Military fathers face unique challenges because of deployments and keeping their commands in emission-ready status. The Fatherhood Initiative was launched to acknowledge the role that fathers play and the tremendous responsibility they carry. The Family Advocacy's New Parents Support and Home Visitation Fatherhood Initiative program is designed to bring awareness to the vital role that active duty fathers play in the lives of their children. Parents can work with their local Fleet and Family Support Center to take prenatal or parenting classes or to get more information on building a strong support network. Fathers can get involved by contacting their local New Parents Support Home Visitation program, which is located in the local Fleet and Family Support Centers or most installations of CONUS and in CONUS. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Jen Blake.


Let us start with a brief review of last class. In last class, we continued discussing about extrinsic semiconductors and if you remember extrinsic semiconductors are those where we add a small amount for specific impurity in order to selectively increase the concentration of either electrons on holes. Towards the end of last class, we looked at the temperature dependence of the majority carrier concentration. So this would be electrons in the case of n-type semiconductors and holes in the case of p-type semiconductors. We use the example of an n-type semiconductor and whatever discussion that we do using n-type, the same is valid for a p-type. So in this case, electrons are the majority charge carriers and there are essentially two sources of electrons. One, your electrons can come from the donor levels. These levels are close to the edge of the conduction band. At high temperatures, the electrons can also come from the valence band of the semiconductor. Putting these two information together, we did a plot of the log of the electron concentration versus 1 over t. So this is log n is 1 over t. Since this is 1 over the temperature, this represents the high temperature side and this represents the low temperature. In this plot, we said that we could divide an extrinsic semiconductor into essentially three regions. At low temperature, the concentration of electrons is dominated by those electrons that come from the donor level. So if you plot n versus 1 over t, you are going to get a straight line with a slope that was given by the ionization energy. So Ed is the ionization energy of the donor. We also saw that this is typically of the order of milli-electron volts. Since all the donor atoms are ionized, we have a regime where the electron concentration is more or less constant. And then at high temperature, we find that we have electrons that come from the valence band and your extrinsic semiconductor behaves like an intrinsic one. So this is the high temperature behavior and the source is minus e g over 2 k, where e g is the band gap. And this is usually of the order of electron volts. So we have three regimes in the case of an extrinsic semiconductor. The low temperature one, we call the ionization regime because it is dominated by ionization of the donor atoms. Then you have a saturation regime where the concentration of electrons which are the majority charge carriers is nearly a constant. And then we have an intrinsic regime where your extrinsic material behaves like an intrinsic one. We also call the temperatures corresponding to these as T s which is your saturation temperature and T i which is your intrinsic temperature. We did some calculations for the value of T s and T i in the case of silicon with 10 to the 17 donor atoms. And we got a value of T s that was approximately 30 Kelvin and at T i which is approximately 5 A T Kelvin, which means there is a wide temperature range where the concentration of the majority carriers is nearly a constant. And it is equal to the concentration of your donor or your acceptor. So we have two advantages if we dope semiconductors. The first is that the conductivity increases because the carrier concentration increases. But secondly we also have a regime where the carrier concentration is almost a constant and is independent of temperature. So today we will go further and talk about conductivity in the case of an extrinsic semiconductor and how that depends upon temperature. So we start with the equation for conductivity. We have written this earlier sigma is n e mu e plus p e mu h. This is your general equation for the conductivity. If you have an n type semiconductor, n is typically much larger than p. We saw in the case of silicon that n could be more than 7 or 8 orders of magnitude higher depending upon the dopant concentration in which case sigma would just be n e mu e. On the other hand if you have a p type semiconductor p is much larger than n in which case sigma will just be p e mu h. We have seen mu e and mu h earlier, mu e and mu h are the drift mobilities. So mu e is the mobility of the electron in the conduction band, mu h is the mobility of the hole in the valence band. We also saw earlier that mu e sigma e tau e over m e star, mu h e tau h over n h star where tau e and tau h are the time between two scattering events. Now if you want to look at the temperature dependence of conductivity, we need to look at the temperature dependence of the carrier concentration and also the temperature dependence of mobility. We have done looking at the temperature dependence of the carrier concentration which is what we did at the end of last class, the beginning of today. Now we look at how mu e and mu h depend on both temperature and in the case of extrinsic semiconductors how it depends upon the presence of these dopants. Now there is another way, we can write tau which is the time between two scattering events. Tau can be written as 1 over s v thermal times n s. So what are these terms? S represents this cross section of the scatterer v th is the thermal velocity of the electrons and n s is the concentration of the scatterers. If you plug in the units, s is the cross section area which is in meter square, v thermal is the velocity so that is meters per second, n s is the concentration of scatterers it is usually given per unit volume. So this is in meter cube so that the final units is in seconds. So to understand this if you have a larger cross section of the scatterer then you are going to have a shorter scattering time. If the electrons are in travel faster then once again they can interact between two scattering events quickly so the time will be short and if you have more number of scatterers once again the time will be short. Now the question is what are these scatterers that we talk about and how do these values depend on temperature. Let us start first with intrinsic semiconductors. If you have an intrinsic semiconductor then the electrons will scatter because of the thermal vibration of the silicon atoms. So we have thermal vibration of the atoms. So if s is the scattering cross section, s can be written as pi a square where a is the amplitude of these vibrations. So this is in the case of a simple 2D model. We can show that if your scatterers are your thermal vibration of the atoms then s is proportional to the temperature which means as temperature increases the amplitude of the vibrations increase. So a increases and correspondingly s will also increase. The next term in the equation for tau is v thermal. If you have electrons moving in the conduction band we can say that they are moving through a uniform potential region and in this case we can say that the thermal energy of the electrons is approximately the same as the kinetic energy. Typically thermal energy is given as 3 by 2 kT and the kinetic energy is nothing but one half mv square. So this is the kinetic energy. So if we use this expression v thermal is proportional to square root of temperature which means once again as the temperature increases your thermal energy increases. So the kinetic energy will also increase. So v thermal will increase. So let us put these two terms together.  In the case of an intrinsic silicon atom we said that the scattering is only due to the lattice vibrations. So we wrote this as 1 over pi a square v thermal and ns. We found that pi a square is directly proportional to 1 over the temperature, v thermal is proportional to square root of the temperature which means tau is proportional to 1 over T times square root of T, ns is the number of atoms and that is usually a constant. It is not going to change with temperature. So if you take these two into account this is proportional to T to the three halves with a negative sign. So tau due to the scattering of the lattice I am just going to denote it as tau L is proportional to T to the minus 3 over 2. I am going to call this now mu is equal to e tau over m and since tau is proportional to temperature minus 3 over 2 can say that mu is proportional to temperature 3 over 2. So if you have an intrinsic material where the conductivity is where the scattering is due to the vibration of the lattice atoms as the temperature increases the vibration increases. So there is more scattering and hence the mobility will go down. So I will write this as mu L to denote that it is due to lattice scattering. So as temperature increases mu L will decrease. So this makes sense because as temperature increases you have greater lattice vibrations and also you have electrons that are traveling faster. Now in the case of extrinsic semiconductors you also have this lattice scattering because you also have the silicon lattice your material is silicon.  I am going to call that mu i. So i is to denote the fact that these are impurities. So in the case of extrinsic semiconductors you have scattering due to the lattice. You also have scattering due to the dopants. So both of them play a role in determining the mobility of the electrons and holes. The lattice scattering term is very similar to what we did for intrinsic semiconductors. So once again mu L will be proportional to t to the minus 3 over 2. The one thing we have to see is how the dopant scattering changes with temperature. So we want to look at the dopant scattering in an extrinsic semiconductor. We call this mu i. You want to find out the temperature dependence of this term. So if you look at an extrinsic semiconductor, so whether you have an n-type or a p-type you are going to have donors and acceptors and these are ionized. Because you find that in the case of n-type the donor atom has an extra electron that goes to the conduction band in the case of a p-type. You have an acceptor atom that can accept an extra electron and create a hole. So these are ionized impurities and these can then interact with the electron. So if you have an electron with velocity being v-thermal, then the kinetic energy is one half m Me v-thermal square or one half Me star v-thermal square. We said that in the case of an intrinsic semiconductor where an electron is traveling in the conduction band, this kinetic energy is nothing but the thermal energy. So this is 3 half kT but now you have the electron having an electrostatic force of attraction with the ionized donor. So if you have an n-type you have donor atoms or donor ions with a positive charge and these can interact with the electrons.  