Hello everybody, I'm EvilRabbit. We're here on BeamNG in a parking garage with the R21. We're gonna go full send drifting in this parking garage and see if we can't not pull a Mona Lisa. We're gonna be doing first person as well as third, so make sure you guys follow me on all social media. I found the description box below. Let's get to it. So we're gonna go full send. I've been on this track before. It's been a minute. And we are in the Driftz, one of the factory drift cars here in Beam. I really like how this car handles already. Almost, we're gonna try not wreck that memory YouTuber ever that drives in BeamNG. Oh my, how did Beam not hit that wall? The R21 feeling quite nice here on Beam. Most of the handbrake definitely knew when it's work, when need to be. That was almost a hit in the wall, but we managed to not wreck the car. Car like third gear, so especially in this course. I feel like we're gonna crash a lot when it comes to first person or in car with drift camera. The bumps up there, we surprisingly got that quite smoothly. It was about to happen. Okay, I feel like we were nowhere near that wall, but it's side jump out and catch us, so hit box for the win. Okay, well, I thought we were gonna not crash, but a couple times. So we're gonna get ourselves a fresh car, and we're gonna need to change. This is the moment of look ahead, so we're gonna see if we can do this with look ahead. Man, this could be way harder. Definitely not as smooth with this look ahead, because, well, it is not the greatest neck effect or whatever in Assetto. Yep, there's a wall. We need to maybe turn sensitivity up some. Oh, I thought we were gonna hit that. Yep, definitely much smoother in third person here on Beam. I feel like we had a better look ahead. We might do way better, but unfortunately this look ahead is not the greatest mod. And I'm having quite difficulties figuring out the all rotation of that one. I feel like we just, oh, yeah, we caved the wheel in. That's not very good. We're gonna put that back in. We are looking like we're Mona Lisa right now. It is so hard compared to driving in third. I was nice and smooth in third. I think given here with look ahead, it's a whole nother ball game. We're definitely not gonna make it up this ramp. Definitely not. Oh, man. So look ahead is extremely hard. And because of that, we're gonna switch ourselves back into third. Try to do this course backwards and get as close as we can to pillars and walls as possible. Because, you know, we got to try and get some wall taps. Not a wall hit. Wall tap, I said. Not wall hits. I think we bent something. I definitely feel like we bent something. We just did a little bit of damage because we came to these pillars. We're gonna try and wall tap that pillar up here. Okay, that was major more than a hit.


Before I show our model and the model that we developed, I want to give you a few details about my city. So Tzfat is Israeli north peripherally, on the north of Israel. You can see that we are surrounded by three borders, Lebanon, Syria, and by the way, if you want to speak about refugee after that, Syria and Jordan in the south. Tzfat is the capital city of this area, and for Tzfat, we have a very complex city. So it's a microcosm of the society of Israel. In one city, I have three observation centers of Ethiopia that come from migration from Ethiopia. I have a village of Arab that belong to my municipality. Also, 13% of my citizens are ultra-ultodox, and I have also immigration from Russia. And it's a very difficult city, and also it's a city that rank, just a moment, city that rank, we have a rank in Israeli. I will rank the city from one to ten, that you can see that the poor city is one, and the strong city are ten. Tzfat is ranked in the beginning of the process. She was three, and behind after all this, that we are a very cold city. The cold city in all Israel, we have four times in extreme weather, snow in the city. So all the difficult, the weather, the population, the mix, everything in one city, and it's a big challenge to the city. And we thought that what we do in Tzfat can succeed in all the country of Israel, and we build a special model. What the models say, we, in all the difficults, we recognize two economic engines. One is the, one is this, is the tourism, the tourism engine of economics. We have 1.2 million tourism getting inside to the city every year. Tzfat is a very unique city to the Jewish people from all over the world. If you're the Kabbalah and all the new age now in the world, Tzfat is the city that this book was there. And we take this engine of economics of tourism together with another engine of economics that happened in the city. This is the fifth medical school that the country of Israel creates. It's built in Tzfat, and it was a big game changer and economic engine to the city. And my challenge is we recognize the tourism and the faculty of medicine.  And we recognize the local assets. We make inclusiveness. What is inclusiveness? It's to let the people feel that they are part of the fruit of the grow. And it's a big challenge, and I can give you a three example. And only if the people connected to the fruit of the grow, you have a leapfrog. And we build a lot of vision how to do that. I give you three examples how we do that. First of all, how we bring the community inside the faculty of medicine. It's Teddy Bear Hospital. Children from age three to six come to the faculty and the students learn how to handle with children and the children don't afraid from a white coat. It's a wonderful project and you connect the people to the faculty. Also, we open a program. It's Educational Infrastructure of Cadet Program. Children from the school learn medicine, mathematics, and go to be the next doctor from the peripheral. Another example, you can see here, we make a cooperation. We institute inside the city with the college and the faculty of medicine. You can see students Arab, Druzen, Christian and Jewish. One of them is a doctor and all of them together win one patient and make a decision. And this make the inclusiveness. This is a short example I can give you more. In the end of the day, we see the results. The city make a leap forward. That is the only city in all my area that make a jump from three to four in the rank of the government. By the way, the other cities stay in the same position or some of them fall down. And I want to say to conclude two things. First of all, a mayor needs to take responsibility and not just sign on the program. We need to be a part of the process. We need to be the leaders of our communities and to see how they're connected. And the second thing is when I was a child, if nobody invites me and if it's a party of birthday and nobody invites me to the party, I blow up the party. So you need that your people and your citizens will be part of the party all the time. After that, you have inclusiveness. Thank you very much. Ilan, I wanted to lead in with the question. You are the youngest mayor and youthful. But your generation or our generation has seen a very different word from earlier mayors in Israel or any of our countries. How do you perceive the challenges of governing a city which is specific to your own experience? Always what, sorry? How do you perceive the governance of your city which comes from your own lived experience of growing up in Israel? Our work with the government? First of all, we don't do it alone. You need to take the government together with you. And when you show the government that this process is make the leapfrog, the government come with you. The problem in Israel is that if you rank from one to ten, and I rank three and I jump to four, so the government cut your subsidiaries. So if you ask all the mayors in Israel, if you want to jump, they say, no, no, no, we want to stay down because they cut your budget. But in the end of the day, we have now a new generation of mayors. People like me, we put all the respect outside and we speak with the ministers and we work to take control from the main government and in the end of the day, we know the people. We work with the people, we live with them, we work every morning with the people and you know what they need. So governments change, the mayor stays and in the end of the day, they start to listen to us and believe me, if we see that it's not work, we go outside to the street and I am also a leader of some propaganda that we make in Israel and we get good results and I am very optimistic about what's happened there. Thank you. So a lot more result oriented behavior from the leadership. Thank you for your intervention. It's interesting that the word politics doesn't show on the program for this particular session but it seems to be a lot about politics, politics of shit, the politics of water, politics of medicine and community medicine and perhaps now it's a good time for us to move on to the politics of housing and shelter.


