Empty Hands

A quote from Ron Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton" seems particularly apropos to modern day America: 

"Both theory and experiences conspire to prove that a nation... cannot possess much active wealth but as a result of extensive manufactures." 

And on page 374;

"Remembering the scarcity of everything from gun powder to uniforms in the Continental Army-- a by-product of Britain's colonial monopoly on most manufacturing-- Hamilton knew that reliance on foreign manufacturers could cripple America in wartime. 'The extreme embarrassments of the United States during the late war, from an incapacity of supplying themselves, are still matter of keen recollection,' he noted in the report."

(December 2009) Leslie Gelb, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior US defence official: 

"'In addition to China's being stronger than it used to be, the United States is weaker than before and spread thin in military commitments and wars. In particular, America is weaker economically, the weakest it's been comparatively in almost 60 years. It hardly ever was in a position to dictate solutions even at the height of its powers, but today, even its clear position of primacy has been diluted.'' 

"the US, owes, on some estimates, more than $US1 trillion ($A1.1 trillion) to China in public debt."

Hamilton saw debt as a necessary part of an effective government; to borrow, invest and tax. However, the key to debt lies in a nation's ability to repay what it owes. "Active wealth" is derived from a vibrant economy and its ability to produce salable goods. 

How many people do you know who actually make something for a living? 

The Zesty Formula

I do not employ publicists or ghostwriters as many public figures do, but compositions in the electronic medium certainly allow me to exist as an edited, zestier version of myself; thus my great attraction to e-mail, Facebook and Blogs. 

I haven’t the discipline to write a book, but paragraphs are within my reach. There may be no movies in my future, yet self-manipulated digital photography can dress my vision of the world (and the world's vision of me) in more suitable attire. 

Media Girl

Media Girl on the other hand, defines herself as a tough audience. Of course she is! Raised on a diet of microchips and satellite broadcasting she has had instant access to high quality art and unlimited audio-visual entertainment. She is an educated consumer with hours of TV, film, music and print under her belt. Where a primitive initiate might stare in awe at a two-dimensional screen, Media Girl's cross discipline background allows her to filter, value, retain or dismiss great volumes of programming with a discerning eye. Each day she spends grazing the grasslands of the art-techno fantasy she becomes harder to rope and bind. She bores easily and is intolerant of mediocrity in her media diet.

The Bleed-Over Effect 

There is a psychic state or mental borderland where art and reality, celebrity and audience co-exist in a inter-changeable, almost visceral way. Just as the energy in food is transformed into body mass and kinetic power, the input of media weaves itself into the fabric of conscious and sub conscious thought. Like the highly refined sugar of a French pastry, electronic media has the capacity to dash naturally occurring flavors to the floor. The appeal of a simple ripe red apple wanes before the tantalizing presentation of the culinary artist.

When once flamboyant menus were reserved for princely tables and high occasions, the omnipotence of media offers programming in such abundance that one begins to absorb the whole of the art-techno fantasy in the same way that one ingests the panoramic view of a landscape. But they are not the same; no more than a picture of a flame is heat.

The psycho-biology of mind reveals that the parts of the brain that fire together (that are active at the same time) wire together (form networks of neurons that function as processing circuits). This revelation in neuro-science now lends a physiological explanation to afflictions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, where two dissimilar senses or experiences are bound together in memory.

It is an odd paradox that the generation of Jungian psychologists so adept at compartmentalizing and evaluating the subconscious power of the parent and child voices in the human psyche have been so lenient with the voice of media. While it is readily accepted that diminishing comments made by the parent may be absorbed unfiltered by the child and later return as mental malignancies, it seems some special status of media renders its effects immune to similar analysis.

Back to Media Girl

Media Girl complains of unrealistic expectations for her self and others which require saintly doses of forgiveness to offset. She likens her ID to boxing sock puppets, one full of energy and passion, the other intolerant and bored, duking it out in an endless title-bout. Could this psychic dilemma be as much a result of her relationship to TV and film as to her parents or flaws in the developmental environment in which she was raised?

Much like the multitude of defenses spawned by the tobacco industry, the seven major media cooperation's remind us they are free from quilt when real-life pathos mimics television drama. They are quick to point out that their viewer-ship arrives by choice and is well aware that what they peddle is art-techno fantasy. Real life police do not have shootouts on a regular basis, lawyers seldom look like fashion models and there is no evidence that ghosts really whisper to the living. Media companies produce and sell entertainment (and biased news) nothing more.

