In the spring of 1919, a group of Italian nationalists, including Benito Mussolini, burnt down the offices of a local socialist newspaper called ‘L’Avanti!’, killing four people, and halting production of the paper for several days. This was the first of many attacks on left-wing institutions from the fascist movement. This violence, often helped by colluding nationalist law enforcement, would grow the influence of paramilitary fascist groups, eventually culminating in Mussolini gaining power in 1922.
Almost exactly 100 years after the first violent rise of fascism in Italy, it’s happening again. This time, draped in the aesthetics of modern neoliberal politics, while the actual message being sent is one of nationalism and white supremacy. The current figurehead of this movement is Giorgia Meloni, and she was elected prime minister of Italy on October 22, 2022.
The party she belongs to is called Fratelli d’Italia or “The Brothers of Italy”. They are a far-right neofascist political party and by far the most extreme to govern the country since Mussolini’s dictatorship. The fact that this is Italy’s first woman prime minister is also no coincidence. Far-right movements have had a lengthy history of picking select white women as figureheads to forward patriarchal and regressive ideas through the thin veil of progress.
Aesthetics have always been intertwined with fascism and other far-right movements. Historically, as an intense focus on uniform and conveying power, strength, and purity; so much so that the wolf in sheep’s clothing approach that Meloni is using is working better than it ever should have.
In September of 2022, before Meloni was elected, Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying, “The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing,”. I don’t think that this means Clinton actually supports the hateful, racist, anti-immigrant politics that Meloni and her party are pushing for, but it’s this sort of attitude that dismisses the genuine harm that these ideas cause, opening the door wide open for another rise to fascism.
With Meloni’s administration already targeting journalists critical of her ideas, it seems clear that anything short of genuine condemnation simply isn’t enough.
For astronomers world-wide, 2022 was a blastful year for its space launches. Within this year, there were a multitude of accomplishments and achievements reached.
Throughout 2022, 180 rockets were properly launched, with SpaceX leading most of them. There were 7 launch failures, but it’s clear to see the success within these launches, with the fact that 180 is the most ever within human history.
There were also a few highlights during the year, showing the potential of our technology within the environment of space.
Firstly, the mission of Artemis 1 launched on November 16th, 2022. Its mission was to prepare to create a safe environment for future crewed missions to the moon and Mars. These places, as of now, still hold many unknown dangers to us. At the end of this mission, it would successfully set up the premises for a human crew for another space launch.
Along with the Artemis mission, China was able to complete its very own space station, called the “Tiangong space station”. As of right now, this is the second fully crewed space station, creating new opportunities with the new build. Just like the other space station (ISS), this station strives for the same goals of experiments and research on life within space. With a whole new space station, the opportunities seem almost endless.
As space launches become more prominent in these upcoming years, it’s important to see what’s up next on the launch board.
With views of Mars becoming our next home, researchers have had their eyes on this planet. Recently, they’ve announced the production of a small robot by the name of Moxie. Its purpose is to generate breathable oxygen for the foreseeable future within Mars. This idea, although still floating, has been tested, giving an eventual launch date somewhere in the 2030’s.
Throughout the decades of space exploration, technology has developed way past what we had before. Looking at the first space launch ever, Sputnik 1, it’s clear to see the improvements within our goals and technology. As we continue, it will keep on improving, adding and developing our knowledge on the vastness of space. We are just a step in this process, but it’s necessary to further space exploration and its many future launches.
On October 28, 2022, in San Francisco, California, a man named David DePape broke into Pelosi’s house. Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, was not home at that time when he broke in.
The assailant broke into the house with the hammer he had brought. While Paul was sleeping, DePape asked who he was and where Nancy Pelosi was. Although Paul Pelosi told him she will not be back for some days, he desired to stay in his house until she had arrived as stated by the federal complaint.
According to the ‘Washington Post’, a reporter named Amber Lee was told by DePape that freedom in the United States was “being killed systematically and deliberatively” and that he had discovered “names and addresses” of those he assumed was the problem.