Greetings from the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. It's my pleasure to welcome you to tonight's program about Lady Bird Johnson, featuring Julius Swagg, author of the new biography, Lady Bird Johnson, Hiding in Plain Sight. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs that you can view on our YouTube channel. On Tuesday, March 16th, at 1 p.m., Heather Cox Richardson will be here to tell us about her new book, How the South Won the Civil War. While the North prevailed in the Civil War ending slavery and giving the country a new birth of freedom, Richardson argues that democracy's victory was ephemeral, as the system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and established a foothold there. And on March 30th, at noon, author Dorothy Wiccenden will discuss the agitators, which uses the intertwined lives of Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright, and Frances Seward, to tell the stories of abolition, the Underground Railroad, and the early women's rights movement. This program is presented in partnership with the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, and we thank them for their support. You may order the book Lady Bird Johnson, Hiding in Plain Sight, through the library's website. Julia Swag tells the story of this remarkable first lady through Lady Bird's own words. We're fortunate to have Mrs. Johnson's audio daily diary recorded on 123 hours of tapes preserved at the LBJ Library, which is one of the 14 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. These recordings, which the library has made publicly available on its website, allows us to hear firsthand how Lady Bird was the president's most trusted advisor.  The audio diary is truly a remarkable historical source. Listening to Mrs. Johnson's soft, calm voice, you can imagine yourself in the room with her. It is rare to have such a detailed record of history created on the spot. This new book, as well as Swag's podcast, deservedly brings Lady Bird's story to a larger audience. Now it's my pleasure to introduce our panel. The moderator is author, historian, and former White House speechwriter, Jeff Scheschel, author of Mutual Contempt, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the feud that defined a decade. Joining him is Julia Swag, author of Lady Bird Johnson, Hiding in Plain Sight. She did extensive research at the Lyndon Mains Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, where our final panelist, Claudie Anderson, was once the supervisory archivist and is very knowledgeable about the library's archival holdings. Thank you for joining us today. Julia is a longtime senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She's been a leader at the Aspen Institute, and she is today a senior research fellow appropriately enough at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. And I'll just add that Julia is a friend. She's a neighbor here in Washington. And as the author, as mentioned, of a book about LBJ myself, I've been eager for this book to come out for years, ever since Julia first told me a little bit about what she was uncovering at the Johnson Library. And now we have the fruits of that in this fantastic book. I'm thrilled that the book is here. I'm thrilled that it's already getting the reception that it deserves. And I'm thrilled, as we'll discuss, that people really seem to understand the point at the very center of this book, which is that Lady Bird and by extension her husband Lyndon Vance Johnson have been underestimated for a long time. So we'll be talking about that. And a little bit later, we'll also tell you about the podcast that Julia is hosting called Simply in Plain Sight. I'm on episode three, not to get ahead of the run of show here, but the podcast is beautifully produced and absolutely gripping. Just to hear Lady Bird speaking for herself, which of course is the whole notion of this book. I'm also here to introduce Claudia Anderson, speaking of the University of Texas. Claudia is a graduate of that university and has been one of the people most responsible for one of the jewels in the crown of UT, and that is the L.E.J. Presidential Library. Claudia, as was mentioned, is the former supervisory archivist at the library, which, if anything, understates her role. She joined the staff actually just two months, I think, after the end of the Johnson administration, and has shaped the library and the incredible work it does in countless ways over the years. In 2016, Claudia began something I'm told that's called phased retirement. And what that seems to mean to me, given how busy she is, is non-retirement. I got to know Claudia and myself back in the mid-90s when I was working on my book. And I remember sitting Claudia in your office, and I was awed then. I am awed still by your incredible knowledge of the Johnson presidency, right down to every last tape, every last document. So we'll be talking about all of this. So thank you both. So, Julia, let's jump right in. Again, congratulations on the coverage and on the rave reviews already for the book. I'd love for you to begin by talking to us about this phrase we heard earlier that you've called Lady Bird Lyndon Johnson's most trusted advisor, most trusted political advisor, which really is not how most of us, and I'll cop to this myself, it's not how most of us have thought of Lady Bird. How did we all miss that? And can you tell us a little bit about how you came to that surprising view, which is so well documented in your book? Well, thank you very much to the National Archives and to Claudia for joining us here tonight. I share Jeff's delight in being able to share this discussion with you. And Jeff, thank you very much for agreeing to, of course, read the book, which is a heavy lift when you have your own work to do. But also to think with me as I was writing it about its approach and to, of course, lead the way with your own work. I'm very happy to be here with all of you tonight and for those of you that are joining us. I came upon the idea of Lady Bird Johnson as LBJ's closest advisor. By taking such a deep dive into listening to her diaries, reading the transcripts, and also doing all of the kind of contextual research and reading that one has to do to be able to understand the LBJ presidency on the one hand, but also to take her material and her account of her own experience of that presidency and put her in the center of the room in a sense. And since she is telling us through her diaries, and also through the other material in the archives in the library and in other archives, about her participation in discussions about civil rights, about her campaigning, of course, all over the country and elections in the South for civil rights, about their numerous and very difficult extensive discussions about Vietnam throughout the presidency, about her orchestration of the transition after the JFK assassination into the White House. Here campaigning with him and separately for the Great Society programs. I mean the whole arc of the presidency and then of course her orchestration of his exit from the presidency showed me that especially once the Johnson's lost Walter Jenkins that she really was of all of the people in the West Wing and all of the people in his administration, the person that he most trusted whose judgment. He went to repeatedly over and over again so that's why I concluded that that she was closest and most trusted advisor, longest lasting certainly. I'm now not to get ahead in the narrative here but you talked about Lady Bird helping to orchestrate his exit from the presidency and the reason I'm willing to jump ahead in the narrative is because you describe this as something that was actually set in motion, surprisingly early on by Lady Bird to talk about them. Sure. So, in May of 1964. There. There's a moment and this is now only five months after they've come into the White House after the JFK assassination. And then Johnson is facing pressure to escalate in Vietnam. Civil rights is stuck in the Congress the legislation hasn't really picked up yet, May of 1964 and, and he despite having very, very high approval ratings is looking ahead to the November election and asking himself whether he's going to be able to sustain the narrative and the actual material achievements to keep the country unified and if he does win election to keep it unified after that and he asks Lady Bird to lay out a memo for him a pro and con analysis about the merits of stepping out versus running again in 19 in November. And she does that in May of 64 and it's a document that's in the library, and that very explicitly says, here's the pros here's the cons of course I'm going to summarize here and we're going to talk about that document a little bit later, but she says explicitly, you know, you ought to run. You'll probably win and then in February or March of 1968. You can announce that you won't run again for an additional term. And of course on my on may on March 31 1968. We're almost at that anniversary. He announces that he won't he will do precisely that that I will not be standing again. And I thought that that was against the background of her entire diary and especially starting in 1967 where she revs up her campaign with him and her work to get this issue front and center on the front burner. You can see very clearly the thread going back all the way to the beginning months of 1964. It's a fascinating memo and I urge everyone to read the book, which replicates it, essentially in full. It is amazing to see Lady Bird with love, but also with the shrewdness of any political advisor laying out the case the pros and the cons and and then you know putting putting a thumb on the scales for the outcome that that she believes is in his best interest and is the country's best interest, which which raises another question that I have for you and that is. I mean, here was a case where where Lyndon Johnson was clearly taking her advice both in 1964 and then subsequently in 1968 and you know I thought a lot and reading your book about Eleanor Roosevelt. You know clearly the model for an influential first lady. Eleanor Roosevelt tended to play out her influence very much in public. She was such a public figure, taking stands on issues as well as behind the scenes and now FDR as we know didn't always think that Eleanor Roosevelt gave him the best political advice she often did. Sometimes he thought she didn't sometimes he was right sometimes he was wrong. I admire her perspective enormously, and he understood it was different from his own. I guess my question for you after having surveyed the whole of the Johnson presidency and and gotten so deep into the relationship and her advice. Did she give good political advice, and did Johnson thinks so on the whole. There, you know, despite having waited through so much material. One can't know the full, the full picture, because we are also talking not only about a political partnership but about a marriage. So as far as all of the advice she may have given him. Of course I don't know whether it was all good. But in the areas related to this, you know, the entry and the exit. I think most certainly she did.  I disagreed with her entirely. I think the area in which she was very strong with him, which you can see in terms of his, what his administration did is with the environment. I think the air in a very positive sense and of course she was promoting in a public way I mean that her environmental ambitions and agenda were very extensive and amplified very much what his administration's agenda was. But as far as Vietnam goes, I mean one would have to say, looking backwards and not being in their shoes that the advice that she appears to have given him on Vietnam was to reinforce his decision making. And she did that from what I can tell until about the end of 1967 when he himself was already beginning to to have a shift. And I think there's two reasons for that but generally I think she shared his blinders when it came to Vietnam she shared his sense of being stuck of not having options of feeling a lot of domestic political pressure to escalate and was oriented around the experience of World War Two as he was in which, you know, the idea of a Munich or if somehow, you know, a betrayal really haunted them and that's how they talked. One of the things that I thought was fascinating in the book was Lady Bird's estimate that in I think it was 1966, the two thirds of the conversations between the two of them between Lady Bird and LBJ concern Vietnam, which on on the one hand isn't all that surprising that it was an issue that was dominating, you know, the discussion in the country but but this is within a marriage and the fact that they spent by her again by her estimate two thirds of the time talking about Vietnam I think speaks to the fact that this was a not just a loving relationship but this was a very substantive relationship and the Johnson was turning to her for for reviews on on substantive issues without question and just and just Jeff if I just to go back to that may 64 memo there Vietnam is very much part of the context to for her she writes explicitly about the pain that she anticipates and she will feel but especially he will feel when and if he has to start sending young American boys off to war. So it's, it's, it's a huge part of of their life and their consciousness and the substance of what they discuss, and she's involved, tangentially and in the room often when he's discussing it with his staff and with his war council. The environment and I think no discussion of Lady Bird would be complete if we didn't talk about the beautification campaign. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and your suggestion I think in the book that the beautification maybe was was a label that I mean I don't want to, I don't want to go too far in suggesting this but did they regret the label beautification for any reason. I don't think it's a problem for you to go too far in suggesting it I, I mean I don't know about regret per se but you know there's this wonderful quote from her when she was in her 80s where she says, I'll never forgive Lyndon's boys for making me use that word but I did it anyway, because I understood sort of as a political statement that at that time, it was, it was about as far as they could go it was a kind of feminized way of, and demeaning but she did it anyway because she said she understood that if people liked flowers they would care about the land that grew which isn't to diminish wildflowers in any way but she by the end of again sort of you see an evolution for her the beautification program itself by 1966 begins to take on real substance beyond planting flowers in public Washington and touristy Washington and monumental Washington. She begins to try to find ways to bring together civil rights and social justice and environmentalism what we would call environmental justice in Washington DC and more broadly in American cities with the idea of bringing democratic access to nature for the most underserved people living in American cities were frequently people of color. But she herself start her staff at 1967 starts sending out notes across her communications that says please stop using the word beautification. Mrs Johnson doesn't want to use that word anymore she wants to talk about conservation and the environment and by 1968 she talks about it as that rather inadequate word that has much more substance behind it. I wonder if if we can, if we can turn back for a moment to the Eleanor Roosevelt example and one of the things that I find so interesting about Lady Bird is that she doesn't hue to a particular model of the first lady I mean she seems to have found or created her own model which was different than Eleanor Roosevelt for some of the reason reasons that I mentioned earlier and it was certainly different than the woman. She succeeded Jacqueline Kennedy and I wonder if you can talk a little bit about Lady Bird's understanding of the public role of the first lady and you know where she saw herself kind of on this continuum of remaining wholly in the background, you know maybe eyes and how or for example or best Truman or or being more public and more engaged on the issues like somebody like Eleanor Roosevelt where did she see yourself kind of fitting in. I'm not a historian of all of the first ladies of the United States but I know that Lady Bird saw herself as a descendant of Eleanor Roosevelt. She was an FDR Democrat as LBJ was in terms of the vision that the two of them had and felt that they inherited from the Eleanor Roosevelt's regarding deploying the services and resources of the federal government to help the body politic and to build a social contract and to bring bring up and to level the playing field for those most most vulnerable. And I think she saw that from their perspective and when she was a young congressional spouse in the 1930s, she was going into Washington alleys with Eleanor Roosevelt and going to the White House and attending activities with Eleanor Roosevelt. So I see very much a direct line between the two of them and I think she saw it too. It's true that she wasn't as public as Eleanor Roosevelt she didn't have a column she she wasn't traveling around the world I mean she wasn't in the White House for as long as Eleanor Roosevelt was either. But I think she she had and now I'm going to jump to Jackie precisely because she understood that there was no way she could fill Jackie's shoes you know she didn't have the glamour or the youth or the beauty or the kind of you know, the glitz and the that Camelot and the Kennedy is brought to the White House and that in some ways I think really freed her to figure out how to use this platform she talks about, you know, understanding that she has a platform and needs to figure out how to use it So in the first year until LBJ was elected at the end of 64, she dabbled a little bit more and didn't take the deep dive into the environmental agenda as as comprehensively until afterwards. She was the maybe arguably the first modern first lady she had a professional staff she had policy aids she had a chief of staff she had a very active press operation. She had to fight to get a budget, which she didn't originally have so that her staff could travel around she had a political operation that reinforced and backstopped and worked hands and glove often with the West wings political operation. So what she didn't do however was publicize that right there was a screen where what we saw in in the first lady and Lady Bird Johnson was the beautification stuff and a lot of ceremonial and campaigning stuff. So what we really see and this is what's the beauty of these among the beauty of these tapes is is how interconnected the East Wing and West Wing were I mean you could call it Lady Bird land right Allah Hillary land. It was a political operation and the person that ran that with Lady Bird was of course Liz Carpenter. I was going to say who Liz Carpenter was who was her chief of staff and her chief press aid and had been a journalist in Washington for many decades and was a had started out on Lyndon staff and was a Texan and a very powerful and and intelligent and brilliant woman who was one of the only people from what I can tell who had the ability to go back and forth between East Wing and West Wing and between the two Johnson's and really gets things done between the two of them. I think that's absolutely right she was a force and she was so well respected by by both Johnson's and so valued by both of them. And you mentioned the tapes and a minute ago maybe this is a good time to hear a little bit about the podcast. I think we've got a trailer or a teaser of the podcast that we can that we can run here. I'll just tell you just before we play it to understand what they're listening to is that this is something that I produced with my production partners at best case studios that ABC News has been releasing over the last few weeks and this week we're in episode four it's eight episodes it's I think of it as a eight episode audio documentary it's really a deep dive very immersive into the period and into the Johnson presidency told with my narration and Lady Bird Johnson's tapes and a bunch of other contemporary contemporaneous archival material what we're going to play because we couldn't decide what snippet to play for you and hope that you'll go ahead and listen to the trailer so you'll get a teaser and an overview of the story from this trailer. It all began so beautifully we were going into Dallas. Inside a dimly lit room at the LBJ library in Austin Texas a motion sensor triggers a recording and a soft deliberate voice fills the room. In the lead car, President and Mrs. Kennedy and then a secret service car and then our car, Vendon and me. It's the voice of Lady Bird Johnson the wife of Lyndon Johnson. We were rounding the curve. Suddenly there was a sharp loud report. I was so struck by that voice and the detail she managed to capture I needed to know more about what I was hearing. I cast one last look back over my shoulder so Mrs. Kennedy lying over the president's body. So I decided to dig deeper. I'm Julia Swig. I've lived in Washington DC for a while working in policy and writing about history. DC is a town that's focused mostly on power and influence. Now there have certainly been some powerful influential women in the White House. Eleanor and Jackie, Hillary, Michelle, but Lady Bird Johnson is history has it. She's just a president's wife best known for a program called beautification. But turns out Lady Bird recorded her entire experience in the White House hours and hours of tape that almost no one has ever heard. And those tapes, they end up rewriting history. Of course the 1960s have been poured over and dissected. But what I found in these diaries is surprising. It's new. Give me Mrs. Johnson right quick. I wrote out for Lyndon about a nine page analysis. This is a story about the power of a political partnership. One that somehow doesn't show up in the many, many accounts of LBJ's presidency. During this statement, there was too much looking down and I think it was a little too fast. I'd say it was a good B plus. How do you feel about it? I thought it was much better than last week. A partnership she recorded as she and Lyndon tried to navigate the turmoil of the 1960s. From political upheaval. Most of them carried signs that said Lady Bird, beautify Vietnam. To race riots. Cargo's west side is the patchwork of violence. The views of Dr. King's assassination. To her complicated relationships with other key people from the time. What I said to Mrs. Johnson upset her. I don't know why it should have said her. I was telling her the truth. I found myself in front of Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. I felt extreme hostility. Was it because I was alive? I just don't believe that I have the physical and mental strength to carry the responsibility. There was much talk of the big question. He wants to get out. There is no way out. As for that thing she's best remembered for, that program they called beautification? I think you also know what lies beneath that rather inadequate word. It goes a whole lot deeper than we ever knew. From Best Case Studios and ABC Audio, this is in plain sight. This season I'm looking at the untold story of Lady Bird Johnson. A canny political operator, an activist. One of the most influential members of the Johnson administration. Even if we never saw it. Subscribe to In Plain Sight Lady Bird Johnson wherever you listen to podcasts. And look out for our first two episodes on March 1st. And you got little snippets there. Not only of Lady Bird recording her diary entries, but also some conversation between Lady Bird and the president, which I want to talk about in a second. Claudia, I wondered if you can mention the extent of the volume of material, both the transcripts and the hours of recording. And if you could walk us a little bit about what it is like to try to process materials like that and how long it takes. Well, I think we estimate about 123 hours of recording. And Mrs. Johnson recorded the diary on three inch reels. She used pretty inexpensive tape. And she didn't always record at a very good speed. She used the slowest speed often. We don't know if that was to save money or exactly why. It didn't make the best sound reproduction. When the tapes first came to the library, they were reproduced, but actually that preservation copy turned out to not hold up as well as the original tapes did. So we then did new preservation copies in about 2008. And that was sort of the start of processing this material to make it available to the public. And then we began a review of the transcripts. And my memory is that the transcripts fill about 12 boxes, manuscript boxes, and that it took us several years to go through the material, describe it, and eventually make it available. And as I mentioned, what we made available was a transcript that Mrs. Johnson had edited. The original tapes were transcribed in the White House by White House personnel. The people who transcribed them were not familiar with foreign names. They didn't know Mrs. Johnson's friends and sometimes didn't understand her East Texas accent. So there were a lot of transcription errors in the original transcript. In the 70s and 80s, Mrs. Johnson actually went through most of the transcripts and with an eye toward editing them. And when I say edit, I don't mean taking out material. What she did was to add punctuation, correct a lot of spelling errors, and in some case add clarifying