Dionaea muscipula

Alright.  I was thinking of some stuff and I decided to post.  Um,  I always liked Venus Flytraps. For as long as I can think of they have fascinated me.  I would sit and imagine owning a whole bunch of 'em. Have 'em set up all over and not having to worry about flies and insects.  Wouldn't have to worry about buying bug spray or fly swatters.  Fly swatters lol.  Do they still sell those.  

Yeah, I recently learned their are many variations of the plant.  Neat stuff.  Venus Flytraps are a great example of how plants are living breathing entities just like hue-mans and animals.  So think twice the next time you want to buy some roses or flowers that are going to die in a couple of days.  Purchase a potted plant instead.  I'm not telling you to go buy a Venus Flytrap, but if you want to give someone some flowers, get the real thing.  That way the flowers can be enjoyed and actually get to live instead of being thrown in the garbage. It's not as chic as presenting a dozen roses, but who gives a fuck about whats chic?  I sure don't.  Here are some neat pictures.  Enjoy.



   

  

    


     

CULTIVATE, INVIGORATE

Hi readers, hoverers, hackers, and everything in between.  I'm foregoing my initial blog.  I found a very intriguing article that I wanted to go over.  So I interupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you the following.

I was going through some papers earlier and I found an article that I'd like to summarize and write.  It is detailing information about the plant mainly the root ginseng.  Now I was going to delve heavily into this market when I was still in decent health.  Now that I am a bit incapacitated I figured I'd pass on all my grandoise ambitions on to the average John Q or anyone still young who wants to make a comfortable life for themselves.  What is that quote about youth?  Youth is wasted on the young or whatever.  Don't waste your youth!!!  Learn all you can.  Mash like theres no tomorrow.  Its' an everday struggle.  Time is money.  Money is power.  You know the rest.  It may get a little "boring" here if business articles don't float your boat.

Alright.  Back on track here.  The article is detailing the ginseng market and how profitable and substantial the market is.  It also of course mentions the physcial attributes and positive effects of the root.  Most people know what ginseng is or at least have an idea.  That odd looking root in a glass vial that you see in convenience stores that looks like some maniacal science experiment gone horribly wrong.  Well average American if you can stop for a minute and try to think of it as more than some odd foreign plant you will find many positive attributes with the plant.  The article writes about a scientist who is part of the United States Department of Agriculture.  He knows plenty about ginseng.  Knows where to find it growing wild in the shadow of the Capital Beltway here.  He also raises it at home.  And he believes, like the Chinese, that ginseng does wondrous things for the mind and body.





    




The Chinese want to know all there is to know about American ginseng, which is in big demand in the Orient.  By USDA estimates, some 644,000 pounds of the root were exported last year, producing about $39 million in income.  I found this fascinating and when I found the article I began to see that there was massive potential in the market.  I mean this was the real deal. The best grades of wild ginseng, found extensively in the Appalachian hardwood forests, fetch as much as $170 a pound.  The best commercial grades, from farms in Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky, and North Carolina in the main, bring considerably less but still are high-profit.  The article states that $10,000 from a half-acre plot can be acquired on a regular basis.  When I was reading all of the information I was astounded.  I always thought of ginseng as a foreign product.  Now there was an article telling me that the Wild Ginseng that grows in North America is the most sought after.  How great is that for Americans who want to profit from agriculture.

The articles states that demand is so high for the wild variety that it is protected by an international endangered-species treaty and its harvest in the United States is closely regulated by the Interior Department and state governments.  I think that is amazing.  A Plant has international endangered-species stipulations.  I thought stuff like that was only for animals.  That is truly amazing.  The scientist from the U.S.D.A Research Center said that he feels that the wild root, which is more potent than commercial ginseng, will still be in great demand.

The scientists speciality is the study of medicinal plants, but ginseng garners the most intrigue.  The scientist also states that studies in the Orient have found hormonal substances in ginseng that tend to substantiate the idea that it is an endurance-builder, when taken regularly in the form of tea or powder or as a food additive.  The article writes that "Growing Ginseng" has become one of the most popular of U.S.D.A's farmer bulletins.  The article is from quite a while ago but I'm sure that the product is still a viable market.  A store manager told the writer that people are becoming quite sophisticated about ginseng.  He said that they are able to distinguish between the different grades.  He also mentins that the aphrodisiac is part of the folklore, a commercially popular idea, but it isn't advertised that way in China or Korea and we don't play up that aspect.

