Parenting is an amazing role and it also takes up a lot of your time. Today, I'm going to talk about why it's important to take a solo trip. Keep watching. But hey, my name is Kyla Denigno and in this episode we're talking about the importance of solo traveling as a parent. So I've taken three trips so far, August 2021, November 2021, and now April 2022. Yeah, so I thought this was the second solo trip that I've taken but it's actually the third. So the reason I forget about the Atlanta trip is because I was going to see the Black Panther Bruce Carter exhibit at a museum. That was the one thing that I had booked. So I went to see that event and then I just relaxed and slept and got to hang out with one of our bridesmaids and just enjoyed myself. So then the second solo trip I took was in November 2021 and for that trip I went to Chicago for 72 hours again and I booked a hotel and I slept and I was in the pool and I hung out and I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing. I watched a lot of Food Network. I don't even remember if I brought my laptop and so this trip was not so that I could attend an event. It was not a corporate function, nothing like that. The trip was solely for me to take three days to myself, enjoy, hang out and you know get some sleep. So the first reason is because you're traveling for yourself. These trips have no other purpose besides relaxing, sleeping, not thinking about food, you know ordering takeout or room service and just unwinding and that is really important because as a parent you are constantly sharing your time. Even when your kid is asleep, at least if you're like my husband and myself, we are watching her on the monitor. We're working with one ear out to hear if she's still sleeping.  You can never turn it off. Even right now as I'm traveling I still think about my daughter. I'm FaceTiming her. I'm FaceTiming me, my husband. I woke up this morning. I looked at her on the monitor. So you never can turn it off and the solo trip is not for you to turn it off. It's just for you to have a weekend, have a day and just unwind, be with your own thoughts, right? I'm walking through the airport and I'm like I don't have to think about if anyone is hungry or what, you know, do you not want to sit down and do some work? Do you want to run around? Do you need to go to the bathroom? I don't have to think about any of that. I get to go back to kind of what do you want right now? Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Do you need anything? You just want to sit down and that is refreshing. So the second reason why solo travel is really important for me is because I get uninterrupted time to work and that sounds a little bit weird even saying it but I produce a podcast, I write blogs, I write for other organizations, I have different clients, I am pulled in a lot of different directions. I've started to consult part-time as well and there's very little time for me to just sit down, dig through all of it or even like this weekend I spent the time and I just caught up. I did actually bring my laptop so I'm not really a person who sleeps in. I still woke up at eight o'clock because my daughter usually gets up like 8.15, 8.30 so I still got up at eight but I just wrote a whole blog and then I started to outline a second one, right? My solo trips aren't for me to not work at all and completely unplug, it's just for me to run my own schedule however I want to. If I want a blog in the morning and I do anything in the afternoon, I can. If I want to go to brunch, come back and blog, I can. If I want to edit a podcast episode early, I can. There are no other demands on my time and also if I want to sit and read the four magazines I bought in the airport that were overpriced, I can do that too. For me, the ability to dictate your time however you want to is really important and I do not need that all the time. I was a willing participant and becoming a parent. I absolutely love our little family but it's also nice to get away for the three days and so the last reason that I think it's important for solo travel is I consider solo travel self-care 100%.  So I think solo travel is really important because you don't have any other demands on your time. You get to dictate your own schedule and do whatever you want. You get to spend time with yourself and just relax and also I think that solo travel is a form of self-care hanging out with yourself finding out what's going on. How are we feeling? How are we enjoying life? How are we enjoying the solitude of this trip and then getting back to it. So I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you consider doing some solo travel and let me know where you want to go and how long you'll be there. So I will talk to you guys later. Bye.


Hey, good evening. Welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum. And this year, we're talking about Town Meeting 2020. We're going to be doing, as always, the city budget, the school budget, the school candidates, the city candidates. And this year, and we're also doing the mayoral candidates, which of course is Anne Watson running on a post, but Anne will be here doing her show. And it's going to be a good show as well. But today, we're in District 3. And District 3 is kind of unique, because this is the first time in a long while that we've had two open seats at the same time in one district. Of course, it would have been nice had we had two incumbents in District 2 and 1 running against someone, but they're running on a post. So this is our city race, which is District 3. And tonight, I'm pleased to have Dan Richardson. Dan? Well, thank you for having me. Sure. What part of District 3 do you live in? Well, I live on Liberty Street. I'm actually in the far corner of District 3. District 3 is a little bit unique in that the bulk of it sits on the south side of the Winooski River, but there's a section that comes up, up Main Street, and in the neighborhood of St. Paul Street, School Street, a part of Loomis, and a part of Liberty. And I'm pretty close to where all three districts meet together right in the middle. So I'm in the heart of Montpelier, but I'm in District 3 and have been for 20 years. District 3, most of it's across the river. Most of it. Why is District 3 different than the other two districts? Well, you know, if you think about identity of a city, you know, I think you think of it as a whole, but it's really composed of smaller neighborhoods. And District 3's neighborhood to the south doesn't have the same sort of downtown features that either District 1 or District 2 have. I mean, District 2 has the college. District 1 has a section of the downtown. It has a lot of rec and civic opportunities there and the park itself. And District 3 really sits on the south side of the river and does not have as many of the city facilities. So in some ways, I know that there's a number of people that feel a little bit isolated on that side. The main connector, Berlin Street, has been the subject of a number of hearings in before city council as far as the speed limit and people trying to build neighborhoods. But it's not the same as some of the District 1 or District 2 just simply because of its geographic location. It's actually, it has an interesting history. I mean, it was part of the town of Berlin. I think so. It would be about the mid-19th century and Montpelier just took it. Now, the rumor was that Berlin was willing to seat it because it was one of the poorer neighborhoods in the town of Berlin. So they didn't fight too hard, but there was no actual vote by the town of Berlin to give this land to the city of Montpelier. The city just took it and the legislature ratified it. Well, if you look at it at the housing stock, in the early 20th century, it looks like there was practically nothing there. There wasn't and there's a lot of post-World War II houses there. So small, you know, one or two-story capes. So it's an interesting, it's a little different than, say, some of the neighborhoods in Liberty Street or Main Street and District 2, as well as some of the more modern houses in District 1. It's a unique place unto itself. Or the houses over on Terrace. Correct. In District 1. Sure. Some of the big old Victorians. Exactly. What are the concerns of District 3? You've walked the district now. You've had the chance to actually do some, hey, I'm running for city council. What are you hearing? Sure. Well, I think there is a concern about the character of the neighborhood and, you know, how does it forge an identity? And I know there are some concerns about, you know, obviously the biggest one that the council saw in the past year, I wasn't on the council at the time, but was the speed limit in Berlin. And I think that's really a function of people in that neighborhood, particularly that Berlin Street neighborhood to the north and south of Berlin Street wanting to feel that they had a neighborhood as opposed to living along a throughway. And, you know, I know I've heard when I've talked to other people, you know, want a desire for some type of park or civic access facility in their neighborhood. Any idea where that would be? What people's thinking is on that? No, I mean, we're not going to change the water plan, too. We're not going to.  And, you know, there are limitations, you know, that's one of the qualities of District 3, at least on the south side of the rivers, you know, it's bounded by Route 2, which is a U.S. highway. It's bounded by 302. And it has Berlin Street. None of those really lend themselves to sort of quiet, quaint neighborhood streets or a park. But, you know, there is always, there are always, I think, opportunities. And I think that's going to be part of what we have to look at as a city, as well, you know, it's a very residential neighborhood in parts. And there's there are some sort of, for lack of a better word, strip mall along Route 2 and 302. And, you know, one of the goals that I would think going forward would be to integrate those so that you would have the ability to walk to a convenience store or have accessibility much in the way that people in downtown Montpelier have. Now, that's as people who've watched this show year after year after year know that my wife does have a business in the core downtown. Right. But those that somewhat strip mall-y thing are still family-owned businesses. Absolutely. I can't think of a single, except for maybe the paint store. Or I can't think of even that. But even that's owned locally. Exactly. What can we do to integrate that business strip? I mean, we have Montpelier Live, which is chartered for the downtown, but they can't reach out there. Their charter does not allow them to reach out there. Well, I think that that needs to change. And, you know, I think as a city, we need to be thinking of the entire city as well as we need to be thinking regionally. You know, I think we need to be pursuing either partnerships or looking to promote different areas. You know, you have that whole district there where the Pioneer Street Bridge exits. And very little attention has been paid. But that has a lot of promise. I mean, if you've ever been to the VFW, they have a beautiful facility there. It sits right along the river as well as the Growler Station there. It would be nice to have some promotion and some activity, you know, as opposed to sort of the constant focus on downtown, which is good. But, you know, I think as a District 3 representative, I'd like to see some of that promoted as well. Doesn't District 3 extend beyond the wayside? Well, technically, I thought it went to the old walker to the city limits. It goes to the city limits. Because those streets that cut back into 302 are the heart of District 3. Right. So Sherwood and those... Exactly, Ebertson. Exactly. Yeah, all of those are part of District 3. Anything south of the river is District 3. And then you have a little notch cut into the city itself on the north side of the river that's also part of District 3. Well, when Ashley Hill was city councilperson, she used to talk about that strip and beautifying that strip. Could you see that going on? We do Christmas lights downtown. We don't do anything in that area. Well, you know, I mean, I think that's where the city can help. You know, we've created Montpelier Alive and it does a good job of promoting the downtown. But, you know, as we think about growing, as we think about putting houses out and saving pasture or, you know, expanding some of the housing stock, I think we have to think about these resources there and what can we do? And does it...not to say we turn that area into another version of downtown Montpelier, but yeah, to give that an identity and to work with the people that own property there, the business owners, that would be fantastic. And I think, you know, the people in District 3 would benefit from it because the more we can create opportunities and accessibility for those type of residents, the residents in those areas, I think it's a benefit to everyone because then they don't have to drive into the city to get some of the necessities. They have their own neighborhoods and that's the way cities grow, is these little neighborhoods develop and their own services and facilities develop alongside of them. Now, I know a little bit about your background that many who are watching don't. You've worked on the integrity of the downtown of Montpelier for a long while. Can you give us some of your