Hi, would you like to introduce yourself for us? Yeah, I'm Jay Chatterjee Dean of College of Design Architecture Art and Planning I was Dean here since from 1981 to 2001 Nice, so what are you passionate about architecture? Yep So do you know why you wanted to teach or serve at the University? It was really much more of a coincidence. I had graduated from Harvard and One of my classmates were here They wanted to hire me and this was 1967 So Thought I'll join University of Cincinnati Okay, nice So What did you what did you hope that like students took away from your classes? most importantly Take over the same type of passion about architecture that I felt all my life Okay You said you were You said you were Dean right? First join the assistant professor in 1967. Okay. I was appointed Dean in 1981 Okay, and then I design I still taught in 2010 When I retire So you said you came here as an assistant professor in 1967 67, okay, so what was like the hiring process when you came here? It was Pretty unusually simple compared to now. It's very complex down here to follow all kinds of rules, which is good but at that time it was almost as some simple as I told you my colleague from Harvard knew me and Then what they were looking for and I seem to fit the bill Basically, they brought me here and spend some time with my would be colleagues, etc. then went back to Boston and Decided I'll come here Okay, so now of course you see having been in for 20 years. I know now it's a way more complicated Yeah, can't just do that Yes, they have like a perspective like both sides Like back then that like now, okay So What were your relationship like among your colleagues? Very different from what it is now. There were a lot more Cummings and goings in each family homes or getting together off time from classes, etc Usually there would be some gathering at one of my colleagues place, etc That's not quite so now as well as I can gather Okay, so Next question is since you said you were your dean and you were like in a position of like authority How did you feel about like an? Interact with like the administration Like before when you were just like an assistant professor and then after when you were like Oh my goodness, that's a very very Different with different presidents When I was either assistant professor or associate professor this was the second person Who was president appointed? Warren Benes and I still was a fairly junior faculty member, but somehow He saw something in me and he always had a inner circle and I was very fortunate to be able to join that so All my life almost he served as a mentor. So it was very different So was the next president Henry Winkler. The third president was Joe Stegger Who I not third that's the fourth president and With whom I work as a dean for 20 years Bringing major architects to UC campus, which was I feel one of my major accomplishments here to change the campus completely design of the campus and buildings Yeah, definitely So, um, I know that you previously said that the you brought like you were very influential into the change of campus and Could you like talk about like the process of that and like what you had like in mind like kind of your vision for it Sure, what typically would happen in those days deans are a lot of Power to make the decision. I approach the deans with presidents Permission and suggestions and then I would Usually there would be a search committee I chaired most of the search committees and They will Well, I would make a presentation to the committee about let's say 30 or so architects work Then we'll boil it down to three or four or five and then I'll try to get the major decision-makers to go with me Do their work sites? To see their work in their office and Come back then Maybe even narrow it down to three or so and bring them to the campus they will give a lecture also during that time and From that we would make a selection Usually I also worked out with the state Because at that time the state did not allow outside architects to work. I Wanted to bring major thinkers of architecture to here So I was able to work out a system in which Local architects and national architects will Cooperate as a group as a partners Local architect would be architect of record in architecture. They're like three stages One is called preliminary design Now it's called design development and another school construction drawings construction drawing is Almost sixty sixty five percent of the work the way we had set up the national architect would be responsible for Preliminary design and design development and local architect would be responsible for construction drawings This is separate from anything. I had to accomplish that before This whole process would get started including this was the first building Eisenman's building in death first one and Basically that that was the process the state architect will give Half a dozen name I Will provide another half a dozen name and then we'll make up a group from that Okay. All right, so Yeah, I want to like delve deeper into like the whole process of like the transformation of campus because I find that like really fascinating Could you like maybe talk about like Like each of the different like buildings and designs and stuff that you you did for a campus when you like transformed it and we're like Well, there's almost a dozen buildings. Yeah Main thing about this building was to provide you know, it's very Long story and it will take much more than an hour. This is looking like almost my life's work So yeah, it will take much more time. But then the main Idea in here was to develop an addition Which it doesn't mimic the whole building because all the construction method and materials, etc. Have changed But yet evokes some memories and the architects makes many moves such as bringing part of the old buildings to the new and new buildings to the old and It's more complex than that But one of the major features of this building how it was accommodated to the old building The next one was Michael Graves building Who was one of our graduate to which is the engineering research Center ERC? engineering college which is Michael was a great architect who Developed a movement. He was part of a movement and certainly was one of the leaders of post-modern movement in architecture so His moves were like bringing classical forms To present context and that's what that building reflects It also sits on the symbolically at the apex point of University Avenue coming down and then change levels because Our campus is very healing. Yeah, and it provided the transition about two levels up from there And I can go on but there's a generally What was thought yeah, that's fascinating and we also simultaneously hired an urban designer landscape architect Who did the plans for the whole University? Okay, so this was going on simultaneously? I also chaired the committee which brought this guy Okay, George hard ribs here So while like you were while they're doing like the buildings and stuff You had someone else at the same time doing like the the design of the campus like itself Overall design of the campus and we were able to then specify What type of building is going where and what we are trying to accomplish with that? Just like taking that as an example Michael Graves building had to Provide the focal point of the University Avenue Yeah, ending there so we had ideas like that which was specified before Jerry speaking we specified the heights. Yeah, and the bulk Without designing it designing fell on the architect. Oh, okay. So you had like a free like Like vision of like yes, okay before and then after that you went in there and like designed That's cool interesting So If anything of this is of interest, I think When I was preparing For the new building as a dean and hiring Peter Eisenman at that time The college also had to reflect just before that. I had completely reorganized the college Into what's known as D.A.A.P. Now. It was not like that We had like 11 and 12 departments. I grouped them around design Architecture art and planning and in planning there were two or three other departments outside They were transferred to D.A.A.P Even the letter P was added So it needed a whole reorganization of the college To move better able to respond to the next century And another very interesting work I did Those two certainly very important work in my life. Yeah, and the other one when I first arrived in 67 at that time 1966 it was the famous urban riot Cincinnati was deeply affected by it and The community and the city hall did not get along did not talk to each other So at that time West End and Queensgate too was being developed And they came to University to see if University would do the plan and I was asked to join in as a co-director of the project so I worked on the Queensgate to develop and plan That was in 1968 It's just like a year after you came in Wow, so you'd say like your three products achievements would be like the design of the campus the organization of College of the college Reorganization, yeah, and then the Queens Queensgate to development and just in general participation in cities. I was a long-term member Long-time member of what's called urban design review board, which reviewed every building that went into the center city Historic preservation board, so I worked with city for a long time, but that was a very specific project the it was very difficult project because Practically Myself and my colleague is going into meeting with the neighborhood In the churches, etc. Then coming back and meeting with the city planners lots of the city hall city manager and others And trying to bring them together to agree to a plan which eventually we did And it was very volatile. So that was the Most difficult aspects of the work. Yeah, just getting people to just come together and agree Mm-hmm So so you said you were like very involved in the city. Is there a way that you see like How the university has influenced the city of Cincinnati? Yes, I mean I also did very similar approaches to for example downtown. Mm-hmm. I was a ha ha deed I was involved in Bringing Zaha had it to Cincinnati to the Contemporary Arts Center. I But says our telly To do the work in and off-center downtown Many other that's hardly any major buildings over the last 30 years or so Where I didn't have some say or other To the urban design debut board Wow That's really cool Um Yeah, I really like what like I think this is all like really fascinating to me Like I think I've talked to other people's or in other interviews before and then I think I like how like the university now Like you can't there's like no cars that can really drive on it Like before was it like was there roads that you could like drive on and then we had to change that and the redesigned Was one of the plan Streets crisscrossed all over the place and it looked like a You wouldn't believe it. It really looked like a little commuter college really our branch college or something like that where People mainly came by bus Students mm-hmm, and they just left and it was completely empty after six o'clock I was a very different kind of environment we tried to create an environment where students would stay and have food places Entertainment places etc. So that played a big role in the redesign as well as redesign of the Neighborhood in the uptown neighborhood over there so that the food and other things are all developing there Yeah, and as well as the students and developing so we stopped all the highways going through the Campus created garages at the edges and they had to park and then walk walk it It was a very deliberate plan to do that. Wow. Yeah, that is that's crazy now. I think about I can see like they're all shut down Yeah, yeah, that's crazy That's amazing Yeah, like the campus is beautiful like I remember when I first came here. Yeah, I thought to design it is beautiful, but yeah If you're able to see old pictures you see or if you anybody who graduated in 70s or 60s. Yeah, you'll find out Didn't think of it very highly actually they ate again. Really. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's like the opposite Because I've like looked at old pictures and I've tried to see like or everything was like in relation to it is now It's crazy like the amount of change and the transformation that campus has gone through. That's crazy so I Guess the next question would be How since throughout your years Working here at UC. How have you seen like students change? Again, oh this students come by generations. It's very very different in different times 60s and 70s students were very social conscious very dedicated and They all wanted to be involved with planning and development and With the city etc Then I would say These are somewhat over generalizations, but That the only way I can respond to these things 80s were very different 80s were almost like Me generations what can you do for me and it was very centered on making money and Very different approach it is an approach, but it's very different from The 60s and 70s group 90s again The country was very very Steady wealthy More satisfaction came from the Huge urban development was taking place everywhere a lot of suburban development was taking place So they were also quite dedicated in a different way a little difficult for me to talk about after 2010 because I Really did you this summer I did teach a course But then not regularly So I don't have that direct contact so But my answer to your question would be sort of seem like it almost varied by generations So like each generation was different a different I think it is also involved with what's happening with the world what's happening with the Situation if anything today's generation is very conscious about ecology Environmental aspects of the world So I know that in previous interviews I've had I think I interviewed Oscar Fernandez before and He was he was like a more recent Retired or he retired more recently here. He talked about like in Talking about like that diversity of the students They said that it was like very culturally rich and diverse here when he was teaching I was wondering if if it like if the diversity of students have changed throughout like the years and has gotten more like diverse As my goodness is really when I first came Remember when the first woman appeared on architecture class first woman ever No question of even making blacks at that time. Yeah That was a curiosity. I mean the fact used to didn't know quite how to deal with one woman in the class but I I've seen from Basically what it is to be Midwest and solid Some farm families and others but mostly white Americans to not mostly all of them. Yeah, and then there was a Little bit at a time more foreign students were coming in more African Americans coming in more woman Joining I've seen from there to now architecture has more woman Then guys really yeah, at least one year it was a year was okay. Yeah Those those like recently. Yeah, okay. That's interesting So I guess next How is the faculty change like over time throughout the years It changes but it also changes by program different programs different kind of demands Again, it moves seems to be like decades or something once if I could remember there And if they have a tenure, they usually tend to have courier like mine That hasn't changed very much if people come here and then they decide to stay here They usually finish up the career there, which is very rare in today's world Because outside world is constantly moving. I see through my children. It's a They change job at the drop of your hat. Yeah, but this is Academic world is somewhat more stable Sometimes some people criticize too stable In terms of hire So, yeah, it also Changes and Just like the students I talked about. Yeah, the emphasis changes today hardly anyone comes in That are not interested in ecology area Then When I first joined maybe even a bachelor's of architecture was enough to teach No longer you have to have a master's and now you have to have a PhD To teach. Yeah, so that's another level of change that has taken place as we are moving through A lot of changes has taken place during the time. I was here. I bet 50s Backwards well far more stable And there was this image of American society that are depicted in movies movies are very interesting when they depict particular type of Culture in society and life pattern, etc. But 50s up to 50s Well war was very disruptive. Mm-hmm, and then 50 day Americans Seems to me saw desperately quietness stability family, etc. And Then in 60s everything changed Everything changed in 60s with Vietnam war. Mm-hmm. You just changed like Yeah, it just changed like everybody's mindset in the war. Oh Turn one the folk song came into its being People like Joan Baez and others were singing right at Harvard Square at that time as a student. I could go see them in a small little cafes and Bob Dylan was singing and They're having tremendous influence to their music, etc. Mm-hmm. Interesting.  You've seen a lot of changes I think that's like what we're really like looking forward or looking for in this project is to just like get the your guys' perspective on the changes you witness throughout UC's history and trying to just like record that so we have some like Better history of UC. So I think it's what this project is like really amazing changes have taken place in the Last half of last century. Okay. Yeah from 1950 to 2000 incredible changes is taking place Would you like to maybe like say a Little bit of those changes in the time that we have or talk a little bit more about those Sure, but as I said after World War II With the returning veterans etc when it was possible for them to get veterans grants FDR had made getting mortgage federal mortgage association First provided mortgage, which now very common, but it was started at that time so people Started and then Eisenhower era the whole highway system was introduced The automobile industry was in ascendancy Millions of cars started being produced Detroit in those days dominated the society and People started moving outside creating suburbs and living there, etc Then America got involved with Vietnam War, which Absolute characterism impact majority of the youth Absolutely did not like it felt it was not necessary. There's no point Nothing to do with us What's going on there? So why did Nationwide and Whenever army is committed, of course this big jarring take this one side says oh independence liberty and All of those kind of things and others challenge the values, etc. So the value conflict is very high Mm-hmm So that was one great change then of course when Reagan era was ushered in the 80s Individual efforts became very important to people So Certainly Wall Street ruling Again through movies, yeah, it would be Very interesting to see that I mean Greed was good With the value system that was prevailing in Individuals war third and how individual approaches society. It's very important and it's aggregation of this individual Becks the society That train always was very strong in American system And that prevailed Then of course during Early to 2000s the involvement with Iraq in Afghanistan and It's been too much ongoing things and it's been proven very distraught to the society and Probably found the seeds of very highly divisive society, which I've never seen before So I Guess going back to you see How Have you seen UC's priorities shift throughout like the years that you've been here? Oh, yeah Each president and I've worked with almost like 10 or 11 presidents at a different Agenda One Dennis it was Certainly was very visionary man And to him the leadership How you develop leaders for future was the main kind of emphasis and what from that Then two presidents later Joe Steger Certainly his biggest leg legacy was what I want on that is to change the campus because I Remember he had conducted an alumni and students survey and Number one item came up on that survey as students and alumni did not like is the physical structure of the campus So he felt he needed to do that certainly those two decades were very much emphasized the growth and development of the physical structure And then our next president who was a Woman president Certainly a lot more emphasis was given the differences between the employment situation At UC more women were brought in in Leadership capacity etc. So that was another kind of change that's gone through 60s also in Venice's time Also made a large attempt to do And engage African-Americans To colleges which are non-existent now was created by Dennis that one was called University College And one was called College of Community Services. They're all oriented towards that to bring in More of the community-oriented students and structure that they felt UC should reflect what's outside in the community So that was also a big change Those are the main massive Changes that are taking place So You said the the two colleges that warn Venice Created you said they're like not this now Okay, that was like his attempt to like reach out to the community and Or around Cincinnati and like connect you see to the community. It was basically felt afterwards that they have achieved their goals and Not serving anymore purposes of it because University College was felt people Anyway, it didn't gain respect they felt students felt different from the rest of the campus And Gradually realized that's not the way to do it That students would directly come to DAP or usually used to be on those two colleges and you take the transfers from there Anyway, so there are a lot of reasons that presidents and provost of those time felt And same thing about community services So they were abolished in I would say about 80s early 80s late 70s So, um, I know that you you worked on the main campus part and then there's also the med campus did you have like Any did you have like any influence on the matter? Yeah, one of the major building there is Frank Gehry's building of molecular biology building that they Carbillinia building yeah, that's certainly is one of he became words Most of the people we brought in was not that well known and now they're all very very well known worldwide so we We selected very well and Frank He did the Bilbao in Spain and it Huge impact and he is probably arguably the best known architect in the world He got a Pritzker Prize as the Zaha had he just at the CAC got Pritzker Prize Tom Mayn who did the rec center Not Pritzker Prize Pritzker Prize. He's almost like Nobel Prize in architecture. Okay, this is the equivalent like version You like turned what they just said they weren't really very well known before when you selected them And then they became like famous. They were not totally unknown. Okay, but they're not they're not like Right now they're like worldwide Influencing yeah crazy. They've like gone around the world and like you said in Spain. I think was He's been Bilbao Spain. He did a Museum with Guggenheim in Europe and It was Bilbao was like Spain's young stone, you know what I mean It's it's a rush built out. Yeah, and all of a sudden one building made them worldwide famous And really change the culture of that city So architecture can have tremendous influence That's crazy. It can just Just turn something just boom it right Has you feel like that has happened here in Cincinnati What the like just the a Certain piece of architecture has like changed a certain area of Cincinnati and oh, yeah I mean with that and in fact on the University Certainly during my time architecture became at one point number one program over Harvard It has slipped since then but at that time it was Consistently on top 10 and suddenly a one or two years. They became number one and So the demand of students went up the more creative students were trying to come here Just say it's like a architecture museum here live architecture museum so So much to learn right here. So it attracts a lot of very Good students all over the world I didn't know it was like Above Harvard at one point. Yeah. Wow, that's impressive. That was when you were like Dean So I guess next Where do you see you see going in the future? Very good. The new president is giving a lot of Emphasis on innovation. Mm-hmm. They're developing innovation corridor up there and Why it will go is difficult to say at the moment, but they've just got started Certainly it has a lot of possibilities And we just have to see so Trying to think Do you There's a lot of or there's a couple buildings that have been built Since I've been here as a student Were you like involved in those buildings in the I think it's the Marion Spencer Hall and the new Lidner Linder I was very definitely involved where I may not show me a French architect Which is the many in Spencer? Oh, I don't know. It's the I think it's the new one by Morgan and Siodo or Sioda dorms. It's the glass one over there. That's by I think it's Turner circle Mm-hmm. I think it's called Marion Spencer. That was just built recently. I think Built recently. Yeah, like between the time I've been here We're on that side Jefferson side. Yeah, it's by it's by Jefferson by Turner and the two Twin dorms of Morgan and Sioda the Morgan and Sioda is We have our tap side isn't it? It's it's it's the one that's by MLK and Jefferson Ray. Oh, okay. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, the new dorm. Yeah, the new dorm. That's called Spencer. Is it then? Yeah, I think There used to be three of those dorms. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. We took one down. Uh-huh And now that one has been replaced Okay, so was it like they're in the same spot or is it in the same spot same spot? Yeah Do that look alike, right? Uh-huh But they were terrible. So really we had prepared but it was very costly Repair and at one time they were so bad the one was taken down and That has been revealed differently. It's more brownish building. Yeah, I didn't realize it was That's we're saying because many of Spencer was a good friend of mine. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah That's pretty good So, yeah, that was so you're really involved in new Lidner building Lidner building Okay, and then No, there's some I'm like it was like You said that the buildings They're like before with the with the new I think Marion Spencer Hall the one I'm talking about there It was just you guys just torn down. Was it because it was just too hard to like keep up It was yeah, it was terrible shape. I mean, I had a office at one time on a research project in one of them So you know, I think in the middle one. Yeah, and It's terrible. I mean you could the family living next door on the other side you could hear all the conversation and everything when you were working and It's terrible And it deteriorated very fast. It's almost like like really didn't work so First plan was all three to be taken out. Mm-hmm. We had taken one out Then we found a way To renovate one. Mm-hmm. We liked it so much we renovated to But we did not want to Repeat the same one because it was taken down. Yeah, we wanted it to be a different one. Mm-hmm So different architect was selected to do that Spencer okay But they used to be called three sisters. They were just alike. Oh, so they're like really exactly alike the exact design I had no idea that's not like I like learning about like how they're like different buildings throughout the time Yeah, I know there's one big one that I just recently that had no idea. I think it was called sander hall that was uh, I'm That was taken I think that's taken down. Okay. Yeah, it was terrible building is 22 story. I really And We couldn't reuse it for anything it was dawn, but it was Half of it was men's and half of it was woman's and there were a lot of complaints about that It it really was quite a problematic situation It was in code violation and all kinds of things We did all kinds of studies to see whether it could be reused somehow. Yeah, but it just was not possible so it was taken down the whole thing was It was amazing. They have this group who do that and actually I photographed it Gradually came to me. Yeah. Wow.  That's cool Is that like one of the the biggest buildings that you guys tore down at the campus? He that was the tallest one now. We're talking about getting this one done. Oh, the crossley. Yeah, that's crazy So where where was sander located on the campus Um After Marion Spencer's building that you're talking about the University Avenue. Yeah, then there's another new dormitory angular kind of dormitory and after that There's a flat building Eating hall or something like that there or maybe it's African-american study center. Oh right there. Yeah, okay It was the same building That's the lower part of the building and there was a tall structure right there 22 storey side. Oh, so the African-american At least it was there for a while. I don't know whether they're still That's what it's called. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think that is what it's called Okay, but that's where that's where the building was. Yes. Okay, so like the building that building is part Was part of the same building. Oh, it was the lower part of the building and the other was a slab that went up straight Okay, so I thought it was just when it came down it just like obliterated everything, but no they managed to preserve like Amazing scientific way they approach it. They're just very surgical That's really interesting well, um We've talked about we've talked over a lot of the questions here um Maybe maybe like last two questions were there like any incidents or events that happened that kind of disappointed you at UC?


I think social media has a lot of negative impact and negative effects. These are fairly extreme and horrifying and gruesome, says Noah Centineo, the actor. The internet through social media has made the world a global village, and this has accelerated the growth of brands, businesses and even countries. This ability to transcend boundaries and differences to connect different parts of the world has made social media an essential part of life, thanks to the rise of the digital era. However, the use of social media has become a trend, a need, a necessity and sadly, a danger as the rise of cyberbullying and toxic comparisons can make social media outrightly negative. Yes, social media influences businesses, celebrities, brands and individuals. It helps in communication and expands rich, but it can be detrimental and damaging, mainly when used excessively. Despite its many advantages, like unifying and strengthening the human race, social media also comes with some disadvantages. Among the many different disadvantages of social media, below are six adverse effects of social media on your health. 1. Weaker memory The mind is like the muscle which needs to be used for it to get stronger and better. The more you use your mind to store and remember, the better it gets. The advent of social media has made the need for storing and retaining unnecessary so people no longer experience to have memories in their brain. Instead, they take picture of experiences to share on social media. This lack of use of the brain muscle leads to weak memories and weaker relationships as strong relationships build on treasured memories. It also leads to reduced attention span, where a person would have paid attention and observed to remember in the future they would take a picture or make a video and move on to something else. Having weak brains is unhealthy and could affect all areas of life. 2. Sleep deprivation Too much use of social media leads to sleep deprivation because people go through their news feeds and timelines over and again to avoid missing anything. This fear of missing out, FOMO, makes people spend lesser and lesser hours sleeping, which leads to other complications that accompany sleep deprivation. At sleep is when the body rests and if denied the opportunity to get restored, many things could go wrong. Aside from the tendency for grouchiness and restlessness, sleep deprivation can lead to complications like high blood sugar, high blood pressure, stress and even weight gain. Sleep deprivation deprives you of the rest your body needs to revive and stay healthy. Social media tends to reduce the hours available for sleep steadily and this means that there are more and more people walking around sleep deprived because of social media. 3. Anxiety and depression Social media tends to lead to a waste of time and resources. It also seems to cloud the mind in a way which leads to excessive user to lack of productivity and usefulness. This can lead to anxiety and depression as the user watches his life pass by while watching the lives of others on social media. Also, there is news flying around on social media. Though many of them are fake and false, they still influence the way the user feels and views their existence. What this means is that, seeing many others and their filtered lives, many people develop a habit of unhealthy comparison. This comparison keeps them anxious to meet up and be like their peers. Forgetting that they only see the virtual part of their lives, people fall into depression when they feel that they don't meet up. Social media is not a place where everything is believed and it is wise to focus on real life. Depression is one of the leading causes of suicide and anything that could trigger it should be avoided at all costs. This raises a need for temperance when it comes to social media. Anxiety and depression are not the only things unhealthy comparisons do during excessive use of social media. It also decreases self-esteem. 4. Decreased self-esteem When users compare themselves with others and what they post on social media, they tend to see themselves as not enough and this reduces their what in their eyes. Over time, these depreciating views of themselves sink deep and their self-esteem decreases. Decreased self-esteem affects every part of a person's life and could determine their height they attain. Social media having the power to tamper with that shows its detrimental power to human health. When dealing with low self-esteem caused by social media, it helps to remember, as the outlet Veggie van Dijk says, the influence of social media is unbelievable. It's sad to see. It's a fake life that some people live. 5. Internet Addiction Disorder Like all other addictive substances and behaviors, the use of social media to the point of addiction makes it unhealthy. Addiction to the internet through the use of social media also shows withdrawal symptoms when an addicted user attempts to reduce the use of social media. Every type of addiction is hazardous and makes the addict unstable and leads to abuse of other things in life. Addiction leads to extremes which affect not only the addict, but also those close to the addict. The sounds and sights of social media can be addictive and this possibility should be taken into consideration when it is used. 6. Less human connection Humans thrive in positive social visible relationships. The use of social media is attacking the stability and sanity which comes from the good relationships. The need to communicate with fiscal friends and family members gets reduced by the attention the virtual friends on social media demand. This focus on virtual friends leads to a lack of real friends in life and loneliness which is sometimes heeding by posts on social media. Human connections is known to promote good health and total wellbeing. It also fosters empathy and love and care which may be absent when dealing with virtual friends as provided by social media. The reduction in human connection has led to a decrease in genuine care and love for one another and understanding that there is little or no need to be real. This fact shows that despite the unifying power of social media, the ability to promote real human connection might be absent as the people relate via a screen. The barrier screens out authenticity, genuine affection and vulnerability without which the human connection gets lost. Social media might have come to stay as it plays a substantial role in the advancement of globalization. However, there is a need for regulation. The above listed negatives associated with the use of social media are just a part of the full range of damage social media does to the unaware users. What we have are damaged, addicted users who have no idea why their lives are depressing and unproductive. To avoid this adverse effect on our health and minds, we should do like the former First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama. She said, When it comes to social media, there are just times I turn off the world. You know? There are just some times you have to give yourself space to be quiet which means you have to set those phones down.


