The Davebrand Monthly Visitor

Here’s a thought.

Let’s say you wanted to swing a Presidential election by making Democrats look impotent - like they aren’t responding to a crisis.

So you put together a ridiculous proposal and insist on pushing it forward no matter what.

If the Democrats don’t pass it, you can say they didn’t respond to a major economic crisis. (The irony here! Just last week, our economy was “sound”!)

If they do pass it, you’ve achieved a major coup - replacing the power of Congress and giving a giant free ride for Wall Street.

Did the Bush administration really expect this to pass? I think not. But they probably didn’t expect either was that the major hurdle to this plan would be the Republicans.

And, oh yeah, that pesky public.

Ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

Let’s scroll back through history.

When the events of September 11th created anger and fear, the Bush administration used that anger and fear not to capture Osama bin Ladin. Instead, they consolodated power, pushing the PATRIOT act through congress with very little oversight, stripping power out of the hands of Americans. The Department of Homeland Security, an Orwellian term if ever there was one, was created… with very little oversight.

When a second crisis was initiated - this time, Saddam Hussein might have nuclear weapons - the Bush administration used this false crisis as a pretext to invade Iraq.

Now, after months of telling us that the economy is strong and there are no problems, suddenly, the world is coming to an end. Congress MUST approve a bill authorizing unsupervised, unchecked spending by the secretary of the Treasury (accountable only to the president.) It’s suddenly become a crisis that must be managed. Here again, the administration is using fear as a pretext to gain control.

This is a power grab of unequaled proportions. Only three countries in the world have access to 700 billion dollars. By giving this money unchecked, the Treasury secretary will have more power than all of Congress to control the US (and world) economy. It effectively removes the Congress as a check on the presidential branch. It also finishes the corporate takeover of the executive branch - the executive and the corporate world are now considered the same - they have the same funding sources.

Another crisis, another power grab.

My friends’ kids love Star Wars, and more so, they love it when I tell them Star Wars Pizza stories. Why Pizza? Well, I typically tell the stories over dinner, and food is usually involved. Last Sunday, for instance, Princess Leia wanted an apple cake for her birthday from the Planet of the Apples (”You damn, dirty apples! You blew it up!”) and R2D2 needed a mechanical bagel from Bagelworld.

But their favorite story is Han Solo and Gretel, which I will now share with you.

Princess Leia and Han Solo got married, and they were looking for a house. They started on the twin-sunned planet of Tatooine, but it was too hot. Then they found a nice house on the ice planet of Hoth, but it was too cold. They then went to the forest moon of Endor, and there it was just right! The weather was perfect, the schools were good, and the property taxes were quite reasonable.

They looked all over the moon, in neighborhoods good and bad, and they found an agent who showed them a great furnished treehouse. There were three bowls of space-porridge and they tried the first one: too hot. The second one: too cold. The third one, just right!

Then they tried the beds. The first one - too hard!! It was a Beautyrest. The second one, too soft!! It was a Simmons. The last one - just right! It was a SleepNumber bed from SelectComfort. Han is a 45. Leia is a 75.

But then, when the real estate agent had left, a family of ewoks came in! Papa, mama, and baby ewok were mad, and they scared off Leia and Han back into the woods.

Now Leia and Han were hungry and lost. It started to rain, and it was getting dark! So they hurried through the woods until they found a great little house that was empty. They moved in. Han researched squatter law, and they considered staying.

But they were hungry and wet. Leia started a fire with her blaster, and they dried their clothes. Then they saw it - the walls were made of gingerbread! The support beams were made out of peppermint!! The windows were made out of Jolly Ranchers! The siding was made of icing! And the toilet was filled with chocolate fudge!!

They loved their new house, and Han and Leia put a lot of work into it. They put up new icing on the walls and added a licorice garage, easily doubling their original investment. But then it happened… the owner came home!

“Heee heee heee!!!” said the owner. It was a witch! An evil witch! The evil witch of the west. And she chained up Han Solo and Princess Leia and made them work. She made them clean up the house, do her taxes, and apply for FEMA relief funds.

