The men's team has had a great season. Our goal going into the season was just to improve each week and for people to have PRs, maybe not every week, but just they should be running faster, jumping farther, throwing farther than they were two months ago. And that's definitely happening across the board. So we're very happy with that. So our upperclassmen on the men's side have been a big help this year. I mean they've been great leaders. We can look to them as a coaching staff. We can look to them to really just be leaders and help us when it comes to leading practices, leading the team at meets. Some of these guys are also our best performers and a couple that stand out would be Cam Summers and Nathan Williams. On the women's side, we're definitely a little bit younger than on the men's side. We have a lot of new freshmen and even sophomores and we know that they're going to be a lot better in the years to come. And again on the women's side as well, we do have a bunch of upperclassmen that have been helpful just as much as the men. And a couple of those big time leaders this year were like Keanna Mack, who unfortunately is injured and not able to compete, but then also Nicole Osai, she was another one that we could really look up to with being a team leader on the women's side. When it comes to Mack weekend for us, we really want the athletes to just again keep improving on what they've done throughout the season. But the nice thing about Mack's is we get to try to beat our seed times or our seed marks. And that's something that we really push as a coaching staff is people are expecting you to finish here. Let's see if we can beat those marks. And the other thing that's really unique about our sport is this is one of the few times of the year that it's all about the team. So the men's and women's team while the team scoring is separate, they're out there cheering each other on and supporting each other a lot throughout the whole competition. But again it's just it's really just let's see if we can beat our seed mark and finish higher than what we were predicted to finish.


Hello, I'm Dom McCrae, BC's Minister of Agriculture. You know, from the west coast of Vancouver Island, where we have great shellfish, to the northeast corner of British Columbia, where cattle roam, BC is blessed with incredible agriculture. From serving a traditional BC turkey, chicken, or Christmas goose, a platter of fresh seafood, BC ham, pork, or grass-fed beef, the options for serving a truly BC holiday meal are phenomenal. But serving local foods does more than rink smiles to those receiving a healthy and great-tasting meal. It supports our province's farming families, communities, and 61,000 British Columbians that work so hard to produce our food. The people that grow our fruits and vegetables, provide our dairy and eggs, the masters of our vineyards, and all the artisans who use their skill and love of food to prepare the best-tasting products in the world. By choosing local foods, you support your community and our province. So from a local market to the grocery store aisle, I encourage you to serve BC foods for your holiday meals, and I challenge you to keep doing it all year long. Buying BC food is the perfect New Year's resolution for British Columbians looking for healthier diets, a lighter carbon footprint, locally grown food, and supporting a diverse economy. On behalf of myself and all the hard-working men and women at the Ministry of Agriculture, we wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And please celebrate BC Agriculture not just this holiday season, but all through the year. Merry Christmas.


The green light is on and away from the start. Doyle! Good one off-gate number three. Goodness me, he's got his traffic gloves on there. But Smarsvik comes through now. Bartos Smarsvik has the lead and the home fans are jumping up and down with their light here. Doyle is second in the white helmet cover. Lindgren is going to switch up the inside now. Manson battling away. But Doyle holding on to second place. Manson's going high and wide into the dirt, but he's drift in the fourth place now. But what about this from Bartos Smarsvik? Doyle's got pace. He has indeed the Australian brilliant away from the start. Gate three working a treat for him. But Smarsvik held that inside line and was able to get himself to the front. Doyle suddenly has got that bite working and he's riding brilliantly in second place. Turning his fortunes around. Doyle's coming on strong. There's a lap to go. Can the Australian win here again? In the end with Janssen's lead and down the back straight nige. Well, he's going to try the inside. Come on, Daniel! Smarsvik spots him. Now Doyle on the inside. Smarsvik's in the dirt. Down to the line, nige! Smarsvik just hands on! The water race to finish the night. Smarsvik wins against the 20 points. But what a race from Doyle. Fabulous respect between the two world champions. Smarsvik's had a crash. Congratulations, Doyle. But that was some speed. We're racing again now. Jason Doyle suddenly finding the pace and speed. Mark has a steady bit front. We know him on spot one here. Wuffin loves this place, but Smarsvik is there. Smarsvik has got the lead early on. Wuffin's coming through on traffic. And a bit to second spot now. Vashnik is third. And the inside flipping off on the back. But Bartos Smarsvik being reigning World Speedway Champion with seven-cornery victories under his belt in his career. In the 26 previous finals, he's got the lead. But Wuffin is going to push him hard here. He is indeed. So the Emils Cypher did not miss that. A gate number two smashing star for Smarsvik. Wuffin done brilliant in that first corner. He's got speed. And he's charging hard in second place. 20 points for Smarsvik. We'll push him on to 79. And lead the championship. He'll lead the championship down the back straight here now. Just beginning to put away. Smarsvik really capitalising here. Yeah, Bartos Smarsvik showing what a true world champion he is. As he kicks on here. Wuffin in second. Third is Vashnik. So he's been left training in the back. 20 points incoming now for Bartos Smarsvik. Wuffin done with a handy 18 points here now. That'll be good for him. But Bartos Smarsvik, the reigning champion, takes the check and flag in the Marqueta Stadium in Prague. And that is the eighth Grand Prix victory of his career in 24 final appearances. Bartos Smarsvik leads the world championship. He's top of the standings. And he's defending his world title. Well done, that man. Round six of eight. And this is the final in the Marqueta Stadium in Prague. There are way no problem this time. Smarsvik's made a good one. He's got the top on Lindgren. Wuffin is going high and wide around outside here. What? Goodness me. What a right that was. But he's got Smarsvik all over him. Doyle's come through into third and Lindgren's in the back. But Ty Wuffin and 20 points to him tonight. Well, that will put him onto 91 Grand Prix points. But Smarsvik is quick here. He is indeed what a first corner for Wuffin and he made it. And the same Wuffin and the hole up the inside. Smarsvik pushing hard. Can a lap to go. Smarsvik's going to throw everything at this. Yeah, he tries to chop up the inside. And he's going to do Wuffin down here. He's going to charge up the inside. Love track style. And now Wuffin and Wuffin will try one last move up. Can he get close? Smarsvik has won two. There is daylight between Smarsvik and Lindgren now. That is a huge result. And I can't help but feeling that Bartos Smarsvik has taken a huge step towards defending his world title successfully. What a final that was. We had to wait. And the final round of the world championship. And Freddie Lindgren's had a nightmare in the start. It's looking like a runoff. It is indeed. Mancianowski with the lead. And here comes Artem Laguta. Jason Doyle will be cheering. Mancianowski on here. Yanovski has that lead. Here comes Smarsvik on the inside. Oh! Step off! Stay on your bikes, boys. Don't ruin it now. And the way Smarsvik is coming through. The world champion again. Pile through. Here comes Yanovski. But Smarsvik closes the door. Unbelievable run again for Bartos Smarsvik. Mate, you don't need to do it. Yanovski was such a fine star. You've got to feel for Freddie Lindgren there. We don't know what's happened. But some sort of mechanical issue. We're going to see another race. Because Ty Woogal is going to have to warm up for this man. He's going to be crowned world champion. And the result for Bartos Smarsvik rounds off the championship in some style. And he cannot believe it. A shake of the head. He won the world title a few moments ago. He's won the Grand Prix. Head of all, finished of the night. Wow, the place has just gone crazy. He's won four. He's got tight at tongue, but by Golly. When the chips are down, he has come through. Fantastic ride.


