In acting, if I'm not continuously doing it, I do get really rusty, but when I am doing it, I just feel so good. I decided to do self-tape practice every day in December until Christmas. I filled up this advent calendar with different scenes and monologues from Christmas movies and TV shows. I just really wanted to have fun and make sure that I actually do all of them and stay consistent. So because of that, whenever I select a scene, I set a timer for 15 minutes and that's it as far as preparation. I think it's better to get some practice than none. It's like going on a 15 minute walk before you go train for a marathon. You know, I just want to get some kind of exercise in for my acting. So let's see what's behind door number nine. Where's door number nine? Over here. A Christmas movie, Christmas. I found a lot of gems and this is one of the movies that I definitely want to watch this year, like the whole thing. It just seems like it would be very magical. This is a scene and the scene I'm going to do is I'm playing one of the sisters. There's two sisters who like are single. They live in a big city that's really expensive and then they like wish to have a Christmas movie, Christmas and Santa Claus is conveniently there and it's like, is that, are you sure that's what you want? So I'm going to set a 15 minute timer, do a little bit of practice and then we will do a few takes and I'll show you the best ones. I've recorded the audio of the movie and I just edit it so that there's silence where I need to put my lines. I usually do it two different ways and I'm trying to give myself a little bit more context, a little bit more direction. I would love for somebody else to like be here giving me direction but it's a self-treat practice. I can't have an actual director every time I'm doing practice. For one of the takes I want to do that. It is just like a bubbly, full of energy, Christmas spirit person who just loves Christmas and she believes in the magic of Christmas so much that this wish of hers comes true and then the other one's going to be somebody who's over Christmas because she's had so many bad Christmases that she's like, I used to love it as a kid but now it's terrible. Like that vibe and I'm trying to do the acting as the rhythm and the vibe and the everything of an actual Christmas movie. So I'm going to do my best to only do one or two takes of each version. My eye line is going to be right here. Cool, and I'm outside so I'm on cold. Adorable. What's the next line? Take three. Okay, that one was okay but maybe let's just try one more and that's it.  Anyways, that's what I get for only preparing it for 15 minutes and not wanting to look at a paper but let's see if I can do it once without messing up. I actually did it. So here are the two takes that I thought were the best ones. I'll see you tomorrow. What do you mean? Everybody loves Christmas movies. They're sweet and heartwarming. And they have...  A scrunch? Yeah, Scrooge plus Grinch, scrunch. Life isn't a Christmas movie. But why can't it be? I would be so good at a Christmas movie. I'm quirky, yet lovable and I... I'm less adorable. You know, you could use a Christmas movie to warm that cold, cold heart. It's not a cold heart Eve. It's just a worried one. What are you worried about? It's almost like... So what if I am? I mean, look at us Lacey. We're both single. We live in an apartment we can barely afford. We have to go outside to get warm. My boss doesn't even know my name or what I do and my Christmas cookies aren't burnt. And you?  You know, I wish we could have a perfect Christmas. Like those from the movies. The ones with beautiful decorations, the grandma who cooks, a handsome beau. What are you talking about? Everybody loves Christmas movies. They're sweet and heartwarming.  A scrinch? Yeah, Scrooge plus Grinch, scrinch. Life isn't a Christmas movie. But why can't it be? I would be so good at a Christmas movie. I'm quirky, yet lovable. You know, you could use a Christmas movie to warm up that cold, cold heart. What are you worried about? I mean, look at us Lacey, we're both single. We live in an apartment we can barely afford. You have to go outside to get warm and my boss doesn't even know my name or what I do and my Christmas cookies are burnt.  So, I just wish we could have a perfect Christmas. You know, like the ones in the movies. The ones with beautiful decorations. A grandma who cooks in a handsome bow.


Today what I'm going to share will be a story that I'm pretty sure I never write anywhere. I never heard it. I think it's something that came up through contemplation for meditation, but I use it a lot in many different situations for many years now and it inspires me a lot too. So you're going to need to imagine something. Simply imagine that you are lungs, right? You are the lungs in the body, the one which breathes.  Or you hear the digestive tract saying, oh, it's really cool to digest food. And you become envious. You start to think, man, you know, breathing air is boring, you know, there's nothing in it. There's no material in it. I need to pump blood or I need to digest food. As the lungs, you decide to do it. Now the question is what happens? And it's very clear. It's very obvious. The whole body starts to go down, you know, if the lungs are going to get filled with food and blood, this is not going to work. The more you're going to do it, the worse you're going to feel. What's interesting is that if you come back to breathing air again, it feels good. It feels good to you. It wouldn't feel good for the heart. It wouldn't feel good for the digestive tract, but it feels good to you.  Everybody else is doing something else. And then if you stick to what's meant for you, you feel good, and then the whole system feels good too. For the whole body, it's good. I don't know if you already got the point, probably you did. What I'm talking about is that the same situation applies to the current world or world in general. We are, in a sense, as cells of the world. In these days, it's very common to be, to feel separate, to think that every man is for himself. We are all separate individuals. You need to fight your way through. You need to win against life. You need to fight against life. You need to fight against others. But then that already doesn't feel good. If we look back at the purpose, the reason of your being, the question is what are you meant to do? If you're meant to breathe or whatever, that would be a profession or an action, certain action, purpose in your life. But most of the times we do, we try to listen to what others think is right for us. Somebody says this gives a lot of money, you're going to be faking this, it's very safe to do this. And then instead of trying to listen into what life wants us to do as these cells of the whole system, we started to do things which are not ours, which is not meant for us, and it starts to feel bad. So many people don't do what is actually meant for them to do, and so many people suffer, so many people feel bad, so many people go to sleep feeling bad, wake up bad and wait for the weekend and it's horrible, it's almost like a disease. But I think it's all based on that model that I spoke to you just before. There's a certain purpose we all need to fulfill and we suck at it. We don't listen into life, we don't listen what's meant for us to do, we rather take something outside of us which sounds good, sounds nice, and maybe it is good for someone else. It's good for someone else to be a lawyer, a doctor, a painter, whatever, but if that's not our path, most likely even if we become successful at it, we're going to suffer. What's important and what's interesting is that not only we are going to suffer, but the whole system is going to suffer. It's a dual relationship, it's going to go back and forth. So if you take that example, if you take that story, first of all we can ask ourselves, okay so what's my purpose, why am I here, if I would be the lungs in the body, what am I here on this earth? What do I need to give to earth, what will I feel good doing, and what will benefit the whole? And yeah, we just need to become good at it. In future videos we're going to talk about a lot of different things, how to be good at what you need to do, how to discover what you need to be good at, but a lot of different things, which I'm very passionate about it. So far in my life they're doing good. There's definitely things I want to share and I can share.  We construct our whole lives about that notion instead of actually feeling what feels good. Because yeah, I think that's the horror of it all. Too often we go into these nightmares, we live our lives based on some good notions, and it feels bad, but we keep looking not at how we feel, but we keep looking at the logic of it. We keep coming back to thinking, oh yeah, this is good because I'm getting money and people like me, people respect me, my parents are happy for me, etc, etc. But we deny the most important part is that does it feel good? Do we provide something meaningful and beneficial to others? And if not, then there's just no point, it's all a waste of time.  So again, for today, think about that story and ask yourself, are you living based on someone else's ideas, or are you living based on your ideas, or feelings, or your inspiration, and what is it? What do you feel doing good, and what will life be happy about you doing? I think it's one of the secrets, one of the key points of life. So yeah, we're going to wrap this up here. As always, looking forward to hear your comments, write me down, let me know what you think about the story, let me know if you discover something, let me know if you have any questions, if you feel stuck in that story, or whatever comes up. Let me know, I'm always happy to share and discuss, you know, YouTube is all about that, and subscribe to know when the next video comes out, these are going to go all out, but now we have a lot of different topics written down. We're going to go through them all, and yeah, we're going to stop here right now, today, looking forward to hear from you. This was Rokas, and see you soon again. A single house with a single broken window, and nobody fixes it. After one day, two days, three days, some people will pass, and they will see that this glass is broken, and they will get the impression that nobody cares. And so then eventually somebody will take a stone and break another glass.


