Um so hi everyone and thank you for joining us today for this week's lecture in planning series presentation. Our speaker this week is Anna Maria Bounds, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College City University of New York. My name is Jenna Davis and I'm a PhD student here in the program and I'll be moderating today's session. I just want to start with a few brief technical and logistical announcements and then I'll turn over to introducing today's speaker. Uh so during the talk I'd just like to remind everyone in the audience to please meet their microphones. We'll be recording today's talk so anyone in the audience who does not wish to be recorded should plan on please starting off their video input. And then the chat box should be used only for discussion regarding the session. If you have any technical questions that apply only to you please message me or Stefan Norgaard privately. And then finally being encouraged all of you to type questions into the chat box during the presentation. After the presentation we'll have time for a brief Q&A. We'll start the Q&A around two or two fifteen so that we have time for your questions. And I'll be coordinating the Q&A with attention to diversity and inclusion. If you've already had a chance to pose a question please just allow others to do so before asking another. So with that I'm delighted to turn to introducing today's speaker Dr. Anna Maria Bounds. Dr. Bounds is an assistant professor of sociology at Queen's College City University of New York. She holds a PhD in urban and public policy from the new school. Her new book Bracing for the Apocalypse and Ethnographic Study of New Yorker's Prepper Subculture is a rich ethnography that explores the rise of urban preppers in her city. Her research interests focus on city subcultures, city tourism and public space. She teaches courses on urban sociology and social science research methods. She also has earned an MA in writing from Old Dominion University. Today Dr. Bounds' lecture which is called Bracing for the Apocalypse and Ethnographic Study of New Yorker's Prepper Subculture. We'll discuss her new book. The book explores the rise of urban prepper subculture in New York, shutting light on the distinctive approach of city dwellers in preparing for disaster. With attention to the role of factors such as class, race, gender, and one's expectations of government, it shows that how one imagines doomsday effects, how one prepares for it. Drawing on participant observation, the author explores prepper's views on the central question of whether to bug out or hunker down in the event of disaster and examines the ways in which the prepper economy increases revenue by targeting concerns over developing skills, building networks, securing equipment, and arranging a safe locale. So Dr. Bounds, if you're ready, I'll pass things over to you now. I think you're actually muted Dr. Bounds. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me to share my research today. Today's invitation is particularly meaningful because it was extended by my dissertation chairperson Robert Beauregard. So I feel very honored today. I'm forever appreciative for Bob's influence on my work. So in my talk today, I'll discuss the main themes of my book and draw some important connections between urban prepping and urban planning because, after all, urban preppers are planners. They're ordinary citizens who are planning how to survive in extraordinary circumstances. However, that's really only one layer of our conversation today. I'm also considering the context of our conversation, the impact of time and circumstance on our togetherness today. Lately, I've been thinking about how I began and in my book. My book begins with the decision to take on an ethnographic project of learning how and why some New Yorkers prepare for disaster. Throughout the book, I detail and analyze my journey according to relevant urban sociological theories. However, at the end of the book, there's a shift. In New York, the pandemic has started. New York is about to change. The world is about to change. This afternoon, we'll be talking about that tragic change. As Brecht wrote, in the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing about the dark times. So here we are today. I'm presenting virtually to a group of New Yorkers who have mostly been sheltering in place for the last eight months and possibly the next eight months. One might argue that we're doing just that today, singing about the dark times. However, I'm certain that wouldn't be entirely correct. However, I'm not certain that that is entirely correct. We can see a glimmer of the future. We can see hope, the promise of a new vaccine, the promise of a new presidential administration. And when I think about these possibilities, I'm reminded of the words of Annette, a New York prepper. At the start of my project, she gave me an important directive. She said, make sure that people know we aren't preparing for the end of the world. We're preparing for tomorrow. Tomorrow. So today, we're going to take on her challenge by exploring the world of New York prepping before and during the pandemic. With strategies ranging from moderate to extreme, prepping involves preparing and planning to independently survive disasters in the context of dwindling resources and without government assistance. With dwindling faith and the promise of government aid during disasters, New York preppers have turned to self-protection strategies to ensure their safety. For this subculture, surviving relies on one's own skills and fostering social bonds. As Jason, the leader of the New York city preppers network, which is the city's only public prepping group and the group that I spent, now I guess it's about three years with, as he explained, zombies aren't real. Neither aliens. This isn't about science fiction stuff. Preparedness is about preparing for real things. Real things like we've already been through, like 9-11, insanity. New Yorkers need to be educated about prepping skills. So my book's about trying to understand that perspective. After three years of research, which involved joining the NYCPN, completing in-depth interviews with both group members and independent preppers, my findings suggest that Jason might be right. Another senior prepper also explained why learning to prep and becoming self-reliant is so important in the city. He argued there's no calvary coming. The world's grown too fast, where there are simply not enough resources. Manpower, military, everything. You could go to a town and there may be 50,000 people. That's not Manhattan. In New York, there's 8 million. Where do you put 8 million people in a disaster? So you have to fend for yourself. And to fend for yourself, you've got to learn these things. So prepping actually might be thought of, actually I'm just thinking, we're well past 8 million now. And so in thinking about prepping, in thinking about prepping, we should consider it a foundation of community resilience, which is to find the capacity to anticipate risk, limit impact, bounce back rapidly, through survival, adaptability, evolution, and growth in the face of turbulent change, which is the mission of prepping to a team. So when we think about the elements of prepping, and I'll go over all of these in more detail when we talk specifically about New York, but when we think about the philosophy of preparedness, I want you to understand that it hinges on self-reliance in all areas of life, not just all areas of life, which are really kind of which are three action areas. The first one is protecting your family. That's what we think of when we normally think about prepping. But it also involves homesteading, being as independent as you possibly can be. Homesteading in terms of canning, learning how to make your own clothes, learning how to engage in do-it-yourself projects that allow you to produce objects rather than consume things. There's also an important element of preparedness that focuses on sustainability. If you're going to survive, you can only survive as long as the world survives. So sustainability is crucial in thinking about respect for environment and thinking about reducing one's carbon footprint. We're thinking about recycling, upcycling, thinking about how you can be as self-reliant as possible in all areas of your life. So drawing from my current research, drawing from my book and also my current research on preppers during the pandemic, I'd like to explore four questions. First, who are urban preppers? Why are they prepping for disaster? And how are they prepping for disaster? That's really the huge chunk of this, which is about my book. The next one focuses, the next question focuses on my current research, which is how are preppers surviving this pandemic? While urban preppers have trained and practiced practice together, practice for doubt, wow, urban preppers have trained and practiced survival skills together. The experience of actually living through and surviving a pandemic in New York has given these preppers the opportunity to test their metal. And so we're going to take a look at how they're doing today. So when we think about disaster and when we think about preppers, how are we exactly defining disaster? In this project, I define disaster according to how preppers view it, according to how they define it. So it's defined broadly to reflect the wide range of scenarios that preppers are concerned about, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics or epidemics, technological failure, and government or economic collapse. So with our first question, our first question is, who are urban preppers? Well, when we take a look at this slide, here's the image that most people think of when hearing the word prepper. The idea of the prepper stereotype. In National Geographic's hit television series, Doomsday Preppers, America was first really introduced to the prepper stereotype. A camouflage wearing and gun toting, white male, fixated on protecting himself and his loved ones against mysterious and very dangerous unknown. The success of this series actually led to a genre where we see different shows like, where we were exposed to different shows like Prepper Hailbillies, which is where this image comes from. Apocalypse Preppers, Doomsday Castles, and so on. In this particular series, and through television and film, we were exposed to the novel ways that preppers escaped disaster, which encouraged us to tap into what is something in America that's very powerful, the collective belief and the power of the fierce white male hero, full of bravado and might. The person, the hero that's going to save us. That prepper, this prepper stereotype has a starring role in America's popular imagination. However, reality often conflicts with imagination. My research indicates that this media stereotype of the American prepper disappears in the context of thinking about New York. New York preppers are not exclusively white males who exhibit traits of hypermasculinity. Instead, like their city, New York preppers reflect diversity. Preppers are African-American. Preppers are Puerto Rican. They're Asian. Preppers are Mexican. Many preppers are also women. These are the people left out of the white male prepper hero narrative. For example, the NYCPN is a group of urban preppers that studies and practices preparedness strategies together. Now, when we take a look at their current membership profile, we see two interesting things. We see that roughly this group of preppers has about 500 members, and the majority of those are people of color. The groups also split in an interesting fashion, according to gender. It's roughly split between men and women. When we think about New York preppers, we also break away from the image of preppers as isolated and paranoid people. Many of the people that I've interviewed in my research are engaged community members. They're community leaders. They participate in a variety of activities involving professional organizations and community service groups. Many of the preppers are also middle-class parents. They have jobs like first responders or school teachers or office administrators, even security guards. They're people who are concerned about protecting their children. However, the New York prepper or the New York prepping world also includes America's extremely wealthy whites, millionaires and billionaires. For those widely, prepping really doesn't have very much to do with surviving, independently surviving disaster and difficult conditions. Instead, their