You know, P.M.C. said, man, DJ Screw the King of the South.  Yeah, we on boss talk one on one, one on one. Yeah, we gon' talk. Like I say, that's on the Rhyme Dirty album cover. Yeah. There's seen no suburban. Okay, okay.  Yeah, yeah. There's us. Damn. Yeah, and we shot history for you niggas, man.  In front of a schoolhouse. Yeah, on the party for three in the morning, they had one of these parties for three in the morning. Wow, that's hard, man. And now it was like, who was it that's like, you know, they happened to be with a, it's there with who they were signed with at the time. With Jive. Jive, yeah. Yeah, they all came with the photographers and now end up shooting their album cover. Wow, that's crazy, man. So let me talk about DJ Screw, man. DJ Screw, man, was, hey, man, he changed.   Yeah. When you heard him say that.  If Screw would have set a blank contract in front of me out of sight, you know. Cause you knew he wasn't gonna do nothing to all of them. He was just a good dude. Yeah. It's nothing I'm talking about you. If somebody didn't say they hating on Screw, man, they just hating. They just hating. He ain't ever hating on anyone in his body. And they used to just, people used to just come over there and he, how did he come up with that? That was something he was doing. That's something he came up with. To screw the music down. Yeah, to screw the music down. That was something like a lot of people can answer that question for him, but that's a question that really can't be answered cause he's not here to answer. So he never did, never was asked why he done it. I mean, he probably did it in the interview. He probably spoke a little bit. I don't know. I can't remember. I gotta go research like why, what made him do it? You know? Yeah. And it was cool for us because now when we free styling, we free, we ain't free styling on tempo to be slow down. So now you can think about what you're saying. Like, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, helping us out like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's what, that was the, the way he mixed his songs, man. It was crazy. You know, the way he mixed the music, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. He mixed the hell out of it. Yeah.  You know, that's why I say school ain't, he had no competition because he was on the one doing it.  Yeah, we on boss talk one on one. One on one.


Good morning everybody, just want to thank everybody for coming out. Thank you for coming to celebrate with us. Have me a little speech prepared. I'm gonna try to go buy it before I introduce our mayor. Just say good morning and thank you to everyone for coming out to celebrate with us. I'm excited and grateful for the team I have and being a part of such an amazing group at the city of Columbia. Over these past 12 months we stood up a shelter and created an environment where individuals feel safe and included. We could not have done that without our case managers, the shift staff, security, and our community. And I want to thank the mayor and the city manager, Ms. Teresa Wilson, for giving us the opportunity to serve one person at a time. And I'm not gonna take up much more time and introduce our mayor. Mayor recommend. Good afternoon everyone. I hope you're doing well. It's an exciting day here and I think about 14 months ago this was a conversation of hey we can do this, we can prop this up, we can make this happen. And it shows how our ability when necessary for the right reasons can get things done very quickly. But I also think it's very important as we continue to talk, and I think Camisha started talking about it, everybody here, is everybody's a piece of the puzzle. We cannot do this alone and having the right partners, the right staff. Everybody plays a role and that's how we make a difference. And what I think was so special is what you said, which is one person at a time. Having being able to change one person's life, one person's time, the ability to move people from being unsheltered into a permanent living situation, along with the wraparound services and an opportunity to move and move upward. And in changing their life, I think it's so important as we continue, this is only the beginning. Rapid shelter is just one piece. This was never supposed to be the end all. This was the beginning of a journey that we're all taking together to improve the quality of life, to move folks as we move towards hopefully one day, a hope center that allows us to provide all the services, everything in one place and give people an opportunity to choose their path as they get to move forward. But those personalized services, those resources, the ability for all the community partners to come together and be part of this, I think is what's so special. I really want to thank the city manager, Teresa Wilson, our city council, our staff, because when we put everything together and we said we wanted to do this, there was no hesitation, there was no pushback. It was all right, let's get it done. And to build something like this, to put the whole program together and have it done in 90 days was pretty special. I think it's one of our best accomplishments that we've had in our city, and I hope people feel that way. But when we look at the participants and the folks that have been here, the referrals, being able to get people from here into permanent housing and having a place to start that conversation, I think is pretty special. So I want to thank each and everyone who's here today for being part of that. I want to thank the residents and the folks who have been coming to the Rapid Shelter who are being referred here and being part of it for taking a chance and working with us because we really do want to make a difference. And I think this is step one. So let's get on the train because we got step three and four to go. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Kamisha. My heart is really full. So give me a moment because I'm thinking about this time last year when in the matter of literally days, I think every department and employee at the city gave of themselves to come and help literally build our pallet units in just a few days. So like teamwork makes the dream work, right? I'm just so excited because it's amazing what we can do when we put our hearts and minds together. And the mayor touched upon that. I guess I just said I'm Teresa Wilson, city manager. I think three things from my perspective happened a year ago and leading up to this, but our mayor and our city council and Reverend Medall, Councilman M. And Medall is here. And I don't know if any of our other council members are. Oh, and Councilman Tina Herbert's here. But these council members, these policy makers, right? So in a city, you know how this works. You've got your mayor and your policy makers or council members. And they were very intentional about figuring out with the data, with the other providers, with the unsheltered population of Columbia, what can we do? Not meaning it was going to solve every problem. It's such a big issue. But what can we begin to do to move the needle and be collaborative and touch lives in a way that truly made a difference? And so between all types of task force meetings led by Dr. Audity Bussells on council and that committee of council members who met with providers and others, like I said, came out a lot of information and data and research. And so from there, number two, any good city manager or administrator is usually a solutions-oriented person. And so my team knows that I kind of get my mind on something. And council has said what they're looking for. And so we didn't keep going in a continuous cycle. I just started thinking about what could we do, literally tangible, that isn't meant to solve every problem, but it does move the needle is what they're asking for. And we started doing our research and we saw what was happening maybe out on the West Coast with these individual units that took people out of the congregate communities and really poured into individuals, meeting them where they are individually in a safe, compassionate space. And wow, this model really works, y'all. I recommend it for other communities and it's scalable and the mayor touched on this a little bit. You know, our community's going to have to have a deeper conversation about what that looks like. Because here is the proof that individualized services with everyone partnering with all the providers working together works. And then number three, we had the team work and it made the dream work with our staff. Our staff at the City of Columbia support services. I won't start naming departments, but a lot of them are in the room from public words to parts in red to Columbia. I mean, I procurement, I mean, everybody at the city touched this and we got it done as Mary Rickman said in 90 days. So imagine what we can still do. And on top of that, the council gave me the autonomy to push even further and hire a professional, a licensed social worker in Camisha Hepard to see this through on a daily basis. And then we hired Mackinwall and Nyjah Franklin. These three ladies were the first of a staff that we put together at City of Columbia for homeless services and then they began building on that staff. We have case managers now, the shift workers, the security and support team and all these volunteers in the room. Please give yourselves a hand. I mean, we could not have done this without that support and we can keep doing it and we can model this and we can scale this up. So we're so thankful in the season of thankfulness and Mackin told me today's theme is gratitude. So I'm so thankful and I want to make sure that we give thanks to the three ladies, Mackin, Nyjah, Camisha come up here. My grandmother taught me to give people their flowers while they are here with us. There is no way I try to get down here when I can, but these ladies are here every single day doing the work, keeping our residents safe, pouring into them with their team members. I love these ladies and I love their spirit. Thank y'all so much. I just want to say thank you to Ms. Wilson and I said I wasn't going to cry, but whatever. I'm not going to take up any more time. I'm going to hand it over to Mackin Wall who is our project manager and Nyjah Franklin, our program specialist. They put together an amazing program and here we go. Good afternoon everybody and everybody back there. I see you. Thank you all so much for, hey Kylie, thank you all so much for coming out today. It means so much to have such a huge and wonderful crowd of faces that I have gotten to know this past year. So I truly cannot believe it's already been a whole year. It's been a year full of challenges, obstacles, and occasionally frustration just occasionally. But more importantly, it has been a year of joy, growth, and gratitude. Our word for this year in today's theme is gratitude because there is a lot to be thankful for and it's November 1st