Okay. So we are now in Revelation 7. We're going to start reading. Could somebody read for us the first four verses please? Revelation 7 verses 1 through 4. Revelation 7, 1 through 4. After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding the four wings of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the east having the seal of the living god and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea. Saying, Do not harm the earth, the sea or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed. So thank you. So we're seeing that there is a time of great calm. So these four angels standing on the four corners of the earth holding back the winds that shouldn't blow on the earth to disturb the tree or the sea or anything on the earth is symbolic for us, symbolic of a time of great calm. The winds are like unrepresenting turbulence, things happening. So there's a period of calm, quiet. And then there's an angel who was too, who comes from the east and this angel has the power to cause harm. But the instruction is don't do anything. That means let the spirit of calm continue until we have marked out these 144,000 Jewish people. That means God is going to call forth these 144,000 Jews from all over the earth. And they belong to the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. That means they are sealed. They are marked out by God. The call of God is put upon their lives. And now how they are sealed, we know in the New Testament there are two things that are used to seal people. That is the presence of the Holy Spirit and the name of the Lord God. So we today as New Testament believers, we are sealed with the presence of the Holy Spirit and by the name of our God. Similarly, these people, these 144,000 Jews would be sealed by God by giving them both the Holy Spirit and the name of the Lord, being put upon their lives. They will be called by God. It does not mean that these 144,000 Jews have to be in Israel. They could be anywhere in the world. But they belong to the 12 tribes of Israel. Now, what is interesting versus five through eight of Revelation chapter seven versus five through eight. When in mentioning the names of the 12 tribes, two of the tribes have been left out. Instead of putting their names, the tribe of Dan and Ephraim, it's replaced by Joseph and Manasseh. So specifically mentioning Dan and Ephraim, it's replaced by Joseph and Manasseh. Again, there's, you know, there's in some in commentaries, there will be this discussion on why those names were left out and replaced by Joseph and Manasseh. Now, Joseph, but eventually, you know, you're covering all the 12 tribes, but it's a specifically naming Ephraim and Manasseh. It's put in there. Joseph, who was the father of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two tribes, his name is put in there. And Dan, the answer of Dan, just the tribe of Manasseh is mentioned there. So why would that happen? And there's a lot of, you know, discussion and the common part is again, this is just based on Bible study. People come up with the most logical reason is that because of the tribe of Dan and Ephraim, that they, you know, maybe they went away from God or they refused to fight for Israel or for the nation and so on. So there are various reasons why people would try to explain why their names were left. So why specifically Dan and Ephraim were left? There could be, you know, different reasons that people present. Now, we don't have to worry about it other than the fact that all the 12 tribes are covered, but the name of Joseph and Manasseh is mentioned in Stub Dan and Ephraim. Now, so what we are seeing is these 144,000 Jews have been marked. Now, obviously they are marked for a reason. They are marked for an assignment. It's not just for fun. Their assignment is to be proclaimers, to bear testimony to the Word of God and to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're empowered by the Holy Spirit to do that. And we will see later in chapter 14 a testimony to their life during the tribulation. We will see that. Tribulation 14 looks back and says this is how they lived. But these 144,000 Jews, men have been marked by God around the world that they're bearing testimony to the Word of God and to the name of Jesus Christ. So the gospel is being preached, is being proclaimed even during the tribulation. Then what we are seeing is while this is going on, while these 144,000 Jews are being raised up, we now see once again a great multitude who have come into the presence of God. So our view goes from what's happening here on Earth, 144,000 Jews being marked out for God's purpose to heaven where we are seeing a great multitude of people. And who are these multitude of people? These are people who have come through the tribulation. That means we are seeing some more people who have been killed during the tribulation. Remember we saw in Revelation 6 in the fifth seal that many more people are going to be killed and they're going to obviously, you know, their souls are going to come up before the presence of God. And they're going to be clothed in white robes just like what we saw in Revelation 6-9, that when people are killed on the Earth, they're martyred on the Earth for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.  So we're going to see one more scene of that in Revelation 7 verses 9-17 and these people are standing before the throne and they're worshiping God. That means more lives, more people are being martyred and they are seen up in heaven. So let's read that. That says Revelation 7-9-17, the worship of the martyred saints taking place in heaven. Revelation 7-9-17, please. Dave, would you want to read it or Aaron? After this I looked and there was an enormous crowd, no one could count all the people.  They called out in a loud voice, salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne. And from the lame all the angels stood round the throne and the elders and the four living creatures.  One of the elders asked me, who are these people dressed in white robes and where do they come from? I don't know sir, you do, I answer. He said to me, these are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and met them white with the blood of the lame. That is why they stand before God's throne and serve him day and night in his temple. He who sits on the throne will protect them with his presence, never again will they hunger or thirst. Neither son nor any scorching heat will burn them because the lame who is in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to the spring of living, of life giving water and God will wipe away every tears from their eyes. Thank you. So John sees this great multitude once again. And this time he's seeing people from all over the world, from every tribe, town, people, language.  And they are clothed in white robes. So just keep this in mind, clothed in white robes, that's very special for the saints. We saw that earlier, the martyred saints in Revelation 6-9, they were given white robes. So here again, these are clothed in white robes and they're standing before the throne, they're worshiping God. They are singing salvation, belongs to the Lord and the angels and everyone else is joining in this worship before God. And so while the elders ask, do you know who these people are, who are they? And John says, I don't know. And the elder explains to them, these are the people who have come out through the great tribulation. So we are saying that these, now it doesn't state it here in the text, but it's safe to conclude that these are people who have been martyred during the tribulation. Why? Because the whole tribulation period is not yet over, it's going on. So these are saints who have been martyred during the tribulation and they are come up in the presence of God, they're clothed in white robes and they're worshiping God. And the promise to them is, I will wipe away all tears. So again, the reason that promise is given is because they have endured so much, they've gone through so much, they've suffered and they've even died for the name of Christ. And so there's this promise that they're going to be, they're going to sit on the throne, they're going to be before the throne of God, they will worship the Lord, they will neither hunger nor thirst to be more. They're not experienced, any of these hardships which they experienced while here on earth, God will wipe away all the tears. And so that's what we're saying, because based on the context of what is given as a promise that these are people who most likely have suffered so much during the tribulation, died for their faith and they are there before the presence of God worshipping. So chapter seven is like an in between chapter, it's like an interjecting the whole sequence of things that are happening. The sixth seal is over, seventh seal is going to take place, but in between, John gets this insight into 144,000 Jews who are set apart by God to serve him during the tribulation. And these great multitudes of people who are coming out of the tribulation, they're in the presence of God out of every tribe, tongue and nation that comes, people from all over the world are going to believe in Christ during the tribulation.  So remember, these things are happening during the tribulation and literally in the first half of the tribulation because we haven't reached chapter 11 yet. So it's just the beginning now when all these things are happening. So we get into chapter eight, where we now in a read about the seventh seal. And then that leads us into the seven trumpets. Right. So the seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls. So the seventh seal. So in Revelation chapter eight, and let's read verses one through six, please. Revelation chapter eight, verses one through six. So we're going to transition from seven seals into the seven trumpets. What happens then during that time? Somebody could read Revelation chapter eight, verses one through six for us, please. And now Kanan Siddharth. When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and to them were giving seven trumpets. Another angel who had a golden sensor came and stood at their altar. He was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense together with the prayers of the saints went before God from the angels' hand. Then the angel took the sensor, filled it with fire from the altar and hurled it on the earth. And there came force, and there came peach of thunder, rumblings the pleasure of loving and love to the trumpets. And the seven angels who had seven trumpets prepared to sound them. Thank you. So what do we see here? The seventh seal is just a moment of silence. It's a continuation of this calm that we read in chapter seven. So remember the beginning of chapter seven. The angel says, okay, don't do anything. Hold back the winds. Let there be calm. There are certain things that need to be done. What is it? Mark out the 144,000 Jews. And we are seeing, you know, souls up in heaven, worshiping God. So chapter eight, seventh seal, silence, quietness. But it's an indication. It's