Thank you all for coming, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great honor to be here, and especially in the room where Mahan gave his lectures. I was trying to quickly, and not entirely successfully, reread my book for the last couple of days, so I'd be really on the ball today. But I found a line from Mahan that's a great opening line for my talk today. It's when he responded to Admiral Luce's invitation to come and give lectures on naval history at the War College, which was then only still in the planning stages. And Mahan wanted the job very badly, but felt he wasn't qualified or wasn't sure if he was qualified for what Luce wanted. And he wrote back, I fear you give me credit for knowing more than I do. So that's kind of my opening remark today. And I say that because I'm not really a naval historian. My specialty is American religion, history of American religion. But I've always been interested in military and naval history for many years, going back to when I was a kid. But I consider that more of a hobby, not a professional specialization. But the two came fortuitously together when I got interested in Mahan and his religious beliefs and his religious writings. And even though John Hattendorf's left, so I won't embarrass him, but I want to say this anyway. He was a tremendous help to me in getting me started. And when I was just thinking about this project, and maybe I ought to sort of drop what I was doing and pursue it. And I didn't know him well, but I'd met him at several naval history symposia. And I knew he, like myself, was an active Episcopalian. So we had a lot in common, but just I called him one day, found his number. Luckily he was in his office and had time to chat. And we talked about this, and I asked him, did he think this project, a project is looking into Mahan's religion and his religious writings, which were numerous, was worth pursuing. And John said, and this is very, very flattering, but I was very encouraged by it coming from such a distinguished historian. As John Hattendorf, he said, this project is long overdue, and I think you're the ideal person to do it. So thanks, John. And as I say, very, very flattering. I'm going to go about 40 minutes and then leave time for Q&A. Let me tell you a little bit about how I got interested in the book, or in this project, and also say a little bit about why Seger's book is so bad. And then give you time permitting one or two examples. I also want to talk a little bit about Mahan's father and uncle, who were very important in his development, both militarily and religiously. And then time permitting, maybe give an example of some of the theological slash political controversies that Mahan got into in print during his retirement years. As I say, I was always interested in naval and military history. I knew who Alfred, say, or Mahan was in his important book. I knew that influences sea power in history, but I really didn't know much about him. And at some point I saw Seger's biography for sale, and I bought it thinking I would learn a lot. I did learn a lot, but in a different way than I intended. Let me ask, how many have read Seger's biography? It came out in 1977. Okay. Well, it became the, I don't want to, I have to, not to succumb to temptation to make my speech an anti-seger rant, but the book still considered, even though it's getting on to 40 years old, really the definitive biography, there hasn't been one since. But it's terribly flawed, but I read it in a state of innocence, as it were. And I just found it really puzzling, and I came away very unsatisfied, that I didn't really know Mahan better than when I started, although there were lots of interesting little factoids in there. But when I got into research in Mahan's papers, some of which were published, edited by Seger and Doris McGuire, but also I did come up here and do research in the library here, see his papers in the Flesh as it were. And I began to see that Seger's view was really inaccurate, is putting it charitably. I don't know if the gentleman who read the book remembers or would concur or not, but Seger intensely disliked Mahan. Okay, I was seeing nodding, yes. And the more I got into Mahan's papers myself, I began to see some real problems here. And I don't want to belabor the point, but I think Seger got a free pass from most book reviewers, and that's understandable because if any of you review books, you know, there's Royce on a deadline, a time deadline, and we're not going to examine every footnote and check it out. We give the author the benefit of the doubt, and I think most reviewers did that with Seger's book. But as I found doing my research, he just got so many things wrong, whether this was deliberate or not, I couldn't possibly say, whether it was just carelessness or what. But he put everything that Mahan did from birth to death, you know, from significant things to really trivial things, Seger put everything in the worst possible light to show Mahan as this really bad person, and these are sort of Seger's words, racist, arrogant, elitist, wanting Anglo-Saxons to dominate the lesser peoples of the world and this sort of thing. Well, my book wasn't written for the express purpose of refuting Seger. I wound up having to counter many things he said because the sources just did not back him up. Often he misread the sources, again, whether deliberately or not I can't say. And I wound up, as I say, criticizing Seger quite a bit in my work. But I'm not going to, as I say, I'm not going to belabor that any further. I found Mahan very interesting, and the reason I wanted to do this project was when I found out he had a whole extensive body of work, mostly from his retirement years, writing for publication on religious topics in religious periodicals, but also in the secular press as well, giving speeches, again, both to church groups and to military groups, other secular groups, and getting involved in some very interesting battles fought out in print. And nobody had really done anything with this body of literature at all except for Seger a little bit, and he always put a bad spin on it. All those bad adjectives I just mentioned, that Seger called Mahan, he blamed that all, all those bad traits he blamed on Mahan's religious faith. So make of that what you will. People have speculated about it. If you read the Dust Jacket of Seger's book, it says he was the child of missionary parents in China. So whether this is some kind of rebellion against his upbringing or what, I'll leave that to the psychiatrist to figure that out. But I thought the only author who's dealt with this at all, Mahan's religion at all, has done so in a really shoddy and careless way. So that was the reason I called John Hattendorf that day back in, I'm guessing it was 1996 or so. So that was my project. It took me a long time because I pretty much only worked on it in the summers. But here it is, and it finally made it to print, and I'm happy to say it's causing some buzz in naval circles, and I have gotten a number of speaking engagements out of it. So let me say a little bit about Mahan's father, whom some of you, if your military history buffs may know, Dennis Hart Mahan, who was a legendary professor at West Point from the mid-1820s until his death in 1871. And amazingly, there's never been a full-length bibliography published on Dennis Hart Mahan. There was an excellent dissertation done in the 60s, I think, by an army general named, is it Grease or Grice? Grease. Grease, okay. I never met him in person, but I did correspond with him, and he was very helpful to me also. He wrote an excellent dissertation on Dennis Hart Mahan, why it was never published. I don't know. It should have been, and I'm sure the military history community would have benefited greatly from that. But Dennis Hart Mahan, I devote introductory segments of my book, one to Dennis Mahan and another to Alfred's uncle, Dennis's younger half-brother named Milo Mahan, who was an Episcopal priest. But let me just say a little bit about Dennis Hart Mahan and then we'll go to Milo again briefly. Dennis Hart Mahan, again, if you're a Civil War buff or a military history buff, I'm sure you are familiar with him. He was a professor at West Point for so long and during those crucial pre-Civil War years that he taught virtually everybody who was, well, any West Point graduate who wound up in either the Union Army or the Confederate Army and a number of Civil War scholars, again in articles, not books, often talk about what influenced his teachings on strategy and tactics and so on, may or may not have influenced the Civil War, battles in which his students fought. Again, I don't really have the expertise to get into that and I don't attempt that, but Dennis Mahan is also a very interesting person. St. Patrick's Day, Dennis is the son of virus immigrants, although Dennis himself was born in the U.S., and he was, by trade, he was a military engineer. But he, except for a very brief couple of months assignment elsewhere and then four years in France as a young professor, he got what was supposed to be like a one-year leave of absence stretched into four, where he studied military engineering with the French who at the time were considered the best military engineers in the world. Then he came back to West Point and remained there the remainder of his career. And he's famous in his own right, again in military history circles, and often at that time, I'll just mention this, I guess showing an intellectual pedigree here. There weren't even military engineering textbooks in English, and Dennis Mahan translated himself books from French into English, and then he wrote a number of military engineering textbooks that were used at West Point.  