so Thanksgiving is coming up. Nyjah and I want to take this time to thank and recognize our wonderful community partners, volunteers, sponsors, and all of those who have made this first year such a success because it has been a success. It's been a reminder that the popular saying it takes a village, but in this case a community is absolutely true. First and foremost I want to thank Rapid Shelter Columbia Shift staff, our lead house manager Thomas Thurman, and our wonderful case managers Ayanna, Haynes and Trina Gary. They're somewhere in there. There they are. They work every single day directly with residents to make sure they're reaching their goals and doing everything it takes to secure permanent housing and recently we got our very own social work interns, Ira, Anna, Abigail, and Uno who have a very bright future ahead of them and have been a huge help today and thus far in there in the front row. So here at Rapid Shelter we have partners who come onsite each and every week to provide direct client services. Our partnership with the RAIDAC has been wonderful. Ron Hicks is a peer support group specialist who leads a group every Monday morning for those who are living with substance use disorder or any type of addiction. Our residents always enjoy attending his sessions. They leave with hope for the future in a sense of belonging, knowing that they're not alone. Thank you to Ron and Ms. Wendy Hughes and the RAIDAC for your continued support. Mercy is Columbia's mental illness recovery center. Under the leadership of Ms. Julianne Avon and Ms. Diane Fields, Anita and Alicia provide outreach services here at Rapid Shelter every Wednesday. They always show up, rain or shine, to engage with residents and make sure their mental health appointments are scheduled and that they're receiving the services that they need to be successful. I cannot say enough about Abraham Lewis. For those of you who know Abraham, you know what I'm talking about. He works for Cooperative Health as a community health worker for healthcare for the homeless. He truly does go above and beyond to help Rapid Shelter residents with their appointments, medications, health insurance, and just general support. He often stays after five o'clock and sometimes even comes back at dinner time to deliver medication. As he works, his compassion shines through and any bystander would be able to see how much he genuinely cares. Big thanks to Miriam Eschenfelder as well, Healthcare for the Homeless program coordinator for the constant support. Rachel Jackson is the program manager for Trinity Recovery, which is a program through Lutheran Services of the Midlands. Not only does she come onsite every Wednesday to facilitate an NA meeting, but she assists us in placing residents into long-term sober living facilities. She donates lots of supplies when needed. She shares resources and so much more. She's here today. She has a table set up in the back. She's distributing Narcan and fentanyl test strips for anyone who might want some. She's compassionate. She shares her personal story with residents, giving them the encouragement that they need and reminding them that recovery is possible. Just last month under Rachel's leadership, Trinity Recovery partnered with Deodes, which is the Department of Alcohol and other drug abuse services. To host an awesome cookout, you'll see some pictures on the slides. Here at Rapid Shelter, in celebration of Recovery Month, which is September. Broderick Anderson with the Department of Mental Health has been with us since day one. He often brings his mobile unit and completes intake assessments with residents to make sure that they're receiving mental health treatment as soon as possible. When he's not in his RV, he brings new residents to Rapid Shelter to make sure they already have their medication and appointment set up. He follows up with everyone every week, and he refers new residents and engages with new clients as well. We're so thankful for him, as well as his supervisors, Miss Cappy Hug and Allison Smith, and everyone at the Department of Mental Health who make this partnership possible. Pastor Eric Archer, I don't know if you're here. I think he is. I think I saw him. He's also been with us since day one. He leads our Bible study every Friday morning. He brings donuts and coffee, and he and his family, he has the most beautiful family, and church members make sure that we have an unlimited supply of laundry detergent, which we're forever grateful for. They donate gifts, and they truly make an effort to show their love and acceptance. Palmetto Church of Christ has always amazed me between serving a delicious homemade breakfast once a month to donating hundreds, quite literally a bus passes, and helping with rental assistance. There is nothing they are not willing to do. A few months ago, we had a resident who was expecting her first baby with little to no help. Members of Palmetto Church of Christ met her at breakfast one morning and took it upon themselves to host a beautiful baby shower for her. She received the most thoughtful gifts. And to this day, she still reaches out to me and asks me to thank them for that wonderful day. They continue to step in wherever help is needed, donating and delivering furniture that is very heavy, and even making the desserts for today's events and serving our chili. We are so grateful for them. Part of Rapid Shelter's program is helping residents who are able to work find employment. Though this can be challenging, it has been made easier through our partnership with Fast Forward, D-Albritton, and the entire staff have worked tirelessly with Rapid Shelter residents to assist them with resume building, certificate programs, bus passes, and finding and attaining employment. They've made it possible for our residents to use technology on site to accomplish their goals through donating Chromebooks and Kindles. They also have two office cats who we love to visit. There's a picture of one of them on here. Lakeland is here. She is the jobs program coordinator at Transitions Homeless Center and she is now working with her second group of Rapid Shelter residents to assist them in finding employment through weekly meetings and workshops, and we are so thankful for her. The Goodwill Senior Employment Program allows residents who are 55-plus to work on site. They help with landscaping, cleaning, and organizing, and this has been such a great opportunity for some of our residents. I think Dan Kitchens is here. He is our Prisma PACE program partner, and PACE has done wonderful things for Rapid Shelter residents and wanted to make sure to give them a huge shout out. Ms. Kristen Connors and the whole supportive housing services staff have been just that supportive. They assist residents who have disabilities to obtain permanent housing and provide ongoing case management. K&M Community Health and PALS, which is Palmetto Aid Services, bring their mobile units on site once a month to provide healthcare screening and preventative services, as well as HIV services. Sarah Pregno graciously volunteers her time twice a month to teach and lead music therapy. She teaches them how to combat their negative feelings, whether it's through lyrics and songwriting or singing and rapping. Thank you, Sarah. I would be remiss if I did not mention the Salvation Army. Major Craddock, Nicholas, Maya, and their staff provide three meals a day without missing a beat. Good, healthy food makes all the difference in day-to-day life. We cannot live a full life if we do not have a full stomach. And thank you, Salvation Army. I couldn't mention Salvation Army without giving a shout out to Ms. Melanie Miller. She is now living the retired life, but she was such a wonderful support to us at the beginning. Additionally, I promise I'm almost done, y'all. I want to thank Transitions Homeless Center staff, the Housing Authority, TN Development, the Public Defender's Office, the Rainy Day Fund, the United Way, Christ Central, the Richland Library, and Catholic Charities and probably even more for their partnership and support. They are all among those who have had such a positive impact on rapid shelter this first year. We have two amazing outreach specialists, Alicia. Alicia and Larry, who work every day in the field, boots on the ground to engage with those who may not know what resources are available to them. So as you can see, we have a lot of individuals and organizations to be thankful for. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank the City of Columbia. Mayor Rickinman, Ms. Wilson, Council members, Chief Holbrook and Major Roberts, and employees from other departments have welcomed the Homeless Services Department and Rapid Shelter Columbia with open arms. We receive words of encouragement and support each and every day. The procurement and contracting even welcomed us onto their floor at 1800 Main. And I got a goodie bag yesterday for Halloween. Kelvin and Stacey, along with their entire team at support services, never complained when we send over a work order, which happens to be quite often, including this morning when I got a phone call at 6.30 saying all the power was out. That was wonderful. Stacey answered immediately. All this to say, Columbia is a city that cares. This has been evident to us in the past year. Not a day goes by that I don't receive a phone call or an email from somebody wanting to volunteer or donate things. I truly believe that a strong community is what it takes to make a difference in individual lives. It provides a sense of identity and belonging that encourage and push us to become our best selves. The Latin meaning for the word compassion is suffering with. In a world where suffering is all around us, a community that stands together is putting compassion into action. Now, Asia is now going to share some remarks and then introduce our last guest speaker. Good afternoon. All the speakers before me were great, so I may be repeating some of the things that they already stated. My theme is gratitude, so I am really thankful. For our partners and our case managers, I just want to start by reiterating what Mackin stated. It does take a village, and in our case, it took a community to be able to do the work that we do. This is a hard job, but working in it is doable. Through the awesome work of our case managers, Ayanna Haynes and Trina Gary, we have made a total of 276 referrals to partners, which led to 41 residents obtaining health insurance, 48 residents obtaining employment opportunities. We have been able to connect 76 clients to peer support groups, along with referring them out to detox programs through Trinity Recovery and Laredoc, and we have been able to connect 52 clients to mental health providers. We are intentional with making referrals because the goal is to prepare clients for their new life. The case managers provide intensive case management, and they take an individualistic approach when