Hi everybody, my name is Megan Viscio and welcome to my class how to create your own fairy home. This is through the Voriesville Public Library with their summer reading program. So I'm so glad you're here. I'm a fine artist and I love anything miniature. I love nature and I love foraging in nature for objects to use in art. I love animals and rocks. So when I was asked to do this program I was so excited and I began collecting things immediately outside and in my house to put together this program for you. So I'm so glad you're here. So when I think about fairies I think about a mix between the borrowers and nature foragers and if you've never heard of the borrowers it's a book series and I remember it from being a kid. It was a miniature family who lived in a big house in I think in the wall or in the floorboards and they would make their house from things they found in the big house. So like their bed might be a matchbox or a thimble could be a garbage can or a empty thread spool would be a table and as a kid I just wanted to shrink down and get into those little spaces and see what it'd be like to live there and I still love miniatures to this day and I still make them. So that was my thought about borrower or the fairies. They're kind of a mix between the borrowers and nature foragers. So when I built my fairy home that's kind of what I was thinking about but I invite you to think about what your story is going to be before you build your fairy home. Are they going to be eclectic fairies and there's maybe a lot of stuff in the yard and inventions and neat little gadgets. Does your fairy home have a spooky feel? Is it haunted and is it a little rundown? Is it neat and tidy? Maybe the grass is all one level and the house is very neat and everything is in order or maybe it's an abandoned fairy home and there's a little for sale sign and there's cobwebs or do they have a lot of kids? Do they have a lot of pets? What are their pets? So take a little time to think what your story is. So before you begin you just want to get all your work tools together and here's just some ideas of things you might need. A work surface like an old paper bag or some newspaper. It gets pretty dirty so you just want to put that down on your work surface. A glue gun is optional. It helps for some things because it grabs really quick and it's pretty strong but only used with adult supervision. A rag for cleaning up messes. A popsicle stick is always handy. Some glue. I really like Aileen's tacky glue because it grabs really quick but anything you have at home would be okay. A pair of scissors. A paint brush if you choose to paint anything. A pencil and most importantly your imagination. Okay here's just a look at some of the things I put in your goodie bags. The cardboard tube that will be the fairy home was just a piece of cardboard tubing and I cut into sections and then drilled holes for a little window and the roof is just a plastic shell type thing that will protect the cardboard tube if you put your fairy home outside. It's plastic and it'll protect it from the rain and then that plastic plant tray is something you can get also at the dollar store. Okay so now it's time to go nature foraging and you can do this in your own backyard or if you want to get your family and go for a hike that your park has a lot of great items that are anywhere. The bike trail so just some places so think like a fairy and go out and forage. Just some things you can find. Sod I got this in my own backyard.  That's sod. Moss is great because even because it's still green so great in a fairy home it also kind of looks like miniature grass so you can find moss usually in a dark and wet place in the forest and there's tons of it. Only take what you need. Birch bark is also really cool for fairy homes. You can always find a fallen birch tree in the woods. I guarantee if you go on a hike or even in your backyard you'll always find a fallen birch tree so please only take from trees that have fallen because if you go taking the bark from a living tree it's going to hurt the tree. Stones and rocks are good. You can find them in your backyard really anywhere. Shells maybe you have a collection of shells at home. Those are great for fairy homes.  Okay so here's just a quick little tutorial of how I assembled my fairy home and what I did and there's no real science to this. Just use your imagination and have fun with it and just decide what you want to do and you are not limited to what you have in your goodie bag. If you find other things at home you'd like to use go ahead and use them. You don't not have to use what was given to you. It was just a kind of some things that might be fun and then you go from there. So first things we're going to do is we're going to take our plastic tray if you're going to choose to use this. If you're not again you can go right out into nature and build on a stump maybe or in a tree nook where it's been hollowed out. You can build right in there your fairy home. You don't have to use this. The nice thing about the tray dish is that it makes it a little more portable so you can take this out into nature and put it where you'd like it. So the first thing we're going to do is just we're going to take some rocks. This is just some gravel I had at home and you're just going to want to put a couple handfuls of gravel or rocks right in the bottom of your tray and what this is going to do is just help with drainage. So if you're putting living plants inside your dish you're going to want drainage so the roots aren't sitting in water and it's also going to give your tray some weight so if you do choose to put it out in nature it won't fly away. So I'm just going to go ahead and put my rocks in. That's probably good just enough to fill the bottom and then like I was mentioning this is sod from my backyard. I just dug it up and I found this kind of cool mossy type different type of grass. I don't know what it is but I thought it was cool and I liked how there was little tufts of grass in there. I gave it a little bit of unique flair. So I'm just going to go ahead and put those pieces aside wherever I want them. If you need to kind of break it up it breaks up really easily and then you just fit it to your dish. So maybe I'll put some over here and that's okay that you're breaking it up. That's perfectly fine. Now I've got a little space right here so again I just take some dirt that I have from outside and can put it right in there and if you want to put some stones under where your fairy house will be that might be a good idea because then it'll prevent the water from soaking up into your cardboard or if you have a big flat stone you could always lay a big flat stone right there and then put your fairy home on top of it. The less contact that cardboard tube has with water the better then it won't absorb the water. So anyway so I've got just my base here it's nice and heavy and now I can go and assemble my fairy home. So again you would in your kit if you got the kit you might have gotten two different types of tops one's kind of more flat plastic dish and one there's a little bug from my my sod we'll just let him go or there's this this type of like coconut roof and again I went with plastic so if you're putting this outside and you're putting it on that cardboard tube it's going to protect your cardboard tube from soaking in water because cardboard is not waterproof so if it's in a wet environment it will absorb that water. So you have those two types of tops and you have your cardboard tube so building your fairy home I kind of cut little windows in there you can use that as a window if you wanted to use it as the door you could and what I did with mine is just covered this whole thing in a little bit of moss and a little bit of bark the birch bark and then it was actually moss I had here it wasn't from nature I think it was from a train set not a train set it was from making miniatures like train sets a moss anyways I covered my tube in that and I just outlined my window in my door with a little bit of stones you want to make yourself a little door for your fairy home you can I just use cardboard and I'll grab I will show you that after I just use cardboard and I cut it out painted it brown that was my door you could use popsicle sticks you could even cut out a little door shape out of bark that could be your door but you want to have a little door for your fairy home and just cover the whole thing in whatever type of material you're going to use when I did the roof on mine as you'll see all I did was I took one of these pine cones and you guys will get these in your kit and I just you might be able to do it with your fingers I just plucked off all of these scales now this one's coming off easy just by hand that's good some of them are a little tougher and you might have to cut them off I plucked off all those scales and I just took my roof and I went around one by one starting at the bottom and I use hot glue for this just because I wanted to grab quickly and I just glued those pine cone scales one ring around then the next ring around and then the next and then I just finished at the top and you'll see that later in this video you'll see what I did so that's a way you can cover it you can also cover it with stones you can cover it with moss again this is your imagination this is your fairy home so build it any way you'd like an idea I thought when I when I had this kind of a little bit shallower coconut shell roof I thought oh it kind of looks like a mushroom so I just painted it red added a little white spots painted that cardboard tube red white and then it kind of looks like a little mushroom home so that's just a another idea maybe your fairy lives in a little mushroom so now once you've got your base all set you've got your stones in there you've got your sod or your dirt or your rocks whatever you're going to add to here and you've put your fairy home on then you're just going to landscape the rest of it and this is the really fun part I love this part too I'm going to move that out of there to get out of the way this is where you can add little stones around that'd be kind of cute to have little stones you can make a path and I thought this would be really cute what if you took one of your stones I'm going to take this one and this is just a piece of chalk you can draw little oh that's really hard on this little piece of rock you rock you can draw little flowers you can draw little designs on your rocks hearts or smiley faces I just thought that would be kind of a neat idea or you can leave them blank or you can flip them and then you got some of these mushrooms these are just foam little decorative mushrooms what's really cool about these is they just they just go right in you might need to bend that car that tube over they just go right in to your sod push them right in and then they're nice and sturdy there and here's some other ideas I wanted to show you this was the little bed I had I used that milkweed pod and all I did just going to get that out of the way so I told you it gets messy so you're going to want to either work outside or have a work paper down so all I did was took a cotton ball from my house and I wanted to tear it apart just to make it look more authentic and less like a cotton ball and I just stuck it right in that pod and then you can use a little blanket and I don't know pom pom pillow or no pillow but there's a little bed really easy one thing about fabric I want to show you so everybody has these nice neat squares but I don't know I don't think they look very authentic so I just want to teach you if you want to make your fabric look a little more weathered or that it was kind of found by a fairy and used maybe they you had an old shirt and you didn't need it anymore so it was I don't know given away or recycled or you cut it up into rags and the fairy found a little part of that shirt and was like oh we can use that in our houses so what I like to do when in my house when I made my fairy home is I just took the fabric this is not fraying too easily and I just pulled at it and made it look a little less perfect because I didn't want my fairy house to be too neat and tidy I wanted to have a little bit of character so you can just pull it and if actually that just kind of made something cool just pull it if you stretch it it kind of does something neat that makes a little look a little more authentic also with the fabric if you want to cut it into shapes maybe I made a bunting flag on mine so you could cut it into sort of like little triangle shapes or maybe you want to make a pair of fun little fairy pants I love this fabric I think I put a piece in everybody's goodie bag because well first of all it came from one of my favorite people my sister in law Charlotte she gave me this fabric that she had found at a an estate sale and I just thought it was the coolest fabric so I just love it and I use it in a lot of things so that's one of my reasons it's my favorite but then it's just such it's just such a neat fabric so you can make a little fairy clothes maybe you have a clothesline and you know you clip up the clothes so yet their fairies are hanging out their their pajamas on the clothesline to dry that's just another idea that you can use walnut shells are really cute and