a time of transition. What's happening? We're going to get ready for the seven trumpets. So that's revelation eight to the seven angels for the seven trumpets. They come and they stand. But at this time. What we are seeing is there's a great prayer and intercession happening from the earth. Because we are seeing that there is this angel who has this is verse three revelation eight verse three has this golden sensor. And he's having a lot of incense. And there are the prayers of the saints that are coming up before the throne, the golden altar before the throne. So what we have obviously these are the prayers of the saints who are on the earth. And the prayers are coming up before God. And this angel has been given this incense. It's just showing us it's representing to us. A lot of prayer that's happening. The prayers of the saints ascending before God. So therefore what we could say is that at this point in the tribulation, there's going to be a great prayer movement. Sometimes you might hear it referred to as a global prayer movement. This is happening in the tribulation. Obviously, when people are seeing all these, you know, things happening, there will be many who turn to God. It doesn't mean that everybody will turn to God, but there will be many who turn to God. And the only thing they can do is pray. Why? Because it's so difficult. It's so difficult to follow Christ. Like we've already seen people are being killed for the word and they're testimony. They're being martyred. And more people are going to be killed. So it's going to be very difficult. And the only thing people can do, those who turn to the Lord in those days is they can just pray. And that's what Revelation 8 verses 1 through 6. We are seeing this lots of prayer, prayer ascending before God. And the angel is throwing the censor to the earth, meaning he's igniting this prayer movement. You know, there's something from heaven that is igniting this prayer or encouraging this prayer or supporting this prayer movement on the earth. People are praying, crying out to God. Because it's not going to be easy. So that's another thing we're seeing happen during the Tribulation. And remember, we haven't even reached the middle of the Tribulation yet. This is all happening in the first part of the Tribulation. Revelation 11 will be the transition point when we are crossing into the second half of the Tribulation. This is all in the first part. It was three and a half years. The next thing that we see happen is the seven angels are ready to sound the seven trumpets. So one by one, these seven trumpets are sounded. And similar to what happened with the seven seals, with the six seals, first six of them, whenever a trumpet is sounded, something is happening here or not. And there is the wrath of God. There is a judgment of God being poured out on the earth. So let's look at them one by one. Let's read Revelation 8 verses 7 through 11. We will read about the first three trumpets. Revelation 8, 7 through 11. Somebody could read that for us, please. Revelation 8, 7 through 11. Karan, if your mic is fine, you can read it. Otherwise, may I call upon Dave to read? Okay, maybe Dave, you should read. I think maybe Karan's mic is not okay. You give me some time, sir. Oh, okay. Okay, okay. Revelation 8 verses 7 through 11. Maybe Prince, if you can read, if it's possible, or if Dave can get it or can get it. Go ahead. The first indus sounded, and hill and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grasses were burned up. Then the second indus sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood, and a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then the third indus sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers, and on the springs of water, the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became Wormwood, and many men died from the water because it was metric. Thank you. So, as the trumpet judgments are being sounded, things are happening on the earth. So, when the first trumpet sounds, one third of the earth's vegetation is burned up. So, the trees, one third of all the trees in the grass, so earth's vegetation is destroyed. A third, 30% of the earth's vegetation is destroyed, and it's destroyed by hail and fire. So, different parts of the world are experiencing these things, hail and fire, and it's destroying the vegetation. Second angel, so John is saying, he's saying a great mountain burning with fire. So, when you think about a great mountain burning with fire, a mountain with fire, what does that look like for us? A mountain that's throwing fire into the sea. What does that picture to you? To most of us, that would seem like a volcano.  So, it could be volcanic eruptions, but anyway, John sees like a mountain burning with fire, it's throwing fire into the sea. And it's destroying life in the sea. It's destroying sea creatures. It's destroying ships. So, life in the sea is being destroyed. Now, remember, we do depend a lot on the sea for food and other things, and there's just so much destruction there. The third trumpet is causing destruction of drinking water. Springs and rivers are affected and the water is turning bitter and can't drink it anymore. So, really life on earth, the vegetation, life in the sea, water that we drink is all being affected. And 30%, saying over and over again, 30% of all of these things is affected. And it's not going to be easy when things like this is happening. Already we've seen so many things happen under the seal judgments. Now the trumpet judgments are beginning to affect life, make it even more difficult. The fourth trumpet we will read verses 12 to 13. Revelation 8, 12 to 13. Somebody could read this, please. Then the fourth angel sounded, and the third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon and a third of the star, so that a third of them were drunken. A third of the day did not sign and likewise the night. And I looked and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remains of the trumpet, of the three angels who are above the sun. Thank you. So this fourth trumpet is once again, just like what we saw in Revelation 6, once again the sun, the stars, the moon are affected. And it's cutting off the heat and the light that the earth needs. So I can imagine, you know, how life on earth is going to be affected. If today everything, you know, under normal conditions, everything is held in balance. We get just the right amount of light and heat from the sun. There is the right balance of day and night. But then when that is disrupted and it says yet a third of the sun, that means imagine if 30% of the heat and the light is taken off, it's going to be terrible. So that's what I'm saying here in verse 12, that the stars, the sun is darkened and they did not shine. Now, we don't know for how long, whether it's just, you know, a short period of time or what duration this is, but it's going to affect life on earth terribly.  The next three trumpet sound are going to be worse than the first four trumpets that have already sounded. So it's like, get ready for worse things. So let me come into chapter nine and we read about the fifth trumpet. The fifth trumpet being sounded and what do we see happen? It's a rather lengthy passage, Revelation chapter nine. And we have to read verses one through 12 to get an understanding of what happens when the fifth trumpet sounded. But the angel has warned us, hey, this is going to be worse than the first four. So let's just look at Revelation nine verses one through 12. Somebody could read that for us, please. Revelation nine, one through 12, please. Can I read? Yes, go ahead. Then the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fallen from heaven on the earth to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. And the air were opened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke, locusts came upon the earth and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five minutes. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days, men will seek death and will not find it.  The shape of the locusts was like horses, prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women's hair and their teeth were like lion's teeth. And they had a breastplate like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men for five months and they had a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit, those who were in Hebrew in Abaddon. But in Greek, he has the name Apollon. One bow is passed. Behold, two more bows were coming after these things. Thank you. So the fifth trumpet sounds. So there is an angelic being who is released on the earth who opens up the bottomless pit, meaning there's a release of demonic spirits on the earth. So the locus here are representing these demonic beings that are released on the earth and they have power like scorpions that means they are very painful and destructive in what they're doing and they're tormenting people on the earth for five months but they cannot affect these men who have the seal of God in their foreheads. It's not affecting the 144,000 Jewish men but these beings are troubling men so much that men want to die. They want to just end their lives but they're not able to do it. So it's a very difficult situation. They're being tormented. People are being tormented by these demonic powers for five months and they want to die but they just cannot. Now John describes what he's seeing verses 7 through 10 and what are these beings like? Now we don't know if what he was seeing when he describes these locus, he refers to them as locus so we can imagine, you know, locus they look almost like grasshoppers looking type creatures but they're actually empowered by demonic spirits so they could either just represent demonic spirits or some physical thing that is being used by demonic spirits but John is describing what he's seeing these locus that he's seeing so it's very likely that there are some things that are being used by these spirits that have been released from the bottomless pit to trouble men. It's very hard to determine from what John has described here what this could be. So, you know, just anything that we would arrive at could be just speculation, could be just guess but we will just leave it at that that there are these certain creatures or things that are being used by these demonic spirits to hurt men and trouble men for five months and this whole thing that's happening on the earth is actually being led by the angel of the bottomless pit I mean, this is like a heightened demonic activity on the earth which is troubling men and it could be through some sort of a thing or a creature, whatever that is on the earth meaning these creatures that John is saying, locus like things but the real power behind all of that is demonic power now keep this in mind because when we come to Revelation chapter 19 once again we will see demonic forces released on the earth in a different way this is when we come to the bold judgments so those demonic powers will actually cause nations to come against each