I Hate Glitter

It is the herpes of craft supplies.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carlson did an excellent job of surveying mounting evidence that widespread pesticide use endangers both wildlife and humans. In Silent Spring, she criticizes an irresponsible chemical industry, which continues to claim that pesticides are safe, and imprudent public officials, who accept without question this disinformation. As an alternative to the "scorched earth" logic underlying accepted pest-control practices, the author outlines the "biotic" approach— cheaper, safer, longer acting, natural solutions to pest problems (for example, controlling the Japanese beetle by introducing a fungus that causes a fatal disease in this insect).
I enjoyed Silent Spring because Rachel Carlson’s delivery of the facts were just that, she was not completely advocating the end of pesticides, she was just exploring the results and making them known to the public in her book.
Silent Spring is also a very valuable book because it is one the first books in history to explore the environmental effects that human-made substances is having on the Earth.

The Current "Bear" Market

Bear Market:

noun    a market characterized by falling prices for securities (stocks and bonds)

Precursory examination provides that a "Bad Bear" market's length is determined by the time required to hit it's lowest value, determined only after it again becomes a Bull market. The crash of 1929 defines the graph's X axis, hitting bottom 34 months later with the Dow down 89.2% of its original value. That value is more than double the downgrade as the both the 1973 Oil Crisis and 2000-02 Tech Crash markets. The Current Bear market's lowest point was four months ago, at 51.9%. The latter three markets reflect the S&P 500.

Each of the three completed Bear markets had a drop in value within 3% of their lowest point within 1 month of the final lowest value, before becoming a Bull market. Past markets show that optimism cannot be placed in an immediate up swing, though the current market is not at it's lowest point.

Inflation:
noun    a persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency

Deflation:

noun    a fall in the general price level or a contraction of credit and available money

There are other indicators of worsening, such as the falling inflation rate. The rate of decline of the inflation rate of January, 2009 was the fastest rate since January 1932. In March, 1933, deflation began, technically beginning the Great Depression.

Recession:
noun    a period of an economic contraction, sometimes limited in scope or duration

Depression:

noun    a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values decline severely or remain at a very low level of activity

To gain perspective, this graph shows more than a decade's worth loss in "price," or value in less than 2 years from 1995 to 2009. This illustrates the skyrocketing value of the 1920's as potentially volatile, as the graph's fastest rate of incline is preceded immediately by the fastest rate of decline (relatively). The current market does not position itself that way, having taken a beating at the turn of the century, though it is comparable being in such a short time.

Finally, a look at the 25 best and worst days of the Dow Jones Industrial since 1922. 4 of the worst have occurred in the current Bear, and 5 in the last ten years, the fifth being the Tech Crash. 2 of the 4 days of current Bear can beat the Crash of 1929, and the other 2 can beat 2 days of the Great Depression.

This recession has the warning signs of a depression, the Great Depression used as an example here due to the plethora of available information. The hope of avoiding such a market can be placed in the much different current economic climate, with action being taken as direct study of the malevolent predecessor.

Republic, WA

The most shame I've felt in my life was when I accidentally fired a 12 gauge shotgun near Republic in the middle of the day. My step-Grandfather's casual, lighter than air attitude packed it's bags and bordered a flight to any-fucking-where else to ask the oh-so-simple "What was that?" The man saw a joke at the end of every sentence, a slight at every moment of vulnerability. It's an issue with the self; deep within is where your average Joe's demons reside, deeper than he or any one he knows ever goes. We were trap shooting, little orange pieces of clay shot out of a dangerous machine bolted to plywood. I'm not a very good shot, my two young step "uncles" are. I don't even get a chance to miss, so I pull the trigger to release the already cocked hammer. It sounds counter-intuitive, but you have to pull the trigger to get the hammer to fly forward. Your thumb has to turn that flying into stopped dead cold to keep the shell from making a lot of noise, so that you can, lightly, let the hammer rest on the shell. But, I'm not that good of a shot, which makes me not very good with a gun in general. One of the uncles, the younger one, pointed the same shotgun at me about year before, less than 100 yards from where we are now. The hammer was cocked, and he was mad. But he didn't pull the trigger. I did.

As a result, chunks of lead head roughly forward from the barrel at at least 1,300 feet per second. That's almost mach 1.2. Those pellets can beat a 737, at least in the first 100 yards. All you have to do to let that kind of destructive force exist outside of spiritual and literal realm is pull. Just a little bit. Grab the hammer fuck its kicks up you black out (inexperience) and wonder what who oh no why i thought......... But you were wrong. And that little shit, that little fucker that pointed that same weapon at you, with intent but not reason, he's staring at you.

Like you're an idiot.

And you wish he was lying on the ground in front of you, his chest a big chunk of red, meaty redneck flesh chopped up like hamburger helper, right after the seasoning drops in.

But he's not laying there on the ground. No one is. The only victims some helpless O2 molecules scattered around you, and some ants on the hill 400 feet away.

That little bastard, while not the brightest among us, did not fire that gun when he pointed it at me. He had experience with guns, and may have never even intended to fire it. The one who didn't know what the fuck he was doing fired it, thankfully at nothing. So, with your back against the wall, give any projectile weaponry to the shell-shocked desert storm vet. The bat can go to the scared housewife, the zombies will get her first anyway.

rugby will save my life this semester.
while simultaneously endangering it...
but mostly saving it.
because if i didn't have rugby, i think i would end up tackling completely innocent bystanders in order to release my internal stress.
see, with rugby, i get to knock people down and get praised for it! :-)

I guess I think I'm a fuckin poet now.

What do I say?
What do I say to the setting sun?

As the world turns
her heart melts.
I have turned her world black
I have ripped her roots
I have churned them with my greed.

Wincing and bleeding
she surrendered with open arms
her seed.