Podcast 384

Final Thoughts From The Road. With a tragedy in South Carolina, and more nonsense coming out of Washington DC, the chattering class will be busy chattering this weekend. They’ll be telling us the country is falling apart, sowing the seeds of discontent, depression, confusion, envy, and anxiety. The thing is, if you travel the country state by state, you don’t see discontent, depression, confusion, envy and anxiety. You see people coping; in fact thriving. In the middle one of the most dense population centers in the world — the US eastern seaboard — you’ll find Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a rural paradise. Then there’s Ocean City Maryland, which actually is hot and sweaty, but everyone seems to be having a good time. Fifty states, with fifty different histories, cultures, many of them thriving. Yes, thriving. How can this be? The America you see and hear about on Fox News and MSNBC, or you hear about on scratchy dying AM Talk Radio stations is burning; falling apart, splitting at the seams. The pounders and the screamers polarize us into right and left, and tell us our country is a place where people hate each other, members of different ‘castes’ seethe, where the rich get super rich and everyone else gets nothing. The only thing is, that’s not what is going on in the real America. If you travel it, you’ll see what I mean. Are there injustices? Is there crime? Poverty? Yes. But, somehow in this place, painted as the seventh level of Dante’s Inferno, people raise families, go to work, do what they can for each other, start businesses and vacation together. I saw people of all colors, cultures and languages working together, eating together, living together. Meanwhile, the truck stops are chock full of trucks, RV’s and travelers twenty four hours a day. The restaurants are busy, as are the Targets and Home Depots and Food Lions, even small town grocery stores. It used to be said that the media in America is a mirror, to show society what it is. Well, I am here to tell you, Houston we have a problem. The media isn’t showing us what we are, or what is going on, because the images just don’t match. The Media and the politicians in Washington are lying to us, and using the outrage machine to their political advantage. I’ve seen about three quarters of this country in the last 4 months, at the most basic level; Interstates, two lanes, and dirt roads. I’ve driven through the big towns, and the small towns, meeting and talking to regular people. I just don’t see the strife and struggle we’re being told ‘we’ are experiencing. There are challenges in every time. Our challenge is turning off these idiots on television, and in Washington DC. America not only has a future, it has a great future and it’s time we had leadership that recognizes and encourages our innovation and energy, rather than scares, and divides us, lies to us and tells us what we have to do. Let’s start making it happen, regardless of what the chattering chatterers have to say this weekend. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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Podcast 379

National D-Day Memorial. The Road Trip continues, south from Indianapolis to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Western Virginia. Stopping off for a street fair in Berea, Kentucky and by chance, the National D-Day Memorial at sundown, on June 6th, 2015; the 71st Commemoration of the landing by allied armies in occupied France, at Normandy. Meanwhile, more and more politicians declare their ‘candidacy for the Presidency’ and where’s the first place they go? Iowa. There’s many interesting and valuable small and medium sized towns across this country, with interesting people, that could do with a little attention from politicians who are supposed to be representing the people, but no. The entire media and political focus in this country is on the diffused population of a state that has made a tourist business out of politics, a full year before it will matter. This is how a handful of political ‘activists’, which really means ‘groupie’, ‘attention whore’, ‘fame vampire’, get to have an outsized influence on the American political process. The founding fathers not only are turning over in their graves; they’re spinning like tops. The best thing about travel is it all blurs together until its like a dream, and that’s good. All the better to turn off those idiots, and hit the road. The thing about travel is, once you let you go, and let the countryside and the experiences that go with it come and go, sometimes you get to see amazing things. This is the case with the National D-Day Memorial, which many people probably don’t even know exists, reached at sundown on June 6th, after an unexpected detour to save time, just in time to hear one soldier play taps, in honor of those who gave their lives that day so many years ago. Travel east of the Mississippi is different because the distances are shorter, but there’s more places to pull over and dawdle. College towns like Berea, Kentucky. Rocky Top Tennessee, and the birthplace of country music, Bristol, Virginia. Anyplace but Iowa! Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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Podcast 378

Mercury Retrograde. Astrologists say when Mercury goes ‘retrograde’ it wreaks havoc with mechanical and electronic equipment, makes communications difficult and puts teeth in Murphy’s Law. In this case ‘retrograde’ means to go backwards. Now, Mercury does not go backwards; its orbit around our sun does not change one iota, but it supposedly ‘appears’ to be moving backward in the sky. What does a mercury retrograde do to a fifteen year old ambulance, repurposed as a mobile podcast studio, traveling across the country? Listen to this podcast and find out. From Illinois to Indiana, visiting an old friend, with ambitious plans to install Ham and CB radio communications, and WIFI Antenna. Attempting to this, we encountered nothing but problems. Oddly enough, Mercury Retrogrades are supposed to be good for making plans and catching up with old friends, finding good deals, and resting up. While most women seem to have a hundred ‘best friends’, men pretty much have two, or one. It’s great to hang out with someone who has known you since you were a kid; someone you haven’t talked to in decades, but you pick up right where you left off. Lest some readers decry all this reliance on astrology, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the hokum of the stars and the hokum of today’s economists, who despite accolades, fur hats, and purple capes, can’t seem to figure out whether the US economy is growing, not growing, or contracting. Even worse, every ‘news’ story you read on the subject seems to repeat one fairy tale or outright lie, over and over again. Don’t worry though, no one’s looking at economic stories, they’re too busy counting the Republican candidates for President and getting lost in the details of a presidential campaign that has come too early, and too loudly for any civilized people. While the news media covers this political circus, the real political circus is about to pass a trade law — supported by the “Chambers of Italian Fascism” — Americans are forced to turn to Julian Assange and Wikileaks for the details, which suggest a far reaching agreement bigger than NAFTA with provisions that have little to do with free trade. How is your congressman voting? While the FBI circles over our cities in unmarked civilian planes, listening to our cell phone conversations, and Republican congress is also about to pass a ‘patch’ that will save Obama Care if key provisions are struck down by the US Supreme Court. Hey wait! Didn’t republicans run on repealing the ACA? Surprise! Sponsored by X Government Cars.  

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