The short-run: what is at stake?
Presumably, the reason why we have seen so much intervention in the banking sector is to avoid some catastrophy of macroeconomic significance. To me, the puzzling question is: what sort of catastrophy? We do not learn much about catastrophies in our economics classes and I wonder what the basis for such a fear is.
In the models that we are taught in graduate schools, there is something called the "financial accelerator". It says that when there is more wealth around, borrowers have more collateral and get better terms. As a result there is more investment and thus more economic activity.
Under certain conditions, this wealth includes something like a housing bubble and therefore when it evaporates there is indeed less wealth and less collateral – banks ask for a higher interest rate, investment falls, and there is a recession. But a recession is not a catastrophy especially if we believe that the growth rates of the last decade were too high, because of the artificial financial accelerator generated by the bubble. If US GDP falls by say 3 % (and we have seen none of that), then it will be at the same level as if it had grown by 0.3 points less each year in the past ten years – still a magnificent growth performance for an advanced economy.
It is written nowhere that a recession must be avoided at all cost. Just because the recession originates in the financial accelerator does not mean we should stimulate the economy more than, say, if it originated in an equivalent fall in consumer confidence. Furthermore, the bubble has to burst. It does not make sense to issue an equivalent amount of public debt every time a bubble bursts, just because there is a financial accelerator.
-bring back US private consumption to sustainable levels, thus restoring the much damaged external accounts.
In short, the US economy would exit a period of misallocation of resources that was due to wrong prices – wrong interest rates, wrong asset values, wrong exchange rates. So if the socialization of the financial sector that we are witnessing is just there to avoid a recession, I say it is a pretty poor idea.
Furthemore, the real economy has deteriorated only very recently. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (and to my astonishment), the annual rate of GDP growth was a strong 3.3 % in the second quarter, following a weaker 0.9 %. This hardly looks like the Great Depression, and not even like a recession as conventionally defined – granted, the third quarter is going to be worse. Also, the weakening dollar is working its way into a healthier structure of demand: imports are falling and exports are raising, thus contributing to correct the abysmal trade deficit. Private consumption is probably still too high though, partly due to the administration fiscal stimulus package.
An entirely different story is that the "payment system" may collapse. This would happen if there is a run on deposits and accordingly if businesses become unable to finance their short term liabilities. Then the consequences would be a massive disruption of economic activity. The payment system is a public good which is produced by private banks jointly with the allocation of savings to investment, which is a private activity. As the recent take-over by the Fed of the commercial paper market shows, the payment system is now in danger. The preferred policy is to save the payment system by saving the banks, and to save the banks by bailing out cynical lenders and imprudent borrowers with the money of the tax payer, while not conceptually separating the payment system from the banking system. But let us ask the following question: why is it that right now perfectly sound firm A, in need of cash, cannot finance itself by borrowing from firm B, which has too much cash? I do not know the answer to this mystery but I speculate that this is because the money lent to A will first of all be deposited…in a bank! If instead it were deposited in some public agency in charge of the payment system, firm B will not hesitate to lend to firm A. And the Fed would not have to take over the CP market to save the payment system. Nor would the Treasury have to spend the public's money to bail out banks, it could instead let them fail without touching the payment system. In some sense I am advocating the Hayekian proposal of 100 % reserve money (M3=H). Hayek was hysterical about the role of the total money stock, and thought that 100 % reserve was the only way to maintain it fixed. Modern economists think that the money stock is not that important, what matter are the relevant associated prices (interest rates, inflation rate, asset prices…). However, the Hayekian proposal allows to separate the payment system – a public good – from the banking activity – a private good. By doing so, it reduces public incentives to bail out the banks in case of trouble, thus enforcing sound loans and individual responsibility.
In the medium run, assuming we survive past doomsday, i.e. that the payment system survives, what are the macroeconomic consequences of the crisis? Authorities are presumably aiming at 2.5 % growth, constant employment, and are accordingly "fine-tuning" the economy by stimulating both aggregate demand (low interest rates, fiscal injections) and aggregate supply (injecting money in banks).
First, an explosion in M3 as lending resumes should the economy exit the crisis; this would boost spending and fuel inflation. This should be offset by open-market operations to withdraw the High powered money that was issued during the crisis. But to engineer such an open market operation the Fed needs to sell assets, which makes it problematic if all it has in its balance sheet is worthless MBS…Alternatively, one may want to simply increase the currency reserve requirements of the banks, moving us again in the Hayekian direction. In all cases, there will be a delicate transition.
Second, there must be a reason why central banks only accept good collateral when supplying liquidity to the private sector: If they accept any junk the private sector will then happily generate such junk in order to fund bad loans and Ponzi schemes. This could lead to another misallocated "boom" of the housing bubble kind.
Another potential source of (hyper) inflation, rather than monetary policy, is the use of fiscalpolicy during the crisis. There is the hint that public authorities are willing to go to any length to preserve the system. The cost of the bail out may be a blip in public debt by say 10-20 % of GDP (it is of the order of magnitude of the housing bubble itself), to which should be added fiscal stimulus measures and foregone earnings due to the recession. As public debt rises, part of its financing may well be through the inflation tax (it is in fact optimal from a tax perspective to increase inflation a little bit when the burden of debt is higher). Such an expectation will lead to a move out of dollar-denominated assets, eventually forcing the fed to increase interest rates. This reinforced by the incentives for the US to engineer partial implicit default on its dollar-denominated debt by depreciating its own currency.
Does that mean "some more inflation" or "much more inflation". I suppose this would mean an inflation rate reaching 6 to 7 % in a couple of years. However, things could be nastier if there was a massive run on the dollar. Can the current increase in public debt lead to such a run? A week ago, I would have said that this possibility is unlikely. Now I am not so sure. At least one serious economist (Larry Kotlikoff) deems it inevitable.
One stabilizing factor is that there is less room for a self-fulfilling run because US government liabilities are denominated in dollars. if there is a run, a country indebted in foreign currency will have trouble fulfilling its claims because of its depreciated money and the associated deterioration in the terms of trade. On the contrary, if there is a run on the dollar, the U.S. balance sheet improves, so it will have less problems satisfying its obligations. This is stabilizing, but it remains nevertheless true that the dollar has depreciated and that those who sold their dollar assets first are better-off than the others.
What makes a run on the dollar a possibility is the following: As someone rightly pointed out on the web, the pool of foreign holders of US treasury bonds is a cartel. They keep buying (or not selling) ,them to prevent their real value from falling, which would inflict a severe capital loss to them. But in each cartel there is an incentive to deviate and sell one's bonds before the others. When somebody deviates, the cartel collapses and the price falls brutally. And that incentive is greater if the prospect of the US inflating its debt become more real. In that respect, only a moderate increase in the expected depreciation rate of the dollar may trigger a collapse of the cartel and a sudden run on the dollar.
Which scenario is more likely? I don't know: the markets and the authorities seem to put a fairly high probability on scenario A and a low probability on scenario B. Yet many antecedents of such crises (for example, Sweden 1992) have been associated with balance-of-payments crises and sharp falls of the currency.
