Behind the veil of mainstream-media anonymity and the numbing distractions of whitewashed advertising culture, the Federal Reserve is guiding our nation to a condition of terminal debt. The United States was once the world’s wealthiest and most productive state. Now, the U.S. is reduced to holding, strangely, only the title of “wealthiest.“ How is this possible?

First, economics. The U.S. has been in a trade deficit since 1971, when imported goods overtook exports for the first and final time. This is also the year when the U.S. jumped from the gold standard into economic limbo. Furthermore, the Californian funkmasters of “War“ disbanded. A tragic, tragic year.

The escalation of credit became the lifeblood of economic growth. Without credit, we wouldn’t expand as quickly. Once we were able to spend before we earn, growth became absolutely dependent on the acceleration of anticipated earnings. Truth got expensive so the lie got bigger. See also: Enron.

Now, interest payments threaten to swallow us whole as we’ve come into the withdrawal phase of credit abuse. As warned Jefferson, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Woe unto us, who have yearly swindled our futurity.

Second, culture. We have become divorced from real value and spend time instead chasing nondurable products, poorly-built cars and money-trap homes. We clamor for financial shortcuts to make our lives superficially resemble the perversely revered icons of opulent luxury.

We create value from nothingness and become constricted by the web of falsity our money creates. We manage, process, sell and resell, we loan, speculate and invest – we do not produce. We are consumers. We are the by-products of a lifestyle obsession.

Don’t sink into a depressive funk after finishing that thought. I know it’s hard not to. But as with the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program, the first step is admitting we have a problem. You’re making good progress and we all support you.

The next step is realizing a greater power that can restore us to sanity. Spiritual awareness is that power. Take a moment to realistically consider humanity’s role in the cosmos. Is it money? Read some metaphysics, burn some incense, watch Planet Earth. Fly to Maui, live in a European commune, join an Amazonian tribe. Life matters; money is fake. We live to mutually enhance our time spent in this phase of existence. The meaning of life, taken generally: be nice. But don’t take my word for it. Go live it and see.

Now, with a sponsor, we need to examine past errors with the new light that spiritualism provides.

The biggest domestic error was the formation of the Fed in 1913. Bad move. Just ask Wilson: “I have unwittingly ruined my country.” The Founding Fathers would judge the Fed just as harshly.

Past the Fed, we have to admit that our choices hurt others too. At the height of the United States‘ global power in 1944, FDR essentially decreed that the world should be rebuilt in the image of the dollar. Out popped the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, two lending agencies designed purportedly to aid the development of nascent and war-torn nations.

Most of you can already accept the notion of the World Bank and IMF having the ulterior motive of bribing countries away from Communism. Now that the Iron Curtain has been scrapped, sent to China and hidden in toxic amounts in children’s toys, the two organizations now serve another purpose: opening up developing nations to industrial exploitation.

According to Larry Stiglitz, the World Bank’s Chief economist until 1999, the Bretton-Woods organizations have “condemned people to death.” For every poor nation in need, the IMF and World Bank drafted a “Country Assistance Strategy“ after an extensive tour of the nation’s five star hotels. Every CAS consisted of a one-size-fits-all four-step plan.

Step one: privatization of every national utility. Stiglitz called this “briberization,” as jacked-up profits were split between WB financiers and local politicians at the expense of the people.

Step two: Markets are “liberalized,” which is Newspeak for “completely and utterly deregulated.“ This effectively destabilizes a country’s economic base and allows for intermittent cycles of brief foreign investment and financial rape.

Step three: market-based pricing. This means the sudden increase in price of basic necessities – food, water heating – and usually results in mass riots. This was plied throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia to the same result. More than half of the country slips below the poverty line and banks fail, requiring bailout moneys.

Step four: poverty reduction, as in free trade. This is the same “opening“ of a nation that China experienced with the Opium War: a forced elimination of all protective tariffs, while Western nations keep their trade barriers proudly.

