Manufactoring culture. In Hollywood, the Pentagon rewrites scripts about the military, to manufacture consent for a globe-spanning empire, to make U.S. soldiers look like good guys, to make U.S. wars look like good wars, to ensure continued recruitments, to ensure a steady supply of young bodies to feed into the engine of a giant mechanical dragon that is fueled by human blood. They pipe our heads full of John Bolton brainworms and Lockheed Martin dreams. Our minds are colonized by shock and awe invasions through a neighborhood in Los Angeles with no soul, no art, no heart, no life, no love, just cackling plastic smiles, overmasking beastial snarls, and screenwriters with cocaine habits and nothing to say. An invasive culture that is devoid of culture spreads across the globe like the metastatic tendrils of a malignant tumor, saying, Isn't global capitalism working out great? And this is all perfectly normal and sane, actually. And, hey, maybe billionaires are crime-fighting superheroes. And this is definitely the nation that should be leading the world. Depicting an America with no homelessness or obesity, whose streets are clean and whose people are not hanging on by the skin of their teeth and squalor, poverty and dilapidation. Politics is downstream from culture, they say, as they manufacture culture in Hollywood, Arlington and Langley, conveyor belt culture, plastic culture, franchise culture, vulture culture. They funnel death into our minds. So on election day, we will vote for death and we will buy death from our stores and pump death into our atmosphere from fuel pumps made possible by orgies of death in the Middle East. The Newsman teaches us how to think and Hollywood teaches us how to feel. They pour death and plastic over our hearts like concrete to make us more like them, to make us dim and unimaginative, to make us sharp-toothed and stitch-eyed, to drown out the song of our planet, the song which grows the trees, the song which replicates the cells, the song which swims the fish, the song which chirps the sparrows, the song which stirs the fetus in the womb, the song which moves the energy up the spine, the song which opens up the eyes. They pour death and plastic over our hearts like concrete to sedate our terrestrial intuition, to silence our song, to divert our sacred sexuality, to stifle the thunderclap aliveness of our being, to keep the holy hominid from opening its eyes, eyes which do not recognize the authority of the mind mages, eyes which do not recognize the validity of mind cages. They pour death and plastic over our hearts like concrete, but the movement of tree roots can make cracks appear, and from within those cracks, sprouts emerge.


What's going on guys? It's your boy DPJ here today with another Destiny video and today we have top five Zen moment drop three cat reactions of the week. Now this is the third week running after Zen meter reactions. You guys seem to love it. Continue the epic support by leaving a like. Now headphone users be warned. People in this video be screaming like because you may just want to turn down that volume just a little bit. But guys hope you enjoyed the video. Do drop a like. I'd appreciate the support. Subscribe for daily destiny and I'll catch you guys on that next one. So what was my other one? What was my other one? Let's see what is in... Oh I got a shadow. Green one and a hat on. Very green. Alright let's open this then shall we? You get it.  I probably won't Gary. I've been too lucky tonight.  I'm literally so done. Oh my god. Oh my god. I am scared. You just kid. I told you you'd get it. Oh next please give me that Zen meteor. Please bungee please. Gotta say gotta... I'm gonna say a little prayer to bungee right now. Oh heavenly father bungee. I think I deserve me as in meteor. I feel like I deserve it. Please heavenly father of bungee in your name. Bless me with a Zen meteor. Amen. Alright baby here we go. Here we go. Zen meteor. Come on. Come on. Come on. I'm gonna cry if I don't get it. I got it. Oh my next. Oh my next. Oh my next. Oh my next. Oh my next. Oh my next. Oh my next. Oh my next.


Stay on. Hey, Ms. Potts. If you find this recording, don't feel bad about this. Part of the journey is the end. Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds. Food and water went out four days ago. Oxygen ran out too long morning. That'd be it. When I drift off, I will dream about you. It's always you. Thanos did exactly what he said he was gonna do. He wiped out 50% of all living creatures. We lost all of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. This is the fight of our lives. This is gonna work, Steve. I know it is. Because I don't know what I'm gonna do. Is this an old message? It's the front door. That's me. Can you buzz me in?


Ladies and gentlemen, Khonum Hovaoghoyon and Darnesh Juyana Azizam, my darling students who have joined us tonight. How wonderful to see so many old and I hope some new friends of the Center for Iranian Studies and for Iran Society who have joined us this evening. My name is Nargis Farzad. I'm the Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at SOAS and the current Chair of Center for Iranian Studies. Tonight, we are delighted to host the Iran Society who have organized what will be a splendid conversation between an old SOAS colleague and friend, Professor Ali Ansari, before St Andrews University snatched him away from us and Tom Holland, the award-winning historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The full introduction of our two distinguished guests will be given by Anthony Nguyen, the Chairman of Iran Society, who I'm sure is known to the rather wonderful number of Iran Society members who are here tonight. I have not been privy to the ideas that Ali and Tom may discuss tonight, but when I think of how the Persians could have had a much more conspicuous presence in the world in perhaps a little less invidious way than currently done, I think of the letter that Frederick Engels wrote to Karl Marx on 6th of June 1853 from Manchester. Engels had been trying to learn Persian, it seems, and with palpable excitement, he tells Marx, in this long letter, that Persian is as close as can be to the language universal tut-truvi, the universal language if ever found. Imagine how much larger my classes would be in such a utopia. I now invite Mr Anthony Nguyen to tell you a little more about our guests tonight. Thank you very much, and our guests. The Iran Society, which I chair, were extremely grateful to so ask for allowing us to use this room this evening. I'd like to congratulate you all for coming in so punctually. The last time I had to get a large crowd in was in Istanbul. There were 600 Scottish Highlanders. We had to move them from the reception room to the dining room, and the chef was very temperamental and said, you've got to get them in on time, otherwise the food will be cold. Now you try moving 600 Highlanders. You know what we did? We got a belly dancer. We couldn't afford a belly dancer this evening, but anyway, so thank you for coming in on time. Now this evening, we've got two people here. We've got Elian Sarri, who is a member of the Council of the Iran Society. Now the guest is also a member of the Council of the Iran Society. The Iran Society, for those of you who don't know, was founded originally in 1911 as the Persia Society. It was then refounded in 1935 as the Iran Society, and we've been going pretty much ever since with the odd gap for wars and things like that. What we do is, we promote the knowledge of Iranian history and culture and art and architecture and archaeology and all that sort of thing, but we do keep away from contemporary politics simply because there are plenty of other places for that. So this evening, we have in the blue corner, Elian Sarri, Professor Elian Sarri, Professor of Modern History at St Andrews University. He is, for those who don't know, he's the go-to man for radio and TV when they want an instant comment on Iran. Ali Zuman. He's the author of Modern Iran, the Politics of Nationality, and he's all written the book on Iran, a short introduction, and he's got another book in a work in progress. And he joined up with Tom Holland on a radio program, which you've probably come across called The Rest is History, which had a fascinating conversation which lasted 50 minutes. We had had, I don't know, how many thousands of followers. And which gave the idea for this meeting. So that brings me neatly on to Tom Holland, who needs absolutely no introduction. Thank goodness because his Wikipedia entries extends to six pages. But suffice it to say that he is a polymath. His principal interest in life was dinosaurs, which, well, that'll bring us conversation, I think, can come from that. Radio programs, TV documentaries on classical Greece, the origins of Islam, ISIS. But the thing about his books, if you haven't read them, they are immensely accessible and really rattling good yarns. And the book that's brought us about this evening is his book, Persian Fire, which has a rather disparaging Greek view of the Persians, which Ali Ansari might help him to put right. Over to you. Thank you very much, Anthony. And we were told as we were coming in that we're going to have to sit here with microphones. If for any reason this slips, do alert me. And for those of you who are sitting on this side, I will try and turn regularly, obviously, Juniors, here, is to see you there to make sure that you're not ignored. Now, there are two small things that I wish to just start the evening with. One is to just a little bit on the semantics. It is what have the Persians done for us. Obviously, I'm using the term, and we are using the term Persian in its European sense. You will find that we will use Persian and Iran interchangeably throughout the discussion. British sea English. That's right. So we don't want the Iranian sea Persian. We will, we will. But you might also find that we're spreading a little bit further in the Persianate world. The other thing for those of you who have listened to this superb podcast that Tom co-hosts, we probably won't be able to reach all the many and varied contributions that the Persians have made to world civilization. So if you're disappointed at the end of this, I do apologize. We only have a limited amount of time, as I had actually on the podcast. And I'm still waiting for part two, but in any case, without further ado, I want to continue, we're going to kick off now with Tom is going to lead the conversation really about how we see Persia's contribution to wider civilization. Now, I wanted to ask you, Tom, first of all, I think Anthony hinted at some of these things that you've obviously had a great interest in Iran and Persia. But how did this develop? Well, he said that Persian fire had a very negative take on the Persians. I don't think so at all. I think I make the case, certainly in the introduction, that Persia is at least, if not more, as influential on world history as Athens. I mean, certainly more than Sparta. But I should say that talking of Sparta, I mean, this is how I first became interested in Persia. It was as a boy. And I'm afraid, Ali, that all the darkest suspicions of the Iran society will be confirmed by this. So this is a book called The Armies of the Greek World. And this is an illustration by Peter Connolly. And I adored it. And I must have drawn it a million times. And