Thursday, May 20, 2010

Keeping Perspective - The Crash of 1901



The US 6th Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 6/17/1901
Date Ended: 11/9/1903

Total Days: 875
Starting DJIA: 57.33
Ending DJIA: 30.88
Total Loss
: -46.1%

DJIA records are not available before 1900. Take a look at the following facts to draw perspective of what things were like during this period.

  • Life expectancy in the U.S. was 47
  • Only 14% of homes had a bathtub
  • Maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph
  • Average wage was 22 cents and hour - avg salary/year was about $300
  • More than 95% of all births took place at home
  • Only 6% of the population had graduated from High School
  • The #1 cause of death was Pneumonia and Influenza
  • The American flag had 45 stars
  • Federal spending: $0.53 billion
  • Unemployment: 4.0%
  • Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.02
  • J.P. Morgan creates the United States Steel Co., which will become the first $1 billion corporation in the world.
  • Guglielmo Marconi successfully receives wireless signals transmitted from England to Newfoundland.



64 comments:

  1. I don't need a new fly rod, I've still got the old one, part of my arm, but I bought some flies today, from a guy I know here. I'm armed, and dangerous, to the fish. Music, or fishing. Well, both, I guess, but if I was forced under torture to chose, I'd take the fly rod. The aspens have a music too.

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  2. Keeping perspective is working your goddamned ass off, and not begging---Swedes--http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/reflections-on-small-town-america/

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  3. Small farms are best, you can survive, work hard, get society off your ass, and LIVE! When there were few of us. We have gotten away from that, which is why I am so goddamned pessimistic. As to the other world however, I have great hopes. But to this world, its mostly fucked, if you have a mentality less than Huck Finn, the adventurer. And everybody does, today. It's like, who has the lower price, McDonalds or fucking Arbys. It's sad, I've seen so much ruined. I really cry about that. I heard Ambassador Bolton today, for instance, saying, just control the borders, I don't care if we have another 200 million, they have to be legal. Another 200 millions? Christ. CHRIST The game was lost, a whole long, long time ago. Two generations ago. I support Sarah, but it won't change. I remember the St. Joe, it's finished now. It's sad, and I don't know what to do about it. Introduce the wolves, to finish off the rest the elk herds, I guess. If you can get along with music, bless you, but I can't, is one reason why I am sad.

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  4. bob,

    Here is something for skeptics/rationalists/realists to ponder: 90% of the mass of the universe is unaccounted for.

    To paraphrase, not only is the universe more mysterious than we imagine, it is more mysterious than we can imagine.

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  5. I thought it was funny, Allen, to show the Imperial Spirituality of the Fucking Muzzies, how they don't need, some Hints, like the rest of us might long for, that saner men might sit around and, actually, have a discussion about.

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  6. Let's see..

    South Korea blames (and proves) that NKOR just mudered 41 of it's sailors and blew up a ship and tells south K if you retaliate we will destroy you

    Iran allow 3 mothers to visit their 3 - 20 yr old held in iran's jails for 6 months without trial...

    Iran says all zionists will be murdered within a week if Israel attacks her...

    Syria (with iran and russia's help) has re-armed hezbollah with 60,000 rockets

    the Palestinian Authority announces (while in peace talks) to lauch a new drive to get Israel thrown out of the UN

    Libya was voted into the Human Rights Comm of the UN with 155 votes..

    North Korea Navy pushed into South Korean fishing waters and exchanged fire with South Korea

    President of Mexico comes to USA and lectures America about treatment of his citizens in America

    Greece is in Riot mode, since the government told the GOVERNMENT WORKERS THAT WERE RIOTING, they would have to take a 20% pay cut and retire at 55 instead of 51

    Thailand in in melt down

    DOW plunged 3.6 %

    Unemployment sky rocketed 426,000 new unemployed

    Clinton library says it's 123,000 pages on Kagan willnot be released in time for Kagans hearing

    15 story mosque being built by islamic radical across the street from twin towers

    Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano & P.J. Crowley all admit they had not read the AZ Imm bill..

    Health Care stats now say will cost 100 billion a year more...