other they will be released on the earth to go and instigate the heads of nations to come into the battle of Armageddon so what we are saying is during the tribulation both during the trumpet judgments as well as during the bold judgments there is increased demonic activity on the earth that is troubling people, causing people to suffer and the height of all of this what we will see later on is in chapter 13 when the beast and the false prophet that is the Antichrist and the false prophet Satan directly is empowering them they are empowered by the dragon that is Satan to cause harm upon the human race to take control of people's lives so we put all this together and we say that during the tribulation while there are other things happening in nature calamities happening vegetation being destroyed water being affected the seas being affected there are volcanic eruptions all of those things are happening the sun is being darkened the moon is turning blood red and all those things are happening there is also an unleash of demonic activity on the earth that are troubling people's lives like never before this fifth angel has announced and this is what is happening on the earth demonic power is troubling people on the earth for these five months but then he says the next two are going to be even worse so when the sixth trumpet is sounded again there is a release of demonic powers and they are affecting people on the earth in a very significant way so let us read Revelation chapter 9 verses 13 to 21 Revelation 9, 13 to 21 somebody could read that for us please then the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four phones of the golden altar which is before God saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet release the four angels who are bound at the great river Ephrytus so the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of an angel now the number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million I heard the number of them and thus I saw the horse in a vision and those who sat on them had bracelets of fiery red hyacinth blue and sulphur yellow and the heads of the horse were like the heads of lion and out of their mouths came fire smoke and brimstone by these three flakes a third of men was killed by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths for their power is in their mouth and in their tails for their tails are like serpents having heads and with them they do harm but the rest of the men who were not killed by these flakes did not repent of the works of their hands that they should not worth a demon and idols of gold, silver, baston and wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk and they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immoralities or their thefts So once again when the sixth trumpet sounded angels have released from the river Euphrates and they they go there assignment is to kill a third of mankind so it seems here that there are these angels who been assigned in this territory and they go about they have been assigned in this territory around the river Euphrates at the great river Euphrates and they are released to destroy one third of mankind now it is not very clear here that how all this happens but it seems like there is a human army it could be understood as a literal army of people of 200 million this is in verse 16 200 million and they are going about destroying the lives of people and he's mentioning John is seeing actually what's happening because there is fiery red blue sulfur yellow fire smoke and brimstone that is coming out from these 200 million horsemen army of the horsemen or movement of this army and also these horses are looking very different this is some sort of a metallic they have breast plates and faces like lions and so on and so forth and there is fire and smoke and brimstone coming out so is John seeing spiritual beings that are very destructive in their nature that have been released on the earth that could be one or could this 200 million be a human army that is going about destroying lives but what is very clear is in verse 18 he says people are destroyed by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone so it seems to me and again I'm only saying it seems because we don't know for sure that this is talking about you know kind of battle of warfare that could happen in our day and time back in old times people fought with swords and shields and spears and fire and smoke and brimstone was not part of weapons of destruction or battles at the most they would shoot arrowheads with fire but today battles are very different it's fire, smoke and brimstone it's basically been dropped bombs missiles tanks and all the kinds of weapons that are used in warfare today are like this they cause these kinds of things to happen so if this army of 200 million that John saw it could be a literal army of people going about killing destroying this is when the sixth angel sounds or if it is all just a spiritual in nature it could be a natural army of 200 million people an army that's going about being very destructive at that point in time that's my feeling because he's talking about fire, smoke and brimstone and one third or 30% of mankind was killed so most likely it's some huge army some of the countries that have capacity for this kind of army of course is China they have a standing army I think of over 200 million soldiers so or at least it could be a combination of nations possibly such a large standing army that could more round and cause destruction now just to close off versus 20 to 21 while all this is happening there's another side to all of this that is people don't repent so on the one side we said there are people who are dying for their faith who are turning to God in prayer there are people who are listening to us who are bearing witness for the Lord Jesus Christ but then on the other side there are people it says here the rest of mankind they did not repent though they were seeing all these things they hardened their hearts and they continued to do in their sinful ways they did not turn to God so that's the other side of what's happening people are recognizing that this is very unusual this is not normal and yet there are people who refuse to repent and they continue on in their sinful ways so we've come to the end of chapter 9 next week we will pick up with chapter 10 and move forward and as we look at all these things we say you know a lot of these things that we are seeing that we are reading could definitely be fulfilled in our day and time especially when you talk about an army of 200 million if that was actually a physical army that's going about killing with smoke and fire and brimstone that seems much like a modern day warfare battle with the kind of equipment that's available today for battle seems very much like today's times alright so we're going to pause here we will pray and dismiss and we will continue this next week just an announcement that we will not be having the next class on media and technology and just taking a break we will continue that next week as well with that subject so there won't be class on media and technology I've put a note in that class as well okay I want to invite somebody to pray with us and we will close sorry Kiran would you like to pray and we will close sorry thank you sir I want to say thank you for the God your grace and mercy for the God thank you for the God once again we are just praying for that all people who the God just open their eyes for the God they can understand they can receive you for the God and they can repent for the God raise your people for the God intercede for the God all things are meeting to your hand now time give your peace and comfort for the God to every side for the God just give your saloon for the God to every country, every state and every way to help them to understand your presence and your peace and your God's father thank you for coming time to submit to your hand thank you for being part of the class today I appreciate it have a good weekend enjoy your time thank you for being part of the class today I appreciate it have a good weekend enjoy your time


And neighbors, we are gathered here today on the shore of our beautiful lake to witness the joining of these two lives as one in marriage. Jane Driscoll and Bernard Sanders have come to their decision to marry freely with certainty and joy. And they are delighted and proud to share this moment with so many of their friends, family and coworkers who have been an intimate and essential part of their lives. I would like to make a few personal comments about Bernie and Jane and what their marriage today means to me. Bernie, I've realized that when you and I first met, you were the aides that Levy is now. What most impressed me then was not your politics, though you were a political activist even then. It was not your tremendous energy, though you've always had that. What impressed me then was your ease with children and your caring about children. It seems fitting to me that that is one of the areas of interest and concern that you and Jane share. Jane, you and Bernie met in the heat of Bernie's first mayoral campaign. I watched you grow in your work and I watched your relationship grow in the ensuing years. You have both been actively involved in the world and working for social justice throughout your adult lives. I am confident that your new relationship will only add strength to your commitment, that by your very natures you will continue to strive to make the world a better place. You're also creating something new here today, something that did not exist before, a new family. For Levy, Heather, Karina, and David, you will provide a home and a model of possibilities of ways of being in the world. My wish for the two of you on this day is that you will provide a solid base and refuge for one another, as well as for your new family. A base for going out in the world, for continuing your life's work. And also a refuge, a retreat from your struggles, a place to comfort and to support one another.  