In 1492, 3 ships, the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa-Maria came upon land previously almost unknown to Europeans. The man commanding this ship was named Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor working for the Spanish. He had discovered the Americas for Europe, for better or for worse. Now, in America we celebrate the day Europe discovered America, though some of us believe that we should not. I, however, believe that Columbus's achievement and spite the nitpickers that believe otherwise.

One of the reasons these people say that Columbus Day should not be celebrated is that the culture of the Native Americans was pretty much destroyed. Well I say, why do you care? It's not as if they had a civilization of great ideas and genius thinkers. With a few exceptions, they were hunter-gatherers, who lived in roaming tribes that didn't have the wheel or even a written language. They may have destroyed a culture, but they replaced it with a highly sophisticated and technologically advanced civilization built on geniuses such as Plato and Socrates, ideas from across more than 20,846,000 square miles. Though there were some civilizations and two very large empires, they lacked the genius that Europe had achieved.

Columbus haters nitpick over some other small reasons. They say that African slavery increased because they needed workers in America. This is untrue. By the time Columbus had returned and sparked the excitement for the New World the Portuguese had already started the slave trade which was cheaper than servant workers and therefore would have expanded anyway. They also talk about how peaceful and good the natives were. Here's the problem with that, they weren't! Humans are a violent race by nature and there were wars fights and death. They bash Columbus again and again for reasons that don't even make any sense.

The worst thing is that when they attack Columbus, it's not just Columbus they're bashing. They're bashing all of Western Culture, our culture! Columbus day isn't a memorial to a European accidentally finding a new landmass, it is honoring our European forefathers that made the Americas into a place of technology. It's honoring the fact that the Europeans brought culture to a level in mere decades, that would take the Natives millenia to achieve on their own. And among us, we have people who are saying that this is bad? If I follow them correctly they want to set us back, say, at the least millenia, the Natives would be at about Roman technologic and cultural age, right now.

So, should we celebrate Columbus Day? The Natives lost all their culture and were destroyed, but what is the loss of a few, small, non-technologically advanced civilizations compared to the gains given from Europe. Maybe slavery did increase, but not because of Columbus. We didn't lose the peace-loving Natives, they were human and thus susceptible to violence. Why do these people want to drop back into the Roman era. We should celebrate Columbus and the Western Culture he brought, and not spite the good they did. Go America, Go Columbus.

Top Picks of Advanced Fantasy and Sci-Fi

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (Fantasy)

Homeland, The Drizzt Do'Urden Series, by R.A. Salvatore (Fantasy)

Dune, by Frank Herbert (Sci-Fi)

The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud (Fantasy)

The Sword of Shannara, The Sword of Shannara Series, by Terry Brooks (Fantasy)

A Poem

Bridge of Failure

Bridge of Hope

Bridge over Nothing

That Seems to Float

Bridge of Darkness

Made of Light

a Bridge to Haven

Or a Bridge to Hell

Bridge of Outcasts

and of those who Dwell

Some with morals.

But most without.

Monsters versus Angels

Bridgers versus Voyagers

Dark versus Light

Stocks that Rock

and

How to Find Them

This year we had a project where we are supposed to choose a few stocks to invest in and follow. I spent the night before we choose our stocks researching and found some very good stocks. The next day I realized that I had to choose stocks that were in Nasdaq or the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and none of mine were in either. I quickly found some random stocks that I knew or thought were interesting they were Sear Holding Company, Dell Co., and Activision Blizzard. I choose Activision Blizzard because it was the first stock that was mildly familiar to me on the list. The next stock I choose was Dell, because I have a Dell computer and my parents had dell computers. I also knew that Apple was going to make it fall soon and you have to go up before you go down, right? My final company was Sears Holding Company. I choose this company because I had heard of it before, but wanted to know what a holding company is. The other reason was because I had heard of a Sears Tower that is very big so I assumed that if they could afford to build something like that, then they would be a good company to invest in.

Now that we have finished this project there are a few things I would have done differently. Both Dell and Activision Blizzard didn't end up doing very well. If I had known that this would happen then I wouldn't have invested in them. On the other hand, Sears Holding Co. absolutely skyrocketed. If I had known this I would have invest most, maybe all of my money in it. The one other thing I would have changed would have probably been that I would make sure that the stocks I researched were in the Dow or Nasdaq. I wasted a lot of time on stocks that I couldn't use.

There are a few things that you need to remember when investing. Firstly, always make sure that you are following all the rules and are doing what you are supposed to, If you break a rule you may have to pay a fine or forfeit whatever stock you bought without a refund. Second, Don't despair if your stock drops, it should come back up eventually. If you sell to fast you may lose opportunities to gain more money. Finally, always get at least one steady stock to balance out any flukes. If you make a bad investment and lose a lot of money you will still have that steady gainer to make up for your loses.

Sincerely,

Stock Genius LRTU

Our school does many things to help support this planet. One of our biggest contributions to the Earth is our garden that we have. Last year in math class we designed the garden while learning about geometry. In Language Arts (LA) we wrote about the garden and read a book, Seedfolks. Seedfolks is a book about a small garden that united many people in Detroit. In science we learned about plants and gardening. One of our biggest contributors to our garden is our Librarian, Ms. Coombs. She gets seeds for the garden and helps it in her free time.

We had an assembly this year and we now have compost bins that we are allowed to put certain organic materials, such as apple cores, banana peels, salads without dressing, and stuff like that. We use the compost on our garden as a fertilizer. This year on Earth Day our grade participated in an Earth Day webcast. We had an hour long block of time to talk about our planet and how to protect it, and what our school is doing.

You This is a representation of Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Book 3 the Winning of a Queen. That is the Story of how King Arthur gained the hand of Queen Guenivere. The representation of the Round Table represents The Round Table which was the dowry of Queen Guenivere. The fake lance represents the jousts that King Arthur had to win Queen Guenivere. The crossed swords represent the battle he had against a duke that was assulting the city of Cameliard, Queen Guenivere home. The map of Britan represents where this story took place. The crown represents King Arthurs royalty and the heart symbolizes his love of Queen Guenivere.  

This is a Wordle of a paragraph I wrote. You can make your own at www.wordle.net/create

I did a speech on two of my worst ever wipeouts on skis. The first was when I did an over-rotation and landed sideways. The other was when I got way too much air and overshot the jump by a ridiculous amount.

This is the event that started the golden shower of medals for Canada. This event just had an upset. This event is built around speed and control. This is the event that I compete in. This is Men's Moguls.

 Abyssus, I'm Adrian Celtica of the Gaul. It's been a decade since Caeser and Rome conquered us, but I still remember that one-sided war well. We lost battle after battle and were defeated almost every point. The only real resistence against the Romans is up at Hadrians Wall which I believe is still standing only because Rome is busy elsewhere. I do remember once me and my tribe came upon an abandoned roman fort. It was the most enlightening experience I've known and will ever know. It was the first time I had contact with Roman culture on anywhere other than a battlefield. It was then I realized we had never had a chance in this war. From the battlefield I already knew that the Romans were much better equipped than us. Where we had just a shield and a leather helmet, they have metal body armor they call lorica, a square shield or scutum, and a metal helmet called a cassis. They fought in a disciplined manner unlike our wild attacks lead by a hero. Their thrusts with their gladius beat or crazy slashes with our longswords. When we throw our spiraled javilens they just come right back at us. The Romans spears, or pilums, that we laughed at because of how weak it was, broke on impact so we couldn't throw them back. Even though we had all those disadvantages I believed that eventually we would find the power to strike back and win the war. That all changed when we found the fort.