This position may be socially expedient, but it is hardly realistic. We are what we ingest. Just as fatty foods collect in our arteries so there is a lasting effect from media exposure. Many in the audience of an advertisement or song are not there by choice. The proven harmful effects of second hand smoke have led to laws restricting its use in the work place. It could be argued that programming choices in media should be evaluated for residual toxicity and restricted in public areas. Certainly this has been done in regard to what is considered pornography. 

Thoughts and emotions stimulate physiological action. An employee subjected to daily doses of repetitive media may not be aware of the mood alteration excited by this subliminal influence, but the mind is registering, reacting and recording its message along with more top of consciousness duties required by the job.

Technology and technology's effects on a culture are harnessed together but that does not mean they pull in tandem when moving society ahead. The positive ramifications of a tool may be offset by damage inflicted on a culture's populace. One need look no further than the automobile to see the environmental and social transformation wrought by this machine.

Media Is A Tool 

Like a car, media may have many styles, colors and accessories available, but it is a device designed to do one thing; communicate a message to a large population. Without regulation, who can say what the residual effect of such programming will be? Does freedom of speech entitle an individual to broadcast a message incessantly to a captive audience? Hasn't this A/V technique been incorporated as "soft torture" in interrogation sessions of suspected terrorists? 

Could an individual sue an employer or media company for mental pollution? Could an argument be made that restitution is due for implanting a pop song in the memory of a non-consenting employee? That each time the song came to mind, it evoked mental discomfort, much in the way that PTSD torments its victims. Viewed as a work place injury, could disability insurance be applied for psychological rehabilitation? 

How about Media Girl? Could it be argued that her inability to find contentment in her daily life is due to unreasonably high expectations implanted in her subconscious by media? Could the male persona portrayed through the art-techno fantasy of film and video have so idealized (or diminished) the gender that an unscripted, unedited man in the real world can no longer hold her attention for any reasonable length of time? In what way does she view herself against the arch-type of woman in media? 

Media Girl might respond: "This is some boring bullshit!”

Well, right, that is to be expected, she is Media Girl!

But how do you tell if a person on Facebook or MySpace or the average e-Mail pen pal is really the zesty experience they portray themselves to be. 

Use my ZESTY EXPERIENCE FORMULA: 

ZE= THAT(y) / THE (IF) 

The Zesty Experience equals the Total Hours of Art-Techno Fantasy multiplied by the constant "y" representing the Diminished Attention of the subject at any given time, divided by Total Hours of Experience multiplied by the Intensity Factor.

Its tough out there! Edit, revise, enhance and by all means, avoid physical contact until you have a large Art-Techno number to work with. 

Kicks Along PA Route 6

The abandoned house is in a small town about 25 miles north of Titusville, PA. Titusville was the nucleus of the American oil boom which began in the late 1860's. Though the petroleum tycoon John D. Rockefeller was never seen in the valley hamlet, it is here that the oil processed in his Cleveland refineries originated. The finished product was kerosene, the fuel which replaced Sperm whale oil as an agent for home lighting. Along with the near extinction of the species, this fuel put the whalers of Nantucket out of business.

The Susquehanna River is pictured just east of Wyalusing, PA. The valley area was the proposed home for Marie Antoinette. Unfortunately, French revolutionaries chopped off her head before she could make her escape to her American asylum.

Route 6, 400 scenic miles east to west, passes through eleven counties in Pennsylvania's northern tier. Towanda, capital of Bradford County, is this century's new Titusville, only now natural gas, not oil, is the chosen commodity.

The road slows to a crawl starting a few miles outside of town. A bottle neck at the bridge crossing the Susquehanna River is jammed with a slowly snaking line of semi-tankers, dump trucks, excavators and other mobil construction equipment required by the two-five acre platforms where drilling rigs are grinding holes through the earth in order to reach the Marcellus shale, some 5-6,000 ft below the surface. Enough natural gas is trapped in this sedimentary rock to feed America's energy needs for a hundred years according to industry geologists. Woe be it for the local infra-structure of dirt and macadam roads that will bear the weight of this equipment or witness the change in life style a resource harvesting boom of this size and ferocity will bring to the area.

To the west, the PA Grand Canyon is home to the raptors. Turkey vultures, Osprey and Eagles ride the thermals rising from the depths of this magnificent gorge outside of Wellsboro.

A few miles further along the line, this weekend's Rainbow Festival draws hippies to the Allegheny hills to celebrate the nation's birthday. In Applebees Restaurant in Warren, PA, State Troopers and Park Rangers share coffee and pie before beginning the evening patrol. "Someone said we'd better prepare for 20,000 long hairs running naked in the woods," one officer chuckled. "So far there isn't near that number and not one bare bun in the lot... mosquitoes make a mighty find deterrent!"