So R here is the distance between the electron and the ionized impurity. Usually in the case of extrinsic semiconductors we define a critical radius Rc where the kinetic energy and potential energy are equal. If R is less than Rc, if R is less than Rc here then the potential energy is greater than the kinetic energy and your electron will scatter. If R is greater than Rc it is the reverse. The kinetic energy will be greater than the potential energy and the electron will not scatter or the electron will escape. In these two terms we define a critical radius when the kinetic and potential energies are equal. If we do that we can say that 3 over 2 kT is equal to E square over 4 pi epsilon 0 epsilon R and Rc square sorry and Rc which means Rc is proportional to T to the minus 1. Now if you want to look at the cross section for scattering S is nothing but pi Rc square and knowing that Rc is proportional to 1 over T, S is proportional to T to the minus 2. So in the case of an extrinsic semiconductor where we are looking at the interaction of the electrons with the ionized impurities we find that the scattering cross section area S is proportional to T to the minus 2. This we got by looking at the balance between the kinetic energy of the electron and the potential energy of attraction between the electron and the ionized impurity. As temperature increases the electron can travel faster which means the kinetic energy becomes higher. So it becomes easier for it to escape the influence of the ionized impurity which means the scattering cross section S goes down. Here we saw that v thermal is proportional to T to the half. This is the same argument that we use in the case of an intrinsic semiconductor. Putting these two together tau due to scattering from the impurity. So it is tau i is equal to 1 over S v thermal ni. Once again ni is the concentration of impurities which is a constant. It is not a function of temperature. So this is proportional to 1 over T to the minus 2 in the case of S and then square root of T is proportional to T to the 3 half. So tau i which is the time due to scattering because of impurities is proportional to T to the 3 half. Mu i is nothing but E tau i for Me star. So mu i is proportional to half which means the contribution of the impurities to mobility is such that as the temperature increases mu i increases. And this is because as the temperature increases your electrons can move faster and so they can easily escape the electrostatic force. So in the case of an extrinsic semiconductor we have two contributions to the mobility. One is from the lattice and we saw earlier that this is proportional to T to the minus 3 half. The other is from the impurity or your dopant and these are ionized. So I will write these as impurity ions where mu i is proportional T to the 3 over 2. So we have two contributions both of which have an opposite dependence on temperature. If you look at the total mobility it will be dominated by whichever scattering process has the lower value. So we can write 1 over mu e as 1 over mu l plus 1 over mu i. So this is in the case of an extrinsic semiconductor where we have contribution due to both the impurity atoms mu i and the lattice mu l. So let us put this together and then do a plot of the conductivity versus 1 over temperature. Then let me rewrite the equation for the conductivity, sigma is n e mu e plus p e mu h. So in this equation the first thing we look at is the carrier concentration. So on a log scale this is 1 over T. Since this is 1 over T this n is the high temperature end. This is your low temperature end. If you plot log of the carrier concentration then this is similar to what we had before. So at high temperature you have an intrinsic contribution. You have a saturation region where the concentration is nearly a constant. Then you have a low temperature region where it is due to ionization of your donors or acceptors. But this is log n or log p. If you then plot log of the mobility we find that at low temperature mobilities are dominated by scattering due to the impurities because at low temperature your lattice vibrations are very small. So the mobility is dominated by impurity scattering and as temperature increases your mobility increases. Another mu i is proportional T to the 3 over 2. If you do that then this is the contribution due to the scattering of the ionized impurities. So this is log mu at low temperatures so it is dominated by impurities. At high temperatures scattering is dominated by the silicon lattice in which case mu l is proportional to T to the minus 3 over 2 so that as the temperature increases mu l goes down. So this is log mu l at intermediate temperatures both the scattering from the lattice and the scattering from the impurities will be more or less equal. So the first dotted line represents n. The second dotted line or dashed line represents log of mu. If we put both these together we will get the conductivity and if you plot the conductivity which is the solid line we get a curve like this. So this is log of sigma versus 1 over T. We just erase this section and plot it slightly better. So this is log of sigma. So once again we have 3 regions at low temperatures we have an ionization region. At high temperatures we have an intrinsic region and then there is a region in the middle where sigma does not change much with temperature and that is your saturation region. Another fort for the saturation region is your extrinsic region. So doping gives us two advantages. One is that it increases the conductivity but at the same time there is also a temperature region where both the carrier concentration and hence the conductivity is almost a constant and is independent of temperature. In the case of silicon this saturation region or the extrinsic region is around room temperature or I should say includes room temperature which means if you have doped silicon then your conductivity is almost a constant in and around room temperature. This is very important when we try and form devices later with these extrinsic semiconductors. So this is the carrier concentration as a function of temperature. So how does the carrier concentration in the case of extrinsic semiconductors change with doping concentration? So let me just plot log of mu versus doping concentration. So I want to plot how mu e or mu h changes with concentration of the dopants. So this is mu e can be mu h. We will use the example of silicon but this is again true for any other semiconductor. This is doping concentration square. So we increase the doping concentration. The overall mobility decreases because now you have more scattering from these ionized impurities. So let me make the plot 100, this is your y axis. Concentration is 10 to the 15. So if you plot mu e starts at a high value in the case of silicon at room temperature mu e for intrinsic silicon is around 1350 centimeter square per volts per second. So let me just write down the units here centimeter square per volts per second. So it starts of high. Initially your mobility is more or less a constant and then as your doping concentration increases the mobility starts to drop. So this is for electrons. We can do a similar plot for the holes. Once again when you have intrinsic silicon the whole mobility is around 450 centimeter square per volts per second. So if you do a similar plot for holes again it stays a constant but then it starts to drop down. In all the extrinsic semiconductors we have considered so far, you always had the situation N A or N D whether these are acceptors or donors is much greater than N I which is your intrinsic carrier concentration. This means that we can say that the electron concentration is equal to N D or the hole concentration is equal to N A. We also only consider situations where N A and N D are much smaller than the effective density of states N C and N V. So this allows us to think of these impurities as localized states in the band gap. So your donors form localized states just below the conduction band and the acceptors form localized states just above the valence band. These semiconductors are called non-degenerate semiconductors. This is true for almost all carrier concentrations that we normally encounter but if you have really high doping values so that N A and N D are comparable to N C and N V we can no longer think of them as localized states but we say that the dopants form energy bands. So these semiconductors are called degenerate semiconductors. Because your dopants form energy bands it is also possible that these bands can overlap with the conduction band or the valence band. So degenerate semiconductors have high conductivity because they have a high concentration of impurities but they also behave very similar to metals. For most of the devices that we discuss we will essentially deal with non-degenerate semiconductors but for some cases we will find that we can also have high doping and we will also have degenerate semiconductors. The last topic that I want to cover when we are talking about electronic materials are amorphous semiconductors. So far when you have talked about an intrinsic semiconductor or when we talked about an extrinsic semiconductor we always consider materials that are single crystals which are perfect and have no defects. This is because defects in a material will introduce states in the band gap and will change the electronic properties. Defects will cause defect states. We saw earlier that these states can either be shallow. Shallow states are those that are close to the band edges. They can be close to the conduction band edge or they can be close to the valence band edge or they can be deep states. So these defect states can essentially modify the electronic properties. So defects can be good or bad. For example if you are trying to look for higher conductivity then defect states can essentially act as traps and trap electrons in holes and then reduce the conductivity. In that case defect states are essentially bad. On the other hand in the case of some direct band gap semiconductors you can have defect states in them that can modify the optical properties. In such cases defect states are good. So depending upon the applications we may or may not want defect states. An amorphous semiconductor is an extreme example of a semiconductor the large number of defect states. An amorphous material has essentially no long range order which means there is a large density of dangling bonds. The dangling bonds are formed when you have one silicon atom which has one electron but there is no opposite silicon atom to supply another electron to form the bond. So amorphous materials are characterized by having a large density of dangling bonds and these dangling bonds basically act as defect states in the band gap. So if you were to draw the band picture in the case of a crystalline material. So this is a crystalline material let us take crystalline silicon. So we will have a conduction band we will have a valence band that is your band gap. So if you have a perfect crystalline material there are no electronic states in the band gap then you have a density of states in the conduction band and a density of states in the valence band. Now if you have an amorphous semiconductor because you have a large density of dangling bonds there will be a large density of defect states in the band gap and these defect states are localized states. So if I were to draw the band diagram for an amorphous material. So again l mark e c and e v. We will have a large density of states in the bands but within the band gap we will also have localized states. So these represent the conduction band and the valence band. So within the conduction band and valence band we will have extended states but we will also have localized states within the band gap. In the case of an amorphous semiconductor we no longer talk about a band gap because we have all of these localized states. So we call the distance between the conduction band and the valence band as a mobility gap. Now all these localized defect states can also take part in conduction. They can essentially trap the electrons and holes. So in the case of an amorphous semiconductor conduction takes place through a hopping mechanism where we think of the electrons and holes hopping through all of these localized defect states. So this drastically brings down the mobility and hence the conductivity. We have crystalline silicon mu e is usually around 1350 or 1400. On the other hand mu e for amorphous can be as low as 1. So you can have nearly 3 orders of difference in magnitude in the mobility in the case of amorphous and crystalline materials. So with this we are done with the electronic materials part of the course. So we have looked at intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors. Next we will look at devices and in devices we will have to form junction between these materials. So the next thing we will do is to look at junctions and that we will look starting from next class.


