Welcome to Toffy TV, this is the Stand 11 show Everton vs Brentford, huge game of goodness and park, another huge game to get and get us over that line, come on Everton, get us over that line so we can all relax, start maybe enjoying a bit of football again and then enjoy the summer without any of those worries that have been keeping us all away for the last few months. Let's get into it in gold Jordan pick for the course, being excellent all season and it's been very very good of late. Let's look at the defence, I'm going to go for, let's say it's going to be three at the back, it's going to be three at the back, Seamus Coleman on the right hand side, Michael Keane in the middle and Mason Hallgate. Yes, it's three at times sometimes, it's five, it's quite a narrow three and I think that's why it sort of works and makes it allows it to be a five, it's not like a proper sort of three at the back with a spread across the back line, I don't think we've got the page for that, but that's the way we've been playing and that's the way I'd continue in this game. I think Brentford, like having the ball, they've got good attackers and I think we'll start with that cautious approach, get men behind the ball and then turn it them on the counter attack. Obviously in the wide positions, we've got a Wobby on the right, Michael Encoe on the left. This formation seems to suit both of them and obviously Alex a Wobby has probably had his best spell at heaven, I mean I don't know that's not too hard, but he's been really disciplined, knuckled down and he's been a threat going forward as well so that's my five at the back and I know a lot of people might think I'll be a little bit more open but we're better when we sit back and soak up the opposition and then try and hit them on the counter attack to look for their mistakes so I'm going to go with that as my back line. In the midfield, the two in the midfield then are Allen and the Corry, obviously Delft's not available to play.  So there's not quite the same discipline, maybe we don't need that in this game, as I said we've got the five at the back, maybe we've seen the way Allen played in the Mayside Derby, he's done a great job in that as well so I know this game is not going to be as tough and it's their own but the Corry's looked refreshed recently and yeah, listen Delft was doing injury and he got it so Allen in there with the Corry, ahead of them I'm going to go for Anthony Gordon and I'm going to go for Richard. To be honest, I think Anthony Gordon probably could have been left out, gray certainly has been poor of late. Gordon looks tired but I do believe that Gouldersham Park playing at home will re-energize him and he loves playing at Gouldersham Park, he loves playing for these fans, he loves working hard. I don't see where we could make two changes there, of course we could bring Delian but he's not the same kind of player, El Ghazi's not even being on the bench so I don't think he'd entertain him but I think Richard is coming back, we'll energize that as well, we'll work hard in there and I'm going for Dominic Harvelyn up front. Rondon is not a starter for me, I think he's someone you can bring on for the last 20 minutes. I think Dom now could play three games this week and that would free up Richard to pick up the ball and be that creative player that I just don't think we've got in there. As I said, Gray and Gordon in the last couple of weeks, just their final ball, running with the ball, both of them seem to hesitate and now that might be down to a little bit of mental fatigue or obviously physical fatigue but I do think we'll get the lift for Gordon being at home. I'm not so sure about it, I'm going to drop with Charleston in there so that's my team, a couple of changes of course, we could have the possibility of Van de Beek being in the squad, Ben Goffy being in the squad but that's my start at 11, let me know your thoughts in the comments, do you disagree, would you change the shape, would you go back to a four at the back? I'm going to stick with that five because I think it's been working and I think the starting point we have to have is don't lose the game and I think that's the starting point that's done as well in the last few weeks so let me know your thoughts, make sure to give this video a like, subscribe if you haven't already, you've got more great videos. Join us over on Patreon, the link is in the description and it will be on the screen in five seconds, see you later.


Good evening and welcome back to Byline. This is the public affairs show right here at Amherst Media that's co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters and we are trying to help folks here in town see the evolution of our new form of town government as we've transitioned from our town meeting and select board to our town council and today we have a really interesting trio. The Troika are here today and the first of the three is Brianna Sunrid and she's one of the three people that is splitting the job of community participation officer. So Brianna tell us the origins of this position and what this job is all about. So the position of community participation officer came out of the charter so what we're working to do it's outlined in the charter as a position that will come in either from an existing staff person or to hire a new person so obviously we decided to go with existing staff. The town manager has appointed three folks to do this important work myself being one of them I'm the communications manager for the town so my work overlaps with a little bit of the community participation officers goals some of those are increasing that participation with town government especially this new town government whether it's through boards and committees serving in different other volunteer capacities so we started our work I think it's just been under a hundred days now and I work with quick ramp up yes quick ramp up there's lots of lots to do there was some short action items that we were looking to get off the ground but we're also planning for our long range vision which includes measures of success different data that we can collect to see how we're doing and I work closely with Jennifer and Angela the two other participation officers were seated seated very closely together on the mezzanine and we get the chance to collaborate and shout ideas over the cubicle throughout the day so I think it's a great team. That's terrific so you said its origin is the charter and when the town adopted the charter they created by that vote this new position but instead of hiring a separate person to do this job it's divided among three of you have you found many other towns that have community participation officers and if so how does this construct jive with the other communities. That's a great question because we we constantly have been looking to Framingham for a lot of things because they've gone through this same government transition almost a year ahead of us and I've actually become colleagues in a sort with their citizen participation officers how they call it and she's a full-time staff person and what her and I are doing are actually building out a network of these types of positions in communities in Massachusetts so we've met virtually over the phone a few times we're hoping to create some sort of listserv or best practices for people who are in this position because we found that it's not called the same thing throughout the community it looks very different from community to community Framingham has a full-time person we have our trio working on this different communities are calling it different things and so you have found it in a number of other places and and from time to time you discover yet another and you are adding them to the list how many we up to at this point do you think so I am taking on western mass and central mass as my kind of data collection points I found about 15 people who either have a similar title or parts of their job are related to this and we've reached I've reached out to them to say this is what we're working on would you like to be included it's it's early days but we're hoping to in similar municipal positions like human resources director they have a really robust group where they share ideas of best practices and I think it's really important for us to be able to do that any other community that's divided the job among more than one employee not yet not in the traditional sense of you know having a call for that type of position and then splitting it I've seen different communities having little pieces of this work being done by set different folks but nothing like what we have in Amherst okay so that's interesting so it's not an unusual function in town governments now but this isn't perhaps an unusual structure for it as when we put on our taxpayer hats we should feel pretty good about this because we basically not putting together a job description hiring a whole new person with all that's involved in that and also I would assume that if you hire a separate person then you have all kinds of coordination issues because that person is now a totally different function and they're gonna have to they're going to be things that are overlapping with other town employees and in this case we don't have that because you're integrating it into your existing job descriptions based on your specialties and so each of you had something you were doing this has been added to it and it's consistent with what you've been doing so in your case if I remember correctly prior to taking on this responsibility you did IT and you did communications correct and so website is not an unusual thing within that picture because you use the website for communications and it's also a function that fits in the IT realm of course so what are you doing in the website realm since the new government has been formed so that's one of my favorite projects to talk about so I'd be happy to give a little more about that and just the the genesis of the work I'm doing now is the communication manager I still am in the IT department but we realized that a lot of things I was working on were public-facing and trying to collect those projects so we have a cohesive plan for communications either going out or coming in so there's gonna be a lot of work about around that the website is the chief tool that I think we have to at our disposal that to get this information out but also to get that feedback back in we have a big project a complete website redesign that's gonna be kicking off in the next six to nine months we're planning for that right now and what that will allow community members easier access to information being able to to search for things and having the search be optimized so that they're finding the information that they're looking for improving ADA compliance so that everybody can access our site and we'll also be designing the website mobile first because we're looking at that means that instead of designing it to be experienced at a desktop and then kind of shrinking it and smushing it down to render on your phone we're gonna go into actually be designing it with mobile first in mind so that it renders just fine on every device that you're experiencing and that's some feedback we've gotten from residents and community members that they wanted to look up this information while they were walking through town and they couldn't access it the same way that they would if it were designed a little bit better great and what are the kinds of other kinds of things that you want to improve in this new generation of websites or is there different kinds of functionality that you want to add how does it relate to well everything that's on the current website be imported into the new one eliminating anything that's old and outdated replacing it with