The long run: the return of Socialism?
During the crisis we have witnessed: (i) a rush by public authorities to bail-out, nationalize, take control of various financial institutions, as well as to lower interest rates and to inject fiscal stimulus, and (ii) a blossoming of "I told you so" types in various circles who happily conclude that Capitalism does not work and that the government should regulate and/or manage the financial sector (which sometimes reminds me of Charles de Gaulle's claim that the market is just good for allocating groceries).
In some sense, there is now a general sense that "the French are right": the financial sector should be tightly controlled by the government. Worse, since "too big to fail" banks are being rescued, "too big to fail" firms in the industrial sector are rushing to beg for taxpayer's money.
In that respect, the bail-out of Wall Street can be interpreted as a French-style policy of subsidizing declining industries to preserve jobs. We know that it is typically a bad idea to spend public money on declining industries to protect jobs there. The financial sector is no exception: many goods that it is selling (the sophisticated financial instruments that are at the core of the current crisis) are now "obsolete", not least because they cannot be priced in the face of systemic shocks like the bursting of a bubble. Presumably one should expect a return to a more rustic way of conducting business. As a result the financial sector is too big and should contract. By pumping money into it, authorities engage in French-style state aid and French-style public management. The French experience suggests that this means poor corporate governance, decisions that disregard customer value, and therefore more future losses to be borne by the tax payer.
The recent take-over of financial institutions by public authorities may save them in the short run, but is not good news for the allocation of capital in the long run. Moral hazard problems are highly exacerbated in publicly controlled firms. In fact part of the current problems stem from excess political involvement in credit markets: Freddie and Fanny have a federal guarantee on their debt. As a result they could issue any amount of debt at a lower cost than their competitors, and no creditor would even think before purchasing it. They indulged in using that money in making poor loans to the housing sector; their public guarantee did not make them more virtuous than the rest of lot, quite the contrary indeed. Furthermore, it seems that Freedie and Fanny were not immune from political pressure to extend loans to poor families despite their likely insolvency.
This does not look too much like "capitalism", nor do the artificially low interest rates of the early 2000s which contributed to the housing bubble.
It is true, though, that consumer credit and mortgages are less regulated in the US than in, say, France. But it is not clear that irresponsible lending would have taken place in the absence of a government ready to socialize losses and having already done so during the Savings and Loan crisis.
Those whose are enthusiastic for public control of the financial sector should recall the French Crédit Lyonnais scandal when politically acquainted executives spent their publicly owned bank's capital in all sorts of worthless projects (some of them being pure looting involving organized crime). A number of these projects were located in the electoral districts of highly influential politicians – so that the CEO at that time, Jean-Yves Haberer, defended himself by arguing he was working hand in hand with the politicians to defend French jobs and boost the size of the company. The recent partial nationalizations in the UK are associated with claims by politicians that there will be more lending to fund "small businesses" and home ownership for poor households. This is clearly allocating credit on the basis of a political agenda, and is doing nothing to prevent a subprime crises in the future.
The only advantage that publicly controlled lenders could have over private lenders is that the former could refrain from joining asset bubbles and value collateral at its true fundamental level. As far as housing is concerned, experience shows us that is certainly not the case: political considerations make them even more likely to engage in poor loans.
So the current wave of bail-outs is the next stage of crony social-capitalism with the associated drain on the allocation of capital and a real risk of yet another round of reckless borrowing and another crisis.
7 Responses to "Speculative Thoughts on the Macroeconomic Aspects of the Crisis"
From an ecological perspective that includes the whole earth, it's a poor use of capital to tear down living forests and their ecosystems which soak up CO2, just to deposit their lifeless residue in McMansions all across America. If a rich person married to an heiress with a fat bank account can afford 7 "houses," should they be allowed to buy them from a whole earth point of view? The rich have too way too much money going into the wasteful consumption of our ecological resources, just so that capital can spin at dizzying rates degrading a beautiful planet. In addition, don't blame this downward spiral in the market and economy on a few poor people just lookin' for a home. I guess it's the downtrodden masses who finally broke America? Marx would be amazed, tossing in his grave.
To Chris,Sarah Palin? Is that you???
Thoughts from outside the political box.Can Sustainable Cities Save The Planet?By Walter Libbyhttp://theendpoint.blogspot.com/Can sustainable cities save the planet? This is a good question and it deserves a good answer. But a more relevant question is, can sustainable cities save the United States? Our rising unemployment rate in the global economy has finally caught up with us—we are out of bubbles and are now a nation at risk. With nine straight months of job losses and a looming financial crisis, our prospects look grim—despite the efforts being made to prop up our financial system.The problem is we are in liquidity trap. Here, despite low interest rates, the infusion of new blood, the cash that is being pumped into banks will just sit in their vaults as recession forces consumers to cut back on spending forcing firms to cut back on production, investments and workers perpetuating the cycle pushing the economy ever deeper into crisis.The question now becomes, how do we get out the trap? We can't look to a turn around in residential construction. But we can look to a turn around in our thinking as we shift from urban sprawl to the development of new cities designed along sustainable lines. So together with their development and the investments in renewable energy they will begin to pull us out of the trap.The advent of peak oil has convinced venture capitalists to get busy in saving the planet. Now we have to sell the idea of new cities to investors, developers, and the people, and that requires a model that captures their imagination and investment dollars. So following in the footsteps of Ebenezer Howard, here's how I see cities of tomorrow: clusters of neighborhoods (linked by elevated transportation arteries shared by electric vehicles, bikes, pedestrians and rapid transit systems) will form the city. These neighborhoods are large terraced multi-storied structures sheltering thousands. Here their terraces are reserved for greenhouses and homes and their centers for factories and fully controlled-environment farms.So, as you walk out into your neighborhood you encounter not hallways but wide walkways, allies and breezeways lined with trees and plants, schools, hospitals, libraries, theaters, businesses, shops, and restaurants—all within walking distance, or a short elevator ride. And when you go to the first floor, at ground level you find barns (for pigs, beef and dairy cows, and chickens that are harvested next door) opening onto natural habitant mixed with organic farms, orchards, parks, playgrounds, and golf courses. Here, instead of sending our table and produce straps, our unwanted leftovers, dry bread, spoiled fruit to landfills, we recycle them to neighborhood barnyards or to community organic orchards and gardens.Once there is a sufficient population, a larger central city is built. This is the cultural center of the whole. Here you have universities, the larger hospitals, museums, aquariums, zoos, sports stadiums, theaters for the performing arts, large central parks, plazas, street performers, and so on.New cities are going to play a significant part in our economic recovery. And they are not going to be connected by super highways but by railroads carrying passengers, cars, trucks, commodities, construction equipment and freight.New cities, as an alternative to unsustainable urban sprawl, by itself is a strong selling point. Add to that greater efficiency, lower taxes, and a mix of town and country. But its best pitch to the captains of industry is that they are necessary for our national security and confidence in general—for Wall Street and Main Street, and for those in the world who doubt that America can resolve its economic crisis, our ability to bootstrap our economy.Yet, while the development of new cities will rev up our economy structural problems still plague the global economy—it's unbalanced and so unsustainable as witnessed by our mounting trade deficits. And given that the financial crisis was brought on by our loss of jobs to the global economy (the housing bubble was the result of the Fed lowering interest rates to rock bottom in a desperate and vain attempt to avoid recession following the collapse of the dot.com bubble), we have to ponder the question, is capitalism collapsing? And this poses challenges not