The Bolt a The Edison Charger Newspaper May 2015

What is Art? Meghan Jacinto Art: noun, the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Seems simple.

Does that mean as I am writing this article, I am creating art? Technically. Does that mean the sandwich I created earlier is art since it shows my creative skill of sandwich making?

Possibly!

Possibly!

Should Community College be free? Kimo Gandall After President Obama’s State of the Union Speech, an important issue was brought afoot: should Community College be free? The purpose of free Community College is clear: (1) reduce income inequality in the education system, and (2) save money for the average American, both of which would hopefully help stimulate the economy in the long run.

Supporters of this initiative cite serious problems in the Community College system to (cont. on page 3)

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More inside…

x “My Monomythical Friday with

General Hospital” Jacob Brooks,

page 11

x “Monopolies, Finance Capital, and

Imperialism” Ryan Smith, page 6

x “Don’t Shoot the Kangaroos”

Sebastian A. Locke, page 2

x “Pre-“Bee Week” Buzz” Brett

Austin, page 8

x “The Roots of Inequality” Emi

Yasuda, page 10

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It is safe to say that what can be considered art is debatable, but it usually depends on the people who view the art itself. Recently in my Art History class, we have been studying a work titled, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. For those unfamiliar with the piece, it is a porcelain urinal, signed "R.Mutt". There have been seventeen replicas ordered by Duchamp, one even selling for a price of 1.7 million in November 1999. But questions arose, why would someone want to buy a urinal? Is this artwork considered a masterpiece? First, let’s start with some background.

Marcel Duchamp was a part of the Dada art movement, which began in the midst of World War I. The mass destruction and chaos that the conflict unleashed horrified many artists. It was unlike anything humanity had faced before. Soon, Dada emerged, a reaction to what many artists saw as an insane spectacle of collective homicide. They turned away from logic in favor of the irrational.

Now, in comes Duchamp with Fountain, made during a conservative era, which was ready to aggressively challenge artistic conventions. He had submitted the art as a sculpture to an exhibition, who rejected it, but it just further proved his point. The meaning lies with those who see it, Duchamp is asking the viewer to see the (cont. on page 2)

(Jacinto, page 1) urinal in a new light. Overall, it raises the question whether art has to be made by the artist, or if it can be transformed out of ordinary materials into something wonderful. Overall, art can be anything you want it to be whether you want to create a sandwich or design the next outfit for the fashion runway. Look around you, the concept of art is constantly changing and evolving. It’s advised not to dig too deep into the ambiguity of the actual definition of art itself because you may forget to appreciate the significance of the wide variety of artwork in our lives right now. In the wise words of Maya Angelou, “Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.” So, I leave you with this question; What is art to you?⧫

Don’t Shoot the Kangaroos Sebastian A. Locke

Both wild frontier societies built on the ideals of pioneering individualists risking their lives for freedom and liberty, the United States and Australia are in many ways parallel. However, they differ drastically on one major issue. The US has the highest rate of firearm-related murders in all of the developed world, making Australians who visit 15 times more likely to end up dead than in their home country. The gun control debate is one of the most contentious issues facing the United States today, especially in light of deadly shootings as seen in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary. Despite this, the United States government has been unable to mandate any form of gun control due to opposition from conservatives backed by powerful gun rights organizations.

Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, along with other conservatives, remains unconvinced that gun control can be effective, stating that it could only work on “some other planet . . . but in the real world with human beings it’s not going to work, and gun control isn’t going to work.” Since Australia is in the real world, the United States could stand to benefit from learning from its effective model of gun control. Australia is a unique nation whose conservative Prime Minister John Howard introduced sweeping gun control laws following a 1996 mass shooting at Port Arthur that left 35 Australians dead. While many continue to downplay Australia’s gun control success as a simple statistical anomaly, the fact of the matter is that the legislation entirely eliminated mass shootings, and lowered the homicide rate by 35-50 percent. In 2009, Australia’s firearm homicide rate had plummeted to only 0.1 per 100,000 or one per million. In contrast, the United States had a rate of 3.3 per 100,000- 33 times higher. Skeptics attribute the vast difference in homicides due to guns as a result of Australia being of a “different culture with different people, different everything." However, Australia is a former British colony with a wild frontier that was tamed by brave men who also managed to wipe out almost an entire indigenous race. Is this not similar to the United States? Critics also say that it is pointless to consider the Australian experience in dealing with the aftermath of gun control because their fear of stricter gun legislation back then has no comparison with ours now. The fears the Australian people had included that the government was becoming a dictatorship, people would no longer have the right to defend their property and family, democracy would be at stake if background checks were put into place, and Indonesians would invade. American anti-gun control advocates share parallel concerns, except instead of fearing Indonesians, they worry about Mexicans and Muslims infiltrating our borders. Considering the United States’s likeness with Australia, the arguments presented by the opponents of gun control are anything but bulletproof. 2