Now Curly's wife is a really interesting and integral character in the novella and as such You do need to remember key quotations relating to her character Now what you need to understand when it comes to Curly's wife is that she's a very complicated and complex figure and Steinbeck deliberately presents her as this complicated figure because on the one hand We see her in many ways being the only woman on the ranch as a victim of the really Misogynistic patriarchal structure on the ranch in other words what I mean by that is she's a victim of Beliefs particularly at the time that women were basically inferior to men There were less than men and also women were basically just objects there to just cook clean for you They don't really have anything else going for them. Okay, that's what I mean by a very patriarchal structure a structure That's dominated by men and misogynistic just simply means not liking women in other words Hating women and seeing women as less and lower than men So on the one hand Curly's wife stands as a very sympathetic figure and we even see this highlighted through the fact that She's seen as so lower and so inferior that she doesn't even deserve a name. We never learn her name She's just called Curly's wife. She's defined by her marriage to Curly However, she's a complex character because on the other hand She's presented as a femme fatale a woman who uses her sexuality to get her head But equally whilst she's the victim of a structure of a US society at the time in the 1930s that saw women as less She also helps it supports some of the other things that are part of that same society and structure So she's also depicted as very racist particularly when it comes to how she addresses crooks The African-American the black stablebuck and she threatens him So whilst on the one hand we see Curly's wife as a very sympathetic figure as readers on the other hand We also see her as guilty of upholding the same structures the same ideas that put people like her down as a woman But she upholds it when it just applies to black people for instance, okay Now there are a few quotations that you need to remember for her character And so essentially you want to always remember that you want to do word-level analysis and hear the word-level analysis That you should do for each of the quotations now the first quote relating to Curly's character or rather the Curly's Wife's character is firstly She's described the description that we get of her even before we meet her and of course This description is given to George and Annie to be told be careful of her and she's described as a gel bait ellipsis rat trap now these two are metaphors So that's the word-level analysis you want to do here now these metaphors are really powerful because firstly especially when you look At rat trap she's been described almost as an animal or rat and she's being dehumanized She's described in a very animalistic way And of course this shows just how women at the time were seen in you know in very animalistic terms Almost as objects to just give men sexual pleasure But equally on the other hand of course what this illustrates is Curly's wife is the femme fatale when I say femme fatale It's a woman Historically especially in Hollywood films and in stories a woman who uses her sexuality to mislead and misguide men and Ultimately gain something from them, okay So this quotation is really powerful in illustrating just how Curly's wife on the one hand is Seen in a very animalistic very dehumanizing way, but the other hand it also establishes her as a femme fatale of the story The second quotation relating to Curly's wife is when she says and we get the notion and this is now where we feel empathy and sympathy for her I get awful lonely and here the word-level analysis you want to do is lonely Which is an abstract noun remember an abstract noun is a noun that we can't touch taste feel or see okay And this is emphasizing just her abject loneliness She's completely alone even if she's married newly married to Curly Curly only sees her as yet another possession that he owns Another possession that he can use to show off his status But really there's no love on any connection in their relationship, but hence why she feels really lonely The third quotation to remember for Curly's wife's character is when she's described again almost as a femme fatale She got the eye going all the time on everybody now this quotation of course is tying into the Warning that Jordan Lennie are getting the idea that Curly's wife. She basically uses her sexuality She's trying to sleep around basically now the word-level analysis here Which illustrates her as being the femme fatale and of course if you're not sure if you want kind of more detail on femme fatale I have done another video which you can check out where I go into detail on femme fatale and important contextual factors Okay, so do make sure you check that out However going back to this quotation the first word-level analysis you want to do here is the metaphor talking about how she's got a roving Eye she's always checking out other men the second word-level analysis you want to do here is hyperbole all the time and everybody again She's so unable to control her sexuality. She just wants to sleep around with everyone Okay, the other quotation to remember with Curly's wife's character is when she's now Confessing to Lennie she's talking to him about her dream and the dream of course was to be in the Hollywood movies Okay, and she has almost this adolescent rage at not being able to fulfill her dreams And she says that she met somebody he was in the pictures ellipses. I was a natural ellipses. I never got that letter This is describing a man that she met who was in the Hollywood films He was somehow connected. He then told her.  She would have been in Hollywood films Okay, she really believes as an outsider that she was destined for greatness But of course the irony is that she never does ever get, you know famous She never becomes an actress and of course we never even know her name The other key quotations to remember with Curly's wife's character is when she states So I married Curly in this case. She confesses that she basically just Settled she didn't have very many options And of course what this is being used to show is just how few options and alternatives existed for women in 1930s America and of course the word level analysis you want to do here is the verb married The second to last quotation want to remember for Curly's wife's character is now this is the dark side of her nature She upholds the very same structure that keeps her down and this is when she threatens Crooks the Negro stable buck. She says I could get you strong up on a tree And the word level analysis here you want to focus on is strong, which is a violent verb And this is an illusion to how women in America during the segregation period when Black people were kept separately to white people. They would often as a way to try and maybe control black men and Of course black men are also seen as threats to their virginity and their purity if they accuse them of rape The men would get summarily executed. There would be basically hung on trees They would be lynched and so Curly's wife is basically telling crooks that he's spoken out of turn when he asked her to leave His room and she tells him and threatens him that I could get you strong up in a tree And of course is what makes her a bit of a complicated and complex figure She says this and maybe this news is a bit of our sympathy for her The final quotation is the description of how she looked her innocent appearance once she's died So once Lenny has smothered her and how she looks after she's died and the quotation here is she looks pretty and simple ellipsis Curls tiny little sausages and here you want to focus on the in terms of word level analysis You want to focus on the metaphor her curls her hair being little tiny sausages tiny little sausages now here This metaphor is showing that Curly's wife at heart is a very innocent woman Who's been corrupted and betrayed by such a difficult ranch atmosphere and of course again This makes her seem like a very sympathetic figure in death So that's it when it comes to Curly's wife and the key quotation to remember for her character


what determines who holds the power in a relationship? It's pretty simple and I'm going to try and explain it in this video. So we all know about sort of power struggles and power games in relationships and people feel that they've lost their power and it's very difficult thing to experience. So what is this problem with power that we experience this feeling of powerlessness? How is it that we lose our power? Well it's a very real experience but the good news about it is that you can't really lose your power. That sounds like a kind of lost my car keys or something. The truth is with power in relationships your power can only be given away and I mean that. This isn't like you're trying to be put a positive spin on things. It's literally you can only give it away and the reason is well what is power? How is power derived in relationship? What makes power? Where does it come from in a relationship? And here it is. Here's the simple sort of way to think about this. Who holds power in the relationship is the person who holds the frame in the relationship. So by frame we mean you know here's the frame and it's the thing through which I'm seeing you right now. I'm holding a frame. I might decide to look at this aspect of you or this aspect of you or this aspect of you but I'm in control of the frame. I'm framing how I perceive you. If I hold this frame in regards how you are being perceived I hold the power but you can only decide to take that seriously if you are not holding the frame for yourself in terms of how you see yourself. The story about who you feel you are or believe yourself to be is up to you to decide and if you let me hold the frame around that I'm holding all the power. So we see this in loads of different ways. You may have a