civic background? Sure. So, I started actually involved in City of Montpelier in 2005 by serving on the Design Review Committee, which at the time was the committee at which any changes to the downtown or the design control district had to come through us. What is the design control district? Well, the design control district was the area not just in downtown, but some of the residences that were on the register of historic places that were protected. And basically, I happen to live in one of the houses, so if, for example, I wanted to change the paint color of my house, I would have had to go through the design review committee to make sure that they approve the color of the paint or if I wanted to change my windows or my doorknob or any exterior feature required approval by the design review. Did that seem intrusive to you at the time? Not really, because I think everybody's first reaction is, whoa, don't tell me what to do with my private property. But I think it's important because Montpelier looks the way it does, not by accident and not by chance. It's the hard work of a lot of people to make our city look the way it does. How close does the city look? Well, I think it has a quaint atmosphere. I mean, if you look online with the reviews that the city gets, and it makes the top 10 list of quaint downtowns, I mean, the adjective Norman Rockwell-y is often applied to our town. It has a lot of historic buildings. Stop. Within the matter of one sentence, you jump from our city to our town. No, no. I ask this every time. Everyone will get this eventually if they're sitting on this show. Is Montpelier a city or is Montpelier a town? Well, technically and legally, it's a city. But to you, they mean different things. And if you look at it as a town, it means something. If you look at it as a city, it means something. Well, now you're tapping into my background as a municipal attorney. And actually, I used to teach municipal law at the Vermont Law School. And the distinction between town and city is collapsing largely. And in Vermont, it's not quite the same as it used to be. So I do. My daughter, when she was little, I said to her, I said, do we live in a town? Do we live in a city? Or do we live in a village? And she said, oh, daddy, we live in a village. It was because she thought it was this quaint little place that she knew everyone or walked around the streets. So to her, it seemed like this little village. But functionally, we are a city because we do have a council and we have districts that are different than towns. We don't have a select board. We don't have at-large seats other than the mayor. But not technically, just in terms of sociologically. Does this feel like a city or feel like a town?  We are very small in population or under 9,000. 7,500, I think at this point. At this point, I haven't looked at the statistics. But it's very small. It's very quaint. There's a lot of people that know everyone else. There is a small geographic area that composes the town. And so as a result, it does have a sort of insular and small feel. So a town is where your second grader can look around her class and realize her prom date is very likely in that grade. Exactly. Or as your child grows up and goes into eighth grade, they still refer to the person who moved to town in third grade as the new kid. Exactly. When did you arrive in Montpelier? 2000. What was Montpelier like in 2000 that it isn't like now? It had a few more people besides me. Aside from a few more of you, I've driven them out. No, it's a much quieter city at that time. Quieter in what sense? In the sense that there wasn't as much economic activity. At the time I came, capital grounds had just started. It was still in the Yield Chittenden Bank building. Horn of the Moon was still around, although it was on its last legs. Onion River was a smaller, what's now Onion River outdoors. And Warren Kittsmiller. Yeah, I think he still owned it at the time. He still owned it. The Sweet Melissa's, I think was empty at the time. A lot of empty storefronts. There was an Indian restaurant actually where Rebel Heart is now. And we went into it one night and there was this woman and we sat down and we started to order. And she said, well, I don't have that dish. So we ordered another dish. And she said, I don't have that dish. I said, well, how about this dish? And she says, okay, but I should tell you, we don't have rice. And so we didn't eat dinner there. It was a lot of experiences like that. I think the city's grown and certainly it's developed and become more vibrant economically in the 20 years that I've been here. So anything we can do in the commercial downtown to support it more? How do you see that? Again, I have my own thoughts. I'm not going to share because my wife is merchant. Of course. Well, I mean, I work downtown too. I have an office on East State Street. And so I spend my days here in Montpelier. As I joked, I never leave District 3. I live in it and I work in it. But I think as far as a downtown goes, I think we have to think about what our strengths are. We have to think about what our weaknesses are. And... Boy, you tossed me a softball. What are our strengths? We'll be happy to give those. One of our strengths is that we have a good, solid retail district where people can come, whether they live here or they're visiting, and get a lot of the necessities of life. Try and buy a hammer in downtown Burlington. Try and buy some of the basic staples of life in downtown Burlington. You're going to struggle to find some of those. You don't struggle in Montpelier. We still have a downtown that's friendly and accessible. Two residents as well as visitors. The visitors can come. They can go to the olive oil store. They can go to the toy store. They can go to the quirky pet. And they can have an experience that is going to be unlike any other place that they're visiting. But the person who needs to get a roll of toilet paper or needs a refill on Robotus and can walk downtown as well and get some of those basic staples. But at the end of the day, this is a small town. It is. It is. And we do have a small town commerce. We do. With the internet lurking in the background. With the internet lurking in the background. We have an advantage in that we have, somewhere in the range of 20,000 people that come into the city every day, especially during the legislative session, to work and they shop and they eat. And that helps support the restaurants and the retail. And being able to take advantage of those people is really important. And some of the weaknesses that we have is that the city sits in a floodplain. And so development is not an easy thing. If you look at the transit center, for example, they had to put it up as high as they did for floodplain regulations. That makes any new development a challenge. And the geography of it as well. You know, I always have been surprised at the town-state government relations. For as big of a presence as the state of Vermont has in the city of Montpelier, we don't ask of it as much as I think we should. Because while it does give benefit to retailers, while it does allow us to a certain quality of life, I think, with their retail money coming in, they have a disproportionate impact. There's a lot of downtown real estate that is the state of Vermont, which is great. But we've asked year after year for a greater share of faux taxes. Right, the pilot payments. The pilot payments. And we've been turned down, along with other towns. Well, you know. I mean, Waterbury joins us. There are other towns as well. I think of it as an alias. You think about Middlebury. In the town of Middlebury, flourishes because of Middlebury College. Yet there's tensions there. No retailer in downtown Middlebury would do anything to get rid of Middlebury College. That's what their livelihood is built upon. At the same time, there's always tensions. And it's always surprising to me that there aren't those same town and gown tensions between the city and the state. We ask, we get turned down, and we don't look for other leverage or other ways to try and unlock certain funds or support where the state has a huge impact on our, it has a huge footprint in our downtown. And it's not unfair to say to them, we need some support here, or we need you to think about doing this. And it would be good to see more of that. Isn't the pressure point usually between state and our town parking? That is definitely one of the major issues. That's the question I always had about the parking garage, is that while the parking garage is a good thing, it also doesn't involve the major cause of parking issues in downtown Montpelier, which is the state of Vermont. Having a business on East State Street, I can tell you that the free spaces between my house and my business fill up at 730, between 730 and 830 when state workers come in, which is fine. But that's an impact. And when I have clients come, they can't find free parking. And sometimes they can't find metered parking because of the state. And that's... What could the state do to step forward in your mind? Well, you know, the pit. Besides pilot. Well, you know, I think there are certain projects. You know, it's interesting that we've had a lot of state expenditures in the region, Waterbury, Berlin, Barrie in the past few years. And we haven't had major projects into support some of the infrastructure that the state creates in Montpelier. Now identify, I know where the pit is. You're talking about behind the faux restaurant that used to be the thrush. Correct. It's what has happened. So Court Street runs parallel to State Street but a block behind. And it used to be lined with little Italianate houses. And if you look at pictures from the early 20th century, you'll see all the little houses along there. And systematically, the state and other owners of that property have torn down those houses. Notably insurance companies. Yes, have torn down those houses. And so that now you have this sort of what we call the pit. It's a big bowl of open land that these companies park. And it's underutilized. You know, if you put either some sort of parking structure or building on top of it, it could unlock that area. And that's prime, again, prime downtown real estate that is simply thrown away without any type of option for people in Montpelier to utilize. The state keeps it as their sort of open parking lot and it's not even that well organized. I think they could do a lot to improve that. And they have no incentive to do it right now. And not to say that we necessarily have the leverage to do it, but it always strikes me that the conversation is missing and that if there was a public support or if there was a public mandate for that, we might have more attention paid to it.   There is no zoning right now that does not violate any sort of zoning. Would you see supporting an ordinance that would take those kinds of signs that are now just derelict and not and address that? Yeah, my understanding at least of that particular sign and that particular lot is that it's temporary. It's been temporary a long time. It has been temporary a long time, but my understanding is that the new owner is looking to build. But again, as we saw with Sabin's Pasture and the Zorzi family that would love to build. And on the other side, the car lot and the transit center that would love to build has a very different meaning in Montpelier terms. No, that's true. But to the extent that it stays there and it's an eyesore, yes, I would support something that would require. And in fact, there was a certain point in which there were a number of downtown retail spaces that were empty. And there was a question about whether or not there should be some sort of abandoned space ordinance. Well, they weren't abandoned. They were just empty. They were still technically for rent. Right. But some of them were close to abandoned. Aren't some of those filled right now? They are. Okay. So, they weren't abandoned. Well, in the sense that they were that they were vacated. They were eyesores. You know, you can you can use some of the kind of legislation when it's composed? No, I wasn't not the particular legislation. But I can tell you that other towns do have, you know, legislation about how empty storefronts should be managed. That's not an unreasonable burden. What would part of that be if you just give us an example how you would manage that? Sure. I mean, there could be a requirement that would just simply require them to have, you know, updated paint and appearance. And to keep any type of empty storefront clean and empty and of good appearance. You know, so if the for example, the glass is cracked, they need to replace it, you know, so that it kept a sort of neat appearance, even if it is not occupied, you're managing the building. Were there object lessons in how long it took to develop the car lot into something and Saban's pasture as well? Are there lessons to be learned from those experiences? Well, the car lot was somewhat unique because it had the brownfield element to it. And that always is complicated, you know, because you're dealing with federal government at that point and you're dealing with brownfield funding that can be inconsistent or have a number of conditions on it that can drive the normal development in a different direction. You know, I think the lessons that could be learned for both is that, you know, the city needs to work with potential developers. And I think one of the good stories about the car lot was that they did, you know, when they partnered with Down Street, you know, the city was able to provide certain elements of that lot recovery that no private developer could. So some of the remediation work that was done, you know, was done through the city. You know, we're facing the same sort of question with the Moat lot where the You're going to have to explain what that is? I will explain. Where the old M&M beverage? Sure, the old M&M beverage.  