“Hee hee, let me check your thumbs! I won’t cook you today, but tomorrow you’ll be plump and juicy and I’ll put you in the oven!!” Then the evil witch had Leia and Han apply for a mortgage with a disreputable mortgage company.

The next day, she checked their thumbs. “Hee hee!! The oven is nice and hot!! Into the oven you go!” screamed the witch. Princess Leia and Han Solo were so scared. But then, just as the witch opened the oven, Drewbacca jumped in and pushed the witch into the oven!

“Oh no!” she screamed. “I’m roasting comfortably at 400 degrees for 15 minutes on each side until golden brown!”

“Oh, Drewbacca, you saved us!” and Princess Leia gave Drew a kiss.

Just then, however, they heard the strained sounds of mechanical breathing. “Coooooooooo, caaaaaah. cooooooooo, caaaaaaah.” Darth Vader walked in. “Drewbacca, Leia, and Han Solo! You have killed my evil apprentice of the Sith, Darth Witch. Now I will chain you up and put you in the oven tomorrow, after you fill out these tax deduction forms for the Empire!!”

Oh no! What were they to do? Now there was no one to save them, and Drewbacca, Princess Leia and Han Solo were chained up and Darth Vader just sat around watching space tv and not doing a lick of work. But just as Darth Vader was about to put them in the oven, the horns sounded: “Doo doo-doo doo!” It was the EWOKS!!!!

Through the yummy gingerbread floors, through the smore filled walls, through the ceiling made out of ceiling parts of candy, the ewoks came in and roped up Darth Vader and captured her. Han Solo and Princess Leia and Drewbacca were free!!

So they got a home improvement loan and fixed up the house. They also risked diabetes, so they cut back on the sugar.

THE END

So after a month of travel (out of three planned), I’m back in my home time on Austin.

Why? I got very sick in London, and I wasn’t having fun. I decided to cut my losses, spend a day in Paris, and come home. I might resume my trip, but it’ll be after I recover. Here’s a brief rundown what worked and what didn’t.

WHAT WORKED

• Putting yourself in situations to meet people: I went to several geography conferences, which is a hobby/profession of mine. It was really great to meet people I could talk “shop” with. I saw one of my former professors, and I met loads of people doing interesting things. When you travel, think about ways you can connect with people.

• Being flexible: hey, travel is about flexibility. When you’re tired of one place, or need a day of rest to take care of yourself, do that.

• Two pairs of shorts, two pairs of pants: There’s always a balance between packing light and packing everything you could possibly need. I try to pack light, but I’m a large guy - finding “American” sized clothes in Europe can be difficult. So I try to make sure I have the minimum. In this case, two pairs of shorts and two pairs of pants (plus a pair of modesty shorts for sleeping in public) was the perfect number.

• ASUS EEE PC: This was the perfect size for travel. Even with the all-in-one power transformer, it fit easily in my day bag and I could always find a wifi connection, even in the Sahara. HINT: all of the hotels in the Tunisian south use “11111111″ as the WEP code.

• Buy tickets late: If you’re not sure about when you’re going to travel, buy tickets late. The change fees are high enough that it will cost you way more to buy early in all but the highest season.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:

• Two pairs of underwear: As recommended on Tim Ferriss’s blog, I tried two UnderArmor pairs. The idea was that while I wear one pair, I wash and dry the other. It worked fine in my home tests in Austin. Problem: nothing ever dries in Dublin or London. Tunisia was no problem, but walking around in wet underwear made me sick in London. Don’t do it. Very bad idea.

• Not being prepared: Tunisia is a beautiful country, but you can’t find everything everywhere like you can in a first world country. Bring sunscreen, aloe vera, immodium for tummy troubles, and a hat.

• Not wearing layers:Okay, generally not a problem, but occasionally when it was cold or wet, I wish I had brought my small fold up rain parka. Layers also means less clothes to carry. I might consider getting a pair of zip-off pants-to-shorts.

• Not having the following items:
  • a set of cutlery
  • some liquid soap for washing
  • an amazon kindle (which I’ll take as a gift)

  vitamin C pills

  • a portable CPAP

If you have any travel suggestions or ideas, let me know!