Welcome back everybody for another 7 days of haul. This is now probably my 7th haul week that I've done so far. It's chilly out here. Today is going to be a little different. Well, this week is going to be a little different rather because I may actually have some help on this 7 day stretch of haul and I'll show you what I mean in just a minute. Alright, so the reason today is a little different is because I actually have some help from one of my lower levels for third year residents who is going to basically take what we call buddy call this whole entire week, which means I'm actually like back up call. So he fields all of the pages and he kind of relieves some of that stress for me. Therefore I don't have to worry about emergencies, which is how it used to be my entire residency. So this week should be a little better regardless if I get called in or not. So we will see. I have to put on these dirty procedure shoes. I'm only covering the east hospital this whole entire week or the main hospital, so I won't have to get called in and go around all of Manhattan.   I got up at 5.30 this morning. So I really kind of set myself up for disaster this week, but hopefully it's not too bad with George helping me out. George. What's up? Introduce yourself. I am George. What year are you? Third year radiology resident. What are you doing this week? Just consults. George and Emmy take care of me all week and doing everything for me. Right? Absolutely. Good. Let's do it. All right, so just finished my first case in the morning, which was a Y-90 or trans arterial radio embolization of a liver tumor. And now I'm about to dictate that study. And of course, I always say my wife is the best wife in the world because she always packs me breakfast when I'm on call. She always makes me dinner when I'm on call for the entire week. And my mother-in-law also does the same thing. I'm like the luckiest guy in the world, I swear. I don't know what people do who don't have this.  That's one procedure down. We have like three or four more to go. And we'll see how it goes. All right, so that concludes day one on this week of call. It's about 4.30 right now. And I'm leaving work, which is very rare when you're on call. So I did a Y-90 or trans arterial embolization to start off the day. Did another bland hepatic tumor embolization after that, followed by billiard drainage change. And now I'm going home. Of note, my good colleague, George, is still at the hospital cranking out through some consults.  I mean, I'm not gonna celebrate yet, but I think it's pretty much a win so far. We'll see. Headed home now and hopefully you don't hear from George tonight. And it is officially Tuesday morning. And the South, as we say, Tuesday. Last night was pretty terrible, I have to admit.  He answered a ton of different pages from pretty urgent slash emergent cases. So he had to call me about a few different things. Didn't end up coming in, but I've been up since about 4.15 and I know George has been up.  So he will be dead tired today. Otherwise, had a pretty big day, have two tips scheduled on the board. Those of you who haven't seen the other videos, transgigular, I'm sure I've had reports of similar stunts. And then we have an MAA and labor biopsy plus support, plus maybe a tunnel line. We'll see. Busy day and minimal sleep, but we can get through it because it's only Tuesday. Six more days to go. Let's go. All right, so I just finished work. I was trying to be able to hold a George, but we had a huge emergency and I'm finally leaving at about seven o'clock right now. And I'll tell you all about it in just a second, but let me get an Uber home. Guys, so I am back at home now. And I don't think I mentioned, but it's Tuesday night. Today was a little crazy. So at the end of the day, one of the patients I had from the morning ended up having some severe type of hypertensive emergency. Ultimately, they were admitted to the floor so that they could be washed overnight. It's about 745 PM now, just showered, ate some dinner. I have to do a few things. Uploading a YouTube video right now. And yes, I do this. Even when I'm on call, I try to stay on top of it, put out those two videos every single week, but I'm done. But yeah, I'm probably just gonna sit here, do this, go to bed and see what's going on in the morning. Hopefully nobody calls me as much as they did last night. Last night was kind of brutal and started my week off on a bad foot. See you tomorrow. And top of the morning to you all, it is now Wednesday. It's pretty early. Well, not that early, it's like 7 AM. Last night was pretty good. I didn't get called in at all. I think we have paged like one time. Luckily, I don't have to answer it because George is here. So for me, it was a pretty good night. The only problem is I still want to bed a little late because I still can't stop watching that show Bridgerton. So we stay up to like 11, 30 watching it. So now I'm pretty tired, but I do it to myself, unfortunately. We have pretty big cases today, which is pretty cool. And that's pretty much it. I'm gonna find George as well. I think I'm just gonna start shelving the camera in George's face so you guys can see how he's doing because he's getting kind of stressed out because he's got a tough week, far tougher than I do. All right guys, so it is 1.35 right now. Just finished an incredibly long case, mesenteric angiogram and embolization. It's crazy, probably about four hours it took total for everything. No, probably said about four hours. I was starving towards the end there. Literally left the case, ran upstairs the cafeteria, just absolutely devoured to tacos. Now I'm chugging my drink because I'm also thirsty and gotta stay hydrated because that's how you prevent headaches at the end of the day. But I'm gonna dictate this case and I have another four plus hour case to do after this. Wish me luck. This is the end of the case we got to study. George, how excited are you? Uh, I'm kinda good. All right, so I finished that second case.  I happen to be a lot of blood on the drinks and everything and I usually pride myself on staying clean all the time. I just got these brand new socks, these Bomba socks and I got blood on my socks. Can you see that? So now I have to go clean my brand new socks with some like alcohol or something. Hydrogen peroxide, maybe that works. We'll see. Kirk, it is a chilly day out here. I think it's like in the 20s right now and my hand is about to freeze off. So let me talk to you in just a second. All right, back in the office now. Nice little snack here, even though it's squished and probably frozen. I stayed up way too late last night watching the stock market. Pretty much all day yesterday I was watching the stock market as well because all of the GameStop and all of the Robin Hood news and all that stuff. Obviously the trader that I am, I love trading, I used to trade and I do it casually now. So I was very much invested and I also had a very busy day here. So I pretty much had like no time to vlog. I was either trading, watching the markets, reading the news or doing procedures. But now it's a new day. Doji coin or doggy coin, whatever the heck it is is going off today. But I'm about to go into a procedure right now after I devour this bagel. And hopefully by the time I get out it's like 9.45 or so. And I could start trading before the next procedure. Also one thing I didn't mention is that Andromeda is out of town yet again. She went to the Hamptons for her business trip. She does there like once every couple of months or so but not so much in the winter time. But she left last night. She comes back late tonight. So yesterday was pretty bored but still have George. All right. So two big cases down, two more to go. I'm sorry to be pretty tired and left the line but what can you do? I am so spent right now. It is literally 9.45 p.m. And I just finished my fourth case of the day. Which is crazy because I literally started down here what, 7.45? Now I'm just finished.  A Y90 followed by MA or pre Y90 mapping. Then I did a TIPS, Transregulatory Deliver of Obesity and Parasynthesis on one. Which took a while. Then I did a Bilateral Upward Charmity Injurigram and Left Floor Charmity Injurigram and Stint Placement. So you know what you've just been sweating for like 12 hours straight. When you finally walk outside even though it's 20 degrees outside it just feels so good. That's off your right now. I'm going home to go to sleep and Androna's finally home. So we'll hang out now. I got my fancy bouffant cap on right now. And we just finished a nice CT-guided procedure. And oh, forgot to say it's Saturday by the way. I had to come in this morning, round on some patients. Take care of some odds and ends and all that stuff. I didn't actually do the procedure just now because George did the procedure. Which is always nice when someone else doesn't. All right so George did that procedure. How did it go? Not standing. What did you end up doing? Did you just crush it? Yeah, just put a little drain in. He's a cake. How would you rate your experience with me on co-op so far for the last seven days? About six out of 10? Yeah. Why would you rate it six out of 10? I just, there's room for improvement. That's all right. There's room for improvement. There's room for improvement. There's room for improvement. Good, there's room for improvement. George is literally cracking me up so much. But I'm heading home right now. I'm freezing. Hold on a sec. All right, so I just got back home now. Had to do that one couple of times but I got back home now. Had to do that one case at the hospital and now I'm back here. George was literally cracking me up the whole time we were at the hospital. It's actually so much better having someone else on service with you that's like commiserating with you.   George is handling almost everything. I just kind of sit back here like in attending help him out whatever I need to which is so rare. So basically it's almost like this is the best call we've ever so far but I may have just jinxed myself because we still have tonight, Saturday night, all day tomorrow and of course the dreaded Sunday night. As you all know from my prior videos, Sunday night is like the thorn in my side because something always happens on Sunday night but let's hope it doesn't happen this weekend. All week, Shaviganza. Somehow I made it through last night without getting called in. We had two GI bleeds pending all night. We were watching the hemoglobin, checked the CT scans and checking their vitals all night to make sure that we didn't need to embolize anything. We were just up all night and didn't have to come in but then we had another transfer from another hospital to come in. So poor George who I could not have done this whole week without was up literally all night last night and now has to read CTs all day as well while I have the day off. So I will say George had a much tougher week than I did. I did get woke up a whole bunch this week, never had to go in but poor George had to go in this morning at 4 a.m. to check on the patient and if he wasn't here, that would have been me that would have had to do that. So he saved me a trip to the hospital in the pouring snow, which you can see behind me. So I'm very appreciative of that. He did a fantastic job and I love working with someone during this call week because it makes it so much more fun and enjoyable and all that stuff. That officially concludes this video. I'm going to relax here on my post call day, post call snow day, which is like the best possible scenario ever. I can just sit here on the couch with Adriana. We can relax and do nothing. So miss you, smash, like, subscribe button, comment, and tag tag if you're not ready. And I'll see you all on the next video.


