Section XXVI of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Hail and Farewell, for a certain club, to Winfield Moody. Ah, dead and done, forever dead and done, the mellow dusks, the friendly dusks and dim, when Charlie shook the cocktails up, or tin. Gone are ten thousand gleaming moments. One like fireflies twinkling toward oblivion. Ah, how the bubbles used to leap and swim, breaking in laughter round the goblet's brim, when Walter pulled the cork for us, or John. I have seen ghosts of men I never knew, great, gracious souls, the golden hearts of earth, look from the shadows in those rooms we love, living a wistful instant in our mirth. I have seen Jefferson smile down at Drew, and Booth pause musing on the stair above. Into Section XXVI, recording by Larry Wilson. Section XXVII of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Five, a temperance track, to Bob Dean. Cocktails are the little brooms that whiskey weigh your willpower. A dark disease is Bright's disease, and will not yield to pillpower. Some may upon red rums decant, who never did decant rums. But I have eaten bitter bread, where bitters breed their tantrums. The fool will give his life to booze, the wiser man taboos that. When I'm a sad but wiser man, than when I used to ooze that. I owned a bank, and for a fad, I cultivated two lips. If I had owned the mint itself, to it all have gone for juleps. Mums extra dry make some men grow, as dry as any mummy. And when I'm tight, I loosen up, a punch, and I am chummy. Except when I swore off and lent with borrowers I mingled. They'd make my pocket cease to clink, whenever I was jingled. But though I drank with scarce a check, my draft saved people trouble. For I would often pay dubs twice, because I saw them double. Oh, cognac is a fearful drink to brandy man with shame. Oh, he will that drinks diluted gin diluted of good name-o. I whined till I began to ale, and then I whined with ailing. Until to crown the woe's eye sight, I found my eyesight failing. Sir Fitz will come, my doctor warned. Sir Fitz will bloat the mind, sir. I laughed, and took my glasses off, and said, I'll go it blind, sir. Champagnes and real insider me set my high spirits flagon. Still with gay dogs I played the wag, deriding of the wagon. My tongue was like a cotton bale, all whitish from the gin, sir. The doctor said no tongue can state the state your tongue is in, sir. With so much rye and corn you cope, your crowd are cornacopers. How can earth be utopia when peopled by utopers? But still I dodged from fate to fate, still followed by my fate, oh. Still floating loans and liquids till my bank did liquidate, oh. Bonds use up dough, what my fund did, were it refunded one day, would fund the banks of Newfoundland and float the bay a fun day.  If you your neck to nectar-ope, your hope will surely throttle. End of Section 27, Recording by John Brandon. Section 28 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Section 26 of Vision in the Night to Grant Rise. Beyond Arcturus, in a peevish wind, I met a rumpled devil beating home, and went spore-friend I challenged, as thou come, with ragged plumage ravelled out behind, and split your teeth and lamps all blear and blind. What fate hath bent a skillet or thy dome? He sighed, and in that sigh I read a tome of bleeding sorrows and an aching mind. Rough stuff, he moaned, was what I got from mine. It was fierce virtue put me on the bum, trampled my slats and wronged my winsome face. Once I was loved, and called the angel wine, kicked hellward now, and hurtling out through space, I am known only as the demon rum. End of Section 28, Recording by John Brandon. Section 29 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 7. The Last Case of Jinn. To Lauren Palmer. The Toly Wub is singing by the Willy Winkles Grotto. His passionate devotion, though, he knows he hadn't ought to. And she wipes away a teardrop with a little furtive fin. She is fluttered, but she's frightened by his outburst of emotion. In their somewhat formal corner of a rather proper ocean, and I can understand them, for I've got a crate of Jinn. Interpretive thesis on the psychochemic state, induced in the Batrachia by fear or love or hate, I find a rather easy, since I've opened up the crate.  A Willy Winkle seldom, a Spritely thing or elfish, but morally she's rigid as the most exclusive shellfish. She cans her rash admirer, but she cans him with a sigh. An analytic novel might be reared upon the basis of a very earnest study of the looks upon their faces and their brave renunciation when they sobbed and said goodbye. I claim that the transmission of their fortitude and pain to succeeding generations will improve the moral strain of the species here considered and their lost result in gain. And I wish I had some Angostura bitters. I have a strong impression of the eminence of morals in this quite extensive cosmos from caster beans to quarrels. In science and religion, I will tell the world our one. I should prove it, gentle reader, had we leisure time before us. I should prove it or expire in the act of hurling torus. I wonder where the Dickens has that silly corkscrew gone. I find as I grow older, the Perth subliminal keeps butting in to chatter with egotistic gall. Romance I meditated, this isn't that at all, but anyhow I have some limes and siphons. End of section 29. Recording by John Brandon. Section 30 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Crown singers to Charlie Bain. Liquor there is, but we knew happier days. When jug by jowl in many a tavern booth we sat and glimpsed the world's ulterior truth and followed life through all its secret ways, what light flashed up on us in golden rays out of the booze to blend with fire of youth. Crown singers we, although for sooth, the dips is snake still rustled in our bays. Hail rum, sweet demon of my wastrel years. Farewell, old mellow angel, ripe with vice. Dreamers and singers, cronies, let us drink a stirrup cup of laughter and of tears. Omar and Falstaff. Both are on the blink. The bitter people say they are not nice. End of section 30. Recording by John Brandon. Section 31 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Poem nine. Down in a wine vault. To Harold Gould. Down in a wine vault, underneath the city, two old men were sitting. They were drinking booze. Torn were their garments. Hair and beards were gritty. One had an overcoat, but hardly any shoes. Overhead the streetcars. Through the streets were running. Filled with happy people going home to Christmas. In the Adirondacks, the hunters all were gunning. Big ships were sailing down by the Isthmus. In came a little tot for to kiss her granny. Such a little totty she could scarcely toddle.  But the old man beamed her with a whiskey bottle. Outside the snowflakes began for to flutter. Far at sea the ships were sailing with the seamen. Not another word did angel nanny utter. Her grand sire chuckled and pledged the whiskey demon. Upspake the second man, he was worn and weary. Tears washed his face, which otherwise was pasty. She loved her parents, who commuted on the eerie. Brother, I'm afraid you struck a trifle hasty. She came to see you, all her pretty dud sound, bringing Christmas posies from her mother's garden, riding in the tunnel underneath the Hudson. Brother, was it rum caused your heart to harden? Upspake the first man, here I sits a thinking. How the country's drifting to a sad condition. Here I sits a dreaming. Here I sits a drinking. Here I sits a dreading, dreading prohibition. When in comes nanny, my little daughter's daughter. Me she has been begging ever since October, for to sign the pledge. It's ended now in slaughter. I never had the courage when she caught me sober. All around the world little tots are begging grandpas and daddies for to quit their lushing. Reformers egzaman, I am tired of egging. Tired of being cowed, cowering and blushing. I struck for freedom. I'm a man of metal. Though I never would have done it had I not been drinking. From Athabasca south, to Papa Catapettle, we must strike for freedom, quit our shrinking. Said the second old man, I beg your pardon. Brother, please forgive me, my words were hasty. I get your viewpoint. Our hearts must harden. Try the sale. It is bitter, brown and tasty.  Prince, the pull must conquer. Though hearts be throbbing, just curl your lip around this kimmel. Down in a wine vault, underneath the city, they sat drinking while the snow was falling. Wicked old men, with scarcely any pity, the moral of my tale is quite appalling.  