In closing I found the article astounding and when I read it I began to think of all the possibilites that could be achieved.  I mean there is substantial money to be made in the market.  So I am giving more information to those that see the opportunities laid in front of them.  To anyone reading I suggest you appreciate what I am giving and go on about your business as usual.  When I read anything from anyone I read, watch, whatever and go on about my business.  It'd probably be best if you did the same.  I hope everyone enjoyed the brief of sorts.  You may now tune back to your regularly scheduled program.  Later drones.

POST-20th

Alright.  I get to actually write on some more subjects.  FINALLY!!  Writing about all the Generations was fine and everything but that was more of a foundation.  An intro of sorts.  Now I get to get to the meat of stuff.  It might get a little sensitive here folks.  The weak need not apply.  Alright.  I am going to be writing about the state of society Post 9/11.  I'll write about the planet but, it will mainly be detailing America. The event caused a signifacant shift in everyones lives and I am just going to be discussing what my observations are.  Due to the subject I'm writing about I will refrain from cursing.  Without further ado.

Alright.  9/11.  We all know what that represents.  Well at least in America it has a direct meaning.  An event that changed everybodys lives forever.  It hasn't been yet 10 years, and for a lot of people the sting is still very much there.  And for many it won't ever go away.  Now I find it interesting that 9/11 happened in the 1st year of the New Millenium.  It was like that event said; "This won't be a normal century by any measure."  So be prepared.  I  read some articles a while back and it was pointing out certain things people were talking about the months before 9/11. Very interesting  real progressive stuff and they were showing that once the event took place most if not all of these things went to the back burner and faded away.  I was watching a certain show a couple of years ago and a woman was making a similar statement.  She was talking about how the event drastically changed the way people operate and things people talk about.  Essentially they were making a point that our attention has been diverted so much.  I have to agree and I think the sensitivity has been raised.  I feel as though there is a wavelength of chaos that entered the fray once that event happend.  Not literal chaos but like the Chaos Card entered the deck of our everyday life. Like anything could go down after that.  I mean lets be honest it really threw a monkey wrench into everything.

Everybody knows where they were when they first heard about it.  So I guess I should write where I was.  Well I was in school....of course.  Unless I was skipping lol.  Nah I was in school.  The day started off like any other normal day.  It got around to 2nd period and the class hadn't even went on that long until one of my teachers ran and got a T.V. to see what was happening in New York.  I was like "The Twin Towers, thats supposed to be like some bank building right."  I didn't know exactly what they were but, I knew they were important.  So we watched the news coverage for the rest of class.  Then as class was over I went to my next class and the teacher was playing the coverage on T.V.  By this time I had grown dull of the coverage and rested on my desk in the Type - A style that every student in America does.  I was actually the only person in class with their head down.  But I didn't care about the coverage.  I was just ready to go home already.  I know that sounds cold but, I really didn't care.  In those days I had zero interest in people or anything that wasn't involved in my daily life.  I knew the event was going to have an effect on mine and everyones life.  But it was only going to affect me in an indirect way and I knew that and thats why I didn't care.

So what I noticed immediately was the intense dislike and distrust for alot of Arab people.  People were really angry at Arabs in general and we all know that started what I like to call the terrorist lenses.  People started to have a percentage ratio on who could be a terrorist.  I've seen some and heard some terrible things dealing with this subject.  Then it started a lot of faux patriotism with the whole flags on cars and in front of peoples houses.  I mean it was faux patriotism.  Freedom Fries anyone?  So yeah, I noticed this almost immediately.  I was like why are all these people posting up flags on their cars and all this bull?  Most of them weren't doing any of that before 9/11 so whey are they doing it now.  Uh that won't stop the terrorist from blowing up whatever you think they want to blow up.  And within a year or two most of the flags were taken down and the "patriotism" subsided. Look if I'm a patriot then I'm a patriot 24/7.  If I'm going to represent anything than I'll represent it all the time, and to the fullest.  And we all know it goes past just 'representing.' But yeah that whole wave of "patriotism" really bothered me.  I felt like a lot it was a bit silly.  Even though I am sure there were some genuine patriotism taking place among all the fricas.