disaster preparedness involves escaping to a private highway, or retreating to his luxurious safe room. I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about preppers today because wealthy preppers did exactly what they promised to do in response to a crisis. They left the city. So we have, as we all know, dramatic shifts are decreased in our population of both wealthy preppers and just regular wealthy people who have left the city. So when we think about, so when reflecting on the white male stereotype, in Shira, an African-American female prepper, actually a group leader explained, commented on the idea of the white male prepper narrative. Here's what she said. I think about it all the time. She explained that cowboy idea doesn't apply to everyone in prepping. Preppers aren't necessarily those white guys in the backwoods or the guys wearing tactical gear. This isn't about being an individual, the lone wolf. This involves mothers and children. This is about the city. That white male narrative, that's not who we are, and that's not what we're about. So what are preppers about? So what are New York preppers about? Why do they practice prepping? So my research in studying New York preppers has revealed to me that analyzing this phenomenon only according to national context and the romantic idea that preparedness is closely linked to the American sense of individualism, to the spirit and power of American go-to, those ideas are horribly misguided. Instead, I argue that urban preparedness is not really about the national. It's about the local. It's about where the work happens. It's about the city. It's about place. It's about self. It's about tribe. And it's about connection. Urban prepping is about adapting to the changing nature of the city. It's about the beauty and the tragedy of the city. By stepping outside of the identity of a typical city dweller, urban preppers break free from their way of knowing the world and expand their respective self-identities by learning new roles in their ways of engaging life in New York City. As one prepper explained, we're about getting you comfortable in the discomfort, pushing you past your normal way of life. Now, for some New York preppers, though, the trial of urban life has informed their perspective, their interest in prepping because they discovered early on that survival in the city depends on self-reliance. Life experiences such as growing up poor in an endangered neighborhood or growing up in an immigrant family with little social support and few economic resources dramatically influence their perspective. Al, as Al, a Bronx prepper recounts his childhood, poor family, single mom, growing up in a rough neighborhood, I learned about prepping early by watching your back being mindful of your environment. I learned how to live life on the defense. Neighborhood had gangs, drug dealers. My mom was an alcoholic, so I had to go down to the corner to buy beer and cigarettes when I was 10. People on the street, they know you. My mom was tough. She was in a gang. She knew how to fight. She would always teach me, watch your back. That was her instinct. We started prepping. My cousin and me, around 10. We would make plans in case something was going down. What we were going to do, weapons, stars, knives, not money or food. We were kids. We were thinking about finding off people. We even had a meeting spot. We had no real name for it. We would always just say, we got to prepare. The Doomsday prepper show gave it an A, and that Al's wife, her interest in prepping is rooting in her mother's immigrant tradition of stockpiling food and basic supplies to protect the family during moments of, during times of financial insecurity. She explains, for me, it's about prepping for life, being smart. My mom started me on this. My mom always made sure that the cabinets were full. She caught sales on everything, like beanies. There were seven of us. She was always saving and always stocking. She started me on this. It's about being responsible. So, most important, direct experience with disaster in the city has also fueled interest in prepping. So, as one prepping consultant explains, living in New York is like living on the X, where global city characterized by tremendous wealth, tremendous inequality, and also increasing risk, which makes New York a ripe context for prepping. So, when we think about New York's disasters and disruptions, from the time period of my study roughly, the start of the 21st century from 2001 to 2020, when we think about the things that have happened in New York, our threats that have happened in New York, we really think about three things. We think about the terrorist attack. We think about the World Trade Center attack. We think about Hurricane Sandy, and now we think about the COVID pandemic. However, during this time period, New York has experienced a whole host of other disasters or threats of disasters. For example, September 11th was just one terrorist attack. We actually even had two in the year 2017, the Port Authority Terminal Subway attack, and then the West Side Highway attack. We also had in terms of natural disasters. We also had tornadoes and an earthquake. We had Hurricane Irene, all sorts of things. Before COVID, we had the threat of an epidemic with Zika, Ebola, and also swine flu. We also had technological failure, and the most memorable one is in 2003, the North Eastern Black Out. Then we've also had government or economic instability, meaning in 2007, starting with the subprime mortgage crisis, which moved us into the Great Recession, which ended in 2009. We've had a lot of things on our plate. Many events that have influenced some New Yorkers to think that living in the city requires both street smarts and survival smarts. So when we think about urban prepping, it's also closely connected to urban citizenship, which is defined as the city dwellers set of rights and responsibilities, involving safety, political engagement, tolerance, recognition, and freedom, all of the important elements that we value in city life. Urban prepping emphasizes the right to safety and the right to recognition. For people of color who recognize that their communities have been underserved in previous disasters, prepping represents agency, and it represents a demand for recognition to address inequalities and the distribution of resources. In this regard, urban prepping makes an important break with what we view as traditional prepping. It makes a break with misperceptions. We have about prepper's motivation, but it's not about prepping. It's a break with misperceptions. We have about prepper's motivations to prepare against disaster and the rationale behind their lack of trust in government. So as depicted in the media and the mass media, a stereotypical prepper's drive to stockpile and prepare for disaster is spurred by conspiracy theories. Things like the fear of the sudden loss of Second Amendment rights, the stereotypical prepper, well, let's compare that first against the opposite. Conversely, after observing media coverage of poor communities and communities of color receiving little emergency support, urban preppers may believe that they should prep for disaster because they can't rely on government assistance. So those are two different cases. In the first case, the stereotypical prepper thinks, hmm, I need to prepare because the government's coming for me. And the second case and the urban prepper case and urban prepper thinks, I've got to prepare because the government isn't coming for me. How do New York preppers plan for disaster? How is it different than rural and suburban preppers? Prepping involves two main strategies. Mugging out which involves leaving for safe haven. It could be a safe house, it could be a luxury, if you're a wealthy urban prepper, it could be a luxury hideaway, or it just could be staying at a family and friends during the period of disaster. A home of a family friend or even a family member. Mugging out involves bushcraft, which is another word for wilderness survival skills. Understanding how to make a fire, understanding how to build a shelter, understanding how to filter water, those kinds of skills. It also involves first aid. Preppers often just don't receive certification in basic first aid. Many preppers actually go on to receive a certification in wilderness emergency medicine, wilderness emergency first aid, which is very challenging. Now, so when we take a look at, so when we think about bug outs, the most important element of a bug out is your bag.  And we'll talk more about that in a few moments, but in terms of symbolic interactionism, the theory that I use to take a look at the world of prepping, a bug out bag is very symbolic. It's very, you're showing the prepping world your skills and your ability. It's how you represent, it's how you establish your legitimacy, your legitimacy, your credibility as a prepper. Now, preppers all, if preppers do not feel that leaving the city is an option, they bug in. And that refers to sheltering in place. And when sheltering in place involves staying, usually staying within your home. It involves the development and the creation or reliance on a prepping client closet, which is a designated area in someone's home and which they store important provisions, such as food, water, medicine. In the case of the pandemic, hand sanitizer, math, extra math, gloves, have math suits for more advanced preppers. All of those things that you think that you need to survive in your apartment. And it's interesting when you think about it because even though we're not all preppers with, you know, sheltering in place during the pandemic, we all sort of have a sense of designating a prepper of going out and buying items to help us survive during the pandemic. And in this case, preppers also receive certification in first aid. And what we see is an interesting shift between my book and how preppers are faring in the pandemic is that in the book, there's a lot of focus on outdoor excursions. The idea of taking a look at how preppers craft their social world through trying to survive the elements with as few items as possible. And what gets them through is their bug outback. Now, with bugging in, the symbolic item, the item that is the tool that becomes very significant is the prepper closet. And we'll talk more about that in a few moments. But when we think about these main survival strategies, here's where I think urban planning and urban prepping really intersect. There's a lot of issues related to urban planning that deal with both bugging out and bugging in. Like, for example, and leaving the city, what's one of the things that you need to consider when planning to leave the city? Well, you need to think about traffic congestion. You need to think about the limited exit routes out of the city. And here's a representation of that. And this is primarily bridges. You also need to think about, so what most preppers do is, and this is where this is really, they don't plan. And then when I'm saying preppers, I'm thinking about middle class preppers, wealthy preppers already have things in place. They've already made agreements for the helicopter ride out of the city. They've already made plans for the helicopter, the private jet, whatever the case may be, to bring them to their strategic relocation. Middle class preppers are worried about traffic. So what idea did they come up with in the event they need to leave the city? They believe that their best option is walking outside of the city. And here I have some possible paths that people could take to leave the city. So this definitely, so when we think about the idea of bugging out, it's not just traffic congestion. It's also trying to think about the role of public transportation. What kind of the size of population? Here's where it gets really tricky. So preppers think about the idea of in the event of a disaster and they need to leave the city that they'll walk on foot. Now, right away, urban planning comes into play because we need to think about population size. We need to think about density because Manhattan on the weekend has a residential population of a little over one million. On a work day and a non-pandemic setting, the population in Manhattan soars to about three million. Also play an important role in bug out. Preppers use parks to meet up in the city rather than meeting at home. The idea that not just big parks, neighborhood parks. Here's an interesting example. Families understand that children and teens may not, given all their