This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. In the sunless land where thou art gone, the shadowy realm of presser pine, has wine to drink anachron, still hast thy lute its laughing tone, still do thy nymphs the ivy twine, in the sunless land where thou art gone. A Bacchus in a reeling throne, thy temples bound with trailing vine, has wine to drink anachron. From cool deep caves of delved stone, do slaves still fetch thee samee and wine, in the sunless land where thou art gone? Or is a cup's mere semblance shown, then snatch from those parched lips of thine? Has wine to drink anachron? Like Tantalus does thou make moan, plagued by a mockery malign, in the sunless land where thou art gone, hast wine to drink anachron. Gloggy is a logg, Gogg says to Magog, I'm as Gleg as a Grig, Gurgle, Gurgle, Gurgle, Glog, Glog, Glog, Magog says to Gogg, I'm jolly as a Polly, wiggle waggle wagg, that's turning to a froggle, a friggle-fraggle frog, Gurgle, Gurgle, Gurgle, Glog, Glog, and Gogg felt his noggin, and Magog his mug. Magog was a giant, likewise so was Gogg. On New Year's morning, both were on their legs, and sat down to breakfast, and ordered ham and eggs. End of Section 33 Recording by Chod Horner from Liverpool Section 34 Of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis This Lieber Vox recording is in the public domain. Poem 12 In an Old Time Tavern Booth To Ben de Ciceras Poem 13 Drinking idols and see the gods go by, they wave to me the hand of comradeship, for I am one with them, and at my lip the cup of wisdom bubbles. Up the sky a blur of moon dust drifts to dull mine eye, but through the veil my romping vision slip to dance among the careless stars. I'll strip the racing planets where they swoop and fly, and then, from somewhere east of Mars, a keen, thin wind winds for a dime. I drop one in a sad Salvation Army tambourine, and hear a weary homily on sin. Sister, I say, you're right, and yet the truth sometimes sits near me in this tavern booth. End of Section 34 Recording by Anita Sloma Martinez Section 35 Of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis This Lieber Vox recording is in the public domain. Poem 13 The Old Brass Railing To Charlie Still Our minds are scalded to grief and earth. Our lips too are aware, but our feet still seek a railing. When a railing isn't there, I went into a druggist's shop to get some stamps and soap. My feet rose up in spite of me, and pawed the air with hope. I know that neither east nor west, and neither north nor south, so rise a cloud of joy to shed its dampness on my drought. I know that neither here nor there, when winds blow to you and fro, shall any friendly odour shine the nose they used to know, whose tine shall greet my straining eyes, no matter how they blink. Mine ears shall never hear again the high ball glasses clink. There is not anywhere a jug to cuddle with my wrist, but my habit sheet of foot remains an optimist. It lifts itself, it curls itself, it fails the empty air, it seeks a long brass railing, and the railing isn't there. I do not seek for sympathy, my stomach nor for throat. I never liked my liver much, it is such a sulky goat. I do not seek your pity for my writhe and tongue and ride. I do not ask your tears because my lips are shrunk and dried. But oh, my foot, my cheated foot, my foot that lives in hope. It is a pity sight to see, it left itself a group, I look at it, I talk to it, I listen at the plate, but with a humble cheerfulness that makes my heart to plate, it lifts itself, it curls itself, it searches through the air, it seeks a long brass railing, and the railing isn't there. I carried it to church one day, old foot so fond and frail, I had to drag it forth in haste, I grabbed the chunsel rail, my heart is all resigned and calm, so likewise is my soul. But my cheated foot is quite beyond control, an escalator on the L began its upward trip, my foot reached up and clutched the rail and crushed it in its grip. It grabs the headboard of my bed with such determined clasp that I'm compelled to scald the thing to make it lose its grasp. Sometimes it leaps to clutch the curb when I walk down the street. Oh, how I suffer for the hope that lives with them my feet, that lives with them myself I calm, ensure the drive, my stoic calm and prayer, but my feet still seek a railing, when a railing isn't there. End of Section 35, Recording by Chad Horner from Liverpool. Section 36 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 14. Once youth was mine, to Frank Stanton. Once the wild raptures and the beating wings of song were mine, the sun, the climbing flight, the wind's great fellowship upon the height. Once youth was mine, and the young heart that sings. But now the little things, the trivial things, beat down my spirit with their lead might. Could I, within some friendly dive to-night, meet the old gang, to it make me young, by jings? As the mad lark rises, drunk with joy and sun, when morning bends above the dewy meadow, and his clear call proclaims, The day is won. Over a hurried route of driven shadows, so should I rise and sing, Had I a bun? I would that we were sourced together, kiddo. In the section 36, recording by Larry Wilson. Section 37 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Poem number 15 in a tavern booth. To Bob Lillard. Out of my forehead now the long thoughts reach, and level rays that melt the Pleiades.  I know life's secret now, but have no speech to utter it. Indeed, small wish to teach my truths to trivial planets such as these, whereupon the population's drone like bees, that have no honey gift eat stinging each, and yet I will speak too. The slow words come, with pain out of my deeps of ecstasy. Burst from my soul as from a beaten drum. In a hoarse pulse of sound, but a heart to me. Life's secret is that all things cool somewhat, like golden bucks. But somehow that seems to rot. End of section 37, recording by Oogie's Ragdoll. Section 38 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Sixteen, an engagement, to Kit Morley. There is a place, not far from Gissing Street, in Paradise, where one can dream and laugh. You go through Shelley Lane, striking your staff upon the cobbles, turn with eager feet down Benet Place. And there you are. I'll meet you, Christopher, and we shall quarrel and quaff for putre-tankards full of shandy-gough. And eat and eat, and eat and eat, and eat. And must we die first? Well, it's worth the trouble. I shall go first, because I'm old and gray. And permanently I'll reserve a booth. And when you come, no doubt I'll see you double. And as you land from Sharon's gif, I'll say, Here, kid, taste this. Roll this upon your tooth. Into Section 38 Recording by Larry Wilson Section 39 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Poem 17 The Battle of the Keyholes to Jimmy Farnsworth The keyholes to the right of me were dancing of a jig. The keyholes to the left of me were merry as a grig. The keyholes right before my face were drunk and winked at me, and I stood there alone, alone, with one small key. They frightened me. They daunted me. I turned back to the stair, and faced nine keyholes, pale and stern, that lay in ambush there. Six keyholes on the ceiling sat, eight keyholes on the door, and seven saddened keyholes lay hiccuping on the floor. I crawled through one. I crawled through two. I crawled through keyholes three. And then I saw a visted mile of keyholes waiting me.  