Nintendo did another really stupid thing over the weekend that It makes sense from a legal perspective But it's also something that they shouldn't be doing now this article by IGN kind of Combines a couple things together and I wanted to go over it a bit because it does add some clarification to What exactly happened that I didn't mention in my smash video a while back, but this it's not particularly about smash This is actually about a completely different situation as you can see in the title But before we get into that I want to kind of look at what's been happening with Nintendo lately, so Nintendo has a really bad history with the Smash Bros. community they have not shown support to the competitive scene pretty much ever and There was something that in particular that Nintendo shut down that wasn't It just Nintendo had really should have left it alone There are some things especially during a pandemic that you just have to let be and this was one of those things So there was a smash a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament going on Or about to go on hosted by big house But because we can't do in-person events anymore at least not in 2020 I shouldn't say ever again, but in 2020 because of the pandemic in person is not possible The only way to have a melee competitive tournament would be online. The problem is that melee doesn't have Online so to do an online tournament you would need to modify copies of the game Every person playing the game has a legit legal copy of the game But yes, you would have to modify the game to enable online and there is already a mod for that known as slippy the thing is that Nintendo views you doing that as you're using an illegal rom now Nintendo doesn't have any proof that the ROMs are illegal because it is legal to make a rom you can Legally make a copy of a game if you have the ability to do so that you own now There are some particulars and gray area whether or not you're allowed to play that Copy it's supposed to be for backup purposes only, but this would seem to be a case where you know Maybe you let this go right melee is Has been mostly left untouched by Nintendo they don't support it But they haven't really stopped it out that much, but you know It's a pandemic try to be understanding that this is the only way these tournaments can happen And just let it go. It's not affecting sales. You don't even sell melee, right?  Let's that's dumb It's a pandemic let people, you know, try to find some joy in this world Well, Nintendo explained a polygon That the tournament required the use of an illegal copied versions of the game in conjunction with a mod called slippy Now they can't actually know if they're illegal copies of the game again This is an assumption by Nintendo that people downloaded and shared a ROM instead of making their own I'm just pointing that out. Nintendo has no legal proof that these were illegal copies Anyways, but it says in conjunction with a mod called slippy during their online event Which is what enables the online play Nintendo therefore contacted the tournament organizers and just asked them to stop There was no legal stuff there and the tournament refused leaving Nintendo no choice with the step in to protect its intellectual property and brands Nintendo cannot condone or allow piracy of its intellectual property, but this isn't The problem with the argument that that people have is that it's not really piracy, right? It's not it's People running a tournament. They're not distributing games. They're not promoting This they're just saying that this is the only way these tournaments can happen because you didn't include an online Play functionality in these games or even a networking functionality in these games Gamecube can connect to the internet, but you didn't include a ability to network in any way Interface with it in any way. So a mod is required. Anyways moving on That's kind of the whole big deal there. That's why you seen the hashtag free melee all this stuff We then saw Nintendo shut down Splatoon stuff Just because the Splatoon community was showing support kind of you know a crappy move it was Nintendo's own self-ran tournament and They live streamed the first bit of it and then they shut down the finals live stream Because it was going to have a bunch of teams that had the hashtag free melee and their announcers would have to be like oh free melee 217 Player blah blah blah just to this and they'd have to keep saying free melee over and over again on official Nintendo streams Wasn't going to be a good look for Nintendo. So they cancelled it which is also not a good look I mean they could have just told those teams Hey if you want to participate you need to change but instead they just said you know what we're not gonna tell teams I need to change your names. We're just going to cancel the stream We're still gonna have the tournament But we're you know not going to basically talk about it Advertise it or show it like we did the previous rounds when the team names did not have Hashtag free smash. All right. So moving on. There's another situation But Nintendo got involved in that this video is really about and this is This is about Joy-con Cases in particular joy kind cases that are for charity All right. So here we are over on Twitter and there is these things called eddy cons I don't know if you guys are aware of eddica rest in peace man.  It's a very difficult situation He dealt with mental illness and people were really questioning if he was just some brilliant sociopath or had real mental illness going on There was a lot of debate over the last year or two of his life about what was going on with them online Some really strange behaviors over what he used to be like But he was really popular and he was arguably at the time one of the largest streamers on YouTube He was definitely the largest, you know, Nintendo oriented streamer. He did play some other stuff He was one of the most popular live streamers ever on YouTube and he Got popular at streaming on YouTube at a time when people were saying you don't stream on YouTube You stream on Twitch like streaming on YouTube was not as popular as it is You know like today having big streams on YouTube isn't unusual. We see mr. Beast do it We see PewDiePie do it. We see spawncast blow up We see a lot of different Streams do really really well on YouTube and YouTube has really become a viable big streaming platform with Twitch It hasn't replaced which just alongside of Twitch, but Erika came up at a time When it was hard to get popular at streaming on YouTube and he did it He pulled it off and he was very entertaining maybe one of the most entertaining streamers I've ever watched in my life anyways and When he had moments of clarity and got real and got down-to-earth, I still remember streams and he was talking about how hard he worked at Bouncing his credit back from really bad decisions.  I I feel horrible at how that whole situation went I think the whole internet feels horrible at how we were reacting to it at the time considering how it ended and He is what gonna be always remembered in the Nintendo online community for what he did So what happened is a fan created these These are called at a cons right? He did a fan funding campaign for it and all the money from that campaign goes to charity It's not like some of the money goes in the manufacturing the rest goes in the charity He used his money to make these shells. These are just shells for the joy cons He used his money to make the shells to get a manufactured and then all the money that people Supported with in the in the fundraising campaigns, which the first one failed, but the second one didn't went to charity It's it's just a charity drive Supporting mental illness right makes a lot of sense considering how Etika's life ended that the fan base of his would come together To create a product to entice people to spend money that goes and directly supports charity It is a really positive thing and this isn't new the Etikons have been around for a little while And what you're seeing here is a bin of the leftover ones from the campaign So there was a bunch manufactured not all of them were quote-unquote sold during the campaign So these ones that he had in this bin were being sold independently and when I say sold they're not for profit All the money that you would spend on one of these Etikons None of it went into his pocket. It all went straight to charity.  What's the what's the problem here? Well? Nintendo sent a cease and desist Remember this is these are not new products Nintendo sent a cease and desist over shells for their Joy-Cons keep in mind You can go on Amazon right now and find thousands and thousands of Joy-Cons shells being sold I Have some I Don't see Nintendo shutting them down now There are certain people that may be official partners But I've never actually seen any of these studios have Nintendo's official seal Which means all these places that are selling these shells on Amazon Don't have Nintendo's permission either and so it's fair to say that Nintendo was pretty much letting this be fair game They were letting the shells sell They you know it was one thing they were doing that PlayStation isn't doing see PlayStation 5 and Sony Shut down people making new shells that go on or new face plates or whatever you want to call them that go on the PlayStation 5 We see the PlayStation 5 has removable sides So there were other companies out there creating custom sides that Sony shut down as I know you can't do that Nintendo had never shut down any of these. This is the first one. I have actually seen them shut down So here's what they said You were on notice that your production marketing and sale of the infringing products Your use of Nintendo trademarks in connection with these activities and your false association with the Nintendo brand They're called at a cons. Okay. I guess the cons word Violate Nintendo's intellectual property rights Nintendo will consider any further use of Nintendo and intellectual property in connection with your business And the infringing projects to be willful infringement of Nintendo's federally protected rights under the layham act 15 USC 1-1-2-5. This is referencing a prior ruling obviously and the copyright act of 17 USC 501 Liability for trademark infringement and unfair competition may include Treble profits or damages attorney fees and costs and an injunction against further use of the infringed marks Liability for copyright infringement may include Nintendo's actual damages and any additional profits earned by the infringer It wasn't profits in the first place Or step story damages up to a hundred and fifty thousand per work for willful infringement In addition liability for copyright infringement may include payment of Nintendo's attorney fees and costs to avoid further legal action Nintendo demands that you immediately cease all production, which they haven't met in production anymore Marketing sale and distribution so he can't even give them away He can't even just give them away to people because he can't distribute them at all of the infringing products and All use of Nintendo's trademarks in connection with such products including when I limited to all products found at the links listed in the attach exhibit B Which is this so They're joy cons so having the Nintendo switch logo on them is pretty standard You know any reference to a joy con at all at a con joy con Me we fit Grookey scorebunny sobble Pokemon stuff Maybe there were some stuff mentioned in as like rewards on the Like tier rewards or whatever. I'm not exactly sure where these logos come in the Pokemon logo They put up there. I feel like that's a custom made one. What does it matter? They're saying you can't use it The the word Pokemon etc. But if you like look at the actual That's right. It was the original run. I'm trying to remember. We're the actual joy. Here we go So this is what they actually look like once they're on right? I mean, that's pretty sick Could can we be honest?  