103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We are recording this on Sunday, August 15th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, our Doubter 5, and as usual we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Wobobobobobobo! Wanobego. And hello. Our guests today are George Brown, 2.5, the second-ately half. Brooklyn, how are you? I'm OK. And Dread pirate Higgs. And John Richards all the way from England. I forgot to mention that Brett generate Higgs is joining us from Canada. Digital Freethought Radio R is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books, and superstition. What's our topic today there, Wombat? We might actually be going through every single one of those topics you just mentioned, but today we're talking about absolute power corrupts, absolutely, and why monotheism should share the wealth, right? We'll be talking about polyism versus monotheism. It's going to be a great time. But, but let's slow down Tyrone, Tyrone, everybody, we all gotta relax because we can't begin because our own best friend, Dreadpower Higgs, is here, and I'd love for him to lead us in our weekly vacation. It's been so long. Our noodley lord, wart in a colander, how to be thy noodles, thy blood be rum, thy sauce be yum with meat, as it is with vegetables. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our cussing, as we forgive those who cuss against us. And lead us not into ketoism, but deliver us some carbs, for thine are the noodles, and the sauces, and the grog, whenever and ever, raw. You know, I was playing disc golf with a friend of mine. He's a Christian friend. He's the same friend who believed that God was personally talking to him, and we had some SE conversations about that.   We had a couple of other guys who were with us too. But you meet people, you have fun outside, and it's like a regular basis where you can like increase your social circle without having to necessarily have it be related to work.  And I was like, it's kind of like, you know, it's own get together without the dogma. And he thought about that for a long time. He was like, yeah, there's a value in there. Like even as a Christian, he was like, I can appreciate the fact of just getting on a regular basis with a group of friends, touching bases, and having some fun outdoors. It was like, yeah, you don't really need the church for it. It's how humans do, we're a social creature. We like to get together and just commune as well. So, so tell me how you've been communing. Oh, mainly on Facebook, I guess. Barley's Taps and Rooms, right? Didn't you go to Barley's Taps and Rooms not too long ago? Well, I don't. Well, I did about a month ago, but I don't usually go because I'm doing the Zoom meeting at the same time at home. So people can join us on the Zoom meeting every Tuesday at six o'clock, where they can go down to Barley's Tap Room in Pizzeria in Knoxville's whole city, join us down there from about 5.30 to 8. Nice. So two ways to get together for the 8th year of society of Knoxville. Very nice. Speaking of get together, Dredd Barley Higgs, it's been a while since we had a chance to get together. I'm glad there's no cinch marks on you. How you been? And you're muted. He's muted. It's all right. We'll figure it out. That was strange. Can't not hear you. Yeah, no, I'm doing good. I was up for a couple weeks at one place where we're having some wildfires, like I mentioned, and I was deployed again to another place. It was 63 kilometers up a forest service road. And during my first shift towards the end of the day, the wind had picked up so quickly that we were told to get out and stay out. So I got off early. I was supposed to be up there for two weeks, but I'm actually being redeployed again on the 19th to go to 100 Milehouse too. And that's where they actually have the major staging for all the wildfires in BC interior. So it'll be quite cool. Do you guys, this is a silly question, but do you guys use dust, water or controlled fires to control the fires, a mixture of all three? Yeah, there's a, yeah, there's the retardant and water. Okay, geez, geez. And prayer. And prayer, no prayer. Surprisingly, no prayer in that list. That's the most effective part of the whole thing. To our noodley Lord. So it is a silly thing. This is the silliest thing that I'm going to bring up, but there is an anime that's out that has a fire department that has a priest on the team and the priests praise to put out fires and that in the anime world, that's just as effective as the water. And it only struck me now that it's like, wait a second, that shouldn't work in real life. Only right now did I start thinking about that. Anyway, no, I have heard and I've learned that Christian science will actually pay priests and insurance money to pray for the recovery of their second infirm. Wow. Wow, I want to be on that list. Okay, John Richards, you're looking a little distracted. I see you're looking down. You're rooting. What's going on? What's going on? What's going on in the world? I'm making notes. No, no, no. Tell me what's going on in the world of sports. What's going on in the world with me? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, I do zoom, commune, the new thing, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm currently keeping tabs on the India versus England cricket match, which is the second of the series of test matches, and it's tightly balanced at the moment. How many touchdowns are we in so far? It's only in the third day. So we're a long way from an outcome. So they played multiple days, I imagine, when you say they're on their third day. And they've just gone to tea. Okay, they've just gone to tea. They both take their tea breaks very seriously. That is true. I was going to pick up on Larry said we're social animals, and we are, indeed. Sometimes this works to our disadvantage.  Okay. And so I went to my mother, the mother organized it, and I went to collect these things. And I discovered that she'd ordered two. So we now have a separate society of two birds who know their birds and have their own little society and humans who know their humans. And we don't socialize very much. So my contention is that if you have a pet, you'd have one pet. It's got to socialize with you. It thinks you're part of its social group. There's some strategy behind that because I'd have been thinking about getting a second cat, but now I'm like, then he won't be my best friend anymore. Right? Right? Yeah. Not that. Funny story. My brother used to have a bird that he learned to say a lot of things, human speech, but then after having him several years, he got another bird, and then the bird just stopped talking humans and just started talking bird. And that was it. He just started talking birds. He was like beep beep. That was it. No more parroting. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. That's a good one. George Brown, how you been? It's good to see you. Well, I've been, I've been two things going on. One is I've been struggling with computers. And you know, I live in the world of Unix, Linux. And Linux is like a Wild West show. Yes. Everything goes. It's the tower of Babel. And you never know if anything's going to work or not. That's the world I live in. I came from the world of Windows, which is some like. You're lucky if it works. And if it doesn't, there's nothing you can do about it basically. Well, it's, but then there's, you see, Windows is like a constitutional monarchy. Okay. Okay. There's a titular boss. And then there's the world of the Macintosh. And it has been said that Mussolini made the trains run on time. So I have more and more friends who are moving to the Macintosh because they're just totally fed up with the inconsistencies of Windows, including. You can totally push the Apple and all work. Just remember that's for the bar tag to be put right here on your neck when you get put into the system. I know you'll love that. Okay. And then the other thing that's going on. That's harsh. Just saying. Am I am I safe going to the grocery store now? Hmm. You know, with the pandemic and the stat with the current status of the pandemic, which almost seems to change every day. Yeah. In terms of recommendations about what we are supposed to do. I would think so as long as you're vaccinated. Yeah. Welcome, Nathan. Well, that's becoming a little bit questionable as well. Well, it definitely hurts to never that's a hurt to wash your hands. It doesn't hurt to be around someone that's coughing in your face. Like avoiding that is also good thing. I think the basic recommendations have been consistent. Maintain good hygiene and stay away from sick people. If you're sick, stay home if you can. And if you if there's a disease up that's killing lots of people, get vaccinated for the disease. If we have it, not many variations on it. If I want to pick up some some groceries at Walmart, pick up some groceries and wash your hands when you get home. I think you'll be all right. And if you can, we're gonna take a shower and sanitize the car. I wouldn't be the one to tell you to take a shower.   Nathan, how you been? Also, what's going on? I've been good. I've been good. Speaking of vaccines, I've been having conversations with people that I know are vaccine hesitant. Sorry. Sorry. Is it really? No way. Probably. I cut my hair on New Year's. Yeah, that's some time ago.  It's been eight months since we spoke on video on video, probably on video, maybe. Yeah, because I've called it video. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm never early. I'm never up this early in the morning on a Sunday. So I figured like it just happened today. So I just figured I'd hop on and give you a call. And I got my street epistemology mug here. Ready to go? Okay. Okay. Is there a survey nearby you? I mean, as it so happens, there is a survey nearby me. I know. I know how much you love and how much you love that survey. Tell me about your first time on our show. No, he's been on the show. No, I've, yeah, though it was during, it was in 2020 around this, about a year ago. Around this time. I think like when the pandemic first happened was my first time on this show when the lockdowns were starting to happen. Maybe it was the dreadlocks that threw me off. Yeah, that could be it. Where are you, Nathan? I haven't seen you before. I'm in Portland, Oregon. And I know Tyrone for anyone that's listening through street epistemology and YouTube. We both have YouTube channels and he helped me in my early days of my YouTube channel so I can figure out how to get started and crank out content and do interviews and stuff like that. Why don't you give that a plug? Give that a plug. Where are you from? What's your channel? Yeah, I forgot to mention what it's called. Abstract Activist is the name of the YouTube channel. I remember. And the name was partly inspired, well, for a lot of different reasons, but one of the reasons was there's a survey that you can use to help people examine their epistemology without the need of bringing up a defensive topic that would make it really difficult. A lot of people cling to the belief and they start to identify with their beliefs.  And that would be the abstract idea. You examine the method by which they reach their beliefs is what you're talking about, right? It's just 24 statements that are claims about how we form our views, how we form our beliefs. And so if we just make it about that, go ahead. This is a great way to segue into the actual topic of the show because I want to talk about the reasonability of a monotheistic mindset. So people who believe in just one God, Christians are a monotheist. So don't take that as a bad word if you're a Christian listening to this.  I'm a Christian. It's like, they're the same thing. It's kind of the same thing. You're kind of like, yeah, yeah. There's always wiggle room because there's always going to be wiggle room. It's in there by design. But for the most part, it's a monotheistic God. You've got one God in charge of everything. And you can maybe take different forms or whatever, but it's still him in charge. And so the idea is from a monotheistic point of view is God or whatever that titular God name is has absolute power over its creation, right? And the idea of absolute power is an interesting concept, particularly when you have God or people who are made in the image of God, because we can see in almost every case in human history when a human being has had absolute power, it tends to not end very well for everybody else. And if that's the case, wouldn't we see a similar concept with a supernatural God? And it tends to be the case that that is how it is. Even in the Bible, we have a very callous, sometimes violent and explicitly jealous God that does not want anyone else to be more powerful than him and is willing to throw