The cause was the midterm election, where a Trump mob attacked the White House on January 6, 2021, due to the election “being rigged.” The mob wanted to keep Trump in power. As assumed by other people in Congress, DePape’s reason for the attack was that he was influenced by Donald Trump supporters. But otherwise, he had confirmed with Paul that Nancy was second in line for the presidency. DePape said, “They are all corrupt” and ”We’ve got to take them out.”
When the police had opened the door, Paul and DePape were wrestling for the hammer. DePape was told by police to let go of the hammer, but he refused. DePape managed to get the hammer out of Paul’s grip and hit Paul Pelosi on the head, leaving him unresponsive for three minutes in a pool of blood.
Good news, Paul is recovering and has had surgery. But the assailant wasn’t aiming for Paul Pelosi, he was in the way. His target was Nancy Pelosi. He claimed that she was “the leader of lies” and he was to break her kneecaps. He stated that, “She would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions.”
It’s Chinese New Year, a new year is a new animal. This year, we explore The Year Of The Rabbit. Did you know that in Chinese culture, the rabbit represents mercy, elegance, and beauty? It’s said to be the luckiest animal of the twelve.
Lunar New Year is also known as the Spring Festival. It lasts for fifteen days and is the most important festival in China.
The rotation of the twelve animals is based on the tale of a “Great Race” consisting of the twelve animals, created by the Jade Emperor— a god in Chinese mythology. According to the tale, animals had to overcome a rapidly-flowing river in order to get to the finish line. The results came in the following order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.
Those born in the years 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 and so on (every twelve years) are born in The Year Of The Rabbit. Each animal has their own years assigned to them. With that, everyone has their own Chinese zodiac assigned to them.
Although these are the twelve zodiac animals for Chinese culture, some animals can switch out based on where it’s celebrated. In Vietnam, the ox is replaced with a water buffalo, and the bunny with a cat. In the “Great Race” tale, the cat was not included in the Chinese zodiac cycle because the rabbit failed to inform the cat of the race, even after promising to do so.
Nobody is confident in how the cat came to be in the Vietnam zodiacs, but there is speculation that the ancient words for rabbit and cat sounded similar. So, technically, it is also The Year Of The Cat.
China has several traditions that come with the New Year, traditions that include putting up decorations, eating reunion dinner with family on New Year’s Eve, giving red envelopes and other gifts, firecrackers and fireworks, etc.
If you wish to learn more about The Lunar New Years, feel free to visit the sources given below.
Law enforcement has failed another young black man in America. Tyre Nichols was a free spirited man, a father, and the youngest of four siblings. Nichols’ entire world revolved around his family, especially his son. Ben Crump, one of the families attorneys, stated in a press conference “Everything he was trying to do was to better himself as a father for his four year old son.”
His mother says that he had moved to Memphis before the COVID-19 Pandemic and got stuck there when everything shut down. But he was perfectly content with the situation because it meant he could spend even more time with his mom and family. Nichols had worked as a Fed Ex worker for about nine months during his time in Memphis and often skateboarded at Shelby Farms Park; this is the park he had skated at since he was only 6 years old.
On January 7th, 2023 Tyre Nichols was initially stopped by Memphis Police for reckless driving.
This traffic stop would lead to Nichols being violently beaten for roughly three minutes. Nichols was hospitalized and three days later, on January 10th, he died. The five officers at the scene have all since been fired from the Memphis Police Department and on January 26th, were charged with second degree murder for Tyre Nichols’ death.
According to information released by his family’s lawyers, the autopsy found that Nichols “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.” Antonio Romanucci, one of the Nichols family’s lawyers, stood by Tyre Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, and stated: “He was a human piñata for those police officers. Not only was it violent, it was savage.”
RowVaughn Wells stated in a press conference that “He always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn’t know this is what he meant.”
Nichols’s funeral was held on February 1, at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the service saying to Nichols’ family “The people of our country mourn with you.”