Even for the most minor changes to gun regulation, according to Van Cleave, any form of gun control would put us on the slippery slope towards total civil disarmament and “at the end of the day, nothing works.” Similar sentiments were shared by the rural conservatives of Australia who did not want to give up their high-powered weapons, but after Howard’s government bought back 700,000 firearms from its citizens with its gun buyback program, resistance died down. Despite all the initial opposition to the new gun regulation reform, even a nation founded by convicts gave back their guns. In addition, the growing economic power and political influence of gun-rights activist groups has made the effort of enacting gun control a herculean task. Out of all of the gun lobbyist groups, most of the firepower comes the National Rifle

Association whose close relationships with both politicians and the gun industry have prevented gun legislation from going through. Finances online reports that the NRA’s “corporate partners” include 12 corporations that manufacture assault weapons such as Crimson Trace, Taurus, and Sturm Rugar who donate part of their sales directly to the NRA with Crimson Trace giving 10% of their sales, Taurus buying an NRA membership for each of their customers, and Sturm Rugar providing $1 for every gun sold- equivalent to millions. Seeing as how the NRA’s revenue ties in directly with the profits of the gun industry, it is unlikely that their sole incentive when preventing gun control legislation from passing through with their lobby efforts is to protect their Second Amendment rights. NRA President Keene defends his organization’s campaigning as a misunderstanding, stating that “it isn’t the money but the endorsements” that is the reason for the results of the elections the NRA is involved with resulting in its favor. If it was only the reputation of the NRA that prompted people to vote for specific candidates then there would be no need to spend $3,410,000 in 2013 and $3,360,000 in 2014 in lobbying for the 2014 election cycle. In America we are told gun control is not possible, but in Australia they have proven that it is. Recovering from the devastating mass shooting at Port Arthur to implement a successful model of gun control, Australia has provided a fantastic lesson for America to continue to ignore. "Guns are not the problem. People are the problem." Considering the people who refuse to recognize the success of Australia’s gun control model and only look to promote their own personal interests, it is painfully obvious that people are the problem. If Americans really want gun control there is one thing they can do- move to Australia.⧫

(Gandall page 1) advocate the need for this program. According to The Institute for College Access and Success, May 19, 2009, “A new analysis . . . challenges conventional assumptions about the affordability of community colleges . . . 80 percent of full-time community college students . . . did not get the aid they needed. That amounts to 2.2 million students, 250,000 more than attend private four year colleges full time.” On average, the aid for these students fell short “by nearly $5,300 in 2007-08, 20 percent more than in 2003-04” (Irons, Edie; May 13, 2009). In short, millions of students, especially those in the lower middle class and below, do not have the funds to afford college, and with a clear reduction in aid given since 2004, the issue is only getting worse. However, this problem is not only facing students. The American economy is what is truly at risk.

When average Americans cannot pay their bills, someone must collect them. When average Americans lose their assets because the very institution that taught them how to survive has bankrupted them, we face serious problems. In the end, a reduction in American purchasing power results in a reduction of economic activity, a severity to us all. The statistics of the problem only darken the entire situation, for “between 25% and 40% of borrowers [report] postponing homes, cars and other major purchases…” due to education expenses. Well over half of these borrowers also claim that “their student loans are increasing their risk of defaulting on other bills.” Even worse, “Strikingly, 45% of graduates age 24 and under are living back at home” (Wall Street Journal; January 27 2015). Most of these people are prevented from playing an active role in the housing market because our schools prevent them from doing so.