I tell some, what I thought, kind of interesting anecdotes here. He was a very tough professor and broke no nonsense. But one of my favorite remarks comes from William Tecumseh Sherman, who later became friendly with Alfred, more in a professional sense than a personal sense. But Sherman was quoted as saying that even as a general, he still used to have nightmares about showing up for Mahan's class unprepared. So that gives you a little indication right there. Another interesting thing I found out was that, and this amazed me too, but it gives you an example of how, in what a steam Dennis Mahan was held, even during the Civil War, and Dennis, even though he grew up in Virginia, was a staunch unionist and staunch Lincoln supporter, he would actually write to his graduates only on the Union side, that he considered the Confederates traitors, but the West Point alums on the Union side, he would, Grant and Sherman being the most prominent obviously, but others too, he would actually write to them, asking them to basically turn in homework, send him analyses of the battles they had just won. And amazingly they do it. How they had time I don't know, but they still hold him in such awe, and maybe you're even afraid of him still, that they actually do it. The guy is, you know, the overused word today, but I'll use it. The guy was awesome. Also he became a staunch Episcopalian, and brought up his children that way, Alfred was the eldest. There were three boys, Alfred had two younger brothers, Frederick who went in the Army, Dennis Jr. who went in the Navy, and then there was one sister who lived to adulthood, and the other sisters that died young. So Alfred gets not only a very solid Episcopal upbringing, but also this tremendous intellectual patrimony from his father. But he's also strongly influenced by his uncle, whose name was Milo Mahan, 17 years younger, he was half brother, they had different mothers, 17 years younger than Dennis. And Milo becomes an Episcopal priest, and was also quite an intellect, and he became a professor of church history at the General Theological Seminary, which was the Episcopal Seminary in New York City, where he taught for many years. And Alfred gets a lot from him too. When Alfred goes to an Episcopal prep school, named St. James, which still exists in Hagerstown, Maryland, when he's like 14, 15, and then he comes back home, and then for two years goes to Columbia University. So he's still very young, only like 15, 16, and during that time he lives with Milo and his family in New York City, and they become very close, the nephew and uncle. One of the things I get into in some detail in the book is their relationship, and how Milo, even after Alfred goes to the Naval Academy, serves in the Civil War, and then continues as an officer, Alfred becomes very... he sort of goes through a brief irreligious period at the Naval Academy, and then after graduation and Civil War service, he gets really serious about his religion, and then goes on a three-year voyage on a ship called the Iroquois, where they go to the Far East, spend a lot of time in Japan. And that's the only time Alfred Mahan ever left a diary. It's not complete, but it covers... The first year's diary is missing, but the second two years of the Iroquois voyage, they're here at the Naval War College in the library, and they're also published in the letters and papers. And you can see from this how as Alfred is sort of struggling to get into a right relationship with God, he relies on his uncle, and I guess communications must have been adequate in that day, maybe more than we think, but his uncle gave him a sort of directed reading list. And so Alfred read... I think long stretches of this voyage must have been very boring, and even though Alfred was the XO on the ship, he had a lot of free time, and he was basically reading theological works and, of course, studying the Bible. Again, based on a reading list that his uncle sent him, and then he would correspond with his uncle about the books and ask questions and so on. Unfortunately, the correspondence, apart from the diary, is missing. But we do have the reading list, and I even ran it by the current professor of church history at general, who still fills the chair that Milo Mahan once filled, and I ran the list by him. And what's interesting about it is that it's quite eclectic. I'm only mentioning this to show that, again, contrary to what Seger said, presenting Alfred Mahan is so rigid and narrow-minded, his reading list was quite extensive, not just in people, not just in theologians Uncle Milo approved of, but also in people who had differing views. This is a very heady and controversial time in theology. Darwin had published in 1859 Origin of the Species, and that was sort of like to some people throwing a grenade into the Christian religion. There was something called, I'll use the air quotes here, higher criticism, something coming out of Germany, a way to interpret the Bible where you didn't, you didn't take anything literally, and you viewed it as just another ancient misdocument. But what I thought was interesting is that Milo has Alfred read sort of across the board, people he disagreed with as well as people he agreed with, and I think this really pays off in later years when Alfred gets into theological quarrels, sometimes with clergymen, Alfred can more than hold his own theologically. He knows the Bible backwards and forwards, and he's read all these theologians, so no clergymen can say, literally or metaphorically, to Alfred, well I went to seminary and you didn't, but it was basically his uncle through his directed readings provides Alfred with what I would consider really sort of the equivalent of a seminary education. So as many, I shouldn't say many, as some clergymen learn to their dismay in the early 1900s, you take on Alfred Mahan as a theological opponent at your own risk. But both Dennis and Milo have tremendous intellectual and religious influence on Alfred as well. Let me say a little bit about some of Alfred's religious ideas as we read them in the early 1900s. As I say, in his Seapower books and other naval books, he's pretty scrupulous about leaving religion out of it. Except for a few things like in his biographies of Farragut and Nelson, he'll talk about his subjects, religious beliefs, but he doesn't like bringing religion into the Seapower series, for instance. But in his retirement years, he began to publish quite a bit about religion. He becomes a regular contributor to an Episcopal newspaper called The Churchmen, and it started out as, this was not an official church publication, but it seemed to have had a pretty wide circulation, especially among movers and shakers in the Episcopal church, both clergy and laity. Alfred starts out writing letters. He's been a regular subscriber for years. It comes out weekly. Even abroad, he gets back issues shipped to him. So he's up to date on everything that's all the religious quarrels that are going on at that time. Anyway, he starts out just writing letters to the editor, and then the editor asks him, eventually asks him, can you do a book review for me? And he does book reviews. And then he's finally asked, we write an article, and he becomes a regular contributor of articles to The Churchmen. And these were fascinating. Read about them in the book. And no scholar had even looked at these. So this was really all virgin territory for me, so I was glad to be the one to get into it. Let me just mention briefly, this actually starts in the 1890s. One of the things that Alfred Mahan gets involved in is his opposition to what was called the social gospel movement. This starts after the Civil War was kind of reaching its fruition in the 1890s, nearly 1900s. This was a movement within Christianity in general, sort of criticizing traditional small orthodox Christianity by saying Christianity has to become more relevant to the social problems of our day. And one of the main offshoots of this, or main manifestations of it, was pacifism. And the view was kind of interesting. Some of these people were not pacifists in the traditional sense of saying, well, Jesus was a pacifist and so am I, and that's it. There was that tradition, a minority tradition, but that tradition in Christianity that went way, way back. You think of groups like Quakers or Mennonites, for instance. But the social gospel pacifists were sort of a new breed. They weren't so much saying past wars were wrong, but simply that war had become outmoded, and war would end because the human race was advancing. It was like a religious version of progressivism in a way. The human race is getting better and better all the time, and war has simply become outmoded. Maybe it was necessary in the past. We had to free the slaves and so on. But now that the human race is so much better, war is outmoded. One writer called it a relic of our barbarian past. And Mahan didn't agree with this. He felt war, while regrettable, was an inevitable part of the human existence, since he believed in the concept of original sin and all human beings throughout the history of time, with the sole exception of Jesus, everybody else was a sinner, had a tendency towards sin and selfishness. So Alfred wasn't buying it, that war was outmoded. I think we all know it was proved correct in the end, since these people were still insisting, like right up until 1914, that war was outmoded. But in any case, many of these writers, these social gospel pacifists, were very critical of Mahan in print. And he responded to them. And I have a section on that in my book. And he really goes after them, but in a way that's very calm, very scholarly, very intellectual, showing here's why you're wrong, and history proves it, as the future will prove it too. But it was kind of interesting, some of the abuse he takes in print from some of these people, calling him a warmonger and so on. I found that very interesting. But Mahan is a defender of what's called the just war theory. War may be regrettable and has many bad things about it, and has many evil things about it, but it's not the worst evil, and often war is the lesser of two evils. And he makes a clear theological case, again even going back to the Bible, and Saint Augustine, and it's quite an interesting argument. My own view is I think Mahan is correct, theologically, as well as really gets the better of these people, of some of these opponents. But kind of interesting, because he's already world famous by the time of his own retirement from the Navy. He does take a lot of abuse from these people, but he always answers back, but not in a personal way, but in an intellectual way. Let me just mention one more interesting quarrel he gets into, and then I'll open it for questions. I don't know if any of you have heard of this person, maybe some of you have if you're a Naval Academy grads. There was an American writer named Winston Churchill. I think the English department club at the Naval Academy calls themselves the Winston Churchill Society, but in the British Churchill, they mean this American writer, Winston Churchill. Really interesting. Who was no relation to the British Churchill at all, although interestingly the two did meet when the British Winston took one of his early trips to America and found out that there was an American, named Winston Churchill as well, an American writer. Anyway, the American Winston Churchill, ironically a Naval Academy grad but never served on active duty, published a novel in 1913 called The Inside of the Cup, and the periodical, The Churchman, asked Alfred Mahan to review it, and he gave it a scathing review, and then he gets into a back and forth thing with Winston Churchill in the pages of The Churchman. The Inside of the Cup was a novel, and it was part of a genre of novels, which we really don't have