Oh, when my fighting blood is up, a turk am I. They leapt at me. They flew at me. They whistled as they came. They gritted of their gleaming teeth. They stung and spurred at flame. I put my back against the floor and fought them gallantly. But what could anybody do with one small key? Keyholes at the front of me, and keyholes on the flank, and as they rushed at me, I smelled the liquor that they drank, keyholes on my spinal cord, and keyholes in my hair, and with a heave together, boys, they rolled me down the stair. It bumped me some. It bent me some. It broke a nose or two. And when the milkman came, he said, what Kaiser Belgium do you? I says to him, it might have been the same with you as me, if you like me had had to fight a gang of keyholes all last night with one small key. End of section 39, reading by Anita Sloma Martinez. Section 40 of The Old Soak and Hail and Far Well by Don Marquise This Libby Fox recording is in the public domain. Poem 18 in a tavern booth to Sam McCoy. I thought a sun pursued through endless space, I fled the following thunder of his feet. Snorting he came, his breath a withering heat, blown suit of cindered comet freaked his face. My hide caught fire and crackled with the pace, my burning heart with jests of anguish beat. Flaming I leapt, in flame leapt on the fleet and savage star. We slashed our fiery trace, tin constellations broad and screaming red, across the star of purple of the night. A word tremendous clove, mine ears and head. A great arm fell and shook my wings of flight. Hey mister, pay your check. A brute force said, it was a red-haired barkeep known as Ed. End of Section 40 Recorded by Oogie's Red Doll Section 41 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquise This Libby Fox recording is in the public domain. Poem No. 41 Hail and Farewell Yearnings and Memories to Jimmy Fisher Liquor there is, but how I miss the bar. I miss a certain attitude of mind. Congenial which I seek but never find, except beneath the golden triple star, which is from the brandy bottle shines afar. I miss a type of jest that was designed, for roaring bar rooms warmed with booze and kind. Good God! How coarse and low my real tastes are! I miss an ambling, splayfoot, waiter's beak, which, like some Red Peninsula of Hell, glowed through the humming bar room's smoky reek. I miss the lies I used to hear Mantell over the telephone to Waiting Wives. What sweet aromas had these joyous lives. End of Poem 41 Section 42 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquise This Libby Fox recording is in the public domain. Poem number 20 Do You Remember To Harry Dixie Do you remember that first morning drink when Ed would smile and say, What shall it be? Would you advise a gin fizz-ed for me? It's too early for a fizz, I think. And would an absinthe put me on the blink, I wonder, Ed? Absinthe would not agree this morning, sir. Then what's your recipe? A bland cocktail, delicate and pink. Oh, kindly bar-keeps that had raised me up from morning glooms and made me live again. Where are you now? And where your wizardry? As dead as great Ulysses' faithful pup, as dead as Babylon and James G. Blaine, as dead as Jip the Blood in Nineveh. End of Section 42 Recording by Don Johnson Redondo Beach, California Section 43 of The Old Soak and Hail in Farewell by Don Marquise This Libby Fox recording is in the public domain. Poem number 22 And Do You May Recall This To Charlie Edson I want you meet a no-no friend of mine. Um, glad to meet you. Bill's friends is my friend's too. This friend's best friend. I gotta open wine. You gotta let me buy this drink for you. I gotta buy this drink for no-no friend. Now listen, Jim. You're gonna love this lad. Bill's friends is my friend's to the bitter end. Now listen, Jim. This best friend ever had. Honest, hardworking drunkards. Hour by hour, they toiled at their chosen task until they bent beneath the burdens that they bore. They bent and swayed, sustained but by the power, each one of his indomitable will, which ever made him conquer just one more. End of Section 43 Recording by Don Johnson Redondo Beach, California Section 44 of The Old Soak and Hail in Farewell by Don Marquise This Libby Fox recording is in the public domain. Section 44 Hail in Farewell True, but what of it? To Gilbert Gabrielle Old demon rum, they say you ruined homes, bashing the piteous wife betwixt her eyes, stabbing Aunt Tilde with her own haircombs, and teaching your young offspring stealth and lies. Angel, they say that one night lost to Grace, you filched the infant's coral from her crib, hawked it, and blew the loot at Leary's place. Then strangled Baby Sister in her bib, because it purchased only sixteen beers. Demon, they say you used to cut up rough, sowing the earth with poverty and tears, and I believe it readily enough. I do admit your crimes is charged above, but Angel, crime can never kill my love. End of Section 44 Section 45 Of The Old Soak and Hail in Farewell by Don Marquise This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by April 6090, California, United States of America The Old Soak and Hail in Farewell by Don Marquise Section 45 Hail in Farewell, A Summer Daydream To Foster Follett If there were many miles of me, how I would love to trail, my length along the cooling sea, above the brown sea kale. Were there five thousand feet of me, instead of five feet four? A thousand times as cool I'd be, swimming from shore to shore. And when I saw a brewery upon some cape or aisle, I'd crawl out of the dripping sea and greet it with a smile. Then all my lovely coils I'd wrap around that brewery, and when I'd squeezed out every drop, slide back into the sea. End of Section 45 Section 46 Of The Old Soak and Hail in Farewell by Don Marquise This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 24 On Swearing Off Again To Dan Carey Barley Corn, my Joe John, they say that we must part, to amend my stomach, maybe. But, oh, it breaks my heart. I hope that we should grow old cheek by jowl together, boozing by the fireside through the wintry weather, with white hair and red face, full of dreams and liquor, watching from an armchair the firelight flicker. But Barley Corn, my Joe John, fare ye well forever. The preachers have my soul, John, the doctors have my liver, and I shall have an old age dry and dull as virtue. But never think, my dear friend, I'm happy to desert you. Barley Corn, my Joe John, to think that we should part. They say it will save my eyesight. But, oh, it breaks my heart. End of Section 46 Recording by Larry Wilson Section 47 of The Old Soak and Hell and Farewell by Don Marquess This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 25 After Several Highballs to Clive Weed I saw three roses on the wall, three red, red roses on the wall, repeated in a pattern. The first Eichleopatra call, the second one's named Sadie Hall. The third one is a Slattern. Three flowers, all curly cues and swirls, each blare-mouthed like a trumpet. One used to fish for swine with pearls. The second was the best of girls. The third one was a Strumpet. Three red-mouthed roses on the wall, as bright and hot as blood. The first one caused an empire to fall. The second was just Sadie Hall. The third died in the mud. End of Section 47 Recording by Larry Wilson Section 48 of The Old Soak and Hell and Farewell by Don Marquess This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 26 Chant Royal of the Dejected Dipsa Mediac to Hal Steed Some fools keep ringing the dumb-waiter bell just as I finish killing Uncle Ned. I wonder if they could have hurt him yell. A moment since I cursed at them and said, This is a pretty time to bring the ice. Old Uncle Ned, two times of late or thrice, I've thought of prodding him with something keen, but always fate has seemed to intervene. Last night, for instance, I was in the mood, but I was far too drunk on yestering. My way of life can end in nothing good. At Mrs. Dumples last week when I fell and spoiled her dinner-party, I was led out to a cab. They saw that I was not well and took me home and tucked me into bed. I should quit mingling hashish with my rice. I should give oversinging three blind mice. At funerals, why will I make a scene? Why should I feed my cousins Paris Green? I am increasingly misunderstood. When I am tactless, people think it's plain. My way of life can end in nothing good. Why should one cry that he is William Tell, then flip a pippin from his hostess head that none but he can see? Why should one dwell upon the failings of the newlywed at wedding breakfast? Can I not be nice?  Such prestidigitator tricks I wean as finding false teeth in a soup-terrain are not real humor. They are crass and crude and cast suspicion on the host's cuisine. My way of life can end in nothing good. My wife and her best friend a social swell, zooward I lured to see the cobras fed. We can't go home, I giggled, for the ale is broken. Sarah, let's elope instead. I spoke of all she had had to sacrifice, and she seemed yielding to me once or twice. Until my wife broke in and said, Eugene, your fingernails are seldom really clean. I'd loose poor Sarah's hand, Eugene. I would.  