This New England

At least one backer of a movement to get Vermont to secede from the United States and create the Second Vermont Republic, in a "Genteel Revolution,'' suggests that the state start circulating a paper trade token with implanted gold grains as an alternative currency.

A leader of the movement, retired Duke University economics Prof. Thomas Naylor (www.vermontrepublic.org and www.vtcommons.org), suggests that these tokens will quickly come in handy considering the coming collapse of the value of Federal Reserve notes, i.e., dollars.

Given the erosion of federal credit by gigantic federal borrowing for bailouts, etc.,he might be on to something, at least in regards to the collapse of the U.S. currency. Mr. Naylor wants the state to buy gold while dollars still have a bit of value.

More broadly, Mr. Naylor recommends a move back to gold and silver as stable measures of value as opposed to dollars, which represent an out-of-control federal monetary policy, and are backed up only by the dubious promises of the Feds.

"Individual states such as Vermont might want to think about how they might protect themselves from the collapse of the dollar and Weimar-like inflation,'' says Mr. Naylor. I hope that if Vermont goes to gold coins, it will use some as pretty as the Roman one here from about 193 A.D. (oops -- politically incorrect! -- call it C.E.)

While deflation is the order of the day now, what happens in two or three years when the full impact of federal borrowing hits -- South America-style inflation, a return to the barter system? Buying a house with 20,000 gallons of maple syrup?

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President-elect Obama seems to cast his net to catch an almost absurdly wide net of supporters. Whether it will be so wide that he finds it difficult to maintain a central governing method and philosophy we shall see in the next year or so.

The latest sign of this expansive approach: New Hampshire's celebrity gay Episcopalian bishop, V. Gene Robinson, a strong proponent, of course, of gay marriage, will say a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial this Sunday at one of Mr. Obama's pre-inauguration events .

But giving the invocation at the Jan. 20 iinauguration itself will be anti-gay-marriage celebrity (I wonder how much he's rakking in annually from his church business), Rick Warren. To say the least, the selection of these two people for these highly visible events doesn't parse. But by picking the Rev. Mr. Warren for the main event, Mr. Obama is clearly focusing on appeals to middle America and not to "elitist liberals.''

Can a president really be all things to all people?

Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church continues to fissure over the gay-marriage issue, with local congregations infuriated by the national church's tolerance of gay clergymen fighting with the national church about control of real estate and other financial matters.

The church is no longer "The Republican Party at prayer.''

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North Conway, N.H., last weekend honored the family of the late Hannes Schneider, the skiiing legend who moved his family to the White Mountains in 1939 to escape the Nazis and start a ski school. The Schneider family odyssey recalls in some ways the musical von Trapp family who moved to Stowe, Vt., where a bunch of them still reside.

Mr. Scheidner brought the Arlberg method to America big time, and this old-fashioned style still has devotees.

So many years have passed since the '30s and '40s, that few around still remember the German and Austrian skiiers who help start the U.S. ski industry, with its rope tows and ski trains from Boston.

 Tags  Gene Robinson; Rick Warren. Hans Schneider North Conway Rick Warren Thomas Naylor Vermont Republic

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