new but other functions and other other elements that you're gonna add absolutely so one of the main goals is doing almost an audit of our information and this is gonna be the perfect time to do that we're gonna be pulling the information over but checking it to see that links work that it's accurate updated information and archiving the things that need to be archived we have 772 web pages and so trying to look at that in a in a cohesive way and do we need that many pages do you need to click three or four times to get to the information that you that you want to see in one or two clicks so really looking at it from streamlining navigation just making things easier to find taking some of that heavy text on pages and representing data visually or providing interactive tools interactive budgeting tools so we have all these ideas and thoughts on our list that we hope to implement and the new site will make it more able for us to have integrations like that and once you make the decisions about who's gonna build the site for you and what you want on it how long will it take approximately for it to become functional so once we we sign a contract with somebody and procurement is kind of the the tough part to get through but six to nine months from the time that we sign a contract until we have a launch of a new website and does this work for for those of us who are not very technologically sophisticated is this a situation where one morning you come in and you flip the switch the old ones gone the new ones present so if you come online that day to go to the town website there'll be no interruption it'll be a smooth transition but it's just going to look different and function differently once it's up there correct we we will not have a time where there is that the site is down so we will be testing everything to the nines to make sure that there is no service interruption there will probably be even workshops leading up to kind of show off the new look of the site people are used to finding their information in one way and we don't want to disrupt that and leave them hanging when they're trying to find this information and it looks totally different the next day and what other communities have done Worcester Cambridge Somerville is they've left the link to their old site as kind of training wheels into the new site so that is something that we want to investigate if it's possible for us to do as well great other than working with your two colleagues the triad the trio whatever we want to call you or you want to call yourselves what's been the most fun and interesting part of this experience because it's really quite something to to basically take three people and put them together to create a whole and I suspect it's going to be a whole greater than the sum of the parts so what's been the most interesting and fun part of this and especially thinking about your own background and and your own life here in the community so the the most fun for for me has been thinking about ways that we can get out of town hall and meet people where they are instead of trying to bring people to us designing different programming and events that we can go out into the community and meet people where they are and that for me is really fun I did a lot of that work when I worked for the city of Worcester and you know half the time out in communities at neighborhood associations and in those types of meetings and I saw the value there and you see the impact more directly of the work that you're doing when you're back behind the the walls in in town hall so that's definitely curtain behind the curtain yes exactly oh so that's fantastic because communications is inherently a creative enterprise because you're always looking for new ways of getting the message across and capturing people's attention in this world where we're just inundated with information and so this gives you some new opportunities but it's not just about the paper communication and the social media and all that it's also now about how you engage the community appropriately through events and activities partly by you attending other people's events and integrating but partly by you thinking as a team about new things that you could do to create for the town absolutely and we do see it as three-dimensional or multi-dimensional and not just you know sitting behind the screen and putting out messages we genuinely want to meet people where they're at and have that conversation instead of a monologue yeah because the whole point of the position or in this case positions is to engage people to create more transparency and more civic engagement here in the community so it's always better person to person than it is paper to paper and paper to eyes so have you been to any of the town council meetings yet yes I have been to many of the initial meetings and I watched them from home as well okay because they're being broadcast or rebroadcast after how's that working so the town council the official town council meetings you're doing the town council meetings I meant to say district oh the district meetings okay those are not being broadcast yet but that's part of what the CPO team is working on to make sure that those are well organized and people are engaging correct absolutely one of our charges is aiding in the the planning and conducting of the district meetings and office hours which we've also been helping and Angela Mills has created a you know how to set up your meeting document and just kind of instilling some best practices from the logistics of meeting space to what are your technical needs and how can we help you get the word out and actually showing up at the meetings so I have been at the the district one district meeting which happened last month on a snowstorm on daylight savings time oh my goodness but we did have a you know a pretty good turnout and we were we had breakout sessions and folks were talking about important capital projects and my colleagues that you'll talk to today have also in just a couple minutes have also had really fulfilling experiences at the district meetings great well speaking of your colleagues for our viewers there are three CPOs and we wanted all three on today but the set only handles up to three people so we're going to take a very quick break now you're not even gonna hardly notice it at home but we're about to bring your colleagues on so we can continue the conversation Brianna thank you for being with us and for helping us begin to understand this new important function in our town government thank you for having me Sam you're welcome so welcome back to the second part of our show with the trio who are sharing the job of CPO community participation officer and as we learned in the first segment there there are a number of these around the Commonwealth but as far as we know this is the only place where we've been creative and we have split the job among three people and so we have Jennifer Moisten here and Angela Mills who are going to fill out this picture for us and we'll start with you Jennifer you used to do work with the town manager and human resources you still do work with human resources correct yes but now you have a new lens that you're looking at human resources through tell us how this new responsibility is changing and enhancing what you do around HR I think the overall picture is to have Amherst become a reflection of its community not just outside of the school systems and outside of the university so that when people come into town hall that they're being addressed by or even for boards and committees that those folks are a reflection of who we have in our community so reflecting the diversity of race gender class we want absolutely really engaged because that's one of the principles behind the whole review reform of our town government and the creation of the town council in the new charter was to basically take the best of the past and build upon it but also really open the doors in a much more robust way how are you doing that these days that may be different from what you were doing before so I've been participating in multiple events that are happening around town and just having a presence in the community for instance the black is Martin Luther King breakfast I attended the community Martin MLK MLK junior breakfast I go to events at the schools and speak and try to recruit that way attending the district meetings as well or other ways that I have been trying to reach out to folks and just plainly being in town my kids are involved in a lot of sports so I communicate to parents that way as well so this is really about getting outside the four walls of the building yes and into the community both to reflect the town's commitment and the opportunities that are available as opposed to the historic role where you were pushing papers and hoping people yes rubber resumes will come in yes for both town offices and so for town committees and for jobs but it wasn't it wasn't as proactive as what you're doing now no it was not but and and so this is I'm going to assume more rewarding for you it is it's also nice to get out into the community and see to be out outside and beyond the building that's great and Angela how is this job changing what you historically have done this new role of CPO I've seen it as a great learning opportunity like Jennifer I've been attending district meetings and I was so pleased to attend the district meeting at the Jones Library that was hosted by district counselors and to learn that for decades there have been pockets in our community where people have rotating potluck dinners and not only are they sharing food with neighbors but also with students from the University who have hosted and there's a dedicated set of plates that go from house to house so there's a richness and a sharing that I had no idea was happening and so part of our job of CPOs is to take those best practices and communicate them to the other counselors and maybe plant a seed that it works in this part of town let's try it in you know the north part of town in the south part of town and and see our community kind of become more cross-generational that way yeah and speaking of seeing your community you you have a long history in town but now I suspect some part of this job is allowing you to see and think about the community in some different ways talk about a little bit about what you've been your life like has been like here in the community and how that's affecting what you're doing now sure so I grew up in the Midwest and I came out to Western Mass to attend Amherst College in 1991 and after graduating 95 I've lived a little bit all over New England but my husband is the football coach at Amherst College and so we decided to start our family here and working in the school system for seven years has kind of helped me connect with mostly South Amherst because I worked at Crocker Farm but also get a feel for how incredibly diverse our student population is and how 17 languages can happen under one roof and socioeconomically there are lots of kids who are grow up in our town and we are fortunate to live in a town that has three institutions of higher learning but many of those children have yet to experience a college campus so I think one of the things we're thinking about as as we start citizen not citizen but community forums is to connect those kids with mentors and with people on those campuses so that they can see that as a legitimate opportunity as they grow in their education. What kind of response are you getting as you show up at various events in the community out there being missionaries for engagement in everything that's Amherst so I think overall we have a high response in our citizens activity form which is the form that you complete for boards and committees I feel kind of