Hi, I'm Dexter Griff from the popular web series Red vs. Blue. And I'm Simmons from the same show. And Ahoy! It is I! Loveable Caboose! Here also as well. Today the three of us are going to be talking about the ever-evolving world of modern tech. I guess techmo I got a- Hey Caboose, you know what would be super helpful? If you left and went to the store and grabbed the most technically impressive thing you can find. Field trip? Ah, field trip! Yes, sir! New technology may seem scary, but we assure you there's no need to fear. Take it from us.   Did somebody buzz my pager? I was busy trying to find a cure for polio! And listening to Duran Duran albums on cassette!  One of the ways human evolution has officially hit its peak is transportation. Taxis have been entirely replaced by rideshare apps. Which are totally not the same thing. Want to get around on your own? Well, some billionaire dropped pay by the mile scooters in pretty much every major city overnight and for some reason, no one seems to care. Then before long, even more pointless modes of transportation started showing up like bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, unicycles, even cars! That's right! If you see a car you like on the side of the road, you can just hop in and take it. It's pretty much just full on Grand Theft Auto at this point. But Griff, what if you can't legally drive because of crippling windshield wiper anxiety? It's a real thing. Well, my phobia riddled co-worker, you'll be happy to know that self-driving cars are right around the corner. Which is good because satellites pretty much have a monopoly on knowing how to get anywhere now anyway. Robot drivers? But aren't those things super dangerous? Oh yeah. For sure. But let's just say you want to get away from it all by staying in away from it all. By far, the best part about the future is that you can get anything delivered straight to your door. You've heard of one-day shipping and same-day shipping, but coming soon, they're even working on previous-day shipping. Oh, sweet. Looks like I'm ordering flip-flops tomorrow. And it doesn't just stop at annoying footwear. You can get literally anything delivered now. I'm talking cheeseburgers, ice cream, 120-ounce ribeye, another 120-ounce ribeye for the surgically-attached second stomach you had dot-give you with superior modern tech. It can all be brought to you with a simple swipe. Surgically-attached stomach? I got a 3 o'clock order for Dexter. Right here.   They will even feed it to you. I'll get the shovel. Social media has also changed a lot in the last few years. Built-in camera apps deliberately blur and warp your face so you think you're much better looking than you actually are. It's subtle, but it's there. In fact, you don't even need to do that one cool thing you do a year to make others feel boring. Now, you can just take a picture on the green screen and BAM! Here I am wine-tasting with Tucker on the moon, or Grimp and I at the top of Everest, and here's me at my totally real wedding to a totally real girl. She lives in Canada.  We've got filters that can totally change your age and gender, like this old man filter. Whoa! I've now too! Back in the day, when we saw Mufasa get trampled by that stampede, we knew it was 100% real! But now, with these darned CGI lines, nothing's real anymore. Even TV's been ruined! Now they just eardrop every episode at once for you to slam through on one of those 50 streaming sites that you need in order to keep up with the one show you actually like!  It's not our fault you have laid on set dementia. Games are on phones! Your fridge knows the weather! Books are now sound! Advertisements are inside of YouTube videos! This episode of Red vs. Blue is brought to you by... No! Hey! Technology sucks! It might look like all sunshine and hand grenades on the surface, but deep below in its molten core is the root of all evil! Work? Dating sites that ask for your height? Subliminal messaging!  Your dyslex! Your fears!  Or worse, woke agents! Using that information to find the perfect product to sell you! That sounds awesome! Who wouldn't want to see ads for things they want? It's about the principle! I don't need some mega-trillionaire in my head telling me what I want! That's PIZO's brain! Even worse, Muskmind! Only I know what I want, and it's never, ever what I actually want! Ahoy again! As requested, I've returned with the best piece of technology! Addressed directly to search! It's... It's perfect! I'll take 12! No! A dozen! And it comes in red! Zuckerberg would've never predicted I wanted that! And so they say that Sarge's heart grew to three sizes that day. Food order for it!   Gotta run! Fourth lunch is here! Grr! Get back here right away! I need something with enough fat content to act as a ballistics gel! Haha! Oh, I can't wait to see what this thing can do! Ad-dust technology is always changing! Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But regardless, we can all agree, it's nothing to fear, but just an inevitable part of life. You know what, Caboose? I had my doubts, but maybe it was a good idea to have you on this PSA. What's a PSA? So! Thanks for checking out that episode of RVB! You can find the playlist to watch more below, or you can go to roostateef.com to check out the latest RT shows. Also, don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit that bell, or leave a comment.


Hello everyone, welcome again to another NARC Survivor Live video, today I just came out here for a walk along this dam, I woke up at 5.30am, jumped in the car and drove a few hours to get here, just been traveling a lot all around the country exploring, been in the jungle for the last three days, seen some cool temples but yes in this one we are going to be talking about when the narcissist realises they lost something real because I've seen that this is something that a lot of people talk about here on YouTube and it's actually something that I do not agree with, no I don't agree with that at all but what I do agree with is the fact that narcissists lack self-awareness, they can't even see or recognise themselves and if one doesn't know themselves how could they possibly know another person which means that no they will never recognise that they lost something real, no they're never going to recognise that, they're never going to see that even though you may want them to see it because you are the type of person who puts your best foot forward, you wear your hearts on your sleeve for the world to see and you want people to know that you are real, you want them to know that you're about something for real, you're really down for it, you're along for the ride but they can't see it, they can't see that you are really about that lifestyle, they couldn't see that at all but what they could see is that it's every man for himself, it's a dog eat dog world and you've got to get people before they get you but you can't be vulnerable, you must protect yourself at all costs and at all times you can never expose yourself because of course if they did that that would put them in a lot of trouble because they've got a lot of skeletons in the closet, there's a lot of things about them that you don't know, you may think that you know everything but that is just the tip of the iceberg, there's a lot more to them, a lot of things that they've done that you may not even be aware of and even the things that you are aware of of course they don't want that to be put out to the world, they don't want the world to know about that and a lot of times they won't even want you to know about that which is why when you do find it out they will get very angry, they will devalue you and they may even discard you and start a smear campaign against you and the reasons why they will do that is because not only do they fear rejection and abandonment but they also fear exposure for someone to recognize that you or I are real, this is what they would have to do, they would have to wear their heart on their sleeve and they would have to come out despite any fears that they may have of rejection and abandonment which are fears that are completely rational at times we all have that even I have those fears sometimes but yes they would have to come out despite those fears of rejection and abandonment and fears of exposure especially that especially their fear of being exposed and everything being revealed they would have to come out despite that and still be vulnerable with everything exposed everything that they've done for the world to see and especially for you to see if they did that not only would they then be real but they would also recognize the realness in you and that's really it that is the formula to become a genuine and authentic person and to be able to recognize the realness in someone else but unfortunately as we know narcissists are not real people and I've said this before I've actually already done a video on that as well the reality is that no narcissists are not real people and I'll tell you why because I know that can come across as quite a an insulting and degrading remark and I completely understand that but just think for a moment in your mind what makes a person human and of course it's our empathy our love and compassion for other people especially in certain situations or circumstances where they may have done something to us because that is the real test of character of whether or not you are real and that is a test that every narcissist will fail because they are not real people and they do lack empathy and compassion so what's going to happen is if you do one thing wrong or anything to show that you are real that you are human they won't be able to receive it and instead they will think that you're out to get them you're trying to hurt them you're trying to manipulate them and then what they're going to do is when they realize that is they're going to turn against you they're going to hold a lot of grudge grudges and resentment against you because the reality is that they are not real they lack the intrinsic human qualities that make us human so by default all they can do is manipulate and deceive you all they can do is lie and future fake and I know some of you you may have been waiting around for your entire life to see this character that they led you to believe that they were that they showed you in the beginning and sometimes they may bring that character back but that character is just a reflection of your virtues and ideals that's all that it is and once you go further into the relationship and they bring that character back it almost becomes like an insult like a condescending remark as though they think you're stupid because by that point even though they bring back the false character you start to realize that it isn't real you start to realize that it's just the reflection of your virtues and ideals and at the same time it's also a figment of your imagination because they can't produce anything real not without having that empathy the ability to share your feelings and understand your experience that is what makes a person real and without that they have no feelings even for themselves they can only feel negative emotions although it may appear at times as though they can be happy they actually can't they can only feed off your energy and that only lasts for a short period of time and that is why they need constant supply they have this addiction to people they always have to be around you or someone else they can never be alone they can never do things like what i'm doing right now walking out in nature alone and