I became obsessed by the great drama, as told by Herodotus of the Persian invasions of Greece first under Darius. The expedition defeated at Marathon. And then 10 years later, the great invasion force led by Xerxes, who wins at Thermopylae, which this is showing, and then defeated at Salamis and Plataea. And for me, as a young boy reading all this stuff, I was completely on the Greek side. I totally bought into the idea of Persia as an evil empire. But what kind of started to muddle it for me was actually reading Herodotus. Because I became so obsessed by it that I realized that if I really wanted to get to grips with this story, I was going to have to read a Greek classic. And it was the first classic I'd ever read. It was the first time I'd been in our local library that I went to the kind of the grown-up section. And what struck me when I read Herodotus and astonished me was that actually, Herodotus was often incredibly complimentary about the Persians. He admired them. Certainly is. I mean, there's a lot more mutual respect than I think the popular history would allow us to think, really. Well, I mean, Herodotus was a subject of the Persian Empire. And it's evident that he knew aspects of it quite well. I mean, he has this famous line that the Persians teach only three things to shoot the bow, to ride a horse, and to tell the truth. And it was that telling the truth that kind of stuck with me. And so one of the things that always I came to wonder about was, well, why is there no Persian equivalent of Herodotus? As a child, my assumption was, well, how ridiculous the Persians didn't write history. And they wonder, well, you have to, you know... Too busy making it. Well, yeah, exactly. Well, yes, yes, making it. But then I think basically kind of emancipating themselves from it. Because this was the conclusion that I came to, was that actually what makes the Persians distinctive in the course of world history and why their impact has been so seismic is that they are the first people, I think, to cast a vast global empire in overtly moral terms. And to say that their empire, in a sense, is the end point of history. Long before Francis Fukuyama, I think the Achaemenid kings had come to see their empires embodying the end of history. And to illustrate this, this is the exception that proves the rule. This is really the kind of the principle, Achaemenid Persian narrative that we do have.  It's someone who's pretending to be of royal blood, but isn't, and has been smoked out by Darius. And all the guys in front who are kind of tethered and cringing before him, they are also liars. They are liar kings, which obviously establishes Darius as the guardian and the teller of the truth.  But what Darius is doing here is casting himself, not just as the rightful true king, but as a king who is a defender of truth in a cosmic sense, that the order of the Persian empire is synonymous with the truth that is locked in a great cosmic battle with the lie, light and darkness, good and evil. And that sense of an imperial order that can define itself in those terms is obviously going to be hugely, hugely momentous. And that's why I think this is such a kind of a crucial text because you start to see all kinds, just like little acorns being dropped that you know will grow into huge trees inscribed on these texts. So there is a people called the Elamites who keep breaking out against Darius' rule, and Darius ends up so impatient that he condemns them for not worshipping Ahura Mazda, the great God who embodies truth and order and light and everything that Darius is identifying himself with. He condemns the Elamites for not worshipping them, not worshipping him. And that's a really kind of radical. So it's not so much just, and I think this is a very important and distinctive point I think which you've raised before, it's not simply this idea of constructing universal empire, but universal empire based on a moral order and good and evil are very clearly defined. And so what you find is an empire that's not founded on the principle necessarily of force but of authority, which I think is quite a distinctive sort of achievement and maybe contribution. Yes, and that essentially, if Darius is launching punitive expeditions against barbarians in distant mountainous lands, then it's for their own good and it's for the good of the moral order of the universe. So actually when I was writing Persian fire, the Americans were getting ready to launch their campaign in Afghanistan, a remote mountainous back quarter. And it seemed to me very clear that actually the line of descent from the ancient world, it was the Americans who were the Persians. The Americans were not really playing the role of the Athenians in this battle, however much they might pretend to. And the reason why the Persian kings distract themselves from history is that after this, Darius and his heirs are able to cast themselves as kind of figures of absolute moral power. There is no place for personality, there is no place for history because the Persian empire is the embodiment of everything that is good and true and correct.  And this reflects a Zoroastrian ethic in a sense, a new type of faith? So the question of whether the Darius and the Achaemenid kings are Zoroastrian is furiously debated, I think probably not because I think the idea of a Zoroastrian kind of institutional structure is much later, but it's drawing on these traditions. And that kind of dualism which is so kind of fundamental to the way that the ancient Persians see the world and which is so influential, of course on the Jews, on Christians, on Muslims, I think that this stands as almost like a kind of buried spring from which all the great momentous globe-changing religious traditions rise from. And again, you can see it in this because not only is Darius condemning the Elamites, say, for failing to worship his god, and by the standards of the age, why should they? I mean, it's not a Persian god. The Elamites worship their own gods. I mean, that would be accepted. But you see there a kind of glimmering of Crusade and Jihad, just a kind of foreshadowing. But you also get Darius promising his troops that if they fight well, then essentially they will go to heaven. And again, these are very, very momentous straws in the wind, I think. You see them reflected in obviously the other great religions that emerge. Yes, and of course... Not that we want to claim the Persian origins of all the Abrahamic faiths, but let's go for it. Well, except that you will know that the king who reigns too ahead of Darius, Cyrus the Great, he is hailed by Isaiah, Deutero, Isaiah, as the anointed one, the Christos, the Messiah. So the portrait of the Persian kings in the Old Testament is a very positive one. And I think reflects the way in which trace elements of Persian influence are definitely to be found there. And over the course of Christian and Muslim history as well, that sense that dualism answers many of the problems that an all-powerful, good God presents to religious believers. That is a way out. Explains the origins of evil, basically. In that sense, in a much easier way. I think the other thing which I find quite striking about that sort of faith system, in a way, is that the Persian kings and the Persians as a whole, in that religious view, they are part of a struggle for achieving Ahura Mazda's aims, in a sense. They're not simply the playthings of the gods. They are part of the process of trying to achieve the good order. Now, how you define good and evil is another matter, clearly. The king does that. But on the other hand, it's quite an interesting, I would say certainly an interesting contribution that the Persians make to that longer sense of universalism, that ability to define a moral order. And I think explains why the Greeks and the Persians so often seem at cross purposes. Because for the Persians, the idea of gods who just lie as a matter of course, which the Greek gods do, of course it seems incomprehensible. And likewise, when you read Herodotus writing about the Persian devotion to truth, he's framing it in a kind of a Greek way. He doesn't properly get a handle on what, you know, the cosmic significance of the idea of truth for the Persian kings. So there's, you know, there's a very kind of fertile but inevitably kind of prone to kind of generating miscomprehension in that relationship, I think. And these Persian religious traditions will, again, because of their influence on the Christian and Muslim traditions in the long run, when you trace back fairly fundamental notions like the idea of time having a direction, time having a purpose, that time begins and it ends. Which is very contrary to the way that most ancient civilizations understand the nature of time. I mean, that's pretty fundamental. So you could say that the idea of progress is ultimately a Persian idea. And certainly the idea that, you know, eschatology, the idea that the world will come to an end, so you could say that, you know, our panic about climate change is Persian as well. Well, I think it's all stacking up. Because of our interest in green issues, which will come on to later, I think. Well, I think we should come on to them right now. Or should we come on to them now?  Ah, here we are, some very fetching footwear. So the Persians would be very, you know, the ancient Persians would be very worried about climate change because they loved their gardens. They loved their gardens. And so when, according to Herodotus, when Xerxes' advisors were trying to persuade him to invade Greece, the clinching argument was to say, well, there are amazing plants there that you haven't got. And Xerxes goes, brilliant. There's a tree he's after. Yes, kind of plants. And there's this amazing story about how he's approaching Sardis, the capital of Lydia, you know, with his invasion force. And there's a plain tree of such exquisite beauty that he hangs it with golden ornaments and sets guards on it. And this is what, in spite of, you know, over a long process of repeating the story, is what you get in Handel's great opera. You know, the great Aria about Xerxes falling in love with the tree. And it's, I mean, I picked this slide of the ward garden in a way to at least give that impression of how significant this sort of ordered sort of beauty is. Well, yes, because what is the, what is that, walled garden called? Yeah, well, yes, paradise. And there you are in paradise. Well, paradise is a Persian word, and obviously we like to think it's Persian in origin. But maybe not in destination at the moment. But the idea being that it's a sort of a man's, I suppose in some way man's not dominance, but certainly engagement with nature in a way. Well, the freeze in the previous slide of the king fighting, I think it was a lion, wasn't it? Well, it's sort of the beast of some sort, isn't it? The previous slide, sorry. So this is a sepanus, and it's meant to be a beast, which is sort of, that's the sort of the lie. So there is the idea that nature has to be termed, tamed, so that's the beast. But with plants and with... That's right. You know, this is, and the king casts himself as a gardener. So there's the... I'm a very keen gardener by the way. I just want people to be aware. I wouldn't doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it. But there's the famous anecdote of Cyrus the Younger. Yes, that's a great