There's a bike path, but you know, what had initially been done was the city did a swap. The city owned the land that was right next to the drawing board. And they swapped with the Moat trust to trade parcels. So we could build the bike path where we have it. And the Moats would have the city lot to build a new building on. And they've backed out of that. They no longer want to build a building. And so there's an option to for the city to take ownership of that lot. Would you support that? I would, because I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Now, whether we would turn it into a park or whether the city would look to turn around and have find a developer to either sell it to or to partner with, I haven't quite focused on whether, what are available options are. But I think being in control of that is important. One of the things about the car lot was it had a very difficult owner who was not willing to sell. Notwithstanding the fact that he owned a brownfield in the city. Well, he was licensing it to the state for a while. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, but that was, you know, if you think about what is the real value of a lot like that, you know, that's, that's a minimal return for what he could have gotten. And but it was enough for him to, you know, time was on his side. He didn't care if it remained undeveloped. And the city did because it's an important part of our downtown cityscape. So we go one block south and we're in a lot right now that's our, I'm sorry, we go one block north of that. Right. And we're in an area that's being argued over a hotel in a parking garage. Right. Is there a lesson on that one? Could we have done something differently to have avoided that argument in court? Well, I don't know if we could have done in anything to avoid that in court because, you know, there was general popular support for the parking garage. You know, the people that are opposing it are very well-meaning and, you know, strong, strongly held beliefs. They're neighbors. Yeah, they're our neighbors.  They're people that care about the city of Montpelier. You know, and that... Could the tents have been, do you think the tents could have been big enough to address those concerns during the process or do you think the gap was just too wide? I think the gap was too wide. I mean, I was part of some of that process, obviously, on the DRB and there were hearings, there were a lot of comments taken and I think at the end of the day, people tended to fall along a spectrum of either four against the parking garage as they saw its benefit to the downtown or its detriment. And so, you know, I think it depends on how you see, you know, this functioning. As I mentioned before, you know, one of the, I think the legitimate criticisms of the parking garage is that it's seeking to solve a parking problem without involving one of the major players, the state of Vermont. And, you know, the counterargument to that is, well, look, we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Yes, we'd love to get the state of Vermont to build something over the pit. We've approached them, as you know, you've mentioned before, you know, we've approached the state and they've refused. It's fair enough. And so, you know, policy is often born out of these compromises where you can't have what you really want, so you go for a second best. You try to still capture the public good. And so in that respect, I, you know, I think that how far you believe in some of those arguments informs how you view the parking garage. But I don't, I haven't talked to anyone on either side of the spectrum who's done it from disingenuous or bad faith reasons. And so I don't think you can avoid certain of those fights. And part of it's a function of the fact that Montpelier has a lot of people that care a lot about the city. Can we kind of square, you know, put square of the circle, square of the circle over the downtown downtown master plan vis-a-vis bicycles versus parking. I'm talking about the traffic calming study on Main Street. How do you stand on that one? Because that's one that the next console will be weighing in on that entire downtown master plan. What's your thoughts on that? Well, I think it's going to be a function of whether or not we build this parking garage. Well, it's only going to happen if we do. Right. Assuming that we do. Assuming that we do, you know, the more we can free up, I always look to Church Street.  That was Mayor Sanders, wasn't it? It was. But I mean, if you went back in time to before that, well before that, people always said, you're crazy. That's insane. That's, this won't work. Where are we going to park? And it's worked out very well. Except for a pit right behind it. This is true. That's, well, that's a different story all together. But you know, I think, I think that to the extent that we have a downtown, if you look at the 1976 cityscape for the City of Montpelier, it envisioned that state and Maine in its, the sort of trying, the, you know, essential blocks of that intersection would be walking. And that they imagined, they envisioned that School Street to Elm, and then Elm would go through what's that, the, the parking garage, the Heaney lot, and it would come around Berry Street. Was that when there was a bridge between State Street over the next to Capital Grounds that would go over to Langdon Street? Was that in that one or was that a later iteration? No, I think that might have been a later iteration, but they were going to make a circulator around the city. They were going to Cedar Street was going to, they were going to punch through the park that's that little known park on the top of the hill there behind City Hall and they were going to make a little circulator and they were going to make that a walking area downtown. Obviously didn't come to fruition. And I don't think it will necessarily, necessarily ever will but to the extent that we can make downtown less about cars, less about parking, and more of an area where people can come walk around where they can enjoy the retail. I think that is a positive because that makes the downtown a destination and that promotes both the businesses as well as the community center that it represents. How do we deal with, we have a homeless task force and we have an issue on begging in the downtown? Yes. How do we address the needs of those of us who are homeless as well as the integrity of our small downtown vis-a-vis begging? Well, I mean I think the homelessness issue is a regional one and Montpelier standing alone trying to solve it is, it's not going to work. We just don't have the resources nor do we have, you know, we have control over a very small geographic area. And so you know, the homelessness situation I think is a larger one that we need regional support on and in, you know, Vermont's kind of unique in that we have such a weak county government that a lot of the issues that municipalities like Montpelier face are things that in other states would be handled at the county level. And we have Sheriff Sam. Right. And which is, it's not his job. It's, it's just simply but I mean, you know, if you think about, you know, if you go basically anywhere west of here, New York, to a lesser extent, but certainly the Midwest and Western states, county government does all this and they can look at big swaths of area and they can start to develop solutions that look to the region. And homelessness strikes me as one of those because, you know, if you look at the homeless population, they're, they're, they're not just here in Montpelier, they're moving between the various municipalities, Barry, Berlin, you know, they're looking, you know, and they're, they're semi transient. And so when, when we look to a solution, I think we have to encompass that area and encompass that larger population. And it's not just a Montpelier homeless population, it's a central Vermont homeless population. Isn't Missy Mary Hooper working on funding in the state that we'd share between a person between the Barry police department and the Montpelier police department? That's my understanding. I mean, she's on appropriations. So, you know, to extend a lot of these issues. And I, part of the work that I've done is on more of the legal aid and I'm on the access to justice coalition that, you know, is looking to get greater resources. But I can tell you that talking to those providers who often work day to day with those, those populations, you know, it's, it's stability in, in housing. But the solutions are really about money and access to this, these type of housing or these type of programs that can, you know, stop evictions or that can stop, maybe not necessarily stop an eviction, but give people room to go from one property to another. We're not really picking up rental units in this town. In fact, we're losing them to Airbnb, I suppose, in a sense. In a, in a sense, I mean, you know, they're, I think there's a lot of things that are, are changing. And I think the homelessness is a, you know, there's no magic bullet solution to it. And so, that's why I think, you know, ultimately, when we think about this, we can't think of ourselves as an island. We have to think of where we sit within this larger population. Some of the panhandling issues, that's also thorny as well.  So, you know, evicting people from encampments is something that- Does that mean that we possibly will be looking at camping in Howard Park? We could. And the city can't- you know, at least the Ninth Circuit has ruled limitations. Where is the Ninth Circuit? The Ninth Circuit's on the West Coast, but it's, you know, it's influential. So, it's not necessarily binding, but it is a decision that I think people have, have in municipal governments have taken seriously in that there have been rulings that when you don't provide other alternative locations or camping areas, you can't just en masse evict people. And so, I know cities like Olympia, Washington have been trying to find, you know, like encampment areas to mixed, mixed results. And again, it goes to the fact that these are not easy, easy questions or easy answers. Let me ask two questions. I always ask these. Okay. If there were a former city council person or a person on council right now that you would say, I would like to model myself after that city council person. Doesn't have to be on the current council. Who would you say? That's a good question. You know, certainly, I think Tom Belanka did a great job when he was on city council because he, I never saw him approach a question from a knee jerk position of, well, this doesn't, this doesn't work with what I believe in. I saw him go outside of his comfort zone a lot of times, but I always saw him being very thoughtful in his responses. And, you know, one thing that I would promise that serving on city council, I will always try and be that kind of council person to not necessarily say, wow, I don't like that idea, but okay, what are the issues behind it? What's driving this? You know, something like homelessness, rather than taking a straight answer, well, we got to get rid of all the homeless people or, oh, we've got to house every single homeless person we can find. And you hit the next question. Which of the issues would you grab as your own? Donna is into transportation. Tom was into infrastructure. Sure. You know, certainly infrastructure is an important one to me. And, you know, part of what I'd like to see, and obviously I have a background in the land use and zoning. And so those are very important issues to me. There are certainly issues that I feel very comfortable talking about. But what I like to see is that as we continue to grow and we have ambitious plans, you know, the city plan for the next 15 years, or it's only a five-year plan, but it looks out beyond that, you know, looks for a lot of growth. And to do that is going to take a lot of thinking about what we have on the ground and what we're going to need and to try and make that growth smart. You have a son in fourth grade at Union. I do. What grade will he be in when there's houses and savings pasture? Hopefully still within the Montpelier school system. Thank you so very much. Thank you very much, Richard. I appreciate your appearing. Now I want to talk to you guys. I want you to come out on Town Meeting Day. That is really important to get out and vote and to participate. Absolutely. It's so important to a democracy that you weigh in in your own ways.  So thank you very much. I hope that you watch all of these shows because all of them are very unique and we have an excellent set of candidates as we always do. That's our community generates good candidates. And particularly the shows on the city budget and the school budget. Those are important. And you'll hear Bill and Libby talking about them. And I'll be asking them good questions. So make sure that you watch all these shows. And thank you for watching this one.