And all this just for a loan they have to pay back.

As you can tell, the same financial system of errors we experience here we extended around the globe. The World Bank and IMF have been orchestrating miniature versions of the current U.S. economic crisis to the profit of Western banking interests. Is it ever too late to say “sorry“?

Now that we can see the global scale of debt culture, we must accept that solutions shall be equally global. Individual efforts can liberate an individual or a community from the insidious cycle of debt, as I will outline and celebrate next week. However, in the classic logic of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “When one man is enslaved, all are not free.” So ask, as he commanded, what you can do for your country. Because it’s all we can do.

CHEYA CARY would like to say, in a total break in tone from this column, have a fantabulous Whole Earth Festival! Call him a buzzkill at cheya.cary@gmail.com.

So I guess we’re in some sort of digital revolution. Whatever. I like the Internet a lot, iPods are fun and so are microwaves and Bagel Bites. Way to go on those things, technology. But there are some ways in which technology makes me want to go Thoreau my cell phone into Walden Pond. One of those ways is Amazon’s Kindle 2.0.

More like,I want to turn it into kindling for a fire and watch it burn! Forever.

Amazon promotes the Kindle as a “wireless reading device” (That’s funny.Aren’t real books wireless too?) in which readers can download the full text of books for$9.99within a matter of minutes,with the capacity to hold up to1,500books.I have lots of technophobic/moral issues with the Kindle,but I’m going to focus more on the timeless sexiness that real books have in comparison to the socially awkward Kindle.

What Amazon doesn’t tell you in its promotion of the Kindle is that it looks ridiculous in real-life situations.Seeing someone reading a Kindle in a coffee shop or on the bus is like seeing a Dick Cheney-helmed Segway- absolutely not hip and definitely not sexy,unless you’re into avuncular,sheepish,off-balance neocons.Ride it,Dick!

In one of my favorite lines of his, comedian John Waters said, “We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have any books, don’t (sleep with) them.”

As a bibliophile (look it up, in a book), I would most definitely heed Waters’ advice.

In a recent entry for The New Yorker’s book blog,The Book Bench,writer Thessaly La Force makes the point that reading is a difficult balance between “the solitary and the social,” and that this balance is best demonstrated through a good,old fashioned physical book- you know,the kind with paper,ink and pages you can coyly flip at a cafe.

It’s obvious that there is more to reading than its Circean ability to lure hot intellectual types at cafes into striking up a literary conversation.I could go on and on about how much I love the solitary comfort I get from reading and about the invaluable ways in which books enrich the soul and all that “Reading Rainbow” jazz.But let’s get real:It’s spring,and I’m sure some of you have the fever,and are looking to ease “the feve” by getting with someone with at least a smidge of intellectual substance.So I’m going to give you some tips on how to pick up some bookish hotties.

Tip#1:Reading in a bar is actually a great thing to do.

In Noah Baumbach’s “Kicking and Screaming,” a film that is crazy-applicable to our lives in college right now,one of the main characters,Jane,memorably reads a book by herself in a dive bar.It’s the middle of the day,but it doesn’t seem weird that she’s drinking stiff drinks and reading a book at the same time,because if you’re a true intellectual,it isn’t weird – it’s the norm.If you want to be perceived as an intellectual a la Ernest Hemingway or Dorothy Parker,who can enjoy a cocktail or two and still be incredibly smart and non-conformist at the same time,this is a good route to take.

Just ignore the fact that both Hemingway and Parker were suicidal alcoholics and focus on how to make your brooding more attractive. Remember to keep that Charles Bukowski novel tilted up, too.

Tip#2:Don’t display anything that was on your high school AP English reading list.

“The Catcher in the Rye” is very sweet and an obvious classic,but there’s more to J.D.Salinger than this book- I would recommend “Franny and Zooey” or “Nine Stories.” I don’t mean to take away from the greatness of “Catcher,” though,because it’s great and on reading lists for a reason.But unless you want to get hit on by one of the15-year-old Westwood rascals who mistakes you for a girl in one of his classes at Beverly Hills High,save reading this one for the privacy of your own home.