story. Who gets visited by a Spartan and gets shown around his paradise, again at Sardis. And the Spartan compliments Cyrus on the expertise of his slaves. And Cyrus says, no, no, it's me, my green fingers. And that's that idea that the world is a garden. He's shocked, isn't he? He's shocked, yes. Yeah, but the idea that the world is a garden to be tended, I mean, that's very much an idea that... Well, I think the Persians can make a claim to being the first environmentalists, to be honest. So I think that's... Certainly they were much more connected to nature and I think they understood the power of nature. I think I don't know whether we're going on the right-hand side at the moment, but do you want to go on... So you said something else that the Persians have offered the world, is their incredible sense of fashion. Yes, very great. The Persian kings were famous for their platform heels. And high heels was obviously a tradition that passed down the many centuries, because it became an influence in the 17th century on European fashion. It did, it did. And of course, one of the reasons, and those are much later, you'll be pleased to know, those are not our community high heels. These are actually Safavid, but it's basically because of the Persian love of horseback riding, and therefore these high heels are comfortable with the stirrups. But these then become a fashion accessory really in Europe by the 17th century and become part of the fashion that's brought over from Persia. We use that word, Persia, very deliberately, because Persia, of course, in the western imagination in this period is something that's both familiar and slightly exotic. So it's got a certain cachet to bring things over from Persia and to adopt Persian fashion. But I think you get a sense, again, right the way back to Herodotus, that the Persians are very keen on wearing the correct footwear and it's not just about the riding. Unlike the Kaiser. Unlike the Kaiser. Unlike the Kaiser. Unlike the Kaiser. But so there's a story that when Cambyses, who was the son of Cyrus who dies just before Darius stages his coup, that when he conquers Egypt, he allots a town each to one of his sisters, which are responsible purely with keeping the royal sisters in suitable footwear. So imagine being given a town and their entire job is then to provide you with shoes. Sensible policies for a happier Persia. The other major fashion innovation, I have to say, is the trouser, which I'm very pleased to say, which I'm glad to say most of us are acquainted with. And of course, but the trouser was seen, was it not by the Greeks? Is it effeminate? Hilariously effeminate. Yes, hilariously effeminate. Yes, so a Greek coming here would be appalled by the unmanly quality of our dress. So I think that's another way in which the Persians have influenced our... And there we have the meads, obviously the meads are the ones that bring in the trousers. And then there's a Parthian priest for those of us who are interested in Parthians. So yes, with some very good leather chaps. So these are all great. These are all the springs, the kind of small streams that over the course of the centuries and the millennia have become mighty flowing rivers of influence. One other, which before we move on from the Kymenids into more recent times, is slightly darker. So people may recognise this as the Marquis de Sade. The Marquis de Sade saluted the Persians as the people who had most expertly mastered the art of torture. And he derived this from classical texts in which the Persians were celebrated for their ability to kill people in very refined and sophisticated ways. And the Romans, of course, who were incredibly famous for crucifying people, they believed the Persians for having given them the idea. I have to say that when Tom was writing his book Dominion on the influence of Christianity on the Western imagination and Western consciousness, he said to me, he said, you're going to like this book, he said, because I'm going to send you the introduction. It starts with Darius, and it starts with the Persians, he said. And I got very excited and thought, yes, Zoroastrianism is the foundation of Christianity. Of course, the chapter opens with crucifixion. And the way in which the Persians had basically, or certainly the Romans felt, that the Persians had invented crucifixion and this was a particularly vile method of, such a vile method of killing someone, it couldn't have been a Roman invention. Yes, that's right. But anyway, so the Marquis de Sade big fan of Persia as well. So going right the way back, the ancient beginnings of so much that we take for granted. I mean, and I think the Marquis de Sade is a good, well, probably not the best segue for me, but on the other hand, I'm willing to take this and run with it. Partly as a sort of a transition to the modern period in a way. Although, you know, one of the things to recap is I think that what we have in the Persian contribution, quite apart from fashion, quite apart from environmentalism and gardens, is I think something much more profound which is really the nature of power and authority in the ancient world with that notion of a moral empire. And I think that's a very significant contribution which emanates also from that sort of Zoroastrian heritage, however much it's a much more fluid Zoroastrian heritage. But this idea that even Nietzsche comments on, on the fact that the Persians are the ones who contribute to this idea of good and evil, I think this is a profound one which many other people take up. And of course for me, I think one of the interesting things if we go forward is that sadly, yes, I don't know why I put these slides, but it is mainly this bit like Tom, a bit like Tom. So Tom, you know, as he said, he grew up and I was also very fond of that Peter Connolly. I had that book too for some reason.  Well, they're not born in Iran actually, born in Europe, but basically my schooling is very cosmopolitan as we said. But not so much, I have to say, one of the interesting things about learning, about Iranian history or Persian history is that really for a long period of time, certainly Persian history was seen very much as a subsidiary of the Western narrative if you could put it that way. We were always seen there as sort of bit part actors really. Those on the margins in a sense. So basically they had to be defeated actually, which was a bit of a shame really. I mean, I found that irritating. But also the fact that, you know, the great project of kind of resurrecting the ancient Persian Empire, the Kaimanid, has been a massive scholarly project. Exactly. For decades now. But also with the Sasanians, the great empire that is the great superpower rival of Rome in late antiquity, that it gets destroyed by the Arabs in a way that Byzantium's rival doesn't. And so, in a sense, the process by which the Sasanian legacy survives is occluded because the Persians become Muslim, but their pride in their legacy, the pride in their history is such that in a way they kind of do a reverse takeover, don't they? Well, it is one of my favourite phrases, and I never know who to credit this with, but feel free to. Captive Persia took prisoner, her conquerors. And I think captive Persia is constantly taking prisoner, her conquerors. It's a fascinating dynamic, you're quite right. And I think one of the issues for me is I was going through my own education and my own understanding of Persia's influence in world history was certainly this question of the Sasanians and the legacy of the Sasanians, but also the legacy of the Parthians, to be honest. Largely, you know, occluded not only even in mythological and traditional Persian history that we have in the Shahrama, the Book of Kings that many of you know, but also in terms of the rediscovery of that narrative in the writing of Iranian history over the last 100 years. My own view is that actually there's been a real revolution in our understanding of Sasanian history and late antique history over the last 20 to 30 years, actually. There's a lot more information has come to light. A number of you here actually have been participants in a number of workshops and other things we've had, which show actually that far from a little bit like this idea that when the Archimedes Empire forced to Alexander, you know, that's the end of it and there's the Hellenisation of the East. Actually, you know, I'm increasingly of the view that Alexander was the last of the Archimedes Kings. Yeah. You know, I mean, if you look at it, I'm increasingly of the view that Alexander wanted to inherit the Persian mantle. And again, you see that with the fall of the Sasanians, that there's a huge influence of Sasanian politics, culture, history, art on the subsequent Arab caliphates that emerge.  That's right. Yeah. Absolutely. Much more than people think. There are three prayers that are prescribed. Yes. But the idea of five prayers seems to derive from Zoroastrian influence. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And basically, because the Sasanian Empire has absorbed wholesale into the new Muslim polity, a lot of the administration, a lot of the attitudes towards government and it all seemed to come from that, you know, the Sasanian model that they adopt. I mean, we see similar things which will come to later, obviously, in India later, but we'll talk about that a little bit later in terms of imperial structures. I mean, the influence of Persian ideas of empire and of the cosmos, it is, I think, reflected in the way that the caliphate emerges. I think so. And certainly in the Abbasid Caliphate. Yeah. And certainly in the Abbasid Caliphate. I think it's very clear. I think it's very clear there. And you can see the legacy, certainly, in the first several hundred years, actually, of the early Muslim period. But I think also, I mean, now I guess, is sitting here as well. I mean, we can see also the wide influence in language. We tend to see a lot of the time the argument being that, you know, Persian and New Persian has a lot of Arabic influence, which obviously it does. But I think there's a greater acknowledgement that there's also a lot of continuity between Middle Persian and New Persian. So that influence, I think, continues. And I think it's very influential even in the modern period when the West becomes also reacquainted with that Persian history, when they start to travel to Safafid, Iran, and when they start to reacquaint themselves also with older texts. And a lot of that has to do also with the British in India, the British and French in India, where they start to uncover texts that deal with Zoroastrian and other things. But what I was fascinated with is really that when the Europeans approach Persia, they don't approach Persia as complete they're not completely ignorant of this, of course. They have an understanding through the Bible and through the classics. But what they then do is they then become also reacquainted and attached to many of the things that they see in Persia as... And in India, right? And in India. Because the Mughal administration in India is Persian. And one of the things that we have to remember is the Persianate world is obviously faster than Iran itself. So the Persianate world in the language of government and politics in a lot of these areas. Certainly stretching from the Ottoman Empire. I always like to claim the Ottoman Empire, by the way. Any