Hello everybody and welcome to this week's Barnes Takeout, your weekly serving of art from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. I'm Bill Perthes, the Bernhard C. Watson director of adult education, and today we take a vicarious trip with the American artist Charles Demith. In the summer of 1916, Demith, who was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia where the Barnes Foundation is, Demith spent the summer in Provincetown in what's come to be called the Great Provincetown Summer. It was a remarkable time when Provincetown attracted artists and intellectuals to a kind of artist's colony. Along with Demith was fellow artist Marston Hartley. Demith and Hartley had met in 1912 in Paris and become close friends, also William and Margaret Zurich. Along with them were people such as the writer, historian, and communist activist John Reed, Louise Bryant, the journalist and feminist, and sort of rounding out the group was the American playwright Eugene O'Neill, who that summer, along with the help of these other artists, several of whom actually participated, O'Neill debuted two plays and you may know that Eugene O'Neill went on to essentially be the founder of the American School of Realist Theater, and Hartley were part of that group. After that summer, Hartley and Demith had planned to stay in Provincetown until November, but the weather turned and instead they Hartley went on to Bermuda and Demith went to New York for a while and then joined Hartley in Bermuda where the two of them spent the winter rather of 1916 into 1917. And I say all of that because the picture we're looking at was painted in that time. So this picture is called Trees in Architecture as I suggested it's from 1916, 1917. And it's part of a body of work that Demith worked on through that summer and into the following winter that are really transitional works in Demith's form as he was developing his modernist form or what would become to know as his precisionist work, which is the work he's most well known for. So this time period is really developmental for Demith as he's sort of maturing as an artist, very much so prompted by the encouragement of his friend Marston Hartley. I mentioned in a takeout I did earlier this year, I looked at a sort of companion work to this created by or painted by Hartley, again called Bermuda, Bermuda movement. So this sort of interchange between artists was really essential for the development of both of these American artists. And what we see Charles Demith doing here is in many ways adapting what he saw in Cubist works, particularly that of Pablo Picasso and George Brock. Cubism was relatively new. And Demith rather than simply repeating what Picasso and Brock had done was looking for a way to sort of reshape it to suit his own interests. And for one, he's using watercolor, which gives a particular quality to the color. And if we look carefully, the way that Demith applies color gives it a wonderful sort of light translucent in many places, translucent quality, you'll see that it has this dappled effect to it, where he would lay down a color and then sort of blot it and it would give it this this variety of of opaqueness and transparency. And you'll see that he very strategically deploys these areas of color across this vast field of open paper. So all of the white that you see here is the actual paper on which the picture is created. And you'll see along with with the color, the important use of line lines that have varying qualities to them. They're both curvilinear as well as rectilinear. And they're suggestive of sort of organic shapes and constructed shapes. So they're kind of squared off as opposed to the rounded. And he's he has composed this and the sort of suggestive quality of this is also I think quite profound is that he's giving us just sort of snippets of elements, perhaps the most that what is clear if there's anything that's really clear here is the suggestion of a beam or a post that centers this composition. So running vertically right in the center. And then to our left, what seems like a tree, although again, it's very sort of suggestive of tree with again, carrying on or echoing the the vertical quality of that central beam. And then you'll see that that verticality repeats again. So it's creating a kind of structure as well as a rhythm. And then as it repeats, you'll notice that it begins to angle a little bit. As we again as we continue to move to our left. And then it's the the composition sort of culminates in this dissipating again, curvilinear or organic forms on the on the left on the left and then going out into the off onto the white white paper to the right, the compositions slightly different. Rather than a repetition of the vertical units, we have in very light interspersed curvilinear and linear units. And those linear units are moving both diagonally up and down left and right, but also horizontally. And the combination of these the vertical to the diagonals creates a kind of tipping quality as our eye moves across it. Our eyes sort of goes from one side to the to the next. The way that he that Demith has graded these colors again from areas, we go sort of to the top here, areas where where it's darker, such as here, and then fades out to light or darker here and fades out to right to where it's light. This is a technique that we see Picasso and Brock doing but Demith is using it quite differently. Picasso and Brock would you often use it in early analytic cubism to suggest a plane receding in and out of space. Now, Demith is not interested in that. And instead, these great graded forms remain oriented to the to the frontality of the picture plane itself. So it's really flat. The picture space itself is fairly shallow. Really the only suggestion of depth of space is either through those tipping forms a little bit through the opaqueness or the solidness of some color areas to the transparency of other other colored areas so that these more opaque areas seem to be in the foreground and these more transparent ones seem to step back or through overlapping where we have some areas overlapping other areas. And so that overlapping suggests one thing on top of or in front of the other. But again, that's it's very minimal in terms of picture space and that overlapping and particularly the way that he deploys overlapping such as an area like this or see how this area overlaps what we read as the trunk of the tree. That that quality of overlapping is also something that is reminiscent of another sort of modernist development of Picasso and Brock. And that's that's collage of flat planes, newspaper or wallpaper cut out and then actually pasted, laid on top of each other, but remaining fairly, fairly flat. One of the striking things about this is with all of the exposed paper that there's this wonderful brightness to the to the picture. It adds a sense of luminosity of this being a light filled scene. And I mentioned the importance of line of the curvilinear quality to the linear quality. It's difficult to see at a distance, but if you zoom in, we can see that DeMuth deploys line independently. So we have these very light graphic lines and these lines echo and sometimes mirror some of the colored form. So we see it here and then we see the line now not the color just the line deployed as a almost like a kind of memory of that form. Again, as it sort of dissipates and fades off into into the white of the paper. Elsewhere, very delicate and fine lines enhance a given color area. So creating this kind of box and grid like form. Sometimes it line extends a color area. So you'll notice that DeMuth is very careful about keeping colors within the confines of linear boundaries. But then the lines themselves will continue on. So such as here where the color stops, but this line continues on this line continues on. And here the line actually again intersects overlaps this color area. And it's those very subtle relationships of colors and forms and lines to each other that again suggests any and all again fairly minimal qualities of picture space or depth. So I've mentioned the importance of cubism that the work of Picasso and Brock informing DeMuth's choices here and certainly the influence of his friend Marston Hartley. But another artist that was really important to DeMuth's development was the example of late watercolors by the French artist Paul Cézanne. And here now I'm showing you a view of the ensemble in gallery 20. This is the south wall where this work lives and we see it placed here. And to enhance our understanding of DeMuth's connection to the work of Paul Cézanne, Dr. Barnes very helpfully placed watercolors by Cézanne just beneath the DeMuth's. So actually all of these works, these all across here are all watercolors by Charles DeMuth all done around the around the same time this winter in Bermuda. And here we see the works by Cézanne. And if we look at how Cézanne has used, pull it up here, we can see too, both Cézanne and DeMuth above, we can see how Cézanne quite different than how he uses or how he used oil paint where he would often, not always, but often layer the color on fairly thickly. In his watercolors Cézanne has this wonderful light delicate touch of color and color often is used as a compliment to the forms that often are created out of the the white of the paper. Again, this is something we see and this is a drawing by Cézanne. So here's our picture and another Cézanne watercolor of Montsalfatois, a very common and familiar theme for Cézanne. But how DeMuth is so sort of creatively able to combine interests of that he sees in the development of Cubism, but integrating it in integrating into it also his interest in the work of Cézanne. And not to be forgotten, so there's a picture by Alexis Grichenko at the top of this that shares some of the qualities of both Cézanne and the DeMuths. But down here you'll notice, and I'll show you again on both sides, these are 17th century Chinese fans. And if we look at this one, so just on the same side of the wall as the picture we're looking at, notice in this Chinese fan how much open paper there is. And here again Barnes is using the ensemble as a way of suggesting not necessarily a direct connection that is DeMuth to 17th century Chinese fan painting or even to between the Chinese fan and the Cézanne, but a shared creative interest and a shared artistic interest that connects very dissimilar traditions to each other by way of their compositional choices using open paper as a source of light and actually a sense of space and volume. Interesting there's actually more space in the Chinese pictures than there are in the DeMuths. So DeMuth and Dr. Barnes were quite close. Barnes was a strong supporter of DeMuth. Barnes helped DeMuth. DeMuth suffered from often quite poor, healthy, suffered from diabetes, and Barnes was also quite enthusiastic about searching out and finding new treatments for DeMuth. And Dr. Barnes and Mrs. Barnes were also quite close with Charles DeMuth's mother Augusta who continued to live in Lancaster. These works in these corner galleries where there's abundance of work not too dissimilar to other galleries in the collection, but these sort of smaller works can often be overlooked in the Barnes collection. But I encourage you now that we're open if you have the opportunity to come and visit, spend some time in Gallery 20. This is just one picture amongst a wide variety of works on, predominantly works on paper that are worth exploring in Gallery 20 at the Barnes Foundation. So I hope you'll tune in next week for another edition of Barnes Takeout. And please subscribe and you'll get notices when new versions, new editions are added to our roster. In the meantime stay safe. If you can visit us at the Barnes Foundation and we'll see you again soon. Take care.


