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The Bolt !   The Edison Charger Newspaper December 2014

English, Thought, Objectivity in Mundane Objects, and New-Sincerity Wes Synclair The English language is capable of fantastic things. With just 26 letters ordered in different ways, literary masterpieces, magazines, and poems have been written. With a simple reordering of the letters of a word or phrase, for example “angel voice,” you get another word or phrase, like “von elegiac,” meaning of mournful quality. Both of these phrases use the exact same letters the exact same number of times. Use the following space to write anagrams for the word apple. Not as easy as it seems, huh? Well luckily, through the gift of modern technology, we now have computers that can do this for us. By going to the website, Andy’s Anagram Solver, we can get a complete list of every dictionary word anagram of any word or phrase entered. There are many options including breadth of English dictionary used and also

Starting from Ferguson Elizabeth Hong I’ve written about Ferguson and its history of a black-white racial divide in the Bolt before. It’s a city where 67.4% of the population is black and 29.3% is white even though only 3 out of 53 officers on Ferguson’s police force are black. In 2013, out of 5,384 traffic stops in Ferguson, only 12.7% involved white residents while 86% involved black residents. The disproportionate targeting of African-Americans, and their lack of representation in the city’s government and police are what culminated into “Ferguson,” sparked by (cont. on page 2)

More inside… • Did the Moon Have a Magnetic Field? –

Kailey Volz (page 2) • Infallible Pick-Up Lines – Sebastian A.

Locke (page 3) • Club Spotlight: Make-A-Wish – Emi Yasuda

(pages 5-6) • The Truth About My Insanity Part II

Continuation and Part III: “Construction” – Davis Lindsey (page 7)

But that kind of thing can get complex sometimes. With so many options in this world it’s hard to tell which way is up. But we find our way, we always do. The Internet has allowed the world to become interconnected, and allowed anybody to learn almost anything they want about anything if they have the motivation to. Whenever you feel confused about anything, especially with Internet programs that have millions of options, you can always spend a few minutes and do some research and figure it all out.

But is this kind of knowledge really genuine? What is genuine knowledge anyway? I consider genuine knowledge to be knowledge (cont. on page 4)  

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(Hong, page 1) by Michael Brown’s death. I wasn’t surprised by the lack of an indictment for

police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Brown. Although grand juries rarely ever reject indictments in most federal cases, police are usually immune from criminal charges in shootings. In Dallas, grand juries only returned one indictment out of 81 shootings involving police between 2008 and 2012. Whether or not Wilson should have been convicted for killing Michael Brown is another point of debate. There are still many looming questions over the facts and testimonies that I think should have been addressed in a trial. First of all, it is absolutely clear that the authorities dealing with this case messed up with the investigation. Brown’s body was allowed to lie in the street for four hours. Wilson’s gun was never dusted for prints, so there is no accurate evidence on whether or not Brown actually grabbed his weapon. Brown did have an altercation with Wilson, but for some reason, photos taken of Wilson just hours after the incident show no apparent facial injuries. The most crucial point still remains in air. Bystanders claimed that Brown had his hands up immediately before he was killed whereas Wilson and the Ferguson police department claimed that Brown was charging Wilson.

What happened in the case of Michael Brown wasn’t notable in that an unarmed black man was shot and killed by a policeman. On average, there are 96 such incidents per year of a white police officer killing a black person and this number is most likely undercounted because not all police departments accurately report on these incidents. Instead, Ferguson’s reaction to Michael Brown’s death is what has a made a difference. The efforts of a few in a small city with a population of about only 21,000 have spurred a national movement on the subject of racial targeting, police brutality, and our criminal justice system’s failure to address these issues. If Ferguson didn’t happen, the media and New York City wouldn’t be focusing so much on the recent failure to indict the police officer for Eric Garner’s death, a result which is still mind-boggling to me considering that the police officer used a chokehold banned by the NYPD since 1993 and definitely did not kill Garner in defense (just watch the video). In The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, a notable civil rights attorney, Alexander states that addressing systematic racial discrimination in the justice system and in America altogether begins with a new conversation “about race and the role of race defining the basic structure of our society.” I think that’s exactly the kind of dialogue that Ferguson protestors have started. ⧫    

Did  the  Moon  Have  a  Magnetic  Field?  Kailey Volz The magnetic pull of the moon is weak, but when the Apollo moon mission recovered rocks, it was discovered that in the past, they were magnetized.To scientists, this was a mystery.

Novel research has now solved this mystery. In the study, researchers believe that the moon may have had a magnetic field generated by the core. It’s also possible that the moon could have been stronger than that of Earth’s.