I just wanted to show you these are two little pieces I made and this is a bunny and a nut and a fox and a nut and you can actually see these both on my blog and how I made them this is actually not a real walnut it's a casting of a real walnut I made a cast out of mold latex mold and put clay in it so this is actually made out of polymer clay that's not a real nut and then I just made a cute little bunny with a blanket sleeping inside and a cute little fox so yeah that you could have a little walnut shell bed or a little sink made out of that here's that cat's eye I was telling you about the acorn top if you kind of put a cat's eye in there it almost looks like if you can see that just looks like water in a little bowl that might be something cute you want to add oh one thing about my fairy home and I'll mention this again I just kept the top separate because I wanted to add fairy lights and this is not included in your kit but something you can easily find a little battery operated tea light candle or battery operated fairy lights you can find them really anywhere and I put them in my fairy home because I wanted it to be just lit up and it looks really cute and cozy at night when the when the fairy lights are on and the lights are out if you'd like to glue it down it might be a little more secure you can definitely do that and of course you can always lift up the whole fairy home and put your lights right in that way just remember if you're going to put some sort of fairy light in there that it is battery powered and not a flame here's just a quick little tour of the fairy home that I made see the little milkweed bed the bee bath bird bath there's the lights inside I folded the wings of the butterfly up a little bit so it looked more realistic there's a little flag bunting and just a reminder if you are using living plants your fairy garden is going to need a drink and a little bit of sunshine okay so there you have it how to build your own fairy home I hope this video inspires you I hope that you learn something and that you can get outside and be in nature with your family and then come home and build something really wonderful and if you'd like to share what your fairy home looks like just take a photo when you're done and send it to mrs brown at the library and she'll put together a virtual online art show of all the fairy homes so if you'd like to participate in that I really encourage you to that way we all get to see what everybody else did kind of with the same supplies which will be really interesting that's what I love when I teach an art class everybody pretty much gets the same supplies and then the things that come out are all unique and all different and I just love to see how each piece of art is unique to that person so I really encourage you to send in your photos of your finished fairy home to mrs brown at the library if you'd like to see more of my work I do have a blog that I post on regularly there it's family friendly so anybody can take a look and I'm just going to do a little Jimmy Fallon type it's called the studio house blog so I'd love if you take a look take some time to take a look and if you'd like to follow it that'd be awesome too so thank you for stopping by and put on your fairy hats and go out in forage and enjoy making art thanks bye bye hello it's mrs brown from the vorriesville public library wasn't that a wonderful instructional video that megan viscio did for the fairy gardens and fairy homes how exciting I know that you are going to use your imaginations and creativity to create some fabulous fairy gardens or fairy homes and remember to snap a photo and send that photo to me through my email at gale dot brown at the oorpl.org I will take all of those pictures and create a virtual showcase of your creativity mrs viscio said that she got involved with being excited about miniatures and art when she read this book the borrowers she also said that she really liked to go outdoors and spend time in nature and think about all the wonderful natural elements that maybe fairies use or fairies might borrow to create their homes so I thought I would read a chapter from the borrowers and the borrowers live underneath a kitchen floor and in their home just like mrs viscio said they borrow items from the people who live upstairs maybe they have a matchbox that serves as a dresser for their things or a bed in the chapter I am going to read to you today is when one of the fairies ventures outdoors into the grassy lands and encounters a big person it was an eye or it looked like an eye clear and bright like the color of the sky an eye like her own but enormous a glaring eye breathless with fear she sat up and the eye blinked a great fringe of lashes came curving down and flew up again out of sight cautiously arietti moved her legs she's the small person the borrower she would slide noiselessly in among the grass stems and slither away down the bank don't move said a voice and the voice like the eye was enormous but somehow hushed and hoarse like a surge of wind through the grating on a stormy night in march arietti froze oh so this is it she thought the worst and most terrible thing of all i have been seen whatever happened to aca glotina will now almost certainly happen to me there was a pause and arietti her heart pounding in her ears heard the breath again drawn swiftly into the vast lungs or said the voice whispering still i shall hit you with my ash stick suddenly arietti became calm why she asked how strange her voice sounded crystal thin and hair bell clear it tinkled on the air in coose came the surprise whisper at last you ran toward me quickly through the grass in case it went on trembling a little you came and scrambled at me with your nasty little hands arietti stared at the eye she held herself quite still why she asked again and again the word tinkled icy cold it sounded this time and needle sharp things do said the voice i've seen them in india arietti thought of her gazetteer of the world you're not in india now she pointed out did you come out of the house yes said arietti from whereabouts in the house arietti stared at the eye i'm not going to tell you she said at last bravely then i'll hit you with my ash stick all right said arietti hit me i'll pick you up and break you in half arietti stood up all right she said and took two paces forward there was a sharp gasp and an earthquake in the grass he spun around from her and sat up a great mountain in a green jersey he had fair straight hair and golden eyelashes stay where you are he cried arietti stared up at him this was the boy breathless she fell in light with fear i guessed you were about nine she gasped after a moment he flushed well you're wrong i'm ten he looked down at her breathing deeply how old are you 14 said arietti next june she added watching him there was silence while arietti waited trembling a little can you read the boy said at last of course said arietti can't you uh no he standard i mean yes i mean i've just come from india what's that got to do with it asked arietti well if you're born in india you're bilingual and if you're bilingual you can't read not so well arietti stared up at him hmm what a monster she thought dark against the sky do you grow out of it she asked he moved a little and she felt the cold flick of his shadow oh yes he said it wears off my sisters were bilingual now they aren't a bit they could read any of those books upstairs in the school room so could i said arietti quickly if someone could hold them and turn the pages i'm not a bit bilingual i can read anything could you read out loud said arietti would you wait here while i run upstairs and get a book now said arietti she was longing to show off then a startled look came into her eyes oh she faltered what's the matter the boy was standing up now he towered above her doors are there to this house she squinted up at him against the bright sunlight he dropped on one knee doors he said outside doors yes well there's the front door the back door the gun room door the kitchen door the scullery door and the french windows in the drawing room well you see said arietti my father's in the hall by the front door working he disturbed working said the boy what at getting material said arietti for a scrubbing brush then i'll go in the side door he began to move away but turned suddenly and came back to her he stood a moment as though embarrassed and then he said can you fly no said arietti surprised can you his face became even redder of course not he said angrily i'm not a fairy oh no where am i said arietti no reason anybody i don't believe in them you looked at her strangely you don't believe in them no said arietti do you of course not really she thought he is a very angry kind of boy my mother believes in them she said trying to appease him she thinks she saw one once it was when she was a girl and lived with her parents behind the handpile in the potting shed he squatted down on his heels and she felt his breath on her face what was it like he asked about the size of a glow worm with wings like a butterfly and it had a tiny little face she said all the light and moving like sparks and tiny moving hands its face was changing all the time she said smiling and sort of shimmering it seemed to be talking she said very quickly but you couldn't hear a word oh said the boy interested after a moment he asked where did it go it just went said arietti when my mother saw it seemed to be caught in a cobweb it was dark at the time about five o'clock on a winter's evening after tea oh he said again and picked up two petals of cherry blossom which he folded together like a sandwich and ate slowly supposing he said staring past her at the wall of the house you saw a little man but as tall as a pencil with a blue patch in his trousers halfway up a window curtain carrying a doll's teacup would you say it's a fairy no said arietti i'd say it was my father oh said the boy thinking this out does your father have a blue patch on his trousers not on his best trousers he does on his borrowing ones oh said the boy again he seemed to find it a safe sound as lawyers do are there many people like you no said arietti none we're all different i mean as small as you arietti laughed oh don't be silly she said surely you don't think there are many people in the world your size there are more my size than yours he retorted honestly began arietti helplessly and laughed again do you really think i mean whatever sort of a world would it be those great chairs i've seen them fancy if you had to make chairs that size for everyone and the stuff for their clothes miles and miles of it tents of it and the sewing and their great houses reaching up so you can hardly see the ceilings their great beds the food they eat great smoking mountains of it huge bogs of stew and soup and stuff don't you eat soup as the boy of course we do laughed arietti my father had an uncle who had a little boat which he rode around in the stockpot picking up flotsam and jetsam he did bottom fishing too for bits of marrow until the cook got suspicious through finding bent pins in the soup once he was nearly shipwrecked on a chunk of submerged shin bone he lost his oars and the boat sprang a leak but he flung a line over the pot handle and pulled himself alongside the rim but all that stock fathoms of it and the size of a stockpot i mean there wouldn't be enough stuff in the world to go around after a bit that's why my father says it's a good thing they're dying out just a few my father says that's all we need to keep us otherwise he says the whole thing gets arity hesitating trying to remember the word the whole thing gets exaggerated he says what do you mean asked the boy to keep us so if you want to learn more about the borrowers you could check out this book from the library and once again this is how megan viscio first got her inspiration for loving things that are small enjoy your time creating your fairy gardens and your fairy homes and don't forget send me a picture of your magical creation have a wonderful day


Myself and Detective Ivasek of the Anti-Fencing Unit have completed an investigation into a baby formula ring that was shipping the baby formula back to China. What's significant about this case is the fact that it all permeates from the down county side and it's all fueled by a method we call predatory fencing. We're using a method where they're preying on the drug addicted who boosts baby formula to pay for their drugs. What we've seen with this guy was absolutely prolific in the sense that we've been doing this for about six years now and this is the worst example we've seen of it to date. Traditionally a fencing operator would pay about ten cents on the dollar for this green stuff because they're reselling it here in Canada for fifty cents on the dollar. What's attractive to the drug addicted booster is they're now paying thirty cents on the dollar for this product and it's being resold in China or in other countries for two and a half times the retail price which would be anywhere from eighty to ninety dollars Canadian. We feel that this individual here was responsible for seventy percent, a minimum of seventy percent of the baby formula thefts over the last year. And we're hoping that this will have a big effect at the end of the day in this problem.


