All right, thank you for being here, for giving us our attention for Mark in a couple of seconds. So I'll start with a disclaimer. This isn't Mark's actual last lecture, he's going to hopefully keep teaching for many years and enriching the LAS program as he always has, but this is a format inspired I think it's Randy Pouch from Carnegie Mellon University who started the format of, well, who hosted the last lecture, which essentially have the themes of sort of essentiality that one finds in their studies and in their fields where they say, well, this is the last lecture I'm giving, and this is something that I deem important, and it's sort of, I won't say cumulative because I think we have many more years to get some of research information, but yeah, I think it is on standardization and originality in the quest for excellence at university. I'd also like to mention that this is an event that's a collaboration between Exeter Moros and Studium Herrera, which is an association on university that hosts these types of events, lectures, debates, and cultural events. I will pass the mic over to Mark. Thank you. Well, thank you. There's a few things I can say as an introduction. The first is that I I chose this topic because they said this, you know, if you had to give a last lecture, what would you talk about? And I figured I'd talk about something that I can't seem to shut up about and no one would be able to stop me because it's my last lecture, so there. But the other thing is I wanted to find something that was representative of what I do at this university because on the one hand I teach, but on the other hand, I also have a lot to do with, in that sense, policy. I work with the university, I'm on the university council. This moment I also am currently involved in assessment in our department. So there's a lot of different things going on, and I thought it would be really cool if I could mix those things together. But then I started thinking about this, and I thought, what am I really, what I really want to talk about? And I realized that there was something that's been on my mind for quite a while, and it's actually because of something that's also on someone else's mind, and that is my boss has thoughts. And one of her thoughts is, and it seems to be a recurring thought because she mentions it quite often, is that she regularly thinks about me getting hit by a truck. Now, this may seem disturbing to most people, and I can understand that I'm also not the easiest guy in the world to work with, so maybe there's a certain fantasy level involved in this, but the truth is that's not where this is coming from. This is actually coming from a place of concern. The first being probably in the more literal sense of the word, I'm a bit accident prone. So things do sometimes happen to me. I had one, because of that I had one memorable occasion where I was running home through a storm with a colleague of mine, and she kept a respectful distance from me saying, if anyone is ever going to get hit by lightning, it's going to be you and I don't want to be with you when it happens. And you know what? I can respect that. But the truth is where this is really coming from is not just personal concern, but a very real concern that we have in any institution, and that is with continuity and standards, because what are we talking about here? Why does the truck keep coming up in my life, and why does this keep getting mentioned? Because it is part of a business concept. It's part of a management concept strangely enough, something called the truck number. Now, what's the idea of a truck number? Well, managers have to be aware of the redundancy of the people who work for them, the ability to be able to replace people. It really comes down to just that. So if you have, in essence, a truck number that's too low, that means you're very, very hard to replace. And what are we really talking about? Is it about people getting hit by a truck? No, it's about anything that can happen to you. Anything that can knock you out of the system. So, I mean, think about it. Look at the last two years. We suddenly had COVID. That was basically like the truck number deluxe. Everyone around you was, they'd call up, I got them.  And so there was all this stuff going on. And if you have a truck number of one, that means you're the only person in your unit or your organization who can do something. So all that needs to happen is for one truck to hit this one person. And this thing is, whatever you do is gone. Now, clearly, managers are afraid of this. They want truck numbers that are higher than one. They want people who can be replaced. And you know what? I get it. You want people who can be replaced. You also want people who can be duplicated. You want to be able to say, well, what if we have more people to cater to than one person can handle? We want to have you times two. So they're always looking to duplicate. And as I said, I get it. This is a means of guarding against breaks and continuity. I mean, think about it. What was it the old, back in the day, holiday in in the United States, they always had as their slogan, these are like the most boring hotels in America. And their slogan was, our surprise is no surprise. Wherever you went, the holiday in was exactly the same, which was a little surreal because this meant whether you were in Boston or in the middle of Arkansas or in California, when you walked into a holiday and you were just in this like little holiday and world, it was always exactly the same. But there's a certain reassurance there. Because that means if you knew you wanted a certain thing and you wanted, you know, a kind of safe, whatever going on, then you went to the holiday in, right? So, and this also helps in our world in guaranteeing standards. So indeed, if I refer someone to a holiday and I know where I'm sending them, now you kind of maybe have an idea where this is going. We are in an institution that has to maintain standards, where we say things have to be continuous.  You know, I mean, that it doesn't work that way. Although I know that within certain departments, such as clinical psychology, if they said no statistics this year, there would be a certain degree of rejoicing. But nonetheless, we have to provide these courses also because the mandate of society is that if we train someone to be a psychologist, they have to have certain skills. So these things all have to be there. So I completely, you know, I get this. And it also makes altogether sense in the business world. Of course, you know, as I said, I go somewhere, I expect certain things to happen. I expect if I buy a certain car, it will have certain attributes. If I get certain type of service, I expect it to always be very similar or if not the same. But you know what? This has its limits. You can only take this so far, because let's face it, you don't always want the holiday experience. Sometimes, sometimes you want something different. And sometimes you want something that's not standard. More importantly, sometimes we need this. But I will get to that momentarily, because first, I have thoughts too. Now, I'm going to tell you something. People who've taken any of my classes know this, that this is a habitual part of my teaching is I tend to drag my obsessions into my lectures. So I figured in my last lecture, I'm going to do the same. I tend to talk, for example, you have to know, I mean, I teach English and rhetoric and argumentation. And yet somehow, I often wind up talking about architecture.  