Ottomanist here, go read Toinbi. He'll tell you it's all part of Iran civilization. But the stretch of that, the influence of Persian ideas, I think, is very, very strong there. And say British administrators who had studied in Greek in their schools but are then going out to India and are playing the part of Persian civil servants often. I mean, they're kind of slipping into roles that had been established and draw on Persian traditions and are having to learn Persian up until... This is my catch point for those of you who serve in HMG. I was always struck by the fact that during elections the civil service goes into Perda and I was wondering what on earth they were doing going into Perda. But of course, Perda is a nice Persian word and, you know, Padir. So basically, you're going behind the veil. Effectively, you're going quiet and you're not going to talk about things. And you won't mention politics. Now, where does this influence come from? This influence comes from, really, from the Indian civil service and the Indian civil service. I mean, what's fascinating, really, when you look at it, is that Persian as a language taught to examination level I think was probably first taught in this country, ironically, for the Indian civil service and to learn the means and methods of sort of government. So many of these British civil servants were learning Persian means of administration and they quoted, you know, the works of Saudi, for instance, in terms of ethical poetry, how it is to approach, you know, the governance of peoples. And does this then influence the way the civil service is structured back in London? Could we say... Well, I think so. The civil service is actually Persian. I think so. I mean, I think at the end of the day and you see, you thought we were being serious. So, yes. So the argument here, and I think we can take it a step further tonight, Top, as a little bit of a bonus. Go for it. I think it's not simply the fact that the civil service is really a product of the Indian civil service, which owes its debt to the Mogul civil service, which then owes its debt, obviously, to Persian ideas of government, ultimately, to Dizam or Mulk, actually, to be honest. But there you are. There is a strong lineage there of debt. But I think also in some ways, you know, we were talking about the sort of the ideas of the Persian empires and stuff as being moral orders. Moral orders are good, and even you hinted at this also in terms of the Americans in the start of the global war and terror, but we could go back to some of the European empires, too. It seems to me that actually in some ways the British and other empires were not modelled on the Roman Empire at all, but were really modelled on the Persian Empire. Well, so the guy who recognises that was Cursan, who, as a young man, travelled through Persia, visited Persepolis and was terribly impressed by it. I mean, kind of... He was overwhelmed by it. And he was the viceroy who was, perhaps one might say, most like Darius in his approach to imperial administration. I mean, he loved... He loved all the swagger and the colour and the... He did. He did. And also the match... Well, that's the other thing we can add to, but since we're coming up to the coronation, we can talk about, you know, Persian concepts of majesty, actually, and the pomp and circumstance that goes with that. And certainly, the ceremony that we see in this country is drawn really... It's quite late, I mean, it's 19th century and it's drawn very much from a sort of a... It's a sort of a part of India and these are essentially modeled on Persian ideas of kingship. So it's... I mean, I think we can lay claim to that. I don't think that's too far. And certainly, in this sympathetic audience, I think I will. Yeah. And Ali, just on the topic of the civil servant, of course, traditionally, the uniform of the civil servant has been the suit. So we've already identified trousers as being... This I want to hear, actually, because I want to see the suit. Well, so trousers, obviously, we owe to the leather trousers with the beads, ultimately. But the jacket, this is also Persian, isn't it? Well, actually, yes, that is true that the Persian coat was adopted in the courts of Europe in the 17th century. Yes, and they called it the Persian coat. It's not quite the nice suit that we find today, but the Persian coat was definitely, if you look at the distinctive change in fashion from the early to the late 17th century, you can see that something happens and it follows on from the court of Louis XIV and then other courts follow suit. Yeah. And they call it the Persian coat. I'm not sure how Persian it was, but I'll take it. But in a very real sense, I have come here dressed... You have? You have? You pay my homage... ...to the great tradition of Persia, that the suit would be unthinkable without that Persian. I think one of the things that's also quite interesting is why the West and why Westerners were so keen to adopt and absorb many of the ideas from Persia. And I think one of the things that I was working on and discovered really is because it's not simply the idea that Persia is part of the Biblical or the classical inheritance. It's also because in a curious and a very distinct way, Persia is seen as part of this civilised world and a civilised world that produces many of the things that a civilisation does, including gardens, of course, but also great poetry and we're not short of great poets in Persia, are we nagging? So the Europeans were very keen on the sort of engagement with the great literature of Persia as a literary land. The Rubai of Omachiam, which leads us nicely into the achievements of science. Nice segue there by Tom. So Omachiam, of course, who's very much celebrated by Edward Fitzgerald and others as a great poet is, of course, known in Iran really as a great scientist, and this is another thing that I think the great contributions of the Persians to world civilisation is in the realm of science, albeit in the classical age, in the medieval and classical age, but nonetheless, as I never tire telling people, Omachiam was able to calculate the length of the year to a more finite point, I think to a more exact point back in the 11th century that hadn't been bettered until the 20th century, which is quite an achievement for a medieval scientist, I have to say, and something that I think, along with many of the other scientists of that period in the Persianate world that made quite distinct contributions not only to astronomy but also to geography and mathematics. So what you're saying is that years of Persian as well? Yeah, it's not only time, years, end of time, messiahs, let's go for it. I haven't got to ice-cream yet, I'm not going to touch spaghetti so don't worry about that. Can you not go for ice-cream? We can go for ice-cream, I think. I mean, I had started with spaghetti in the podcast and was roundly told off by a number of people who said this is simply not true. Although, you know, I sort of think... But tall stories as well. Because in the Chardonnay, isn't it the origins of Iran go back 80 billion years? No, no, no, that was a no, that was a rather enthusiastic, if I may say so, nationalist historian from the early 20th century who thought he would calculate the length of the reigns of all the kings in the Chardonnay and calculated the length of the kingdom of Persia to be some 10 billion years. Which, as someone pointed out, was far longer than the length of the planet. Well, there you go. But obviously, as I said, that means that everything originates in Persia then, clearly. Well, yes. So that would, yeah, tall stories like that. I distracted you from ice-cream. Ice-cream? No, no, I think there is a certain amount of evidence for ice-cream. And I actually think there's a certain amount of evidence for noodles, because obviously I don't believe... Marco Polo never got to China. Let's be honest about it. He got stuck in Persia and that's where he went. Yeah, I think we're coming to the final slide, which means that I think... But you just got to tell about ice-cream. Well, ice-cream, you know... I don't know much about it, really, apart from the way we invented it. We'll chalk that up. And it's very good. So these are actually just... I mean, really, to go back, these are... This is from the Chelle Soutoon Palace in Isfahan, for those of you familiar with that. It's one of the earliest depictions of Europeans in Iran from the 17th century. And as you'll see on the walls there, what is quite interesting is not only the early 17th century dress, but also the depiction of dogs, which is quite interesting for the society, the Muslim society of the time. But it shows the growing engagement of Europeans with Iran in this period, trade, politics, literature and others, and then basically the systematic growth of relations from the 19th century onwards. And I think, you know, from then, that exchange, and as I was saying earlier, the way in which knowledge of Persia and knowledge of the Persian language grows exponentially, I think, certainly in western countries and certainly in this country. So if we just kind of try and sum up, one of the things that's evident from the influence that Persia has had for thousands of years is its geographical centrality, that it abuts all kinds of other major cultures, and therefore is a kind of a melting pot. Crossroads, you know. Crossroads, I know, cliche, I know, all that kind of stuff. But also, you know, as you said, it's also very vulnerable to invasion, but it always seems able to kind of cannibalize the culture of the invaders and turn them into Persians, and then to export its culture again. So it's a kind of constant process. I suppose modern Iran in the form of the Iranian Revolution, again, I mean, its influence has been seismic on modern history. I mean, the influence of the Iranian Revolution has been stupendous. I mean, and all the more so, surprising when you consider that it's not a sunny country. That's probably because also, as a revolution, and I don't want to get too much into the influences it may or may not have. But it certainly, what it does is it also borrows very heavily from western traditions, regurgitates it, then reproduces it. And I think one of the interesting things, of course, throughout history, is one of the great strengths of Persian culture has been that ability, that cosmopolitanism that has turned things, taken things, invented them, and reproduced them, and put them out. And you see this right, you know, Herodotus, of course, says that no one is keener to adopt the way of others than the Persians. So you see this, and you see this even in the 19th century as British travelers to Iran say that the Persians are amongst all the oriental peoples the most willing to really explore, investigate and adopt the means of others. And to learn. While remaining Persian. Yes. The interesting thing, when you think about it, the continuities are stupefying. I mean, it's possible to trace the idea of a Persian nation back. It's certainly possible to identify a sort of a Persian identity. Maybe Armenia would be the other. Well, Armenia is really Persian. Yeah. So it's, yeah, we don't want to go. I mean, it's part of that. China perhaps. But I mean, obviously, Persia's top nation. There it is top nation. It is red. So basically big it up for Persia. Woo. I think it's, I think it's a, I