Welcome welcome to the buried TCU transit oriented development walking audit I'm Brandy O Quinn, and I'm policy manager for Blue Zones project And I just want to say thank you so much for spending your Saturday afternoon With us Dan burdened Samantha Thomas live in Washington State, and they brought us this cool weather, which I appreciate, right? Thank you Yes, I want to especially do a thank you to our city councilwoman and Zeta for joining us This is in her district And also city staff all of you that are part of city staff Thank you very much for all being here because this is we couldn't do this without all of you And especially on a Saturday, and I just want to do a shout out to all of you So thank you, and I'm going to give it to Dan so we can get started Let's ask and to say a few words and would you like to say a few words? Would you like to sing a little song? Hi? Good morning? I'm glad you all came or it's afternoon now, isn't it? I'm sorry, and I'm really happy to be here I wish I could have been part of the the activities this morning as well But I had a Bermitt's photo go to with my son and one of his classmates was celebrating that accomplishment today So I'm really looking forward to this. I am a pedestrian and I like to walk around as much as I possibly can I came from a place where pedestrians have the right of way no matter what they're doing even if they're jay walking whatever So when I moved here, I took my life into my own hands because people who drive cars around here Don't really yield to pedestrians So I try to be a pedestrian in a little bit of an aggressive way if I have a walk sign I'm walking but I'm going to make it clear that I'm walking so I'll put my hand out Say you need to stop and let me go here so I'm really looking forward to having this audit and figuring out some ways that we can try to make The streets in Fort Worth safer for all the users The people who drive the cars the people who walk and the people who ride their bikes and any other mode of Transportation that people choose to use in our community. So I appreciate this very much and thank you all for coming out Thank you, and let's like give her a big round of appreciation We're Gonna start a little presentation. So we would love to have everybody come up and grab a seat If for no other reason it makes it look really powerful in front of the camera So we can get everybody to come on up and join us we do a little bit of a presentation and First of all, I'm very pleased that this neighborhood was selected to be part of the original eight neighborhoods that are being featured under the work with blue zones that This is going to be become an important set of models these eight neighborhoods for all of Fort Worth What we're talking about is a vast change over time For Fort Worth to become more focused on its people We've been over designing our cities throughout all of North America For the automobile and it started to really impact the economy health The vitality and the very core structure of what neighborhoods are about So what we're wanting to see unfold here is a one neighbor at a time boost To becoming the great vital city that's going to I think show the way for all of Texas If not the entire much greater region So I'd like to do a little bit of a presentation and move right in How many had before today not even heard of blue zones? How many is this a new concept just several okay? So the words getting out So I'll be able to describe blue zones a little bit in just a minute But I'm gonna do it by telling some stories. So let's assume the gentleman standing in the left panel Feels that his community should be about all the things that we see celebrated here children families successful retail thriving main streets And it should be Throughout all of human history. It's been about that but He's standing in la la land. That's Disney world The real world became something very different people are now spending more time in their cars than they would like They are having to rush their children across streets. They look out on an endless sea of Meaningless environment that isn't worthy of defending and We get older we realize we have not created the right infrastructure for us to stay healthy So what blue zones is all about is really rebuilding cities One neighborhood at a time now, that's the built environment part There are nine different elements to blue zones to bring back health happiness and vitality and longevity But the built environment is going to be the toughest one to bring back fully So what I like to say is if we just set one principle that we will not spend a single dollar on Transportation that doesn't increase adjacent land use Then we're going to get it right if we get that right It's a home run and it really is so that's our concept and Just to share that this is a very wide-range project of problem of immense proportions This is another city. It's Tallahassee, Florida, Tennessee Avenue and This road like six or eight others designed just like it Rushes traffic out of the downtown at night empties the downtown of all life In order to get people home to suburban Places it takes out a life of another student every year Because it wasn't designed for people it was designed for speed and efficiency and it did that But it backfired this probably explains more than any other image. I could show you how well it backfired if you Take a look at the sign it says to walk correct There are sidewalks There are bike lanes But no one's walking no one's biking. This is the high school in Maui In the island of Maui, this is their high school. It's not what you would expect and The reason the traffic is backed up and it will Take 20 minutes to get through this one intersection Is that we only designed our system for one thing? to move cars Now we realize That putting all of our investment into moving cars has never worked in any city of any size any scale any place But if we start to design for people we get away from that problem Now that's only meant to be one facet of the problem when I was still in high school Jane Jacobs in the The death and life of great American cities was already telling us where we are going wrong and So Jane Jacobs says don't blame the car Blame ourselves for not understanding the complexity of cities and So that's what we're trying to do now is to understand all of the elements that go into making a neighborhood And therefore a city a great place to live to have choices in transportation son So there's a key concept If you want to have more traffic invest in traffic if you want to have less traffic invest in people and So this is my brother of a different mother Dan butener and Dan is the ultimate researcher on longevity health happiness vitality and He hired me from the get-go with Albert Lee, Minnesota to be in charge of the built environment And so that's what both Samantha and I do and it's a fun thing I like to say it's the funnest job. I could ever have That I get to work with the best people the brightest minds people ready for change And we do this through what we're about to take which is a walking audit We're going to take a look at the neighborhood through a new lens and start to see the neighborhood with all its possibilities this is about the 15th or 16th town we worked in but this is the biggest this is the granddaddy of them all Fort Worth and It's where we're going to have to take our previous knowledge of leading walking audits being introduced to people doing things And as we do walking us we're learning from every walk. I've ever taken this is a Group of urban designers. I'd like to say the next urban designers of America. They're the top top people in at MIT and We let a walking audit for them to teach the skillset and this is basically what we're doing we're setting a stage for anyone to appreciate and joy make use of their city and Of all ages and if we pay attention to the needs of the very youngest among us and The most senior of us then we're going to get it right for everybody everybody in the middle Will be served by getting those dimensions, right? So I put this presentation together because of where we're sitting with the opportunities for Transit-oriented development with the tea left off Right, we're going to come up with a great overall area and What we're talking about is how do we build into the strength? How do we build a vital economy and one that's just not going to continue to spread the money out into? Suburban places that cost a lot more To do we want all these things We want green space ownership pride strong economies low crime and balanced budgets and we can do all those things because the principles truly Surround getting the right urban design in place and if we do the right urban design taxes go down not up and As we do this we get better public services water Sewer roads, please fire everything We now have budget to cover because we're getting the elements of building a city correct I think it's important to point out that good design also will reduce the amount of time people spend driving and especially commute drives Which tend to be a huge part of the whole issue? It also means though we're going to be able to have more walking more biking more transit more choices all the time for all people Also, if we get the urban design correct, we're going to see a true Boost in the local economy all towns are in competition with one another all jobs are going to go to those towns that build place and We see that we understand that but also all towns are seeking a way to protect and preserve as much open space And natural space as we can everybody wants that there's no disagreement on that It's also important to point out that communities become safer when we create the right styles of housing that watch over streets The bottom row of homes by the way are affordable houses built beautifully attractively so attractive in fact that right across the street from those homes We see units that are being rented out for three thousand a month Market driven houses. This is in Sacramento. You've got to make sure every product you put on the ground is Celebrating the other products that might want to come to that same street It's important to to point out that as we do this We're really looking for that mix of uses that diversity that we can live workshop play do everything Without having to go a long distance. We might still drive Or we might now walk or bike if we get the dimensions correct and also all these things create active living and Those things we really want the most so all of these things we're talking about are really Requiring a new way of looking at where we place buildings how we place buildings how those buildings work in collaboration with one another and the good news is The many towns that are doing this and Fort Worth is one of them, but still in little pockets They're finding that the return is really based on getting the right mix of uses and Density it's the word that people don't want to use but it turns out to be the word that makes everything else work. I Want to share Why this now requires a different way of looking at anything we do This is a little town. I got to work in did their master plan for them marina. That's in Monterey County, California very expensive living here, so this is one of the more affordable places and What story goes with this is that the transit agency? Realized they needed a hub They acquired the only remaining land in the town center and this is what they proposed and When a number of us looked