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NRA President David Keene

basis in reality, for America's most infamous device clogs the system: bureaucracy. Let’s look at California, a state that supposedly has the least expensive 2-year tuition, being as low as $1,100 annually (New York Times, 2015). Currently, there is “a list of 470,000 students waiting for admission,” and “1,000-to-1 student to counselor” ratio, common in most community colleges (The Washington Times, 26 January 2015). And that’s the current system. With the president’s proposal, College administrators predict that this number will go up by 15% at least, creating over 70,500 new applicants; a number that only makes getting into any college a lot more difficult (LA Times, 2015). Essentially, for you, as an average American, free college only results in to harder to enter college. This “free college utopian dream” has no foundation, as the very system it is based upon will be unable to handle it.

While most of us see education as the panacea of our nation’s problems, the short term costs of the plan might as well sink our budget before the solution can even hit shore. The program itself will cost 80 billion to the government over the next decade with 20 billion hitting the state governments (Brian Hughes; January 9, 2015). While any of us would be on board such a cost if it had significant widespread effects, it won’t. The problem, is not tuition costs; no, it is a much larger evil: living costs. Total living costs, such as food, book prices, transportation and housing, rack up to $16,000 annually at the average Community College, while the annual average for tuition is only one-fifth of this price (Brookings Institute 2015). In effect, the President’s plan would not primarily benefit the lower class, the ones whom cannot already pay for the living costs, but the upper class, who CAN pay for these living costs, and simply take free college as one contribution to give to the system. Community College isn’t even a flaw-free system in terms of graduation. The average graduation rates are startlingly low with rates at nearly 66% to 80%, which means at best, 14,500 of those 70,500 thrown into the system won’t even graduate, dropping out of the system and costing the taxpayer all at once (Grand Forks Herald, January 25, 2015). The influx of students, in fact, will likely make the system EVEN worse, as the President’s plan only provides free tuition, not the tools to properly educate these students. These colleges, competing for every cent of Federal subsidies, would be forced to “prove that [their] college has higher enrollments for students that qualify for [Federal subsidies]. This is where academic rigor could really take a hit. Lowering entrance standards… [is the] way to further increase the number of students that qualify for enrollment” (The Federalist, January 23 2015). Remember President Obama’s “those who are willing to work for it” chant? It’s all an illusion under Free Community College, because the plan would actually decrease the effort to get in. If it’s not your money, why work for it?

What America needs to do is not expend needless resources on adults who already face a significant educational handicap by the age of 18, but to focus on those whom can be saved: the children. According to Professor Durlauf, an economics specialist at UW-Madison, “Children of disadvantaged families suffer very substantial skills handicaps by age 18…” and “unlike the [actual advantages] of community college tuition, evidence on the skills gap [in K-12 school] is

[actual advantages] of community college tuition, evidence on the skills gap [in K-12 school] is

The effects on the market are shocking as from just the 3-year-period of 2010 to 2013 the percentage of new business creation among people under 30 has shrunk from 3.6% to 6.1% (Mitchell E. Daniels, 2015). The cause of this phenomenon is the lack of necessary aid for the common student, as 26% of students who graduate debt free form at least 1 business, but students who graduate with debt only form businesses 16% of the time. The effect of this on the American market could be lethal as America becomes one giant corporate entity. (Mitchell E. Daniels, 2015).

Unfortunately, the dream of free college lacks any basis in reality, for America's most infamous device clogs the system: bureaucracy. Let’s look at California, a state that

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strong.” In his study, the Professor explains that “the rates of return to early childhood investment are very high,” much more effective than those investments placed in institutions focused on older individuals due to the “limits to remediation that may be achieved in college”. Benefits of past investments have been clear, with research suggesting that for every $1 spent on children in K-12 grade, society benefits roughly $8.60 through decreases in crime, and increases in productivity, which in the long term translate to nearly 0.44% increase in the Nation’s GDP (White House, December 10, 2014). On the other hand, free Community College, such as that found in Chicago, reaps none of these benefits.

