Your coca-cola bottler presents Claudia based on the famous play and novels by Rose Franken Brought to you transcribed Monday through Friday by your friendly neighbor who bottles coca-cola Relax and while you're listening refresh yourself. Have a coke and now Claudia Like you sing beautifully go to I like to sing I like to do everything wash I and cook oh what you're cooking this minute smells Absolutely heavenly you sure I can't help you help and waste time I mean if you want dinner for seven o'clock. Mmm. There's something in what you say I can manage here Take these sandwiches and have your drinks out on the grass under the apple tree.  I wanted everything particularly nice for Mr. Kelly and it is finger bowls, too I saw him get out of the car and I said to myself Gertrude. There's a man that likes finger balls. You're right He's a very punctilious person yet. He's so nice really think he would be he's mr. Norton's partner. Oh nice. Say ain't it lucky your mom went to town for a couple of days or he couldn't stay tonight Oh, I don't think he'd stay anyway. He's on his way to Boston to see his son. He just stopped off Say isn't it lucky we had a turkey sitting in the icebox just waiting to be cooked. If you leave it to Gertrude She'll never be caught shot when company comes here. Don't forget the little napkin. Some of them sandwiches is leaking.  Come on Shakespeare. You come on on. See your uncle Roger cat They don't want to go neither leave him be here. I'll hold the door open for you Sure, it ain't there before you three glasses in a plate. What do you think? I am mine You go out on the lawn and don't bother till I call you. This is all mine Hey David take this train for me will you? Oh, that's where you've been. Yeah, we wondered where you disappeared.  I cannot tell a lie Roger. I didn't get to did Who's got to didn't David tell you that he only just got here He's been busy looking at all the improvements we made since the last time he was here We haven't gotten around to Gertrude yet Mm-hmm. These are good. What are they different kinds? The one you just ate is cheese or something What's the one I'm going to eat? Let me taste it and I'll tell you Good fish or something Listen stop it don't let Gertrude cat is eating them. Isn't that what they're for if not I've been robbed Yes, but not here Gertrude is given strict orders We're not we're to have our drinks under the apple tree I suppose you'll get around eventually to telling me who Gertrude is Who is Gertrude? Who is he? David be quiet. She'll hear you. She'll leave Gertrude I now begin to suspect is the new maid.  In fact, she lives right down the road apiece Listen to him down the road apiece. He's already taken on her lingo Hurry up David dinner's almost ready the apple tree is waiting for us.  But the apple trees in bloom. I heartily applaud Gertrude's taste It's the most gorgeous sight I ever saw.  Oh, we are overruled David by a vast majority I'm not so fast. I have a confession to make. I don't like bugs myself I always think it's rather an exploded idea all this eating out of doors Good, then you're one of us. Come on David. You take the trade Gertrude's got the chairs and tables all set out for I see Gertrude says we go under the apple tree. So out we go under the apple tree Exactly. Are you mice or men mice? So would you be if you live miles away from nowhere and you had a new baby coming in an old house say no more Circumstances altercases. Yeah, David. Let me carry the orders. Go away. I don't trust you Hmm. There's some peanut butter. I want my money back and what's wrong with peanut butter Hmm Delicious. I think it's mixed with horseradish or something. Is it I don't know Gertrude keeps her secrets to herself I can't wait until I meet this remarkable female. Oh, not not not so much David. Gloria Just a little coke and if it's no trouble, I think I'll change my mind and have the same Oh, it's lovely out here, isn't it? Smells so fresh and damp with twilight. Oh it does Well, I have to admit it Gertrude was right. This is better than indoors. Yep. What's that? What?  Why? Because I see standing me for me a woman who is not only not afraid of thunder nighting But who seems to enjoy it? Well, I've never been hit by it. Maybe that's why she's just modest I don't think she'd be scared of it. Anyway, you know, roger.  You take the tray roger. I'll I'll get the cushions off the chair right Hey, look, I'll help you with that. Uh go on.   It's only a summer shower Oh, look take take the tray right to the kitchen roger and introduce yourself to Gertrude If my courage doesn't desert me. I know roger a reminder that you have to catch the 806 Come on. Come on. Come on. Hurry out of this rain. But don't rush It's someplace near the house Here we are You look like a little drowned rat.  You all right. Sure. I'm fine. Get in out of this What's happened to roger? I wonder he's probably making up to Gertrude That is precisely what I intend to do this moment. Claudia, come here. Come here while I kiss you soundly and with increasing respect and admiration upon both cheeks. Now, what have I done? Oh, what haven't you done?  I shall have to get an entirely new vocabulary. It's crazy. I know I'm wonderful but not that wonderful. Yes, what's uh, what's this all about? Look here, you two. You can pull my leg so far and no further. There is no Gertrude. Gertrude is a myth, the figment of the imagination, a projection of a paragon of competence. David, what is he talking about? I am talking about David's wife, orders under the apple tree, a turkey roasted to a turn waiting on the stove, an apple pie sitting on the windowsill. I closed the window by the way or it would have gotten wet and look at it as sweet and then ruffled as a summer day. And I really fell for that story of the perfect maid. Hey, come back here. Where are you going? Hey, wait for me, Claudia. Don't trip over that rug. Gertrude, David, she's not here. Oh, where is she? Well, I don't know. Everything's ready to serve and Gertrude isn't here. David, Roger doesn't believe that Gertrude really is. Producer, she's gone. She can't be. Look in the dining room. We came through the dining room. And she's not in the pantry or any place. Now, listen, why carry a joke beyond its funniest point? I've got a train to catch, so let's carve the turkey and start right in. I'm famished. We've got the soup first. Excellent. I adore soup. And here we are. The soup plates all set out above the stove. Claudia, will you allow me to ladle? Yes, yes, ladle. David, this is serious. We have lost Gertrude. Say, we've lost Bluff, too. Bluff. Here, Bluff. Here, Bluff. That's right. Where is the dog? Yes, Roger. What else have you got for that? I suppose we never had a great-dane dog.  Oh, that's all Mama needs.  Who, Mama? No, no, not Mama. Gertrude. Oh. And she might have taken the dog with her. Oh, no, she would have told us. But listen, phone her house and see anyway. That's what I'm trying to do. What's the matter? The phone's on the blink. I don't wonder. You probably won't have light or water either. Oh, your cheering is at no end. Oh, here's Shakespeare. Shakespeare, where is everybody? He won't talk. Come on, time's the fleeting. I'm putting the soup on the table. Careful of that swing door. It comes back and hit you when you least expect it. Oh, so attached.  Listen, David, this is no joke. What could have happened to Gertrude? Well, I haven't the faintest notion. All I know is that Roger will never in the world believe we haven't been pulling his leg about her. You think you really think I'm wonderful enough to have had hors d'oeuvres under the apple tree and cook this marvelous dinner at the same time? You heard him say so. Very well, then. I might as well have the game as the name. Just after Roger's trainees will attend to the matter of finding one lost maid and one lost great-dane dog. But in the meantime, Gertrude is the cat out of Gertrude's way. Mr. Norton, hand me that plate for the roles. Come on. You don't know what you're missing. The soup is wonderful. He was the best of all. I'm glad you enjoyed everything, Roger. Enjoyed it? That is a complete understatement of fact. You will pardon me for being proud of my wife, will you not? Such soup. Such turkey. Such salad. And you will pardon me if I remain speechless. I have run out of my second set of adjectives. Oh, really? Now what's so hard about throwing together a little dinner? I'd like to see the average young bride do it. Well, you just have. What was that? Did I hear something? Sounded like a door opening and closing. Listen, I wasn't walking around the kitchen. I wonder who it could be. Gertrude. Hey, Gertrude. Is that you? Yes, sir. It's me. Well, you went in a bland sakes. I don't see how you could have the stomach to with a thunder and lightning. Fit the killer body. I ain't afraid of nothing else in the world but thunder and lightning. It just scares me stiff. Yes, sirry Bob. Me and Bluff went down the cellar to be safe. He's still down there shivering like a leaf. How was the turkey? Oh, fine. You didn't fix the gravy right, Mrs. Norton. You should have added the yolk of the egg I had all beat up in red egg. I should. I couldn't imagine what that yolk of egg was for. Well, anyway, the storm cleaned up in time for me to serve the finger bowls. I'll have them right here in a jiffy. Hope you enjoyed your dinner, Mr. Killian. Oh, I'm starting out on my third set of adjectives. Of all the unscrupulous, incorrigible, unpredictable... Are you talking about my wife, sir? He is talking about your wife, sir. When the young people come trooping in with their friends and head for the refrigerator, you know what they're after. And if they don't find Coca-Cola enough to go round, you can just imagine the disappointed exclamations. So you'll find it's wise to follow the example of so many mothers today and order Coke by the case. Your grocer or gas station attendant will put a case in the car for you. Put Coke on your shopping list today. So there really is a Gertrude. Yes, there really is, and quite a Gertrude she is. Dinner certainly was delicious. Well, from now on I think life will go pretty smoothly for the Nortons. It'll go smoothly till Monday at any rate. Only until Monday? What happens then? Well, I don't want to tip my mitt, but Claudia is going to receive a letter. Well, that's not so very unusual, is it? This happens to be a very unusual letter. So unusual that Claudia isn't even going to tell Mama and David about it. Well, that is unusual. What happens? You'd better wait until Monday to find out, so I'll see you then. You will indeed. Goodbye, Mr. King. Bye. Every day Monday through Friday, Claudia comes to you transcribed with the best wishes of your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola. So listen again Monday at the same time. And now this is Joe King saying, or of war. And remember, whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment, think of Coca-Cola. For Coca-Cola makes any pause the pause that refreshes. And ice-cold Coca-Cola is everywhere. And now here's a word from your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola.