Benjamin Weiss, the co-author of the novel says that Earth’s magnetic field is currently 50 microteslas. The early magnetic field of the moon is thought to have been 70 microteslas.

It’s still being theorized, why the moon had such a strong magnetic field, but such small core. ⧫ 2

 

   

   

Infallible Pick-up Lines! Sebastian A. Locke Unsure on how to approach that girl/guy you like? Instead of using the boring and cliché pickup lines that will most likely result in a slap in the face or a “creep!” alert, try out these pick up lines for smart, cool people like yourself! Is your beau into science? Experiment with these:

Can I have your significant digits? Do you have 11 protons? 'Cause you're Sodium fine! I wish I were Adenine because then I could get paired with U.

Math geek? Plug in one of these: I'm not being obtuse, but you're acute girl. Are you the square root of -1, because you can’t be real. I wish I were your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.

Into books? Read one of these: You raise my temperature way past Fahrenheit 451. If you give me your number, I’ll live up to all your Great Expectations. I’d never say “Farewell” to those Arms. I Sense you have a lot of Sensibility. Was that too Austen-tatious of me to point out?

History buff? Check these out: Are you the Manhattan Project? Cause I’ve gotta say, you’re the bomb. Just ask Thomas Paine; he knows dating me is Common Sense. I’m falling for you faster than the price of stocks in 1928.

If you get the rest of these pick up lines, then you are cool: Your smile’s like expelliarmus: simple but disarming. If you were a basilisk, I wouldn’t mind dying just to look into your eyes. You are so beautiful when you hate the world. Are you an equalist? Cause baby you are stunning. What are the odds of you being in my favor? Is your name Angel? Because I’d die just to be with you. You must be Kira because you gave me a heart attack. Are Hodor’s legs tired? Because he has been carrying you through my mind all day. Disclaimer: If you use one of these on the object of your affection and s/he a) becomes disgusted and leaves b) is extremely confused or c) says “let’s just be friends” The Bolt takes no responsibility whatsoever. However if any successful relationships or marriages result, we take 100% of the credit. Happy loving fellow Chargers! ⧫

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(Synclair, page 1) But by any account, a quick search on the Internet does not fall under these parameters, although it is practically useful in small circumstances. But what is useful? How can we apply anything as having genuine use? By definition something useful is something that will be used often. A fork is useful because it is the most common Western eating utensil, and a knife is less useful, because a powerful fork can supplement almost any circumstance where a knife is used. But does it really matter how much something is used up, or is it just the weighted benefit that was given to the user by the used object? And what is a fork? At what point does this set of atoms and physical and chemical connections become something deemed a fork? The definition, as passively tight as it seems in our heads is actually very loose. I propose that the reason why it is so difficult for computers to identify objects as certain things is because of the variety of shapes, colors, sizes, and modifications that can change the appearance of said identified objects. You may be wondering at this point what exactly the message of this article is. I don’t know. It is interpretable. Just like a pebble doesn’t understand or care of the consequences of falling into water, I can’t identify others’ interpretations of this. The only meaning I can ascertain, reading what I have written is some unclear, cloudy message about linearity and indeterminacy of thought and meaninglessness in the self and other pursuits. Whether or not that makes sense depends on how much you like to meta-hear and assume partial meaning. And what about new movements of thought? The 20th century, dawn of the isms. So many movements and counter movements have sprung up that it can sometimes be difficult to ascertain which direction is up in all this. A new movement, both literary and cultural is the new-sincerity movement. This movement of thought tends to move away from mainstream irony and sarcasm used often in socializing and media and more towards blank complete honesty and sincerity. Take, for example, this poem written in the new-sincerity tradition by William Goelle: -small particles are flying loosely around the room

i think they’re dust. when i was young like ~5-7 years old i thought they were fairies and that fairies were real and i would try to catch them between my hands and i could never do it because they would just swish around and evade my hands. i felt like i had claws and they were running away from me playfully. this applies to your life in that the faeries are like you and you enjoy running away from things playfully too like when we go to haunted houses and fake scream jokingly but then also in general because human beings are playful and nice mostly. that is the meaning of the poem. thank you for reading this poem. (Goelle 2011, Writes of the Old World)

As you may be able to tell, the author, especially near to the end, becomes very direct with his thoughts, not falling into the stereotype of poems being like literary puzzles, which have a concealed meaning. Although there is nothing wrong with that, it is interest to digress into a poetic style so far removed from the Western tradition. That’s all I can think about writing, at least for now. Thank you for reading this article. ⧫  

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Club Spotlight: Emi Yasuda Each year, the Make-a-Wish Foundation helps dreams come true across the United States. With the assistance of volunteers, high school clubs, and donations, Make-a-Wish gives kids with life-threatening illnesses the experience of a lifetime. Children under the age of eighteen become designers, adventurers, and set out on the adventures of a lifetime. In this issue we’ll be taking a look at one of Edison’s newest clubs, Make a Wish!