But it always has a point. Similarly, I sometimes regularly bring up guinea pigs. Don't ask me why. Or rather ask me why. Guinea pigs are great. I just can't seem to avoid them. The how of the matter is the relevance is a little less so. I will grant you that. Food is also a regular obsession in my teaching. That kind of speaks for itself. Today, however, I want to talk to you about drummers. Now, I'll admit, I'm also going to talk a little bit about food. And I may bring up the occasional guinea pig. So this is all part and parcel of what's going on. So drummers, the ones in the back, the guys and gals, that you watch a performance and there's always some people in the front with their attitude and their singing and the solo guitar and it's great and everything. And then there's someone in the back there hidden by all this machinery, the whole drum set and everything. And they're doing something there. And you know what? I find those people highly intriguing. Which is odd because the truth be told, not a drummer. I've tried it and I'm, you know, incredibly bad at it. Acoustic guitar is more my thing. I'm more incredibly bad at that. So that's a better thing. And yes, luckily for me, I grew up before the internet. I also sang. But as I said, luckily, there was no internet. But what is this fascination with drummers? I think in part because a couple of things come together here. And they will relate, I promise you that, to what we're discussing today. And that is, I think a lot of, I think we underestimate what they do. I think first of all, a lot of people kind of think, well, there's this band. And then they mentioned singer so and so and guitarist, this one and the bass guitar, this and the keyboards. And then they say, Oh yeah, and there's this drummer, you know, and that's kind of it, you know, and, but this is wrong. And what that leads to is that we tend to underestimate their contribution. We think of drummers as having a very high truck number.  But we can't lose the singer, you know, that kind of thing. And I think there's something going on there. Because, I mean, look at it, look at the, if you look at the world of drummers, you look at these people who are out there. You have people like John Bonham and Led Zeppelin, this guy set not just the beat for what they were doing, he set the tone in that band, so much so that when he died, he was not hit by a truck, by the way, but when he died, the other people, and I mean, and when we talk about the other people, we're talking about people like Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, these are big rock people, they said, screw it, band's over. And they just stopped.  That's how important he was. They have people like Roger Taylor and Queen, he composed, he sang, but he also, he composed the rhythms that went with what Queen was doing. So, when you think about Queen's sound, in part, you're thinking about the way that those rhythms were laid down. Rick Allen, Def Leppard, they were so desperate to keep Rick Allen as their drummer, when he was in a car accident and lost an arm, now you would think for a drummer, losing an arm has to be a really big deal, right? They retrained him and they set up his drums so that he could play with one arm and both legs, and he did it. That's how important this guy was. They didn't say, ah, truck number, get us a new drummer. No, they wanted that sound. They wanted someone who understood their compositions. And then finally, there's a good old Keith Moon of the who. The who went on after Keith Moon died. They were never really the same. It was kind of the who too, as it were. By the way, interesting and somewhat macabre note, Keith Moon was married to a woman at a certain point and they got divorced because he's Keith Moon. And she remarried and then at the age of 57, which for some reason strikes me as significant because that's how old I am now, she died. And I'm not making this up. She was hit by a truck. I mean, so yeah, life is odd. These things happen. I just wanted to point this out. But then there's the big one, Ringo Starr, the Beatles. Now, first of all, I'm again, I'll admit this, I am a Beatles. I'm obsessed with the Beatles.  What can I say? I have way too many books about the Beatles, the CD sets, all this stuff, and a very patient wife, luckily. But here, this illustrates my whole point. So how does the narrative go? He famously replaced the original drummer of the Beatles. They had a different drummer for two years. Pete Best was very popular. People like Pete Best. They thought he was a cool guy. But the rest of the Beatles said, this isn't working. We want that guy. And he'd already played with him in a couple of sessions. He said, we want this Ringo Starr guy. And what happened is, in 1962, he joined the Beatles and Pete Best got fired. And then they became famous. And the narratives is, they threw out Pete Best just before they became famous. Now, people who've taken my courses know something in my mind clicks. No. They didn't throw out Pete Best and become famous. They added Ringo Starr and became famous. That was the last thing they needed. The one link. They needed someone who was just not a competent drummer, but a creative drummer. A drummer who understood all this crazy stuff that Lenin and McCartney were putting out there, and the even crazier stuff that later George Harrison was putting out there, and he could compose the rhythm sections to go along with it. So they said, in their case, they were saying, basically, we're going to run over one guy with a truck because we want someone who is truly unique. So in this sense, post-hoc, ergo, proctor-hoc, indeed, they became the Beatles and they became famous when they hired Ringo Starr, not despite hiring Ringo Starr. So there's a conflict here. There's clearly, if you look at my mind and you look at my boss's mind, there are two things going on here. The truck number is clearly about continuity. This is about putting something out there and saying, we want to be safe. We want to always have the same thing going on. Continuity demands standardization. And again, look at universities. Look at our life here. Look at what's even happened in the last 20, 30 years. Once upon a time, when I first started here as a student, even as a teacher, we didn't even have the same diplomas or programs. We all had different stuff. In fact, I've since gotten a PhD, which now is the universal thing. But before that, my master's degree wasn't called a master's degree. I got something called a doctoral, which, by the way, interestingly, the term doctor on this in Latin means someone who's not a doctor. That was an interesting degree to get. It's like, congratulations, you're not a doctor. Wasn't I not a doctor? No, but it's different now. Now you're really not a doctor. Although I think more of the idea behind it is now become a doctor. I guess that was the idea, so me being the guy that I am, I did. So there you go. But continuity demands this standardization, demands that we look at the world and say, we want to constantly replicate what we're doing. So you're always looking to then, well, hire people who can keep doing what other people have been doing, who can do what their colleagues are doing in lock step, who can come up with, in essence, the same drum rhythms as all the other drummers. But at the other end, you're looking at this and you say, we think of drummers as being standard. As I said, I think we underestimate what they do. We all think they're just standing there pounding on the drums and blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, they can make or break a band. And in the same way, there are people who can make or break a university. There are those individuals that you bring in and you say, yeah, this makes a difference. But there's a danger.  