So all of these sessions are recorded for, for you to access in the past. So Bruce has talked about how you compose your story and your script and your concept. And to be honest, these days, the way that the technology has moved, that's probably the most complicated part of your video process. Working out what you're going to film, how you're going to film it, when you're going to film it, things like that. Because we have access to all of these great reasonably low-cost pieces of technology that we can use these days to film our content.  The good old smartphone. But we need to talk a little bit about what smartphones are good at, what smartphones aren't good at, and then what other equipment you'll need to get the most out of using your smartphone for video content. Now, if there's any other questions, like I said, along the way, or you've got any input, things that you use, things that you'd like to talk about, use the chat, I'd like this session to be as interactive as possible can be. And we'll go through those questions as we go. So, let's talk about getting our video together. So these days, back 20 years ago, we had big Betamax type cameras, very big things that went on your shoulder. And that was basically the only way we could get any decent video quality. Some of you or your parents might have been lucky enough to have a handy cam. And if you tried to use that handy cam, it pretty quickly ended up looking like the Blair Witch Project, because they weren't very good at handling those vibrations or things like that. So we've come a long way now where our mobile phones can shoot 4K video, which is fast becoming the fact that quality standard for online video. They've got plenty of storage in them that you can use for filming hours of video content. And the microphones and the video processors and things are pretty good. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind about using your mobile phone for video.  Okay, they're about smaller than my arm or my little finger. Now, why that's important is the smaller the sensor, the hungrier it is for light, and the more it can look like it's shaking when you are filming something. So there's a couple of pretty easy ways that we can deal with that. So for today's session, I just have the fluros on in the room. Can I show you? Is that the camera? There's Harold. Hi, Harold. There's our fluros. Harold's just laughing at my camera work, which I always think is amazing. And there we go. So no big trick photography or fancy lights or anything like that today. One of the key things when you're trying to do video for a non-profit in particular is budgets, often a bit of a concern. We can't always afford to get the big lights out or maybe we don't have room or maybe we're dealing with somebody where those lights might be triggering for them. So the easiest way to manage that is simply to set up in a room that has plenty of natural light or coming through the windows or you've got good room light. If you are more interested in the story and less interested in controlling the light like we often are, you can get by with using the room lights just fine. If you're outside, you can get by using the available light outside. Just try to avoid any sort of harsh difference in light. So if you're in an area where you've got half shadow, half sunlight, you probably just want to move. Make sure you don't have the sun coming straight into that sensor on the camera. Now if you do that, we can avoid buying the expensive lights completely. Just makes it going to be a little bit fussier about the shots that we set up. So that's the first thing. That's our lighting sort of. Now the next part we want to deal with is the sensor movement. And you can see that I have got this on a tripod with a little mobile phone grabber thing that fits into the tripod. So this particular one is made by Peak Design and it comes with the mobile phone holder in the bottom here so that you don't have to forget it. Now there's a ton of different holders that you can get. And when we've done these kind of mobile video workshops face to face with big groups, actually I haven't presented this to nonprofits, but when we do present this to groups, we can assemble a tripod and a mobile phone now and a couple other bits that we need for under $10. So you can get a decent tripod that will hold your phone up. A little mount to hold your phone on top of your tripod. $5 on eBay. You can spend a lot as well. Carol's tripod that she's using at the moment is quite a bit more than that. But you don't need it when you're starting out. You just need something that's going to hold the phone stable so that we don't have big, shaky things. And you can see the little bit of jello, the little bit of wobble that's coming into that. We can just avoid that by using a tripod to deal with that. If we want to go a little bit more advanced and a little bit more clever with the way that we do that, these things from DJI, the Osmo Mobile, this is the newest version, which I think is the $5. These are great for just being able to maintain the balance of the video. You see here it's got three motors. One up here, one down here and one here. That move to compensate for your movement so that your vision comes out nice and smooth. They also fold down really small, so pretty easy to just chuck in a backpack or something like that. And you can keep the equipment with you wherever you go. Great for your mobile phone. Great for taking it with you where you need to go. Because if you don't have a good way of being able to just chuck it in a bag and take it with you, you won't, which is always a big problem when you actually need it. You have nothing to smooth out your footage. So now we have a nice, stable camera. We have nice, natural lighting to do our video. So the next thing that we want to look at is how do we get the audio into the camera. Now if you're starting out, depending on how much noise there is around you, you might want to give the inbuilt microphones in the phone a go. And a lot of the time they will be just on.  These are kind of only about $70 for a good one. And you can get them with special plugs that will go straight into the bottom of your phone so that they're going to make sure that they work for your phone every time. Now these ones are made by an Australian company called Rode Microphones, which is, you probably can't see that, that's alright. So Rode Microphones, Australian made, they will clip into your iPhone or your Android phone, Samsung, whatever you've got, so that you can get that microphone in. But the only problem with that is that you've got to make sure that you are then within about that far of your phone. So that's fine, but at the moment Carol's about three microphones away from me, so that's going to make filming her reliably really tricky. But I can put this microphone on me and it gets out of the way nice and easy. I can run the cable through my shirt so that you can't see it. But then what we've got with these ones is the, these ones are wireless. So I can plug my microphone into one of the wireless transmitter. These are super small, super easy to carry around and just slide in through your shirt and it's basically, I keep going, it gets almost invisible at that point. So wireless options for your microphone is going to run you a little bit more. About two or three hundred for those. But they become basically essential, particularly if you're in groups of people. So you don't want somebody running through your shop and pulling over everything that you've set up because your camera's in the, your microphone cable is in their way. So running wireless ones is a bit of a safety benefit. But it's also a convenience factor so that you don't have to worry quite so much about where your people are. These ones in particular work on a wireless signal, so they actually need a second half that plugs into the bottom of your phone so that they can talk to each other reliably.  Microphones from there go up to thousands of dollars, but we really need that audio quality solved as a first step. There are, of course, cheaper ways of doing it. You can buy really sort of crappy microphones on eBay for a couple of bucks. If you email us after the event, jump on the refuel-created website and send me a message. We'll send you one hour. But recommend if he's getting serious about video, start off with about that $70 mark and then get some wireless ones as soon as you can because you'll never regret buying a set of wireless microphones. Cool. So we have our camera. We have our tripod. We have our audio. We have our lighting. So now we're good to film. So Carol has reluctantly agreed to be my model for this next segment. Congratulations, Carol. She looks very happy. So let's talk about actually filming your shot. Now you can see in my vision of my iPhone here that we have some guidelines that split the screen into three. So if you are familiar with photography at all, you'll know that that is the rule of thirds. And Carol is trying to align herself with them. And the rule of thirds is essentially just a photography rule where or guideline of thirds, I guess you could call it, a photography guideline where you've got a better composed, better looking, more natural shot if you find this along. So what I want here is a bit of visual interest. Let's say I was going to interview Carol about video. Then what I want to do here is just align this so that I've got a camera in the shot over on one of my guidelines. It's a nice, easy way to start the shot. And then I've got Carol on the other side. So it's composed reasonably naturally so that Carol can now be interviewed and away we go. If you don't have those guidelines, maybe I'll give Carol a break. If you don't have those guidelines on your phone, if you go into your setting options, you'll be able to see where they are. Now, if you're not sure what I'm talking about there or you're going, well, I don't reckon I've seen this before.  Carol, look out. So if you're watching the telly tonight, your telly probably looks something like this. Maybe it's a little bit straighter than square. You'll probably be watching at some point an interview where somebody is either seated or standing, particularly on the news. And it'll probably be here. This person's on the news. And they'll be sitting over here. This person's not going to be on the news. So what we'll then do, you'll see if I draw my guidelines through and basically split my shot into nine quadrants, nine parts. You'll see that most of the shots that are on interview shows, most of the shots that are on tonight shows, most of the shots that are on TV in general will be broken up, something like that. The people will generally look much better illustrated than that. But the face is generally centered on one of these guidelines. And then there's some negative space left over here just to let the frame breathe. But that will also mean that the person will generally be looking in the direction of the negative space. Now, you can try this for yourself. If you tried to put together a shot like that with the person over here looking off-camera, it looks really, really weird. The person looks uncomfortable, the shot looks awkward. People are really confused about what they're watching. So I would try and avoid that. But if you want to try something different and you want to go, oh, no, no, no. We won't worry about thirds. And I'm going to have my person in the center of my frame instead. What ends up happening is we still have our thirds. And these are in roughly the same spot as they were before. But what you've done now is you've framed the head within the thirds. And you've still got the person's head roughly halfway through that line. So you've done the same thing. They've just moved somewhere else and they're looking at the camera instead. Which can work quite well for testimonials and short social videos. You've got a few different options there. But there's a range of different options that you can put together for your shots. But my suggestion would be you try and stick within those guidelines of thirds, particularly if you're new to video. You haven't done a lot of video. If you use this as a bit of a guide where you get in your feel for what works for you and what works for your organization and what doesn't, you'll be able to pull something like this together reasonably quickly, get your shots and then feel your way through to make sure that you've got what you need coming out of the camera. All right. Now, if I go back to my camera, you can see I have... I'll put this on normal video. We were experimenting with the new iPhone video before. So what I want here is I want to make sure that I've got my video mode correct. So you can see I can select between my 4K and my 1080p. A good trick with 4K is if you have the luxury of shooting 4K, I could shoot this shot of Karam just fine. And then the center third, I could crop in and still get a usable shot for social media. So I have a bit more room to play. Or something better, some carol for a sec. I have some more room to edit that down and to crop that down later on. Because the reality is on social media, most of our video is going to be 1080p at best or high definition. And at worst, it might be some square version for your social instead of being the normal wide-screen angle. So that gets me through the process of getting the shot. All I, the only thing I haven't done so far is push the record button. Simple way of managing after you've done the shot is using an iPhone. I'm moving on the iPhone is really powerful these days. You'd be able to drop your vision into iMovie, you'd be able to edit together your footage reasonably quickly, export out and you can put it straight up on social media from there. If