anymore, called the social gospel novel. The most famous of which was in his steps by Charles Sheldon, maybe something. That's still in print, but The Inside of the Cup is not. But in its day, it was the number one best seller in 1913, and it's about, as the social gospel genre books tended to be, they were all really the same. It's always about an idealistic young clergyman of one Protestant denomination or another who becomes disgusted at what he sees around him, the poverty in the plight of the factory workers or the steel mill workers or whatever, and also is influenced by Darwin and these higher critical scholars from Germany and begins to question the Bible and then begins to become disgusted with his own parishioners because they're so affluent and comfortable and don't care about the poor and so on. And then the young clergyman in the novels goes through a crisis and becomes a liberal and lives happily ever after. Having seen the light, that traditional religion is outmoded and evil because it doesn't care about the poor. So that's what The Inside of the Cup is about. And Alfred Mahan writes a scathing review in The Churchman, which Winston Churchill was highly offended at, but Mahan brought out really good criticisms claiming that Churchill's view of the church and the traditional Christians was really a caricature, a negative caricature and a parody. Like he was setting up strawmen and then thinking he's courageous for knocking them down. And Alfred Mahan criticizes a number of other points. I'll just name one. One was that this Winston Churchill, the American Churchill thought, recommended in the book that clergymen who had in effect lost their traditional faith and gone over to be sort of social gospel types. Churchill advocated that they should stay in the church and kind of be stealth agents, subvert it from within. And Alfred Mahan in his review wrote in response to this point that he thought it was entirely dishonest. If you had genuinely become disillusioned with your faith or lost your faith and you were a clergyman, the only honest thing to do is resign and leave the church and at least be honest about your views. But the notion that there would be like stealth agents within the church trying to subvert it from within, he really characterized that as not only dishonest, but un-Christian. And Churchill writes a counter response to Alfred's review. You've misunderstood me. And Mahan writes back, no, I haven't. You hear your own words. So I thought that was kind of an interesting little quarrel they have played out in the pages of the churchmen. There were several others. My other favorite, I'll just mention it really quickly. Mahan also gets into a quarrel in print with the president of Harvard named Charles Elliott, who was a prominent Unitarian. Mahan didn't even think Unitarians were real Christians because they didn't believe, they thought Jesus was just a great human teacher but not God incarnate. And Alfred said, well, he can't call them, he can't consider them fellow Christians. But in any case, Elliott, the president of Harvard, thought that Unitarians should be more aggressive in proselytizing their faith and thought that Unitarianism would become the number one religion in America. And Alfred wrote a response to this. Again, just really decimating the guy intellectually and showing his ignorance of the Bible and church history and so on. So I don't know if you would all agree, if you read this stuff, but I always thought that Alfred Mahan got the better of these arguments with the clergy.  I want to talk about what's interesting to you. So I'd be happy to take any questions or hear any comments you might have. I guess, sir. One quick one. Sure. When Mahan was here locally, did he attend, we have a very prominent Episcopal church, Trinity Church and several other Trinity churches. Did he attend services? Yes, oh yes. He was a diligent churchgoer. In fact, on a normal Sunday, he would actually attend three services a day. An early morning communion, morning prayer, and then in the evening prayer. But yes, when he's first in Newport, it's when the Academy relocated here during the Civil War and immediately thereafter, Trinity was the only Episcopal church and he attended Trinity. Later, when he comes back to serve at the New War College, St. John's, which is very close by, had only recently opened and he and Mahan and his family attended St. John's and he was on the vestry. Mm-hmm, my pleasure. A window of which my dad doesn't remember St. John's. Are you? If you walk into the vest you open the main door, there's a window on a plaque dedicated to that environment. No kidding.  And I went, but it was pouring rain and there was nobody there. So I never, I saw the outside of it, but I never got into the inside of it. That's very interesting. But yeah, yeah, he did serve on the vestry there. Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Where did he serve in the Civil War? He was on blockade duty in the, well, sometimes in the Gulf. He also took part, his only combat was when they, you know, I'm drawing a mental blank on it, on the Mississippi. I forget the name of the fort that they took. But yeah, he was mostly, most of his Civil War duty was blockade duty. Again, another anecdote. When Sherman took Savannah, Mahan was on Dalgren's boat, ship, excuse me. And he got a congratulatory letter from his father to Sherman, from Dennis, asking Alfred to deliver the message to Sherman. So Alfred goes ashore. He's only in his 20, you know, young, early 20s. And he goes ashore to Sherman's headquarters to deliver the note. And Sherman greets him by saying, Dennis's boy! Maybe I didn't have any specific comments about slavery. I'm glad you asked that. Seeger's highly critical of Mahan, but I think totally wrongly. Yes, there's a period during Civil War service where his ship is patrolling the Mississippi River, and slaves are running away to Union lines. And that's the first time he sees field hands. And he's shocked, he writes in a letter to his friend Sam Ash, Naval Academy classmate who didn't finish the Naval Academy but remained lifelong friends with Mahan. He writes how shocked he was to see their condition, and he never knew really what their lives were actually like. And he does say his only previous experience of even seeing slaves was house slaves in Maryland, who of course were much better treated than field hands. But he's shocked at this, and he sort of becomes kind of an overnight abolitionist and is afraid to tell his father, because his father had, when Alfred was a boy, his father was highly critical. Alfred wanted to read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and his father forbade him, saying it was poison. So Alfred's sort of afraid to go home, but he feels so strongly against slavery that he wants to confront his father about it. Not that he misunderstood, I think. His father never defended slavery. But much to his amazement, he found that his father had become a staunch abolitionist as well. So yeah, he's very much against slavery. And interestingly, when he writes his one full-length book on religions called The Harvest Within, it was published in 1909, he actually has in a footnote a long explanation of why, even though he, as a general moral Mahan believes, Christians should obey the law, that the secular government has been put there by God, but the one exception he would make looking back in history was the fugitive slave law. And even though he was only a boy of ten at the time it was passed, as an older man looking back, he said he agreed with those who defied the Fugitive Slave Act. That was the law saying that it was a federal offence to help an escaped slave. So that's the long-winded answer to your question. Yes, he's very much against slavery. Yes, sir? Looking up there, the father is also, do you have any sense of their influence on American thought with large in the 90th century? Are they influencing it, or are they more proud of the American thinking? Yes, I would say Alfred himself, obviously, his impact is literally worldwide. I would say with Dennis and Milo less so, they have a huge impact, but only in their niche areas. Although interesting, Alfred and Dennis, excuse me, Dennis and Milo die within a year of each other, but Milo is an important figure in the 19th century Episcopal church, and he wrote a, you know, as Dennis did with engineering textbooks that were still in use years after his death, Milo wrote a church history survey textbook that was still being used in the early 1900s. But I would say they're more like narrowly niche figures. Yes, sir? An interesting book would be about atheism compared to people who had a bad background. When I went to sea, we broke down at sea for 35 hours, dead in the water, and it was a bad blizzard offshore. After we got the thing running, the crew had gone to their boats. So I criticized them. I said, why didn't you do something? He said, we were, we were praying. We saved the ship. There you go, man, wouldn't dispute that. But he wouldn't attribute it solely to that either. He would say God works through secondary causes, and the crew needs to tend to their duties as well. But he certainly was a big believer in prayer, absolutely. Later on, I was in the Naval Hospital in Corona, California, and there were a lot of Marines there. There wasn't a single man there who was an atheist. It wasn't on the ship. So I think there's a relationship to your experience in life and to your regard for God. And you can write a book about it. Yeah, exactly. Yes, sir. Would you say that Abel Mahan was more a man of his time than anything else? I think some of the criticisms that are looking backwards and saying, well, he should have done this, he should have done that. But, I mean, to say that he was racist is to say the obvious. The country was racist. And this is not an unusual point of view. The fight man's version of it, it just seems to me to be a mislead of what things were like. I totally agree with that. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And the irony is, contrary to Seeger, for his time, Mahan, I would say, is actually ahead of the curve. Yeah.  