So you're taking a risk. Similarly, the truth is, we're being asked to do two things at the same time. As a university, we welcome you all. You come in here and we say, this is what we're going to do. You come in, you want to get a law degree? We say, you come here and get a law degree. But the truth is, you get a straight up law degree, civil effect, the whole thing. You can look up exactly what we're supposed to do. Do you know where you can find this? This is written into law. The law actually dictates to become a lawyer in the Netherlands. And there are articles and you can look in this up and they'll say, you'd have to have so many courses in this and so many courses. And that's actually a little bit eerie. But you look that up and it's all very predictable. And we say, come here, we can guarantee this. We have all these teachers on staff. They know all their stuff. They can do intro to civil law. They can teach you criminal law. They can do this. Same thing. Accounting. Do the same thing. If you go in Nijmega to Robbout University, that's my alma mater there. Medicine. Same thing. When they train you up to be a doctor, medical doctor that is, which ironically in the Netherlands is also not a doctor. You actually get a master's degree. See in the US, the doctor thing is different because there you get an MD, which I still don't think is a doctorate, but that's a whole different issue for another last lecture. But then it wouldn't be, then this would be my penultimate lecture. So I'd be sabotaging myself. But as I move on, standards. But what else do we tell you? We also tell you this is special. We say, don't go to Leiden or University College London or Antwerp. We say, come to Tilburg because we're different. We're unique. We're special. So it's a high wire act because we're saying on the one hand, predictable, but on the other hand we're saying lower kind of special. So to cater to that, we have to be very careful. Now look, this is not my diatribe against standardization. There's nothing wrong with McDonald's. I'm going to say that right. I told you I was going to talk about food. Here it comes. You know, people may have some issues with it, but there's no problem with a desire for standardized products.  Or why am I talking about this? No, I need to eat. So standardized product. Sure, why not, right? We all want certainties in life. We don't want to always be surprised by everything. In this respect, sometimes we need these things. We need these moments in our life where we say, you know what? I want to have the experience go exactly as it went every time before. And in this respect, education is a product. We need standards of predictability. After all, we also have a responsibility. If we tell you we're going to train you to be a lawyer or an accountant or an economist or a psychologist or any of these things, the world expects you to do certain things. They expect us to impart certain types of knowledge to you. So when you walk out that door, we can say that's psychologist and everyone will agree. So again, we do a lot to guarantee that we build in redundancy. We make sure that there's not just one teacher who can teach a specific subject. We cross train people. We take all kinds of efforts to make all these things happen. And we need continuity. So we do this across time. So as some of us get a little bit older, we bring new people in and train them to do what has been done already before they came. But you know what? Sure, I like McDonald's. I also like my local Italian restaurant. But why do I like that? It's one of a kind. Nunzio's place in my neighborhood, Taormina restaurant, there's only one of it in the entire world. And I go there and I don't know what I'm going to get every time because the menu changes. Hell, his mood changes. And sometimes they get different stuff. Now I will admit the last name they give it away. My father's side of the family is originally from Sicily. Nunzio is also from Sicily. So there's a lot of I sit down and sometimes if he's in a really good mood, I'll order a certain dish and it'll be way more elaborate than it should be. But it's different. Every time you go there, you don't really know exactly what you're going to get. You just know it's going to be interesting. And you know it's going to be good. But outside of that, in a funny way, kind of all bets are off. And I can't find this anywhere else. So if I have a taste for a certain type of food, I have to go there. There's not loads of other places I can go. And you know what? If Nunzio gets hit by a truck, I'm screwed. It'll be gone. And the truth is, one day he will, he won't get hit by a truck per se, he's going to get old and he's going to retire and the restaurant's going to stop. Or someone will take it over and it'll be a different restaurant. But while it's there, there's going to be a whole lot of people who experience that food. There's going to be a whole lot of people who experience that particular ambiance. And I believe that in a small, small way, it changes us. It makes us a little bit different. We gain an experience from these places that you don't get at McDonald's or Burger King or even Five Guys, which is probably the closest thing to a transcendent hamburger there is. But even there, that's different. And I look again at education. And I say, okay, education is a product. But you know what else it is? It's a catalyst. We're not just here to deliver products. We're not just here to provide continuity and predictability. We're here to create original thinkers. When I go into my classroom, I have two agendas. Always. I need to teach you certain things in the program. I need my students to understand things, pass their courses, get good grades. What is it? Timbukh Three Song used to say, your future's so bright, you got to wear shades of that level. Yes, I do that. But you know what else I want? I want people to look and say, really? Is that true? Are you certain about that? I want them to walk out with some predictabilities, but also with some uncertainties. I want them to walk out into the world and I can say that person is not predictable. That individual is an individual. This is someone who hopefully is going to go out into the world and change things. McDonald's is great, but it doesn't change our tastes. It doesn't alter our sensibilities. That, you go to Nunes, you say, I've never had something like this before. What is this thing? I want to have more like this. I want to learn about this. That's what I think a university needs to do. But in order to do that, you then have to have different drummers. We can't all be the same. We can't just be people who lockstep, march, and play our little music. There have to be John Bonham's. There have to be Ringo Starr's. There have to be these people who say, okay, I can do that, but it's going to make your music different. You're not going to be like the other bands. You're going to be Led Zeppelin. You're going to be the Beatles. You're not going to be playing weddings ever again. What else do we need to do? We need to foster those differing opinions. So on the one hand, yes, sometimes I need you to provide the answer. Here's the textbook. Read this. What does the textbook say? It says that correct answer. Give the man a cigar. But sometimes I want you not to give me that answer. Sometimes the good teachers will tell you, show me what is not there. Show me what has not been said yet. Write, as Toni Morrison once said, the books and stories you want to hear, but no one has told you yet. You on the one hand have to have skills that are replicable, but you have to be different drummers too. The truth is you have to go out there. If we're going to do anything about anything in this world that really matters, you're going to have to say different things, come up with different rhythms, and we have to be able to provide that. So in that respect, we also need to stimulate new perspectives. What did I say before? Look at this music that I'm talking about. Why do I listen to the Beatles? Why do I listen to Led Zeppelin? Okay, there's a lot of stories about why I listened to Led Zeppelin, but it's different. It's not auto-tuning. It's not what you hear on an elevator. It's something that gets me thinking. If nothing else, it gets me moving. It does something to me. Why do I love gimme pigs? See, told you they come back. They're odd little creatures. I don't know what it is about them. They don't do what you expect them to do. I love this. I also love it about cats, but for some reason, I think that gimme pigs, gimme pigs are a cool mix.  