    Fed has devalued our dollar almost 50% in one year

    Projected debt is now at 94% of GDP and is expected to go from 13 trillion to 26 trillion in 10 years..

    President Obama order a HIT on an America citizen but wont waterboard actual terrorists with blood on their hands

    Eric Holder (at the orders of Obama) cannot say "islamic jihad"

    and more and more

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  7. I did find some spiritual peace this week...

    my 1st case of 1000 - .223

    It was such a nice feeling in my arms...

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  8. Would you please please please quit quit quit melodoy melody nmlody I was trying to find peace peace peace in my fly rod fly rod fly rod..

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  9. peace in my fly rod, I was trying to say

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  10. I'm sorry you don't like Pat Benetar.

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  11. The medication will be kicking in soon and I'll be out of your hair.

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  12. But, on the other hand, being a lady of the city, you don't know shit about fishing, or the high blue windless skies, above the hills, or how we might be with them forever, or how it was growing up, and how you became catheced to the land, or living in the country, or about a damn thing that's important, according to my way of looking at things, other than your children. You might be right, but I doubt it,except for the kids. I having experienced both, and you, only the one. The music of the trees, beats all human efforts. And indeed, great music imitates nature, at its wellhead.

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  13. Of course, I'd never want you out of my hair, if you are refernecing me. How the hell do I share my love of fly fishing with anyone but me. Goodnight.

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  14. Peace out. I have to get ready for an 85 degree day tomorrow. Want to have coffee?

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  15. Just rubbed down a nice 15 pound brisket...

    well let it rest til tomorrow..

    then we will slow smoke it...

    it will be ready saturday night

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  16. The Crippling Price of Public Employee Unions

    Mortimer B. Zuckerman

    The American public feels it is drowning in red ink. It is dismayed and even outraged at the burgeoning national deficits, unbalanced state and local budgets, and accounting that often masks the extent of indebtedness. There is a mounting sense that taxpayers are being taken for an expensive ride by public sector unions. The extraordinary benefits the unions have secured for their members are going to be harder and harder to pay.

    The political backlash has energized the Tea Party activists, put incumbents at risk in both parties, and already elected fiscal conservatives such as Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Over the next fiscal year, the states are looking at deficits approaching hundreds of billions of dollars. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, estimates that this coming year alone states will face an aggregate shortfall of $180 billion. In some states the budget gap is more than 30 percent. The result is a crowding out of the state role as the supporter of adequate infrastructure, education, and healthcare.

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  17. Apologize to Arizona, LA Council Member, Paul Koretz, or Resign

    Paul Koretz, city council member of Los Angeles, compares the Arizona legislature to the Nazis. Dennis Prager calls for him to apologize or resign.
    Here's what he said.

    And here's where you can get in touch with him. (213)-473-7005 200 N. Spring Street, Rm 440, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Email: paul.koretz@lacity.org
    If you contact him be respectful and calm, but firm -- apologize or resign.

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  18. From Doug's link:
    When the boycott issue first came up late last month, Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn criticized the Arizona law.

    "When people are asked to show their papers, it brings back memories of Nazi Germany," she said.


    I'm sorry.

    This is a state on a border where our southern neighbors feel that it is their God given right to cross at will. Calderone in DC this week again made it clear that Mexico and Mexicans do not want the US meddling in their comings and goings.

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  19. wow, guess we've had a nasty thing called inflation since then. Things also moved a bit slower at 10 mph. What I'm curious on is people's debt level back then versus now.

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  20. The Presidents and the Arizona Law

    Felipe Calderón has simply no business lecturing us, lecturing America, about our immigration policies.
    How does Mexico treat illegal immigrants?
    See Article 67 of Mexico’s General Population Law:

    “Authorities, whether federal, state or municipal . . . are required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country, before attending to any issues.” Now, the Arizona law, which we’ll get to in a moment, doesn’t even say this; there is no such language as “demand,” in Arizona.


    But, first, here’s an Amnesty International press release from last month:

    “The Mexican authorities must act to halt the continuing abuse of migrants who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part in kidnappings, rapes and murders.” Public officials — the government of Mexico — turns a blind eye.
    The AI report continues:
    “Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses. . . . Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world.”
    ---

    Was there a compelling interest for this law?
    Yes.
    Was there a rational basis for this law?
    Yes.