people into a punishing dimension with hell flames and grinding a teeth for all of eternity just for not worshiping him. Like that's nuts. For not believing him. Just for not believing in him is good though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just being born. Yeah, like the ultimate gaslighting. It's the worst thing. So I was telling that to my friend who is Hindu and we had a Hindu ex Hindu on the show yesterday, Nathan. And he's like, yeah, you know, what's crazy is be when I was a Hindu, that's what she was telling me before. It made no sense that could be real because polytheism makes so much more sense because now you have a structure work format. You have all these people, they take a little bit of the power and deal with it. And if there's fighting, it's typically infighting among all the different gods. And I'm like, I kind of almost like this idea. Larry, what do you think? Well, yeah, it does make more sense because if something goes wrong, you can say, well, it's because this other God interfered. This God's domain that other God over there was jealous of this God over here. So it kind of makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense where if one God is in charge of everything and then things go wrong in the world, then you have to say that's a contradiction.  Yeah, exactly. Like why does it's not just necessary evil? That's a problem anymore.  What is going on here? It looks like you want to add something. What's up? Yeah, well, I was going to say that actually in the Islam and Christianity are built in elements of polytheism because of the angels and Islam, the Jinn and the Jann. So it is, I mean, a lot more, it's top heavy because the weight of the omnipotence is up there on the one guy, but there are elements of polytheism throughout a trait. So even the mother Mary, Virgin Mary is worshiped in some cultures more than even Jesus is. I love to take this idea around the table. Nathan, do you think Christianity has polytheistic components to it? And would you like to speak to that? I think there's many arguments. I'm no expert, though I've talked to people who are experts. Not like that's a great way to form my own views, really, maybe. But yeah, I mean, I would imagine that it has roots from previous religions in the same region of the world that believed in multiple different gods and lots of different ideas have been adopted and gathered and remixed, just like an author writes any book really, you know, to research and read and then the right stuff. I hear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I also feel like a lot of the idea paganism was just people who aren't Christians, right? And a lot of pagans tend to believe in multiple different gods and that tends to residually carry over to Christianity days of the weeks named after different gods.  Yeah, yeah, Saturday, the Sunday, the moon day. It's kind of crazy. But, you know, you look at even Christmas and there's just so many different influences there from non-Christian belief systems. John, what do you think? Oh, absolutely. Well, the pagans would dig a tree up and then they'd bring it inside. I've got a theory. I've got a theory about how this evolved because the earlier societies, they had lots of gods, each with a specific responsibility, you know, this one for rain, that one for the crops failure, this one for the health and so on. But I've got a theory that suggests that they gradually sort of merged and they would take over bids and so on because it's in the interest of the priests, the earthly representatives to only have one God because look at it from this point of view. If you've got, if you've got to sell a specific power, you know, you're knocking on somebody's store and you like the vacuum cleaner man, you know, and you can say, you can say this will clean your floors, but also with this attachment, it will spray paint. And with this attachment, it will dry your hair, all that sort of thing. So exactly when you get every power under the auspices of a single God, you've got a better product, haven't you? Wouldn't you rather be selling your skills to influence a God that is all powerful rather than one that's just got a little niche of suitability? It's a bigger market. No, I totally hear what you're saying, like why sell the Justice League when you can just have Superman, basically, right? Exactly. It's a bigger market and therefore monotheism is a better business. And yet Superman movies make no money. We've tried this year after year after year, we know for a fact they don't. Everybody wants the Spider-Man. Everyone wants Iron Man because he's only got one weakness. It doesn't make for an interesting plot really. It's actually even not a weakness. It's like he has magic as a weakness. We'll talk about this, Nathan for sure. George Brown, the second and a half, please take yourself off mute. I want to hear what you're thinking about. The idea of, you know, I kind of think of Christianity is like how an organization, a company's ran. And there are a lot of different kinds of companies. There's sometimes companies that have just one guy who's the whole seller of the show. He's the CEO. He makes everything on the assembly line. It's a one-man show. And then you have other companies where you have tiers of organizations, CEOs, you know, staff leaders, managers, HR department, all that stuff. In my head, those tend to be more organized and better ran companies, right? And in my head, that's kind of like what polytheism is. Yeah, it's not as powerful as the one guy who rules them all. But they're a lot more in my head capable because they know how to macro manage what they're good at. What do you think is a personal advantage? Do you think polytheism has advantages over monotheism or the other way around? I'd love to hear what you think. Well, definitely polytheism is simply more fun. There are more characters in this opera. I mean, imagine an opera that had one character who was Donald Trump. Oh my gosh. Okay. That's going to happen soon. But what came to my mind was some of the founding cities of America, and I'm saying the United States here, I'm sorry. We have cities that were founded on a religious basis. And like I see Boston as being sort of a symbiosis of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. The Pilgrims were the Southwest and the Puritans were to the Northeast, and it sort of has this puritanical