remarks to the diary. And it's those edited transcripts that we make available on our website today. And so this is in addition to what we know of as the Johnson tapes is recordings of telephone conversations and some meetings in the Oval Office and so forth. And I think that we've got, you heard a tiny little bit of it in the podcast trailer, and we're going to hear a little more of it now. I wonder, Claudia, can you tell us what we have here, what we're about to hear? This is a conversation that was recorded by the President's staff. And it's the President and Mrs. Johnson, she's critiquing a press conference that he had earlier in the day. It's March 7th, 1964. This is only three and a half months after he assumed office. And while the tape is playing, the notes that she took while she listened to the press conference are appearing on the screen. And you'll notice it's so soon after he assumes office, they're still using Office of the Vice President stationary. The notes have that letterhead. And up in the corner is the B plus, which is the grade that she gives the President. So if you want to go ahead and play. You want to listen for about one minute to my critique or would you rather wait till the night? Yes, ma'am. I'm well enough. I thought that you looked strong, firm, and like a reliable guy. You looked splendid. The close-ups were much better than the distance ones. Well, you can't get them to do it this time. Well, I would say this, there were more close-ups than there were distance ones. During the statement, you were a little breathless. And there was too much looking down, and I think it was a little too fast. Not enough change of pace. A drop in voice at the end of sentence. There was a considerable pickup in drama and interest when the questioning began. Your voice was noticeably better, and your facial expression was noticeably better. I think the outstanding things was that the close-ups were excellent. You need to learn, when you're going to have a prepared text, you need to have the opportunity to study it a little bit more and to read it with a little more conviction and interest and change of pace. Well, the trouble is that they criticize you for taking so much time. They want to use it all for questions. Then their questions don't produce any news.  So my problem was trying to get through before 10 minutes, and I still ran 10 minutes a day. And I took a third of it, which was the questions. And I could have taken if I'd have read it like I wanted to, 15 minutes. But I didn't know what to cut out. Maybe I ought to cut out Mary's heart name. But I thought that every place one of those names dropped, they'd call up the fellow and ask him and write it, and he'd get his name in the paper, and it'd publicize it good, and it'd help the committee. I believe if I'd had that choice, I would have said, use 13 minutes or 14 for the statement. In general, I'd say it was a good B-plus. How do you feel about it? I thought it was much better than last week. Well, I heard last week, see and didn't see it and didn't hear all of it. And at any rate, I felt sort of on safe ground. I mean, like you had sort of gotten over a hump psychologically and in other ways, it'll be interesting to hear everybody else's reaction. Read it with a little more conviction and interest. Yes. There weren't too many people who got to speak to LBJ that way and let alone get a yes, ma'am in response. It's pretty incredible recording. Well, and one of the really interesting things about audio records that you don't get in a paper record is that there's this intangible relationship between the speakers that you hear, and you can certainly hear Mrs. Johnson's affection and support for the president in that telephone conversation. And Claudia, you've got, I think, one more image that you wanted to share with us and tell us a little bit about it. Can we get that one on the screen? This is Mrs. Johnson recording her diary. She would actually record several days at one time. And you can see the envelopes that are propped up against the back of the couch. She would save agenda, menus, invitations, notes, and file them in these envelopes by day. And she would often record several days at one time using the material from the envelopes to jog her memory and to kind of flesh out her diary. She would sit in her office. This is off of her bedroom. It's the room that Mrs. Kennedy used as a dressing room. And she said it was one of her favorite places in the White House. She said she liked to work about sunset because her staff would have gone home and the president was still busy in the Oval Office. So you can see her here. I think it's interesting that she took steps to have a photographer document that she did this. It is fascinating. I mean, she's documenting the presidency and then she's documenting the documentation of it. And yet, at the same time, so much of this, to use Julia, your phrase, we'd love to get you to jump back in here, so much of this was hiding in plain sight. Yes, some of this was closed. And yet there was enough out there, wasn't there, that we should have known at least more of what you've revealed to us here in this book. Can you talk a little bit, Julia, about why did we miss this for so long? Just to bring it back to something that we raised earlier in the conversation. Right. Thank you. I loved listening to that tape just now. And also, it doesn't just show. I will ask you to answer your question, but I just want to add that it doesn't just show her affection and trust for him. And it shows his reliance on her. You can hear that this is something they've been talking about for a long time, that he's working on, that they're working on together. This feedback is about the two of them kind of building their muscles as public figures in the presidency. And so, and this is early days. He's going to her. I don't know if he went to anybody else who would give him that sort of feedback as you heard. Why was all of this material missed? You know, it's a question about the field of presidential historians and how presidencies are written about. They're written about with a focus on the individual president primarily. And after that, perhaps his national security staff and the U.S. I think it's, of course, the case that the American presidency has been occupied by a male president. And so the, the gender bias is just baked into the way we have been telling the story of the American presidency. It's very focused on the president. Lady Bird's case of why we missed this is a little harder for me. I mean, it's true that the material, the full unredacted released audio and transcripts hasn't been out there fully until the process was completed. I think in 2016 or 17, but it's been coming out. And as I wrote a piece that was published today in the Atlantic, which says also that LBJ himself is an enormous topic, right? He has a very long political career that precedes the presidency. He and Lady Bird were devoted to stuffing the LBJ library with as much material as possible. You know, their, their, their bias is toward access and documentation. You talked about her documenting her presidency, her involvement in the presidency, and also documenting herself doing that. The two LBJs were, were copious collectors of documentation, one secretly the other one openly in terms of the tapes. There's a lot of material to get through for anybody that wants to take on any aspect of Johnson and LBJ presidency. But I also think it has to do with, you know, just kind of a baked in assumption that that careful controlled public image that Lady Bird, Bird put out and constructed for herself, because it was careful and it was controlled was all that met the eye. And that I think is a matter of socialization and biases and sort of a kind of gendered world view that we need to get over. And it will start overcoming it as we see more women in positions of power. She worked hard to document the power she had, but she also concealed it with, with, with clarity about wanting us to know it at the same time. So she covered all of those bases. It's, it's a really fascinating paradox. And I wonder if, if both of you and, and please, you know, both of you weigh in on these questions. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about why, I mean, what was behind the, the documentary, the documentary impulse, we can call it that. I mean, clearly, Julia's, as you've described, Lady Bird had been playing this role with her husband. This didn't start when he became president. She had, you know, been advising him clearly on political questions going back, probably to the, to the beginning, I mean, even before he first won that special election in the house in 1937. And so, and yet, as far as we know, and Claudia, tell us if, if, if you have any indication otherwise, she didn't begin to write these kinds of diaries or make these sorts of recordings until right after Dallas 1963, isn't that right? Why, why then? Well, I, I think it was because they assumed the presidency and she knew how important it was going to be. And you've got to remember her education was as a historian and a journalist. And I think that she immediately saw the importance of this record when they assumed the presidency and that that's why she started. And I think it was just part of her nature. She, she knew this needed to be done. I want to jump in and ask Claudia because I haven't asked the library officially for a while, but you know, she, she, I came across something actually sort of late in my process of writing the book and doing the podcast. As a trained journalist, she always had with her these small little spiral notebooks that she took notes into. And we hear in episode one, but generally in the interviews that Jackie Kennedy did with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. She talks about being sort of taken aback that Lady Bird could sort of carry on a conversation with whomever was sitting next to her. But across the room she's listening to Lyndon's conversation and taking notes in one of these little small notebooks. She had those notebooks with her. And as I understand it, there are notebooks that precede the presidency that haven't yet been processed. And how far do they go back? And am I accurate about that, Claudia? We do have notebooks. I don't know how far they go back. And I can't tell you offhand what the volume is. I do know that a lot of the information in them is in shorthand. Right. Making it even more difficult. And there are not very many people around anymore that can actually read. Greg shorthand, which is what she used. So. There will be a problem. For historians to use those. But just to bring it home to this matter of her conscientiousness around documenting. She had those notebooks with her in her purse. On Air Force one flying back from Dallas to Washington. And had the presence of mind and ability to sit there and take notes. About what she had just experienced. So when we hear that first entry, which. Was about November 22nd, she recorded it eight days after the assassination. As Claudia said, she's pulling together. I haven't seen what's in the envelope for that first entry, but. She's pulling together. Primary source material that she herself has created. Along with all this other secondary material. It's a kind of a stunning capacity. To have the clarity of mind. To have the clarity of mind. To have the clarity of mind. To have the first draft from disparate sources. On the fly. Well, it's what they, it's that cliche about journalism, right? That it's the first draft of history. I mean, she was a really. In a sense, literally writing the first draft of history right there. You know, as it was happening in that moment. And I wonder. No, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And for example, the notes that I put on the screen, we found that in the envelope for March 4th. I mean, I'm sorry for March 7th, 1964. And so. Some of those, you might talk about notebooks, but I think a lot of the pages were torn out and actually ended up in envelopes or other places. So, I think that's what I'm talking about. So, that's why I'm talking about these. Cabbits. Claudia, this makes me want to ask you. Sorry, Jeff. No, no, this is. Because I think. One of the people in the audience tonight is Barbara Klein, who was at the library working very much with Claudia and helping me a great deal when I was doing my research. know, could I see them the primary source material that created and I think the answer was those aren't processed either are those envelopes for anybody that wants to keep going I mean that's a that would be a great deal of fun to dive into are they now processed they are not processed they are still at the library unprocessed and I'm glad you mentioned Barbara Klein the library owes