Terrorists have attacked Saint Francis Catholic Church in a war the headquarters of our local government area of on those state Many worshipers have died and several orders have been left injured following the incident at the church Which is situated close to the palace of? lower off or the on the police command Confirmed the development saying that for the details would be given later He said all security apparatus has been put in place To restore calmness to the area now several videos on social media showed victims been killed Lying on the church floor and the pool of their own blood Would you have Shola? Abish any joining us this morning on the show? Good morning, Mr. Shola Abish any Let's quickly show your thoughts. I mean, how do you feel about this attack and this incident that happened yesterday? Well, we Just like yesterday at the 30th of January of the after-sale It was such a horrendous you back you back Oh You use and we have the other stick nationality man here But the incident did not just take place in olden times. The St. Francis Church shares same faith with the Palos of the Divine or Olden times. So it was part of that and the culture and the civilization of the United States. And we have said the federal government of Nigeria will be held responsible for the attack on the consequences of this. Nigeria is a civilization and every civilization in a constituent state, region or country in the Middle East should be able to organize their own international security in defending the country within their administration. Unfortunately, we have a constitution in Nigeria that is a monopoly of speciality, a typical international security to the federal government, which has proven to be responsible for the attack on the consequences in defending the security of life and property, which is the basic and the essence of the state. And that is why we say today that Nigeria has all in suitable time to build a state state. It is so unfortunate. In the course of this conversation, you have mentioned that the president should be blamed. Why should the president be caught up in all of this? Because across the 36th state of the Federation, we have the presence of the Nigerian police. And we understand that primarily, we understand the primary function or the responsibility of the police, protection of life and properties and showing that you have peace maintained at the end of the day in a civil society. And that's why you have the police existing. So why should we blame the president? In all of this, when you have a state and then you also have a police architecture, should the president be blamed? Well, we made it very clear that the Nigerian state should be rebuilt. Everything about Nigerian state should be federalized if we are operating in federal system of maintenance. A situation where the federal government means no pulling of the security architecture. And when the process of administration particularly is consistent to restructuring of the Nigerian state, where it is very clear that it has the capacity to secure the Nigerian state. So what do you blame? Is it me? The president is the commander-in-chief of the imposition of the Nigerian federation. Is the chief, if I be a point to the heterogeneous police and the heterogeneous police is responsible for a little thing, even the commissioner of police in the state are not responsible for the fact that I mean to the state governor. The governors of the state are called chief security officer of the state for nothing. There is no governor of any state that commands even the voice out constitutionally. So who else do you direct to the responsibility of the Nigerian state to when we operate the situation? Therefore, the SSS, under the federal government, under the federal government, is the newly created civil defense, is responsible directly to the federal government, to the president, is general police is responsible directly to the president, to the chief of public, to the chief of the Navy, to both sides of the table of discussion. That is not the soul in a federation of the federal government. In a federation, every state should have its own police and system, and we have been as a state since we have been speaking for state police, but the federal government says it is not going to happen. So if the federal government is in charge of immobilizing the security architecture of the state, then the federal government must show strength, it must show capacity. But there is war all over Nigeria today, and the federal government of Nigeria is affected. So that is why we are saying Nigeria cannot move and be stopped without the progression of the restructuring of the state. This constitutional project of the situation that was in 1963, the autonomies before the military took over, and we are always embarrassed that there have been, in all those states that have been taken in Nigeria, we say the country for its national comfort with poor tourism should be the minimum simply for reorganizing the Nigerian state. At this moment, just by the fact that the river set up the air supply, the poverty on super-dialysis, the cost that came out is actually a total loss of the 2014 national comfort stock. That is the report that came out as a result of the poverty set up by the APC government and the APC Department of Control and Development. Yes, the president says Nigeria should remain at peace and pretending to have the capacity to solve the problems that you don't know how. So the box stops moving. Moving forward now, what would you say that the solution would actually be that we seem to be at the center of all of this? Because it's not... Now what? You're talking about the solution to all of this? Exactly. Our promise, our position is very clear, very clear. Result on Nigeria. Result on Nigeria to reinvent the true progress state. Nigeria is too large. Nigeria is too expanded. Nigeria is too diverse. Nigeria is the only one left who are clear of government to claim unopening of the administration of Nigeria. Nigeria is the only federal system in the entire world where there are no police. So start with... If the government, the state government of the southwest region they came up with their most effective security network. Our most effective is working, unfortunately, the threat of government, the threat of the necessary weapons to be able to make up to the challenges of security. And the federal government does not need to bother itself so much about internal security in most states. Nigeria, the Nigerian state, should normally be safe depending the territorial integrity of Nigeria where it's safe and left to take advantage of their own security system in providing security for their own people. That is our position to move forward. Let Nigeria be restructured so that Nigeria will be a true federal state. In terms of security, it's safe to have the capacity to take out of their own internal security. It is only when the state is still incapacitated that the federal forces are forced in to assist. But right now, look at our work. How do you understand the entirety of our local government? Our local government has started from our footer almost up to the banter. Yes, almost up to the banter which has just taken. And they have only one police station at our work. The entire police men in our police station may not be under 100. How do those ones secure the territory of our local government? That is the problem that we have. The Nigerian federal government is not realistic. It wants to amass all the powers of government for itself when it is clear that it no longer has the capacity to defend our people. That's our position. Yes, I understand the position that you have actually put out restructuring the country and putting it, let's become a federating unit, a true federal system. But a lot of people have argued that that's not even going to provide a solution because you have a system where you have the governors controlling, very powerful. We look at the local government and having financial autonomy for the local government, that hasn't gone very easy for the local government as an arm of government. So that's a discussion for another day. But let's also stay with security and the issue of having different diverse government. In this particular instance now, we also want to look at the fact that with all of this, as we constantly go through insecurity in Nigeria, you have some persons coming up with regional security outfits, not necessarily that they had to put that name together, but you have had the Ibube Agu. You also have the issue of the Hibsbar police, as much as a lot of people will not want to agree with that. You also come to this other side, you have the Amoateco. So let's talk about regional security architecture that's been set up in different regions in tackling insecurity in Nigeria. Do we still need to have a federating unit to solve the problem of security in Nigeria? Of course. You were talking about regional security outfits. It's the most difficult, the essence of the state. The next one, you will have a state in the first place, is the security of life and property. Life is said to be nothing to be short in the state of nature before the social contract between the people and the state to create the state so that the state can be in a position to implement the powers of all to defend all. So there is no government properness of all that will not have the capacity to provide security for its own people. The component states in the Federation do not necessarily compete with the government of the Federation, but that is why we try to distinguish between defending the territorial integrity of the Nigerian state against external aggression and the need to provide security within the Nigeria internal territory. Within the territory of Nigeria it should not be the responsibility of the federal government to build onto the military to serve us. In the first Republic, we used to have local government commissions. In advanced countries, even universities have their own commissions. So it is not possible to decide of Nigeria for there to be only one united political system it is a failure at the mission. One way I can trust and trust it generally in