The joy con thing Nintendo doesn't like again Nintendo branding joy like but here's the thing It's not that Nintendo is not within their legal right See this is Edeca right here for those of you who don't know It's not that Nintendo is not within their legal right They are most definitely within their legal rights to shut this down Just like they were within their legal rights to shut down the melee tournament But here's the thing there. It's one thing to be within your legal rights. It's another thing to not recognize what's happening and letting it go for the sake of Supporting the community but not just supporting the community but understanding the situation on a deeper level The smash thing understanding it on a deeper level. We're in a pandemic. This was the only way these tournaments can happen Understand it don't take this legal stance at a time When we are all struggling This was a dumb stance to take against the Smash Bros melee community and this is beyond melee hashtag free melee It's not just about melee. We have a huge post I did a 25 minute video about all the ways that they have hurt Smash Bros in general Okay in the competitive scene. It's not just melee Melee is just the most recent thing they have happened to him now. We have this this is for charity. This supports Charity, it's your legal right to shut this down But why like who at Nintendo goes man out of all of the you know fake You know all the non-legal Joy-con skins out there.  It's a charity drive Why would you want to use your legal right to shut down something that is such a Positive thing from your own community from the Nintendo community.  You don't shut any of those down But you're shutting down this Something that's good for the benefit of everyone for for fans of this person That was an important part of the community and also to help other people that have mental illnesses I mean Nintendo could have said hey We're not gonna allow you to sell or distribute these but hey, we'll buy the mobile these all off of you And give you you know like a one-time, you know donation to this charity We won't allow these to be distributed, but at least we'll show support You know in that way at least then you know that they're enforcing their legal rights But still looking good and that they're giving a nice donation to that charity, but Nintendo couldn't even do that They had to just go the complete legal route. You're done. Sorry that bucket of them keep them to yourself We see you distribute them hundred fifty thousand dollars. Thank you very much Hey It's ridiculous, but some people I've seen out there have also been looking at this as Nintendo this is obviously Doug Bowser and Shintura Furukawa's fault. This would never happen under Iwata This would never happen under Reggie Really? Let's take a look at this thread over here So this recaps a few things, but I'm gonna go a little bit deeper So these are things that happen under Iwata and Reggie Obviously some people complain. They always have the highest prices with games. I don't know that's it's controversial But I don't I'm not gonna sit there and hold that against them. That's just a business strategy They're online while free has always been the worst of the bunch Again, I won't hold that really against them other than saying that yeah, they should do better, but I Don't feel that's a problem. Overall the services Nintendo provider have always been inferior They had those YouTube copyright restrictions for years. Yeah Guys forget that Nintendo was like one of the only major gaming companies at the time that was preventing us from using footage of their games in videos That's crazy. You had a system you could sign up for that actively made it so you couldn't share footage of certain game It it was it was bad. It was bad Nintendo Eventually due to community pressure Finally stopped but you know if you thought this was the first melee tournament shut down my Nintendo You're wrong. They actually shut down a really big melee tournament back in 2013 You know a lot of people saying Iwata wouldn't accepted Mario 3d all-stars or limited releases when we all stars and four swords DSi were also a thing so Nintendo did this before they have been taking down fan games for years This is true. Nintendo is the most notorious at taking down fan games other companies do it here and there But Nintendo pretty much will take down any major fan game. Well, most other companies will just kind of let it go and realize That's part of the community. That's the fans coming together and it doesn't negatively impact sales And in fact, it just gives fans something to do in between releases is what it is Nintendo has always had this stance against fan games. Let me see here. Nintendo's worst DLC came out in 2014 That's the Mario Gold World Tour. It's DLC that yeah, that DLC was not good What a rip-off they shut now we and DS online less than two years after the Wii U came out More or less at the same time Mario Kart 8 was a release oddly enough They had region locking for years switches like the first system where they really got rid of region locking So that's you know again region lockings kind of an anti-consumer thing pro it's pro Retailer right pro local retailer, but but anti-consumer But yeah, it's the shutting on the the online services It's pretty unusual for online services for systems to be shut down within two years of new platforms coming out Usually, you know, you get a five or six year leeway on that sometimes longer two years And then conveniently when Mario Kart 8 was coming out did not it wasn't a good look at the time I know I didn't even include Spanish text for some of their games for years Despite Spanish actually being a pretty big language here in the US and we don't have an official language in the US So not even once from Europe so people from Latin America either had to learn English or pirate the game Thanks to region like they only stopped after they got a lot of criticism As you know the Chronicles X in the Spanish text, but it wasn't the first time They were censoring some of their games for no reason for a time. Yep lots of censoring especially here in North America for some ungodly reason My country that's more Allowing of certain things and they still were censoring I seen some people saying that they wouldn't have accepted Pokemon Sword and Shield Which is laughable since Nintendo always released under one that's a personal opinion But I think to go beyond this and I'm gonna kind of get off this post because a lot a lot of it seems a little bit nitpicky there is that Nintendo of the old days the whole reason they lost third-party support isn't just because Nintendo's reluctancy to switch the disks They had some really draconian practices in place with third-party companies And this was needed when the NES came out I will say the draconian practices were needed because the industry had gone astray and Was basically killing itself Which is why the NES came at the right time and quote-unquote saved the video game industry. This needed to happen It needed to happen unfortunately after it happened after Nintendo saved it You would figure Nintendo would maybe relax on it a little bit, right? Pull back on some of their restrictions on third-party companies Get a little loose. Maybe never as loose as the industry once was but at least ease up a little bit on some of the more Crazy things they had they had things in place where like You had to get every single element of your game approved by Nintendo And if they didn't like it you had to immediately change it like if you had blood in your game They didn't like the blood you had to change it Why like it Nintendo was being really draconian and again needed for the NES was not really needed I'd say after the SNES era they could have eased up But they did it and that's what live the third parties rushing to Sony the moment there was an alternative Viable platform out there in PlayStation 1 PlayStation 2 You know you figure oh, why didn't they rush to Sega they tried But Sega had some of the same draconian rules in place as well Sony was the one that's like you know what you do what you want you have creator freedom Nintendo wasn't like that and Nintendo took a long time before they started being that way. I mean honestly a lot of the draconian practices Really stayed in place up until we we you It was really the Owada era That's one thing we can credit Owada for for kind of getting rid of those draconian restrictions on third-party games And even then at that point we had had a couple generations Where Nintendo drove third parties away and now when they're finally easing the restrictions they release a system That's just radically different from everyone else. Let's just drove third parties away even more So it kind of led to the situation where Nintendo is now where they're trying to get third parties back But now you know, they're doing this hybrid thing, which is great, but also Hard to to get all third parties on board. So Nintendo is fighting an uphill battle to get back what they once had That they kind of did to themselves so Nintendo isn't like this saint of a company that sometimes they get portrayed as just because they Have some amazing games and I feel like some amazing platforms. So Nintendo had a bad weekend They did all did things they shouldn't have did they did things that sometimes you just need to leave alone The spittoon to thing would have never been a controversy if Nintendo would have just been understanding that this is a pandemic and just let that Melee tournament go. It's not the end of the world. Nintendo won't be having issues right now with multiple youtubers. I know RGT 85 Was working on a video about this boogie 2988 brought a video on this I don't think we'd have to worry about that kind of stuff happening in a world where Nintendo can be More on top of what's happening. It kind of feels like Nintendo's operating in a bubble and inside that bubble They are completely Disunderstanding of The world at large right now and what's happening This is a positive thing Nintendo Well, maybe not wanting to openly publicly support this kind of thing. Maybe because then you got to dive into the whole avenue of How Erika's life ended and talking about suicide and maybe they want to avoid that but But it doesn't mean they have to actively work against it either. They could have just let this be and You know what?  All right, I'll catch you guys in the next video


Okay, here we are. I think I have us live. Oh my gosh, folks, all of you in the audience. I think this is the first time I've been able to do this with the new restreven zoom protocols so thank you so much for bearing with me and I'm so happy to see all of you live. Oh my gosh, so let me get the program going because I'm really, really excited for you to meet my friend Monisha Rio so we're going to talk about Puerto Rico in this episode, which is part of Latin America and the Caribbean and that we don't talk about enough and that actually the people who in Puerto Rico are US citizens, but not full citizens so let me introduce the program and we can talk about all of all of this. Okay everyone, welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti Americas team, code pink, common affairs, council on hemispheric affairs, friends of Latin America, interreligious task force on Central America, Massachusetts peace action and task force on the Americas. We broadcast Thursdays at 430pm Pacific 730pm Eastern right here on YouTube live including channels for the Convo couch popular resistance and code pink. The podcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts Spotify, Telegram, radindymedia.com and now under podcast at popular resistance.org. Today's episode, the devastating effects of militarization on Puerto Rico and her people, how one activist is promoting health justice for vehicles and Kulebra. And our guest is Monisha Rios. She is a Puerto Rican psychologist social worker and disabled US veteran. She is also the founder and director of Centro Solidario de Puerto Rico, which is one of the things we're going to be talking about in this episode. So before I have you meet her. Let me give you a little bit of background. So here we are the US has been overtly and covertly intervening in Puerto Rico's internal affairs since 1898. Like the Spanish, British, Dutch and the French, the US understood the strategic value of Puerto Rican of the Puerto Rican archipelago, which would give their expanding empire a military advantage toward enforcing the Monroe doctrine, thereby securing its established intent to dominate the Western hemisphere. A new wave of militarization began soon after the change of colonial ownership, the