her a great deal of gratitude for processing material and and helping researchers to to use it here here well and I I want to come back to something that both of you have touched on last several minutes and that is that clearly Lady Bird was thinking about history when she was taking these notes and making these recordings and and I wonder if you can both speak to this question of Lady Bird's work in advancing the the Johnson legacy I mean clearly she was and there even some comments that she makes a long way in terms of how history will perceive her husband and his work on the work of the administration she ended up as as we know she ended up outliving LBJ by more than 40 years was she very involved and in the work of the library and the archives and and also just more generally in working to shape as these diaries do the way that that we all understand LBJ and his and his time in office I would say yes and no I don't think she was really involved in the day-to-day operations of the library so much as encouraging people to do things like give oral histories to the library or give their papers to the library and she also did a large number of oral histories herself which we have at the library and they are great her oral histories largely document the pre-presidential period because we had her diaries for the presidential period I do think she was interested in his legacy obviously she was but I think she also I would not want people to have the impression that she interfered with the processing of papers or anything like that at the library she was always very supportive of making things available for example the telephone conversations that Johnson recorded well Julia I have one closing question for you here looks like we're almost at the end of our hour and maybe to bring it all together for us you made a really compelling case in the book that this changes as you put it it changes our understanding of Lyndon Johnson and what they call their presidency and I wonder if you could if you could give us your sense of I mean how did it change your understanding let's let's start with that your understanding of Johnson's presidency whatever you thought about it as you went into this project and and where you ended up that's an excellent question thank you you know I think from my days working in and writing about foreign policy and being a student of American diplomatic history my own training was a little bit what I described before which is you know we focus on the president we focus on the national security staff or broadening it out if you think about the lbj president and see you took one thinks about his two major components on the one hand civil civil rights and and great society on the other hand Vietnam and kind of his overarching personality and around personality the the historiography has focused very much on lbj and his exercise of power that word power is very much associated with with that particular president so my own pre-existing notions were to think about the presidency as this kind of uh I don't want to sound cliche at all here but just kind of you know a boys club and a boys club with a big boy at the center um but re taking lady bird's story of the presidency and placing it into that context and placing her very much in the room she talks about being in the room all the time um the photos and the images show it just makes me think of it as a much more of a shared project and um and of course I think a problem with the american presidency and we see this even in real time with american presidents in the white house is that you know the single individual american president often complains once they're in there that they don't have that much power that you know this is necessarily a collaboration between three powers certainly across cabinets and interagency as we heard obama talk all the time about feeling a little bit limited in his powers so so I think it's caused me to to broaden out the definition of power where we where a president derives his or her power and where where resources a president draws upon for that power and that's where this particular first lady lady bird johnson comes in and I I think we'll see this in the future and I think we can go back and revisit more recent presidencies through that lens of power more broadly defined well and clearly there was a center of power in that johnson white house that that we didn't know enough about um so I we're grateful to lady bird for keeping a record of that which not every subsequent first lady will have done and we're grateful to you julia for bringing all this to light and really changing again on the part speaking on behalf of a lot of us who spent a lot of time working on thinking about the the johnson presidency this this really casts a lot of things in in a different light a richer light and it's a fantastic book and thank you for talking with us about it here today thank you claudia for adding your perspective being at the the center of operations there in austin and I just want to say before we wrap up that for all of you who out there who are interested in buying this book and I hope many of you do there are some signed copies available that you can that you can order at the johnson library I think if I've got the the website right it's lbjstore.com I think there's a discount right now and the discount code is claudia appropriately enough so you've been honored with the discount code which is not something that many of us can claim so I want to thank both of you again and congratulations again Julia on this tremendous book and thank you very much it's getting it's wonderful to be here with both of you and just thanks so much for moderating a great evening and claudia again wonderful to have you here with us and thanks for everything you've done thank you thanks very much all right good night everybody good night good night


Today Friday, October 30, 2020, the Ministry of Health received confirmation of two new cases of COVID-19. This brings a total number of cases diagnosed to date in country 278. Case number 77 is a 34-year-old male from the Castries District. Case number 78 is a 31-year-old female from the Grosselate District. Both of these cases were identified through the contact tracing process and following testing for COVID-19 were placed in quarantine while awaiting their results. Both cases number 77 and number 78 are contacts of case number 55. As per protocol, arrangements have been made for the chance for into-care at the respiratory hospital. The Ministry of Health today recorded a recovery of one case of COVID-19, resulting in 50 cases now being active in country. Today, the Government of St. Lucia announced a series of advisories, which will be in effect for 30 days. These advisories have been introduced to secure the health of our nation. With every challenge comes opportunity. The Ministry of Health therefore encourages everyone to utilize these 30 days to improve how we regulate our movements and behaviors to reduce the risk of exposure. These 30 days provide us with adequate time to form new lifestyle habits. With reduced movements and more time to be within our homes, it is possible for us to improve our family life. Do not allow yourself to over-consume things that are worrying and stressful for you.  By doing so, we can all at the end of the next 30 days be safer and healthier people, not only as it relates to COVID-19, but also in terms of our overall health and well-being. Let's continue to practice the guidelines to reduce exposure to the virus. Always wear your mask when you are in public. Maintain a separation of six feet from others, which is about two arms length apart. Wash hands frequently with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.  By doing all of this in combination, we will each be making a big contribution to improving the safety of everyone. The Ministry of Health and Wellness will continue providing updates as information becomes available.


If you go back in recorded history, you will find that one of the first mentions of any society which learnt to write or you know put their records into stone was about getting you know stimulating their brains in some way or the other. 3500 years back, when people were reciting the first hymns of the Rig Veda, what are they about? About grinding somras out of some twig and getting high, staying awake at night, looking at the stars and writing poetry. If you go to South America, what were they doing? They were chewing a leaf called the coca leaf which is like chewing pan and getting slightly merry. Around 3000 years back, societies all across the world discovered that if they fermented grains and fruits etcetera, they could make a liquid which made them pretty high. And so the point I am trying to make is drugs and alcohol have been there for a very, very long time. Yet human beings also have had problems with drugs and alcohol, it is not been an easy ride. There are some people we know who can develop very severe problems using drugs and alcohol. Now the debate has always been of a very polarized nature, either North or South. When it comes to, for example, the cannabis debate, people say, shivji ka substance hai, you should have unrestricted access. On the other hand, people say it is a banned drug and you should put people into jail for it. So what we need to do is to actually separate fact from myth and myth. Dangerous from non-dangerous, we need to have facts because unless we have facts, we cannot decide. That is number one. Number two is also, I mean one needs to stop getting drawn into these polarized debates and that one can do only with facts. So it is good to look at some of these things and the first question that anybody has or anybody brings up when people start talking about drugs and alcohol is why does not the government ban it, as if it is that easy. The second question is why do people drink and smoke in the first place? If they wanted to, they could just stop, which brings us to the third argument where people say, look I have no sympathy with somebody who has developed an addiction. I mean if he just wants to, he can stop. The fact that he does not want to means that he must be a weak person or a morally not good person. We need to look at these arguments. So today, what I would like to focus on this morning is to talk about why do people use drugs in the first place? By drugs, I mean a variety of stuff. When one talks of drugs, one talks about substances which make changes in the brain as opposed to drugs like say antibiotics or things like that. When one talks about these drugs which make changes in the brain, we call them substances of abuse because human beings tend to abuse them etcetera. So basically, if you look at them, there are two great varieties. One are drugs which depress the functioning of the brain like alcohol, cannabis, opioids, things which come from opium like heroin, stuff which is in the coughs, syrups etcetera. And then there are drugs which increase the functioning of the brain and for example, drugs like cocaine or various other drugs which are far less found in India today. That is not the point. The point I would like to actually start with is why do people find drugs rewarding? Otherwise, people would not use it, is not it? The answer seems to be quite simple that the human brain in some way is actually hardwired for addiction. It is a very strange answer that there seems to be a circuit which places human beings at greater danger for addiction. Goats do not get addicted, cats and dogs do not get addicted. It is only with the higher primates that you get addicted. You know how difficult it is to get a fruit fly addicted? Very, very difficult. You have to put it in a chamber and pump it full of alcohol fumes and keep the fruit flies in there for some 48 hours which is many years in the life of a fruit fly and only then they start getting buzzed. Anyway, so why are human beings primed for addiction? It brings me to a subsidiary question. Can I ask you a question? What is the meaning of life? Why does life exist? Why do you think life exists? Any answers? No? What do you think? Take a guess. There is no purpose in life. There is no purpose in life. That is one very influential stream of philosophy that there is no purpose in life. I hope some of you other guys would think that there is a purpose to life. Why does life exist? What do you think? No purpose. That is an easy one. A set of will feel our needs and aspirations. What needs and aspirations? Like to evolve in a better human being and… And what about the people who do not evolve with better human beings? They just try. But why do you have to evolve with better human beings? It gives a kind of stability inside. So, what about the cats and dogs? They have to evolve to be better cats and dogs? So, it all depends on which section you are talking about, like for the lower… I am talking of all life. There has to be some meaning. Why is all this thing happening? Human life has been there for more than 1 billion years. Not human life. I mean life. What do you think? There is one very influential opinion, which says life actually exists to replicate itself. It is a self-replicating structure that the most important thing in life is to pass your genes on. And if you look at most of life, that is what it does beautifully. But it is very strange that in the small and the small, you know, more primitive forms of life, they replicate by themselves, they self-replicating. But as you get more complicated, as the organism gets more complicated, you have to have two organisms, which come together, share genetic material and create another, which basically is reproduction by having sex. So, one of the very important functions of life is to have sex. And sex has to be interesting, otherwise nobody is going to get involved. And animal life, human life is not going to go forward. So, to ensure that sex is interesting, I would not use the word interesting, but I will use the word rewarding. Very early on in animal existence, they developed as brains grew, as brains evolved. They developed a circuit, which made sure that sex was made interesting, rewarding. But it is not enough to have sex.  