activities, may not necessarily be at home in the event a disaster strikes. In other words, the family may not be together. So what some family preppers do is they practice on meeting up in a neighborhood park where the children play or where they used to play if they're older and they leave and they practice walking outside the city from those parks. Parks are also considered a resource for food and fuel. Architecture of New York's buildings is particularly significant for preppers. And in creating their bug out plans, preppers also often look for buildings that you can cut through to save time on their journey. They also think about types of buildings and locations. Buildings that might be safe to hold up in a while. Warehouses that store provisions. Buildings that have rooftop gardens are vertical indoor gardens. Locations of houses of worship and hospitals. When you take a look at a prepper map and I regret that due to confidentiality reasons, I can't show any of these. You'll see a map that shows a very different geography of the city and where let's say you'll have places identified according to code so you really don't understand the map. But when you see it, you see a map of locations of, let's say for example, houses of worship. So let's say if someone lives deep within a particular borough and they're trying to make their way out, they have these identified as possible places of refuge on their way outside of the city. Now when we think about sheltering in place, urban design again comes into play. When we think about the suitability of apartments for sheltering in place, New York City apartments, our New York apartments of course are quite small and preppers need to be very creative in how they store their items. We could also think about the construction of posh safe rooms. We can think about right now how people are reconfiguring their apartments to make their apartments more suitable for long-term sheltering in place. That could be major or minor construction or it could be something as simple as a design, a rearranging the furniture in the apartment to improve workflows and to create things like stations for work and study in place. A primary concern that everyone has, the primary concern that everyone has right now not just preppers about buildings is trying to think about what's a healthy building, right? What are air filtration systems? What are, how much is it cost to put in place a healthy air filtration system? Now when we think about New York sheltering in place, I have here two posts. One is actually is an apartment and you see two people. It's very crammed. They have their items and the caption is for those of you who can't read it. Well there's a last of it which means we just ate 30 years worth of food in two weeks. And then the next one is a picture of me in the Wall Street Journal and I'm showing this because I think that this speaks to the creativity that preppers have. The idea that you just don't necessarily have a big space to place your provisions that you need to think creatively. And in this example you see here an antique trunk that has various dry goods that I don't use as things that I normally wouldn't store in my kitchen. In other words long-term provisions, things that would be things that would be helpful. I haven't included any photos of of again of prepper cloth that I've seen due to confidentiality reasons. We've got about 15 minutes left. So when we think about so here's it here's so in my book when I think about how preppers train for disaster, how they develop their survival skills. It's fascinating because we start out with the idea that these are isolated individuals who focus on networks only involving their family and the people that they're going to leave with which is really quite different because preppers are actually very strong networkers and when they have and when they train together the idea of finding your role in the community the idea of making your contribution is key. As one prepper explained to be part of a prepping group to learn from one another it's not just about learning from one another. You need to earn your place. And the first way that preppers do that is through establishing trustworthiness and trustworthiness is basically a series of a series of steps that range as you know every from everything from attending meetings regularly to being on time to showing a particular to developing a broad skill set as well as a specialization and keeping your work. You know we're on time. You do what you're supposed to in the group. You're courteous.  All these sorts of things that we identify as kind of good citizenship skills. So that was particularly surprising for me. So what I'd like to talk about now in the last few minutes and I think I have about 10 minutes left. Okay so when I kind of want to switch gears and I want to leave the book for a moment because since we're all groups of New Yorkers you know hunkered down in the pandemic together I want us to think about my early findings on how preppers are responding to the to the pandemic. And I'm thinking about it in two ways. The first way is I'm thinking about how the experience of actually enduring a disaster has influenced their philosophy of self-reliance. For example how are they viewing how has the reality of the pandemic impacted their understanding of their expectation of government. And I'm also interested in trying to take a look at how their survival skills have served them. And I've found out some I think particularly fascinating details which map directly with the book scene. So for a moment we'll go over these in as much detail as we can in this short time period. So for urban preppers the federal government's failure to enact a clear response to the pandemic did exactly what we could expect it would do. It reaffirmed their core belief that government wasn't going to help them. So when we take a look at that so what do we mean by government not coming to help. Well we're all familiar with the narrative about we're all familiar unfortunately with the lack of transparency the lack of coordination and the lack of interest in developing a pandemic a response to the pandemic at the federal level. We know there were critical missteps such as the failure to identify the virus early confusion about what good practices what good healthy what were good practices in terms of wearing the wearing of masks wear a mask don't wear a mask there was changes about that about social distancing and also the government's inability to provide protective equipment not just to ordinary citizens but to health care workers. And so then we see as we already know by March 20th we're the epicenter of the pandemic and we're not able to we're unable to rely on the federal government the federal government has already passed off its responsibilities to the state. So it's your Cuomo and we have Cuomo and in de Blasio trying to design to develop a coordinated and sometimes not very coordinated plan for the state of New York. We have Governor Cuomo giving televised updates to help boost our not to just help boost our morale but to provide some transparency to show that the state government was hard at work trying to help the pandemic. Now you may not know this and this is just a sidebar but one of the interesting things about the pandemic and one of the interesting things about Cuomo's daily press briefings is that he won an Emmy I believe it was last week he won an Emmy they argued that the daily press press releases meaning the academy argued that the daily press press briefings were actually a show and that he created characters there was a plot and there was all sorts of dramatic tension but he just didn't create daily briefings. He also created and I apologize I don't have a picture of it I suggest that you go online I also made a poster which I ordered which is this interesting outline of our journey through basically the first wave of the pandemic. So for urban preppers as I've already said their perception was reaffirmed and going to offer a couple of quotations. One prepper argued that federal government's ability to manage the COVID pandemic resulted in a game of whack-a-mole where problems related to the virus and confusion kept popping up how perfect is that whack-a-mole. Another long-term prepper's direct experience another quotation was from one of the speakers one of the one of the season preppers that I referred to at the beginning as David Marlin he said look his response was look I said a long time ago that there was no cavalry coming the pandemic proved that I was right in my thinking the president exaggerating claims while people were dying governor Cuomo and de Blasio squabbling and holding things up while people were dying stop having faith in these people we have to take care of ourselves so how do they go about taking care of themselves well we've discovered that the pandemic has been a really important lesson in endurance for urban preppers how much time do I have left to think I have about four minutes and it feels like four am I over yeah you you have about four minutes left but it's very okay all right so I'll just thank you so I'll just jump to some of the important highlights so preppers discovered that prepper closets were meaningful they were meaningful well here's what here's let me back up and say here's the interesting thing an interesting discovery urban preppers were prepared to prevent the spread of the to prevent the spread of the virus much earlier than other New Yorkers because they had prepper closets that were filled for vital supplies not just food and other provisions but protective equipment for the pandemic all preppers interviewed were ready for the pandemic by the end of January so what did they do they moved into rather than uh that since they were ready for the pandemic they moved into their role as networkers and started trying to engaging in resilience the building activities to help their neighbors they taught neighbors how to prepare how to prep they taught neighbors how to not just how to survive but they also helped with securing supplies for our individuals non preppers they also delivered food and medication to senior citizens they networked together to help people who didn't have jobs to ensure that families had food all sorts of fascinating things that you really wouldn't expect that if you were conforming to you know these notions that we have of preppers in popular culture you wouldn't think necessarily they would be doing that you you don't think that they would be out trying to help keep their community instead you know that they would be hiding in a bunker somewhere we see the prepping closet becoming key to uh expect to represent a key symbol for your merit as a prepper so it's skipping to the end we see that there's one thing the preppers didn't expect preppers didn't end there and so in many ways some of the survival skills that they gained particularly those was bugging out weren't helpful at all preppers didn't anticipate that the pandemic was going to be such a slow gradual process what they did and basically they didn't expect that they were going to have technology thought they thought they would be trying to survive in their apartment without technology so just like everyone else you know they didn't expect you to have to become school teachers you know to have to do double duty as a teacher and work at your job actually triple duty and then be a parent they weren't expecting that just like the rest of us and i'm gonna end on two comments the first one deals with give me just a moment one moment where i look at well basically it's a beautiful quotation from a long time prepper and his argument is that for him the prepper the experience of being in the pandemic was painful because it was gradual he said that what started to what he started to struggle with was the everydayness of it he said that's where the madness was the everydayness of it and we see during the pandemic or i saw during my research during the pandemic that prepper meetings virtual meetings shift from talking about survival skills in terms of prepping strategies that they're already aware of to survival skills involving mental health which is very significant so i'm going to end with this quotation and it's from lachelle a long time prepper prepper from brooklyn and she's talking about either the idea of suddenly everyone wanting to know a prepper everyone trying to adopt prepping practices and unfortunately you know people realize people realizing that they now also have a loss