implications of which would devastate the island's municipalities of Kulebra and be a kiss. Kulebra was militarized in 1901 and expelled the US Navy in 1975, vehicles was militarized in 1941 and expelled the US Navy in 2003. And so in today's episode we're going to discuss this militarization. What it took to remove the US Navy from both of these parts of Puerto Rico and and what has remained of the island since and how the militarization has also affected the citizens of Puerto Rico. So welcome Monisha. Hello, thank you Terry for having me back. I'm so happy or our audience may remember Monisha from gosh we've had you visit us, at least twice I think. So, to talk about specifically to talk about the debt crisis in Puerto Rico but this episode, we're going to talk some about the history of Puerto Rico. And then we're going to talk about how we'll talk about your project, which I'm really excited about I should share with the audience Monisha said you know I'm really kind of nervous to talk tonight and it's, and this is a really very, very personal journey she's going to share with you in this episode, and, and a really fabulous project she has developed to help her, her fellow Puerto Rican citizens and our fellow US citizens so. So with that maybe we should get started. Sure. I'll follow your lead. Okay, so what. What we want to share with the audience in this episode is Monisha has a beautiful PowerPoint presentation that she is using to develop her project, which she's going to tell you about, and also to share some brief history about herself and in Puerto Rico and let me just. I want to just mention that her project is she's the founder and director of central solidarity of the Puerto Rico. And so we're going to do a little bit of personal history on Monisha and a little bit of history on Puerto Rico, so that you understand why she developed this project, what it is, and then what you can do to help.  When you're done talking watching us you can, you can see you know what you can do to help our fellow US citizens of Puerto Rico. So why don't we start with your PowerPoint presentation. Sure. Let me just one sec. So, okay, before you start. I want everybody to see this beautiful graphic that she's used on on a title page. Whoops, and I want you all to see this beautiful graphic she's used on her title page because it is the graphic that I chose to use for this episodes. Social media shareable. And I have to say, Monisha that we got a lot of comments the last several days that we've been promoting this episode people. I just thought it was really, really beautiful the actual design of it, but also very poignant with, and very, and, and very cynical. Very tied to what you're doing, we're looking at bombs and explosives and then this man planting, which is so perfect for the project we're going to talk about. This piece came from an article in a Ryan magazine around about the food sovereignty programs that's happening in be a case. Currently, particularly La Colmena se Marona, which is an amazing, amazing, amazing effort that encourage everyone to contribute to it's food sovereignty so that we have clean food healthy food, because Puerto Rico as a whole, and especially in be a case in Culebra, we rely on imported food. So, a lot of our health related problems are a direct result of unhealthy food that is imported here. A lot of it has to do with the militarization of the land over time, as well as the other effects of colonization which mean that our land is not available to us to grow food to sustain ourselves. Rather, it's used for tourism it's used for particular industries that actually don't help improve the lives of our people. And it's used also for US military activity. So that's what that image is about. And the link to the article itself should. I'll put that in the chat. Okay, everyone the link. And it's by Indy Maverick, which I think in the program notes I think I shared the link to that website, but I'll put the article link as well for all of you to see. Okay, thanks. Let's hear let's let's let's go through your presentation because it's really really very informative on a lot of levels. Thank you. And before I do I just want to let everyone who's watching and listening know I'm going to have to take coughing breaks so apologies in advance. It's, it's a thing. So, this is about Casa Seba, which is the current iteration of our health justice project that we have at Central Solidario. And particularly we target vehicles in Culebra because of the historic militarization and effects of militarization on the land and lives of the people who live there. I've used this presentation as Terry said for for different groups. This is a little bit about me. That's me as a kid. I love the photo. My dad. Yeah, he's the family. So, my dad's side of the family comes from Vieques. So this is a very personal thing for me. And being someone from the Puerto Rican via can say diaspora is born outside of Puerto Rico and outside of the UK as a result of the military violence that occurred there the poverty that goes along with it in the struggle so there's just tells you a little bit more about my work and then my relevant experience that goes with the project itself, which we'll get to.  That's significant. It is. Yeah, it is repatriation is kind of a return to your the nation state, but rematriation is a return to the land to mother earth to. So much more connected than, than simply coming back to a political economic entity you're coming back to the land that your ancestors walked on and suffered on and bled on. And so when did you rematriate yourself. January 2020. Okay. I thought it was in the last, within the last three or five years. So, and what motivated you to do that. Oh, well, I, growing up, I always wanted to be here. I always wanted to know my other relatives and and our culture. And so, you know, there's a lot of conditions in the US, a lot of diaspora, you know, not just from Puerto Rico, but other nations, particularly Spanish speaking. There's a tendency for some families to not teach the culture to not teach the language. It's a way of self pervert self preservation through assimilation. So that is really what my experience was like but in my heart I always felt this longing, and then hurricanes Maria and Irma happened. And it just was like, okay, I have to be there. You know, I went for the first time in the summer of 2019 met family that I hadn't seen since I was a baby some that I had no recollection of meeting. And many of them and many of the community leaders and organizers said, you know, we need your generation to come home. There's work to do. La Lucha continue and it's not over. So if you have some work you can do, come do it. So I was like, okay, commission accepted. So let's go through a little bit of the history of Puerto Rico and then let's talk about the work that you're doing. Yeah. So this folks have heard you say, so it's true. Oftentimes people don't think of Puerto Rico as a separate country because we are colonized by the US and we are considered partial US citizens. But the truth is that the US has treated Puerto Rico in the same way that it treats the other countries in our region through various methods of interventionism.  You know, when you're south of the US border. People refer to the United States as the United States and Puerto Rico. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I think that's important. And it's throughout, you know, Latin America and the Caribbean that you hear that. Thankfully, not everyone sees us as they don't all identify us as as a US. They understand the situation of the colonialism and what that means for us as a Latin American and Caribbean nation. So yeah, the Monroe Doctrine is coming upon to what is it 200 years now. Yes, this year. 200 anniversary. 1823. Yeah. We don't like the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, the Spanish American War was kind of the first impetus of the US taking action on the Monroe Doctrine. Because the Spaniards were the they were a dying empire at the time, and the US waited until the Bolivarian Revolution kind of took care of business.  The first Bolivarian Revolution led by Simone Bolivar. Exactly. So they decided that, oh, we're going to rescue Cuba. We're going to rescue Puerto Rico and Guam and the Philippines from the horrible Spanish. But they never intended to to have a free Puerto Rico and their intention with Cuba was to have an illusion of independence by like having the first proxy government and Guantanamo, the base in Guantanamo was the first. I'm also with this technicality because I I view all US expansionism, even before that point as a violation of sovereignty of the indigenous peoples and nations in the north. So, outside of those borders, Guantanamo Bay is the first US military base, foreign military base, technically, but the reason why Puerto Rico was so appetizing to the US was because they were able to see how the Spanish used Puerto Rico. They considered Puerto Rico as the US. And Tilly's Cuba as the key to Latin America. So together having possession of Cuba and Puerto Rico was very advantageous for this empire that was wanting to expand. And with that came the militarization. So some of the facts that you read out for folks in the introduction was about how Culebra. And for those who are listening, I'm showing a map of Puerto Rico, which if you look online, you can see where the islands of Culebra and Vieques are situated in relationship to the larger island of Puerto Rico. So Culebra, the militarization process began in 1901, not that long after the Spanish American War ended. Right. So I'm going to kind of go quickly through this because it's a lot of information. And I don't just want to talk at people. So, but the idea, some of the ideas that they had about how to handle the people who already were living in Culebra, which includes, yes, we have the Spanish colonizer blood. We also have our indigenous ancestors. We have our African Puerto Rico is part of the African diaspora as well due to the transatlantic slave trade which began here in the Caribbean because of the Spanish. So a lot of the people who live in these islands are not necessarily in the classes of like the white Spaniard and don't benefit from the same things. They don't benefit in the same way in society. As the US was looking at how they wanted to use Culebra, they were looking at communities that in the US would be considered black and brown and wanting to just expel them. Completely remove and completely displace the entire town, I guess, of Culebra and strictly militarize it, but that got pushed back. Pardon me. And they tried this a couple of times. And the most recent was 1970. And it really, even though Vieques was being militarized, not long after, sorry, jumped ahead. So, the citizens of Culebra were already experiencing bombings, they were already experiencing the contamination and a lot of the things that eventually came to be okay. They were the first to resist successfully through popular resistance and peaceful resistance and they expelled the Navy in 1975. So these are some photos from those early days of the militarization and the lower left you can see just lines and lines of sailors coming into the town. Which of course when you have, and I say this, unfortunately from experience as a veteran when you have large groups of military personnel, you have large incidents of sexual violence. Other kinds of violence that go on in the communities that they are occupying. So the same is true for Culebra and Vieques. Vieques, the militarization began in 1941. Thank you for your patience. I'm sure. So the land theft started in 1941. And that was before Pearl Harbor. And you will hear a lot of people try to justify why this occurred because of World War II. Excuse me once again. What's interesting is that historians who have chronicled this show that the expropriations actually began before Pearl Harbor even happened. So before the U.S. even had an impetus to join World War II, they were already planning to militarize Vieques. So that's one of the false narratives that were used to try and justify their actions. And here are some quotes from the Akences about how the bulldozers were used as a weapon against them to, excuse me. So basically they were told they had 24 hours to leave. This was happening to my grandparents and