kind of religious founding. And Philadelphia was the Quakers. Well, New York was not. New York was strictly a business deal. It was, you know, it was a business colony of the Dutch. And the fellow who ran at the Governor Peter Stuyvesant was a middle corporate manager, you know? And so as far as belief systems in New York City was like a free for all. People came and hung out. People with all different kinds of backgrounds and it became a melting pot. And so that's where I grew up. A couple hundred years later, it's still, it still had that patina to it. And it's a lot of fun, a lot of diversity. Diversity. And I really enjoy that diversity. Yeah, everybody. And I think, you know, people today make America great again. Well, America, yeah, America has a greatness, but that greatness is the diversity of our people. All the differences between us. So you're saying even politics doesn't benefit from that, because there's a diversity of perspectives and thoughts and beliefs, even in a pantheon of God's. Oh, yeah. How necessarily you have with a monotheistic point of view. I'm almost being. Yes. Right now, like, obviously, there's problems, right? Like, you know, it's the same issue as believing in one God. It's the same core issues like, Hey, you know, if you're going to let one guy through, you know, why don't why not let them all through, right? And the idea is, how do I put this? If you're going to have a basis to believe in any God, have that first. And then at that point, I don't care what the number is, because once you prove that one God exists, I'll be like, all right, I'm fine. You proved at least that it's feasible and it's an option. It seems more likely in my head than that there would be more. And who knows this first one that you just discovered could just be one of several many.  And I want to hear it. Like, yeah, can I say it? Yeah. As soon as someone proves that a God exists, my immediate reaction will be like, there has to be more gods. Here's a more interesting epistemological kind of question, which is like, how much should we allow an argument alone with no evidence whatsoever to raise our confidence in anything? So imagine all you have is an argument and you have absolutely no evidence attached at all.   There's so many names that I'll accept them even on an argumentation basis. But Dred, what do you think? Well, it hitchens razor that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Yeah, like that's a good one. Numbers, math, like you can just claim something as four and define it very well. And I'll be like, okay, that's four. I'm fine with that four minus four equals zero. I'm fine with that. Larry, what do you got? You got your hand raised in some claims like John was saying, you know, just say, yeah, sure, fine. Who cares? Yeah. Like somebody comes to you with a claim like I have a cat. I just bought a cat. Well, that's a claim. Doesn't have anything supernatural involved with it. It's something that happens every day. We know what a cat is. Doesn't cost us anything to believe it. And which is one of the main things about religion is they, as soon as you start believing their stuff, they start making demands of you, you know, money or time or a commitment or whatever. And my basis is only extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So like the you have an incredibly mundane claim, I'm willing to believe it even if you just state it like, I am talking to you right now. It's like, yeah, I believe that. Like I have hair on my body. I'm like, okay, probably you're talking to me. You're probably a mammal. I'm willing to believe it. I don't need to work too hard for stuff like that. But if you tell me a God exists, now we have like, how extraordinary is that God the most extraordinary thing ever? Well, now you need the most extraordinary standard of evidence for me to meet it. John, do you think that's fair? I have a cat isn't an argument. It's just an assertion. Yeah, I'll believe it on an assertion basis if someone told me they had a cat, because I don't care. I have a cat too. Unless it's Shrodinger's cat, of course. Sure, sure, sure, sure. If they told me they had a tiger, then I'd be like, that's more of an extraordinary claim. I don't believe you please present some evidence, because I don't believe you have a tiger, even if you show me pictures. But if somebody's making a claim for something that they also claim is immaterial, then there's no argument that's going to be persuasive. Right. And that is the point that I want a lot of Christians to know that like a book that claims that a God exists is not the same thing as a newspaper that said that a guy named Christopher Columbus existed, you know, several hundred years ago, like it's completely different standards of claims that are being made. And you have to measure our ability to believe based on the standard of evidence, based on how extraordinary the claim is. It's nuanced, but it's the most important thing you can do in this lifetime, I think, being able to parse truth things from false things. We're getting close to the end of the half hour. Larry, what do you got? I was just going to say that it made a point that it wasn't that I was just making a claim, not an argument, but a lot of the arguments given by Christians and other religious people are based on unmentioned claims.   You know, things like that. Yeah, yeah. Those are unmentioned claims. Those are unmentioned claims. It's so disgusting. And I'll go ahead and take us to the break. We've got to take the break. Yeah. This is the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. We're on WZO Radio 103.9LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Maxwell. Hello, and welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Dr. Five, and we're on WZO Radio 103.9LP FM, here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday morning, August 15th, 2021. Now let's talk about the atheist society of Knox 4, ASK. Founded in 2002, we're in our 19th year. We have over a thousand members, and we have weekly Zoom meetings during COVID. And if you've got vaccinated and you're willing to get out in person, we are having in-person meetings again. They're at the Barley's Taproom Pizzeria in the old city in Knoxville, Tennessee, out on the patio. And they're every Tuesday night, starting at around 5.30, and we go to about 8 o'clock. You can find ASK on Facebook, meetup.com, or just go to