So, food has to be rewarding. That is not enough. You have to live long enough to mature, to pass on your genes, which means that shelter has to be rewarding, which means that collaborating with other animals has to be rewarding, which means that various other things have to be rewarding and so on, so forth, down the line. You come to where poetry has to be rewarding, literature has to be rewarding, making money has to be rewarding, is not it. And evolution is a very stingy process. It keeps using the same, what shall I say, mechanisms over and over again. Unlike you engineers, who devise multiple mechanisms for multiple things, you know. And in today's age, there are 2000 apps for the same thing on your cell phone, right. But life is not like that, life is very stingy. Once it makes a pattern, it keeps using it over and over again. So, the same pattern, which is there for the amoeba, may be not the amoeba, but yes, also the amoeba is also there in human beings. The same genetic code is replicated over and over again. So, we have, let me just see whether I can get this up. This is what I was saying, that the brain actually did not evolve for drugs, it evolved for normal life, right. But brains are hardwired to keep the species alive. And as I was saying, that this normal circuit is for natural pleasures in life, which establishes habits which dominate our behavior. When these activities are performed, which is having sex, which is having food, which is looking after your shelter, the brain rewards the body through a very complex pleasure center. I would not really call it a pleasure center, it is a reward circuit. Let me see whether I have a… Now, this in red is basically the reward pathway of the brain. So, suppose I were to have a rasgulla, first time around.  Next time I see a rasgulla, can you bring that up again? Somebody shows me a rasgulla, even before I have eaten it, my brain says, wow, just go for it. So, it ensures that I will in perpetuity do behaviors, which are good for me, alright. Now, what happens, if you look at that curve, is that in normal, the normal rewards in life. The normal rewards are food, activity, you know, you are being told by your teacher that you have done well, or you are being given your reward of money at the end of whatever work you perform. What happens is, if you look at it, the activity in that, in this reward circuit goes up and comes down to baseline, right. But what happens, like I am showing that, if you eat food, the activity goes up, comes down to baseline. If again, similarly with sex, activity goes up, comes down to baseline. But what we do find, is that, when you give the brain drugs, you find, similarly in the same areas, there is increased activity.  So, what human beings have relied from the beginning of time, when they started making sombras and having it, or you know, making alcohol and having it, is this peculiar thing, where certain substances act on the same areas of the brain, which give you reward to motivate you to live your life, and hijack the brain, you know. It is a very peculiar knowledge that human beings have possessed for the last, you know, God knows, 20,000 years. So, how do drugs increase this chemical called dopamine in this circuit? You have heard of these, you know, this word called dopamine, it is a neurotransmitter, which is one of the chemical substances, which increases the cross talk between nerves in the brain. There are multiple neurotransmitters. This is one, dopamine is one of these neurotransmitters. It is very, very important in motivation, it is very, very important in learning, in impulsivity, etcetera. So, drugs mimic the activity of the natural neurotransmitters. For example, opiates, drugs, which are made from opium, they inhibit certain substances. I am not going to go into the details, but basically, opiates work on opioid receptors, which are already there in the brain. Nicotine works on acetylcholine receptors, which are already there in the brain and are being used for natural purposes. Opium blocks these dopamine receptors, which are already there in the brain. So, human beings, very cleverly or by chance, have picked up substances, which work on areas, which are there in the brain and stimulate us. Now, so, what happens is that, all drugs of abuse work on this particular reward circuit and drugs, which do not work on this reward circuit are not drugs at all. So, substances, which do not work on this circuit by increasing dopamine, are not used by human beings to get high. So, this is the final common pathway for all drugs of abuse. Why am I telling you all this? I am telling you this, because all drugs work by in a way, direct or indirect stimulation of this particular circuit. So, what happens? I just want you to look at this particular slide. Can you see this one? This is the normal change in the reward circuit, goes up, comes down to baseline, but what drugs of abuse have a bad habit of doing is that, they give you a supra normal, a much more than normal high in the reward circuit and when that happens, the brain almost takes a snapshot of it, saying wow, my god that was brilliant, you know it is like you see the ads of the Kodak moment, Kodak is gone out of market, but then you know basically snap that moment. So the brain snaps that moment up and says wow, we need to get back to that, we need to recreate that moment, but also what does happen is when it goes up that high, you know you will understand by your physical principles and your understanding of chemistry that the low it comes down lower than baseline. So, incrementally what happens is that it goes high, comes down to lower than baseline. Can I, let me use this to illustrate, the brain normally is like any other natural system in homeostasis, that it is in balance. Now suppose I use the substance like alcohol, which depresses the brain, we cannot allow that to happen, so the brain has to fight back and increase the excitatory activity of the brain to keep the balance. So the next time around, when I want that buzz, the earlier amount of alcohol that I was using is not enough, so I need a larger amount of alcohol to give me the buzz to depress my brain and the brain has to work double to restore balance and this keeps happening, keeps happening until one day, the alcohol is not there and there is net net increased excitation, which is called withdrawal, you have heard of people having withdrawal from alcohol and drugs that they get, you know some people get fed, some people start shaking, hands start shaking, they are not able to sleep etcetera. So this process keeps happening and the brain basically decides after some time, that you know we cannot keep doing this, so this kind of daily adaptation cannot happen, so we need to get the brain to adapt on a more permanent basis, because this guy is going to keep on putting the substance. I will show you what happens, let us go to, these are a few PET scans, which show how, you know once you are using a particular drug and there is a net net low, because you have used the, for example what we were talking about was that you use a drug and there is increased outflow of the chemical called dopamine, but there is only that much, like in a bank there is only that much, your bank account is only that much, if you over draw then there is a negative balance. So in the brain, again there is a negative balance and when you do not have the chemical, which gives you a good feeling, you get feeling of deprivation. Now this is a normal brain, where the blue, red areas are the dopamine levels. Now this is a person who has been abusing a drug and you can find that the dopamine levels are much lower than in the normal brain, but what happens is, this is the person who was using methamphetamine a drug, after 24 months of abstinence, but even after 24 months of abstinence you find that it has come back to near normal, but it has not returned to normal. So the reason why I put up the slide is to show you that when one uses a drug for a long enough time, the adaptations that occur last for a very, very long time. So the normal response that people have about taking a person who has a drug abuse and putting that person in a rehab center saying you stay there for 6 months, you will forget about it. Obviously it is not a very good way of doing things, because the brain once adapted, stays adapted for a very long time and let me try and lead you to it. So basically what drugs do is, if this is the normal circuit of behavior that there is motivation for career, food, sex, etcetera and if you do that your brain gives you a circuit. What most drugs of abuse do is that they short circuit, so that the motivation for drugs and alcohol becomes, sorry for career, food, sex, etcetera become the motivation for the drug. So the other question about drugs is why cannot you stop? So you started great, you had a good time, you had a few highs. So why do not, why cannot you just wake up and say with effort I will stop? The issue is that it is very difficult to do so. As I have already said the drug use activates certain areas of the brain and initiates the reward pathway processes. This results in short term changes in the brain that produce immediate feelings of pleasure and reward and repeatedly doing this results in long term changes in the brain. Let me just show you some of these slides. What it does, like I was saying that the brain gets tired of doing this daily seesaw. So it puts into motion certain processes. We will not go into details, but basically let me just tell you that what it does is it flips off of flips on certain genes.  Genes are in every cell of our body, there are chromosomes and there are parts of the chromosomes which have the instructions for life, for the daily processes of life. So what the brain does is it switches off or switches on and we know for example that in the front part of the brain, there at least 2000 genes which are switched off or switched on in response to say regular alcohol use. Therefore, as a part of adapting to the drugs and alcohol, there are changes which are made and these changes are very long lasting. Now without going into the details let me just show you. For example, this list is some of the genes that we know which are expressed in the frontal part of the brain. As you can see there are already 230 genes that have been discovered which are changed in the course of say drinking alcohol for 6 months. And net net what it does is it changes the structure of the wiring in the brain, of the neurons or the cells. The brain is full of cells which talk to each other and you know there is hard wiring. It is like the wiring in your computer. Repeated use changes the wiring. If I can go back to the picture if you see you know this the cell connections especially the connections which are related to drug use and adjustment are made stronger.  I am sure you guys must have one shortcut and you find that there is a path made in the grass. And if you want the grass to grow back you will have to stop walking on it for a very long time and you have to use another path. Similarly in the brain one path is strengthened another path is made weak. So if you have to go back to the path of not using the substance and going back to getting motivated by work by relationships by food by your normal habits. Then you will have to spend a very very very long time not using the substance understood.  