other relatives. What's happening across the Americas today. Yep. They were literally bulldozed off their land. I personally witnessed that with the Gadifuna community in Honduras on the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Yeah. So, yeah. It's pretty awful. I can't imagine. Like the quote that says we had seven children they threatened us with the bulldozers. I cannot imagine being in that situation and having the threats. And this quote I found to be very impactful, particularly the part that people were afraid to express themselves, to express their opposition. They had no say they had no one backing them up. They felt like they were enslaved and that they had no rights. Which is true. And these maps show the progression of the expropriations. So this here is the island of Vieques. And before the expropriations where it shows like how populated certain areas were. And then through the years how it shows how two thirds of the island were basically taken and much of the population was removed sent to St. Puerto Rico, sent to the States, sent to Hawaii, sent anywhere else in work programs. And the rest were shoved into the center of Vieques to live in the first slums in Santa Maria and then Monte Santo. Those are two communities in Vieque. So basically the people of Vieque with every all of the testing that the US had done there, every single war from that time had been practiced, including the Iraq or Afghanistan. NATO forces were invited to come and use Vieques bombing range and everything else as well. So the western eastern side of Vieques was was reserved as the practice bombing range and that's where they tested all sorts of warfare, including chemical warfare, depleted uranium trap dumps our chaff, cluster bombs, napalm, Agent Orange, cadmium, lead, arsenic, psychological operation, sexual terrorism. And we still don't know what the other countries were using when they were coming for their practices, and there's no way for us to find that out. The Navy isn't talking. So here are some photos from the resistance is up in the upper left is shows some of the struggle in Kulebra. To the right of that is the fishermen in Vieques. And just beneath that is other shots of the fishermen in Vieques going at it with Navy boats police boats. And then the lower right is some success, some celebration. That's a leftover tank that's still there on the beach, running away. So that's them occupying the area. So, even though in both of these two islands the war games stopped the bombing stopped the fight for justice has not stopped because you still have contamination and you still have occupied land because the, the, the lands that were taken back from the Navy were given to the US Fish and Wildlife to manage, and the Navy still has to clean up all of it, including in the water. And, and that's going to take forever. If it ever gets done. Our people want a dignified maritime transportation system because that has been recently privatized. And pretty much the standard operating procedure for privatization is that you divest from public services to the point that they fail that they're no longer serving the people in the way that they should that the workers themselves are not supported in doing the jobs that they many of them, genuinely want to do well for their people. And so you create discontent among the people which then you offer privatization as a solution. So that's what happened with the maritime transportation that brings people from beacons and Culebra to the big islands of Puerto Rico for shopping for access to health care, and so on. We want decontamination. We want the full complete return of the land to the people. Environmental justice, food sovereignty, health sovereignty. We want a hospital. Equal and equitable housing, which is not just for Airbnbs and tourism, or the super rich that come by their mansions or people who come and buy a restaurant or buy a guest house and then bring their own employees with them from the US, and only put beaconses in the kitchen or for cleaning. We want compensation for the harm caused to health, reparations, decolonization, sustainable community development, and a full complete demilitarization, because we still have the relocatable over the horizon radar system and the big island of Puerto Rico. Yeah, so the Navy's not totally gone. How are we doing on time? What's that? How are we on time? We're good. I want to be sure we talk about your project, but no, we're fine. I just, you know, listening to you describe the situation. This is, you know, a whole nother episode in and of itself for the audience, but what the disaster capitalism has created, the privatization of just about everything, and particularly creating, you know, an island that's based on tourism for wealthy people only. And that's a model being used across the hemisphere and across the world. And that, you know, like I said, that's a whole nother conversation, but I think it's important to point that out. The whole disaster capitalism aspect of Puerto Rico, not just the military occupation and what's left behind, but the hurricanes as well. Yeah, and I think looking at Vieques as a case example of how this works everywhere else that the US has militarized as well.  Marshall Islands, you know, Hawaii. So it is a shared struggle, truly. So in these photos, this shows the ongoing contamination that occurs during open detonation. So over to the left, you can see big clouds of smoke that are explosions from an open detonation of bold ordinance. So they're still releasing the same toxins, the same chemicals, the same compounds of warfare into the air and environment during the cleanup process. And the same matriarchs that led a large portion of the struggle continue to lead a large portion of the struggle for a proper cleanup through enclosed detonation chambers. And they succeeded and now the Navy has, I believe, too. But the issue is, and you can see in some of the other photos, that the ordinance itself, if it's not stable enough to move into an enclosed detonation chamber, sometimes it's just too big. So the only option is an open detonation either in the air or in the water, which continues the contamination, which continues the risks to the health. So this is still, it's not over. Just because the bombing ends. It's almost like it's just beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when you go now to the area that has been taken back, there are signs all over, because these, there's some of this is publicly accessible now it's turned into beaches, which is great for tourism. It's a refuge, a wildlife refuge. Excuse me. But you have to look out for unexploded ordinance. So it's not exactly safe all the time, and they have areas where you're still not allowed to go into because it's definitely not safe. And every now and then they'll close the beaches in order to go through again and do another round of cleanup. And what's, what's really interesting Terry is that recently, the Navy was going to close, once again, the beaches that they had reopened, like they do every now and then. But the predominantly US owned tourism businesses in be a race, he double hockey sticks, and said, this is going to hurt our business, don't close the beaches. So even though the exposure is there. Yeah. So instead of advocating for cleanup and, you know, taking a hit like everybody else does, they said no don't close the beaches because it'll hurt our business this is peak season. So, and these photos are some of the resistance, some of the protests some of the demands for for change that the community has done. So most mask a gentle for 35, which is where more than 100 by 35. That is a collective of people from both Kulebra and be a kid that demand a better maritime transportation service. These cement blocks down here. And these over here to the right that show hospital for vehicles now. That's because the hospital would be a got destroyed by her case Maria and Irma. And still, there's no hospital, and children are dying because of that. And so it's just constant constant struggle.  And this science says this is not a hospital, not one, not another life. And this is a picture of a young woman named Alice Ventura, who she died 13 years old, because there was no ventilator in the hospital. And are in the makeshift hospital. It's called a CDT. It's not actually hospital, but other other kids have died to more images from from the demands and protests education transportation health hospital dignified transportation and food sovereignty. So I'll continue so for these reasons and more. This is why central solidarity with Puerto Rico was formed. I'm a central solidarity for those who are with like a translation that is the Solidarity Center, Puerto Rico. So, and I also want I just want to share with the audience. This is a vision that you have had for a long time and I know on on prior episodes that you have joined us. You've mentioned this vision is how she bought and so for me personally and for for for the audience that's been with us for a while now. And so you will remember this. The story and so it's really just beautiful to watch this, you know, idea come to fruition and hopefully we can, we can help move it along even forward those of us watching tonight. Thank you, I appreciate that as we need all the help we can get. I'll skip ahead a little bit because eventually this this will all be put onto a website for people. And so it's just about our purpose vision and mission. And this is really important so central solidarity is not just the house, it's, it's, it's, it's meant to be kind of like a, like an organism I guess it I'll just read that central solidarity of the Puerto Rico functions as a living organism rather than an organization. It's like an ecosystem. The local solidarity project is the house that houses for what made the house is. So, I'll go ahead and read this out for the folks who are listening and not viewing Casa Saba is central solidarity is pilot project. It's a two story house near the ferry port on the big island located in Saba, Puerto Rico, when fully renovated and equipped it will function as a medical solidarity hospitality house. And these and transportation are provided at no cost to patients and caregivers, animals in need of veterinary care are also welcome. The initiative is made possible by the land trust and international network so the three parts of central solidarity of consistent local national and international solidarity efforts. The local is this medical solidarity house. And the reason why is because without a hospital and be a kid without in Culebra they have a better little treatment center but they still have a lot of unmet needs. So folks have to travel on the ferry here to the big island for everything, including to give birth, including cancer treatment and everything. And when they get here, they have to figure out where am I going to stay. How am I going to get to where I need to go how long do I need to be here can I afford any of this. And oftentimes, no one can. So you have people who sleep in their cars will sleep outside in the street who will find a place to sleep in the hospital. Many of them have to come with their kids. They, if they can't find transportation, you know, so I, I, I couldn't see this happening, you know, and I'm, I'm lucky because I have a disability check that I get each month. So in talking with community leaders, neighbors, friends, family members and really connecting with this lack of access to health care and, you know, seeing the number of funerals that happens just constantly constant funerals and be okay. I, we tried first to establish a medical solidarity network on the big island in the city, the cities of Saba and Fajardo, working with anybody that we could. And while the desire was there for a lot of people that capacity is not because we're not just come, we're competing with the real estate industry, which is fed by the tourism industry. We have colonization and gentrification happening simultaneously. And we also have a very corrupt government. So it is next to impossible just to find a place to rent nevermind to to to get access to land and structures that we can then convert and put to use for our communities for our health and well being. We couldn't get the solidarity network going because nobody had the capacity to do it or the resources to do it.  