only for America and democracy in general, but for communist China, Russia and Venezuela as well.China, having taken the capitalist road, has pretty much captured the means production as multinationals, in a race to the bottom, in a race to China to beat their competitors, have left in their wake socioeconomic crisis in their respective countries—notably in the U.S. In the process China has pretty much become the factory to the world. And in doing so have created a contradiction in the global economy—who are going to buy its products? This is a contradiction that threatens China.And Russia and Venezuela, as oil prices plummet with a global collapse, face economic ruin—along with the rest of the oil producing countries. We need a new global order, a new world agenda.Mikhail Gorbachev has stated such in The Search For A New Beginning: Developing A New Civilization.Essentially, Gorbachev is touting sustainable development. Yet, he says "It has been the fond hope of many that the end of the Cold War would liberate the international community to work together to avert threats and work in a spirit of cooperation in addressing the dangerous problems that affect the world as a whole. But, despite the numerous summit meetings, conferences, congresses, negotiations, and agreements, there does not appear to have been any tangible progress… Between the old order and the one lies a period of transition that we must go through—moving toward a new structure of international relations marked by cooperating, interacting, and taking advantage of new opportunities. What we are seeing today, however, looks rather like a world disorder.It is my belief that today's policy makers lack a necessary sense of perspective and the ability to evaluate the consequences of their actions. What is absolutely necessary is a critical reassessment of the views and approaches that currently lie at the basis of political thinking and a new combination of player to envision and carry us through to the next phase of human development."The next phase of human development is the development of new sustainable cities throughout the world. As a start we should also pursue the moral equivalent of war. The industrialized nations should form an economic coalition to assist the Palestinians, the nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and other nations in turmoil, in the development of new cities. Peace through prosperity.The idea of cooperation didn't begin with Gorbachev, it began with the atom bomb—war was out and cooperation was in. So after World War II, The World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) came into existence. Their combined mission is to foster economic growth, high levels of employment, while providing temporary loans and financial assistance to relieve debt.While that mission remains the same its focus should now be on the development of sustainable cities. The world faces an energy crisis as the production of oil peaks and then declines, as well a looming water crisis exacerbated by the increasing threat of droughts. Their mission should be now to focus on the development of renewable energy to power control-environment farms. And then add on the neighborhoods.The thing is it may well beyond the scope of the World Bank and the IMF to implement. Therefore we need a summit meeting of the industrialized nations to forge a consensus along with working out just how this is to be accomplished.That said, however, the first condition of the summit should be that loans or direct investments tied to the development of natural resources in the developing countries require that their leaders will channel their revenues into the development of sustainable projects while ensuring the workers receive wages sufficient for the necessities of life along with low interest loans to purchase their new homes —this means that the enlightened nations will only support democracies and work together to convince dictators and corrupt officials to rethink their positions.There is also something that all nations should consider: that it is in their best interest that they shift to a global economy where trade is no longer a zero-sum game, but a sustainable end game where everyone wins–it's about cooperation and balancing tradeThere is a huge amount of work (enough to keep us all busy) to make the transition to would-be sustainable cities throughout the world, and that requires that nations with a trade surplus, who are shifting their economies (their workers) to the development of new cities, turn to those nations with a trade imbalance–an imbalance in employment–take their foreign reserves and invest in or directly trade for whatever is necessary to facilitate and expedite the building of their cities.Thinking that pressuring China to revaluate its currency as a solution is wrong-headed. It will only create unemployment for China and inflation for others.And for those who think that the conflict Marxism and liberal democracy as inevitable, they should think again—think about where sustainable are heading.Sustainable cities are on built on three legs: they have a source of renewable energy, produce their own food, and have the ability to manufacture their own necessary consumer goods. Today we have the technology for the first two and eventually tomorrow's technology will replace low-wage workers with robots as the final assemblers in fully automated factories–automated factories that can be scaled to provide the necessary consumer goods on a local level—eliminating middlemen and transportation costs.When that day comes their will no be longer a struggle over the means of production and we'll find ourselves at the end of history—the end of the historical ideological battle between liberal democracy and Marxism. And when that day comes we'll also see the world's population stabilizing just as in the industrial nations populations have stabilized (the U.S. the notable exception—but that works as it allows us build new cities) as they modernized and urbanized.Here, Marxism finds its final resting place in the dustbin of history. Seeing history as written in stone—seeing conflict as the final solution—is a bad idea.On other hand it is democracy, freewill, that puts forward the ideas to meet the challenges that a fast changing presents. But here too we have an ideology based on self-interest that is false and cowardly. Self-interest rightly understood is a collective-free-market-will that puts aside the issues that divides us and focuses on the ideas that insure the integrity of whole. The "invisible hand" as it guides "the butcher, the baker, the brewer" has to be replaced with the hand of reason—hopefully enlightening those who subsist on corruption and greedHumanity was conceived ignorance. As such Gorbachev reflecting on the past tells us "Conflicts and wars have been an organic part of history." Another way of saying it is that "there will be trials and tribulations."So we have choice, on both sides, continued conflict, continuing ignorance, or emerging cooperation. If conflict remains in place there's another determinism to be considered—the historical determinism of weapons—best expressed by the dialectics of Marxism. The United States (the thesis) was followed by the rise of the Soviet Union (the antithesis) who together cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the means destruction and exchange—nuclear weapons and ICBM's. Eventually their numbers will reach a critical mass, and a great leap occurs, leading not to a synthesis, but the victory of matter over mind, the end of all history. This was "the backbone of perestroika." It is why the Soviet Union was allowed to collapse. It is why Gorbachev posits a new world order. As I see it, a new world order where sustainable cities mark the beginning of a new epoch that not only saves the planet, but also saves us our from ourselves.FootnoteControlled-environment farming: In a world facing the challenges of severe droughts and extreme weather, looming worldwide water shortages, along with rising oil costs and rising food prices controlled-environment farms are being touted as the answer. While there are variations of indoor farming, they all are pretty much based on hydroponics and tout the same economic efficiencies. They all can be located within cities or neighborhoods. They all run on electricity, require no pesticides, herbicides nor fertilizers (all derived from fossil fuels). They produce crops year around, and depending on the technology, use from one-tenth to one-twentieth the water of conventional farms. They not only use less water, they can use recycled water from the surrounding communities.One up and running venture was the Phytofarm (re: Discover magazine December 1988, The Green Machine: Indoor Farming). This is a fully enclosed farm fed by artificial lighting where one acre can produce 100 times the yield of conventional farms (day or night). And while it was geared to produce leafy greens and herbs, there is practically nothing that cannot be grown indoors—albeit it would require a shift to growing some food in composted earth pots. Yet, while the project had a successful run, producing sought-after high quality crops, for a number of years, in the end it lost out due to high-energy costs and closed its doors in the early 1990s.Today, vertical farms are being touted along the same sustainable lines. Essentially these are high rises with greenhouses stacked on one another. Yet, they have not attracted any investors and so their technology remains in doubt. But phytofarms are a proven technology and they too can be stacked on one another. And they can start producing with the completion of the first floor. As such, the investment here can play its role in a sustainable economic recovery.


