Hi, so very, very warm welcome. It is my pleasure and delight to be hosting this Q&A today with the author of Breaking Together, Professor Jem Bandal. Today marks the launch of the free e-book version of Jem's new book, Breaking Together. And it's released today to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the publication Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher, which is appropriate because Jem's book is published by the Schumacher Institute and so recognising that lineage, that heritage. Professor Jem Bandal is best known for his viral paper on climate change called Deep Adoptation, which was released almost five years ago now, and the influence of that paper on the growth of the early growth of Extinction Rebellion. He formerly worked for the UN, for WWF, and for many corporations on sustainability issues before shifting five years ago to focus on adaptation to unfolding, societal disruption, and even collapse. So we're joined here by people who have been, some people here have been following and supporting and influenced by Jem's work since. Since before the publication of the Deep Adoptation paper. Yeah, and those who have joined the Deep Adoptation forum and have come across his work from elsewhere. So it's a really, really great pleasure to be here with you all. And Jem, thanks for joining. Thanks for all you do. How are you? Thank you, Katie. So I was a bit nervous. This is the first online Q&A that I'm doing about the book. And I say that it might actually be the only one I'm going to do. But seeing very familiar faces and also this format, which I know quite well in the sort of emphasizing Deep Adoptation and the Q&A dialogue, I'm having some nostalgia. So feeling good to be here. Thank you, yeah. Nostalgia here as well. Having accompanied you through the Deep Adoptation forum and part of this journey. So you've spent the last two and a half years researching and writing, breaking together. And it is quite a weighty tome. I haven't quite finished it. I have been, the EPUB is available, but the audio book is also available. And I have been kind of jumping between the two and I have found taking breaks in between. So it's a powerful book. It's a powerful message. I'm wondering what you hope that the impact of this book is going to be. So I had to plug in my headphones as I got a message that my audio wasn't loud enough. So I missed the back end of your question because I was there. So please just repeat that. Sure, the question is what do you hope that the impact of this book is going to be? Yeah, and you mentioned the time it took to do it. So wow, so my intention for this book is completely different from when I started on this project. So two and a half years ago, I got funded by a foundation when the idea was about how do we bring more people into a conversation about societal disruption and collapse? And when I say more people, there was an interest from the funder and me at the time about more sort of senior ranking people in civil society, business, government, international organizations and so on.  And yet we knew so many people who it was their sort of their personal private secret truth that publicly they would talk about technological change and market mechanisms and hope, hope, hope. We can do this and privately, they were scared and but they also didn't know how to talk about their private truth publicly. And so the original idea was I was gonna do research that would help me write a book which would help more senior leaders engage in this professionally and publicly. However, as we, I work with a team of people in a variety of different disciplines and over time I discovered that actually maybe my deep adaptation paper and ideas and framing wasn't radical enough because I discovered that actually there's a good case to make that modern societies, industrial consumer societies had already started to break down since around 2015 and that there are already a lot of regressive responses underway from authorities, basically panicked authorities. And I discovered there's a lot of psychology and sociology on why that happens. And so suddenly I was discovering sort of more of a anti-elitist, anti-authoritarian sentiment that I wanted to communicate. I really wanted to help people who were a bit suspicious of how global elites were responding to the growing sense of crisis. I wanted to share that there's a different way. We don't have to just rely on billionaires and technology and senior bosses to somehow come to the rescue. In fact, that's not gonna work. And so the book has become about a people's environmentalism, a freedom loving response to the situation as a result of all that, my own journey over the last two and a half years. So what do I want from the impact? I don't actually care about senior leaders responding positively to this agenda or this book. My aim is quite different now. I'm wanting to help affirm the doubt suspicious suspicions of a lot of activists, a lot of people who want to see a more collaborative, dialogic response to what's going on. And I, yeah, I'm actually quite excited about how some, for example, some of the co-founders of Extinction Rebellion are responding. And other people who I know quite well, I think it's really helping them understand what's going on. Thank you. You're not an uncontroversial figure. That's double negatives. Yeah, you haven't shied away from speaking truth. And there is a really, really, there's a really strong message to the book. I have really, really appreciated some, particularly some of the parts that I think it's some of your most powerful writing that I've read so far. So well done. And there is also, there's a kind of ferocity in this book. You did mention that some of the positive response, particularly from some of the founders from Extinction Rebellion, but I'm wondering about, yeah, more broadly, how is it being received so far? Do you feel like it's hitting where you want it to, yeah, landing where you want it to land? Yeah. I'm really excited about how it seems to be a shot in the arm in a good way for people who get it already, who already have an instinctive sense of fairness and justice and defense of human rights along with a deep concern for the environment, along with a suspicion that monetary and economic systems as the modern manifestation of deeper systems around patriarchy, for example, people who have all that already, how they are, yeah, I'm seeing a confidence in the way that they communicate either in articles or on social media using some of the terminology and ideas in my book. I'll give you one example. Matthew Slater, who was a colleague with me in the Deep Adaptation Forum, has just written an article on lowimpact.org and he knows my book because he's the audio book narrator. So he had to read the whole thing, poor guy, closely. But yeah, his most recent article, I think came out just yesterday, critiquing the rise of green authoritarianism in the British environmental movement. There's a lucidity there and a sense that this needs to be said. We need to invite people to a more bottom-up environmentalism rather than a top-down one. So I'm pleased with that. I don't see this as a book which is likely to be a bestseller. As you said, Katie, it's pretty heavy going. It's a long book. So what I'm looking for is like more people to really get a sense of, wow, okay, yeah. This affirms what I thought I knew. It puts it all together in one framework, in one place and they're gonna go for it. And I am, I'm hearing that from people that, as I mentioned, Stu Bazdin, Gail Bradbrook and other people who've been key in the contemporary British environmental movement. I hope this book has an impact beyond that. Perhaps even beyond environmentalism because so many people who haven't been involved in environmentalism are waking up to the severity of the climate crisis, but they're also a bit spooked with the nature of the COVID, the mainstream COVID response. And so they are seeing these concerns grow that we might see an authoritarian response dominating for climate change. This shows that you can be an environmentalist in a different way. And so I hope it reaches some of those people too. Yeah, thank you. I get the impression, I got the impression as I've been reading it, that there's genuine fear in you around the emergent authoritarian or proto-fascist responses. It feels like a kind of call to action or yeah, is that right? Is that part of your motivation? Yes, there is a genuine fear in me. As the response to COVID seemed to be quite authoritarian, and even just discussing what may or may not work seemed to be demonized or hidden, I did worry that people might become alienated from messages about public threats. I did worry therefore there might actually as a result of that be a backlash against environmentalism per se. And we certainly are seeing that. And that was very predictable. And it was why I was pained to not see more environmental leaders and top commentators speak out about, well, maybe we need to check what the science is rather than just accept what the pharmaceutical companies say the science is. And we need to look at more holistic responses, proportionate responses. We need to keep talking about this rather than just having this sort of rather weird polarization. So yes, there is fear in me possibly because of the COVID period and this sense of intense polarization over the last few years. I personally experienced a lot of people who've been quite vitriolic towards me, who've sort of been a person in private and in public. So yes, I do worry that as panic grows, as anxiety grows about real problems in the world, the environmental crisis and the climate crisis being front and center, but also all sorts of problems with poverty. And as anxiety grows, people can be open to manipulation to the very simple kind of there to blame. And so I talked about that in my speech when I launched the book in Glastonbury that we seem to have, on the one hand, a real ecological crisis. And on the other hand, there's a sort of a fake, green, globalist response. And a lot of people are just screaming in either of those two directions like crisis, wow, or fake, green, globalist and my book is inviting people to move through that and beyond that kind of emotion of just blame and hatred. And actually, well, it's can we can we find something more constructive to do together? And I call that a freedom loving response to collapse and very deliberately so I recognize some people would be alienated with that. From that subtitle, because over the last 40 years, freedom has been sort of assumed to be somehow the preserve of the right. But that's a particular affliction in the West. I mean, if in countries where they've more recently shaken off colonial power and still struggle against colonial power, no one thinks that freedom is just about consumer behavior. Now, you know, I care about me and not about my neighbor. That's just a nonsense that's emerged in the West through neoliberalism in the last few decades. Thank you. I want to I want to join some dots before I do.  