Yeah, yeah, because I needed a long, long term recovery for my lungs. And while I was looking, I found this place. And I reached out to some of the community leaders that I had been working with. We were trying to get that off the ground and I was like, What do you think of this? What if we just do it? I can use my veterans benefits, you know, and, and, and at least if we can get one place and we can fix it up as best as we can, at least we have one place. All we need is one place to start, and we can do it, you know, and so they were like, Yeah, go for it, please, we need this. And even before like this place is not ready. But right away, they were connecting me with people who needed the place to stay who needed transportation, who needed food deliveries who needed whatever I was getting calls in the middle of the night like Monisha. Can you go run and check on this relative, because the hospital is not telling them what's going on and their families worried and be okay, can you just run. And I was like, Yeah, I'll go. So that's how it started. And now we have a council. We have fiscal sponsorship with Alliance for Global Justice. And we're really focused on building our capacity to continue and this is a picture of the house and the van, both the house and the van are in my name. And I don't, I would prefer that not to be, because this is for the community. But that's why the national initiative is the community land trust, which once that is established and becomes a legal entity and then I can transfer ownership to the trust. And then it really becomes community property and not property of Monisha. Yeah, we need a lot of help. We have hurricane damage still from Fiona and FEMA is a big joke. So there's I'm not going to get the help from FEMA that I need. There's also the problem of the electricity like we talked about on previous episodes. So we really need solar we need to roof repaired we need. We need a lot of work on the house and I've been self funding pretty much most of it with occasional like major donors who like help with the down payment on the vehicle, help with paint help with some tools. And I have amazing neighbors that are helping folks come from be a case sometimes to volunteer folks from the veterans anti war movement have come to volunteer but we need a lot.  The Puerto Rico had public. Yes, energy. And then after the hurricane. It was all privatized and the private company services less of the population than the public. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's the whole disaster capitalism model again as well. In fact, we have done an episode once where we weren't sure if you were going to have electricity. So that's the whole for the entire conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And so what's interesting is what's happening now is that was just the privatization of the distribution of the electricity. The generation was still under public control supposedly. Now, it's in the process of privatizing the generation, which is going to add more costs. So, you know, no one's going to be able to afford to live. They barely can now. And, yeah. But this, this is the project this is cast a save up. And once we're able to, to get the necessary legal structure in place for the land trust, then we'll be able to. Move away from the house and then the whole entire house will be put to use for medical solidarity. We want to make it accessible for people with mobility needs, we want to make it safe solar. Have have it be completely off grid, if possible, in such a way that it can sustain life it can sustain like ventilators and keep medicine cold during a storm. And all that things that we were all think are so simple, like medications in a refrigerator. Yeah, the power. Yeah. Yeah, you know, one of the things you and I were talking about before when we were planning with episode, because this episode fell right on the heels after I had visited here in Mexico City. The last three cultures, the Plaza of three of three cultures, meaning Aztec Spanish and modern principally student revel student revolutions in the 60s and 70s here in Mexico. And when we were at the Plaza, I think this was last Saturday. And we were talking about the destruction and the annihilation of the Aztec Empire after and their none go to test was here. And how it was a complete collapse of the culture and society and I, and, you know, there's a lot of things that we had always were raised to think guns, germs, guns, steel and germs and. But how it was explained to me last week, and this is why I mentioned it because it just seems so much to what's happening to Puerto Rico now, 500 years later, that when you take away the infrastructure, people's language, their culture, their trade, their, their ability to network on all levels there is a collapse. And so now in Puerto Rico that, you know, and you could equivocate sanctions, a sanctions regime to that and I think as well. But now in Puerto Rico so, so you have no electricity. So now you have no refrigeration for medicines and, and, and healthy food storage and so now you've got people who have a collapse as well. No, no access to healthy food, or uncontaminated food, your diabetic you can't keep the insulin refrigerated, or whatever else you know medications you're on. And, you know, that's a different it's an it's an insidious form of collapse it's not like this overt military invasion or something of that sort. And like I had shared with you, it's, it's the same. What personally goes seem to is the same exact model of collapse. And 500 years ago, nothing's changed. No. And it's important for people to, to, to remember that what has been done to Puerto Rico from the beginning of us occupation is how the US practice what it's been doing to everybody else in our region in Latin America and the Caribbean. The tactics that they practice on us here through colonialism, which is its own type of sanction and warfare has paved the way for corruption. So, yeah. And I did forget to mention something crucial when I talked about government corruption. I wanted to share exactly how it's impacted the project directly. So what I'm sharing now are a couple of articles that came out right around, literally the same month that I closed on the house. I had discussed the project with people in the community in the neighborhood, as well as the seller of the house because here people are very interested and why are you buying this, you know, are you going to make an Airbnb so I wanted to show that no, this is going to help us will make an Airbnb. No, never. Over my dead body. But it blows my mind that all of a sudden, the mayor of the municipality that this house is in receives $50,000 from the Puerto Rican government to create the Casa de Vieques Equilibre and that is exactly what I was calling the house at the time. The most verbatim everything that I had outlined that I wanted to do with the house suddenly. And then, and this municipality which the, the politics that are here are centered around status and this mayor happens to be in the statehood party which is currently in control which is currently one of the one of the most corrupt parties. And supposedly this was going to be done by January of last year, January February timeframe the doors were going to open on this like grand hospitality house that would provide exactly the same type of relief that I would like to provide with this house. But it's still not open. Community leaders in Vieques are like yeah we saw the article but nobody's talked to us about it. We haven't heard from the Vieques mayor about it there's been no announcement community that this resource is available. So where's the $50,000. Yeah, yeah exactly. You know. And why didn't they come to me and say hey we want to support this how can we help. You know they co-opted your idea. Yeah, which, you know, to me, I'm not proprietary in the way where I'm threatened by that if the government wants to do what it's supposed to be doing and actually take care of the people and provide necessary services I'm all for it. But that's not what they're doing. They're stealing $50,000 would have been very helpful for you know, where is it. I would, I would be very intrigued if a journalist like Bianca Gralau, Puerto Rican independent journalist who's amazing everyone should follow her, investigated that. And even if other journalists independent journalists from the US or from other countries got interested and wanted to poke around, they might find out a few things. Okay, so all of you journalists are watching the same game there you go there's your, there's your next assignment. Yeah. And then you can come on, what the F is going on in Latin America and share with us what you find. Yeah, that'd be great, actually. So, so what else should we talk about let me go through the, the live chat real quick and see do any of you have any questions follow up comments that those of you viewing want to ask Monisha. Let me just see what we have. A lot of people sympathizing with the colonialization of Puerto Rico, Hawaii is going through the same thing you and I talked about that offline. That there's a, let me check one of the other. So why don't we share with the audience again where they can make a donation. Yeah, so now that we have the fiscal sponsorship. That whole donation process is changing. So what I would like to offer folks is for the ease of our transition toward the proper channels of donating, because I had been just receiving the funds myself is instead to if they're willing to reach out to me by email or send me a message on what's up that they want to, and then I can connect them to the proper channels through our fiscal sponsor for that. I will say that. Sorry, Terry. No, go ahead. We would like to pay off the house we would like to pay off the band we would like to have money to continue the renovation to get solar to we have to do a lot of work on the house to make it safe for people with mobility needs. And so we also want to be able to provide stipends for volunteers, people who are driving for transportation because we don't want to be exploitative toward volunteer labor. We want to make sure especially knowing the conditions that we have here. People should not be working for free. So, you know, we want to be able to not just lean on our community but support our community as well as they're supporting our needs. So 300,000 is the big grand goal, which would allow us to do all of that and then give us some leftover to, for example, if the house is full, and we receive calls. Because we receive a lot of calls still and I can't say yes to people at the moment, then we can try to put them up in a hotel, we can pay for their transportation if we can't provide it directly, you know, so we would like to have some padding in the budget to be able to meet additional costs as well as to move the project forward in other areas, accumulate, I mean not accumulated but acquire potentially another property, or another van, you know. And can you share with the audience your, your email address. Yes, it is Monisha. That's M-O-N-I-S-H-A at Centro-S-P-R.org. C-E-N-T-R-O-S-P-R.org. Monisha at Centro-S-P-R.org. And I'll include all of this in the program notes as well for everyone. Thanks. You know, what else? Is there anything that we missed this evening? Anything in closing that you want to share with the audience? It's such a valiant project. I don't even know that's not even the right word to use, but I mean it's just, you know, like you said, come, you're young. I would like to also ask for folks to consider if they're a member of an organization, like, you know, so many of the peace organizations in the U.S. or any other type of org that would be interested in helping us. If people would consider adopting the project, if the organization adopted the project and then committed to helping raise an amount, you know, like 5K, 10K, whatever is feasible, that would be really helpful. And so that's kind of just also, you know, creativity if folks have other ideas on how we can get support. This is not the type of project that's easy to get grants and fellowships for. And also it's decolonial. So we're intentionally avoiding the usual channels of funding that would actually harm us, not help us. There are flexible decolonial options, if possible. A solidarity collective. Yes. Yes, that's great. It's great and it's very humane on all levels.  