of faith in government this was her reflection we're vindicated not that we wanted to be we want to help people that's what this is about you can't survive without being a community so i'll end on that note thank you very much for your time today and i look forward to your question well thank you dr bounce that was a very um engaging and certainly timely presentation um i like that you woven sort of the voices of a lot of the preppers that you spoke with throughout your research um so i think we'll sort of move on to the the q and a portion of the presentation now um so i see a few questions in the chat box but um uh other participants in the audience can feel free to add in um your questions throughout this portion of the presentation um so i'm looking and it looks like our first question is from stephen who has a two-part question um his first question is uh given your very convincing framing of prepping sensibility in the current american moment why do you think there is or might be stigma toward prepper subculture in the activity of prepping in new york let's see that's it well that that's interesting there's certainly is still a stigma and the idea and again to rely on a quotation from a prepper he said you know in the beginning you know he said for years some of you know my neighbors you know didn't talk to me they knew i was his prepper they thought i was crazy but then all of a sudden you know they're reaching out to me at the start of the pandemic i think that um there is still a stigma associated but i would argue that it is it's um on the decline i for example and i'm you know uh and this is anecdotal evidence that i discovered this week but i couldn't help but laugh um there's something that's very that's very popular american culture um during the holiday season it's called um oprah's favorite things her christmas gift list her holiday gift list and for the years 1920 this year in the year before she's included basically a go bag on that kit this is something that people don't talk about but certainly people are buying it if it's on this list if prepping gears and rei if it's in um casco all sorts of different places it's something that people are doing but they're still but they're not necessarily talking about it thank you um and then the second part of his question was uh what are the political affiliations of new york city preppers you engaged and how do these differ across race and class that's that that that's a terrific question um with many of the interesting thing about the nycpn um is that they had a rule about not discussing politics so it didn't matter if you were conservative it didn't matter if you were liberal you were there to learn preparedness skills um the leader of the group would make the argument it doesn't matter if you're concerned about the trump the trump apocalypse um the zombie apocalypse whatever the case is we don't talk politics here um so there isn't you know so you so it was an interesting experience both in terms of also dealing with independent preppers you had people who weren't and i think this is the important difference about new york preppers you had people interested in prepping not really because of politics they were interested in prepping based on the changing nature of life in the city based on what they experienced which is fundamentally different than than um you know motivations in terms of in terms of politics our next question comes from joe who asked um i've read theories that a big appeal of the qanon conspiracy is it's gamified nature that people are playing the game of a conspiracy by uncovering uncovering clues etc have you found that this is a case with preppers too that they view social collapse and prepping as part serious part role playing game um i'm certain that there are some some preppers out there that do that but my in my research i didn't encounter those those um the experience that i had was um actually quite tough they were very serious about preparedness you know you have to understand some of these people were first responders who you know had the direct experience of seeing you know of realizing you know what if something really bad happens you know the government's going to be overwhelmed they're going to be overwhelmed they're going to be too slow they're going to be mismanaged so there was a certain sense of of of authenticity um about their experiences but are there people like that you know uh you know probably but you know the kind of excursions and experiences i had when you're in the middle of the woods and you're only in and it's an advanced training exercise and you're only permitted to have a bug out bag that's this big and you're required to find your own water source for three days there's no joking around about that it's real uh our next question is from dr bow regard who said uh anna how do you how do you preppers think about post event time does exile slash isolation last forever that's an interesting question i just um um actually just uh filmed a component uh just a filmed an interview for the history channel which really takes that last week which really takes um up this question preppers um are of of of two minds about this well out their perception when i say there an interesting perception perception by one of the more senior preppers was you really can't prepare for anything everything and there's some things like a nuclear blast that you know you're probably not going to survive so it's an unreasonable expectation if one has access to a bunker the idea of going in the bunker and staying there forever for me personally and it's horrifying you know because one of the elements of that that people aren't thinking about with bunkers and we can trace this all the way back to follow out shelter programs so you know that were that were launched by the kennedy administration you know in 1961 the idea is that people always think about going down into the bunker they don't think about the aftermath what life is going to be like when you come out it might not be a life that you would want to live i mean think about it and this is you know a section where you know my answer is very informal but you know take a look at um how americans have fared with shell shell turning in place alcohol consumption in this country has increased by half domestic violence is also increased there's so just the idea of of sheltering in place when you can really go out go outside you know if you protect yourself has caused a tremendous amount of prepper a tremendous amount of of pressure for individuals thank you our next question is actually one question that i had which was um in your research how did preppers grapple with stigma surrounding prepping activities being for example considered reactionary well you know that they were concerned about stigma they were concerned about things like um being known as a prepper at work and having people confuse the idea of being a prepper with them with you know being a member of a survivalist fringe group that's worried about that has a specific religious philosophy you know a cult you know that is preparing for the end of day they were concerned about that they were concerned about being viewed as a hoarder so they were quite um um um uh quite secretive when i say secretive and the plans you know that they made in not disclosing their um identity um as preppers and i would argue that you know again you know they told me that the pandemic has certainly changed that but you know that certainly is an issue for example being outed at that one individual was very concerned um about being outed as a prepper at work because he felt that it would have negative percussion uh would have negative consequences repercussions so you have individuals sometimes not using their real name um for example when i did my analysis um a lot of new york preppers um as as part of the the prepping network don't disclose where they live only that they live in new york so there's secret you know so so there's um various ways that that um uh they don't disclose their interest in prepping got it thank you uh well i'm not seeing any other questions in the chat box right now um but i'd like to open up the floor to anyone else who might be interested in asking a live question uh while we have doctor bounds on the line um well in that case i guess we'll wrap things up to now um but doctor bounds on behalf of the urban planning program and g sap uh thank you so much for taking the time to present today we really appreciate it thank you so much for meeting with me it's been a real pleasure happy holidays everyone please be safe you as well thank you thanks


Niggas straight out of Mississippi, you know I'm so Mississippi that I might walk to the mailbox with no shoes on, and don't lock the door when I leave home, ain't nothing wrong, I'm just Mississippi with it, oh dang it, we got Mississippi in the building, I love it man, you know what I mean, this is the black market, I don't like to tell you how fine Mississippi is when you're out there, yes you do, and I've seen it, you've taken it, but this is an example of a fine Mississippi black woman successful, and smart, and smart, can you cook?  So I went to college, Southern Miss, I actually didn't want to go to college, number one, I don't blame you, I went to go to art school, I was, I don't really have time, I should do, I'm going to build the app and make time, exactly, I really think of the strategy through that, I'm just telling you it's possible, I'm going to put on my list of things to get to, yeah I went to Walmart, had this super long receipt, not like a CBS receipt, but it was a long receipt, and I was like, I wish it was an app, I could keep up with my money and my receipts, and I couldn't find it in the app store, so I was like, figure out how to create an app to do what I want to do, and that was the very first app that I did in 2011 while in college. Wow, now did you have a background in coding or app and computer science or anything like that? No, she gangsta, hold on, let me tell you what she did, hold on, she made her first app in Microsoft Word, bro. So you then went in, I can't make a paper in Microsoft Word, and you then went in there and figured out how to make a whole app? It's only a black woman could. So I had no coding background, I double majored in film and psychology, so I was not doing the coding. Me too, that was the same thing I would not film, but communications with a minor in psychology. Businesses with the school. What you major in? School, being in school. General studies. Really? Business. Business. Yep. Yeah, so I was non-technical, and I was trying to figure out how do I design the app, get the flow going, write it all out, and the only thing I could think of where you can make boxes, which is how your phone looks, was Microsoft Word. So I went and took the text box that you're supposed to put text in, and I actually used it to design apps, how I wanted the screenings to look in the app. And that's how I got started. Smart as hell. Smart as hell. So you said that was your first app, what was the second one, and what came after, break us down. Yeah, so Sheena Allen Apps was my first company, which I don't run anymore. Now I run my second startup, which is called Capway. Okay. But my first company, Sheena Allen Apps, I did the first app while I'm work. It was meant to keep up your money, your receipts. The second app was an app called Words on Picks, which you probably can guess. It was Words on Pictures. So I graduated in December 2011, and I told my parents. I was like, so I think I want to be a tech entrepreneur. I want to move to Silicon Valley. I want to be a tech entrepreneur. But, you know, being from Terry, Mississippi, my mom and my dad was like, nah. So my dad mainly was like, so you got two degrees in student loan debt.  That's what he told me. And I didn't necessarily believe in tech, but like that was foreign. You know, parents be like, do the same thing, know what you want to do. And I was like, nah, I want to do this tech piece. So I went pretty much against like my parents wishes and decided to dive deep into tech. So my third app was an app called Twitbooth, where I wanted to pretty much create like only media for Twitter. So I didn't want to see any tweets, only media, like only whatever you tweet, like pictures or videos. So pretty much I wanted to make a Twitter version of Instagram. And yeah, I put that out and got a nice email from Twitter. So I'm taking that down. And that long after the media tab in the Twitter app came about.  