as you've probably seen yes i do spend most of my time alone and i enjoy it some of the best times i've had when i'm traveling is when i was alone those were some of the best experiences and of course that does not mean that i was lonely because unlike the narcissist i'm actually not a shell of a person i do have a core i have values and beliefs things that i believe in i have love and compassion to share with you and the world because i do recognize the realness in you yes i recognize that you do have that you do have empathy and that is how you found my content because you were clearly attached to this person you cared a lot about them and that is how you found my videos just on the way back to the car now now as you can see it is very hot out here and i need to get a new umbrella to shelter me from the sun it's very hot but yes unfortunately and i do hate to say this as well but the reality is that they will never be able to recognize that you are real they will never be able to see that and it won't even cross their minds it will never be a constant series of thoughts in their heads to where they're actually thinking or considering that you could be a real separate person that would actually be impossible because they can only ever see you as an extension of them which means that whatever they feel they're going to try and get you to feel the same way whatever they believe they're going to try to get you to believe that so you will only ever be an extension and they will reflect things back to you and you may at times unknowingly reflect things back to them but believe it or not none of this is actually grounded in reality which is why if you could record on video on microphone your interactions with the narcissist and you seem like you're so caught up in something as though as though something is on your mind something is bothering you if you could record that and watch it back you would quickly realize that it actually has nothing to do with you you may believe that something is bothering you in an interaction with the narcissist in an argument and you may feel unworthy and deserving you may feel like you're not good enough but if you could record it and watch it back you would realize that those are actually not even your emotions those emotions do not even belong to you it's just that the narcissist is a black hole they're empty shells of people and that is why they need to see you as an extension of them so that you can feel their emotions for them because they are detached from their own emotions they are shame-based people who are doing everything they can to avoid reflecting on their shame and because of that that's why they will never be real and they will never see you as a real person as well it's never going to happen no matter how much you may think that you love this person you miss them you wish that they would come back i can tell you that it is never going to be a reality because for them to do that they would have to develop self-awareness which if they could do that then they would never have been a narcissist anyway and not only that but they would have to reflect on their shame and they would have to realize that they are at fault and of course as we know they are never going to do that all they're going to do is try to stay attached to you although they never fully attach it's kind of like a half attachment and it also prevents them from being able to detach but they have to see you as this extension of them in the beginning you're this extension of everything that they wish they were and then they started to devalue you and you become you become an extension of everything they can't stand about themselves and that is what they dump on to you you become that emotional trashcan you become like a human toilet where they just dump all their waste onto you they disown parts of themselves that they don't like and assign them to you and in the process of doing that yes they are losing more and more of their undeveloped self and they become more and more dark more and more psychopathic because they're constantly discarding parts of themselves onto people that they see as an extension of them instead of owning those parts and saying okay yes I can see we have a problem here I can see that something is wrong what I'm doing is not right now let me change it let me be better I can tell you that no narcissist is ever going to think like that they're never going to see it as though they have a problem they are never going to reflect and think like that but what they are going to do is bury it deep inside them and if it ever comes out if they ever get triggered they will just dump it onto you and expect you to deal with it they're never going to own these parts of themselves they're never going to do that and people may wonder what is the narcissist's true self what is actually real about them and the thing is the longer that they've been on the surf and the more that they've been surrounded by flying monkeys and enablers the more likely it is that there is actually no self at all and that's why it's like a black hole where no matter what you do no matter how much you try to make them happy it's never good enough they're never satisfied and that should tell you that you are dealing with someone who is a black hole an emotional void someone who will never be happy with you or anyone else they will never get to experience that because they disowned these parts of themselves a long time ago in some cases their true self may be their undeveloped child self and it's kind of like two separate parts you've got the child and then the parent and the parent is meant to protect them the parent is the one who can come across as quite confrontational aggressive and intimidating and then the child is when you reflect something back to them and then they feel they know something is wrong and then they play the victim as a coping and defense mechanism but even these things they're all really just like fabrications they're just things that they have invented in their minds it's not something that's grounded in reality and of course that is the reason why whenever you're around them you feel like you're detaching from yourself as well and as though you're detaching from reality you feel like you can't be yourself around them and the reason why you feel like that is because guess what you can't you can't be yourself around a narcissist and i have done a video on that as well whenever you're around the narcissist you may feel like you're just running outside of your body you're trying to leave your own body behind and then you're just jumping into a character of whatever they whatever you think they want you to be based on what they've shown you in the past or based on what they've said is not good or not right about you because many of you are people pleases you're still just trying to please them and to make them happy thinking that's that's going to fix them but it's not it's just going to make things a lot worse because there is really nothing you can do to fix a narcissist that always going to be that way and there's really nothing you can do about that whenever you are around the narcissist you will never feel like you can be yourself and even when the narcissist is manipulating you they're manipulating your emotions they're love bombing you in those moments you may have felt very happy and excited but even then you weren't being your true self even though you may have thought that you were the reality is that it just triggers this childlike part of you because we all have this we all have this inner child inside of us and when they love bombing you and they're manipulating you you just revert to that child self because your body already knows your gut instinct is telling you even if you're not consciously thinking about it it's telling you that this person is not real or authentic so your brain just won't let you be yourself around them to protect yourself it won't allow you to be or do that you will experience fear and shame and you will run outside of your own body in order to protect yourself which is known as dissociation whenever you're around a narcissist all they can do is manipulate and deceive you and all you can do is dissociate you can only revert to the childlike self or even you may have this parental character yourself which is there to protect you but either way you just can't be yourself around them it's not even a possibility and i'm sure many of you have experienced this already where whenever you're around them you dissociate it's like you're running outside of your body you're not grounded in your own body and mind and it's like you can't even think for yourself as though they have a lot of influence over you they're able to control your thoughts actions and beliefs and that's all that they can really do and because of that because of this obsessive desire and need that they have to manipulate and deceive people because of that no they never recognize that you're real and they never get to experience that real connection where they're able to just let go and be vulnerable and expose everything that they are they will never be able to do that so yes that is the sad reality of it the narcissist will never recognize that you are real they will never see it that way they think everyone is fake everyone is out to get them and that's just the only way that they can see it it's not going to be any different than that and they are not real because as i said they lack that intrinsic quality of what makes a human being which is of course our empathy our ability to share another person's feelings and understand their experience narcissists can't do that they're unable to put themselves in another person's shoes so yes all they will do is manipulate and deceive you and at this point i don't really think they're looking for intimacy or real connection i think they gave up on that a long time ago they believe that love is a weakness love is for fools it's all just about manipulating another person to get whatever you can get and then just get out of there before it all falls on top of you like a house of cards at least that's how they see it they gave up on love a long time ago which is why they can't receive your love and they can't love you they can only give you the illusion the manipulation and deception and that is all you're ever going to get from them they're never going to realize that you are a real person they're only going to see all of these things wrong with you which they have to because that protects and sustains the false narrative which protects and sustains their false character and that's all they really care about that's all they're really concerned with is this image that they present to the world and this image is just designed to it's designed to get you to feel because your feelings lead to beliefs about them and your beliefs are very powerful they have the power to validate their illusion and then they get to live in this delusion as though they're happy and things are going well for them and that's all that it is it's just an a delusion that's powered by your feelings and beliefs that's why whenever you're around them it's all about making you feel happy and delated or making you angry or upset it's never just sitting down and having a normal logical conversation no they can't do that that's something they cannot do because there's no supply in that the supply comes from getting you excited about something or just bringing you down that's the only way that they can get supplying from getting you to feel getting