Happy Fourth of July from RT 6!25 miles north of Titusville

Pieces of the American Puzzle

I am reading a very interesting book about Cornelius Vanderbilt ("The First Tycoon" by T.J. Stiles) the richest man in the U.S. before the rise of John D. Rockefeller  (Standard Oil).  Much of American socio-economic history revolves around fortunes generated from modes of transportation; steam ships, railroads, automobile/truck, aircraft, as well as the energy that fueled them and the corporate monopolies that rose as their by-product.  

Until the 14th Amendment (passed after the Civil War to guarantee the African American human rights and property ownership) the corporation was a State chartered entity that existed for public benefit but operated by private owners.  Many State chartered corporations were first granted to ferry operators, bridge builders and  later railroads, particularly after the New England States ran up large deficits through the construction and operation of canals (the Erie Canal was one of the more successful endeavors).  These corporate charters were geographically limited and often insured monopoly privileges  to the owners. However, the ground work of change was brought about by a pivotal Supreme Court case between Vanderbilt's first boss, Thomas Gibbons and a monopoly of rich New York State steamboat operators that controlled the Hudson River.  The decision ruled that interstate commerce fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government and that a State chartered monopoly could not control the interstate traffic on a river. 

This Federal over State ruling created a new geography were interstate corporations could flourish. The 14th Amendment was then sited as the constitutional guarantee granting corporations all the rights of an individual and a new economy came to life in America which still dominates today, pitting the corporation against the American individual.  (The Republican "Tea Party" is attempting to capitalizes on similar negative sentiments of big government vs individual, mimicking the rhetoric of the Democratic Party of the mid 1830's).  

American Capitalism involves a tug-of war between the chaos of free-market competition and a more stable, predictable economy existing under the limbs of monopolization and government regulation.  Big business and big government can both appear as a threat to economic freedom.  Competing with a corporation is difficult because the corporate entity has distinct advantages over a corporeal being:  it has no body, so it can not be sent to jail if it breaks the law;  nor does it die  (thus dividing assets among heirs).  It also lacks a soul with which to have remorse for corrupt activity which  destroys the environment or other mens lives'.

On the other hand, who is the government and what is its motivations?  In the early 19th century for instance, only landed gentry had the right to vote in most elections, skewing the selection of representtives toward a specific class of individuals whose interests were often mutually self-serving.  Can this be thought of as differing wildly from the agenda of today's corporate lobbyists and the political ramifications of their virtually unlimited campaign contributions?

Vanderbilt, "the Commodore," began his career as a monopoly buster.  He owned ferries, first wind driven and then steam powered, and sought to undersell his competition's fares  much as airline owner Freddy Laker tried to usurp British Airways customers during the rate wars of the late 1970's.  Although Vanderbilt's rhetoric was Jacksonian- a man of the people for the people- and starkly opposed to the political entitlements of the NewYork/New England banking and merchant class,  his goal was to create his own monopolized transportation networks, which he did successfully during a lifetime that spanned from the era of George Washington to the emergence of Standard Oil as a world player.

The Friendly Skies

Remember the Friendly Skies? it was before 911. Before the squads of $12/hr security guards were released into the airports.

A Uniform had me spread eagle and shoeless in Philly a couple days ago, arms extended like Christ so he could pat me down. Probable cause? A US Airways ticket. I wanted to ask the power drunk fuck if he had on disposable rubber gloves because he intended to stick his finger up my ass or to protect himself from germs my ID might be carrying.

Who is paying for all this security? Taxes? A healthcare plan would do a lot more for me... perhaps a Federally subsidized mass transit system. I heard an NPR piece stating that 850,000 homeland security workers have been added since 911... more new offices occupying more space than entire Pentagon.

The plane I flew to Atlanta was packed to the gills and I had seat 27 D, a non reclining special screwed to the bulk head wall directly in front of the only bathroom servicing 2nd class. Do the math. Four seats per row, 27 rows. 108 passengers, a 2 hour flight with a complimentary drink served.
I got an intimate look at over eighty asses stuck in my aisle row face during the second half of the flight.

Do you feel safer? Hell no!! I feel like America has turned into a Gestapo state every time I step into an airport. I have not gotten use to it and I find it more offensive each time I fly. A endless eight year war we are losing and private eyes everywhere. What happened to the brave, independent American?

And these ads in every State for local candidates running on a platform of anti-Obamics and anti- immigration, lock the illegals up and "protect our borders from them." Take a look around, the them is us and these ads are being churned out by a central political office only to spread fear and keep the support flowing.