KnoxvilleAtheist.org. You can also Google Knoxville Atheist. It's just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to Meetup and start a group for atheists in your area. Don't find one. You can start one. That's right. What do we want to pick up there one bit? So we just had a really fun conversation on the nature of polytheism versus monotheism. Good points for polytheism today. You still got just as much work to do as the monotheist, though. But I wanted to come back in the second half and talk about a survey that Nathan brought up, especially the one that was dealing with COVID. Nathan, would you mind doing an intro on that? Yeah. So which one do you want me to talk about? The third link, the third link, the third link that you posted, the one that was talking about convincing Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccines based on how they approach their faith and based on what religion and how affiliated they are with that religion, what is their likely hesitancy or degree of refusal based on capita per capita? So just to be perfectly clear, I didn't do a lot of research before I sent that one off. I just happened to think, yeah, right? And honestly, that is kind of a problem in our society. We're all kind of sending articles too soon before we're like, oh, you know, it's time magazine or anything. Let's take a look here. But there's a vaccine hesitancy that you can measure based on religious affiliation. And so essentially, I was sending you just this idea that there seems to be a correlation between your epistemology in one way and your decisions on whether or not you're going to take a vaccine on the other. Correct. And that's pretty much...  I read some of it. What's the degree of COVID hesitancy based on people who are affiliated with churches? And what I found was actually kind of interesting, because if you were to ask me, hey, here's a guy who goes to a church on a regular basis with a giant mass of people, while likely is he to accept a COVID vaccine or be hesitant about it or absolutely refuse it. And I think you're the three points, accept, hesitant, or absolutely refuse. I would say almost just based on the impression I got as a guy here in Tennessee, that it would almost be around 70% people who would not want to get vaccinated if they go to a big church, because I don't know, in my head, I just felt like that was the impression. But what I'm seeing here is that among white Catholics, black Protestants, white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, a whole bunch of different margins here, the majority in almost every single case are likely to accept the vaccine or at least are hesitant, but doesn't necessarily mean that they won't get the vaccine. And I would find that to be a very relieving data point, because it seems then that the greater trend would be people are getting vaccinated as a result based on their inclination of going to church. It's like, hey, if I'm going to go to church, I at least want to be vaccinated. I'm happy to hear that. And the people who are absolutely refusing are without a doubt in the minority in all these groups, which isn't fantastic, but at least it's not the majority. And I'm actually happy to see that. Nathan, thoughts? Yeah, so my real reason for wanting to bring this up is because I think that SE is a powerful tool to talk to our friends and family about vaccine hesitancy. If you know somebody who's vaccine hesitant, ask them why. What's their biggest reason for not wanting to take the vaccine? Listen to them and what they have to say. Be sincerely interested in what they have to say about this issue if you care about what they think, if you care about their decisions and their behavior. And I've had several SE talks in the last couple of weeks with people I know who are vaccine hesitant. And they, we hear each other out and we're opening up a dialogue. And I think it's extremely important that we engage with people in this important time about this very important issue. If you're already talking with people, your religious friends and family, you might as well bring this up too, as like another thing to talk about. And that's the real reason why I sent you this article today is I just found that both issues are important and both issues are fun and worth talking about. What have you found if you had this conversation with other people to be the root cause of why people aren't getting vaccines, Nathan? Inconvenience. That's really like the main thing though. Wow. Inconvenience. That's like the number one answer I get, although I get it in a lot more words than that. Yeah. It's usually like a run on sentence for a paragraph. Like I just don't have the time or I'm going to be fine or it doesn't really matter to me or, you know, I'm not worried about it or it's just, you know, it wasn't available. If it was there, I'd take it. That's usually what I hear. Like if it was easy, I'd do it. But since it's hard, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go out of my way to do something that's difficult. There's lots of other reasons.  Usually it's a naturalistic fallacy that I'm hearing. Like my body is strong enough it can handle it on its own, or they'll give like the George Carlin thing. And they'll say, back in my day, we swam in raw sewage and it made your, you know, immune system stronger because we did that. You know, I'm going to expose myself to all these terms and that's what's going to make my immune system good in the long run. So those types of arguments are things that I often hear, though they're not based on evidence. Right. And that again, is the same issue as before. Yeah. They're often famous last words too. Yeah. Right.  No, that's, that's not the way it works. It makes you weaker. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It gives you trauma. It's not good. I would have, it would have been interesting to see, um, a data point for the irreligious. Yes. You know, how that, how that stands up to how that would compare, how it would compare. Exactly. Very good. Very good. I'd be interested in that. Let's go down. No, no. What about age range? Yes. But age range. Yeah. Clearly they didn't do, yeah. I mean, there's such a thing as black Catholics and, uh, but they put in a talk to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It only looks like they talked to like, you know, one, two, three, four, five different churches, but it was enough for them to make a published article on time. Like this is a hard hitting research. This is Time Magazine. Yes, of course. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. The BBC focused on this earlier this week, having sent their USA correspondent to Louisiana, where he interviewed a, uh, a pastor who claimed he was, he questioned him as to whether why they weren't taking up the vaccines. And the pastor said that he doesn't think they will actually protect people because that's what the politicians say. And he doesn't believe politicians sort of on principle. And he also said, well, well, they look at the hospital information and then unvaccinated and getting hospitalized and dying more. And the pastor said, well, that's, that's come from, you know, financial lies because they want to drum up more business in the hospitals. So you just can't win against these people. And I want to do a plug here and tell you that you can watch that BBC interview on my global Atheist news show on my channel called Free Thought Productions. I'd like to make a point, because John, you have this really interesting history in England where a lot of the scares that happened about vaccines, this is even before COVID, like the whole vaccines cause autism scare that happened, was caused by an Englishman. But here's the interesting thing. An Englishman basically had his own vaccine and there was a popular vaccine that came out and he's like, please don't use that guy's vaccine. Use mine because you can pay me money and I like money. Wouldn't that work? Okay. Well, his vaccine causes autism. It wasn't true. But he said it anyway, just so people will be scared to hopefully go to his. But instead, those people decided no vaccines whatsoever because they were just terrified of it as on the concept. And you're talking about Wakefield, right? Yes. That's right. And Andrew Wakefield, who is now being defrocked, he's no longer. Oh yeah. This story has a happy ending and then a sad ending for America. But basically everyone's afraid of vaccines until a very brave English reporter basically broke the story, did a very detailed analysis and people listened in England.  Vaccines are good for you. I'm going to get vaccinated. And the amount of people who went vaccinated went from high to low because they were scared to immediately back high once that report went out. And that guy got so defrauded that he went to America to basically spend the same lives. And now we are going through that as a country where there are people are like, I'm afraid of getting vaccinated. I don't know what's going to happen to me. It might cause autism. I heard there's a mercury in there. Jim Carrey was afraid of him. I'm not getting vaccinated. Jim Carrey's not getting vaccinated. It's the same thing, unfortunately. And what's even worse is the guy's still kicking around and going to conspiracy meetings and spending the whole time. Thank you for taking him. We send all our men engaged to you. It started with the pilgrim fathers. We should just lodge them in Roswell. George, what do you got? Don't forget the memory chips. The memory chips that are in the vaccine. Yes, there's memory chips. Yes. I need some of those. You mean Bill Gates location trackers? You mean one of these? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like we need anything. Like they need any more to get on us. What I found to be the core fear for vaccines, at least from the conversations I've had, tend to be fear and ignorance. Fear in the aspect of the unknown of what will happen if I take this, but ignorance in the sense of I feel more strong without knowing the repercussions of what would happen if I don't take this vaccine or the rates of people dying. I just feel more confident that I'll survive if I'm oblivious to the facts of the world. And by taking a vaccine, I'm admitting that I am weak and that there are things about me that I can't do. Right. I like that feeling. And so I don't want to, I'll pretend that that's the ostrich. That's the ostrich syndrome, right? Yeah. Poke your head in the same thing with climate change. Yep. George Brown. See ya. What's up? Yeah. And of course what I hear around here a lot is I heard it on Facebook. I heard it on Facebook. Larry, this is why we need you. Larry, you're on mute, my friend. You're on mute. Oh, that I researched it on Facebook or researched it on YouTube. Yeah. Whoever said that ignorance is bliss, he's got a lot to answer for.  Yeah, that person probably dead. So you run into what I imagine is the real wall, which is an inconvenience wall, right? It's essentially how can I get around my own ego to admit that I'm not as strong as I am, as smart as I want to be or as healthy as I could be in the face of what is obviously an apparent and objective threat to my well-being. And you could ignore it and feel satisfied, but only if that's temporary. And I just lost a family member to COVID. So like I know for a fact that that's not good in the long term. So yes, George Brown, you're right. CDC does change its recommendations, but the overall tenor stays the same.  Wash your hands, period, right? They may say, hey, you can wear a mask. You can wear a face cover. You can wear a cloth mask. It doesn't have to be an N95. Okay, maybe an N95 is good. K95 is just wear a face mask. Like get vaccinated is the main thing they're saying. Wash your hands, stay away from people who are sick.  And yes, if you are vaccinated, it does not mean that you won't get sick. It just means that your symptoms will not be severe and your likelihood of being able to stay alive or better, which puts less pressure on hospitals and your family, but you can still be a vector for disease. And if it's any indication, so like in sign language, I know this is bad for radio, but sign language, you do coronavirus like this and then infection as it's spreading out, right? So like the COVID pandemic happens from everybody, vaccinated or not vaccinated. So the whole idea is the more we get vaccinated, the more we'll be resistant to it as a group. We have this cure. We should use it. And I can respect, I can totally respect if you decide not to get vaccinated, right? But I just want to let you know that it's the wrong decision, right? And so I think that matters and I think that should just be her.  