Last November we lost one of the greats: Bernardo Bertolucci. Arguably his most perfect film, this adaptation of Alberto Moravia's novel is one of the most visually dazzling movies ever made (DP Vittorio Storaro went on to shoot Apocalypse Now and most of Bertolucci's subsequent epics). Jean Louis Trintignant is the existential anti-hero, pressed into a political assassination by Mussolini's security apparatus.


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Interview with Jeremy Szal: Author of The Common
March 29, 2022 by David S Leave a Comment
Author Bio/Links
Jeremy Szal was born in 1995 and was raised by wild dingoes, which should explain a lot. He writes dark science fiction of a character-driven, morally grey nature. His main series is The Common Trilogy, including STORMBLOOD and BLINDSPACE and an untitled third book, about a drug harvested from alien DNA that makes users permanently addicted to aggression and violence. He's written over forty short stories, translated into six languages. He carves out a living in Sydney, Australia with his family. He loves watching weird movies, collecting boutique gins, exploring cities, cold weather, and dark humour.
Author Website: http://jeremyszal.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremySzal
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jeremy.J.Szal/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyszal/?hl=en
Book 1 Blurb:
Vakov Fukasawa used to be a Reaper, a biosoldier fighting for the intergalactic governing body of Harmony against a brutal invading empire. Now, he fights against the stormtech: the DNA of an extinct alien race Harmony injected into him, altering his body chemistry and making him permanently addicted to adrenaline and aggression. It made him the perfect soldier, but it also opened a new drug market that has millions hopelessly addicted to their own body chemistry.
But when Harmony tells him that his former ally Reapers are being murdered, Vakov is appalled to discover his estranged brother is likely involved in the killings. They haven't spoken in years, but Vakov can't let his brother down, and investigates. But the deeper he goes, the more addicted to stormtech he becomes, and Vakov discovers that the war might not be over after all. It'll take everything he has to unearth this terrible secret, although doing so might mean betraying his brother. If his own body doesn't betray him first.
A vibrant and talented new voice in SFF: alien technology, addictive upgrades, a soldier determined to protect his family, and a thief who is prepared to burn the world down…
1) Tell us a little about yourself
My name is Jeremy Szal, and I write gritty, dark science fiction with an eye to character, emotional stakes, and visceral action scenes. I'm the author of The Common series, which includes STORMBLOOD, BLINDSPACE, and an Untitled Book #3. I live in Sydney, Australia. I enjoy gin more than I should, and I do not own a cat.
2) What is a great book that you've read recently and why should we read it?
I just finished Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. It was a fantastic, sprawling, writhing beast of novel that's simply crammed with ideas, bizarre situations and jolting, arcane world-building. At 850 pages it feels more like a hefty gothic Victorian novel than a modern fantasy, but it's a testament to the writing that I was engaged on every single page, and would have easily read another 850 pages. If you want to see how weird and esoteric and special fantasy can be, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
3) Were you a big reader growing up?
My mother is an English teacher, so I couldn't *not* be a big reader! Trips to the bookstore were very frequent, and I'll always cherish those memories. I never really considered the genres of what I was reading: I simply read what sounded interesting, which included Michael Grant, Garth Nix, Eion Colfer, Stephen King, Maria Synder, and Brandon Sanderson.
4) What made you want to become an author?
I loved immersing myself in all these worlds and spending times with all these characters, created by other people, and I guess one day I decided to make my own. While the process might not always be easy, it's huge fun to bring about these people and their stories to life.
5) Tell us a little bit about The Common. What are some themes explored? In your own words what type of book is it?
The Common series is dark science-fiction. It's about a drug harvested from aliens that makes humans addicted to aggression and violence. The protagonist, Vakov Fukasawa, is a soldier turned mercenary, who discovers his former squadmates are being killed off . . . and his estranged brother is the prime suspect. And things only get more screwed up from there.
While it's firmly in the space opera camp, it also covers cyberpunk, military-SF, and noir, with plenty of visceral action scenes, spaceship battles and episodes of explosive, wild combat. But more importantly: it's a love story.
People get surprised when I say that, but it's true. It's a love story between two brothers, trying to patch up all the wounds they've ripped in themselves, and learning to find each other again. It's also a story about familial and platonic love, friendship, brotherhood. Vakov Fukasawa might be the protagonist, but his relationship with all his friends and family is the heart and soul of this story. How those relationships get tested, strained, and ultimately evolve, for good and bad, over the course of the story.
There's also a lot of themes that build off on that, such as honour and loyalty and duty. Violence, the cost of war, aggression, and the upsides and downsides of addiction, both to drugs and other vices. I wasn't entirely planning on it, but the book also covers the emotional state of the main cast, including issues of rage, trauma, loneliness, anxiety, depression, death, grief, and love. I have to let the characters guide me, and tell their stories and emotional journeys as authentically as I can.
6) I love book quotes. Do you have a favorite, non-spoiler quote from The Common that you'd like to share?
"The stormtech gives us wings, but takes the sky away."
7) Why write Science Fiction?
Because I can!
I love the tropes associated with the genre: spaceships, aliens, galactic empires, technology, armour, planetary travel, far-flung cities, neon-soaked streets, bizarre weaponry, weird species, the whole lot of it. But what I love even more is combining the human element with those tropes, and telling unique stories. I couldn't possibly tell Vakov Fukasawa's story if it wasn't for the alien biotech writhing inside his body, altering and influencing his every thought and action, because it's intrinsically part of him. And as a result, this story about two estranged brothers becomes much more interesting and engaging when you've got all these other tropes in play.
8) What is one thing that you love about the current state of Science Fiction and what is one thing that you wish you saw more of?
I love that we're seeing so many more stories that focus on human, raw and intimate issues in the genre. It's far less about how the fake, boring physics work and more about the people, and the war fighting within their hearts. I think the diversity of the genre is partially to thank for that, which is fantastic.
In saying all that, I do wish we had more morally ambiguous characters. And while there's certainly a presence of them in the genre, often times we're seeing the "superhero code" in effect: protagonists with moral compasses set in stone, never doubting that they're doing the right thing, and always determined to save the day with as few casualities as possible, including those of the villains. Even as a kid, I always hated how the Jedi in Star Wars bought into that weird philosophy of binary choices, how true heroes are devoid of emotion, attachments to anyone else should be severed, and how there's always absolute good and evil. I want to see more characters who do the wrong thing for the right reasons, or who aren't afraid to do horrible things, and yet remain likeable, compelling and pleasing characters. Altered Carbon delivered that for me in spades, and I've been seeking out those kinds of characters in SF ever since.