dealing with our clients. With that being said, and with the connections that we connected our clients to, 34 clients have been permanently housed by Rapid Shelter as of today. Now, just a year ago, it was hard for me to see that being new to this population and getting in two case management. I was like, ooh, this is hard, weightless, just minimal opportunities, but it is possible. We do serve a unique population, so housing does look different for our clients. We have clients that have been housed in apartments with or without ongoing subsidies. We have clients that have been placed in nursing home facilities, boarding homes, Oxford homes, whatever is appropriate to meet that client need. Once the resident is housed, we continue to support them because the goal is not only to obtain housing, but to maintain housing. So case management does not stop once our residents are housed. Rapid Shelter continues to support clients within their first year that they are housed. We do that by doing phone visits, maybe once or twice a month. I stopped by, I went by somebody else this morning to drop off some bus tickets, a system with recertification with SNAP benefits, whatever they need. So I do aftercare, my phone ring nonstop. On the weekend, I answer just to make sure our residents have what they need. Aftercare also cannot happen without the help of our partners. They get us furniture, they help us with eviction, prevention, everything. So I'm really thankful for the partners on that as well. I'm excited what we accomplished this far at Rapid Shelter, and I'm looking forward to next year. I'm hoping that we can expand our difference that we're making right here at Rapid Shelter Columbia. Before I go, I want to introduce our next speaker, Mr. Allen, who I had the honor of case managing while he was here. Allen is a former resident of Rapid Shelter Columbia, and he will share his story and his experience here at Rapid Shelter. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. As my case manager, can't say anything else about her. She's right. Her phone's nonstop. I'm actually a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. This has some major problems in my life. At the young age of probably about 18, I left my house. I left my parents because I had that alcohol problem. Me and my father actually physically got into an argument where the cops were called that evening. Luckily enough, neither one of us went to jail that night because somebody obviously could have. Yeah, this is harder than I thought it would be for me. Like I said, I've been through a lot. At the age of 18, I came out with my parents. My father served 23 years in the military, so being homosexual was not something that was accepted in my house. Was not accepted by my parents or my family. I kept on drinking to that point where I started using marijuana. Marijuana turned into cocaine. Cocaine turned into crystal meth. I ended up meeting my husband at that point. Kept on using crystal meth, using pills, anything I could get just to numb the pain of what I was going through. And one afternoon, he came home from work and said, I'm done.  I ended up being hospitalized. At the same time, I was hospitalized in a middle ward. I was also served by the Mecklenburg Sheriff's Department in North Carolina with a restraining order that my husband put on me. And at that time, I went to the doctors and I said, okay, enough is enough. I knew if I didn't get help at that time, there was going to be no help for me. I spent roughly 60 days in this program, give or take. But there was one major huge problem after going into this program and going into rehab. I become homeless. What do I do now? Where do I go? I was lucky enough to have a great friend here in Columbia that offered me a place to stay. But then, you know, and I thought everything was great until that friend reintroduced me to crystal meth. I ended up homeless. I was sleeping under a bridge on the streets, anywhere I could find to lay my head at night. Lucky enough, in November of 2022, the city announced the opening of the Raptor Shelter of Columbia. And at this time, I definitely want to take the time, the staff, everybody here.  In November of 2022, I was finally admitted here. They opened me with loving arms. I was nervous, of course. It's a big difference from going to the streets than actually having kind of like your personal own space. I didn't know how to live. Unfortunately, during that time, in November, my partner at the time, his father was hit by a vehicle in Orlando, Florida, and died there on scene. So I started drinking again. Even more heavy. Started doing crystal meth. More heavier. My partner at the time, with Barry and his father, I was here at the Raptor Shelter. I so wanted to leave, y'all. I so wanted to leave. I remember calling Miss Macken and saying, Miss Macken, I'm done. And she's like, no, Alan, you can't leave. I stayed as bad as I wanted to. At that time, I ended up making arrangements to actually go to Florida because I wanted to support my partner at the time. It wasn't because of the death of his father, but it was because at that time, I was the only person he had. And I would also like to mention that my partner at the time was also an alcoholic. But he seemed where I came from, from the streets, growing up to the person I am now. Unfortunately, March 25th, 2023, my life changed again. My partner committed suicide by drug erotos. He had fentanyl, cocaine, crystal meth all in his system. I was so numb. I didn't know how to live. At that time, yes, I still had the support. I even, after I left the Raptor Shelter of Columbia, I still had the support. But he was the one that, he was my rock. He was my everything. I ended up reapplying back to the Raptor Shelter of Columbia. Why? Because I know this is places where I've belonged. I knew this is where I could get help. No matter what the problems were, no matter the time of day it was, all the staff here, they were right there beside me. Every step of the way. I came back, got healthy. Just not physically but mentally healthy. Which is, with a lot of the clients, that's their main problem. They're not physically or mentally healthy. And all the organizations that actually help the Raptor Shelter of Columbia actually makes that available to all of us. I actually started working with USC Housing as a support. Support as housing. Which is all in the second row. Thank you all for being here today. I made all my appointments.  And September 1st of 2023, I signed my one year lease. I have a roof over my head now that I can call my own. I don't have to worry about where my next meal's coming from or where I'm going to lay my head at night. And if it wasn't for USC Supporting Housing, the City of Columbia, our Mayor, the Raptor Shelter of Columbia, none of this would have been available. I'm going to go ahead and close this so we can go on for the event. But again, I just really, really want to thank everybody that has supported just not me, but all of the clients here. And again, thank all of y'all from the bottom of my heart. Because if it wasn't for y'all, I know for a fact this man that I am today would not be standing here. I hope everybody has a great afternoon. Thank you again. And y'all have a great day. And thank you again for being so vulnerable and open and honest with us. And I hope that you all got some encouragement and some inspiration from that because your life can change. And so in closing, thank you all so much for being here today. We have Chili that's going to be served out of the kitchen. Palmetto Church of Christ is volunteering to serve that. We've got drinks, a dessert table, and we have activities and games outside. So please make yourself at home. And I hope y'all have a great, great first year around the shelter. Thank you.


Hello! This unit discusses the grammatical and semantic properties of the head of a noun phrase and the numerous criteria to keep different types of nouns and their function apart. In the virtual session we will first introduce different classes of head noun and will then define the grammatical features associated with them. In particular, number, gender and case. If you want guidance, optionally use the question sheet with its hyperlinks and its video references. The mastery worksheet is a simple multiple choice test with many questions about noun classes and noun features. Do it after the virtual session and you won't encounter any problems. And in the practical, as usual, we have data for you. Data about noun classes and noun features, ready for analysis. Make use of all these options and suggestions to achieve a solid understanding of the form and function of head nouns.


In this second chemical kinetics topic, we're going to look at the kinetic theory of gases. There are a few more aims and objectives in this topic, and the video will cover them. The kinetic theory of gases requires looking closely at the relationship between reaction rates and temperature, and finding out what that means from the perspective of individual gas molecules. We look at gases because their interactions could be readily simplified, and their behaviour far more easily predicted. They don't need to break through solvent shells for instance. So in this section, you will need to apply the Arrhenius equation to show how temperature affects the rate of reaction. You'll also be able to apply the Maxwell-Boltzmann equation. For this, you need to break down the equation and pull out the important bits contained within it, so don't get put off by the mathematical notation used to describe it. You'll be able to calculate the mean speed of atoms in a gas, and work out other useful terms like the root mean square speed, and the most probable speed of molecules, because, as you should know, energy of the reaction comes from this speed. We'll also take a look at the microscopic properties of reactions and look at collision theory. This measures and looks at kinetics from the perspective of the molecules. So you'll be able to work out properties such as collision diameter and collision cross-section, which are measures of a molecule's effective size that you can get from kinetic data. So we'll need to expand into the realm of collision rate and collision rate constant, then you'll be able to define and calculate these terms. Finally, you'll be able to explain the concept of a steric requirement for a reaction. Putting this all together will bring us back full circle to the beginning of this topic, and you'll be able to rationalise the physical meaning and significance of the Adoranius equation. All of this together will help us understand how temperature can affect the rate of reaction. We're now entering a world where the rate constant is no longer constant, but can be predicted and controlled by temperature, and those changes over temperature will eventually be useful in determining some other really important factors.