at this we said This serves their needs adequately, but it fails the community It basically is taken over the whole remaining infrastructure opportunity and putting in their single use which is to hub transit and they would even put in parking for their own employees and things like that here and Minimize any other uses that we might see so our team came in and said what this area really wants and must have as a town center and Why not have the town center work around the transit hub you'd orient your buses differently? You wouldn't use up all the space you may not even have places for your employees to park here But if you did that it may be a couple blocks away because this is the Portion that has to work for the entire community So we showed them what it would look like they could have a lighter density It could be like this and it would work or they could go for an increase in density And now have even higher performance and a higher rate of return So I think you can see what we're talking about when we talk about bringing together a TOD, this is a true TOD built the hub the housing everything around it now if anything is to work in the future and certainly economically It's got to give return cities aren't going to be able to work on Borrowing money for much longer And so one thing that would be a direct benefit to everyone in Fort Worth Is if not everybody had to own as many cars as they own So if you only took 15,000 cars and that's not a lot of cars for a city of this size and people didn't need that second car The city would reach a hundred and twenty seven million dollars That's money that keeps get pumped through from the barber to the dentist to the body shop repair and so on That money stays in the town. It doesn't go off to Tokyo. It doesn't go off to anywhere else And that's just with 15,000 cars We also can see it from cost of operating the city if you have a really well connected neighborhood and yours is and You retain that high level of connectivity in your future designs Then it costs a hundred and fifty nine dollars per household for fire service for one year That's reasonably affordable But if you use the other pattern the one you see on the right Where the streets are disconnected? One fire station can cover far fewer homes So fire service protection there is seven hundred and forty dollars So we see an increase in our tax base Just for fire service alone on how we lay out and design our community By the way, that gets compounded you multiply it times police and sewer and water and UPS delivers Everything is more expensive if you have a disconnected set of blocks So one of the tools that we're now going to talk about is how do we complete our streets? How do we make them where people can get across the street? Where people actually want to live on the street and watch over the street? It really is fairly simple It does call for and this is part of the blue zones philosophy is to create a street design manual or guide for Fort Worth to protect your engineers and keep the tort law To a minimum because this is already approved the style street And if we do that then we're going to end up with increased land values new maintenance funds streets pay their own way through the increased valuation of land and It's so simple But it's something you are going to prove for the rest of Texas You're going to find it the discovery first your streets might look different. They might be designed not for speed but for quality of life and For multiple mode choice and things like that. So you might see different lane direct dimensions You might see different can give configurations with parking with bike lanes cycle tracks all kinds of things So it's just an example of what a complete street might look like but there is no single formula for a complete street Every single block and every street is going to have its own set of contacts. So we designed for it that way Some of the other payout. This is a very good friend of mine Matt Lerner who created walk score Samantha, can you look up the walk score here? Yeah Walk score is a very simple measure from a zero point to a hundred points And if you can just increase your neighborhood say five points your home values go up eight hundred dollars per point or $3,000 per point just depends on the context But you're you're going to see a greater greater greater return on investment the more diverse the neighborhood becomes That's that mix that we are looking for Then we can see how ultimately this pays off by the way eighty three percent of America is now urban That number is going up By 2050 the world will be two-thirds urban and We just crossed the 50 percentile about what eight years ago something like that But the world is going to become urban and that's the only way we're going to save the environment But the urban better be good It better be a place where people do want to live do want to invest and we're valuations hold Couple of the key principles if we're going to make this work Just as it has always worked out all of human history our cities are designed around transportation Starting with the foot aided by the donkey the mule the canal boat the ferry the train the trolley every neighborhood has always been designed around transportation and As long as we've been getting it wrong We're going out of proportions that are affordable So someday we're likely to see the kind of mix you see here things like trolleys and trams and light rail and trains and bikes and feet and buses and All that together gives us both a design that's context-sensitive Accessible reliable effective and safe. That's all we're saying that in combination makes a neighborhood livable pretty simple It also means that we're not going to look at speed in the future for local streets or or collector or arterial streets we're looking for Streets that continue to perform but not at grossly excessive speeds because they take out human life And they remove even the desire to try to walk along a street So among the things we're going to see is yes, we'll continue major Capacity of a road we have to But now here on out will probably put even more meaning and emphasis on those things We measure that we care to have more of Still measure the thing you don't want and hopefully you'll see it go down But start measuring the thing you want and find good ways to measure that a Quick story to go with this image. This is Gulf Shores Orange Beach, Alabama We are leading a walking audit here and We found out people wanted a village here. They didn't want to have to go as far to get groceries and and services So we said yeah, this is a good location for you know, what amounts to a toady And then later in the afternoon. We found out that the state was about to widen this road into this I was presenting in the room that night and the traffic engineer was sitting just off to my left and she started to cry I'd never seen a traffic engineer cry So I asked kid kid why are you crying? She said damn we're at 90% plans completion. I said so You haven't built it yet They went back to the Alabama DOT and they started over and what they will now get is this a Roundabout will move 30% more traffic per lane than any other type of intersection that you can build It brings more money It's a place buildings want to cozy up to and not shy as far away as they can and It increases the value of land But we're really talking about different size different scale an industrial community that really truly wants real place and A place to come to to gather to enjoy to appreciate So all of the things I've been showing you are based on a principle of getting the target Speed what we want not the posted speed, but the actual speed people drive Street on the top. How fast would you think people who drive there the bottom one? Yeah, and those are pretty much right on Track the first one only is tasked to move 18,000 cars with seven lanes bottom one 54,000 cars with four lanes and this one's working better the land values of five times higher This is Berkeley and that's Spartanburg South Carolina Lancaster California Took the road of essentially you see on top and turn it into the road on the bottom Within a few years. They were bringing in over half a billion dollars of new buildings You get the right street. You get the right response So how fast do you think the average driver would drive here? Yeah, pretty fast What what about now? What about now? What about now? What about now? And all this sets the stage for this And once you get here 15 would be very predictable So that's how you change target speed by design Very important though for us to understand That building a walkable environment is more than sidewalks. So the sidewalks are missing here, right? So you add those and As you add those You still aren't solving the big problem That if people are to live here to let their child walk to school whatever what they're most concerned about is security and Until you Add some other elements People don't feel secure. It's still missing. It's still missing. What is it eyes on the street? Until you have the eyes on the street until the buildings behave People are unlikely to walk So that's the complexity we're talking about so we can go through one entire investment area this one in Honolulu You can see we can fix up the park when putting good edges create some sense of place and Spend a little more money on the park and create a nice grain but now it's when the buildings start to move in and create that wonderful sense of wall and Observation of the place that you really truly see the transformation and now Significantly increased values in home. So I just wanted to show that much to help build a vocabulary and To give us a basis as we walk and talk and see new things that we're going to appreciate How much effort is going to take and then be willing to take that effort to make things work? So That helpful Okay