Tip#3:The more battered,the better.

Old books are beautiful,and the more worn they are,the more metaphorically they have torn,so violently,so wretchedly,at the depths of your soul (and the soul of the books’ previous owners).The aesthetic appeal of a used copy of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Beautiful and Damned” is much higher than a generic Borders’ brand of the same title,because the fonts and cover art of older books are usually more dramatic and colorful,like a Michael Jackson effect.Buying a used book is also much cheaper,and could signify a trendy thriftiness that is yet another factor that could attract a potential suitor as you read in public.

The Kindle may be just one of the latest entertainment-geared technological inventions (I would go so far as to say “advances”),but we don’t have to accept its creation as the latest inevitable sign of a decline in the quality of interpersonal relationships.I hope,I pray to my holy literary trinity of Hemingway,Parker and Fitzgerald that books will be around forever.

Or at least until the next model of Bagel Bites comes out to distract me.

Dear Editor,

Your article titled “Time for a Newspeak checkup!” published on Apr. 10 is profoundly misinformed. The article asserts that “In the first months of the Obama administration, a disquieting trend has emerged: wrapping up ugly political truths in shiny new language to bury or beautify the negative connotations and public opinion they carry.”

The article cites two examples of this allegedly disquieting trend. First, the Obama administration no longer uses the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” jargon but instead refers to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as “overseas contingency operations.” administration’s switch from referring to the wars in Iraq. As the second example, the article mentions how the administration’s bank rescue plan refers to what the media calls “toxic assets” as “legacy assets.”

This article could have used some basic fact checking.

“Legacy assets” is a technical term that has been part of standard economics for many years, as a quick Google search of the term will immediately reveal: “Legacy assets are those assets which are less productive (outdated) and in some cases least productive overtime, they are just on the brink of being a liability. When assets lose considerable value they are often termed as legacy assets.”

Likewise, “contingency operations” is actually a legal term that has a very specific meaning: A military operation that is either designated by the Secretary of Defense as a contingency operation or becomes a contingency operation as a matter of law. It is a military operation that: a.) is designated by the Secretary of Defense as an operation in which members of the Armed Forces are or may become involved in military actions, operations or hostilities against an enemy of the United States or against an opposing force; or b.) is created by definition of law.

Under 10 USC 101 (a)(13)(B), a contingency operation exists if a military operation results in the a.) callup to (or retention on) active duty of members of the uniformed services under certain enumerated statutes (10 USC Sections 688, 12301(a), 12302, 12304, 12305, 12406, or 331-335); and b.) the callup to (or retention on) active duty of members of the uniformed services under other (non-enumerated) statutes during war or national emergency declared by the president or Congress.

One of Obama’s campaign promises was to stop using the zealous rhetoric of the Bush administration and actually call things what they really are. Following up on that that promise, the International Commission of Jurists urged the Obama administration to drop the phrase “war on terror.” They did so, consulted that law, and realized that the correct legal term to use was “overseas contingency operation.”

If there is a criticism of Obama here, it is that the Obama administration is overly technocratic, and is taking technical terminology from the legal and economic domains, and using them in the political arena. But the idea that Obama has set out to cover up the true nature of his policies by inventing new terminology that would be “bamboozlingly bureaucratic, pushing out the red-toothed fervor of “war” in favor of gray, wordy and forgettable phraseology,” as your article erroneously asserts, is way off base.

Don’t forget that during the campaign Obama said over and over that he a wanted to tone down the political rhetoric and the party allegiances and replace it with a meritocracy of highly competent technocrats who would be focused on solving problems. The terminology you highlight is actually evidence that Obama is doing exactly what he promised to do.

Yes, we need a real debate on things like the bank rescue and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. But we need an informed debate. Unfortunately, the article in question does not pass that measure.

