul." 

Before heading on to Salem we made a point of exploring downtown Bangor.  One of the coolest shops I found was Top Shelf Comics on Central Street:

   
Although the shop-keep was a tad overprotective of his wares (everything, and I mean everything, was bagged), he did provide some pivotal clues which helped me track some of the first comic book I ever owned.  Despite the fact that we didn't quite zero in on what I was looking for (see next week's post), I still rewarded his diligence by picking up Swamp Thing Volume Five "Earth To Earth".  This is a tremendous collection of Alan Moore brilliance which features Swampy's legendary clash with a certain Gotham-based chiroptera-themed detective.

Anyone who thinks that Bangor is aesthetically bankrupt really needs to take a second look.  There's plenty of orderly streets, town pride, classic architecture and vintage Americana on display there...

Now, I don't want to make it sound as if the first leg of our trip was all cute bunnies, Ol' Glory and dollops of whipped cream.  When we pulled over for lunch at the West Gardiner Service Plaza we had a harrowing close encounter with some volatile wildlife.

On the way back to the car I noticed a moose hanging out close to the parking lot.  Since all of us Canadians are blessed with the inborn ability to psychically communicate with these noble animals (think Aquaman but with elk), I attempted to befriend the beast.  But as soon as I closed to within ten paces I realized, all too late, that this wasn't the sort of moose I was familiar with.  As fate would have it...we weren't the only creature on vacation.

It was that most rambunctious of creatures: the notorious Bostonian moose, who we all know are considerably more aggressive then their Canadian counterparts.  Needless to say, I was lucky to escape with my life.            

"Not in the crotch!!!   NOT IN THE CROTCH!!!"

Gotta love how my better half just stood there snapping pictures instead of maybe...oh...I dunno, RUNNING TO GET HELP.  Thanks, babe.

Well, after that near-death experience, we decided to keep our limbs (and the rest of our extremities) within the confines of the Ninjamobile as we made a bee-line straight for Salem.   

But that's a tale for another time...

EPIC   Seriously, I love this guy.  IMHO, the "rebuttal" video included by King is immediately  rendered moot due to the fact that it was made by a douche-nozzle.  Er, I mean...lobbyist.

E-PIC   Just a sneak preview for the awesomeness headed yer way next week...

FAIL  Duz this meen i kant hav nun moar gran slamz?   OK, sad now...  

The Elephant In The Room

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."   Thomas Jefferson

Welcome, Free Thinkers!

So, America is teetering on the edge of total financial collapse and the mainstream media is doing a fantastic job keeping the general populace blissfully ignorant of this looming catastrophe. Instead of warning people about the ramifications of the U.S. dollar evaporating, we're hearing about J-Lo's separation, "McSteamy's" pain killer addiction and rampant speculation as to what chemical finally killed Amy Winehouse.

But, hey, maybe it's our own fault.  Maybe all we really want to do is keep fiddling blissfully while Rome turns into the equivalent of Backdraft.  Sometimes it's difficult facing reality, especially when it's the equivalent of a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray.

I will endeavor, in my own modest way, to try and compensate for this.  If and when everything goes bizzonkers, at least the five or six people on this planet who regularly read my blog will know what the hell is going on.

I don't want to split hairs here, people. When the U.S. economy tanks out (please note the deliberate use of the word 'if') we're all in some serious shit.  It will likely result in a planet-wide economic depression, the proposal of a centralized global economy, the subsequent erosion of sovereign nation identity and a major hit to our quality of life.  It will also result in the utter annihilation of bank savings and personal investments and make the debt-ridden middle and lower classes further beholden to their economic slave masters.