All right, let's open the meeting. So just for people wondering about quorum, we can have a meeting without quorum. We just cannot vote and have a binding vote with, I think, the practical exception of adjourning. So, yeah, so we have probably a worn meeting. We just can't have a binding vote. But since we, other than the consent agenda, since we do not have any actions, that require a vote, that should not be a problem. So we will proceed as needed. Open up to public comment. Public comment is a very important part of our deliberation. It's to provide the board with constructive feedback from the community members about either items that we are currently considering on the agenda or either other items of concern that the community members may have. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to, well, our protocols do not have us respond in real time. That says we take these very seriously and we try to respond with follow-up meetings and oftentimes the questions require us to ask the administration and do some research. I do want to say just a couple things about the track proposal, which may be on several of your mind. We're going to hear from Andrew LaRosa later. I just want to clarify that the track has not been subsequently taken up by the board since the flooding of July 11th. We have not considered the track in any substantive way. I think Kristen asked a question at the last meeting about the damage to the current track of Andrew LaRosa, which as I recall, he answered that as with most of our grounds, there was some minor damage that will require some repair. But that was not a question about the proposal that we approved quite a while ago now, last fall, to renovate the track with a $1.8 million proposal that we have been updated on since then that bids came at high. So as of the last substantive discussion we had, we asked that a rebidding occur this year and it would be later in this year. I do want to say and the board has not formally acted, but really consistent with discussions that I've been having with Libby. We understand the implications of the flood. We understand what it means. And we also understand the climate change models that show that we are likely to have more of these events in the future. And we need to be very mindful of that. As such, I think it is almost certain that we will delay the track project and probably any other major investments on the ground other than what's needed to get kids safely into school and allow them to have the education and the opportunities that they are expecting for this fall. And we will, I think, have a very broad and detailed discussion, as is the whole community, because unfortunately it is not just the high school and the track that is in the flood blind, as is our entire downtown, about what that means and what sort of investments we need to make. And I think everything is on the table and there's been a lot of ideas constructively put forth in the community. And we look forward to that discussion, but I don't think anyone on the board is thinking about or intent on pushing through any major infrastructure expenditure, including the track, without a thorough vetting of what the flooding means and whether we need to rethink that investment. Other investments, frankly, the location of the high school and the future of that facility. And that's a broad discussion with a lot of difficult questions and answers. And it requires a thoughtful conversation and it also requires immense community participation and a lot of expertise and a lot of thought. So we are not, again, committed to pushing through the track as we had approved prior to July 11th. So I just want to get out ahead of that because I'm sure there's a lot of questions around that. Since we have Jill on the phone, I am going to switch up the agenda and just do the consent agenda quickly so Jill can rejoin her family on vacation. And so let's do that and then we'll go to public comment. Policy monitoring as well, Jim. Okay. For approval. Sorry, Jill. Yes. And thank you, Jill. We appreciate you hopping on. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move we approve the consent agenda. Great. Do I have a second? I second. Thank you, Emma. All those in favor? Oh, any discussion? Great. All those in favor, please say aye. Well, actually we have to do the roll call. We're back on Zoom. Lynn, yay or nay. You can give a thumbs up if you can't find your mute button or thumbs down. Thumbs up? Okay. Okay. Jill? Aye. Kristen? Aye. And Emma? I will also vote aye because of our short numbers. Do I have a motion to approve the policy monitoring report A1, board conflict of interest, and A20, board meetings, agendas, and preparation? Do I have a motion to approve those policy to policy monitoring reports? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Second. Great. Two seconds. Any discussion? Lynn, yay or nay? Yes. Okay. Jill? Aye. Kristen? Aye. And Emma? And I will also vote aye. Thank you, Jill. Enjoy your vacation. You can stick around if you want to, but you look like you're in a beautiful spot, so I know what I'd do if I were in your shoes. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. No, thank you so much for calling in. Taking the time. Great. Thank you. Bye. Bye. So public comment, we're all on Zoom now, so what I'd like you to do is, if you wish to speak, is to raise your hand in the Zoom function, which is under, if you go to reactions, there's a button that says raise hand. If you can't find that, you can just take yourself off camera and raise your hand physically. So anyone who would like to speak, please do. Bridget, please introduce yourself, and you've got the floor. And great to see you, by the way. It's great to see all of you. My name is Bridget Acie. I was until recently the parent of a high school student, but not anymore. And I just wanted to call in tonight because I wanted to express just so much appreciation for Libby and Andrew and the clean team and everybody at the high school who have been, and I know there are people whose names I don't know, have done so much work to get that school open again. I just know from my own son's experience that these are kids at the school now whose education has been interrupted once in a pretty dramatic way and to not have them be able to go back to school this year would have been just another interruption for those students. And it's just really amazing. I cannot actually believe that the place is going to be managed to recover so quickly. Also, I wanted to express appreciation for the superintendent's letter to the most recent letter to the community, which I think is just a great example of providing lots and lots of information so that people know what's going on and setting a really good tone for the discussions that are coming. And Jim, the same thing about your remarks just now setting just a great tone for, unfortunately, the discussions that have to come over the next months and years as Montpelier figures out where to go from here. And lastly, I just want to thank everyone who's on the board who's taking this on because that's yet another crisis to steer through and I know that's a huge responsibility. So thanks. Great job. I'm much appreciated. Great. Thank you, Bridget. I appreciate it. Anyone else would like to speak? Paul, I see we came off cameras. Is that, do you want to speak or? Ah, great. Sure, yes. I just wanted to, well, first I appreciate your comments, Jim, that everything's on the table. And I wanted to sort of put it in the board, bugging the board's ear that now is probably a good time to start thinking about forming a committee to investigate the possible merger of the high school with U32. I know it's been on and off the table many times, but we've never really had the motivation to follow through. And now, obviously, we do have that motivation. As you're probably aware, there have been a lot of comments on front porch forum, a lot of questions. And there's going to need to be some time spent answering those questions and figuring out if it works for our community and the U32 schools. It won't be a quick process, but I would suggest that the committee that you and I, Jim, served on for the Roxbury Montpelier merger might be a model for you to follow. For those of you who aren't familiar with it included representative members of the school board as well as citizens received very strong support from the administration as far as gathering facts and information that the committee then could try to digest. So it was a real group effort by several communities and several sectors of the community. So I hope you will put the topic on the agenda at the appropriate time. You know, certainly now it's not the time, but probably sooner rather than later is better because as you said, we don't want to invest a lot of capital into this building if we're going to be changing direction. Obviously, we want to keep it keep the building functioning and supporting the students that are there as you said. But at some point, we'll have to make a decision about what direction we're going to go in. So thank you. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate it. And James. Hello. I'm going to lower my hand so don't forget. Thank you. I just first want to start off by echoing Bridget's thank you to Libby, the board, all the efforts on behalf of the leadership to get the school ready to support the school, the clean team. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of work they've done. And I would add also thanks Libby's note that was so pitch perfect as well as Jason's. Jason's letter from the principal I thought was really fantastic. So thank you to all of the involved. I just wanted to weigh in on a couple of those things. I've made some notes so I hopefully can do this quickly. While I know that there are changes in consideration and coming my I just want to put on put some flags in the ground, I guess going forward. First and foremost, a support for Montpelier to have its own high school. I think I and I would I guess beg honestly beg all voices involved. The in the wake of the flood, the argument has very naturally been about physical logistics and dollars. I mean, while those are of course incredibly important and powerful considerations, when it comes to educating the children of Montpelier and an identity for them as a high school and the size of the high school and the quality of education, etc. There are factors that aren't physical location and aren't dollars that I would say in some cases are more important than the latter two. Um, that that I hope members of the community will keep on, you know, that we can keep in mind and continue to elevate as as those discussions go forward. Um, next, uh, um, sorry, I'm just that the the facilities for the students in the meantime, any change I'm assuming is going to be a relatively, relatively speaking, a long term change, which means we've got I'm not even sure what is it four or 500 kids at MHS, um, seeking an education about 400 kids. Um, I, uh, I with respect to what Paul just said, um, I would hope that we can, um, and I'm not suggesting Paul that you set it this way, but I think it could some might have been suggesting it, I think in this way, which is kind of a bare minimum of functioning while we figure things out. And I think our kids deserve more than that. And I fully I'd recognize that this might mean throwing some money at a school where, you know, we're changes down the road have to be made. But I think our kids deserve more than than a bare minimum keep it functioning. Um, and again, I hope the community and including when it comes to the track, um, I forget the numbers. But my understanding is that when you add up the numbers of kids in the high school and the numbers of kids in the middle school that we're dealing, we're talking about a pretty significant percentage of the students. And I think those, the opportunities of those students to express their athletic selves deserves more consideration than recent con discussions have been allowing for in the public forum. And then finally, and then I'll stop. I really, really, really hope that we as adults and I'm talking about the board or Libby, I'm talking about the rest of us, the citizens in the town can figure out a productive and, you know, useful way to continue these conversations that is not front porch forum and that is not social media. Our kids are on those things as Libby noted in her note and speaking, you know, from my to in high school. And it's not that these kids don't deserve to be in the know on this stuff. But the temperature of the debate makes it all feel like right now. And oh my God, and it's, you know, it's there's there's an urgency to it and a temperature to it that I don't think is good for our kids. And I don't think is fair to them. As will be suggested, I think in your note, these kids deserve to go to school for however long it takes the community to make the decisions in a setting that is settled. And that is firm. And that says from the community saying to these kids, we've got your back, whatever's coming down the road, you go about your business, we've