feel every time that we go to an event we have a few more submitted as well and and we've made some changes to that so yeah it used to be the citizen activities forum and now we've changed it to community activity form because we recognize that so many people who live in Amherst aren't necessarily citizens right but during their time here as they pursue their education or as they help in different ways in our community they can take part in all of the boards and committees without necessarily being quote-unquote a citizen but more part of the fabric of our community. Do you take those forms with you to these events or we do for a laptop okay through the laptop I was going to say because I thought you had to do it online yes but you just bring the laptop which is the equivalent of the clipboard in the form today and we're happy to have people call us and we'll fill it out for them over the phone so there are several people who have chosen that option great and have you seen an uptick in the number of people who are starting to file and you're starting to recognize some growing diversity in the population that's yes so you're starting to see some actual direct immediate results from this work which as Brianna said is only about a hundred days old yeah diversity in lots of different ways I would say I mean we've made lots of things optional so like the gender identification soft optional the age range is optional you don't have to tell us necessarily whether you rent or own anymore all of those things are optional I think the piece that we really like is that we're seeing people who have never put their name forward for a board or a committee come forward and say we want to be a part of this well that's terrific the fact that you don't have to pigeonhole yourself right which then means that it's almost like in higher ed what do they call it blind need that you're not making judgments based upon the legacy of the parents or whatever you're judging the person on on what they tell you and if they give you enough information you can see oh this person looks really interesting based on their experience and you have no idea what their gender is necessarily or their race or how long they've lived in town right which makes it even bad that's fantastic yeah that really makes a big big difference so what can you give me some feedback on how what your experience is going to district council meetings have each of you been to one or two of those yes okay you don't have to tell me about the politics of it but what what what's the experience like what are you observing because we this is a new mechanism in town want to make sure people understand it and its value and maybe consider participating I find it to be a great way for people to come and bring their ideas to the counselors or their thoughts or their concerns it's a great way to do that without necessarily calling town hall which is also okay too because we are more than willing to help people get through those or take their suggestions and pass them forward but it's another way for people to connect with the counselors and to be involved any thoughts to add to that I was so impressed counselor Pam and counselor Ryan invited me to their district three meeting and I only had like two minutes to kind of say we have vacancies on boards and committees but also we'd love to see you volunteer in small small ways if you don't feel like sitting at the table for a board and committee I stayed for the whole meeting and it was amazing to see people break off in groups and have really vibrant discussions in small groups and then come back together and share out what had happened in the small groups I thought the counselors were really innovative in the way that they had 60 people show up for their meeting and they knew not everyone would feel comfortable voicing their opinion in front of a large group so they sent around note cards and people could write their thoughts on the note card and leave them on a table face down and it was just really did they use those cards during the meeting without identifying the source they completely did yeah and so you didn't have to put your name on it but your thought got to the room exactly that's that's great and where they're when they broke into groups where they're reporting what did they do reporting back they did and did priority setting go after that or it was just okay we've now shared what we're thinking and we've put a little our little group put put it into priority but not necessarily the whole group so I think it would definitely go on to inform the agenda for their next district meeting good but the other piece that was fascinating is a lot of citizens or community members came out of those small group meetings and said we'd like for this part of the meeting to happen first and we would love for this to be the start or the genesis for a discussion and then come back to the plan event so they want to be able to speak out first and not have a directed feel like it's a directed conversation right have it happen more organically that's that's really interesting and have each of you been to only one or more than one and did you there's some variety going on at these meetings that show some possible best practices that they can learn from each other as counselors absolutely I've only been to the district 5 which is where I reside so I don't really have anything to compare to but except for Angela's stories and so I did take some of those ideas that Angela had spoken about from her district meetings to the district 5 counselors and and it works and it helps so I'm wondering if each of you are thinking down the road what you'd like to accomplish in the next let's say three months or six months or nine months because you've been standing up the job and this function you've been you've all been working together because I know I sat on a committee with all of you to plan the inaugural so I know how well you all work together but this is a new role and you're splitting a job and you're putting a function and the town government will be held accountable for this because it's in the charter so I'm wondering what are you thinking about the next 30 60 90 120 days whatever do you have a little work plan some priorities individually or collectively I think for myself there's a population of residents who don't know how the town government works and don't know much about town government so I would like to rope those individuals in and to have them become more involved it's just one of those things if you're not around someone who's in town government you don't necessarily know much about it unless you as an individual are reaching out to find out so I would like to do you have an idea or two that you're working on to actually exercise that or are you just thinking this is a priority for me and I need to find some ways to do that it's a little bit of both some of it just happens naturally again my kids all are involved in sports so it's as simple as being in out in the community and just talking to individuals and as other community events come up booking yourself in to go yes and how about you anything that you're planning and thinking about that we should know as we meet as CPOs the discussion for me is always like how are we going to measure this right like what's the metric going to be how are we going to be able to look back and say we were doing a great job right so deciding on that metric and then maybe having that guide us but it is it has been a really interesting passion project for I think all three of us in terms of finding ways for people to come through the door that look like us yeah and have and feel comfortable in the space that is town hall and that is kind of the seat of our town government so I think that's the push for me is and that'll happen at our next town council meeting there kids coming in from Crocker farm with this really interesting idea for book boxes at bus stops yeah and it's cross-generational the gentleman who is going to be building the boxes is retired and is donating the materials in the time so it's a great way for the kids to learn about how the town council serves its legislative function and guards the town way but it's also a visionary project in terms of bringing in people from lots of different age groups very good and it's also values driven which is part of the foundation of this it's driven by the Charter's desire to have more transparency more inclusion and more civic engagement in town and so congratulations to all three of you for standing up this new function and we look forward to seeing how this continues to evolve and as we said earlier it's only a hundred days so you had to put it together and you had to start actually getting out in the community and sounds like you've done an awful lot and you have a lot of passion and energy for it so thank you very much for adding all that additional work and also looking at your old work through a new lens so with that we've now learned something about our community participation officers and we hope that you'll say hello as you see them going around town and ask them how you can get involved thanks for joining us


This is a classic example of a patient that presents with pain, fever, difficulty swallowing, and a lot of jaw pain and has a rip-roaring infection. When we look at the contrast-enhanced CT scan, what we see is diffuse edema and phlegmon involving the right side of the floor of the mouth that's extending into the submandibular space with thickening of this muscle, which is the platysma muscle, and also reticulation of the subcutaneous fat. Now the majority of this phlegmon and inflammatory process is located within the floor of the mouth. So we talked early about the floor of the mouth being a compartment. The lateral aspect of the floor of the mouth is formed by the mandible. You have this muscle right here, which is the mylohyoid muscle that eventually connects with the hyoid bone, and we have the mylohyoid muscle going to the opposite side. When we have a diffuse inflammation involving the floor of the mouth, this is what's referred to as Ludwig's angina. So we call this a diffuse inflammation, but Ludwig's angina was initially described back in 1836 by a German physician by the name of Wilhelm Fredwig von Ludwig. So number one, Ludwig's angina was around long before CTs and MR was, and it is a clinical diagnosis. When we think of Ludwig's angina, we think of abscesses in the floor of the mouth that need to be drained. But the true Ludwig's angina is a diffuse cellulitis and phlegmon involving the floor of the mouth that essentially results in a compartment syndrome, because the mandible is solid, the mylohyoid is a very tough and firm muscle, and the hyoid bone is solid. So if we have a large infection that's involving the floor of the mouth, then this can result in elevation of the tongue base, and what's behind the tongue base? Well, the airways behind the tongue base, and this narrows the airway. The infection can extend down inferiorly to involve the pre-epiglottic space and the epiglottis. This is diffuse edema involving the epiglottis, and we can see it's narrowing the airway. So the term angina was initially described years ago, and I think initially by Dr. Ludwig, and it means strangulation. And the reason that patients with Ludwig's angina would present with strangulation is because they would have this diffuse inflammation involving the floor of the mouth. It would elevate the tongue base because of the firm floor of mouth soft tissues. It would narrow the airway, and that would give the patient the sensation of difficulty breathing. So in actuality, angina was initially described by us, the head and neck radiologist, and like many of the things in radiology, the term was stolen by the cardiologist.