Okay, I'm 840 here. This stream wasn't supposed to start like this. I'm not fully prepared All right, I was using this spoon this morning I'm eating yogurt and I haven't even washed it yet. My god. My life is spiraling out of control. I Don't know. I'm stuck in something and it's beyond my power It feels like it's beyond my power and when you're stuck, all right When when when you're absolutely defeated It is it is essential that you admit that you are licked and I am licked. I got this really damaging downward spiral going on in my life I don't know how to overcome it every day in every way. I am looking more and more like Ellen DeGeneres and I don't want to look like Ellen DeGeneres and My my good friend Leponius pointed this out in the chat yesterday And I'm so grateful for him for telling me the fair nincombe honest truth So I was growing these side, you know, I had sideburns that were like down to here I think oh my god, it's gonna be time to just shave my head again But various reasons I don't want to go with the skinhead look right now Like Jews are just getting shot here in Pico Robertson. I don't want to look like a skinhead It's not the time for skinhead Luke So I thought I can stave off For another month, you know a fair dinkum haircut, you know a fair dinkum shaving of the old head if I just like Lop off the the enormous sideburns I was growing and now though, I'm looking like Ellen DeGeneres And I just got to admit defeat that my own best efforts got me here Right so like how the hell did I end up looking like Ellen DeGeneres? Well, it was choices I made without even being conscious of it that got me here And I'm not gonna be able to get out of this on my own So how do I get out of this downward spiral of looking more and more like Ellen DeGeneres every day? second thing So I was talking to a friend and he mentioned how he's been taking good care of himself He went and got a massage and the massage therapist is oh your body is wrecked You need to come back and see me as soon as possible You know I used to try that line on the lady. It's like all right.  I can't you imagine this here? I am the greatest writer of my generation the greatest live stream of my generation I am three minutes and six seconds into this live stream.  It's the elites. They're conspiring to hold me back. It's the it's the YouTube algorithm It's a Shonda I mean, what will the goyim think? All right Here I am Three minutes 29 seconds into a live stream. I finally have one viewer Bloody heck. Okay. So anyway, this guy's taking really good care of himself and You know who that reminds me of that reminds me of me because I am pretty emotionally immature in many ways I got like the emotional age of four-year-old and And so I love the bespoke right I love Alternative health because it's all like individually treated.  You know, I love all that stuff And so I had ten years of psychotherapy. I Had you know years of Alexander technique lessons I spent probably ever $12,000 in my life on physical therapy I've had probably 40 plus chiropractic adjustments You know, I just love being the focus of someone's attention. I can't be mothered too much I can't be nurtured too much. I can't be taken care of too much I just love being you know back to that childlike state where you know, someone's just coming along to take care of me Feel so good But It's a good for me. So all these things they used to spend money on well I'm now learning to do for myself So, you know, I love being someone else's focus of attention, but I've learned to become You know my own focus of attention like when I feel needy When I want attention, I've learned to give myself attention see by journaling You know all that money I spent on physical therapy well Well Actually everything that I was spending thousands of dollars on for physical therapy I Can now fix on my own with the activator Good old activator Just saw us me right out You just put me in a room alone with you for ten minutes. I'll sort you right out with this activator, mate So this simple $150 activator border on Amazon, you know bought the guidebook on how to use it to for another $150 and Saved myself thousand dollars plus on physical therapy a year. Good all activator. Oh Yeah, and then Good old Bob and Brad massage gun Good all Bob and Brad their physical therapists on YouTube. I've probably watched 50 plus of their videos so whenever I have an ache or a pain, you know, I just go on YouTube look for a physical therapist or a doctor and Now I find out, you know all sorts of solutions to my problems like I got a bit of golfers elbow right now. I just like Dig in there with the old Bob and Brad massage gun, I mean I've had this for I think what six nine months now Takes care of so many aches and pains I strongly recommend that the Bob and Brad massage gun and Then the old position or release all right I love position or release strain counter-strain physical therapy like a set of procedures I do every day pretty much morning and evening I haven't had my back go out on me since I started Positional release started, you know really mastering it about a year in so since about 2018 Never had you know my back go out and my back used to go out once or twice a year I'd be down for like three days at a time so All these modalities that I used to spend thousands of dollars on psychotherapy physical therapy Acupuncture chiropractic Alexander technique lessons You name it like anything that would give me individual attention, you know, I lapped it up loved it You know I spent spent money on it and now I get to just bank all that money Because I've learned to do for myself Everything that I used to pay other people for and do I look like a man who's in physical pain? Right. I am free. All right. I am I am Giselle. I am swan Lake Right. I am like Mikhail Baryshnikov Right. I'm like Mary Lou Retin All right, I feel so good Right, it's you know 429 heading into Shabas. Do you think that I feel pain in my shoulders? Do you think my shoulders are tense? Do you see furrows of unnecessary tension and compression just rippling across my face? Does my neck look like it's got a kink in it? Do you see unnecessary tension and compression? Patterns in my neck. Do you see all sorts of weird interfering? Muscular tension patterns across my chest or across my back or in my shoulders or in my arms. I am free I am open. I am Giselle Like I move with grace. I move with beauty. I'm a man in control of himself I'm a man with a sense of agency just floating through life You think I was walking 10-20 miles a day in Australia? I was floating 10-20 miles a day in Australia because I've got the Alexander technique and I've got my trusty activator and I've got the Bob and Brad massage gun and I've got my 12-step programs All right, once I really started getting into 12-step That are getting serious recovery on my under-owning by 2016 February 2016 That's when I ended my weekly, you know psychotherapy lessons haven't had to go back since I had my my voice lessons now I listen to Roger Love. What a great YouTube channel the great voice teacher Roger Love So, you know, I've got I got the voice of an angel. I Got the smile of Mary Lou Ratten Right. I got everything worked out Except this downward spiral of looking more and more like Ellen DeGeneres every day Bye-bye


Welcome back beatbox fam. It's Kayo and today on beatboxing like a pro We're gonna learn the throat kick probably the first beatbox sound that I ever learned if you're new here and enjoy this tutorial Subscribe and smash that like button So the throat kick guys.    All right guys


South-East Asia's secrets. That's on a matter of Korea, isn't it? Marco Mangostov joins us from Luang Prabang in Laos, which is right along the Mekong. It translates from Laos to English as Big Buddha, Luang Prabang. Yeah. You're always there. Every time I see you leaving Hilo, you're often to Southeast Asia. What are you there for? Well, I'm there because it's here, and because there's more to learn here. And I taught, of course, on the politics of mainland Southeast Asia at University of California, Santa Cruz, last quarter. And I thought, well, I still have more to learn. I'd like to be a better instructor. And also personally, Jay, I find the more time I spend here, and this is my fourth time in Laos, third time in Luang Prabang, and I just find the more time I spend, the more my roots get a bit deeper in terms of understanding the people, the culture, the history, the politics, their concerns, and my understanding broadens and deepens. And amongst the mainland Southeast Asian countries, because I don't know, I haven't been to Indonesia, Malaysia, I've been to Singapore, I've been to the Philippines or Brunei. But a mainland Southeast Asia, Laos is definitely my favorite. I find the energy and the vibe here to be the most agreeable to me at this point in my life. So just like you, I want to continue to understand and want to continue to learn for my own personal reasons. And also, so that hopefully not if when I teach my course again on Southeast Asia politics, I'll have a greater depth and breadth to do so. But what's your approach on learning? I mean, I suppose like so many of those American travel shows, you have a secret sauce in terms of your style, your approach to people, your way of engaging them, spending time with them, learning from them. What's your secret sauce on that? That's a great question, Jay. Great question. So what comes to mind is this. There's a ride sharing service here in Laos called Loka, L-O-C-A, Loka is similar to Uber or Lyft.  So I did that. And yesterday, I traveled from the capital of Yintian back to Luang Prabang on the super fast, ultra modern Chinese fast train with a cost of six billion with the V six billion dollars that they finished December of last year. So I sat in my hotel there in Yintian and the hotel wanted to charge me a big box to take me to the train station. It was about a half hour outside of town because it was kind of in the boonies there in Yintian. And I thought, well, I can be better than that. So I hiled a Loka taxi and the dude was there. They're typically young men. They're driving, you know, toyotas or small economy vehicles. And they're doing just like Uber drivers do all over the place. You know, they're making some bucks or making this cake some, some kid, why I wish a kid was the currency. So the guy pulls up and I say he's in his mid twenties and speaks passable English. So we had a half hour together. And I just peppered in with a whole bunch of questions, how long you've been doing this? Why are you doing it? And then once you get people talking, as you know, because you make a, you know, as part of your vocation there, it's get people talking. Once you get people talking and they feel that you're generally interested in what they have to say, that kind of can open the floodgates often. So I had this marvelous political conversation with this fellow, you know, young Laotian who had spent some time outside of Laom studying IT in China. His dream is to come to Western Europe and work in IT, maybe even Switzerland. And he didn't say come to the US then, did he? No, he didn't because the United States is more of a stretch, I think, for a lot of people, whereas maybe Europe is a bit, plus he had a good friend of his who ended up immigrating to Holland to the Netherlands. So that kind of set the example for him. So, you know, and it's this dynamic where somebody divulges something and then you see, well, how far can I go in posing questions? And, you know, this is a dominant monopolistic Communist Party country here, one of five in the world, including China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and the Democratic, the DPRK Democratic People's Republic of Korea. So, you know, people have to be careful what they say here. But I, you know, I finally asked the questions you're pulling up the station.  