It's Sunday, June 13th, and this is For Good Reason. Welcome to For Good Reason, I'm DJ Grothi. For Good Reason is the radio show and the podcast produced in association with the James Randy Educational Foundation, an international non-profit whose mission is to advance critical thinking about the paranormal, pseudoscience, and the supernatural. My guest this week is Tom Clark, founder and director of the Center for Naturalism, which is an organization in the Boston area devoted to educating the public about naturalism. He's the editor of a popular online website, naturalism.org, the web's most comprehensive collection of resources on scientific naturalism, its implications, and its applications. He's the author of Encountering Naturalism, and he's on the show today to talk about skepticism and naturalism. Welcome to For Good Reason, Tom Clark. DJ, it's a pleasure to be here. I've had a couple interviews with you before on Point of Inquiry. I love these discussions because we get into some really heady stuff. You run this Center for Naturalism. It's in the Boston area, and I think you have a kind of tough row to hoe as a non-profit professional. I mean, your mission, your whole reason for existence, juts up against almost every core belief most everyone has in our society. Maybe I should say it another way, Tom. At the JREF, at the James Randi Educational Foundation, we also push skepticism, yes, about all these nonsense beliefs in society, but we focus on pseudoscience and the paranormal. You go out of your way to push it even further. You are advancing skepticism when it comes to these big concepts like free will or the idea of the self or human nature, consciousness, ultimate moral responsibility. You're basically saying, hey, society, everything you believe is wrong and it's terrifying, and please support my non-profit. DJ, this is a wonderful, a bit of a caricature, a bit of an overstatement, but I love what you just said because it's a good foil for what I think is the case about what the Center for Naturalism is doing, which, as you're right, we are challenging some central beliefs that this culture holds near and dear to itself, but we're not saying that everything is changing. We're not saying the whole thing gets exploded and that there's nothing to hold on to. What we're trying to do at the Center for Naturalism is to challenge things like free will, the contraposal variety of free will, the self as the soul. Yes, you're right about that, but there are varieties of freedom, as Daniel Dennett puts it, that are worth wanting, that are real. The self as a construction is a very robust construction. We can still have moral responsibility, so it's not the end of the world. If you're a naturalist, that's a lot of what the Center for Naturalism is trying to do, is to reassure people that we can be naturalists and have lives worth living and dignified, morally responsible agents. So it's not quite as bad as you said so at the beginning. Not quite as bad, but as a naturalist and not as a supernaturalist, it does have these implications. Let's talk about your skepticism of free will. That's why I had you on the show. But before we get into why you're a skeptic of free will, let's start at square one. Free will, it's this belief most of us have that we choose our own choices, that we aren't just mindless robots. How is that different from what philosophers call contraposal free will or are they identical? Right. Well, the fact that we make our own choices that we choose really, I think it's pretty controversial and because we do choose really in many important respects, but the contraposal free will that I don't think exists is the idea that in a given situation, exactly as it played out, that we could have done other than what we did. And there's no evidence for that. The evidence all shows that if you stick with science, that as we make our choices, as we act from moment to moment, our behavior is completely a function of our brain and the situation, our brain and body are in at the time, such that if you reset everything to that exact same situation, the same behavior would occur again. Contraposal free will says, no, hold on, in that exact moment with everything exactly the same, I could have done something different. Right. And that's the kind of free will that the center for naturalism and most philosophers deny. It doesn't mean that we're mindless robots. We are not mindless robots. We have minds that are very real. Our choice-making capacities are completely real. They're causally effective. They do marvelous things, but we are not uncaused causers, which is what contra-causal free will really ask of us. So you're not a skeptic of the fact that we make choices, but that we make these kinds of decisions that are not determined by anything other than our will, like in a supernatural sense. That's what you're a skeptic of, that yes, we make choices, but our choices are determined, and if we had it all to do over again, we would be forced or determined to make those same choices. Right. Except the idea of us being forced by determinism is a little misleading because who's making the choice? We as organisms, as systems are making the choice, and our choice-making capacities are just as real as all the factors that determined us to be who and what we are. So we don't want to suppose that determinism is coercive in the sense of someone holding a gun to your head, but it's simply not true. Determinism or cause and effect is the medium in which life happens. Right. We can't avoid it, but we can still draw a distinction between being coerced by a situation, for instance, being in prison, a dictator, having someone riding on us in a work situation where our choices are limited, we feel coerced. On the other hand, we can feel free and we are free in situations where we're doing what we want to do. Now, in both of these situations, everything is fully caused, but yet on the one hand, we're being coerced, on the other hand, we're not. So there's a real kind of freedom that exists within a deterministic universe. It's just not contra-causal, free will, that kind of freedom. That's exactly right. It's not contra-causal. It's what philosophers call compatibilist, free will, because it's compatible with determinism if determinism actually is the case. And of course, there's debate about that, too. Right. Compatibilism, Allah, say, denit or something like that. You mentioned philosophers earlier. You know, there's kind of consensus among many schools of philosophy that there ain't no such thing as contra-causal, free will. That hasn't trickled down to everyone, but you're actually getting this view, this skepticism of free will from cognitive neuroscience and other advances that, you know, really show there's no such thing. You are arguing, though, it doesn't mean we're mindless automata. We're just somehow programmed to feel everything we feel as we live our lives. Well, let's see. Are we programmed? I suppose you could say we're naturally programmed. We're determined. And part of what it feels like to be the creatures we are is that we don't see the causes that are operating inside our heads. So, of course, we feel as if, we might very well feel as if our choices are, in a sense, undetermined because they just curtail us and we don't see the causal provenance of all the neural activity that's right up to a choice. So, yes, it might feel as if we're uncaused in some respect, but that, of course, is not a good reason to suppose that we are uncaused. And what you said about neuroscience is exactly right. That's where a lot of the pressure is coming on our traditional notion of itself as being a sort of immaterial controller. There's no evidence for that thing coming out of science. And so what neuroscience leaves is a neural system that's incredibly complex, but there's also some amazing things. But it doesn't escape causality. And if it did escape causality, that wouldn't help us at all. Maybe I should backtrack a little. When you hang out with someone who has this debate happened for me a lot. What freshman year college, right? You stay up late at night, talk, free will destiny, that sort of stuff. People say sentences like I have free will. It's actually the I in that sentence that you're denying exists. So you're not just a skeptic of Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster. You're so much of a skeptic that you deny that we actually exist, at least in terms of, you know, these little selves inside of our bodies. You know, that the mind is somehow separate from what the brain does, that there's a little me ruling the body that is only kind of the shell of me. Yes, you're right. That's exactly what I denied. I denied it with these little gods that can do things without being caused in our character, in our desires. But on the other hand, we don't stop existing as real self. It's just that the self is different than we suppose. The brain can talk a very strong robust sense of being a me inside here, looking out at the world. That sense of being a self doesn't disappear when you adopt a natural point of view about the self. That's still there. It's just that you understand, although you can't see all the causes operating, that you are a deterministic system, and you can accept that. You understand that being an uncaused cause wouldn't help you make a decision because after all, an uncaused decider doesn't have anything influencing its decision whether to go left or right. So being uncaused doesn't help us at all. It doesn't give us more responsibility. It doesn't give us control. But the self, the me, the person is still there. And we can't forget that our decision making capacity is the thing that we do and choose are just as real and causally effective as anything else in the world. That's what people routinely forget. So it's not that the self goes away in this kind of robust skepticism coming from the cognitive neurosciences. It's just that our misunderstanding of what that self really is, that goes away. Right. We take a naturalistic view of what the self is. It's a construction, a biological, psychological construction. It's very robust. We really resist it as an agent that makes decisions, that have causal powers in the world. That's still all there. That doesn't go away. But what we do realize is that every single bit of who we are comes out of a situation that ultimately we didn't choose. So we can't take ultimate credit and blame for the way we are.  