You own their hearts. So they'll give you love and predictability and everything you want. But every once in a while, they've got real attitude.  I have no idea why. It was jealousy, I think. The thing would sit on my chest and she would come in and it would make odd noises. I never heard it growled. I didn't know they could even do that. Yet, we also had two guinea pigs who thought my father was God. And I still to this day have no idea why. I could feed the things, I could take care of them, I could do whatever I want. You know, it's Mark, whatever it is. Oh wait, he's got a plastic bag, quick. Act fun, he's going to give us food. But my father would come in, their eyes would glaze over. It was like they'd seen the coming of the Messiah of the guinea pig world. I have no idea why. You've got to love this, right? I mean, so you've got on the one hand a little bit of predictability, a little bit of stability, but also that little bit of craziness. And I think we need both of those things. So we need different drummers. Yes, universities need standards to satisfy the needs of their markets. Of course we do. We're in a sense, in that respect, but in a very limited way, we are like a business. We have a commodity that we're putting out there. You're getting it from us and you have to have, it has to have value. If we give you this thing, you have to be able to go out and say, I've got a degree from Silver University and it has to mean something. But look at what I'm saying there. Universities need standards to satisfy their needs with their market. But you know what? They need to be originally unique to satisfy the needs of humanity. If we're supposed to mean anything as an institution, the way we say we mean it, understanding society. We always have these great noble modos. What is it? Harvard is just, I think, truth. I think the veritas is their thing. We always have those things. Yeah, because that's not the market that's speaking. That's us looking to posterity saying, what do we mean in the longer term? In the bigger picture, in the bigger sense of things. So if we look at this, then we can say, yeah, sometimes we need to be McDonald's. We need to make the hamburgers. We need to provide you with those products that are predictable, that everyone understands, that are there for you. But sometimes we need to be the local Italian restaurant. Sometimes we need to provide something that makes you go, bah! And think differently about this stuff. And want to go out into the world and find out more about what made that dish happen. But you know what? The latter comes with a risk. It is unique, which means it's not always going to translate for everyone. Not everyone's going to understand immediately what you've done. Sometimes you'll have to explain it. I was in Naimege, when I got my, you're not a doctor, the first of three graduates in that program, which is actually really cool because later they brought out a who's who book, and it had all the graduating classes, and it's a class of 90, and there were just three names, and I was one of them. I was like, yes. By the way, interesting little thing. The university understood this was going to be a problem. We were the first people to get degrees in American Studies in our program, and when I went to do the graduation processing things, you have to do this whole thing with all the paperwork, I got this huge package, and it's all this information about what you can do as a graduate. It was a really interesting message they sent because it had two things in there that I'll never forget. One was an entire guide to how to set up my own business, and the other thing was all the forms I needed to apply for unemployment, and it was like, you guys don't see a bright shiny future for me, do you? But the thing is, I had to explain to people what I did. When I went to job agencies and stuff, they'd say, American what? And it said, American Studies. I had a whole shtick, and at a certain point it was like stand up. I was like, okay, well, what I did is because they didn't get it. It took a while for people to understand, but then at a certain point certain people said, yeah, but you know, that's kind of interesting. That makes you different. And one of the people who said that, if I can call them a person, Stilberg University, they said, you know what, we've got a lot of English teachers, but you know what, we don't have an American Studies expert. We don't have anyone who really understands that region.  Okay, they didn't say quite like that, although the fool thing came up later in my career, but again, you know, issues. So the unique, but it's also the irreplaceable. For a long while, I was the only guy who did American Studies here. If I'd been hit by a truck, I actually, one of the first courses I helped to really work on and develop was a course called Aspects of American Culture. As you can imagine, truck, not have done that course a lot of good, but it did add something. And there were a lot of people who took the course and they walked away with that little bit of an edge. They got something out of Tilburg that you couldn't get in a lot of other places. But also the non-replicable, the truth is I could teach a bunch of this stuff to other people, but I couldn't make them me. I couldn't turn them into, if we wanted to have more American Studies experts, we had to hire more American Studies experts. And if we wanted to be more like me, that would take a lot of effort. But sometimes you have to have a little bit of faith and hope that that drummer that you hire doesn't get hit by a truck. And then you're on the right track. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you have any questions, fire away. So what do you got? Yes. But the trend is really going the other way, because for example, when I was in Faculty Council and basically seeing it from the inside of at least TSHD, loads of money were put into online culture and computer science, artificial intelligence, etc., just quantifying everything and such. But not so much towards liberal arts, philosophy, etc. The things that, you know, where basically you have loads of really good people, for example, I don't know, do Asian Greek philosophy, but they have to teach you to people something that they're not good at, but that they still have to do because there's not many people who, you know, can do that on the faculty and they want to, you know, save money, etc., to give the 5 million to its CSI and then, you know, well, develop that new shiny building that they have, you know, that they want to develop. So like, sure, it's nice to talk about this uniqueness, etc., but like how to actually, you know, protect yourself from the standardization, how to say that some, like, you know, have this, you know, capability to say, hey, now maybe, you know, we shouldn't be in the McDonald's, maybe let's go the other way, because that's not really happening right now, fortunately. So you think we're over-standardizing or we're moving away? Oh, yeah, no, yeah, no. Yes. And see, that's what got me going. And see, you know, what's interesting is you mentioned, for example, you mentioned stuff like the liberal arts program, and the funny thing is that sometimes people think, for example, if you set up certain programs, that somehow that's the different drummer aspect, etc., but I can point out that there are now, I think, something like over 100 creative writing programs in the US, but you know what's happening to them? They're all becoming the same. I used to get Paris review.  