So that was my experience there. And then my fourth app was app called Dublin. So it was, I had a friend who had a, for her graduation picture. She took a picture with two of her in one picture. Somebody photoshopped it. And I was like, that is super dope. And I was like, I'm going to create an app that I can do that. And she's like, that makes no sense. I was like, yo, I'm going to do an app like that. Did it. And I went from doing like 50 downloads to do like a 10,000 in one day. And left Mississippi, moved to the valley. Left Silicon Valley, moved to Austin. So I built my first company out in Austin. And yeah, I mean it was learned a heck of a lot. A heck of a lot. And now I'm on to my second startup, which is Capway, which is a financial technology startup. Also known as FinTech. Well, pretty much I run my own bank. Got that. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Yeah, you see why she don't know how to cook?  Because we was doing apps, apps company. Bank. Right.  Your girl can't cook. Yeah, but you can't make a bank. She got a bank. She got a whole bank. Now what is Capway? So the original idea of Capway, the name of it actually means a new way of doing capital. So that's how the name came about. But it came about because I was going back and forth between like California and I was in Austin, I was in New York for like my first company. When I walked in they would say like, you know, no debit or credit. I mean debit or credit only, like no cash allowed. And this was like 2016. But when I went home to Mississippi, people only carried cash. And so I was like, one day it's going to happen where the cashless economy is going to hit Terry or hit Mississippi. And like we're going to be up shit's creek because like we only know cash. And I wanted to create an opportunity for people who were from places like Terry, Mississippi, where when that happened, I wanted to like debit cards or opportunities in the financial sector. And so that was how the idea actually started. It ended up growing from there. So it went from saying, hey, how do we create a bank? Or as we call it, Neobanks. How do I create that for people who are maybe unbanked, underbanked, don't have access to financial services. And it grew to then saying, you know, how do we talk about money in a way that is relatable? Like not your textbook financial literacy stuff. Like how do I talk to people like, how do you understand it? I want to talk to my six-year-old nephew and be like, look, you want to go buy a car.  You need more than five grand. You got to buy a tag. You got to, you know, I'm talking, I wanted to present it in a way like it was relatable, it was understandable. Not dumbed down, I hate that word, but it was, I just feel like no one ever talked to us in a way that like it makes sense. So it went from doing like, you know, we do this in the capway. So we do this a whole bunch of content. Of course we have the banking piece, so we have our debit cards. And then now we're getting to everything from like payments to commerce to, so it went from being like one Neobank to how do we build an entire ecosystem of financial services and products? I want a bank. I don't, but I want to know somebody who got one and now I do. That's what it is. I want my own bank too. I want an app. Let's talk about it. I want a whole bank with some crypto currency. Okay. We're going to accept all forms of currency from crypto to ET. You can't get Carlos no bank. This nigga started dressing like the monopoly man. That's one of my goals. Crypto piece. Definitely. Are you investing crypto now? Just very small because I don't trust them people. Who don't you trust? The whole industry.  No. Don't never say that. No, no, no, no. We don't do that. You know, that's how people used to do. Not me.  I ain't even at my house. I don't have money. That's been my whole goal. That's why I created this. To get some money. Crypto is actually, it is one of those, it's super risky though. You'll wake up broke and naked. You went to sleep with clothes and lost everything. You went to sleep rich and woke up broke and naked. Like how?  All your possessions. You literally woke up naked on the floor.  How do I even get started and doing a bank? Like what's the process of getting your own bank? Like what are the, I know what you got to do to go get a loan. So to get a whole bank. Like is that a different process, is it a loan process? You evil.  I see how you shouldn't have like, they didn't know about the bank. You could have warned me. You want a water or something nice? I don't want you to be a capri son. I love capri son. What kind? A bunch. Got a bank of capri sons. That's what we got. Have a capri son while we discuss this. This is Mississippi all day. I've been trying to tell these folks. You know, watermelon. We about to upgrade to get the big pouches though. Oh. Major flex.  Yeah, you know, it's just a flex. Okay, I understand. So, what's the budget that shows the fruits of your labor? Exactly. So, we're going bigger. Just because it's in the budget. We're going to go back on tour. I mean, if y'all need a special guest. We're going to need a special bank. We're going to need somewhere to put this. You are, you are the special guest now. Teach me how to get a special bank.  Well, there's, I mean, we can do that. Well, no. You got cash out? Exactly. Now you have capway. I need it. Exactly. So, there's some things we are doing. Let me get your code when I do it.  I've got you. But we are doing some things that will be instant. So, we do send and receive money just like you do with some of the other players. We send somebody through capway. So, it's some things we are working on that are being really instant. But how do you get to that point though?  Or do you, like, what is the process behind that? So, well, first off, you got to be able to write your strategy out. Exactly what do you want to do. Banking is a super, it's very highly regulated. So, it's a lot of rules. Oh, I know.  So, super, it's really interesting. Compliance and banking is very interesting. There's things that I didn't know before I went into it. Then now when I look back at banking, I'm just like, now I understand why things happen. Can you give us one example of that? ACH. So, someone sends you ACH and takes two or three days. It's because of how much fraud happens. So, they want to make sure that it's cleared on your side and the other person's side. So, if it was to happen instant, the problem with that would be that if I sent you 300 bucks and it went through, if it was to go through instantly with you technically, you cannot, I might go out and pull out my 300 bucks. And so, even though you got yours, the bank now is on the hook because I took out my 300 bucks. So, it's a fraud issue. How payments goes, like payment rails. It's... The United States actually is the worst for fraud. So, we do a lot of crazy stuff. Yeah, we got a lot of stillers. Yeah. Scammers. The dark web is really interesting. So, people just find ways to steal money. Right. So, even like your debit cards, which seems so simple, like the card art on your debit card has to go through so many levels of approval.  There's like rules you have to follow of how they have to be, how they look and how they be designed. So, like I can't do a design and be like, that's what our debit cards would look like. If we're going through like Visa, Visa has to say, yep, that fits what we want to do, that fits our brand, that looks right, I approve it. Somebody put us on their debit card. Yeah, they sure did. I don't know how they got approved, but the amount of capital that you have to start a bank, like do you have to have a certain amount of money to even get into the thought process of doing that? Yeah, so usually, most vendors that you work with when you're doing like what we call Neo Banking, most require at least a minimum of a million dollars. So, which means you have to go and start raising money from outside investors. They do. That's what they do.  What was your experience like out there in the valley? The Silicon Valley. Not the one, not the other one. Not the one, the valley. So, I had two different experiences, two different sides of that. One side was there are not a lot of black people. People in general, black people. No, not at all. Which is pretty highly noted. There's numerous articles about it. And it's, I don't think it's going to ever change. It's just, it is what it is. But on the other side of that, I learned a lot. Because your biggest tech companies are there. That's where your Facebook, your Google. I mean, everything probably outside of Amazon, Snapchat is based in Silicon Valley. So, you learn a lot. Like their mindset, how they think, how they work, why they do the things they do. That was the first time coming from where I came from that I understood wealth. So, I'm from Terry, Mississippi. My definition of wealth was like, seeing a rapper in a nice car with a gold chain. I'm just being like, that's what I knew to be rich and wealthy. And then I moved to Silicon Valley and I realized that people who was worth like a billion dollars drove like Camry's. And how they thought about money was just so different from how I grew up thinking about money. So, I learned their true definition of wealth and how they go about wealth. Which was not how I grew up. It was two sides.  Which was honestly a big part of why I wanted to come back to Atlanta and do the company here in Atlanta. Like I wanted it to be about true building wealth within the black community. Not on your own. Capway is for anybody.  We bank anyone. But my deal that was, I feel like power comes with money. And money comes with being able which is why I chose Atlanta. But our black wealth has a long way to go. I mean, the average black family, I think our net worth now is about $17,000, $18,000. Which is... Not us. It's pretty bad.   That should give me chills. $17,000. The whole family. Even the baby. The $17,000 really belonged to it. He had never seen it. Everybody else is negative than him. That baby got the weight of the family on the shoulder. Crazy.  Like do you want it to be something that you build and sell to somebody or do you want it to be something that you run the gambit for years and years? They will go public. So it'll be something that my great-great-grandkids will still have.  So that's for me, that's my goal with this company, that even if I'm not the CEO 20 years from now, I've built it out enough shares. My great-great-grandkids will be able to eat off Capway. All right. There's no cap in that, but it's the Capway. I'm planning for one grandson. Everybody after that. It's 17,000, that's it. Gonna look at your pictures of your granddad and HD? We're talking this generational wealth. Man, I know, one generation. See, that's the thing, that's the big generational wealth. I got that tattooed on my leg. We got the generational curses that we gotta break. So you don't get to be generationally wealthy until you break that curse and it be on that baby with that 17,000 to grow up. I just had a vision. We're gonna be generationally good. Yeah, because we the broker. You know what I mean? You can get out here and break them curses, man. You get a camera. Just financial instability. You got a black woman who started the bank. Nigga, that is amazing. I mean, a lot of it is not our fault. I think we do put a lot of pressure on this. I don't think none of it is our fault to be honest. It's systemic. Very much so. Very, very much so. So I think we get a lot of, a lot of people wanna put it on us, but it's so deep, like you said.  Yeah, yeah. Railroad, all the way. I just get it that you are very smart lady. You get what I'm saying? Like she gonna get them billions. Man, all the way. I'm glad she came in early.  Well, I'm the special guest on the tour. Hell yeah.  Yeah, the money good. Y'all keep going. First, really quick. This tour is called to Mississippi, right? Okay. We already went to Jackson. She talking about the ghetto legends tour. The return of the ghetto. I had to make that like some tour merch or something. Okay, so why not Jackson again? Well, the thing was is like when we're routing this tour, everything ain't like all the way back yet. So we had to like pick some spots that was like. Available. Man, everything ain't open. We can definitely throw Jackson in there.  Jack town, you know, do a show. Fuckin' Jackson. Didn't go up to Oxford?  