got you and we're going to case you in a settled and firm situation. And I think housing this debate in a continued manner, as it's been going, doesn't do that. It alerts our kids to too many firecrackers, I think is as best I can say it. So I hope we as a community can figure out a more subtle and structured way to have a very legitimate and open debate that doesn't expose the kids of the school to this ongoing pot of boiling water, I guess is how I'd put it. And with that, thank you very much. And I apologize if I went on too long. No, thank you, James. We appreciate it. Anyone else? Otherwise, we can turn to the rest of our agenda. Great. Thank you everyone for spoke, who spoke. Now talking about being part of this discussion, we unfortunately, Seiji Ohashi, fortunately for him, has started a new business, which is a pool hall in Barry. And apparently, pools and Barry often require the owners to be there on Wednesday nights. So he is no longer able to be on the board. So he resigned a couple of weeks ago. We wish Seiji well in his new endeavor. He was a great board member. We will miss him. We do have an open seat that we need to fill. And I should forget the timeline on it now. I know the announcement went out a bit. I think we might even be trying to fill it by our next meeting. We have gotten some community members who are extremely qualified who are interested. But if that is something that interests you, please get a letter of interest and a little bit about your background to the board. And we will be moving forward with that expeditiously because we really want this person to be part of the very important discussion that many of you touched on and I touched on earlier, as well as we are in our cyclical budget season, pretty much starting at the year off. And it's really helpful to have a full board to do that. So I can't say it's a thrill a minute, but it certainly is great service. And it's a wonderful way to serve the community and our kids. So with that, I'll turn it over to Andrew La Rosa for a update on Montpelier High School. And I also just want to echo the sentiments of some of the community members who spoke and then we echoed last time. It is really, really been amazing and inspiring to see this, you know, the staff and Libby and Andrew and Tom and his custodial team, and I know I'm leaving a few names out, really pulled together. And they've been working pretty tirelessly. They have been, you know, in constant communication with the community, in constant communication with the board to get what was pretty significant flooding event at our high school cleaned up and under control. So that way our students on August 30, which is right around the corner, will hopefully be able to return safely to a school that is going to be, my understanding is more or less fully functioning. So Andrew, I will turn it over to you and Libby to give an update on that. DMI, I just have a quick question. Is there a deadline for, is there a deadline for letters of interest? Libby, do you remember I don't have the... You put it in for the next board meeting that the board would make the choice. Yeah, so I think, I think as long as you get in before the next board meeting and there's the opportunity to circle around and also for people who are interested, we will give some time at that board meeting for you to introduce yourselves and tell us a little about your candidacy. I know at least one person who's on this call right now has already expressed interest. So, you know, please feel free to come next time and we'll hear from you in addition to your letter. And if you can't make it, we will equally consider you as well to be on that meeting. It's not a, not a prerequisite to be chosen. Okay, and Jim, just for, for details sake, at the next meeting that we'll consider this, is the September 6th meeting. Yeah. So, folks have a clear on that line. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And I'll be sending out details of the one who would do that because our September 6th meeting is also going to be part two of our retreat. So, we'll have to give some thought to when it makes the most sense to do that and, you know, not structure it. So, anyone has to be there for all four hours of that because that's, that's a lot. So, at the high school, we're transitioning from sort of the event to occupancy. We met with the contractors we've been working with who have been drying the basement and monitoring the air and all those kind of good things. And we're moving, we're just starting now. We started today. They're basically slowly ramping down their systems to, so we turn on our systems as well as put on the basement fans. So, what we're going to do is at both ends of the building, we're going to have fans that are going to be sucking out 1200 CFM of air that's going to be scrubbed through HEPA filters and dumping it out into the atmosphere, basically keeping the basement at negative pressure. And that's how we're going to, that's how we're going to be for probably about six months. We'll continue week to week doing air tests within the building to make sure the air is safe. But we're going to be, I can tell you, as having stood down there this morning or this afternoon with all the other sort of outside equipment turned off and just the exhaust fans on, they're drawing a pretty good breeze out of the building. So that's, that process has started. It should be wrapped up by the end of the week that will allow Pure Clean to pull their generators and desiccant machines and air conditioning machines and all that and out by the end of this week. So are they're going to set up that equipment in the basement for the long haul, for like I say six months probably. We're going to, basically the areas where we're going to be exhausting air is on the backside of the stage through the bulkhead. Nobody ever goes back there. We say everything's going through HEPA filters. So there's no concerns there. But basically we're exhausting from the bulkhead behind the stage and then out by the cafeteria courtyard area. So we're going to, we're going to be blocking that area off so it can just sit and run and just let it do its thing over the next six months. Just so that we're perfectly comfortable with the environment down there. We have a contractor coming in in September to look, we had at one point, up until a couple of weeks ago, we had put a poly barrier. The basement is basically dirt. It's actually sand and stone, but it's a dirt basement, the floor. There's no concrete floor. So we had in the past a poly barrier under the gym and under the auditorium. That worked really well. We'll probably do that again. The rest of the basement, we will talk with our industrial hygienists and talk about the pros and cons of putting another barrier down in the basement. But that'll come in the future. But we are on track for the start of school and equipment is slowly starting to leave the campus. The site itself, Kyle Bale-Avance and his crew have done a great job out front, sort of shoveling off the silt and integrating what's left and aerating and they're going to start seeding. They still have the practice field to do out front, basically half of the practice field. As you enter the school, the field on your left, we refer to that as the practice field. About half of that's going to need to be scraped off and, but we'll be able to use half of it for middle school field hockey. Matt Link has secured his work with Union River Soccer to work with Vermont College Fine Arts to use that field for soccer, for middle school soccer. But our game field is looking great at the high school and the field hockey field is looking great. Tom and Kim have done a great job of aerating and rolling and aerating and rolling and all that. So it's actually, that's in pretty good shape. Our baseball field, well, Chip Stevens who is with Diamond Tech, Kyle Tech, he works with the Mountaineers on their field and U32 on their field. He's working with Kyle with regards to getting some grass down this fall. He will be basically prepping the baseball infield in the spring, so we can get a good season in on that. But next summer, we'll end up having to dig that out, dig that down another five inches and put in new soil, new sand in the infield, which had happened this spring. No, last spring, last year. So, but that'll wait until the spring. Same thing with the softball field. We're basically bringing the grade up there to about five inches or so and then in the spring, we'll be able to bring that clay in for the softball season. They can bring that in and they can play right on that. So we're in good shape. We're expecting that the students are going to come into the building and never know that anything happened and we were very fortunate that the water never reached the first floor and stayed in the basement. So with regards to what the students' perception is and the staff, it'll be as if it never happened there. And we're all on track. The airtesting is happening weekly as well. We'll continue that throughout the year. I named the airtester Bucky today, so it's got a name and everything, but he'll come in every week during this fall and then probably more sporadically as things are good and positive. Great. Thank you, Andrew. Any questions for Andrew or Libby about the high school update and again, fantastic, fantastic work and yet another unexpected and difficult crisis? Well, one of the advantages of working in a school is contractors like working in schools. They see a real value and the ones that we've been working with, you know, Brett at Benoint and Scott and Tanner at Johnson and Kyle Bellavance and all those, they see the value and appreciation of working in schools and they've definitely stepped up. Everybody involved has really stepped up and Tom and his crew especially. Fantastic. The other schools just so people know this because they're going to be of interest. At the elementary school, the rise space, bathrooms been framed out. The plumbers were in days run together. It was either yesterday or today, I don't know. They were in roughing in the new bathroom up there. The little gym, the walls are sheet rocked. The ceiling is in process. The framing is up, the sheet rock hasn't, but the electrical is getting roughed in today. Fire alarms are going to get roughed in tomorrow. The auditorium, unfortunately, is taking a little longer than we hoped, but I think the end results, Libby's seen a couple of snapshots. I think the end results are going to be well worth it. I think people are going to be very pleased with that. Tara's doing a great job. It's amazing what she's been doing over there in her crew. Floors have shined like they haven't shined in a long time. The cafeteria over there, if anybody's got kids that are in the elementary school, we took out the old clunker drop down tables that were chained to the wall. We got rid of that. It's all been painted. Unfortunately, the new floor is not, there was manufacturing delays in that. The floor isn't down, but it's been revamped and repainted, and it looks really nice. We're putting in new lunch tables in that space, so it's going to look great. Over at the middle school, the guidance suite is cranking along. Our contractor has agreed that our expectation is that on the 28th, they're going to be able to move in, but that's looking great. That's the old wood shop that's now been created into two offices and a reception area for guidance that's going to be really nice. We have, in the