Every time I open another Christopher Moore book; by the time I reach the final punctuation mark, I walk away with a new perspective…

The first draft of this edition of Inspection was written in a Big Y shopping plaza snuggled close to Spencer, Massachusetts. I was waiting for the magic hour: showtime, when my core audience; munchkins… would walk in, sit down, and hopefully laugh themselves silly. I’m kind of the King of Silly, I suppose… I’m often referred to as, “You’re a silly man.” I wear that moniker proudly, like my father wore “The Ding-a-ling Hermit of Twitchell Lake,” after he retired as a Park Ave. exec.

There are worse things to be called.

What I didn’t realize was that I was about to get a different kind of cue, the kind that arrives on a weekly basis; usually with a sense of irony: the cue that always provides me with whatever I need to write this week’s edition of Inspection.

A yellow National Grid truck drove past me and parked. I noticed that fang-like orange construction cones dangled down from its thirsty mouth: the grill. A few minutes another one drove in and they started to plot. I covered my neck but… then relaxed. I realized they were looking for more local wallets, and “Grandma Millie” purses, to bite.

These days myths abound and walk the planet; or drive around in the form of Grid trucks. When insanity is accepted by those who should be regulating it, or investigating it, madness grips a society between its bulldog teeth and refuses to let go. Strange things happen, like “National Grid,” that arose from the ashes of the scam ran by the likes of Niagara Mohawk: who many suspect colluded with other northeastern power companies to create one huge “oops…” many years ago: a huge blackout, so they could suck the green financial lifeblood out of consumers when the power jolted back on.

Then they collectively headed for the hills when a mere handful of politicians lit their investigative torches, only to rise from their crypts a new name.

Wish politicians would light their torches a hell of a lot more these days. They’re more likely to join in the bloodfest: sucking out both the green and the red… “red” as in “wasted lives,” with no responsibility for what, at best, should be considered homicidal actions and inaction. Hence a city filled with floating corpses: New Orleans, for example. No, “reward” seems the operative word when venders for the U.S. gov get more and more no bid contracts to feed off of. Shoot unarmed people in the streets of NO? Hey, Good job! Here’s another contract coming at ya…

You may not actually feel that vampire bite-like pain in your tax-based, budgetary, neck, but it’s there, nonetheless.

And if Halliburton or Blackwater lawyers think I’m referring to their clients, I can only type: stop being their minions… lead the way to their coffins so we might drive a stake into their empty, blood thirsty, hearts.

No, lawyers and pols serve their corporate masters well: helping to gut bankruptcy laws, telling telecoms they must help feast on whatever freedoms we have left… then even more vampires arise: companies who pester us to let them “help” themselves to… sorry… “help us with,” our debts. Companies with “Patriot” or “Faith” in their names. They call us on our phones, advertise on our radios and TVs.

They always seem annoyed I don’t buy into their seductive, vampiric, ways, like the siding/window guys who want to give me a free estimate and enter me in a contest to win new windows or siding.

“OK, to get here you have to drive about 40 miles from where you are, get on a barge I won’t pay for: $50 both ways, then drive eight miles to my house.”

They never come.

I’m so lonely, as I wait here in my chiffon dress.

Sniff.

Sniff.

No one is safe from these vampires, not even John Q. Public. When questioned by John Conyers this past week, our “Justice” Department folks wouldn’t answer his question…

Does the President have the right to grab anyone off the street and bury them alive if he suspects they may, or may not, have some slight association with terrorism? The administration rep kept turning like a hungry mosquito in his successful attempt to avoid answering the question. I would say he was afraid of being swatted, but with this load of Dems? You’ve got to be kidding. Vampires are, by nature, secretive, but enabling someone testifying; when they won’t answer a question, by not throwing their blood sucking faces into the pokey, is just letting the vampires have their way with us: maybe intentionally.

Meanwhile Barack O’Bama supports the gutting of FISA. I haven’t read what he actually said so I haven’t had a chance to look under his cape and see if he too has some vampire tendencies, like Hillary does, or that ancient blood sucker… McCain.