But yeah, back to the kind of climate that was instilled after the event.  It set a lot of things in motion.  The news coverage drastically changed.  It was like always focused on overseas issues.  If it wasn't some Arab country it was somewhere overseas.  The few years after the event it was like the news was all the same.  Talking about a foreign country, showing a foreign country, should we go to war with said foreign country.  I mean it all ran together to me.  After that we decided to go to war and I still don't know what we are doing over there.  But thats not what I am writing about.  I'm writing about the effects of 9/11.  Then after we decided to go to war, it seems like we've been on some whatever kind of stuff.  Like everybodys going on with their lives but, there is still a large cloud of uncertainty with the future and our role in it.  Whether that be as a Man, a Woman, a worker, activist, your race, religion, whatever.  And that seems like a natural reaction to what has taken place.  I mean you have to think, somethng like that hasn't happened since Pearl Harbor and that was in Hawaii. So even though it was decimating it wasn't like being hit inside the United States, in a major city at that. 

So many things got put on the back burner.  We stopped talking about a lot of things or it wasn't "hip" or en vogue to talk about certain things.  Then the government intiated stuff like the Patriot Act and other type of stuff where people can be "looked into" for the simplest of things.  Your name got too many syllables, a little too ethnic, or you travel a lot.  Chances are your on somebodys list.  I mean they've got babies, literally babies on certain lists for GOD knows what.  Its' gotten a little ridiculous.  There began to enter a strong sense of political correctness that I frankly have not seen before.  I mean things began to become really tame and so much stuff was just glossed over.  Though I have to say America as a whole are probably the number 1 gloss over uh overs lol.  I mean its almost sinister the way certain things have infiltrated mainstream society.  It's like fuck it lets just go with the flow.  Well "going with the flow" is alright to survive in society, but when it turns into passivity simply for the sake of not stepping on anyones toes well then thats when we start to lose ground and it turns into an extreme act.  Yes you read it right Passiveness can be extreme just like agressiveness can get extreme.  There is such a thing as being too passive.  Its' like were forced to deal with two realities at the same time.  There is the normal everday life one and then theres the post 9/ll climate that is looming that tells you that things aren't normal anymore.  As if the climate of fear wasn't already great enough in America, I think 9/11 just added so much fear to the overall climate.  Think how much terrorist stuff we've watched the past decade.  I mean there have been actual terrorist events overseas and stuff, but thats always happened.

In closing I'm going to give a synopsis on how I currently view everything.  Basically I think that 9/11 was a horrible event in the fact that it cost thousands of people their lives.  America hasn't witnessed anything this horrific on a wide scale.  It affected so many people and some won't ever truly recover.  After the event a new kind of way of living was implemented.  A lot of political correctness and rigidness became the norm.  And you think that with all these cataclysmic events happening that we would become a bit more, I don't know defensive.  You know a bit more sharper.  But instead there was just more fear implemented.  The fact that 9/11 happened and a lot of Americans are still interested in the same old B.S. kind of bothers me.  Its' like a lot of America still lives in this contained state where the rest of the world is peripheral.  We are trying to keep a system going that for the most part is proving to be contradictory, unsustainable, and empty.  There needs to be a complete overhaul of like everything.  And this can only be achieved through a simple identification.  Either you want to make America a better place or your just here to live your life and hope for the best.  There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to this just recognizing.

Shifts cont. end|

The last section of the Shifts. Hmph. Oh I am brining it on the scales. I get to write about the current Generation. And guess what? That would include me. So guess what else? I get to put some of my point of view onto the shit. Where as before I was being purely objective, now I am what I am writing about here. So its' still objective, just more vivid because I'm a part of what I am writing.

 So what do they call the current Generation. Aw man, I've heard too many bullshit names. The main ones I can think of are Gen Y, Millenials (god I hate that one), and some other bullshit names I can't think of having to do with technology or some shit. The best name I ever heard someone use was simply the 'New Generation'. No fancy spin, or copy from the previous Generation (Gen Y, gee how long did it take to think that up). The 'New Generation'...The New Gun.