Exactly. And my admonition to skeptics, and you're already on board, but many skeptics aren't, my admonition to skeptics is to really look at this question as yet another target for their skepticism. After all, skeptics go after the supernatural, they go after the paranormal, they go after any beliefs that aren't well-grounded with good evidence. Right? So here's a belief that's very widespread, that we're uncaused causes, that we have contra-causal free will, but it's not openly challenged very often by skeptics. And I would like to see that change. Now, I should say you are a paradigm case of someone who does challenge it. And I commend you for that. Massimo Figliucci has come out against contra-causal free will. I'm very happy to say. Ophelia Benson at Butterflies and Wheels, you know that website. They deconstruct fashionable nonsense as they put it. She's come out against contra-causal free will and Russell Blackford at his blog. A well-known secularist and atheist has also come forward. So I think this is in progress, but I would like to see some of the other heavies in the skeptical movement take on contra-causal free will as a target of their skepticism because it's ripe for the picking. I want to talk in a minute why maybe some of these, oh, bigger named skeptics don't zero in on the little God inside of us and maybe only focus on the big God, you know, that most people believe in or maybe ghosts or chakras or alternative medicine or this other stuff. But in other words, they leave free will alone. But before we get to that, I just want to talk about the everyday skeptic. You know, Tom, if you go to any skeptics in the pub gathering anywhere in the country or around the world, belief in free will is like the last sacred cow. Yes, as you said, all of us give up beliefs and ghosts. You know, we go against belief in gods or maybe psychic powers. All the supernatural claims we're skeptical of, but most skeptics hold on to the belief that the self exists and somehow that it is what free from being determined by natural causes. And that's almost a supernatural belief. If it's free from being determined by natural causes, then somehow it's supernatural, yet we don't go against that belief at these, you know, pub gatherings or wherever skeptics get together and talk about another reason they don't believe in the Loch Ness Monster. Do you think that it's just because skepticism or free will cost so much more emotionally than skepticism of UFOs or of Bigfoot? Yeah, I think that's probably the case, most certainly the case, because in questioning Bigfoot or paranormal powers, they're not going to the heart of what it means to be a human agent, whereas to be skeptical about contra-causal free will is to do exactly that. It's to really call into question our fundamental assumption about who we are. And our culture has at its heart, Western culture especially, the idea that what, it's been around for centuries, millennia, right? That the human agents are causally privileged over the natural world, that we somehow are exemptions from determinism or cause and effect in how we make our choices. And to call that into question, it's a very difficult proposition if you live with that idea all your life, that as even most skeptics have.  But yet I think it's something that needs to be grappled with precisely because it is so central to our worldview, to our sense of ourselves. And it has, I think, many, many implications for social policy, for interpersonal attitudes that are very positive implications once we can be reassured that not everything gets exploded when we get rid of the conflict also pretty well. I like that you talked about the social implications. It's kind of an ethical imperative that's fueling your free will skepticism. And that contrasts with, or let me just say it compares with the motivations I think a lot of skeptics have when they get into their skepticism. So a lot of people get riled up about complementary and alternative medicine because of the harm that undue credulity in those topics brings to people who have those beliefs. So skeptics aren't just about, you know, being the smart people in a room saying, I don't believe this and I don't believe that. Look at those people over there. They do believe it and ha, ha, ha, I'm smarter than they are. No, there's a motivation to make the world a better place. And you're saying advancing free will skepticism actually is part of that project, that there are real kind of, there's a social benefit to looking at big issues like crime and punishment and and the justice system and all of this, in other words, social issues through the lens of free will skepticism. Very, very much so. We've got the truth about the matter on the one hand. And I think we agree with the two of us that there's no truth for the idea that we're an exception to cause and effect. And there are also, as you say, the consequences of believing that because if you hold a false belief that you're a causal exception, that you have this kind of free will, then what does that allow? It allows you to take ultimate credit for your actions and to refine ultimate blame and lots of social policies are predicated on the idea that people really could have done otherwise in the situation that they were in.  And so the belief in contra-causal free will, even if people aren't naming it that, lets them go around kind of feeling satisfied with the state of social affairs and the kind of despair, the social inequality that you might see looking around. Absolutely. You said it exactly right. It gives us permission to feel a kind of smug self-satisfaction and to point the finger at people who, after all, should have done otherwise, they could have done otherwise, but we chose not to out of their own free will. So you're right. And the other thing it allows us to do, it allows us to disown any responsibility for other people's problems. After all, they could just as well take care of themselves so we don't owe them anything. We don't have to take care of them. Right. There's this myth that we pat ourselves on the back with when we see a homeless person, we say, well, I would never be in his shoes. But in fact, if you had that person's life, you might well be exactly in that state of affairs. Right. Exactly. There's nothing that you and I have that's any different from the homeless person that would have allowed us to escape that state where we're in more or less the same situation. We are lucky. We are simply lucky. And so it's a billionaire, simply lucky. So and some billionaires understand this Bill Gates. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett, right. They're starting to get the message out that they didn't make it on their own. And that's such an important thing. And that's exactly what naturalism is saying. Incidentally, both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are skeptics of a piece. They're secularists. They're not big boosters of religion. Yet they are the two single largest philanthropists in human history. That's also, I think, an interesting thing to talk about. Maybe not right now. I just thought I'd mention it. Well, I think it's part of the same package. Now, I don't think either of them would go so far as to deny the free will that we're talking about. They're not ready to do that. They may have harbored their own restrictions. They would never do it in public. It's just taboo, right? To question this, and that's getting back to the issue of why skeptics haven't taken revenge on. It's simply taboo in this culture to say that free will doesn't exist. I mean, it's very much like the taboo about denying God, but perhaps even deeper. So skeptics don't take this on one because, you know, just the implications. It's kind of a revision of the self and that's hard to do. But you're saying one reason skeptics may want to take it on is because of the same kind of ethical imperative that makes them want to take on other nonsense beliefs people buy because those beliefs harm people when they hold them. And you're suggesting that the belief in free will actually causes society harm. Yes, it causes harm in several respects. One is the point we talked about that people are more likely to be uncompassionate, punitive, contemptuous, self-righteous, given the idea that they alone chose their fate and that other people could have done likewise, but simply chose not to. Another very important harm that beliefs and countercalls of free will brings on us is that we ignore the actual causes of why people do what they do and end up why people end up the way they do. Or even believe what they believe. So there's this haughty kind of skepticism that says, how dare you believe that nonsense about the Loch Ness Monster or whatever it is when all you have to do is look at the evidence and listen to my voice and you'll believe the truth when, in fact, whether you're talking to Loch Ness Monster or God or ghosts or whatever, sometimes people are determined to believe or, let's say, not forced to believe. But, you know, they're strongly influenced by the state of affairs of their life to buy into those nonsense beliefs. And so this kind of free will skepticism can actually make a skeptic be a little, have a kind of a softer touch when dealing with the credulous. I would like to think so. And I think that's all for the good. I think it's a better tactic in trying to change people's minds rather than coming across the smartier than now. Understanding that the person you're talking to, you could have been like them. You could have been the credulous Loch Ness believer. Understanding that keeps us from getting on our high horse. And the other harm that it does, as I said before, is that the belief in counterculture free will allows us to disown responsibility. It allows us to suppose that we don't owe anyone, that we need not participate in the betterment of other people's lives, because after all, they could do it themselves if they just chose to. So I want to kind of finish up on that point. You just said belief in free will is a way to disown responsibility in the social sense, you just mentioned, but some have argued that only through believing in free will, can you have any sense of moral responsibilities? So this illusion of free will that a lot of people buy into, it actually really has worked, so goes the argument. It helps us fare better in the world. It, you know, the belief that we have free selves, that selves are somehow real things inside of us pulling the strings and that they are free in this countercausal sense. It helps us get out of bed in the morning, helps us feel empowered, helps us have the sense of moral responsibility and not just that sorry, officer, I ran the red light because I have no free will, you know, that I mean that that's the fear there that you need free will or belief in it, at least, for society to exist.  