Nichols was a lover of the arts and one of his many passions was to take photos of sunsets.
In this last quote from Nichols’ personal blog, he writes:
“My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eye and out through my lens. People have a story to tell why not capture it instead of doing the ‘norm’ and writing it down or speaking it. I hope to one day let people see what I see and to hopefully admire my work based on the quality and ideals of my work.”
All Tyre Nichols ever wanted to do was to support his family and see the sun rise and set everyday, and that opportunity was abruptly stripped away from him due to America’s deeply corrupt law enforcement system.
As the new year began and the world turned its focus to the up and coming 2023 calendar year, the ties between Croatia and Europe would be closer than ever before. Croatia has had EU membership since 2013. Various countries that are in the EU are not in the Schengen area and don’t use the euro.
A few examples to understand the complex system: Sweden is part of the Schengen area but doesn’t use euro as it still uses krona as its currency, and Ireland as an EU country isn’t Schengen. Thus, it prompts the question of how the EU, the Schengen area, and euro currency are intertwined? The EU and Schengen areas are separate components that do not imply the use of the euro currency.
Croatia, with a population of 4 million, got its independence in 1991 and the Balkan country got the green light into the EU in 2013. This major step for the country of Croatia has been celebrated in the deeper connection to Europe.
A bit of background on the Schengen zone; the zone spans in population of 420 million people, it allows for the goods, services, and people of countries to travel without restrictions in other Schengen countries. The less hassle of providing identity and travel documentation for customs allows for a bit more of easier travel.
The span that Schengen covers is 23 EU member countries along with four members of the European Free Trade Association.
Croatia, being the 27th country to join, also sets the bar for air travel check to expire in late March of this year.
The global use of euro also is prevalent, as it allows for a more stable currency to replace the current currency of the Croatian kuna which is less stable.
Some of the foreseeable benefits of joining include: it allows for more global trade partners and easier networking of shipments between countries, it also helps combat national inflation (which is key to keeping prices down), and with the more stable currency it allows for the markets to hopefully not exceed current prices. Additionally, the tourism industry, which currently makes up 20% of the country’s annual GDP, will also take off and recover from the pandemic with more incomes as well.
With getting the accession into Schengen and eurozone, there are many complex factors that allow for the official acceptance. Croatia needed a majority from both the European parliament and European Commission, along with all EU member states having unanimous agreement, which would allow for the official transition of Croatia.
With the voting from the European council, the results were as stated, with 543 MEPs in favor, 53 against, and 25 abstaining, which led to the Council having the final say in the big decision. The unanimous vote finally came in December of 2022, with the EU ministers of the council coming to a final consensus and confirming the vote.
There was a bit of resentment from the other regions of Romania and Bulgaria who were denied entry. The main cause of their denied entry was because of the corruption, and illegal migrations concerns, with the two countries.
As Croatia goes for the new milestone, it proves the EU is intact and remains focused despite the recent agressions from Russia in the war against Ukraine. It also deepens the connection with a more connected Europe with the most recent addition to the mix of Croatia.
As the Croatian prime minister, Andrej Plenković proclaimed, “Two strategic goals of a deeper EU integration”.
As children grow up, they are accustomed to a variety of animals that are represented in everyday occurrences. In children’s books – the cow goes moo, the horse goes neigh, and rhinos go…extinct? Unfortunately, yes, commonly known animal species such as rhinos, whales, leopards and gorillas are all on their way to extinction. Try and write that in a children’s book.
Javan Rhinos, a species of rhino found in South-East Asia, are close to inevitable extinction due to diseases, natural disasters, pollution, inbreeding, and an imbalance with the food chain. Around 70 Javan Rhinos remain, and they are contained in the country of Indonesia.
This horned mammal is not the only one on its way out, as the African Forest Elephant is extremely endangered, seeing as their population has decreased around 86% over the past 30 years. It’s heartbreaking to think that these big playful animals are close to being non-existent, especially considering the familiarity we had with them while growing up.