So yeah its been interesting coming up in this rapid fire age. Stuff changes so quickly its' ridiculous. Well lets start with the whole coming up process. Well for one the parents.  Well most of the New Generations parents were a downgrade from the Gen X parents. We were told less things about the way the world worked, life in general. Things began to become sugar coated or dismissed altogether. Not heavily, but enough so where a lot of things have to be learned on our own when the information was there all along. This was the beginning of the parent becoming your friend instead of mentor role. I read someone writing about couples in the modern age and they wrote that the husband goes to work all week. Then the mother goes to work also. They barely see their kids. They wrote "Why do they even have kids?" I laughed but thats something serious to think about. I know a lot are sincere and are just being caught up in the demands of the workforce. 

Which brings me to another point. The New Generation is just that - new. We don't use a lot of the old way of doing things. Things go at a much faster rate. Plus we were brought up on this global shit. It was thrust into our lap. (GEEZ this might be the longest section) Were expected to adapt to all these sweeping changes going on while being true to ourselves, while having surmounting options laid out in front of us. PAUSE
I'm going to pause write there and start at the raising parts again. I'll come back to the whole scope thing.

Like a lot of my peers, I watched A LOT, and I mean A LOT of T.V. from a very early age. T.V. was like my best friend at an a early age. I was fascinated by T.V. Whether it was the realistic shows, animated, the musical stations, or anything in between T.V. had it all. Its' a good tool to keep kids quiet. It sure kept me quiet, though I wasn't loud to begin with. I also had involvement with a computer at an early age. Nothing fancy like a kid would have now but those IBMs were powerful for the time. My point is that I'm sure a lot of my peers were getting the same treatment. Being plopped in front of a T.V. or getting some toys thrown at me instead of actually being 'raised'. Some got better treatment than others, thats how it goes. What I'm bascially writing is the randomness of growing up and how the cycle continues. Your not just supposed to be going through life randomly and when you graduate high school, hope that you have enough common sense and smarts so that you can survive. Uh no thats what parents are supposed to be helping you with...life. And guess what things are simple. But do we live like things are simple? Em no. So lets act like we live in a complex society. We know that I'm SUPPOSED to be societies responsibility, but guess what? Most of Society doesn't give a fuck about you junior unless your raking in the dough.  So until we achieve Utopia the majority of the responsibility falls on *gasp* parents.  Surprise I know.





Which brings me to a point. This whole - The New Generation ain't shit. They stupid. How come they don't know nothing. Things were so much better "back in the day". All that bullshit. Okay whatever. I've heard enough of that shit. I don't hear it as much as I used too, but I used to hear it a lot. If you want to go on about how the current generation ain't shit and we don't know nothing then what are you doing to remedy said situation. My whole outlook is if you aint' helping me don't fucking criticize me because you doing more harm than help. I respect a lot of older dudes but I'm sorry too many of you is on a whole nother page that I can't even get with (or want to for that matter). Thats where a lot of my respect for Gen X comes from. A lot of the musicians of Gen X really respected the youth and gave some knowledge when they could. I haven't noticed the same with your averae Gen Xer but, if their artists were at least willing to extend that partion than I'm grateful. I grew up listening to artists tell me more shit about life than my own fucking parents did!! So yeah don't fucking chastize me if you ain't coming to come help me. I need encouragement and not some old armchair evaluation.

Something distinct that has been attributed to the current generation is the technological skill we are supposed to have. As a whole I would have to agree with that. The technology is advanced way beyond anything any of my parents could imagine and is actually fun. While I may have some common sense knowledge of electronics. There is a lot of stuff that I don't know how to operate as far as online stuff goes and computers. Though I do have a general disinterst in advanced technology to some extent. I'm just not that interested in all this super technorati that takes place online. I'm a bit more simple when it comes to that.

Now I'm going to have to mention that for a while I didn't like being part of all this New shit. I wondered why I wasn't older, part of Gen X at least or born a long time ago. Then i went to college and it changed most of that. I actually grew to respect the current generation and realized that we were getting a unfair rap. I do think we are a bit over materialistic though. And I have noticed that immaturity seems to be becoming more common. Now I myself act much older than I actually am. I always have. I can't tell other people to do the same because I don't know how that works. It does bother me when I carry myself in a more adult manner than people much older than me though.