Fifty minutes from the outskirts of downtown Atlanta the roads are still made of red-clay. But walk into the little country store at the crossroads outside of Villa Rica and you'll find the guy behind the counter doesn't have a great Grandaddy who fought the Yankees at Bull Run or who watched his house torched by Sherman. Nope, this guy may have dark skin but he's not from the African continent. He's from India and still bearing the accent of his native land. In the strip mall down the street they are Korean, or Mexican, or Chinese or Latino.

That is who we are... and we don't need a thousand mile fence to keep us safe... we need an economy that doesn't import manufactured goods but exports them. We need ambition and pride, not xenophobic fear and resentment.

Twin Pond Drive

I spent all afternoon and half the evening out around Villa Rica, Georgia.  I'd been  following flawed Map Quest and GPS directions that landed me fifteen or twenty miles from the address I had wanted. I got a good taste of Georgia's red-clay as the satellite signal dragged me off the hard top and down a horribly pitted dirt lane that dead- ended at a half built shack on the north side of a swamp called Legion Lake. 


I shut the car off, and then propped on elbows between the door and hood, I let out a long, loud, "Any-body home?"  


Up behind the wheel-less Wagoneer and the decaying pontoon boat, from deep within the shadows of the open back door, came a muffled "Hole-on!"  


A minute or two later a very bald, very white, very out-of shape man with bulging thyroidal eyes appeared in the cabin doorway clad in naught but a towel. 

"Caught you in the shower?" I smiled big and wide from behind the mud-caked Hyundai.

"No shit Sherlock.” rumbled the whiskey and nicotine voice, “What do you need?"

I introduced myself, while holding up my NORC ID and asked if I'd found "110 Twin Pond Drive."

"You're way lost buddy." he said, scratching at his belly and then hawking up a horrible sounding phlegm ball.

"Apparently my fail-proof GPS HAS lied." I answered matter-of-fact-ly.

"You're not the first to get skunked out here by one of those." he said, slapping at something on his withered bicep.

“Yeah?  Well good thing I’m not a missile”  I smiled wide once again.

He studied me closely then, and after a pause, turned his head to the side and discharged a huge wad of mucous upon the dark orange ground.


"Twin Pond huh?  Who you looking for?"


 "I don't have a name, only an address."  I answered.  "Its for a research project."


"Research?  What kind of research?" His eyes narrowed.


"Social science."  I replied crisply  "We interview people to get their opinions on a variety of subjects."


"Right, then you try to sell some shit they don't need."  he said with a yellow tooth grin. 


"Busted!" I said, raising both hands in mock resignation.


At that he launched into a long-winded set of driving instructions to get me back to Twin Pond Drive. I had grabbed my note-pad off the dash and as I urged him to repeat some of the more confusing details, I noticed that right above his head, hanging from the screen-less door frame was a sandwich bag full of clear water.  I scribbled down the last of the directions and then pointed up at the Baggie full of water and said, “ So did your goldfish die?" 

He looked back at me dead serious.  


"That's not for goldfish man, that's for the flies."

"For flies?" I blurted out astounded. 

"Yes." he said knowingly, and affecting an impressively sophisticated southern drawl continued to explain.  


"You see a house fly, the common musca domestica, possess a highly complex, multi-lense eye which provides for exceptional peripheral vision.  That is why it is so damn hard to catch one with your hand.  However, this elliptical lens arrangement also works to its disadvantage, for when confronted by bag of water, like the one you see suspended above my head, the refracted light tends to disorient and confuse the insect.  Hang a Baggie of water in the doorway and flies, my friend, simply will not come in." 


"So it seem their eyes are far more developed then their brains."  I responded like an attentive student.


"Well," he countered "they are only flies."  

At this point I should have known not to put any faith in the directions he had given me, but he had gone on to claim he had almost married a gal from Twin Ponds.  He told me he had decided against it after she borrowed his car.  Apparently when she parked it, she had failed to leave it in gear or set the emergency brake and it had rolled down her driveway into the lake.  He had no insurance and "the bitch" refused to pay for the damage.  End romance, end story.


So I climbed back into my sporty Hyundai, now more orange then red with all that Georgia clay stuck to side-walls & wheel wells and I began the trip out, back through the potholes and creek washes beneath a vine laced sky.

Forty minutes later, having flawlessly adhered to his directions, I found myself on Pond Road; only there were no twin ponds to drive between. Instead the road petered out along a kudzu-choked stretch of inaccessible shoreline. I turned around again and went back a mile or so to where I'd seen a tall, heavy-set fellow leading a leggy gray pony along the edge of the road.  As it turned out, it wasn't a leggy gray pony at all.  To my surprise it was an immense Great Dane. 