I just want to take a few moments this morning. We have a wonderful morning. What I really want to do is to make sure we get plenty of time to get our four visiting scholars from elsewhere to come up and sit here and take your questions and get into a kind of informal discussion about history because, you know, it's great to have people from distinguished institutions come out and lecture and we're so privileged to have that joy here at the Roosevelt Center. When you get to see them talking amongst themselves in a casual way and disagreeing but respectfully and really showing us that history is not a settled narrative but it's an ongoing dialogue. It's a negotiation about the past. That's really important. It's not to think that there is some sort of a final narrative lying on anything. The history is up for grabs and that scholars who have plowed much the same ground can disagree pretty considerably about some important issues but they do it playfully, usually, and with mutual respect for each other's hard work and so I want to make sure we get plenty of time for that. But I thought it would be fun to start Valerie. The neighbor is going to come up in a short time. We're going to talk about how TR got out to Mount Rushmore, which is sort of an interesting story and Valerie is going to take the lead on that. But I thought I would just start by sort of setting the table this morning and talking a little bit about how early in his life Roosevelt was predicted to become the president of the United States. It's a really interesting story because if you think about it, I mean to say a couple preliminary things about this. First of all, one of the things you have to really watch for in history is what might be called the inevitability of retrospect. We know how the story came out, but they didn't know how the story was going to come out. And so I'll give you two quick examples. When we think of World War II, we think of the Battle of the Bulge and in the history of World War II we say, well, it was Hitler's last attempt to break out and it was doomed to fail and here are the reasons why. But of course at the time that wasn't so certain and everything that I read suggested that Hitler had a little bit more gasoline. That battle would have at least lasted a great deal longer with more loss of life. Or we think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the inevitability of retrospect, but when the first test of the atomic weapon occurred on July 16, 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer predicted that it would fail. If it had failed, the whole history of the end of World War II would have been quite different. Or just a third, with the inevitability of retrospect, we assume that Thomas Jefferson was the inevitable author of the Declaration of Independence, but it almost didn't happen. Jefferson was so diffident that he did not put himself forward and he was such a homebody that he lingers back at Monticello until very late in the second Continental Congress and they kept wondering where he was and he finally turned up very late in the game and they still gave him the opportunity as a young, relatively untried, Virginia radical to write this document. So when we look at it, we think, well, of course, it's Jefferson, but he nearly lost that assignment because he was dilatory. And so it's really important to remember how contingent history is and how things only gel when they gel. So let me just quickly look at it. When Roosevelt was first predicted to be president, I was talking to Professor Perry Arnold about this just before or after his talk the other night and I said to him, if Roosevelt hadn't become vice president and McKinley hadn't been assassinated, do you think Roosevelt would certainly have become the president of the United States in 1994 or 1998 or at some point? And he said no, it's far from clear that he would have been president of the United States and there were lots of reasons for that. He was a maverick, he was young, he had not paid his dues with the old stalwart Republican guard, he wasn't seen as a completely reliable party man. There was this streak of impulsiveness in his youthful character and so it may be that if McKinley had not been assassinated, Roosevelt might not have become the president of the United States. It's far from inevitable. And yet from a very early time in his life, it was predicted that he was presidential material or that he might become president. And interesting, I was talking to Amy about this. Some people had sort of reckoned about this earlier but really the first time that it was boldly stated that Roosevelt was going to be president or could quite likely be president was here during his time in western North Dakota. And I'll give you the anecdote in just a moment. I want to just go through a couple of earlier ones very quickly. In 1881, he was elected as the, he was born in 1858. So in 1881 he was elected as the youngest member ever up till then of the New York State Assembly. He served three terms and Puck, the magazine, Puck, the illustrated magazine, and by the way we now have a set of it digitized at the Roosevelt Center in Dickinson thanks to the Library of Congress. Puck said this of him. In a kind of Puck editorial. Be happy, Mr. Roosevelt. Be happy while you may. You are young. Yours is the time of roses, the time of illusions. Bright visions float before your eyes of what the party can and may do for you. We wish you a gradual and gentle awakening. You are not the timber of which presidents are made. That's 1881.  And he said later, I rose like a rocket. But he's already in his first term as a New York State Assemblyman, as a 23-year-old already being debated a little bit about whether his presidential material and Puck tells him in no uncertain terms, you are not. That's 1881. In 1883 he came here for the first time. He arrived here on September 6th, 7th. Came in later than night or the 6th early in the morning of the 7th and arrived, not here, but just across the river. So when you get out today, if you cross the river over to the other side, that's where the village of Little Missouri was. And that's where he came to it. Two or three in the morning on the night of 6th, 7th, September 1883 to kill a buffalo. There was no depot. There was no crew. They just stopped the train. He got off with a duffel bag and a rifle and he dragged it across the prairie to something called the Pyramid Park Hotel. He banged on the door. It took a long time for the intoxicated proprietor to open the door. Roosevelt said, I should like a room. And the proprietor said, there are no rooms. But there is a, what he called, a corral up on the second floor where there are 14 cots. One of them may be empty if you want it. It's two beds. And so here this New York proficient, the other Roosevelt, got his first taste of the West by sleeping in a room with 13 people he called the Ruffians. He went down to a ranch south of here to Head Quarter for his buffalo hunt. It was the Gregor Lang Ranch. It's about 40 miles south of the Madura. If you've been down to that part of the world, it's just north of Marmot that's in the mouth of the little cannonball creek. It's a very remote place. It's actually a ranch that's owned and operated by John and Mickey Brown. And the footings of the Gregor Lang cabin can be found, or at least one of them. He Head Quartered there for a couple of weeks. And during that time he would go out by day. It was weather much like this, only rainier rather than snowy. But the prairie was covered with muck and gumbo and his guide Joe Ferris said, there's no way you're going to get a buffalo. You should just quit. But Roosevelt wouldn't quit. And they went out day after day. But at night they would come back and Roosevelt, Joe Ferris would go to sleep. He was exhausted. Roosevelt would stay up talking to Gregor Lang about politics, about ranching, about the West, about the prospects of this country. And after about six days of this, Roosevelt said, you know, Mr. Lang, I should like to invest in the cattle business. What would you recommend? And Lang suggested that he could talk to a couple of other ranchers, Sylvain Ferris and W.A. Merrifield, and that they might help him. And that's exactly what happened. That's how Roosevelt, on that first trip to the Badlands in 1883, decided impulsively to invest in a ranch, the Maltese Cross. And that was a great project for $14,000. It had a very sizable amount of money to invest in the first of what would be two ranches. But as he left after this two-week stay with the Langs in this hunting period, Gregor Lang was an immigrant from Scotland who was here managing a ranch for a wealthy Englishman. Gregor Lang, when Roosevelt left, turned to his son Lincoln and says, there goes the most remarkable man I ever met. And he went on to say he predicted that we would hear great things about this Theodore Roosevelt. In 1886, a couple of years later, Roosevelt arrested the boat thieves up near Sherry Creek near the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The thieves had stolen his boat instead of just letting them go. He decided to chase them down and arrest them. He built a boat in order to follow them through a blizzard. He finally caught up with them. He had three desperados now on his hands and he couldn't get them to Bismarck and Mandan to turn them into the law. So in desperation, he finally decided to march them over land from Kildere, North Dakota, from the Diamond Sea Ranch at Kildere about 40 miles over that gum boat, Badlands Country, to Dickinson to the sheriff. And he did it. It was one of the great adventures and ordeals of his life. He went sleepless for three or four days. He couldn't tie up. He was all alone now. He'd send his ranch hands back to the ranch. He was all alone with these three desperados, one of whom was known as redheaded Mike Finnegan. And at night he couldn't tie them up because he was afraid they'd get frostbite. So his humanitarian instincts were out of war with his law and order instincts. And so since he couldn't tie them up, he made them take their boots off so that they couldn't run away. But he had to stay awake and act himself awake in typical Rooseveltian fashion by reading a book. He happened to have with him a copy of Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, one of the longest books ever written. And he had just been translated into English and he read it out loud with the boat thieves for days, stopping, he said, from time to time to engage in the literary criticism because he wasn't really a fan of this Tolstoy because Tolstoy, after all, wrote about adultery. And he finished the book. He actually read Warren Beath or Anna Karenina cover to cover for the boat thieves and then he ran out of book. And then that even more and probably he turned to redheaded Mike Finnegan and said, I say, old chap, you don't have a book, do you? And Finnegan had one. It was a dime novel about Jesse James and so Roosevelt said, let me borrow it. I'll return it after you release from the penitentiary. And then he read that out loud to the boat thieves and so whether all of this is strictly speaking true we don't know, but this is the account he wrote of it and Finnegan later became a kind of friend of Roosevelt's and we have the document in the Roosevelt Center of the letter that Finnegan eventually wrote from the penitentiary for Roosevelt saying that if he had known that it had been Roosevelt's boat he wouldn't have stolen it, thank you. But while he was in prison he had been reading Roosevelt's writing that he found him, quote, fascinating friendship with him. Anyway, when he got to both things finally to Dickinson he was as tired a young man as you could possibly imagine and his feet were all torn up from all of this madcap hiking across the plains and so he was walking down the street of Dickinson which was then just a forlorn little cattle village, some of you I suppose may think it remains that, but but he was, I always I gave this talk recently and it was about the agrarian vision and I reminded this audience that in North Dakota, and this is really true for our guests from elsewhere, in North Dakota I grew up in Dickinson, a town then of 12,500 people and the fact that I grew up in Dickinson is held against me from an agrarian point of view, that's regarded as an urban situation in North Dakota. This would not be true in any other state but if you come from a megalopolis of 12,000 people you're discredited from an agrarian point of view here, that tells you how puny we really are. Anyway, he gets his feet are all torn up and so he's walking down the street and he comes to the first gentleman he sees and says, can you point me to a doctor and the person that he has chosen turns out to be the doctor Dr. Victor Hugo Stickney and Stickney says I'll take care of you, so Roosevelt goes off to his doctor's shop gets his feet bandaged and repaired a little bit and then he goes off to a meeting that night of the Little Missouri cattle association here, but when he this was Dr. Victor Hugo Stickney's account of Roosevelt he says he was all teeth and eyes but even so he seemed a man unusually wide awake you