I gave up on it, because a lot of the stories are not the same. All these people are going to like these creative writing programs that all teach the same thing, and they're all writing like the same story. And I'm like, I don't want a McDonald's short story.  And that's hard. It's really hard to maintain that balance. It's so, you know what? You know what the problem is? There's a certain ease and comforts McDonald's. If you've got a formula that you can just run with it.  I mean, every time someone comes up with a good restaurant idea, it seems to become a huge chain really quickly. That's the nature of the thing. Everyone wants it. They all want it to be the same. They all want it to be this. But as I said, if you look at the things that really matter, they're often not like that. And the things that change us are certainly not like that. So yeah, it is a challenge, but it is also a challenge because we can't also divorce ourselves from standardization.  No, because we do have a responsibility. And so that pull is always there. That concern of the truck number, that concern for continuity, that concern for standardization is there for a reason. But so is the other thing. As I said, market humanity. There's two elements playing into this. Does that answer your question or at least line up with what you're saying to some degree? I mean, yes, but I do agree. Like, you know, we need more humanity in education, etc. But the problem is rather that, yeah, this is being kind of done away with more and more and more and more. As far as I mean more of my time in university and seeing things. So it's rather not about maintaining the basic, so it's not rather about like, okay, no, let's not just completely go original, etc. And, you know, let's standardize a little bit and keep the middle road, but it's rather like, okay, how to stop from the onset of over standardization. Because it's, well, one current is much more stronger than the other, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that's what I'm saying. And that's why this comes up. And that's why I talk about these things. And that's why I'm always looking and trying to find that balance. But the other thing that I can say is, you know, it's like the adage that you hear a lot of activists say, starts small. I can't change the entire university system. But I can do what I can in my classroom. Because I'm the boss there. So, yeah, I can follow certain standards, but I can also hopefully draw people out and say, hey, you know what? There are different rhythms out there. It's not all music. It's not all autotune. There's Led Zeppelin. There's the Beatles. There's whatever you want. You can be that drummer too. And maybe the more that we do that, at least we can, if nothing else, perhaps limit some of what's going on there. Anyone else? I stunned them. Yes. Ah, you will be wired for sound momentarily. If you say that we need like a certain level of standardization and originality to like keep up and also keep up with the competition in a sense, isn't like this whole quest for originality also some kind of standardization in its own way? If like everyone wants to be special, everyone has to like, okay, I'm from Tyson. So you want to have this unique selling point in a way. Like you want to have something that makes your university special and sets you apart from the others. But if in the end everyone just wants to be special and you know, like original, isn't that like that a standard in the end as well? Yeah. Now you're thinking and see this is what I'm talking about. This was the problem that I just mentioned with creative writing programs is all these universities said we need an edge. We need to be different. We can't just train lawyers and psychologists. You know what? We'll set up creative writing and then they all did it. And then they all came up with the same ideas as to how to do it and they all have the same so-called edgy alternative modern programs. Yeah, that's a problem too. But that's what keeps us on our toes. But what I think is more important here is what you just did there. That's what I'm talking about. You didn't listen to what I said and said, oh, that makes a lot of sense and walk away. You listen and said, yeah, but wait a minute. Is that really the case? And what about this? That's what I'm talking about. That's a little bit of what I'm aiming for. You have to be able to, in that sense, not always think along certain lines. And you're trying to think along different lines.  But why did you say I'm from Tysim? So I have the feeling everyone else here is from the humanities program, the liberal arts program. And I have the feeling that probably we have a bit of different background knowledge. So I just wanted to introduce this fact to make clear that if I use certain vocabulary, everyone knows where I'm coming from and not try to be like super pretentious asshole-ish person. Okay. What's interesting about that is basically what you're doing is you're staking claim as a different drummer.  I'm coming with a different perspective, which is very good. What I also liked is that you made clear one of the things that I have also been a proponent of in this university. And that is, I think we need to sometimes think beyond our own walls a little bit more as schools and faculties. One of the things I've always said is what I love about this place is it's small and it's specialized. And a lot of the things can be interrelated. There's a lot going on that connects the humanities to economics, that connects law to economics, that connects law to psychology, that connects psychology to the humanities. And we need those connections more. If you ask me, what would I say is one of the things that I think makes our place really unique and funky would be to break down those walls and say, hey, you know what? You're going to train to be a lawyer, but you're going to be a lawyer who understands what's going on in some of these other worlds as well. You'll meet the demands of the market, but you'll have a toolkit that will help the challenges that society and humanity face. And that I think would be really cool. So in that respect, if you are indeed the only person here from Tysim, welcome. Can't see more enough of that. Anyone else? Then ladies and gentlemen, I will yield the floor back to the organizers of the last lecture program. As I want to say in my classroom, and I'll say it again here, it's always a privilege to have the opportunity to stand before you. And I hope that you have gained as much from this as I've enjoyed doing it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mark, for your time. I think now we've been invited to the Grand Café Espinada for a coffee on behalf of Studio Mahiralla, if you'd like. So if you'd like to join us, Mark, if you'd like to join us, well, you're more than welcome. Thank you.