My way of life can end in nothing good. I drink and doze and wake and think of hell. My eyes are blear from all the tears I shed. I'm pitably bald. I'm but a shell. I sob today. I wish that I were dead. I wish I could quit drugs and drink and dice. I wish I had not talked of chicken lice the Sunday that we entertained the dean, nor shouted to his wife that paraffin would make her thin beard grow, nor played the food with pennies and her face a slot machine. My way of life can end in nothing good. That bell again. A voice. Is your name Bryce? These goods is COD. Send down the price. Bryce lives a yell at number seventeen. Bryce doesn't live there, but I feel so mean I laugh and lie. My tone is harsh and rude. Uncle is gone. I'm physical and lean. My way of life can end in nothing good. End of section forty-eight, recording by Larry Wilson. Section forty-nine of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Twenty-seven. Proverbs twenty-three, twenty-nine. To Oliver Hurford. From many a classic scroll and tome and golden texts and warnings shine. If you must drink, get soused at home. Will you get pickled? Then use brine. Each generation gets a sign, but each one needs another prod from scriptures human or divine. The waste-roll always drops his wad. Sleek Athens from the Attic loam, with ill intention coaxed the vine. Arcadian simps admired the foam, while hair-oiled city-gents malign dropped filters in the nethered's stein. Soon Corridan upon the sod lay coinless with a cloven chime. The waste-roll always drops his wad. Wingalek drinks cook, toured to Rome, or roaring two tons from the rine, the thought would fill some yokel's dome to dally with the stranger's wine. Next reel. Tough students sprain his spine and bean him with a curial wad, and roll him down the palatine. The waste-roll always drops his wad.  Me for the tracks I've learned in fine. The waste-roll always drops his wad. End of Section 49. Recording by Larry Wilson. Section 50 of the Old Soak and Hell and Farewell by Don Marquess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 28. An Object Lesson to Bobby Rogers. A young man in a museum was showing me a mummy, who lay there patiently but glum, a clasping of his tummy. Cafetua archivusulium, or some such regal ruby. In youth, says I, this king was gay in spite of Mrs. Grundy. He burnt the Nile one Saturday. But where was he on Sunday? I added in my learned way, sick transit gloria mundi. He conquered princes, not a few. They voted as he bid him, from Babylon to Timbuktu, from Sheba to Syrim. He thought of things he shouldn't do, and then he went and did him. He loved to send out royal bids from high Egyptian chinks, where pretty Theban Cady did, and little Memphian minkses would trot among the pyramids, and tango round the Sphinxes. But now in his sarcophagus, how quite deceased we find him, with sand in his esophagus, and all his past behind him, while time the anthropophagus is wetting his teeth to grind him. Then note, my lad, the end of kings. Therefore, avoid ambition, for earthly greatness all has wings. You stick to your position, and if men come with crowns and things to tempt you, go aficion. I was a kingly south, says he, impressed from A to Izard, and I would wind up so leathery as this departed wizard, with baldness on the dome of me, and gravel in my gizzard. You would, without a doubt, says I, lose wealth and health and hair. Oh, shaken with sobs, he made reply.  In the Section 50, Recording by Larry Wilson Section 51 of the Old Soak and Hell and Farewell by Don Marquess This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 29. A Kansas Tragedy to Charlie Stansbury I started from Missouri, the western part of Missouri, to ride Nicodemus to Nicodemus, Kansas, in the western part of Kansas, not far from Happy Kansas, in Graham County, Kansas. Across the state of Kansas, I started in a fliver, a jolty little fliver with a rhythm rather jerky, irregularly rhythmical, when rhythmical at all. I had to get to Nicodemus by noon on Saturday to pay the mortgage on the farm near Nicodemus, Graham County, Kansas, belonging to a sweetheart who would otherwise be ruined, financially and so could not afford to marry me. As I entered into Kansas and crossed Miami County, to the town of Osawatomi, I received a telegraphic message from my love at Nicodemus. Hason with the money, said the telegraphic message. Hason with the money you are bringing from my uncle, from my uncle Jethro in Missouri, for the man that holds the mortgage, banker Jasper Grinder, who holds the fiendish mortgage, has said he will foreclose it and take away the homestead at noon on Saturday, or else I'll have to marry him to keep from foreclosing. Marry banker Jasper Grinder to keep him from foreclosing. I would hate to marry Grinder. But on the other hand, I would hate to lose the whole alfalfa crop, Hason with the money from my uncle Jethro, Hason to your true love, Ms. Elvira Simpkins at Nicodemus, Kansas. Three hundred miles away was Nicodemus, Kansas, Nicodemus, Graham County, not so far from Happy, Kansas. Could I do it in a fliver in ten hours? From Osawatomi I started with a burst of speed, that carried me to Quinimo, to Quinimo in Osage County, Kansas, at the rate of forty miles an hour. At a garage in Quinimo I paused for gasoline, at Quinimo in Osage County, Kansas. But the man that ran the place with shrill bucolic snickers said, There ain't no gasoline. The gasoline in Kansas has all been took and contrabanded, least ways commandeered just one hour ago, by order of the governor, the governor of Kansas, on account of military operations. No, gasoline in Kansas, and three hundred miles away my love, my love Elvira Simpkins was waiting for the money I had got from Uncle Jethro to save the home at Nicodemus from the clutch of Jasper Grinder. I will telegraph the money, I shouted, with a flash of inspiration, but the station agent told me, There ain't no telegraph, nor nothing runs in Nicodemus, to Nicodemus, Kansas, as far as I can see in this here book. And I looked at the wire from Elvira again, and saw it had been sent from Happy, Kansas, and all the time the precious minutes fluttered by. Banker Jasper Grinder in Nicodemus, Kansas, minute after minute, was approaching nearer the hour of his desire. I could hear him chuckle, the dry and throaty chuckle that village bankers chuckle in the semi-arid regions. Another inspiration came to me, and I cried, I will run my fliver to Nicodemus, Kansas, on alcohol by heck. I can make the engine in my little fliver run to Nicodemus, Kansas, on alcohol by Henry. But the crowd that gathered round me laughed, and laughed, and laughed. They ain't no alcohol in Kansas, said the crowd, between its turtles. Kansas is a dry state, its prohibition Kansas, and you'll never get to Nicodemus, Graham, County, Kansas. Just then the village topper, a gentle creature and decayed, thrust into my hand a gallon of stutter's stomach bitters. He handed me four big quarts of stutter's stomach bitters, and I poured him in the tank and left the town of Quenimo, with the engine doing lovely, and the fliver going strong. And I reached the town of Skiddy, the town of Skiddy, Kansas, in Morris County, Kansas. And I drew up by the drugstore, and I yelled for stutter's stomach bitters. I must reach Elvira Simpkins in Nicodemus, Kansas, ere the clock strikes twelve. Give me bitters, give me bitters. Fill the tank with bitters, for I raced to raise the mortgage. But the drugger said, There's been a run on bitters. Considerable colic in this watermelon weather. How about Sturruna? On a gallon of Sturruna, I ran from Skiddy, Kansas, as far as Elmle, Kansas, and there I laid in nineteen quarts of prohibition appetizer, Dr. Bunker's discovery for kidneys, westward, ever westward, to my love Elvira Simpkins at Nicodemus, Kansas. I ran on Dr. Bunker's through the driest belt of Kansas, through the prohibition center, dear old Dr. Bunker's urge my little fliver. From Elmle to Palakie, six quarts of Lily's gingham's discovery, and a dozen more of Bunker's took me nearer, nearer, nearer, to my love Elvira Simpkins, from Palakie west to Pfeiffer through the town of Thin Gal, then northward to Ogallah, I ran on Seawash Injinsura, a remedy for liver trouble. Take a wine-glass full before each meal. Nearer, ever nearer, to my love at Nicodemus, from Ogallah north to Hapie, north to Hapie, Kansas, in Graham County, Kansas. North and west to Hapie, world of glorious omen, and the villagers came down to sniff the glad aroma of the flying fliver as I turned north to Nicodemus, at thirteen minutes until noon. Filled once more with stutter stomach bitters, I raced into the presence of my love Elvira Simpkins. Alas! Alas! Elvira did not class me in her sturdy Kansas arms. She sniffed the air and said, I never will be wedded to a man who reeks with liquor. Give me Uncle Jethro's money, and don't you leave that drunken fliver on the streets of Nicodemus? And she went and married Jasper Grinder, after all. End of Section 51 Recording by Lurie Wilson End of the Old Soak and Hell and Farewell by Don Marquess