And what's your take on in your lifetime? Will there be a pluralistic competition for power here? In other words, more than just the Communist Party, because this is when you've got a Communist Party, this monopoly control, there are no other choices, right? And he said, yes, I do, I do. I think over time that there will be more choices here. So, you know, long-winded answer to your question. I just, I love to talk to people. I love to pose questions to people. I reached out to one of the political econ officers that our American Embassy in Vietnam had a marvelous guy. We spoke for about an hour and a half at a cafe in Vietnam Friday of last week. You know, and this is, you know, the Foreign Service's finest, because, you know, it's not easy to get in the Foreign Service.  So, I always take advantage when I can to meet up with people at our embassy. And I learned so very much. And so, whether it's a business owner, whether it's the person behind the desk at the hotel, whether it's the person driving the local cab, I just take an opportunity to kind of drill down a little bit. And sometimes they're more forthcoming or less forthcoming, but I always, always, always learn. And it just enriches my understanding of the people, the place, the culture, and so forth. It's a challenge, isn't it?  They're not going to talk to you about some things. And so, you have to connect the dots, don't you?  So what did you learn about the place? I mean, I totally appreciate the fact that you're always learning. This is great, this is my model also, I try so hard, but we just keep going and learning more.  So querying, you know, what's going on over there? How do you feel it's doing? How do you feel, you know, the politics, the social structure, the economics, how does it feel? Oh, that's such a juicy question, Jay, and I could do a seminar on it, so let me encapsulate it as best I can. So a little bit of background. Laos is the smallest of the mainland, Southeast Asian countries. It is completely landlocked. It is a country of about a million people. To the north is the People's Republic of China, which is 1.4 billion people. To their east is Vietnam, which is going on 100 million people. To their west along border, they share with Thailand, that is somewhere over 75 million people. So Laos, by comparison, is tiny. It doesn't have the type of access to the open ocean as China does, as Vietnam does, as Thailand does, and they have to find their way, obviously, of being scrunched by giants. That's essentially their challenge. So they have become, from what I can tell, pretty good at hedging. They're good hedgers. The Vietnamese are also extremely good hedgers. The Thais are very good hedgers. Cambodia is so unwrapped in the family dynasty of one who has been there for decades and decades and kind of the emperor there for all purposes. So Laos is particularly challenged by being scrunched by giants. And what they have done is not clearly the Chinese are dominant for a whole bunch of reasons. And who else would have pointed up $6 billion for a high-speed train from their northern frontier town of Bo Tan all the way down to Vien Tien, which the Chinese hope will lead to the Thais going high-speed rail all the way from the south of Bangkok, which is the Gulf of Thailand, all the way from the Gulf of Bangkok through Bangkok up to northern Thailand across the Mekong and then connecting with the train in Vien Tien. They very much want that.  And if they see it in their benefit, they will. But there's not an internal champion as of late, as I can tell in Thailand who's willing to go in that direction anytime in the near future, although they talk about it. So Laos has become, I think, very good at not manipulating, but taking advantage of being a small player in a neighborhood that has many, many much larger players and people who've been in other countries can be bullies. And they leverage their position with the U.S., with the Europeans, and with other countries. And interestingly, because I read the Laos press every single day, the coverage regarding the United States is by and large quite positive, is quite positive, which is really striking because on some level, because of course, what I call the gift that keeps on giving, and this is, of course, putting it in a weird spin. But I mean, Laos was bombed more per capita than any other country in the face of the earth throughout history with the U.S. bombing from 1964 to 1973. And people continue to die each and every year from the UXO, whether it's children playing with so-called bombies, which are little antipersonnel bombs, the size of an orange, or whether it's a farmer in his or her field tapping at the ground and hitting a mine. Is Agent Orange there? No, there wasn't. As far as I know, there wasn't a whole lot of chemical defoliants here in Vietnam. I mean, excuse me, Laos. It was just bombing, bombing, bombing, bombing, bombing. So fortunately, and the United States to its credit continues to spend millions of dollars a year to help the Laosian government de-mine and deal with the UXOs. So I guess kind of in summary, Jay, the government in Vietnam has been very good at being able to accept proffered aid and assistance and grants from the Japanese, from the Koreans, from the Swiss, from other Europeans, from the EU, and from the Americans. So in a sense that helps them to offset the overwhelming presence of China and as well a strong presence of Vietnam. So who am I to judge, but I'll judge nonetheless. They seem to be doing a pretty reasonable job of accepting assistance and not kissing any particular party off because the money keeps on flowing and they're very, very keen on continuing their development path and just kind of as a sidebar note. When I was here in the early 2020, right before COVID, one dollar got you about 9,000, 9,000 kip. Okay, right now the exchange rate is one dollar will get you about 17,000 kip. So the currency is devalued tremendously and that has put a terrible, terrible squeeze in the Laos economy because they need hard currency to buy fertilizer, they need hard courtesy to buy petroleum products and 40% of the country is still involved in farming. Now you don't see that in the glitzy mulls of VN10. You don't see that walking in the pristine peninsula like in the Mekong here in the Lankabong, but there are still a large large portion of Laos and people who are really, really struggling because things have become so expensive and tourism is only now starting to kind of pick back up if they reopened earlier this year based on COVID clobbering them. So you suggested earlier that the government was stable and I take from that that the government doesn't get in the way of the development of the country and further that there is public safety. All that true? Public safety I would say, you know, comparatively speaking, you know, compared to the United States, yes it's safe. As far as the government, I mean, and I'm not going too far past the line here because it's discovered in the Laos press as well, there is a significant corruption problem here and I'm being understated when I say that. For example, if you take a van or Tukduk outside of downtown VN10 and you go to a place called Budapark, which I've actually been to, it's kind of cool, it's right by the, it's on the Mekong and across the Mekong you can see Rhode Island. So you cruise along the Mekong there in your van going to Budapark and you see on the riverside of the road, you see these palatial and I mean palatial mansions, huge, monstrous estates that are along the Mekong there and I was asking my driver yesterday as we were going to the station of VN10, I said, you know those mansions I see along going to Budapark and he started to chuckle because I think he knew what the question was going to be. He said, who lives in those mansions? And he just kind of shook his head and he said, dark money, dark money. Really interesting. Oh wow. And you see Ferraris, you'll see, you know, a $300,000 red spank in new Ferrari in the streets of VN10. I can tell you there's nowhere close to VN10 to wind out a Ferrari but you have these gaudy statuses of richness, of riches where that, you know, the cost of a Ferrari is more than a village will make an entire year. So there is a disparity between a very small number of haves and a whole lot of have-nots and even the loud government and the party are aware of the corruption and they make some efforts to do it. But you know, that is one of my biggest beefs, Jay, regarding one-party monopolistic control in any society, and it just so happens, you know, that I'm in a one rule here that's ruled by Dominic Congress Party, is that there is a lack of accountability. There's not a judiciary that's independent that can check. There's not a competing power that's independent that can check.  And it's certainly the case here. Let me shift now, Marco. I'd like to go up closer to the 50,000-foot level and ask you about how things are doing vis-à-vis interaction with the world. I know it's not the same as looking at how India, for example, interacts or Africa or Europe, of course. But I wonder, you know, for example, how have they been affected by COVID? How are they being affected right now when I'm by COVID? That's my first question. What is happening in terms of public health? On terms of public health, well, what comes to mind immediately is that there's only a small minority of people who are wearing masks. I found that to be, well, public's places certainly, people are very, very, very largely maskless, even in the train yesterday and on the station to be in Chen, people were maskless. So there seems to be, I'd say the overall vibe that COVID is in the rearview mirror. That said, as I walk around downtown Luang Prabang, compared to when I was here early 2020, more storefronts are closed, there are more for sale signs. I speak to business people wherever I go. I've gotten to know the manager of my favorite cafe here is called Zurich Bakery and cafes. It's actually a Thai outfit. So the manager there is talking. He's Thai, but he's the manager there, Zurich Cafe here in Luang Prabang. So I make it a point, businessman to businessman, how are things going? What's it been like for you? What's the revenue? I ended up asking too many nosy questions about what percentage are you down. But they're really quite forthcoming as far as it's still a struggle. And so tourism has yet to come back anywhere close to full strength. And it's still tough. And I haven't gone to the other side of the river yet, which I've done before.  