Well, if you don't believe in free will, might that also be the case? Right, yeah, that's a very good point and we have to reassert people that moral responsibility and being able to hold people accountable doesn't depend on the idea that they're uncaused closers. You're right in a way that that sense of ultimate responsibility might work to encourage a certain kind of obedience, encourage a certain sense of obligation and responsibility, that might be true. But in fact, that belief can also lead to very harmful feelings of guilt and shame and that are unnecessary to hold people accountable and move on to when we're trying to act and act responsibly and be responsible. We don't need the fiction of ultimate responsibility to realize that we are moral features that can tell right from wrong, that can learn to behave ethically and that can be held responsible. All of that requires cause and effect. If we were uncaused originators of our actions, then we'd be immune to ethical injunction. We wouldn't be trainable, right? You'd be beyond good and evil, you'd stand above that. Right, and we are not beyond good and evil. We're completely a function of our social and biological conditions, such that we can be trained and usually are trained to be ethical features, ethical persons in a society. Okay, without getting off track, you just used the phrase trained and that suggests to me one of the problems with this kind of conversation, that it's a diminishment of this kind of special place that the person has in the history of Western thought. We don't talk about training people, we talk about educating them, yet you just used the kind of language that I use when I'm talking about my pet companion as I was once scolded to say instead of my dog. So training people somehow takes us down a notch, right? Right, well, there's training, there's education. There's all sorts of ways in which our behavior and beliefs get modified. But nonetheless, giving up this notion of free will is one other taking us down a peg. Very much so, yeah, because if we hold on to this exalted idea of who we are, then naturally we're gonna feel diminished when we discover it ain't necessarily so. And giving up that belief is tough, it's very difficult for people to give up belief in God. We see what agony people go through when their beliefs change. None of us like to be wrong about our fundamental function, right? So confronting this idea that we don't have this sort of supernatural free will, indeed it can bring us down a several pegs. And people can go through dark nights of the soul, or the lack of soul as I like to put it, when they assimilate the naturalistic view of who we are. But it is, it's personally possible, people get through it, people are living normal, comfortable, meaningful, and ethical lives under an act of the group of themselves. Right. The great skeptic, Sue Blackmore is counted among them. There are many who have spoken out about their skepticism of free will. And you're just issuing kind of a clarion call for more skeptics to do the same. That's exactly right, and I hope they will. So last question, Tom, if skeptics listen to your call to kind of dig into this issue, what's the next step? Someone's listening to this conversation we're having and says, well, dog on it, I'm a skeptic of ghosts and the holy ghost. And what about, you know, the ghost that I'm said to give up when I die, right? So maybe I'll give up belief in this free will self thing that we've discussed. What's the next step? Is it just a matter of, you know, going to the library or is it a complete revision of oneself? Well, I think it depends where the skeptic is. Some of them are very naturalistically inclined and it may not take all that much to get them to buy into it. I would of course recommend that people go to naturalism.org and the free will page there. It's got a lot of stuff in Free Will, including a link to a wonderful article by a philosopher named Galen Stawson who's written a page for the book, Psycho-Peteoplasia in Free Will. I would start there and check other things out at naturalism.org. We put a lot of emphasis on it at this center because no one else is doing it, but I hope that other people will start doing it. Well, I share that hope, even if I have no choice in doing so. DJ, you have a choice. It's just not an undetermined. I love it. Great discussion. I enjoyed you being on the new show. Thank you very much. Tom Clark. DJ, it was a pleasure, as always, and good luck with the show. And I just want to congratulate you on your presidency of the James Randi Education Foundation. They're lucky to have you. Well, thank you, sir. And I look forward to more discussions going forward. Thanks a lot. All right. Thanks so much, DJ. Thank you for listening to this episode of For Good Reason. To get involved with an online conversation about today's show, join the discussion at forgoodreason.org. Views expressed on the show aren't necessarily the J-Ref's views. Questions and comments on the show can be sent to info at forgoodreason.org. For Good Reason is produced by Thomas Donnelly and recorded from St. Louis, Missouri. For Good Reason's music is composed for us by MA Award-nominated Gary Stockdale. Christina Stevens contributed to today's show. I'm your host, DJ Growthy.


to understand that your past learning will never make you secure, but your faith and trust in the Holy Spirit will sustain you in every situation, while you believe the situations, and every circumstance, and that's what the whole thing's about. You have to be convinced. So even if you have fear arising, and even if there's a panic, or you feel your world is falling apart, all that is really is an opportunity to be convinced by the Spirit. Nothing's really going wrong. Nothing ever is going wrong. It's all just opportunities for this convincing. And from what was shared this morning, what Francis was sharing about the fear that can arise, and what Kirsten was sharing too about the meaninglessness, that, you know, in this world we have, you know, these Freddy Krueger movies, and all this stuff about Friday the 13th. It's all this horror stuff around Friday the 13th. Well, Jesus has his own 13th. It's lesson number 13. He drops his atomic bomb out of 365 lessons. He drops his atomic bomb on the ego in lesson number 13. Jesus is 13th. The ego makes up its own scary 13th Friday the 13th. Jesus is like, alright, I'll drop the bomb on you on the 13th. You'll remember that one. You'll remember that lesson. A meaningless world and gender's fear. If you know it's the first lesson in the workbook where Jesus decides to make a direct cause and effect relationship between fear and what's causing the fear, it's the first lesson in the workbook where he boom, he lays it out. He gives you a direct cause-effect relationship with fear. He says it's not a violent world. It's not a chaotic world that engenders fear. It's not what you perceive on the surface of consciousness, you know, a world of scarcity or lack. None of that engenders fear. It's actually a meaningless world that engenders fear. There's nothing that the ego is more afraid of than meaninglessness. Nothing is more frightening to it than meaninglessness. If you want to really scoot the ego out of its hiding place like it's a little spider in the well and you want to shine a light down there, a big light, and a little spider moves around to try to get away from the light, it's afraid of meaninglessness and that's because when the slate is cleaned, when you start to let go of the meanings of the world, you'll see that the Spirit will come rushing in to give a new meaning to the world. That's what the retranslation is. The Holy Spirit will give a brand new meaning to the whole world. It's a beautiful meaning. It's the real world. It's the happy dream. It's the correction. And the ego doesn't want that to happen so whenever there's a sense of meaninglessness, the ego tries to thrust and throw meaning where there is none. It's trying to tell you, be afraid, watch out. All of its fear tactics come when you start to let go of thinking there's a meaning in the world. So that's what I heard today in some of the groups after that movie last night that there was meaninglessness coming out. Intense meaninglessness. That's actually, you're getting closer to the release point because the ego really gets stirred up by meaninglessness. Now let's just follow the lesson 13 now. Jesus is Friday the 13th for the ego. It's a meaningless world and gender sphere and if you read down in the lesson, he drops the atomic bomb always down in the lesson where he makes his first cause-effect connection and the ego doesn't like it and it doesn't want to hear it and it's like a major bomb. A meaningless world and gender sphere because I think I'm in competition with God. Oh, oh, why have those words never been written on the planet before?  It's been caught. That's where the fear is coming in. That's where the rage comes up. That's where the all the shame and the pain and the guilt come in. A meaningless world and gender sphere because I think I'm in competition with God. And Jesus even says, you know, you may not believe this. Maybe you may be uncomfortable with this. If he even follows it up like, listen, if you're stirred up by what I just dropped, it's to be expected. I've just dropped a big one and I've just laid out the first direct cause-effect relationship in this workbook. The reason you're fearful is because you believe you're in competition with God. He's taking what he did in the text talking about the authority problem and he's saying, oh no, it's not about authority figures. Parents, judges, police officers, military officers, generals, those aren't it. Those aren't the authority figures you're afraid of. It's a question in your own mind of holding onto this authorship thing where the ego wants to be right about inventing itself and inventing the world.  And so when you try to invent, apart from the way God creates, you believe you are in competition with God.  Whoa! You get all stirred up from that movie. It's because the meaninglessness is getting stirred up and it's because all the distractions for a moment stop and all this chasing idols stop and you just come down to this point and you face the utter. I'll be Christian Bernie for a moment. Utter! Utter! Fear of meaninglessness. Then you're close. You're getting close to healing. You're actually right on the verge of healing. If you can do like when Kirsten said, just let it move through. Don't try to defend against it. Don't try to distract away. Don't try to move away from it or anything like this. Let it move through.  