every federal state is that each of the component states has its own security architecture and when you talk about regional security like the Amoteco in the South West of course there is something wrong in such cooperation and I must tell you I speak from those states I speak from those states from what I have seen in these states the Amoteco security aspect the opposite comment of it has been largely the Amoteco is coming the side of side in the state but it appears that the federal government has some phobia for the state in having their own security in such a way that the federal government feels that when the state has a hope for this they will perhaps be competing with the federal government. That was the fear that the military had under the military administration you have one single command of everything up to the commander in chief and in those states where a change of government can only be foreseen if the federal government cannot allow any other state or any other government within the federation to have a security aspect that may be used to topple the federal government but that does not support anything in the federal system that depends on where we are for instance look at it most of the war effort was still done by the civilian JTF what do you call it? in Buenos when the war first started the Nigerian police did not do anything also the Buenos state government brought local hunters and the youth and they called them civilian JTFs the Boko Haram city were more scared of the civilian JTF than they are of the Nigerian police I want us to come back now because we need to look at the incident that is happening right now and how we can solve the problem because if you talk about the issue of restructuring let's get to a true federating unit where you have different states controlling the security architecture of the state of course you have a state saying we have a state police where states can actually control over that but let's come to what we can do now because it would be an act of legislation and we don't know how far we can go with all of that because we have had a legislative process where there is some form of amendment of the constitution and we haven't really conceded that we have people dying every day on different accounts in fact where you have people die as a result of a group of persons waking up someone has blasphemed and then they kill them people are taking laws into their hands and we know what the law says the constitution is very explicit in all of this but no one seems to be taking action and how long can we continue in this let me bring you to the the cycle that we are going through now I paint a picture now so you have a mass shooting mass shooting has been going on for a long time it will continue because after this one you are going to have another one there will be extra vegans and what have you different figures and we have not been very set in whether or not what has happened so you go back to the fact that we are going to be having thoughts and prayers and from thoughts and prayers you are going to be having a social media debate where you have Twitter on top of the bonnet and then we get to that point where nothing will be done so we go back to the cycle we continue again in different states of the federation I mean somebody commits mother what stops us from arresting them don't we have the police officers don't we have other security architecture we have rubbed in the military in all of this how long will we continue to make all of these excuses and people continue to die the reason why you have government the legitimacy of government is that they will protect lives and property but you have government not even having right to protect the lives and property we continue with all of this until it gets to everybody and we are all killed you are only laughing this is your lamentation we need to solve many problems it is said that it is madness to do the same thing all over and expect different results the security architecture we have now has faced as you continue so to do the same thing without restructuring you put this story because you want to let the lamentation oh there was a killing there there was another killing there there is mass killing all the people and death in those mass killing we do so because of the bad day that in agil and territorial states it is not the police it is not the security I have told you that the world of all the local government does not have more than 100 police men 100 police men and the services of the local government is so bad that I said it is such a problem in the West almost up there don't take it easy how do you have people 100 to 200 police men to guide the population the solution to it is mass killing of the police up to community policing but a situation what the nagina police does is not to present crime they say in their police station in their palace for you to come and report crime to them after crime has been committed the only thing the nagina police do is to prosecute crime in court the nagina police for instance all these health men that came to attack church in a war do you think they live in the city of a war they live in the palace nagina police will not go into the palace but a motorcycle can go to the palace and miss the brain that the federal government will not allow the motorcycle to be armed will not even encourage to shoot Mr Sholah Abishani Mr Sholah Abishani we need to call it a wrap here now we appreciate your time thank you so much for being part of the breakfast this morning Sholah Abishani is the secretary general thank you so much for being part of the show this morning we wish you all the best we get to a point where we have lives and properties protected we take a breakdown when we return we head straight to a second conversation where you have the EPC saying let's zone to the presidency to the south stay with us we'll come back


We've long time had a housing crisis in our community and some people's inability to act have made it even worse, have exacerbated it. And so we're here to stand up to fight back to make our concerns known and to make sure people are aware of what's going on in our community. Housing is a human right and everybody deserves fair affordable housing and decent housing. Yeah man, so I want to immediately turn it over to the residents because I don't want to talk too much because this is not my plight. I'm here in support of many of the residents that are being directly affected. Again, if you're watching this or if you're seeing this video later, reach out to us and figure out how you can get involved so we can make sure that something is done about what's going on here in our community. We're right here in Lexington Heights right now, but there are several properties that are being affected and you're going to hear from some of the residents in a few moments. Thank you. All right, my name is Joanna Hewlin. I'm a resident of Highland Park and I have been at Highland Park for five years and I was told the 1st of August, I literally was told overnight that my rent has over doubled. My rent went from 825 to 1700 for a three bedroom apartment and I have three girls. I'm a single mother. I do work. I am not on section eight or get any government assistant, but we all are in this thing together. And I have never met prosperity capital partners, nor have I have had any interaction with anyone that's been willing to work with me. And again, like I said, I am a single mom. I work and I try to do all I can to provide for my three girls. And as you all know, we are still in the middle of a pandemic, which is hard on a lot of folks. And then my girls are still adjusting to it to now have to deal with another tragedy or try to come up with $1,700. And not only has it been hurtful for me and my girls, Clark County School District had just started school. I got this letter two weeks after school started and my kids now are nervous and they are being stressed out not knowing whether they're going to have to relocate in the middle of a beginning school year. And also I have children that are going through mental health crisis right now. So again, this has been a burden, an undue burden on me and my family right now or trying to figure out if we're going to be able to stay in our residence that have been there already five years. And again, like I said, at this Clark County already have a homeless crisis and if me and my three girls don't come up with the $1,700, we will be homeless. I have no family that I can live with in Clark County nor does Prosperity Capital Partners that they even talk to me to discuss with me will I have anywhere to go. It has been hurtful. I haven't been able to sleep and I have been very stressed out. This has been a burden on my heart to carry every single day. I have been trying to keep my girl strong in the midst of this heart, heartful situation. And I'm asking that Prosperity Capital Partners and Tristigic Management consider the family that got children in these residence. My rent was not behind. My rent was on time. I have not broken any laws in my residence. A company just came out of Florida and decided to say, hey, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to make money. So I'm going to keep these residents out. So again, no one has come to me to be willing to work with me. And I live at Highland Park Apartments in Athens, Georgia. Thank you. Woo! Yeah! Yeah! All right, what's next? Hi, I'm a resident of 345 Lesnar Heights. I received a letter saying that they're no longer going to renew my lease because of Section 8. And they gave me 30 days June and 30 to get out. I replied back to them and told them I'm not going anywhere. So they rewrote me a letter and said that they gave me another 30 days, which is going to be today that I am moving today. It had been so stressful. But the thing is about the situation is Lesnar Heights, I've been over here 22 years. I never had this problem before. I always had good landlord friends. We're willing to work with all the tenants. But this one came in from Florida. He decided that he didn't want to deal with Section 8 only in certain Section 8s that they deal with. And only in certain people that they deal