Nevertheless, contenders for free Community College continue to rant about the job benefits college provides that is impossible to find in K-12 grade. There are two problems with this claim: (1). Community College, specifically technology Colleges not offer significant benefits to students or society in comparison to costs, and (2) most large companies are simply outsourcing anyway.

To begin, let’s talk about the lack of benefits seen in technology Colleges. Supporters claim that Community

Colleges can decrease the ‘skill gap’, which is the difference between the skills required for a job, and the skills actually possessed by employees, that the United States currently faces. However, most of these Colleges simply “exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty” with tuition costs of $30,000 (Peter S. Goodman, 13 Mar. 2010), which not only gives little actual job application, but robs the taxpayer of precious public funds. Evidence also points towards little demand on the market for these jobs, with unemployment in 2007 actually higher for advanced degree students than today, specifically 1.5% higher. Essentially, workers before the recession actually have lower unemployment because there was less labor inflation on the market; less potential human resources meant more demand. It’s basic economics.

Once again, if such higher levels of unemployment were related because of skill shortages or lack of demands, there would be sectors with fluctuating labor demand; ex. banking would have 1.4% unemployment, and computer technology would have 10% unemployment, none of which the data portrays. According to the Economic Policy Institute “unemployed workers dramatically outnumber job openings in all sectors. There are between 1.4 and 10.5 times as many unemployed workers as job openings in every industry”. Clearly, there simply isn’t enough demand on the market to justify investing more in Community Colleges if the jobs required for degrees simply aren’t there.

There is a large reason for this lack of

demand, which is largely accompanying the problem of outsourcing. The question is simple: why pay an American employee 20 dollars an hour if you can pay a worker in India 5 dollars an hour? With over 63%

of companies reporting on planning outsourcing jobs with high educational values (Business News Daily. 22 March 2013), there seems little hope in a greater demand arising for these jobs; but with more and more students surging into these jobs, we’re going to see the Grapes of Wrath syndrome everywhere: too many workers, for too few jobs. So in reality, free Community College isn’t going to ‘help the average American’; it’s going to simple give the illusion of a first class job whilst bankrupting them. Adherents of the free school doctrine have larger plans, though. One infamous claim is the “online class” proposal that essentially outlines a proposition for a large majority of these 70,500 students (if not more) to take college online to avoid the burdensomeness of the College bureaucracy. The problem with this scheme is simple: completion rates of this class are nearly zip. Across the country, there is only a 4% average of completion across all subjects for online

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As is with all occupations, demand can rapidly fluctuate. However, statistically, the same conclusion can be drawn among all jobs requiring high levels of education.

courses, “ranging from 2% to 14% depending on the course and measurement of completion” (University of Pennsylvania, 5 December 2013). Proponents of this claim simply lack any realistic perception of our society.

Helping the people of America is not bad. But it we want to use our valuable tax dollars to help Americans, free Community college is simply not the right way to go. ⧫

Monopolies, Finance Capital, and Imperialism Ryan Smith

What is imperialism? Although some claim imperialism is only “a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force,” those “some” being the people who define their terms based on the first Google result that pops up, this definition is hardly complete or correct.

First, this definition fails to describe the fundamental drive behind imperialism, which is profit, and the

exploitation of another region’s labor and the theft of its resources by another politically and economically dominant nation. This drive, or this quest for wealth and resources, was something characteristic of the pre-capitalist Roman, Macedonian, and Holy Roman empires, as well as the capitalist empires of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States among others. Although imperialism existed before capitalism and the industrial revolution, because the historical and material conditions of nineteenth century Europe differed from the historical and material conditions of Ancient Rome (and the eras of other pre-capitalist empires), a different kind of imperialism eventually developed as capitalism itself developed. What is capitalist imperialism? It’s a system based on the accumulation of capital through the exploitation of foreign labor, the expropriation of foreign natural resources, and the creation of global markets. It developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century as competitive capitalism in the West transformed into monopoly capitalism. Because capital (the means of production, the financial assets used by capitalists to produce wealth) has a tendency to