could see he was thrilled by the adventures he had been through he did not seem to think he had done anything particularly commendable, but he was in his own phrase, pleased as punch at the idea of having participated in a real adventure he was just like a boy and then he goes on to say to his correspondent we are going to hear amazing things about this man in the future who those aren't precisely predictions of the presidency but they're predictions of something stellar and Perry Arnold said the other night you know it would have been possible that Roosevelt would have just been an imperial land baron like so many others out here at one point after the death of his wife Alice he thought he might live here permanently and leave New York behind and he said he might when North Dakota finally became a state he might wish to run for the senate or be governor or something so he could have had a very interesting mid-level career it would have been much more likely but if he had let's just assume for a moment that he had become a senator from North Dakota or he had never risen very high he had risen to some mid-level in American life it would be a very different story not just because he wasn't president but that sort of interesting and peculiar character set impulsiveness the heroic element the romantic element the quest for adventure the physical capacity of Roosevelt all those things I hope you agree with this all those qualities that make him so magical as a president maybe the most unusual president in American history from that perspective would have been less interesting had he been a senator we would have found it easier to dismiss that set of qualities as he had he been a senator that he was a wild eccentric or an impulsive maverick but when you get to be the president with that set of qualities it changes the equation pretty considerably it makes what could be a deficit character set in some respects become a magical character set because it's so out of character for the presidency if you think of a presidency like Warren Harding or Calvin Coolidge or Rutherford B. Hayes they're stayed they're in bodily body control they're sedentary people they're people that are characterized by self restraint and then here's this cowboy maverick that's part of what I think put him on Rushmore Welty on the basis of that meeting that he had the stick knee in the middle of 1886 the stick knee invited Roosevelt to come give the 4th of July address in Dickinson that year so just a few months later the first ever 4th of July celebration in Dickinson and I told you a little bit yesterday about what our plans are and the sort of commemoration of that we found the place where this occurred so Roosevelt does come and here's the story he's in Medora about 35 miles from Dickinson he comes in that morning on the train but there's no passenger train so he comes in on the freight train in the morning with a couple of pals but also including a frontier journalist from here Arthur Packard who had created the wonderful newspaper here the Badlands Cowboy and so Packard is about the same age as Roosevelt he's a graduate of the University of Michigan the Badlands, they're both intellectual so they become close friends out here and Packard travels with Roosevelt on a freight train from Medora to Dickinson for the 4th of July celebration and there's a long and interesting account of that celebration there were parades and there were bands and there were several speeches Roosevelt gave the Senate of two patriotic speeches the presiding officer of that 4th of July celebration was a man named Western Star that was his actual name and he was the sheriff the sheriff Western Star that was almost too good to be true and maybe is but he was the presiding officer so then Roosevelt gives that speech in which he says like all Americans I like big things, big parades and so on that kind of over the top this country is magnificent speech and he has a life shot of it as they are going back to Medora this time he and A.T. Packard are on a passenger train freight train to Dickinson passenger train later that day back to Medora all the way Roosevelt is all hepped up from his speech and so he's talking to A.T. Packard about government, about civil service reform and about their navy we can't have corruption and there are many problems that this country must solve and you just have this picture of him just jabbering the whole way from Dickinson to Medora and finally Packard says to him he says if you continue along these lines you will become the president of the United States this is July 4th 1886 Roosevelt is still in his 20s Packard says if you continue along these lines you will become the president of the United States and then Packard wrote about this letter he said he gave me the impression of having thoroughly considered that matter previously and have arrived at the same conclusion so this is 1886 Packard, I think she's going to do this heroic thing and Roosevelt has already long sense of assimilation of that but Roosevelt replies to him if your prophecy comes true I will do my part to make a good one so there we go the first certain prediction that we have in Roosevelt becoming the president of the United States was July 4th 1886 in western North Dakota by a frontier journalist and the prediction turned out to be true here just a couple of others it's one little scene I want to show you from 1895 when he's the US Civil Service Commissioner but in 1901 William Allen White of the Emporia Kansas Gazette wrote and now he's just our Vice President he says there's no man in America today whose personality is rooted deeper in the hearts of the people than Theodore Roosevelt is more than a presidential possibility in 1904 is a presidential probability is becoming the American of the 20th century when he was just back from Cuba after his heroics there Thomas Platt was considering whether to promote Roosevelt for the governorship of New York Platt who was a very very very true politician said of Roosevelt if he becomes the governor of New York sooner or later with his personality he will have to be the president of the United States I am afraid to start this thing going gosh and he did start this thing going and Roosevelt did move quickly thereafter into the presidency when he was the New York State Police Commissioner his closest friend Henry Cabot Lodge Lodge really was his patron he managed Roosevelt's political career he was his deepest promoter until at least 1912 when they broke over the Bolmous campaign but Lodge said to him when he became New York Police City Commissioner in a much more knowing and restrained way he said to Roosevelt quote the day is not far distant when you will come into a large kingdom and so he too is predicting that Roosevelt will certainly rise much higher than New York City Police Commissioner I'll just close this with one more this is a marvelous moment when Roosevelt is the New York City Police Commissioner the president of the commission he's doing with that job what he does with every other one he's making it a heroic job rather than a mild bureaucratic administrative one and two of America's greatest journalists reformist journalists Lincoln Stephens and Jacob Rees Jacob Rees is actually Danish I'm sort of on the beat on the assignment in New York and they are young protégés or disciples or admirers and they come to see him every day to hang out and be with this man of destiny and Jacob Rees actually becomes a very important figure in Roosevelt's life because he introduces Roosevelt to the world of the slums and the tenements and if you remember Rees wrote that extraordinarily important book about the cities of the other half lives using a pioneering new technology the flashball to be able to take pictures inside these dank and gloomy tenements and that book changed Roosevelt's life in fact he got a copy of the book that Rees sent to him and immediately the next day went to Rees's office and left a card saying I'm Theodore Roosevelt and I'm here to help and they became good friends and Lincoln Stephens was another huckraker a term coined by Roosevelt and they used to come as young men to be with this other young man Roosevelt at the police commission headquarters and here's the scene if you know the story of Roosevelt this is 1895 you've read this before they decided one day having read something in the commercial advertiser that Roosevelt might be regarded as a possible next president after Cleveland they decided to come in and tease Roosevelt and so Lincoln Stephens and Jacob Rees come into his office and say so Commissioner Roosevelt isn't true that you have the ambition to become the president of the United States and here's the account that Stephens wrote about it Roosevelt jumped out from behind his desk fists clenched teeth bared and he seemed about to throttle Rees and me don't you dare ask me that Fiar yelled at Rees don't you put such ideas into my head no friend of mine would ever say a thing like that you calms down a little he came back up to Rees he put his arm over his shoulder and this closer and said you must never either of you remind the man that worked on a political job that he may be president it almost always kills him politically he loses his nerve he can't do his work he gives up the very traits that are making him a possibility I for instance, I am going to do great things here hard things that require all the courage, ability and work that I am capable of but if I get to thinking of what might he stopped he held us off and looked into our faces with his face screwed up into a knot as with lowered voice he said slowly I must be wanting to be president every young man does of course but I won't let myself think of it I must not because if I do I will begin to work for it I'll be careful, calculating cautious in word and act and so I'll beat myself again he looked at us as if we were enemies then he threw us away from him and went back to his work go on the way now he said and don't you ever mention that don't you ever mention that something to me again isn't this interesting that here's this man and I want, when Perry comes back up I wanted to talk about this it's not inevitable that he would have become the president in the United States but he did become the president in the United States and more than any other figure I know from our history there were people predicting it from a relatively early age when he was in his 20s and as we said before he became the youngest president in American history at 42 years and 322 days if you think about figures like this how many people in the history of the presidents have been predicted to be president well George Washington but that doesn't really count because the country was very young man but do you think Dwight Eisenhower was predicted to be president from his 20s no, Jimmy Carter certainly not George W. Bush no, James Madison no, Warren Harding you could make a list of almost every president that there was no prediction that this was going to happen that life reached some sort of a crossroads or some sort of a heightened moment and then things changed Dwight Eisenhower was a war hero people come into the presidency for lots of reasons the closest you could come in my life and I suppose would be John F. Kennedy but as you know his father predicted his other sons Joseph Kennedy was to be the president of the United States this is a very unusual thing the presidency is largely a political accident and most people who wind up there have paid their dues in all sorts of non-descript ways for a very long time and then suddenly there's an effervescence that leads them into that office but Roosevelt, at least since 1881 and maybe sooner his sister Karine says that even as a child they sort of said, oh he'll be president this is of all the presidents on our history I think this is the person who was predicted to be president from the earliest age and yet he came in through the back door and our imminent political scientist says he might not have been able to come through the front entrance so we'll let that be the start of the conversation we have here in a minute


And now for your strong Europe spotlight. After a successful rotation supporting the Atlantic Resolve, Third Squadron's Second Cavalry Regiment returned to their home station in Bilsack, Germany. About 100 strikers and support vehicles made the 1836 kilometer trek, crossing five international borders. Along the route, soldiers were met with enthusiastic support from locals. After traveling most of the route in three separate groups, the unit reunited in Prague, Czech Republic, before making the final leg of their trip home. Dragoonride was the longest convoy since World War II, and in experience the soldiers will never forget. This is my first ever long convoy, and I think it was a great experience. And then I just love the people. I love meeting new people and making new friends. Dragoonride not only showed the unit's movement and maintenance capabilities, but demonstrates the US Army's ability to move freely throughout NATO countries. For more information on Atlantic Resolve and other happenings throughout Army Europe, visit er.army.mil.