I don't think so. That door is not quite open yet. We are the seconds to put on board, okay? What is the protocol you use in this moment? My advice is to use the protocol in March. Do you remember what is the protocol in March? And Amor Rathmasiu, our airway, respiratory. Roll them off. Yes, we can bring it back. Ready? One, two, three. There we go. Ah, emotional. We've been waiting on the bird for 10 minutes. We treat it on the side of the egg. We grab it back. All marches have gone through. We set cell procedures already. You need to put another position. You get other... Okay, we're going to lift him. Do you guys want to pull this out? I got it. Ah. Yes. More costumy. The airway is clear. The patient is talking. Talks 96. He is here to do no. We need to go. Okay, you listen to... Yes. You have a monitor. Okay. You have the... C-spines maintained. Yeah, C-spines maintained. Uh... Oh, yeah. He's got a whole C-spine. Even better. Gracias. All right. That's high. Alice? On, on. Trace. Oh. All right, rotate. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. And he walked much. Here we come, now we're coming in, now we're coming in. Do we need this back? He needs to be intubated. Yeah. Monson, he needs to be intubated. Intubate on me. Intubate him. The date isn't paralyzed.


Thanks so much for coming to my talk. I know there are like a ton of great talks that you could have gone to all at the same time, so I really appreciate you coming. It's called Lessons in Ethical Development that I learned from Star Wars. And I'm going to do it right now. I want to introduce myself. My name is Jamison. You can call me Jamie. I'm here from Buffalo, New York, which is the home of bad sports. I kind of thought that joke would go over in Pittsburgh. I'm here representing AgriList. That's the company I work for. We do worst startup from Brooklyn. And we do farm management and data analysis for indoor farms, which is really interesting. I'm also representing Greater Than Code. That's the podcast that I'm on. And we do a podcast about tech, but more importantly, like the people behind the tech that we use. So I have stickers. And we're actually doing a live episode panel for Greater Than Code on Thursday. I think at 2.40, if you're interested in coming to that. And also, you can find me on Twitter at jamiebash. Feel free to tweet me. The only thing I ask is that if you are going to post about me, please keep in mind that I use they them pronouns when you're referring to me. And now that we're all friends, the last important thing to know about me is that I love Star Wars. These are my Star Wars-like incredentials, not that you need them. That is me in my emo Kylo Ren costume. So I spend a lot of time thinking about Star Wars. But another thing I spend a lot of time thinking about is tech. And I think about morality and tech a lot, which has kind of been a hot ticket item lately, which you're probably aware of if you've ever been on Twitter.com before. In fact, this is a question from this year's Stack Overflow Developer Survey. Do you believe that you have an obligation to consider the ethical implications of the code that you write? And I think this is a really interesting question, because when I first saw this, my instinct was like, isn't there an objectively right answer to this? Like, is this obvious? I feel it felt obvious to me. But it made me think of this tweet from Pablo Hidalgo, who's one of the Star Wars writers. Every time you think something is obvious, it's helpful to remember this is the Twitter that needs reminders that the Empire were the bad guys in Star Wars. So I guess I walked right into that one. And maybe it's not so obvious, because I also see tweets like this all the time. People talking about the implications of their work kind of very laxidazily almost. Like, oh, I'm just an engineer. And there's this idea that that absolves you from responsibility. And I think that that's really dangerous. So that's kind of what I want to talk about today.  The first part of my talk, I'm going to talk about Rogue One. That's been out for like a year and a half. So I hope we're not having problems with that. Also, they get the Death Star plans at the end. So spoilers, if you're from 1977. The second part of my talk, I'm going to talk about spoilers. I'm going to have spoilers for seasons two and three of Star Wars Rebels. I don't know if anyone cares about that, except for me. There are going to be spoilers. And then the last five minutes, I'm going to talk a little bit about the last Jedi. The last time I did this talk was like two weeks after the last Jedi came out. And a bunch of people just left at the end. And I was like, I can respect that. So maybe not as much of a problem now.  But I'm really excited to talk about Rogue One, because Rogue One is a really important movie to me. And as a Star Wars fan, I was really excited about it. I had seen the trailers. And I was like, this is going to be awesome. Look at this group of rebels. They're like marginalized people. And they're fighting against the man. And I'm going to go on the first night. And it's going to be amazing. I'm going to relate to them. And it's going to be awesome. And that's not what happened at all. The character that I related to the most in Rogue One is this character, who even if you haven't seen it, you can tell that he's like the bad guy, because he's wearing a white cape. And so I came home from this movie. And I was like, oh my god, what am I doing with my career? And I kind of want to talk about how I came to this realization. But I think it's important to kind of start with the idea that Star Wars is this classic story of good versus evil. And at first glance, there might not be a lot of room for gray area in there. If you've never seen, if you've never even heard of Star Wars, and you look at this picture, it's like, OK, well, these are the good guys. And these are the bad guys, obviously. And that makes me feel like, OK, well, I'm not a bad guy. So I'm never going to do any bad stuff. No worries, call it a day. And somewhere along the line, I started to realize that it wasn't really so simple as that. This is a series of tweets by Kate Crawford, who's really smart and interesting. And this came out just after about a year and a half ago, a little longer than that, just after the presidential election. And she started talking about being asked to build something unethical or dangerous. She said, we need to talk about ethics more. Will you build the Muslim registry or work on locating undocumented workers or deploy facial recognition to identify protesters? The technical community, in the valley in particular, has a responsibility to say what they stand for and what they won't stand for. So talk about your bright lines. And this really got me thinking about morals and modern morals and how morals fit into my life and my career. This is one of the first times I started to kind of realize that not everything is in black and white. Like, good people can do bad things, maybe for misguided reasons, maybe because they don't realize what they're doing. And the more I started thinking about the gray areas in this, I started to realize that even in Star Wars, there are gray areas.  And he was a great Jedi leader and a war hero. And in fact, almost all of the villains in Star Wars were originally heroes who accidentally became villains over time due to the temptation of the dark side or because they were tricked by the dark side, because it's easy to trick people. Count Dooku was a great Jedi, too. Kylo Ren, we know who his parents are. So there were expectations for him to be a great force for good. And that's just not how it worked out. And it's also not just like, OK, well, you're a Jedi, so you're good forever, and you don't have to worry. Even all the good guys who stay good in Star Wars face temptation, and they have to make conscious decisions to remain heroes. You know, Luke Skywalker. He finds out Darth Vader's father, spoilers. And he says, rule the galaxy with me. That's a pretty tempting offer. In particular, Rey, in the Force Awakens, finds out that she has force powers and then is almost immediately offered to Kylo Ren offers to teach her how to use them. That's a crazy tempting offer. If I found out I had force powers, I would definitely want someone to teach me immediately. It really just goes on and on. I'm really Star Wars trash. It's like, we're growing deep into the cartoons and everything, too. It's bad. But Obi-Wan faced temptation on Mandalore. As Rebedra from Rebels, there's a whole season arc about how he's learning about the Sith