with. And I feel that I've been talking because I'm the one that like to see the neighborhood run good, things go good and everything. And the ones that live here, they decided I don't know. I don't know if I'm right or wrong about this situation, but I'm going to say it. I don't know what kind of talk they had with them, but I know a lot of stuff have been changed since I received the letter, since I came out here to discriminate against what's going on out here. I was called this morning to ask without coming to a meeting at 122 Lesnar Heights. And I said I sure was. When I came here and came in, now my lawyer was here. They told her she couldn't stay here in the meeting. She couldn't stay in the meeting. So if I had hired her, so I couldn't stay in the meeting. So both of them got put out. But the thing about this situation is 22 years, I never had a problem that I can call and say that they are not willing to help me. But these people that came in here and took over right now, they didn't come and give us no kind of sign, no kind of warning, no kind of nothing. They didn't say anything. They didn't sign us a letter. Through the poster. Tell them I got to get out. We got to get out. We just got out. They're not going to renew our lease. They're not going to renew our lease. They didn't even give us an option. That's right. Did we want a real or not? They say that in other words, they say we don't want you all to go over here. I'm just saying, that's what they say. I mean, that's the way they're putting it. Because in other words, why did they give us an option? Why did they say do y'all want to pay the rent? Instead of putting us out, I don't got sick. I am sick. I had surgery. I don't call COVID because going back and forth, trying to find somewhere to stay. And they didn't want us. They should have at least came and said, do y'all, we finna get ready to sell these blades. Right. No, it's not right. It's not right. And the thing about it is that I don't know why people think that session eight is a bad thing, but some people have bad luck, fall down on their luck, and they have to fall on help. But the thing about it is, they should have came out and said, look, we got company that wants to buy the property. Yeah, they should have warned us. And they should have came out here and gave us three or four months and had time to let us know that they're not going to be able to do at least. Okay. I went through DCA. DCA, I'll do a contract with DCA from this summer to this summer. And they had broke the lease. They had to break the loose. And not to. Because they said I didn't have a lease with the new company. So we are here trying to get things together. We try to get things situation for the next person that come up here and live in less than height, that they won't have to go through it. There we go. Who's next? Who's next? I want to speak about their situation as a tenant. I'm almost, you were going there. All right, man. Well, like I was just saying, they, they, they, I stayed two, six, seven next to my height. They did not give us a warning. And she just said, I have gotten sick trying to go out, trying to find somewhere to stay. I got COVID. And I mean, it's not right. They didn't warn us, but they want to give us, they want to want, they want to give us a six to six notice. But why didn't they come tell us, why did they come tell us six to days before they were going to save this place? Want to let them know so we could find somewhere to stay? No, it's not right. And then they want to use somebody to, to, to, they want to use somebody else to try to help us get to a place that they don't want to stay. It's the trashest city in Athens. How am I? Hell no, I ain't going there. And I mean it. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right. Well, we're the tenants, the residents. We have a demand letter that I'm going to read. I want to say, did anybody else want to share that piece? You good? All right. Okay. This is our demand letter. All right. Tenant demand letter to strategic management partners and prosperity capital partners through this letter, residents, Oblacian and Heights, Holland Park, Rosemary Place and Heading Pines want to notify the owners and management that we are asking for a meeting at each apartment complex open to all tenants and community members. We would like a response about the meeting by Friday, September the second with possible dates for the meeting. As tenants, we have come together and agreed to issue the following demands, provide new leases to all tenants with reduced rent and accept section eight and other subsidized housing vouchers. Do not raise any rent until all necessary renovations and maintenance for help and safety have been addressed. Camping the amount of future rent increased by a maximum of 10% per year. Remove the surcharge for paying online and allow other forms of payment. Payment. I'm sorry. Payment. Sorry about that, y'all. There we go. Payment included and check payments. Provide necessary maintenance and access to all amenities, including trash. Provide relocation assistance to anyone who wants to move such as money for deposit tied to fine desire housing. Return security deposit. We expect a prompt response from you to present more details and establish the terms of our conversation. We are doing this in good faith, seeking a common agreement with you as representatives and owners. This is currently a shortage. Again, there is a currently a shortage of affordable housing in Athens-Clarke County, especially those that accept Section 8 and other subsidized housing vouchers. Even those residents that have accepted to leave have nowhere to go, especially on a short timeline. The actions decided on by the ownership and management will have a significant adverse impact. On the entire community. The entire community. Here in Athens, Georgia will be affected. If everybody loses their residents, and we are homeless, a lot of us do not have nowhere to go. And we cannot pay the rent increase that is way, way extremely too high for a three-bedroom apartment. Come on now. So it's not to my front door. Exactly. And I got out. My girl in the school to continue and move out because of this. Even in these homes. So you affect the whole family dynamic. Not just the asking from the residents. Yes, yes. Housing is a human right. Housing is a human right. Housing is a human right. Housing is a human right. Housing is a human right. Housing is a human right. Housing is a human right. What do you want? Justice. What do you want? Justice. What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. What do we want? Justice. Let's get it. We're coming up. Thank you. You did a great job.


horse with a speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty high old silver, the Lone Ranger. From the mountains of Mexico to the hills of Wyoming, stories were told of the masked rider of the plains and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto. These stories have come down to us through the generation. Tales of adventure tributes to the Lone Ranger's courage and daring, the pioneers' own salute to the greatest champion of justice the frontier ever knew. Return with us now to those thrilling days when the West was young. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver, the Lone Ranger rides again. Three men wetted in the parlor of the Gilman Ranch house. One sat stiffly in a chair, the second stood erect and motionless. The third nervously paced the length of the room. All three, however, kept their eyes fixed on the door, now closed, that led to old Saul Gilman's bedroom. Finally, the man who was pacing the floor stopped suddenly and... Dusty, why doesn't Doc come out? Why don't he tell us something? Take it easy, Mort.  I'm going crazy. Easy, boy. Easy. Hank. Yes, Mort? If Pa dies, if the Doc can't save him out... Yes? I'll get you if you're not Mort. Leave your brother alone. Don't you think he feels just as bad about this as you do? Mort, you will have to... It's Doc. Doc. Easy. Willie. I'm sorry. I did everything I could. You mean? Your father's dead. No. Dead? There went the finest fella I ever worked for. Dead? You killer? No more here, here. Stop it.  That Hank goes. Stay away. Don't even be here now. That's enough. Let me at him. Just let me get my hands on him. Just hold yourself. It was an accident. Hank couldn't help it. You shot him, shot him. No, Mort, no. You did. Mort, wait. Maybe Hank didn't. Nobody can be sure. Nobody's seen your pa get hit. Didn't that fellow of Pawn, Bonham say Pa was laying beside Cheyenne Creek? Yeah, but he didn't. Wasn't there where a Hank had been hunting? I don't think so. Hank answered me, wasn't it? Yes, Mort. It was. Had there been anybody else and he was near the creek? Had there? I don't know. You know, Doggone, well there hadn't been. All right. There wasn't. Mort, look. You've been hunting yourself, hadn't you? Over by the salt flats. You trying to say it was one of my bullets hit him? Of course not, Mort. I'm just trying to make the point that if your father ridden toward the flats instead of the creek, it could have been one of your bullets.  But don't you understand. No, you can take your hands off of me. I won't hit him. Well, sure. Let him go, Doc. Mort just had a streak there where he forgot his shelf. He ain't going to fly off the handle again. No, but I got something to say. Hank. Yes? I'm leaving. But wait.  Now on you're no more my brother than Dusty here. You can have the ranch. You can stay here and run things to please yourself. But we're through.  There's no law to make you pay for what you did. You call it an accident. Dusty and Doc here call it an accident. But I say it's murder even if you didn't know what you was doing. Mort, I tell you that I'm going now. And I won't take a thing with me from this house. I don't want a thing that you've ever touched. But I'll make you a promise, Hank. Mort, don't go like this. Someday you'll pay for this. And I'll be the one to make you. Hank, Mort didn't mean the things he said. He naturally is upset. But he'll get over it. He'll be back and I'm sure he'll apologize. Not him. No, Doc. You don't save him, Mort, like I do. But surely he couldn't feel bitter after he's had time to think it over. He'll think it over. And the more he thinks, the more he'll hate me. The tragedy of Saul Gilman's death, at first a shock to the entire district, became a dim memory with a passage of time. Mort, true to his word, not only did not return to the ranch, but completely disappeared. 