think we can safely say that in terms of religion and ideas, power and authority, fashion, clothes, environmentalism, language, I mean, I think Marigos actually have the best quote at the beginning with the language. And it is quite true. It's a great quote with Marx and Engels. I think Marx was trying to learn Arabic and he found it very difficult. And Engels said, you should try this. It's so much easier. And I think Marx actually gives up with Arabic and says, yeah, I think I'll go for this. It's the level of influence. And this is, for me, I think, one of the most important things part of my own career, what I've tried to do, and I think what you've tried to do as well in many ways, is to bring Persia, Iran, but Persia, Persian culture, a much more center stage of our study of global civilization, our study of world civilization, for far too long. And I think this is something, as Andy says, with the Iran Society, but many other societies that work, the idea is really not to, we don't want, I mean, yes, we have fun in terms of saying, what have the Persians ever done for us? We're not saying that it's all positive. It's warts and all, yes, torture is there, yes, different and rather gruesome means of execution are there. But I think the most important thing is to sort of understand that Persia and Persian civilization deserves, I think, a much more central focus in the curricula of our broader education than it has hitherto seen. I mean, at the moment, really, we struggle very much to sort of see Persia and Persian civilization on a par with, you know, European and other civilizations in terms of curricula. So I think that's something that, we would understand the Greek world better. We would understand the Roman world better. We would understand the western inheritance better. I remember talking to the late great Fred Halliday many, many years ago and saying that, you know, really the concept of the west is really predicated on the concept of the Persian empire, the identification of the west and the west comes of the age or the birth of the west is really part of a sort of a, it's a foundation myth of which Persia is integral to. Yeah, but again, complicated because it originates with essentially Herodotus, who describes the war of Europe against Asia despite the fact that Herodotus himself is a Greek from Asia. Yes. So the currents are scrambled and complex and fascinating. They are indeed. Now, I don't know, do we want to should we head for questions if the audience have questions? Although to be fair, I shall be selecting the questioners so if I think you're going to ask me a difficult one I shall ignore you. That's particularly for you two over there. We have got some roving mics. Where are we going, Elia?


We're coming to you from our studios of think te kawaii in downtown Honolulu and from my home office in Makiki. You all know that I'm a promoter of prevention and awareness. Today, Dr. Oliveira will be talking to us about just that, disease prevention and quality of life. Welcome Dr. Arnoldo Oliveira. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you so much for inviting me and thank you for think te kawaii for allowing this space for us to talk about important issues. Yes, you know, I've been wanting you to come on my show for a long, long time. Your schedule has always booked up, so that's why I reserved you and you are here. So I'm very excited to share you with the rest of the world. So Dr. Oliveira, please share a little bit about yourself before we begin. I've been working in natural medicine for the past 20 years here in Honolulu, Hawaii. My focus is on prevention, disease prevention, but also I want quality of life and I'm very interested in increasing your health span. Or in other words, I want you to be as healthy as possible for the long time as possible. And all these things together will lead to longevity as well. So I work with natural medicines and natural therapies to achieve that goal. Well, I know that when I first met you, it came from, I had to be referred to you and making sure that I understood what type of doctor you are and that I received whatever information they gave me about you. And I was positive that walking into your office would make some difference in one way or another for my benefit. So I was very grateful to do that, walk into your office. But when I got to you, I know that you were sharing with me a little bit about where your medical history comes from. I know that you're from Brazil and what was your specialty in Brazil? I was born and raised in Rio, Brazil and in Brazil I was a trauma surgeon. I practiced that for a long time. I specialized in facial trauma and after a while, I believe that God brought me to Hawaii and so I changed my focus to emergency medicine like trauma surgery to natural medicine. And it's been a wonderful 20 years. Wow, 20 years already, huh, doctor? So I know from a trauma surgeon in Brazil to a doctor in acupuncture and oriental medicine here in Hawaii, cultures are different, people are different. Medicine is different but you've nailed it by focusing on just prevention and wellness and through what you've been doing as an obedient servant of God. So I'm very grateful that you heard the call and you were very obedient by coming and not knowing what was on the other side of the water. You came and you were very, as I said, obedient and look at where you are now. You've helped so many people in your practice. So I would like to ask you, how would you describe your practice, Dr. Oliveira? Well, to describe my practice, we need also to talk about what is going on in the world and especially in this wonderful country. We, our citizens are suffering from chronic disease and the healthcare system is not really healthcare but more like disease care. So the therapies and the drugs and everything never look to the causes of disease. In my practice, I will look and try to find what is causing the disease itself and try to deal with the causes. For example, I think that we are spending over $4 trillion in chronic disease and chronic disease is cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular stroke, but without having very good results the average American is taking anywhere from five to 15 different drugs daily. And in my practice, we, by identifying the causes, we hope that we improve not only the quality of life but also the health care. Well, wow, what a concept. Right, what a concept. So, what is the difference between disease and chronic disease? Chronic disease is disease that it's not like acute. It's a disease that has a longstanding. For example, diabetes or cancer, those things don't, don't appear overnight. It's like an overtime process of not eating well and of having too much inflammation. Inflammation will lead to chronic disease, especially cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, stroke and things like that, autoimmune. Yes. So what diseases do you treat in your practice? Well, I would say that about 85% of my focus is on prevention. So I do treat diseases, but I try to prevent that the diseases happen anyway. And I'll treat anything, but I'll treat things that with natural medicines and it can be anything, basically. Right. Somebody comes in the door, you run your test and your process on them, and then you diagnose them. And then the good thing is you being, I want to call it Eastern medicine. I don't know what the proper term is, but those systems that you use. You're not invasive, you're not drawing blood or you're not going in for any dissections of any sort, but you are doing, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, I tell people it's the pressure points and you by looking at the different organs through pressure points, you can diagnose and see some of the issues that's going on in your body. Is that correct? That's correct. So I use a technique that was developed by a German doctor called Dr. Paul, and it's called electro acupuncture, according to Paul. And so I measure points on the fingers and toes and these points are associated with organs and systems of the body. By doing that, I'm able to see what the problem is. And then I use homeopathy and other herbal products to treat the problems. That's amazing. I went to your clinic. I didn't tell you what was wrong with me and you looked at me and you did that pressure point and I call it like a probe, like a joystick, but I just sat there and I was ready to receive what you could find out that was going on in my body and you absolutely nailed it. And so I am a true believer of it, of course. And what I did know and I share with others is that go into the office and be ready to receive good news, bad news, whatever the news the doctor wants to share with you, you need to be ready to receive it.  You didn't come in to hear that. So you're going to tell them the truth and what's going on in their body. And I thought that was very important. So as I said, I went in, sat, listened. That was very difficult for me to do, but I just listened. And you absolutely nailed what was going on in my body and then you were able to diagnose and prepare this treatment for me that through course of time you fixed me. And it was my pancreas and you elevated it to function at a higher level so that I would not have to take common medicine, medication for the rest of my life. So for that, I'm truly grateful. And I wanted that for more and more people who are ready to receive what you have in your clinic. So that's why I really wanted you to come on this program so that you could share with others because it's hard for me to just keep talking and talking to everybody, but that we have this they can better have a level, better level of confidence to walk into your doors knowing that you can try your best to locate what's going on in their body and direct them to wellness. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, so we, like you described, we only use natural medicines and herbs and homeopathy and we've been doing this for a long time. The main focus is on prevention, but we do treat. And by doing that, we seem to really increase health spend. We also focus a lot on the blue zones and the traits of the blue zones. For those who don't know, the blue zones are five places on this planet where there are an unusual number of centenarians. In other words, the people who live, who passed 100 years of life. And these places are the Costa Rica, Paloma Linda, California, Sardinia, a Greek island named Icarus, and Okinawa. And we just had an Okinawa festival this weekend to celebrate the great community of Okinawans here. So they have common traits of things and it seems that they do the similar things to live longer. One is to move the lots. They are always walking. The other one is that they seem to manage your stress really well. They kind of slow down, they downshift. They stop eating when they are 80% full. And I think the Okinawans have a saying for that which is, para i tibume, which means when you 80% full you stop. Their diet is basically a plant-based diet. They eat very little fish or pork and rarely red meat. They seem to have a plan of life.  They also, they put a lot of emphasis on family.  