you work for an organization that uses Office 365 or Google Workspace, you'd be able to import all your footage into your organizational file storage, which is a good thing to do at the end of every shoot anyway, just so you can keep it for archival purposes. And then you'd be able to edit it on your desktop. This is an area where Macs have a big advantage over Windows computers. If you've got a Mac, you can bring in iMovie and you can get your footage edited reasonably quickly and reasonably easily. If you don't have a Mac, then if you jump onto the local TechSoup affiliates website, so for us in Australia that's connecting up, they will have Adobe Premiere Elements as a low-cost option where you can use something like Adobe Premiere Pro as part of the creative plan. Now, I've been talking for a couple of minutes. Do we have any questions so far? I see we've got a couple more attendees have jumped in. So I'm grabbing a drain. Any more, any questions at this point? Have you got any questions? I have a question. To upload your video to social media platform, what do you think is the best format to export? Shape or file format? Format. Okay, so we would export... You would know this question, Carol, I reckon. We would import all of our footage into all the social media platforms as a page 2.6.4 file. The one thing that you should check before you upload is just what bit rates they all support. You'd be able to find the documentation of what the latest bit rates are because what happens is if you have your bit rate, which is an indication of the quality of the video too high, you'll find that all the social platforms reject it and you have to sit there and re-encode everything for a day. So that would be my suggestion. Some of the social platforms are less fussy than others, so I'd suggest you have a look at the latest specs on each one because, unfortunately, they do change quite regularly. Instagram are my favourite for that. But they now allow 60-minute videos, so we can't be too grumpy in Instagram this way. So questions come through. One of the most ideal might set up to pair with basic DSLR cameras. And I'd say that depends on two things. Three things. What your budget is and how many people you're interviewing and what kind of camera you're using. So I grabbed a couple of cameras here just to talk about real cameras as opposed to using your phone. So this here is a Sony mirrorless camera. Very handy because you can film yourself with a little pop-up screen. And this one here is a little Rode VO micro. These things are great because they're cheaper chips. These are about $90. Very simple little cord plugged into any standard microphone port. But they allow self-power, so there's no extra charging or anything like that. Now, these are probably a good option if you're looking for filming multiple people. Particularly if you're roving at an event or something like that. Very directional microphone. You can point towards people, get the audio that you need for the interview and move on. The only problem with these kind of microphones is that from time to time they can pick up noise off to the side. So you want to make sure that you test it a little bit and make sure that you're happy with that. The convenience might be worth it just to get the shot and then not worry about the little bit of noise that you're going to pick up. And that's probably the cheapest, smallest one that I'd be happy with running on a DSLR. I'm not sure if you were here before, Paula, but these RODE Video Micro goes. That would be my choice for a DSLR. And they do a new version of this that allows you to pair two transmitters for your microphones on your talent to one receiver, which is long been a pain point if you're using a DSLR. Getting two microphones into that is always a pain even out of extra cabling and things. Now you can just use one of these, and it's about $300 or $400 for the pack that does two, which considering how much microphones can cost wireless microphones in particular, $300 or $400 is an absolute steal. I think our wireless microphone kit's worth about $1,500. So getting one for $300 that does that is perfect. These are all clamps just slide into your cold shoe or your DSLR. So that's a perfect kind of combination there. Get it in there. And there you go. You can run that as well. Other than that, really just depends on how much you want to spend. If you've got a Sony, there's a good option that just connects straight into your cold shoe so you don't have to worry about extra cables or anything like that. But that's probably a bit off track if you start talking about that but that's probably a bit higher in budget as well. And Isabel's asking, you have any suggestions on the best phones for filming videos in 4K? Yes. Unfortunately, that always means the most expensive ones because every year that's one of those areas where Samsung and Apple and everybody knows they can get you to upgrade if they do something cool with cameras on the phone. So today I'm using an iPhone 13 Pro Max. That has their new cinematic mode so that we can automatically keep people's faces in focus and also move the focus point between different people and different objects. If you go onto the Samsung side, again, they're flagships. It's always one of those things that they improve or the Google Pixel. But essentially at some point, any iPhone or Android phone that's been released in the last couple of years, that seems terrible to talk about this in terms of price, but anything that costs more than about $500 will do a good job. Anything under $500 will do a better job than something that you had a couple of years ago. So it's worth just having a look at the phone that you've already got, seeing whether you can make that work and then looking at what you want to do from there and work out whether it's worth investing in a dedicated camera, something like this here or whether you just keep using the phone. Yeah, and so that's... I've got any other questions at the moment. So that's probably the other thing I wanted to talk about. Just looking at... I've used my phone. I've got the most out of the phone that I can get out of it. What do I do from there? Where do I go? I want to buy a dedicated camera. As I first step up, the Humble GoPro is actually a very good option. But one of the things that you do with a Humble GoPro is they brought out a couple of years ago this thing called a Media Mod. So you can see here this is a bit bigger than a normal GoPro. This has a tiny little shotgun microphone on the side of it, much like the road one that I was looking at before. But the other thing that it does when you add the Media Mod is you get ports. I have a spot. So what we can now do is take our road microphone kit and I can actually put that up the top here. Plug it into my GoPro. I now have a pretty good camera that shoots 5.6... 5.3, 5.6K. So a bit over our 4K that we were talking about before in super high quality and doesn't rely on my mobile phone battery. So very handy little device now with the GoPro. You also get a port on the back for HDMI. Well, it's micro HDMI but it's still HDMI. So you'd be able to plug that into a TV or plug that into a laptop or something like that. So you can use it as a webcam. You can use it as an external camera. You can do whatever you want to do with it. But that is a setup. The camera in the Media Mod will run you somewhere around $800 and it's substantially more robust and smaller than grabbing a proper DSLR camera. I always want to throw it against the floor just to prove the point but I'm not that. I'm not going to do that. But very small, very handy, very capable little camera. From there, the real step up is the DSLR or the mirrorless DSLR. So this one here is a Sony A6000 series. Again, with the little fold out screen. These little fold out screens come into more and more of these little cameras as we've got vloggers and media identities and people like that looking for something like this. And you could get something like this for under $1,000 and then you just need to hook your microphone up to it. So really cheap, easy way of getting both a video camera and a steals camera does both. Not an extraordinary expensive investment. So it is the kind of thing that you can have in the office if it does break, it won't be as sad as if your microphone broke or your big camera broke but it will give you more of a gateway into managing the video internally. Plus you've got a steals camera to boot. So a good little path there. And once you get into this kind of camera you can keep going up as you need something different. Sony, Canon, Nikon, depending on what kind of lenses you've got they've all got something for you and they'll all take increasing amounts of your money until you get the BZS that year. Probably the one thing I would caution you on is don't just buy new cameras all the time. Usually they give you incremental benefits. So you may as well stick with what you've got and keep using it effectively rather than just upgrading for the sake of it. Your nonprofit can probably hang onto a camera like this here for 5 or 10 years no problems as long as it doesn't get broken.  Now if you are looking at this today and going, oh I want to get started, what's the bare minimum that I could get started with? I would say a quiet room that is well lit and a mobile phone on a tripod. That would get you started with basically no investment and then you can get your tripod and your microphone as your next things from there. Those are probably the biggest things that you're going to need to get started properly. But again, they won't be overly expensive investments. When we do these kind of things we always emphasize the smartphone because it's generally the most advanced piece of technology that you're carrying with you that can do this. So it allows you to get started with no investment at all. And if you've got an iPhone, the video program that's built into it is a pretty good option as well. I'll just wait for some more questions to come in. But one last one I wanted to talk about just because it's cool and I've got them here is, yes, Carol's laughing, I'll make the shadows what these are. They're Facebook glasses. Welcome to the future. So you've even got options like this where it just presents some interesting creative opportunities because they've got little tiny cameras up here. You can push a button and you can record up to about a minute on footage when you do that. They charge off the case and that video goes into your phone. It doesn't have to go straight to Facebook. So for some nonprofits trying to tell their story you're actually able to suddenly do a genuine sort of see things in this person's eyes where you can go through a day working with your organization or what it's like for certain people on a daily basis and it's a great way of really just capturing those unique angles as we go. Hayley has asked, do you have any advice for sound when shooting outside? So these things are what we use for shooting outside at a basic level and Rude being an Australian company has some very ridiculous names for them. Some people will call them fluffies. Rude like to call theirs after Australian wildlife so they have a dead cat. They have a dead wombat. I can't remember what the other one is. Dead cat, dead wombat. And so at a basic level what these do is let you just cut some of the wind noise out from hitting your microphone which is really probably the biggest thing that kills your sound outside. We would also, I prefer to use these kind of microphones most of the time so this is technically called a lavalier microphone or a lab. They're really directional which is why we put them here and point them at your mouth but they've got that little fluffy on top. You can get a bigger one if you need it to cut out that wind noise but because they're so directional often you don't need to. So maybe if you just turn the person that's talking slightly you'll be able to cut out that noise and keep going. Those are the two biggest ways I would do it and if we're doing this at a level where we're talking about mobile phones and cameras and things then that's probably the best way to deal with the outdoor issue and the wind issue. There are bigger more advanced options things called a blimp where you've got your microphone suspended in a cage basically to cut out the wind noise but nine times out of ten you use something like that so that fluffy actually comes with the video microphone. If you use something like that it will cut out what you need. If you need something bigger than that and you need a blimp or something like that I'd probably kind of argue that at this level maybe you shouldn't be outside because you might get blown away. Hopefully that answered that question Haley. Alright so we've got a couple minutes left if you've got any other questions please send them through. Otherwise I want to thank everyone for joining us today for a bit of an experiment for us today we're using the whiteboard we're using equipment we usually do these just as a bit of a normal webinar so feel free to send through any feedback you have if you'd rather not see me and Carol again that's fine we won't be top set but I really love to hear your feedback because we're currently shaping the events that we run for next year so if there's anything in particular you'd like to see please let us know. But other than that unless we have any more questions I'm going to close it there there are any more questions feel free to send them through after the session and we'd be happy to go through it. So next month so in December we'll be going back to our regularly scheduled format and we'll be talking about preparing for the new year so I look forward to seeing everybody then. Thank you.