Hello and you're very welcome back to MPS goes to Westport Festival. I'm sitting here with a wonderful Mundi. Mundi, how are you? So you've just finished playing. Mundi, how did it go? Very well, very well. It's kind of like something I've been looking forward to all year. Really? Yeah, these festivals kind of in Ireland, like whichever one you choose to do or get, but it's kind of like your chance to kind of shine. So for me it was a big day. And why do you think that is? I play all over the country in various different venues, various different sizes. This is like you get to play to three or four thousand people or more, whatever, like that tent, I don't know what it holds, three or four thousand. But it's like a capsule, you know, it's compact and you get an hour. I mean I had to drop a few of my favourite songs today to squash them all in. And it must be great to hear those three or four thousand people singing your songs back to you. Yeah, it's mad. I mean I still get quite nervous or uptight about these events because if you drop the ball at all, I always feel like it's you. It's kind of like an exam there, I've got a really stupid way of looking at this. But like I keep forgetting that I have a kind of repertoire of songs that actually I shouldn't even have to worry anymore. Especially on a beautiful day like July or Mexico or having to call a girl. So it was brilliant. July was off 24-star hotel that went more than triple platinum which was amazing. Can you tell me a little bit about that record? Strange, I put my first album in 1996 and then I got dropped by the record label. I made 24-star hotel in 1999 I think. Then in the year 2000 the record label were getting rid of a couple of other bands off their roster. I was one of them and I couldn't get the album back from them. So they actually dropped you before 24-star hotel? Yeah, but I recorded it for them. And then legally you had a little thing and I got it back and I only put it out in 2002. So it was actually written for? So it was meant to come out in 1999 or 2000. Anyway, long story short I released it myself on my own record label after I got it back. And July just became this kind of like it was like the new flu. It just went viral. And I'd say the record company were fairly kicking themselves after seeing that. Fairness, they were really into that song. That was the one song that said that was a hit and I was like the chorus isn't finished. I was like who's going to listen to all my love about July? And it just stuck. Yeah, really, really, really did. So back to present day you're recording a new album at the minute. Can you release any information about that yet? I can't wait about it. The guy who produced my first album was a guy called Youth and he's in a band called Killing Joke. He produced Urban Hems by the Verve and he's worked with Paul McCartney and loads of people like Echo and the Bunny Man or whatever. And I hadn't seen him in 16 years since the two weeks we spent in Wales on my first album. And I went in to see him in the Button Factory. He's a band and I went up to him and he was selling CDs after it. And I was like alright man, no idea who I was. He's like are you familiar looking? I was like I'm Monday and he said no way, I thought I'd see you again. So anyway he said why don't you come over to London and do a bit of writing. So I was telling him that I just had two kids and I had a bit of a writer's block. And you know managing myself and doing it all on my own. He goes nah, you've got to come over and we'll sort that out. So we went off to Spain in January of this year and we started the album and it's nearly mixed down. Well that sounds very interesting. So I'm just trying to figure out the strategy of how I'm going to put it out there and all that. So when can we expect that new album? I'm not sure. Because it's very hard now to put out a record. If your songs are really strong you can miss the boat. It's all about planning. You could send the song to radio and it might get played and then the album's over. So I just have to be careful but I'd like to have something up online before Christmas. Great. And then maybe have it next to your whole album. It's getting scarier, it's getting scarier the whole time you know. Well Berlin, we look forward to hearing that Monday. Thanks a million for chatting to us. So that was Monday here at MPS Ghosts to Westport Festival.


Dude, that house is giving away full-sized candy bars! That house forgave my student loan debt!  I'll give you the rest when you retire. Are you a real woman? Did you get the student loan thing? I kind of? They said the house on the right made them stop using the front door, so I had to go to the back door. Oh. And I only got 10K because I don't work in the public center. Well, the house on the right gave me an AR-15! Holy crap! But they made me burn my library card. Something about drag queens? That old guy on the left makes you sit through DEI training and then takes half your candy if he thinks you have too much. Doesn't that guy own like three houses? Yeah, and all his candy has stickers that say it may cause cancer. That guy on the right took away my myconykes. These things are a slippery slope to three musketeers. I've seen a ton of airheads and dum-dums. On the far left, there's a huge horror show going on. On the right, too, but those guys are having trouble with their speaker. Every new one's worse than the last! That red house only gives out candy if you pass a drug test. Oh, wait! Did you get drugs? Not good ones. But the one on the far left gave me hormone blockers. What about that yellow house with the snake flag? They're into drugs, right? Sounds like they were fighting inside. You don't belong in this house! It's not your house! It's my house! I have the keys! You don't have the keys! Why is no one giving out drugs? The news said we'd get drugs. Maybe people enjoy taking drugs more than they enjoy giving it to children. Did you hit that little pink house? Somebody did. Alright, just don't go too far left. The rumor is they're forcing every kid to dump out their bags so they can redistribute all the candy equally. Well, that doesn't seem so terrible. They say the same thing every year, and in the end, they murder the kids with too much candy or education, and eventually everyone starves. I don't know why kids keep going there. Well, maybe this year it'll be different. The kids are always dead by some. I bet they just sent those kids to camp. I mean, you're wrong, but you're also not wrong. Oh, yeah, I get it now. What's your position on abortion? You can take as many as there are genders. Just stick to the middle. I already got a stimulus check, sugar subsidies, a sports stadium. That house even gives you cash if you promise not to grow any corn. I heard the Menendez house had gold bars, but they're not answering the door anymore.  What's your hall look like, Zelensky? 75 billion, but the night is young. 75 billion? It's how neighborhoods compete now. It's like a proxy Halloween.