No, we respect our community's privacy. And for people who want to see the evidence of how their money is being used, we will do that in a respectful way, but definitely that will be something that they can feel confident and comfortable that will show our work. Sounds like we should do some fundraising delegations. Come see you. Yeah. Come on down. They have to be small right now.  Yeah, that would be would be really great. And, and to go see, you know, Puerto Rico that part of the Caribbean that is kind of sort of not really us that is not full. Many of us don't want to be.  Yeah, yeah. So a lot of support for an independent for independence and colonization of Puerto Rico. Yes, statehood is not decolonization contrary to the myth. No, no. It's tightens the vice is tightening the grip. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, everyone, I boy, what a fantastic conversation Monisha and really, really a very honorable project and, and I hope we can, you know, continue to build support for your work for the people of Puerto Rico and and help create something that will service a lot of people in need.  So, so I will let I'll let you go. We've been talking for over an hour. Yeah, I know. No, it went so fast. She was so fascinating. It's such a wonderful. The history is important that you shared and your project is really something beautiful that, you know, a lot of us can get behind. And so yeah, we was a full hour and a really, and went by really fast. Oh, thank you. I love, I love you as a person and I love, I love the time that you contribute to our program to our various episodes I'm very thankful for that. And I'm very, very thankful. Always to have you as a guest and to uplift Puerto Rico which we in the solid Latin America solidarity community in the States we, we always tend, you know to look south we look at Cuba, we look at Haiti, and we look at South America and South America and we just don't even, you know, we so seldom throw Puerto Rico into that mix and it so needs to be there, along with, with all the other Caribbean island nations and, and the rest of the Americans so. So thank you for your time for yours to in your solidarity with us and always Terry. Well, thank you. And thank you to our audience. Yeah. Thank you. If I want to remind all of you you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean were popular resistance broadcast. You can find us on YouTube live every Thursday 730pm Eastern, we broadcast honestly on the YouTube channels for the Convo couch code pink and popular resistance and post broadcast recordings can be found at Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so. So thanks again everyone and we will see you next next week. Bye everybody.


Never think about the pain of doing something. Just do what you have to do without the thought of, oh, it's gonna be hard. Can't tell you how many people I have a friend. He calculates the cost, but never the benefit. Think you overcome laziness primarily by understanding, man, I can get it all. If I just get out of bed and start, you can get it all. The mind is an illusion. Life is an illusion, like Shakespeare said, nothing is except that you think it that way.  What's holding most people back? Paralysis by over analysis and laziness. Stop it. Just start. Come on. It ain't that big. First world problems. The things we think are hard will be, piece of cake, 100 years ago, when people had to carry their own water. Spent three hours a day just on their life needs. Start today.


I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey and today's journey is very very special. We are going to visit with my dear friend, and you know I only talk to dear friends, Gary Kuboto on my way. So with the magic of think tech here we are across the ocean. Gary is a dear friend and I Gary I have known as an activist as well as a writer and a publisher and he was a newspapers and he was out rep community and activist pro projects and then his latest most is his play The Legend of Kohola. So real quick there you are Gary tell us about Gary. Well I was born and raised in Hawaii on Oahu and I came I got my education around the same time as the Vietnam War was rising up and became an activist of sorts and then associated with a group called Kukua Hawaii which was a group that fought a lot of evictions on Oahu and successfully fought these evictions back in the early 1970s. Then I went back to school and to earn a living basically and learn a professional trade of sorts as a journalist and I've worked for several newspapers in Hawaii and Guam and now I'm retired but one of the things that I did in the meantime as I wrote a play that received the national grant from the National Performance Network of New Orleans and that enabled me to produce the play and now it's touring in Hawaii and elsewhere just depending upon whether we can do the financial arrangement and everything in place including the actor. Well it is such a fabulous play tell us about it it's kind of thing I'm not sure that I have the right words to describe it because one man's show however it's the backdrop and the pictures that that move with the show that gives it the depth and and of course the actor is superb. So tell us the story where you're going. The story revolves around uh Hawaiian cowboy uncle Waikāt Kāluwai Kōlau. It's a historically based play so I had to do quite a bit of research more than a year and then it took me about six months to write the play. Of course you could say it took a lifetime to write it because the skills that you know you acquire take a lifetime and I was lucky enough to be able to to get into some of his background. It's about basically love and survival his love for his family and the survival of his family despite attempts by the despite the the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and attempts by the new government to force him and his son to Kalapapa on the island of Molokai where there was a hence his disease colony. He didn't want to go there if he used to go there so he went into Kalalau Valley in North Kaua'i and resisted. Resisted the militia? The government forces yeah the government forces that had the census right after him and he was very successful in doing it actually because of his knowledge of the terrain and he was a good shot and it was one of these he wasn't looking for trouble but he just didn't want to go so in the eyes of that yeah it would have been terribly difficult had he gone because there would not have been a familiar family structure to support him. A lot of the people who lived in Kalalau Valley who were had hence his disease relied upon their kin to drop off food once in a while and you know it had that system of support whereas taking him and his son to a remote island of Peninsula that they called the living grave was not something that he wanted to see happen especially to his son who was only nine years old at the time. So but that would mean leaving his wife and the other children? Exactly and that was another factor that happened because back then you had a situation where for a while they allowed Kokus or family members to go along with the hence and disease patients but then the new government and the board of health changed that policy and it upset quite a few people because a lot of them who were who were had getting the hence his disease were native Hawaiians and very attached to you know of course the area where they lived and the families and so it it was a very difficult time for them. Well this was 18 what the year? 1893 he went into the valley in 1892 excuse me and then in 1893 he there was the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and then a stepped up effort to get the lepers out of Kalalau Valley and he had warned people that if they try and go into the valley he would shoot them and so a deputy sheriff went into the valley and he shot the deputy sheriff and killed them and then all hell broke loose because the new government that had just overthrown the monarchy felt threatened by his actions so they sent essentially a contingent from their militia and deputies I think it was about more than 50 of them and including a canon to try and capture him. A canon into the valley? Yeah a corrupt canon it was the kind that you put actually shells in and fire it um fortunate for him and unfortunate for them they fired it at the wrong time and he had already left the cave that in which they tried to shoot the the shells into and so he wasn't there but one of the things that happened was his they tried after two of the men had been shot by him the soldiers themselves and one accidentally shot himself they went and tried to get his sister first they tried to get his mother but she was too sick and then they forced the sister and her husband at gunpoint to go into the valley and try to flush him out but by the time they did all that he had left that area of the cave and so they weren't able to find him and so they declared him either dead or or something like that in this abandoned efforts basically which you know they probably should have done from the very start because that way no one would have been killed. Well it is like I said it's just a marvelous just the actor what's his name he is fabulous what's his name? He's Mornai Kanekoa and Mornai um is a what's born and raised on Maui and he's now living in Los Angeles as an actor he's a native Hawaiian and he was a University of Hawaii regent scholar they pick about one out of what only 20 a year and it includes tuition books and and living expenses so he's no ordinary person and he also has a masters in drama from the University of Southern California when I when I was looking for him I pretty much cast the net wider because I was unable to find someone who could remember the lines and I got a call from him and we interviewed Mornai by Skype because I had sent letters to various drama departments and in colleges and after we decided to pick him out like I asked him so you know where do you where do you come from where do you live and they said oh my parents come from Kahlua and you know I live in Maui too so I said to him you mean I have to go all the way to California to find somebody who lives about seven miles from me so but sometimes that's where it takes uh it was very yes of course do we have a picture of him Mornai's done about 20 uh 22 performances and it's it's ranged from um him being us being invited to Kalapapa by the State Department of Health and also us touring say Los Angeles Berkeley in Sacramento in Sacramento um there were more it was a sold out crowd and there were more than 600 people in attendance at the Sacramento City College performing from performing arts theater and it was very gratifying to see so many people grateful for his his portrayal of Kahlua and that's uh that's been our goal basically tell the story from um with a native Hawaiian performer from from a point of view of that historical moment and to educate people about an important part of history and that's the around the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy there's a lot of relevance in that question with all the sovereignty did we find a picture yeah did we find a picture at all they'll they'll keep looking that's okay just go ahead but when you're in a California and other locations do they really get the depth of the uh struggle at the time of the overthrow do they understand that I think they they then it's those who are Hawaiian have read a lot of the stories that that um of Peelani his wife and and also there's a W. S. Merwin and folding clefs who wrote an ode about Koolau and then Jack I mean um Jack London who wrote a story as well so they're familiar with um various accounts but in my account is basically from Kahlua speaking himself about what happened and that's that's injecting an entirely different kind of perspective about how someone with his wilderness skills and with his conflicted emotions um had to deal with uh the situation you see he was he and his wife were educated until 817 in a mission school which meant that they um knew how knew how to read and write in English um and also that you know they had this strong tie to the um Christian church and and how to reconcile that at that moment during the overthrow was a very difficult thing to do considering