We just do a whole Mississippi tour, man. We go to Grenada and Tupelo. You put Jackson up. Brookhaven. Hattiesburg. Vicksburg. Kaziasko. Starkville. Hollispray. Bayesville. Mississippi. I'm actually impressed. I am. Most people know like two cities in Mississippi.  I'm very impressed. I mean, most people would be like Mississippi, like Jackson, Oxford, Marine. You got to name the weird places don't nobody know like Money and Alligator. Lumberton. Money, Mississippi. Yeah. Money, Mississippi.  And Money, Mississippi. You got to visit. No, I don't. Not if that's what Emmett Till. I ain't no nobody to visit there at the Emmett went. No. It's a lot of history. Yeah, I read about it. You want to see? Rolling Fort. Rolling Fort. Rolling Fort. That's what Muddy was. Oh, okay. Rolling Fort. That's what BB came from. Yeah. And Morgan Freeman. He's from Charleston. Look at that. Mississippi history. Oh, Brett Forth. He's from Kiln, Mississippi. Brett Forth. Oh, you want to keep doing it? Jerry Rice. Jerry Rice from Mississippi too. What part?  Ed Abina. Ed Abina. Ed Abina, Mississippi. Went where he's going to school down in there. Mississippi Delta College. Where's Brandy? Brandy. They're from Brookhaven. McCone. Exactly. It's the same thing. Snoop Dogg. His grandma's from McCone down there. Dance Deliger on the house in Mississippi. It does. Rick Ross from Clarksdale. Well, he claims Clarksdale. You've seen this movie. Soldier Boys from Batesville, Mississippi. Most definitely. Uh-huh. Yeah, what what? I told you. I told everybody from Mississippi. David Banner. He's from Jackson and then you got to say Big Craig. He's from Aurelian. Right there. You really didn't believe him? You said he'd be like that when I told you. The white girl who plays on Chasing Name, you know what I'm saying, the movie Chasing Name? That white girl, she live in Oxford. What's the dude's name that you showed me in the house that wrote the books? William Faulkner. He's from Oxford. But no, it was somebody else that's there, that's popular now that had that big old land that you showed me. Oh, you're talking about John Grisham. John Grisham, yes. He's from Oxford. I'm on the list. Yeah, Tommy.  He probably was born in Mississippi. There's a lot of people from Mississippi, man. Yeah, we have a lot of, we got some Olympians. Oh, we are. We got to get Oprah and people to come back though. Oprah? She ain't coming back. She can send some money. She ain't going to watch this. I be talking about it all the time. Trying to highlight her. Trying to highlight her. Yeah. Rap.  Y'all see, I had a little twist in her. You see, over come out with a twist out with that bunny, with that moving woman. What, dragging them feet? Hey, y'all, come on around. Me and over them bought 900 acres in Mississippi. I'm so impressed. You look good. Well, hey, I told you, I don't know Mississippi, but I know what this thing is with me. Mississippi. Jonathan Bender, he played for the Pacers. He from Pick-A-Yoon. Yeah, he was. Pick-A-Yoon? Pick-A-Yoon, Mississippi. He played basketball for a long time. Pick-A-Yoon. Lorenzen Wright, he played. A lot of basketball. Oh, we got Jennifer Gillum. She's a U.S. gold medalist. She's from Abbeyville. Her and her sister. Pick-A-Yoon. Hey, you call with that Mississippi, man?  Yeah, I feel you. We got some famous wife. I would have named Tommy Davis in a few minutes ago, but Mississippi. Hell, yeah. What do we do? We got... What's his name? Tucker Carlson. What's the dude name with the box head? Shepherd Smith. He went to Ole Miss. On Fox News. Shepherd Smith.  Oh, Shepherd. Yeah. All right. Oh, Shepherd Smith. Yeah, Faith Hill. Faith Hill. Sam. Mm-hmm. We got a... We got a food now. I'm just... We got to figure out a way to... Bring them all back. But lucky's great. We got to make a...  Is anybody from Biloxi? Three-hour up to Jackson. Well, we coming, man. You're going to be the special guest, so you can... Yeah. You can get them. You can direct us to where we go. So find me, of course, on the tour. I'm opening. Yeah, most definitely. And we're going to get with you because we're working on this 85 South Show app. Okay. We could definitely use you at our table. For sure. Insights. Show us some of the ends and out some of the things to avoid and to go toward. Right. What app is going to be about, though? Are we too early to talk about it? No, it's going to be somewhere exclusive where you can get 85 South Show content, merch, tickets. Personalized experiences. Exactly.  Where you can see 85% of fan art links to everybody else's individual things and stuff like that. Really just trying to centralize. Well, I got you. Let me know when the round table is. Yeah. I'll be there. Well, you know, this is the initial meeting of minutes. So we'll make sure we keep you involved in our network of, you know, black excellence over here on the black market. Yes. Ms. Sheena Allen. Yes. Ms. Sid the Spiney. Make sure you hit her up. Can we take a moment, baby? Sheena, pose for the picture. Hold on. We're getting in here, because we don't submit citizenship. Chico, jump on the couch so we look like we want the college together. All right. But I did college.


All right guys, so you have nine seconds to do it, right? You only have nine seconds to put your mask back on.  Remember, your eyes are closed and you stop breathing at this point. Okay, let's draw. Remember, sound alarm, close your eyes, stop breathing, pull up, open your mask carrier, pull out your mask, put it into your face, close the mask carrier. Make sure you're clear and sealed. Make sure that you hear a strap, give visual and sound signal. Nine seconds, nine seconds, all that. You guys ready? A little. And proceed to grab the M291 out of your pockets, please. Head and begin deconing your skin. Remember, the steps are to first decon your hand and then proceed to deconing your face outside of the mask, and the edges there are touching your skin, the mask is touching your skin, and then afterwards, proceed to decon your inside. So hands, put it to the other hand, decon the other hand, and after that you decon your face and mask.  That way, when you break the seal, you don't contaminate your face when you try to... Nope, that's a stop. Yeah, try to... So you're not breaking the seal, yeah. I guess that's fine. I wasn't able to. Or you meet the skin with the mask. And remember, you're rubbed and away, rubbed and away. You wasn't able to see the sample from another person. Yeah, but you closed. All right.   Yeah, come down with me. Thank you, then. Thank you. It's good.


Hynny. SAD. wir pryd gweithredu o gyrwמiddag mewn bwysigur, ребwysigwch, a phobl yn nrw, ond arom mor gw worryn i nôl i niol Findly yn ddigon i fy modd yr unigfainter. Mewn bwysigwch yn ddigon i gyd yn ddigon i fy modd rwyf ogwysigwch gweithredu i'r defnyddwyr yn ddigon i fy modd yn fwy o arwein, ac mae ddigon i'n ddigon i rwyf ogwysigwch i gyd yn ddigon i fy modd yn ddigon i fy modd yn ddigon i fy modd, a hynny yn ddigon i I've also recently met with the family of Mrs Baxter. Neil Findlay. It's my understanding that neither the cabinet secretary nor the First Minister has met with any of the Scottish mesh survivors. Given this is the biggest health care scandal since the lydame aid, it's now affecting thousands of women and now men too. Will the cabinet secretary and the First Minister agree to meet me and a delegation of Scottish meshMoment. Llyr Gruffydd Cymru yn meddwlol iawn i'r cychwyn iawn i canffordd rhagwm dda i oni i sylfaenol o fynd i fynd i ymgylchedd phrygau am gyhoeddaeth ddes, ac yn gadael â'i gyrhau ddoch ynghylch yn gwyllgor. Rwyf yn ei cysylltu i gael eich rheolau, mae яr gyrhau gwir i'r cychwyn iawn i gael eich rhaiceidol. Op Gateul i'r gyrhau gwir i'r cychwyn iawn i'r cyffredinid i'r cychwyn iawn i'r gyrhau I should make the point in passing that Professor Britton's report is primarily about how the Government organises, sets up and oversees independent enquiries and therefore is not exclusively for me. However, I have written to John Wilkinson, who is director of devices at the MHRA, asking him to provide me with his evidence on which that body has judged that mesh products are safe for use in clinical practice, and the CMO has written in similar terms to the chief executive of the MHRA. When we receive that response, we will be able to take a decision on other matters concerning the use of mesh in clinical practice across Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government how many vessels are in its marine and fisheries protection fleet. Marine Scotland compliance owns and operates three ships, which provide a dedicated enforcement capacity. Those are Dura, Hertha and Minna, the last of which I visited in June this year in Oben. We have also got access to five rigid hulled inflatable boats on a daily basis to enhance the enforcement activity. I think that the cabinet secretary for that reply. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary provided an update to Parliament on the findings of the review, which the cabinet secretary told me was on-going in a letter dated April 16, 2018, into which the cabinet secretary for the rural economy alluded to at the rural economy and connectivity committee in the sixth of June 2018. There is a challenge with the growing number of NPAs in Brexit, and there is a comparator of one way. It is the case that the Welsh Government, who are responsible for a considerably smaller marine area, has recently commissioned and are building five marine compliance vessels in Wales. Does the cabinet secretary believe that it is right that Wales has a bigger fleet than Scotland? There are a number of things that I could take up there. First of all, the review that my colleague Fagas Ewing and I refer to is the constant review under which we keep issues such as that. The member will also recall in my reply that we have two surveillance aircraft and also make regular use of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, which adds considerably to our surveillance capacity. With respect to the Welsh Government position, as I understand it, yes indeed the Welsh are in the process of buying new boats, but they are considerably smaller than the boats that are in the Marine Scotland fleet and are of a very different order of technology, so I do not think that he can really compare like-to-like. Question 3, Bill Kidd. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to encourage local sourcing across public sector catering. The Scottish Government is committed to encouraging and increasing local sourcing of food and drink across the public sector. Good progress has been made and we know that around 48 per cent of food and drink sourced in the public sector is Scottish. A 41 per cent increase since 2007. We believe that we can do more and we have put in place a range of measures and support to try and increase levels further. Bill Kidd. I thank the minister for that response and I welcome all movement towards local sourcing. Does the minister agree that consumption shifts such as buying locally and seasonally are important in moving Scotland along a sustainable path? Yes, I do and I would welcome the progress made by 11 local authorities on the Food for Life programme. I very much believe that local procurement is something that is desirable both for our schools, hospitals, prisons and our whole public sector, but also for our food producers, farmers and suppliers. We are doing very many things in order to increase that yet further. Brian Whittle I thank the minister for that response and I welcome all movement towards local sourcing of food. I think that somewhere in the region of over 75 per cent of their food is sourced locally. Does the cabinet secretary recognise that the Scottish Government could use the central excel contract to ensure that all of Scotland's school children get the same opportunity to access quality, locally produced food? Yes, I am very much aware of the good work that the council does. I know that, for example, Corrie Main's farm in East Ayrshire supplies all the eggs to primary schools. We are actually a wee bit ahead of the member, I am very pleased to say, because we are already doing what he has urged me to do today. We have been for some time and I am very pleased to say that following the good work in 11 local authorities in Scotland, we are now expanding the programme to reach more schools by investing £400,000 for the next three years to target all 32 local authorities. I am sure that the member will be delighted to hear that positive news. Stewart Stevenson To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Technologies Group's advice statement regarding