So the Republican governor of Texas seems to think that the pandemic is now over because he made this announcement. So today, I'm issuing a new executive order that rescinds most of the earlier executive orders. Effective next Wednesday, all businesses of any type are allowed to open 100% that includes any type of entity in Texas. Also, I am ending the statewide mask mandate. Well, I mean, cases are down. So that means that we no longer have to wear masks. We no longer need to social distance. Let's just pretend as if it's already over because cases and deaths are down. Yes, cases and deaths are down. And that is a really positive sign. The pandemic is not over yet. And that right there is precisely how you extend the length of the pandemic. This isn't just about Texas, because Texans may see a surge in cases as a direct result of this action. And then they'll travel to other states and other Americans will get infected who will then travel internationally and infect other human beings. This affects the entire human population in a negative way.  You are perpetuating the extension of the pandemic. Good job. But the borough is so low that it's hard to be that hard on Greg Abbott because at least he had a mask mandate in place. There are some governors like Rhonda Santis who never instituted a statewide mask mandate and even blocked local governments from enacting their own mask mandates. So at least Greg Abbott for a period of time kind of took COVID-19 seriously. I mean, of course, he's easing restrictions far too soon. But at least there was a time where he pretended to care, whereas other governors, they never took it seriously. They're still not taking it seriously in 2021. But this is a bad decision. If you truly are pro-life as Republicans claim to be, then now is not the time to ease up our foot on the gas pedal. Because the CDC just warned that new COVID variants could pose a real threat to vaccine progress. And this could even lead to a fourth surge as the highly contagious UK variant is now set to become the dominant strain in the United States this month. Now, furthermore, vaccines won't even be fully available to the general public until May. And this is according to the Biden administration. So let's assume that Biden is correct here. That means that most Americans, assuming most Americans actually want to get the vaccine, they won't be fully immunized until June. Because if they're available, let's assume on May 1st, then that means that you get your first dose and then you wait 21 to 28 days to get your second dose, depending on if you've taken the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. And then it takes seven to 14 days after your second dose to be fully immunized. So we can't even begin to think about most of the population being fully immunized until June, again, assuming that most Americans take the vaccine. But new variants means that we still have to continue to take this virus very seriously because it is a threat. We don't know about these new variants. We're still learning about COVID-19 itself, the original strain. So there's a lot more that needs to be done. There's still work to do. So we can't just like prematurely declare the virus over and the pandemic over and get back to normal because that is exactly how you extend the length of the pandemic. If we all just took it seriously, if like from the beginning we paid people to stay home, then the pandemic wouldn't have gone as bad. But because we are incapable of taking it seriously because our capitalist economy requires that we continue to send people to work, even if it's a risk to their own health, well, this is what we have to deal with. This is what global capitalism has led to. We're not paying people to stay home. And as a result, people don't want to stay home because their livelihoods depend on them working. And furthermore, the minute we see cases drop, Republican governors and even Democratic governors just choose to not take it seriously.  But that's not going to happen. So we can expect COVID-19 for years to come potentially if this is the way that governors respond to declining numbers. Again, I don't want to downplay the significance of declining numbers in new cases and deaths. That's all really good. But that doesn't mean that we just suddenly declared the pandemic over because it's not over. And if we actually want to be over in a real way to actually not be a pandemic anymore, we need to be smart. And this right here with the governor of Texas is doing is not smart. It is absolutely reckless.


Hello everybody. If you follow the link down below in the description box you will be brought to an episode that was recorded about a month ago, a month or so ago, maybe longer, with David Zublik, myself, Melissa and Mickey over Astrology, and the Book of Revelation. Now obviously this video is way too potent to go on YouTube, hence why we are going to be utilizing our rumble platform. Now one of the reasons why I'm releasing this video today is because tomorrow I will be releasing our Wednesday video that recaps what we talk about on the Dark Outpost on Tuesday. Tomorrow the video is going to be an introduction to traditional yoga. We are going to be taking a couple of weeks off of the missing books of the Bible to talk about traditional yoga to try to work through some of the programming that a lot of people who come from a very fundamentalist background have in regards to yoga. And in the video tomorrow, I do mention this conversation. So I wanted to make sure that we had it up and ready for you when tomorrow's video drops. So you can refer back to this conversation as well. Coming up this week, we will also be doing our drawing for the t-shirt giveaway from Liz's t-shirt shop. So please stay tuned for that. I hope the week is serving you all well, and I will talk to you all soon.


So today's talk is by Saisandeep on a conditional hardness of coloring three colorable grass with a constant number of colors, that's all there is. Hi, this talk will be about B to 1 hardness of coloring take a little grass and this joint work with Venkat from CM. The talk is going to be relatively shorter, so feel free to interrupt for any questions. So we are interested in the three-color problem. So the problem is that given a graph and you want to know whether it's three-colorable or not. It's one of the classical NP-hard problem. So we are interested in approximation algorithms for this problem. So that is given a graph that is promised to be three-color and now can we color it with the four colors or with hundred colors in the polynomial time. And there have been some really nice algorithmic works on this problem starting with Victor from 4K83. So he showed that you can color such a graph that is promised to be three-colorable with square root n colors. And there have been some improvements over this, primarily using STP rounding-based techniques. And since that so far we are able to get it to something so little less than n to the point two, order of n to the point two colors. But this talk is going to be about hardness. So what do we know on the hardness side? So we know that you can color it with n to the point two so many colors. And for the hardness, it's easy to think in terms of the decision version. So the decision version is the same given a graph and you want to distinguish between the two cases. Yes, it can be colored with three colors. And in the no case, it cannot even be colored with some c greater than three colors. And for this problem with small c equal to three is just the hardness of graph three colors. And unfortunately, like even though there has been significant progress in the algorithmic point, the hardness side actually hasn't seen much work. And it's only very recently, I'm going to break through what this even like small c equal to five case is a result. And it's still the best known. So we don't even know if we haven't yet ruled out coloring the graph that is promised to be three-colorable with six colors. And so to get around this barrier, people have tried to look at conditional rules. So conditional reasons are like I'll assume some sort of hardness conductor, and then you want to prove that graph coloring is hard as well. And usually many of these conditional reasons start as in like a base and unique game conductor. But however, for our problem, unique game conductor doesn't work because we need perfect completeness. That is in the yes case, we need the graph to be all day, just like the coloring is a valid property going, it's not like a few fraction of the violator or something. But similar to unique game country, there are other conjectures that do have perfect completeness. And we will be focusing on those conjectures. And so one of them is this D to one conjecture. And D could be anything. And so assuming two to one conjecture, also later I'll explain what all these conjectures mean. And assuming two to one conjecture, it's already being proved in the nice part of D-Nerd, but four versus C-coloring is NPR for everything. And even three versus C is also proved to be in here. And we had assuming a fish shaped version of the unique game conjecture. And like before going forward, I'll explain what all these conjectures mean. And all these conjectures are variants of this label cover problem. And in the label cover problem, you have a bipartite graph G with LR and edges. And there are constraints across the edges. So you could think of it as a binary CSP, but with a special form of constraints. Each constraint is a projection constraint. That is, once you fix the value of a vertex on the left, the value of the vertex on the right that is adjacent to it is uniquely determined if you want to satisfy that edge. And this has been a classical problem in the field of hardness approximation. And many of the hardness results follow from this problem. And we do know very good hardness for this. So like, by the time we know that it's simply hard to distinguish between the two cases. In the first case, when all the constraints are satisfied versus the utmost epsilon fraction of the constraint can be satisfied for any constant epsilon. And we do recur perfect completeness. In the sense that by perfect, I mean that in the completeness case, all the constraints are satisfied, as opposed to saying that at most some delta fraction of constraints are violated. And so this all the conjectures that I mentioned previously, they're all variants of this label cover. They're all saying that a certain structure form of label covers is also hard. And one of the such kind of this is this so called D to one conjecture. And D to one conjecture has been introduced by codes and the same type of that introduced the unique conjecture. And in the D to one conjecture, you have the label set on the left side is D times L and the right side itself. And we do know that for every label on the left, there is unique label on the right that satisfies the condition. But in the D to one conjecture, the other types is also two, but with the D labels. So for every label on the right, there are exactly D labels on the left that satisfy a particular. So if you if you think of D as one, that's just a unique game. But the advantage of having larger D is that you can you can also have perfect complexity. And this so now you can have increasing D and different forms of the conjecture. So the strongest of the family of conditions that two to one conjecture. And we actually prove that the results that previously are known under the two to one, which is the hardness of four versus C, but we prove that so the those hardness isn't even like three versus C color, we can obtain them assuming the D to one conjecture for any constant D, not just D equal to two. So the hope is that somehow it could it is probably easier to prove the D to one condition for a large constant D. And then you you'll get the this three versus C color in the long journey problem. And yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, D equal to two cases proved in D in a muscle, only for like four versus C. And we prove that it's a bit. Also, at this point, I'll remark that there's been some nice recent work that showed the two to one conjecture, but with imperfect completeness. In a long line of work, they showed two to one. But so but they don't get perfect completeness and perfect completeness is very crucial for us. And their techniques seem to be the interview using linear type of long chord things. So seems that they don't really extend to perfect completeness case. Okay, so these are our main results. And now we'll discuss how we go about proving it. So we do it in two steps. And first step, we prove that for any parts into the D, D to one condition implies that 2D versus C calling is NP