Okay, yeah, okay. But, you know, I don't believe in judging historical people by the standards of today. By his own time, he's far in advance of others because, for one thing, he believes, well, it's not clear whether he believes in the literal Genesis story, but he certainly believes in its theological lesson, which is that all of humankind is descended from Adam and Eve, so we're all brothers and sisters, and so race is just like a convenient category, but somewhat arbitrary. But also, he becomes very involved, and I talk about this in my book, with an Episcopal church charity called the American Church Institute for Negroes, which came about after the Civil War, and they supported, like, high schools and colleges for black students in the South, and he becomes a member for many years of the board of directors of this group, and visits black college in the South called St. Augustine's in North Carolina. There were a handful of black Episcopal priests in those days, not many, but there were some. He becomes friendly with those. He tries to encourage more black young men to go into the priesthood, so I'd say by the standards of his day, he's way ahead of the curve, not behind it at all. Go ahead. He lived in a period when radical reconstruction morphed into Jim Crow. Where was he in that debate? Because that was a major change in the way the South and the general of the blacks in the South were treated. Yeah. I really haven't found anything about comments on that at that time. You know, it's the election of 1876 that sort of was rather for B. Hayes that kind of brings that turning point, but at that point he's still really involved with family stuff and his career. He's not famous yet, but to be honest, I haven't really found anything in, say, the 1870s or 80s. He doesn't seem to get interested in it. No, maybe he isn't, there's just no documentation, in terms of finding sources. You don't really see that till, like, the 1890s. Yes, ma'am. Was he in agreement with Darwin? No. No. Yeah.  There's no single treatise I could point to to say where he addresses Darwin point by point. But in some correspondence with his uncle and just, like, you know, references here and there. One of the big accusations, along with the term racist, the other accusation against Mahan in that timeframe was he's a social Darwinist. Survival of the fittest. Somebody like the white man's burden thing and this sort of thing. And he is definite... That's, in addition to the word racism, social Darwinist has often been flung at him as well. And I address that too. That's, again, it's really not accurate. He's not a social Darwinist at all. Not at all. He doesn't believe in whatever that would mean in the, you know, in terms of human beings. Survival of the fittest. That would go against all his Christian beliefs about loving your neighbor and so on. And he does, again, there's no treatise, but it's references he makes in correspondence and things like that. This one? Yeah. Two questions. On the way he viewed Christianity in general, he had the system failed.  What? He... Yeah, he sort of has, in his own mind, and he actually writes this down, kind of a hierarchy of religion. But it's also a little more... I don't want to say open-minded, but it's a little more open than you might expect. Where do I want to... Sort of a pyramid thing. The Episcopal Church was clearly at the top for him. He thought that was the best expression of Christianity. But he never says it's the only one. Below the Episcopal Church would be other Protestant denominations. And then below that, and I'm not sure he rated them against each other, but below that you would have Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. Which he definitely thinks... They're definitely Christians. He doesn't put them outside the Christian church, but he thinks they're not the most accurate biblical expression of what Jesus would want. And then of course below that you have non-Christian societies, which he doesn't rate against each other. But the only distinction he draws, and I thought that's kind of interesting, within the category of non-Christian societies was those that may not be Christian, or the bulk of their people may not be Christian, but yet their governments are open to allowing Christianity to exist in that country, versus those that just ban Christianity completely. And he thought that ones who were, at least if they weren't, the country wasn't Christian itself, and Japan would be his favorite example of this. Most Japanese were not Christians, but the Japanese government did not ban Christians or ban Christian missionizing, and therefore that would make them more superior than other countries, say some Muslim countries. He has a lot of critical things to say about the Turks, but it's more about the Ottoman Empire than about their religion. But a country that banned Christianity completely, they're the very bottom to him. But those that allow Christianity to exist, even if the bulk of the people aren't that, they're one step up the hierarchy. So that's how he kind of explicitly does that. Yes, sir? As an 18th century man, and presumably a historian, he must have known that until the 18th century at least, almost every war has a strong religious background. Oh yeah, absolutely. How did he accept that? Religion caused more wars and suffering than almost any other. That's true. Mind you, mostly when he starts with the first sea power book, you're already a little bit beyond that. But you're right, he's a keen student of history and he's well aware of that. He doesn't really address it directly, at least I'm not coming up with anything in my head, but my general feeling is he would grant that point that religion can, not must, but can cause a lot of problems, and we'll also say there were many other factors as well within that. I hope that's not too wishy-washy an answer, but he doesn't really address that. He starts when we've already passed that point. But that's an interesting point. Yes, sir? Just one more about how opinionated he may be Jewish religion. Yeah, okay, I'm sorry, I left them out. No, Jewish religion is a special category with him because they're the older brother of Christianity. So he's actually very positive towards Judaism. Sure, he does address that in his book, The Harvest Within. Oh, one right there in the back, yeah. I haven't looked at the table of contents. I've read Mahan, teached Mahan at War College, so we know Mahan had a huge influence on the thinking around the world about sea power, and it's clear that God had a huge influence on Mahan. Yes. But in your book you explore the relationship between God and sea power. Actually I don't, and a couple, some online reviews have sort of a little bit criticized me for that, but I actually felt that was because he doesn't get into it. That's the reason I didn't get into it. He's very careful. He doesn't, about his history writing on naval topics, and he doesn't, he's a sophisticated enough historian to know that sort of like imposing a religious template on it isn't going to help anything or help anybody understand like what really happened between Britain and France and so on. So he pretty much leaves that out of it. He doesn't speculate, let me put it this way, he doesn't speculate in his historical works, he doesn't speculate about God's purposes, although he does believe that God's providence in the end or God's purposes will always come to pass, but he doesn't really speculate on that. There's one, only one passage, and it's very oblique in the, in his second volume, where he talks about the Napoleonic Wars, where he briefly alludes to, well it may be providence wanted Napoleon defeated, but beyond that one sentence, he really doesn't speculate on that at all. I guess you might say he leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions, but he didn't feel that that was part of what, he did believe God called him to be a naval historian and that God put the Holy Spirit, put the sea power ideas into his head, although he was certainly, you know, he was certainly open about all the authors he read, he didn't just say it popped into his mind one day, you know, he read Theodore Momsen and other people, where he got a lot of his, the germs of some of his ideas, but in a larger sense he believed that God was calling him here to the Naval War College to give these lectures and then ultimately to write these books. Have I answered your question? Yes. Yes, sir. Sure. I can't say I really found that directly. To be honest with you, I really don't. And I think he leaves that out on purpose. The only thing I did find, and you know, again, you could obviously have your own judgment on this, I thought in the first sea power volume, in the first chapter where he talks about the six characteristics, and in my book I just talk about the last two, character of the people and character of the government, where again he kind of writes the English are at the top, the Dutch are just below them, the French are below them, then you have the Spanish and Portuguese on the bottom. Now he doesn't anywhere explicitly say, that's a Catholic versus Protestant thing, but you may kind of think that since the two top, the English and the Dutch are the Protestants and the bottom three are the Catholic countries. But he never explicitly says that, but that's his hierarchy. And I think religion, being fair to him, the religious characteristics of what put the English on top would be part of the mix, but they wouldn't be the whole mix, if you will. Yes ma'am. How do you think he would fit into today's society and the Episcopal Church? Oh, if there were only a time machine where we could bring him here, I would love to see him kick some butt in the Episcopal Church, I really would. I'll just give you one little hint, and I have a lengthy section on this, because I found it fascinating. If any of you are Episcopalians, you will recall, whether it seems like yesterday or many years ago, we've got a new prayer book in 1979 that had been worked on for many years, but what we call the old prayer book is the 1928. But in Mahan's day, there was the issue of prayer book revision, and this would be in the early 1900s. 1928 book didn't even exist yet, and in its day that was considered a radical revision. Mahan grew up using the version that was adopted from the English right after the Revolution, the 1789 prayer book. And then there was an 1882 prayer book where they just made very, very tiny revisions. But Mahan gets into a quarrel with a clergyman from near where I live, an Episcopal priest named Gwen in Summit, New Jersey, in the pages of the churchman where this Gwen wants liturgical revision and says our liturgy is too rigid. He uses the word starch. Our liturgy is too starchy, and we need to open it up and have more options. It's too rigid. You do this, this, this, and this. And in that day, there were no options at all. And this Gwen wants more options for the clergy. And Mahan just, again, in this very calm, intellectual way, just totally rips his argument to shreds. So, and explaining why. And Mahan was very, not only was he very interested in religion and theology and the Bible in general, but his real passion was the liturgy. And he doesn't want any liberal clergyman messing with it. So, yeah, I'd love to see that. I'd love to see that. Anybody else? Thank you so much for coming in.