Hey, hey, hey. It's five o'clock. It's time for watch me work where we're gonna get some work done today It's April Fool's Day. No fooling. We're gonna get some work done I'm SLP. We've been doing this show for like 14 15 years We started out in the theater down the street from the public theater And then we moved into the lobby of the public theater and then when COVID came we moved on to zoom and here We will be hopefully forever more and And we are embraced we've been embraced by howl around the whole way new work department at the public theater Yay, we love the new work department at the public theater We're gonna work together for 20 minutes and then after that if you wish to Ask me a question about your work. You're creative process keeping in mind that We don't have time for you to present your work But we do have plenty of time to talk shop if you would like to do so Zoe from new work department is gonna tell you how to do it. Sorry new work development. Sorry about that Yes, thank you SLP and welcome to another great session of watch me work after the 20 minute work session Um, if you have a question, please go ahead and use the raise your hand function Down in your reactions button and we'll get a nice cute questions going and then from there We will call on your name and ask you to unmute. Thank you Thank you Don't further ado. We're gonna get started Okay, here we go. Okay. Okay Anyone have any Questions anything they want to talk about any shop questions here, right? Yeah, the question Please use the raise your hand function will fall on you. Thank you, Rocky. Please go ahead and unmute yourself Hey, how are you?   Maybe take a visit there get to know where they might be from is that that's really vague Because I don't know exactly what you're what you're meaning What do you what do you think just get to get familiar with the environment that you want to get familiar with and maybe You'll get some insights as to what your characters from that place might be doing or saying Or not it was it not a question of location um it can be I just got to this part where I realized I have to meet a bunch of new people and They can be anyone so Oh, maybe I'll take a journey Yeah, they can be anyone so so you're wanting them to be different from the people you usually write about I think so I Didn't I didn't I just got to this point so maybe it could be people some people I know some people I don't know but Because I realized it's like a lot of different people. Oh, it just kind of seems like it can be anyone and I'm like who it's just it just seems like an invitation to meet some new people I guess Do you live near a Subway where do you live? I don't know where you live. I'm sorry you cut out. Where did you say in New Haven? Okay, so there's public transportation in New Haven, right? Um Not really Yeah, there is The shot there's the Metro North, right? Yeah Okay, well, you could you could write take a little ride a little bit of a ride on the Metro North a couple of stops, you know And just look around look around say who these people, you know And if you don't ordinarily do that those are you gonna be your mind is gonna be flooded with images of people that you Don't ordinarily sit next to if you don't ride the Metro North very often and just say and and select a handful of those folks You know to base your characters on that might be fun See what the universe provides for you on any given day Fulls day-to-day people. Oh my goodness. What a good question And you get a ride on the Metro North. What could be better? True. I need a Thank you. You're welcome. Great question. Thank you Thank you, Rocky Hi, Julian. You can unmute yourself. Hi Hi, I'll be hi. How are you? Good? Good to see you. I also have to say shout out to Siobhan who I went to your school with She's next but anyway, I was just in New York and I saw Sally and Tom so Thank you so much. Thank you means a lot. Thanks for coming by Yeah, so my question is I'm in this process. Okay, okay, so what I'm doing is I am working on the character development And I'm writing things out and it's feeling like it's interactive and it's immersive But my question is how do you write outside of format? So right now? I'm listening to the characters and I'm communing with them and We're having our little kikis and I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what for you know I don't want to get caught up on format, but I want to keep doing work But I know at some point I'm gonna have to commit to format to get this done So I guess how do you think about that when you were like living with the story and you haven't quite, you know You're moving forward in it, but you don't really know the best format for it or you feel like it could be multiple You mean format like I'm not quite sure but I know what you're talking about format like what do you mean? Like it's a versus a screenplay Right sure sure sure okay, I get I get I get it so you ask yourself so how do you you look in your mind's eye? How do you see it? Do you see it on the stage? Right now I see it as an interactive like immersive piece So I see it as just being like the people are in the space with the characters and Unicating with them. So that's how I see it great.  What are the characters want that the questions in my experience are the same regardless of the format Right so novel it could be a play it could be a screenplay it could be an episode of television the questions are the same What are the characters want? What are they doing? Well, what's the story? You know, how did these scenes forward the story? Yeah, I've been asking those same questions and I started like dedicating to format and then I said nope It's exactly what you said. It's the same questions regardless of what the format is. So I think the reason I'm I'm at this Format crossroads now is because now I don't know where to take it, you know Am I taking it to my screenwriting group? Am I taking it to my theater people? But maybe I don't need to get there yet. Maybe I just need to But if you see it as an interactive thing the sounds like you take it to your theater people or your interactive group if you have An active group, you know, okay Yeah, and that's not sweat it too much the main thing is it just to take it somewhere and Start writing and if you find it's wrong in the wrong place and take it somewhere else You know, none of the groups are gonna crush it if they're good groups Yeah, no for sure. Yeah, okay. Sounds like fun. Thank you. Great question. Thanks Thank you, Julian. Hi, Chiffon. You can unmute whenever you're ready. Hi, Chiffon You're muted Hi, I am wondering if you have ideas or strategies about I Have two commissions right now that are theater-free on audiences And I don't only write theater-free on audiences but have to be working on two at the same time So I'm wondering do you have ideas or strategies you use to keep the characters in their own world and not interacting with each other when you don't want them to like and Influencing each other where you don't want them to Especially if they are sort of similar in demographic, right? I'm in two worlds of similar demographics But I don't I want to really make sure that I keep them separate But I'm just looking for ideas on like how to do that, right? I just just be specific about their story, you know I mean if one character is there, you know, they again they live in rural Minnesota be specific about whatever they're going through And they're just trying to decide whether or not they're gonna buy a new farm to plant Chronic to make money That's one story, you know, I mean, I don't know and the other folks are living in Miami and deciding whether or not They want to spend the day at the beach be really specific about what they're doing really specific about their story Really, I mean there and there might be some some Cross fertilization and but that's okay. It's your work. So you're allowed to do that. That's okay There's nothing wrong with that, especially if you're writing two things at the same time You know, but try to get really really specific or work on getting really really specific Thank you. You're welcome. Good question. Hi, Lisa You can unmute yourself Hello, how are you? Lisa? How are you? Good to see you? Thank you It's nice to be here. I am working on this play Which skips back and forth in time, which is fine and I realize that I'm kind of out skipping myself in time in that I Guess I'm basically asking for Organization hints. I don't always like to write in order Because sometimes I think I'll I'll say today. I want to write this scene and I'll write that scene Mm-hmm, you know in the next day I want to do that But I'm getting caught up in my own enthusiasm for a non linear screenplay and or sorry play right play so I'm wondering if I Don't know I feel like I'm there might be some technique that I'm kind of missing or Then I'm not doing this right or I've got the index cards on the wall kind of thing and I'm moving them around But maybe there's something else. So I thought I'd ask Well, that's a great question. So you've got the index cards on the wall And you said you're moving them around Yes, because the play jumps around in time and sometimes this scene emphasizes or adds to a scene that went before It's not entirely chronological But I don't think I wanted the scenes are the scenes go in a certain order Eventually they will yes right now. They're just kind of all Swirling around So you might want to just put them in an order that makes sense to you right now And write them in an order. I mean, that's you say you might be missing something an organizational tool, you know Time even even for the moment is a great organizational tool and You can use it instead of say I want to be so free of it that I'm disorganized. Yeah Yeah, and if we weren't working for 20 minutes, you know, we'd still be working or we wouldn't have shown up at all or What day is it? I don't know, you know So why don't we employ what we like and what's going to help us and don't worry about the rest You want it to jump around in time eventually great, but you can decide just for the purposes of writing What the order is that And then you can move it around as you become more solid with it Um, I keep talking. Yeah, I think I do agree with that um And I don't want this to sound hyper indulgent or anything but Uh, but sometimes I know that you know scene b should go between a and c But I don't feel like writing scene c and I decide I want to write scene g instead Right, that's fine. So but you on your wall, you have them in writing order Right in writing in order, right? So just Or in or in the order that they would appear in the play eventually for now, right? You have that order established write the Write the ones you want to write in the order that you feel like writing them keep them in The play order, you know, and we keep them in the order. They will appear eventually in the play for now write them in the order you want and You have to be okay with being confused Sometimes, you know, but just when you when you feel confused just look back at the line and go, okay Right now, I feel like writing g.  I'm on the right track Even though I'd like to jump around um Yeah, just try to keep going. That's the thing.  