hard. As in like in the yes case, not a graph is not three colorable, it's 2D colorable. And in the no case, of course, it's C cannot be colored in C colors for anything. And we combine this with a very nice recent work due to croak in upper shower watchmen with me where they use this arc graph, the properties of the chromatic number of our graph to show that it essentially suffices to show the three versus C, if you can show like any constant versus, like if you want to show that three versus C then we have for everything, it's okay to show like any constant versus C like so here we show that D to one implies that 2D versus C, which then implies by their result, even three versus C coloring is hard as well. So in the rest of the talk, I'll just focus on this step one. And okay, so to to put everything together, so what I've done is that we have to do this D to one, like we explain this D to one, then the 10. And you want to prove that that implies three versus C. And so the updated goal is that you want to show D versus D to one condition implies the 2D versus C coloring is NP hard for all together include. And if you just pull flagging D equal to this is the same as the one that the new muscle and reggae have proved. And the approach is the we was the same approach as their result. And which is to use label color long chord based reduction. And the key difference from their work is that at their reduction, they need to use a symmetric Markov chain with some properties. And that we generalize that object to any D, which then implies the same hardness for any D. And so before going further, we just recall what a symmetric Markov chain is like, you just have the state space and the probability of going from one state to other is the same as it is the same as going from G to I. So you could just think of it as a N by N symmetric matrix with non negative entries and some of the elements in each one. So simply it's a symmetric published or that's the matrix. And what are the properties that we need from it for the reduction to work? First, we need that the support is disjoint. So if there is a transition probability from you want to UD to we want to really we need that the you want to the sex you want to UD and we want to really disjoint. And second property that we need is that the spectral radius of this metric Markov chain is less than one. So this this actually means that there's only one eigenvalue with absolute value equal to one. And so how do we construct such a symmetric Markov chain? In in the dinner muscle regular work, whenever they started this problem with for D equal to two, they constructed this matrix manually. So they just showed some states and some probability decision and it worked out. But we want to do it for any general D. And so how do we do it? So the technique that we use is this matrix scaling. So what is matrix scaling? The matrix scaling you have you first start with some arbitrary matrix. And in our case, it's just a matrix of certain graph. And in every step, we scale either a row or a column of the matrix. So so and the goal is to construct a doubly stochastic matrix at the end. And you want to do it by these row or column operation. However, then this leads to the question, when does such a such a see when when does there exist such a series of operations that gives us a doubly stochastic matrix. And it's been a pretty well studied topic. And we know certain initial conditions of the original matrix that you're starting with, under which it's guaranteed that you'll end up with a doubly stochastic matrix. So to recall, we need some properties from a Mark Orton and you want to we are trying to construct using adjacent to matrix of a graph. So now, what are the conditions under which we know that this thing terminates? And one of one such condition is this original matrix A has total support. And if you translate it, that condition to the matrices that are adjacent to the matrices of a graph, it, it translates to the condition that every edge of the graph is a part of the cycle curve. cycle curve of a graph is just a union of what it's showing cycles that cover all the vertices of the graph. And so now, instead of requiring some properties from the symmetric Mark Orton, we now reduce the problem to requiring some properties from a graph with vertex set 2d raised to the D. And what are the properties that we need from this graph? First, we need that every edge is part of the cycle curve. This is to ensure that when we apply the matrix scaling, we end up with a doubly stochastic matrix. And we also need some other properties of the symmetric Mark Orton just to recall one, we need the design support property. And two, we also need the spectral areas of that to be less than one, which translates to the property that the graph should be connected and it should not be a bipartite graph. So to summarize, we need these three properties from this graph and with the vertex set of the graph is the 2d raised to the D. And now we show how to construct such a graph. So here q q is supposed to be 2d. We add two, two types of edges. We just start with the empty graph and we add two types of edges. So the first type is we added between u, u1 to ud and v equal to v1 to vd. If they're of the same ordering, as in for every i, k, mod j, they follow the same ordering as u1 equal to uj if and only if ui equal to uj if and only if v i equal to j and similarly, other conditions as well. So in some sense, we are breaking the vertex set into equivalent classes and then adding edges between vertices in the same class that have disjoint support. And the second type of edges that we are adding are the same as above for the case when u1 are equal to ud. Like all of them are equal. So this essentially ensures that you have connectedness and the graph is also not bipartite. So we already have gotten two properties for connectedness and non-bipartite. And since we're adding edges between vectors that have support disjoint anyway, so we also have the disjoint properties. So the only property that we need to verify is that this every edge of this graph is part of a cycle tower. And that is not difficult to see simply because the type one all the type one edges are regular. So this you when you fix a class of ordering, which which fix so and among that class is just a method graph because we are just adding edges between vertices that have disjoint support and they are regular. So it and one every regular job in every edge in a regular job is part of the cycle tower. This is because you can just have two copies of the graph and then construct a bipartite graph. And that bipartite graph is bi-regulate. So it has a perfect matching. And so every edge is part of it. Even more every edge will be part of part of my thing. And so you can consider that every edge is part of the cycle tower as well. So we have constructed this we showed the existence of this graph, it's all these properties, which then implies the existence of the symmetric Markov chain as well. And now finally, we just describe the reduction. How do we go from this symmetric Markov chain to how do you use this symmetric Markov chain in the reduction from this B to one context to graph color length on. First, we actually reduce the D to one context to this other variant called D to D conjecture. So it's proved that D to one conjecture implies the D to D conjecture. So in the D to D conjecture, it's so the conditions are no longer projection, but they have this very special type of structure. So you could think of the alphabet is some details and there are two combinations by one by two, one for for every edge, whether two combinations by one by two, one for the vertex on the left one for the vertex on the right. So that the the graph that is obtained by adding pairs that are in the relation is of this form D to D. So pion inverse x and pi two inverse y belong to this D to D and D to D is this relation. So essentially, you can think of it like there is this D to D structure and then you you can permute the labels on the left or on the right. So this is the D to D conjecture. This is simply easier to work with. It's not hard to prove D to D conjecture from D to one conjecture. Okay, and so we also first recall what the traditional label code long code setup. So you start with the label coordination to recall you have a graph and then a consequence for every edge. And then you want to output a new graph based on this label coordination so that if the label coordination is satisfiable, the graph can be colored with 2D colors. And if no assignment can satisfy some actual prime fraction of the conscience in the label code, the new graph G prime cannot be colored with three colors, but we actually prove it from the statement that is not even an independent set of size that's fun G prime. And how do how do you go about this? So we replace each vertex of the label cover with a set of nodes FB of size 2D to the DL. This is a long code what is it? And what are the edges that we add? So if we look at every edge, you come up B, an edge of the label cover engines to G with some projection, not the constant pi, which has, which is represented by the permutations pi one pi two, pi one by two, are the ones that are present here. And, and we also have the symmetric Markov chain that we have constructed. And we add edges between x1, and xdl and y into idea. So that the this this conscience, it may look weird. When the first site where you are at this M of all the D to D to D set of, so you want the D to D set, you look at every pair in the D to D. And then for them, the Markov chain support should, for that phase, the Markov chain support should be, it should be in the support of the Markov chain. So the idea is that the potential come from the completeness case, you want to ensure that when you decode each every to a dictator function, this should be a valid 2D coloring, which is clear for us because the Markov chain has a property that there are only transient property between two sets if their support is disjoint. And we also have additional properties of M, which are useful in this context. So, and how does the analysis go through? As I mentioned earlier, completeness is actually fairly straightforward. You just suppose that in the case that there is a labeling to the vertices of the label code that satisfies all the constraints, you decode each node with the dictator function corresponding to that labeling. And this is a valid coloring simply because when the constraint that we have added. Okay, yeah, and so if you decode to to declare the functions here, the edges will intersect. So the support is non zero. So in the graph that you get G prime, if there are no edges between what is that I assign the same label, so they have G prime will be 2D color. And the soundness analysis is usually the harder case. And how does the soundness work? You know that there's a large independent set in G prime. And using that we want to show that there's an assignment to the label code that satisfies large fraction of the constraint. And usually, and in this case, we use invariance based principle to decode to the small set of labels. And that that satisfy a concern. And how do we do that? And okay, before that, I'll state the invariance principle that we need here. And let's see be a symmetric Markov chain that with spectral radius one, you have two different functions f and g. And each of them have reasonably high expected value. And they have the problem that the inner product of f and g is non zero. If this property is true, then there is a coordinate where both the functions have reasonable low degree influence. So low degree influence is a variant of traditional influence where we only look at the Fourier coefficients with a degree at most some particular value. And this is very nice for us because we could decode to these low degree coordinates. And, and this, this principle, this initial base, this directly shows the consistency of the decoding. So and okay, to, to just explain this decoding mechanism for, for someone who have not seen all type of predictions usually. The way things work is that in the soundness case, you show that, okay, this is the whatever the graph column problem has some structure calling, let's say here, there's a large infinite set. Using that, we show some important coordinates or important labels to each label curve. And then we want to see a sample a label from these set of labels to each vertex. We then show that this labeling the random sample labeling satisfies a constant fraction of the edges, which is, which then proves that there is a labeling to the label constant that satisfies a constant fraction of this, which is, which is a contradiction. So that which is exactly what we want. And here, the labeling is all the coordinates of the so the functions f and g are the independent set function. They have high expected value because overall, they have high, we know that it's, it's one fraction, there's an infinite set and you could just look at a like it's one by two. We know that there are it's one by two, a fraction of labels that have it's one by two expected value. So we can just stick to them. And the decoding is the set of coordinates that have high low degree influence. And this K, the degree, the degree of the low degree influence is obtained from that plan itself. And the, so the consistency of the decoding is follows from exactly this result. So we know that for every edge, these labels intersect based on the constraint. So the final part that we need to prove is that these labels, there are not too many labels. That is actually fairly straightforward because you just have that sum of low degree influences that most K. So that K is also functional epsilon. So overall, the number of decoded coordinates is just a function of epsilon.  