cafeteria, we changed the flow. We added a set of stairs to keep to improve the flow in that space. That's all coming together, and it'll be ready for the start of school. Those other little projects are clicking along as well. Great questions for Andrew, and I have a quick one. I'll start to cover it. The electrical in the high school, I understand it's a temporary but safe fix right now, and it might take a while for the permanent fix to come in. Is there an update on that? What has happened is, the way it happened in the original is Todd Benoit basically was working with the state inspectors, and they were basically said to him, if it's safe, if you think it's safe, it's safe with us. They came in during the event. We killed the power to the building for a week. They've gone through. They've made their inventory of parts and pieces. We're still, Barry and Montpelier has a new code with regards to electrical equipment that it needs to be out of the flood plain when you build new. We've reached out. Our assumptions, we were going to move it up to create a new electrical closet. They actually told us that that wasn't necessary. I still have to go over and talk with Andrea and get a little clarity on what that all means. Whether it's by code or not, if it's a good idea, we're very fortunate that the area that we would need to put the electrical, we actually have space above where the existing electrical panels are. We're fortunate that we can basically go straight up with the stuff. Where I get some clarity on that one, we've got the boilers themselves. We were very fortunate in that, I think a school somewhere over in Addison had be commissioned a couple of their boilers. Our contractors were given these burners, and so they had them in their warehouse. We have one set up. We were able to retrofit that. We actually have the hot water has been turned back on. We're ready to go there while we wait for our new equipment, but that should be here well before the heating season. DDC control systems, they were down there this morning or this afternoon, replacing their old boards and putting in new boards. Like I say, my expectation is that anybody who's not in the basement getting their hands dirty, everything's up and going and operational in it will be. Excellent. Thank you. Any board questions for Andrew? Excellent. Thanks again. We appreciate the update. We really appreciate the hard work. And yeah, now it's been quite an effort and echoing the comments of Bridget. Yeah, it's really great that we are able to avoid having this crop of play schoolers have another disruptive event in their school line. So we appreciate the fantastic work that you and Libby and the custodial crew and Tom and everyone and all the contractors and everyone has done. I don't generally like to do this, but I think when it's all said and done, I'm going to make a proper list of all the people and give it to Libby so she can actually in some form really truly acknowledge the people that were in here doing this stuff. Because there's a lot of people being pulled in a lot of directions and for some reason our pull gets a little extra tug over and over in our way. And I credit that to Tom because they know when they come in to do a project, he's going to be standing elbow to elbow with them all the way through. He's not in that sort of sets the tone. They know that when they're coming over, it's appreciated and we're going to help them as hard as they're helping us. You might have something to do with that too, Andrew, just a little bit. Tom was here before me. You set the tone before I got here. We certainly continued it and we usually appreciate it. It was like it's just Lynn and I left. We were going to cover a little time for you know as part of our meeting on September 6th, we were going to we are going to have part two of our retreat kind of building off the work that we've been doing for a while in terms of putting indicators of success for our board priorities. Well, Lynn, if you have any questions about that that you want to air now, please do so. Otherwise, I think we're, Kristen is back. Otherwise, I think we are kind of at the bottom of our agenda, but Lynn, go ahead if you if you want to comment on those because I know unfortunately you are, I believe, not feeling well, not able to make the retreat so. Yeah, I don't have anything at this point. I read the minutes from the retreat and I think I'm good. Excellent. Thank you. Kristen, any comments on the indicator of success or anything you want to kind of give thought to before we convene to dig into this project again on the 6th? Yeah, other than just that I felt like really good positive forward motion occurred at our last meeting and this definitely feels like just solid ground to start the goals work in earnest. So yeah, no changes or edits. Great. Thank you. And we've done the policy monies. So motion to adjourn and have a motion to adjourn. Do we need a motion to adjourn? Why do I do it anyways? We have a core. Marilyn, you want to make the motion and I'll. Sure. I move we adjourn the meeting. And Kristen, do you want a second because you're the only one left? Second. All those in favor? I. I. I. Great. Thank you all. I know it was a brief meeting. I look forward to a long meeting on the 6th and obviously, you know, as we discussed earlier, we have quite, quite a bit to dig into this fall. And, you know, they'll be, they'll be difficult discussions, but really important ones. So, you know, I was looking forward to those that I can't be, I wish, I wish we, we had different circumstances, but we have circumstances we have. And again, anyone who's in the board, please send me a letter of interest. Including your, your background and why you want to serve by the next meeting. And we will, we will fill that seat. And for those who've already done so, a huge thank you for being willing to step up and serve. So, thanks. See you on the 6th.


I am fascinated by conspiracy theories. I love reading about them. I love watching documentaries about them. I love listening to podcasts about them. It's an official world government plan to end the family in humanity. Secret society is about elevating members above others, us versus them. In the 1950s and 60s, the CIA conducted a sinister secret program to master the science of mind control. 9-11 wasn't inside Zoff. No one's ever walked on the moon. The vaccines are poison. Every conspiracy I've pretty much ever heard of is all pretty much true. Last time on Conspiranation, the rise of conspiracy theories, how social media and crisis situations led to a rise in conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. In this episode, we take a look at the types of conspiracy theories out there and how conspiracy theories operate similar to pyramid schemes. And when conspiracy theories turn dangerous. But before we get into this episode, don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss an episode in this series. This video is discussing serious matters related to conspiracy theories and may be triggering for some. Your discretion is advised. When you understand the growth mechanisms and functions of conspiracy theories and why people fall for them, very soon after, you begin to understand the game that is being played out in real time. This game has many players involved, with many different purposes and goals. But first, it's important to understand the game itself so that we can identify who are the players and who are the pawns. In the last episode, we touched on how diverse and complex the conspiracy landscape is. But in this episode, we're going to try and do the impossible. We're going to try and define and categorize the different types of conspiracy theories. For the sake of time, I'm only going to brush on the broader types of conspiracy theories in today's episode. And luckily, Abby Richards made such an incredible design and overlay on the different types of conspiracy theories and how they're all kind of connected. So let's dive into the rabbit hole on the different types of conspiracy theories. At the top or bottom of this upside down pyramid, first you have conspiracy theories that are grounded in reality. There are conspiracy theories based on events that have actually happened or conspiracy theories that have been proven to be true. Examples of conspiracy theories that fall into this category are MKUltra. In the 1950s and 60s, the CIA conducted a sinister secret program to master the science of mind control. An event that actually happened. The Bohemian Club, a real club or quote-unquote secret society that does exist. NSA mass surveillance, which has happened and may be happening. The UK and US government are both collecting massive amounts of information from the things we do on our phones and over the internet. Big tobacco lying about its products causing cancer. Beginning in the mid-20s, tobacco companies understood that the public was becoming concerned about the health implications of smoking. In the United States itself, at the end of the 19th century, a third of the entire federal revenues were from tobacco taxes. So tobacco has been a huge source of revenue for states throughout the world and that's one of the main reason governments are so reluctant to take any reasonable steps to halt the epidemic. All of these conspiracy theories are grounded in reality or may not even be conspiracy theories but things that have been proven to be true. At the very least, it's reasonable why people would believe theories related to these events. They're rooted in reality. They have happened. And the conclusions of the conspiracy theories can be clearly and logically justified. Then theories begin to cross the speculation line and turn into events that may have happened that we have questions about that we're kind of unsure about and a little bit iffy about and therefore conspiracy theories develop. These are unanswered questions such as the death of Jeffrey Epstein. Criminal Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell. This is set off a wild wave of conspiracy theories online. Princess Diana's death. There were lots of things that the French police did that really are inexplicable. Area 51. Do you plan on raiding tonight, sir? Oh, I've already been in. What was in there? Totally. What do you think is an area 51? The war machine, the Federal Reserve, the Bilderbergs, the Rothschilds, the current banking system. All of these events have seemed to be verified to the public as having a conclusion of sorts, but the public is either distrusting of this conclusion or the answers are a bit too vague leaving people with more questions. A lot of these events are shocking or almost unbelievable to some. So they make up new explanations or reasons as to why this event may have happened. Then conspiracy theories begin to leave reality. Theories like Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, Avril Lavigne being replaced. Most of these theories are believed to be false but also kind of harmless. Believing in them probably won't bring you any closer to the real truth, but it also won't necessarily cause major harm to society. We're not the only bipedal intelligence here. So is there one Bigfoot or is there multiple Bigfeet? Multiple Bigfeet throughout the whole United States except for Hawaii. With some of these theories, I can also kind of understand how it would be fun to believe them. It's fun to think about the possibility of the existence of aliens or the degree to which they may exist. Do they know about