What's the word y'all hopefully this is a one-take Damian Lillard requested a trade before we talk about that I just want us NBA fans to eternalize how ridiculous this league really is of course the individual play of basketball is so supreme But the other stuff the off-course stuff is what puts everything together to make it the best league in the world in the last year Again, this is off-top ahead. I might be forgetting some stuff But I just want to I just want you to internalize how crazy movement has been in the NBA over the last just 365 days Kevin Arant, Kari Irvin, James Harden just requested another trade 48 hours ago We're about to see we're about to see Damian Lillard We oh wait wait wait wait the Portland Gerberos have been informed that Damian Lillard wants to trade specifically to the Easter Conference champion Miami We also saw Donov Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Kirst Paul and and it's just It's just a lot of stuff going on man It's just a lot of stuff going on and this is why I love it again I can't understand the people that don't like this type of player movement as a content creator Baby, we got bills to pay and that's what we doing right here right now. Okay, so Dame officially requested to trade Mention here on this channel over the last couple months that I refuse to talk about Dame rumors or Dame trade Destinations until either him or the trailblazers decide that the relationship has ended and it happened today And I made a tweet yesterday and again I make the same exact tweet today when I woke up because the Miami Heat have been real quiet They lost Gabe Vincent to the Lakers good pick up for the Lakers We thought that Max Drew's just straight up signed to the to the Cavaliers and then turned out to be a three-team trade and then in that three three team They just got a second round pick and exchange instead of getting like a Jedi Osmond instead of getting the Lamar Steve is instead of getting whatever whatever and I'm in here on some Brian Windhorst stuff There must be things going on they must know something that we do not And and you know who knew the dropping dives dude, who is he who was broke? Damian Lillard is probably gonna end up on the Miami And this is where things get real if you because obviously Damian Lillard is the best player in trailblazer history or second best Depending on who you ask. I'm saying he's the best shot to Clyde Drexler, but I'm saying he's the best player in French Ice history. He's also under contract for a couple years if I am the trailblazers Do I need to send him to his preferred destination? Are we doing it because Dam is you know been so loyal to the city or should I be thinking about my organization first? Should I be thinking about my organization first now? I can't I do believe that he's gonna end up on the Miami only time with tail And I feel like as soon as I'm done filming this video the trade is gonna happen It feels like he's gonna go to the Miami. It's gonna be like hero It's good. It's gonna be some stuff. They will do a day They have the 2028 first round pick and 2030 first round pick. I'm just thinking about Damian Lillard As good as he is as he just came off basically the best year of his NBA career That's saying a lot considering how good Dam has been the market for Dame isn't as Lucrative as you want it to be because if we take a look at if we take a look at teams across the league First of all, Dam is telling you himself that he wants to go to the same again It's up to you whether or not you want to buy by that if we take a look around the league The teams that would be interested in Dame Year ago don't really have the same interest and as of right now It is the Miami Heat and potentially the Brooklyn that's because the Nets have all the picks and again Damian Lillard said a couple months ago that Brooklyn will be a place because he's with Mikhail like this And of course Dame is with Bam like this and if the Miami Heat End up turning Tyler hero who didn't play in that playoff run Gabe Vincent who was good, but also shot 30% in the finals from three or whatever and Max Truce One of them shot 30% there I don't I think it might have been Max you should 31% from three in the finals if they turn that and To dame, I know you got a lot of other roster spots that you got a field Ain't absolute absolute win the rich keep getting richer This is this is what I was skeptical about all this because about a week No, the rumors of dame have been going for as long as the offseason has been going right and Joe Cronin had a meeting with Damian Lillard apparently he had a press conference after he Said we are still dedicated to build around Damian Lillard and build a contender here There was no conversation from Damian Lillard himself, right? It was Joe Cronin who's in charge over there saying that he met with dame and and he feels like that they can build a Contender around him and dame was like, all right, whatever. Let's see free as he is about and Angel Roganowski they heat the Clippers in the 70s are three teams that that will have interests and exploring Damian Lillard The Blazers are expected to value deals that bring Their back young players and draft assets. That's big I know I'm all over the place in one take and things are breaking as we speak The fact that they're valuing young players and draft capital That also tells me that they're not really caring about exactly what dame is thinking Dames say I want to go to the heat. They say I but we don't listen to these other office, too The thing is about these three teams They don't have a bunch of draft capital none of these three teams have a bunch of draft capital The young asset for the heat is of course Tyler hero the young asset for the Clippers They don't really have one Terrence Mann is 27. You know I'm saying and the 76ers young guys said is Tyrese maxi I think they throw in Tyrese maxi into the trade with a couple first-round picks and then flipping James Harden to the Clippers for Robert Covington coming back or whatever the 76ers could look a lot different, but it's not just the money Okay, cool Taking a step back going to free AC right dame said hey, I'm gonna see exactly what y'all thinking I'm gonna see exactly what y'all do and what did they do early yesterday morning. They released trend wafford I bet now that they know the dame across in trade They wish they still had trend wafford on the roster just 22 years old and he was making 1.8 million dollars And then they gave Jeremy Grant the biggest deal of of the offseason so far was a five year hundred and sixty million dollar contract Dane was like I messed with Jeremy But that ain't it I mess I mess with Jeremy But that ain't the deal that's gonna put us into contention So you know what I'm gonna chuck up my deuces and I'm moving on to my next seed But okay, so now we have we know there are three teams at your ship and In this from Woltz we do not see the Brooklyn that's not a Brooklyn that's also did make a deal They gave Cam Johnson four years a hundred and eighty eight Not a hundred and eighty a hundred and eight million dollars was about twenty seven million dollars annually Which is a pretty solid contract for for cam shout out to him and his fam But it doesn't seem like they're they're interested or make maybe they am I guess I guess we do not know But they're not one of the three teams that woes just announced and I can see why they wouldn't be They don't have their own first one picked a season So that is a reason for them to go out there and just say hey Let's go get one of the greatest players in the league and they also got all of these these picks from the Traits that they could be interested, but they're not in the three They're not in the three. I think again that that we're gonna look back on whatever trade and The trailblazers are probably gonna be kicking themselves a little bit that they didn't make this trade last season But then you get the butterfly effect the domino effect if they trade a little last season Then maybe they don't end up with the draft odds that jumped up to get school hinders You know what I'm saying so like but like with this being three teams Maybe four teams being the Brooklyn Nets being interested none of those teams have like the mega package that you want He's not he wasn't gonna get a Kevin a rent type package, right? You also don't want to settle for a carry-over type package, you know You want to get something in the the Donovan Mitchell where you get the draft capital But you also get the Larry marketing whoever that may be and the teams that are interested right now That would be looking for Dame have already made big-time deals to get rid of bunch of draft picks We brought in Paul George. You gave them a hundred first-round picks and some swaps Oh, we brought in James Harden. We threw Ben Simmons and some picks We who's the other team the Miami Heat are just a team that make deals They just do and again with them sitting on their hands for the first 24 hours of free AT I knew I knew the heat were up to something and they're gonna try their hardest to really get in on this because They missed on Bradley Beal There are some rumors that they weren't even really interested in Bradley Beal But obviously the idea of BAM and Jimmy Butler being this this duo With the role players around them can get them to a point where they can be in the finals But we saw that offense in the play on the final specifically be so stagnant because Jimmy's dealing with an injured We're just not playing up to a self.  Oh boy So the Portland Trailblazers, I mean, I think that they can walk out of this whatever the trade is gonna be And still feel really good because school Henderson is really a dog Shayton Sharpe showed us a lot last season that he's going to be a dog They already have a nice young core right now And I'm not even a cow and Freddy sides is all know exactly what's gonna go on with him because he's making 20 million dollars of Next season, but he is another young player that is good The real thing is now now you already signed Jeremy Grant to a five year hundred and sixty million dollar deal And though there's no such thing as an untradable contract that is a ton that is a ton of money I'm looking at there's another Euro League player coming over to the league going to the Thunder three years 23 million dollars. All right. Um, that is a ton of money to be moved And I think a lot of people are gonna look at Jeremy Grant making 32 million dollars annually for five years when he's already 29 And we're like that's a rough deal for us to make so Jeremy NERC these guys that are there right now. They might be there for a little bit. Um, the Sixers have no Interests and throwing Tavis Maxi into a Damian Lillitrate These are gonna continue to break over the next 24 hours or so when the deal happens, you know I'm be let me know what you think Dane has officially officially requested the train The trip is a man. Jeremy Grant got all of that money just for Dane to say I'm out. It's crazy