It's all right. All right. Good. I'll I'll put all in my confusion. I just tape tape them to keep them taped to your wall. That's a great great strategy. You already have Okay Okay, thank you Thank you, Lisa Emmanuel are you from France again? Are you back? I haven't seen you in ages Yes, I'm back Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. It's good to see you It's very nice to be back Thank you.  Um, hi, I'm sorry. I feel like this one's gonna be a bad one. How are you doing? Oh, I'm good. Wait, do you remember me? It's I don't know why I asked that I don't know No, because I just feel like because I haven't been here for a while But I guess my question is kind of like because one reason why I found like watch me work Is just because of like just your talks online and your videos because I also feel like you give like good life advice for like Writers and stuff. So my question isn't specifically like about writing But um, one reason I haven't been here is just because I feel like lately I've just been like sort of like living life more recently I don't know like just like really getting to like know myself better and to just You know do a lot of things to like really like take care of myself and like to like grow as a person and grow in community And like, you know start new relationships and things like that But sometimes I worry because it kind of makes me a little bit more like behind on my work Or maybe in terms of even my own creative work, which right now in my life I just mostly kind of do on the side because I'm like still like a full-time student I don't necessarily like have a creative writing major Um, it makes me like a bit behind and sometimes I feel a build a bit guilty If I'm like putting off time that I could be like working in developing projects to sort of just like You know, like live life So I just wanted to ask for just general advice for striking a balance or like how even important is it to like still like You know Really develop just especially like as like a young writer to like, I don't know like do you have any advice? Any thoughts?  I'm proud of myself.  Whatever you do So you want you do want to take care of yourself and do self-care things and meet new people and and enjoy yourself And you want to put in a little time for your writing in my experience writing is like Grace you have like a A savings account in the bank at the bank It doesn't have to be a brick and mortar bank, but do you have like a do you put money aside? Uh, I mean, yes I try to yes, okay.  It's like putting a little money aside in the bank Mmm, that's also in addition to meeting friends doing, you know, whatever self-care things Maybe spa dates or hanging out with friends that In social situations that is great And if you're thinking about maybe maybe you'd like to have a life in the Arts, let's just say or a deeper spiritual life You'll want to do a little bit of your work every day just a little there's a smidgen So put that on the if you have a plate, you know of lovely things that you do for yourself Remember that that's the kind of self-care You know the in artistic process Is also a form of self-care But I also will say that I feel like the content of my work is not like as good Because I'm like because I feel like you know the place that like I feel like I need to go for my writing and my work is maybe I don't know.  Like well, I'm not like stupid like very like mean you'll task like uh, maybe like very practical like planning of stories and like not really um really working with like the language for example, you know Yeah, and You know, it's it's good to put a little bit aside even if you're considering you're feeling like it's not high quality stuff It's because you're getting in the habit Of giving to yourself in one of the deepest and most beautiful ways you can It's like do you do yoga? Yeah, I do Great. Do you do meditation? Mm-hmm Great. Okay. So those are two excellent habits that you already have so you have a daily meditation practice You have a daily maybe daily yoga practice You you also have a little tiny small 10 minutes of daily writing You want to get in the habit of giving that to yourself? And it will grow and flower just that that's all just add that to the wonderful things that you're doing That's all Okay, thank you. Thank you. Great question Thanks, Grace Hi, Rebecca. Can I meet you? Hi. Hi, SLP. How are you? Um, well, how's it going? Uh, it's it's interesting. Um I have a section of the manuscript that's That's a mess And uh, and it's it's a mess because First of all because my great-grandfather keeps interrupting and like wanting Wanting me to do something which Um, I'm I'm not accomplishing and uh I never met my great-grandfather great-grandfather, so um, but It's also I mean some of it is a space time problems Some of it is How much of me is in there that's part of the the grand great-grandfather problem that I've been I started reading There's a book about web the boys and the first world war and I started reading it because of the current number of wars And I get to the second chapter and there's the name of someone who was lynched who was probably a relative by marriage in 1917 and it's just like I I'm feeling kind of caught in this um I'm feeling like I'm caught in something where I need to sort of balance what these stories mean And and move them along and and the space time problem is is it's a section about the black press And the as opposed to the white press and reporting on lynchings and such um so and I'm not I mean some of this is just kind of saying it out loud that it's it feels It just feels very odd to keep tripping over these these things and um in With my great-grandfather. I thought that I had the genealogical information and I realized it was wrong um And it wasn't because he was always lying about his age is because nobody was actually reading his age, right? He lied about his name which made which was the whole thing and then figuring that out Or maybe who knows if Maybe he had to make two different enslavers and he had two different names. So it's like that I get caught in these You know and the real issue is getting at Getting to the point where I can talk about the man who wrote about The main lynching in the book Who wrote for a kansas press? because And and memphis didn't even have a press at the time because you know, Ida B. Wells been run out and all that so So I'm just it's just I'm I'm just very Very frustrated with it at this point And I printed it that for our time I was just going through it was like this is a mess this is like What what how do I get to this point and I keep not feeling like I can get to the point about The internet. I'm sorry my internet's unstable the get to the point about The journalists who I want to write about And I don't know it's just because of my need to explain history to people or um my Inability to figure out where the character that is me. I mean, this is this is non fiction, but still it's not Me me. It's the person I'm In relationship to the material that's in in the manuscript me So anyways, that may make no sense, but um, it almost doesn't but I had to put on I had to put on my smart cap there. Um, um What is your the the character you talk about the character who's Not not you but the the character in a question. You're what do they want? in that So there's Me who will find a rabbit hole me me who will find a rabbit hole and go down it Given any opportunity and The Character that's me in this part of the manuscript Wants to know where her great grandfather was born And why he went to Tennessee, right?  I'm in a rabbit hole.   You see a rabbit hole. Guess what rebecca? Don't get in the rabbit hole. Don't go in the rabbit hole. You know, it's a rabbit hole Don't go in focus on you stay with your character because you're walking side by side her the character in the in the work, right? And every time you go in the rabbit hole you abandon her You like better things to do then figure out and help you get to where you want to go I'm going over here.     Okay Just every time you see yourself about to click on whatever it is that you think Mm-hmm Focus on helping her get what she wants Remind yourself that that's your job right now Your job is not to be alice Or wasn't that the one who went down the rabbit hole? Yes I mean she had a good time whatever, but you know, that's not your job right now. That's not your job right now Where why he went to Tennessee is central To the section Okay Trying to figure it out. So figure it out. So so figure it out Figure walk around just make that the central thing that you're thinking about like all the time I can't figure it out. Mm-hmm. Did you say you can't figure it out? No, you're supposed to say I know already I'm just not listening hard enough because I keep going down these rabbit holes I know I know why he went to Tennessee. Whatever. I know I know the answer I just have to keep listening. It's right here. I just have to keep leaning in you have to hypnotize yourself into The the the outcome that you want instead of hypnotizing yourself into the outcome that you don't want This we know. Yes. Yes, this is yeah, I mean it's happened in other parts of the the manuscript where All of a sudden it's like Yeah Yeah, so just do it now you you have you've established that you have that superpower just use it here Yeah, you know It's it'll be fun. You'll you'll get to hang out with your character full time. Stay out of the rabbit holes. You're not a rabbit Yeah Not now. Okay report back please because you know we want to know Yeah, yeah I will I will let you know Thank you, Rebecca You're welcome. Thank you Thank you. Please go ahead and unmute yourself Hi Susan, how are you doing? Hi, how are you? How's it going? Very well. Thank you so much Uh, so two weeks ago two sessions ago you shared about how water boils better when the lid is on And you're really resonated with me and I kept on thinking about it Especially when I have conversations with people about my work I started to be more conscious about what I share what I talk about But I found it in practice It's actually really hard to do because it's so easy to get excited and share a lot about the work while you're still in the creative process So I'm curious about in your practice, especially when you are in the myth of the creative process Do you set a personal boundary About how much you share with people when people ask about your work When do you choose to share more information and when do you choose to be more brief? Yeah, that's a great question and and this works for me, you know, some people, I mean Some people can only figure it out if they if they have what I call a telebration before they have the celebration I like getting the work done and then having the party, you know, I like talking about it when it's more done than not That's my personal. So that's why I give that kind of advice But I set a very strict personal boundary. I don't tell people You know Some my students ask me my friends. What am I working on like that? I have piles of stuff that I'm doing that I don't talk about I do find people though a few people like my husband, you know, you know You know clothes people very close to me who hear every word every line every lyric from a song every chord Bless their hearts for