Among Jane and Bernie's closest friends for many years are Jonathan and Roxanne Leopold. Roxanne would like to make a statement for the two of them to the bride and groom. Me and Jane, Jonathan and I have had the privilege of sharing some very private moments with you, the joys and sorrows and hopes and disappointments in what otherwise has been a very public relationship. And I would like to speak of some of the things that you hope for and the things which many of us here wish for you today. First we wish for you a love and a trust that will last a lifetime and will give you strength and confidence. We wish for you a home, not simply a place of stone and wood, but an island of security in this very hectic world, a home with books and music and poetry, all the things which represent the highest strivings of men and women. We wish for you a rich family life filled with laughter and hugs and kisses, with children who are not mere reflections of yourselves, but who will learn from your best traits and will go forth to recreate the values which you have taught them so well by your example. We hope that one of these values will be the concept of family, not as an economic unit, but as a transcendent force which brings people close in times of joy and in times of need. And we finally we wish that you will always be able to say, as you are saying today, this is my beloved, this is my friend. Are you, Bernie and Jane, in the presence of your family, friends and co-workers, and in the presence of your children, Levy, Heather, Karina and David, prepared to make the commitment of marriage? Bernie and Jane, your vows are your own and you have expressed them one to the other privately. Do you now wish to make a public declaration at this time of your commitment to marriage? Do you have a token to offer in pledge of these vows? May these rings be a symbol of your true faith in each other and always remind you of your love. And as much as Bernie and Jane have consented to live together in marriage and have pledged themselves to each other in the presence of this company, I now pronounce you, man and wife. You will see, we're videotaped by Jane Sanders, Yaroslavl and all of the people that we met there. They were just as friendly as they could possibly be, certainly want to see assist the city relationship established with Burlington. The way it's done in the Soviet Union, however, is they're going to have to go through their bureaucratic process through Moscow. Our hope is, it's at this stage still tentative, but our hope is that a delegation from Yaroslavl will come to Burlington in late September or early October. On occasions we all went out together, sometimes we went out separately, but we did have the opportunity to meet with teachers and pupils, with physicians in their medical school, with lawyers and a judge in their court system, with people who are in charge of some major industrial development projects that they have, in fact one plant, an oil refinery which employs 6,000 people, with Mayor Ryapkov and the deputy mayors of the city. The truth of the matter is, they like Americans, they respected Americans and they admire Americans. We were also there, needless to say, in a historical moment. And they were very, very pleased and excited by President Reagan's going to Moscow and by signing the summit agreement. And in fact, I was personally surprised at how popular Reagan is in the Soviet Union. It's a little bit more popular than maybe here, but also I think before we went to Yaroslavl, we had the opportunity to meet with a gentleman named Sergei Plakhanov at the Institute for Canadian and American Studies, and we were impressed there and throughout the entire process at the openness of Soviet officials to acknowledge many of the problems that they had. I went there expecting them to say, well, everything is great, there's no problem, but that certainly wasn't the case. They're proud of the fact, for example, that their health care system is free, but they would be open to acknowledge that it is probably 10 years behind the United States in terms of medical technology, and they would very much, I think, love to see some of their physicians come to Burlington and some of our physicians go there. So they're proud of their achievements, but they're also very free to admit that by no stretch of the imagination are things perfect. They've got a lot of work to do. Also while we were there, just, I mean, history is undergoing some, Soviet history is undergoing some major changes right now. We brought back with us a couple of copies of a newspaper, they're called Moscow News, in which we're seeing enormously strong criticisms of the present Soviet establishment and the need for major democratization in their country, and I think that whole process impressed many of us, and it was just an exciting time to be in the Soviet Union in addition to everything else. What was your impression of the Soviet Union before this trip, and did it change after the trip? To be very honest with you, you know, 10 days doesn't make any of us an expert on the Soviet Union, and I don't think that I was an expert before I went, either. I was impressed by the friendliness of the people and their respect and admiration for Americans. They really do like Americans, and over and over again, and this is something that I think others will confirm, they are very nervous about war. They don't like war, and in at least two cities, we all went to the Leningrad Memorial, which is a memorial in honor of the, I think it was 700,000 people who starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad, and when we were in Yaroslavl, one of the very first things that we did was jointly dedicate a bouquet of flowers to the war dead of Yaroslavl. They lost 22 million people in World War II, and they have not forgotten that, and I think want to make sure that another war doesn't happen. If I would say to answer your question, Enrique, I was impressed by their friendliness toward Americans, and they're really wanting, hopefully, to work with us, and their excitement about this summit agreement and their hope that out of this will come a closer relationship with the United States. Do you just impress or surprise as well? Both. Both impressed and surprised. Are you still planning on coming to the United States? I would be happy to if you would like to. Okay. I need to go and get the beginning of the show. Okay. Is that you? What time? 11 o'clock? Well, a few minutes before 11 o'clock would be nice. Okay. Thank you. If I fall asleep on the other end, forgive me. Well, while you were gone, there was an AP story that came out of Yaroslavl, and they talked about it. It was right after the summit, and they said, there's no hot water. There's no food. What was your experience? Oh, well. They must have saved it all for us. Well, obviously, that there was no hot water and no food. Yeah. It was just a paper story. It was a terribly inaccurate story. The people were going back to, like, having to go to Moscow. Everything had been fixed up for the summit, and now that it was over, there was people. None of us did an exhaustive study of living conditions in Yaroslavl. Our impression, and please correct me if I'm wrong. You have people here, Republican, Democrat, and so forth and so on. First of all, it's a very beautiful city, physically. It is a beautiful city. Right on the Volga River, it has, and it was during the day you have, I don't know, many hundreds, if not thousands, well, hundreds, I guess, of people swimming right in the lake and boating. They have some thousand, two community boat houses. They beat us. Is there a waterfront in his public wheel? Yeah. What is he public about? And so you have people swimming in the downtown. You have some beautiful old churches that we had an opportunity to tour. They're in the midst of building a whole lot of housing. They have a serious housing problems in terms of the shortage of housing. I mean, I don't want to, please correct me if I'm wrong. I, you know, we didn't do a study of these things, but people there seem reasonably happy and content. I didn't notice much deprivation. Howard, is that a fair statement? Yeah, that's real fair. I was really surprised by the beauty of the city. And in many ways, I think it's a good partner for building because the pace of life there was pretty similar to here. People were very open and friendly. I guess one of the things that surprised me about the Soviet Union in general, all of the cities we were in was our ability to move around on our own, particularly in Moscow and Leningrad. Most of us broke away from the regular tour and just went off on taxi cabs, and we met people. We looked up people who were friends of friends. We visited people in their apartments. Were those visits unsupervised at all? Totally unsupervised. In fact, some of us met with the people who you could really think of as dissidents who were unhappy with life there and other people who were pretty satisfied. But it was just like moving around in New York or Boston. I mean, I did go into two different food stores, just my line of work. I was curious to see how it was. I mean, the assortment in Soviet Union generally speaking, particularly this time of year, it's the end of the storage season for cabbage and et cetera, et cetera. It's not like what you have in the United States. You're not going to find 25 different varieties of citrus fruit, but basic food stuffs are certainly there. So is there any shortage of food or anything like that? Okay, does anybody want to add anything that hasn't been said? Don't be shy. That article that you're talking about, I think it referred to the approach of Yaroslavl as being something, the equivalent of going to Paris, New Jersey. And I can't think of anything that could be farther from the truth. The only town I can think of that's as pretty as Yaroslavl is Burlington. It's an awful pretty place. There is housing on the outskirts that lack what we would consider normal plumbing. But in the city, the housing is pretty interesting. 300-year-old one frame. The housing is like the farm of Vermont. Where do you think was accomplished as a result of this? I think a lot was. I mean, I think, and I feel this as strongly as I believe anything, that the future of this world is going to depend upon the ability of the United States and the Soviet Union to develop a positive relationship. One of the interesting things that happens is when mayors get together, when city officials get together, is they always complain about not having enough money. And it's amazing to hear these guys in Yaroslavl say, yep, we need more money for housing. We need more money for health care.  And it sounds like three-quarters of the mayors in the United States of America. I think what is going on, you know, what went on at the very top between Reagan and Gorba Jeffery, what went on at a lower level, is an understanding that you have two people with a lot of common aspirations and common needs. And we have differences of opinion. But we don't have to spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars and bring this world to the brink of annihilation because we disagree. You know, Burlington City Council disagrees occasionally.  