The big man and his giant dog acted like they had been expecting me.  It probably wasn't often a fire-red mud splattered Sonata with UTAH plates came winding up their dead end. 

"Twin Ponds Road?"  the fellow repeated.  "Heck, that’s way over the other side of Villa Rica...." 

I grabbed my pen and jotted more notes as he described the landmarks I would pass; the railroad tracks, the hospital, the Holy Trinity Church and the three-way stop that I was to go straight through.

I thanked him for his help and was just about to pull away when I noticed the Great Dane staring at me, a lengthy cord of saliva dripping from its mouth. 

"Let me ask you," I said.  "Have you ever heard of anyone hanging a Baggie of water above the door for any special reason?"

"Sure.  Its done to keep yellow jackets out of the house?"

"Yellow jackets?"

"Yes, hornets."

"Have you ever heard of anyone doing that for flies?"

"Nope.  Just yellow jackets."

Back on Route 61, I toyed with the idea of forgetting all about Twin Ponds Drive and just gassing the Sonata east to Atlanta.   Flies, yellow jackets, Baggies of water for screen doors.  Enough already!  But just then,  “poof.” Out of nowhere, high atop a tall thin sign post, "Twin Pond Road." 

I wheeled the car sharp to the left and shot up the narrow lane. In front of me was a barricade.  Behind that, a washed out bridge. The very same detour noted in the Call Results section of my case file.  This had to be it!  In my mind I heard Stud Terkle say:  "HOPE DIES LAST!!!"

Another fifteen minutes of back tracking and I'd regained the road on the other side of the lake. It was still marked Twin Pond ROAD and technically I was looking for Twin Pond DRIVE, but I felt if I just kept counting numbers the right address would turn up.  And BINGO!  There it was!  The address printed in its entirety right on the side of the mail box: "110 Twin Pond Drive!"

No one was home, but hey, as I sat there in the driveway, filling out my “Sorry I Missed You” card, I felt almost euphoric. Sure I’d found the place, but that wasn’t it. No, it was more the knowledge that from now on, for the rest of my life, I would never have to buy a screen door again!   All I had to do was hang a zip-lock Baggie of clear water above the door and presto, no more MOSQUITOES!

Inflation and Taxation

What creates inflation?  What drives that scary increase in the cost of goods which make your dollar's buying power decrease?  The investment adviser I asked said, "Labor cost. Wages."  So are labor rates in America rising?  Is the growing service sector of the economy unionized?  Are wages going to increase without organized demand?   Do we see inflation lighting up the horizon?  

U.S. manufacturing has moved overseas. Are we expecting the workers of Indo-China to take to the picket lines anytime soon?  Interest rates are at an all time low.  There is plenty of money to borrow should one want to invest in expansion here in the United States. So why are tax breaks needed for the highest income brackets of the population?  The balance sheets of corporate America already have cash and liquid assets a-plenty. How is allowing the rich to horde more money through less taxation going to help the country?   It certainly would seem that the redistribution of wealth through sorely needed public works programs (roads, rails and runways) that would derive funding from taxation levied on the abundantly reproducing investments of the ultra-weathy would make sense.  Why would any middle or working class American citizen be opposed to such a strategy?   

The U.S. emerged from WWII on the top of the economic heap.  Why?  Because the privatization of public money (tax money) for war-time manufacturing re-tooled American industry producing an abundance of jobs which were sustained through domestic consumption and export of post war product.  Why not apply the same method to a peace-time economy?  Dislodge the static holdings of the ultra-wealthy and put those dollars to work here in the United States, providing healthy environments through green construction, mass transportation and a universal health care system.  Why are Americans so afraid of sensible re-distribution of  wealth?  Rugged individualism?   (And where is the frontier that makes that story-book fantasy so appealing?  Afghanistan?  Iraq?)

When an inanimate object (ie. a half million dollars of investment savings) makes more money than a healthy adult American WORKING FULL TIME, something is wrong with the system.  Sure its nice to be the fellow watching the money make money as you tan on the beach, but is it socially just? 

Money that begets money should be taxed at a higher rate then the money made through direct labor.   That would seem to be a rather simple equation to apply in these days of trillion dollar budgets and deficits.  So why the great debate in Washington?  How can such a small percentage of the population have such a loud voice in Congress?  And when was it a bad thing to throw a buck or two into the collection plate?  I think it got nasty when the rich set out on a public relations campaign entitled " Trickle down economics."  God forbid Teddy Roosevelt's idea of a gradated tax system be employed to derive a larger percentage of capital from those who can most afford to part with it.  Gee... that would be... well... UN-AMERICAN!