The following is an interview between myself and Edison’s Make-a-Wish president and founder, Asianna Khong. E: Could you give a general overview of what Make-a-Wish is all about? A: Okay, so Make-a-Wish is a club where we help the Make-a-Wish foundation raise money for kids who have life threatening medical conditions from ages two-and-a-half to seventeen. And basically we help them grant their wish so that they can have good memories before they pass away. E: That’s great- I’ve heard so many great things about Make-a-Wish! So how did you originally get the idea to start a Make-a-Wish club here? A: Well I was inspired by some of my friends from other schools that were presidents of it, and I decided to do that because I keep coming across the club and the name Make-a-Wish and I was curious about it, like what do they do. I thought it was really cool and so I just decided to do it! E: What kind of activities are you planning on having, like in general? A: In the past we had a bake sale, and that was pretty successful. And we have a lot of socials, and we have this international thing that goes on in April it’s called Wish Week and it’s when all the Make-a-Wish clubs come together and we celebrate all the money we’ve raised for the kids. It’s pretty cool. E: That’s great! Is there a really big community of Make-a-Wish clubs? A: Yes, there are about 50 schools in the Make-a-Wish Orange County chapter, and there’s hundreds more internationally. E: Why do you think people would like to join your club? A: Why? Because we help little kids, and it is just, when you hear stories about how happy they are about their wish being granted, you feel like you did something good. And yeah we’re pretty tight knit and when we go through these experiences, we become closer together. And I don’t know, it’s just, it’s fun! E: Do you guys get to meet the kids? A: Usually we can’t. Like we read stories about it and we hear about it but we can’t actually meet the kids, sometimes if it’s a big wish and they need people to cheer the kid on the Make-a-Wish foundation will ask the clubs to go and participate, we haven’t been asked to do this yet but I think there’s one coming up soon. E: That sounds like a lot of fun. What is one of the things that you’re hoping to accomplish as a club this year? A: We’re hoping to accomplish making $5000 so we can have a plaque in our advisor’s room, and we would basically be adopting a wish, and that’s pretty much our goal.

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E: Wow, that’s really cool. What’s one of the things that you’ve learned from being a part of Make-a-Wish? Or from volunteering in general? A: I’ve learned how to manage my time efficiently, and it’s helped me to really become a better leader. And it’s helped me to manage my stress level better than usual, so that’s good I guess. E: I think that’s something we all need to work on! For anyone who’s interested in joining, when and where do you guys meet? A: We meet every Thursday, Room 129, that’s in the English hall. That’s Mrs. Chlarson’s room. E: Is there anything else you would like people to know about Make-a-Wish? A: Join because you’re going to be helping A LOT of kids’ wishes come true, and it’s just a really great deed for the community. E: Do more dreams come true than at Disney? A: Yeah, exactly! Just for Fun E: What would you bring on a deserted island? A: Just one thing?! Food. E: That’s probably a good idea . . . Cat person or dog person? A: Cat person. I feel like dogs are just too much work. E: What’s your favorite food that they sell at Edison? A: I don’t eat anything from here, but if someone forced me to eat something, it would be garlic bread. Do they sell that? I just love garlic bread. ⧫ 6

   

   

T he T ruth About My Ins anity Davis E. Lindsey

Part 2 Continuation:

What if there was nothing wrong? Sure, the sirens were wailing and the wing had fallen off, but this wasn’t Earth, Geonosian, or Titanus. No, no all of those planets had an atmosphere. Space is zero, am I right? Zero gravity. There is nothing to let smoke flow through- just a void. But you see, there was smoke- jet black-rising from the wing. So how was it there? Mayhaps it wasn’t or the other possibility was that they weren’t in space anymore. Suddenly, like a Lego piece, it clicked in Elijah’s head. He knew precisely what was going on, and how to end. I sit here. Thoughts of all rush into my head. Who was I at that time? I was noble, mysterious, and calm, well, in most situations at least. How did I end up in jail on Tahn? How did I become the way I am? What is this bloody planet doing to me? I have been sitting here for three days. Three days ha-ha! No food or drink. Where could that bloody sheriff be!