manager at work for instance and you feel completely powerless around this person. Well you know the manager is assessing you and they have the frame. They are choosing to see you as meeting requirements or maybe not meeting requirements but it's up to them. We see this too in things like if you have a crush on somebody or limerence it might be a better word for adult relationships. Or an infatuation or somebody who is on a pedestal. We pedestalize people. We give them our power. It's not that they take the power they have the power. They are in control of how we are framed right. If they look at us if they give us attention if they enter into a relationship with us our self-worth goes up but if they withdraw that our self-worth goes down so they're completely in control of how we ourselves are perceiving ourselves. So essentially to make this short here how do you get your power back is you have to take back the frame for yourself specifically or most importantly regarding how you see yourself. So some questions to consider here are how do you see yourself? How do you feel about your value? Do you believe that you are good enough? Forget what your manager thinks of you. Forget with that person who has a crush. You have a crush on things of you. What do you believe about your value? Have you taken the time to reflect on how you see yourself? That's another really good question because if you haven't taken the time to reflect on how do I perceive myself? If I hold the frame up to myself how do I what's the narrative I have around that? And if you haven't done that in all likelihood you're not even aware of the importance of framing. And somebody else will take the frame. So this is an invitation to be more proactive in terms of how you're seeing yourself in terms of how you're framing yourself and to own it to take the frame for yourself because that's where your power is. And I mean it is really an infinite source of power because the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves influence how we feel emotionally and how we behave. So it's pretty important that we take that power back for ourselves if we have overlooked it or been passive around it or have given it away to somebody else. The good news is you can because nobody can take it away. It's more of we have to acquiesce and then it's taken away. But we can absolutely get it back. Guys I hope that's a useful video about frame and taking your power back and as always thank you for being with me today and I'll see you in the next video. Bye for now.


Good afternoon and welcome to the Vermont Legislature's House Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Committee. This afternoon we are going to be briefed on the 2021 Lake Champlain Action Plan. We have with us Mark Nodd, the chair of the citizen advisory commission on Lake Champlain's future, and Hillary Solomon, district manager for the Portland Meadoway Natural Resources Conservation District. Welcome, Mr. Nodd and Ms. Solomon. Thank you for having us today. Thank you. Yes. Mark, do you want me to just go ahead and get started? Sure. I think Representative Sheldon introduced us and we shared, and I think as part of the meeting summary, an introductory letter that I think describes the Citizens' Advisor Committee in our work this year, and then Hillary can walk through our action plan and then we're ready to answer any questions that members might have. Thanks, Hillary. Great. Thank you. I feel like I should call you Mr. Nodd and Representative Sheldon, everybody. Good afternoon. So, yes, as mentioned before, I'm with the Portland Meadoway Natural Resources Conservation District down in Portland, Vermont. I'm here on behalf of the Vermont Citizens' Advisory Committee on Lake Champlain's future. That's a statutory committee comprised of 10 citizen members and then two senators and two representatives. And ideally those members are people who have a pretty good understanding of the water quality issues facing Lake Champlain. Can everybody hear me? Okay, great. Facing Lake Champlain represent a variety of interests who would be interested in those issues and also are located throughout the basin. So today, we had a few more people earlier, so I was going to introduce the folks who are here. So Bob Fisher, who's the water quality superintendent at the City of South Burlington, wasn't able to sort of hang on for that afternoon. But he was going to be here today as well. And then of course, Mark Nodd, who you probably all know who's a lawyer from South here out. And then myself who work on agriculture, stormwater, forestry projects, water quality assessments, project ID coordination and implementation, that type of thing. So that's the group here today, but of course there are other members of the group, including Senators Randy Brock and Virginia Lyons and representatives Carol Ode and Leland Morgan. So overall, the Vermont CAC is charged with understanding the scientific data and information about activities that affect or have potential to affect water quality and wildlife in Lake Champlain. So we consider the needs and impacts of a variety of sectors as we consider water quality in Lake Champlain balancing regional needs for agriculture jobs, economic development, etc, with the desire for preserving and creating a high quality environment in Vermont. As you probably know, the Lake Champlain CAC presents a report and a work plan where we summarize information that we've gleaned over the past year through a series of public meetings where we get experts and speakers to help give us information about topics that we've decided to delve into a little bit more deeply each year. So through that information and citizen input, we provide a report and sort of a summary of action items that we hope that the legislators would be supportive of and help move forward any actions or legislation that would support these items. We also have corollary groups in New York and Quebec that are working on similar types of action plans and items in their own respective areas that we try to coordinate with. So the Vermont, the action plan for this year is a reflects the findings and recommendations, including some that were highlighted through changes in recreation changes in sort of folks activities because of COVID. So we saw a lot of increased demand for public access to our surface waters, and including the Lake Champlain and its tributaries and through that additional access we know that we have needed to work for some time on increasing the locations where we can access Lake Champlain, especially in the South Lakes. So those, those items were sort of highlighted for us as we saw more need and more desire for people to get out and enjoy the natural world around them. We also saw the need through some, you know, some sad stories I think in the agricultural sector for sort of an increased support for farms as they transition to more sustainable farming practices. And also intensified concerns regarding human health, due to the impacts of multiple chemicals being found in our surface waters. So those are all pieces that have influenced our points and action items that we are presenting through the current work plan. And we also believe that a healthy Lake Champlain ecosystem requires redoubling the state's funding for investments in developed land and natural infrastructure, improving stormwater pollution controls and restoring forests and floodplains soils and wetlands and stream corridors. So this year, our focus, our focus was especially on agriculture and the pollutants and chemicals that we find in surface waters. So I think that we talked a lot about the laboratory analysis of these chemicals and the state's sort of storing of data related to these chemicals and I'll get into that in a few minutes. So you've probably received copies of the action plan it's blue this year it looks like this. I wanted to highlight a sentence out of the introduction because I thought it was really topical so I'm just going to read that quickly and then I'll go on to talk about the different points that we are hoping to highlight this year. So agricultural and stormwater runoff streambank erosion invasive species climate change and next generation pollutants are continuing burden and threat to Lake Champlain. I think it's good that we recognize that we've been working really hard already to combat these pollutants, but it also is important that we recognize that it's going to take a lot of work into the future to make sure that the lake is is healthy. What I think is investment in natural and developed infrastructure, which is fairly inclusive, but healthy ecosystems provide resilience to climate change we've already seen some pretty big changes in my area where I work. We're in the state related to climate change related to stream dynamics related to changes in flow because of increased melting, you know melting and rain melt sort of incidences in the spring and increased power of thunderstorms in the summer. So we're seeing a lot of changes, a lot of erosion, a lot of streams turning into little gullies and a lot of sediment getting transported downstream to Lake Champlain. So we need to protect our most critical parts of the natural ecosystem, such as our intact forest blocks and headwater areas and our flood plains and wetlands throughout the watershed to help combat combat this. Initiatives like the functioning floodplain initiative needs support and group groups need grants, such as the ERP grants from the Department of Environmental Conservation and other investments to help support assessment and restoration activities in Vermont. And the Lake Champlain Basin Program has been doing a really good job they have pollution prevention grants and they had a fairly new these technical proposals that a lot of people applied for this year. But I'm not sure and I'm not sure about, I don't think we've had an ERP round from DEC for a while, maybe a year. So that might be something we could follow up on and figure out if there's going to be a round coming soon