And that's that's pretty much the whole result. So to conclude, we showed that d to one conductor implies the versatility for every D. And there are several interesting questions. One is that I think the most important is whether what, what, what function of D the soundness need to be? That that seems to be the case. Like somehow you may not need epsilon to be like, can you characterize what function of D the epsilon need to be for this result to work? That will be very interesting. And the other question is recently, there have been some interesting baby PCP type of whether such baby D to one implies 32 C is also very interesting. As is the proof, the proof for step itself, we, we only take a particular some fraction of the vertices of the label cover. And that's the break stone if you have baby D to one. So that that is also very interesting. There is some other way to somehow show that baby D to one could imply three verses the color in hardness. And for people who haven't seen this baby D to one, you can you can ignore it. And that that's it. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I was quicker than I expected. Yeah, you're quite quick. So we have a lot of time for questions. Yeah. So I wanted to ask exactly. The question of the thing you discussed the last so baby. Yeah. Well, I know that you use these, you know, fractions are important. Yeah, yeah. It's like any how plausible that this step can be avoided in your proof.  Yeah, even for us, it seems somehow it's inherent that we need the existing. But but I don't know how you would pull such a thing like that you need this but it seems. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's not just asking about your feeling because my yeah, I think we did spend some time but it seems like you do need the full power of it. Yeah. Okay, one more question. Can you please go back to this reduction from label cover to the three coloring? Because when I read the paper, it was clear now. Actually, the graph seemed bipartite to me. So you start with the bipartite graph. Isn't this graph bipartite actually? Oh, yeah, actually, I was just like, since we are only dealing with D to D. So then the original graph need not be bipartite. Alright, so you essentially need not bipartite inputs. Yeah, yeah, that's a good answer. Yeah, just confuse me a bit. Yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah. D to one, you need I think that actually explains why you have to go from D to one to D to D. Yeah, D to one, you are forced to have bipartite because there are two types of labels, right? In D to D, there's no such requirement. Yeah. Okay, so again, but if you restrict D to D to bipartite, you're still getting Yeah, I think the reduction shouldn't work in that case. And so the reduction cannot work. So I mean, that's now I'm still confused. I think No. Yeah, good, good. Isn't it that like D to D, if you restrict to bipartite inputs, it will just be easy for small enough epsilon. Like unique games conjecture does not make sense if you if you require the graph to be bipartite, right? What am I wrong? No, you mean it's okay, right? It says that I think this reduction doesn't hold life for you. Yeah, you know, we cannot hear you, Venkat. Oh, you might be muted. Shouldn't be muted. Now, I was saying, you can also put these just inside a long court. So we did not hear you, Venkat. Please, can you repeat what you said? Hello, can you hear me now? Yeah. Yeah. I was saying you could you could also put these disjointness is just inside a long court table. Yeah, but are we using that somewhere? But you must then. Yeah, I guess you must in some sense. I mean, in the usual way you convert unique games to D to D is you sample two neighbors. Yeah, I'm gonna do it with replacement. So if there is a chance, you will sample, you know, in fact, you will sample the same long court twice, and you'll have D to D constraints between them. So, right. So this is not likely what is happening under the hood. So yeah, so this is not what actually the reduction does exactly, right? No, it is that the D to D starting point is non bipartite. That's the difference. But the question whether D to D on bipartite instances has an algorithm that that is bothering me. It probably doesn't. Well, no, okay, my question is, yeah, no, no, I mean, is this the reduction you actually do or not? No, this is the relation that we do. I'm sure. But I think there is some implicit structure, right, because you could also have a D to D thing, forget bipartite or anything, you don't even need bipartite. If it has an independent set of size epsilon, that itself will be enough, right? So somehow you need this density type fact that any epsilon fraction of vertices will have some, some epsilon square constraints between them. And you get that by sampling, you take a unique games, which is D or D to one, and then you do the sampling of two neighbors, I think, and then you have you don't have any of these issues. Because somewhere in the soundness, you will, you will have to say that on those epsilon fraction where you have good mass, there are enough edges. So you will actually get a good assignment for the D to one. And I think there, it will break down if it's bipartite, right? Maybe I didn't explain. So you think the bipartite version of bipartite will not work. In fact, you will need something even stronger, you'll need a property like in the constrained graph. It should be dense in the sense that if you take epsilon fraction of variables, there should be some, you know, epsilon cube constraints within them, which in particular rules out, of course, bipartite or any even largest independent set. And I think that's kind of tacitly used in the soundness. Right. So so D to D for bipartite is actually easy. That's what you're saying. I'm not sure I'm saying that, but I'm saying the reduction will not I understand and understand what you said. But then I think still like either D to D is easy or this reduction bipartite won't be easy because even D to one is not easy, right? So on bipartite. So liberal, I think in this reduction, we are somehow implicitly assuming that every epsilon fraction of the vertices have inner features. Because we are never understand it. You need some assumptions on the D to D. And the reduction from D to one to D to D actually satisfies those. So we don't need to worry about it. Yeah. And that's actually the place where the baby version also breaks down because you have to use that some like you're missing out some edges. So maybe we can move to another question. You can ask a question about those conjectures. So is there any conjecture that is weaker than all of those D to ones? Or you know, that's, there's nothing weaker. So that's just as weak as you can go. Yeah, the baby D to one is one of them. But among the popular ones, I don't think there's anything else that is weaker. Okay, more questions? Okay. There are no more questions. Let's thanks again.


cocaine David Jones well thank you Bob well it took about four hours but it was fun yeah he's more the merrier it's opening day why not you know we waited a day because of the rain out so yeah why not let's stay here 99 days of a lockout everybody was hungering for baseball and they got 11 innings of it today and a comfort behind victory for the Yankees and things didn't look good right away Garrett Cole seemed like he was taken aback a little bit by the opening day ceremonies that didn't come out in a rhythm yeah he was obviously anxious his rhythm was way off in the first inning walked the first batter on four pitches and just took him about three or four hitters to kind of get settled in and give up three in the first and from that point that was all they got though and he progressively got better even though he only went four innings big home run by Anthony Rizzo I thought that changed the entire tenor of the crowd because after the home run by Devers and then the third run on the JD Martinez it it just felt like the crowd got unplugged but when Rizzo hit that two home run two run home run in the bottom of the first inning it was back again well that was huge you got the crowd back into it and the look that Rizzo put into the dugout after that two run shot really set a lot it's like we're gonna punch back today we're not gonna allow this to happen and that did get him right back in the game and gave him some hope and is in his interview on the field Josh Donaldson said to Meredith Marokovits we never thought obviously well this is over because they kept battling back so once it became 3-3 on the the Stanton home run well then it was 4-3 Red Sox and then it was time for DJ Lameo to deliver a big time home run it was it was the turning point in the game and DJ Lameo just came at a spot when it looked like it was a little bit dead Garrett Whitlock was dominating the game at that point he's got great stuff he was a breakout reliever last year it looked like he was stretched out he might even finish this game with a one-run lead and DJ shot him to right it was a porch job in Yankee Stadium but from last year to this year for DJ Lameo to get healthy again start to drive the ball again it was a big home run and he showed a lot of emotion to did DJ that we don't see all that often I'll tell you one thing I've always said that live sports is the greatest reality show in the world I mean you could have shows like Survivor but that's not real this is real and they said so many different story lines so the Yankees were down to their final out again and had a chance to be a tough loss for them but Glaber tour is the guy who was not starting today who had to be told by Aaron Boone yesterday you're not in the lineup he pinched it and got a big sack fly yeah you talk about a happy ending for you know you know that he was down not starting you know Glaber's a proud kid he's had a lot of success in this game already at a young age to see his name not in the lineup you know was a blow but Aaron Boone took the opportunity at the right time to get him in there get him feeling good about himself and then also you know unsung hero Michael King gotta throw some shout out to him his stuff was absolutely filthy today he's gonna be a big part of this this Yankee team and that bullpen down there a real bright spot today was Michael King and on the big hit that won it a couple of new Yankees Isaiah kind of fell effort scored he was the ghost runner he scored the run when Josh Donaldson got the hit and for Donaldson his first game is the Yankee the big trade the big acquisition by the Yankees during the offseason 36 year old former MVP winner in the American League in 2015 he delivered the goods two hits and six at bats but the last hit was the big one it was a big one and if he had he not been batting on the leadoff hole he wouldn't have that opportunity so I think he's gonna grow into it he's never batted leadoff when he was asked the question by Meredith Morakovitz he's like I'll do whatever the team needs but you can tell that he was a little uncomfortable with it well maybe he will get comfortable in that leadoff hole and boy that's that's something when you can when you can be a leadoff hitter in this lineup and still come up in big spots and in big RBI situations and finally the Yankees have raised some eyebrows obviously when they decided to carry 16 pitchers and 12 position players and they needed those pitchers today eight of them the starter and then seven out of the bullpen and David mentioned Michael King with two strong innings to pick up the win and the Yankees win on opening day what a better way to start a season and especially when you do it against your arch rivals Bob Michael Coney thank you for that