the use of freestyle libra flash glucose monitoring system. Jeane Freeman We welcome the advice statement from the Scottish Health Technologies Group with regard to the flash glucose monitoring system. The advice statement has provided information on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of this technology and supported NHS boards in determining the place of this technology for local use. Stewart Stevenson I welcome the decision of NHS Grampian in particular to act on this advice and wonder whether the statement has had any further impact on the uptake of this life-transforming technology by other health boards across Scotland. Gabbryr Segal I am grateful to Mr Stevenson for that supplementary question. It is important to note that the device is used for self-monituring of glucose levels via a sensor warn, but it is, as with many other drugs and devices, not suitable for all patients and requires to have that clinical judgment performed. Freestyle Libra Sensor is now available for prescription in 13 out of the 14 NHS board areas, and NHS Highland is currently working with the local diabetes service to become the 14th board. I am delighted about that. Mr Stevenson's point on life-transforming technologies is well made. As our leading clinicians and clinical researchers work with companies involved in precision medicine, technology and so on, we are very mindful of the new demands that will come in terms of how we determine what is clinically suitable, either in drugs or in devices such as this, in terms of technologies, and look to adapt our processes accordingly. David Stewart Thank you, Presiding Officer. As co-chair of the Cross-party Group on Diabetes, I have had very positive feedback about Freestyle Libra, particularly the benefit of reducing the need for frequent finger-prick blood tests, and well-maintained HBA1C levels—the blood glucose levels. Can the cabinet secretary please confirm that technology has been dispensed throughout Scotland according to the prescribed guidelines without caveats? Shona Robison I am grateful to Mr Stewart for that question and indeed for the work of the Cross-party Group, as he chairs it. My expectation is that the device will be prescribed according to the guidance. That is my absolute expectation from all the health boards' concerns, so that is all of our territorial boards. I would certainly want to know if that was not the case, so that I could take action accordingly. Aster Allen To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in securing work for the Arnish fabrication yard on the Isle of Lewis. Derek Mackay We continue to press developers to use Scottish contractors when building projects off our coastline, and we encourage our supply chain to be as competitive as possible when bidding for those contracts. We have confidence that the new owners of BiFab are doing everything possible to secure new contracts and restore employment to the yard at Arnish, as well as Bun Island and Methil. Aster Allen I thank the cabinet secretary for his reply and welcome that progress. Given his obvious interest in the matter, will the cabinet secretary undertake to keep representatives of the former workforce at Arnish updated directly, particularly around any news around new contracts? Derek Mackay Yes, I will commit to that. I have engaged with the trade unions and there is good partnership working with the local authority as well. I am engaging with DF Barnes and BiFab, and it is really important that we have a united Team Scotland approach to try and secure work for those yards. In addition to that, I will arrange a briefing for elected members who will be interested so that we can discuss further actions to secure work for the yards and ensure that people can return to that fruitful employment. Rhoda Grant Can I ask the cabinet secretary if the equipment in the yard is being kept up-to-date and maintained because it is owned by high, very expensive equipment and crucial to the yards future? Derek Mackay I do not have that detail to hand. I am happy to supply further information to the member, but there has been substantial investment in the technology. The important thing right now is to secure those contracts and to work those benefits to the supply chain. That is absolutely what I am focused on in working with the new owners. Of course, there is a financial support package as well to try and preserve the ability there to secure work. We are working very hard to get those contracts, and therefore every element that ensures that the yards are attractive, including the infrastructure, is absolutely vital and important. However, the key critical issue right now is the ability to win contracts, and on that, I am absolutely focused. Again, I am happy to have a private briefing with interested elected members to see the efforts that we are undertaking to achieve that outcome. Miles Briggs To ask the Scottish Government what support it is providing to help to grow the life sciences sector. Ivan McKee Life science is a growth sector for the Scottish economy. We are increasing innovation in the sector through the procurement of public services. The chief science office is investing £3 million from 2018 to 2019 to support collaborative working between the NHS industry and academia. Another reason that investment includes £15 million contribution to the new medicines manufacturing innovation centre, which will support the production of new medicines efficiently and safely. We are also working with Life Sciences Scotland, the industry leadership group, to ensure that we have the right policy environment to support sectoral growth. Miles Briggs Can the minister confirm that the Scottish Government is not on course to meet its original target set in 2011 to double the turnover of the life science sector in Scotland to £6.2 billion by 2020 and that the Government has now extended that target to 2025? Does the minister agree with me that Scotland's dynamic pharmaceutical sector, whose importance was demonstrated this week in the Fraser Valenda report, is key to meeting that future target? What specific action will the Scottish Government take to improve data capturing capabilities and to link primary and secondary care data to allow more investment in clinical trials to realise the potential of Scotland's life sector? Miles Briggs The target for growth of the sector is to grow from £4 million turnover to £8 million turnover. Data will be coming out shortly that I will see, but I would believe that we confirm that we are on target to meet that growth target. In terms of what the sectors are doing, the First Minister recently opened the £54 million GSK Farm cuticle production centre in Montrose. In terms of what is happening with increasing innovation in the sector, the Scottish Government continues to work with the industry leadership group, the SMSIC and the IBOIC to support innovation in the sector. In terms of what is happening specifically with the NHS, the Scottish Government continues to support the health innovation partnerships and to work with the Scottish health innovations limited and the Golden Jubilee to increase the co-operation between the NHS and the life sciences sector to grow innovation in the sector and to increase its turnover and its exports. Question 7 has not been lodged. Question 8 is from Alexander Burnett. Can I ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to encourage doctors to relocate to rural practices? Cabinet Secretary, Jeane Freeman. Our strategy to recruit and retain GPs underpins our commitment to recruit 800 additional practicing GPs by 2027 backed by £7.5 million investment in this financial year. The £2 million invested in a rural package includes Scottish rural medicine collaborative, Golden Hallows and a relocation package. We have also committed an additional £30 million by 2021 to support all GPs with premises-related liabilities, reducing the risk to practices. Finally, I launched the first graduate medicine programme, which will lead to an additional 330 medical graduates by 2028, primarily focused on remote and rural GPs practices. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer? I, as well as GPs in my constituency, are well aware of those programmes. However, they are simply not working for the rural community. Can I ask the Government to look to review them to ensure that they can effectively encourage GPs to relocate to rural practices? I am grateful to Mr Burnett for that additional question. I would be very interested to see on what evidence he bases such a widespread and wide-ranging assertion. That is certainly not the experience that I have or, indeed, the evidence of our remote and rural working group or the rural collaborative organisation. Of course, I am made up of GPs with experience in remote and rural areas. None of us said that that would be easy and none of us said that it was without challenge, but I have yet to hear of any additional constructive suggestions from the member or any of the other opposition groups as to what we might do more of to add to the successful work of the actions that I have outlined. Gail Ross Can the cabinet secretary provide an update on what progress has been made by the remote and rural general practice working group on how the new GP contract will work for rural areas? I am grateful to Ms Ross for that additional question. The remote and rural working group has commenced a programme of engagement with GPs, multidisciplinary clinicians and healthcare service providers to listen to their concerns and to hear from them what more they believe on the basis of their experience and their evidence we can do. One of the additional propositions that is going to come our way is to include a dispensing practice training proposal. This morning, I had a very productive discussion with one of our rural colleges looking at how we can add to the multidisciplinary teams, not only in our acute setting, but also in primary care and in particular in those practices. Devron medical practice in Banff will close shortly as it has been impossible to recruit a new GP. This critical shortage of GPs is due to workforce planning mismanagement and an underfund of £658 million to the GP service over the last four years. This will be the 11th practice to close in the past 11 years in Grampian, and will leave nearly 6,300 patients without a GP practice. When will the SNP Government act to solve this desperate crisis in the NHS? As I have made consistently clear, I do not underestimate the challenges and as a MSP from a rural constituency myself, I am well aware of the challenges of GP numbers and GP practices in those rural constituencies. However, I have to say that I find it beyond impertinence that the member from those benches should argue with us about underfunding when they are part of a UK Government that has shortchanged this NHS by failing to meet their promises, the promises that they made in June and a few short months later, they have undercut us yet again. To ask the Scottish Government how it supports culture and tourism in Renfisher and East Renfisher. Cabinet Secretary for Culture and Tourism, Fiona Hyslop. The Scottish Government continues to support cultural activities across Scotland with an increase of almost 10 per cent culture funding this year despite UK Government cuts. Creative Scotland is the lead public body if it is supporting the arts and funding a range of cultural activity across Renfisher and East Renfisher. Through our funding of visits to Scotland, we continue to market the fantastic tourism assets there and, of course, the youth music initiative and the cashback for creativity also supports culture and for young people in communities there. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. My constituency of Renfisher South is home to Eldersley, the birthplace of Sir William Wallace to my SNP local government colleagues, Councillor Andy Steele and Councillor Jacqueline Cameron, who have recently secured support from the council to explore ways in which Eldersley can capitalise on those status. Will the cabinet secretary be willing to meet with me, Councillor Steele and Councillor Cameron, to discuss how the Scottish Government can support the project? I understand the Renfisher visitor plan 2018-21 looks at marketing the region in lots of different ways, including promoting its rich historical past, not least the Wallace connections to Eldersley. I am more than happy to find out more about what that tourism offer is and to meet with the member to discuss that further.