and I may have missed something but that's just something that's been on my radar because we're kind of waiting to figure out when we can like funding for natural resource projects is something that folks are interested in so. So then likewise we need to focus on pollution from developed areas and local businesses are going to need a lot of support as the three acre rule kind of gets up and running. It's going to be costly and also confusing for these businesses as they kind of deal with the regulatory piece and trying to make sure that they're treating their stormwater effectively on their newly regulated properties. The second one is investment in public access areas and the recreation economy. One highlight of the Vermont economy is certainly our outdoor recreation tourism I know, and politely we've been talking about this a lot because of the closing of Green Mountain College. So we've been looking to bike trails and other things where we can both conserve the natural environment and also enjoy it. So again the state you know we don't have a lot of areas in the southern part of Lake Champlain where people can, you know, non motorized recreational folks can access the lake so that would be something that we would love to see some time and effort toward, and then also just, you know, improving access to our ponds and our rivers throughout the state. And then that first increased access brings us to something which would be invasive species, which we've certainly seen new invasive species continuing to appear in Lake Champlain and other lakes around Vermont. So many, so many areas, many lakes in my area do not actually have a greeter program. And there are no boat wash stations in my district that I know of. So both of these things would be things that would be good to redouble efforts on. Maybe take a look at those, those, those areas and the greeter programs that we do have are run by teenagers and volunteers so there's not a lot of sort of professional staff on site to help them. I think about how daunting it would be as a young person to approach people as they bring their boats, you know to unload and inspect them for invasive species so we're asking a lot of young folks and retired folks without really a lot of support from somebody who provide technical assistance. Our fourth point is that we need more investment on an agricultural transition to sustainability. I think that as a worker in Vermont who provides technical services to farms were often faced with pretty grim stories about the economics and future of farms in our area. We had a farm who was applying for a grant to agency of ag to get some conservation practice equipment, and they have to go through their financial information on the application. And it turned out that they had spent their entire retirement IRA in the couple previous years because they because of the low milk prices. So there were three dairies and Paul it recently there are not any more dairies and pop up sorry poltney three days I'm getting a little nervous. Three dairies and poltney until a couple of about two years ago and now there are not any left here. And then of course, a lot of the farmers in the area tried to grow hemp to help, you know turn around their financial situation but that did not turn out to be economically rewarding to them at all. We do have some hopeful stories. We have a small farmer who opened a grain mill locally and they've been processing locally grown grains and then selling pizza in a meadow and people were riding their bikes and driving their cars to this meadow to get pizza so that you know we do have some spots like that there's another farm farmer who opened a small butchering sort of station at his beef farm. And we have people from out of state to who are looking at investing in the area, trying to look at sort of carbon sequestration practices and regenerative agriculture so definitely some bright spots. But we definitely need more support and quicker response from the state. So I think that the payment for ecosystem services work that's been mandated by the legislature needs to move forward relatively quickly and not get bogged down. And I look forward to, you know, I look forward to that, that system getting started and getting sort of its feet on the ground I know it's still in a development phase. But I think both that and the opportunity for some carbon trading and maybe payments for carbon sequestration are places where we could help encourage things to move forward a little faster and try and get these farmers you know payments for the services that they are providing to our to our environment and our state. Okay, so then we move on to the other side of the coin which is enforcement on farms. I think we all know that public perception is poor surrounding the working relationship between the agency of ag and Department of Environmental Conservation when it comes to enforcement of water quality violations at farms. The protocols should be clear when a direct discharge of pollution to a surface water is founded a farm, and both agencies need to take responsibility for their actions and their obligations. Entities working with the farm and enforcement need to provide clear instructions to the farm and clear information to the public when these stories are publicized which of course they often are. The agency of ag can provide technical support to farm so they understand and can meet the required egg practices and DC can step in when a farm violates state or federal water quality laws. Agency of ag to also provide guidance and support to farms transitioning to a more diverse and more sustainable agricultural model. And we need the agency of ag to assist farmers as they redesign agriculture to be more sustainable and reduce non point source pollution. Our last topic that we looked at as I mentioned were chemicals in the water. So first, we need the state to keep track of chemicals that are sold and used in Vermont. There have been some reported issues about the quality of data tracking and databases used by state agencies, and we need to prioritize that clear and accurate tracking of chemical data in Vermont is is important and needs to be done accurately. Second, there are some new or newly worrisome agricultural and industrial chemicals being found in our waters. And we need these need to be tracked and monitored. They're difficult to monitor and I think some funding and expert and our expertise may be needed to ensure that the new monitoring programs that the agency of ag are robust and useful and the agency of ag is trying to monitor some of these compounds. So I think we should support them in that endeavor and make sure they have enough funding to do it correctly. So those are our topics, and hopefully you have a copy of the handout. I think Mark and I are happy to answer questions or talk about any of these in greater depth or length. Sorry, I got a little nervous. It makes it hard to talk and then I You did great. Thank you. And we do have it. It's up under today's date handout and then your letter is is also up there on our webpage committee representative don't Good afternoon and thank you for your patience. We had a busy floor session today so I do appreciate your patience in coming in sticking with it. I know you care about these issues and sticking with it and helping us become more informed is worthwhile. So thank you for that. And it's always good to see you and Mr nod. My questions and I do appreciate your annual plan of action is really helpful, especially when you look at the breadth of challenges in front of us to get a better understanding of the collaborative effort that goes into identifying and prioritizing needs. So thank you for that. I guess my question I have a few questions if you don't mind. One is in regards to ongoing monitoring. I know that most recently the state. The person who was in charge of I believe she she might have been supported with a similar funding source that the Basin program is supported she was in charge of monitoring for the algal blooms the the cyanobacteria algal blooms that we unfortunately experienced due to too much nutrient loading. And with that retirement. Can you describe a little bit what's the, and perhaps this will be a better question for the, the agency itself but, but knowing how closely you work with the agency how are we maintaining the monitoring of these algal blooms because of the toxicity this is important information to keep the public engaged. And if you know the answer to that. Mr. nod, I don't I do know I work very closely with several lake associations including like promising they have a couple of stations and like St. Catherine and their couple of. They, they tend to follow this very closely so it would be, we would be interested down here to know that sort of fate and you know what is happening for that program this summer and like you said it is it as timely as people get out on the lake. And it would be good to have that information so we could follow I'd be interested to follow up on that too. I can, I can maybe provide some context and, and what updates I might know. So I think you might. Thanks, Kerry, again, nice to see you. I think you might know that I think it's Dr. Angela Shamba recently retired for long term from her long term role as leading the long term water quality monitoring program that I believe is primarily supported through Lake Champlain Basin program funding. It's, I think it goes back almost 30 years. We heard from Oliver Pearson at lakes and ponds with the agency that they were eager to try to replace and fill that position. And her role was not only the cyanobacteria monitoring, but also the breadth of all of the other parameters that the long term monitoring program has. Recently, as the CAC presented a resolution to the Basin program requesting them that they increase the monitoring particularly related to these what's called next generation and, and, you know, Angela's husband Nat who worked in Department of Agriculture doing pesticide and herbicide science