T. F. N. N. headline news update everyone Basel Chapman here the host of the Tiger technicians hour coming up straight after this midday T. F. N. N. market update does down two hundred and twenty twenty five thousand five fifty four remember before all week we've been looking at this passion here that I drew in this gray dashed line that was going down from the top at twenty five on the twenty fifth of February twenty six two four one comes down rallies up to that trend line trend line comes down it pulls back had that Chapman wave Roman candle what I said is if we go for more than two hours into the midpoint of this candles wick the lower wick around about the twenty five ten area watch out we could go right towards right on or just under the low that was made on Monday twenty five six one one today we did that pop went down to twenty five thousand three fifty two having a little bit of a rebound here the weekly chart says there's a really good chance we made a peak a in the weekly chart now we're going to be watching the twenty five thousand one hundred as key support let's go to the S&P and just run these numbers the S&P right now is down nineteen at twenty seven fifty two it is exactly the same thing it's gone under the fourteen period moving average the twenty seven thirty eight level is ready key support and the load today is already twenty seven forty two the QQQ the NDX one hundred having a little bit better of a chart formation but still down very sharply from the high that was made at the one seventy five level it's down the load today was one seventy one is trading one seventy two seventy one one seventy two twenty I'm sorry down one thirty six the IWM actually tried to get positive off to being down much more earlier on now it's down point seventy six and one fifty two has been leading the market down since the high that was made just at the one fifty nine area so the load today is already one fifty one that's eight points that's a pretty big move down let's go to gold gold was trying to rally earlier on so it's fading it's down two at twelve eighty five it's a dollar that had just fabulous action really been impressive the dollar at the high today is ninety seven forty three that makes it higher than the previous peak so this is a leg see in the weekly chart very good action so with that said we're going to go taking a break right now important commercial break we get back as the Tiger technicians out please stay tuned because we're going to be going through bonds we're going to go through the dollar currencies and many of the important stocks Basel Chapman signing off hope to see you next the next few minutes otherwise tomorrow have a great day


respected brothers and sisters in Islam, I have often presented a framework by which we should look at our devotional acts of worship. And I mean namely the Salah, the Zakah, Siyam, and the pilgrimage, the Hajj, and the Ziyarah, for example, to the Prophet ﷺ. Our devotional acts of worship, those that we do on a frequent basis daily, frequently and often. And that framework that I have presented in the past, I hope that is of benefit today as a reminder, is that we have various reasons for which or why we do our devotional acts of worship, why we perform them. The first and foremost reason if you will is an ontological reason, as we say, or theological reason. That is to say that we worship and we perform these devotional acts of worship because Allah SWT commands us to do so. There's no other reason. We do so because Allah SWT God Almighty has commanded us to perform these acts of worship. There's no escaping that. And then as the mercy of Allah SWT is that in spite of the fact or despite the fact or because of the fact that Allah SWT has commanded us to do these things, commanded us to perform these acts of Ibadat, that we find and we accrue benefit. We accrue benefit by performing these acts of worship. This is by the fuddle and the mercy of Allah. Allah doesn't have to do that. He simply commands us to do so and we do so, regardless of whether we understand the benefits, whether or not we accrue the benefits or not. That's secondary. But by the mercy of Allah, in the commands of Allah, in the commands of the performative actions that we do, the performative acts of worship that we do, there is benefit in there. And the benefit is of two kinds, primarily. And that is benefit in this life, what I like to call the utilitarian benefits of worship. Benefits that you will see right in your own lifetimes, right in our day-to-day lives. There is utilitarian benefit for performing the salah. There is utilitarian benefit for paying the zakat, for fasting in the month of Ramadan, for going on the pilgrimage. These are benefits that we can attain that will have implications and impact on our lives, right now, right now. Or through the occurrence or frequency by which we perform our Ibadat, you will begin to see benefits, changes in your lives, inshallah. But the second and more important benefit is that there will be a reward in the life hereafter. There will be a reward in the life hereafter that only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows. That reward is known and kept only to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We may be performed, we may be given x number of virtue or benefit or hasanat by performing the acts of worship. Or that is infinite. We can be performed, we can be rewarded exponentially in the life hereafter. It is all based on what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala decides, and we beg and we ask for the mercy and the love of Allah that He exponentially increases our reward in the life hereafter for the actions that we perform. Amin. So that is the sort of frame with which we look at where I want us to look at our devotional acts of worship. One in particular that I want to focus on today is perhaps the most important of those devotional acts, and that is the act of prayer of salah. We know that on the day of judgment that the first action that we will be held accountable for is our prayers. And as the hadith says that the Prophet ﷺ reminded us that if that is sound, if that is sound and intact, then the rest of our accountability, the rest of our accounting will be based upon that. Meaning that if our prayers are in order, then inshallah, God willing, the rest of our accountability will flow seamlessly and smoothly. That is what the Prophet ﷺ reminds us. So there is something very particular about the salah. Now I want us to remember that frame that I talked about earlier, right? The way with which we look at our devotional acts of worship. And I want you to find or imply that here as we begin to look at the prayer itself. Allah ﷻ tells us about the prayer in many, many, many, many verses of the Qur'an. One in particular that I want to focus on is Surat al-Ankabut, the 29th chapter of the Qur'an. Spider, right? Surat al-Ankabut verse 45. Allah ﷻ says This is often a verse that is actually recited in the khutbah, in the Friday sermon. That established the prayer, indeed the prayer will prevent you from lewdness and indecency. From lewd conduct and indecent conduct. And the remembrance of Allah is the greatest of all things. And elsewhere in the Qur'an, Allah ﷻ says Establish the prayer to remember me. So the act of prayer itself is the greatest act of the remembrance of Allah ﷻ. We perform our adhqaad, but the best adhqaad is the Salah itself. The best remembrance of Allah is that which we do through our devotional act of worship, our devotional act of the Salah. Now we use this word devotional act, but what's interesting about the Salah is that again in sort of using religious studies language, Salah is both performative, devotional, but it is also confessional. We recite, we engage in fact in a conversation with Allah ﷻ. Our prayer is our communion. Our prayer is our communication with Allah ﷻ. Five times a day at minimum, we are given and afforded the opportunity to engage in a confessional conversation with Allah ﷻ. This is the prayer. But when we look at this particular verse of Surat An-Ankabut, establish the prayer, indeed the prayer will prevent you from lewdness and indecency, lewd, indecent conduct. Now our rational minds, if we apply our rational intellect or reason to this particular part of the verse, indeed the prayer will prevent you from lewdness and indecency. How? Again, rational mind only. How? How does that happen? Because there either has to be correlation or there has to be causation, right? What is it that if I perform this Salah that will prevent me from lewdness and indecency? Again our rational minds may not fully understand that. And that is because there is something deeper. What we're looking at or what we're