9) Who are some of your favorite authors and why?
Pierce Brown for his deep, emotional storytelling and phenomenal characters that you can't help but love with all your heart and soul, combined with some truly harrowing and feral action sequences. George R. R. Martin for his rich, tangible world-building. Joe Abercrombie for some of the best damn dialogue and character banter in the business. Lauren Beukes for her razor-sharp, but sandpapery style of writing and often terrifying situations. Richard Morgan for his visceral characters and their battles against grim, unapologetic worlds, with a truly cutthroat voice. Iain M. Banks for his weird and wonderful and exuberant galactic world-building.
10) What's up next for you as a writer? Do you have a new series you would like to publish after you finish The Common?
Well, ain't that an interesting question! Yes, there's certainly the potential for something on the back-burner after this series wraps up. I don't see myself straying far from what I'm already doing: I'll be writing first-person, gritty stories with an eye for character and emotional stakes, set in a far-future, space-opera-ish world. I've got an inkling of an idea or two kicking around, but I'm not saying anything more about it for now!
Look out for Book 3 of The Common releasing in August 2023 with a Cover Reveal coming from Fanfiaddict in the near future!
Filed Under: Blog Posts, Interview
About David S
David S. loves fantasy and Sci Fi books and enjoys hiking, spending time with friends, and eating too much pizza. On the weekend you can find him visiting family, going to church, and most of all at home under a blanket while reading books, watching anime/tv shows, or playing video games with friends.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


She has no idea what is happening to her. Her mind spins with thoughts. New ideas come so fast that she feels inspired hundreds of times a day. Words flow, the good and the bad in a poetic form begging her to write them down. Notebooks full of feelings pile up. Energy builds longing for release. Her mind runs away bringing her into her own world. She acts as if there are no consequences. She feels bulletproof. She is smart and creative. Her eyes sparkle with adventure and curiosity.
Eventually, the energy is too intense bringing paranoia and anxiety. She feels the whole world is against her. They want to take it all away. They watch her, and they know everything. Her never-ending thoughts create invisible connections providing evidence to support her paranoia. She trusts hardly anyone but is afraid to be alone.
One night, she sits with that uneasy feeling that she was being watched and followed. She becomes delusional deciding that she needs to escape. Desperate she drives home and spills out irrational ideas to her parents. Afraid, they hope this is a temporary event and make her sleep. The damage assessment takes place the next morning. Being with her parents allows her to talk through the fake and the real. That line is grey, and she argues her own logic against theirs. The thoughts, emotions and feelings become an unbearable confusion. She realizes she doesn't understand anything and needs help.
For her, this realization leads to pain and a complete loss of identity. She questions her every thought. The girl who is smart and sparkling transforms into a girl full of anger, sadness and doubt. What has happened and what can happen left her unable to move forward.
The inability to move forward creates a consent state of pain. She feels guilty and is unable to show herself compassion for her mistakes and loss of control. She fears the future. She mourns the person she thought she was. For a while, the overthinking almost creates an atmosphere of gloomy comfort. The overthinking makes her frozen and distracted. She must let go of the past and move on. She must find herself or else she's not living life at all.
It has been almost a year, but she feels stronger. She embraces all her emotions as they come and go. She decides to incorporate her past into her future. The events she's gone through make her who she is. She isn't perfect, but no one is. She sets out to learn and fall in love with every part of herself. This is how she learned the lowest parts of life turn out to be the parts that make you live.


A staggering one in 25 people are currently homeless in the London Borough of Newham - the highest number in the capital. That's 13,607 people out of the population of 340,978, and an increase of almost 1,500 in the past year.
These sobering figures have been released today by homelessness charity Shelter, who have conducted an extensive review of rough-sleeping, temporary accommodation and social services figures. They said the figures do not include 'hidden' or unrecorded homelessness which "is very difficult to quantify, but known to be sizeable".
The report, entitled Far from alone: Homelessness in Britain in 2017, reveals that there are at least 164,000 people recorded as homeless in London - more than the entire population of Reading.
Andy Haines, Interim Chief Executive of Caritas Anchor House, said: "These latest figures are sadly unsurprising. Caritas Anchor House has seen a 66% increase in our referrals over the previous five years. Just last year we received over 400% more referrals from agencies than our capacity.
"Despite the growing pressure on our services, we are committed to supporting those who have experienced homelessness back into independent living, and work hard to help as many people as possible in Newham. As one of the borough's main providers of homelessness services, we hope to work with the London Borough of Newham to find a solution to this crisis."
The largest cause of homelessness in the UK remains evictions from homes in the private rented sector. In Newham, there is simply very little housing stock available to those in the borough on low incomes, or beset by hard times. In addition, house prices in the borough have increased by 22.2% in the past year - the largest rise in the UK.
Caritas Anchor House is proud to have opened 25 new studios flats this year on our site, enabling us to provide much needed services to more people than ever before. We know that the move from the supportive environment of Caritas Anchor House to living independently in the community can be difficult for some people that have experienced homelessness. These new homes mean that there is now a two-part process that makes the transition from Caritas Anchor House to a home of your own a slightly gentler one.
Homelessness is about more than not having a roof over your head and is the culmination of many different factors. We work with our residents to address many areas of their lives, including health and wellbeing, maintaining relationships, financial management, education and back-to-work preparation, and support to achieve and sustain independent living.
Patrick, a resident of Caritas Anchor House, explained that following the death of his mother, he was evicted from the family home.
"My confidence was at rock bottom. But, the compassion that the staff showed me has helped me to come to terms with what I was going through. They supported me to take up training courses and volunteering, and I now have a paid job working in their kitchen. I have a very positive outlook for the future, and maybe this will lead to a career in the catering business. This is all because of the support, belief and trust that Caritas Anchor House has shown and continue to show me."


The posting of 2 weeks ago, ThTh 127, linking the lectionary-appointed Gospel for Thanksgiving Day 2000 (in the USA) to theological instruction at Valparaiso University forty-plus years ago, elicited some responses. Here are three of them. You may remember that ThTh 127 reported on the "new curriculum" [New Testament Readings, aka NTR] at V.U. in the late 1950s and the significance of Matt. 6:24-34 in that whole enterprise.Today's three responses are from (1) Bob Bertram, the "head honcho" of the whole NTR operation; then (2) Walt Keller, a new instructor on the dept. staff as the venture was launched; and finally (3) Joan Cole-Heine, a VU student at the time of the first run of the experiment. Bob and Walt are both retired–well, sortuv. Joan is a long-term deaconess recently ordained as Lutheran pastor at a nursing home in Canada.