for a very long time. Also, he reminded me that there's, there's some next generations but a lot of these chemicals, two big chemicals of concern atrazine and glyphosate, more commonly known as roundup are hardly new. They've been around for 20 or 30 years. What's new is the increased level of utilization, particularly as cover crop practices have implemented and are required, certainly very highly supported as a way of reducing nutrient load. But now there's this concurrent chemical load as they use these defoliants to prep soils to prep the fields for planting of other crops seasonally so we're hopeful that whoever is hired is up to speed and moving that along very quickly. But I'm not certain is the exact status of who's leading that program at this time. I'm certain there's a number of agency staff who are carrying on, although last year with COVID isolation. There were a lot of fits and starts about people actually getting into the field to keep up with it so the report that Oliver shared with us showed a lot of gaps in the actual data and the quality of the data that was delivered. That answers your question. Yes, it doesn't. Madam chairman ask a follow up question. As you know the TMDL is focused on the nutrient loading into Lake Champlain and half the state drains into Lake Champlain. I appreciate your interest in seeing that position filled and the addressing other chemicals of concern but with respect to our compliance with the Clean Water Act directives to reduce these nutrient loadings. Are we in your mind in partnership with perhaps with the basin program is the state also on top of doing the modeling to determine whether we're achieving our pollutant reductions to your knowledge. Is there any actual in the field monitoring occurring to demonstrate reduction in nutrient loading from the by the practices that we're installing I don't know a little more specifics on on field monitoring but I know that a lot of energy is devoted to increasing the quality of that monitoring a lot of monitoring occurred to build the TMDL. And I know that one of the focuses for the citizens advisory committee, you know, historically we've been very focused on making sure we have the funding to support the investments necessary. So thanks to the legislature and the governor we've moved, moved beyond that and now there are either projects being implemented, or the increased in improved monitoring and the modeling connected to that monitoring to be sure that we're actually achieving the success that we're seeking Hillary Mike knows specifically the quality of that monitoring. I think I feel like the state. So the TMDL is the, like the credits, the phosphorus credits from the TMDL are definitely created through modeling, not monitoring, but there has been an effort to make sure that those of us who are participating for example the La Rosa partnership laboratory program where we collect samples and then the state lab analyzes those and and pays for the analysis. There have been efforts to make sure that those samples are fulfilling those types of requirements that they are creating information that is feeding back up to the state then showing whether or not practices are effective and trying to show sort of long term in smaller streams so not on the lake itself and not at the big tributaries that come out on the lake, but at smaller streams where we might see a more quicker response to practices on the landscape. So that program was halted last year because of COVID there was no like watershed group or conservation district water quality monitoring that occurred. It is back this year and it's been changed quite a bit so we're kind of working through the new new process new system it's a little bit limited because they don't allow you to take samples outside of the summer low flow sort of we can get we can get rainfall events during the summer, but we're missing the spring sort of flux of phosphorus out to the lake and some you know spring and fall. So I'd love to see that actually broadened in the future with a little more flexibility for the times that we take the samples, but it is at least in place this summer so we can we can continue to monitor. Thank you. Do members have other questions. Representative Dylan. Only if others don't I can always fill the air with quick questions as ongoing problem of mine is not knowing when to shut up. Again fascinating to hear what you describe as as ongoing challenges, and we share with you about news and species control. I know that there's a grants program through the department curious to know your reaction as to whether there's adequate funding to meet the funds. And then the second part when you mentioned there haven't been any ecosystem restoration grants for a year I presume that's because of coven and interested to know, knowing that we have a clean water fund available. When do you anticipate seeing those dollars become available to partners. So I may have missed something I think there was a grant to do conservation easements that was released at some point which is still part of that ERP the ecosystems restoration program. So I need to follow up on that but my sense is that we're waiting, we're waiting and hopeful, and we're told there'd be a another round in January and, and it hasn't come out yet so. I think between that and then the new through act 76 the enhancement grants you know we haven't heard how those are going to be. If that'll be part of the service providers or, you know, held separately at DC or with another organization so we're kind of waiting to hear about those as well, because that's the natural resource funding as opposed to the more strictly stormwater funding that for now would be going through the service providers. And the grants and aid for news and species control. So those are so so the lakes I have I work with nine associations down here who apply for those grants and they get about 20% of their projects funded each year. I think that's where it's difficult they have you know it's so and so grandkids are the ones who are the greeters and the grandpa is the one who's like sort of helping out and making sure that they're there on time and doing what they're doing. I think it's hard I think it's challenging. I know as you know when I was in high school, I don't think I would have felt very comfortable working with somebody who was taking a dirty boat into a lake and having the authority to tell them that they couldn't and they needed to wash it off so I just, I do think we should revisit those programs looking at the reader program and and trying to get boat wash stations like mobile boat wash stations because if you do find something dirty and they had to clean the boat on site. So it would be, there is not enough funding. And it's, it's, I think the programs could be looked at again. Representative McCullough. I have a question about the change in sampling protocol where you no longer get spring fresh hits and only during the dry, the dry period. Because one, it would appear to me that that would give a more favorable result for programs with that are that are likely polluting. Secondly, now the new results aren't going to fit with the, you know, in any kind of a linear way and you mentioned you'd hope to get those changed back. So with the change in protocols going back and forth is not a very scientific approach and what's going on here who changed these protocols and it's my is my my dissertation somewhat accurate or or not at all. I feel it is I feel like there were some watershed groups including our district who had been sampling since the program started in 2003 and we had very clear objectives and reasons why we were sampling certain locations and times. For whatever reason, I think the program got a little bit overwhelmed, maybe they, they were so encouraging of new people starting to monitor and, you know, I think DC wanted to encourage groups and towns to collect data where they could and wanted them to encourage them to use it for projects and, you know, trying to figure out where to put projects and if they were effective, and it just got maybe overwhelming so they sort of clamped down and Bethany Sergeant is the person who's in charge of this program and who over is overseeing these changes so anybody wants to call her. No. So I think she's responding to what she sees as too much demand for something. You know they use the state laboratory to, to also analyze their own data, you know water samples and so we were providing sort of some competition. So I think it would be nice in the lab so it would be nice to revisit this though I think we're not doing ourselves or the state of favor by not allowing these groups to do the work that they feel is important and that they've been working on for years. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that we did. We did try to intervene when that was happening last time. Representative Dolan. I apologize for not knowing this answer but what do you mean by double redoubling. What does that term redoubling mean when you talk about attention to our water quality objectives here. Are you, are you saying that we're our attention is varying or there's less money available. What do we mean by that term. I think sometimes, and I will admit that I didn't did not write that particular word into the document so I'm getting a little bit just interpreting myself. But I think sometimes the concern is that you know we passed you guys past acts 64 and then act 76 which x64 being you know kind of an all encompassing and act 76 being a little more, you know limited to specific funds to do specific things. And we sometimes get a little nervous the folks on the ground we don't we don't we don't want you to think like oh good we're done we did it, we want to make sure that everybody understands this is going to be really hard work and with climate change and you know things that are happening that we control. It's going to be a slow process and so we just want to make sure everybody's aware of that and that I think that we all feel supported to as we do work that's challenging both emotionally and sort of in terms of not always seeing results after your after you've been working on something so I think that that that's what is meant by that and I'll let Mark step into if that was. Yeah, I think that for some folks, there's this sense that we've been spending a lot of money for a long time, and we're not understanding or seeing progress in solving a number of issues facing the lake and it's all very connected all very interconnected and any ecosystem is and depending on changes in practices and changes in policies, we, we see some initiatives that might trip and stumble and falter and monitoring comes and goes we know historically invasive species, if we step away from funding invasive species, they creep, and they, they expand, we know that with horse chest nuts with Eurasian mill foil with a number. The Basin program funds a number of invasive species and monitoring efforts and significant funds have been delivered through the Basin program to the agency and natural resources in the state to manage for months impact on Lake Champlain and we're the vast majority of that impact and of that the vast majority is well that number one largest contributor stems from agriculture and agricultural practices. So I think the redoubling is to not take our eyes off the prize of continued to make investments in challenges that have been developing for a century and what we heard and recognize and the note about COVID spotlighting or amplifying things that we heard was that, you know, COVID took away from some of the good efforts that people were doing because of isolation and, and you know the sensible practices that limited at the same time, we need to catch up with that and do more around our monitoring and around investing in these healthy systems that, you know, Vermonters got outside we saw over 100% increase in utilization, and that was during a time where there were, you know, we didn't have physical border controls but there were clear travel restrictions limiting anyone from outside of the state coming into the state. And we're poised for a lot of pent up demand for people to get outside and engage and Vermont is a maybe target isn't the right word but Vermont has enjoyed itself at the, you know this we're at the center of 70 to 90 million people who come here for the outdoor recreation economy and our hospitality and tourism and outdoor recreation industry are critical to our economy and critical to supporting and educating those that come here to play and use those resources and critical to building that constituency for improving the quality of the environment that they like to play in which is for us and for future generations and our kids. And so we're catching up with a lot of previous past intended but not well executed practices, and we're learning and I think that's the redoubling we really need to double down and make sure that we're investing in it and climate change makes it more challenging because climate the climate change that we're experiencing is different from other places and we're not going to see enormous heat that perhaps others and we're not going to see enormous coastal flooding. We have amazing natural resources that create healthy clean water, the maple industry and the skiing industry might be challenged with increased heat. We have a longer growing season, which might invite more invasive invasive pests as they shift their habitats. I think really we need to prepare ourselves more strongly for what's in front of us and monitoring and investing in these infrastructure, whether it's natural infrastructure or our developed land infrastructure to manage stormwater runoff is the most critical investments particularly as we're looking at some strategic funding from our congressional delegation and particularly with this lens of COVID recovery. Thank you. Madam chair me I ask one make one more statement, if I may. Yes, I do want to take this time. I do want to take this time to thank I'm not legs and playing bassin program I know you've been integral part of that with the citizens advisory committee and shepherding federal dollars for Lake cleanup are the base and clean up efforts. The role of Senator Leahy in our congressional delegation has been instrumental at bringing more dollars to support our work and your role has been I think instrumental in getting those dollars here, and, and your role and in seeing in ensuring those dollars are well spent so I want to extend my appreciation to your good work and through that through the base and program thank you. And I just, she's not engaging today but we have a new staff person supporting us so we have a coordinator inside the agency we're staffed by an agency person part time. Sarah Coleman. And recently the steering committee of the base and program approved hiring a staff person that will facilitate our work in Vermont but also our work as we interact with our colleagues at the New York citizens advisory committee and at the Quebec citizens advisory committee. So Catherine Dar joined about a month or more ago six weeks ago. I think that next year she will certainly be more involved with our work in front of the legislature, but it's another example of the base and program, making significant investments in supporting the work of the committee and the work of the agencies in our and Department of Agriculture in in managing Lake Champlain and moving forward with policies and monitoring necessary to assure that we're achieving the high quality environment we seek. That's great yeah thank you. Just to echo what Representative Dolan said for your commitment and your hard work on behalf of all the monitors to try to move the ball forward on Lake Champlain and water quality issues. And also for yeah putting up with our, our flexible schedule. Very much appreciate that I know you probably had lots of things you needed to get done today as well so thank you for being patient and joining us and I'm not seeing any further questions so I think we're, we can adjourn for the day. We thank you as well for, you know, hosting us and also for the work that you guys all do on, you know, natural resource issues and helping to keep our waters clean so so thank you. Yeah, thank you again. All right. Good afternoon everybody have a go enjoy the sun before the rain comes.


Welcome back to the breakfast and class CV Africa time for off the press Oh, we take you through the front pages of the National Dailies and as usual we have a guest to date Kuala Wali Who joins the conversation? Good morning today. It's good to have you join us All right, let's set up with the leadership newspaper now looking at the front page and the banner caption The front page says direct primaries debate. We must avoid repeat of third-term situation Rec runs. That's what you find on the banner caption for the leadership You also have you tie travelers way option as airfares sky rocket Please begin probe of eight children found dead in packed vehicle in Lagos and You also have reps query and CDC over Divided nine a billion Naira covered 19 fun and APC class a kt council polls Chi you also have another caption saying CJ N speaks on state of judiciary on Wednesday and Buk unveils 115,000 student and job skin. That's the much we can take on the leadership newspaper All right away from the leadership will move on next to the punch and newspaper this morning the lead The lead caption for the spawning virtue of government Ford's British travel ban Alleges most infected travelers from UK with several riders there between November 22 and November 28 67 inbound passengers tested positive the NC DC United Kingdom suspense Nigerians visa applications as restriction begins You once the month covered 19 negative tests from travelers chance vaccination status Beside the mast it over for 200,000 Nigerian refugees in the jerry public says you went agency reps someone Netza oh G F TZ alleged on remitted taxes by contractors Above the mass head there are other stories fuel Saturday hits 1.03 trillion Naira NNPC deduct 199 billion Naira from federation account Assas automated up to federal government and lectures say demands on net reps probe 9 billion Naira COVID-19 fund paid into NC DC officials account Above that on the mast the blue strip rather Bankers committee outlines 100 million dollars for national art theater Rehabilitation Other stories on the front page of the punch this morning man nabbed with 96 wraps of cocaine five undergraduates arrested for drug Trafficking a leg of serious off-doin a son others demand principles Prosecution can't prepare fresh suit against federal government on clerics tenure others eight legos children die in locked SUV Police begin probe absentee PDP alleges pre-election results as APC wins a kitty local government pose Let's move away from the punch new trip of this morning and check out the Guardian the banner caption reads United Kingdom holds visa for Nigerians as expert acts federal government to reciprocate That's the bold caption you find Underneath you're quite interesting riders passengers stranded as British airways cancelled flights in out of Nigeria United Kingdom dictates 18 new Omicron cases and ban to if affects over 18 or beg your pardon over 8,000 Nigerian travelers citizens UK coming from Nigeria to pay 2,285 pounds for 10 days quarantine Canada no longer sept in COVID-19 tests results from Nigeria nine African countries Global clinic data confirms new variant is less Find out what all of that's about Holiday travels on the restriction for a slickity crisis This is some of the riders you find underneath the board caption of the Guardian newspaper You also find another header saying South Kaduna's youth vow to defend communities against bandits and Can files fresh shoots against CAC minister on controversial camera 2020 eight children found dead in locked car in Badagri and That's it on the garden you sweepers this morning Away from the guardian the next paper we have on display is the daily trust Well, it has other