You can send in if you have a question that you'd like to ask. Gem, you can send a direct message to Stuart. Yes, please do be good to hear from you. I'm very happy we have about eighty five eighty five on this on this Q&A today. So I do hope we get to hear from some of you. Thank you. Yes, and I wanted to connect with what you were saying with about the response to in that you're proposing in this new book as a kind of an antidote to the the effect of growing fear and the, you know, how it how it's bringing about increasing polarization. And and the kind of the the global trauma effect of the pandemic and we're, you know, we it's we're going to see more of the similar kind of collective trauma events. And Nadine Andrews is here. We spoke to Nadine maybe a couple of years ago about the trauma in the context of adaptation to climate chaos. And your approach or the approach that mainly you put forward in in the deep in deep adaptation and in the forum has been maybe we could generalize the same is about exploring methods of co-co-regulation through connection and community. And I'm curious about the extent to which this book is a development of or a departure from that approach in deep adaptation. Yeah, I do see that as the most important part of the deep adaptation paper message and community. And it is the most important part because that's the bit that people picked up on and really went with. And it's also what I needed at the time. I was also, I think, in a bit of an emotional mess with all my old stories of self and the future and professional identity all being messed up. And so I had a real desire to serve that moment to help connect people, provide a framework for dialogue and invite people to realize that rushing to have some kind of answer to this, whether that's a technological fix or a bunch of people to blame. That's not actually, that's all just emotional version. That's not staying with the pain. So yes, I'm happy with that characterization. However, I always thought that we might see a lot more in terms of an emerging political agenda around this from people who are collapse aware or collapse accepting. And that's been slower to emerge. And also I realized that the political scene is dominated by messaging through mass media and through by politicians. And therefore, I noticed that quite a lot of people, despite being very active in this co-regulation thing, were still, I thought, sometimes saying things which I thought were politically unhelpful. And I thought, well, rather than just wait for a political philosophy to emerge, kind of like a politics of compassion, solidarity and fairness and equality to emerge for an agenda or an era of collapse rather than an era of assumed progress, rather than just waiting for that to emerge, I'd have a go, you know? Okay, I think I got something to say on this. And I think I had to let go of the idea that I have to somehow be neutral on this. And I just said, these are my ideas. Take them or leave them. This is my contribution to a collapse ready politics. So it's, I like to think that it's not coming from any emotional aversion in me. I like to think that it's what I've gained from the whole deep adaptation way of being the people I know in that field has helped me then do this next thing which is more explicitly political. I often talk, when someone asks me often about the difference between the DA stuff and the book. So it, because it is a question that comes up. I say, well, perhaps the DA stuff was quite yin and this book is a bit more yang in terms of how I'm relating to the situation. Thank you. There are a couple of people here from who are in the deep adaptation community. And I'm going to go to a couple of them who have questions for you. But before we do, I have another question which is, yeah, the book covers so many different topics from banking to spirituality to mutual aid politics. If which of the chapters do you think people most need to read and why? Yeah, thanks. So it depends where people are coming from. I often say that it's funny, isn't it? I've been talking about this down book for two months now but not in an event like this. I'm just realizing I'm talking to lots of people about the book. So I'm often saying, well, the book, the first half is marshalling the evidence for the argument that the collapse of modern industrial consumer societies has already begun. It can't be changed. We can talk about reducing harm and that's very important to do. And the second half of the book is them. So why did this happen and what to do about it and also what not to do about it and what we might be able to resist? Okay, so if you doubt the premise, then we'll get stuck into the first half where I talk about the breakdown in economic systems, monetary systems, energy systems, food systems, the biosphere and then also climate as an accelerator of all that as well as being a problem in itself. And then there's a chapter talking about the various different cracks in various different aspects of society, more on the surface. Reflecting lots of opinion polls about how now people are thinking about government and capitalism and so on. But if, yeah, if you already accept that premise then okay, for those of you who may be feeling kind of ashamed to be part of the human race. So that's quite a thing that crops up with people who are a bit doomy. And you have days where you're feeling a bit misanthropic like, ah, good riddance to the human race, planet Earth will be best without us. Then I recommend chapters nine and 10 because chapter nine I look at how for many millennia, human societies that were very complex but complex in different ways, not only lived sustainably and in harmony with nature but were actually essential to the biodiversity. So for example, the various different civilizations we're now beginning to learn about that lived in the Amazon and made the Amazon what it is today. But I give lots of examples. And so basically, no, it's not that homo sapiens didn't belong here. We do belong here. It's just a particular ideology, culture and then set of economic systems which then took that to extremes, particularly focused on the monetary system which is chapter 10. And I show how it took very alienated and alienating stories of reality and of humans within that reality, took those and made them extreme and took away our freedom to live and think to think and live differently. And so I talk about the unfreedom that comes from that monetary system. So I would recommend chapters nine and 10 and then it can be like, okay, so homo sapiens as a species, it wasn't inevitable that this happened. A lot of people will therefore feel a bit upset with that. I know a lot of people don't want to think like that because then they worry they might feel some guilt and some shame or they may go into just sort of an angry blame mode against the richest people in the world. Well, drop all that. Just drop all those fears of blame and guilt and whatever, just drop it all and just allow yourself to consider this information and then just find a way of living where you're not driven by any of the either aversion to guilt and shame or attraction to blaming others. The other chapter then that I think is really important is chapter eight on something which I'm summarizing with the phrase critical wisdom or the new term critical wisdom. And that's because I think that we need to help each other to be wise in this moment. And for me that involves a blend of lots of different things and lots of different ways of being and knowing. So mindfulness obviously. So we become aware of how our cravings and aversions to different emotions are actually involved in the micro moments of how we perceive the world and what we think is a true claim or not or what's right or wrong. So to cultivate some mindfulness and there's many ways to do that. Secondly, something I'm calling critical literacy but also that's a term in sociology where we become aware of how power works in shaping concepts and narratives and stories in society and how that then reproduces that power. And then unless we're conscious of that we end up just be so easily manipulated. Obviously some sociologists say that's an impossible thing we'll never escape that we're actually constituted by that discursal power. But I think still we should try and cultivate awareness of it to avoid manipulation increasing at this time. And then there's rationality. A lot of people take, I think perhaps, I live in a community, I live in a town where a lot of people might take those two things so far where they drop all interest in logic. And so I think it's very important to be aware of logical fallacies and understand rationality. I'm certainly not, I'm building from science with a critical eye rather than negating it. So I'm quite like rationality and logic. And then the fourth thing is intuition. So there's all manner of ways of knowing the world other than not only through language and maths and so on but also not even through our brains but through and it may even not even be through our bodies. So I encourage people if you've never had it before to immerse yourself in nature, to consider things like fasting, to consider things like micro dosing, to consider things like extended my periods of meditation not just for mindfulness but for transcendent states and not to negate that or think that poo poo that but actually recognize that as one of the four pillars of cultivating wisdom in these times. That's chapter eight. Thank you. Yeah, comprehensive there. And there is, we've got a question coming up later about the, let me just find, I'm going to come to Natalie, not straight away but a question about the specifics. And this is the research, the first half of the book which is your research. So we'll come to that shortly. First, I would like to invite Kimberley, welcome Kimberley, if you're still here will you unmute yourself and ask your question to James. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Hi, Jim. I had an original question and it's kind of slightly evolved since you've been talking. It was, I mean, I love the book. Thank you so much. Brilliant. And I love the bridge and together angle and the emphasis on the we rather than I. And there's still a feeling and a sense in the book for me about naming the enemy in terms of other humans. And I wonder if you feel we can ever achieve a kind of pro-life, any kind of pro-life future if we continue to perceive other humans as bad or wicked rather than the compassion which you've taught me so much about the love and the compassion required to understand that it's a kind of bad and wicked system rather than bad and wicked people. And I'm so struck recently by the, my own shift towards away from the individual and towards, you know, we, towards what we can do together. Yes, I just wondered what you thought about that, that, yeah, that this sense in which if we just changed these individual people, you know what I mean? Yes, thank you, Kim. And I just want to say that I see some people are sending messages into the general chat or even I think maybe messaging me. I won't see those. So if you want to ask a question, send it to directly to Stuart Smith. So find him and do that. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. So I'm a professor of leadership and one of the most famous studies in the 80s on leadership was how when things are going particularly well or particularly badly across cultures, psychology studies find that we, if things are going better or worse than expected than the norm, we tend to blame or praise the senior roleholder, the person with power we perceive, even if we have absolutely no evidence for that. And it's just the fact that the house psychology works. And so when we see things going badly now, yeah, it's a lot easier to say, get super angry at the chairman of the World Economic Forum and say, Klaus Schwab must be an evil man who's in charge of the planet working with Bill Gates rather than look at the complex systems which are destroying the planet. And therefore, if, you know, was it Klaus Schwab is, must be about 19 now. He might even die tomorrow. Nothing's gonna change.  So this is key. We need to definitely look at the systems rather than get so fixated on individuals. And there is this tendency, it's a lot easier. It also, it works in a way where we don't then look at our own complicity in those systems. And so I talked about that in my launch speech when I look back on my own career and I spent prior to 2017. So 22 years of my career in sustainability, I spent the whole time basically looking up the tree, looking up the hierarchy of who has power, where's the power, how can I get their ear? How can I be their confidant? How I can get them to do the right things? Thinking that was the most responsible thing to do. And actually, I realized that we make so many compromises about our own curiosity and our own sense of what's reality in doing that. And we stopped looking at each other and we stopped thinking about, you know, how to team up with our neighbors or those around us. And so I'm, yeah, for me, that's quite a big, big, big message in the book. And I wanna, actually I'm gonna hold it up here. So you see, if you get the real one, it's today you can download for free the EPAL, just go to jenbandale.com and there you go, you download it for free. But it's far nicer to hold it because it's got this beautiful piece of art which I did with Derinka Montego. Now there's a reason for this which relates to your question. So this is the Farnese Atlas who's a Titan God. And, but it's been Kintsugi. So Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of when something breaks, you stick it back together again with gold. And, but you're not thinking you can use it for what it once was.  