the fact that you had um sons of uh grandsons of missionaries who were an uh a part of uh the overthrow and so we we address these issues in the play and uh I know some people feel that it's a to play is a bit rebellious but sometimes um you know you need to have the truth portrayed um and to speak the truth is an important part of being of course a journalist in my in my field and so I'm willing I'm willing to uh take whatever criticism comes my way as long as it is the truth and it's provable well tell me do you really do you get criticism or because it's such a beautifully done I'm maybe I'm just uh biased but it's such a beautiful beautifully portrayed just the quality of the of the play the whole atmosphere the beautiful way you transpose the pictures behind the screen and behind the stage because it is a one person one man's talking it is just so beautiful I I'm I'm maybe I am being biased but how do you I'm talking about the pushback the comments you were talking about is it just that they don't like don't like the story the yeah I think I think I it's hard for me to identify exactly what what sometimes people feel I think that um it doesn't quite portray the the native Hawaiian in the way that some people some people attached to the visitor industry might want um here's a Hawaiian who's a man a live male um figure and he's he's funny he's loving he's argumentative and he has all these qualities um but he also has a quality of willing willingness to to speak his mind and rebel and I think that um people some people aren't accustomed to that or afraid of that but that's the way things work back then and that's the way things are right now you know with the the sovereignty movement things like that you know we don't have I don't think there's any kind of advocate uh of violence or anything like that I think but speaking one's mind trying to speak the truth is an important part of coming to terms with history and with with oneself as a human being well it is a different uh portrayal than what the tourist industry would have us believe so you're right if if you're looking for that image that the today's tourism gives us this is quite a stretch quite a difference which is the way it should be you know the honesty with which he portrays the honesty with which he he's just I can't say enough great things about him I wish that for those people that don't get to see the play if there was a way to video to um the tape this the play not video but real um whatever we call it photography motion picture quality so that the depth and the whole thing is is just there for for those of us for those people that haven't been able to see the play how many times have you shown the play and how many places um 22 and um it's been on to 22 the 22 performances it's been to Kawai, Maui, Molokai, um and um Oahu and Honolulu yeah yeah Honolulu yeah and it's been to Los Angeles Berkeley and Sacramento um when we started out my expectations were a bit small I I had written the play and uh I just wanted to see um it read and to have a reading and to my surprise when I sent out the script the people who wanted to read the play included Ed Ka Ahia who's a well-known actor uh with Booga Booga uh long time ago and then Kayle Wolford who actually um was in the process of developing his film the Haumea and Kayle had acted as a king and the king and I at the London Palladium so he seeing that they were interested helped me a lot in um moving forward with the whole plan of trying to get it produced and luckily um we did get a grant from the National Performance Network of New Orleans uh I was one of six one of one of a there were six people selected out of more than 60 applicants and I was one of them and so um it was a competitive process and and so that only made me think well you know there must be something to it so I kept on going especially after when we when we went to different libraries and had these readings and there was only a spotlight and we darkened the windows when we lift when we had the lights lifted up and suddenly you could see the people many of them were crying and I've never seen that in a theater before and that told me that we had something very special it's a gift you know I I wrote it but I don't feel that necessarily I'm the one who who who did it you know because it it takes a village of people people I know who are Hawaiian people I know of different ethnicities who have helped me in my way as a writer to to get to that point well I sat and cried so but then I cried commercial so I'm not of course I'm being biased but it I did cry yes and um so what's next where do you go from here we are we have completed filming the play um itself and uh we're editing it and what we plan to do at the very least is to send it to various theaters um to see if they might be interested in having the one man show at their theaters um I don't know if it's going to be good enough for a commercial quality to to be able to sell sell it as a film per se um it's difficult already to to do a one man play and something like this takes a lot of cutting and a lot of imagination in order to bring out the actual acting I think that the the best example of that has been however uh Terence Knapp and Father Damien and that was actually performed at Kennedy Theater many years ago and I saw it when it premiered I was there and I was just blown away by how Terence Knapp created the character and so um I immediately looked for the writer of course because I'm a writer was Eldyte Eldyte Morris and I within the two weeks of that time I spent a lunch with her at her home talking about how she went about writing the play and so um she was very kind to do that and it I had a path at that point I didn't realize it at the time but it it did help me just say that you had a one a path to on how to develop the play yeah oh great yeah and she um so she collaborated with um Terence Knapp on developing the play herself because this was the first one of one of her first plays I want to well the way she said it was basically that at times like he would make suggestions that she would think about and she she would agree and Terence Terence Knapp was just an extraordinary actor I mean he had been with the um with the Royal London Theater and and um he was he actually as Father Damien um in a film getting back to why these kinds of films are extraordinary he actually won a Peabody Award for his acting in great performances on on public television nationwide so it can be done although it's very challenging and uh we've been struggling uh on our own uh he had the support of Hawaii Public TV and Nino Martin who was uh yes then um the the head of the he was the artistic director and Nino and him took about six months of shooting at Kennedy Theater in order to create the rendition that was eventually shown on great performances we've had to I've had to spend my money in order to fly in uh cinematographer from Los Angeles who's a friend in order to shoot and just develop this preliminary uh rendering of the play itself yeah so it's been a hard it's been a bit harder but you know we're still going for it well would you look at or work with a Hawaii Public Television for this because it's so special have you reached out to them at all um yeah we have uh you know we've invited them to the play um but I'm not sure anyone came frankly um I think that um a lot of people think when they see that when they think of plays they think that it's a community theater production of sorts uh and it's nothing like that I mean you know Marsha as a journalist I worked in Mao for the Maui news like that and a lot of people um were were amazed when I won four national awards including awards from the National Press Club National Newspaper Association for the writing that I did and this is basically another example of you know what I'm trying to do and what I'm striving for in terms of quality um and it's it's sometimes a struggle because I think that um people have it set in their mind exactly what they think already um and it takes a bit of a break away from that in order for them to come to terms with um a different kind of writing and and I'm not from within the um the group of people who are associated with various theaters I I come from it from a journalist background and from a writer's background and um that makes it perhaps sometimes difficult but I also realize if it hadn't been for that background I wouldn't have been able to write the plays the way I have now speaking of background before we run out of time let's get back to your activism especially at Paloma Valley real quick yeah okay then that's a great period of time 90 early 1970s there's maybe four or five agents who work for newspapers if you were to go to the university of Hawaii and look at the concourse out of 300 people if you saw five people who are native Hawaiian or Filipino you know that was pretty good things have changed an awful lot since that time and and the whole notion of Paloma Valley has changed since we were successful in resisting evictions and helping to preserve um these communities intact Filipino communities like Otakamp, Waiole, Waikane, Heiea, Kea we even did a sit-in at the University of Hawaii to preserve ethnic studies back in 1972 and the whole point of that was to be able to tell the stories our history our way and that's what I've attempted to do in this whole process of becoming a journalist and becoming a playwright and well let me just add a footnote here you mentioned 1974 at that time at the University of Hawaii the Hawaiian language was in the foreign language department and there was one class in Hawaii Anna that's it so yeah exactly anyway I'll tell you what yeah now Hawaii the you know the Hawaiian is the first language side by side with English and there are charter schools uh that teach Hawaiian and a very dear friend of mine Larry Kamakaviva Ole received a resolution honoring him he was the leader of our group Kokua Hawaii honoring him for being a part of the start of the Hawaiian Renaissance so it's come full circle where we were like vilified or criticized for what we did to the point where people begin to understand that what we did was to push the envelope outward and create a broader conversation so that people could begin to understand their own history and begin to stand up and begin to discuss it well we are just about out of time and this has been a great pleasure as always and I am looking forward to your filming and moving it on so everybody gets to see this it is most important it is vital especially with this new movement of the young Hawaiians they really need to see this story so Gary darling thank you thank you thank you so much for spending this time with me and send my love to Melinda I will and aloha and we will see you next time


Welcome back MechanicalEI. Did you know that the world's first commercial power plant was based on cogeneration and belonged to Thomas Edison? This makes us wonder, what is cogeneration? Before we jump in, check out the previous part of this series to learn about what the Rankine and Carnot Cycles are. First, let's clear out the concept of ideal reheat Rankine cycle. A Rankine cycle consists of a pump, boiler, a turbine and working in sequential order to produce the power. In a reheat Rankine cycle, a low pressure turbine is added to the mixture and the steam from the exhaust of high pressure turbine is recycled into the boiler and sent to the intake of low pressure turbine, which then generates power. Cogeneration or combined heat and power, CHP for short, is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time. Unlike the reheat Rankine cycle which uses a condenser to condense the steam to liquid, cogeneration uses a process heater to transfer the heat as required. Cogeneration is more thermally efficient use of fuel than producing process heat alone because in electricity production, some energy must be rejected as waste heat. But when combined with cogeneration, some of this thermal energy is put to good use. Hence, we first saw what the reheat Rankine cycle is and then went on to find out what cogeneration is. Like, subscribe and comment with your feedback to help us make better videos. Thanks for watching. Also, thanks a lot for those constructive comments. You helped the channel grow.  In the next episode of Mechanical EI, find out what the AutoCycle is.