First and foremost, here's a documentary about the U.S. Federal Reserve: the shadowy and secretive organization at the heart of this financial crisis:

Some take-away's to consider:

1. The U.S. Constitution clearly states that the nation's currency must be Gold and Silver coin not government-issued paper I.O.U's.  Paper money no standard anymore, no backing.  In fact, it's printed like Monopoly money by the Federal Reserve whenever the government asks for it. 
2. The Federal Reserve is about as Federal as Federal Express.  It is not a government body but a cartel of large, elite, private Federal Banks who have allied together to curtail competition and maximize their own profits.
3. Ever wonder why the U.S. government never increases taxes?  It's because that, under the Federal Reserve system, Congress can go to the Fed and request that money be printed out of thin air without having to piss off voters by raising taxes.  
4. Income tax was introduced in the same year that the Federal Reserve system was instituted partially to off-set the in-born interest that every bill comes with as soon as it's printed.  
5. Banks routinely loan out more then they have in reserve in order to make lungfuls of money.  The market sets prices and wages based on what it assumes is the total amount of money in circulation.  When the Central Banks bleed reams of cash into the system, it devalues the dollar, increases the cost of goods and services and drives inflation through the roof.  That's why a bag of chips that cost twenty-five cents in 1978 now costs $2.25.   
6. If you want a sneak preview of what may happen to us if we don't smarten up, just have a look at Germany between World War I and World War II.  Forced to pay for war reparations, Germany started printing their currency like the Federal Reserve does now.  Eventually it destroyed the Middle class, who were forced to take wheelbarrows full of money down to the market just to buy a loaf of bread.
7. This all seems pretty important, so why aren't we hearing about  this constantly on T.V. or in the newspapers?  Well, ever since deregulation set in we went from having over 100 independent media voices to about six, which are all now owned by wealthy corporations.  Corporations that don't want the general populace to be informed about how the money system really works for fear that we'd all get super-pissed off and start rightfully demanding change.  
8. Inflation has nothing to do with the rising cost of living and everything to do with our currency losing it's value
9. Things actually should be getting cheaper not more expensive anyway because our modern production capability easily outstrips demand. 
10. Inflation caused by the Federal Reserve is so severe that it now takes a two-income family to make ends meet.

Now I'm not an economist, but that actually helps my argument here.  The powers that be are not just doing a poor job running the world economy; I believe they're doing a terrible job running the world economy, so terrible in fact that I believe that it's deliberate.

Leading up to the economic crash of 2008, efforts had been made to deregulate the banking industry in the United States.  The venerable Glass-Steagall Act, which recognized the conflict of interest inherent in allowing financial institutions to pursue both investment and financial banking, was systematically dismantled during a tsunami of industry lobbying.  Once the floodgates opened and banks began to engage in the most drunkenly reckless use of unlimited credit and Derivatives-based Ponzi schemes, the end was inevitable.

This is perhaps best-illustrated in the tremendous documentary Inside Job, which endeavors to explain just how this often-convoluted and Machiavellian economic false flag event was orchestrated:

Untitled from harisgr on Vimeo.

So, after things start falling apart as expected, George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson goes before Congress to begin a campaign of what can only be called economic extortion.  He warns the American people that if the big financial institutions don't get bailed out, the entire edifice will crumble.  Under threats of a global financial meltdown and warnings of impending Martial Law (!) Senators and Congressmen feel compelled to approve it:

Long after those notorious bailouts got rammed through, it's since come to light that a frighteningly large chunk of this money (which was supposed to write off bad debt in an effort to remedy the sub-prime mortgage crisis) was misappropriated.  In fact, huge tracts of the stuff was given away, blank-check style, to hung-over financial institutions to snatch up more assets that they didn't already own.  Co-incidentally, this also included a life preserver for Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest sinners during the investment frenzy and Henry Paulson's old Alma-mater!

As if that wasn't bad enough, there's at least $700 billion dollars still unaccounted for.  When asked about this, all the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke will say is that it was given away to foreign banking interests and and that no-one has the right to ask who those institutions are.

Can you believe the unmitigated arrogance of this asshole?  It just blows me away that the Federal Reserve has never been the recipient of an external audit.  If one of us regular, old, clock-punching, carbon-based units acted like this in the workplace we'd be fired and then locked up indefinitely...