I'll go back to another one. If you are new to the channel, I am Gold Pony. I do new car truck SUV reviews on YouTube. And today we are in the brand new 2023 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 Coupe, courtesy of Mercedes-Benz of Hagerstown in Hagerstown, Maryland. For more information on their inventory, please feel free to check out the link in the description box below. And so we are in this one today because this is an insanely good looking SUV. Not only that, you do get a four year, 50,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty as well, which, of course, beats the traditional three year, 36,000 mile warranty. So ultimately in this video, we will be testing out and going over everything about this one from acceleration to braking, steering feel, ride quality sounds to some exhaust clip, all that fun stuff. So having said all of that, what do you guys say? Let's just go ahead and jump right into it. And as always, let's start with pricing. And so MSRP for the GLC 300 Coupe, we'll start at $54,700. Powering the beast is a two liter turbo charged inline four cylinder, putting out 255 horsepower at 5,800 RPM, 273 pound feet of torque coming in at 1,800 RPM, power sent to all four wheels. This is a four Matic all wheel drive only, so that's pretty nice. That power sent to the ground through a nine speed automatic with paddle shifters, which you guys know we will be testing out here in a little bit, but zero to 60 time is going to come in at approximately 6.2 seconds, top speed 135 miles per hour with MPG numbers coming in at 21 in the city, 27 on the highway taking premium unleaded fuel. And so before we do any kind of fun acceleration or paddle shifter test here in the GLC 300 Coupe, we'll dimension you guys the drive modes. So there's a little toggle switch labeled dynamic, it stands for dynamic select. When you press that up and down, essentially you got eco comfort, sport, sport plus and individual drive modes, adjusting things like the shift points, the throttle response, the steering sensitivity and the eco start start system then as well. So now I've got all of that out of the way. What do you guys say? Let's go ahead and find a straightaway. Let's put the paddle shifters and acceleration here to the test at the same time. Let's see how quickly the paddle shifters are going to react and let's see how quickly we can get this thing here up to speed. All right, here we go. So we were in sport driving mode in three, two, one, go baby. This is quick dude. All right, paddle shifters are actually okay. Not the quickest I've ever felt, but they're not slow either. So paddle shifters are all right, acceleration was great. I definitely liked that acceleration. Definitely not going to have any issues emerging onto the highway. Zero to 60 in 6.2 seconds you guys. In case you didn't know already, it's pretty quick. So definitely not going to have any issues there. That was fine. But anyways, to go along with that acceleration as always, braking is equally important.  As far as that braking fuel goes, since there's nobody behind us here. I love it. That feels good. Yeah, definitely on the firmer side of things, not a soft braking fuel, which you sometimes do find in SUVs. So I did want to mention that. So braking fuel is perfectly fine for me at least. That touching on suspension and handling up front you're going to get an independent four-link front suspension in the back. Five arm multi-link rear design. But not only that, you also do get an adaptive damping suspension. So that's something that doesn't always come standard. Even on luxury manufacturers, so that adaptive damping suspension is nice. Essentially what that is is it monitors each shock absorber individually. Not only adjusting to the road imperfections, giving you a smoother ride, but it's also going to tighten up that suspension during heavy cornering, really giving you the best of both worlds. So a lot of times that will be optional in other luxury manufacturers, but very rarely will it come standard unless you're paying like $100,000 or something like that. So I like that it's standard here on the GLC 300 Coupe. I'm a big fan of that. So ultimately when it comes to ride quality, I've personally had no issues at my short little test drive here today. So that is 100% on point touching on steering field. Actually, I like it here. It's in sport driving mode still and it's definitely weighted on the heavier side of things. Let me do an experiment here. Put it back in comfort driving mode. It does loosen up, but quite honestly, even in comfort driving mode, the steering feel is still quite brilliant. Still weighted on the heavier side of things, but if you wanted even heavier steering feel, that's what you got the sport driving mode for. So I love this steering feel on the GLC 300 Coupe, touching on cabin noise and going 55 miles per hour right now. So I'll let you guys be the judge of that, but it's been perfectly fine for me. And I do want to mention though, there is a noise insulated front glass kind of option that goes for $150. It's essentially an acoustic front windshield. So that's gonna assist with a little less cabin noise as well, so that is pretty cool. That touching on visibility, I could see, eh, I don't know. I'm just gonna say I don't know because it's not bad. Honestly, you will probably get used to it. It's not gonna be as good as the GLC 300 without the Coupe form because it's just because of its shape, because of its kind of sport back shape and the back, it's not gonna be as good as a traditional SUV's rear visibility would be because you have less of that glass to actually look out of in the back. But like I said, if you ask a Camaro owner, if you ask the 370C owner how the rear visibility is, they're gonna say it's perfectly fine because it's one of those things that you get used to. So for me, I wouldn't have an issue with it because this thing is dang good looking and it's worth the sacrifice of my personal opinion. The touching on full visibility, rain-sensitive windshield wipers actually do come standard on this thing, which I absolutely love. Essentially, what that is, is it's gonna detect any kind of mist or rainfall. It's gonna automatically then turn on this windshield wipers for you. So little convenience feature there. It did want to also mention though, there is a head-up display that is an option that gives an additional $1,100 if you wanted to go that route. But that pretty much rounds out the performance segment of this review, guys. So they'll go ahead and take a look at the exterior of our brand new 2023 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 Coupe. All right, so here she is, you guys, the new 2023 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 Coupe finished in graphite gray metallic. In case you were curious of our exterior color name that we had on this one today. So let's go ahead and start with where this one is made because as you guys know, although this is a German company, that doesn't mean necessarily that it is built in Germany, but in the case of the GLC 300 Coupe, it actually is, starts with the W on the bin there. So this one is built and assembled in Germany. But now let's go ahead and start up front on this one. Diamond block front grill in typical Mercedes-Benz fashion that has always looked good and it still does today. Did want to mention there is an additional option being an illuminated star, which actually we do have. It might be hard to tell here in the daylight, but that goes for $500 if you wanted to go that route. That is pretty cool. I've seen that light up at night and it looks dang good. It definitely stands out. So I like it. Anyways, chrome accents on the lower portion of that front bumper, I guess the front lip you could say. So like that front air curtains to the side, helping direct air around the wheel and tire combination. Of course, to the sides then LED headlights with LED daytime running lights do come standard. You do get the automatic feature with that as well, meaning when it starts to get dark and at night, those headlights will turn on automatically for you there. And automatic high beams, which were newly standard for last year, the 2022 model, of course, are going to come standard again on the 2023. So definitely a very good looking front end. Let's not go ahead and make our way to the side. All right, so I've been out since we are around to the side of this one. The satin chrome windows surrounds do come standard. You do have some chrome accents found on the upper portion of those door handles if you get up a little bit closer as well. Brew privacy glass also going to come standard. And then take a look at the side mirrors. They are body colored power adjustable side mirrors. They will be heated with LED integrated turd signals coming standard as well. But not only that, power folding mirrors also coming standard. So gotta love that. Then take a look down to the wheel configuration. These are some dang good looking wheels on the GLCC. I gotta admit 19 inch five spoke alloys will come standard but there are plenty of 20 inch wheel designs available including the AMG wheel design that we have today. So there are a couple AMG line packages that give you 20 inch wheels specifically for those AMG packages. So they definitely look good. But anyways, pretty much rounds out the side profile. Gotta love that sport back design but now let's go ahead and make our way to the back. And so now since we are around to the back of this one you guys can see all the way to the top there there is a very low profile kind of I guess you can't even call it a shark fin antenna but antenna. So that is pretty cool. I always liked the low profile look. There's kind of an integrated rear spoiler. I'm gonna get up a little bit closer so I can show you this to you guys. But it's not really a rear spoiler but it's kind of integrated. It's got a little lip to it. So I think that looks dang good as well. Got the formatic badging back there indicating that all wheel drive essentially comes standard on this one. LED tail lights do come standard across the board as expected at this price range. Of course, just to the bottom at the very bottom here you will get a rear diffuser. That looks pretty good as well but perhaps my little pet pee for the GLC 300 coupe is going to be the fake exhaust outlets. And so you have these giant kind of chrome outlets. It looks like they're exhaust outlets but they're not because if you actually get up a little bit closer underneath you're gonna see that this thing does have dual exhaust outlets but they're both kind of tucked away towards the ground as opposed to actually pushing them through the exhaust outlets which you would think would be the case. But anyways, that's my little pet pee fight. As always, I do believe you guys know what we have to do next here is that exhaust clip. All right, so but now since we are around to the back of the GLC 300 coupe when it comes to opening that rear tailgate it actually is a hands-free power tailgate