holocron and harnessing the power of the dark side. And even Master Yoda faces temptation. And if Master Yoda has to deal with it, then we all have to deal with it. Catalyst is the prequel novel to Rogue One. I'm serious. I've read all the books. It's really bad. But Catalyst is about these characters who you would recognize if you saw the movie. So this is Orson Krennic, the director of Advanced Weapons Research. And this is Gaylen Erso, who is the lead engineer on the Death Star project. And Catalyst kind of goes into their backstory and how this happened. How did he end up working on this project? They knew each other from college. Erso was a known pacifist. He didn't want to work for the government in any capacity. But Krennic knew he was going to need his expertise because he was an expert on crystallography, which is like kyber crystals. And so he was grooming him for many years some day you're going to have to work on this project. So he knew that it was his dream to work in renewable energy. And he had this whole, all these promises about being able to work on that. And all these horror stories about how horrible the Clone Wars were and how he could help end them. And so Project Celestial Power was what Gaylen Erso started working on. And he thought that it was for renewable energy. And he didn't know that they were using it for weapons tech for many years. And this is a quote from that novel that kind of was like the spark that changed how I started to think about this. This was Gaylen's mentor, who was already working for the government, trying to convince him to come work with her. And she said, the war has altered everything, not only for those of us directly involved in the conflict, but also for many of us here on Coruscant. Count Dooku shook us awake to a harsh reality. Most of us have traded theory for practicality. And even so, unlimited funding has been wonderful for research. In due time, we can return to our dream and we'll be able to accomplish much more than we ever could before. So I was reading this, and I'm like, this sounds great. Like, who wouldn't want to take this job? I was almost starting to get frustrated that he was so resistant to going and working with her. But then I was like, oh, no, this is the death. I knew this was the Death Star project because I already knew how the story ended, and I still would have gotten tricked into working on it. And that was the moment I realized that if I lived in the Star Wars universe, I would have been one of the engineers that worked on the Death Star project. And it made me think like, oh my god, I've never thought about this. I haven't assigned a sense of morality to my work at all, really. And if you think of your work as amoral, like not necessarily immoral, but just unrelated to the whole concept of morality, that can be very dangerous because you don't really realize necessarily when you're treading into this kind of dangerous water, because it's not on your mind. So that's kind of where I get into implementing self-accountability. And the first thing I started thinking about there was that the moment that you're faced with an ethical dilemma is not a good time to start thinking about where your line is. That makes it way too easy to be like, yeah, sure, this sounds like a great opportunity. Why wouldn't I want to do this? Which is what would have happened with me in the Death Star. You've got to think about these things before they happen to you in order to be prepared to answer that question. And if you don't feel prepared, don't feel obligated to make big decisions immediately. It's always good and OK to take time to think about big choices, especially in your career. And I would say if someone is pressuring you to not take that time to think about it and make a decision right away, maybe I wouldn't necessarily trust that person in writing things down. When you're thinking about your moral code, take notes on what you're thinking about. If I'm faced with a decision suddenly, it's probably not at a moment when I'm deep in thought about ethics. So I find it really helpful to be able to look back on my thoughts and my notes from a time when I was deep in thought about ethics. But at the base of it, holding yourself accountable basically just means not doing bad stuff, not even as a joke. This is a graphic I made a couple years ago and I posted it online because I thought it was really funny. I still think it's really funny. But I ended up taking it down because I was like, oh, if somebody, even if only one person, posts their information and then gets their identity stolen, that's kind of on me. Although I did put it in my slides so nobody's perfect.  So don't even bother trying to steal my identity. This is a tweet from my friend Brenna, who some of you might know. And I love this. I think it's really interesting. She said, the question should always be should we build the thing, not can we build it? I believe we can build mostly anything. But knowing how something fits in our society and how it will impact all of us requires more nuance. And I really like this because I think it's really true. I think as developers, we can get very caught up in this idea of can we do it? This is a really interesting problem. This is a really cool puzzle and I want to solve it. And I totally understand that desire because I get caught up in that too. That's a lot of what's fun about coding. I like solving puzzles and that's why I'm a developer. But the time to realize that the thing you made is horrible is not after you've already made it. And we've been talking a lot about Star Wars, but it's not just in fiction that this happens. This slide is called, What Was Me? Because that's a quote that Einstein said after he found out about what happened when he heard what happened in Hiroshima. Einstein didn't actually even work on the atomic bomb personally, but his research was used for it. And he was supportive of that, of using his research for that reason at the time. But he regretted it later in life. He said, had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I never would have lifted a finger. And this idea that many inventors feel regret or guilt about their inventions, it happens a lot. This is a picture of Mikhail Kalashnikov. He invented the AK-47 and felt responsibility about people who died at the hands of his invention. He said later in life that he would have preferred if he could go back, he would work on inventing something that could help farmers instead. Cameron Loegman invented pepper spray. He did invent it as a weapon originally, but then after he saw how it was used, he was regretful about that. He said, I've never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agents. And these have all been pretty heavy violent examples, but not everything is life or death too. Robert Probst invented the cubicle, and he thought he was doing a really good thing because he's like, we won't have to have a maze of offices, it'll be more flexible, we can have more collaboration. But then when companies started using it as a cost saving device in this whole culture of stuffing in as many cubicles as possible, he was also regretful of his invention, and he wrote, the cubicalizing of people in modern corporations is monolithic insanity, which I think is a really good quote. But the thread of all of these is that you can't control how other people will use your work. Once you put it out there in the universe, it's out there, and you're kind of seeing like a death of the author situation with these inventions. And the reason that this is really important as people who write code is that repurpose code is even easier, you can repurpose it much easier, and code is dumb, code doesn't know what it's being used for, only the people who are using it have the context to know what it's being used for. We're smarter than our code essentially. I know some days it doesn't feel like it, but we really are. So once you decide what's important to you, you have to consider what other technologies are similar enough that your code could be repurposed in that way. Here's an example. One of the examples that Kate Crawford used in her tweet was facial recognition software to identify protesters. So maybe you've thought about this and you're like, no, I'm not gonna do that, I'm against it, I think it's wrong, and I don't wanna be involved in it. And I can respect that decision. But if you're really, really serious about that, maybe you have to consider that doing facial recognition software for AR video games is maybe something