you to believe something but that always comes from emotions it's never based on any logic or reasoning so yes of course it is very sad it's unfortunate but if you're dealing with a real narcissist someone who has high narcissistic traits or mpd we even one of the other class to be disorders these types of people they're never going to see that you are real their fake life depends on them not seeing you as being real and yes they will live this lie they will live this delusion for the rest of their lives and that is never going to go away which as i said yes it is very sad i wish there was an alternative i wish there was a way to give these people the realness and the love that they need but unfortunately this is just a reality of it and it's not just a reality of narcissists it's just a reality of the world today people can't just sit down and be real and authentic they just can't do it if they think of something real and their mind something real is probably having a cool car or just being whatever you see on tv whatever you see in these music videos these days and their minds that's their idea of being real but nothing about that is authentic it's just brainwashing but this is just how it is these days the reality is that very few people in the world actually are real very few people in this world can consistently show empathy i don't know i didn't even have to say that myself i mean we've got 104 live viewers right now i'm sure you've all experienced this on many occasions wherever you are in the world you already know that yes it's extremely rare when you get to experience that's when maybe someone holds the door open for you or they help you to cross the road they just give a kind gesture just like the goodness of their heart as you can see that they're actually not even expecting anything in return at all just doing it for you to make you happy it's very rare it's very rare that you will get to experience something like that in today's world people will always have this hidden agenda where they're plotting they're thinking ahead they're thinking of what they're going to do to you and that's just how it is you just when you're around them you have to revert to this childlike character in order to please them you can't be yourself around them and they can't be themselves around you and when you really know and realize that you'll feel no pain or resentment and let them go it won't even bother you because you'll realize that yes they're just a shell of a person there's no identity there there's nothing for you to attach or hold on to and when you fully heal you will realize that you will recognize it but if you did not attach to them properly after you've healed then that just shows there was nothing for you to attach to which means that you will be able to easily detach from them because you recognize that yes they are fake and yes of course that is why certain content certain videos on youtube or other social media are so popular because we manage to gather like-minded people who actually do have empathy and compassion for other people and they are attached to people so yes this content does manage to generate real people which is why of course it's very important to guide all of us in the right direction away from any form of manipulation or deception as I've always said I do not advise anyone to engage in that because by doing that yes you will be abandoning and disowning certain parts of yourself and just becoming a shell of a person yourself which of course is not what I want to happen to you I want you to go on and continue desire love and connection with other people and by doing that yes you will become the best version of yourself and you will motivate and inspire other people other people to become the same which of course is what I want from you but yes we have 97 live viewers right now please give this video a thumbs up down below it will help to support our youtube community and it will get this message out there which of course I hope that it is what we all want and as for the narcissist no they can't do any of that and they are never going to do any of that so that's really it to summarize the video they're not going to recognize that you are real you will never be able to be yourself around them and you will never see any real side of them because despite what they may have led you to believe the reality is there isn't one so yeah that's it let me know your thoughts down in the comment section below share the video and subscribe so that you will then receive the notifications for my future videos and especially when I go live on youtube and if you'd like to book a one-on-one coaching session with me you can do that on my website it is knocksurvivor.co.uk and also check out my instagram as well I've got new pictures and videos of my travels on there every day it is knocksurvivor youtube on instagram other than that that's all I've got to say for this video I just like to thank you all for joining me and as always I will talk to you in another video very


Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. We are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum, and I'm Doug O'Keefe, your host. I produce these chats along with Christina Court and Mistress Joanne Gatti. We hope we are showing this live on Facebook tonight, but we're not sure yet, and I really don't know. We're going to hope that that's the case as well. But we are recording this for posterity. What we intend to have happen here this evening is an hour-long or so chat followed by audience questions. We will not film the audience, so you can ask whatever it is you'd like to ask, and that's usually when some of the best questions will come up quite frankly. But I'd really like to take a moment to thank an extraordinary lady. Ms. Kendra, you were the first event producer to welcome the chats at your event. I had been doing these in Chicago, and you were the first person to welcome me to your event. These have been an integral and very successful part of GLLA since 2009, and I thank you. Personally thank you. Without further ado, I would like to thank GLLA. I would like to thank Carlos for all of his hard work. And we'll go ahead and we'll begin the chat. Okay? All right. Oh, and I have to say something just because, but Ms. Kendra was so concerned no one would come. Look at this. There have to be 50 people or more here, so including, may I say, Ms. Kendra's parents right here. Yes. Relax. I'll be gentle. Thank you. Well, there was some significance to the music that was being played this evening. What exactly was that? Well, it was ACDC, which is my favorite group ever. I sang in a heavy metal band for a little bit in high school, and I only did ACDC, and I never outgrew it, so. Well, you attended the very first, the inaugural chat with Mr. Marcus. That was in January of 2008 in Chicago. What did you think of that? I loved Mr. Marcus, and I remember we drove up to Chicago to see him, and you reminded me earlier tonight that you could hear me laughing on his taped fireside chat because I did not know Mr. Marcus had done drag years ago and had birds flying out of his hat on stage at once, and I loved hearing all of his stories. He was such an interesting person, and I learned a lot about him that night. For example, what? What I learned about him? Yes. I really didn't know he had been married for whatever reason I didn't know that, so I learned that about him, and I didn't know he did drag, so. What are your thoughts now about being part of the chat program? I do think it's important. I do, and I'm honored that you asked me. I'm nervous. I am. I think it is important part of our history that we document it for our future younger people if they're interested, if they find this interesting. Absolutely. Well, please tell us a little bit about where you grew up and a bit about your family, keeping in mind your parents are here. My dad said he would come up and do the interview for me. I'm pretty out in every way to my parents. I have been for a long time. I was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and we moved to Mississippi when I was young, and then we moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and then we moved to Solana, Tennessee, where my mom and dad grew up, and that's where our family lives in the hills of Tennessee. My family, they're all hillbillies, and I'm very proud of that. I think I've lost a lot of my accent, according to them, that I don't talk right anymore. My mom taught school for 37 years, and my dad still is a minister to this day he has not retired, so I grew up in a very conservative, religious home. The church played a large part in your formative years. How did that, how did it do that? Well, we were at church a lot, and I would always go back to the back and smile and shake everybody's hand with mom and dad at the end of church service, and thank them all for being there, so I got used to meeting a lot of people on a weekly basis. We moved around enough that it was easy for me to make friends, because I knew I needed to make friends, because we might move again, and I always liked having a lot of friends. We were at church three or four times a week, and then sometimes I would get up and practice preaching to people, though nobody was there. I would practice, and I would make the little boys in our neighborhood listen to me in the backyard, and I would preach to them. I got in trouble a little bit for that, because I wouldn't let them get up until I was done. I think mom thought I was being mean to them, but I was just being me. Well, the first time, though, that you ever kissed a boy, you slapped him. What was going on with that? I did. I don't think they know this story. When I was a teenager, I went out with this boy, and I didn't date very much, because we lived in the hills of Tennessee, and I knew that I was not going to stay there when I got 18. I didn't want to get to like anybody or get involved, because I was leaving. I was not going to live there for the rest of my life. I wanted to live in a big city with an international airport. So that was my dream. I know, Mama, I always tell Mama when I was little, we would talk about different countries, and I'd say, I go there, because that was a big thing for me. And she would go, oh, yes, honey, I'm sure you will. But anyway, back to the slapping boy. So at the end of the date, it had been nice and everything. He kissed me, and it felt good, and because it felt good, I slapped him. And that really scared me, because that was the first time I had ever associated those two things together. So I knew that night that I was weird, but different. And I kind of thought maybe I was crazy, and that really scared me, especially at a young age, because why would anybody slap someone if they did something nice for them? OK. How did you first learn about homosexuality? I first learned about homosexuality. 