I mean, you were using to drink green tea for in your family for a century and you break it. When you stick it back together again, you're not gonna use it for that.  But it reminds you of your, not only the object and what it was useful but it reminds you of your love for that but recognizing that it's broken. So I've done that here because the myth of Atlas has the true meaning of it has been lost over time where people think this is the planet when it's not. It's the heavens, the universe in general. And people have lost the idea that Zeus cursed Atlas with the idea that he had to hold up the heavens to stop them collapsing. And so was Atlas, what a lovely, Atlas represents an aspect of our humanity. It's wonderful that we care and we don't want our family and the rest of humanity to die under collapsing heavens. But it's also pure hubris and self-obsession that we think that we have to do that. And so there's a paradox, it's good that we care about people and the world beyond ourselves but also there's a paradox in that that it can go horribly wrong. So we don't resolve that paradox. You don't resolve that paradox by saying, oh, let's everyone be entirely free of any social consideration or you don't resolve the paradox by just hoping that some superhuman ethical dictator can fix it and tell us all what to do for our own good.  So that's why it's on the cover. We're gonna still, let's keep caring for each other and the world and the heavens and all sorts but also recognize how that could go terribly wrong because it always does go terribly wrong. So that also connects back, Katie, to when I talked about my concern about green authoritarianism and inviting a different approach. Mm-hmm, thank you. Thanks, Kimberly. Good to see you, Annette. Are you still here? I'm still here, Katie. Lucky third. Hi, lovely to see you and hi, Gem. I asked this question in Glastonbury and felt that I didn't really get an answer to it because Gail responded by saying, oh, that's what I'm talking about in my talk and then she gave a great talk but I didn't feel she really covered this which is related to the one disappointment of the day was that Stephen Wright wasn't there. I really looked forward to hearing from him. I had been to meet him at his place in Cumbria and we talked about all of this and the idea of addressing the cause beneath the cause of really trying to help support people reconnecting to source or God or the divine however you want to name it. Yeah, so I'm wondering what's your take on the kind of spiritual aspect of all this as well as what would you have hoped that he would have said if it's not really your thing? What would you have hoped he just had to say about that? Thank you. Well, I just would have hoped that Stephen would have been Stephen and we could have all just exuriated in his compelling mysticism but one of his closest colleague and friend had a personal tragedy just two days before that event and so he's went to be with her. Yeah, actually Stephen Wright has finished a first draft of a whole book on deep adaptation and spirituality so there's that to come but I'll answer for myself. I'm not going to take you up on what would I want him to say or anything like that. Okay, that's fine. That's fine, you know. Yeah. Back to the paradox. If from 2015 to 2017, if from 2015 to 2016 I hadn't been paying attention to the latest climate news and data and become extremely worried. So worried I needed to take a year out from university to study the climate science again for myself rather than just assuming what IPCC said was correct. If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had my dark night of the soul and I wouldn't be who I am today and I therefore probably would have been still a corporate sustainability workaholic still working from the idea that it's good to get people to do the right thing for the wrong reasons and one just has to keep pretending and behaving according to what's expected of me as a someone who's a high ranking professional successful guy. So the weird thing is that me coming to that awareness not just of my own mortality, it's kind of like multi-dimensional mortality is the extent of the loss of other life and species, the extent of suffering of humans now, the extent of how much is to come, the biological annihilation which is already beginning which is going to continue, we can't do anything much about. The very possibility of human extinction caused by ourselves. All of this was huge for me and melted my or fractured my old stories of self and identity that even revealed to me that I was operating from a story of self where I need to have self-worth and I get self-worth by being a smart guy who cares and works hard and it smashed all of that and what was I left with? I was left with something else which is and many spiritual teachers talk about that where you have that disintegration of self and then what are you? Your consciousness, your part of, you're just a bit of something infinite and there's a core truth of just being loving and curious. That was what dominated for me, being loving and being curious. So it's a paradox because would I have wanted everything to be fine in the world or for me to not have known about it? So many in the world, most people in the world perhaps don't know about this stuff and don't face it. It's a weird one because I think liberation can come through facing this reality and let it change you and lots of people talk about that too and I talk about it in chapter 12 of the book I talk about a few people where it really did change them in that way and they would describe it in terms of it of being an awakening moment so the spiritual thing being quite big for them. I talk about Zori in chapter 12 for example where it was crucial in her evolution I haven't got that far yet so I'll make sure to get there. Thank you, Gem, I've found that so let's move into that. Thank you, yeah. As I'm listening to you speaking, Gem, then what I noticed is the energy shifting from like it's possible to engage in this topic in a cognitive way. We're talking about chapter 12 on this and chapter 7 on this and how it's impacting and what people can do and then dropping down into the more personal like remembering this is real and every single one of the 89 people here today are holding it in our hearts and in our bodies in different and challenging ways and in a few minutes we're going to pause with the Q&A and going to break our rooms to connect in a kind of more intimate way and share a little bit but before we do that, Jessica's back. Jessica, let's see if the weather at your end is going to let us hear your question. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Gem, for your book and for creating the space for us to discuss these critical ideas and yes, I'm in the Caribbean so it's windy hurricane season so I might lose connection. In your chapters, I found them really obviously critical but the one that seemed to be missing for me was one on education and especially education in the global north. I have a 19-year-old daughter who's going to be attending her first year of university at University of British Columbia. She's chosen to be in the north and I wanted to know your thoughts maybe two or three points on what you think that post-secondary school institutions should be doing to equip our young people to meet these unbelievable challenges and this very uncertain and worsening future and do you feel in your heart of hearts that these institutions are even capable of supporting and meeting the needs of young people so anything you have on that would be great. Thank you. Yeah, wow. 19 you said, yeah. Yeah, the Deep Adaptation edited book had a chapter on education and you're right I don't talk about it in this book I don't really get specific about any I don't get specific about policy areas more it's political philosophy rather than that. I am well there's two ways of going one is live life to the max and that's different for whoever else whoever it is so your 19-year-old living life to the max might be you know she's passionate about certain subjects and wants to go to a certain place in the world and have that experience then great but I think it will do nothing to help her I'm not a parent and if I was I'd be I'd be choosing a very different I'd be encouraging my child because it depends on what age but to to buck the traditional education system entirely because yeah you talked about in my heart of hearts no I think there's a few schools some forest schools and stuff and they're very focused on not training people just to be little hard workers in industrial systems and you know tidy consumers but I want wild revolutionaries in the world and that's what young people are and let's help them be that way in constructive ways and so yeah people should be all of us actually every one of us here I talk about it as a great reclamation of our power from the systems of imperial modernity I popped that guitar there it was actually slightly further out of view I just put it in there and the t-shirt I had made it says we grow our own food we make our own music we use our own currencies and we have more fun and there's all manner of ways we can reclaim our lives aspects of our lives from imperial modernity which also therefore means let's make our own music let's look at all ways that we can have fun and be productive together outside of industrial consumer society the vast majority perhaps all of the education is training people up to salary labour within industrial consumer societies so I reject it all now and I guess I'm saying that because today marks the day where my line manager wrote back telling me that my leaving the university has been confirmed so I'm leaving academia so professorship should be for life and I'm quitting I'm going to focus on writing music and developing my organic farm school and other sorts of stuff so I'm not just saying this I've had it with a lot of academia so I don't know what you should do I'll say to you maybe your 19 year old might be interested in my book well thank you Jim and she actually read The Collapsologist Another End of the World is Possible she took that on her trip to Costa Rica and she grew up in the rainforest in the Caribbean so now she wants to try to see what what the north is like I wanted to experiment and to be free to make choices after that too I totally understand and that's what I was saying is living life to the max as people feel at that time and that's where she's at so good luck thank you thank you for that yeah so that's like beautifully connects with the invitation that I want to yeah that offer you right now are you going to just a thought experiment maybe for fun listening to Jessica talk about her daughter listen to Jim talk about kind of what one aspect of freedom means and so you're going to be in a breakout room with two other people most of it is going to be you might find yourself with three other people and this is the question I'm offering you that you had a year of life left what would you be doing so it's a thought experiment you know we can assume that these 12 months are not going to include a long and increasingly debilitating illness you have 12 months left all the people watching this on YouTube are going to miss out on everything we're reading here aren't they they are going to love to experience nature caring for the earth connection love and care some playing and fun leaving a viral legacy of love for humans in the more than human world so yeah I actually I know this isn't you're the host but I just want to say something is that it's just reminding me of there are rare conversations which are deeply meaningful nourishing and can help resource us with these difficult times I don't have it much in my life because I've been busy so stupidly busy for the past year writing a book but I found these sorts of things happening in the deep adaptation forum so I know lots of good lovely stuff happens there online as well increasingly again in person so for those of you don't know about it check it out deepadaptation.info Thanks Gem we're a little bit past the top of the hour so I would like to say thank you to each of you for showing up joining this event