And then there are chronic effects which are adaptations which occur at the molecular level at the genetic level which is why you get permanent adaptations that occur. Now because of these permanent adaptations what happens is that even people who want to stop using it and they get up one morning and say no I am not going to use it. Because in a way the addiction is hard coded in the brain they tend to relapse. So I know this is a complicated slide but what I am trying to get through to you is that finally when addiction does happen addiction is a recurrent and a relapsing illness that it keeps coming back. Because the memory of the addiction is hard coded in the human brain. And therefore what we now consider is that when addiction does happen it is a brain disorder. In the same way and it is a chronic brain disorder in the same way that say diabetes is a chronic disorder you know you treat the diabetes it remains okay. You stop treating it it comes back like high blood I am sure you would have seen people who have high blood pressure. You treat it it stays under control you stop treating it comes back. Similarly with addiction we now realize it is a brain disorder. So to come back to what I started with what we started with was asking why do people use substances. And the answer to that as we have already discussed is that human beings have found over time that there is a particular you know part of their brain which gets turned on by the use of these substances. But why do not people stop when they start developing problems. Because repeated use of these substances causes a change in this circuit a change in the structure and functioning of the brain which makes use of the substances a brain disorder. And this is something that we need to understand because repeated use of substances also changes motivation for day to day of working it changes makes changes in personality etcetera. The other question that we also need to ask is does it happen in equal measure to everybody. And that is something that I will talk about later is that perhaps it does not happen in equal measure to everybody. There are some people who are at greater risk some people who are at lesser risk. And it is important to know that because if some people are at much higher risk then you need to put in interventions.  You know already people are talking about bringing in vaccines people are talking in terms of treating people at school age etcetera which we will talk about it later. So net net what I want to end this segment with is to say that addiction is a brain disorder. And it occurs because of this fortuitous circumstance of human beings having this reward circuit which is part of their motivational circuit which is also very very sensitive to certain substances which human beings like to abuse. Thank you. Any questions? Up centers might not be the best way to treat drug addiction then what are the other ways to treat addiction. See what we now realize is because it is a recurrent and a relapsing illness. And because what occurs are changes in the adaptation or rather adaptation of the brain to these drugs what we need to do is two things or three things actually. One is to use certain substances which are often medicines certain changes in behavior etcetera which change this adaptation. So we are increasingly starting to use a combination of medicines behavioral change training people in certain behaviors as well as training people to you cannot live without high you know can you. But there are safe highs and there are unsafe highs. So training people to use safer highs for example exercise is also increases activity in the reward circuit yoga we have seen increases activity in the reward circuit. For example you want to go mountaineering it you know increases activity there. So to use alternative highs. So these are some of the things that we do. However it is a good idea when people have an addiction to for a short time to take them out and keep them in a sheltered place. Because otherwise you know if you have access to substances you are not going to stop you know. So you need to be help to stay off. But then just keeping people locked and barred is not a very helpful strategy. Have I answered your question. Sir the peak that we reach on consuming alcohol and drugs does that keep on increasing with increased amount of drug and alcohol or this is the limit that is reached. Unfortunately the limit is the effect that you get on the first day. After that because of this adaptation that I was telling you about the peak keeps coming down and down and your brain tries to recreate that kodak moment and keeps saying no if I use more I will get that. But that never happens which is the tragedy that you never get your first high. Such as maybe a gaming addiction. Yeah we will talk about it. That you know there are substance addictions and there are so called behavioral addictions. And there are you know gaming addiction is a very important thing. I mean we do not really know too much about because gaming is a very recent phenomenon. But gambling we do know that gambling addiction occurs. We do know that there is addiction to things like you know sexual addiction or pornography addiction. And then you know we do not really know whether there is cell phone addiction. But you know whether there is face book addiction. But I am sure some of you guys who are on face book start getting withdrawals when you have to you know when you are cut off when you are traveling and you do not have access to face book do not you. From your face I think you get uncontrollable urges. How long are you on face book? Once a day. Thrice a day. So we will talk about it. I just wanted to ask you one thing. See there are several cultural constraints that are coming to picture when people have the first opportunity to have alcohol. Culture or certain type of faith and practices where these things are generously recommended by the immediate culture compared to some other type of faith and practices where it is completely prohibited. Is it that you know people who are practitioners of one type of faith are more susceptible to addiction compared to the other? This is a very good question. Now there are two things which I did not talk about it because this was specifically about addiction. But there is something called addiction which is a brain disorder. There is something called harmful use. Sometimes when we see it we do not see the difference. Harmful use is when I am using a substance and it is causing me harm or a likely to cause me harm which is called hazardous use. For example I drink and drive.  I am causing harm or I drink and I get all sorts of physical problems. I get services of the liver, gastritis, all that that is harmful use. But I have not developed addiction. Now that is very, very strongly mediated by culture. For example in cultures where it is permissive and there are rules to drink. People tend to have lesser this harmful use. The culture where which has the least of harmful use of harm from alcohol is the Jewish culture where people are allowed to drink and there are strict rules that you will not drink alone. You will not drink beyond a certain point. It is considered very, very bad to get intoxicated. Whereas in cultures which has the dry cultures, those are the wet cultures. In dry cultures like ours for that matter, we are actually not a dry culture. But say in Islamic cultures where alcohol is forbidden and to a certain extent in our culture where alcohol is considered bad. So, the way people react to it is when you are doing something bad you are expected to be bad. So, you go and hide in some dark corner and you you know get intoxicated fast because you have you do not have you have two minutes in which to drink it.   So, that is imbued in the cultural expectations. And that is very much part of a dry culture which is why we find that in dry cultures there is a lot of harm from alcohol. India is somewhat of we call a mixed drinking culture because while we have a dry culture at the same time 20 percent of our states economies come from selling alcohol. And there is a the television there is that you know are portraying the goodness of using alcohol in social circumstances etcetera.  And that the aim of getting of drinking is to get intoxicated otherwise why waste money whereas the aim of drinking is just to have a good time with your friends is to have social intercourse. So, you are absolutely right that culture mediates this unfortunately culture does not mediated in the way that we think it does. We would think that in cultures where it is permissive people will drink more and cultures where it is not permissive permitted people will drink less it is the opposite. I mean they do drink less, but the harm is much more the harmful patterns are much more in the so called non drinking cultures. And in India they are having you know India has probably been dry a dry culture in that sense for the last 300 years not much because prior to that there were these rules for drinking there were I mean if you go to the Arthachastra you find that there are very strict rules as to how alcohol will be made, how it will be taxed, where you can sit and drink what you can do after drinking etcetera. You know the Shishruta Samhita has a list of 72 different kinds of alcohol which should be drunk in this fashion it should be made in this way should be used for this kind of illness should not be used by the people who have that kind of illness. Whereas the last 300 years ever since ever since actually the British started their first factory in Kanpur the things have changed that is a different story though they last more. So, so any activity which increases dopamine levels is can be to an addiction theoretically yes, but there are certain things which are normal rewards you know you asking me a question so I feel happy that you listen to me actually increased my reward function you know. And yeah in a sense I can get addicted to it so I go on a lecture circuit and you want to talk talk talk talk and talk, but in a way that is not too bad except for you guys who have to listen to me. You are doing some work and finding happiness and reward from it is actually good because it benefits you and your society, but there are certain things which do not help I mean certain as I showed that you know when you have things which give you a greater than normal reward then the chances of you are getting addicted are much higher. I mean as an example I am saying bungy jumping you might get addicted to bungy jumping you might get addicted to driving fast and these are not safe in that sense. Sir it is often people consider that people those who are living alone or some they have had some mishaps with them they are more prone to drinking and also while they do so and the high that they achieve what are they what is their mind actually trying to go to which level. Now what you talked about see I should have actually showed you the first slide which is about addiction what is addiction. Addiction is the most important thing is in addiction there is loss of control that I do not have control over my activities that I say I will drink 3 drinks and I end up by drinking 8 drinks or that I say that I will not do something at a particular time and I end up doing it. It is not that I am say using a particular substance in much larger measure than others that is harmful. For example what happens with people for example like you said you know who gets sad and then they start using alcohol as a way of decreasing the stress decreasing depression etcetera. Now that is harmful because you tend to use that as a crutch you do not find a way of solving your problem. So it prevents you from solving the problem but it is not necessarily addiction in that sense it is more what we call harmful drinking harmful use. But the point is that you made a very good point that if we use a particular thing whether it is an alcoholic drink when we are feeling tired or sad or angry or whether we are using a crutch when our leg has gotten better you are never able to use your natural coping responses. You are doing this course in adjustment is not it and we all have coping strategies there are good coping strategies for when you feel sad when you feel happy when you feel unhappy when you feel bored. But for people who do not have these coping strategies who do not learn these coping strategies they tend to use shortcuts to deal with you know stress. And then it becomes a problem because the first time around it works beautifully the shortcut works beautifully. But that is not the real answer and so that prevents you from actually finding out the proper strategies to deal with it. For example I am telling you every time you got bored you and your friends decide ki aray ar chal we will go have a drink. Then that you will find is a very easy way of dealing with your boredom and you will tend to next your brain will learn boredom alcohol alcohol no boredom you know that is how the brain learns. And then you will never ever develop the capacity of saying get three friends together sit and talk about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness you understand. So, that is where it is dangerous that people learn especially when people are younger that people learn that this will result in mind forgetting my sadness for three minutes. So, let me use this it will get done, but then I do not develop the capacity to actually work through my problem you know this whole thing of adjustments then I do not develop that. And this is something you know this is the subject of a different lecture, but it is a very important thing. And if when we find it more and more in people who come from I would not call it we in popular parlance you say techie, but it is not necessarily from a technological background. People who in our lives today more and more we are being forced to do small portions of big jobs, which is something that perhaps you guys will have to do as an engineer you will be given a particular task. And you will find that somebody has made the plan the big plan you do not know the full plan you are asked to do this particular thing it happens with people who write code you know they are asked to write one portion of code. Somebody has made the big thing and you are not aware of what is happening.  