What's up everybody, Jason here for jasperjayspace.com. We just sold out, 21-22, upper deck, premier hockey, two box break, three round teams each number two, and we're giving away a free spot guys, so instead of selling 10 spots, we only sold nine. Remember everybody gets three round teams in NHL, two combo teams out under the slain, capital's crackin'. And here we go guys, so let's dice, roll it, two and a five, seven times. Good luck, top name, and number one after seven times gets a free spot. One, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. And seven times, seven times, Matt Butler, congrats buddy. Extra free spot for you. And then that should make it 10, or sorry, just put it in the addition sign. And then that makes it 10, so two, three, there you go. Seven times, one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Seven times, seven, Matt Butler, Donna Matt Butler. Seven times, one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Four, five, six, and seven. Seven times, seven times. Sabers out of the sharks.  So if you guys want to make a quick trade, I'll give you guys a quick minute. Yeah, I don't know if Bennett's watching, but if Bennett's watching, he'd be the person to want to trade that with you. Patriot's off the board in Mosaic, and Nancy got two in the flawless filler. You can see that he's getting back forward, and now he's got three laps left. You just keep getting in, it's as good as it is. We just want to do the ladies' champions. That's about it. I thought it was going to explode when it worked out earlier, but that's about it. It's just, it's going to go right, you know. Or you have to be careful. I think it's going to go right. I think it's going to go right. It's like a one-on-one, getting one. All right, well, I'm assuming he's out here, man, so let's close it. All right, so I have these boxes here. Remember, they're together, one, two, three, and then four. We did box five. If I roll anything above the five or six, we'll just redo it again. Oh, roll the five, do it again. Nope. Again. I'm going to roll the five. I'm going to roll the five. I'm going to roll the five. I'm going to roll the five. Nope. Again. Man, I'm rolling the fives right here. I don't know if that's a good thing. Six. No. Two. Finally. I'm going to go to the twos. All right, we've got Lucas Raymond for the Detroit Red Wings. That is Kev. And then we have a Scott Perundovic for the Blues. St. Louis Blues. That's Kev as well. Got Kyle Conner, number to 85 for the Winnipeg Jets. Jets is Brian. And then you have a Mason McTavish, number to 399. And a Rossmas Goupard, number to 399. And then the Patch autograph is a nice two-color patch there. Callan Addison to 65 for the Minnesota Wild. Bennett with the Minnesota Wild. I need someone 80s. McTavish, red autograph for the Anaheim Ducks. Ducks, go ahead and map up your free spot. Also top of the base here too. Quick, I'm going to the next box. All right, next one. Really thick on the coming. And then I got Patch Jumbo I feel like maybe could be right here. Might be. I guess we'll find out. All right, we got a Ukopeka for the Sabers. I don't know about that. We have a Miko Ransom in the 65. Got a John Tavares to 299. And a Cole Lind to 199. And then we have a Premier Rookie Auto Patch of Yesi Lohman out of 299 free-color patch there. That is going to go to the Montreal Canadiens. And that's going to Matt Johnson. We have a Riley Tuft. I don't know how to pronounce that last thing, sorry. That's where the stars. Dale. Patch here. How about Brady Kachuk? 12 out of 35. 1, 2, 3-color patch. Premium Attractions. That's going to the Ottawa Senators. Try to trade, couldn't trade mojo in my book. All right, so we still have not hit the Mega Jumbo patch, guys. So still hiding somewhere in one of these last six boxes. So repost this. If you guys want to sell it back out, guys. The Mega Patch Jumbo are usually one per case. Still looking for a big, big RPA, too, guys. So there you go. This is a nice one popping out of here in the first couple of boxes, though, regardless. Thank you, guys. JaspysCaseBricks.com.


The MBS has just published poverty and inflation numbers and they are quite high, surprisingly. What are the immediate concerns of these, you know, records? I mean, three things worry me. One is the fact that 133 million people have been plunged into poverty. Now, that should worry every life-thinking Nigerian, especially at a time of hiding insecurity across the country. Men's young people can find jobs and that means that the likelihood of them falling into crime becomes extremely high. The second, of course, is the record inflationary numbers that we've seen. The highest in 17 years and worse is the food inflation that is being recorded. That means people have to pay much more for every food that they buy and eat. Recall that most Nigerians spend more than 40% of their income on feeding. Now, the high inflation on food, you know, and other items, particularly transportation, it means the average Nigerian will be spending over 60% of their income on food and transportation. And I think that is devastating because that means very little, you know, for other consumption or discretionary spending, you know, and that slows down the entire economy and stifles growth. Okay, do you think the manifesto is being presented by the leading candidates who address these challenges? And I have looked at some of these manifestos and how they, you know, seek to address this challenge. I know that Atikwa Abu Bakr wants a market-led economy for the private sector to drive growth. Ashwajib Bola and Etinibu spoke specifically to inflation in his renewed hope manifesto, and his argument was that we cannot deal with inflation by trying to stifle growth. If you recall that the response of the CBN towards this high inflation was apparently to tighten money supply, which is to raise interest rates from banks, to essentially mop up excess liquidity from circulation. But as Bola and Etinibu has argued, that the real problem with the economy and inflation that we have seen is not just the disruption of the global COVID supply chain or the higher gas prices occasioned by the crisis in Ukraine and Russia. The problem is that locally there are peculiar challenges like insecurity that has stopped hundreds of thousands of farmers from going to the farmlands. These infrastructural challenges within our economy is the reliance of importation of consumables that is driving these inflationary numbers. And to tackle that particular challenge, what we need to do is to ease interest rates so that we can drive production in the economy. And like he has rightly won, which I agree with 100%, if we continue to tighten money supply, if we continue to force interest rates to go high, what will happen is that businesses will be unable to borrow from banks. Many of them will fail their obligations to their banks and that will inadvertently strangle the economy, will cause loss of jobs, and of course, we just might be to another recession. So to that extent, I agree or align with how he intends to deal with inflation. And I think for Peter of here, I haven't really looked at his manifesto regarding the economy, but if you follow what he has said consistently, one of the things that he wants to do is, of course, to tighten government spending, which is to stop this outlandish and this bogus spending from the federal government essentially to cut waste and be a lot more frugal at the federal government level. And that probably would increase a lot of savings for the economy. And by and large, these are how some of these candidates have put forward arguments on how to deal with the challenges that we confront, specifically with high inflation and unemployment and the astonishingly frightening poverty numbers that have just been published by the MBS. Okay. Now, food insecurity and other infrastructure deficit on the line, you know, the major indices, what have we failed to look at as a nation? I think on food, I think that the elephant in the room here has been insecurity. What has happened over the last six, seven, perhaps a decade is that food centers, particularly in the north central part of the country, have consistently been attacked, whether it's by bandits, whether it's by terrorists or whatever you call them. They have essentially destroyed the food basket along the north central corridor and made it difficult for farmers to produce food. It's even gotten worse in recent years because even farmers in the northwestern part of the country where a lot of tomatoes, paper, a lot of grains are being produced have been unable to access the farmlands because of insecurity. And if you put all of these things together, it's made it extremely difficult. It's reduced its first food shortages across the country, which essentially has pushed the prices of food, you know, upwards. Of course, infrastructure deficit is another problem. The inability to move goods from farmlands to the markets at the most realistic and the most affordable rates is another issue that we have to deal with. And more recently is that the flooding in the last month that has essentially ravaged many communities across the country is another thing that will push food prices a lot more further. So I think that what we need is a national emergency plan to be able to ensure food security, you know, in our country to ensure that we have enough, we push production up to be able to feed ourselves and to be able to export to the global committee of nations. So except we do that, we will continue to struggle with food inflation and begin to price basic meal away from, you know, the average Nigerian who earns, you know, less than a dollar a day. Thank you so much, Mr Ayodele Adil. Thank you. We've been discussing about tackling inflation with the MPI rating. I mean, the statistics that have been dropped just yesterday. Thank you so much for sharing your views on this with us.