It also pisses me off that people keep cutting Obama slack in his utter failure to jump-start the economy.  The old argument that he "inherited a mess" from Bush just doesn't hold water anymore.  The sad fact is, Obama's promise to keep his administration free from lobbyists and economic opportunists was cast out the window just as soon as he picked his cabinet.  Check out this Rogues Gallery of creeps:

• Larry Summers helped neuter the Glass-Steagall Act, served as Chief Economist for the ultra-shady World Bank and was forced to resign as the President of Harvard University over conflicting economic relationships and some pretty sexist remarks.  For most people, this would result in a black-listed resume but Obama apparently thought he'd be make the ideal director of the White House National Economic Council.
• Timothy Geithner, Obama's Secretary of Treasury was once the President of the private Federal Reserve Bank of New York.   He oversaw the dispersion of $350 billion dollars of bailout money which criminal outfits like AIG translate then used to give massive bonuses for it's own executives.  Frankly, making someone like Geithner Treasury Secretary is like putting a fox in charge of a hen-house.
• Speaking of a massive conflict of interest, William Lynn was made Deputy Secretary for Defense despite being a former lobbyist for Raytheon, one of the world's largest defense contractors.
• Geithner's Chief of Staff is Mark Petterson, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist.  
• George Mitchell, former lobbyist for the Saudi Royal family, now enjoys the position of Lead Envoy to the Middle East.  
• Tom Daschle was a lobbyist for several health care firms and was tapped by Obama to run the Department of Health and Human services.  

Frankly, I was willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt for awhile but his time in office really does drive home that there's no difference whatsoever between the Republicans and the Democrats.  They both serve the same corporate masters.  In fact, every one of Obama's broken campaign promises leads me to believe that he is 100% in the back pocket of the big, global corporate interests. 

Face it, if Obama was really committed to driving down the debt and cutting spending he would have immediately followed through on his most popular campaign pledge to shut down American military garrisons around the world and bring the troops home.  Senator Ron Paul, one of the few sane voices in Washington today, reminds us of that right here:

So what happens when the rest of the world wakes up one morning and decides that the U.S. dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on and then demands that all past payments are now due?  Well, the following video may be a tad alarmist and mercenary, but it'd also a fairly good 'what if?' speculation:


So what can be done to try and offset this?

1. All the corporate criminals, special interest groups and lobbyists have to be flushed out of Washington pronto.  Corrupt "walking dead" businesses must be allowed to fail to make room for fresh growth.
2. The United States must cease to be global policemen.  Rampant military spending must halt immediately.
3. The Federal Reserve system must be moth-balled and the gold standard has to be re-married to the dollar.
4. Free-thinking, non-partisan and truly independent political visionaries like Ron Paul need a kick at the political can.  Be wary of the same old, two-party choice of bad and worse being foisted up by the mainstream media!  Embrace those candidates that make sense but are being ignored! 
5. People need to get out of debt as soon as possible and must stop spending beyond their means.
6. Cash and bonds are a volatile form of savings right now.  Gold, silver and other commodities are the smartest investments when fiat currencies are revealed as the financial house of cards they really are.  
7. If the worst-case-scenario happens and hyper-inflation takes root in a panic, you can expect the value of investments and cash savings to evaporate.  The price of goods and services will skyrocket.  Having a stockpile of food and supplies as well as growing your own produce would be a very smart thing to do in this scenario.
8. If a crash does happen and suddenly our politicians are telling us that we must abandon our Canadian currency in lieu of an amalgamated North American/Global currency, this is our cue to rise up.  After all, this emergency could easily be used to usher in a global version of the Federal Reserve system which is designed for one purpose only: to make poor people poorer and the rich even richer.   

I truly hope that I'm wrong about all this.  In fact, I hope someone reads this, does their own research and  comes up with a truly compelling rebuttal that completely deflates my concerns.  But when you take a long, hard look at the current debt figure, it's hard to feel optimistic:

You know that when the corporate-controlled mainstream media is suddenly talking about the possibility of a U.S. economic default, then we need to unplug ourselves from the opiate of mainstream infotainment and be very vigilant.

Don't say that I didn't warn you.  Now go forth and get informed...

EPIC  Another documentary about the sketchy origins and ruinous nature of the Federal Reserve:

FAIL This doc if far from even-keeled but it does do a fair job cataloging Obama's failure to deliver any of his campaign promises. 

MINOR FAIL: Hate the song and video but I LOVE the mantra towards the end...