When you host it, unvaccinated especially, yeah? Because then it has all the ample time to mutate and figure out what works, what doesn't work and make new carboxylic groups on stuff. So your decision affects the rest of the planet? Yeah. Yeah. And if you've already been vaccinated and you feel like your job is done, I mean, I would like to ask people around me that if you know anything about critical thinking, you've got some skills, maybe you've watched Tyrone's, let's chat a bunch. And now you know SE or his brand of it. Go out there and talk with people. You know, be a part of your community and help start a discussion about this. Yeah. Because there are so many people that still haven't taken it, even though it's free. I'd also say be willing to speak up to because, you know, it's the ignorant voices that speak the loudest. George Brown, I hear you want to say something. Why take yourself off mute? Yes. For our listeners and viewers, I want to mention that we've been throwing around the term SE without defining it. So it means street epistemology. Yep. Orsocratic examination. Same thing. Okay. Same difference. Just watch some YouTube videos, get your own brand of it. Yeah. Basically. Just ask people how they know what they know. Yeah, basically. Dred Pirate Higgs, I wanted to get your feedback on the idea of vaccination. How is it in Canada? Last time we checked, it was really hard to get vaccinated up there. Have things gone any better? You're on mute, my friend. You're on mute, my friend. Still mute. Holy lunuli, Lord, please give this man a voice. It worked. It worked. It worked. Yeah, brah man. Brah man. Your prayers are answered. I think it's still rather hard. I know my mother, who she hasn't received her second vaccination, and she's 75. So certainly consider a vulnerable adult. Every once in a while they have these little, they have pop-up clinics in various towns that just kinds of moves around. So people who can't find the time off, I guess, you know, they can just take advantage of the opportunity to go get vaccinated. But I think it's a slow and steady. This is how it's going in Canada. I also want to throw out one last thing too. For the people who do get vaccinated, people who do love science or are critical thinkers, but are afraid of the vaccine because they'll make them sick. Like two things. One, it's not guaranteed that you'll feel ill. I've taken vaccines and I'm not feel ill afterwards. But the second thing is the immuno response is what you kind of want out of the experience. Because that's showing your, it's letting your body know, hey, just put something in me that shouldn't be in me. Let me make you have a fever.  And just rest it out while I figure this thing out. And I know that's your body taking over. You're not getting sick from the disease. You're basically, depending on the virus that you take, like the one that's for COVID, gives your body instructions to make the outer shell of the coronavirus without the inner shell. And so it just looks like it's the virus, but it's something your body is making out of its own body parts to make it look like a virus that they can use as target practice.  It's putting your body to school. Yeah. You'll never get COVID-19 from a COVID vaccine, basically. Right. You'll just have an immunoresponse. It'll be a short period of time and you'll be good again. You'll have all these antibodies. They'll be able to help you when, if you do get infected. Looks like we'll have to get boosters too, eh? Oh yeah. We're going to be doing this for the long haul. This is not a short-term solution. It's not, yeah, we got to get used to this. And this is another reason why I'm like, we've got to start being less passive, like getting out there, being more engaged with people in a polite way, in a respectful way, and start a dialogue. Larry, what's up? All right. We'll have to get updated shots for COVID for the same reason we have to get updated shots for the flu every year. Yep. Yeah, or tech needs are every six years, whatever. They're just going to get more effective though, I think, too. I think so. They're going to get more effective. They're going to get better. They're going to have more research back behind them, more evidence behind those works. And that's going to make our job a little easier, you know? George, look, it's fine. I have a however. All right. I have a however. Let's hear it. And that is that last week, right here in Tennessee, members of a school board were threatened by people who came to the school meeting if they dared to try to impose a mask mandate on children on the school buses. How do we overcome this kind of mindset that is telling us, for instance, masks are optional? You wear your mask if you want to, which is something like saying that this girl is a little bit pregnant. I would say if you have a private school, do whatever you want. But if you have a federally funded public school, you follow the federally funded mandates. And if you don't like it, take your kid to public school. Well, what do you mean you? What do you mean? There you go.  If you don't like it, take your kid to a private school. So how do we do this? Yeah. Period. You know, I mean, there are a lot of people who make the mandate see what you don't like it. Take your kid to private school or home school. You certainly have the right to do that, but you do not have the right to put teachers in public school. We have people at the governmental level, the politicians, who are opposing the mandates. They're opposing it and getting who are legislating against them. Right, right. There's like, hey, I'm going to get vaccinated and then tell other people that they don't have to, which is fine. So seriously, I mean, the mandate just let me have some very substantial opposition. So we're running almost out of time. But the mandate is that if you're a federal employee, that you need to get vaccinated periods. And that is what everyone in Senate has been done. What they say afterwards is free speech. And they can say and sell whatever they want, but they have been vaccinated in order to be in that building. They can make the mandate for federal employees as well as federal organizations. And that includes federally funded public schools. And if you don't like it, take your kid to private school. That's the basic rule behind it. You can't take your kid to school if he's not treated to, was it, tuberculosis, tetanus, a whole bunch of stuff. Like those rules already exist. We're not changing anything