coming standard on this thing. So simply just walk up behind it with the key fob in your pocket kick underneath. It's gonna automatically open up for you there. And if you didn't wanna do that there is a button on the key fob to again it's a power tailgate and there is a hidden way if you press in on the upper portion of that Mercedes Benz logo back there as well that is yet another way. Let's go ahead and open up the rear tailgate. But once opened up, cargo capacity comes in at 17.6 cubic feet. But there are some buttons to fold those rear seats down in the cargo area of course. And if you do that that is gonna bump that number up to 49.4 cubic feet then there is some cargo lighting back there. There's grocery bag hooks. There's chrome plated tie-down anchors as well. There's a 12-volt power outlet. There is a side cargo net back there, a cargo cover. And then if you were to lift up underneath of that cargo floor you're going to find a spare tire in there as well. One of the better things about the cargo area is it's all finished in like this nice carpet kind of material as well. So you typically will find that in luxury manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes, so I am a big fan of that. So then making our way up to the rear legroom that is going to come in at 37.2 inches. So for reference, I'm an even six feet tall. This is how much space I have back there. Rear ventilation does come standard. There's dual phone charging ports back there as well. There actually is a 12-volt power outlet. There is a rear center armrest with cup holders and kind of a tablet holder as well which I thought was pretty cool. And heated seats are available for an additional $500. If you wanted to go that route, fun fact on those heated seats last year there were an additional $580, but for 2023 only an additional $500. So anyways, then making our way up to the front seats, power adjustable front seats with four-way power lumbar coming standard. You do get memory settings for up to three different drivers and passengers as well. So you don't always find that even a luxury vehicle. So the passengers, they have three different settings on their side as well. So that's pretty cool. Heated front seats are going to come standard. I'm loving them today since it was 22 degrees when I first started filming this video. Ventilated front seats go for $450. MBtex upholstery is going to come standard. However, full-leather seating gives her $1,620 if you wanted to go that route. And overall seating was plenty comfortable. One of my favorite parts about this seating though is the side bolsters are pretty thick. They definitely come out a good bit. So when I was going around the turns on those back roads back there, I definitely felt like it was holding me in place pretty darn well. So I'm a big fan of that. So if you wanted to have a little more spirited driving on the back roads, you can do that with the GLC 300 coupe because of the side bolsters. So big fan. But anyways, then take a look at the steering wheel, just tilt and telescoping. It is power adjustable like that leather wrapped as well. And if you wanted the heated steering wheel, that adds an additional $250, but that is available for you then. But so then make your way to the startup. All of your buttons are located on one side of the key here. You got lock unlock. And of course, that button to pop the rear tailgate there, but it is all key list entry where they push button start. So all I'm going to do is simply put my front of the brake and press that engine start button, which actually is a pretty cool design to it. Kind of by the driver's right knee there. So I'm also a fan of that. Good attention to detail Mercedes. Then once started up, analog gauges do come standard on this thing, but there's a 12.3 inch digital gauge cluster. That goes for $750 if you wanted to go that route. And that is a completely customizable. And so essentially if you press the home button on the steering wheel itself and you go all the way over to the right, you have the option for designs. When you hit designs, you got sport classic and progressive. So that completely changes the look of the gauges up there. So I did want to mention that cause that is one of the coolest things about digital gauges. It can be completely customized. And of course you have your outside temperature indicator up there. You have how many miles you have left until you hit empty. There's the time of day. List goes on. Pretty much everything you could possibly want on the gauges up front there. They make our way to overall interior quality. There is a power sunroof that does come standard 100% love that. You typically don't find standard sunroofs or moonroofs these days. So I like that. Also there is an overhead sunglass holder up top there as well. Autodiming rear view mirror with garage door openers for up to three different garage doors. And that's going to be a frameless mirror as well. So I like that. Dual zoom climate control does come standard 64 colors of ambient lighting as well. Mercedes-Benz definitely does ambient lighting very well. Wireless phone charger goes for $200. If you wanted to go that route, there's plenty of different wood trims available. So we kind of have this aluminum trim accent and going on in our particular configuration here today. Found on the doors, just behind the infotainment screen as well. But there is a lot of contrast stitching. So I did like that. Just in front of the touchpad controller that is where the wireless phone chargers located. There's also a phone charging port up there. There's a couple cup holders. And then the center armrest, you got a couple more phone charging ports actually and a decent amount of storage in there. And we actually do have the matte wood finishes. And I like how the matte wood finish is kind of texturized as well. It's finished in black here, kind of surrounding everything in the middle. So I do like that. Overall honestly, interior quality is 100% on point. So definitely didn't have any issues there. But now let's go ahead and take a look at the infotainment screen. 10 and a quarter inch color touch screen display is going to come standard. So yes, it is touch screen. There is also that touchpad controller and buttons I just mentioned to you guys behind the cup holders. And there's also the availability for you to say, hey Mercedes, how may I help you? Turn on the radio. And there you go. It literally lists us to everything you say. It will do whatever you ask it to do. I'm just saying. But anyways, Bluetooth and audio streaming, of course, do come standard Android Auto, Apple CarPlay as well. Factory navigation system also coming standard. You can check out your driving statistics up there if you wanted to.  And that's another one of my favorite parts.  It completely changes the look of everything in the actual vehicle. So it's going to change things like the ambient lighting setting. So if you put in kind of the sportier mode, it's going to kind of give you like this orange ambient lighting, it's going to give you all your driving statistics on the infotainment screen. It's also going to change the gauge readout to the sport kind of look. So it changes a lot about the actual vehicle itself when you change those themes. So I do like that feature. I'm a pretty big fan. But also of course you can check out your radio information up there. And so standard sound system will be six speakers, but there is an optional 13 speaker Bermester sound system. That one goes for $850. And that is not the one we have today, unfortunately. But that one does come with 590 watts. But we do have the six speaker sound system with us here today. So what do you guys say? Let's go ahead and turn on the radio, see what we got playing today. And let's test out the clarity of this one. Actually not that bad. The clarity was pretty darn good. Bass was okay as well. When it comes to six speaker sound systems, it's definitely one of the better ones that I've heard in a while. So I don't mind the six speaker. Obviously, if you're into music, go with the Bermester. And honestly, $850 for that kind of a sound system. That's a good bit of bang for your buck. But I don't mind the six speaker. I'd probably go Bermester. But anyways, last thing I wanna mention to you guys on the infotainment screen is when you do put the GLC 300 Coupe in reverse, you will find a rear view camera coming standard across the board. But you will also get a surround view monitor coming standard as well, which is gonna give you that bird's eye aerial view, which is always going to lead us into safety. So to start, front side side curtain airbags do come standard, driver's knee airbag up front as well. In the back, you're gonna have latch, AKA lower anchor status to children for the rear car seats. Rear child doloxed, heart pressure monitoring system, but also coming standard, active brake assist, Mercedes-Benz emergency call service, blind spot assist with exit warning, cross wind assist, parked tronic with active parking assist, and rear cross traffic alert then as well. Did wanna mention one more thing when it comes to safety. There is a driver assistance package that goes for $1,700. That gives you adaptive cruise control, active steering assist, evasive steering assist, and a couple other things then as well. So overall, when it comes to my final thoughts here, great looking vehicle. I definitely love the styling of the coupe form in SUV kind of fashion. I don't know how else to put it. Excellent ambient lighting as always. Mercedes-Benz always crushes it with that. Digital gauges are wonderful. I love how you can completely adjust the look up there. Great driving dynamics as expected. Zero to 60, 6.2 is great. The braking feel is great. The steering feel is wonderful as well, especially in that sport driving mode. So far as room for improvement goes, rear visibility obviously isn't gonna be the best with this particular shape. I think it's personally worth it though because of the shape. It makes it look so much better. But again, it's not gonna be as good as its traditional SUV counterparts. And the other thing I think that last safety package should really come standard on this thing because most other manufacturers, even non-luxury manufacturers are giving you standard adaptive cruise control and evasive steering assist, things like that. So that's my other constructive criticism. But anyways, let me know what you guys think of the GLC 300 Coupe in the comments section below and that is about it for this. I mean, you guys, thank you so much for watching. If you're free to follow me on social media at the bottom of the screen, if you wanna see what's coming next on the channel before it gets to YouTube, be sure to hit the subscribe and the bell notification button if you're in your new car reviews. That is what we do here on this channel after all. Do appreciate you guys watching more than you know and I will see you guys all in the next video. Stay Gold. I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye.