Let those clouds move because then the Holy Spirit can give you a new meaning for the entire cosmos. But not until you are willing to let this old thing pass away, pass through, move through you. This is where atonement to seem scary because the ego is saying, you're going to be struck dead, God's going to punish you. It's used all this crazy threats to say, don't stand there. Some of you have heard this from other teachers. Gangaji, is anybody heard about Gangaji? Gangaji, G-A-N-G-A-G-I. Can't spell A-J-I. Gangaji, one of her favorite teaching is stop. Gangaji's that stop moment that she's talking about is the moment I'm talking about. When that fear, that sense of meaninglessness comes up and the ego wants to rush in with distractions, rush in with justifications, rush in with intellectual ideas, rush in with something, anything. Busy yourself. Like Mary and Martha's story in the Bible where Jesus is teaching and Martha is so anxious about him teaching, he spends all the time cooking in kitchen while Jesus is teaching because it's too exciting. And Mary sits there at his feet listening. She's in the stop. She's at the Gangaji stop. Yeah, another reason that the ego used another defense mechanism, the ego used to stop the energy from flowing through and be released is to conclude of what I am afraid of. I am afraid of losing this, I'm afraid of losing that, I'm afraid of being alone, I'm afraid. It's like using this so that you will start to solve and start to engage your mind in a specific situation or in a specific direction instead of just be there and be open and allow the new meaning to come in. The fact is as what we're talking about today is whatever you are afraid of is not something you can understand. It's something so pushed away from your awareness. You are afraid of losing the meaning of this world. You're not really afraid of losing anything in this world. You're not really afraid of any of the human condition that we talk about, being alone, being not taken care of. It's not the real reason that you're afraid of. But every time when this intensity comes up, really there is a temptation to just conclude. This is my emotion, this is the reason, this is where I'm at. Then how do I find a solution? And you can see that there's just no solution that can be found there. The only thing we can do is please remove the conclusions just to be able to say, I don't know what I'm afraid of. I don't even know what this is. Sometimes it's agitation, there could be some super sensitivity coming up around certain things. But just knowing that when this kind of shift happens, it happens at a very, very deep unconscious level. So it flushes up a lot of things that doesn't even make sense to the logical mind. It doesn't make sense why you suddenly get agitated around certain things and this emotion bubbling up. And just the allowance to allow it to just be whatever it is and allow the Holy Spirit to tell me what they are instead of using the past story and the past experience to say, this is what I'm feeling and I need to fix it right now. That's how the ego won't stop, stop the opening to continue. It's very, very profound. You just pause for a moment and take that in. It's kind of a version of lesson number five. I've never upset for the reason I think that that applies as well. When you come to that sense of deep fear, you're trying to come up with a reason for it and find a solution, like a worldly solution to it. Including a direction for the spiritual journey from this point. Okay, well if the world's meaning was being, okay, perhaps my spiritual journey can look like this and it's still trying to grab hold of an idea or even a spiritual idea and move forward with it. But it's just daring to stay so present with what is coming up in awareness now because only the Spirit can guide the mind through this awakening. It's like the very mind that's experiencing this is being completely undone. So how can that mind know what's helpful or what it's going to look like has to come from the Spirit, it has to be revealed. And I think the question can rise, what is the solution then? If that cause-effect relationship has been so pushed out of awareness that a meaningless world of gender's fear, because I think I'm in competition with God, I think that is so horrifying and that's pushed so far out of awareness and what's the solution? True empathy is the solution. Jesus does a lot of teachings in the Course on true empathy and that's what I was saying earlier when my friend was saying, you know, the deeper you go in unveiling and exposing the ego it could seem like a nose dive, like a plane going down in a nose dive but don't go into a tailspin with it. The ego wants you to crash.  And what is true empathy but your own certainty of what is real and true? I mean certainty. I mean real certainty.


The first database I'm going to show you is called CAT, C-A-T-H. I'll draw it this way. This is a mostly automatic one, which is a huge advantage today when there are so many structures appearing all the time. And in CAT, we've organized things into, first into classes, which is basically alpha or beta, or the mixed alpha beta ones. We have architectures, which is roughly what I showed you. So large overall arrangements, say in beta sheets. We then have what CAT calls topology, which is more specific than architecture. Now we start taking more specific rearrangements of the secondary structure elements and loops into accounts. Eventually we get down to the concept called homology. I'll come back to that when I give you the lecture on bioinformatics. But homology literally means that two sequences are evolutionary related. So in this case, we know that there must have been a common ancestor. By far the easiest way for you to show what we can use CAT for is to move over to the web browser. Let's do that. So there's tons of information available in the CAT database. I'm not going to go through all of it, but you can find the 3D structures, evolutionary trees and information about function. But what I love to do here is, say, browse. In theory, I could search for a particular protein to see what class architecture it belongs to. But this sunburst plot, it takes a second to load, is the one I showed you. And here I can look at the classes that are only three or four of them. The architectures, for instance the mainly beta sheet ones here. Within that I had the sandwiches. I think I should have immunoglobulins. Yes, this is an immunoglobulin-like fold. And I bet the largest one is just immunoglobulins. So let's see if I can click on those. Again, it takes a second to load. But then I should get a ton of information about that specific homologous superfamily, the sequences that are in it, potential evolutionary trees. Yeah, the sequence diversity. Here too it will take a second for all this data to load. But if you want to just look at the structural universe and what's present here, this is a goldmine of information. And since this is classified automatically, everything will be here pretty much within days of the structure disappearing. That was cat.


are two deep dives, starting with Problab, Dennis. Hi everyone, this is Dennis from Problab. At Problab, we want to measure, or we measure the performance of web three protocols and benchmark those protocols against target milestones and also propose improvements. And for this particular measurement campaign, we take a look at the net hole-punching success rate as Martin already teased earlier in this presentation. You may know that NetReverse is a quintessential problem in peer-to-peer networks. And currently we rely on relay peers that act as a proxy for all our traffic. And since Kubo 0.13, actually all pieces are shipped and enabled by default for an alternative technique that allows two peers to be behind nets to connect to each other. And this is hole-punching by the DCUTR protocol, which is also linked there. DCUTR stands for direct connection upgrade through relay. And I will go into the details in a bit. And in this measurement project, we want to find out the success rate of this protocol, so how often our peers are actually able to connect to each other and maybe also uncover potential improvements to this technique. So just briefly about this DCUTR protocol. So hole-punching in general happens when two peers simultaneously open a connection to each other at their predicted external addresses. And in this case, both routers of both peers update their state tables and have seen a packet going out. And if they have seen a packet going out, they also allow packets at that address that the packets went out to go in. And if both peers simultaneously connect to each other, they are actually able to establish a TCP or a quick connection as you wish. And so the problem here is the synchronization. So both peers need to do it at the same time. And this happens at a rendezvous point, so we call it. And actually since Kubo 0.13, all deployed Kubo nodes can act as such a rendezvous point. And Max has actually given a great talk about the whole protocol at peer-to-peer Paris earlier this year. I highly recommend check it out. It's linked down below. Right, so how do we want to measure the success rate of this protocol? So the challenge is how do we detect net peers? The idea is that we just want to do a lot of hole punches to a diverse set of peers, but we actually don't know where they are. And the main idea here is that we deploy a honey pot and attract those peers behind nets. And this honey pot is just a DHT server node that walks around the DHT and it's a very stable node. And since it's a very stable node, we hope that other peers are actually including the honey pot peer into their routing table. So if peers behind nets request content from the network, they actually come across this honey pot. And if this honey pot detects a peer that supports this DCOTR protocol and it's also only reachable by a relay peer, which is the indicator that it's behind the net, then we save this inbound connection to a database. Then we have a second component here that reaches the server, which just serves those detected nutted peers to a fleet of clients and also exposes another API to track the hole punch results. So these clients are actually run in a diverse set of home network or supposed to be run in a diverse set of home networks. And these clients are actually just DCOTR capable lipid to peer nodes. We have two implementations here, one in Rust and one in Go. And those clients actually just periodically query the server for nutted peers, then perform the hole punch dance, the DCOTR protocol and just report back the outcome if it worked or not. And the Rust client is actually implemented by Eleanor and Max, so shout out to both of them. So the purpose so far is that the infrastructure is there. So this architecture that you've just seen is deployed and it's working. And there's to Grafana dash was also linked at the link you can find down below. This is probably the most interesting part here. So what's the success rate? And there are already some results here. So right now we have only four clients deployed and the success rate for these four clients is around as you can see 80%. So you can see the time on the X axis and the success rate on the Y axis. The success rate is around 80%, but it's less for peers that are in a VPN network. Another improvement proposal or another improvement suggestion that we could make.  And but we found out with this preliminary results that actually if it doesn't work with the first time, the second and third attempt also won't work. So we could actually stop the protocol there. And there are many more results for the four clients that I showed here. You can find it at the link there at more results. So what's next? We want to extend those clients. So the fleet of clients that we deployed. So this is a call out for you, for all of you to participate. Please check out this Google form. This will just ask for your home network conditions like which router you have at your home network. And then you will receive an API key and you can download these puncture clients that you've seen earlier and just participate and contribute some data of your own network. And yeah, that's my brief deep dive already. Thank you.