And I think the fact that we received the warmth that we did made me leave there with an understanding that if we put our minds to it, we can develop a positive and peaceful relationship with them and use the energies for constructive ways, in constructive ways. We have a lot to learn from them. We really do. They have a lot to learn from us. And if we start pooling our talents and our intelligence, we can make this world a lot better place to live. So that's the message that I got. And I think they're ready for it. What kind of a timeline do you think we're going to see on the sister thing becoming formalized? That's in a sense, we'll move as fast as their bureaucracy allows it to move. They indicated that late September or early October would be a good time for them to come here and we'll try to do that. They want the relationship. That's for sure. They already have... They indicated that. Yes, they did. They already have forced sister city relations with Finland, West Germany, France, and Portugal. And they take that stuff very seriously. And they would like the relationship. So all that has to... And I think it will happen. It just has to go through Moscow. That's the way it is done in their country. So did the trip help to expedite that? Yes, it did. In fact, we are moving much faster in this process, much, much faster. It often takes... If I'm not mistaken, where's David? I think it often takes several years to bring this about and we might have it in seven or eight months from beginning to... And so we're moving very, very rapidly. And one of the ways you move rapidly is to go. That's the way it's done. Do you think that when they come in September or October, that could be the... Yes, if they come... Yes, yes. That's what it would be, exactly. And would it be people like the mayor or the equivalent? I think he would give his right arm to come. I think he would like to come, but I don't know who makes those decisions. I honestly don't know. And also, what do you see... I mean, we know what the sister city relationship with Puerto Cabez is like. What do you see happening in this... This is very different than Nicaragua. This is really a very different one. Nicaragua, you know my views on Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a very, very poor country. And the heart of our sister city relationship there is basically to provide material aid to those people. But the Soviet Union, we're not going to be providing them with material aid. Basically, it is an attempt to bring the two peoples together to get to know each other better. And the possibility of real trade. How it's even, you know, talk to some of the people and others did about the possibility of developing an economic relationship. It's not going to be simple, but that's certainly something that we would like to see. And under Perestroika, their local factories are now given a lot more freedom than before. So it is not going to be quite as complicated. And if that could happen, that would be extraordinary. But essentially, it's bringing the two communities together and people of the United States and the Soviet Union together. And we've met with our candid parts and have laid the groundwork to do that, even starting the planning process before we actually signed the sister city agreement. We've met with teachers and talked about teacher exchanges and student exchanges, economic exchanges. As a matter of fact, we've even gone so far as to set up some different things that we are going to have our students study together, write reports and exchange them with a school over there. So there will be a lot of things happening between now and September. It's not just sitting and waiting. Okay. Good. This is... This is Moscow's Church Street Marketplace for our box. Do you remember where Reagan... I think that was the place where Reagan was walking down? That's it. And this is not Ronald Reagan, actually. This is me. Oh, nice. It was great. It was just so nice. It was a perfect facility. Within this facility, they had three theaters, including what they called Children's Spectators Theater and the Puppet Theater. Here's a shot of their waterfront where they had this boulevard, this walkway that just went for miles and miles. It just was a phenomenally beautiful city blown away by the beauty of it. Very ancient churches. And all of this is green space right along the water. 100-foot setback. Interesting idea. I heard that before. They had not one, but three floating community boat accesses. So we're going to help them wall it off of condominiums, right? So those guys don't want access to one another. There were different kinds of facilities at parties. Yeah, clubs. This is a war memorial, but it was just a spectacular city. Wow. Are these pictures you took, or are these pictures? No, these are postcards of yours, but here's their main street. What was it? Yeah, this was not a... Hello, Johnny. This was not a shabby city. Is it 500,000 people? It's about 600... What's going on in the revolution? It's about 650,000. So what did you get out of this? I mean, what was your... as a community and economic development director to find anything new and learn anything? Generally, this is kind of an extraordinary experience. In terms of their commitment to housing, I was very impressed. I mean... Hold this, Luke. As a constitutional right, people are assured a minimum level of decent housing. For example, in the nearest level, their goal was to construct 5,500 units of housing per year.  It was also very exciting in terms of the whole issues around perestroika, many of them which related to economic development, the very radical and revolutionary changes that are taking place, both in terms of the democratization of the society, but also in terms of the changes in the structure of their business, the ownership of their enterprises. In many situations, they're moving from state ownership to cooperative ownership, which we've been promoting in Burlington, which was interesting. And their commitment to... arts, cultural facilities... Very sweet. Luke? What would you like to say? Today's Luke's birthday. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Happy birthday. Alan, do you want to introduce yourself, Alan? I'm Alan Rubin. I was a physician representative with the group. And I agree with the mayor. I can't agree more with the surprise of the civility and kindness of the people we met. I feel like we met our counterparts. A little bit louder. I felt more comfortable with those people in any other European country I'd been in. I felt like I'd found cousins or uncles, our grandparents there. They treated us... royally is probably the wrong word, but they treated us very, very, very well. I was awestruck and touched. I was also surprised by my own feelings of warmth toward the people I met and how they stuck with us. I'd read a lot about the instant friendships that Americans have found over the years. That is, they'd meet people for one day and then not see them again. We really felt differently. We felt like these relationships would last. And I'd like to emphasize how important I think it is for all of us in the city as a whole to pursue fully the sister city relationship. I'm Howard Siever. I'm a lawyer here in Burlington and I've also been active for a number of years in the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. And I'm, I guess, now chairman of the Chamber's International Trade Committee. I found some things that I expected and some things that surprised me.  We put our resources in private hands and people here have nice houses and cars and clothes and consumer goods. There, they seem to put their resources into public facilities. And what I saw there was a transportation system in the big cities and public parks and recreation facilities in Yaroslavl that really, in my view, surpassed what we have here. On the other hand, the goods in their shops are shabby and their housing construction is also not up to our standards by any means. I was also surprised by the freedom of movement that we had, particularly in the larger cities, Moscow and Leningrad. The members of our group at various times just broke away from the tour bus. There were no restrictions placed on us. It didn't seem to be a problem for the government tour guide. And we went off essentially on our own in groups of twos and threes and fours. We used the subway system, taxis, buses on our own without any feeling that anybody was hindering us or watching us to the extent that some of us even met in an apartment for several hours with people who were unhappy with the system, with a couple of Jewish young men who were interested in emigrating and wanted to apply to emigrate. And also met on our own, that was in Moscow and met on our own, some of us with a family in Leningrad and had a number of pickup conversations on the streets and buses and subways with people. I was also interested in a little bit surprised by what I heard from the business end there. That was my particular interest. And I met in Yato Slavo with people who represented the largest industry in that community, which was an engine factory that employed about 50,000 people. And what they told me was that in the past, in order for a manufacturing entity in the Soviet Union to do business with a foreign company, they had to go through a central government ministry, but that the rules have changed and that currently the plant manager in that city would have the authority on his own to enter into a deal with a U.S. or another Western firm. And that really surprised me. They seemed very interested in doing business with us. The problem is that they have a shortage of hard currency and they're looking for deals of a nature that don't involve them putting up hard currency going in. So there are only a certain range of types of arrangements that they're particularly interested in, but if there's interest on this side and those kinds of arrangements, they were very excited about the possibility of setting up some kind of trade and felt that they had the authority at that level to enter into the arrangement. Because I have a number of other thoughts too, but I'll just pass to John at this point. I'm John Franco. This was my second trip to the Soviet Union. I went in 1986 and two things stick out most in my mind. First of all, the incredible beauty of the city of Yaroslavl. We couldn't have a better sister city anywhere. It's an incredibly beautiful city. The pace of life and the feel of life is very similar to Burlington. And if we can get a waterfront, half as beautiful as the one they have in Yaroslavl, we'll be doing very well. But the other thing that really struck me was the effect that Perestroika is having in the political climate of the country. The difference was very pronounced even from two years ago. When we flew from Moscow to Leningrad the first weekend we were there, we picked up a copy of this newspaper called Moscow News. And we were frankly flabbergasted at the level of debate and criticism that's going on in this newspaper about their society. For example, this issue here has a variety of articles and opinions ranging on the faults of the Soviet economy to the faults of Soviet education. In fact, the article on Soviet education states that the Soviet education to this date had produced a generation which had grown up in an atmosphere of reversible lives. And if Perestroika fails, the USSR will become a society of talkative idlers past the cynics in infantile parasites obeying only the whip. This is the level of debate that's beginning to emerge now in the Soviet Union. What's very clear and very exciting is that there's a real opportunity for that society to become a true democracy. And the other thing that was apparent to me that the entity that really holds the Trump card in whether or not Perestroika is successful