Hello, I'm V-Win and I'm the Research Communications Officer here at FEMS. My microbiology hero is Willie Vestrotti. He's a microbial ecologist who specialises in water and throughout my PhD he was a constant inspiration because he showed me a whole world of microorganisms hidden in wastewater and introduced me to the idea that we should be working collaboratively with these microorganisms in tackling some of the environmental challenges with water and that stayed with me ever since.


Our next speaker will be Carl Hale and Carl will be speaking on the topic of worshiping an extraterrestrial humanoid deity. I have a feeling this is going to get personal. After receiving a master's degree in information systems, Carl spent 15 years in the software and web industries, first as a programmer and later as a manager and executive. He is now focusing the majority of his attention on another of his passions, motivational juggling. Carl has been married to Anna-Lisa Bradford Hale for 18 years and they are raising their eight children, eight children, with the help of 27 chickens, six goats, six frogs, and one cat. Please welcome Carl Hale. I hate lecterns, is this okay? Several years ago I was having an online discussion about the nature of God. A participant in the discussion compassionately but doggedly challenged me to think through my position all the way to its conclusions. This conversation climaxed with him finally asking me, I think with some exasperation, if I worshipped an extraterrestrial humanoid deity. By using this particular terminology I believe his intent was to shock me into rejecting my less than fully formed beliefs that, if taken to their conclusion, sound like something from a science fiction novel. However, perhaps to his surprise and definitely to my own, I found that I did then and do now worship an extraterrestrial humanoid deity. I consider myself to be a mainstream member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was taught from as early as I can remember to believe in a God of body parts and passions. A God who is, as Brother Joseph put it, of the same species as man. A God who is inside of nature and who is subject to natural law. I was also taught to believe in an omnipotent and an omniscient God. But it was not until later in my life that I was shown the incongruities between the natural aspects of God and the omni aspects of God. Nevertheless, I remember very early testing the two competing perspectives and coming to a satisfactory melding. It happened when, as a young teenager, I heard for the first time the classic question, can God create a rock heavier than He can lift? Which is really asking the question, is God literally all-powerful with all of the apparent illogic that entails or is He in fact subject to law and reason? At that age, I did not understand the distinction between logical and physical limitations on omnipotence, and so this theoretical query served to bring into question the overarching concept of God's omnipotence, both logical and physical. I remember in my young mind and heart deciding that, of course, God is subject to nature and, therefore, could not do anything contrary to natural law. This did not diminish for me in any way His practical omnipotence. I simply recognized that such omni terms were, of course, to be considered inside the spheres of logic and reason. As I was later introduced to potential physical or domain constraints on God's omnipotence, these new ideas fit nicely into the structure I had earlier created to deal with the logical problems of omnipotence. I have come to describe my understanding of God as omnipotent and omniscient for all practical purposes. I mean by this that God knows everything and can do everything necessary for the exaltation of His children inside the pertinent, logical and physical domains. I did not understand until fairly recently how strange this view of God is to most theists. I assumed almost everyone thought of God in natural terms. Now I recognize that many in my audience, theist and atheist alike, will have a difficult time conceptualizing such a God, but for me, it has always been the only option. A few years ago, I was walking with a group of friends who all consider themselves to be Mormon in something or another, among whom is a staunch atheist. Our Mormon atheist friend was describing the nature and attributes of God that made it impossible for him to believe. And as he described a magical being with supernatural powers, I exclaimed, I don't believe in the same God you don't believe in. I had suddenly realized that if the definition of an atheist is one who disbelieves in a supernatural God, then I am and always have been an atheist. However, if I am an atheist, I am one who still has a God to worship. Of the descriptors I learned from that online discussion, extraterrestrial effectively describes this aspect of my God as being inside of nature. In fact, Mormon doctrine is pretty clear that God does in fact live on a planet circling a sun somewhere out in space, extraterrestrial indeed. In the context of transhumanism, my Mormon God shouldn't seem far-fetched at all when we consider post-humans whom mere mortals would be tempted to worship and even perhaps simulations created by those post-humans which begin to look very much like the various creation myths. In fact, transhumanism has strengthened my belief in my extraterrestrial humanoid deity. Extraterrestrial may now refer to a being who lives entirely outside this simulation or perhaps the post-human who is my God may spend most of his time on a planet circling a distant sun. Although still not necessary, humanoid seems more likely than ever when I consider what kind of artificial intelligences I would choose to populate my own simulation with. And deity is the only conclusion I can draw when I consider the vast distances between my own current mortality and the power, intelligence and grandeur of our own post-human future. Imagine for a moment what our post-humans may be like a thousand years from now and what they may be like a thousand, thousand, thousand years from now. If beings on a similar trajectory to our own path took their first steps an astronomically insignificant one billion years ago, even the most proud among us would likely fall down and worship them. And so, an atheist who believes in God and a theist who does not believe in God. But this is not new ground for me, nor in fact for most members of the LDS church. The vast majority of our Christian brothers and sisters tell me that I am not Christian despite my belief in Christ. But perhaps this is because I do not accept Christ's doctrine to be mystical, nor supernatural, just as I do not accept the mystical and supernatural God. Christ gave only two commandments on which all others hang. To love God with everything we have and to love others as we love ourselves. I fear most theists and atheists alike interpret the second as a recommendation that we learn to play nice. And the first as an injunction to obsequious groveling subservience to an unknowable being who exists only to be praised. Well, I disagree. In fact, Christ simply stated a single natural law. Love. In the one direction, we must learn to value our neighbor just as we value ourselves, no more, no less. If we don't learn this before the great and dreadful day of our post-human ascension, we will annihilate each other. In the other direction, we should emulate as well as our mortality allows the great and glorious being who has walked in our shoes, who understands our mortality and who knows how to overcome it because he has done so himself. Thank you. Check. Yep. Okay. Well, wonderful. And I really liked the points that you brought up about being a Mormon atheist, because it's something that I come across a lot in my discussions with with theist and with atheists, as I often describe theist as being atheist. When you claim to know a real God, that is no longer a place for belief. It's something that now exists. And so I was really interested by you bringing up that concept. And I wanted to comment on that and ask you to expound on that, because that's something that I've come to, and I've tried to get other people to see that, you know, if you believe in God, you're saying it doesn't exist. And if you saying that you know God, you're therefore saying you no longer believe in it. So like I said, this idea that my God is is a being of body, body parts and passions was not something that I thought was very unique to Mormonism. And then when I discovered that it is indeed something that is fundamentally different from between us. And in fact, that's the reason probably why other Christians are so uncomfortable calling us Christian, because our God is very concrete. I believe in a very concrete being. I believe and I believe in him because I have not yet met him. I could be persuaded possibly that he does not currently exist. It is a faith proposition on my part that I believe in this concrete being. However, the faith proposition is that he does concretely exist not in some unknowable fashion.