25 years went by. During those years, Hank had married and had a son, Neil, now 22 years of age. But Neil, in the last several months, had become a problem to his parents. Hank. Yeah, honey? I think I heard Neil ride into the yard a few minutes ago. He's probably putting his horse in the corral. Oh. Won't you speak to him tonight when he comes in? I can't. He won't listen to me. You will have to. I guess I'd better. He's been acting mighty strange lately. I'll let you talk to him alone. He'd talk more freely if I'm not around. Time you got to bed anyhow. Good night. Good night. Fool kids. But I was the same at his age, though, I reckon. Never gotten the trouble that I had the sense to tell him a folks about it. Chill up, Paul. Looks like I am doing it. Sure. Well, I'm about ready to hit the hay. Dog tired. See you in the morning, Paul. Hey, not so fast. Huh? Come back here. What is it? Mine's sitting down for a second? No, I guess not. But it's late, and I'll have to be getting up early to get to the bank when it opens.  And there's no use you're denying it. I can read you like a book. There's something on your mind, something more in you. Can't let me know what is. Gosh, Paul, you must be imagining things that... There's nothing worrying me. Sure. Of course I'm sure. Remember, son, there's nothing in the world that can't tell me. That's a point that ain't easy for a father to put over to his son. But it's true. You can tell me anything.  Oh, I... Shucks out with it. Well, there is something, Paul. I don't amount to much. There is a... Oh, hard to get out, huh?  Lion and gambling. But take me all around and I'm pretty easy going. So let's have it, huh? Yeah. You think gamblins are awful bad, Paul? For them, as can't afford it, there's nothing worse. And I've still to see the first fellow that could afford it. It leads to debt and trouble in all manner of things that are sinful. I've never gambled myself. And I've never had any use for the man who did. What... What made you start talking about that? Oh, thinking of the Black Arrow Cafe, I guess. New fellow running it, ain't there? Uh-huh. How long has he had to play? Oh, about three or four months. What'd you like? Oh, all right, I guess. I never seen him. No? Thought you spent quite a bit of time there. Nobody's seen him. Why? Why not? Gosh, I don't know. He's got rooms over the cafe, but he never shows himself. Leads that to the fellow he's hired to sort of manage it for him. What a kind of curse, huh? Well, we've been getting away from the subject. You started to say what had been worrying you. Nothing, nothing, Pa, honest. Huh? But just now, you said that you... No, honest, there ain't... I don't know what put the idea in your head. I... Well, well, good night. Say, good night, Pa. Now, what blazes got into him? Did you see him? Mm-hmm. What did he say? Honey, maybe I just dreamt it. But I'd have sworn he was right on the point of telling me something. He was?  Almost a month's journey away, the lone ranger and his faithful engine companion, Tonto, had stopped to purchase supplies from an old timer, and had remained to pass the time of day with him while their horses rested. So you say you're heading for the panhandle, ain't it? We expect to reach it sooner or later. Mm, wish I was going along. Yes. Even if I had to wear a mask like you to do it. Yes, sir, restranger. That used to be more stamping ground years back. Had to pass a friend there one time. How long has it been since you left? Huh? How long has it been since you left? Uh, just 25 years. You've got an accurate memory. Oh, I don't recollect everything that definite. Just happens when I was leaving, I run into something and made it stick in my mind. Oh? Oh, nothing dinterest you reckon. Wasn't anything very pleasant either. I thought a heap of that old fella. Yes, who was that? Oh, likely you never heard of him. Saul Gilman, his name was. Saul Gilman? As a matter of fact, I have. There's a Henry Gilman still in the panhandle. Uh-huh. Old Saul's son. He had two of them. I was just trying to remember what it was I'd heard about, Saul. Oh, yes, I have it now. There was something about a shooting accident. Henry was supposed to have been hunting. One of his bullets struck his father by accident. They found Saul later near Cheyenne Creek. Cheyenne Creek? Mm-mm. The Salt Flats. Well, I'm afraid you're wrong. I remember the whole thing now. It caused a quarrel between Henry and his brother, Mort. Mort couldn't forgive his brother for the accident and disappeared. You got that part of it straight, mister. But I still say Old Saul was found on the Salt Flats. Well, that's impossible. That had been true. Henry couldn't have shot his father. He wasn't near there. That's what they say Mort was hunting. The boys had split up. Don't know anything about that, stranger. But when I say it was a Salt Flats, I know what I'm talking about. Yes? It was me that found Saul. You're the man who brought him to the ranch house that day? I am? Who was it you told it about when you found him? Why, Hank, what are you getting so excited about? I thought it was Hank. I ought to be. I knew them boys well. Don't you realize what this means? Huh? Gosh, I... It's not a weird writing. Here's Scott. Here's Silver. Hey, what did I say to drive you off so fast? Did I say anything to get you mad? Of course, not old-timer. Then what's the rush? You'll give me the most important information I've picked up in the best part of a year. Adios! One evening two weeks later, Neil Gillman was summoned from the Black Arrow Café's gaming tables into the office of its manager. Come in, dear. Yeah. Sent for me his tag? I did. I think it's about time we had a talk. You've heard all the time we can give you. Two weeks ago, you said you'd speak to your father. You didn't. I think we've waited for a long time. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think we've waited for our money just as long as we can. He ain't got it now. That's too bad. Gosh, I don't savvy you fellas at all. When I first started losing money to you, you acted as though you didn't care when you got it back. Now, all of a sudden, you're saying you have to have it right away. It's not my doing, Neil. It's orders from Mr. Franklin.  Then let me talk to him. No one talks to Mr. Franklin. You, uh... you may even lose your job. You tell him? Why not? I think they'd be interested to know that one of their employees has gambled away $5,000 more than he can pay up. It would mean my job. Yes, I suppose it would. No, you can't. You've got to give me another chance. Another chance? Why? What would we gain by it? You've already admitted you have no hope of getting that money for us. A week?  You've changed your mind about being able to get the money, huh? I have no way to get it. That's my business. Yes, I imagine it is. All right then, Neil, you have one week. The curtain falls on the first act of our Lone Ranger drama. Before the next exciting scenes, I would like to submit us to pause for just a few moments. Now to continue our story. Another two weeks passed while Neil's parents found him acting more strangely than ever. At last, his mother could remain patient no longer. She reopened the subject with her husband one evening just as they were finishing supper. Hank, stop eating in a minute. Yeah? All right, I'm ready. Shoot. We've let this go on just as long as we can. I know there's something wrong, something terrible wrong. Look at him this evening. Won't eat, won't talk to us, locks himself up in his room as though we were afraid someone were after him. Locked himself in, you say? Yes, I tried his door. Well, there's no use pretending there ain't something eating on the boy. But, Doggone, it's hard to just force yourself on him. Don't you want to know if he's in trouble? Why, sure I do. What the trouble is, I don't know. Except that it's serious. Or at least it seems serious to him. Well, I'll have to look into it, I reckon. You go ahead and clear away the dishes. I'll help you wash them later. Do make him talk, Hank. I'll try. How are you in there? Sleeven? What do you want? How's for letting your paw in a second. Wait. What is it? Just sitting here in the dark, won't you?  I don't need no light if you don't reckon. Feel more like talking now than you did the other time, son. What's there to talk about? I don't know. That's what I'm asking you.  Shucks, no. Find your job too tough for you. I'm thinking maybe you'd like to work here on the ranch again with me. That ain't it. Then you admit there is something, no. Pa, I... Yeah. Oh, come on. We got stuck like this once before, and you never did get around to talking. Pa, I... I'm going to jail. What's that?  I didn't know what to do. They'll jail me just as sure as I'm living. All right, son. Let's have all of it. Hearing the murmur of voices within her son's room, Neil's mother watched his door anxiously. Finally. Come on, Neil. Get our cash box. What? The cash box. Hurry. Don't ask me to explain. Just get it. Neil, my guns are hanging by the kitchen door there. Bring them here. What are you figuring to do? You still owe 3,000 to this fellow Franklin. That's it. Well, I'll get them IOUs, then he'll get his stomach full of lead. The Lone Ranger in Tonto had been riding steadily for Henry Gilman's ranch. That night, after a month of travel, the masked man saw the lights of the ranch house in the distance. There's the place, Kimosabe. We're almost to the end of our trail. Come on, old fellow. Come on. But Hank Gilman and Neil, leaving the ranch house before the masked man's arrival, rode into town.  Hank walked stiffly. His hands never far from the guns that hung from his hips. Neil, his face white and drawn, followed his father's lead. Where's this fellow stag? I don't see him. No, there he is. They're just this side of that office, close to the door. Fella with the handbar mustaches, huh? Yeah. Well, you keep shut. Let me do the talking. You've already done too much talking, son. The wrong kind. Don't be scared for me. I've run into tin horns like this, and plenty of times before. Now come on. Hey! You, the gent, the co-stag. Oh, good evening. Hello, Neil. This must be your father.  