and whether or not democracy in the Soviet Union is successful is the United States of America. If we continue a belligerent and cold war attitude toward the USSR, I fear that the Stalinist hacks and the Soviet bureaucracy, which are everywhere, will succeed in getting Gorbachev out in strangling Perestroika. And then their society will go back to the dictatorship that they've suffered for the last 70 years. My name is Jim Dunn. I'm also an attorney. And after a while you end up echoing what other people are saying. And I'd like to just indicate my impressions. The beauty of the city is one that I have to note. Peter Clavel and I took the opportunity early in the morning to run along the Volga River. The city sits up above the river and it is a phenomenally beautiful place. Many people out running in the morning fishing along the Volga River. And I think all of us were struck by it, by its absolutely astounding beauty. Also, in terms of the changing times, I think we all came away with a sense of a phenomenal change taking place at all different levels. We met with some intellectuals in Moscow who are advisors at the highest level of government. We were very fortunate to have this meeting. The mayor arranged it. And we learned firsthand a number of the major concerns that people are dealing with as they go through this, this agonizing change. It was described as a shedding of the shell that they had been in. And it was going to happen. It was evolutionary. And the direction that it was going to go was what really was being debated, not really whether it was going to go forward or not. In Yaroslavl, we had the opportunity to meet with some of our counterparts in the legal system, which we found very interesting. We met with a couple of attorneys. We talked about a wide range of legal issues. They brought us to court one day, the equivalent of the district court, if you would, in Burlington. We sat through a DWI trial, which we found to be extremely similar. They had blood tests and percentage of alcohol issues that are raised here. After that ended, we went behind the scenes and we spoke with the judges. By the way, there are three judges to whom are elected by the people, very similar to what we have here in the state of Vermont. These kinds of similarities, I think, highlighted for me the essence of, I guess, what I came away with in terms of the secret to attaining world peace, and that is really that people need to meet each other. If they can meet each other and talk to one another, I think that the world really could live in peace. My name is Jenny Green. I'm a student at Burlington High School. My name is Jenny Green. I'm a student at Burlington High School. I was in the Soviet Union in November with Project Harmony. So it was my second time there. And the same things struck me as being true, mostly about people that, most people that we ran into were very curious and eager to talk to us. And like Jim said, that you really need to talk to the people and get to know them. And that if you're there and you're willing to speak, there was no end of people that were willing to do the same. And, again, it's a beautiful city, really, I think, appropriate to be matched up with Burlington. It feels the same. I'm Beth Phillips and I'm the children's librarian at Fletcher Free Library. I was really struck by the enormous interest and curiosity of Russians about us and people stopping us in the street or in squares and just wanting to talk, to practice their English and find out what the real scoop was on the United States. Before I left, I did a fair amount of preparation and reading and really viewed the journey as a culmination of my preparations. Now that I'm back, I see the journey as just the very beginning of a wonderful friendship. It's hard for me to be brief because there are so many things to say, but with so many people here and you probably have questions, I will try to be. I was the member of the group who spoke Russian the best. A couple of people spoke a little bit here and there, but I was actually able to talk with people, strangers on the street, taxi drivers, university students and so on, and I have to echo the basic conclusion that I think everybody in the group came to, which is that Russians as a people are incredibly friendly. They are more willing to talk to strangers than any of us would have imagined. The hospitality shown was staggering. The taxi driver who sang to us for the half-hour taxi ride and then refused to take any money from us at the end because he liked us. The university students who heard us speaking English and wanted to practice their English and met us on three different occasions at different locations and came back to our hotel, and just the level of changes that are going on in that country where a few years ago those students that came back to our hotel would have been unwilling to go into the building because to go into a tourist hotel was an indication that either you had foreign currency to spend, which you must have gotten on the black market, or maybe you were somehow suspect, but this year, while a couple of them were sort of like, I'm not sure if we should go in there with you, others said, why not? It's legal. Let's do it. And this new sense of freedom that they were having was striking. The Stalinist fears are not gone. Stalin is held up in their newspapers and so on as being one of the worst criminals against humanity in history. The evils of Brezhnev are being revealed. But overall, I would say that what we experienced there was we felt like we were in the midst of history being made, revolutionary really, not in the sense of a revolutionary new toothpaste, but of changing the way that human beings relate to other human beings in the world. We saw a lot of things that were beautiful and wonderful.  Very much like the United States.  Different things were wonderful. That's what made it very interesting. The fact that people pay approximately two to five percent of their income on rents that healthcare is free, that education is free. There are after-school programs for all the children, whether it's horseback riding or karate or chess or dance or whatever, the commitment to the arts and children is staggering. On the other hand, if you wanted to make a gourmet meal and you wanted to get some fresh produce, you'd have a choice of green cabbage, beets, onions, leeks, apples. That's the choice that you had that day. And you had to wait in line quite a while just to get one of those items. The priority is not put on consumerism or the ability to get products efficiently and easily and to have the variety that we are accustomed to. In that sense, it is definitely not a rich country. In other areas, such as the cultural programs, the transportation, et cetera, it is just light years ahead of this country. On total, I guess I'd say I'd rather live here, but I am very, very excited about what's going on in that country. And I just wanted to conclude by saying the Leningrad Memorial we visited I think was probably one of the more moving experiences of my life. Most Americans forget that part of the history of World War II. The Soviets lost more people killed by famine and starvation and bombs due to the Nazis in that one city than all of the Americans who died in the entire war. That one city lost over a half million people. Six or seven hundred thousand people buried in mass graves. We looked at the diary of a little girl who lived in Leningrad at the time talking on this page. She says, today my mother died. A few pages later, my brother died. A few pages later, my cousin died. And finally, after several pages, nobody's left but me. And there was not a dry eye in anybody in the museum and then this memorial where you see these mountains of earth where literally nearly over a half million people died in a very, very short amount of time. And when people over there talk about the need for peace, it's not an intellectual thing as it is for a lot of people here because their country has been invaded so many times. Their soil has been conquered so many times. And there's nobody in the Soviet Union who does not have a relative who died in the World War II that when they talk about peace and everybody we met did talk about the need for friendship and peace with the United States, it is a very heartfelt plea for peace. A lot of us I could say, but I won't right now. I'm Michelle Weiss. I'm the assistant city clerk. I mean the first thing that I wrote down that I wanted to talk about was the issue about peace. I didn't know what to expect in going to the Soviet Union and I think that that was the key thing. I mean, what is this war about? I just, in meeting people and realizing how much they're just like we are, it just didn't make sense. And it also felt like we were each other's counterpart, like keeping separate, we were denying each other information that both of our nations need, that there was a way that the things that they did really well around after school programs for children were things that we really need to know more about and the things that we do really well in terms of housing and the market would be really useful for them to have. So coming away with, alright, let's do it. And also hearing some things that came out of that meeting with the intellectuals, the think tank for the political government. Some of the things that were coming out of there were astonishing in terms of where we can go as a human nation, as a world nation in terms of our two countries setting a model for peace between us and also ending world hunger, that if our two nations can come to an agreement with each other that it's limitless the kinds of things that we can do as a world. I wanted to talk some about the language barrier because in the Soviet Union, like in any European country, people learn English, they learn German and French, they learn more languages and it's something that I would really like to see happen more in the United States, that that's something that's needed even more than anything to promoting peaceful relationships that we, our country should take an effort to learn Russian so that we can deepen our friendships. In terms of what Terry just said a minute ago about I would much rather live here, I just read an article in Parents Magazine where the author said, yeah, when it, you know, push comes to shove I would rather live here but in terms of where I want my children to live, I'm not sure. And I left feeling like, I left feeling like, oh, I want this education, I want to know all of this that I don't have a handle on yet. It was quite opening. I think that all of us have been changed by this experience. My name is Dave Kelly. I come from, I think, a much different perspective than anybody else on the trip. I've been to the Soviet Union six times. I've been there for several months and I'm certainly the only public in this group. I think that the thing that I agree with that we said the most is what Terry Beresia said. I think the changes are truly revolutionary and I think that