For a seventy-year old your memory is remarkable. (Ten years from now, you'll discover, it will be even better.) The way you recollected the "Programming of the Pericope," Matthew 6:25-34, from our curriculum at Valpo over forty years ago is almost photographic. I should know, I was the one who wrote that programming (You said I honchoed the "prime paradigm" and the rest of you "hammered it out." Actually we all hammered it out, beginning with the honcho. Since Mt. 6 was the first gospel lesson in the fall semester, the chairman had to go first.) To this day I–you too, I suspect–have been made to eat my title for that first programming, "the grasslike fate," which you quote. In short, we not only hammered the text out, it hammered us out–at the hands of many of our critics then and since. And wasn't that the whole point of the pericope, something even we cocky faculty found hard to learn? "Following" the Matthean Jesus meant following him right through the flames of his cremation? What is so good about that Good News is that his cremation is our New Creation. Sometimes our students, like Gail McGrew Eifrig [current editor of VU's magazine, THE CRESSET], learned that better than we, their teachers, did. You're right: it is to give thanks for.Along with Gail's moving memoir of those heady days, there is the article by Jerome Taylor in the prestigious Roman Catholic journal COMMONWEAL almost exactly forty years ago (1/29/60). With that the Valpo curriculum became a national headline, only exacerbating our celebrity/notoriety. It's been hard to live with us ever since. We made enemies the old-fashioned way: we earned them.
ThTh 127 sent me way back down Memory Lane. I dug up my file for Fall Semester, 1959, the first semester I taught at Valpo. I have the NTR-1 syllabus [first course for freshmen] from that semester, complete with all the notes I took to work my way into that Mysterious Master Mind behind that syllabus. The title for Trinity 15: Anxiety, Hatred, Distrust, and Grass, so fully descriptive of a young instructor, recently come from the familiar surroundings of the parish, trying to become a worthy professor in the unfamiliar surroundings of a university full of Ph.Ds. Those years were not so much a "Platzregen," as they were years of "Sturm und Drang," that ultimately yielded (I speak autobiographically) to the gentler rains that watered the earth and made it fruitful in all the years that followed. For that I thank God and all His earthly agents.When our current VU Academic V-P (now Provost) Austenson came aboard (How many years ago now?) he soon met with the Department of Theology, went around the horn and asked us each in turn for a brief verbal bio. When I said I had come in 1959, he interrupted to say/ask, "You were one of Bertram's boys?" "Yes," I gladly acknowledged, although I felt as though I had been tattooed for life!
What prompted this letter was my search for the new Series C Sabbatheology from Crossings (but it's not there yet). I stopped at the Thanksgiving Day ThTh [#127, Valparaiso University and Matthew 6]. Now I could have used that back in October, since I had to preach on [our Canadian] Thanksgiving Sunday. Well, having been thoroughly versed in grass-like fate some years ago, I had little trouble dealing with the text. But it would have been nice to have your words of wisdom. The thing is, I had a funeral the day before (for a really fine lady), and on Sunday morning here in the nursing home, just as I was ready to start the service, in trooped her whole family. Well, I'm no ad-lib-er, so I just went ahead with what I had. I wouldn't have changed it anyway. Sin is sin, the cross is the cross, and Christ says we're his. You can't top that.Funny thing: on your US Thanksgiving Day, I had another funeral. I didn't use the grass-like fate pericope, but I guess I could have. Only an angry son and his wife showed up for the graveside service. But the message was still: sin is sin, the cross is the cross, Christ came to save scoundrels, and only he knows if the man was ever able to hear or believe what I had ever said to him or prayed for him. The son left in a huff — not a good thing.
I must say that I miss good theology around here. We had a clown for worship for Christ the King Sunday — running around the chancel, jumping up on the pews, crawling all over the floor — I never got the point, except that the pastor loves to entertain. Of course, the last word in his shenanigans is always JESUS, and he thinks that's enough gospel for us. Well, I'm sure that, even if I don't hear much gospel at the church I attend, the people at the nursing home do hear it when I preach. And I hear it, too, because I often preach to me.
F.Y.I. Couple months ago we mentioned that the money had run out to pay our listserve-provider. The response was underwhelming–four checks came in from the 600 of you. Like Florida election officials these days, we're still trying to interpret the vote. If you didn't cast the ballot you intended when we first mentioned our need, you can do so now and it will still count. There'll be no court challenge. It's also tax-deductible. Here's the address: Crossings, P.O.Box 7011, St. Louis, MO 63006-7011.


• Authorities have identified two suspects in the attacks on Brussels yesterday—Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Khalid el-Bakraoui. Both had criminal records but no known links to terrorism, at least until a March 15 raid seeking parties to the November 2015 attacks in Paris. "The homegrown terrorist threat in Belgium, as well as in France, is no doubt driven by the craven machinations of the powerful and well-funded Islamic State," wrote Joshua Hersh in The New Republic. "But for every one of these people, there are many more who play crucial roles along the way in a kind of terrorism gray area." Belgian authorities would be better off heeding Kade Crockford's advice in "Keep Fear Alive," by focusing on good policing rather than grandiose surveillance operations or a "war on terror" of sorts.
• Is tipping on its way out?


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text:
Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness: A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies
Victor D. Dinglas, Leeza N. Faraone, Dale M. Needham
Purpose of review Patients surviving critical illness frequently experience long-lasting morbidities. Consequently, researchers and clinicians are increasingly focused on evaluating and improving survivors' outcomes after hospital discharge. This review synthesizes recent research aimed at understanding the postdischarge outcomes that patients consider important (i.e., patient-important outcomes) for the purpose of advancing future clinical research in the field. Recent findings Across multiple types of studies, patients, family members, researchers, and clinicians have consistently endorsed physical function, cognition, and mental health as important outcomes to evaluate in future research. Aspects of social health, such as return to work and changes in interpersonal relationships, also were noted in some research publications. Informed by these recent studies, an international Delphi consensus process (including patient and caregiver representatives) recommended the following core set of outcomes for use in all studies evaluating acute respiratory failure survivors after hospital discharge: survival, physical function (including muscle/nerve function and pulmonary function), cognition, mental health, health-related quality of life, and pain. The Delphi panel also reached consensus on recommended measurement instruments for some of these core outcomes. Summary Recent studies have made major advances in understanding patient-important outcomes to help guide future clinical research aimed at improving ICU survivors' recovery.
https://doi.org/10.1097/MCC.0000000000000533
Health-related quality of life
Physical function
10.1097/MCC.0000000000000533
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness: A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Survivors Medicine & Life Sciences
Mental Health Medicine & Life Sciences
Delphi Technique Medicine & Life Sciences
Patient Advocacy Medicine & Life Sciences
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Dinglas, V. D., Faraone, L. N., & Needham, D. M. (2018). Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness: A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies. Current opinion in critical care, 24(5), 401-409. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCC.0000000000000533
Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness : A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies. / Dinglas, Victor D.; Faraone, Leeza N.; Needham, Dale M.
In: Current opinion in critical care, Vol. 24, No. 5, 2018, p. 401-409.