Public attention for the past week has been centered on the H1N1 swine flu virus and its potential pandemic effects. Despite what the ubiquitous news coverage and conversations would lead you to believe, many experts says the virus is currently no more dangerous than the regular flu virus.

While H1N1 may be unnerving because it emerged after flu season, scientists at a forum at UC Berkeley on Monday stressed that it is no more infectious than the regular flu and urged calm.

It‘s important to keep the swine flu outbreak in perspective. On average each year, approximately 36,000 people in the United States alone die from the regular influenza virus along with over 200,000 hospitalizations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By contrast, there have been only 642 confirmed cases with two deaths from the H1N1 virus in the United States and efforts to slow the spread of the virus appear to be effective.

Swine flu hysteria even became local this week, when officials announced the closure of Davis‘ Holmes Junior High before the lab results had confirmed the presence of the H1N1 virus. While it‘s understandable that Yolo County Health officials wanted to take every precaution, announcing the definite closure of a school before the test results were in was probably premature.

The CDC guidelines at the time advised school closure for confirmed or unclassifiable cases of novel influenza A (H1N1).

While the CDC leaves school closures up to the discretion of local authorities, it would have been more prudent for either Davis Unified School District or Yolo County Health officials to instead announce the probable closure of Holmes pending lab results in order to spare parents and community members the panic.

Of course, the H1N1 virus is not benign and it must be monitored to watch for dangerous mutations, but the scientific consensus seems to be that the panic and comparisons to the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic are unwarranted.

It‘s always good to get an outsider‘s opinion, because they can tell you things you may not realize. Like when Oreo cookies make your teeth look disgustingly brown or when you‘re just plain acting like an idiot. We Americans are pretty set in our ways; in general, we like action films, barbecuing and watching celebrities get DUIs. Other people may see us as more of the obese, stupidly conservative, pornophobic Evangelist bible-hugger type. I guess we kind of deserve it – we are the country responsible for the production of Eurotrip. But hey, it‘s all about perspective.

Which is precisely why so many like to pack it up junior year and venture into the great beyond. Visiting a foreign country gives people a chance to expand their cultural horizons and learn things about others through new, eye-opening experiences. It can also lead to stories involving drunkenness, strandedness, hitchhiking and lost shoes, but that‘s not the point. The point is that ethnocentricity is only okay to a certain extent.

My inspiration for this column came from a British chap I got to meet in the dark glow of a highlighter party who knew so much embarrassing American slang that I had to ask, “What do you think is the weirdest thing about American culture?“

“The dancing,“ said Daniel Godfrey, and pointed across the room, to a bunch of chicks grinding on each other. “I feel violated just walking onto the dance floor and I‘m a guy, so I can only imagine how girls feel.“ He added that while he doesn‘t care for American beer, he loves a good game of beer pong, is undefeated, and looking for challengers.

While we‘re on the topic of alcohol consumption in the U.S. of A, the 21-and-under American crowd isn‘t the only one that dislikes the law.

“One of the things that shocked me here the most is the strict prohibition of underage drinking,“ said Noem? Ortego, an exchange student from Spain. “Some places don‘t even accept my passport as ID to get into bars. It‘s shocking that you can drive at 16 but cannot drink until you‘re 21, since both acts are related to personal responsibility.“

She has a point; after all, we do live in a place where you can die for your country before you can go for an afternoon appletini. Martin Eyspach, a student from Germany, found the abundance of fast food and monopoly of big-name franchises to be strange: “Families in Germany just go to regular sit-down restaurants when they go out to eat,“ he said.

Charlotte Heinschild, who studies in Davis but is originally from France, also found the American diet to be unusual.

“It‘s very strange the way people view health here,“ she said. “People are very concerned about smoking being bad for you but they drink diet soda, which is bad for you, too, and eat a lot of junk food. Shopping for organic food at the co-op is much more expensive than buying junk food, and a lot of students do not have a lot of money to spend. The system doesn‘t make sense.“

People don‘t generally talk about this issue. Reports and studies have pointed out that there is an obesity problem, but there are always a million different reasons given as to why this is. Charlotte‘s note of the way our economy affects our health makes a statement about the way that our society is structured.