you also wanna put off the table. This is a screenshot from a Hunger Games-themed AR game that used facial recognition to identify people who were playing. I do wanna know that this is kind of based on how important it is to you personally. I've had people come up to me after this talk and tell me that they didn't think the video game thing was a good example because they didn't think it was reasonable to put video games off the table for this reason. Personally, I disagree. But if you've considered the implications and you've decided that it's not important enough to you to turn down an opportunity, I'm not here to change your mind about that specifically. What I am here to do is urge you to think about it first. And when you make a decision, make sure you're making an informed decision on what you're getting into. This is exactly what happens in Catalyst in Rogue One. I don't think that Galen or so would have signed on to the project if they knew what they were gonna repurpose his research for. I really like this slide. It's kind of meta of me to put like a picture of someone else's slide on my slide. But I love the quote, any sufficiently advanced neglect is indistinguishable from malice because I think that's really true. And that brings up this idea of malevolence versus carelessness. If you create a city out of straw, you don't need a whole army of malicious people to come and burn it down. One malicious person can walk in and just burn the whole thing down because of how it was built. And Infosec works the same way, which we know. If you create a system that's compromised, that's kind of like building a city out of straw. You only need one person to come in and exploit it. And then it's too late. It's already been exploited. But I think organizations can be like this too. If you have 99 people at your company who just aren't thinking about the ethics, if they're thinking of their work as secular from morality, essentially, as I mentioned earlier, then one person, a person like Orson Krennick could come in and then convince everyone to build something that's unethical. And they might go along with it because there's no accountability in place there. We're talking a lot about people who lack a moral code. And hopefully it's not, we've established that that person isn't you. You want to do good and you want to think about how to do good. But what if you realize that that person is your boss? Which is kind of the phrase, you have to know who the general is, I think about. Where are these orders coming from? That can be kind of a scary realization to realize that you're working for an organization like that. So, I turned to Star Wars for answers again. There's no more morally corrupt employer than the empire. And the empire employs like millions, billions of people. So if you find yourself in a situation like that, you have options, you have to decide what you're gonna do. Like you could decide you don't care and sell yourself out or you could quit. We know how Galen Erso dealt with the guilt he felt over being part of the Death Star project. Sabotage. But it doesn't have to be so obviously sabotage. So I want to talk about another person who worked for the empire. This is kind of dark. Agent Callis from Star Wars Rebels. He was a pretty high-ranking imperial officer and he was not like Galen Erso. He was like an imperial poster boy. He rose up through the ranks. He really seemed like he believed in what he was selling. But he has this really interesting redemption arc in the show. He has, they basically do this trope where Zab, one of the rebels, they get stranded together on like an ice moon and they have to work together to survive and they realize that they begin to respect each other, blah, blah, blah. So I actually kind of hate that trope normally because I feel like it puts a lot of pressure on marginalized people to like find common ground with the people who are oppressing them. That's kind of a rant for a different day. But they did it really well in the show because of the way that the rebels reacted to it. Like Zab was just like, I don't have time for this.  He was just confident and it wasn't worth it to him to get into this argument. Which is good advice when I'm getting into arguments on Twitter. But essentially, he was so confident that he planted these seeds of doubt into Callis about the empire. He accused him of not asking questions. He didn't want to know the answer to. He also had a sense of trust in his friends and he gets this tearful reunion at the end of the episode where his friends come and rescue him and nobody comes and rescues Callis and he has to get back by himself and then nobody cares that he was gone or notices it all. And so something here got through to him and because he defected, he became agent fulcrum as like the code name for someone who's feeding imperial secrets like an inside spy to the rebels. And so that's what he ended up doing. And I like this because it's a very different way of fighting back against the same organization. And it gets into this idea of, well, where can you do the most good? What kind of options are you weighing? You could quit your job if you think that you're not comfortable with it. The argument I always see against quitting is like, well, it doesn't matter because they're just gonna replace you. Like someone's gonna do it and get paid for it so it might as well be me. Personally, I disagree with that even if it's just so I can sleep better at night knowing that I'm not contributing to evil in the world. But there are other reasons too. Like first of all, if you're specialized enough you might very well be irreplaceable. That's kind of happened with Galen Urso. He left, he quit the project and it stalled for years without him. That's like how you get into the beginning of Rogue One where they're coming back and getting him. Like, we need you to do this. So he was irreplaceable. But even if not, your efforts might be better used elsewhere. Wajantili is a character from the original trilogy. He actually worked for the empire as a pilot before and he quit, he defected. And his absence didn't really hurt the empire because they had lots of pilots. They just got another pilot. But then he became a pilot for the rebellion and was actively fighting against them. And that did hurt them because he was doing work to undermine them purposefully. Also rebellion from the inside doesn't have to be Death Star level sabotage.  Although if you are working on a literal planet destroyer that I don't know about, we would probably all appreciate it. But you might be able to convince your employer or your organization to change some of their practices. Again, there's gray area here. Maybe if you worked for the literal empire, you wouldn't be able to convince them to change their ways. But not everything is as black and white as the empire. What if you're in one of those situations that I was getting at earlier about neglect versus malice? If there's just no accountability in place at your organization, maybe you can persuade them to do better. And whistleblowing is really important too. That's essentially what Calus was doing is fulcrum. He wasn't actively messing up the empire's plans, but he was giving the good guys information about it so they could use that information to do good. Fighting the good fight can be overwhelming, I think. And that's where you get this, well, if you can't beat them, should you join them attitude? Plus people, some people really do get very stuck up on that like, well, if someone's gonna do it, it might as well be me. So like, I kind of get it. When people are scared, it might feel easier and safer to succumb to pressure to do things that they don't feel comfortable with. There's definitely something attractive about like, kind of getting in with the people that might oppress you so that you're safe. This is especially true for marginalized people, actually. There's a huge societal pressure to be like, well, you're one of the good ones. And then throwing other marginalized people under the bus, which is very frustrating. I do wanna note that real life, again, is messier than I'm making it out to be, and I realize that. Sometimes marginalized people have to be in situations like this for their own safety. I totally understand that. I'm like, I'm definitely not here to guilt-trip minorities into like, putting their job or putting themselves in danger if they don't have that luxury. But this is just something to consider, especially if you do have that luxury. An unethical organization like the Empire only cares about you for as long as you're useful to it.  