This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Hello there, everyone. That title's not a joke. It's not clickbait. It's 100% accurate. Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, wrote a romance novel. He actually wrote several of them, and I have one of them right here. Now, I first heard about Zabiba and the King like a long time ago, I don't know, like 10 years ago. I believe on an article on cracked.com, and I thought it sounded really funny, but I just, you know, I never bothered reading it, even after I created a whole YouTube channel where I read weird books and stuff. And I just, I don't know, after Save the Pearls, I wanted to, one, do something that took a little less time because you can see this book's not that long, but I also just wanted to unwind a little, read something that wasn't as obnoxious and stressful as Save the Pearls, because that one was just a pain in the ass to get through. So, yeah, I just, here we are, where let's talk about a Middle Eastern dictator's book. A lot like the chemist, which I went over a couple of weeks ago, no one on YouTube seems to have talked about this. Like, I've seen other people outside of it on, like, podcasts and stuff talk about it, but no one on YouTube seems to have brought it up, even though it seems like a very obvious target for ridicule. Apparently, this copy here was translated around 2003 by someone who thought that American troops deploying to Iraq might want to read it, which is a nice thought, I guess, but for what it's worth, I did talk to an acquaintance of mine that served in Iraq, and he had never heard of this book, so I don't know if it actually took off among the troops there or anything. And anyways, so what is this book actually about? You know, Zabiba and the King was written by Saddam Hussein, so what did he want to write about? It's a little hard to say because even the summary is kind of vague and unfocused. Zabiba and the King is an allegorical love story between a mighty king, Saddam, and a simple yet beautiful commoner named Zabiba, the Iraqi people. Zabiba is married to a cruel and unloving husband, the United States, who forces himself upon her against her will. This act of rape is compared to the United States invasion of Iraq. So yeah, whatever that's supposed to mean. Basically, it takes place in the Middle Ages, and a king who is somewhere in the area that would later become Iraq meets a woman named Zabiba. They very quickly establish a rapper, they have a lot of long conversations about how governments should be run, and they fall in love. Then there's an invasion by a foreign army, Zabiba is killed, and the government is reformed, and the day things end happily ever after. It sounds like I'm leaving things out with that, but not really. There's not a lot of plot here. It's insert that quote from The Hobbit about butter scraped over too much bread, you know, that sort of thing. There's not much here. Like, when I read novels written by Middle Eastern dictators, my expectations are usually pretty low, but this could not even clear that bar. This book's pretty bad. It's not good, by any means. I mean, even the cover is just boring. It's just Saddam Hussein with a red background. Like, you could have done more with that. Like, this is already an unauthorized translation. Like, you're already breaking copyright law with it. You may as well just use the original cover, which is not great, but it's still better than this. You should have just used that one.  He was a member of the Iraqi Bathest Party who helped organize a coup that overthrew their government in 1968. After that, he became the vice president of Iraq. And around 10 years later, his boss died and he became the president. And then he ruled the country for a couple of decades until he was overthrown by an American invasion in 2003. And during his time in power, he was a dictator. He was a pretty nasty one, although that's a bit redundant because all dictators are pretty nasty. For starters, under his rule, the majority of the population was just shut out of governance. You know, Sunni Arabs controlled the whole country, even though they were a pretty small minority of the population. You know, the Shia and the Kurds were just completely cut out of things. At some point, he invaded Iran and started a war which killed more people than any other war since World War II. Like, the Iran Iraq war was huge and unpleasant. Later, after his invasion of Iran failed, he invaded Kuwait, which started the Gulf War. And that also failed. And at some point during all this, he killed 200,000 Kurds with chemical weapons. So that's not very nice of him. He, the guy, I am not a fan of this Saddam Hussein fellow, I must say.  Like, and the thing is, we, at least in the United States, we mostly only hear about big dictators who really did stuff like genocides and, you know, things that are really obvious and really big. But we tend to gloss over how even smaller dictators did a lot of nasty shit, like just hearing the phrase like execute political rivals that doesn't sound like a good thing, but people tend to gloss over just how nasty and how unpleasant a lot of this was. Like, a lot of the methods they use are extraordinarily cruel. Like, for example, when we're talking Saddam Hussein, at one point he was torturing a rival and trying to get him to give up some of his co-conspirators who may not have even really existed.  And eventually, the guy just gave up his co-conspirators. So what I'm saying here is that Saddam Hussein was an absolute psychopath, and you should keep that in mind as we go through all of this. He also just wasn't a very good leader. I mean, like I said, he lost the war with Iran. He lost his invasion of Kuwait. Hell, the dude lost two separate wars to two separate men who were both named George Bush. Like, there's no coming back from that. And one interesting thing about him is that when YouTube was first becoming a thing, one of the like big scandals or controversies or whatever you want to call it, that helped catapult it into the mainstream and helped more people learn about it and what it was, was that footage of him being hanged got uploaded to the website. It was a big deal at the time. And honestly, when I was younger and I saw it, it was kind of disturbing, but upon learning a lot of the other stuff he did, I don't really feel that bad for him. In fact, most Americans have a general distaste for Saddam Hussein, but most of us also don't seem to know a lot of the specifics of his rule and why exactly he was so nasty. We just seemed to take it for granted that he was bad because we were told to dislike him, which probably says a lot about us. But enough backstory, let's get started. So this book starts with a forward from the editor, which just talks about how this book was originally published anonymously. And I believe it was never officially confirmed that Saddam wrote it. But everyone in Iraq knew that Saddam wrote it basically from the beginning, because it instantly became a bestseller, even though no one really liked it. And he also has a couple of other reasons for why people believe it, one of which being that it has pro-democracy sentiments that likely wouldn't have been tolerated if someone else wrote it. Like the book likely would have been banned and its author might have been hunted down, I don't know. And the actual story, like after the opener, begins with a screed about how amazing Iraq is, which is fine, I guess, but the whole thing is just told in a bunch of rhetorical questions. How many strange and unusual things? How many heroic and glorious deeds? How many true wonders occur in Iraq? Is not life in the midst of ordinary things filled with the most extraordinary things? Is its consistent flow not interrupted by some unexpected leaps? Could the colors of life be rich if the most ordinary things were not interspersed with miracles? And it just it goes on like that for a while. This is a common tactic among shitty writers, to be honest. Like if you want to describe Iraq and how great it is, just say Iraq is the land of X and Y and all this. Like too many rhetorical questions in a row just gets really obnoxious and kind of awkward, to be honest. And eventually, after like three and a half pages of this, we finally reach the framing device of the story. And basically what I mean by that is that this whole story is actually a young boy who is describing his grandmother as his grandmother is telling him the story of Zabiba and the King. So it's kind of like the King Killer Chronicles, if you've read that, you know? And this young boy who's telling all this actually never gets a name, but he's heavily implied to be a child Saddam Hussein because it takes place in a small village near the city of Tikrit. And Saddam Hussein was born in Ausha, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, which is a small village near the city of Tikrit. So this doesn't tie into anything, but it is pretty funny in my opinion. And the thing about this framing device is that it barely plays a role. Like after the first few pages, it just doesn't come up again until like halfway through the book. And then it comes up again briefly, very briefly, and then never again. Like the book just ends and we don't get any sort of epilogue or anything with Saddam and his grandma. So the real story begins with this. Long, long ago, there was a powerful and proud king. His glory spread far and brought him respect, well-being, love, and loyalty from his followers, as well as reverence and fear from those who were afraid of him.  How do you even do that? I didn't realize that was possible, but somehow he did it. And you know, when I said that was the real start of the story, that was a lie actually. We have that little intro bit and then it goes back to the boy and his grandma for a couple of pages because, so when the real story begins, like for real for real this time, it has the king riding near his palace in the woods and he goes to a small hut and he meets Zabiba for the first time. Why is the king riding through the woods near his palace? Not important, I guess. It doesn't seem like he was doing anything else and he just happened to cross her. I'm not sure if he was specifically looking for her and if he was specifically looking for her why, but I guess none of that's important. He's just riding around and he finds her. The king was surprised when he was told all about the merchant, whose name was Hiskil and of his palace, but continued his journey to a small hut situated near the fence of the palace. Hiskil followed the king, racing his horse after him when he realized that the king had come to his palace, but would not enter it. So, I'm just gonna come out and say the pros of this is not good. Like, not by any means, but the problem is I don't know who I should blame that on. Like, there's three possible reasons I can come up with for why it's so shitty. One, just being that Saddam was a shitty writer. Two, just being poor translation. And three, just being that Arabic doesn't carry over to English very well. Because from my understanding that people, when they're talking in Arabic, they talk quite a bit differently than we do in English, so certain phrases and stuff just don't work very well when translated. If I had to guess, I'd say it's some combination of all three of those, but I just, I genuinely don't know. It's not good is what I'm getting at. So, the king meets Zabiba.  And which, okay, they start up a conversation and we don't see any of this conversation. We have no idea what they were actually talking about or we don't get any actual dialogue. We aren't privy to anything that goes on, but apparently it was a very engrossing conversation because the king is just immediately smitten with her and they start visiting and talking with each other every day. At first the king is just going to her home, but after a while she just goes to the palace and starts being let in whenever she wants. This is honestly a weird plot point. This is a weird way for the story to start off. I guess the king just wanders around and talks to commoners sometimes. That's a thing that happens, I suppose. Now, I know that there are a lot of old stories in the Arab world about monarchs walking among the common people and speaking with them in order to understand them and understand how life works. Sometimes they just do it as themselves, but other times they disguise themselves so that they don't have that whole air of royalty around them and they can really get what the people are about. This is a very common storytelling trope, I suppose you'd call it, and allegedly in real life Saddam Hussein actually did do this when he was president of Iraq.  