Hey, what's up, coaches? Welcome back. Now, today I feature a student in our Accelerator program. His name is Tyler Matthews. He's a basketball skills trainer based in Florida. Sit back, listen to his story here about how he went from like 3k per month to his highest month recently to $28,000 in one month in his training business. Check this out. So tell us like before you and I started working together, what were some of the problems and obstacles that you were facing with your business? Yep. So very unorganized. I mean, I had systems in place as far as taking payments, but I just wasn't in the right mindset as far as keeping people long term. And that's really what you have to do in this industry. If you have somebody come a month or two a day, it's because you're not encouraging them to stay for that long and be committed and pay upfront for that amount of time. So that's one thing that you definitely helped me with. Gotcha. So talk about that like with the upfront payments, how is that simplified your business? Like from getting people that we're paying session by session to what you sell now? Yeah. You don't got to think about it. You don't got to think when am I getting paid? You already know the money's in the bank. Cash flow is king. So once you have money, it's a lot easier to be creative and be able to experiment within your business if you have whatever, a certain amount of money sitting in the bank.  When you can get a flood of cash sitting in the bank, it feels really good and you're able to work on how to get more and how to streamline things easier and not worry about am I getting paid this day or month or a week because you already have the money. So you're able to focus on your clients and getting results. Right. And I know you told me earlier, you're comfortable sharing this. How much revenue have you done with your camps this summer so far? That number on the board, $40,000, $40,000 big ones. 40K. So that's just with summer camps. There's been a lot more money with group training and private training and gym rentals and other events. The money has not stopped. We're halfway through the year and I've done pretty much what I did last year. Not quite there, but pretty much what I did last year halfway through the year this year. So I'm on track to double, if not more, because like I just said, I'm acquiring another gym now. So I should be able to actually double my revenue this second half of the year. So I might whatever you want, maybe not triple my revenue from last year, but get pretty close to it. Right. Awesome, man. So lastly, because you've changed your model and it's like more organized, more streamlined, how has that impacted the kids that you work with? Are they more committed, they're more bought in to your program now? Yep, 100%. They have to be, right? Because there's no other option. They can come for a trial session. And if they like it and they're respectful and we like them and it's a good fit both ways, then it's a minimum three month commitment with our program. Now we used to allow drop-ins daily or come for a week, come from a month, whatever. Now you have to be committed for three months. And when, now that we've created that culture, if their friend wants to come, they already know that they have to be committed for a minimum of three months. And it'll only get, we'll only keep adding to that. So right now it's three months, eventually it'll be six months, then maybe a year. And we're building an empire around here. There you go, man. And last one, if you're comfortable sharing, I know before you started our program, I mean, you sent me a screenshot of your bank account. And I know it's obviously very different now, but like what has been over the last six months, what's been like the biggest month financially free? The biggest month? $28,000. That was last month. So I used to do, when I very, very first started, like year one, I used to do like two or 3,000 a month, barely covering my expenses. I had like 2,000 or 2,500 in expenses and I would maybe do 3,000 or something like that. So now I've 10x that pretty much. And it's just the beginning. Like I said, I got another gym opening, so there's potential to double that. The limit does not exist, like it says right here. The limit does not exist. I love that. I need one of those shirts. And tell everyone, how old are you?  All right. Incredible. Awesome, man. Thank you for showing up. Thanks for executing. And you're right. The limit does not exist. Yes, sir. Appreciate everything. Sweet, man. If you are serious, you're committed, willing to follow instructions, you're willing to get coached and you want results like this, go right below here. You'll see my phone number. It's going to pop up on the screen. The first step to apply for our programs, you text me there. And again, this is for coaches that are serious, that are driven, that love helping kids just like Tyler. That's it. Have a great day.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overlord here soon We talked about a few different wrestling topics in this video here again today So just to kick it off with Mike Johnson over at the PW insider reporting that Edge Beth Phoenix and Logan Paul are slated to appear in the upcoming Royal Rumble or at the upcoming Royal Rumble premium live event I don't know why they called them now called I don't know why they call them premium live events now I cannot stand that title the report reads that since we've been asked about his potential return for some time PW insider Is told that Edge is penciled in to return at the dead of ui Royal Rumble pay-per-view He was last seen at the extreme rules pay-per-view in October losing to Finn Balor in an I quit match Which was a great match if you haven't checked that out Go check it out if you're a wrestling fan or if you have go revisit it because I've revisited that match several times I thought it was very Emotionally driven towards the end as well Especially considering that the circumstances of what brought Edge to say I quit which I thought was masterfully executed and done on screen I was like there's no way Edge is gonna be able to say I quit unless you do This which we know what happened with Beth Phoenix that caused him to say I quit and I thought it was brilliant How they basically forced him to do it because you know you're gonna put your wife above anything usually so It also goes on to say that WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix is also slated for the Royal Rumble We're told the word making the rounds at TV this week was that dew drop will be back around that time as well We're turning to the raw brand. She noted recently online that she's been away for an extended period due to an illness Logan Paul is absolutely being talked about in regard to appearing at the world rumble as well as long as his knee is rehabbed And he's ready to go speaking specifically about edge. I don't mind edge being in the world rumble at all I mean he returned to the 2020 world one of the best comeback stories I've seen in recent memory. That was a great moment in 2020 considering everything that followed during that year That was one of the happiest moments of the year for me No doubt as a wrestling fan edge returning after being away for so long being forced to retire early I didn't I didn't mind him being in that rumble. He came back at the 2020 rumble I believe he won the 2021 rumble and given how he was written off TV recently at extreme rules I imagine this upcoming appearance will be for nothing more than just a Used to establish a final match between him and Balor heading into WrestleMania. Whether that be a mix tag match or some sword Who knows? Jumping into the next thing Dave Meltzer had some interesting info to share about Nick Kahn's Whereabouts during Monday Night Raw this week and just to remind everyone Nick Kahn is currently the sole CEO of WWE So Meltzer stated this during the wrestling observer He stated Nick Kahn was in Los Angeles when I was in Los Angeles. Nick went to the football game Monday night He wasn't at Raw and met with heavy hitters because they went to the college football championship game between TCU and Georgia at the Sofi Stadium Bob Iger Jimmy Jimmy Patero So I guess those names will ring some bells if those names are unfamiliar to you Let me clarify by saying Bob is Disney CEO and James is the ESPN president I believe so the reason this is interesting because while I haven't seen context for what the meeting was related to It's happening in the midst of this sale that we're told that if he wants to do by mid 2023 There was no context given for what the meeting was related to but it's got to be about selling the company It just has to be before I get into the primary topic. I want to discuss I'll say that Disney buying WWE has one positive that sticks out to me more than anything else right now And if you want to chime in let me know some other positives Please do down the comment section below the only positive I could see is this would help wrestlers transition over to Hollywood easier I'd imagine again, let me know your