also thanks to each of you for showing up in all of the other ways in your life in your work on this topic Gem thank you for your huge generosity I know that not everything that you do on this topic in this work is joyful for you and I'm really grateful and I know that thank you is on behalf of a lot of people, people who are here and also people who haven't been able to join us today the recording of this Q&A will be on Gem's YouTube channel. Gem where can people get a copy of your book including the paid for copy if people can afford to buy a copy then There's a pinned post on gemvendell.com which then links to UK Paperback Direct from the Publisher Schumacher as well as Amazon Paperback and Amazon Hardback also the audio book and for purchasing but also if you go to SoundCloud and type gemvendell then you'll arrive at my SoundCloud account and there's about six of the chapters audio for free and about every two to three weeks I'll write a blog and I'll release another chapter audio there until they're all out so that's another way of consuming it in chunks there's a free ePub it's there today gemvendell.com you'll see a link to download it and have it on your eReader please tell people about it it's yeah people are telling me this can be life changing by helping in personal transformations so and it's not something that will necessarily get written about in mass media other than to slag it off because it's too frightening a political scientist I know told me what you're doing is probably the most counterhegemonic thing didn't even know I pronounced that right counter hegemonic hegemonic thing that he knew from political scientist shakes things up a bit this society this culture became suicidal didn't it we're working out to that thank you gemvendell.com you won't get a follow-up email from this event so please do take some time to have a look at the link yourself and until next time thank you so much thank you Gem thanks Stuart for your support


Welcome to The Spiritual Masters, a podcast from Tan Books and Tan Direction in which we look at the greatest and holiest writers from Catholic history. Join us as we explore the life and times in which they lived, an overview and study of their greatest works, and how we as Catholics can look to these masters as models for our own holiness on our journey to heaven. Welcome back, Tan fans and our listeners. Father Nixon, thank you for being here again. We've had an amazing little miniseries on this incredible spiritual master, St. Anselm of Canterbury. I think somebody who doesn't get quite enough attention even though he's a doctor of the church. And so in this miniseries, we've covered a lot of ground. We've began in our first episode talking about he's a doctor of the church, his biography, what he did, what he wrote about. We even dove a little into the ontological argument, talking about his other work, why Christ became man. And so that was a flashback to my educational days when I read some more of St. Anselm. But we really emphasize that he's not just a great philosopher and theologian, but he's a spiritual writer and a devotional writer. And then in the second episode, we went through the passion of the Christ through the eyes of Mary. And that was an amazing 30 plus minutes or so going through certain passages of this, talking about how Mary experienced the passion of the Christ and how she communicated this in a mystical experience to St. Anselm. And then our last episode, we talked about the glories of heaven. And we talked about what is this glorified body going to be like? And it's amazing attributes. And so it was just a beautiful couple of series, a couple episodes in this series. And so today we're just kind of recapping. And I want to focus today on how St. Anselm should infuse our minds and hearts and how we should emulate him in 2022 and try to live with him, live with his spirit and how to seek his intercession. But we should begin not with me talking, but with you saying a prayer, invoking his intercession. Almighty God, we ask that we open our hearts to the wisdom of St. Anselm, that he let his fidelity, his love, his charity be our guiding light, which will lead us unfailingly to your own eternal light, who live and reign forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Father. So St. Anselm is a spiritual master because he's someone, not just because he's a great writer or great theologian, but because we should emulate him. So what are some of his personal virtues or charisms that you know about that you think we should focus on and try to emulate in our lives? Well, St. Anselm proved himself to be a wonderfully versatile person, to be open to whatever God in the church was calling him to do at any given time.  He found himself then traveling back and forth from Europe, conducting important business, trying to negotiate for the freedom of the church, for the stability of his own country, England and so forth. So we see someone who is prepared to respond to the calling of the time in whatever way it might be, almost blindly to follow wherever God is leading him and to remain faithful in that and to take everything on board perfectly calmly. You know, that's an important lesson for us today. I mean, a lot of people find themselves in positions where they were not planning on being there and they are. I mean, I'll give you one example. I got 15 kids, Father. I didn't see that coming. I did not sit down and plan that out. And so it happens and so then you're kind of like, well, this was part of God's divine plan. So holiness for me is embracing that and living that in a certain way. And so what I hear you say is that Anselm was somebody who was pushed and pulled by God's divine providence and he accepted it calmly and peacefully. And he accepted it calmly. Yeah. And what's more, he applied all of his God-given talents to the work which he was doing. So he was talented as a scholar, as a pastor, as a speaker, as a writer. And he applied all of these gifts to the glory of God and to the service of the church, which I think each of us is called upon to do, you know, to think, what has God given me and how can I use this for the service of God and His church? If you had to pick one of his many works, that was your favorite, maybe the favorite to read, maybe favorite to meditate on, maybe your favorite to translate. I don't know. But what would you say is one of your favorites? Well, I guess one of my very favorites is the proslogia. And this goes back to my days as a theology student. And I think it would be fair to say it was the first work which I read in Latin completely for the purpose of writing an essay on. So yeah, so it was something I particularly loved. But since that time, I've read his works more broadly and I have to say some of his devotional works, which are not so well known, have impressed me, especially he wrote a wonderful collection of Marian Hymns and poems and wrote also a few lives of different saints, which are which are quite amazing, very curious medieval miracles and so forth, which type of things you don't hear about so often these days, but works which I absolutely love. How would you recommend that somebody kind of get in touch with Saint Anselm? You know, I would not say go read about the ontological art. No, we might have to write you know, what I would what I would recommend is the glories of heaven is a very good place to start with Saint Anselm because it is very encouraging, uplifting. And at the same time, it's a very logically thought out work, you know, so he mixes this this mysticism with with human reason, working out the various attributes of the glorified bodies and souls of heaven. So yeah, it's quite a short work, but but very powerful. As we talked about in the last episode, I mean, I find I think it's the perfect place to get people started with Anselm.  Well, it is. And I have to say the the the presentation of this book that Ted has put together really, really suits the subject. Oh, thanks. It's absolutely beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful and it's small. It's not intimidating. The language is eloquent, eloquent, but not it's not it's not it's not complicated. You know, it's very beautiful, but it's not overly simplistic. I mean, it's it's really, really well translated and nicely designed. But it all started with Anselm. But I think the reason that it's a great primer for anybody in the spiritual life, yeah, is because it starts with the end in mind like this is why we're doing everything. I mean, the stuff that it says in this little book is why a Quinas wrote the Summa Theologica. It's why you know, Jesuit martyrs go out into the jungles and try to convert the native people. It's it's it's why Peter got crucified upside down. Yeah, it's it's it's why all the apostles, except for John, got martyred and John got dipped in boiling oil.  And so it's there's not many works out there that highlight the whole purpose of everything that we're trying to do. And I feel like this does it wonderfully. It does. It does indeed. And you know, to keep our hearts fixed on that final goal. I think so so often in our religious life, we can be distracted by the by the lesser goals by the passing goals by church practice, tradition, liturgy and so forth by moral teaching and so forth. But the ultimate goal, which puts it all in context is this desire for heaven. And this puts it reminds us of the importance of everything else puts everything else at its proper perspective. I got a sense that if Anselm was alive today, he'd be tremendously successful, you know, whatever he did.  But I got the sense if he was walking around the day, you and I would say but that is like one of the most amazing people we've ever met. I just I think as a human, he was just probably extremely impressive, even though humble and probably understated. Yes, indeed. And we read in his biography about how he would keep very late hours to complete this work. And you think of all the things he did in his life. And it's almost as if he was more than one person to be able to achieve this. And it was all underpinned by his Benedictine monasticism, by his commitment to to regularity of life, to prayer, to enclosure and so forth, as much as he possibly could in the midst of his very demanding career. So, you know, when we were wrapping up many podcasts on Thomas the campus, we talked about how he's a great a great person to go to go to seek intercession from on the subject of silence and solitude in our busy loud, fast paced life. Yeah. And it seems like perhaps our conversation has revealed that Anselm is a guy we can, the stay at home mom, the busy executive, the blue collar worker, whoever it is in whatever state of life, they can appeal to St. Anselm and his intercession to embrace the station of your life and to accept God's will for you in whatever way that is, whatever God's put in front of you, ask St. Anselm's assistance to embrace that peacefully and calmly and joyfully. Is that a fair statement? I think very much so, Cody. You've put it very well. Well, I pray that our customers do that. I think they can come to tanbooks.com and check out some of these incredible works that you've translated. And I hope we can do a lot more with St. Anselm. And I think it's my job to kind of be an evangelist of these spiritual masters. And you know, St. Anselm's got a special place in my heart. And I think it's really because of the glories of heaven book. I mean, that's that was a very special thing. I mean, the passion of Christ to the eyes of Mary, very fun to read, very powerful. I love it. I love it. I love it. But the most motivating thing for me to change my daily life is focusing on the end goal and seeing what what God made Connor to be is is explained very well in this little book. So with that, I thank you very much, Father, for your translation work, for being here with us today, and explaining St. Anselm for us. And we'll pray for you. And I ask that you pray for us. We certainly will, Connor. Thank you. God bless you. God bless, Father. Thank you. This has been an episode of the Spiritual Masters, a podcast from Tan Books and Tan Direction. To follow the show, learn about more inspiring holy men and women, and to get special offers exclusive to Spiritual Masters listeners, sign up at spiritualmasterspodcast.com. And thanks for listening.