stories on its mind away from on the the travel advisory and of course some all the bands there are cement price skyrocket as companies declare record a profit Dango TV you a la fad rake 469 billionaire in nine months send it once more cement licenses manufacturers are playing no production retailers for price surge Other stories on the daily trust canoe APC crisis Tino bullshit Corral meet age children found dead inside abandoned car in Lagos Omicron experts are worried as Canada UK ban Nigerian flights Go a groom's parents seven six guests killed in by outside road crush Gambian president Barra Ray elected ex-minister Bono Sharif dies at 74 those are all the stories you can find on the front page of the daily trust newspaper To the color will a thank you so much for joining us this morning. Let's head straight to the crux of the Marta All right, let's set up with the leadership newspaper this morning the issue of direct Primaries and the debate surrounding it the caption says we must avoid repeat of third-term situation That's what Rex is saying and you know, I neck is worried about other key areas in the bill That's overshadowed by direct primaries. Let's share your thoughts on this Of love Why is it that you are not ready? What's that when people get there never wanted to leave again Then I wish I go back to go That's it. Oh But not to learn the go My friend of Africa It's a sample of the key They would be a revelation That it is true Then I wish I go back to go wanted the social me also the father also so general Abdu Salam I go back That it was the two of them who came down with the National Assembly to process a girl come back to go from So you begin to ask, would it be there is some blue that they put in the President's seat? Because when they get there, they never want to leave the place again. There is no blue there. What is there is not a decent measure. And the lack of accountability. When you get to office in Nigeria. Furthermore, the next step, with what has happened in the city space, the local government has a measure that conducts the election, one more in the city. And here in the city, we have some senators on the platform of the DPP and the National Assembly. They have people in the state out of a family. How is it not possible for a PC to win all the local government seats in the city space? It's also because of that the National Assembly has proposed a direct primary for the different political parties in selecting whatever candidates to fly their flag. Because the leadership of the party generally the governor always and pitch whoever they want to give any of these political processes to. Unfortunately, if we were to take out my mediation, we shouldn't be addicted to political parties. The processes and procedures by which they will, the next whatever candidates to fly their flag. Or here is Nigeria. If a PC came to power, I have no apology about this. The fidelity of our electoral process, the sanctity of electoral process, free and fair election has been in a bayon when the APC came to power. There has not been any election that has been conducted under the APC, that has been free and fair. So it's a good lot to listen and Professor Jega, this is better than the APC has been doing, is getting to power. And here is a party again that says it wants to continue in power for the next three years. So the direct primary thing, if it is going to be a military measure to ensure that we get the electoral process right and the elections are free and fair, that is the welcome. But ultimately, we should have left all these things for the internal and internal affairs of the respective political parties. We don't start calling the shots for them. We don't start calling them shots for them, for not to ever go straight, to ever go somewhere, without somebody somewhere, put his hands up in the way. When you remember too, when Legals said that Dr. Izundo, the chairman, the APC also cleared all the seats. And incidentally the chairman of the Legals high net, he said, he said he legacy and under how to monument our front for community. And we begin to ask of them what these women have been doing, when she was the CGM of the Chief Judge of Legacy. All right, Barista Kolauli, let's slide on to the punch newspaper this morning. All right, Omicron virus is what's on the punch's mind and the leader caption here. Federal government folds British travel ban, alleges most infected travelers from UK and there are several writers. So what's your opinion really concerning all of that? The federal government seems to be reactionary instead of being proactive. What do you think? When you also look at some of the papers that we are reading, you would have seen in there, at the House of Rights, the square in NCBC, at ODIF account of about nine billion Naira, I'll give it to them to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. So, if such a amount of money has been given to an agency of government, either to develop for free or to manage the COVID pandemic in Nigeria, and now money ended up in the account of nothing for free, you now be surprised that COVID is beginning to ravage the country again. And that some countries of the world are beginning to ban our people from coming over there. And when you come over there to the current time for about 14 days, and pay as much as 2,290 something pounds, you'll say that you might be cut. All this is well done to lack of transitionary relaxation, corruption, and lack of accountability. You are now reminded that the last time we spoke on this issue, I said if a tiny country like Cuba and produce a vaccine for COVID-19, there's no reason why a nation of 200 million people with all the reputable biologies that we have, both inside the country outside the country, do not have been able to come over with the dose. But this is the kind of money the night billion that has ended up in somebody's account that would have been given to researchers to come over with a dose of vaccine. And say somebody and some other people have problems in telling me to share how they're putting some accounts to generate interest for them, not knowing whether COVID wiles out the old and the rest of Nigeria. I'm not surprised at the new way as some other countries of the world are restricting the movement of Nigerian people. In fact, the more they restrict the better it is for all of us. Because who are those who travel? It is the people, the rich people, their children, and then the rest of us, the ordinary poor people, who begin to wrestle with poverty, who begin to wrestle with fossil cars, wrestle with COVID, wrestle with a bandit, wrestle with kidnappers, wrestle with the old boys who go into a bank account and clean it out, all the kinds of things. Just look at all the fetish of all the newspaper. Is there any charity news that you can find on the fetish of those newspapers today? There is none. That is the source which the Nigerian political allies have rendered a left in the nation. Okay, but let's also stay with the variant and some of the actions that we're getting from the international community. Now, some experts are saying that Nigerian or the African country should reciprocate the same gesture of ban travel. Because it feels like these measures restricting Nigerians and other African countries to getting into their country is such a stringent action. What are your thoughts on that? The kind of actions that are done for the world is able to impose on their people. Why do I say this? Very negligible percentage of our people are into the employment. The bulk of the people are in the informal sector of the economy.  They will not be able to put food on their table. Think about the forcanizer. Think about the example bus driver. Think about the woman who says pure water in the motor park. So we have a kind of palliative or a kind of money that we can be given to these people on a daily basis to make ends meet. If they don't go out, the answer is there, no. But if they don't have that kind of a measure on hand, how will you be able to restrict people to a movement? How do you deny them the amnesia of livelihoods? So as much as the British people would love also to do some of these things, the reality of grande in Nigeria would make it almost impossible. More importantly too, do the people in the aim of leadership today command respect to more people. Up to now, many of our people are skeptical. They don't even believe that the COVID-19 exists and the few that believe, they think it is an analyzed disease. It is a disease for the rich people that she knows they bother them. And you won't be surprised why they take this attitude. There has been a first deficit between the Nigerian people and the political leadership because the leaders, 99 percent of time, they lie and negate the propaganda for the Nigerian people. And so even when the leaders arrive, leaders speak true and the leaders should come out to say that the Nigerian doesn't believe them. They think that's part of the lives of all the schools. So Tunde Kala Wale, do you think that Nigeria should reciprocate the same gesture with other African countries? Because I mean you see Western countries that have cases, even more cases of the variant and COVID-19, they're not subjected to the same restriction. I would like to share your thoughts on that quickly. Some of these Nigerians are calling to be powerful. They are both British and Nigerian citizens. Furthermore, Nigeria is next in debt to the British government. Furthermore, most of them, when they spend money in Nigeria, they take it to places like Britain to go and buy houses. Their children are over there and they save money. They have more stake in the British economy, in the British society than they even have in Nigeria. Nigeria is all their business center. It's their company where they come to make their money and then they take it to Britain to enjoy it. So when they have that kind of and a legend, they won't have the morale and then the political will to reciprocate the kind of stuff that is written as