only examining when we think about or look at Salah with that rational lens, our reason, our aqa only, is that we look for causation and correlation and we may not always find that. Because there is a greater and more profound, a metaphysical reality to all our ibadat, to all of our prayer, all of our acts of worship, devotional, professional, confessional. All of our acts of worship have a metaphysical, that which beyond, that which escapes the rational, that which escapes the reason or the aqa that we apply exclusively. To use a fancy word, it is supra-rational. It is beyond intellect. That is what the metaphysical is. We may not see all of those causation. We may not see all of that correlation, but there is one. Because Allah says there is one. Inna Salata Tanha Anil Fa'isha Ibn Munkah. That the prayer will prevent you from lewdness and indecency. And so although we may not see or we may not be able to rationally explain or see the causal and the correlative relationship between praying and lewdness and indecent conduct, it happens. It occurs. Allah is saying that it will happen. And this is the realm of the metaphysical. This is the realm that is beyond our rational understanding. And so in the brief time that we have remaining, if we look at the prayer, those acts, body movements, postures, that which we recite, there are profound meanings in our act of worship, in our act of prayer. And we are only going to look at but a few of those. They are because again, they're unlimited. They are, this is the realm of the metaphysical. This is the realm that is beyond our rational understanding. We may not even know. We may not even begin to know all of the profound and hidden secrets and meaning that lies within the prayer. But we have to first and foremost, I want to note here, the first and foremost, we have to recognize that that is possible. We have to recognize that that is a reality, that there are hidden mysteries and secrets in our prayer that even throughout a lifetime of devotional act, we may never fully grasp or understand those meanings. They are beyond our understanding, but we do so because Allah has commanded us to do so and we know that there are beautiful and hidden and profound meanings and secrets in our prayers that escaped the rational. So let us look at but a few. When we engage in the prayer, actually, in fact, there are prerequisites to the prayer itself. We have to be in a state of ritual purification, wudu. We have to be pure and that purity is beyond the physical, right? Because it's not like we wash every or there are parts or there are aspects or there are conditions by which we have to perform rossal. But nonetheless, by and large, the vast majority of times, we perform the wudu in order to prepare as a prerequisite for the salah. I don't know which mic has turned off, but these are the requisites that the necessary pre-steps to performing the prayer and that is the purification. And as I said, that purification escapes beyond just the physical because even if we look at the wudu, we're just washing certain parts of our bodies, not necessarily all of the parts that may be dirty, for example. But that is, again, hidden and beautiful meanings of the wudu itself. And we know that the Prophet SAW told us that as we wash our hands, for example, all the sins that we commit with our hands, they wash off all the sins that we commit with our mouth, with our eyes, with our ears, because this is what we wash all of the actions that we walk towards. The evil deeds that we walk towards will be washed away by the performing of the wudu. These are profound meanings. Another prerequisite for the prayer is that we have to be facing the qiblah, facing makkah, facing the qabah to the best of our abilities. And again, this teaches us and this informs us of the meaning or the profound implication of having direction, of having focus. We don't just haphazardly perform the prayer. Similarly, our lives should not be haphazard. Our lives should have a qiblah, should have a direction, to have a focus, live lives of intentionality. Intention, niyah is another prerequisite for the prayer. According to majority of the schools, we have to have a niyah in some of the schools, a verbal intention to perform the salah. You have to verbalize the intention. Again, living a life of direction, of qiblah, living a life of intentionality. That's what this is teaching us. First thing that we do when we engage in the prayer is the lifting and the raising of our hands and in the motion that we are literally and figuratively putting the world and everything else behind us. We raise our hands and we put everything else behind us. All of the dunya and the worldly concerns that we have when we engage in the prayer, we're putting all of that behind us and we're focusing and we're turning only to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, only to God Almighty. This is the prayer. These are the acts of the prayer, profound, beautiful implications. It is said that the servant of Allah is the nearest to Allah in what position? In the sajda. In the sajda. This simple act of prostration. What do we do when we perform the sajda? We are literally placing our forehead on the ground, kneeling and an act of utmost subjugation to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, humility before Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. Our brains, that the rational, the place where we find the ego. I am someone. I am somebody. I'm somebody because I have knowledge or I have experience or I have skills or I have a bank account. Whatever that is, the ego, the nefs, that which gives us that sense of accomplishment and feeling of superiority. We put that in the dirt five times a day at minimum, multiple times a day because they're more than five sujud in the prayer right throughout the day. We put that part of our lives, that ego, that sense of accomplishment, that sense that you are somebody into the dirt where it belongs before Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. That is the closest we are to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. The poet from the subcontinent Iqbal, he said, this is a sajda which you think is meaningless. That this one prayer that you take for granted or you think that it's meaningless. That this one sajda, it prevents you from a thousand sujud because once you've subjugated to Allah to the greatest of all of realities, once you have submitted to Allah, you cannot and you will not fully submit to anything else. It prevents you from a thousand prostrations.  It prevents you from a thousand sujud because once you have turned to the greatest of reality, everything else it is inconsequential. Everything else is meaningless. Everything else is less than that. So again, we don't have time to go into all of the profound implications but I want us to begin at least to think about these acts of worship that we do where but a few weeks, months away from the month of Ramadan, another act, another opportunity for us to reflect on the hidden and the profound meanings of these acts of worship that we do. And so let us hope and let us pray to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala that He gives us the ability, the understanding in our hearts and in our minds to understand the profound and beauty of our acts of worship and let us never leave those acts of worship because they are meaningful. They are profound and they have deep insight and meaning in our lives. Wa Aqeem Al-Salaali Dikri