Dinglas, VD, Faraone, LN & Needham, DM 2018, 'Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness: A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies', Current opinion in critical care, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 401-409. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCC.0000000000000533
Dinglas VD, Faraone LN, Needham DM. Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness: A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies. Current opinion in critical care. 2018;24(5):401-409. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCC.0000000000000533
Dinglas, Victor D. ; Faraone, Leeza N. ; Needham, Dale M. / Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness : A synthesis of recent qualitative, empirical, and consensus-related studies. In: Current opinion in critical care. 2018 ; Vol. 24, No. 5. pp. 401-409.
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abstract = "Purpose of review Patients surviving critical illness frequently experience long-lasting morbidities. Consequently, researchers and clinicians are increasingly focused on evaluating and improving survivors{\textquoteright} outcomes after hospital discharge. This review synthesizes recent research aimed at understanding the postdischarge outcomes that patients consider important (i.e., patient-important outcomes) for the purpose of advancing future clinical research in the field. Recent findings Across multiple types of studies, patients, family members, researchers, and clinicians have consistently endorsed physical function, cognition, and mental health as important outcomes to evaluate in future research. Aspects of social health, such as return to work and changes in interpersonal relationships, also were noted in some research publications. Informed by these recent studies, an international Delphi consensus process (including patient and caregiver representatives) recommended the following core set of outcomes for use in all studies evaluating acute respiratory failure survivors after hospital discharge: survival, physical function (including muscle/nerve function and pulmonary function), cognition, mental health, health-related quality of life, and pain. The Delphi panel also reached consensus on recommended measurement instruments for some of these core outcomes. Summary Recent studies have made major advances in understanding patient-important outcomes to help guide future clinical research aimed at improving ICU survivors{\textquoteright} recovery.",
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T1 - Understanding patient-important outcomes after critical illness
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N2 - Purpose of review Patients surviving critical illness frequently experience long-lasting morbidities. Consequently, researchers and clinicians are increasingly focused on evaluating and improving survivors' outcomes after hospital discharge. This review synthesizes recent research aimed at understanding the postdischarge outcomes that patients consider important (i.e., patient-important outcomes) for the purpose of advancing future clinical research in the field. Recent findings Across multiple types of studies, patients, family members, researchers, and clinicians have consistently endorsed physical function, cognition, and mental health as important outcomes to evaluate in future research. Aspects of social health, such as return to work and changes in interpersonal relationships, also were noted in some research publications. Informed by these recent studies, an international Delphi consensus process (including patient and caregiver representatives) recommended the following core set of outcomes for use in all studies evaluating acute respiratory failure survivors after hospital discharge: survival, physical function (including muscle/nerve function and pulmonary function), cognition, mental health, health-related quality of life, and pain. The Delphi panel also reached consensus on recommended measurement instruments for some of these core outcomes. Summary Recent studies have made major advances in understanding patient-important outcomes to help guide future clinical research aimed at improving ICU survivors' recovery.
AB - Purpose of review Patients surviving critical illness frequently experience long-lasting morbidities. Consequently, researchers and clinicians are increasingly focused on evaluating and improving survivors' outcomes after hospital discharge. This review synthesizes recent research aimed at understanding the postdischarge outcomes that patients consider important (i.e., patient-important outcomes) for the purpose of advancing future clinical research in the field. Recent findings Across multiple types of studies, patients, family members, researchers, and clinicians have consistently endorsed physical function, cognition, and mental health as important outcomes to evaluate in future research. Aspects of social health, such as return to work and changes in interpersonal relationships, also were noted in some research publications. Informed by these recent studies, an international Delphi consensus process (including patient and caregiver representatives) recommended the following core set of outcomes for use in all studies evaluating acute respiratory failure survivors after hospital discharge: survival, physical function (including muscle/nerve function and pulmonary function), cognition, mental health, health-related quality of life, and pain. The Delphi panel also reached consensus on recommended measurement instruments for some of these core outcomes. Summary Recent studies have made major advances in understanding patient-important outcomes to help guide future clinical research aimed at improving ICU survivors' recovery.
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Beautiful little overcast night on the river walk tonight. I only got one picture again today … Decided to see what an inverted tiny planet would look like.
Wonder if that's how Van Gogh saw the world?
Definitely a new spin on reality. Looks like trouble ahead and trouble behind for all below that the whirling cloud.
Cool effect – well executed!


alaTest has collected and analyzed 251 reviews of Acer Swift 1 (SF114). The average rating for this product is 4.4/5, compared to an average rating of 4.1/5 for other products in the same category for all reviews. People really like the battery and usability. The portability and price also get good comments. There are some mixed views about the touchpad. Many are negative about the energy efficiency.
We analyzed user and expert ratings, product age and more factors. Compared to other products in the same category the Acer Swift 1 (SF114) is awarded an overall alaScore™ of 91/100 = Excellent quality.
The Acer Swift 1 is a thin, lightweight budget-friendly laptop that has a few higher-end features that make it a more attractive deal than competing systems at its $329 price. Battery life is good at more than 9 hours.
Its low-end components mean it can't do much beyond basics and its limited storage will likely require some external option.
Enduring mobility. Acer's 14-inch laptop pleases with its silent system and very long battery life. This is due to the combination of a Braswell processor and high-capacity battery. With a price of 400 Euros (~$422), it is also an affordable device.
We bought this computer for our grandaughter to use for school work/ptojects/leisure and it exceeded all our expectations; it's very fast, light weight, big memory, feels weel made and good value for money..
720p screen with enough brightness and losing apps fast.
Replaced old laptop with the Acer swift laptop , it's light portable and easy to use . Battery life is really good .
This lovely laptop was purchased for someone for study purposes and not only looks good but performs really well too. Does everything she needs it to do . Is light and easy to carry around and has good battery life. Would recommend it.


Posted: Aug. 26, 2014, 5:44 p.m.
NEW GLARUS - The New Glarus School District opted for a lower levy amount for the 2014-15 school year on Monday at the district's annual meeting. Voters unanimously approved $4.31 million to be collected by taxes, about $161,000, or 3.6 percent, less compared to $4.47 million last year. Based on equalized property values reported last year, district taxpayers can expect a school tax of about $11.61 per $1,000 of property value.


text:
Accountability Report Urges Fewer Tests, More Peer Review
By Stephen Sawchuk — August 21, 2014 1 min read
Accountability for the public schools should be far less test-driven and more the product of teachers holding one another to high professional standards, the National Center on Education and the Economy proposes in a report issued Thursday.
More folks seem to be pushing the less-is-more approach to testing: A group of advocates held a forum on that topic earlier this summer, and the American Federation of Teachers passed a resolution at its July convention urging a dramatic scaling-back in the number of exams students must take.
There's one major sticking point to the idea, though: The renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal education law requiring annual testing of public school students, has been hopelessly stuck for years. The U.S. Department of Education has granted nearly every state waivers from certain of the law's requirements, but it's held fast to the annual-testing one so far. Still, the time to build a push for fewer tests is now, NCEE President Marc Tucker said.