It's nice to be here to know how this really works and see how it's a real place, not just an institution. We've been to the Visitor Centre discovering all the different parts. There are a lot of manual games and I like there is a section where you can vote for what do you think the European Union accomplished better since its creation. And then we had a panel discussion with some experts from the European Central Bank from different divisions. It was not just fun but also very educational. We learned a lot of new things we couldn't even imagine about the way euros work, about the European Central Bank works. I really liked the SEPA and the other the intimate, what's called SEPA and the tips. I really liked the SEPA and the tips. Tips is instant transactions, right? That's right. So we learned that. I'm going to transfer you money and within 10 seconds it's on a bank account and that's also international through all of Europe. We thought that we had to dress really formal, that everybody here just wears dresses and suits. I think that it is a comfortable environment where everybody can dress the way they want and express themselves and present themselves to the public the way they want it. Yeah, ECB is just humans behind the scenes working for our euro system and working that the economy works well.


This screencast video will show you how to launch a live online session from your Zoom classroom on your loop module page. Remember, when engaging in teaching and learning, you should use Zoom classroom for your live online lectures. As we've explored in another one of these videos, I set up a Zoom classroom and configured it on my loop module page. So now I'm going to go and actually launch a live online session. So on my loop page, I have put my Zoom classroom down in section three. So I just click to enter the classroom and in the Zoom classroom, I see a list of my upcoming sessions, including today's one. Moving over to click the start button, it will ask, do I want to open Zoom? So I click open Zoom. Zoom opens and I follow the usual steps to join with my computer audio. I can start my video and put myself on view for the students. Clicking the participants button will bring up the participants list and I should see students coming in to the live online class one by one. I can click the green share button to share some PowerPoint slides if I have them, for example. And of course, I can also record the live online session by clicking the record button and clicking record to the cloud. I'm going to end this demonstration and go back to the Zoom classroom. After some time, the cloud recording of my live online lecture will process and both me and my students can find it in the cloud recordings tab in the Zoom classroom.


I've taught that course in a different format a number of times previously and Hypothesis has been a really nice feature that I will definitely continue with when we go back to face-to-face teaching with that course like it's a must have now for me.


السلام عليكم my dear respected and dearest peace be upon you I stand in Karbala I stand in the land of Abu Abdullah al-Hussain peace be upon him and the land of Fadr al-Abbas peace be upon him I stand between the Haramain I stand in between the two paradises Jannat al-Hussain and Jannat al-Abbas peace be upon him Tonight we're going to go and explore another one of the holy sites holy maqams in Karbala and we're going to go look at the Maqam of Sheer Fadr the line of Fadr the Khadimah of Fatima al-Zahra as you can see I'm in between the Haramain and the alleyway we're going to go through is this way we're going to go see the Maqam and talk about the Maqam and talk about the history behind the Maqam and talk about the servant of Fatima al-Zahra Lady Fadr now with me we're going to go walk towards the Maqam of Fadr a servant of Fatima al-Zahra peace be upon her she was called a servant of Fatima and this name is a name which we all yearn to have her name Fatima means silver but being a servant of Fatima al-Zahra is something even greater here we are now at the Maqam of Fadr as I stated before Fadr in English translates to silver silver is precious and is used all over the world but Sayyid al-Fadr has a name even greater than that of silver her name her name is known in the books of history in the books of hadith on the pulpits on the menabr by the scholars by the علماء as Khadimah al-Zahra the servant of Fatima al-Zahra now being given the name of Khadimah al-Zahra is the greatest one can have the greatest Maqam one can have the greatest status one can have and Fadr is known by this Maqam by this name Khadimah al-Fatima al-Zahra peace be upon her it is narrated by al-Hafod in his book مشارقي أنوار اليقين في أسراري أمير المؤمنين on page 126 of his book he narrates an incident that Fudda was given to Rasool Allah peace be upon him and his family as a gift to Fatima al-Zahra to help her in the house to help her with cooking, with cleaning it is narrated that Fudda used to be one of the daughters of the people one of the daughters of the kings from Al-Hind there is another tradition that states that she was from the Habashi family but there is a difference here there is a tradition that states that she was from the daughters of the people from Hind it is narrated by Fudda herself that when she entered the house of revelation when she entered the house of the the house of divine wisdom the house of eloquence the house of Rasool Allah peace be upon him she noticed only a sword a shield and some copper now Fudda coming from Hind she had a background science of chemistry and alchemy she was known in this knowledge and in this pathway of science Fudda took a piece of copper she changed its structure she poured an alexar or some kind of medicine on this on this copper she shaped it in the shape of a fish and she furnished it with gold when Amira al-Mu'mineen and Muala al-Mu'mahadeen the commander of the faithful came she gave and she presented this to Fudda sorry Fudda presented this to Amira al-Mu'mineen when she presented it to Amira al-Mu'mineen Amira al-Mu'mineen said good work of Fudda but if you are to take this and shape it in this matter and increase its mass then it will be worth more and the gold in it would be worth more Fudda was amazed at this Amira al-Mu'mineen do you know this? do you have this knowledge of alchemy of chemistry? this shows us that Amira al-Mu'mineen the commander of the faithful peace be upon him had knowledge of chemistry had knowledge of alchemy and he had knowledge of the life sciences and the physical sciences and science itself Amira al-Mu'mineen said yes we have knowledge of this and we have knowledge even greater and even my son here a child knows of this knowledge and knows of this science henceforth after that we know that Fudda is well versed in the science of alchemy and she is well versed in the Qur'an itself the historians tell us that Fudda every time she would be asked a question for 20 years she would only reply with the Qur'an this is narrated in Bihar al-Anwar you can find this tradition in Bihar al-Anwar it is narrated in Bihar al-Anwar volume 43 page 86 & 87 that a man saw Fudda walking in the desert in her caravan she said who are you where are you from only replied by using what by using the Qur'an she said and say Salam for they shall know soon from the Qur'an chapter 43 & verse 89 the whole conversation with Fudda and with the man happened in the Qur'an and at the end you can see that Fudda has a high مقام she has a very high مقام that she was able to respond throughout the whole conversation using the whole Qur'an now we are going to go right now and speak more of this holy مقام and tell you the story behind it now that you know how an excellent person Fudda was she was a scholar of her time so we spoke about Fudda about her background about her character in general now we are going to talk to you about the holy مقام that is behind me here this مقام before it was like this as you can see with the metal window and mosaic used to be a خريبة a ruins before during the time of Saddam Saddam didn't give chance and for the Khuddam and for the lovers to build the مقام like this before the fall of the regime of Saddam Saddam did not give time for the people to build these holy مقام and to visit so it is narrated by the residents of this area here these dear residents of this area that after the fall of Saddam in 2003 they built this مقام as you can see today this beautiful مقام and this مقام has a lot of history a lot of history you see Fudda stayed with Fatima Al-Zahra and she witnessed Fatima Al-Zahra between the door and the nail when Omar ibn Al-Khattab told his his slave Qunfo to attack the house of Fatima so Sayyid Al-Fudda witnessed the whole tragedy of Fatima Al-Zahra after Fatima Al-Zahra Sayyid Al-Fudda stayed with Sayyid Al-Zahra when Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him went to Karbala and with him he took his family his companions Fudda peace be upon her accompanied Imam Al-Hussain towards Karbala so Fudda witnessed the tragedy of Al-Taf the Fajia of Karbala it is narrated by the books of Hadith that when Imam Al-Hussain was martyred and killed and the companions were all killed Omar ibn Sa'ad ordered his horsemen to trample on the body of Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him now Fudda came to Sayyid Al-Zaynab and she told her in this area here somewhere around this area there is palm trees and woods and gardens in this area there lives a lion in this lion I wanted to go ask him to come and help us so that the horses do not trample the holy body of Abu Abdullah Al-Hussain peace be upon him so Sayyid Al-Fudda went towards this lion which is narrated to be around this maqam right here where Fudda met the lion she said يا أبا حارث was the kuniya of the lion she said do you know what they are going to do to the body of Abu Abdullah Al-Hussain she said do you know what they are going to do to the body of Abu Abdullah Al-Hussain they are going to trample his body with their horses so the lion quickly jumped and went and placed his hands around Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him and this story here is where this happened this mashhad here which is called the maqam of Fudda is where Fudda Al-Hussain stood and called the lion and where she witnessed the lion go to Imam Al-Hussain's body so this is the maqam here where Fudda the servant of Fatima Tezzara stood and called the lion to go and protect the body of Abu Abdullah Al-Hussain peace be upon him going this way if we leave taking this alley way all the way down as you saw in the beginning we were where we were between the haramain and Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him would be that way in front of me so the lion jumped from this area and went all the way towards the body of Abu Abdullah Al-Hussain peace be upon him so if we follow the alley way going towards here we will get to Bain Al-Haramain so you can see the distance from here to Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him is about a 500 to 600 meter distance and that is the mashhad here Fudda peace be upon him stood here and this area here is the maqam and there is a prayer location on the other side where Zawar come and visit and as you can see there is also a picture of the Fajr and the tragedy that happened a picture of Fudda a picture of the Asad and the picture of the shrine of Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him so this is what happened on this ground on the day of Aashura on the 11th night of Muharram on the 11th night here on these grounds is where Fudda stood and is where Fudda called upon the lion the Asad to come and protect the body of Imam Al-Hussain peace be upon him and this is the story behind this Holy Maqam this Holy Maqam where Fudda stood and called the lion to protect the body of Sayyid al-Shuhada peace be upon him and this is the story of Sayyid al-Fudda and this my dear viewers is the end of this episode and of this Maqam here of Shir Fudda والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته


Today we're in 2 Samuel chapter 3. We're going to be looking at the entire chapter and it really relates to vengeance, an act of vengeance that we're going to be seeing take place when we get to the conclusion of the chapter. But let's begin reading together here in 2 Samuel at chapter 3 verse 1. We'll read to verse 5 and we'll get into our study. 2 Samuel chapter 3 beginning at verse 1 reading to verse 5. Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David, but David grew stronger and stronger and the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. Sons were born to David in Hebron. His firstborn was Amnon by Ahinoum the Jesrealitis. His second was Kelliub by Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite. The third, Absalom the son of Maaka the daughter of Talmai the king of Geshur. The fourth, Adonaiya the son of Haggit. The fifth, Shepatia the son of Abital. And the sixth, Ethereum by David's wife, Ugly, no, Egla. Every time I read that, Egla, it doesn't look like your name's ugly, but maybe it's just me. These were born to David in Hebron. So what we have here as we begin chapter 3 very basically is that David has been recognized as king. David was recognized as king by the men of Judah as we saw last time and the men of Israel had actually rallied behind another king who was the son of Saul. His name was Ishboshat which means son of shame. And so what we have is we actually have a rival kingdom going on at this time. We have the nations of Israel excluding Judah. We have the tribes of Israel following after Ishboshat, but Judah is following after the leadership of king David. Now as we saw last time, Saul's son reigned for two years.  God had declared that David was to be king over Israel. All the way back in 1 Samuel chapter 13 verse 14, God said that he had a man after his own heart that was going to be ruling and reigning as the king. In chapter 16 verse 1 in 1 Samuel, God said I've provided myself a king amongst the sons of Jesse. David was that king and David was the one who was anointed to be king. Abner was a commander over the armies of Israel. He's the one who had put Ishboshat in the place of king. And so what you have is you have problems that are taking place for the first few years of the reign of David. And it would have taken some time for a transfer of power to occur. That's why in verse 1 he speaks of a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. But David grew stronger and stronger. The house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. And so what you have is you have a continuous series of battles going on. David growing stronger and Saul's house getting weaker. Now at this time David is marrying and he's got more wives. Remember he had one wife who was the daughter of Saul, her name was Michal. And she was given to somebody else. So David has now been taking to himself wives. You see the list of wives here in verses 2 through 5. Not only do we see his lists of wives, we also see a list of sons. There are six wives who are mentioned and six sons. Now during this time David had been adding wives. We need to ask ourselves why was he doing that? During the period of David's reign and all, it was commonplace for kings to have more than one wife. It normally would represent that that king had the ability to provide for more than one woman. And so he has six women mentioned as his wives. Now that was not God's plan. If you want to look for God's plan concerning marriage, you look to Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 because there at the beginning God says a man shall leave his father, mother be joined into his wife and the two shall become one flesh. God's intention for marriage was for one man and one woman over one lifetime. That's how God created marriage. So what David is doing is he's violating what God has commanded. Now when you look in the Old Testament there are a series of books at the beginning of the Old Testament and the fifth book is the book of Deuteronomy. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 17 you actually have some rules that regulate the behavior of kings. And there in second rather in the 17th chapter verse 17 it says neither shall he multiply wives for himself lest his heart turn away. God stated in the beginning that the king that would ultimately be reigning was not to have more than one wife. What you have here is a violation of the word of God. Now in David's life he had a son, a son by the name of Solomon. We know that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines and the Bible tells us that in his older age when he became old his wives turned his heart after other gods. And so what we have is we have David violating God's word. Genesis 224 Deuteronomy 1717 by multiplying wives for himself. And the result is going to be some real problems in the home. We see that these women are mentioned as well as their offspring. Hinoem had Amnon. Abigail had Kiliab. Now it's possible that he may have died when he was young because he's not mentioned again. You have Mark Hop who had Absalom. She was the daughter of a foreign king. You have Haggit who bore Adonijah. You have Abitah who bore Shefatia. And you have Egla who had a young man by the name or a baby by the name of Ethereum. And so he had multiple wives contrary to God's word. This is something by the way that he doesn't get away with because amongst these sons we do see Amnon.  And you also have a man by the name of Absalom who was the full brother of Tamar who ultimately killed his brother Amnon. And also went on to try and take the kingdom from his own father. So David's family suffered because of his violation of the word of God. God had stated you're not to do this. David did it. His family felt the sword from that day on. And so what we have here is we have a list of the names of the sons of David and his wives. But Michalis not mentioned here. We'll see her in just a moment. Verse 6. And now it was so. While there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David that Abner was strengthening his hold on the house of Saul. You see Abner was the kingmaker. He was the one who put Ishposhet into the place of being the king. And so it's pointed out that he's strengthening his hold on the house of Saul. Saul had a concubine whose name was Ritzpah, the daughter of Ayah. And so Ishposhet said to Abner, Why have you gone into my father's concubine? Abner became very angry at the words of Ishposhet and said, Am I a dog's head that belongs to Judah? Today I show loyalty to the house of Saul, your father, to his brothers and to his friends and have not delivered you into the hand of David. And you charge me today with the fault concerning this woman. May God do so to Abner. And more also, if I do not do for David as the Lord has sworn to him to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and set up the throne of David over Israel and over Judah from Dan, which is the north to Beersheba, which is the south. And he could not answer Abner another word because he feared him. So what's going on here? For Abner to sleep with, which is what is taking place with one of the concubines, one of the women who was in the harem of Saul, for Abner to be sleeping with this woman is one of the ways to attempt to get the power of the throne. Because in sleeping with this woman who belonged to the king, he's basically taking power or usurping power for himself. He's making a claim for the throne. And so Ishposhet knows this and that's why he rebukes him. And when he rebukes him over this, notice that Abner gets vengeful over it. It says in verse 8 that he became angry at the words of Ishposhet. He said, Am I a dog's head that belongs to Judah? When he says, Am I a dog's head that belongs to Judah, it's another way of saying, Am I a traitor? Am I a worthless traitor? Now it's interesting to me. He says, I show loyalty to the house of Saul, your father, to his brothers, to his friends. I have not delivered you into the hand of David. And if you're going to listen to me today with a fault concerning this woman, he's not in any way admitting to his guilt. What he's trying to do is present himself as being somebody who's done favors and therefore this is owed to him. And he's saying to him, in essence, you know, I think I deserve this. I have shown you loyalty. I haven't delivered you to David. So what's the big deal anyway? Why are you getting so upset? And then he moves on and he says, may God do so to Abner. And more also, if I do not for David as the Lord has warned him, if I don't deliver this kingdom to him. So basically what he does is he makes a threat. He's saying, I know that David's supposed to be king and I'm going to transfer the kingdom over to him. It's interesting that he knew that David would be king but he still tried to get power. But now he's saying I'm going to transfer Israel to David's control and there's nothing you can do about it. Now as he's saying this, Abner is undoubtedly there with several of these men, his men at arms, his bodyguard. And it would seem that Ishmael probably is looking at Abner and looking around to see if there's anybody who will back him and there's nobody there who's going to back him up and that's why verse 11 tells us that he was afraid. He couldn't answer Abner another word. He feared him. This is a man that was a commander. This is a man who was a warrior. This is somebody that you didn't get angry and he got him angry. Now what this shows to me that he's a powerful warrior, that he has loyalty of his men, that he has great influence but what's dangerous about it is his power was not under anybody's authority.   One of the wisest thing you can have is you can have people around you that you are accountable to. In ministry I have people I'm accountable to because I could start doing things the way I think I'm supposed to do it with no accountability to anybody else because I have boards, I have friends, I have co-passers that I have relationships with that I definitely have an accountability to because I don't want to be the kind of person who has power with no accountability because when you don't have it, when you don't have accountability you can do whatever is right in your own sight and you can end up doing all kinds of things that are wrong. And that's what we see taking place here. He has nobody that he's accountable to and even the king himself is afraid of him so he answers him not another word. Well as this is taking place, verse 12, Abner sent messengers on his behalf to David saying, who is the land? Saying also, make your covenant with me and indeed my hand shall be with you to bring all Israel to you. David said, good, I'll make a covenant with you but one thing I require of you you shall not see my face unless you first bring Michal, Saul's daughter when you come to see my face. And so he says to him, listen and this is how this is going down, this is what he's saying here when he asks the question, who is this land? What he's saying is, God may have given you the land but I'm the one in control of it. All you have is Judah and you're there in Hebron. I have the rest of Israel under my control. You've only got the tribe of Judah recognizing you as king but seeing that God has given you the land you haven't possessed it, I have control of it we can work something out. If you give me an assurance of security I'll make your dream a reality. I'll release everything that I have any kind of influence over and I'll deliver it to you and that's what he's saying to him. Now as David hears that, notice verse 13, David says, good, I'll make a covenant with you but I'm going to require something of you. I want you to return Michal to me. Now why would he care about that? I mean David's been gone for several years, he hasn't been with Michal. Why would that be a big deal to him? Well it would restore him to a right position. It would actually right the wrong that was bestowed on him when Saul gave her to another man. When Saul gave Michal to another man it was a public act of humiliation towards David and he was disavowing David. He was saying, David is no longer part of the royal family and so David is basically saying I want my standing restored in the eyes of Israel and I want to be restored in my position in the royal house and so as he says that, well notice verse 14, David sent messengers to Ishbushet Saul's son saying, give me my wife Michal whom I betrothed to myself for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines and Ishbushet sent and took her from her husband from Paltial, the son of Laish. Then her husband went along with her to Bahurim weeping behind her so Abner said to him go return and he returned. And so David says listen, Saul made a demand of me. What Saul had actually demanded was a hundred foreskins of Philistine warriors. David had given