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oligarchs control one set of banks or corporations, which in turn control another set of banks or corporations, and so on. To better illustrate how banking became more monopolized and how one bank can control many others both directly and indirectly, here are some illustrations from Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (all of which he cites with other credible sources). The first table shows how deposits gradually concentrated in the nine biggest German banks, which resulted in the smaller banks receiving less and less:

concentrate (see the rise of the American “robber barons” among other examples), this led to the monopolization of industrial capital in the latter half of the nineteenth century, something that was accomplished through vertical integration, the absorption of smaller, failing companies by bigger, successful ones during recessions, temporary price reductions to undercut competition, and bourgeoisie-government scheming among other things. Also occurring around this time was the rise of monopolized banking capital and the emergence of something called “the holding system.” “The holding system” can be described as a kraken, in single group of financial

The second table illustrates “the holding system” and how the Deutsche Bank, one of Germany’s largest banks in the early twentieth-century, controlled a large number of other banks, directly and indirectly, permanently and temporarily:

What followed the monopolization of both industrial capital and banking capital was the emergence of finance capital, or banking capital funding and controlling monopolized industries, as banking oligarchs began to purchase the majority of the stock belonging to industrial corporations. Ultimately, this led to a suppression of domestic competition, but not international competition, since the financial oligarchs of different European countries began competing amongst each other for access to an increasingly limited supply of natural resources, land, labor, and markets. And this competition amongst finance capital led to the intensification of colonialism: nineteenth and twentieth-century imperialism.

Although Western nations like Great Britain and France had already possessed a number of colonies throughout the world prior to the emergence of finance capital, the competition for natural resources, land, labor, and markets amongst the European (and Japanese) imperial powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to “re-divisions of the world,” in which the finance capital of one imperialist power would use the state (military, diplomacy, etc.) to claim new colonies or new “spheres of influence,” giving that nation’s capital monopolized access to the resources it desired. To further illustrate how it was the emergence of finance capital that led to this imperialist expansion, here are more tables from Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism that reveals an increase in European capital being invested abroad (allowing the European financial oligarchy to control the industries, resources, labor, and markets of the European colonies) as the colonial empires of those European powers (and others) expanded:

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1907, with the utter defeat of the Deutsche Bank, which was confronted with the alternative: either to liquidate its “oil interests” and lose millions, or submit. It chose to submit, and concluded a very disadvantageous agreement with the “oil trust”.

I chose this example because it shows how one of Germany’s largest banks, the Deutsche Bank, was able to develop its own oilfields, like any other oil company could, even though it was only a bank. It accomplished this by using its banking capital to invest in and purchase industrial capital, which it then used to industrialize regions in Austria, Romania, and the Dutch colonies. It’s a perfect example of exactly how banking capital transforms into finance capital by taking control of monopolized industries, and it’s also a perfect example of the competition between monopolies of different nationalities: the American Rockefeller versus the German Deutsche Bank. So it’s an excellent, real-world example of what the business aspects of imperialism entail.

So ultimately what does all of this show? It shows that there’s something lurking in the shadows of nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century imperialism, behind all the slaughter and slavery, racism and “white men’s burdens,” exploitation, theft, and “humanitarianism,” and it’s finance capital, capitalism.

By understanding the historical conditions that led to the development of “the highest stage of capitalism,” we’re able to grasp a better understanding of a system that has benefitted a few at the expense of billions. We’re also able to see how capitalist imperialism differs from pre-capitalist imperialism; we see how the concentration of industrial capital; the emergence, export, and monopolization of finance capital; and the division of the world into colonial spheres of influences led to an international system based on the accumulation of capital through the exploitation of foreign labor, the expropriation of foreign natural resources, and the creation of global markets in peripheral, non-Western regions in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Lastly, we also learn that unless a state engages in the ruthless exploitation and oppression of another land and people for profit, resources, or wealth, then it can’t be imperialist; it can’t be labeled in a way that Rome, Macedonia, the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States, and Japan were and are. ⧫