Now the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obie, wants politicians in the country to channel public funds to the development of the people. He said Nigeria's problem is a lack of leadership, explaining that God has blessed the country with all the good things in life.


Hello everybody and welcome to the show. We just wrapped up 90s month and now we're ready to get back to looking at GI Joe Toys from the 1980s and we got a great one lined up for you this week. It's November, the weather is changing, we're getting that chill in the air. I think it's time to look at a winter vehicle. It's almost 80 degrees here. I put this review on the schedule months ago, I thought it would be colder by now. Anyway, even though it isn't the right weather for it, we're still going to look at a snow vehicle from the 80s. A great cop here to love GI Joe. Swatterize it! March! March! Ready! Ready! Ready. Silence killed. Quick Commander 788 here, I want to start by thanking Kurt Kessler for joining the ranks on Patreon. For one of Kurt's perks, I'm supposed to give him a funny codename in a video, so I guess I better get creative. It's a little known fact that only one other human being was ever named Kurt. Very uncommon name, and that person was Kurt Cobain. Also, in keeping with the tradition of making codenames by just adding the word viper, Kurt I dubbed the flannel viper, grungy, post-punk, flannel viper welcome to the ranks. Now let's get back to the 80s. This week's review covers a popular vehicle from 1987, the Cobra Wolf. GI Joe already had a couple snow vehicles. In 1987, you could finally send a cobra snow vehicle up against them. The wolf had a driver, the ice viper. Now that's not nearly as cool a codename as flannel viper. The figure came with some unusual accessories. Let's see why these toys were so popular. HCC788 presents the Cobra Wolf and the Ice Viper. By the way, I'm wearing a tie because I just got off work. There's no special significance to it. This is the Cobra Wolf and the Ice Viper from 1987. This vehicle and figure were sold together in 1987 and 1988 and were discontinued for the year 1989. The wolf was available as a male-away offer in 1991, but the male-away version was in different colors. The male-away wolf did not include the driver. The Ice Viper was packaged with the wolf in 1987 and 1988. Overstock figures were sold at the 1993 GI Joe convention. There were no other versions of the Ice Viper in the vintage line. We will take a closer look at the Ice Viper later, so we're going to set him aside for now. The box for this vehicle says wolf is an acronym for winter operational light fighting vehicle. However, there is a sticker on the vehicle that says the acronym is for winter operations land fighter. The color is not quite white. It's a very light gray. This was Cobra's first dedicated snow vehicle. Cobra had earlier vehicles that were white or off-white and would have worked fine in a snowy environment. Some examples being the snake armor, the claw-powered glider, and the trouble bubble. These weren't snow vehicles, though. They were just vehicles in a light color. Before 1987, Cobra didn't have a vehicle that was dedicated for winter operations. Before 1987, GI Joe had two snow vehicles, the polar babble bear from 1983 and the snow cat from 1985. The snow cat most closely matches the wolf in size and features. The wolf is Cobra's answer to the snow cat. Even in the names, it's wolf versus cat. The two vehicles match up well. Both have four missiles, both have two ski pedos, but the wolf has something the snow cat doesn't have. With the mounted machine gun, the wolf outguns the snow cat. Let's look at the parts and the features on the wolf, starting up here in front. It has two skis. These skis flip up and down, but they do not turn for steering. That's a little surprising. The skis on the polar battle bear did turn. That's a bit of a downgrade, in my opinion. The wolf has an angled body and an asymmetrical design. The driver and gunner are on one side and most of the weapons are on the other side. It has a pop-up missile rack. Just press on the back to pop the missiles up. You have four red missiles and a deep cavity under the missiles, but there is some technical detail in there. These missiles are identical and they're pretty small. The blueprints call these WAM-4 or winter-oriented heavy ordinance surface-to-air missiles. These missiles are WAM. You connect the missiles to the missile rack by sliding one of these top fins into a slot. They are smaller than the yellow missiles on the snow cat. I'm surprised they are listed as surface-to-air missiles. I would expect them to be anti-arrow missiles, but they are mounted at an upward angle, so they could be intended to shoot down aircraft. On the port side, we have two cockpits in a row, one behind the other. The front one is the driver's position. They both have blue canopies that are hinged at the back so they pop up. The front canopy has a sticker for a heads-up display, and we can pop that open to get a look at the cockpit. The cockpit has a well-sculpted seat, a minimal control panel, and two control sticks. These are pretty small, so you may be able to get the figures' hands on them. Let's place the figure in the cockpit so you can see what that looks like. Looks like there's plenty of head clearance, that's good, and you can kind of get the figures' hands on the control sticks. However, it is narrow. There isn't a lot of elbow room. Let's move the main gun aside so we can look at the gunner's position. The blue canopy has a sticker crosshair on it. We can pop that canopy open to look at the gunner's seat. Here we have a control panel in the center and a single joystick and a seat that looks very much like the one in front. Let's put a figure in the second seat. I have a spare ice viper that I like to put in the gunner position. You can slide him in, and his hand can also somewhat fit on the joystick. There's a lot more room in the back seat than there is in the front seat. Oddly enough, the box art for the Cobra Wolf shows Crockmaster in the gunner's seat. Crockmaster has no business being on a cold weather mission. On the starboard side, we have vents, and we have the ski pedos. The blueprints call these snarl, or snow environment advanced attack range laser ski torpedoes. They connect to the body of the vehicle in slots. This vertical piece here just slots in. To launch the ski pedos, close the missile rack. It looks like they are intended to slide down the angled body of the vehicle. The snow cat also had ski torpedoes. I addressed these ski pedos when I reviewed the snow cat, and I still feel the same about them. I have to admit though, they can be a fun play feature. You could get these skidding across the snow pretty well. Okay, let's demonstrate these ski pedos by seeing how well they will ski across the snow. Now, we haven't had snow here since 2015. Next we have the machine gun. The blueprints call it Ripper, pivoting 20mm repeating cannons. Named after the Dreadnock Ripper? That's a surprising choice. The gun can pivot all the way around 360 degrees and it can elevate. The gun is mounted on an angled post and that can be a weak point and a common point of breakage. So do be careful with that. There are kill marks on the body of the vehicle and these markings are the logo for the snow cat. So this cobra wolf has apparently killed four snow cats. The wolf has its own logo, a nice wolf's head logo here. On either side of the vehicle we have intake vents, toward the back we have three foot pegs on each side. They're pretty close together, you may not be able to use all three at the same time. You can use these foot pegs to carry snow serpents, cobras, polar assault trooper. The colors on the wolf match up very nicely with the snow serpents so that looks great. On each side we have removable skis and those skis each have two foot pegs. You can use the ski as a snowboard for a figure but the platform with the foot pegs is raised so it's kind of like skiing on stilts. I guess you could put both on the same figure and use them as skis. It works. The wolf has a pair of fake treads, one on each side. It actually rolls on wheels but the connector point for those wheels is extremely weak and breaks frequently. I did a fix it job on one of the treads to keep the wheel attached. It's easier to fix these things than to find an unbroken one. With the side skis attached it has another feature. The treads fold up. This is so it can slide on the skis only. This would be for a silent downhill attack. Unfortunately only one of my treads folds up. The other one is way too tight and I don't want to force it because I'm worried about breaking it. There is a little bit of molded detail on the underside but I'm not sure why they bother. Most of it is hollow. The back of the vehicle has a lot of technical detail and looks great but it doesn't have any other features back here. I think it could use an engine cover in the back. I think that would really put it over the top. I thought this piece was an engine cover but it's not. It's just an extra piece. The more I look at this thing in the back the more I think it