Stag, how's for having a private talk with you? About anything in particular. About money. About the money you've got coming from my boy. You, uh, you're paying his debt? I am. It'll be a pleasure. Here's my office. Step in. Now, if you just give me the money, I'll get Neil's. I don't do business with a hired hands, mister. When I do business, it's with the boss. Oh, you must mean Mr. Franklin. I reckon I do. Yeah, and I'm afraid that'll be impossible. Neil should have told you. Mr. Franklin sees no one, so of court. Take us to the boss. You wouldn't dare shoot him. Wouldn't dare? Just try me out. You would never get out of here alive. But you'd be dead before I would. So how's it to be? My way or yours? You'll be very angry. So will I. You, this way. Come this way. Yes, Mr. Franklin. Anyone with you? Tell him there is and I'll blast you to kingdom come. Of course not, Mr. Franklin. One moment. And you're lying to me. Mort. You're Mort. You're my brother. Bag your hole. This is just what I was trying to guard against. I couldn't help it. I couldn't. They had me covered. Well, the damage is done. All right, Hank. What do you want? You've been in town all these months calling yourself Franklin. I have. Come on inside. Don't stand out there for everyone to hear you.  Mort, I don't savvy. Why didn't you tell us? Why'd you change your name? What do you... I had my reasons. But what reasons? Your kid there tell you what happened? He did. Well, there you are. Huh? Hank, maybe you don't remember the day I left home. Well, if you've forgotten, I ain't. I ain't forgot why I left to what I promised you when I left. Promised me? You killed Pa that day out hunting. But, Mort... Wait till I finish. You could just call it an accident and let it go with it. Couldn't you? Well, I couldn't. I always had been closer to Pa than you'd ever been. Maybe that was part of it. And I never make a promise I don't keep. That's the rest of it. Well, I don't recollect anything about a promise. You don't, huh? Don't recollect me standing in the door there and telling you someday you'd pay. You mean to say you remembered that all these years? Twenty-five years. And not a day's gone by in any one of them that I ain't thought of it at least once. Well, if that don't beat all. I used to think of the time when I'd have my pile made so I could come back here and keep that promise. Finally I made that pile. I came back. I looked around to see why you could be hurt the easiest. Found it in your boy. You know, Mort, I used to think quite a bit of you when we was kids. Once I thought quite a bit of you. But that's all dead and done with now. What counts now is that Neil owes me three thousand. A couple weeks ago he owed me five thousand. I reckon we both know where he got the difference. Well, it don't matter. Neil and me have talked it over. He's going to go to the bank and make a clean breast of it. I'm paying back what he took. If he has to go to jail, well, I reckon any boy of mine will have the stuff in him to take his medicine without whining. And if he don't have to, well, he owes you for a valuable lesson. Trying to make the best of it, eh? Ain't much left for me. I reckon you know now I meant what I told you that day. Mort. Well? They made us out of different stuff, even if we are brothers. I'll tell you plain what I had in mind to do when I came up here. I was going to pay off, then drill you. But you needn't worry. I couldn't do that now. Fact is, I don't reckon I need to. What's that mean? I've been watching the look on your face. You planned this for years. And now, all of a sudden, you've found out you ain't enjoying it near so much as you'd figured on. Your land. Fact is, you're kind of sorry you've wasted the time. You got my boy to steal.   You don't know what you're talking about. I reckon I do. You don't, I don't. Who's that? A businessman. There's no need for guns here. You? How'd you get up here? You forget your outside staircase. It was easy to step from the landing to the window. What do you want? I heard a part of your conversation from outside. You heard what? I brought information I believe will interest you. In a way, I'm sorry for you, Mort. But in another way, you deserve it.  What are you talking about? The death of your father. Hm? You never learned the truth of that accident, did you? Well, I learned the truth a month ago from the man who'd found your father wounded. No, don't tell him. So you did know the truth, Hank. That's exactly what I suspected. Please, no. You should have told the truth in the first place, Hank. It's best every time. You can see for yourself. In attempting to defend Mort, you've created nothing but trouble. But, but I didn't... What was that? Hank was defending me? That don't make sense.  He was. He was. No, on the salt flats. Huh? Oh, that's not true. It is.   You did. No. No, no, it's a lie. You weren't to blame. No one would have blamed you. Hank, however, understood what your father meant to you. He was afraid of what a knowledge of the truth would do. He changed the story. He said your father had been found at the creek.  Hank, look at me. Is that true? Is it? It is. I can see it just in the way you're looking away from me. Mort, I meant it for the best. I hated you when... when I should have hated myself. No. I made your boy into a thief when you... It saved me from being a murderer. Not a murderer, Mort. It was like all I said, just an accident. Only an accident. Neil. Yeah? Thank you. You didn't worry. I'll be able to fix that. If you can, I'll go, Mort. I'll be grateful as long as I live. You're grateful to me when... when it was me that got you in the fix. I am grateful, honestly. You got a lot of your father in. Look, Mort. We're going to forget all this. Nobody's going to mention a word outside about what happened here in this room. And you're going to come back to the ranch again and stay for as long as you like. You mean that, Hank? Of course. I'll do it good. Oh, that's a funny thing. You want revenge for years, but think you do. And then, when the time comes, you'll find you don't. You find all you want is... is to be friends again. And, Mort, that's the way it should be. Heard is a copyrighted feature of the Lone Ranger Incorporated.


Lonely Piggy, I love listening to Graham Hancock about the possible advanced civilizations of old. It's so interesting to think about, especially considering truth is coming to light more and more. Yeah indeed, and guaranteed we're in, we live a cyclic existence, humanity, life, everything, right? And as far as I'm concerned, it's a given that there have been previous civilizations that have occupied Earth and the remnants of them that we have record of, right? And technology, and mathematics, and sciences, and understanding, right? So that's a given. Once you know that, that human history isn't what centralized governments tell us it is, that's it, that's freedom, right? Sometimes Mike's agitations, I had a great uncle that used to work for some military facilities in Southern U.S. who went to his grave with plenty of seekers of advanced tech, yeah. So says my dad at least, yeah, guaranteed there's tech, like supposedly there's huge underground cities all over the place, all over the planet, right? And they build these huge underground cities by machines that can basically excavate a huge cavern within like minutes or hours, right? And basically glasses and makes a barrier, like, and I, as far as I'm concerned, as far as I see it, those definitely do exist, right?


I don't want to my tombstone I don't want someone's Allen grind into life like that's not a compliment to me that now I also I'm not saying those that like the word are wrong they might have a different interpretation of how that word makes them feel right when someone says like Allen you got a rise and grind no I don't I'm going to rise and enjoy the hell out of my life and I'm going to do what I love to do and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. There's no grinding going on. The man who loves walking. Walk further than the man who loves the destination. So what's happened along that process you've learned to love the journey man when you love the journey the goals just happen that you hit milestones as a side effect right because it doesn't matter at that point I don't care if I can lift this much weight or run this fast I mean that's cool and it's great and I love it but I don't love it as much as I love the journey I love the journey what is the journey consists of sucking at something failing getting better learning start a new journey started over do it again when you fall in love with the journey everything else takes care of itself. People coming up now and they say you know we want to be able to do some of the things you do and I said well you can't do what I'm doing now you have to do what I did 20 years ago when I was in the same position right if you're not willing to do those things then you're not going to be able to do these things I was dead broke there was no time to relax go hang out party. No I was broke I needed millions I saw me even when I had negative money in my account which was very often I saw millions in my future I wanted safety comfort security ease no more stress title watching people stress title watching people get straight and pause just to make pay this and you know I mean I was tired as tired of being that myself so that was my thing you know I mean at that time no time to see I'm trying to get me if you were to ask most people walking the street could they come up with a list of healthy foods they could do that and if you ask most people how many hours should you sleep each night they'll give you a number real quick all of these people know those things right but statistically very few of them are doing any of these things right it's it's not that they don't know it's that they don't do we all know a lot we just need to start doing.