“Americans make everything big,“ said Dino Nicolosi, an Italian exchange student who hails from Sicily and is not (as far as I could tell) in the mafia. “It‘s typical to see huge cars in America, like SUVs.“

There‘s not much arguing that one, either. Getting stuck in LA traffic can seem, at times, like being marooned on the lot of a Hummer dealership. A couple of others also pointed out food portions in restaurants are abnormally large, fueling the obesity topic just a little bit more. In case you didn‘t already know.

As Dino observed, there aren‘t too many foods that could be considered exclusively American, but I think deep-fried Twinkies drip with national pride in addition to hydrogenated oil. Of course everyone knows that you can‘t sum up 300 million people in a few words, but it‘s fun to see what they really think.

MICHELLE RICK doesn‘t even have a passport but has been to Hooters in Canada. Send comments and money to marick@ucdavis.edu so this poor girl can vacay to Bratislava.

A recent invention is threatening to become even more personal than Google. As The Independent reported, Wolfram Alpha promises access to a world designed uniquely to oneself: It “will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.“ Alpha, in other words, delivers what humans always sought: immediate, accurate answers.

This era is an era of looping, endless mass production and mass consumption. Products proliferate and advertisements abound. For many, this can be jarring as it can be disorienting – too much is also too little. Which precisely is why the future is increasingly shaping to be a war to reclaim individual identity. The strides for individuality brims like never before.

Take workplace changes. For companies, formal titles and dressing often convey professionalism and unity of purpose. These promote a sense of togetherness and focus toward corporate objectives. It is collective and distinctive by its sameness.

Yet that culture is evolving. In industries reliant on creative impulses especially, adopted are more casual dress codes; some tech companies even allow employees to name their own titles. For one reason, hierarchies seemingly impose levels and corporatism; these fail to humanize. By forsaking these attitudes, subordination is displaced by independent and organic values. They glorify individualism.

Popular culture is also affected. Marketers are appealing to the desire for individualism by discarding utility for prestige and purpose. Rather than portraying products as attractive commodities, they advertise emergent external product experiences: the iconic Haagen Daaz ad of a lady sumptuously enjoying a slice, the Toyota ad illustrating a commitment to environment. Absent in these are any mentions of business transactions. Instead, present is impressions of pleasure.

Similarly, Internet 2.0 is not about the dissemination of information. Instead they strive to empower users. New business models such as FML, Twitter, Facebook and digg.com thrive exactly because users can control their direction. Users discuss their daily lives and others respond. They post and calibrate individual information, others observing and listening. It is all for the individual feeling.

What are the consequences? Manifold.

The first noticeable change is the way of interaction. Efficiency is now king. In cable news and papers, presentations must be condensed into immediate, comprehensible fragments. Complex sentence infrastructures are curtailed. Speed of understanding trumps artistry. Everything must be fast. Individuals, not issues, take priority.

Pleasure has also become mechanized. Theme parks imitate real beaches and forests while gaming is becoming Wii-fied. Actual substantive experiences are transformed into replicated similar experiences. Technology mimics traditionalism, the surreal becomes the reality and the artificial becomes the authentic. Everything is geared toward individual pleasure.

At a time when prior institutions and ways of life are under assault, one sees what one had previously with a special clarity and realizes the expensive price of modernization. And it is steep: The loss of meaning creates disillusionment and existential crises at the endless, same products. But humanity is retaliating in attempt to regain individual freedom and identity, which is why Wolfram Alpha is probably going to be the next dominant thing.

ZACH HAN is excited about Wolfram Alpha, expecting to instantly find a delivered e-mail at zklhan@ucdavis.edu when he submits a query. Prove him wrong!