And I did it when I was here last. You can go by foot, you can go by bicycle, you can take your scooter, you can take your car. And I plan to do it in the days to come. And it's truly kind of another worldly experience because on the other side of the river is more the real Laos in this area, which is very rural. Luang Prabang is the UNESCO city. It is very well kept up where the tourists go. It's very, very impressive.  So how are the people doing that they're still struggling? And there is a substantial concern that it's going to be a long slog back for many people in Laos. So COVID is still, you're not reading, I'm not reading about people hospitalized or by case counts going up, but it is slow and it's going to be a long recovery. Now that said, you know, one of the big wildcards here is one of the Chinese going to open up their borders for more widespread travel because this train line starts in the southern city of Kunming and Yunnan province. And there will not if but when there will be many, many Chinese who will be traveling from southern China and into Laos, into Luang Prabang. And that's going to have effects on the economy, on the culture, on the vibe of the place that there will be substantial. Let's talk about the Chinese. You mentioned about the high speed train and all that and the six billion dollars. Wouldn't it be nice if Hawaii had that kind of money and that kind of train? I probably didn't take all that long to build the train, but that's not our show today. So the question is, is this part of the one Belt One Road initiative? Is this maybe a debt trap between China and Laos? Yes, to your first question, definitely part of one Belt One Road debt trap, desperately loaded because the Chinese will swear up and down that no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that. But I mean truth be told, according to the World Bank analysts and according to other what I'll call recently objective analysts, the debt ratio compared to income and GDP of Laos is amongst the highest in the world. I don't know if you've been reading over the months which have been happening in Sri Lanka. I mean, that has been an example of what I'll call pretty much a failed state. And they went in deep with the Chinese regarding a port there. So the Laos China Railway LCR is called is 70% owned by the Chinese, 30% owned by Laos. So I'm not privy to the balance sheets or the spreadsheets as far as how they're going to make up on their investment. But I mean, $6 billion is a lot of money. And there is, like I said, a lot of concern on the part of many economists that Laos and the precarious position given the small size of its economy, and given the billions involved in terms of the debt, it has to serve us. But the Chinese have made very, very clear, and I take them with their word for this when they say it, they're not going to let Laos slip into some type of critical state when it comes to debt that would not serve their interests. No, there's all kinds of gradient between the two extremes. I mean, you can take over and you can not take over, you can let them coast on the loan. Or you can renegotiate the loan, change the terms, maybe change the duration of it. So I don't have an idea about what China has in mind here. I don't know if China has an idea about what China has in mind. But it seems to me that as we go forward on Belt Road, Belt Road, there's always the possibility of a debt trap, and debt traps come in many flavors and many gradations. So it would seem to me just like other countries in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka especially, Laos is exposed to the possibility. You said their economy is not doing that well, but they may not be able to get the cash together to pay whatever the freight is on that loan. Well, they're definitely in a more precarious position than their neighbors simply because of their size, as I mentioned, and because they have less means. The Vietnamese see Laos also very important to their national interests. They share a very, very long border with Laos. Their two communist parties are very buddy-buddy. So the Chinese are, excuse me, the Vietnamese are doing their best to make sure that their brothers and sisters in the N10 understand how important they are to Hanoi. And it's not to the interest of Hanoi to allow Laos to spend too far into the Chinese orbit. So there's a very interesting dynamic between the three parties, and interesting.  My take on Laos is that they seem to know what they're doing, corruption aside, which should not be minimized. And they know how to work with suitors, whether it's the Thais, the Vietnamese, the Europeans, the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Americans. They seem to be pretty good at playing the game of not so much putting their hand out, but thankfully receiving what is being provided by other much larger powers.  And he took a stroll along the one for Banglung and Mekong. And there is their number of coconut, cold coconut stands, and smoothie stands along the Mekong. And he stopped at one, of course, surrounded by a security detail. And he took a coconut, you know, that was pristine, right? It wasn't going to be poising, because no one knew he was going to stop and get a coconut. So they take a coconut out of a greatly cooler. They slice off the top and they put a straw. And so this particular coconut stand, of course, the owner was very pleased and took a number of photos of showing Barack Obama with his coconut, you know, sipping coconut water. So it's just interesting that, you know, Obama in the last year of his office, he chose to focus on or reiterate the American interest in staying active and engaged in the region. And I can't, I can't say enough about how important that is. And when I spoke to my friend, my new friend at the embassy and the intent, said, you know, what's most important out here in the city of the U.S. has to continue to show up. We have to continue to show up. And we did over the past month or so, we had President Biden, who was at the ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We had Biden, who was in the G20 in Bali in Indonesia. Also, after he went to Phnom Penh, we had Vice President Kamala Harris, who was at the APEC, Asian Pacific Economic Community, who in Bangkok. So, I mean, this is really, really, really important because, I mean, doesn't take somebody with a PhD in political science to observe that during the Trump years, you know, with this America first business, you know, many of our relationships with key allies kind of took a big hit. So regardless of who succeeds, Joe Biden, you know, it's so important, in my opinion, that the U.S. continue to continue to continue to be a very visible presence here. And it is a very, vitally strategic region, not just Nile and Southeast Asia, but the ocean-based Southeast Asian states of ASEAN. So, you know, and there's nobody, you know, I don't want to sound too much like a headstrong American, but there's nobody else that can offset the Chinese the way the Americans can in the region. So it's absolutely critical, in my opinion, that we stay very active, very engaged here, and not just parachute people in, but that because, you know, I don't want to generalize too much, but Asians are very big on face. They know full well the rank of the people who the host country or the other country send over. So it's a big deal when a President or Vice President comes. Well, good. We're finally realizing the pivot. You know, it was in suspense during the Trump years, or worse, and now we're getting back to it. I agree totally. It's very important. And you never know. You never know where it pops up. You know, for example, I think our diplomatic relations with India could have been better. And if they had been better, India wouldn't be fighting with Russia now because of the oil. And that goes for every country in, you know, in the region. We want to be friendly with them. We want to be somebody reliable, right, on into the future.  Because they have to be nimble. They have to be able to, you know, change their relationships as necessary to protect themselves, to, you know, get the best deal to save themselves. And the question is, you know, how, what kind of view of America do they have? What kind of view of Russia do they have? I mean, China's right there at the border. Gotta be careful. And right now China is in a bit of a turmoil. I'm not sure how that affects everything. But I would say that all of those countries have got to be clever. India has been clever. And that's a good example of the necessity, the need for cleverness. And so where does the law fit? Where are the other countries in Southeast Asia fit? How do they see the US over the long term? How do they see Russia, China, India? How do they, how do they, what's their true loyalty? Jay, I could, I could give an lecture on each country's trilateral or multilateral diplomacy. So to try to encapsulate the whole region, you know, as an academic in a few minutes, that's, that's too much of a challenge for me. But I'm just gonna maybe use Vietnam as an example. They made very clear, and it's very explicit that they're not, they're not going to pursue alliances with anyone that would possibly alienate some other country. So they essentially, they want to be friends with all and allied with nobody. So I think they in particular have played a very, very good and strategic game to cultivating relations. I mean, they can't get away from the fact that they share a border with, with the People's Republic of China. And they can't get away from the history that so much of Vietnam for so long was dominated by, by the Chinese to the north. They can't get there. They're acutely aware of that. So they don't want to have a shooting where it's happened in 79. So, and the relations between the Chinese and the Vietnamese economically is huge. But at the same time, they realize, well, we're close to China, many more ways than one, but we have to be very careful. So they are very strategic in maintaining relations with the Americans and with Moscow. So two other major players. So I think they've, they've done a pretty darn good job. And I think, you know, my take is that especially the relationship between Hanoi and Washington will continue to be of great, great importance to the Vietnamese, not least of which because we can offset, like no one else