It's hard to say if this was actually true, something he did, if it was just rumors, if it was propaganda, if it was partially true. It's hard to say, but it was probably done to make him seem benevolent, seem like this nice overlord. It also may have been an intimidation tactic, like it was him saying, hey, I can show up anywhere at any time, so be careful. I don't know, but that is something worth mentioning, I think. So this idea of Zabiba just running into the king one day because he wanders around and talks to common people, it might seem less odd to an Arab audience, admittedly, but it is weird to me. Like I said, the king is very quickly in love with Zabiba and in order to show how in love he is we get this passage. The king did not ask her about her husband and did not feel jealous of him because the husband had a legal right to her. However, the king was jealous of the air and the water and even of every morsel of food in her mouth. Yes indeed, the king felt jealousy even about the mouth of Zabiba. Is it not the mouth that attracts a man to a woman or repels him from her? Does not a clever woman use her mouth to seduce a man to attract him and keep him? Does she not shade the imperfections of her mouth to ensure that once a man comes close to it, he will not distance himself? Do not men kiss the lips of a woman more than any of her other beauties? Is the mouth not sufficient for some men to judge a woman's purity and prudence? And in any stage of their intimacy, does not he cling to her mouth and prove his love to his beloved through kisses which can be considered a sign of feelings independently of whether or not the couple had a sexual relationship? Is this not true? And if the meaning of the mouth is that great, should not a man be jealous about the mouth of the one he loves, her laughter, every movement of her lips?  Clearly one understands the meaning of the sacred verse which commands that women are to cover their open parts and naturally the mouth is among them. I am learning far more about Saddam Hussein's sexual fantasies than I ever wanted to know. Like he just spent an entire page waxing poetic about the beauty of women's mouths with the whimsical intensity of a pornhub comment. Like what am I even supposed to do with that, man? And from this point forward, the bulk of the book is just Zabiba and the king having conversations. Like seriously, the bulk of the book. This thing is no exaggeration in the slightest. This thing is like 90% dialogue. And when you remember the framing device, which is that the whole thing is being told orally to someone else, it's over 99% dialogue. Like that sort of thing can work if it's like a short story. Like I've read short stories before, which are nothing but dialogue. But for an entire novel, it gets tiresome after a while. Like they barely even break up the conversations to like have them have actions that punctuate the dialogue or anything like that. It's really obnoxious. So there's a scene where Zabiba tries to get into the king's chambers to speak with him, but the palace guards don't know who she is yet, and she has to talk her way past them, and it goes on for a while. But we do get this scintillating bit of political commentary. But aren't we glad that we serve in the king's guard and can stuff our bellies with what is given to us while others are dying of hunger and get sick because of the lack of nourishment? That's very subtle, Saddam.  Like, sure thing, Brooke. Well, sure. I'll take your word for that one.  Like he seems to not have much of an idea of what's going on in his country or what's going on even in his palace. He doesn't seem to understand how to run a proper government, but at the same time, he earnestly wants to help. And so that's a lot of what him and Zabiba talk about is like, how can they help to make the country better for everybody? And I mean, I guess that could be interesting, but not in this book. We also learn a bit about Zabiba's marriage. She was, because she is married, she was given to a wealthy merchant by her father for purely economic reasons. You know, he just needed the dowry and etc. And her husband is really cruel and unloving to her, which is not really pleasant, but that's also just how marriages worked back then. You know, they weren't done for love for the most part. It's not great. It's not a good thing, but that's just how life was. Her husband is still super jealous of the time that she's spending with the king, though, like in the background. He barely shows up in this book, but he's at this point just in the background, seething with rage and thinking, girl, that's my wife. And then, well, there's this. A people's council, which is good for the state, my great king, appoints the government. Government does not appoint the council. And if the king were a part of the council, wouldn't the council merely obey the wishes of the king? You could easily make it so that the people's council, as I described it, would take upon itself immediate leadership over the people and would try to fix what can be fixed while you and those who support you could assume the power according to the hierarchy. So yeah.  And basically, it's like saying, hey, democracy is better than an autocratic dictatorship, but it's all told in that super long-winded way I was going over it in. And this makes me wonder, like, did Saddam want to transition Iraq into a democracy? Like, I mean, obviously just writing about an idea in a book or writing a character who puts forth an idea in a book doesn't mean you automatically agree with it. But I've noticed that in pretty much every celebrity slash YouTuber book, they're very just straightforward with the author's points, you know, they tend to just have characters come out and say what they believe. Or it's just an obvious way of trying to get them to make people see them in a certain way, which doesn't usually work, but it's a thing. And spoiler alert, the council does get set up at the end, and its portrayed as a good thing. So is Saddam trying to be pro-democracy here? Like, they talk a lot about how it would be difficult to set up, because giving people to the wrong people would, or giving power to the wrong people would actually make things worse, which is kind of a good point, actually. Like, for real, like, let's say that if Saddam genuinely wanted to transition Iraq into a democracy, I don't think he did, but let's say he did, it would be really difficult to do, because, you know, transitioning from an absolute dictatorship would mean giving small amounts of power to other government bodies and other government authorities, and he would also have to, like, set up a proper electoral system, stamp out corruption and fraud, he would need to bring an end to the sectarian divides that Iraq is so known for, which could erupt into violence and etc. And so if you give too much power to the wrong person, then they'll just wind up eliminating the rivals and seizing control of everything for themselves, and then you're right back where you started, just with a different ruler. And I mean, that's kind of how Saddam came to power in the first place, so he would know all of this. It's, I don't know, it's a weirdly poignant discussion when you actually know the context. It's also a little weird because the self-insert, remember, the king is a self-insert for Saddam, is put into a situation where he's helpless and can't really do anything without help, which already elevates this above most other celebrity books, those are just full of narcissism, at least in my experience, which, I don't know, it is odd to see that this has some things to say. Now, you may have noticed I haven't been saying the king's name throughout all of this, I've just been referring to him as the king, and that's because throughout the book, he's just referred to as the king.  Like, it's told from a first person perspective, and the main character doesn't get a name, and all the other characters that he meets up with, he just refers to as like my wife, my cousin, the artillery man, etc. And it's not a style that I particularly like, but it can work in certain contexts. However, in this book, the king does have a name, like a third of the way through it's revealed, and they only use it once or twice. So if it was a stylistic choice, then Saddam forgot about it partway through, and if it wasn't a stylistic choice, then why does he only call him the king throughout the vast majority of it? I don't know. The king's name is Arab, by the way. I didn't even know that was a name people could have. That seems like it would be if my name was white or something. It seems odd to me, but I don't know. Is it supposed to be because the king is a representation of all the Arab people? Or is Saddam just lazy? I will let you decide. This book also is not divided into any sort of chapters or sections after the introduction. Like, it's all just one big blob. There's no chapter breaks of any sort. It's really obnoxious and makes it kind of a pain to read. Imagine if everything was just one single paragraph. It's kind of like that. You need to divide things into chunks so that it's easier to pace and so that you don't wind up turning it into one long, unbroken screed. Meandering unbroken screed, I should say. That's why chapters are so useful for longer books. Every chapter has its own beginning, its own middle, and its own end, and ideally they will all have something important or entertaining that happens in there which draws your readers in and they're like, oh, okay, like, I need to keep going if I want to find out what happens next. And it also just makes it easier to stop and come back later. Like, you know, it's late at night and you'd say, okay, I'm only going to read three more pages and that's the end of the chapter and then I'll come back and get to this later and the next chapter will be like focusing on something else, you know? And not having it is really obnoxious. So we finally finally get a description of what Zabiba actually looks like on page 34 of this thing. She was tall and the lines of her body were amazing. She was rather slim but not without feminine flesh, gentle and igniting desire in men. Everything about her appearance was beautiful but Zabiba could not judge her soul, her heart, and the kind of qualities for which the queen herself could be held responsible. Hey man, check out that girl over there. Her flesh is off the hook! And honestly, I have nothing to say about this book for a long, long time. Like I said, it is just long protracted conversations between two characters who don't have much personality and who I don't really care about. I find myself wondering how Zabiba got the knowledge to understand like governments and how life works and religion and all that so well. When she's just a commoner, I don't know where she would have gotten this education but I'm not going to focus on that because there's bigger problems here. At some point the king's cousin tries to assassinate him and Zabiba knew about this beforehand somehow. I don't know how she knew about it but she she knew about it somehow beforehand and she throws herself in the assassin's way and saves the king's life. And she gets cut with a sword and wounded but not too badly so she just gets sewn up and she's good to go again. And then the king throws out his disloyal wives and disloyal family and you know basically she helped him a lot. And then there's a part where they have a talk about sexual consent and it's actually weirdly it's not terrible. Yeah like they mention about how there's different types of coercion besides violence and they talk about how marital rape is a thing which is a weirdly progressive look for Iraq 20 years ago. I mean the hell even a lot of Americans and Westerners could use a talk on that sort of thing. So all right Saddam there's one point in your favor. Now the king when he eventually confesses his love for Zabiba he says he loves her because through her he grew to new to know the people. So it's not at all ambiguous here. Zabiba represents the Iraqi people in this story. Subtlety. Subtlety man even with allegories you need to be subtle about this sort of thing. So later and this bit's gonna sound like it comes out of nowhere but I promise you it kind of comes out of nowhere in the book too. Even knowing that it was coming it it just comes out of nowhere. So Zabiba is heading home by herself and she just insists on not having an escort to go home because I don't know she's fiercely independent or something and a mysterious man attacks her and rapes her in the woods and later we learn that this was her husband and he did all this out of jealousy which why did he attack her in the woods though? Like I think he could have just waited till she gets home like you know even if you wanted to sexually assault her and even if you wanted to be violent with her he could have just waited. It seems like it would have been easier and less risky. She would have been at ease at home but whatever man I'm thinking about this way too much. This line also exists.  So okay again there's no subtlety here. Zabiba's husband is the United States and the United States attacked the Iraqi people because it was jealous that the Iraqi people loved Saddam so much. It actually loves Saddam more than it loved them. Yeah alright. This is still a better depiction of Iraqi politics than anything Ben Shapiro has written though. And there's this line which I don't know where the hell I'm supposed to put it in here but you need to know it exists. Even an animal respects a man's desire if it wants to copulate with him. Doesn't a female bear try to please a herdsman when she drags him into the mountains as it happens in the north of Iraq? She herds him into her den so that he obeying her desire would copulate with her? Doesn't she bring him nuts gathering them from the trees or picking them from the bushes? Doesn't she climb into the houses of farmers in order to steal some cheese, nuts and even raisins so that she can feed the man and awake him in the desire to have her? What? I genuinely have no idea what that's even supposed to mean.  