Project Palisade

On Saturday, August 29th, 2020, a man was fatally shot in Portland, Oregon at a cruise rally. His name was Aaron “Jay” Danielson. This marks yet another person who lost their lives as a result of ongoing protests recycling the messages of social justice, social reform, and black lives matter. The victim was identified to be a far-right-wing ‘Patriot Prayer’. The rally was organized by an Idaho native inviting supporters decked out in Trump paraphernalia promoting his campaign for a 2nd Presidential term, as stated by The Rolling Stone . Fires lit during protests Friday, August 28th, 2020, via CNN. Portland had been a hotspot for civil unrest, hosting nightly protests sparked by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement asking to defund police and amnesty for marginalized racial groups unfairly incarcerated.  The movement hopes to undo the dreadful effects of the Jim Crow laws in the 20th Century and ongoing police brutality that’s gone on ever since, which have escalated with L.A. riot...

     Charity is an interesting topic. On one hand, its the universal symbol for generosity, good deeds, and selflessness. On the other, its an economically-depriving system that doesn't even really help people.      In Nuseir Yassin's (Nas Daily's) words, "Why would you learn how to fish, if all the fish is free?" He created a 1-minute video on the relationship between charity and dependency, and how damaging of a relationship it is. To solve this, charity needs to be re-imagined. Kids across the globe are developing a dependency. Why work, why develop skills, why improve the infrastructure of your own country and government when you can get it for no cost to you at all?      The modern system of donations by merely giving free food and clothes to families of underdeveloped nations damages incentivized progress and ruins the local economies. Every dollar not spent on local businesses is a dollar lost, due to families rationing foreign donate...

For those who aren't familiar, Ecosia is an alternative search engine browser that plants a tree per every 45 searches through the money collected from ad revenue. It's free for anyone to use and change to their default search engine. Ecosia was launched in Berlin, Germany in 2009, so it took a decade for them to reach this point. But last Thursday, July 9th, they finally hit a remarkable milestone of 100 MILLION trees planted in places like Burkina Faso, Brazil, Morocco, everywhere that deforestation has taken a mighty heavy toll. These milestones put them at the biggest planter of native trees in the world. In their words: "Each tree is also a vote, a protest sign, a message that things can be done differently. Each tree brings us closer to a different future – one we can all look forward to." Their plant shop is also a main source of revenue for the company. For every shirt purchased, 20 trees are planted. This milestone could mean a lot for the future of a lot of...

As someone who has experience in journalism and writing, something that's very concerning to me is the amount of people largely growing disinterest or perhaps even losing trust in news outlets, journalists, and studies. Its understandable. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Snowden incident, the "fake news" instigation by U.S. President Donald Trump, the growing division of high-profile media and news outlets, the rising popularity of satire articles, research studies disproving other research studies, at some point the common person will choose to back away, because from the outside-looking-in, it looks like craziness. How are people suppose to think for themselves when they are only told what to think? Much more of it stems from an ideological standpoint. Dividing political views, personal bias, religion, country, all of it plays a factor in what people do and do not regard as the "truth". Are there even any authentic journalists left? Kind of. They...

Not all heroes wear capes, some ride bikes.  I’ve met a lot of amazing people through the sport of BMX (Bicycle Motocross). I’ve met quite a few Pros like Mark Burnett and Matt Ray. I’m friends with Sean Burns and I’m followed on Instagram by Trey Jones. But recently, I met one of my biggest idols. I was going to Abacoa skatepark in Jupiter, FL, preparing for the 4th stop of the FLBMX series. Among all the friendly and genuine people I met there, I met Chelsea Wolfe, the first openly trans athlete to be on a delegation for the Olympic Games. Chelsea has worked as hard as possible to be a part of the U.S. BMX Olympic team and there’s so much that she has to say. She’s a hero. Not only has her fight shown woman what they’re capable of inside, she’s shown LGBTQ kids what they’re capable of, shown them that they belong in whatever venture they choose in life. Chelsea started racing BMX just before her 7th birthday in 2000 according to ShredGirls. She go...

Saudi Arabia, well known for its oil reserves and even more well known for how far it will go to protect those reserves, has been the lead participant in an ever-intensifying oil price war with Russia. Oil prices came to a crash on March 9th when Riyadh and Moscow failed to reach a consensus on production policy, the OPEC deal. The deal would've asked to cut oil production by nearly 1 million bpd, that's barrels per day.  Needless to say, it was turned down by the Saudis who had no interest in playing the loser for the sake of others Only days later, Saudi Arabia actually announced an increase in their oil production by about 3 bpd. 'Marjan 2' oil rig workers in the Persian Gulf, March, 2003, photo via CNBC. What I love about Business Insider is when they use gambling terms like 'doubling down' in their articles, which exactly what they used to described Russia threatening to increase their oil production, which basic macroeconomics tells us when the ...