thoughts on Disney potentially buying WWE down in the comment section below Last thing we're gonna talk about the primary thing we're gonna talk about is a potential merging of AEW and WWE because a sister company or a sister publication to the Wall Street Journal is reporting something related to AEW potentially buying WWE All late wrestling the top rival to the WWE led by Tony Khan and family is in the pool of potential buyers for WWE a person close to a potential trans to the potential transaction told Barron's which is the publication That's reporting is adding that the cons will likely look for a financial partner to acquire the asset Tony cons father Shahid Khan a co-owner of AEW already owns the football team Jacksonville Jaguars and the English soccer club Fulham football club indicating that the duo have deep pockets Which is something we already knew if you're AEW fan like myself. This is something we knew going into AEW before it even made Its way onto television Personally my thoughts on the matter is I can't see Vince allowing this to occur But I also know Vince loves money, so it's kind of like I can't see him allowing it But I also could I just think there's a higher chance. He wouldn't allow it more so than actually allow it If this did happen, I realistically could see WWE running as it is right now with very little shakeup Of course, but ultimately blur brands like raw and smackdown would still exist in a perfect world If this were to happen Triple H remains head of creative for me Wrestlers like Wyatt cross Mercedes if she ends up in the AEW company, which I know so many people were disappointed She didn't appear last night. My brief thoughts on that is that was something the fans really set up more than AEW In a way after especially after they announced Tony Storm But I get it also Maybe you shouldn't have hyped it up for over a month that a mystery partner was going to be involved So wrestlers again like Wyatt cross Mercedes if this were to happen Wouldn't have to worry about Vince's antics Which is a large reason Some of them were fine returning to the company now not Mercedes because again She left prior to Vince's actual exit from the company But again, I'm saying in a perfect world wrestlers like those three that I just mentioned would be fine if Triple H were to remain head of creative if AW were to actually buy the company I just don't think Vince will let them get the company unless it was the very last option I'm sure people also wouldn't want to see someone else monopolizing pro wrestling like Vince had done For the past decade, which is what helped make the alternative so attractive to begin with the promotions like TNA when they were in their prime and AW and AW appeared so when I look back on how Vince killed NXT because it couldn't be dynamite in ratings. Pardon me Just imagine that he'd refuse to admit defeat in the ultimate way like this by selling the company to AEW And I'm also certain he'd prefer to sell to someone that would allow him to just run wild regardless of how much backlash It would cause because Vince is that deranged and he doesn't value those that consume this product the way Some of them believe that he does he just doesn't he's all about himself He's all about him making the best money doesn't care if you really enjoy the product If he is somehow able to come in and do what he wants to do without having an answer to anyone not having to answer the NBC Not having the answer to those at Fox answer to those at USA Just having to just do whatever he thinks is best when what mostly he likes to do is just terrible for the TV and For the product and for the brands and for your eyes that you have to unfortunately use to watch this trash Then he's going to do it if he's just able to run wild He's gonna do it. So that's the other thing I see as to why I can't see him selling it to AEW But again, if they have the money to back it up, that's the other thing that's making me think Okay, if they are a last option Vince will let them have it But I don't see him choosing them as a first even if they do have the money But let me know what you guys think about this down in the comment section below if you haven't already of course Make sure you subscribe turn on post notification. You never miss a video in the description. I'll have links on my social media accounts I am on Facebook Twitter and Instagram You can message me there of course to let me know if there any movies news or reviews Let me to cover in the future and with all that in mind guys. I will see you in the next video


Hi everyone, I'm Abby Gill-Taylor and I'm from Henry County and I'm one of the 31 Alabama State Ambassadors for 4-H. I'm here today with Mr. Pete Cruz, who is the Headlin Airport Manager out at the local airport in my county. We're really pleased to have him today and we're going to ask him a couple of questions about his career and how he got started. So I would like to first ask you, what was your major in college? Well, my major has nothing to do with what I do now. I went to Auburn University, War Eagle, and majored in agronomy and soil. So I was planning on working for the Soil Conservation Service. I was in the agriculture field one day there. I've been born and raised as a farmer or son and I'll probably continue on as being a farmer or working in some line of agriculture. Well that's really cool. What got you interested in being a part of the airport life? Well, I think aviation's been in my blood all my life. I remember when I grew up here in Hedlin, they had helicopters from Fort Rucker, Alabama, flew constantly in our area. They were preparing for Vietnam and they trained a good bit of pilots here in this area. So they had local landing fields and some of the pastures around our house. When I got a free moment, I'd go over and watch the helicopters land. You always just had an interest in watching fly and how they flew. Just like the aviation science. I thought it was really cool to see them. Something that big and heavy could actually fly and carry people. So I think it's something that's in my blood from early on. I didn't act on it until late in life, but I think it's a calling. I think it's similar to some other fields where maybe a law enforcement, things like that. There's people, it's a calling to you on that field. Aviation is the same thing. If you're a pilot, you know it. You like it. There's no gray air. It's kind of cool. It's not. You either like it or you don't like it. Well, that's really interesting. So maybe can you give us a typical day in what your job is like? Yeah, I'd be glad to. But I need to get in, you know, fed early in the morning when it's cool. And we have several things that we take care of there at airport. We have aviation fuel that's for the airplanes that come and go and pilot stop and refuel their planes similar to a gas station, you know, at a convenience store, except that it's for aviation purposes. And we have to check the fuel to make sure the fuel has no water in it. Because if these guys have a problem in the air, they can't just stop and check it out. So it's very important that the fuel is pure. And it's the grade that we sell. So we do that. That's the very first thing we do to check that and make sure that's good. And then we are basically property managers. We have, I think it's about 392 acres of the airport in heaven in Alabama. And we have 190 of that is row crop agriculture that we rent out to farmers. So that's part of our management is to work with that farmer and work with him or his crops that he has there. We lease him the land and make sure he stays within the confines of our lease. And we also have a good number of buildings there. We have 40 tea hangers.  And so we have tea hangers, not many as those, we have 40 of them that are, you know, for lease, we keep those full. So if somebody's leaving, I have to have somebody to fill it up. That's where we get a lot of our income from this from the rent of these buildings. We also have several other businesses out at the airport, just besides the hidden airport, we have Willa Cove, which is a powder coating company. We have Calvin Mountain Trucking, they're a trucking company. We have several flight skills that give flight instruction, survival flight, that they're a life ambulance company. And so I work with all these companies to make sure that their buildings are well taken care of. They have the things they need to run their business there. And if we can help them, that's what we do. So my day is spent taking care of property and managing our property. I know that probably working at an airport is a high risk job. What would you say is your biggest responsibility? I think the biggest thing is probably making sure the pilots are taken care of the people that come in to our airport to make sure they feel welcome, to make sure they get a little taste of our southern hospitality. So I just want to make sure that I portray Hedlin Airport in my best light and it can make them remember that they want to come back to heaven, that they like it. So representing Hedlin Airport is probably my biggest responsibility. And moving on to the next question, what would you say is one of your favorite things that you get to do in your job?  