us? Are there other beings out there? It's fun to speculate on theories like Bigfoot or Atlantis or things that almost in a strange way show that magic and mystery is still out there. But conspiracy theories can become dangerous really quickly when you cross the line into science denial. Anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, global warming is a hoax. Essential oils can cure anything. Everybody cough in my face. Do it. Somebody come cough in my face. Yes. Every conspiracy you pretty much ever heard of is all pretty much true. The core theme of all of these theories are centered around a distrust in scientific and medical experts and their professional opinions and advice. It seems that a lot of these science-based conspiracy theories are based on somewhat logical fears. The fear of big pharma, the problems in healthcare, the desire to help the sick, including yourself. I've covered a lot of pseudoscience topics on my channel. Goop, Netflix documentaries, CBD, MLMs and essential oils. And in doing so, I found that much of the reason for these beliefs is the desire for our health to be under our own control. When it comes to feeling out of control, an emotion that leads to conspiracism, health is one of the greatest things we can feel out of control by, especially when it comes to illnesses that have no cure or no explanation, which is why the desire to live a healthier life or new age spirituality and wellness practices can lead to conspiracism so easily. And the last category on the upside on pyramid is the antisemitic. Gonna say that low for the YouTube algorithm to not pick up hopefully, point of no return. Because a lot of these conspiracy theories either have a direct tie to antisemitism or are based on old antisemitic folklore. All of the theories in this category are centered around the belief that the world is controlled by some sort of shadow society or elites or their conspiracy theory beliefs that are connected to that core belief. Secret societies are a great source for conspiracy theories and Hollywood blockbusters. Legends add to the mystique. One thing is certain, a secret society is about elevating members above others, us versus them. Once you reach the point of no return, your beliefs become completely detached from reality. You can also divide and categorize conspiracy theories in a variety of other ways. There's political conspiracy theories versus non-political conspiracy theories. There's local conspiracy theories versus global conspiracy theories. There's scientific versus non-scientific and there's detailed versus not very detailed. But this is where it gets interesting. While going through those conspiracy theories, you may have wondered, where do all of these come from? Interestingly enough, almost all major conspiracy theories can be linked back to one specific conspiracy theory, protocols of the elders of Zion. The protocols of the elders of Zion is one of the most notorious and widely distributed anti-Semitic texts of all time. The protocols is entirely a work of fiction and its entire purpose is to blame the Jewish population for a variety of problems occurring in the world. Those that distribute it claim that it documents a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. But the conspiracy theory and its supposed leaders, elders of Zion, never existed. The exact origins of the protocols is unknown. As you can probably already deduce, this rhetoric has inspired thousands of modern conspiracy theories that we see today. So if you flip this illustration upside down, what do you get? A pyramid, which brings us to our next point, how conspiracy theories may operate in a similar function to pyramid schemes. In the book, conspiracy theories and those who believe them, a collection of works edited by Joseph E. Usinski, there's a chapter written by Ted Gertzel, titled The Conspiracy Theory Pyramid Scheme. This chapter is all about how conspiracy theories closely mimic pyramid schemes. According to Ted Gertzel, the conspiracy theory pyramid scheme has three tiers. First, writers and intellectuals who reinforce and legitimize conspiracy means.  Like, it's clearly not a good theory. I love conspiracy theories. Shane Dawson got me into it. Sometimes, even without explicitly endorsing conspiracy theories, that's one of the biggest issues. The more people write or cover conspiracy theories, the more it can legitimize it.   I don't like him putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frog's gay. Actually contributed to people looking into Alex Jones and stumbling further upon his stuff. That can be a struggle when debating whether or not to talk about these topics. One has to constantly wonder if talking about it is going to only promote the conspiracy theories. The second tier is people with a psychological affinity for conspiracy theories. Personally, I am fascinated by conspiracy theories. I love reading about them. I love watching documentaries about them. I love listening to podcasts about them. In graduate school, I even wrote my master's thesis about them. As we talked about in our last episode, apophynia, conspiratorial thinking, a conspiratorial worldview or conspiracism may cause someone to have an affinity for conspiracy theories. Pattern processing became increasingly sophisticated with expansion of the cerebral cortex, particularly the prefrontal cortex and regions involved in image processing. As we evolved, the brain got so good at finding patterns that it sometimes sees a pattern in completely unconnected data. Enter the conspiracy theory. And the third tier are people who feel threatened by a specific issue and become persuaded that a conspiracy theory is at work. Humans are storytellers and our tendency to create narratives and find patterns has served us well throughout history, allowing us to predict, react to, and change the world around us. As someone who has made quite a bit of videos on pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing, I definitely think that there are a lot of similarities between pyramid schemes and conspiracy theories. First, there's the dream that is sold to you. You're told by your recruit that this new system is the answer to unlocking the promised land or uncovering the secret, whether the secret is making lots of money or a conspiracy plot that only you know about. All of a sudden, you are in the know and everyone else going about their nine to five, completely clueless of this secret are just sheep. Wake up, sheeple. You feel empowered, maybe even emboldened by knowing this information. If you feel truly and deeply to your core that you know this truth or the real secret, you may all of a sudden feel the need to share this important, valuable information with all of your friends and family who end up feeling a similar way and sharing it with their close circle and all of a sudden conspiracy theories are spreading in the exact way that pyramid schemes do. Just like how those within an MLM are encouraged to pour all of their time into motivational speakers and gurus and to just focus on the positivity within their MLM or pyramid scheme, conspiracy theorists encourage each other to stay away from mainstream media and mainstream news outlets and mainly focus all their time and energy into conspiracy theory gurus and their respective social media conspiratorial groups. This, of course, can form an echo chamber in which all the perspectives that you surround yourself with closely mimic your own perspective and even at times embolden it. All of this can also be explained as a confirmation bias, the tendency to look for information that supports rather than rejects one's preconceptions instead of having to evaluate every little bit of information, it's kind of easier to only evaluate information that aligns with your existing beliefs. It's more efficient in a strange way. Instead of having to deal with the fear and uncertainty of thinking you might be wrong, it's a little bit easier to only look for information that validates your own beliefs and allows you to feel more confident in believing them. Confirmation bias makes it extremely hard to change a person's mind or even reason with them, especially if they've been indoctrinated into believing that anyone who isn't with them is against them. So that's how conspiracy theories can relate to a lot of aspects of pyramid schemes. But the problem is the conspiracy world and conspiracism isn't just a straightforward pyramid, it's a complex web. Once you've opened yourself up to one conspiracy theory, not only mentally, but also socially, and follow the social channels connected with that conspiracy theory, all of a sudden you become open to more and more conspiracy theories. And more and more conspiracy theories social channels are presented to you. The problem with the internet and social media sites is that you can choose any reality you want.  For example, to believe in QAnon, one already has to believe in a few other conspiracy theories.  And then once you're introduced to all those theories, then you're introduced to QAnon. And QAnon itself is so complex with so many moving parts. 4chan, Facebook groups, Telegram groups, ever-changing ideas on who Q is, deciphering Q's messages and the codes that they're using, the storm, the great awakening. Even in just this one conspiracy theory, all the different moving parts and separate theories interwoven into one are so complex that even experts are having a really tough time wrapping their head around it. The world of conspiracy theories has become so dynamic and so diverse that it's almost developed its very own language. I think we're dealing with demonic aliens. The shadow government has been engaged with these non-human entities. They're basically planning a planetary takeover, the scenario described in the book of Revelation, which is the apocalypse. I think they come from other dimensions to roll out this global dystopian technocratic piece-matric system. And we will become enslaved. They're being programmed with inocent magic, occult magic, and they're basically casting spells and curses on us. Conspiracism, in a way, is its very own secret society. So how does one leave a secret society? If you've recruited friends and family into a deeply ingrained belief system or have surrounded yourself socially only with people who think like you, how do you leave something like that? As you can probably imagine, leaving conspiracism can be just as hard, if not harder than leaving a pyramid scheme. Especially when combined with the extremism and radicalization of conspiracists, things can really take a dangerous turn. I can't speak to the experience of leaving a conspiracy theory group, but there are those who have spoken out. Jatarth Jadeha explains his experience leaving QAnon. It's almost like a drug he told the Rolling Stone.   