1982 was a turning point for me. 1982 was when I moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and I met a friend at college, and we were all sitting around one night, and she said, I think my boyfriend's cheating on me, and he's going to Nashville, and I don't know what he's doing. And so it was decided that night that I would go with her to Nashville to find out if he was cheating on her. So we get in the car, and we go to Nashville, and on the way up there, she informs me that she thinks he's going to a gay bar, and I didn't know what that was. What age were you at this point? I was 20. And I didn't know what that was. Now, I was a very sheltered life. And so I asked her what it was, and when she told me, I said, oh my god, I've never heard of that. That this was in 1982. So we go to the warehouse in Nashville. It's not there anymore. And we go in, and I'm real excited, because I'm not 21 yet. And they didn't check IDs. And I went in, but I was just going to be there for a minute to see if her boyfriend was there. And I couldn't imagine why her boyfriend was going to be at a gay bar once I knew what it was. So we go in, and we sit down, and there he is. He's on the dance floor with another man. And she immediately gets up and storms over there, and I'm thinking, why are they all dancing together? So while she was up talking to them, these two men in leather come over and sit down and start talking to me. And I immediately liked them. They were so, so nice. And I don't know why they picked me, but we ended up going next door to the chute, which was the leather bar, which was right next door. And when we walked in the door, I knew that Dave and Jeff said, well, she's with us. And I thought, oh, wow, I'm with them. They must be somebody important. And that was the leather bar. So that night, I learned what homosexuality was.  And I didn't know it.  I knew he was always a gentleman. So. Well, how did you become aware of BDSM activities? In 1982, I took a psychosexual adjustment class. And that's where I met my best friend, Jody Burshell. And one of the chapters in there was on, I can't remember the exact wording that it was, but they had a panel of people that came in to talk to the class. And they talked about BDSM. And they're talking about things that I had thought about, but would never tell anybody because I thought it was crazy. And that's how I learned about it. It was from a chapter in a book and about five people in a college class that came and talked. And that's when I realized there were other people out there that had similar thoughts that I had. What sort of things did they present? What BDSM activities did they discuss? They talked about slapping, which is a big thing for me. They talked about spitting on people. They talked about whipping people, tying people up, making people do what they wanted them to do. And I thought, well, a lot of people do that. They make other people do what they want to do, but not in this way. And it was more of a formalized way. And I remember thinking there's a lot of people out there because they were talking about it. And it was so exciting to me, all the different things. I remember those things specifically. And they were really cool clothes. Well, a moment ago, you alluded to two wonderful people that you met and that they took you to the leather bar. They were amazing mentors to you. Please tell us who they were. Who were they to you? Dave and Jeff, I met in Nashville, Tennessee that night at the shoot. And they immediately just accepted me. And I remember noticing that there were never any other women there. But I was OK as long as I was with them. They made me feel very safe. They were two of my best friends. And they taught me a lot about being a good person and about doing something nice every day. That's a beautiful tribute. What activities did they enable you to enjoy, experience? They let me choose the first thing I learned. And the first thing I picked, because I had seen it at the shoot, this was back when people did a lot of things at the bar, I picked fisting. And they said, are you sure? And I said, yes. And so for the next several years, I learned about that. And I remember two or three years into it, they said, I think you're ready to be on your own on this. And I was very nervous. I said, oh, I don't think so. And they said, you're ready. So they taught me that. But they more so taught me about being nice to people, which my parents had always taught me to. But I learned that even in what we think sometimes is a rough and tough world, it's always good to be nice. How did they teach that to you? Well, I was required to do that. I considered them my masters, even though I was always dominant, which I found out later was very unusual for someone in the 80s to come out that way, to be allowed to be dominant from the beginning. I remember Dave said I would not be good any other way. So they didn't want me to even try. But I remember that if they were there and they were doing things, I kept my mouth shut because I knew that I always thought they had the right answers to everything. And I had a lot of respect for them, a lot of respect. And when I look back on it now, I realize that they were probably the elders in our group of friends. But I didn't look at it that way then. I think I was too immature in being 20 to even realize that's what it was. Because it was a lot of fun. And we really enjoyed ourselves. What other sorts of things did you do? We would always get together before we would go out to the bar. It was a very social experience. And all the guys would come over. And they usually came to their house because they lived in Nashville. And I still lived in Martha's Bar at the time. And we would all get together. And it was very family, very much so.  And I learned later that part of that was for safety, that we all stayed together. But I didn't know that at the time either. But I just know when we would all arrive, to me, it seemed like the party started, to me. Now, I don't know if that was true or not, but I mean, it did for me. Then that's how it felt. When you experienced fisting for the first time, what did that evoke for you? I almost passed out. Why? It was something that was so euphoric. There's no explanation for it other than that. And it's like that to this day. It's better than anything in this world. Wow. I remember the first time that I ever witnessed that. I got a chair. And I sat and watched it for I don't know how long. I was so, it was beautiful. It was just the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Wow, that's quite something. And I still feel that way. What does mentoring mean to you? Mentoring is a very important part of our world. Mentoring, when you mentor under someone, you approve and you look up to what they stand for and how they act and what they say. And I think mentoring to me is a lot about, I want to be like them. And I know with Dave and Jeff, oh my god, I thought if I can ever just know all the things they know or even half of the things they knew, I might make it. Because I always felt like I was kind of, I didn't realize I was being mentored. But I always felt like that in any moment I could be discarded. Not because of anything they said, but just, I think it was so important to me that I didn't want to say or do the wrong thing and be kicked out of the group. And when I looked back on that mentoring, there was a lot of people that came up like that. There's a lot of people that came up like that. And it was very important. I don't know that people see it as so important today, and I think it's even more important today. Well, I agree. I do. I think if more people found the right mentor, we would even be a stronger community. What happened the first time you went to the 501 bar? Well, the first time I went to the 501 bar, I hadn't lived here that long. And I went out, and they wouldn't let me in the door because I was a woman. And I thought, I live here now. What am I going to do? So I went to OPs, which is now known as Greg's Place. And I met a man named Tom Kaufman. And he's here tonight. He's sitting next to my dad. And Tom came up to me, and oh, he was just so nice and was very complimentary. And he introduced me to all of his friends because Tom knew everybody. Tom was in the end crowd, I guess, as you would say. He knew all the leather guys here. And he said, we're going to go to the 501. Do you want to go with us? And I said, I already went over there, and they wouldn't let me in. And Tom said, they'll let you in. You come with us. And so when we got over there, we got to the door. And that same guy was at the door, and he looked at me. And Tom reminded me of 82 because Tom looked at the guy at the door, and he kind of looked funny.  And the guy's like, yeah, she's with all of us. And from then on, I never had a problem. And I had never experienced that. You would think in Tennessee, being in the South, I would have experienced that. But I never did. I didn't experience it until I came here to Indiana. I didn't know there was a problem like that then. And that's been 20 something years ago. I can't remember the exact year, maybe 24. Well, unfortunately, the 501 bar is actually closing this weekend. What are your thoughts on that? Well, it's a part of the times. People today don't go out like we used to. They get online. They get on their phones. They meet people that way. And when we went out in the 80s and 90s, we didn't have the internet. We didn't have cell phones. And if you wanted to meet other people and hang out with them, you had to go to the bar or somebody's house. But we did that here. We'd go to somebody's house, and then we'd go out. And a lot of the younger people just don't go out. And then those of us that are older, we don't go out like we used to because we're older. And when it gets to be 10 or 11 o'clock, I'm ready to go to bed sometimes. Not this weekend, but sometimes I am. And then some of the guys have moved into retirement homes. And I still visit them there. And I think they might have a curfew or something. I don't know. What brought you to compete at Imzel? I was told to. The guys here and a bunch of the bears that lived here came to me and said, well, I competed for Ms. Indiana Leather Pride in 96. And they wanted me to compete in this contest. And I said, oh, I'm not qualified to do that. And they said, well, you're going to do it. And to encourage me, they had the Mr. Indiana Leather Pride that night. And so Tom Kaufman competed that night with me. So I wasn't by myself. And we got dressed up at the Metro with all the drag queens. And I was very fascinated with that because they could do makeup really well. And they always look nice. And so basically I was told to do it. So when I won the Indiana contest, I went on to Imzel. And I had never really met hardly any other women in the Leather community. I was amazed to go to Imzel. And my sash has been Mr. Indiana Leather Jim Ellison. He's here tonight. We're celebrating our 20-year anniversary this year. He went with me. It was just the two of us going to San Diego to Imzel. And I was scared to death. But it was an amazing experience. I met a lot of women at Imzel that it was phenomenal. It was just phenomenal. Other than meeting people, why do you feel so positive about it? All the women there, and I, in myself, I found something that came out from competing. When I competed in Indiana, it sparked something in me. And when I went to Imzel, I felt that same thing. And I don't know what that something was exactly. But it sparked something in me that it made me want to do more than I had been doing in the community. And I'd been doing a lot of things, but not like I thought I should. But once winning a title, it opened a lot of doors for me. And I met a lot of other title holders on a different level. Well, you were once a member of the Bag Ladies. Please tell us about that. Well, thanks to Tom Sizemore. And he's sitting next to Tom Kaufman. I was, I'm trying to remember. It was a long time ago. I was invited to do the Bag Lady bus tour. And they always had it around Halloween. And we had so much fun on the Bag Lady bus. There was, we'd go from bar to bar, restaurant to restaurant, raising money. And being part of the Bag Ladies, they did a lot of fundraisers to raise money for AIDS and HIV organizations. It was wonderful. And that was another great part of being part of a group of people doing really good things. And I remember on one occasion at Talbot Street, I did, I think it's called a King Drag or Drag King. I was a drag king. And I was backstage, and the guys were teaching me how to walk like a man, because I was just like Garth Brooks. And I walked out on this stage at Talbot Street. And I don't walk like a man very well, because I pulled a muscle when I got out there. And I still performed. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And the Bag Ladies do great things now. They do fundraisers monthly. And I think they're either the oldest or the second oldest HIV and AIDS fundraising organization in the country. Wow. It's very impressive. And the younger people are becoming part of the Bag Ladies now. So those of us that are getting a little older and don't do as much, the young people are taking over, which is good. It's a good thing. Well, you served on the board of Indiana Still Cares. What is that organization? Tell us about that. The organization does not exist anymore. But Indiana Still Cares oversaw the Bag Ladies and a lot of the charities and fundraisers that we did with the Bag Ladies. And it was a board of directors. And we disbanded it. I can't remember how many years ago it was. I'm looking at Tom Sleizmour, because I don't remember, because he sat on the board with me. But it's been maybe 10 years or more since it disbanded. It was a great organization. But I think it had run its course. And the way the Bag Ladies are run now is probably the way it should be for the way we are in the future. How did GLLA begin? Dan Clark, who won International Mr. Drummer, I believe it was in 2000, he and I were at the 501 Talking One Night. And we'd been at the Metro, and then we'd gone to 501. And we started talking about, and this was back over 15 years ago. It was maybe 16 or more years ago, that we would love to see an event that welcomed everyone. Because back then, we did not know of another event that welcomed gay people and straight people that welcomed all different kinds of people at the same event. Most all the events we knew about were very specialized. It was either for women or for men. Or I didn't know very much about what straight people did then. I mean, I didn't. Because that wasn't any part of my life at all. It was all in the gay men's community, everything. Every social everything was. But I learned a lot. Dan Clark and I decided that what we would do is we would ask all the leaders of the different groups here in town to come to the Metro and get together and talk. And Dan came up with a name. Dan Clark was very creative. He was very artistic, very theater-minded. He and I over drinks at the 501. I think he came up with the name. I don't think I did. And we came up with Great Lakes Leather Alliance and Alliance of people in the region. We wanted to bring all the states together. Not just this area, but all the states. Because everybody was very separate. Ohio did their thing. Indiana did their thing. Kentucky was separate. Everybody was very separate in everything. And so we brought these people together. And there's several of them here tonight that were at that meeting. And a few of them sit on the board still for Great Lakes that were at those first meetings that formed this event. And a lot of it was through a lot of trial and error. We made the mistake, and I'm going to call it a mistake, that we thought we would have just a group of people get together and everybody would all decide everything together, like we wouldn't have anybody lead the group. Dan and I wanted everybody to have an equal voice. And it sounded great at the beginning. But after about the third or fourth meeting, we realized that wasn't going to work, unfortunately.  But we worked through that. It was mostly with just a few people. But we worked through all of that. The ones that were there for the right reasons stay. And it was decided that we had a chairman the first year and a treasurer. And then Dan and I would make a lot of the contest decisions. Dan had a lot of contacts with the contest system because he'd won international drummer. So we kind of muddled through that first year. And we had about 100 people. And most of it was people involved with the event. But we filled up OPs, which is now known as Greggs, and Phil Denton that owns that bar said that we were the only event that he ever had in there that outgrew the bar the first year. It was standing room only. And people were going out waiting out the door. It was just packed. Why did you decide to continue with it? Well, after the first year, Dan Clark had met this really hot guy down in Florida. And he said he was going to move. So he called me. And he says, I'm going to move. If you want to continue this, I'll sign over my half to you because we kind of owned each of us own half of things. So I met him at the Metro on Mass Avenue. And he signed over everything to me. And I thought, can I do this? And so I started calling people. It was all the same people that had helped with it and a lot more people. And from that, it's grown to what you see today. From that second year. And some of it is still trial and error. Sometimes we try things to see if it'll work. And if it doesn't, we don't do it again. And if it does, we keep doing it. What's been your greatest challenge for GLLA? All the personalities. The greatest challenge, I think, of any event producer is especially an event that has so many different types of people. You're not catering to just one group of people. You're looking at a lot of groups of people. And some of it you've never even heard of. Or a small group of people come up with something that you don't understand. And that's OK. That's OK to not understand it, but to be accepting of it. And that's always a challenge to have all the personalities and have everything sink together. And I do believe, from the other boards that I sat on, that our board overall gets along better with each other than any board I've ever sat on. Why do you think so? A lot of us are friends. And we're friends outside of this. We're not here just because of this. We go to dinner together. Some of us have been on vacation together. We're friends outside of this. And we care about each other. And that's very important. It's got to be much more than we're just here to put on an event together. It does. And a lot of the people that sit on the board, I was friends with them long before Great Lakes have ever even thought about. Well, the personalities is the greatest challenge. What's been the most rewarding experience for GLLN? Definitely the people and the title holders seeing that this event changes people's lives. People come up to me and say, this event changed my life. This event made me better. The title holders, to see them grow. To see them grow from little children, when I meet them sometimes, to thriving working adults in our community. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. And people that don't believe in contest anymore, I will probably never be one of those people. Because I see what the title holder system does for people. I see how it enriches their lives. It makes shy people become able to be out there and meet other people. And you see that here at Great Lakes. You may see someone that competed here. They win.  And before, they were having to go to Toastmasters just to be able to do their two-minute speech at Great Lakes. And it's definitely the people. That's what makes it worth it. Well, one of the most moving aspects of GLLA, and in my personal opinion, is the earned leather presentation that you do during the Sunday brunch. Please tell us about that. How did that come about? I believe it was in 2006 when Mr. Susan and Slave Ziggy ran for international master slave. And I judged them. And I met them that year. I was so impressed with them. Just what a wonderful, wonderful master and slave. And Slave Ziggy and Ms. Susan and Garrett and I had many long conversations at events. I remember an event in Atlanta that we were in the lobby. And we sat and watched everybody go to the dungeon. And we sat there for six hours and watched them all come back. And we sat there and talked all night. And one of the things we talked about that night was Ziggy had done a lot of research on the earned leather ceremony and things that had happened in the past. And I remembered when she was talking about that, that Dave and Jeff had done that in the 80s. But we'd always done it privately. And they had not really called it that. But it was as people kind of moved up. Our leather community is very, there's a ladder system. You're supposed to start out here and you work your way up, even if you don't know you're working your way up. It's a way of earning your place. And when Ziggy was talking about how the military and how a lot of those things worked and my slave Garrett was in the Navy, that conversation sparked the memory that I had of that, even though we didn't really call it that. And I felt like that tradition, and that was a tradition in the 80s, a lot of people say that didn't happen. But it did, because I was there and I saw it. And it did happen in Nashville, Tennessee. I know it may not have happened in other parts of the country, but I know it happened in Nashville, Tennessee. I felt like it was important to bring that back. And the best way I knew how to do that was to do it at Great Lakes, where people could witness it and see it and see the significance of it. So I decided that we would put it with a Sunday branch, because it kind of capped off the weekend. And I felt like it was important for people to see something that I was privileged to get to be part of in the 80s, even though I didn't really know that at the time. I was so young and naive, I didn't realize how wonderful that really was. What feedback has come to you about that? I get a lot of positive feedback. I get some people that think that never happened, and it was all made up. And if they want to believe that, that's OK. I was there. There is a man that lives here in town. He's not here tonight, but his name is Greg Bryce. And he was there, too. He used to live in Nashville. And I work with his partner, Don Griffin. But Greg Bryce lives here, and he remembers that, too. So it's not like I just thought that up. Most of the people that do talk to me about it are very moved by it. And it's a big honor to earn something and, again, to feel a part of something really wonderful. And it is wonderful. Absolutely. What future plans do you have for GLLA? I have a lot of ideas for Great Lakes. I hope that I live to see some of those ideas come to be. One of the things that I had as an idea that was given to me from someone else, but I kind of expanded on it, is our educational program that we're doing here this weekend that I think is very important. It's a five-year educational program. And that's been many years in the making. But education is very, very important. And a lot of people think they can look at something online or watch a YouTube video, and they've got it. And that is not true. And I always compare that with, could you be a brain scientist or a brain surgeon by watching a YouTube video? No. And I take what we do very serious, because some of the things we do are life and death. They are some of the things that we do. And being educational, I want Great Lakes to always have an importance