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In Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin uses the battle between John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company (American) and the Deutsche Bank (German), which itself developed oilfields in Austria, Romania, and the Dutch colonies, to illustrate how banking capital controlled industrial capital (thus transforming banking capital into finance capital). It also reveals the intensity and the scope of the competition between nations to secure access to a limited supply of natural resources and dominate the global market:

A struggle began for the “division of the world”, as, in fact, it is called in economic literature. On the one hand, the Rockefeller “oil trust” wanted to lay its hands on everything; it formed a “daughter company” right in Holland, and bought up oilfields in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust. On the other hand, the Deutsche Bank and the other German banks aimed at “retaining” Romania “for themselves” and at uniting her with Russia against Rockefeller. The latter possessed far more capital and an excellent system of oil transportation and distribution. The struggle had to end, and did end in

Pre-“Bee Week” Buzz

Brett Austin

It’s June 24th, 1927 and Dean Lucas, 13, from Wayne County, Ohio stands on stage in Washington D.C. for the Scripps 3rd National Spelling Bee beside fellow thirteen-year-old spelling enthusiast Ralph Keenan of Waukon, Iowa. (In this case “Scripps’” Spelling Bee is a bit of a misnomer as, in 1927, the Bee was sponsored by the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Scripps Howard didn’t end up sponsoring the Bee until nearly fifteen years later, but it’s still referred to as Scripps National pretty much universally today no matter the historical accuracy.) A dejected Minerva Ressler, twelve years old from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just eliminated from competition, accepts third. The measurable significance of this is that Ressler’s down the $500 cash that second place finishers are customarily awarded. Third place Minerva Ressler exits the stage as Dean Lucas traces her movements with a puckish grin that seems to say: Better luck next year, Minerva.

The word is abrogate — “abolish, annul, cancel, repeal by authority” — and Keenan’s up to bat. “Abrogate,” he parrots in a small voice. The first three letters are a piece of proverbial cake, just keep your cool. There’s $1,000 on the line, that’s a lot of money. Sound the thing out and don’t allow yourself to become upset. If you’re upset about your problems you have two problems. Take a couple of deep breaths to calm down. (While first prize in ‘27 was $1,000, nowadays, winning Scripps National gets you a $30,000 cash prize, a savings bond roughly approximated at $2,500, plus “an engraved loving cup trophy from Scripps, a reference library from Merriam-Webster, $2,600 in reference works, a lifetime membership to Britannica Online Premium from Encyclopædia Britannica, $5,000 cash prize from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, and an online course and a Nook eReader from K12 Inc.” Overwhelming.)

“Abrogate. A, B—.” Keenan pauses to evaluate his competitor, Dean Lucas, who appears thoroughly poised, unshaken. “R—,” Keenan continues. What could come after R…. I like to imagine that at this point there’s an acute silence and the audience leans in closer and Ralph Keenan’s body language becomes increasingly antsy/overwrought — maybe his left eyelid has an impressive twitch going on and he’s perspiring heavily through his formal wear, big damp collections of sweat under his arms and across his back and more than a few globules running down his face. Try not to get upset. You know this. Believe that you know it and that it’s all inside of you. Then, just let what’s inside come out.“E—.” Incorrect. Keenan takes a seat. Dean Lucas comes to the podium, spells abrogate as it should be, and receives his final word: luxuriance. Needless to say Lucas breezes through his recitation and shortly thereafter he’s crowned 1929’s National Spelling Bee Champion — a consummate pro, sovereign of the spelling circuit — met with applause, gifted $1,000, and the papers go wild for Dean Lucas. Miami News, July 6th: “Dean Lucas … is, in a way, remarkable.”On the etymology of the term ‘Spelling Bee’: “The word bee, as used in spelling bee, is one of those language puzzles that has never been satisfactorily accounted for… The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769. Other early occurrences are husking bee (1816), apple bee (1827), and logging bee (1836). Spelling bee is apparently an American term. It first appeared in print in 1875, but it seems likely that the word was used orally for several years before that.” “Those who used the word... thought that this particular meaning had probably been inspired by the obvious similarity between these human gatherings and the industrious, social nature of a beehive.