They take care of their elderly. They have friends that they share life with. And also the Okinawans have a name for that, which is moai. And they drink a little glass of wine at five. They have joy, they have a spirituality. They seem to have like a connection with a higher power, not religion, more spirituality. So all these things seem to make people live longer. And we try to apply the same concepts in the clinic here. Wow, well, you passed the test of what is the blue zone. And so that's amazing. I mean, sometimes I forget one of the five, but you've absolutely nailed it. I'm so proud of the people of the blue zones. And we really try and try hard and will continue to try that Hawaii should be one of those blue zones because of our size, our location. And the fact that we can eat a lot of the food that Hawaii produces, the outdoor activities, everything about it. Plus we have community, plus we have intergenerational within a home. So that really helps all of these things should make Hawaii a blue zone. So folks out there, we need to work harder for that to happen because we want to be number six on that list because it's just amazing when you watch the generations how they mix. And I think that's a large part of it. I love to see the centenarians reading the preschoolers coming out of school and giving them a hug. That's what we need. We need more of that intergenerational and then the diet, the quality of life, the level of stress. Everything makes for a blue zone which Hawaii should be. So what you're doing and together we can all make a difference towards that direction we need it. All right. Yes. Yes, and blue is my favorite color so we need to make Hawaii more blue. Yeah. Okay. So chronic disease is a big problem. What are the causes of chronic disease? Well, I briefly mentioned that in the main cause of chronic disease is inflammation. Inflammation is a process, a natural process in the body that it's meant to help us to protect us. If inflammation goes rampant and chronic, you will lead to cancer, to diabetes, to cardiovascular, to stroke, to Alzheimer's, autoimmune, and you name it, there's a big list of chronic diseases. But what is more important in my focus is what causes inflammation. And in that slide that you just showed, there are different factors that cause inflammation. One of them is stress. The stress is directly related to increase inflammation. Another cause of inflammation is bad food. It's processed food with a lot of chemicals that will invariably cause inflammation in the body. Obesity is a contributor factor for inflammation. Like gut issues also create inflammation in the body. We also have diseases like viral and bacterial diseases that cause inflammation in the body. For example, the COVID that caused a lot of inflammation in the lung that initially killed people. Pollution causes inflammation, like environmental toxins, like eating veggies that are sprayed on with pesticides, herbicides. That causes inflammation. Lack of sleep causes inflammation. We need to work on our sleep to avoid that. These are the areas that I focus my practice to prevent that inflammation stays in this chronic state and will lead to diseases like diabetes and cancer and cardiovascular. How do I do that? In terms of stress, I will try to manage stress. I go from there. If you have environmental toxins, I'll help your body to detox. If you need to lose weight, we'll help you to do that. If you have a viral or bacterial infection, we also treat that. If you need to sleep better, we'll work on what we call sleep hygiene so you can sleep soundly and consistently longer times. That's the focus of what we do here on a daily basis. Your approach is definitely holistic and that's what I really love. Knowing that we can come in there and I'm not going to walk out and being sent to the pharmacist and getting all four and five and six bottles of things that I can't even pronounce to take into my body. But that you could just tell me what I need to do and get to me what you have there which you highly researched and know how they will affect cause of reason I came to you. So with all these factors that you've described causing all this inflammation and chronic diseases, how does your practice address these difficult issues? How do you tell us and what do we need to do after you've diagnosed us and found out what's our cause? What does your clinic do for us? Well, you briefly show a slide that is showing exactly what we do with a holistic approach. If your stress is a big factor for your inflammation or is it creating health damage, we have to address that. And how do we do that? We can use natural medicines to do that. We can use techniques to help you manage your stress better. If stress is always going to exist, but we have to manage so it doesn't take over our immune system and inflammation doesn't grow out of control because of stress. And then we work on like if you need to lose weight, yes, if weight is a factor and causes inflammation, we're going to help you to lose weight. There are wonderful natural techniques that people sometimes like they lose 8 pounds a week and that's a highly anti-inflammatory therapy that I use is a mimicking fast diet. It's really effective. We need to fix your gut. If your gut is not working well, about 60% of your immune system is in the gut and we have to fix that. How do we do that? Again, we use natural medicines to do that. We improve your diet. We're going to give you sound nutritional recommendations and instructions. If you have a viral infection, we're going to treat that naturally as well. What we do here is really effective against those things. If you need to be detox, the same way we are going to deploy all our therapies to help you detox from natural environmental toxins. And that's basically a holistic approach addressing all the issues that might cause inflammation. I just really wanted you to talk about that and what I'm hearing you say that the holistic approaches that you are using are all natural remedies. I know that you will fix and prepare exactly what each patient needs according to their needs. I call you like an apothecarian.  I thought that's so cool and knowing that it's not like a pharmaceutical and one more pill after another. And like I said, the ones that we can't even pronounce. So I know that I'm in good hands when I walk into your door and I want others to know that if they're serious about wellness or about prevention, that they would seek a higher means of cure and of getting or feeling better. And that's by walking into your clinic and understanding how valuable what you do for them. And yes, it's not that cheap guys. It's not. However, it's a one time you're going to get well and better. So you don't have to pay for the rest of your life every month. Even if it's a copay from a doctor or a hospital, you're going to pay upfront, but it's not that bad. But it will take care of you and it'll take care of your body so your body doesn't have to endure unnecessary stress. But you are going to endure when taking pharmaceuticals. So I'm so grateful to you, doctor, and you can hear it in my voice. So after addressing all of your all the other inflammation causing factors, what do you do to increase the lifespan, the quality of life and longevity of me and your patients? Well, we talk a little bit about that. So I use the blue zone concepts and I tried to adapt that not only to my life personally, but also to the patients. If you can move around more, if you can walk more, if you can be more physically active, you don't really need a gym, but you need to be active. You need to leave your couch and walk. If you need to buy something, don't use your car, just walk or buy. We need to control our stress, all of us. We need to manage stress. We need to get less overwhelmed with life. And this is the blue zones. Exactly what I'm talking here. You downshift. You have to stop eating too much. When you're 80% full, you just stop it because you don't need to go on and have seconds. You have to have a cleaner diet, basically a plant-based diet. It's okay to have some animal protein, but not the level that most Americans do. We need to have a plan, a purpose in life. Not only to our lives, but how we apply our gifts to our communities to help others. We need to have joy. That's the wine at five means. You don't need to drink wine, but you have to have joy. You have to respect the elderly and to love the elderly, to take care of them. You have to have friends. You have to have some sort of spirituality, some kind of connection to a higher power. We try to apply that on a daily basis and that invariably not only help us to prevent disease, but also improves our quality of life. It increases our health spend and all of these factors will lead to longevity, invariably. Over the course of the last few years, there's a lot of negative things that we had to endure, but there were a lot of positive and we always have to try and find the positive in everything that happens. My takeaway from the last few years is that I didn't drive hardly as much, but I did walk more. I was walking, I live up on Ward Avenue. I was walking to Makali, then to Olimwata Park. I was walking to Chinatown. I walked everywhere because I had more time and just because. I still continue those habits, walking, walking, walking. I'm not a runner, but I do love to walk. Then I walk to the beach and I walk to the parks and we walk and walk. I think those, as I said, anything that happens, good or bad, you always want to look for the good. For me, the last few years really encouraged me to get out, walk more. When I walked more, I felt better. It was easier for me to claim a healthier lifestyle. I thought I was living a healthy lifestyle, but it got even healthier. When I went to see you the last time, we talked about the consumption of beef, right? Because one of my friends says, oh my gosh, Dr. Oliveira eats meat. I said, of course he does. You shared with me and I want to share with everyone that it's not that we eat meat, but it's how much of it we eat. Just exactly what you said, Dr. Oliveira. Yes, we can reward ourselves with all the yummy things, but it's how much we eat. That really, really matters. Thank you for confirming that, Dr. Oliveira, and really emphasizing the blue zones. I wish more people would look into that so they can see how to live and live better, along with all the great advice that you share with us. Dr. Oliveira, for those of us who want to improve their quality of life, their health span and live longer, where are you located and how do we get in touch with you when they want to take their health back? Right here in Honolulu, this is my information there. You can call. I think I have a phone number there. I'd love to meet you and to talk to you if you have any questions. There is a great documentary on the blue zones on Netflix right now. I encourage everybody to watch because it's a very effective way to improve your quality of life and hopefully live longer. But if you need help in other areas, also I'm here. Very good. He's there and he has office hours that you can call his secretary, Secretary Sandra will be there to answer your calls and book an appointment for you. But right now, Dr. Oliveira, our show has now come to a close. I would like to just mahalo you, Dr. Arnold Oliveira, for taking some time out of your very busy schedule to help all of us work on prevention so that we can enjoy a better quality of life. I am Wendy Lowe and we'll return in two weeks with another edition of Taking Your Health Back. Aloha and mahalo Dr. Oliveira.