can, Chinese projection of power in the South China to see what the Vietnamese call the East Sea. So I think kind of in summary form, each country is able to leverage the assets it has to, to try to maintain good relations with other foreign powers and not, not become too, too dominated by any one particular, despite the fact that let's say in Laos and Cambodia, especially the Chinese presence is so strong in terms of investment money in terms of just the Chinese presence in general. So I think they're all good hedgers. They're out, they all have their own intrinsic challenges based on their geography, based on the politics. But I think overall, they're all fairly good hedgers. You know, if you look at the old Hong Kong, look at Singapore, and to a large extent China itself, you saw that their young people, their students were traveling around the world and educating themselves. Sometimes they'd stay at their student destinations. And but many times they'd come back and there was an exchange, call it an educational business exchange going on. And that was good for everybody. And, you know, some countries in Southeast Asia, I'm sure have more of it. Some have less of it. But it interacts with my question, which I always ask you and anyone who is in Southeast Asia, what is the future leadership for the entire region? I mean, they would be so much stronger as Latin America would be if they could get together and not be distracted with small issues and talk like a continent, you know, same thing with Africa. And I'm hoping in our lifetimes or maybe soon thereafter that we see this happen. But every time I ask anybody about Southeast Asia, it's never going to happen, never, never, never. But, you know, there's a linkage between that possibility and this educational exchange I'm talking about. And I wonder if you see, you meet people who have been involved in that exchange, who've gone to Europe or the US or really anywhere to, you know, do outreach and to learn about business and global affairs and then come back to Laos or any other place in South in Southeast Asia and say, look, I can show you a few things. I can show you how to deal with the Chinese. I can show you how to do high finance. I can show you how to make a better country. And furthermore, I can show you about diplomacy with other countries in the region because ultimately I want to be a leader and, you know, to emerge as a national leadership in the area. Do you see any of that? That's a great point. I haven't taken much of a dive into that, honestly, Jay. At the same time, I see it as enormously important and unfortunately there's a segment of the American population in Washington that sees spending money to bring young people from overseas into the US for education as being some type of foreign aid. And we need to keep the money at home type of attitude. And I find that to be very, very short-sighted and very lamentable. And again, I haven't looked at the data or the numbers as far as what the US, the idea has been spending or what the United States government is spending in general. But I mean, if I were king or at least the prince in this regard, you know, I would dramatically increase the amount of US dollars to many countries in the world, especially strategic countries in the world like Southeast Asia to encourage young, Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodians, people from Myanmar, Thais to come to the US to study because that is an incredibly important investment on so many levels. And my impression is that that has taken a hit over the past years is because as the United States has become at least a large segment of the United States, substantial segments become more insular. And more kind of xenophobic. So I see that as incredibly important. I mean, to go back to kind of part of your question. Now, there is this thing called ASEAN, which is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, right? It's made up of 10 countries, five here in the mainland. And then you have Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Brunei. And they get together regularly. And, you know, there's a lot of weakness in ASEAN in terms of being a proactive body. It is limited in terms of its power. And it's being really, it's really being tested now, because one of its members, Myanmar, is, you know, the government, the military there, of course, over through Aung San Suu Kyi February of last year. So there's an act of war going on in an ASEAN state. And, you know, I read this stuff really regularly. And even ASEAN is getting rather peeved with Myanmar. And typically, you know, it's just bad form to get peeved with an ASEAN member and call out an ASEAN member. Now, in terms of sending a peacekeeping force or trying to do a more muscled approach to making peace there, that is not, that is not ASEAN. But right now, ASEAN is as good as it gets in terms of a multilateral, multination forum and organization. Now, is that going to morph at some point to a European Union? I mean, well, I look at the EU these days, you know, that the Brits pulled out and it's fractured more now than it has been for a long, long time. So, you know, the move towards supra, SUPRA, supra nationality seems to be kind of on the wane these days. And I don't see ASEAN going in that direction any time soon because there seems to be, you know, that the trend is in the opposite direction in terms of greater fragmentation. But I mean, ASEAN is as good as it gets right now. And it's better than nothing because what was the Churchill said that Jha Jha is better than war war. So, I don't know, I'm just kind of rambling here. Well, you know, talk about trends, you know, we're all following the trends around the country to autocracy and away from democracy and representative government. And it seems to be inexorable. I mean, we're going to have a good day and a bad day, a good news day, a bad news day. But at the end of the week to year, I think the trend is visible. And it's sort of autocracy, it's called strong man leadership. And it's away from democracy, sad to say, not only in the U.S., although it is happening in the U.S., but other places. What's the trend in Southeast Asia? What's the trend in law? We have, you know, representative government. Do we have what we can call democracy? Do we have civil liberties and Bill of Rights? What do we have? Well, kind of one by one, I mean, let's look at Vietnam, Vietnam monopolistic communist party. From my take is that the screws are being tightened in some degrees in Vietnam in terms of internet control.  So there is an excellent source of information about Asia called the Diplomat. The Diplomat is thediplomat.com. And it's a pay for service. I pay 60 bucks a year. And it's a great, great source of information for across Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, all across Asia. And I was in Hanoi a couple of weeks ago, and I was at that website. And I wanted to, I clicked on an analytical piece on Vietnam and China. Guess what happened? It wouldn't load up. I thought, oh, that's strange. So I went back to the previous page, the homepage of the diplomat. Oh, it's fine. I went back to the piece on China and Vietnam. I wouldn't load up. And I thought, oh, well, I happened to travel with a VPN, virtual private network. So I thought, well, I'm going to do a little experiment. So I switched to my VPN, and it loaded up. And then I went to the piece on Vietnam and China. Guess what? It opened up. No problem. So that gave me a personal, firsthand experience of censorship in Vietnam. So I see the overall trend in Vietnam is either static or some decline in terms of greater freedom. I mean, as far as I can tell, there's no internet censorship. I've never come across a page that has been blocked. So that's to their credit. Thailand, no censorship. But, you know, they've been controlled by a military political, what it is, the general turn Prime Minister, who's now been in power for eight years and who apparently plans to run for reelection next year. So, you know, Thailand has this dance that they do between quasi democracy and coup after coup after coup after coup. There have been gosh, dozens of coups in the past 32 years since the constitutional or since the actual monarchy was abolished in 1932. So, you know, what's the prospects from true democracy in Thailand? I'd say quite minimal because the military is so strong. You have the monarchy and you have the business class. Cambodia has been ruled by a fiefdom of Hoon Sen since the 1980s. And his, what does he call it? It's the PP party. It's the People's Progress Party. I may be missing out on the acronym, but I mean, for all intents and purposes, there is no political competition in Cambodia. It's Hoon Sen, Hoon Sen, Hoon Sen, Hoon Sen, and his family. The guy's been in power for 30 years and he's grooming his son Hoon Manette to take over for him at some point. And Hoon Manette interestingly is a graduate from the U.S. Army Academy at West Point to go figure. And then where else do we have Myanmar as a mess? You know, people are dying trying to fight a dictatorial, brutal government. So, the prospects for democracy in Myanmar doesn't look promising. Am I leaving anybody out? So, I mean, the prospects for democracy here in the region are not good. And Laos finally, you know, despite the optimism of my local driver yesterday, I think it's unlikely that any time in the near future, there's going to be a real political competition here in Laos. So, you know, this is going to be what it's going to be and each country will develop the best of its ability in regard. I mean, this is real politic, you know, to the end's degree. The United States has to, of course, take into account that much of the world is non-democratic. A growing part of the world is non-democratic. And we have real and tangible security interests, national security interests, national interests that we're large here that we have to continue to cultivate and protect in a very challenging environment where there are some major players here that we've just assumed we get in all our boats and our airplanes and we go back across the Pacific and we allow other powers here to become even more dominant than they already are. I have one last point I'd like to discuss with you. We only were over. We only have a minute to discuss it. And it's this. A few days ago, we had a show with a linguistics professor from Summonaut as it were. Very interesting guy. And he speaks a number of languages and why? Why? What is it about the language that interests you so much? Is it that you like the standard of the language? Do you like looking at the culture of the place through the language or with the language? And what we concluded in this discussion back and forth was that all of that, yes, of course, but learning another language and learning another culture helps you understand yourself because you have the sounding board. It's a cultural sounding board. And