looks like a Star Wars Empire Strikes Back snow speeder. If you break it down the wolf is a beefed up ski mobile. It has treads in the back, skis in the front. It is only suited for the snow. The vehicle is low and wide which reduces its target profile. It is aerodynamic. The canopies probably make the least sense. The occupants have no protection. Other than that it is an intriguing vehicle. We expect Cobra vehicles to be a little strange looking compared with Joe vehicles. I would send this up against the snow cat. I think it's worthy. Now let's look at the ice viper. There weren't many Cobra snow troopers released by 1987. Before the ice viper you only had the snow serpent. The snow serpent was a fantastic figure from 1985. According to the file card ice viper are snow serpents but more specialized. Unless I'm mistaken Cobra didn't have another dedicated winter environment trooper until 1991 with snow serpent version 2. In the meantime GI Joe had several cold weather specialists by 1987. They had snow job in 1983, frostbite in 1985, iceberg in 1986 and avalanche from battle force 2000 in 1987. Let's look at ice viper's accessories. He had a helmet, a grey helmet with goggles sculpted on and a band that goes around. This helmet looks almost identical to the sculpted on helmet from the Kenner Star Wars AT-AT commander. It's the same color, the same basic shape, even some of the details are the same. It's too similar to be a coincidence. He also came with two Psy spelled in English S-A-I. These are martial arts weapons. Why would the ice viper come with martial arts weapons? I guess you could use these as ice picks. They are made out of a soft flexible plastic. These are not likely to break. These Psy have a bonus feature. They peg into slots on the thighs of the figure. So they actually holster on the figure. That is a rare feature on a vintage GI Joe action figure indeed. And it's nice to have. Let's take a look at the articulation on the ice viper. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1987, meaning he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow so he could bend at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside so he could move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of ice viper, starting with his head. And on his head he has a red balaclava mask. The red is a bold shock of color and it looks excellent. He can get away with these bold colors on cobra figures when they wouldn't quite work on a GI Joe figure. On his chest he has a white winter coat with a red cobra symbol. He has a gray fur collar. He has a brown bandolier that goes all the way around front and back. This bandolier has segments and these segments could be pockets but there's no indication that they are. There's an elastic band around the bottom of his coat. On his arms he has white sleeves. He has brown diamond shaped patches on his upper arms that match the color and the aesthetic of the bandolier. He has black gloves, looks like fur lined gloves.  In the front he has a silver belt buckle with a star. On his legs we see white trousers. There's lots of sculpted folds in the cloth. It's meant to make the cloth look thick and insulating. There are brown diamond shaped holsters for the size, one on each thigh. They match the shape of the patches on the upper arms. He has tall black and gray fur lined boots. If you didn't know the Ice Viper was a snow vehicle driver, what would you think he was? There are some details that indicate he should operate in a cold environment. But doesn't he look kind of like a ninja? If the Ice Viper were a ninja the Psy would make sense. I can imagine a lot of kids using the Ice Viper as a ninja or as an updated version of Storm Shadow. There are a lot of different colors on this figure and they are used well. The base white color isn't overpowered by the paint. The color is used sparingly to pick out the details and add interest to the figure. The best part, there are no unpainted details. Every detail that seems like it should be painted is painted. Let's take a look at the Ice Viper's file card. It has his faction as Cobra. It has a portrait of the Ice Viper here. It has his codame as Ice Viper and he is the Cobra Wolf Driver. Here it says, Ice Viper's are the mechanized branch of the snow serpents, both of which must first qualify as Cobra Eels in parentheses Cobra Frogman. They must take the additional training of Techno Viper's and be prepared to service and repair their own vehicles in hostile arctic environments. This file card describes the career path of the Ice Viper. He starts out as a Cobra Eel and becomes a snow serpent. Add a Techno Viper training and you have an Ice Viper. A Nice Viper? How nice!  Here is our vocabulary word for the day. Heat means to remove the hair from, so they have to be clean shaven, that's all that means. This bottom paragraph sounds best when read like a Ford Truck commercial. When it's 40 degrees below zero on the tundra and everybody's buttoning up tight in their shelter because the ice storm is blowing from the north, that's when you have to worry about the Ice Viper sneaking up on you. Out there in the big whiteness there isn't any place to hide. Whoever bundles up first because he figures it's too cold to fight, loses. Looking at how the wolf and the Ice Viper were used in G.I. Joe Media, they didn't make it into the animated series, they were only animated for commercials. The Sunbow series was discontinued after the 1987 animated movie, so they didn't have an opportunity to get into the cartoon. Looking at the comic book series published by Marvel Comics, I am reasonably certain the wolf and the Ice Viper first appeared in issue number 68. That was the same issue that introduced Battleforce 2000 and some other new vehicles. In that issue, Cobra tried to use paranoia inducing radio waves in the fictional country of Frusenland. There was a spectacular snow battle with a lot of vehicles involved. They were also in special missions number 20, they even appeared on the cover. In that issue, the Joes in the snowcat intervene when the Russian October Guard are attacked by Cobra Wolves. That issue has all-out arctic action. It says so on the cover. Looking at the wolf and the Ice Viper overall, the wolf is a middle-tier vehicle. Although it has some good points, it also has some flaws. I like the asymmetrical design. That may be off-putting for some people, but it works for me. The front skis should turn. The wheels and treads are too delicate. The fact that the wolf has skis means it only operates in the snow. It is less versatile than the snowcat, which was a half-track with wheels. Despite the drawbacks, it is a fun vehicle with lots of features. The colors match up well with the snow serpents, and it has plenty of firepower to take out any snow vehicle the Joes throw at it. The Ice Viper for me is a top-tier figure. I didn't expect to say that about the Ice Viper, it's just a vehicle driver and not one I played with very much. And the accessories are peculiar. But the Ice Viper does a lot right. The colors are perfect. It has just enough color to add some pizzazz, but he's still dressed for the snow. No detail is left unpainted. He even has holsters for the accessories. This figure does everything I want a figure to do. It has earned its place in the top-tier. Hey, I'm just as surprised as anyone. Not all top-tier figures are created equal. The snow serpent is still better, but I'm happy to have the Ice Viper fighting alongside the snow serpent. That was my review of the Cobra Wolf and the Ice Viper, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel and share this video. Thank you again, Flannel Viper, I appreciate your support. I have a website, hcc788.com, lots of stuff there, go check it out. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Patreon, your support helps keep this show going. So what are we going to do next week? I think I'll let the patrons decide. That's all for now. I will be back next week with another vintage GI Joe tour review. I hope to see you then. And until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. But now, Cobra's got the C-Ray. Incredible C-Ray splits to become a mini-sub and an armored glider. Cobra! And for attacking on snow and ice, there's the Cobra Wolf. It's the Techno Viper. Cobra C-Ray and Cobra Wolf, each sold separately. Yeah. Before you go, go, don't leave me hanging on like a...


The Rich for Wellness Centre has been closed for retrofitting works from June 12, 2020 under the Smart Health Facilities Project towards safer, greener and more sustainable facilities. Retrofitting works are complete and services will commence on Monday, February 1, 2021. In light of this, services at the temporary location in the building at the Larisius Junction will be suspended for one week from Monday, January 25, 2021 to Friday, January 29, 2021 to facilitate the move back to the original site. During this time, clients can access healthcare services at the Denver Hospital. The Department of Health and Wellness funds the general public, especially for those from the affected areas, for their continued cooperation and apologizes for any inconveniences caused.