they're primarily inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev who is a man of extraordinary common sense but I would add to that that there is no guarantee of his success or his future and the Soviet Union is not a democracy. It's more like a large corporation and it doesn't have the public interest always at the closest, close to its heart. My very best friends can't come visit me here in Vermont. It breaks their heart and it breaks my heart but the country is going through incredible changes and our country unfortunately is responding at the grassroots with a groundswell like this with Democrats and Socialists and Republicans but there's no intelligent political response on our part in the U.S. Congress to the changes taking place in the Soviet Union. What we need to do is everything we can at this moment to seize the time and stabilize our relationship. We need to repeal the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. We need to tear down the barriers we've created to trade. We need to offer most favored nation status. We need to get the Soviet Union involved in the general agreement on trade and tariffs. We need to get them into the International Monetary Fund and we need to do the same thing the Europeans did after World War II. We need to normalize our trade relationship, create economic interdependence and do everything we can to allow for the freest possible flow of products, people and ideas. And the United States Congress isn't doing that and I think what projects like this can do is begin to put pressure not just for local action but for federal congressional action to create a more intelligent common-sense relationship. I'll read first the short message that the President of the United States sends along with these awards when I announce who they were. I'm pleased to honor the winners of the Academic Fitness Award for 1988, a fifth year of our program to recognize outstanding scholastic achievement among America's young people. The three million young men and women who have received this award amplify those attributes that make them better students and better citizens. We'll success-paste a white picture for our country's future and you'll find an example of what can be accomplished through hard work and dedication and development of the mind of your fellow students. You, your parents, your teachers should take pride in the standard of excellence you've set. And I want you all to know that I'm as proud of you as well. Nancy and I send our best wishes now and for the future. God bless you. Long wait. I see the following students, please. Javier, Maria French, Jenny Storch, Molly Webb, my principals in trustworthiness, service including cooperation, kindness and unselfishness, courage to overcome obstacles, leadership including personality, originality and good sportsmanship, and patriotism. And the winners this year are Nat Ives and Jenny Savage. Anybody that got to know him, I think, felt that way. Eventually drowned in a tragic accident. He was the kind of student who could get along with just about anybody. He got along with the kids you're expecting to and he got along with the kids you might not expect him to. He got along with adults just as well as he did with kids in school. There aren't a lot of kids that can do that. One thing I'm always going to remember about him that always sticks in my mind when I get up to give this award and when I look at the name of the recipient of it. One thing in my mind that will always stick out about Stephen Jones was his smile. That boy had a smile that no one, I don't think will ever in this world duplicate. He took over his whole face and radiated. He made you want to smile about how you were feeling. This award goes to a student that best has those kind of characteristics that Stephen Jones had. Somebody can get along with a lot of people. Someone who maybe isn't the best student, but is a good student. Maybe isn't the best athlete, but it's an athlete. It may be not in a traditional sport. It doesn't have to be your basketball soccer type sport. It's going to be ping pong. But it has to be somebody that shows an interest in that. Somebody with an artistic ability. And again, it doesn't have to be traditional. It can be just sitting in their home playing the banjo and the kazoo. Tonight's recipient has, I believe, I'm really happy to see this name here, all those characteristics. She's a wonderfully young lady with a very beautiful smile that cheers you up just like Stephen's smile did. She's an athlete. She's played on the basketball team and in several other sports. And I'm proud to say she's a physician. She was a chorus member and a show chorus member. I'm very proud this evening to present the Stephen Jones Award to Sancy Catherine. When my daughter was seven years old, my wife and I were told that Jenny had some learning disabilities and probably would not be able to achieve any academic success in school. She also had vision impairment that only compounded her troubles. Nine years have passed and transformation born out of trust allowed the hard work to progress taking place. Transformation isn't over. Nor will it ever be. I hope not anyway. Jenny received a lot of help, but she fought hard and would not stay down for the long count. Nor will our recipient tonight be denied. Be told you can't push aside hear the word failure. This award for most improved student is really shared by all of us. If students, parents and teachers are doing their jobs then we are witness to excellence and the wonder of coming. However, with every graduating class there are a few students who have run the longest and the hardest and then there is always the one who must be recognized. Her struggles, achievements and transformation are to be emulated, admired and applauded. This selection has been a labor of love. This year's recipient for the Robert E. River Senior Award for most improved student to candy labor. Back in fields for comes from the Greeks but also from the Greeks comes the origination of logic thinking from the Greeks we give philosophy from the Greeks we give drama these are the things that the Greeks give our culture wisdom and civilization and from this idea of the athlete excelling in the Olympics and the same countrymen excelling in logic and philosophy came the idea of a sound mind and a sound body just for being nominated these people get a certificate of recognition. The nominees were Nathan Berenberg Nick Canis Arrow for the boys the girls were and are I should say Lonnie Ayer Sansi Cabin Nina Beninger Amy Bercoglio give it to your your vote which doesn't count because the vote has already been casted and it's been casted by the faculty okay the boy athlete has much innumerable experience basketball, softball, football, light soccer you name it, we had it, he did it he was scholastic he was on the varsity basketball team for two years he was on the varsity soccer team for two years honor roll five times Nick Berenberg will have him stand as a shy boy this will be good for him the girl recipient, scholar athlete innumerable light soccer prison ball, basketball he was scholastic varsity basketball two years varsity softball one year honor roll seven times Amy Bercoglio


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My name is Rohan Bajaj. I'm a junior majoring in biology on the pre-med track with a minor in engineering. I am from Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, so I'm an international student but my family's from New Delhi, India and I pronounce he, him, his. Coming to BU and coming to college in general, like I realize college YouTubers is like a big space. I would see videos of different colleges where people would post a day in the life, you know, college move in and I realize that BU doesn't have the one big person who does all this and so coming here I knew that I wanted to do this. So freshman year first semester I took the decision to post my first video which was doing Thanksgiving break. I made a video I posted it online and I'm, you know, super happy that it did well. But then I realized that over time it had to do less with me posting on YouTube for people to see it. I grabbed the ideology of it being like a time capsule. So I know that, you know, 10 years down the line I would love to watch these videos with my future family, my friends. Hey, good morning. It's day two. It's Saturday and it's currently 9 a.m. So I'm going to the villa for an event. It's like a med hackathon. That's going to last until 6 o'clock today and then we have the Bollywood night and then the med hackathon will continue tomorrow. So yep, this is Saturday, second day of the weekend at the... You know, for me, I don't have any trouble in filming videos. I don't find any like awkward movements where I just go to classrooms and have my camera on me and I start speaking in a public space. For me, that's fine. But the biggest challenge is editing. Editing takes a lot of time, especially the way I craft my videos. I like them to be file space with good music, good transitions, good edits because that's how people will be engaged. Like it always like makes me smile whenever like people come to be you as a student and they recognize me and they're like, oh, you're the YouTube guy. Watch your videos.  Honestly, like it validates that okay, like whatever you're doing, it is helping people, whatever you're doing. People are watching. I am a huge birthday person. I have been planning my birthday, you know, years in advance. Like coming to be you, I knew 21st would always be big.  Like, it has to be big. Like, that's the sort of person I am. I just like to make things big. I also wanted to like get a DJ. So there was a DJ there. My friends love taking pictures. So I told everyone to take as many pictures and videos. Everyone like goes through like these dark thoughts at some point in the life. For some reason, I always like as much as much as I know that people around me or I am loved by people is just being busy all day long and just doing different activities and then just going to bed, waking up doing the same thing again. It doesn't really like I don't get time to think of how grateful I am, how privileged I am. When I got to the cake cutting part of my party, I saw like 80 people around me all smiling, all just like wishing me happy birthday. And I think it was just, you know, it was just the power of the movement that I opened up about how I'm so grateful, why am I so grateful? I did tear up a bit. It is a challenge to like maintain the circle or like maintain like the people you meet. But I do pride myself in like remembering names. I follow this philosophy very dear to my heart. It's like people will not necessarily remember what you say to them, but they will remember how you make them feel.  I do plan to do that as well. And yeah, wherever life takes me, I will post about that 100,000 subscribers, a million subscribers. I know it's a distant number as of today, but I will put in all my effort to get to that number at some point of time.