The epidemic of extinction doesn’t only affect those on land, it also ventures to the seas where it claims its next victim, the North Atlantic Right Whale. There are fewer than 340 of these whales left, directly due to being hunted by humans, and destroyed by pollution. Their name even comes from the way they float “up-right” when killed. Another tragic movement where animals around us are executed in mass genocides for amusement.
The wrath of humans has also extended to our cousin-like primates, the Eastern and Western Lowland Gorillas. They are close to extinction due to extreme levels of disease, excessive hunting of rare animals, and disruption with their natural habitats. Gorillas are aggressive and territorial creatures that were never meant to cross with humans, along with the other animals on this list. Their extinction is a result of humans, interfering with the food chain, encroaching toxic waste and polluting the environment, hunting animals for pure amusement, and so much more.
The animal I’ve chosen to wrap up our list is the Malayan Tiger, with only 120 individuals left in the wild, and the species predicted to be extinct within the next decade. It is one of the six subspecies of tigers, and they live in southern Thailand. These beautiful creatures in nature are close to dying off, again as a result of humans.
One thing to keep in mind when reading this list is that the earth changes; it moves and evolves along with its inhabitants. However, humans are the only species that have physically changed the earth to meet their environmental needs, unlike animals who evolve to fit within their environment.
This also proves that far after humans have gone extinct, the earth will be just fine. Humans are the one running themselves and others around them to extinction. For more information on how you can help, check out the sources below.
According to ballotpedia.org, on Election Day, in November, 35 senate seats were up for grabs. 14 seats held by Democrats, and 21 seats held by Republicans were up for election in 2022. One of those Democratic senate seats belonged to Senator, and Pastor, Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
Now may be a good time to explain what a runoff is. A runoff election occurs when no candidate running for a spot gets more than 50% of votes. That is what happened in the election between Raphael Warnock and Hershel Walker.
Something that I found very interesting about this race is the fact that this was not the first time that Senator Warnock had won a runoff race. Back in 2020, he ran against then-incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, and since neither candidate got 50% of the vote, that election went to runoff as well.
This election was a Special Senate election, because Loeffler had been appointed by Governor Brian Kemp to fill the remaining 2 years of the six year term previously being served by former Senator Johnny Isakson, who was elected in 2016 but resigned at the end of 2019, citing his health.
The fact that Senator Warnock has been a part of, and won 2, senate runoff elections is incredible, and also shows how split the state of Georgia is between being Democratic or Republican.
But on to the effect this election could have, and will have, on American politics.
This election gave the Democratic Party a very narrow advantage in the senate, with Democrats and the few similar voting Independents occupying 51 of the senate seats, with Republicans occupying the remaining 49.
Before this election, the senate was split evenly, with Vice President Kamala Harris being the tie breaker.
Now, with the majority, Democrats will be able to process legislation and nominations much faster, filling a Supreme Court vacancy would be easier, and Vice President Harris will not be needed as often to break up tied votes.
So, although the Democrats didn’t continue to hold the majority in the House of Representatives, they still have control of the White House and now the Senate, allowing them to get more bills passed more efficiently.
Although a rail strike isn’t something that most deem significant, it can actually have a crippling effect on a country’s economy. At the beginning of December, last year, the United States was on the verge of a nationwide rail strike that would have cost our country over $2 billion per day, adding up to over $14 billion that could be lost in the first week.
It isn’t well known, but according to the Association of American Railroads, “Freight railroads account for about 40% of U.S. long distance freight volume (measured by ton-miles) – more than any other mode of transportation.”
Now, let’s talk about some other detrimental effects this strike could have had. The money, around $2 billion a day, would have crippled our economy, which would have resulted in trouble shipping and moving goods without the help of the trains that cross our country every day. But more on that later.
There are a few more harmful effects this strike could have had. First, the over 100,000 workers who could have lost their source of income if forced to strike. Second, the millions of job losses that could have occurred in just the first week.