I was reading some interviews of a Gen X band and the interviewer was asking the band questions about their peers and relevance. One of the bandmates responded that he didn't see any identity with his group of peers. I guess that shows how hard it is to identify something that your a part of. I had to sit down a while and think of some traits and such that identified the current generation. Something else I noticed is our problems. Where Gen x's problems were largely external and they dealt with a lot of societial issues. The New Generations problems seem to be more internal, because things aren't just the same. Theres so many possibilities open to us it can make you question what is your real purpose in life.UNPAUSE. Which brings me back to the kind of world we've been brought up in. Everything is advanced, global, multicultural, kind of stuff. We think globally much easier than any other generation. I don't even like thinking globablly (at least not in the way they want me to think of it) but its' easy for me to. And that has to do with what became the norm in the late 20th early 21st Century.





Which brings me to a point. The New Generation has some of the highest birth rates of the 20th century. We could easily change the world, but the thing is we haven't been told exactly what we are supposed to be changing the world into. Add the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that is globalism thrown in our face and things seem to be a bit too much. So I notice that a lot of us just want to be well off and live a comfortable life. And for the most part thats fine considering the circumstances.  I get this feeling that we know that were supposed to be getting things going major, but nobodys told us shit.  We've had to learn just basic shit on our own, that getting the harder stuff can be a chore indeed.

I don't have any real closing comments.  I mean, I'm still young.  I can go and kick up dust and muthafuckas will take heed.  But a wise man doesn't fight a hopless battle.  I think were a great generation and the numbers are astounding.  I don't know what were supposed to represent as a whole besides sheer numbers and travel though.  The comfortable life huh...

Shifts cont.

And it continues.  I'm going to accelerate the process.  There are a lot of important subjects I want to address so I will try to get the generation sections over as quick as possible.  I realize that there are subsets and smaller generations inbetween the main ones.  I am just covering the main ones here.  

Now here we have something for the people.  The infamous "Generation X".  The final call.  Societies chameleon.  The Kids of the Revolution if there ever was such a thing.  The  so called slackers, defeatists, disillusioned, moody, highly observant, and technically the last "real generation."  And when I write 'real' I'm not referring to attitudes or anything like that (though I could).  I'm referring to cohesiveness as far as what a Generation is supposed to be.  You can take someone born at the beginning of the Gen X births and someone born at the apex and compare their overall outlooks and they would be similar.   Now you take someone born around the begininng of the current Generations birth period and someone born sometime later and their attitudes and experiences won't be similar on a broad scale.  The way things are now a few years can totally change what experiences and outlooks a person will have.  You could state that Generations in the traditional sense are a thing of the past.  Thats what I meant when I wrote that.

Now I have to mention that "Gen X" as they are referred to are my most respected Generation.  Yes they are #1 in my book.  Their like spiritual surrogate parents for me.  And as perceptive as they are, their the first ones to tell you that their no role model.  I value and respect a lot of what they think, say, believe, and how they carry themselves.  And since I have the utmost respect for them I can and will write any and everything I want about them.  Essentially if I want to point out stuff I don't like, faults, or anything like that I'll do it. It's as simple as that.  But it's hard to do that with Gen X if you truly understand them.  So this will be a mostly positive critique.  Now lets continue shall we.

Alright.  Where to start?  Uh lets see.  Well Gen X were born into some strange circumstances.  Society was in a massive upheavel.  The simple way of doing things was seen as not fit for the future of society.  People began to focus on societies problems at large and with each other and themselves.  This massive human responsibility put into action caused many people to focus on themselves much more instead of simply letting "the man" tell them how they should live their lives.  Dreams of autonomy persisted and the thought that people could really change the world seemed to be a great possibility.  People were beginning to" do their own thing."  And all of this resulted in the lowest birth rates of the 20th Century.  We had a generation coming, but what would they think of this massive ball of confusion?