    Is there any rationality in beating up on Arizona, or in the president’s allowing — even welcoming — leaders of foreign countries to do so?
    None, and it is a moral shame that he persists in this ugly business.

    ---
    Bennett caller suggests GOP pols should have quietly walked out on these two Jackasses.

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  21. The Elephant in the Room

    While Congress wants you to focus on Wall Street bailouts, the most expensive bailouts have been for Freddie and Fannie - at a cost to the taxpayers of about $146 billion and growing.

    Are Democrats concerned? No. In a partisan vote last week, Senate Democrats defeated a Republican amendment to reform Fannie and Freddie. But they did adopt their version of rigorous government reform: a study.

    So what is in the 1,565-page financial-reform bill that's up for a vote this week in the Senate?

    At the start of this needed reform effort, Democrats criticized a so-called alphabet soup of multiple financial regulators. Does this bill consolidate and rationalize those regulators? Nope. It expands most existing regulators and creates new ones.

    My favorite among the bill's assaults on free enterprise - and, more important, individual liberty - is the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This latest concept to come from the Obama administration's ivory-tower types is not your run-of-the-mill bureaucracy. The theory behind it is behavioral regulation. The academic-turned-bureaucrat who came up with the bureau is Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr, who has penned such articles as "Behaviorally Informed Financial Services Regulation."

    Wonder what might be in store? Think czar for checking accounts and credit cards. According to Barr, "... regulatory choice ought to be analyzed according to the market's stance toward human fallibility." That's right: He thinks our market-based economy is composed of businesses designed to bilk people by exploiting their flaws. I assume his research shows that government bureaucrats don't share that human fallibility.

    How would the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau come to know you and what financial products are best for you? It would be given the power to collect information on businesses and individuals. It would even be able to require you to answer questions under oath about your personal finances.

    Barr and his nanny-state administration colleagues are working to require that some banks "geo-code" deposits to allow tracking of their origins and provide other information about their accounts. Think Google Earth for all our personal financial transactions. I hope the data are more secure than the Department of Veterans Affairs'.

    While the president has deceptively characterized this debate as being about Wall Street vs. Main Street, congressional Democrats have refused to police their side of the street - Fannie and Freddie. Instead, they continue to defy public opinion and push a bill that will further expand government, invade our privacy, and assume even more control over our lives.

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  22. Carly Fiorina Publicly Attacks a Military Reservist

    It is one thing to have no shame and quite another to have no class. Carly Fiorina apparently has neither.

    Just a short time ago, Carly was going around making some truly disparaging remarks about Sarah Palin, but she sure was willing and quick to embrace Palin’s endorsement. No shame.

    Now she is out attacking a military reservist, disparaging his service.

    See, in California people get to put a descriptor on their ballot line item describing who they are. Carly put “business executive”, even though she hasn’t been one since 2005. She really does not want Chuck DeVore to have “military reservist” on his line.

    Fiorina’s campaign, when contacted, said DeVore is not a military reservist. Have they even bothered checking up on DeVore? If they had, not only would they realize they were disparaging Chuck DeVore’s service to his country, but they would hopefully recognize just how petty it is to bicker over a title.

    If Fiorina were playing by her own standard for DeVore, she would not be able to put “business executive” down for herself. She’d need something like . . . say . . . “Fired Hewlett Packard CEO” or “California to China Job Exporter”.

    Let’s review DeVore’s record...

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  23. Both 'The Nation' and 'Newsweek' are going down. I grew up with Newsweek, and its Periscope, but, now, I'm glad to see them go. I have, from a librarian aunt, the old Time Magazines, and some Newsweek, from 32, Hitler's rise, to 45, Hitler's demise, and the A Bombing of Japan. It was with Time, in the basement, in the early fifties, I first became awarae of the world I had chosen to be born into. Time, I think, is next to go. They are not the magazines they once were. Let them go in peace.