Here's the flowchart for a program that asks the user for their age and years and then tells them their approximate age and days and Here's the code There's nothing wrong with it Except that every time we want another age we have to run the program again and Again What we'd really like is to run the program once and have it ask us over and over again for an age This is a perfect use for a while loop. Here's a revised flowchart Ask for an age and then test a condition as long as the condition is true Process the age ask for the next age and Loop back to see if the program should continue or not the question now becomes what's a good condition to test We need some value for the age that will tell the program. Okay. I'm finished This value is called a sentinel value It's a special value that doesn't represent valid data But instead tells the while loop that it's time to stop in this case. The sentinel value is zero It's a good sentinel people don't usually think of zero as a normal age So we can use that as our special okay. We're finished value This means the loop continues as long as the age is not zero Let's update the code to match this flowchart First change the description of what the program does Do this until the user gives us a zero for the age in years Next we'll add something to the prompt enter age in years or zero to quit Now we're going to add our while loop As long as the years is not equal to zero We'll put in the closing brace for the loop and indent the loop body After processing the age add code to ask for another age Enter another age in years or zero to quit and a scan F build and run and Now we can enter ages to our heart's content And when we're finished we enter zero and that ends our program and That's how you can use a loop to repeatedly ask for user input


Hello art citizens, my name is Courtney and I'm a brain education instructor from Boston, Massachusetts. Today I'd like to show you my journaling routine, more specifically my experience with bullet journaling and how it really helps me to stay organized and prioritize while improving my mental health. There's something about getting our thoughts and feelings out of our head and down on paper. We just start to see things more clearly. In fact, there's been studies on how journaling can help you relax, manage anxiety, and cope with depression. Journaling is good for both emotional intelligence and self-discovery because you get to know yourself better. You get to develop a deeper understanding of your reactions, strengths, weaknesses, as well as what you need to thrive. I also use my journal to keep my thoughts and schedule organized because I've found being prepared helps reduce my anxiety, helps me manage my time, keeping my tasks prioritized, and reinforces that I am capable of completing things. Journaling is also good for goal setting. The act of writing down a goal can make you feel more real and right away your brain can start to find ways to achieve it. Research has shown that writing information down by hand is an effective way to commit ideas to memory. So if you have an awakening about yourself or the world, writing it down helps imprint it on your brain. All sounds great, but how? To me, journaling has been about finding a balance of structure. Too much structure and you get overwhelmed and don't keep up with it. Too little and you look at blank pages and you don't know where to start or you don't stick with it. Enter bullet journaling. It's the only method so far that's helped me be consistent about my journaling practice. It's important to note that this is a style I've developed over time by looking at multiple videos and I advise you to do the same. Play with it and make a system that works best for you. There's a lot of information in this video, so I made sure to put chapters below so you can find the information that is relevant to you. If you're coming with me, you may want what notebook that has dots instead of lines, a ruler, whiteout, and a couple different highlighters and pens. This is not necessary, but a part of the process that brings me joy. So if I did just give you an excuse to buy more pens, you're welcome. Today, I'm going to show you what I do to get organized for the year, the month, and the week. And to be upfront, some of the calendar drawing can be a little time consuming. I happen to really like this process and find it meditative and enjoyable, but you might prefer to buy yourself a pre-printed planner and you can still use this system. Bullet journaling has several unique qualities. The first being it encourages us to use an index. This is a dedicated number of pages in the beginning of your journal to log your work so that you can find it later. Especially for those of us that have trouble staying organized, this is genius. Plus, it gives you total freedom to write on any page within your notebook, so long as you mark it down in your index. This does require your pages to be numbered, which you could do by hand, but there are many brands of notebooks that are already doing this for you. The second feature unique to bullet journaling is creating yourself a key. For example, a bullet for tasks, an X for completed tasks, an arrow to migrate your task, a circle for events, a star for an important idea, or you can cross out a task if it becomes redundant. If you're going to be creating your own calendars or dividing your notebooks into sections for any reason, you can count and mark down the number of boxes you use, and this will reduce a lot of work for yourself later. Please feel free to customize your key in any way that works for you. Now I'm going to show you how I set up my yearly future log. I've tried this a couple ways. This time, I'm trying it like this. You can use this space to enter important birthdays, anniversaries, trips, projects, or goals you'd like to accomplish each month. And when you get a new journal, you can migrate what's relevant from the old to the new. Are you with me so far? We're just getting to the good stuff. At the beginning of each month, there are several things I do. One is I check in with myself. How am I doing? How did the events of last month affect me mentally, emotionally, spiritually? This can become really useful information if you're tracking yourself recovering from an injury or illness or to help develop emotional intelligence. Bullet Journaling also offers the idea of a monthly log. Good for those of us who have a hard time remembering timelines and it's recommended to wait until after the event to log it because as we know, things change.  It works by helping you focus on what's good in your life rather than what's not. I will number a page and try to fill it up within one month. Make sure to jot it down in your index and you can come back to it anytime. Then it's important to leave yourself a little room to be messy. Your brainstorming page is where you can empty out what's juggling around in your brain. Maybe it's things you want to get done or improve about yourself and they don't have to be organized. You can put tasks, idea and events all in one space thanks to your key. You can reference this page to get organized about what your weekly plan is and come back to it when you need to get something out of your head. I will often make a section for work and a section for personal. Then I move on to my goals or visions. Using the beginning of the months to reevaluate your goals helps to stay organized about what you want and as a part of that I will sometimes set up a habit tracker useful to help make some new habits or break some old ones. To do that I draw out two to six mini calendars one for each habit. I found that the habit tracker helps to remind me of what I wanted to focus on plus I find it satisfying to color in the days and check my progress. However make sure you're not beating yourself up if you miss a day or two. Then I like to draw out a few calendar months in a row but especially if you use the index function you could definitely do this just at the beginning of the month. This is where I enter my work events and content planning. Finally we're on to our weekly planning where I cut my journal into six sections. The last section could be both Saturday and Sunday as my to-dos tend to be a little bit shorter. Then I split the page in half. The top part is for tasks another opportunity for you to use the key system and in the bottom half I put my schedule and appointments. At the end of the day or first thing in the morning you can look at yesterday's tasks cross out what you accomplished migrate over what you still need to do or cross it off if it's redundant. And just as a general tip as much as I like to cross things off make sure you're prioritizing what needs to get done first. For some reason this style of journaling is really helping me to stay organized and lay out the steps I need in order to complete the tasks and projects I want to. Then the rest of the pages for whatever drawing journaling just make sure to mark them in your index. And that's pretty much it. Please keep in mind I had to go through some trial and error to find the elements that worked best for me. I also had to practice being okay with making mistakes. Most important is make it fun for yourself. That's the best way to keep up with your journaling practice. Okay your citizens I hope that's helpful as always if you'd like to experience a full one hour of brain education find a body and brain sensor near you. See you next time.


A lot of times the healthy choice requires a lot of willpower, so you have to resist all the bad options in order to choose the healthy option. And so making the healthy choice the easy choice reduces the amount of willpower that people have to spend on their eating and their exercise decisions. My dissertation research was when I first got interested in incentives. What we did was we incentivized first-year college students here at UVM to go to the campus fitness center and when they went to the fitness center they and they met goals of attendance they would get paid for doing that. And students who we paid went to the fitness center more often than students who we didn't pay. And so yeah it worked to incentivize this behavior. And in my class that I teach for juniors and seniors we do a whole section on behavioral economics. I definitely my research permeates my teaching and then back the other way.