But in recent years scholars have rejected this explanation…. One possibility is that it comes from the Middle English word bene, which means ‘a prayer’ or ‘a favor’ (and is related to the more familiar word boon). In England, a dialect form of this word, been or bean, referred to ‘voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task.’ (Webster's Third New International Dictionary).

Bee may simply be a shortened form of been, but no one is entirely certain.”

According to Scripps' website “Bee Week 2015” begins May 24th. [Also found on the spellingbee.com webpage, from 2014’s downloadable “Bee Week Guide”: “WHERE DOES DR. BAILLY GET THE WORDS? Occasionally, we hear theories that the Bee... creates special

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themes for its word lists. Let’s just say that we find these theories amusing.” And if you’re interested in a connection so tenuous it’s almost criminal: May 24th, the kickoff to this year’s Bee Week, resides precisely ninety days before marginally homophonic National Honey Bee Day. (2015’s National Honey Bee Day Theme: Ban Ignorance, Not Honey Bees.)] Prelims — tickets=$20 — are on May 29th while Semifinals ($25) and Finals ($40) are on May 30th. All will be held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor Event, Minnesota. If you’re looking to “[e]xperience the drama of live competition and be a part of the audience as 281 spellers compete for the title of 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion” then you’d be advised to act quickly. Or you could watch the whole thing from your sofa, as it’ll be televised on ESPN in high definition free for those with a subscription.

Aphorisms re Spelling/Words:

“When our spelling is perfect, it's invisible. But when it's flawed, it prompts strong

negative associations.” — Marilyn vos Savant

“What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.” —David Foster Wallace

“Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.” —Samuel Beckett⧫

The Roots of Inequality Emi Yasuda

David Icke has something important to tell us. He is the former spokesman for the GreenParty of England and Wales. Have you heard? An alien species called the Reptilians are coming.

By next year, 1% of the world will have more wealth than the entire 99% combined. While we can choose to blame this widening gap on corporate hegemony and austerity policies- we can also choose to focus on the root of the problem- alien invasion.

According to David Icke, they are everywhere. They are our CEOs, our heads of state, our tabloid superstars, and pop sensations. They are among us- shape shifting Reptilian humanoids infiltrating this planet with only one objective in mind- to enslave the masses.

For decades, Reptilians have garnered increasing control over our society. Just six alien-infiltrated media conglomerates control 90% of our media, as opposed to 50 in 1983. Their control extends deep into magazines, newspapers, TV stations, and movie studios, inculcating Americans to subjugate themselves to the reptilian elite.

Over 100 billion dollars have been spent on building the International Space Station (ISS), a supposed symbol of global unity and scientific progress. When the first pieces were launched into space in 1998, the project promised to provide “invaluable research into the delicate construction of novel materials in microgravity and the search for anti-matter.”However, the ISS has made few advances in any of the promised sectors, and much of the scientific community has ceased to support the initiative. How is this benefitting any of the taxpayers whose money funded the project, or any of the world’s 66 million primary school age children who starve to death each year? With just .32 percent of the money used on this project, food could be distributed to them all. So why, then, are resources allocated to a project that has failed to make scientific advances, and may only allow for space tourism for the ultra-rich? Who is coordinating this? The answer lies in Reptilians.

The space tourism plan is all a part of a Reptilian plot to provide intergalactic dominance for the Reptilian elite. After the Reptilians wreck havoc on our planet by enforcing policies destroy our planet, they will soon continue on their quest for inter-planetary dominance.

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Using their alien abilities, Reptilians skillfully disrupt human unity. Propagating racist and sexist ideologies, the Reptilians have forced their way up the ladder to world domination, and limited humans’ abilities to unite. Our government, including former senators, congress members, presidents, and business people are almost all descendants from Reptilian clans, small groups who have taken the advantage of humans for only Reptilian benefit.

The pretense of royal bloodlines and the divine right of kings have for centuries helped to ensure Reptilian DNA may prosper in this world ruled by Reptilian law and customs.The pretense of royal bloodlines and divine right of kings have helped ensure Reptilian DNA may prosper in this world ruled by Reptilian law and customs.