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  24. One of dad's lawyer friends, from here, a nice man, was on Tinian, when Enola Gay took off, he saw her lift off, going east, we used to sit and talk about that. Those people weren't just fucking around, they meant it.

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  25. Through all of it, the Royal Coachman, is still the best fly, for your everyday stream fishing. There is a version of it, for steelhead, big bugger, like your thumb might be big. Sink it down, down low, in the pools, or slower moving waters. If you've ever caught a steelhead on a fly rod, you will never forget the experience. It is the height of stream fishing experience, around here. They are strong, having lived in the ocean two or three years, the ocean going rainbows, and they are strong, having come back those hundreds of miles to where they were birthed, to die. They are something else. We should tear the four Snake River dams out, and replace them with nuclear reactors, for the energy. There is not enough port activity here to justify them.

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  26. The steelhead, summer run, winter run, and the salmon, all their runs, were the lifeblood of the Nez Perce, their myths revolved around those gifts from the gods. They were a riverine people, but not totally peaceful. It's really odd, from time out of mind, they fought the Shahone to the south, but part of the year, was put aside for trading with them. They all have pickup trucks now, and live in houses, with real basements, rather than the teepee, or the dugout long house of yesteryear. They are happy, the old days are gone, but they agree with me, we should tear out the four dams, and put in nuclear reactors. "Remember Chief Joseph, and his father, Old Joseph" Some of my old family friends go back to the beginning around here, they remember these good people, and the stories came down to me. The Nez Perce, and the old whites, get along great around here, now.

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  27. The Banks are in the Denial/Negotiation stages of their "Addiction" to the Casino.

    Congress is attempting some sort of half-assed "intervention," but they're letting the patient talk them out of it, "again."

    Serious Recessions serve a purpose. They are God's way of slapping a country (world) upside the head, and saying you've lost your fucking way, dummy.

    If said Country (world) doesn't get the message a "Depression" is in order.

    We're getting close, folks. The "message" doesn't seem to be being "received."

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  28. That's the true story, from rat's ass, "occupied America". heh

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  29. http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/------Swedes in America

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  30. I also recall going to a funeral of a Swedish relative when a boy; the comments went “Ya, he worked hard. Ya, he did at that.” I don’t remember too many tears. Everyone stone-faced went back to the house for coffee, and there I heard more one-line assessments: “He worked, he did at that—up before dawn.” “Ya, in the vineyard at dark.”

    There was more to it all than reticent pragmatism. Wealth was sought after but not coveted; the rich were neither envied nor parodied; the same with the working poor who were in turn neither pitied nor condemned.
    ---- from Swedes, Victor David Hanson

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  31. In other words, some 130-40 years after a handful of Swedes arrived in the middle of nowhere, the fumes of their achievement linger even when their names in the cemetery are now known to almost no one.-----Hanson

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  32. We all know you are a racist, boob.

    You do not have to tell us, time and again.

    That part of your personal reality should be a secret, one that you'd be better off taking to the grave.

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  33. Bob, take your sick, racist shit, and just go away.

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  34. Thankfully, THANKFULLY, I've got some stuff to do tthis day. Thankfully.And, if I didn't have it. I'd make something up!

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  35. No, Rufus, we created, or, tried to create, a good society here. But it hasn't worked. Cept with the Nez Perce. I'm very pessimistic, you can all go to hell, if you think you can do better, then, do IT! Quit bitching, and goddamn, finally, DO IT! You sit on your ass, there, and bitch about the Jews. You think you, and rat, are big patriots, cause you were drafted, or signed up, like rats ass, for a job. But, Rufus, you really are a moron. I love Allen, and, WiO, those guys got some thought, which you don' have, Rufus! You, Rufus, are a moron, with your corn to the fuel tank--heh--it must be damn hard, to have to live with a mind, that has no metaphysical optimism You are an ignoramous, Ruf, but I love you.

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  36. The Washington/Industry circle-jerk continues.



    BP hearts DC



    .

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  37. “Everywhere you look, if you look, you start seeing these conflicts of interest in how this disaster is getting handled,” Mr. Kirschenfeld said. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there is just too much overlap between these people.”