“WHERE ARE YE, SHERIFF?” I call. No answer. And what do I expect, for the man to call back "Coming!"from an empty office? If I have gone mad, this was a horrible time. I become furious and stumbled to my feet and began kicking the bars of the cell, yelling at the top of my voice over and over. “WHO AM I? WHERE ARE YE, SHERIFF? WHERE ARE YE?” I called. “WHERE ARE YE?” My hands began to bleed and yet, I could not stop. You might call this insanity but it didn't feel bad. It felt normal. “Ughh …” Elijah muttered. His entire body ached. The back of his throat tasted of iron. His vision, though blurred, could make out Yuen, shining brighter than usual and a few cacti. He was in a desert. It was extremely hot. He needed to find Patrick and Thomas. “THOMAS!” Elijah called. “PATRICK!”

Part 3 “Construction”

“Hullo, Elijah! Merry Kinglea!” a voice said. I recognized this voice and turned quickly around to see General Sivad Elwood, also known as my “father.” Sivad Elwood was a tall, bearded man who wore flannels, khaki pants, and black boots almost all day, every day. On special occasions his hair was slicked and he wore a hand me down suit dating back to his great-grandfather (X5).

“What business do you have here, Sivad?” I asked, trying to keep calm. “Why go out of your way to wish a ‘merry Kinglea!’ to . . . what was it, the slayer of great and rich?” My “father” keeping a smile on his face, stared at me with large purple eyes as if he was looking into my soul. He reached up and scratched his head, the same way Patrick used to do. It was scary how much Patrick resembled him. I began to think of where and how my friends were. More importantly, I wondered if they had completed their task yet. Sivad looked around for the sheriff, who was sitting on the couch in the corner. “Open the door, sheriff. I would speak with my boy, please." The sheriff looked at him as though he was joking.

“Are ye mad? What if he clambers out and kills yah! I've seen him, aye! I’ve seen him kill before, I ken!” “I don’t believe your ken, sheriff.” said Sivad. “Please, sheriff. Its bloody Kinglea!” Now, here is something you must understand. Kinglea is an important holiday like Christmas where we receive and give gifts. But on Tahn, a skinny man named “the Crippler” goes around on Yuenthrend Eve not only delivering presents to the good or bad but sometime harm.

The sheriff looked at Sivad for quite some time, and then unlocked my cell. I took a few steps forward savoring them. “Merry Kinglea,” muttered the Sheriff. “Enjoy your small period of freedom.” Before I could say anything, Sivad tugged at my shirt. I braced for a punch which did not come. Instead, Sivad spoke softly in my ear.

“It’s me . . . Patrick . . . Thomas is alive . . . got his piece . . . got mine . . . Lythren potion…” I was about to hug him but stopped myself. I gave him a swift wink and placed a frown on my face. I looked at

Patrick and yelled, “WELL WHAT SHOULD I DO? KILL EM?” Patrick placed an angry look on his face as well and shot back at me. “MAYBE YE SHOULD! DO IT I DARE YEH.” After countless hours of waiting, I was finally making my escape. And anyone who was to try and stop me would feel the unforgivable kiss of my brilliant light sword, which soon would shine bluer and brighter than it had ever shown in its life. ⧫

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Song Picks of the Month

“Jingle Bell Rock” – Bobby Helms “All I Want for Christmas” – Mariah Carey

“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” – Nat King Cole “Sleigh Ride” – Karmin

 

Want to write about what interests you?

Join The Bolt! Meetings are Tuesdays in Room 129

  !  Be sure to check out the Bolt website at

ehsboltnewspaper.wordpress.com  

The Bolt Executive Staff 2014-2015

Emi Yasuda: Editor-In-Chief Brett Austin: Financial Representative

Meghan Jacinto: Secretary Leslie Young: Layout Manager Elizabeth Hong: Assistant Editor

Joaquin Dorantes: Site Coordinator

Sketch feature: Leslie Young

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Book Pick of the Month

The Hobbit (1937)

By J. R. R. Tolkien Fiction

J.R.R. Tolkien's prelude to his Lord of the Rings trilogy, this novel tells the tale of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who enjoys

a comfortable life and rarely travels any farther than his own home. But when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep to take him away on an adventure, his contentment is disturbed. They plan to raid

the treasure hoard guarded by a dangerous dragon. Bilbo joins their quest, unaware that he will face many

obstacles on his journey.

 

Movie Pick of the Month

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Director: Jeremiah Chechik

Christmas Comedy A modern Christmas classic, the film follows the Griswold

family as they plan for their big family holiday celebration. Things don’t go accordingly, and Clark Griswold’s bad luck worsens as the plot ensues. However, he manages to stay

in the holiday spirit knowing that his annual Christmas bonus is coming soon.

Notable Actors: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, and Randy Quaid

 

Difficulty Level - Hard