Our Mission: To boldly go until we are no more!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Sailing to Salem

Salem is obsessed with witches and witchcraft with plenty of tourist shops and attractions taking advantage of the towns sordid past. We fell under its spell and visited the Salem Witch Museum featuring an audio-visual manikin show explaining the trials and hysteria of that time and then relating it to modern times by applying the Fear - Trigger - Reaction principle:
Witchcraft - Hysterical Girls - Innocent people imprisoned/tortured/killed
Japanese - Pearl Harbor - Internment Camps
Communism - Mc Carthy - Blacklisting
Terrorism - 9/11 - Patriot Act

We also visited the Peabody Essex Museum, an impressive facility showcasing art and culture gathered during Salem's globe circling maritime trading past. The National Park Service Salem Maritime National Historic Site shows some short films on the subject in their visitor center near Derby Wharf where the Friendship tall ship is docked.

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