I'm tempted to have a second round, but I don't think I will because you want to have questions from the audience. But what I note in all your presentations, I don't think North Korea was mentioned once. And yet it dominated, in a sense, the Trump, the first, I hope, the last, Trump presidency. Mr. Kim, what is happening with your neighbor to the north? Well, quite interestingly, an economist intelligence unit has recently published risk outlook 2024. They have listed out top 10 risk elements. But North Korea, whether it's nuclear or missile proliferation or the nuclear issue, was not listed, was not singled out as one of the top 10 risk. So I think there's quite a back in Korea, I think there's, of course, the South Korean people are more or less getting used to kind of the perennial threat coming from the north. But I think this North Korean threat or risk is kind of the given factor for the Korean business. And also some of the Western and other foreign business partners are taking into account that is kind of the constant factor that would be fitted into their occasion for the business. I think that's one part of the answer for why this North Korean factor was not listed out. And I think that the level of threat or level of threat perception has remained more or less the same. And of course they have included that the first use of the nuclear weapons even to be included in that their constitution. So that is quite alarming and also this series of intercontinental ballistic missile tests that is also alarming. But still I think there's people in the boardroom, I mean CEOs, are more concerned about intensification of the U.S.-China hegemonic rivalry. It was Doug who brought us back to the CPTPP and sensibly in my opinion said how foolish it was of America to duck out the TPP. But South Korea, of course, is not in the CPTPP. We are not in yet and perhaps I think there's a next year the Korean government is trying to make a push for their participation into CPTPP. That was Britain which is a long way away from India. Originally when the TPP was envisaged it was a way of keeping China out. Now China wants to join the CPTPP. From a Japanese point of view would China be welcome? Yes, quite interesting question of course. I think that within the Japanese government many officials are examining the possibility as well as the result of Chinese participants. First of all, the hurdle is extremely high. So it is quite unlikely that China can pass the hurdle. This is one thing. The other thing is that... You mean this way of keeping China out? Well, in addition to the original members now UK is going to be a member of the CPTPP. So that hurdle will be higher for China to enter into it. So if China clear all the barriers to enter into the TPP it means that China should promote political and economic reforms. These would be welcome to Japan or other members of the CPTPP. So the both cases. Number one, the hurdle is still very high. So it is quite unlikely that China can join in it. Number two, if China can reform politically and economically its own system is also very welcoming. But at the same time we need to stick the original point. We shouldn't be affected by Chinese pressure to lower the hurdle. So as far as this continues, I think it's okay.


Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE. Covering Micron Insight 2019, brought to you by Micron. Welcome back to Pier 27 in San Francisco. Beautiful day here. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We're covering Micron Insight 2019. Hashtag Micron Insight. My co-host, David Floyer, and I are pleased to welcome Michael Woodacre, CUBE alum, and a fellow at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Michael, good to see you again. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. So you're welcome. So you're talking about HPC on a panel today, but of course your role inside of HPE is as a wider scope. Talk about that a little bit. Sure, so I'm the lead technologist in our compute solutions business unit at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. So I've come from the group that worked on in-memory computing, the Superdome Flex platform around things like traditional enterprise computing, SAP HANA, but I'm now responsible not only for that mission critical solutions platform, but also looking at our blades and edge line business as well, so broader technology. Okay, and then of course today we're talking a lot about data, the growth of data, and as I said, you're sitting on a panel talking about high performance computing and the impact on science. What are you seeing? What are the big trends in terms of the intersection between data and the collision with HPC and science? So what we're seeing is just this explosion of data and this real move from traditionally science was based around how you put equations into supercomputers, run simulations, you test your theories out and look at results. Come back in a couple weeks. Exactly, or months even or potentially years. Now we're seeing a lot of work around collecting data from instruments, so whether it's genomic analysis, satellite observations of the planet or of the universe, these are all generating data in vast quantities, very high rates. And so we need to rethink how we're doing our science to gain insights from this massive data increase we're seeing. You know when we first started covering, and this is the 10th year of the Cuban, so in 2010, you could look at the high performance computing market as sort of an indicator of some of the things that were going to happen in so-called big data. And some of those things have played out and I think it probably still is a harbinger. I wonder, how are you seeing machine intelligence applied to all this data, and what can we learn from that in your opinion, in terms of its commercial applications? So, as we all know, this massive data explosion is like, how do we gain insights from this data? And so, as I mentioned, we used to have equations for things like computational fluid dynamics, but now, things are progressing, so we need to use other techniques to gain understanding. And so we're using artificial intelligence, and particularly today, deep learning techniques, to basically gain insights from this data where we don't have equations that we can use to mine this information. So we're using these AI techniques to effectively generate the algorithms that can then bring patterns of interest to our focus, to then really understand what is the scientific phenomena that's driving this particular pattern we're seeing within the data. So, it's just beyond the ability of the number of HPC programmers we have, the sort of traditional equation-based methodologies, algorithms to gain insight. We're moving into this world where we just have outstripped knowledge and capabilities to gain insight. So how is that being made possible? What are the differences in the architecture that you've had to put in, for example, to make this sort of thing possible? Yeah, it's a really interesting time. Actually, a few years ago, seemed like computing was starting to get boring, because whereas now we've got this explosion of new hardware devices being built basically moving into more of a heterogeneous world, because we have this exponential growth of data, but traditional computing techniques are slowing down. So people are looking at accelerators to close that gap and all sorts of heterogeneous devices. So, and we've really been thinking, how do we change the whole computing infrastructure to move from a compute-centric world to a memory-centric world? And how can we use memory-driven computing techniques to close that gap to gain insight? So kind of rethinking the whole architectural direction, basically merge, sort of collapsing down the traditional hierarchy you have from storage to memory to the CPU to get rid of the legacy bottlenecks in converting protocols from process and memory storage down to just a simple, basically memory-driven architecture where you have access to the entire dataset you're looking at, which could be many terabytes to petabytes to exabytes, but you can do simple programming, just directly load store to that huge dataset to gain insights. So that's really the change. That's fascinating, isn't it? So it's the Gen Z, the hope of Gen Z is actually taking place now? Yeah, so Gen Z is an industry-led consulting around a memory fabric. And the Hewlett Packard Enterprise and a whole host of industry partners are part of that ecosystem looking at building a memory fabric where people can bring different innovations to operate, whether it's processing types, memory types, but having that common infrastructure. I mean, there's other work too in the industry, the compute express link consortium as well. So there's a lot of interest now in getting memory semantics out of the processor and into a common fabric for people to innovate on. Do you have some examples of where this is making a difference now from the work in the HPE and your commercial work? Certainly, yeah, we're working with customers in areas like precision medicine, genomics, basically accelerating the ability to gain insights into what medical pathway to go on for a particular disease. We're working in cyber security, looking at how, you know, we're all worried about security of our data and things like network intrusion. So we're looking at how can you gain insights, not only into known attacking patterns on a network, but the unknown patterns that are just appearing. So we're actually applying machine learning techniques on sort of graph data to understand those things. So there's really a very broad spectrum where you can apply these techniques to data analytics. Are all scientists now data scientists? And what's the relationship between sort of a classic data scientist where you think of somebody with stats and math and maybe a little bit of coding expertise and a scientist that has, you know, much more domain expertise. You see data scientists sort of traverse domains. Well, how are those two worlds coming together? Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that I had that exact conversation with one of the members that the Cosmos group in Cambridge is the Stephen Hawking's cosmology team. And he said, actually, he realized a couple of years ago, maybe he should call himself a data scientist, not a cosmologist, because it seemed like what he was doing was exactly what you said. It's all about, in their case, they're taking their theoretical ideas about the early universe, taking the data measurements from surveys of the sky, the background, the cosmic background radiation, and trying to pair these together. So I think data science is tremendously important right now to accelerate, as they are, insights into data. But it's not without, you can't really do it in isolation because a data scientist in isolation is just pointing out peaks or troughs or trends, but it's like, how do you relate that to the underlying scientific phenomenon? So you need experts in whatever the area you're looking at data to work with data scientists to really bridge that gap. Well, with all this data and all this performance, computing capacity, and all this memory, it's going to be fascinating to see what kind of insights come out in the next 10 years. Michael, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. It was great to have you. Thank you very much. All right, you're welcome, and thank you for watching everybody. We'll be right back at Micron Insight 2019 from San Francisco. You're watching theCUBE.