Welcome to the Bush era of “responsibility.” Has everyone learned the wrong lessons over the past eight years?

A month ago I bought Christopher Moore’s books about two vampires in love: Bloodsucking Fiends, and You Suck. I fear his heroes are far more kind and gentle than any of the creature of the night I’m writing about. I have been gobbling up everything Moore for six months, but I saved the vampires for last. I have always felt the vampire myth to be the silliest legend humans have ever conjured. But upon seeing society’s reflection in Moore’s more funny, “Moore” entertaining, kinder and gentler mirror…

Maybe I’ve changed my mind.

Terrorism and Hillary

Vampires are seductive and terrorists. They are single minded in their pursuit: blood, whether it be the green: financial, kind, or what flows through our veins. Humans tell stories about vampires because such stories engender fear: and fear is also the vampire’s weapon; the paralyzing kind that prevents their victims from making wise decisions like running the hell away… or not voting in favor of more money to dump down a sewage hole called Iraq, or not supporting the gutting of FISA.

Maybe we’ve had it all wrong. Democrats aren’t weak, diluted globs of jello. They are under the control of vampires.

The analogy isn’t that far off. Our nation was attacked quite a few years ago by a determined bunch of thugs who wished to economically sabotage us into granting their wishes. People died while they pursued us: their enemy; those who don’t and won’t agree with them. They still pursue us today, much like vampires seek victims.

I'm not referring to al-Qaeda, though the analogy works there too. No, I'm referring to a movement on the Right: Neo Cons, who will say, do anything to get what they want. These days I hear them calling talk shows pretending to be Democrats; much like that creature of the night: vampire, pretends to still be human; trying to convince people not to vote O'Bama... write in Clinton, write in anybody but... don't vote O'Bama. He might give all kinds of reasons that would be Pro-Hillary, then Pro-Edwards, then when that doesn't work, Pro- "anyone but..."

Think I’m kidding? It happened today, as I listened to The Alex Bennett Show. I was suspicious to begin with: vampires have certain ways you know. One way you can identify these blood suckers is that they won’t let you get more than a few words out before they try to talk over you. Eventually Alex got him to admit he was a McCain supporter.

What does all my blood sucker analogies, and comparing vampires to Neo Cons, have to do with Hillary?

I have this fantasy regarding the, “What to do with Hillary” question, as Barack ponders VP.

Attorney General?

OK, I admit, having observed Hillary from afar, my guess is even given Clinton’s obvious grudge regarding what was done to Bill, my dream would still go bust. She’d triangulate, compromise and weasel her way out of it. (Please note: I don’t find her all that different compared with other pols these days: she just gets more bad press regarding this tendency.) But wouldn’t there be a supreme irony in her pursuing all the Bushies like Ken Starr: only with some sense of “fair?”

Yeah, I know, “conflict of interest,” though I would argue no more than that vile example of judicial imprudence: Ken Star, owned, bought, paid for and manipulated by his beloved Right Wing religiously nuts friends.

The added attraction: starting with Nixon we have usually done what one of my musical icons; Peter Yarrow has recently suggested. Like South Africa he has suggested that we offer blanket amnesty in exchange for an honest accounting of Bushie crimes. It worked there. Good luck with it in America. What Nixon was allowed to do should have been viewed as kindness. Nixon could have been impeached. Instead his army of vampire-like followers have been left brooding, and plotting revenge for almost forty years. Sad to say, many of these fiends make Nixon look like a compassionate Liberal in comparison.

There can only be one answer to their cold, calculating, deceptive nature: they are the undead. Maybe when they were kids the watched Soupy Sales they thought there was some coded message whenever he mentioned “Fang?”

If the bloodsuckers aren’t beaten down hard, then expect it to only get worse every time they rise from their coffins: starting with a Barack administration.

But, no, despite the deliciousness of my fantasy-revenge, I’m sure it’s just that: a fantasy. But… a sweet one.

-30-

Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over thirty years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.