a modern European country, which is the Nigerian people. All right, I'm Baistar Kala Wale. Let's stay with the paunchers. You know, another story there above the masthead. Fuel subsidy heats 1.03 trillion Naira, NNPC to deduct 1.199 billion Naira from the federation account. What are your thoughts exactly? Well, I will, first and foremost, repeat what I said the last time we spoke, that the political party, when it was a company of the NNPC in 2013, said that subsidy is a scam, that there is no subsidy. Why is that political party now that it is in power, even though it's subsidy than the previous government? Something is wrong in there. You see that? There is lack of accountability, or the money that has been diverted, or we are tied to what is in those days. When people bring in vessels, about two to three vessels to Nigeria with power, they will go and file an application to prepare for about 10 to 15 vessels. Furthermore, some of these specialists, some of these people in the country who are not consumed by Nigeria, why is even the statistic that we have asked for evidence to show this is the quantum of petroleum products that the Nigerian people consume on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis. The statistic as well. So what is the parameter of paying the subsidy? I want to believe that we are back to the regime of camps in the area of supply and supply savings. And for the Nigerians in their lives, and the politicians in particular, who now impose this voting on the Nigerian people, so start using this subsidy to punish the Nigerians who pull the game. My least so, very serious, people on red. Because people are already pushed to the wall already in terms of their ability to get their means of livelihood. And when you now remove the source costs of cities, and where prices goes up, prices are caused by the range, are caused by some of the economy. With skyrockets. And when the skyrockets, the Nigerian people will not be able to make ends meet, poverty will increase. People will not be able to pay their outrage. Never believe also that transportation will go up. I would advise this government to put on a thinking cap and find a solution to this problem. They have a concrete audience. And let us all know the quantum of petroleum products that the Nigerian people consume of the delivery before the game to stop the payment or non-payment or withdrawal or non withdrawal of petroleum subsidy. All right, let's move away from that and check out the Guardian newspaper where saddened Kaduna youths have vowed to defend their communities against bandits, saying that we're going to take arms. That's what it means. We're going to defend ourselves. What are your thoughts on that? What is the saddened Kaduna youths finding out to the realities of their life now that they need to defend themselves? I think the law will find for them. I think the law would offer whatever action that they take in that direction. Too many people have been killed in saddened Kaduna without people being adequately punished for it, without protections provided for the people of that region. If I'm not on board with you now, it is even less on the need of saddened Kaduna to now begin to take this. This is a nation that should have taken long time ago. Keep the government in power and the local government level in Kaduna and the state level in Kaduna and at the federal level, it is unable to provide security for the people of saddened Kaduna. I will continue to see this genocide and massacre of people on the daily basis. Then what are the youth waiting for? The youth by now from the landale to the landale and begin to defend their communities. This is what the former deputy governor of CBN, who was very prosperous on this issue, laid down his life for. If you think of the good memory of that man, keep the youth of Saddened Kaduna, stand up to them so you could responsibility of defending their communities. The governor of Kaduna says he's all mouth, he says he has bought drones, he has paid the companions to leave the community alone. Yes, we don't see any results in that direction. The youths should do whatever it necessary to ensure that their people can speak to both eyes closed on the daily basis, that women are never raised again, that children are never killed, that fathers are never abducted, taken to the busiest and ensemble taken from them. That's my view on that. All right, Barista Kuala Walea, still on the Guardian newspaper, the Kama 2020 is still in the news. A Khan fouls fresh suit against CAC minister on controversial Kama 2020 Your reactions, please. Well, I have been surprised about the activities of the Christian community. So the laws that have been put in the Kama to make sure that the churches, the religious centers, the civil society organizations account for whatever money assets should be at hand. The church, the mosque, and the traditional religious worship places are not supposed to be this next and that. Whatever money is going into those places in terms of site offering and donations are public funds which the church must account for. Why the churches, for example, now take this money as their personal money, as their private money, as money that they do not account for, please say, sure, it's a surprise to me. It is only in Nigeria that does happen. Everywhere you go into the world, there are commissions that are set up in this, in America, in Germany, and others to regulate the status of a religious center, civil society organizations, research institutes. Not that whatever money that assets should be at hand, it is audited on a daily basis, and then I can't render to some of these commissions that are being set up. Most pastors in those places, most imams in those places, most directors of the civil society organizations, they are on salaries. They are only entitled to their salaries. They cannot begin to lose the funds that is in the cost of the church, to buy private debt for themselves, to build houses for themselves, to send their students to some of the best schools around the world. And don't make them make them know that they should account for the money that are passed to them, please say no. They also say, please, there has to be a pastor for four or eight years, please say no, you want to be a life pastor, there will be no retirement for you. When under the Nigerian law, they are as specific as because there are many numbers here. You can serve in the secret army, you can serve in the army, you can serve in the police, you can serve in the bank, and send me to many of these other places. They are in the division, they are in the civil society. So why would people want to be sent to a pastor? And they do, they see, they do something. When the ministry is on their side, they search, they march, they start to go to those places, please, they have no skeleton in their cover. They should comply with the law that we have in the Kama. For example, let them try this before, for the next show, at the National Economic Intelligence Agency. Before that program, President Jonathan, we kicked out of office. Now the warriors in Georgia has had the courage to make them need to put the thing into law. The church is the most, and some of these particular people, so to say, are now rising against this. People say they have no case to comply with the law. The church is not a private enterprise of anybody. It's not a business enterprise. No pastors should be there for more than 10 years. Nobody should be there for more than 10 years. There must be a retirement time for both the pastors, for both the men, and the chief priests of the shrines. That's my suggestion. All right, Barista Polawali, there's one more story we should take on the Guardian. Let's just look at it very quickly. Age children found dead in locked car in Badagri, area of Lagos. My brother, all these responses were the fact that human beings no longer have, in my life, no longer have value in Nigeria. It's a children for God's sake. About two weeks ago, there was a report in the media that a puppy in one of the schools in Lagos was beaten to death by his colleague. When he also got to the party, looked at the number of youths that have lost their lives, the encounter with the different security agencies. The youths, the children, are the prime masters of any society, of any country. That is all you find now in places like Germany, Britain, and Northern. Special provisions and priorities are placed on the children until they attain the age of 18. They say to provide milk for them, free education for them, using when it is necessary, free medical facilities. But here, we are trafficking our children, we are using them for this crime. A child will go to a church in on those days and disappear. And then the people who are managing the church will not be able to attend on the whereabouts of that child. And then the court has pleased the church leaders who are supposed to give an account of the disappearance of those children. This is the truth of the matter is that it is not impossible that those children that were found, that were found inside those buses have been trafficked from somewhere, locked up inside that vehicle without ventilation. And in the process, they died. And the first thing was trafficking them, came to abandon them where the vehicle has been found. This is speculation, the police will be the one to defend them. This is the point in time to the collaboration. The circumstances have led to the death of these children, where the children were coming from, where they were going to, where they were going to, we have to let you go at this point. And who found the vehicle that was used to bury them from the point that they were a part of the death. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation after the press. And sharing your thoughts, we look forward to having more of you on the show. Thank you so much. We do appreciate Barista. Tunde Kola Walezil. Of course, I called him a Barista. He's a legal practitioner. Many thanks and we appreciate your time.