customer experience starts from the moment you first engage that customer. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody, welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, and we have a great show lined up for you today. We have Todd Miller, who's the president of Isaiah Industries. With us, Todd, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much. Glad to be here. So for our listeners, just give us a little bit of your background, how you got into this crazy world of building products, and tell us about Isaiah Industries. Yeah, that's a great question. So Isaiah Industries was actually started by my father. Like many of us, I wasn't necessarily born into the industry. I was already long in existence at that point, but kind of came into it through the family. So the company was started in 1980. We had started out by producing commercial metal roofing. Listeners have seen our products a zillion times on all those brightly colored roofs that dot the interstate system in our country. Pizza Hutts and Dairy Queens and IHOPs and 7-Elevens and all those. And that's what we were producing in the early 80s. We had acquired some product lines from Kaiser Aluminum. When I came into the company full time in the mid 80s, though, things were really shifting. That commercial business was obviously not always going to be there. So what I did was I went out and started spending time with a few folks scattered around the country who were selling this thing called residential metal roofing that was just kind of starting together some legs. I went out and spent a lot of time learning from them, learning what they did, and then trying to replicate contractors across the country doing similar work selling residential metal roofing. And long story short, because of so many great players in the industry, metal has gone from a market share of about 2% of the residential roofing industry back in the late 90s to the most recent numbers, 18%. So that is some stellar growth in such a huge industry as roofing. And it is firmly the number two player in the roofing industry now and continues to grow and continues to be on an upward trajectory. That's the first thing I thought of when you said you started the business in the 80s. I was like, man, was the metal roofing even a big, was there much market share there to be had? But it sounds like you got ahead of it, which is great. You're also the host of a podcast, The Construction Disruption. Sure. Yeah, we started our show about two years ago, Construction Disruption, and we kind of focus on trying to what I always call uncover the future of design, building and remodeling. So we're always trying to get guests on who talk about what trends they're seeing, what's in their crystal ball and what the future is going to bring for design and building and remodeling. And it's been a lot of fun. I'll tell you probably similar to what your experience has been Zach. I have learned so much from the guests that we've had just been amazing. Every show we have, I come away learning so much. So it's been a great experience. One thing you said to me, Todd, as we were prepping for the show, was you all view the customer experience as who starts with the manufacturer. Even if it doesn't support actual purchase, it goes through a dealer or a distributor or something like that. But you think it starts with the manufacturer, which I think is a really unique perspective. Can you talk about that a little bit and what do you mean? And secondarily, how does this actually apply in the real world? It's a great question. And I realize our company, because we're in kind of a niche market, we're not necessarily a name brand, we're not just out there being pushed through every distributor in existence, we have a little bit of a unique perspective. But I think in reality, there's a lot of building materials similar to ours that are kind of a little bit more niche and not quite as mainstream. So I know that for us, what we are heavily dependent upon is our online presence, bringing not contractors to us, not wholesalers, not distributors, but actual property owners to us. I mean, in our case, that's mainly residential, but it could be commercial too. And I had someone tell me, it was really interesting a while back and they said that they think the future in terms of lead generation in the home improvement industry has to focus on customer experience. And I think there's a lot to be said for that, but the problem is we often think of customer experience as being only that thing that happens after their customer, right? I mean, that's what the word is. But in reality, customer experience starts from the moment you first engage that customer. And that could be a manufacturer through their website. It could be a local contractor through their website. But whatever it is, we have to focus on that customer experience from the get-go. And that includes great work like your company does, helping people build great websites that connect with people and engage them and bring them in and then kind of set a plan for, you know, what does the future look like as they continue to learn about the product and decide where they're going to go with it. So I know for us, one of the ways that this is all manifest is we generate a lot of consumer leads through our website. I mean, thousands and thousands every year. And we try to pay attention to every one of those personally. And we want to get them asking personal individualized questions as early on as they can.  I mean, they go through a drip campaign for marketing automation and so forth. But what we really are always driving toward is that personal interaction. And, you know, that's where I think any company that is knowledgeable of not only their own products, but of the industry can really shine is by engaging that property owner or maybe it's a design professional also. I mean, those architects that we all want to connect with all the time and find so difficult to connect with sometimes. But, you know, the quicker you can get them engaged and get them asking questions and then you delivering great information to them. I mean, as the book title out there, they ask you answer. I mean, you know, you'll want to get them engaged in that sort of relationship so that you become sort of their trusted guide to their own story, to figuring out what is, in our case, the best roofing material for them in their home. I don't care if it ends up not being our product. If we can play a role in helping them discover what is best for them, then we've been successful and we've created a good experience for them, not just for our company, but I hope for the entire roofing industry. That would be a good thing at least. I think that's a really smart perspective because so many people are focused on only the customers they can win in helping them. But if you can say, hey, I'm not the right fit for you in this scenario, this is a scenario where I am the right fit, the trust level immediately goes to the roof.  The other thing you said I think it's really important is, as technology has progressed, the customer experience has gone further and further upstream, closer to the manufacturer or the originator. It used to be customer experience was really just in the store, that's where the experience started, maybe a little bit of like what you saw in advertising, but now it's like, hey, how hard was it to find you? Yes. If I can't find you, it's a difficult experience. If when I find you, I can't get information, I have a difficult time getting the facts, pricing, whatever it might be, all of that adds to the customer experience and that translates to, frankly, how well do you know me as a prospect? The customer might not say like, oh, I don't think the customer experience is good, but they'll say it with the amount of time they spend on your site. I mean, one of the best examples I can think of is Zillow versus Realtor.com. Like most people say they like Zillow more and they're like, I don't know, it just feels better. Why do you use Airbnb over VRBO or one or the other? One just feels better. It's hard to articulate, but it translates to dollars. Yeah. And so if you've got the best experience, which is online, which is being found, which is the different parts of your marketing or whatever it is, that's going to translate all the way downstream to the actual purchase and then post-purchase because you're setting the precedent for what the success and a high quality experience look like. I love that. And yeah, and you're right. I mean, that feeling is oftentimes what keeps us going back to someplace and it is that experience. So I'll just give a real quick example and this might resonate with some of your other listeners. So as you mentioned, we're a manufacturer of metal roofing. Well, we tend to specialize in specialty products. So when you think of metal roofing, normally what you think of or if a consumer goes and Google, hey, how do I get a metal roof for my house? They're probably thinking the metal roofs that they've seen that look like maybe corrugated roofing or they look like they're on a commercial building. And we produce a little bit of that, but our focus really is more on specialty products, metal roofs that look like slate or cedar shake or more traditional roofing materials. So here's the thing that I'm always telling the companies that sell our products, they may focus on our products, but I'm like front and center on your website, you have got to have an image of what looks like a metal roof that they're expecting to see because otherwise, if they've Googled metal roofs in my area and they get to your website and they see nothing that looks like a metal roof to them, well, we know what happens. They're out of there very quickly. And so it's an odd idea because you're actually maybe showing partly the product you don't even sell much of, but that's what you do because you've got to bring them into your website and you've got to create that experience with them that one way or another, these folks can give me what I need and they can answer my questions. You said something that I think is important, which is give them what they want so you can sell them what they need. So you show them, hey, here's the metal roof and oh, by the way, we have all these other products. Right. One of the questions I was going to ask you is how do you all differentiate in a crowded marketplace? If I think about metal roofing, there's definitely a performance component to it, but it sounds like one thing that you do, Todd, to separate yourself is your experience and that comes down to traffic, comes in acquisition, showing different ways the product can be used. How do you think about experience in terms of differentiation against competitors? You never know exactly what your competitors may be doing out there. And so at the end of the day, you really can just focus on what you think is best for your company in terms of delivering the right experience to your customers and your prospects. But I do think that prospects and property owners will resonate toward that company that truly engages with them and answers their questions.  And in reality, what happens? They never respond. And so sometimes just showing up is half the battle. But regardless, if you can quickly show them that you've got this concept down of they ask and you answer, so they ask a very personal question about their need, you give them a very honest, open, transparent response. I think that's how you help to develop trust and you help them get them to thinking, okay, I like these guys. These are the guys I'd like to work with. These are the guys I could trust to provide building materials for my house or whatever that might be. Yeah, that's so interesting because one thing we talk a lot about is how the product is now the back end offer where it used to be the front end. So so much of what we buy is, do I trust that person? Do I like how I felt talking to them? Was their site used? Like the decision gets made further and further upstream all these intangible parts of the business. Although it's important, it's not the singular most important thing. And as soon as you recognize that the more successful your business is going to be. So for example, I was talking to a manufacturer we work with. We run their advertising for them and they do very well. We run their advertising and it's very successful. And they asked me recently, they're like, hey, so what are we not doing that we should be doing? I was like, well, as a performing well, you're getting leads. But I was like, I think you're leaving money on the table because your site is difficult to use and we don't have control over that. That's something their IT TMC. It's like I improve speed improve ease of access information. And I think you're going to see your lead volume might not increase, but your close rate will because you're leaving frustration off the table. You're removing frustration and friction off the table and making it easier for the person to convert, which will translate to ultimately more sales and revenue. Makes a lot of sense. You got to focus on what's going to be a good experience for that customer because it is so easy for them to discount you and go on to the next guy. Todd, is there a common issue you see in the industry that happens that manufacturers overlook in reference to how they market or position or even the experience of working with the brand? You mentioned response times is one thing. What are the things that you see that are common issues? One of the things, and I don't know if this is so much an issues act as it is just an observation.  I meet the needs of everyone out there that comes my way. But the reality is for that consumer, even though we know sitting in our chair, give or take, I mean, all of us have a lot of similarities.  And you have to treat them for the uniqueness of them in regards to how they think of their own home. So I think one of the things I see people taking is sort of a mass marketing mentality. And yet I think one of the beauties of the internet and our websites and our digital presence is our ability to really hone in on individual prospects with a laser like focus and make them personal touch where they are cared about as individuals and not just another customer you're filtering through. Todd, this has been an awesome interview. If someone wants to connect with you or reach out, what's the best way for them to do that? Yeah, I really am pretty active on LinkedIn. So Todd Miller, metal roofing, will find me on LinkedIn. I also have an educational website asktodmiller.com and probably the easiest way to email me is Todd at asktodmiller.com. Love to engage with people. I love this stuff. So the more ability and chances I have the opportunity to talk about it, I'm a happy guy. They should also check out your website, Isaiah Industries, as well if they want to. IsaiahIndustries.com. And then from there, you can branch on to our various brand websites. So we manufacture actually three brands of metal roofing, classic metal roofing, Castle and Irons and also green American home. So you can reach all the branded sites through the corporate Isaiah site as well. Todd, man, thank you again so much for coming on the show. And for our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, check us out at Benvio.com slash podcast to subscribe and get more. Until next time, I'm Zach Williams. Thanks everybody.


Part one of this trip starts in Geneva, Switzerland We stayed at the Bu Ravage, a quaint bourgeois hotel that overlooked the lot of Geneva And I'm enjoying the fabulous hotel and the spectacular city We also got to celebrate my mother's birthday at an outstanding restaurant called Domaine du Chateauvue Up next is part two Wine tasting and skiing in the Alps