And we're back with the second leg. Monday Thomas joins us this morning as we talk sports. Monday Thomas, how are you today and thank you for joining us? I'm feeling great. I'm great this morning. I mean, election Steve, I'm excited for it, but I'm also very excited about what is happening in Africa as far as the Honour 20 is concerned. Great, great, great to be here. Well, quickly let's get straight to the crocs then. 11 home base players will make the Tigers squad for the World Cup qualifiers. How does this make you feel? I mean, it's a mixed feeling for me. You know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with we're going for home base players, but there is certainly something wrong when we don't have the structure or when we don't have the machinery to ensure that this find talent. Without a doubt, that jury is a country full with a feel with talent. Left-right center, is it football or basketball? We've got talent, but we don't have the right structure, especially in basketball. We don't have a working league. We don't have a league that is as close to let's say the world standard. I mean, if you go back in time, you wouldn't see an idea of featuring in the current basketball league. There is a particular basketball league that happens in Africa, and we only saw reverse hoopers in the first edition, of course, and they made a mess of them themselves. All I'm saying is that there is no structure in the league in the country. And how good are these home base players? Mercy, we're talking about the World Cup, and we're talking about the final qualification series that will be starting today by 2 p.m. for the D Tigers. And now you're talking about 11 home base players and one free agent that plays in the United States of America. It's not good enough for me. Now, I'm going to repeat that I'm not absolutely, I'm not totally against going for home base players, but home base players that don't have a great platform in the country, what are we going to expect from them in Angola later on this afternoon? It's interesting to hear a sports analyst express lack of confidence in the national team that is made up of 11 home base players and just one free agent. But you guys are the ones who were hammering out raw for not taking a lot of our local league players into consideration. Because you guys hounded him out of a job. Yes, you guys hounded him out of a job. Coffee, basketball is different. I mean, in Nigeria we have walking leagues. I mean, we have the tough line leagues. We see football every season. Our local league, the MPFL, really? Yes. And for this season, unless we see football every season, we see basketball football every season in Nigeria. But in basketball, you will not hear of a good league. You will not hear of a league season every year. You will not hear of it. So I'm just saying that what happens when these players are not having the right platform here? I mean, reverse hoopers, they're doing well. The likes of Goomba Bulls, the likes of the lawyer with Quarra Falcons, I mean, these are working basketball clubs in Nigeria. But we don't have the competitiveness where these basketball teams in Nigeria come to compete so that we can have at least a good basketball, good basketball because you have to go in there and compete. No matter how good you are, let's see how good you are, compete with all our teams, and we don't see that level of competitiveness here in the country. So that's what I'm really worried about. There's nothing wrong once again. I'm going to say it. I mean, I like the fact that these players are going to have exposure, but this is the world of quantifiers. We have Nigerian players who are doing well in the NBA, the likes of Goomba. So what is the problem? Because in recent times, in previous years, you see a lot of these guys come back home and play for the national team. So what happened? I mean, Udoka has played, Hakim the Dream of Lajian, we're even going way back. In recent years, you've seen that the Americans have been brought in. So what's the problem this time? I think the problem is the administration. They've not really shown us how important playing for Nigeria is, especially for basketball. And now when you play in the NBA, now in the NBA, it is considered as the best league in the world. So people will not even want to play for their country. In football, it's different. Playing for your country helps your CV, but in the NBA, playing for NBA, it's all you need for your CV. So these players, if you need a little bit of pride, these players will need a little bit of encouragement. These players will need a little bit of telling them how important playing for your country is. And the administration is not doing that. The administration is not following talent in the United States. I mean, when we now get a certain Get Vincent, who is playing for the Miami Heights, we try to convince them to come play for the Super Bowl D Tigers. They won't want to come because they didn't make their name. You were not there in their story. So how come you just want to come get the glory of where they already made basketball? So it's going to take a little bit of seriousness, and we're going to start playing these young players in the United States now that it's very early, because where have you made players already? You can't tell them anything anymore. Well, let's move away from the Tigers now and look at the Afghan at it. And then you have the young Ferros of Egypt who have lost or suffer the 1-0 to loss to the flying Eagles of Nigeria in their group A stage and or encounter. Now, what exactly are your thoughts? We had anticipated that. I mean, we know that Egypt's national is not a weak team that you walk past. But as much as a lot of persons were not very optimistic about this one, you know, it feels like a plus for us. What are your thoughts? Do you think that we can progress from this? You know, for a state to another team is a good team now. The Egyptian team is not that good. I mean, even the senior boys, you only get to hear of Guamert, Salah, Eleni and the rest. But when we talk of how great Egyptian football was, let's say about 10 years ago, then you can talk about how good they were. But now I don't think they're a really good side. I watched that game, all created to Latin Bozo, and all created to Solomon Abomalaka, who has been, I mean, trolled on the internet for not being a 20-year-old. That's not my business. But my business is that he did great on the pitch of play, given Nigeria, that won't go win against Egypt. But I think the game that I really saw the weakness of from the flying Eagles was a game against the Senegalese side. And we also needed to learn something from me. The Senegalese side were better than us. They were more composed in the midfield. They were more calculated. But the flying Eagles were not. They were a little bit calculated against the Egyptians. Although the Egyptians had more chances than they did, they were just very clinical. So going forward, we are playing against Mozambique tomorrow. And I'm seeing Nigeria progressing past our beating Mozambique to progress to the knockout stage. But what happens in the knockout stage when you get to meet other big countries from other groups? So it's going to be a little bit difficult if we don't get to correct our mistakes, if we don't get to be a little bit more serious, a little bit clinical, and a little bit more urgent in our play. We are not decisive. The kind of football we have played, we play football as if we don't want to score. And then when we get a chance, a lucky chance, like Salam Mbalaka did, that crossed with so many attempts at Nigeria had corners and they couldn't convert it. So I felt it was a lucky one for me for that corner to come out and for Salam to, of course, get that goal. But since he had created a lot of Mbalaka, so he has been able to come back from a defeat against Senegal to beat the host nation, Egypt. So let's just see tomorrow what happens. Nigeria play against Mozambique. Mozambique, not really a good side in the competition so far. Losing by three goals against Senegal. And playing an illegal draw against the host nation, Egypt. So there might not be a minor, but I'm seeing Nigeria, we take them to progress to the knock off stage. All right, this seems to be, last week we were here talking about how it was going to be difficult for a tough test for the under 20 and the flying eagles, you know, because of the fact they're playing against the Egyptians at home at the Cairo International Stadium. And they've gone ahead to defeat the Egyptians in their backyard. And what do you think this says about the character of this team and their prospects for qualifying for the World Cup and also winning the title? For the World Cup, it's very important. And the prospect of this team, I've got to stop by saying that the leader of the team is an experienced woman, a lot of both.  He knows how to win. And when we talk about qualifying, we need to finish as top four teams. So that is qualifying to the semifinals. We're already halfway through. All we need to do is get past Mozambique and get past our next opening to the quarterfinals. So just two games away. And I'm pretty sure the boys understand that it's not very far away. The World Cup later on this year in Peru, it is very important for Nigeria and the people of Nigeria and as well as people playing the tournament so far, it's a win-win situation. They make the country proud. They make themselves proud. And then there are potential properties in the transfer market. So the head coach, a lot of them also understand how important this is to Nigeria and to display us. So I'm pretty sure it's going to be able to conceal some level of motivations, letting them know, hey, you've got to do well if you want to go further. And that's the prospect I'm looking at. That's the aspect I'm looking at. Ensure that these players know what it means to play for the country and know what it means to play as they are developing their own career. All right. But it's still a bit too close to call because I mean, it's the group stages. Tournament football is quite, quite difficult. The Singaporeans have qualified. They've wrapped it up. Two wins from two matches, defeating Nigeria, albeit against 10 men, and of course, defeating Mozambique. Should we be really cautious in our optimism for the flying eagles? Looking at the fact that they have one game to go against Mozambique, you seem to have given them the three points already. But if Senegal fail to defeat Egypt and lose, Egypt will have four points. And if Nigeria lose to Mozambique, Nigeria will have three points. Mozambique, four points. Should we be as optimistic as you're making it sound? I mean, I told you that Mozambique not really had a good tournament, but it doesn't mean we should completely underrate them. I also told you that if Adam Boso can get the voice to be a little bit more calculating, a little bit more clinical, they can get the win against Mozambique. I mean, it's possible that we can get the win against Mozambique. I'm not completely giving it to them, but I'm at least 85% sure that Nigeria can beat Mozambique.  I mean, when you play against Mozambique and you know that you need a win because we know that Nigerians were very used to getting calculators at the end or at the dining embers of a particular tournament. So in order for us to avoid the calculations, we should go in from the first blast of the whistle and look for an outright win. A drug can also see Nigeria progress, but that is depending on the Senegal and the Senegal and Egypt results, but we should go for an outright win. All right. We have to go now. Mandi, Thomas, thank you so much for being part of the show. It's always a delight to speak with you every Friday. All right. Merci and Kofi. Thank you so much for having me on the platform again. You had yourself a great Friday. All right then. That's the size of it on the breakfast this morning. And of course, we thank you so much for being with us this morning or for being with us all through the week, Monday to Friday. And of course, we'll see tomorrow in a different dimension where we would be. You sound like you're going to go enough for the weekend. You're coming to work tomorrow, Merci. Yes, I'm coming tomorrow. I'm sure every Sunday you need to be here as well, until the results are announced. Yeah. So we'll be back tomorrow. Why is every Sunday we're improving? I'm not sure that we're going to be doing. Did you say every Sunday? We have election coverage tomorrow right here in plus, in Africa. No, that's very true. It's going to be very interesting. So you make sure you join Merci and the rest of the team right here tomorrow morning. Yes, please. And the election studio would open up this evening and will start off from seven o'clock in the morning up until, you know, Sunday. Just be sure to stay glued to this station right here. Number again is 408 on DSTV and 308 on Star Times. My name is Messy Ibukwo. You can follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel at Plus TV Africa, Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. We'll join the newsroom at nine o'clock for the news brief. Have a good morning. And my name is Kofi Bartels. Have a very free and valent free election tomorrow. Good morning.