him two hundred foreskins as a dowry so he's saying she belongs to me. I paid the dowry and I want her returned and so when he does that Ishbushet sent and took her from her husband from Paltial, the son of Laish. Now notice his response, the husband's response her husband went along with her to Bahurim weeping behind her and Abner finally had to say to him go return and he returned. So what is this? Well they'd been together for eight or nine years and over those eight or nine years they obviously fell in love. They loved one another. Mikhail at one time was David's only wife. She was the first wife of David. Now she would be joining a harem so it wouldn't be in her interest to come and join a group of other wives and so she's going to be treated differently. But beyond that she's in love with this man and the man's in love with her. If he weren't in love with her he wouldn't be weeping as he's following her. I find that interesting. If he didn't love her he'd probably be throwing confetti in the air and laughing and blowing these little party favors. Yeah she's gone but that's not how he's responding. How he's responding here is with tears because they've been together. They've made a family. They've made a home. He loves her with all of his heart obviously because the Jewish men would not follow in a public fashion weeping in this way if it wasn't breaking his heart. And as she's going there she's entering back into the life of David. This man Abner finally has to turn to this man as he's following all the way to the outskirts of Jerusalem and Abner finally says to him go home. Get out of here. There's nothing you can do. And he returns with a broken heart. Now that doesn't bode well for David in the future with Michal. And we'll see this later on. But in verse 17, now Abner had communicated with the elders of Israel saying in time past you were seeking for David to be king over you. Now then do it. For the Lord has spoken of David saying by the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel from the hand of Israel and the hand of all their enemies. Abner also spoke in the hearing of Benjamin. Then Abner also went to speak in the hearing of David and Hebron. All that seemed good to Israel and the whole house of Benjamin. So Abner and twenty men from him came to David and Hebron. And David made a feast for Abner and the men who were with him. Then Abner said to David I will arise and go and gather all Israel to my Lord the king that they may make a covenant with you for all that your heart desires. So David sent Abner away and he went in peace. At that moment the servants of David and Job came from a raid and brought much spoil with them. But Abner was not with David in Hebron for he had sent him away and he had gone in peace. So Abner goes through with his promise to deliver Israel to David. He has twenty men. They make a trip to Hebron, David's home. David entertains them. And Abner declares he will gather all the people. Hand them over to David that he might be king over them. And David is agreeable to this. Everything is fine. Abner leaves in peace. But Job has shown up. Notice verse twenty three. When Job and all the troops that were with him had come they told Job saying Abner the son of Nur came to the king and he sent him away. And he has gone in peace. Job came to the king and said what have you done? He sent him away and he has already gone. Surely you realize that Abner the son of Nur came to deceive you to know you're going out and you're coming in to know all that you're doing. So he's absolutely livid because he's afraid. He's afraid that he's not going to have an opportunity to make his have his vengeance. So he tells them Abner is really there to spy on you. He's not there to help you. Now David at that time doesn't disclose to him the true plans, what's taking place. It allows him to say what he's saying but notice what happens verse twenty six. When Job had gone from David's presence he sent messengers after Abner who brought him back from the well of Seirah. David did not know it. Now when Abner had returned to Hebron Job took him aside in the gate to speak with him privately and there stabbed him in the stomach so that he died for the blood of Asa El, his brother. Vengeance. Anger. Anger was so great. His anger was so great that he could not be in any way shape or form placated by anything less than the death of Abner. Joab is so upset. Now Joab is the commander in David's army. Joab is also his nephew. Asa El who died was Joab's brother and when he and his brother came upon the body of their brother who has fallen there in their heart they said Abner is not going to get away with this. They were absolutely furious over it and what happens is you have this lust for vengeance. It's called a blood lust. During that time and before that there was something called the Avenger of Blood. If I have a brother who died at the hand of another I would take it upon myself to avenge my brother's death and if somebody killed him and I found him and killed him it would actually be an honorable thing for me to do. Because that was true because Israel was aware of that taking place they actually established what are called cities of refuge. Cities of refuge were numbered there were seven of them in the nation of Israel that were called the Cities of Refuge and the people of Israel if I accidentally killed somebody or there were some circumstances that extenuated so that somebody died at my hand I knew that the brother would come after me, that close relative would come after me. The first thing I would do is I go to the city of refuge and I went to the city of refuge as I was there I would remain there now I was safe and protected there nobody could harm me as long as I stayed within the city boundaries. Now if I walk out of that city before the high priest dies I'm there safe until the high priest dies when the high priest dies then I can go out safely but if the high priest is alive and waited for me and kills me he can do so without anything happening to him for doing that and so what we have here is we have an instance where Hebron is actually a city of refuge when Joab sends a messenger to go and get Abner I want you to notice this verse 27 notice how it says when Abner had returned to Hebron Joab took him aside in the gate to speak to him privately he didn't allow him to come into the city because if he to come into the city Joab couldn't have killed him he had to stay outside of the city and that's why he took him to the city gate but he wasn't into the city proper yet and that's why he stabbed him and I want you to notice something else he stabbed him in the stomach when Abner killed his brother Asa Al you remember with me that Asa Al was running after Abner and Abner turned and saw him and he says is that you Asa Al and he says turn aside to the right turn aside to the left don't be pursuing me to your own heart but the guy wouldn't stop running so he keeps coming after him and he finally says to him look take the armor of another young man who has fallen take his armor and get honor from that but don't come after me why are you doing this and ultimately because this young man Asa Al was as fast as a gazelle he caught up to him when he caught up to Abner Abner took the blunt end of his spear pushed it through him and hit him in the stomach and it came out his back and that's why you see the picture here he stabbed him in the stomach because even as you stab my brother in the stomach I'm stabbing you in the stomach and that's how this went down vengeance, this desire to get even drove him to the point where he was willing to kill a man a man who did not deserve to die because he didn't know all the details Joab didn't know the details of how Abner had told his brother stop pursuing me you're going to end up hurt stop pursuing me and Asa Al wouldn't turn aside and so when he killed him he killed him as a warrior kills another warrior and he wasn't guilty of the sin of murder and he wasn't guilty of manslaughter and so what we have here with Joab is vengeance is in his heart he's got this desire within him to kill and he's going to do it no matter what when people have the blood they call blood in the eye when they have that mentality there's hardly anything you can do to turn him away when they have this lust for blood when they say there's nothing nobody can talk to me about this nobody can stop me it's very difficult to deal with and that's exactly where this man was he killed this man and he did so before he could enter into the city because had he entered into the city he'd have been free and so what happens is he stabs him there and at the gate now verse 28 afterward when David heard it he said let it rest on the head of Joab and on all his father's house let there never fail to be in the house of Joab when he has a discharge or is a leper who leans on a staff or falls by the sword or who lacks bread so what he does is he pronounces basically a curse on him and he's saying I am guiltless in this but Joab is going to have to pay the penalty so Joab and Abishai his brother killed Abner because he had killed their brother Asael at Gibyan in the battle and then David said to Joab and to all the people who were with him tear your clothes, gird yourselves a sackcloth mourn for Abner King David followed the coffin so they buried Abner in Hebron and the king lifted up his voice the grave of Abner and all the people wept and the king sang a lament over Abner and said should Abner die as a fool dies your hands were not bound nor your feet put into fetters as a man falls before the wicked men before wicked men so you fell and all the people wept over him again David is clearing himself from this and he's telling everybody I want an open display of mourning over this tear your clothes, gird yourself a sackcloth and mourn for him and notice what he says in verse 33 when he says should Abner die as a fool dies Abner was deceived he said this man was really somebody that you should have respected this was a man who was a great man and he was deceived into this and he shouldn't have died in this manner and all the people were weeping over him now in verse 35 when all the people came to persuade David to eat food while it was still day David took a note saying God do so to me and more also take bread or anything else till the sun goes down now all the people took note of it and it pleased them since whatever the king did pleased all the people for all the people and all Israel understood that day that it had not been the king's intent to kill Abner the son of Ner remember that Abner had 20 men who followed after him they saw this open display of mourning they saw that David made Joab dress in mourner's garb which is an open humiliation of the man who killed the man they see this and what happens is the word begins to circulate throughout Israel so they understand that David was guiltless in this but as this is all going down verse 38 the king said to his servants do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel and I am weak today though anointed king and these men the sons of Zeruia are too harsh for me the Lord shall repay the evil doer according to his wickedness don't you understand what has taken place he was a great man and he shouldn't have died that way and though I am king my power has not yet been solidified and my nephews the sons of Zeruia were actually his nephews my nephews are too powerful and too influential but I want you to see this notice how he says the Lord shall repay the evil doer according to his wickedness they will be dealt with sometimes we think that we get away with things you do something that's wrong and you didn't get caught immediately and so you think you got away with it you took something out of the till you stole something from the back you did something that you know is wrong you just didn't get caught so you figure you got away with it I read about somebody who, true story who had filed a false tax filed his taxes falsely and got something like a $4,000 refund and he liked it so much that he did it again this time he was trying to get a trillion dollars and they caught him true story I mean he wrote out that he was supposed to get something like a trillion dollars back what worked for him once he thought would work for him a second time and sometimes people will do something and they didn't get caught so they think that they must have gotten away with it therefore