Let’s take the initiative to expose what’s going on behind the scenes, and reveal the Reptilian plot. Question what you are told. Stop reading the Reptilian-media. And the next time you hear the radio playing, remember, what you’re hearing could be the voice of the Reptilians. ⧫

My Monomythical Friday with General Hospital

Jacob Brooks

I spent my Friday doing three things: reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, doing homework, and watching General Hospital. I find it very entertaining to try new things, and I have never watched something like General Hospital. I didn’t intend to absorb two things that were so wildly separate as Ulysses and General Hospital, it just happened like that. I was reading The Castle by Franz Kafka with my friend Brett Austin, and it was entertaining to read something so difficult, which was mostly due to the poor translation. There was one sentence that took many minutes to sort through. But then Brett left to watch a movie, so I finished that night by reading Ulysses to get the same struggling feeling, and it worked. Maybe watching General Hospital was an escape from the obfuscated and ‘intellectual’ towards something that is traditionally less ‘intellectual’ to consume. I think that probably the biggest reason is that it is all just good fun to watch.

General Hospital, like a lot of things, is very interesting in a way that seems unintentional. When I picture what I’ve seen today and relate that to the 13,284 total episodes and over 16-month continuous run time, it seems tiny, like a tiny piece of a giant mass of some slowly morphing substance. It feels like a composition by Wagner, who wrote these big gigantic slow-moving masses of strings and everything was very slow but would develop into big crashing explosions of climactic sound. General Hospital doesn’t seem to be as deliberately approaching some end goal but it evokes the same feeling. Over the course of its 52 years of running it

has developed from a sitcom-like black and white hospital drama to a sensational depiction of relationships that has captured American audiences, leading over 30 million people to watch the wedding episode in 1981, to a relationship drama with science fiction elements, to a crime drama, and back to a relationship and hospital drama. It also has gone from pushing the limits of televised intimacy by showing couples embrace and hold hands, to pushing the limits of televised intimacy by showing couples having sex on daytime television.

I imagine in my head Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan from the first chapter of Ulysses morphing with the plots and styles of General Hospital. Dedalus and old Luke Spencer sit on the side of the Castle, talking about some agnostic concept of life or humanity in dreary monotone, and regretting looking and acting like their fathers. Luke Powell having killed his mother. Stephen Dedalus having killed his just the same. Michael and Kiki are unknowingly cousins, loving and copulating nonetheless. Oedipus and his mother. Lot and his daughters. Reuben and Bilhah.

For each episode of General Hospital, Ulysses has 20 words. For each word of Ulysses, there are 7 minutes and 20 seconds of General Hospital to watch. In sheer quantity, General to watch. In sheer quantity, General Hospital is the winner by a large margin.

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Quality? Quote of General Hospital – (context: man walks in house with his son who has a mask on his face. He intones:)

“Why don’t we take your things up to your room and get settled,”

“I want to see the living room first.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry father no matter how much you watched the decorating it can’t look worse than my face.”

General Hospital is sometimes silly and poorly written and acted, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun and you really can’t say it’s any worse than the most lauded of works of literature. It’s mostly the same thing, just with a different style. Really, General Hospital is better. ⧫

May Sudoku Songs of the month

“Electric Love” – Borns

“California Nights” - Best Coast

“Peaches” - In the Valley Below

“Sound & Color” - Alabama Shakes

Book Pick of the Month:

Carmelo

Author: Sandra Cisneros

Genre: Fiction

Cisneros wrote this novel after being inspired by her Mexican heritage and childhood in the barrio of Chicago, Illinois. The main protagonist, Lala, is the only girl in a family of seven children and her family often travels between Chicago and Mexico City. This semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of Lala and her family and the struggles they encounter.

Movie Pick of the Month:

The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Genre: Science fiction/Thriller

Notable Actors: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson

When Tony Stark jumpstarts a dormant peacekeeping program, things go terribly awry, which forces him, Thor, the Incredible Hulk and the rest of the Avengers to assemble. As the fate of Earth hangs in the their hands, the team is put to the ultimate test as they battle Ultron, a technological terror who wants to lead the human race into extinction.

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