"We aren't going to get a successor to No Child Left Behind unless there is consenus on a larger reform in American education, and there is no consensus," he said in an interview. "I don't think it's a moment too soon to start building one."
Many of the report's recommendations are familiar if you've followed Tucker's previous analyses of international practices or have read his edweek.org blog.
Essentially, the NCEE calls on the U.S. to administer tests only in 4th, 8th, and 10th grades, and to use tests that focus largely on performance tasks. In other grades, tests would be taken by random samples of students. To ensure coverage of the full curriculum, these tests would gradually test science and other subjects in addition to English and math. If the results of these exams suggested that a school was falling behind the state curriculum or not sufficiently educating vulnerable students, they could trigger school inspections.
The report also urges states to help set up "career ladders" in which experienced teachers would take on roles mentoring colleagues and refining teaching practices; teachers would be held to high standards by their peers.
Stephen Sawchuk
Associate Editor, Education Week
Stephen Sawchuk covers district leadership and management, school safety, and civics education for Education Week.
A version of this news article first appeared in the Teacher Beat blog.


The Amore Italia Ceramic Trinket dish is an elegant decorative accent that can used for quick and easy storage of jewelry and other keepsake items. Handcrafted in Italy, this dish is made of glass with gold leaf paint so they're sure to last long. These unique dishes are the perfect gift to make anyone smile.


The steadily growing town of Yelm.
The Yelm prairie, as James Longmire recalled, was "covered with grass that was belly high to the horse." When he arrived in the mid 1800's the prairie was dominated with fescue grasses that were a native species to the area and would later be harvested for by farmers. The farmers used the grass to feed their livestock and to sell to other livestock producers for a profit. Access to the land was helped by federal government policies which made land relatively easy to obtain. The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 and, later, the Homestead Act of 1863, placed land ownership within the reach of many with cheap prices and minimum residency requirements. Yelm is increasingly becoming a bedroom community for people who work outside the town. Few people know that Yelm once prided itself on being the "Berry Capital of Washington". Yelm, originally was a farming community. In fact, before there was a town, there were scattered farms on the prairie and surrounding hills. Beginning with small subsistence operations, agriculture in Yelm developed into a more market oriented operation by the twentieth century.
The work that followed, turning prairie into productive farm land, wasn't intended for the weak of heart. Many became self-sufficient and grew enough to keep their family needs satisfied. The main reason for the isolation of many farmers was that the 160 acre or 320 acres sections that were claimed were so big that the closest neighbor would be quite a ways away. The reason for the limited expansion of agriculture at this time was simply there wasn't a large enough work force to create an agricultural based community, however that would soon change. According to the 1870 U.S. Census every able bodied male in the Yelm area was either listed as a farmer or as a farm laborer. Subsequent census data shows that while the population on the prairie increased, the percentage of total workers gainfully employed in agriculture would decline.
With the arrival of the railroad in 1873 and the actual formation of the town of Yelm work was found off the farm. More importantly, as the timber industry took off in the last decade of the 19th century, jobs were increasingly found in the mills and timber camps surrounding the prairie. In fact, as this trend continued, Yelm's inhabitants were arriving in increasing numbers from former timber states like Minnesota and Wisconsin and less from farm belt states like Indiana or Iowa. Those that lost out became laborers on other farms. By 1920, only half of working men and women considered themselves to be farmers. Those farmers that could survive bought the land from those that couldn't. Increasingly farmers focused their attention on berries and dairy products.
The produce of choice in Yelm during the early 1900's had become cane berries; blackcap raspberries, blackberries, and raspberries. These berries were native to the land and thrived in the area. The production of the berries, during the peak year of 1929, exceeded 800 tons of berries on 485 acres. The gross return for that year was $128,000 at 8 cents a pound. Agricultural prices for many products, however, were declining during the twenties. The American economy, as a whole, began reflecting signs of the Great Depression at this time with higher unemployment and decreased prices. The depression wasn't the only reason that berries in Yelm would soon lose their pre-eminence and make way for an expanded dairy and egg industry. The mosaic plant disease spread through Yelm crippling many berry farmers and killing 79% of the berry crops in Yelm and the surrounding areas. Farms that depended on berries for their major source of income were lost and forced to sell to dairy farmers. After this disaster many farmers turned to government aid programs of the depression. Close to $70,000 dollars was given to the farmers of Yelm to assist them with funds that had been lost by their diminished harvests. The dairy industry in Yelm at the time had consumed a large part of the land in the area after the mosaic disease hit the berry industry. The dairy farmers in the area, because of there need for many other materials, just didn't milk cows they, also grew silage and corn for their own livestock. This was a major reason that the dairy industry owned so much land in the Yelm area. The dairy industry appeared to be much more successful than the berry industry in 1939. The profit was a 29% return for the dairy industry compared to the 15% that berry growers obtained.
Though at this point in time, dairy farming seemed to be an unstoppable juggernaut, it too would soon take a fall and slowly fade from the scene in the Yelm area. The problem was jobs. With World War II looming and industries around the Puget Sound area gearing up production, finding workers was a more and more vexing problem for farmers. Besides this, farmers merely went elsewhere to work themselves. Farming in Yelm had been one of the major incomes for the area early on in its history. The small, changing scene of Yelm has seen many faces. From the days of subsistence farming to the heyday of the berry and dairy industry, agriculture was always one of the mainstays of the Yelm economy. These endeavors gave the little town character and that has been somewhat forgotten, but will always be a part of its history.


Courage | Strength – Oh, border!
When we talk about courage, we usually end up discussing along the lines of facing up to something we are fearful of, such as physical fears, psychological fears, fears holding us back from doing something, normally "negative" things. After venturing on this spiritual journey, I realise that we hardly talk about the courage to face up to "positive" goodness and even what is in our divine birthright. Let's just say, are you courageous enough to face up to Love? Are you courageous enough to face up to the amount of Love you contain and hold inside of you? Are you courageous enough to embrace the positive emotions you have of someone whom you never saw in that light? Are you courageous enough to accept Abundance? Are you courageous enough to harness the passion you have for a certain craft?
Life is funny. There are so many wonderful things in and around us, but we have the tendency to drill right into the not-so-good stuff first, and sometimes we forget to leave the not-so-good stuff after.
Life is fun. We suddenly realise how all the notions and belief frameworks we were brought up in no longer serves us! Yet without those notions and belief frameworks, we would not have reached this part of the journey we are on. Maybe courage is facing up to the changes evolving within us, and then embracing these new changes emerging out of us.
Great post, courage is a trait that can be difficult…often times we try hard to muster up the courage we need in difficult situations, but we still are able to face our fears or find our voice.
Strength (with a tinge of Courage) popped up during the bawling meditation session, and in my cards again too. So I revisited an old post and found it still applies.
The bloody full moon eclipse zapped me out, so I may not be able to out out a full post again today. So .. here's an old one FTW.


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