Additionally, 33% of our country’s grain, 75% of new automobiles, and many other natural resources and commodities are shipped by rail. Cutting off that flow for just a few days would have a ripple effect throughout our entire economy, and right before the holiday season, the thing nobody wants are delays.
There are around 115,000 railroad employees in our country, who get paid anywhere from $48,000 to roughly $83,000 annually.
Now, let’s get to the big question: Why were they going to strike? According to Rutgers University, “The ongoing dispute revolves around work-life balance issues, including scheduling, time off and adequate staffing.” Rutgers also says, “The (rail) industry has been cutting staff despite reaping soaring profits for many years.”
Luckily, the strike was averted when President Biden signed legislation on December 2nd, preventing it exactly one week before the strike was expected to occur.
FTX Holdings was founded in May, 2019. It was one of the first large crypto exchange platforms that the world came to know. As it was founded right at the beginning of the crypto explosion, it proceeded to make absurd amounts of money off the back of it. FTX became a world renowned company, and in the 2022 Super Bowl, became an American household name with one of the most popular and successful Super Bowl ads in recent years.
This sounds like the setup to a story about an extremely successful company on the forefront of cryptocurrency technology, right? Like many people that believed in this company, including celebrity endorsements such as Larry David, Steph Curry, and Tom Brady, you would be wrong.
On November 11, 2022, FTX Holdings filed for bankruptcy, and in the process, close to $11 Billion has gone up in smoke.
Humble Beginnings
FTX was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in May of 2019. Before SBF founded FTX, he founded an investment and trading firm called Alameda Research. Alameda consisted of SBF and roughly 10 of his friends, making random crypto trades for a pretty decent profit. When the company was at its height in 2017-2018, it made a respectable profit month after month.
When the crypto scene started to grow and gain more public attention, larger trading firms got into the scene and made it harder for little companies like Alameda, to make as much money. This is when SBF pivoted his business model and decided to go from exchanging crypto, to being the exchange himself. This pivot birthed the FTX crypto exchange.
The FTX Business Model
Before we dig into why FTX’s business model failed so catastrophically, we should look at what model DOES work for exchanges. The ideal business model for the average person putting money into a bank or exchange is where the organization holds your money and gives it back when you want it. While it is a good form of banking, it doesn’t make much money. Crypto exchange “Coinbase” uses this model, and only makes money by charging fees on substantial transactions.
What MOST banks will do is they’ll take your money, and invest it in physical assets such as real estate and long term stock options. This allows banks to be a better investor than you, and make a bit of money off the back end. This also allows banks to give their customers interest on their holdings, so everyone makes a little money. As long as real estate and other investments don’t crumble all at once, everyone’s happy. They still have enough money to pay people out if they want to withdraw some, or all, of their money.
Something very important to note about real banks, is that NO MATTER WHAT they are required to pay out customers up to $250,000. This is called FDIC insurance, and makes sure that even if a bank goes completely under, people can still make it out with a decent amount of money.
Where we run into major problems with crypto exchanges (cryptobanks) is the FDIC does not apply to them whatsoever.
Here’s a unique scenario to think about. Imagine that you give a bank $100,000, and instead of investing that money into something stable such as real estate, they take the money and buy a high quality Babe Ruth rookie card. The money you gave them is technically still there, but it’s no longer liquid. Now, take this scenario and multiply it by thousands of customers. For every $100,000 dollars put into the bank, a new rookie card is acquired. Now, uh oh, someone wants their money back, so the exchange has to sell one of the cards, no big deal, the card is sold for more than it was bought, you get your money back and the bank keeps a little.
Now the real problem occurs when a whole lot of people want their money back, all at once, and you need to sell a whole lot of these Babe Ruth rookie cards to be able to do that. If you sell all of these cards, they will end up having very very little value, and you’ll never get the money to pay back your customers. Take this scenario, and instead of a Babe Ruth rookie card, the exchange is investing in a worthless, self minted, crypto coin. That’s FTX.