And then if you do not have the coping strategies you tend to use these shortcuts, which is one of the things that we find when I sit in my clinic I find a lot of young people who come in who are very bright and brilliant people. But they are getting frustrated at a much younger age they are getting frustrated at lesser threshold partly because of the work that we are forced to do in our current social responsibilities. And I think it is very important for you guys because you guys will go out there and initially of first jobs would not be doing those large astronomical projects it would not be let us face it. And so there is a great chance if you have not learnt how to adjust how to deal with these stresses and strains of you are starting to look for shortcuts. So, it is very very important to actually see whether you do have the capacities to deal with what do I do when I am under stress most important what do I do when I am bored what do I do when I am angry because things will make you angry what do I do when I am sad things there will be things which will make you sad what you do when you are bored you play games great. So, that is one of the things that we you know at some level you need to talk about because often people have strategies which are lonely strategies loner strategies. And you come back your bored you come back you sit with a book excellent some people are able to do it some people are not able to do it which is where this whole reward thing comes one of the greatest rewards is actually social networks unfortunately what happens in the face book social networks is no there is been work on it which is why I am telling you and we probably talk about it later if you guys are also involved then is that the kind of interaction that happens when one human being sees another human being does not happen when I am sending a message saying you I like you know and then you hit like and that occurs because of a very strange thing in human brains you know I am looking at you and I am trying to think are you able to understand what I am saying no that is a very complicated example I am looking at you and I can see you flicking your pen now as soon as I am looking at you flicking your pen the parts of my brain which are used to flick a pen get lighted up it is happening right now and that is how I understand about your flicking the pen if for example you are angry with me and say get lost man do not you know why you talking nonsense here the same parts of my brain which get angry get lighted up and that is how human beings develop what is called empathy there is this whole word called theory of mind but it is a fascinating thing that from childhood we learn to understand the mind of others and the way we do it is by mirroring you know what you are doing in fact people have done fascinating experiments what they have done is they put electrodes into a monkey's brain and they have made the monkey see another monkey take a peanut they have given a peanut to another monkey the same parts of the brain which light up in this monkey to puts a peanut lights up when he is seeing the other monkey have a peanut you know monkey see monkey do have you seen babies what do babies do you do the baby will do so the baby is starting to learn how to mirror your emotion etc why am I saying this because human interactions are very important he said when he is bored he goes in place some of us when we are bored go and sit in a corner that is a bad strategy which is why Facebook by itself I am Facebook is a very good thing but Facebook by itself is a long term bad strategy because it does not allow you to see do you know monkey see monkey do you understand so the company of other human beings is very valuable to human beings and as people who will go into technological professions who will spend more time with your computers then you will do with other people most of you you need to remember that monkey see monkey do is very very important sorry I went very very far from your question but I thought it was important so well in which withdrawal does not happen like suppose for Facebook addiction no matter how much time on divorce for Facebooking like we do not get withdrawn from the natural our day to day normal stuffs so in this case I do not think that any type of withdrawal happens so how do you elaborate on a lot of people it does not happen like in a lot of people they can drink alcohol without getting addicted but in some people it happens you know I will be giving a talk I do not know whether this to the same group or not but there are people who have got so withdrawn that they have gone and shot people you know the biggest the maximum work done on Facebook addiction and all internet addiction has been done in South Korea they have been following up and South Koreans are very addicted as a nation to this I mean lots of cases where they followed up the people once their internet privileges were cut off etc. they get very very upset you know I have had several young people who have come who actually became violent after their internet privileges were cut off and the internet privileges were cut off because they were doing nothing they were not eating they were not even going to the toilet you know there was one guy who stopped bathing you would sit on the internet and he would not and play these what is it called those massive multiplayer games yeah like Counter Strike and all that and he would go on playing it and because he was playing with people from here same time zone he was playing in the day time he was playing with people from other time zones he was playing at night then I have another person who sits and does this what is it called there are coding games I do not know whether you are aware of that that there are contests which are for coders so this coding contest he would go to the office people had left he would continue playing he would not come back home when his daughter developed meningitis or something he would not he just refused to take his daughter to the hospital because he had to do that. Fact of society and culture on drug addiction we explained in the curve we just read in terms of the peak or normal baseline. In what sense? Sir for example in wet cultures the difference between peak and normal baseline would be less and in dry culture the difference would be more because in dry culture it affects more if someone get addicted to these drugs no you know what as far as addiction is concerned the brain illness called addiction which I was talking about in this morning the rates for addiction are the same in all human societies around 4 percent 4 to 5 percent in all human societies whether you go to say Russia whether they do a lot of drinking or whether you come to India and we have done this we have done do to do surveys in large proportion of the world World Health Organization has done it I have done it down in India and you look and you find addiction is around 5 to 10 percent but when you look at this harmful use you find that it differs from culture to culture has got to do with the cultural acceptance and non acceptance of having rules for substances. In fact it is very strange I do not know whether you guys know there used to be a war on drugs are you aware that there used to be a war on drugs in the 1960 the United States got together all the nations of the world and said drugs are very bad and we should ban them they conveniently banned all the drugs they were not selling themselves that is always happened in the late 1700s the Brits banned all the drugs they were not using so because they were selling drugs to China opium to China they said opium in China is ok opium in India is bad you know and so that is that is a historical process. So what happened was they said that all drugs need to be banned except tobacco for alcohol because we are selling them. So in countries in like in South Asia where people have been using cannabis for centuries people said no no no this is not on you know this is part of our religious process this is part of our this thing so we were given 15 years extra to ban it and after that what has happened is that people have it is gone underground but the actual harm from drugs has increased much more the underground economy of you know selling these drugs you heard of the Colombian drug mafia you have heard of the you know all the problems that occur because of people in Afghanistan and in you know various parts of the world producing opium and selling it for arms and all that so that has also worsened. So some of the convenient myths that we had that if you get people to ban things get better really does not you know happen that way.


Yeah, look that that initial start-up at the A-League was difficult But looking back on it and looking how it panned out I'm glad I made the choices I made in terms of going to Newcastle then coming down to Sydney and then as soon as the wanderers started You're at an age then where you're confident in your ability. You're confident.  So Something I jumped at Something not only in Australian football, but I think in Australian sport in general you'll never see it again. You'll never see a start-up club Start from nothing literally we were getting changed where the officers are now We signed Shinji Ono the players were getting changed on one side We signed him on the other side and Shinji Ono so to see it from that And the success we had in the first season to see the new facility being built in the new stadium being built It's huge to think that it all started from that first season and the players that are on this photo So so now we need to get back to the hard work to get back to where we were and where we deserve to be To be able to explain the atmosphere is that you see the team warming up before the game And you have the train are maybe 10 15 meters away from the starting 11 yelling out what Drill you're doing so it might be like your groins or your hamstrings or something like that. We literally could not hear him speak He had to start doing demonstrations physical demonstrations because we couldn't hear it. He's only 15 meters away So I think it was 80 odd thousand people screaming the whole time from start to finish lasers everything the atmosphere was out of this world so It was something special to be able to win that and lift that trophy over there Really, I mean it's weird. Everyone keeps asking me are you feeling different the last game are you? There's nothing that really feels different. I don't know if something instantly comes over you in the 90th minute because I've seen some players crying that before but I Don't know if that's me like I don't know if I'm gonna cry I don't know if I'm gonna have a smile on my face because I don't have to do another a league preseason Like I don't know what it's gonna be So ask me again after the 90th minute on the weekend and yeah, we'll see how it goes Yeah, thank you to everyone that supported the club I mean not only through the good times at the start when we start and we're winning everything But also the last couple of years where it's been really difficult for us as a club So to those core people that have been around through thick and thin. Thank you very much and To the others we hope to have you back on board as soon as possible