Now I know that the age of the parents of the Gen Xers vary much more than your average generation.  There were just as many younger parents as there were older parents and "average" age parents.  From what I gathered though alot of them felt that the parents on a overall stance did not understand them.  I always found this intriguing since many Gen X parents had certain ideals that they were clinging to when they had kids.  A lot of Gen Xers felt that their parents were trying to get them to see things in that idealist light, and while it was a nice blueprint, was not very realistic.  And if their parents didn't lean toward idealism they were more of the narrow view conservative type and couldn't see things past getting a job and "working hard."  Regardless of what kind of parent they had, a lot of the Gen Xers parents seemed to want their kids to think a lot like they did.  One thing I have to give credit to a lot of the Gen X parents and just that period in general is that there seemed to be a unconscious "my kid is not just mine" kind of thing (which is correct).  Like the old school days where your parents friends or someone in the community was just as much responsible for you as your parents were.  This all goes back to community.  They were doing a lot of things right in those days, but there were just so many things going on at once.  Things should have been done a little bit slower and with more foresight.  I'm straying here.  Back on subject.

So yeah, even with all the stuff happening , Gen Xers grew up during times that you could call the last of their kind.  Where a kid growing up was still a kid.  Just simpler times man.  Where things could get harsh, but usually not too extreme.  And certainly not extreme on a regular basis like when I was growing up.  Out of all the Generations, Gen X seems to have the strongest link to their youth.  But unlike the Boomers its' not used as a crutch or some annoying complex.  It's much more natural and tempered.  I notice this a lot.  So as Gen X got older they began to realize that those ideals that surrounded them in their early days were just that "ideals".  Nice on paper, but hard to actually implement.  They kept a realist point of view, but were open to other stuff.  I said to myself a while ago that Gen X were multi-cultural by default.  Even if they stay conservative their Generation is essentially a multi-cultural generation.  And I'm not talking about the forced multi-culturalism of today, but just a more natural way of being.  At the same time Gen X grew up and experienced all the travesties of a disabled society without the subtlety and underpinnings of today.  It was much more blatant and in your face.  From all angles.  There was always that awareness there.  I've experienced the same kind of stuff, something I noticed alot of the current generation seems to have missed out on.  But like I said it's much more subtle and undertoned today.

I mean growing up for them was a different experience than it is currently because parents and society did not sugar coat the basic aspects of life like they do now.  Certain things were a certain way and no matter what you have been told, they weren't going to change that easily.  The only thing was is that Gen X saw that a lot of things could be changed, but the older generations said otherwise.  They adapted to the unfeeling nature of the world and acted accordingly. The results were damaging across the board.  Every man/woman for themselves became the unofficial rule.  Take a look at the decade before last.  I mean it was like everybody was against everybody.  And in a lot of ways it wasn't "like", thats how it was.  Think how much bullshit went on during that period.  So much of it was senseless and showcased a societal structure in disarray.





Gen X are so real because they completely play by societies rules.  Some would comment that yeah their totally playing by societies rules, but their doing it out of neccessity.  Yeah thats true and thats what makes them that much stronger.  They may do it their own way, but they stay grounded in their progression.  And thats the key to real success. To me their whole thing is "I'm out here by myself.  I got to do what I have to, to survive.  Even if I have people with me, I'm still by myself.  There is no one else."   Their like the only Generation that can (I would write deserve to) be on that selfish shit.  Theres just not that many of them lol.  Everybody else does it, but they don't have a right to like Gen X does.  I see so many people on that selfish shit, but implement little to no introspection.  And thats what gets me angry.  I used to see Gen X as very angry people.  And I'm sure a lot of them are.  As a matter of fact I know a lot of them are.  But their real outlook on things seems to be more of a dissatisfaction.  A problem with the way things are, and living in a world that they don't neccassarily respect.  And thats where all the commentary comes from.  And they got plenty of it.  

Don't get it twisted, its' still a Gen X world all day.  I know that.  I don't know when a changing of the guard will take place.  I do know that that moment is nearing.  The only thing is my generation isn't doing much new.  We're all over the place (I'll give us that) , but there isn't too much that hasn't been done before.  If there was one thing that I could get across to my generation is that the world that Gen X inherited was a debacle.  The reality they inherited was/is wrong.  They didn't have a choice but to play by the rules.  It's still wrong and we are keeping it going.  I don't have all the answers, just some observations.  I just want a real perceptive person to take what I give and run with it.  (In the right way of course)  Well I'm finished writing.  I salute them and still hold them in high esteem.  Their easily one of the more complex generations, but they worked it out alright.  

And Only The Strong Survive Life Isn't Fair