Going criminal
While SBF was somehow keeping FTX afloat, his first company, Alameda Research, was making a large amount of terrible crypto investments. It was being run by the 28-year-old girlfriend of SBF, who was having an extremely hard time making good investments for Alameda. In referencing her direction and methodology around making massive crypto bets, she said, “’Ya know [I] adjusted myself to you know, okay we’re farming comp, uh and then it’s like oh were farming these things that are like foods, and now we’re farming these whatever weird, like meta food things, I don’t know.’ She goes on to say,‘Yeah I feel like I did manage to get, yeah, get away from my initial skepticism and end up embracing the mindset of like great, gonna go out and look for like, whatever like the weirdest, dumbest thing people are talking about today and like that’s gonna be the thing I’m working on today.’” Through this interview, it becomes pretty apparent that she has little to no idea what she’s doing regarding handling multi billion dollar cryptocurrency bets.
As Alameda was losing obscene amounts of money hand over fist, SBF started taking money directly from FTX’s accounts and secretly fueling the dumpster fire, Alameda Research. While on the surface this seems sketchy at worst, this is a 100% illegal way to conduct business. This is the point at which FTX and SBF start to resemble Enron. What was going on behind the scenes here was completely illegal and SBF should face criminal punishment.
The collapse
In early November, 2022, a leak was made of FTX’s finances. The leak showed that FTX was “loaning” money to Alameda to keep up its failing bets, and in return, Alameda was giving them FTT Tokens. FTT Tokens are the tokens minted and sold by FTX as mentioned in its business model. The FTT Token was only being propped up by FTX’s profits. As more people invested into FTX, these FTT Tokens gained more “value” even though there was literally no solid financial support behind that said value. FTX would continuously buy the FTT Token to keep its value up. The leak brought to light that almost ALL of the money on FTX’s books was being held in this made up, completely valueless FTT Token. So, instead of having people’s real money in their vaults, FTX was filling it with these worthless crypto tokens. People started to realize that this was a major red flag, and decided to start pulling money out.
Very shortly after this leak was published, the CEO of a similar crypto exchange, Binance, said publicly that he had a large amount of this FTT Token and was scared for its stability. Instantly, he announced that he had decided to dump it all. With the CEO of Binance dumping all of his FTT Token, the value plummeted and everyone who had money in FTX also started to pull their money out of the business.
The house of cards that was FTX fell apart and literally overnight, the company went from the largest and most valuable Crypto Exchange, to worth absolutely nothing. FTX collapses and as a financial powerhouse, simply ceases to exist.
The aftermath
There will be a lot of changes in the wake of this catastrophic financial oversight. The company that Wall Street counted on to do accurate accounting for FTX, Prager Metis, is facing serious consequences as it was their responsibility to notice a fault this large in the company. The people involved in FTX and Alameda all should also be facing serious jail time.
Several other things were noticed as well. As I mentioned Binance earlier, it would be good to note that after FTX collapsed, people were rightfully skeptical and decided to look deeper into Binance’s finances (sick rhyme). What they found was that almost 50% of THEIR reserve is also in their own Crypto Token. In the Crypto world, this has immediately popped up as a huge issue, all over the place, and is an extremely dangerous balancing act to keep up.
As mentioned earlier, this situation is very reminiscent of that of the Enron collapse, which I have covered in a previous article. While the similarities between the two fraudulent companies are deeply woven, it brings me great joy to announce that the new CEO of FTX, whose job it is to oversee the company’s liquidation, is none other than John J. Ray, the same guy that liquidated Enron 20 years ago.
What can we learn?
What I have taken away from this incident, is to not blindly trust companies with your money. You never know who is up to what kinds of shady business, and who will hang you out to dry whenever they want. While keeping your money in banks is a decently safe way to operate, nothing will ever be safer than a big treasure chest full of money buried in your backyard.
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