The gulf of what it's like to be part of the rebellion versus being part of the empire is pretty well explored in Star Wars media. You get this a lot particularly in Rebels because Rebels is essentially about a family, about people who really genuinely care about each other. And time after time, I can't help but marvel over how awful it seems like it is to be part of the empire. It doesn't appear that anyone in the empire really has meaningful relationships with each other. Everyone's just rooting for everyone else around them to fail so that they can like seize more power. So it's hyper competitive all the time. Like even if you rise up through the ranks and you're high ranking, they don't care about you.  And I think Krennic is a really prime example of this. I wasn't joking at the beginning when I said I really like I related to Krennic in a lot of ways. He was very ambitious. He loves networking and he was good at it. He knew a lot of people. He knew how to make connections between those people. Those are all things that I kind of pride myself on. So I see a lot of myself in this character, which is a little scary because he's a bad person and I don't think I'm a bad person. I don't wanna be a bad person. But I do think it's really important to be able to admit when you can relate to like the villains because it shows you what aspects of yourself you need to be careful about. Orson Krennic spent his whole life working hard to gain favor within the empire. He even succeeded at building the Death Star for them. And then they just took what he'd built and they let him be destroyed. They didn't care about him at all. He spent his entire life being the villain and what did he have to show for it at the end? Like absolutely nothing. I'm gonna talk about the last Jedi now. We've been talking a lot about kind of gray morals. And I think gray morals get even grayer in the last Jedi. What is the dark? What is the light? I'm starting to question if it even makes sense to separate them in that way. I mean I think that's what Luke was trying to get at in the last Jedi when he was teaching Rey about the Force. Benicio del Toro's new character, DJ, is getting at the exact same thing. Like good guys, bad guys. The world is messier than that. It's easy to look at things that way, but is it actually helpful? I think he kind of has a point. My big moral lesson from the last Jedi though actually came from Poe Dameron. I really like this came out, this cover came out like a week before the last Jedi and it said can Poe get along with his new boss? And then I saw the movie and I was like, nope. But Poe's like a legitimately good guy. Like I really trust him to legitimately have the best interest of the rebellion at heart. But he messed up really bad in this movie because he didn't trust her and he didn't have this information and he undermined her plan and like it got messed up because of what he did. And so the fact here is even if you truly believe that you're doing the right thing, you can still screw it up. And that's especially true if you don't have all the information and it's exactly what happened with Poe and Holdo. And honestly it's kind of what happened with Galen or so too. So I got three lessons from the last Jedi. The lesson from Poe, get as much information as you can before rushing into a decision, definitely. But I think there's a lesson from Holdo there too. If you're the one who's in a position of power, consider transparency for the people under you. Poe did make mistakes, but if she had been more open about their plan, she may have been able to prevent those mistakes also.  And my third lesson was a surprise from Yoda. The greatest teacher failure is. If you mess it up, you just have to live with it. You have to make peace of it and you have to move on and try to do better. So my conclusion, unfortunately, I don't have all the answers.  We all have to decide where our personal line is, decide what's important to us. But I do think that it's important to think about.  And my hope is that if we're all a little bit more thoughtful, then we won't end up building another Death Star. Thank you.


Director Ray Javadali, associate professor of practice here since 2018, and I left FBI in 2018 to take this another dream job here at the University of Michigan, but thank you again for being here and thank you for being with us earlier this morning. So I've got a couple questions. The first is on the topic of domestic terrorism, and given the elevated threat in the country over the past few years that coincides with your time as directors, and specifically on the racially motivated violent extremists end of the spectrum and anti-government extremists end of the spectrum, students would like to hear your perspectives on how in your time as director has the FBI sort of scaled up to meet this challenge, where do you think this threat is going in the future, and how can the public help, if at all, in the Bureau's mission on this really important topic? So protecting Americans from terrorist attack, both domestic and international, remains the FBI's number one priority. And when it comes to domestic terrorism specifically, I think a lot of people, it's been on the news a lot more in the last year or so, but we elevated that to what we call a national threat priority all the way back in summer of 2019, specifically racially motivated violent extremism, the vast majority of which is people who are advocating the superiority of the white race. So that started, that's all the way back to summer of 2019, and we actually had a significant growth in domestic terrorism cases throughout my first three years, so 2017 to 2020, it grew quite significantly. Then of course you have January 6th, and obviously the numbers since then are even greater. We have since, you mentioned two categories, is the racially motivated violent extremism, then we have anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism. That too now is also at a national highest level threat priority on the same footing as something like ISIS. But all these threats have in common, especially if you consider that I was just talking a lot about 9-11, it helps to understand both what the threat is, but also how to your question how the public can help.  What we have now is more and more people who are Sloan actors or maybe at most working with one or two other people and they're not doing some spectacular attack, they're using an easily accessible weapon like a gun, a knife, a car, a crude IED, you could find out how to build on the internet, and they're attacking not the World Trade Center with a commercial airliner, they're attacking what the intelligence community calls soft targets, which is basically just jargon for everyday people living their everyday lives. And these are people who are radicalizing not in some cave in Afghanistan, they're radicalizing online. And the reason I say all that is because they go from radicalization to mobilization not over years, but in weeks. And so you've all heard that expression about connecting the dots, the importance of connecting the dots. Well the kind of terrorist threat we're dealing with now, especially here in the U.S., they're not a lot of dots. There's not a lot of people involved, not a lot of planning involved. So every dot in that situation becomes that much more important. And so it could be that the FBI only has one dot and some member of the public has the other dot. They saw something about a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, something that they knew was off. Or it could be a business. Some guy comes in and wants to buy a whole lot of fertilizer and ball bearings and doesn't seem to know anything about farming. We want the guy at the hardware store to say, it seems odd, and calling law enforcement. Or some guy who seems to be a tourist, but the only thing he wants to take pictures of are like the undergirding of a bridge. That's weird, right? So you all heard that expression, if you see something, say something, we need people not just to see something like a bag that's left unattended in the bus terminal. If you see something about somebody, either in the kind of examples I just gave or because so much of this is happening online. If you see something about somebody online, to call law enforcement, that's how we make sure we've got the eyes and ears to make sure that we connect the dots because there's a lot fewer dots and there's a lot less time in which to connect them.