on education. And believe it or not, I'd like to expand some. I've got my eye on a few more states that we may add to our region. So I'm not out yet. So I would like to see that, because my slave Garrett has talked to me about that, and I've accepted it now, and I'm good with it, that we can expand and do more. You mentioned the educational component. What sorts of educational things are you offering as of this year? Well, we have a whole list of different types of classes. And for every educational slot that we have this weekend, there's two classes that are designated for part of that. And some of it is we have an elders panel that I think is very important for people to go and learn from our elders. I learn something every day from my elders. I do. I learn something every year here at Great Lakes, too, from someone. We have our title holder panel. And so every year, we have last year's winners sit on a panel, and people can come in and ask them questions about their title year. And they talk about their experience. And from that, we've gotten a lot of people that compete in future years from that, because someone will always say in that title holder panel, this changed my life for the better. One of the kids always says that every year. Some of the classes are just speaking, and then some of them are hands-on learning, because the one-on-one hands-on learning, even in a class of 30 or 40 people, is vital. Again, you can't learn this stuff on YouTube, and you shouldn't. You shouldn't. I think it should be one-on-one with people. But you mentioned it's a five-year plan. How is that? Yes, it is. So we have a program that it's a little booklet, and it says Passport to Education. And you go to four classes this year, and you get a stamp at each class. And then in year two, year three, year four, and year five, you do the same thing. Well, this year, you can start at any point. But this year, there's a globe that you can earn that when you go into the classes. And it's a globe that says GLLA on it. And then there's rocker panels that you can earn in years two, three, four, and five that talk about integrity and service to the community. So it's a five-year plan because there's five pieces to this globe and the rocker panels to make it a complete patch to put on your vest. What do you like the most or even dislike the most about GLLA or working in this situation? Well, we talked about the personalities of people. People in our way of life with power exchange and dominance and submission, a lot of us like to think we're always right. We are only always right to whoever serves us, such as our slave or our boy or our girl. We're not right to everybody else. I think that's one of the dislikes is people thinking that everybody should do what they say no matter who they are. But there's a lot of likes, too. There's a lot of things to like and love about an event like this. And I think as we go on this weekend, Great Lakes has become more than I ever envisioned. I really didn't. I know when we started, I thought, well, I'll do it a second year and see how it goes. And then I think, well, I'll do it a third year. Every year I'd make a decision about a week after the event, am I going to do this another year? Because it's very taxing. And I mean, I was in my 30s when we started. And I'm in my 50s now. And my body's different. It is. It's different. Well, now that it's celebrating its 15th anniversary, what are your thoughts? I can't believe we've done this for 15 years, for the most part. I'm very amazed that we have. And I'm very excited. And I'm looking forward to 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, at least. I think I've got maybe five more years in me. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. What's the biggest misconception about you? That my life is perfect. I think sometimes people think that I don't get sick or I'm not things that are bad don't happen to me. And I've been told that because I don't put that out there. I was taught by my parents and by Dave and Jeff that if you're sick or something's wrong with you, you don't tell people that. You take care of your business. And you try to make it seem like everything's OK. And maybe that's the biggest misconception about me that nothing bad's ever happened to me. And everything's just perfect and rosy every day. And it's not. It's just I don't put it out there. You see a lot of title holders. And I see that there are quite a number of title holders even in here this evening. As people come through the title circuit, what advice have you for them? As people come through the title circuit, always stay true to yourself. You may hear that from a lot of people, but it's very important. And try to be nice.   I don't know everything. I call people for advice every week. And I think being a title holder, people will automatically look up to you and think you have all the answers to everything and make sure that you tell them you don't. Don't act like you do, because that will get you in a lot of trouble. If they think you know everything about everything, it'll put you in a bad position. I think for the title holders too, it's a lot of work, and it should be. It should be a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to keep our community going and to keep us unified, because there's a lot of things that try to tear us apart. And title holders sometimes get mixed up in that. And they don't see what's really important. What would that be for, in your opinion? What is important? What is important is our community and us staying together and being friends to each other and not being mean to each other. That's very important, it is. And we may not all agree, and that's okay, because we didn't all agree in the 80s. And I'm sure the people before me in the 70s didn't all agree either. I mean, I can't imagine that they did. We just wrote letters in the 80s, we couldn't get online and tell things. But by the time you got around to writing the letter, you were probably like, nah, I'm not gonna do it. I mean, you gotta mail it, put a stamp on it, take it to the post office. So it was a lot more than just I'm mad, let me get online and tell somebody what I think. That's, the internet's been wonderful for us, and it's been awful for us at the same time. If there was anything at all you could change about your personal history or the history of GLLA, would you change anything? About me personally? I know for me personally, I would have stayed in college in the 80s and not gotten out, which my parents tried to talk to me about it, to not leave college. I was very much the social person, and being social was very, very important to me. But I finished everything I started now as I've gotten older, but I think I would have stuck with it and not, I think I was so excited though, about discovering this world, and it was so important to me. So maybe if I had have changed that, I might not be doing what I'm doing today. So maybe I shouldn't change anything. Maybe I just should accept everything the way it is. And I think GLLA has been just fine. We've been just fine. We've had mistakes along the way, and we correct them for the next year, but every year you have something that you say, oh, that doesn't work now anymore. And we're gonna change it for the next year, and we do. And the board and all the people that help with this, we just all make that happen. Ms. Kendra, I would like to thank you for an amazing interview. And again, I extend a personal heartfelt thank you to you for including the fireside chats in GLLA weekend. You're welcome. I'm glad we can do it. And I'll look forward to more. So thank you.


Welcome to Toffy TV, it's the news daily. Napoli manager Gianaro Gattuso is keen on signing Moise Keen from Everton and it's apparently happy for him to be included in any deal that takes Alan and Lizanne out of Napoli and off to Godderson Park, that's according to area Napoli. Obviously Moise Keen is in trouble at the weekend with the club for breaking lockdown having a party and has been fined £160,000 according to some reports. I'm not sure that the club are ready to give up on Keen yet. Everton only have three strikers at the club.  So if Everton were to get rid of Keen it would leave them with only Britealis and Dominic Calvert-Lewin and for the way the club are playing at the moment the team are playing with a 4-4-2 it doesn't really make any sense for us to see Keen out the door so this is probably just more paper talk coming out of Italy. Everton have today been linked with a move for Marcell, Lefbach, a young player Nils and Cuckoo. His contract expires in the summer and he's yet to sign a full-time contract with Marcell, professional contract. Marcell Brand is reportedly very keen on the highly rated young Lefbach and Everton could get him at a knock down price given that his contract is expired and that's coming out of a French football correspondence via sport witness today saying that I'd never try the French football contract. Yn ymwneud yna, yn cael ei hwnnw'n cyllid yn ymwneud yng Nghymru ac yn ymwneud ymwneud y club yn y llyfr yw gwybod yn y ffwrdd. Felly, yn cymryd ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud yn ymwneud. Rud Hullert wedi gwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud, Donnie Van Der Beek, a'r byw'r hynny'n ymwneud yw'n cael ei wneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud, Hullard cited Davy Claeson's move to Everton a couple of years ago, moving to a team that didn't suit the way he played resulting in Claeson eventually being sold to Verda Bremen just a year later. Van der Beek has been linked with moves to Newcastle, Chelsea and Everton of course and Hullard says it's important he moves to the club that complements his style of play. Finally, the Swiss Super League will resume on June 8. Apparently the Swiss government has given that the thumbs up to go. A lot of their teams returned to training on May 11 next week. All of the games will be played behind closed doors. This, I suppose, obviously the French League cancelled their top two divisions yesterday. This one maybe gives the Premier League a bit of hope. They've remained hopeful of resuming in June project. Coming back project restart has apparently opened one. The Premier League do have a meeting on Friday with the 20 clubs about resuming. There's conflicting medical recommendations. We've got the head of doctors, medical for FIFA saying they shouldn't play. There's no way they should play. Apparently a UEFA doctor has come out today and said it's the camp play. It's not as much of a concern. Meanwhile, people are still dying. There's been up to 26,000 deaths now in the UK. Now the care home deaths are being included as well. So it's really difficult to see where this is going to fall. I can't see any way all of four divisions will finish their games. It just seems impossible for it to happen. Premier League on its own is a different case, but then what do you do with the other three? It's just incredible to think about what the plans are going to have to put in place and how that's going to play out. It doesn't seem possible at times and then you think there's enough desire monetary wise they will try to do it, but it still seems like a bit of a flip of the coin at the moment. We'll have to watch this space, but the meeting on Friday may shed a little bit more light on what we plan to do. That is it for today. Make sure you give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven't and if you want more videos, join us on Patreon. See you later.