I suggest that although you are an academic and you are always engaged in learning and you learn so much, but there you are in law and it's more than that. You have a sounding board. You go to these places all over Southeast Asia and you're learning as much about yourself as you are about them. Am I right? Oh, absolutely. Jay, I think you put it beautifully. Just beautifully that it's yes, it's an incredibly powerful and it's an understanding powerful interactive experience and you just can't beat. You can't be being on the ground and talking, walking and talking and breathing and watching people when I was at this mall in the Enchants just a couple of days ago. I thought this could be a mall in Bangkok. It could be a mall in Hilo and Honolulu in New York. And it seems to almost be that it's a mark of modernity that's a developing country to kind of say, hey, we've made it. We've made it. One of those marks of modernity is to have a modern multi-level shopping mall. And I'm not into shopping all that much, but I'm into people watching. So I went to this. It's called the Parkson Mall, P-A-R-K-S-O-N. And I think it's the most modern mall probably in all of Laos. And I went there twice, not because I needed to go shopping twice, but just because it's a fascinating place to watch people. And then I'll just kind of leave you with this. One of the things that struck me as I thought about it is there weren't many older people. And I consider myself an older person. There weren't that many older people walking about. I'm talking about people in their 60s, 70s and 80s. This was predominantly teenagers and people their 20s, 30s and 40s. And I thought, why is that? Why is that? We're at the older people. Do they not have the desire to go to the mall? Do they not have the money to go to the mall? I don't know. But I just was kind of struck by the mall seems to be a phenomenon and a magnet for younger people. Whereas the older folks, I don't know why. I just thought of that in the past day or so. So I don't have any answer for it. So this is kind of a puzzler for me. Well, it's as much a statement about the future as it is about the present. Well, thank you, Marco. Marco Mangelsdorf for joining us on LAO. We really appreciate your getting on with us and appreciate all your lessons. Thanks so much. I look forward to talking with you again. Well, it's been a pleasure to reconnect with you, my friend Jay. So let's I'm going to be allowed for another month or so. So I hope we can connect again and continue the conversation. So mahalo nui. Okay. So and say goodbye in the local language, would you? Oh, goodness. I think instead I'll just say krup chai lalai, which is thank you very much. I knew you'd say that. Thank you, Marco. Aloha. Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.


What do you think are the biggest threats, most important threats to nowadays civilization? I think the biggest threat to our civilization is very much tied in my judgment to the infinity of human desire that hasn't found its proper resting place. And so kind of the restlessness that characterizes us in search for transcendence is transposed onto created realities and we inevitably end up in competitive relationships investing the works of our hands and our own lives with the kinds of meaning that they cannot deliver. I think unless we learn that human beings cannot live by bread alone we really cannot understand sufficiently human beings, we really cannot save, so to speak, human beings. We are meeting here at a time that in Cleveland, Ohio is the convention of the Republican Party where people are yelling that the political opponent of the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, should be locked up and more of that kind of things. What's your take on the political situation here in America coming from Croatia and knowing a little bit about civil wars? Well, I'm quite fearful about the situation. I recently spoke in Munich and together for a Europe gathering of a variety of Christian communities and I opened my speech on the square in Munich with a comment that the situation in Europe today reminds me a bit of the situation just before the Civil War in form of Yugoslavia where you had this enraged sense of rage that has amassed itself and was highly oppositional claiming its own identities and wanting to move apart, assert itself over against others. Very little interest in deliberation about common future. What one finds in many places in Europe today, what one finds certainly at the Republican Convention right now is a red hot anger that is highly oppositional, that knows how to destroy the opponent and therefore knows also how to build tall walls but does not know how to build bridges. As it turns out, we live in a highly pluralistic society and without ability to build bridges we are unable to survive and I'm afraid that in situation which we find ourselves today this heightening of rhetoric, of angry rhetoric, of destroying the enemy will in fact undermine our ability to live together as a nation, highly, highly polarized. We need to heal the nation rather than build further walls that separate us.


proud parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, children, and other family and friends of our graduates, welcome to the University of California at Berkeley. Welcome to the many dedicated faculty, staff, alumni, and honored guests who are with us today, including our keynote speaker, Robert D. Haas from the class of 1964. And welcome especially to those who we have gathered here to celebrate the members of UC Berkeley's extraordinary graduating class of 2019. Sitting here, you all are no doubt experiencing a mix of relief, elation, wonder, and apprehension. But in addition to all that, I hope you hold a keen sense of accomplishment, for you have completed a demanding course of study at the nation's best public university. Today, you join and renew the long line of alumni reaching back 151 years whose lives are forever intertwined with this institution. Today, you become one of nearly 500,000 living alumni worldwide who can proudly call themselves UC Berkeley graduates. The entire Cal community is proud of your achievements, but today no one is prouder than the family and friends who have stood by you with their love, understanding, and support. Let's have a round of applause for them. Members of the class of 2019, you have come through Berkeley at a historic time in our nation and our world. Your class saw the strongest woman presidential candidate in U.S. history ultimately delivered a stunning defeat in an election that upended American politics. You've since witnessed the most pitched political battles we've seen in decades over taxes, Supreme Court nominees, election meddling trade deals, a border wall, and even impeachment. In your time here, the national conversation has been framed by urgent and probing issues of race, class, justice, and equality as the Black Lives Matter movement challenged institutional racism and law enforcement as the Me Too movement toppled abusive men in positions of power and as a new and more diverse slate of elected officials took office. While you've been on campus, concerns about cybersecurity, changes in the media we consume, and questions about privacy rights have asked us to reconsider our relationships to now ubiquitous new technology and modes of communication. While at Berkeley, you saw people and nations spring into action it to respond to humanitarian crises in Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen, yet also saw disdain for immigrants and refugees take hold here and around the world. You saw acts of violence that renewed disputes about gun rights. You saw natural disasters in South Asia, Puerto Rico, California, and the Amazon and the discussions about wealth, power, and responsibility that accompanied them. You saw regime change in the UK over Brexit. You saw protests in the streets of Hong Kong. You saw both setbacks and step forward in our global response to the existential threat of climate change. UC Berkeley has always been part of the public sphere, and many of these events touched our campus or had analogs here. It's a defining quality of our students that you do not sit idly by when you see struggle or injustice, whether in the larger world or locally. You reflect on the issues at hand, consider solutions, and confront problems in all their complexity and with all their deep and enduring difficulty. As surely as this institution has left its mark on you, then you have left your mark on Berkeley. For when you saw the need for change here, you seized it, and our university is richer and better for your efforts. It was your classmates in the Black Student Union who are behind the creation of the Fannie Lou Hamer Resource Center and the ones who helped craft the African American Initiative, which is now working to improve our campus climate for Black students. It was the work of survivors and student advocates among you who helped this university look at how it handles cases of sexual assault and harassment and make improvements. You modeled strength and resolve in support of our undocumented student population as they were villainized by national leaders. You pushed our institution to put sustainability at the fore, making us the largest university to commit to 100 percent clean energy. Your advocacy in Sacramento helped legislators better value our institution. Your work through bridges, recruitment and retention centers helped bring in and bring up those from backgrounds historically underrepresented on college campuses, and your organizing helped create the Berkeley Basic Needs Center. You helped us learn how we might reconcile a commitment to community alongside a belief in the university's role as a public forum, open even to viewpoints we might find abhorrent. And you joined us in efforts to use dialogue, not violence, to bridge the partisan divide. I do not believe that Berkeley is a bubble, as it is often called, but I do feel that in this campus we share a small and bounded world that each of us can influence, shape and make different by what we do and say, and you have been not been shy to do so. Now on the cusp of life after college, a phrase I always imagine in all caps, you enter a world that is both full of incredible possibility as well as rife with intractable problems, problems that are pervasive, that have many dimensions, that span national borders, that don't care about partisan lines. But I know you will not retreat from those challenges.  Thank you for working in partnership to help Berkeley become the place we wish it to be, and welcome to the next chapter of your lives. May the education you've received here serve not just yourselves, but your society well. May your years ahead be richly rewarding and fulfilling, and may you enjoy much happiness. The world is now yours to shape. Make it a place of grace, justice and beauty. Good luck and go Bears.