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Hello. Hello. Hi, my friend. Well, hello, my friend. How are you doing? I hope that woman's still living with you. Well, she is, but she's practically giving me up. Do you tell her she's the star of the ball? That dirty family. Nobody could vote against them. Wasn't that nice? They looked so good last night. I told her of our call, and the professor, she was so happy. Well, you and I have made a mistake or two in our life, but she never tripped anything. I even saw a feature owner this morning. About how she said she wasn't running for First Lady, that she was running for Hubert Humphrey, and that she did feel like she had picked up a few little things on how to be First Lady, and she'd just do her best, but she's really running for you. I thought it was the sweetest interview I want to vote twice. Oh, bless your heart. Thank you. I'll tell her. Hi, dear friend. We're coming down to Crunchy, where I got to talk to the others. I met with some of my friends last night. Much, I think all of those are, and I think what you've got to do is, every one of these guys is trying to influence you. Now, I'm not, but I do want to balance you. Please do that as long as I live, because I'll try to be as good as you've been to me. The one thing I do is look at what I got as Vice President and see where you're going to get it. Now, I just can't improve on that. That's not sentiment. That's not emotion. That's just true. You want lots of energy and go-go. You want lots of articulateness. You want a guy that, when the boss doesn't know where they can come in on, that he'll turn up his speech and laugh and thank him for coming. You want a guy that got to go down in the swamps. The boss can't go. That he'll love to do it and be happy, even though it just cuts his toenails off. Somebody's got to do that. Now, you've done it all along. You've got to say you have somebody that had not a coward. And when the going gets tough and everything gets rough and well within the year, you've got to have somebody that'll just get in a little bit closer and stay a little bit longer. You've got to have a wife like yours and you've got to have a family like yours. You've got to have somebody as near as that. Just the dimensions I know. Who pets that? I just really honestly don't know. I know a good many that don't pet it. You don't want another lodge campaign. You don't want another garner. You don't want another Wallace. And you just cannot tell. And what all is gold. All is not gold that glitters. And I think the one mistake you're going to make is the same mistake I made. I think you already made it. It's your shorter troops. You're shorter riders. You're shorter managers. You're short of young able folks. You're short of money primarily. It comes from your father and mother. You didn't inherit it. And as a consequence, you're going to have to take people who are not always as loyal as you've been to me. And pretty soon they'll turn things over to another group. And that's the mistake that I made. If I had one thing, I wouldn't change a word on Dominican or Vietnam or anything else. If I had one thing back, I'd appoint everybody like I appointed you vice president. If I had done that, start over new. I'd do it now. So that's what I want you to be careful about. And this thing loyalty, Hubert, there's not many of them that got it. I know that. And that the vice presidency is an impossible job. No human being ought to be required to inherit four years. And I don't care how much you give him. I gave you cities. I gave you civil rights. I gave you housing studies. I gave you youth. I gave you trips. I gave you Vietnam.  But they just make a specialty of trying to divide you and whip you in. And they will do it. And they'll tell you every day all the mistakes the boss makes. Pretty soon some of his staff will be saying, well, the old man didn't screw things up. My boss would have done it. It's human. So that's the number one quality. Another thing you got to have, you can't carry this country. We're behind now. You just can't carry it. I don't know who can carry it. But if I were giving serious thought, I wouldn't go to ambassadors much. I think you'll antagonize the other group. I don't think you'll get much. And I don't think you'll have somebody who's got more ambition for himself. Yes, that's what I've written off. And then as for you, I'll have to say this about you. I guess you're always willing to be president. But I never saw any evidence of it until I told you that I couldn't be. Now that's what you want. That's what you've got to bear in mind. So I would give thought to some of those that you've got. I think Muskie is a man of exceptional ability and stature. Now that's about all I know about him. I don't know how much of a go-go guy he is. I don't know how manageable he's going to be, what's going to happen on all these things. But I think you have to keep him there on the list. And he is Catholic and that is good. He's main and that is bad. There's small state that doesn't offer much in that sectionalism. And what he will be doing every day, seven days a week, I don't know, he's been mighty low key. But I think he has to stay. Then let's go on right quick to three others. One name you haven't mentioned and you may not want to and nobody's ever mentioned it to me. The name I mentioned to you the other day doesn't go. Yeah, it just doesn't go. So forget that. I just wanted you to give some consideration. But I looked into it and it doesn't go. So much for that. I think that it's worthy of giving a little thought to think of Hale Boggs. I don't know of another Southern here that wouldn't irritate him.  But if you're not going to the South, he's Catholic too and he is Southern and he is liberal and so forth.  They're worse than Barry Goldwater and things and you can do it in Pennsylvania and New York if anybody can do it with what we're going to do with the Jews and what we're going to do with the Italians by being friendly. But you've got to get somebody that can appeal to these others. Now this would be a natural if it would work and nobody ever mentioned it to me but I never heard as many compliments on anybody as I did on a new one. He answers Vietnam with an empty sleeve. He answers your problem with Nixon with that empty sleeve. He has that brown face. He answers everything in civil rights and he draws the contrast out over open mouth. I've never known him to make a mistake. He's got cold, clear courage. He's as loyal as a dog as you must have observed. He never undercut you. He ought to appeal to the West. He ought to appeal to the world. It would be fresh and different. He's young and new. It's something that ought to be considered and I think that your secretary could call him like Marvin Watson does and say would you please go to Utah, South Carolina, San Francisco and I believe he could go to all of them and never lay an egg. Nobody ever mentioned it to me but I just saw him and Lady Bird said, watched him on television. He said that this is the best man I know of except Hubert. One of all the folks we've come out with. He's asked nothing, he's done nothing but he wouldn't be miserable in the place. Now another fellow will be and he'll be lazy and other things so I would consider Boggs and I'd consider him. I'd consider Muskie. The Terry Sandeford would be good. He's been loyal but I understand the Southern boys. Thank you to the liberal. I don't know what to say to him any more than I had to. They all love, they all love Annoy. I don't know why but they all, they just, I think one thing is that they just look at him and see that he, they can't fuss at him and say he doesn't love peace. God knows he wants peace more than anybody and it's quite a contrast with Agnew and Civil Rights thing and Nixon and I just don't think that any Jew or any Pole or any Italian or anybody else, in other words the South can't get mad at him because he's color and he would appeal to every other minority because he is one. And that's about all that I can think of that I like Harris very much. I'd be for Harris. Harris would help us as much as anybody in our state except Connelly. I love Connelly. I think he's able and attractive together with what they said they have problems and I would not urge anybody from my own state because you know that situation as well as I do but Harris would do more to help in this area than nearly anybody.  If I had to make the decision and those would be the four and then I just guess I'd go west. I'm not going to go east unless it's the only one and if you feel more comfortable and down the road you think you are I think you have to be satisfied and I don't want you to feel like you got satisfied me. I think it's an advantage. I think it's an advantage. I think both of us are too old and the modern thing. I think you love people more than anybody in this country but me but I think they use it against us and I think that this cuts the guts out of them the nuts out of them. I don't think anybody could blame me. I don't know anything about his record. I don't know what he did. I don't know whether any pawn shop fellas gave him any contributions or what happened in Oklahoma. That's something you have to just take a little look at and when you get down to one or two I'll take a look at it right quick for you. I did on some of these others and it's not good. We had a clearance before I even talked to you but when you look a little bit different we found some associations. I think we ought to take a good look at friends and I think that's about two seconds on. Anybody here I can talk to about that? Yes I'll do it and I'll get back to you in 30 minutes just as soon as they can look at it. I know it doesn't appeal to you. Well I just don't believe so. I guess maybe it just takes me a little too far too fast. Well I think of the two I don't know I've never looked at his record I don't know what it is but I think of the two these are the strong