I can do it again and nobody's going to be the wiser sometimes we do that sometimes you may do that sometimes you may you may be the kind of person who's been able to get over and get things the way you wanted them and you figure that you can't harm anybody and get away with it when I was in high school I did a lot of things it's been a long time since I've been in high school but I still remember this I did a lot of things that got me into the my counselor's office quite often I can still remember the first time I went into Mrs. Willett's office I was 14 years old and I remember walking in having a conversation with her and she said I've never heard your name before and she said that's a good thing I still remember her saying that to me and I said something back to her like oh you'll never hear my name again well I was there all the time for the next four years she and I got very close Mrs. Willett and I used to walk in and I would sit down at her table and visit with her and I always charmed her it was very just something I would do I'd sit down, hi Mrs. Willett David why are you in my office this time and I'd say well you know I don't know but you know you look nice today did you do something with your hair and I would do that and I oh yeah I say you know I have to tell you it looks great you know and I would do that all the time and we became very friendly I never got in trouble I mean I'd get in trouble with the teacher but never with my counselor and I learned how to get over and I discovered that if you smile and you charm and you act innocent very often you get away with it I can remember one of my teachers my math teacher, senior math I still remember it and he didn't send me to the office he took me to the office and so he takes me to the office and there I am standing in front of Mrs. Willett and I've got my hands folded and I've got my legs crossed and I'm sitting in front of her I've been there so many times I'm very comfortable this is my chair and as we're talking my teacher's really angry and he's saying and he this and he did this and he did this and she looks at me she says David did you do that and I smiled at her I still remember doing this I smiled and he said may I ask a question she said of course I said is it right for teachers to swear at students she says no I said he cussed at me in class just now he just swore at me in class she turned all of her anger on my teacher let him have it how dare you speak to a student that way you're not to be using language like that and he's looking at me and I've got that smile that you know that you'd like to slap off my face just smiling at me and I said you just don't know and I used to do that all the time all the time got away with it and I got to the point where I thought I could lie myself out of anything I went before the judge I remember going before a judge and lying to his face after taking that oath I swear to tell the whole truth nothing but the truth so help me God and I lied right to his face and got away with it because I was an expert liar that's what prepared me for ministry I was an expert liar I was a thief too in that funny but it's true I was a liar and a thief and God put me in the ministry I'm still amazed at that but I would lie I would lie at the blink of a hat I would lie to your face and you wouldn't know I was lying I was so good at it so good at it and I got away with it I didn't get caught I walked into a store with the stolen a jacket the jacket didn't fit me I walked into the store with the stolen jacket and I was wearing it and I walked up to a salesman and I said to him, jackets too big I'd like to exchange it for one that fits me the guy says don't tell me that you just took that off the rack I said no I didn't this was given to me as a gift I got it for my birthday and I want to exchange it for one that fits me and the guy looks at me he came back he says okay and I went and took another jacket stole that jacket too and I used to do it all the time I used to walk into stores and steal things I'd go and sell them and buy drugs I did that all the time I was very good at lying and stealing and I thought that before if I stand before God I really thought that I could charm him out of hell I thought I could God you know smile at him you know you look good for an ancient God you know I thought I could charm him you know and a lot of people to this day think the same way they think that God is going to grade on the curve that there's going to be somebody worse than you standing next by so you can point to him and say I was bad but that one's worse so you should let me get in maybe not them but me yes for sure I wasn't really I only stole a little bit I only lied once in a while I was only drunk once I only beat my wife occasionally when she deserved it I mean we'll do that we lie we cheat we steal we do all these things and we think that when we stand before God God is going to say you know what it's okay no big deal like he's a grandfather when my grandchildren do something bad I kind of just smile when they do something real bad I really smile because I think that my prayers were answered that's what I prayed for that your kid would be as bad as you were now deal with it I don't have to do anything other than love them up you will spank them God isn't a grandfather God has no grandchildren God is a father and God judges rightly when he says the Lord shall repay the evil doer according to his wickedness well Job chapter 4 verse 8 says even as I have seen those who bow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same you reap what you sow when you sow to the flesh Paul said in Galatians chapter 6 from the flesh you reap corruption when you sow to the spirit from the spirit you reap everlasting life God is a just judge according to Psalm 7 verse 11 God takes into consideration all information in our court system a person can be flat out guilty can even admit that they did something wrong and yet can still get a trial and they can go before a judge and they can plead their case even though there are tapes even though there are eyewitness accounts and they will go through the judicial system standing before a judge even though they are 100% guilty true story about a guy who was a lawyer who was defending a client and he said my client was in one of these lineups and he said that the victim was identifying who may have been the perpetrator pointed out this guy's client and said that's him he's the one who did it he and four other guys and he says and my client yelled out as he was being pointed out he's a liar there were only three of us very intellectual criminal there are a lot of people who make they think they can get away with things and our system actually allows for that so they think that when they stand before God that God is going to look at them and not have all information David is saying that's not true David is making it very clear that the Lord shall repay the evildoer according to his wickedness so bringing it to New Testament I as I read the Bible know that all sin and fall short of the glory of God that there's none righteous no not one that means that I sin in thought, word or in action when I stand before God and God says you're a sinner I can do nothing other than admit the fact I am yes I am guilty flat out I mean I can't lie to God all things are open before him he has all evidence before him so if I stand before God in my own explanation I stood before a judge and I remember saying when the judge says how do you plead I said guilty with an explanation I tried to explain the circumstances surrounding why I did what I did I'm guilty but I want to give an explanation it doesn't work that way with the Lord I can't give an explanation I can't give an excuse I have to say I'm purely guilty that's what it is when I stand before God because he's a righteous judge because he's just a judge and I stand before him I am pure guilt standing in front of God that's why I needed Jesus Christ that's why I need him because the Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin and so as I came to Christ as my Lord and Savior and I said God be merciful to me a sinner the blood of Jesus Christ washes me and cleanses me so that now I have a new creation I become the temple of the Spirit of God who dwells within me I'm not a religious person at all I become made right with God through a regeneration I've been born again now I stand before God Jesus is there with me he's my defense attorney there is an attorney that's a prosecuting attorney he's presented that way in Revelation 12 it's Satan himself who accuses the brethren day and night before the throne of God and so the enemy can say David is guilty because he's lied and he's stolen and he's been all of these things and I'm guilty but my Savior Jesus stands and says but Father he has received me my blood has cleansed him and my Father at that point says not guilty now I'm not guilty not because of righteousness that I've done any good things that I've ever done I am not guilty based on what he did on my behalf so yes God is a righteous judge God does judge but God has given to us mercy through Jesus Christ and that's why it's a wise thing to turn your heart over to the Lord because he washes you and he cleans you not only does he do that he gives you the power to live for him and he gives you a strength and he writes his law on the tablet of your heart so the things that you do that are good are done not simply because you read something from the outside but because he placed it on the inside and you begin to follow him with all of your heart because your heart has been transformed by the work of God that's what the Bible means when it says if anyone's in Christ he's a new creation old things are passed away behold all things are become new so in the time of David here he is saying my nephews are too harsh what they've done is putting them in a position of being dealt with God will repay the evil according to his wickedness David's saying but I'm not guilty of that I didn't do it in the New Testament sense God still repays the evil doer according to his wickedness but when that evil doer turns to the Lord Jesus Christ they are transformed from being an evil doer to one of God's own children and at that point we can stand before God guiltless and all of my sins have been cast aside as far as the east is from the west so far as he removed my sins from me and they're not brought back up he doesn't remind me of them because they are dealt with I've learned something from the Lord that I have exercised with my children and my children will tell you this is the truth even to this day if my children do something that is offensive to me hurt me or sinned against me we'll have a talk I'm not one of these dads who just ignores it we'll have a talk and after the talk is done and after we've dealt with the situation my kids will tell you this is the truth I'll turn to them and I'll say once again it's over it's been dealt with here and we won't repeat this anymore it's gone I don't repeat things that have been dealt with it's over I learned that from the Lord because the Lord doesn't remind me of what I've been he doesn't say don't you remember my heart condemns me but God is greater than my heart he knows all things I remember my own testimony he doesn't say you've always been a drunk you've always been a doper you're new in Jesus Christ you're brand new in him I don't bring those things up because those things have been dealt with if I didn't have a relationship with the Lord then you'd have to bring them up because that's what I'm judged on the basis of but now that I have a relationship with the Lord those things are under the blood of Jesus Christ his son he's cleansed us from all sin and we can move on into a life of righteousness because of him and that's the wisest decision anybody ever makes is to ask God to cleanse him with the blood of Christ


Okay, so, I don't know, what's the oxidation number of these atoms? Okay? These atoms in these compounds. Okay, so how would we figure this out? So, oxygen is always minus 2, right? There's 4, right? So that's minus 8 together. So, nitrogen plus 4, okay? So, nitrogen equals plus 4, oxygen equals minus 2. What about this one? Hydrogen's always plus 1. Hydrogen's always plus 1, and oxygen's always minus 2. Okay, so those are oxidation numbers. So, that was 4 problems in like 2 seconds, you know? So, any questions on that stuff?