All right, Michael. We got some questions here. Okay. We got two of them first question is Basically when Mike covers the kingdom of God and or eschatology Can he touch on this idea of the earth? Kingdoms and even in Hebrews where it says the heavens being shaking how that connects to the Casting out of demons as well and ultimately the overthrow of Satan and other Principalities both at the cross and ultimately through the church in the last days Yeah, it's sort of the wording of the question almost seems to answer the question I mean it the shaking of the foundations shaking of the heavens that kind of language is of course in the Old Testament most closely associated with the day of the Lord, but it's also associated with the again Consider the the phrasing here with the coming of God Okay to earth which in the Old Testament, you know again is mostly wrapped up in the day of the Lord But if you think about the incarnation the ministry of Jesus and all that sort of stuff Well, we do have God returning to earth and the person of Christ even though it's not You know day of the Lord's setting We don't have a final judgment, you know of the nations for instance But you know we have both of those things going on with this language And so when you get in the New Testament, you know the first You know coming of course God returns to earth in the form of Christ So you you know you have a theological a conceptual connection with that and the whole thing about It's very in the unseen realm. I discuss a bit about how the casting out of demons is you know sort of cast as the You know sort of a stock element or part and parcel of the advance of the kingdom of God the inauguration the advance the kingdom of God because The earth has to be retaken has to be taken back and You know specifically, you know when you when you talk about taken back It's not to exclude the need for Israelites to sort of come back into the fold because they it's their Messiah They need to believe who this person is that the Messiah is actually there But it applies chiefly again to the nations that were disinherited at Babel And so you know you've got this sense that that the land that's not Part of Canaan you know part of the promise Is under dominion of hostile powers of darkness and so the day of the Lord that's going to be ultimately reversed but now we have again the the kick starting of the kingdom of God and again the coming of God to earth is part of this This this language, you know this this motif In the Old Testament so you can see where we're sort of how both sides the inauguration and the consummation of the kingdom Both sort of hook back into this Shaking you know language that is is for the most part associated with the day of the Lord but not exclusively You know it is associated with with judgment of evil You know Psalm 18 for instance God being roused to activity against evil Again, you can you can see that as part of the ministry of christ Judging, you know sin judging demons You know even something like the the money changers and whatnot draws on some of this image So it's all part and parcel of the same thing. It just happens in stages But the language itself, you know to sort of shorten the answer the language itself is connected with the day of the Lord And the taking back of the nations And that obviously in the gospels begins At the first coming, you know when when jesus is present All right second question is a quick one on Psalm 82 5 Is this god speaking about the divine council being fallen Walking about in darkness causing havoc on the earth Yeah, I haven't I haven't really dealt With this When the language of Psalm 82 5, let's just you know read it Again, this is esb They have neither knowledge nor understanding they walk about in darkness all the foundations of the earth are shaken I I tend to think That it's not referring to the gods It's referring to their victims and you say well, what would have to do with all the foundations of the earth being shaken And walking about in darkness This language again is used of you know, sort of this You know cosmic upheaval again, that's that's solved But well, it's actually both caused and solved in a judgment sense at the day of the lord Uh, in other words, you you know at the day of the lord the final judgment god comes back and there's you know Lots of big upheaval and judgment and violence and all this kind of stuff again It's portrayed in this manner, you know the stars falling from heaven and the celestial objects going wacky and And whatnot so this whole idea of the foundations of the earth being shaken That refers to things not being the way they should be And sometimes it's used of god's activity when he's judging Uh, and again in an ultimate sense the day of the lord because when god starts Going to town on on evil Then there's lots and lots of upheaval. It's a cosmic event But the language can also speak to things not being the way they should be Outside of god's judgment that you know god god made the world work in a certain way and he wants Things to work in a certain way and when they don't You have this language of the foundations of the earth being shaken or again You know similar kind of language that what's happening here is contrary to god's will it's chaos instead of order And when you associate it with the nations it actually gets associated with other gods because they're the ones running the nations That were disinherited and so all of this is viewed as contrary to What god wants now again that last thing i said brought the gods into the equation I think again the most straightforward reading of this is that it refers to their victims But since the victims are in chaos because of what the gods are doing They are involved, but it's not like the gods are going running around bumping into walls You know that sort of thing that they have no understanding Uh, and so on and so forth now having said that again, you will you know encounter scholars on the other side you know that that basically This could either be a reference to The gods being judged but then you actually get the judgment in In verse six and so some people would say well, it's kind of out of order to have The judgment happening before verse six because that's really when it's announced But you know the rebuttal of that as well You know god can still be judging them before The ultimate judgment which is you know taking away their existence that that sort of thing So scholars are actually you know divided on who exactly is referred referred to here and do we even need to pick Is it the people of the nations or is it the gods or is it both? And to be honest, I really haven't settled on on what I think here Again, one seems to be a more transparent option than the other But I think they're all they're all sort of in the picture I want to go back, you know to the first question too and just mention That again this whole thing about the day of the lord and the kingdom of god and whatnot This language also Is used in other passages. It's not just Psalm 82 for instance if readers go to isaia 34 Verses one to eight you get the same kind of language where Again, the gods are part of the picture. So let me just read that real quickly Draw near. Oh nations Okay, nation speaking of the nations again who are under the the dominion of other gods Draw near. Oh nations to hear give attention Oh peoples let the earth here and all that fills it the world and all that comes from it for the lord is enraged Against all the nations and furious against all their host Can host can have a double reference doesn't mean their armies or doesn't mean the host the divine being is running them Okay, it could be either or both He has devoted them to destruction. There's the param word that was used in the conquest accounts again people Who've read unseen realms should be real familiar with that. He has devoted them to destruction He has given them over for slaughter and again Doing that to the to the giant cleanse in particular in the conquest event that prepared the land It cleansed the land for occupation and ownership by Yahweh And so you get the same again flavoring here Their slain will be cast out the stench of their corpses shall rise. So that suggests the host here You know refers to human beings the armies, you know of the nations. Okay, but just hold on one second The mountains shall flow with their blood again. That's very human and orientation Then we get to verse four all the host of heaven shall rot away And the skies roll up like a scroll all their host shall fall As leaves fall from the vine and leaves falling from the fig tree So again, you get this judgment on the heavenly host as well and we know again from other passages other discussions that the heavenly host again and Divine beings those were those were two things that since we're modern we disconnect them or the heavenly host those You know, we know we know about astronomy now and we don't connect that to the spiritual world Well, the ancient person did and we've talked about that on the podcast a number of times so that you know brings in the heavenly host language to this sort of judgment earth being shaken all that sort of stuff if you go to isaia 24 In verse 18 you get some pretty pronounced examples of this too He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit And he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare for the windows of heaven are open The foundations of the earth tremble the earth is utterly broken the earth is split apart the earth is violently shaken It staggers like a drunken man. It sways like a hut It's transgression lies heavy upon it and it falls and will not rise again on that day And then that's stock language for the day of the lord The lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on earth So there you have both the human and the divine elements again so on and so forth Again the point being that it's not just psalm 82 There's language like this connected to divine beings the judgment of divine beings in conjunction with the day of the lord But it's also linked again to the general judgment of god god coming, you know being angry with sin and and trying to Reclaim what is his And you know assert his authority well, jesus certainly does that the first time around when the kingdom of god is inaugurated So it would be natural it would it would not be unexpected To see this kind of language connected to the casting out of demons and whatnot As part of that that whole process and as part of the series of events


3. Things to Consider When Teaching University Students in China Teaching English to foreign students can be challenging, yet one of the most rewarding experiences. Providing education on the English language to young, middle-aged, or older individuals can be an eventful experience, shaping an instructor's portfolio and personal life. In this report, I explore possible advantages and disadvantages of teaching English to university students in China from a prospective instructor's perspective. Individual needs. Teaching, in general, can be an action-packed experience. There are often peaks and valleys. Thus, it is interesting and important to consider what teachers experience in the process of teaching, particularly in a specific population like China, where English is not the predominant language. Teaching English as a foreign language, or TEFL, is a certification that is often required for individuals who wish to teach English to foreign speakers in either their native country or abroad. Instructors can expand their toolkit by completing the TEFL certification and obtain exposure to different cultures by teaching ethnically diverse populations. For those who enjoy teaching or gaining further experience teaching, foreign students may likely be an excellent population for which to work. This is particularly true, as foreign students often have different levels of understanding of the English language. Some students may be able to communicate in a few sentences, whereas others may not be able to convey even a few words in English. Thus, the teacher has the unique responsibility to be able to cater to individual student needs and provide lessons using very various activities, such as plays, and technology, such as videos, to tailor to individual students. This can be a difficult process, yet also helpful for the instructor in terms of obtaining experience working with different types of students. Working on personal qualities. Apart from the mentally stimulating and tremendously inspiring experience working with Chinese students coming from different backgrounds and levels of English proficiency, instructors may also find the job exhausting and frustrating. While out of frustration, an instructor may want to call out a student due to negligence in properly forming a sentence or point out a certain flaw in grammar. It is the responsibility of the instructor to practice patience, keep calm and foster a healthy and supportive classroom environment. Good mentorship is often as important as the knowledge required to teach the subject. While this may be easier said than done, it is possible to control one's temper and be an encouraging leader. It can be a challenging experience for the instructor to repeat information to students several times, if required, or kindly point out a flaw to a student in a respectful and caring fashion, but it is possible and achievable. For instructors, part of working with foreign students may be learning to mold their own personalities to be a better person, teacher and mentor. Enjoying the process. Although the process of instructing foreign students may be a roller coaster ride, it can be an intellectually stimulating, motivating and incredibly rewarding experience. Every job has its advantages and disadvantages. However, having the opportunity to interact with people of a different culture and geographical region and the ability to be able to communicate one's knowledge to those who are craving to learn something new, is simply satisfying. Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.