    Situation normal.

    Thanks, Q.

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  38. hey, rats ass, I just got this book--"Cults, Conspiracies and Secrect Societies" from the library, by Arthur Goldwag, you fit in right there, especially when he gets to psycho, and I mean psycho, analyzing some of these nitwits. You are there, rat shit, check it out. You will find yourself. The day after day of it....never letting it go...that's what truly scary bout you....never seeing the tree bloom....or the change of the seasons....just clobbing along like a mental mule....

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  39. day after day of it.....take a break....I do, for my sanity....watch the spring come, slowly.....

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  40. Did some one just fart?

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  41. $2.50 for a coconut mocha, hot, that my daugher wanted, 75 cents for the stupid paper, just for the crossword.....such spending leads to penury....

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  42. A spring crop report---we have had plenty rain, and cool---the alfalfa is looking great---but, the boys were late with the spring barley---and the spring peas---just got it in---two, three weeks late---if it goes dry now----watch out---be a net loss---hope for those early July rains---I blame it all on Al Gore.

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  43. I think it was bob.

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  44. The late cool and rain, ain't good for the pheasant population however, there will be lacking shooting in the fall. All we will be able to do, is sit around and fart. It's the spring weather, that makes or breaks, the pheasant population around here, the hunters really have nothing to do with it. The chicks either survive, or they don't. That's the story, here.

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  45. The Idiot Idaho Fish and Game Department one time tried to introduce the Japanese Green Pheasant, an agrressive breed, thankfully they couldn't take the snow, and the cool springs, and died out, fore they got in a big battle with the Chinese Pheasants, and we avoided a racial war, amongst the winged ones.

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  46. Go get medical help, Bob.

    And, Bob, I've never written anything on here that would make a six year old Jewish kid cry. I don't like that country, but I never used terms like . . . .. . .. .. . ..

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  47. Rufus, dear son, ethanol ain't going to do it. Nuclear is what we need. The ethanol scam is great for us farmers, but you will pay, out your asshole.

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  48. And yes, I do support Israel, because of the cultural bridge between them and myself. Jewish writings fascinate me, even if they don't you. They are my friends. You are an unread man, I can understand that, you've been busy, providing for yourself and yours, but please don't think you know much, you don't, you just spout off, cause you got drafted and shit, and sold insurance. You are, just like others have said, basically an illiterate hillbilly. But, you've got a winning personality.

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  49. And let me add, you know nothing, absolutely nothing, bout what may be up, and I think death will be a big surprise to you. Just sayin'..in your lingo, you actually know nothing, but you will too, know something, one of these days. I do think we could be good fishing partners, but that's about it. Between me and thee, a great gulf yawns, o Rufus!

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  50. I didn't get drafted, Bob. If I had waited to get "drafted" that would put me in, basically, your category - a place I didn't then, and, don't now want to be.

    Being a racist, Bob, you would, of course, approve of a racist state. And, if "being unread" means I haven't wasted valuable time sitting around pondering my navel lint, and wondering if it will accompany me to the "great beyond, I'll have to plead "guilty."

    Bob, a man that would tell that his wife was "dying" in order to provoke some sort of reaction is a worthless asshole that truly should be afraid of the possibility of an afterlife. This will be the last time I address you, other than calling "foul" when you make racist comments.

    Worst of luck to you.

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  51. "...Between me and thee, a great gulf yawns, o Rufus!'

    Ruf, I'm not usually one to offer advice but in this case I think most would agree you are better off keeping it that way.

    .

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  52. Being a racist, Bob----but of course, I'm not a "racist" Ruf, I just don't hanker to illiteracy no more, and I'm sick of it. My way of life is not the nigger way of life, and I'd not apologize. Call it what you will, what I am really sick to death of, is, dumb shits. Criminals, morons, drug dealers, the government. Actually, fuck you all, I'll go my own way, always have. Fuck you, too, Rufus. You moron. I like some poetry, tried to share it, that is all, and the streams, and thinking bout what the glory death might bring, about which, family Rufii! family illiterate, I know more than thee, alas, I don't know it all. Thank god for the Wenaha.

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