John, would you say, if putting the philosophy aside for a moment, historically speaking, wouldn't you say that it's true that whereas secular states may establish freedom of religion, religious states are not likely to establish freedom of secularism? Yes, I do. I mean, I'm an advocate. In fact, look, I think the secularization is, I mean, sorry, the process of the separation of church and sect begins within religion itself. It begins, I mean, it gets a massive move forward in the 16th, well, because of the whole issue of the religious wars of Europe is one part of in the 16th century, where you suddenly have this situation that had not existed previously in which peoples are being pulled apart. I mean, peoples who otherwise were of commonality by the fact that, you know, in this territory there's a prince here, and of course the people were forced to follow the religion of the prince. So this is where you begin to get the evolution of this idea that what religion people follow should not be, as it were, in accord with what political regime obtains. Now, that, of course, that lesson can be learned not only in the context of religion, but in the political sphere as well. And I think, again, one of the things that I think is a slight terror, I mean, look, in the last month, as you know, in the United States, and I suppose to some extent this has been covered here, we've seen eruptions of intolerance on university campuses, right? And what we've seen is a kind of new fascism, right? The language now is, we must create a safe space. And a safe space is one in which nothing can be contested, right? Now, it seems to be that is a kind of new theocracy, right? It's a new attempt to try to define a space within which an ideology, which will actually cover every aspect of things. Well, by calling it a new theocracy, you're making a very damning admission. No, no, I'm an anti-theocrat. No, no, it would be a damning admission if I were myself an advocate of theocracy, I'm a critic of theocracy, yeah. I would like to ask you, Michael, why is it that you have so much faith in science and technology to make our world a more civilized world? Well, it's not faith, it's confidence in the fact that it's done so well so far. So for example, secular states really do do better than more religious states. You just take the rates of religiosity, church attendance, belief in God across the top 20 industrialized nations. But that's secular. And the more and the more religiosity you have in a country, the worse it does. And by worse, I mean STD rates, abortion rates, crime rates, homicide rates, and so on. The secular states of Northern Europe are the safest places. They have the lowest teen pregnancy rates. They have the lowest homicide rates. America, we are the most religious of the top 20 industrialized Western nations. And we have the highest rates of these social ills.  Well, I mean, I'm not saying religion causes, homicides, or abortion. What I'm saying is that theists and conservative Christians argue in America that we need religion to keep people in check, to keep their moral values safe and so forth. I'm a secular person. But actually, I think the evidence shows that by many different measures, of course, terrible things have done in the name of the religion. I don't deny that for a second. No, I'm just saying it doesn't work. But you've had a chance to talk. OK. But it's also true that if you look at data, religion, at least in the United States, people who are more religious, this is a secular person speaking, people who are more religious, controlling for many other things, are in fact nicer. They're more likely to help old ladies across the street. They're more likely to give to charity, including secular charities. They're more likely to worry about underprivileged people than other people are. So let's, I'm paring countries. Sorry, can I just finish my sentence? I don't like to have a discussion about this issue of the role of religion in which we have, it's either religion is the great evil in the world or religion is the great good in the world. The fact is, empirically, there are some good, I'm not even sure it's a wash, but there are some good things about religion. And in this argument, I'm going to try to defend that side, because if I were in a different group of all theologues, I'd be saying, oh, actually, religion can do some bad things. But I'm trying to get a little bit of a balance of a matter. On balance, countries, I'm doing cross-country comparison, not within a country comparison. It's on balance, but it doesn't say a thing about what's causing that. But Michael, go back to science and technology, because I still... Yeah. Okay, well, so that the idea that from the enlightenment that we can reason our way to certain concepts that work better than others like rights, expanding civil rights and civil liberties to more people is better for a society. It makes it more prosperous. There's more freedom. There's more justice and so on. That was invented in the Enlightenment, essentially. It's not true. It's also not true. We had an earlier frame here in which we had the good reason and the bad passion. That's a classic trope from Western history. That's simply not true. Let me give you one specific example. People all over the world were emotionally moved by the boy on the beach. That was not an intellectual thing. It wasn't the people sort of thought to themselves, well, is this going to be bad for me or good for me? You saw the kid in the surf, and you thought that's wrong. And that was a moral intuition that came before subsequent rationally analyzed. Well, what do we do about it? Should you do this or this? It's just not right to have this simple idea that I'm a rationalist too, but it's not right, and I don't know if this was your view, to think, well, anything is passion driven is wrong. That's not right. Passion can drive great things. Yeah. And just one sentence right there. And you don't need rights to make that basis. And strong feelings may drive nothing at all. Until they're translated into compelling arguments. In other words, what I'm saying is you don't even need arguments. I mean, I take it the point here is that what moves us here is not the sense that that child or in any other given case has rights. It's that they have needs, right? It's the recognition of human suffering. And that doesn't need to be mediated by any argument, right? Then that's why this is true. If the question is asked, universality can rest in something else, which is common sensibility. If the question is asked, which we've tried to get it asked for the last four years, why should America or why should the West do anything to help the Syrians? Perfectly good question, right? One answer that certainly is not going to answer that question is because many people are outraged by what's happening there, because we know from this example that outraged when it's not connected to action is a very common phenomenon, right? So the only way to do it is to move. You may begin with a passion or an outrage, but then I believe you have to then translate your passion into something that other people can recognize. And that's the business of argument. And the business of argument, I believe, in the largest, most general sense, then you're in the business of public leasing. Yeah, I absolutely agree about that. Well, I am seated here, next to a Tunisian colleague and to Egyptian colleague. If, and I am Israeli, if we could take religion out of our lives, there would be things to change completely. I am not speaking, I am not talking about metaphysics upon religion as politics. If we, religion as politics, if we could get rid of it, really we can turn eternal peace would be installed in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean. Do you really believe that? If I may say something, just to emphasize what you just said, religion, and again, I do, in a sense, agree with everybody with both sides of the argument, in the sense that, yes, yes, no, no. Honestly, religion is important, very important to some people and not important to others. I think it's a personal choice, okay? Some people can be religious, some people don't need to be religious, but to get religion in the context of politics is bad, is very bad. It's bad for the system, for politics, for the human beings, for everything. It's bad for religion, yes, yes. It's bad for religion too, of course. And now, and just one, as a Jew, I belong to the people who invented monotheism. Okay? I am not proud of it. You know, just imagine in what a wonderful world would be living if the gods of the Greeks have won the battle.  But we are monotheists, we are monotheists. But we must, we must try really, we must try to, by the force of reason, to liberate ourselves of what religion has done and is still doing to our region and to our peoples. And that, and the sooner the better.