I love sitting around talking aviation with the pilots. That's always kind of fun. And we have a front porch that these guys will come and sit and drink a cup of coffee or, you know, water or soda, whatever they have. And we talk to them and just, you know, you get their stories and, you know, you talk to people and it follows a very expensive aircraft and it's kind of neat to see, you know, where they've been and what they've done and you get to associate with some what we call the celebrities of our business, the people that are flying the jets and, you know, the bigger aircraft that we don't see a lot but they have their own airplanes and they come into our airport. So I think associating with them, seeing them and listening to their stories, that's that's the best part of it. Just yeah, I'm a people person. So I like to talk to people and I don't like to be alone. Also another cool thing I enjoy is there are a lot of things I do during the days and my attention span is, you know, I guess it's fairly short. So I need to change up during the day. I don't like to do the same thing all day every day and this gives me a chance to deviate from doing, you know, one thing for eight hours. I can do something for, you know, 30, 40 minutes, two hours and then do something else and every day is a little bit different. So it makes the days interesting. That's what I like about it. And that's really cool. What is something that you would tell someone going into your field? Maybe some advice? A little bit of advice for this. If you've got aviation in your blood, you know it, you need to spend some time around the airport. I would suggest maybe a small airport and a large airport. Go out and you'll meet the people, most of the people at the airport are very friendly. They want to talk and tell about their stories and tell you about their airport.  So I think it's important that they spend a little time at the airport. Get to see what happens during the day to routine at the airport. And if you want to fly, you need to take an introductory flight there. So at all the local schools that have good flight instruction they have an introductory flight for $50. You can take a flight and fly around an airplane, see if it's your cup of tea. You may think it is and it might not be. So before you invest a lot of money in taking lessons, you have a taste of it. I would say spend some time at the airport, get to know somebody. I bet you know somebody in your life that flies or has done it. So that would be the best thing. So in order to be an airport manager, did you have to get your pilot's license? That's not essential. It helps to know a little bit about aviation. I do have my pilot license. I got it I think within probably within a year graduated from college. I got a single engine airplane license and but it but I say it's not essential. If you want to manage an airport it's mostly about managing aviation and having a license. It's not important but it's but it adds to your knowledge and it helps you take care of the problems that the pilots have better if you have that in your background. So I also have a commercial hot air balloon license. I found commercial hot air balloons and did rides for passengers. So just having having been in the air, having spent time in the air's face to see what the pilots go through. It's it's very helpful especially when you're talking to the pilots that come into your area. So can you walk us through what getting your license is like? Yeah it's a process that takes you know depending on the weather everything you know is weather dependent. You want to fly, start flying whenever the weather is very good. You don't wind slow. You don't wind you know not choppy or gusty. You don't want any clouds in the area. You want a clear pretty day. But you have to have 40 hours of flight inside in an airplane within and I think 25 of that has to be with an instructor. So you have to have a you know a certified flight instructor to help you teach you how to fly and then once you get to a certain number of hours you will solo. You will take the plane out by yourself. So I think I soloed after about four or five hours and then you know the instructor pilot will fly with you several times and you have several other things you have to do. You have to have cross-country flights of a hundred miles or more. You have to have so many hours of not flying. You have to have so many touchy-goes which is landing and takeoff. You need to build time in an airplane and get comfortable with it. Once you have to I think it's a minimum of 40 hours in the airplane then you can take a written test which is administrated by the FAA test and you have to pass it. And then after that you pass the test. You have to take a proficiency check ride with an examiner and you have to go to where the examiner is. I don't think there's one in our area I think nearest ones in Tallahassee, Florida and they put you through the gamut. They ask you a lot of questions about flying, airspace questions. They ask you questions about the machinery and weather. Everything associated with flight then. You have to pass both though. So you have to pass the written test and the proficiency test to get your license and then once you do that you're issued a license and your license never expires. You'll have it for the rest of your life but you have to do certain things to stay current in your airplane there. So if you you'll have a once every two year by annual flight review that you have to go up with a another instructor and he checks you out once every two years to make sure that you can fly. You also have to have a medical certificate which means that you have to be physically fit, enable, and not a health risk or a two-fly. So you know several things you have to have there. But it's uh and right now it's probably going to end up I think the cost for a total ride, you get everything, you get it's probably between five and seven thousand dollars right now that you have to invest to to make it work. Wow that's really cool. And I'd like to end with saying that are asking you what is your single most exhilarating or best memory as airport manager? Oh I'll see here. I think probably the best and the most fun thing that's happened is we have a fly-in. It's where we about once a year. We have done a couple years but once a year we invite people in the area. We send out invitations to fly in on a certain date. We use a Saturday and we have vendors here. It's like a harvest day we have here in town but we have it at the airport and we we call it fly-in. So people fly in from all over the area and you can get you know 50 to 100 planes there one time in the park on the grass. It's just really cool to have a park out there. Planes you never see and you haven't seen in a long time.  We normally have a whole company there to give them rides and so just the thought of putting all that together it's time consuming. It's a massive effort but seeing it come off and seeing everybody there having a fly-in. That's that's probably it I think some of it's the exhilarating feeling once it's all over. Well thank you so much for explaining your job and everything that you have to do in it. Well thank you very much. I appreciate you having me here today.


This is the animation minute Welcome back to an animation minute and as always let's start with jobs We got here meta is looking for a position. There's another one for Oculus VR Staffing ninja is looking about robot games applied intuition is looking for a senior technical animator cloud chamber Striking distance studios. That's no moon Amazon games and Halon entertainment mob entertainment as well and Ubisoft Montreal His raw power games with the job posting Jay is saying that they're looking at a tech animator at methodical And he is opposed looking for a designer slash animator and let's switch over to animation This is super cool love the animation But also the sound is awesome make sure to turn the sound on Here's the third place second place in first place for the animal challenge. They're super cute Make sure to watch them. This is very cool. This is seven minutes or is it longer is seven minutes? Yes with a kind of behind the scenes of Kimuri if I pronounce that correctly. It's very cool You can see concept art Animation tests, there's a bunch of stuff in there. It's very very cool Ryan once again with an amazing 2d piece here is one that's a bit longer and awesome and a shorter one But just as awesome then you can see the pencil test version of brave look emotive I love pencil tests and this is awesome to see speak of which anything Batman is cool But come on. I love it and here you have the effects clip a lot of these so cool Over two arts, this is scale is awesome calls great same with this check these out. They're awesome There's always a post with mechs and I love them and you can pre-order the copy of tank head I definitely will that's also super cool that guy that's inside So you just want to animate this like both the inside and the mech These are sweet to definitely follow that account a lot of cool art Here's one more and that's always a good tip and definitely follow that account There is always a bunch to see and he's got so many tutorials Definitely check it out. Then you can see here a pitch for Batman Beyond. I love it It's a great show. I would love to see a full movie like this and his announcement from Mike for directing game animation This is gonna be a new book for animation leadership for video games as it says here can't wait It's gonna be great Mike is also great guys So make sure to follow him on Twitter as well Kevin has a good post here about the process of making art versus AI That's AI is always a hot topic here But definitely agree with everything that he says you the process is everything and if you don't love the process Then it's gonna be a bit tricky as you don't really have control over the end result But anyway, go read this. It's definitely interesting switch. Go into VR. Apparently PS VR 2 is going to get official PC support in 24 That's cool sticking with VR. Here's the multiplayer Option for fluid. This is really cool where you can create rooms and join them and work together in one space It's actually pretty neat. I like this. This is VR somewhat spoof But great VFX accounts like action movie that is great. If you have checked out his work It's awesome. This is also to scratch me up Then if you haven't seen the movie yet just like me I will at one point the Mona is out on YouTube for free if you don't have Netflix Switching with the pixel art. I love these that is also very detailed very intricate and I love it So I know I love it. I love it. You know a pixel art at the end then last but not least Very soothing. I love a great colors. I just love that stuff. Anyway, that is that finish minute You can find it every week on Mondays on my channel