Here, at Mystery History, we cover the unexplained areas of antiquity, either ignored, avoided, dismissed, or simply given an incomplete or often illogical historical lifeline of existence by mainstream academia, particularly those which we have covered of significant size, quarried from many miles away, now often immovable, and once transported and either erected or placed atop one another seemingly effortlessly. We were, in a past series of investigations, looking into an interesting quarry within the Bosda cave system on the edge of Turkey, a place with particularly good granite and a proven source of stone for numerous megalithic sites many miles around. Later, proven by us via the preserved linkages in tool marks to have been used by more than one group as if they had coalesced at this particular site. Yet, as mentioned, we have long argued that not just one advanced civilization capable of moving and cutting these incredibly monumental megalithic stones, or indeed precisely cut them, have been and gone, and we feel we have and continue to provide sufficient proof of these claims. The Colossae of Memnon, said to have once sang at sunrise, are both made of stones thousands of tons in weight, yet are eroding to dust along with countless others, yet clearly once precisely cut, just like all the other stone ruins we cover worldwide. But sites like Petra and the polygonal casing stones found in some most curious of places, such as the pyramids of Egypt, preserving stones in a similar condition to the Colossae. Certain stone monuments of gigantic size, found and stored in near-perfect condition, are found in these same areas, as if somehow spare catastrophe. Does this prove a sudden great flood? They regardless, we claim, prove several cycles of activity at stone-cutting creation. Were some monuments submerged and therefore preserved under the sediments, like those secretly removed from the pyramids and sphinx during initial investigations? Did the ruins claimed as similarly dated not, or were they attacked by a geological event? The perfect preservation of some of these statues must eliminate sandware as a possibility. The pursuit to the answers to these questions become closer, and we feel highly compelling. There is a lot of mystery surrounding the continent of Antarctica. Officially the driest place on earth, the ecosystems within the South Pole are untouched, and remain the healthiest anywhere, one of the main official reasons for the Antarctic Treaty. A cooperation of many of the world's nations to not pollute the area. The result of this treaty has been a ban of most human beings going there, unless crossing it on set cruise routes. If there are ancient ruins within this mysterious place, they will be buried under kilometers of ice, only the largest of which, would even show any evidence of their existence on the surface of the ice which encases them. These ruins may not even be classified as ruins, if they were flooded by a deluge, which in turn froze during pole shifts, they would be the most pristine ancient structures now left on earth, they may look as if they were abandoned yesterday. There are many strange reports from the region of Antarctica, usually attached to those not lucky enough to survive its elements, many researchers online claim to have found evidence of ruins and even pyramids within the South Pole. So, what I set out to do, was to attempt to find any evidence for a past colonization of Antarctica, and if I cover up of these articles as ensued, to attempt to find any artifacts that were lucky enough to attain public exposure before their disappearance from the official records. It did not take me long to realize I was already aware of such an artifact. A map made in 1513, by Turkish Admiral Pirey Reyes, created in accordance with ancient knowledge contained within manuscripts, which would later be lost during the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Either these fires which occurred over a duration of eight years, were orchestrated to steal these ancient books, or indeed to destroy them forever is unknown. But from this lost knowledge, the continent of Antarctica would be shown without ice. It was thought at the time that the manuscripts within the library, were only a few centuries old at most, yet the evidence would suggest they were very much older than assumed. Which is a conclusion numerous researchers have made. The map has intrigued countless individuals, and like so many other things we encounter, in regards to ancient knowledge, the most important of relics become lost or destroyed. However, the map is a surviving remnant of this vast mountain of intellectual wealth, it is the smoldering amber of proof needed to confirm such knowledge as existed before, and that the shores of Antarctica were known well, in the very distant past. If the map displays the shorelines of Antarctica before it was covered with ice, and it is displayed more accurately than Brazil, then it is not a large leap of the imagination to suspect that ancient ruins, dating back to the time of this knowledge, do exist on the Antarctic continent. And while we have ancient pyramids, declared as existing on all continents of the planet, apart from Antarctica, you begin to doubt that Antarctica is an exception after all. It could be home to the largest, with the southern tip of the world encircled by the stars, it may hold the most amazing ruins on earth. And with it being a place that only recently have we been able to explore extensively, you have to wonder what other artifacts may be preserved in the ice, what objects may have crashed in this desolate place, during the last few thousand years, just waiting to be reverse engineered. So how does such a smoking gun, such as the Pyre Rees map, survive for so long? While throughout the centuries all the source material has been engulfed with flames around it. Well, the coastline of Antarctica was not known to be displayed on the map, until we achieved the capability of developing ground penetrating technologies. It well and truly, slipped under the radar.


Ie'r meddwl gyda'r ffioedd o gwaith digylau i ddisgu i ddweud iawn i ddweud.. Julio? Juliann. Juliann, Helin. Juliann yn ysgol. Ok, ddod i. Dyna'r mwyaf. Dwi'n cael eu cyfnod. Gweithio. Rwy'n meddwl gyda'r meddwl a ddweud iawn i ddweud iawn i ddweud iawn i ddweud iawn i ddweud iawn i ddweud iawn. ac mae'n ymddirionedd yw Chrisa Thamellus, ac mae wedi'i gweithio y ffondiol yw gweithio ymddirionedd yma ar y Y Rhyw Rasmus Plus programme. First of all, mae'n gweithio'n cyffredinol ar ddweud i ffrindio'r cwestiynau ar gyfer y mae'n gweithio i'r ffodol o ffodol yma ar y prydyn yma. Google has recently produced some digital well-being, tips and tools, and it's advice and apps that you can use on your phone to monitor your digital usage, monitor how long you're spending on your phone, what apps you're using, so it's providing you with feedback so that you can take responsibility for your own digital wellbeing. Mozilla have also got some web pages and their internet health discusses issues such as information security and digital inclusion and openness, and of course privacy and security, which is very important. So who is responsible for our digital well-being? Is it ourselves? Is it just ourselves? Or is it technology companies? Is it institutions like higher education institutions? Is it government? GDPR, of course, is the government's help for digital security? But how much is our responsibility? So that's what I want you to think about. So the digital well-being educators project has the intention to build the capacity of teaching staff in higher education institutions to deliver digital education and promote the digital well-being of students. The first element of this research project that I'm going to talk about here is the mapping of the territory of digital well-being education, and we've done that through looking at the educational literature and the practice that is going on in higher education institutions. We do focus just on higher education institutions. I know there's a lot of work that has gone on in schools, especially secondary schools, but we are taking the focus purely on higher education at the moment. We have also carried out interviews with staff who have delivered digital well-being interventions. They may be researchers, they may be practitioners, they may be both, and we've analysed those 10 interviews and looked at the challenges, risks and opportunities that came out of the analysis. So that's what I'll talk to you about. That's what I'll focus on today. We do have a report which includes the full literature review and it's got case studies of digital well-being interventions that have been carried out in higher education. We don't just focus on higher education in the UK because it is funded by the European Commission and we have an international collaboration which involves partners from Ireland, Spain and Denmark. So we do take an international focus. The definition of digital well-being that we have used is taken from the Gist Digital Capability Framework and you can see that there the blue line which encompasses everything is digital identity and digital well-being. The definition, I won't read it all out because I'll just pick out some of the relevant points. The definition covers personal health, safety, relationships and work-life balance. The idea of balance between the digital world and your real world is quite important there and issues of workload, overload and distraction. There are personal features but they also look at how you negotiate and resolve conflict with others. There's also this community aspect to the notion of digital well-being. So that's more than the definition that seems to be behind Google's tips and tools. So we interviewed 10 people, we analysed the data, we've looked at the literature and we've looked at the practice that's going on currently in higher education institutions in Europe. And we came up with several themes. I'm only picking out some of the main themes. There's an awful lot more that's in the report. But the main themes that came out in terms of challenges for digital well-being research was that there's a lack of studies that evaluate changes in habits, beliefs and attitudes. It's not that there's a lack of studies. There are studies that evaluate the impact of digital interventions but they tend to focus on knowledge acquisition. The educational goal, have you managed to teach something about digital well-being?  