When Q first started posting, I felt like here's an explanation that while it doesn't make sense, if it were true, explains the situation better than the current explanations I'm getting. Jadeha also disconnected himself from many of his friends. At the time that he was deep in this conspiracy theory, he was also isolated and intensely struggling with depression and bipolar two disorder. I was, I guess you could say, a prime candidate for Q to take hold of me. Looking back, it seems obvious that I was like probably in a deep depression when I found Q. Jatarth Jadeha, who is 32, says he found QAnon on the internet in 2017. I think superficially it did seem like it gave me comfort. I didn't realize the nefarious kind of impact it was having on me because it was very insidious how it slowly disconnected me from reality. It took years for cracks to begin to emerge for Jadeha, who slowly began to realize that Q drops were filled with logical inconsistencies. A turning point for him was when a follower asked Q to try to get Trump to say the term tippy top as proof of Trump's deep knowledge of the conspiracy. When Trump did say the phrase during a 2018 Easter egg roll speech, Q believers rejoiced, believing that this was confirmation that the conspiracy was all real. And we keep it in tip top shape. We call it sometimes tippy top shape. Jadeha ended up doing more research and ended up finding out that Trump had said this exact same phrase many, many times before. And everything was tippy top. I like tippy top. I like every, everybody goes to my buildings and my clubs are tippy top, right? Tippy top. It's gotta be in tip top shape. Our nuclear is old and tired and his nuclear is tippy top from what I hear. That's when I realized this was all a very slick con, he says. Link Apparen became roped into QAnon after feeling frustrated by the 2016 election and the Democratic Party. She spent hours reading the Hillary Clinton emails. It was within that sense of injustice and rage and disappointment that we really started coming together and sort of doing our own research and connecting the dots, parents said. Link is here, Link is a former QAnon follower. So as soon as you click or like or share on a video or a link or what have you that might have some basis of conspiracy or some agenda, you know, by the end of the week, your entire new speed is filled with very similar material. When people don't feel secure, when they don't feel safe, when they don't feel like they can put a roof over their heads, give their children healthcare, equal education or what have you, they turn to something where you feel powerful, like you can make it happen. And you do become dependent on it because you just feel like you're making a difference. Conspiracism and the belief in conspiracy theories can be so interconnected to mental health. It seems conspiracism can be comforting and also at the same time exhilarating a very odd combination that can lead to that dopamine feeling that makes you want more and more and more. There have also been some people who have gone on popular news channels and spoken out about their belief in these conspiracy theories. I'm going to this sh** scene and do you like it? I'm not playing anymore. Really lost all touch with reality.  I was having a complete mental break. I really became all consumed in the QAnon conspiracy theories because of a mix of fear, anxiety, depression, uncertainty. I was losing my business. I was watching people around me lose their business. I felt hopeless. I didn't know what to do. So I went to the internet. I had to make a very serious decision for my health and my family. And that was voluntarily seeking mental health treatment. I went and I did a PTSD and trauma program, which was really ultimately what I was dealing with. How did you get into this world and go down this rabbit hole? Well, I started seeing TikToks and I didn't know that it was conspiracy things. Well, I was wrong. How do you feel now knowing that you believed all this stuff? It's weird. I think I spent a lot of time this year isolated from everybody. You know, I've just been home a lot. I've lost my job last April in 2020 and I was super depressed. And I think in a way, I'd probably lost touch with a little bit of reality in that almost that common sense. And so I'm not so much embarrassed for what I believed, but I mean, I feel foolish. The reality is a lot of people are afraid to talk about it after they leave. People who have spoken out after leaving a conspiracy theory have been doxxed, harassed and threatened. And for anyone that is extremely scary and dangerous to experience. Another challenging aspect of the conspiracy landscape is family members and loved ones of those who have fallen deep into the conspiracy theory world. The conspiracies may isolate themselves. They may start to believe that others around them are the enemy and are against them and the conspiracy theory they believe. Their entire reality can become completely different than yours, something that can be extremely difficult to navigate. A Reddit forum called r slash QAnon casualties was created for this very reason. The community description reads, have a friend or loved one taken in by QAnon? Look here for support, resources and a place to vent. Learn to heal, deal and de-program. Some of the top all-time posts on r slash QAnon casualties detail heartbreaking stories. Today, my mother said, I want my daughter to be. There isn't a word in the English lexicon for the anger I'm feeling. Seething, infuriated, rabid, frenzied. All of them fall short. My mother has fallen completely into QAnon. She posts that drivel on social media 50 plus times a day every day. She's given up her business. She never does anything but doom scroll and posts 20 plus hours a day. She barely sleeps. I called today out of concern. I tried to be as loving and caring as I could.  I want the kind caring woman who raised me who always told me she loved me more than anything but that woman is gone. QX violently attacked me minutes after the inauguration. I'm all right in currently working through a bottle of whiskey in a hotel room, still an absolute shock over this. The emotional pain is so much worse than the few scratches I have which I photographed immediately. Today, my ex-girlfriend and I were in separate rooms watching the inauguration when she attacked me completely unprompted. I ended it a few weeks ago after putting up with the Q nonsense for months and I was planning to move out at the end of the month. She had never been abusive in the least before now. Less than five minutes after the inauguration she pounded on the door, didn't wait for a response and rushed in screaming incoherently. She threw herself at me, scratching at my face so it bled. I'm a foot taller than her, big strong guy but I was so taken aback that someone who has never for a moment been violent or abusive could suddenly be trying to do me harm. I tried to hold her hands back but she started kicking so I pushed her away and ran out of the room to the bathroom and locked the door. The bathroom door locked. I grabbed my meds and toiletries. My documents and most of my clothes were already in the car. I could hear her running around the house ranting about how I was glad the pedophiles won. When I sensed a moment of calm I went directly to my car and drove to a hotel an hour away. I'm not going back ever even to get the few clothes I left but I wanted to warn people that you cannot trust someone who has left reality behind. So belief in these conspiracy theories can really mentally affect the individuals who believe them and can severely affect their family and personal relationships. In the first episode I mentioned how believing in conspiracy theories has been found to be a very human thing that has existed throughout centuries but that doesn't mean that conspiracy theories are completely harmless. Believing in a conspiracy theory and going down the online rabbit hole can lead to damaging real life consequences. So in a lot of ways this is not just a game. Conspiracy theory addiction is a very real thing. According to the addiction center it's possible to harm your mental health and relationships by developing a conspiracy theory addiction. Conspiracy theory addiction is a behavioral addiction that can have an impact on the way that you perceive events and has been linked to a more negative attitude. Conspiracy theories can create an endless cycle of distrust and disempowerment, increasingly more and more not trusting others and simultaneously more and more not trusting yourself and your own control over your life and your surroundings. And the risk of conspiracy theory addiction is really long-term negative effects. So how do you escape conspiracy theory addiction? Researchers have found that promoting messages of self-control and empowerment can reduce conspiratorial thinking. Someone who has a conspiracy theory addiction may want to seek help from a counselor who can help them work towards personal goals and increasing a sense of personal empowerment. Conspiracists believe that they don't have much control in the world and even at times may believe that the world is ending soon and that this impending doom is completely outside of their own control. So what can help combat this is creating an action-oriented mindset and encouraging self-responsibility and control. When you start to realize that you are in control of little things throughout your life, you may slowly but surely become more comfortable and confident in society. So there is hope and there is a way out and no conspiracist is fully a lost cause. You can help someone get help but you should never do so at risk of your own personal safety and mental health. The web of conspiracy theories interwoven and interconnected into our lives all connected through a common thread theory all designed to take psychological hold of us as pawns and mouthpieces. This is the game and it's being played out right now as we speak. On the next episode of Conspiranation we examine the players, the participators in this conspiracy theory game otherwise known as the influencers, the politicians and the platforms that allow conspiracism to go almost as viral as COVID-19. See you next time.


Netanyahu looking for allies to fight Tehran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting France amid important news coming from the Middle East. Iran formally accused Israel of attacking a military plant in Isfahan, which exacerbated the situation in the Gaza Strip. In the meantime, a visit to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, who sees himself as the only Western European leader seeking to maintain contact with the Kremlin, may be linked to Netanyahu's declaration that he is willing to mediate in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as long as Moscow does not support Iran. Russian Nezavizimaya Gazeta writes, According to Netanyahu, the main topic of conversation will be Iran and combined efforts to confront its aggression and nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is possible that Ukraine was also in the center of attention of both leaders. In any case, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Netanyahu actually linked to the topic of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the current aggravation of Israeli-Iranian relations. France is now playing a crucial role in shaping the European Union's policy in relation to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, while Macron continues to show willingness to broker a resolution. However, he is unlikely to satisfy the Kremlin as an intermediary, leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Fedorov told the newspaper. Macron has largely discredited himself as a negotiating partner after publicly revealing the content of his confidential conversation with Vladimir Putin, he added. Previous attempts at negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were mediated by Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not giving up hope of getting the honor of peacemaker who ends the crisis between Moscow and Kiev. According to the expert, he is unlikely to share it with Netanyahu.