What? So a while after she is sexually assaulted a foreign army invades the country. We don't actually know where this foreign army comes from or who it is, what country it is, what king is leading it or anything like that. It's just a foreign army and the king weirdly enough the king kind of fades into the background here and Zabiba takes over and handles the country's defense and again why she has the knowledge needed to do this I'm not sure because she's just a commoner but okay sure and she succeeds at defending the country but she dies in the process and everyone loves her and everyone mourns her and it's so sad. Let me get this straight. Zabiba is the Iraqi people but Zabiba successfully held off the foreign invasion and then she died but the country was made better after she died because it sets up the people's council and everything. Does that imply that all Iraqis are dead and that Iraq is better for it? And her husband was the U.S. but the invading army was also the United States? I think what? How am I supposed to be reading this? Like this doesn't make sense as an allegory of any sort. Is there context I'm missing here or was Saddam just a shitty writer? I'll let you decide. So post-hoc like after she's already dead and the battle's over we learned that Zabiba and the king got married right before the invading army came in and I would imagine that a divorce is normally more difficult because it does specifically say that she divorced her husband and then the king mentions that he was his own witness and his own judge so he could do that. Again I'd imagine that's more difficult but he's the king I guess he can do whatever the hell he wants and you might think from the way I'm describing this that the battle and all that was the climax but no the real climax is after the king decides to set up the people's council that they talked about earlier and everyone on the council argues about how things should be run and eventually they come to an agreement and the thing concludes.  One of these council members might sound a little familiar to some of you. Nuri Chalabi raised his hand. The chairman allowed him to speak and it was obvious to everyone that Nuri was from the number of those who belong to the nobles of this world. He had no clear position in relation to the people or the army and he had entered this council undeservingly. Now I don't blame you if you aren't familiar with that but some of you are face-palming right now because Nuri Chalabi is a reference to Ahmad Chalabi who was the leader of an opposition movement to Saddam and honestly I wouldn't have picked up on that either if the editor hadn't put a footnote in there but it just it became hilarious when I realized that because it's one thing it's one thing to put a straw man of your political rivals into your shitty romance book but at least change the names man make it a little less obvious dude. There's another councilman we're introduced to who's named Shamil the Jew and things get kind of anti-Semitic here for a minute I I don't want to go into much detail because it's just not that funny or entertaining but it's there and you should know it's there so the council argues for a long time about how things should be run you got one side with the good guys saying things should be better and we should be nice and then you have another side saying things should be worse and we should be evil and eventually they all come to an agreement and they agree you know what we're gonna make things better and we're gonna be nice so the good guys won yeah and on the very last page like literally the last page like two paragraphs before the end of this fucking book we learn that the king died off screen and the council is now going to rule everything so in other words there are two main characters in this book two characters mentioned in the title who have taken up the vast vast majority of screen time and neither of them features in the climax at all what's stellar writing and I mean that's that that's it the like I said earlier there's no sort of epilogue with young Saddam and his grandmother where he says like hey what was the point of that story or anything like that it's just that that's the end we never find out what happened with them and I don't think this book had much of an editing process if any but when I started thinking about that it made me realize how weird and stressful it would be to have that be your job like your Saddam Hussein's editor and you have to be the one to tell him hey Saddam the subplot sucks you need to change it also please don't kill my family like that would that that would be an odd situation to be in but that yeah that's that's it that it that was Zabila and the king I I don't think I need to go into detail about what makes this book terrible most of the problems are very obvious and very self-evidence like there's nothing here to even draw in any sort of audience you know like there's absolutely nothing that would make people go ooh let's check that out like they hear about the summary and probably just pass it by a bit of writing advice that I've seen like just all over the place for years and years is that you need a hook to draw in your audience you know draw in your readers you want to give them some sort of mystery or a question that they want to get an answer to and this is a romance novel so in most romance novels the question would be like will the main couple make it you know will they actually be able to get past whatever problems are preventing them from living happily ever after and be able to live happily ever after what is the hook with Zabila and the king well there there isn't one like at all and there isn't much of a story either it just meanders around until near the end and unfortunately this book isn't all that funny either like I I did my best to make it entertaining for all of you whether or not I succeeded is obviously not up to me but you know I hope I succeeded at least somewhat and there's funny parts to this book but it's mostly just very poorly put together and just boring and dull and well actually I shouldn't even call it boring and dull just really long winded about the sort of things they're talking about because the sort of things they're talking about could be interesting if anyone else wrote it and if I gave a shit about anything that was going on like I even think the overall idea is fine like you know the king just runs into a common woman and he's just immediately smitten with her not just because she's beautiful but because she's really intelligent and independent and gives him a lot of advice and they fall in love but they can't be together and then there's a foreign army that invades and then things get made better because they set up a people's council like I could imagine that if pretty much anyone else wrote this it would actually be a pretty good book but as it stands it I I mean what were you expecting from Saddam Hussein though like there's not even any crazy story events in here like in most celebrity novels you know like in Steven Seagal's The Way of the Shadow Wolf there was a lot of crazy shit in there and that was funny to read about in Elixir by Hilary Duff there was some crazy shit in there and it was funny to read about most of the humor with Sabiba and the king just comes from the fact that it exists you know a famous dictator wrote it and that's hilarious after a while I wasn't even bothering to critique it properly the nor the way I normally would like I didn't put in that many tabs you can see here there's there's still a fair number of them but it's nothing compared to other books I've done for this show like it's it seems pointless you know it seems like complaining that dog shit smells like dog shit was anyone expecting quality from a romance novel written by Saddam fucking Hussein like no you weren't you were expecting it to be bad from the beginning so pointing out that it's bad is it's pointless and despite the poor quality though I did find it to be a very interesting read because a lot of people myself included find getting into the heads of people who did awful things to be really really fascinating like you know there's a lot of true crime podcasts and documentaries about serial killers and stuff where we try and figure out like okay what was it that convinced them to do this sort of stuff and that's a bit more difficult to do with dictators like sometimes they have autobiographies or they have like books of their ideals that they wrote and passed out which give you some insight into what sort of person they were and what sort of lives they led and what sort of mindset they were going into things with the best known example of this sort of thing is probably Mein Kampf which was written by Adolf Hitler and yeah it is an interesting book in that regard you go through it and you kind of get into his head and see how he thought and it it is interesting after about 20 pages you're sitting there thinking wow Adolf Hitler was a whiny little bitch I'm not even joking a substantial chunk of that book is just him whining about how wham people are mean to me they shouldn't be allowed to be mean to me wham like dude was really pathetic when you get down to it and Zabiba and the king is a you know there's it's a fiction book so there's a bit more um stuff in between his mindset and the audience like there's some other characters and stuff which are obscuring things but it is a very good look at how Saddam saw himself and how he thought the world should work and how he wanted people to see him and it seems from this Saddam just desperately wanted people to like him you know he wanted to be a wise leader that guided his people through tough times and that everyone in Iraq loved like he just wanted that he wanted to have a pure romance where both sides loved and respected each other and there were no ulterior motives to anything like notice how Zabiba and the king's relationship there's nothing sexual in it whatsoever it's almost like a chivalric romance you know they're they just love each other for no other reason than that they love each other it's kind of I don't know it's sweet I guess like I feel weird using that word to describe Saddam Hussein but in a way it is like underneath all of the bravado and all the violence and everything else that he tried to project about himself dude was just scared and lonely especially because he wrote this not long before the end of his life he was just a sad pathetic old man and that's really what most powerful men are at the end of the day when you scratch beneath the surface they are sad pathetic people and from that perspective from just like the psychoanalytical perspective of looking into Saddam Hussein and the sort of person he was Zabiba and the king is a very neat read so if you're looking for humor I don't know if I would recommend it but if you're looking for that sort of thing if that sounds neat to you then I'd say check it out if you're curious but honestly one of the funniest things about this whole ordeal is that Saddam Hussein is not the only 20th century dictator who wrote romance novels that I have been able to find because way back in 1909 Benito Mussolini did the same thing because before he came to power but yeah he wrote a book called The Cardinals Mistress and maybe I'll check that one out one day but maybe not I don't know I'll I'll see you when I cover the fifth sorceress bye huge thank you to everyone who watched this far I'm sure everyone who's leaving a comment telling me to kill myself definitely made sure to watch the whole video so thanks to them as well and all the names you see on screen right now these are my patrons so thanks especially to my super ultra great patrons who are Appo Savalainen Olivia Rayan brother Santotis Buffy Valentine Carolina Clay Dan Anceliovic Dark King Dio Echo Evie Flax Great Griebo Carcat Kitsune Liza Rudekova Lord Tiebreaker Madison Lewis Bennett Matthew Bodro Microphone Peep the Toad Return of Cardamom Robbie Reviews Sad Martigan Celia the Vixen Tesla Shark Vavixus Vavictus and Wesley I'm not I'm not redoing that I don't even care uh if you want to get your name on here be sure to join my Patreon page if you can't do that then please just write this video and comment on it subscribe all the things I'm supposed to say here um uh thank thank you goodbye


Okay, now for the do's. State the real team needs opportunities for improvement and where you want to be given the new hire succeeds. Current state and future state can be used as a hiring tactic. No company is perfect. Set real expectations of what a typical day looks like. If you don't conduct user research, but want to, then be honest. No unwanted negative surprises for your new hire. Call out things you want from a cultural perspective. Humble, straightforward, opinionated, give a sense of what working with the people in your organization would look like. Ask outside of the design team. What do they want? Design is interdisciplinary and collaborative. Other stakeholders' opinions matter and this adds up to the success of the new hire. Take their feedback on board. Any other best practices you swear by? Let me know.