listening, but I don't tell You know people out outside of my house my house my Bedroom and a half apartment What I'm doing No No, I I and I find that I can Hear it better if it's just in my head You know When a play has it has to have a workshop and that's different you have to Disseminate scripts to people and you have to share and you you have actors wonderful amplifiers And they tell they give you their ideas and fantastic and producers and all that. Um, but until then um I don't Thank you But I just want you I want you to develop also it helps you develop the confidence in your own voice You know, can you get into a habit of encouraging yourself or have like your best friend or Really close confidant on your spouse or whatever your partner. They're helping you encourage yourself. You know you're building that up Thank you You thank great question though Give a shout out ace ace is here carols here. I just want to say hi to people Oh, okay gracious back, but hi hi ace. Hi carols. Good to see you. Good to see you. Sorry Are we allowed to ask more than one question? I just wanted to ask a follow up question based on like some of the answers You gave after mine, but um, I guess what's one way that you can like because you talk a lot about like intuition and stuff and like Uh, like listening to your own voice and also like, you know, sort of making sure you are like falling Following like a specific path like when you're really like working on a story working on your characters But what's one way that um, we can like grow our intuition like as writers like Or like one tip that you like to do. Yeah, sure meditation practice Is kind of the best thing you have one already meditation practice and a lot of times you just um, it comes from Listening sometimes that means keeping your mouth closed and Hearing what you have to say, you know hearing what's going on in your head and going oh You know listening to your gut, which is your other brain, you know, you all know that right if you don't have you heard that Looking up on the internet You've got you know things going on in your stomach area that are mirror or mimic the things going on in your thinking area Um Just start listening in you know, if you hear yourself saying things like oh, I'm never going to figure it out I'm never going to figure it out. Whoo. Ha ha ha ha, you know try to listen into what you're saying to yourself And try to work from there to to course correct to encourage yourself to give yourself courage You know um And and enjoy your alone time You know alone time isn't lonely. Enjoy your alone time. Enjoy your lack of screen time You know, the first thing you do is wake up and you're looking at you You know your device or whatever you're wonderful. We love technology and You might want to try not looking at it first thing in the morning people First thing in the morning, you might want to sit in silence Even if you just sit up in in bed or in your sleeping place and breathe in and say wow, I'm so I'm so glad to be here You know attitude of gratitude. That's another wonderful thing Just walk around in your head and say, you know mentioned things that you're thankful for I'm thankful for zoom I'm thankful for watch me work. I'm thankful for this wonderful community, you know, just start to say things like that You know all that all that woo woo new agey stuff that we sometimes laugh at but it's actually a lot of it is very helpful You know, does that help grace? Um, yeah, I it really does. Yeah, I think part of the reason ironically I haven't been like writing is just trying to do a lot of that and really build my practice Because it really wasn't until like a couple months ago that I did start Working in a daily like meditation practice and yoga practice But I also need to make sure that I'm finding time to physically do writing and kind of You know, physically work with language and kind of remember like why I like started all of this stuff in the first place Um, because I do find that finding that practice like takes time um, but yeah, and it's also really interesting how like all of these like things are related like You know the personal things that like one does in their own life Like when he's in all of that like it all feeds back into like sort of like the language. So thank you. Yeah, it was super helpful Thank you For the week You do that. It's like the watch me work tip of the week like I'm not but it's it's what we're some of the things we're talking about today that you know, your creative practice is in my Uh understanding one of the best forms of self-care Your creative practice whatever that is you can be like some of us were choreographers Some of us are writers playwrights poets musicians. We like to just go for walks We or we do, you know competitive skiing or woodworking or whatever those things that you give yourself um, you when you can look back on your day When you can look back on your week and say I did a little something for myself I didn't spend my free time in front of the television people and I know there are a lot of good shows and we love our shows You know, but uh, you want to you want to replenish the well you want to give to yourself. That's very important Especially in these times Yeah, you know what i'm talking about Hey, we need to stay strong. We need to stay open. We need to stay strong and open It's six o'clock It's six o'clock It's april fool's day, uh, we love you. We're giving you love on april fool's day. No fool and Lots and lots of love. I love this community. It's so joyous to me To be able to meet with you guys, uh, you all on monday's At five o'clock. Thank you new work development. Thank you howl round


Hello everyone, welcome to the Pictoblox machine learning environment tutorial series. In this tutorial, we are going to learn about image classification. It is one of the machine learning model types which can be trained in Pictoblox. Image classification is used for classifying images into different classes based on their characteristics. For example, classifying whether the image has a cat or a dog. Assign whether I am wearing a mask or not. In this example, we are going to make a mask and detector in Pictoblox. Here Pictoblox will identify three conditions. Person is wearing a mask, person is not wearing a mask and person is wearing the mask improperly. Let's get started. Open Pictoblox and select the block coding environment. Go to the machine learning environment by selecting the open ml environment option under the file tab. As we are training our models in Python, it is important that we have the required dependencies. In order to download these dependencies, simply click on the gear icon on the top right of the screen and select the download dependencies option. This will download and update the dependencies required to train the model. Click on the create new project option to initialize your project. Type an appropriate name of the project and select the image classifier as the model type. Click on the create project button and you will see the image classifier window. When you are greeted with the image classifier window, you will see two classes. Class 1 and class 2 made for you by default. Let's understand what a class is. Class is basically the category in which the model classifies the images. Like for dog images, you have a different class called dog and for all the cat images are added under the class name cat. Coming back to the project. Edit the first class name to mask on. There are three ways in which you can add data to your project. Using your device webcam to click image samples, use the upload button to upload images from your device and using the upload classes from folder button to import an entire data set. For this example, we will take the images from the camera. Click on the hold to record button to capture the with mask images. You will need at least 20 images to train the class. For this example, you can take 200 photos with different head orientations. If you want to delete any image, hover over it and click on the delete button. Once uploaded, you will be able to see the images in the class. Rename class 2 as mask off and take the samples from the webcam. Click the add class button and you shall see a new class. Training the class to mask wrong. As a thumb rule, you should try to add an equal number of images in every class. Large variations in data can be a problem by training the model. Training is where the classifier extracts features from the added data and trains a model to recognize the images in the classes. This way, the model will be able to classify unseen images as per the classes provided. Use the advanced tab to alter the hyperparameters of the model. In the image classifier, you can play around with epochs, bath size and learning rate. Do note that learning rate is an extremely sensitive hyperparameter and can greatly affect the performance of your model. Picto blocks gives you an option to train the image classification in both JavaScript and Python. Just flick the switch on top of the training box to cycle between the two. Training the model might take some time. Keep a check on the accuracy graph while training is done. You can view a comprehensive report of your model performance in the trained report. The trained report consists of the accuracy and loss curve of the model, the confusion matrix of the model and the true positives, false negatives and false positives for each class. Once training is complete, it's time to test our model on alien data. The model trains itself on the images we provide, but a model is only useful if it can classify alien data just as well as it classifies the training data. This is where model testing comes into play. You can test the images here. Much like training, testing can be done either by a device's webcam or by uploading data from your device. Start the camera and test the model. Now click on the export model button on the top right of the testing box and Picto blocks will load your model into the block coding environment. Observe how we have blocks for the model we just trained on the block palette. You can click on the open recognition window block and test the model's working. Add the when flag click block and the forever block into the scripting area and snap them together. Now, add a turn video on stage with transparency block above the forever block. Select on and zero as transparency. This will make the camera feed show up on the stage. Drag and drop the if block inside the forever block. Then add the analyze image form block above the if block and select the web camera as feed. Then add the is identified class block in the condition space. Select the class as mask on. From the looks palette add a save block inside the if block. Write the message thank you for wearing the mask properly. Duplicate the if block and snap it below the first if block. Select the class as mask off. Change the text in the block to say please wear the mask. Now duplicate the if block and snap it below the first if block. Select the class as mask wrong. Change the text in the block to say please wear the mask properly. The script is now complete. Click the green flag to run the script. There you have it. You just use the image classification to make your very own mask detection project.