Secondly, it's a multidisciplinary field so that can be a challenge. It covers psychology, philosophy, sociology, education and it's not always very easy for one individual to access all those fields. And thirdly, the lack of an agreed definition on what is digital well-being. Google has a focus that it's mainly about personal responsibility, it's about the distractibility whereas the GIST definition broadens that out and it's not just your relationship with the technology, it's also about your relationship with other people through the technology. So that involves the community. However, at the University of Milan they have a digital well-being centre and GUI and colleagues there are sociologists and their definition of digital well-being has a much stronger emphasis on the effect that society and the norms and practices within a community or a society have on your own digital well-being and on how you manage your digital well-being. To give an example of that, you might have normal practices that are there for your learning community. You might have a code of conduct of what's expected of people while they're using a learning environment. So while I'm talking about this, a lot of it is relevant to any kind of use of digital tools but I'm mainly focusing on how it's used in an educational setting. Secondly, the risks. I've mentioned some of the risks already about attention and distraction. There's a lot of talk in the media about how mobile phones are bad in schools because they're distracting the kids from the learning. There's always tales of the distraction of students sitting in lecture theatres who are not focusing perhaps on the speaker but are on social media. So there's a lot of scaremongering about distraction and addiction. In fact what we found were that addiction is not really addiction, if you know what I mean, you don't but anyway. There was a paper published earlier this year by Ordon and his colleagues which said that smartphone addiction is a myth. It's not there. It's not really addiction. So the distractibility and the addiction affect you personally and of course that might lead to stress, lack of sleep and a sedentary lifestyle. These things are mentioned in the media frequently. In terms of a community setting you see things like cyberbullying and cyber security and of course fake news and the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year where data was stolen from Facebook is of course also in the media. And these can have an effect on our democracy, on our human rights and the targeting of particular social groups or particular people through the use of big data can have effects on society. For example selling make up to depressed teenagers. There's advertising that targets teenagers who've said that they're depressed on social media and yes they do buy more make up so the make up companies are targeting them. Is that ethical? I'm not sure. So opportunities. A lot of what I've said about the challenges and risks have been critical of digital media, of digital tools but the participants that we interviewed also commented how there were opportunities that they could see. They could see the value of digital tools. The extended mind thesis is a theory that's well known in philosophy and psychology and it says that the mind is extended by the use of digital tools. So the use of the technology becomes an integral part of our thinking and reasoning processes. Google searches are a normal part of the way that we think nowadays. It may not be a Google search but it may be checking Wikipedia. So these have become normal and they have a value in extending what we can do and how we reason and think. Secondly personalised education was identified as a potential value. Maybe not quite there at the moment but there's great potential for recommender systems and personalised education. For example if you took Apple's Siri personal assistant and transferred that to an educational setting you would have a personal tutor. Thirdly avatars in virtual environments have great potential. Well actually they're already being used for treatments, for phobias, for changing people's attitudes which is interesting. And people do use them to explore issues of identity. And finally I will conclude by saying that we should engage in the public debate over who is responsible for digital media. It's not a simple answer to the question of who's responsible. To a certain extent it is a personal responsibility. It is the digital technology companies who are responsible. Government can play a role and so can higher education institutions. We do need more research into ethics to critical digital pedagogy which we heard about this morning in the keynote. And we need more impact studies that actually look at whether or not they're effective in changing people's attitudes and behaviours. So it could be a moral obligation really honest to as educators, as technologists and in higher education institutions to promote the digital well-being of not just our staff who we're responsible for but also the students that we're responsible for. Critical pedagogy suggests that if students live in a culture that digitizes and educates them through a screen, then they require an education that empowers them in that sphere, that teaches them that language and that offers them new opportunities of human connectivity in online learning environments. I'll just finally say the project is currently developing a professional development course for educators in higher education, a teachers pack with resources and a couple of apps for students and educators to help improve their digital well-being and digital literacy skills. If you are interested in those, they will be released in April so you can and there will be public showcase events in these locations and you can connect to us through LinkedIn group through Facebook or through the project website is there. Thank you. Thank you very much. So one of the really interesting questions that we've had on Vvox is whether you think digital well-being needs to be singled out as a specific problem or whether it sort of comes more under a general well-being topic now. I think that general well-being is it is important to educate people about general well-being but I think as higher education educators if we are encouraging people to use digital environments then we need to make sure that they're equipped to work in those arenas. Brilliant, thank you. Does anyone got any questions in here? Somebody on the Vvox is concerned whether we are creating students who can only interact digitally. I don't know about that. I teach on distance learning programmes so I would be guilty of teaching students to interact only digitally but that's not all the students there in higher education. So I hope we're not teaching them all to only be able to interact digitally but I think we have to be realistic. The digital technology is here to stay. We need to use it in the best way and we need to teach people how to be safe and use it responsibly. For sure and I think one of the points at the very start of your presentation was about the balance between working as well and I think that comes into that as well as encouraging people to have a good balance between online and offline. Absolutely and I think that's important for the staff as well as for the students. We have a responsibility to the students but institutions also have a responsibility to the staff who are increasingly encouraged to do things digitally. Brilliant, thank you very much. Adina's work with learning technologies helps to develop skilled data literate students who can change our world for the better. Teachers and students can develop and share coding skills with multiple or Jupiter Notebook servers. Our DigiMap services deliver high quality mapping data for all stages of education. Future developments include a text and data mining service, working with satellite data and machine learning and smart campus technology.


Hello and welcome to This Week in the City. Highlights brought to you from the Public Relations, Media and Marketing Department with the City of Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Yeatsy. This week in the City, we want to make sure that our citizens know that the municipal election will be held on November 5th, 2019. In order to prepare you for the election, we want to make sure that you are aware that new voting machines and a new voting process will be implemented by the Richland County Elections and Voter Registration Office. In order to prepare our citizens, we are providing information on our website at columnsc.gov regarding the new voting machines. There's also an instructional video that you can watch. For questions, you can contact the City Clerk's Office at 545-3045. But again, information can be found on our website at columnsc.gov as well as on our social media platforms on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Also this week on Tuesday, October 29th, the Columbia Empowerment Zone has announced that a street dedication ceremony will be held in honor of Judge Mildred Weathers McDuffie. The ceremony will be held at the 1000 Block of King Street, located at the corner of King and Cyprus. This event will begin at 11 am on Tuesday, October 29th. And on Thursday, October 31st, it's Halloween in the City of Columbia. Join parts of recreation for their annual Spooktacular celebration, which will be held at Dutts Square Mall. The event will begin at 5.30 pm and end at 9 pm. It is free and open to the public and kids especially. However, all children must be accompanied by an adult. As we roll into the weekend, don't forget that during November, it's time for the Holiday Special, doing Thanksgiving and throughout the month of November. All pets that are age 5 and older will be free. That's right, starting Friday, November 1st. All pets that are age 5 and older, that's cats and dogs, will be free to the public during the entire month of November. So come out to the animal shelter and get a pet for free during November. Age 5 or older, dogs and cats. Also, as we roll into the weekend, don't forget that you can now register for All Access Columbia, which is the Community Development Annual All Access Event. The topics this year include safety tips for internet safety and also some cooking classes about healthy cooking. If you would like to register, it is free. However, you must register to attend. Visit our website at ColumbiaSC.gov for more details or search for the event on Eventbrite. Again, as we close our show, please remember that the municipal election will be held on November 5th and it is important that you have information regarding a new voting process and new voting machines for the upcoming city election. Visit our website at ColumbiaSC.gov for details as well as an instructional video regarding the new voting machines. You can also contact the city clerk's office at 545-3045 for details about the city election and you can reach out to the Richland County Elections and Voter Registration Office regarding the new voting machines and the new voting process. We thank you for watching and we hope you have a great week in the city.