Hey folks, Adam DuPay here, and today we're gonna be looking at ponables.kr, the Blackjack Challenge. So this is a one-point challenge. So hey, who knows, this could be easy, this could be hard. The mistake challenge actually took me a while, so let's dig in. So Blackjack says, hey, check out the C implementation of a Blackjack game. I found it online. Oh cool, everyone likes code that just they randomly found online. I like to give my flags to millionaires, don't we all? How much money you got? Running at ncponable.kr. All right, so this looks like another challenge where we don't necessarily have access to the binary and we have to look like, execute it remotely. All right, incorrect choice, sure. The odds this game, this program generates cards at random, each card has a value, S cards numbered one through 10, hold the value of the number, D, Jack, Queen, King, hold the value of 10, Ace cards of the value of 11, goal of this game is to reach a card value total of 21. After the dealing of the first two cards, you must decide whether to hit or stay. Stay will keep you safe, hitting will add a card. Beware you're competing against the dealer, you must beat their hand, but beware if a total goes over 21 you will lose, you can always play again, your results are recorded, would you like to go to the previous screen? Yes, are you ready? I guess, play this greatest game ever told. So obviously we want to bet 500, our total is seven, the dealer has a total of two, what happens if I stay on seven? Ah, the dealer keeps going, okay, play again, yes.  Obviously, okay, that's weird, you enter your bet after you know what they have, so dealer has showing a 10, we have five, yes, I want to hit, we have 16, they have 11, I think we want to hit, we have 17, let's stay on our 17, and the dealer has a better hand at 23, didn't they go over, whatever. All right, so let's look at this C code, so simple blackjack program, all right, wow. Okay, so here is, man. Wow, so this looks like somebody's, allegedly from 2009, somebody's final program, okay, so let's go here, blackjack, call this source.c. Okay, so it says feel free, I guess they can do this, feel free to use any and all parts of this program and claim it as your own work. All right, the results file, some global variables, one of which called cash, maybe we can manipulate that somehow. Cash test, okay, oh, maybe we can, let's see, cash is equal to cash, that seems like an interesting choice. Cash test, if cash less than equals zero, zero cash remaining, you are bankrupt game over, except it gives you 500 cash when doing that, would you like to play again? GANFs, oh, system clear, interesting, bye. Huh, all right, I wonder, let's see cash, yeah. Okay, cash is unsigned, all right, so let's just see this play, fancy play. So this is interesting because they just dropped us in this really kind of large-ish program that, okay, so zero holds the player total counter-asking, wait, I wanna see where play is called. Ask title, I just wanna get a feel for the overflow of this program. Wow, okay, so there's the main function, it certainly is a thing, ask title, ask us a choice, if choice is y or y, and it's definitely doing C, add us a choice, incorrect choice, okay, so it definitely wants us to make a yes choice. Clear, enter one to play the gator's game, ever played, choice two, if choice two less than zero or greater than three, invalid choice, oh, here it's a percent D, interesting. So if it's one, clear it and play, otherwise clear it, play the rules, otherwise you could have been perfect, oh, two, get it, all right, okay, so play. I don't think rules, let's briefly look at rules, I don't think it's gonna have anything interesting. Rules, blah, a choice, blah, ask title, ask title, oh, weird, it doesn't actually come back, it just keeps looping, okay, it keeps going to ask title, I guess you could get it to buffer overflow but that's not very interesting, although maybe that would leak some information, but okay, we can just assume that ask title, we're gonna go in here, so the interesting thing we want to deal with is play, the player total, so cash test, okay, ran card looks interesting, S ran, oh, okay, interesting, so does this want us to, so again, like we saw in the, I believe it was the challenge, oh, random, so we saw that if we can predict the seed, we can actually predict what the output is going to be, so we know if it's a club card, a diamond card, a heart card, or a spade card, but it's gonna do that every time, okay, maybe that's it, maybe it's somewhere else, random card, the players, wow, okay, so random card actually, let's say club card, does it output this, oh, it causes random again, all right, it's nine or less, wow, this is terrible, this is actually a great experience for getting used to looking at terrible, terrible code, all right, so S ran, so it's 13, 11, 12, man, so all of these functions are just gonna wait, so it's calling S ran, generates random seed for the brand function, so it's calling S ran every time, wow, okay, all right, that should be, we could probably break that, let's see if there's another way to do this, all right, counts the player total, players total is 0 to P plus L, whoa, global variables L, okay, all right, and so, this is one of those times where you feel like by looking at this code, you're gonna eventually go crazy yourself, cash, so prints out the cash, gets a random card, player total is the player's total, prints out our total, we then have the dealer, why in the world does it ask us to bet after we know what the card's on? Can we just keep doing this and only bet when we know we're gonna win? I mean, definitely, but for dealer AI, great, if the dealer total is less than 17, call S ran, ah, this time with time plus one, wow, maybe they realized they kept pulling the same cards over and over, in a second you'll get, yeah, random numbers Ace, dealer total less than equal to 10, so, okay, betting, maybe there's a vulnerability, enter bet, scan F, bet, if bet is greater than cash, so that was if you bet negative dollars and then lose, I wonder, let's try that, that would be something that would definitely be in the realm of are you ready, greatest game ever played, I will stay, would you like to play again? Yes, okay, there we go, we found the vulnerability, all right, so I can't believe that took so long, but it's clear, the problem here is that bet and cash are all integers, so we can enter a bet of negative dollars, and so now this bet is, and then we just intentionally lose the game, so if I do a negative dollars, I will stay with my 10, I won, how did I win, I bankrupted, okay, my total is one and the dealer has 11, so let's bet a million, negative a million, I would like to stay, I've chosen there, yes, yay, I am a millionaire, LOL, okay, wow, okay, good, glad that didn't take much longer because literally my eyes were about to fall out of my sockets, I don't know how these people found the Poneable.KR people found this challenge, but I mean, hey, you know what, this is the thing about a CTF, you gotta be prepared to look at all kinds of programs, and anything, you have to literally be up for anything, so this was a good reminder to always be prepared and to be ready for any challenge that they can possibly throw at you, so see you later, folks, and I'll see you next time.


The Pentagon may stop aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon will only be able to support Ukraine's war effort for a few weeks Should Congress fail to pass a new funding bill White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has claimed Speaking to CNN for an interview Kirby was asked what impact a government shutdown could have on the US aid to Kiev as Lawmakers continue heated negotiations over a stop-gap budget bill which could contain up to 25 billion dollars in assistance to Ukraine We've got a little bit more funding to go So I think we'll be okay for the next few weeks or so But without the supplemental request that we asked for it will absolutely have an effect on our ability to support Ukraine well into the fall and into the winter months the White House official said Not getting that supplement request if there's a shutdown That's gonna have a significant impact on their ability to succeed on the battlefield debate over the new spending bill Has largely been centred on additional aid to Kiev according to unnamed lawmakers cited by the New York Times Who said that some Republicans had rejected a proposal for another 25 billion dollars in assistance Despite broad bipartisan support in the Senate for money for Ukraine Officials said some Republicans were arguing that it would present an added complication in trying to provide House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with a way out of the spending log down the outlet reported noting that Republicans Opposition could delay the legislation with little time to spare ahead of the September 30th shutdown deadline However, while officials have warned that Washington's coffers are running dry with deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh recently calling a shutdown the worst thing that could happen last week The Defense Department insisted the current budget woes would have no impact on USA to Ukraine in a statement to media outlets Pentagon spokesperson Chris Sherwood said the military had designated American assistance to Kiev as essential Deeming it an accepted activity under a government lapse in appropriations


Okay. Okay. Good day everybody. Welcome to our next dissection. This is the dissection of the right side of the neck. A superficial dissection where basically I want to show you the strap muscles and a few other structures on the right side of the neck. The left side of the neck has not been completely dissected so it's been covered by skin, the right side of the neck. So this is the head end of the patient, this is the foot end of the patient. We can see, let's start from the top. This is the thyroid cartilage and just above that is the thyroid cartilage where my probe is pointed. So if you trace look up from the thyroid cartilage we see this muscle here. This is the geniohyde muscle and under the geniohyde muscle you can see a little bit of the geniohyde muscle on the opposite side. Under the geniohyde muscle we can see the mylohyde muscle which is the floor of the mouth. Let's take a look on the right side. To the right of the geniohyde muscle we see this muscle is going like this. This is the anterior belly of the digastric. This is the intermediate tendon of the digastric and the posterior belly will go further down. While we look on this topic I must show you this is the collection of lymph nodes which is located in the digastric triangle. Let's reflect that aside. What else do we see? We see that extending from the hyoid bone this muscle which has been cut partially. This is the sternohyoid muscle which goes all the way from the sternum which has been cut here to the hyoid bone. And just lateral to the sternohyoid muscle we can see this muscle here. This is the superior belly of the omohyoid. This is the sternocleidomastoid which has been cut and reflected to show you the superior belly of the omohyoid. Next what do we see? Since I have already told you that this is thyroid cartilage you can see that this is the sternothyroid muscle. And once we have reflected the sternothyroid muscle we can see the right lobe of the thyroid gland and this is the right lobe of the thyroid gland. And all of these are covered by pre tracheal fascia as you know very well. The gladular part of the pre tracheal fascia covers the thyroid gland and the esophagus the trachea and the muscular part of the pre tracheal fascia covers all these superficial strap muscles. So these muscles which are above the hyoid they are known as the suprahyoid muscles and the muscles which are below the hyoid they are known as the intrahyoid muscles. Thank you very much for watching ladies and gentlemen. If you have any questions or comments put them in the comment section below. Have a nice day. Before concluding I decided to put a few still snapshots of the same video whereby I have labelled the structures especially the strap muscles. Oh by the way I forgot to mention the camera person for this video was Miss Denial. Have a nice day.  Thank you.


If we care about inequality, economic opportunity, retirement security, poverty, and economic growth, then it's time we care about wages. Most people get the majority of their money from their paychecks, not stocks or bonds, and not on whole Sam. Economists call the money in our paychecks wages. For the 30 years right after World War II, as workers made more stuff and the economy grew, their wages grew right along with it. Our economy kept growing, but wage growth stalled in 1979. Corporations, along with lobbyists and politicians, have passed laws to keep wages down for most people, so CEOs and wealthy shareholders could reap ever larger profits. The result has been more inequality, persistent poverty, insufficient economic opportunity, and fewer rights for workers. If we're serious about solving these problems, then we need policies to get wages growing again.