My name is Chris Anderson. Anderson Farms in Weathersfield, Connecticut. We raise approximately 100 acres of sweet corn. We have a total of 150 acres. We sell 20% of that on our own retail stand. And the other 80% is custom grown for other roadside stands and orchards throughout the state. In the last 10 years here at Anderson Farms, we've tried to improve our procedures and our growing efficiency. We follow the June nitrate testing to both save the environment and to defray some of the costs of fertilizer. And we also use a heat monitor to measure heat degree days for when to plant corn. What we've purchased is a ground temperature heat monitor. At the end of this wire there's a probe that actually sends the temperature up to the monitor. What that allows us to do is keeps track of the soil temperature high and low on a daily basis. So we can find out that the high soil temperature today was 77.7 and the low temperature this morning was 52.4. Push the reset button and come back tomorrow. What this enables us to do is we could determine the number of heat units that it takes for a piece of corn to break ground. And in order that we have a continuous volume of corn to sell, we try to plant enough so that we can pick an acre of corn a day in the summer. With the use of the temperature monitor, we're able to calculate how many heat units before we plant the next piece. And at this time we use between 50 and 60 heat units before we plant our next field, our next piece of corn. When the weather is warm like it is today, we generated, I'll figure it out real quick, you take the high temperature ground temperature that is and the low temperature and you add it up 130.1. Subtract 100 and you have 30 and divide that by two. So we had 15 heat units today. We've had a total of 53 heat units since the last time that we planted. So tomorrow we'll plant our next piece of corn. When the temperature is extremely warm, we might plant every three or four days. When it's really cold early in the season, we might plant every 10 or 12 days. We've developed a program so we can plant what we need to plant, we pick what we need to pick, and very rarely do we have a lot of extra corn left over that we have to harrow up. The cost of the monitor is about $700, but it doesn't take too many acres of corn harrowed up to pay for the monitor. It saved us a lot. The June nitrate test is a test that measures how much nitrogen is left in the soil and how much nitrogen is needed to be side-dressed so the plant can grow completely to when it's harvested. By using this nitrate test, we can actually pretty much pinpoint exactly how much more nitrogen, if any, is needed in the soil and we can side-dress accordingly. We come in when the corn is about 12 inches high or so and take a soil sample 12 inches deep, probably six or seven actual samples per acre. The university provides us with cloth bags and it makes the sample gathering very easy. We send the samples to the University of Connecticut and get the results back within 24 to 48 hours by fax. It's important that we get the test back so quickly because if there's a nitrogen deficiency, we can go in and put the side-dresser immediately. We try to keep very thorough records so that we can keep a real good track of what's actually happening on each of the fields, each of the plantings. We've probably cut our cost, fertilizer cost in half, I would say, since we've started the June nitrate testing.


keeping a keen eye here on consumer discretionary stocks, joining us to share some opportunities that she's seeing is Melissa Armo, founder, owner of the Stock Swoosh. Melissa, glad to have you on the show. How come you're picking this group? I mean, it lost a little steam today, but what's the long-term outlook for the sector? Why is this something that you're watching as a potential opportunity? Well, I'm looking at the same things as we discussed the last time, Nicole, the possibility of another shutdown. So again, I'm looking at the stock specifically that would benefit from another COVID shutdown. Before I said 50, 50%, I'm going to stick to that, that it's still 50, 50 with a shutdown in the last week and a half. Other presidents talked about the possibility of more mandates. People are wearing masks. There's more mandates in New York City. You saw Zoom today rally over $25, a huge massive rally in that stock today. So I think there are going to be stocks that fall, again, that are hurt by COVID if we have another lockdown and some of these mandates and you're going to have stocks that rally. The airlines, they came out today. The White House came out today that they may be talking about having people that come abroad require vaccination. That's going to hurt. Airlines, they're down tonight slightly and so is the market down a little bit tonight. And you have something right now going on in New York City which is very interesting because we're really, the epicenter of this whole thing, the cases are up here but the deaths are not up. But unfortunately, they've made a mandate now that you have to be vaccinated to go to restaurants, theater and gyms. Guess what? If you work for these companies too, you have to have the vaccines. More people are going to be unemployment. In the next 30 to 60 days, I predict the unemployment numbers to go up. People are not going to get vaccinated if they don't want to get vaccinated. They're going to get fired from their jobs and then they're going to get unemployment and just when we thought we were out of this then it happens again and the numbers are going to go up and that's not where the market is going into the fall. So they can use that as the crutch to get more unemployment. That's a very interesting thought. Tell me about some of the names that you are bullish on such as Peloton and Zoom. You talked about some of the names that have done well while we stay at home and those fall in there, right? Well, Zoom had the breakout today but even if you didn't get Zoom today, I like that for a nice maybe swing train possibly up to 500. It's still got a long ride up to go. So just because you didn't get it today don't think that you missed the Zoom. Peloton has not broken out yet. I'm watching that, watching that. That is due for breakout too, similar to the Zoom. And then I also like some of the names like Home Depot. They've benefited tremendously. People are improving their homes. It's very difficult to get anyone to do work on your home. So guess what? People are buying things and they're improving their homes themselves and doing their own work because they can't get people to do the work for them. Yeah, it makes sense. I know you also, when you talk about Home Depot, right? That certainly has been a great one. Fantastic. Again, another stock that's been bullish, another stock that's run up, another stock that's close to the highs are almost making new highs again. The market is strong. I'm not saying the market is gonna crash. I'm saying that if we have another lockdown you will see a big sell-off in the market and no one can anticipate when that's going to be. So you have to stay in things that are strong, that are gonna benefit from COVID. And if you want some shorts, I listed a couple shorts too. Before we talked about the cruise lines I thought they were gonna recover. Now it seems like cruise lines, air lines, they're having problem getting filled for the airlines, they're having problem getting worse for the airlines. There was another incident recently, I think it was just the last two days on a flight. We're getting to the point where people were just starting to go out and travel for the summer and now the possibility of more cases going up and not only about the mask mandates, people really don't want to wear the mask. So look for shorts in air lines. In the cruises. Yeah, well that's what I'm saying. That's why you're bearish on some of these companies, Carnival Coos, Royal Caribbean, American, Delta. Is it the whole travel industry that you're having, you know, seeing pressure? Possible? I'm saying the whole travel industry and your previous guest was talking about the casinos. They have had some big sell-offs. They've tanked. I mean, if you got those shorts in LDS and you got the short and winter ready I would let it push back a little bit and see where it goes. When was that tonight? It's barely moving up.  It could even drop tomorrow. And we have some big numbers for the market Thursday and Friday. I think the most important thing for traders to understand right now, all of your people at Ameritrade is that if you are up in positions, please take profits. This market is volatile. We can't keep going up forever. And with all the looming economic data and the backdrop of what I'm talking about in reference to the possibility of more unemployment claims coming out, the market could finally have the reaction that some people were expecting earlier in the year. Because remember, we had some bad numbers and then the market would rally. We've continued to make new highs. We're continuing to pass legislation like this, the stimulus where we're spending all this money. We're in a period of inflation. It's not going to just be of everything's fine forever. I don't think the inflation is temporary. I think it is going to continue into 2022 and eventually it's going to hit the market.  The market's been rallying and they're going to take profits. And when people take profits and you have selling, then the market drops. Well, it all makes sense. It does. And obviously we expect some volatility along with it, Melissa Armo, thank you. Founder, owner, the stocks, woosh. Thank you, Melissa. Thanks for having me.


The review investigates the effects of e-health interventions on medication adherence in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, or asthma, finding mixed results that may be related to the type, context, intensity, and measurement of adherence outcomes. This article was authored by Mika H.J. Schult, Jiska J. Ardum, Lisa Loheid-Neisman, and others.