with COVID. Guys, we're at the end of the show. Nathan, where can we find your stuff at? My YouTube channel is Abstract Activists on YouTube. And occasionally on a SE podcast as well. So street epistemology podcast. You can find me there sometimes. Yeah, that's it. Very, very cool. Abstract activist on YouTube. Abstract activist. Or on Twitter at abstract underscore SE. And I recommend it because Nathan has some really, he probably has the best video production of any of the people who do SE videos. I got to be honest with you. It's really, really well done. Also very eclectic group over in Oregon. So it's not just, you know, in Texas or Tennessee. It's like you see people who are like into some bizarre things. Good show. I highly recommend it. John Richards, you got so many different places. Where can we find you? Yeah, my channel is called Free Thought Productions. And I've got a confession to make because I set up to have Howard Berman, who is the current president of the Atheist Alliance International on my free thought hour last night. But he wasn't able to turn up because a tree fell down near where he lives in Northern California and deprived him of power and internet connection. Is that a God thing or a karma thing? What's going on here? I don't know. Where's the punch line, John? I need the punch line. What we mustn't do is let the Templeton Foundation discover that we were able to unmute Dredd's microphone with Pratt. Free thought. No, that's what they pay good money for right there. Yeah, exactly. John, the name of your channel one last time for our listeners. Free Thought what? Free Thought Productions. Free Thought Productions. Nice. Dredd Pirate, where can we find your stuff at? Well, I'm on YouTube at Mind Pirate. And that's M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. And I livestream this show when I'm able. Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. And I'm looking to actually do some more content as well. So maybe Ty will give me a hand with that too. Let me know. Let me know. I'm always available. George Brown, let's find playing disc golf. George Brown. I need some coffee, but I heard there was a really good one out there named Pete's Coffee. Pete's Coffee. Is that is that the name of the coffee? What are we talking about? Oh, yes. Pete's Coffee. Pete's Coffee. Pete's certainly the best. Pete said that America, I'm sorry, Alfred Pete said that Americans drink lousy coffee. And he came here from Holland indirectly to prove otherwise. Nice. Very cool. Vacuum sealed. It's very expensive. It's very expensive stuff. Very expensive, yes. But I'm not drinking it today. What do you guys have got? This is called Pilon and it's very affordable. Okay. Not bad. Not bad. Larry, I hope you can see that I am ready to learn everything I can possible about atheism and what it's all about. But I have no manager to help guide me in this process. What can you do to help me out, my friend? Well, I do have a book. I don't know if it has everything in the world that's possible to learn about atheism, but it does have a lot of good information. And it's called Atheism. What's it all about? It's available on Amazon. You mean this book? Oh, you got it. Oh, that book. That's right. That book. That's my daughter on the cover there. It's actually a reader. You'll get through it. I guarantee it. Yeah. My own content is found. A lot of the articles in that book, too, are also found on digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives, atheist songs and articles on the subject. My YouTube channel can be found by searching for dollar five. If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to askanatheistatnoxfilatheist.org. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, you can find help at recoveringfromreligion.org. And if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. This has been the Digital Freethought Radio Hour.  The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it and enjoy your life. We'll see you next week. Say bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Hey. So I heard a voice in my head that told me atheism is true.


Welcome to this week's edition of Business in Hawaii. I am Daelyn Yanagida and we're broadcasting live from the ThinkTech Studios in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are live at www.thinktechhawaii.com. You may also subscribe to our programs and get on our mailing list there as well. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people and our guests share with us how they were able to build successes in our challenging environment. In the ThinkTech studio with us today is Tiffany Yoshida. Tiffany is the interim president of Junior Achievement of Hawaii. Tiffany, I'm super excited to have you here. You know that Junior Achievement is near and dear to my heart and I'm super excited for you to tell our viewers about Junior Achievement and its presence in Hawaii. So go ahead and start and tell us about Junior Achievement and then the Hawaii chapter of Junior Achievement. Thank you, Daelyn. Thank you for having me. Junior Achievement of Hawaii has an incredible mission which is to inspire and prepare young people for success in a global community. And I think through our education and our curriculum, we're teaching kids grades K through 12 about just financial literacy, financial management, and just how to plan for their future in terms of money. And I think it's that much more evident the importance of this mission, especially now in Hawaii with rising costs of living and just the rise in homelessness and everything like that. Kids are more aware of these issues and being able to equip them in a proper setting and at least giving them a little more tools to succeed is so important and that's what Junior Achievement of Hawaii hopes to achieve. So Junior Achievement is a national organization, a national nonprofit, correct? Tell me about their mission. Yeah, so they were founded in 1919 and they have a vast network globally. I believe they service over 100 countries and we've been able to reach like 6 million students in that. So the extension, the reach and the scope of this organization is huge and they're doing amazing things worldwide to just educate kids about financial management. And how does that translate to Hawaii? I think just bringing it here to Hawaii, it was founded in 1957 and I know a lot of people who are like my parents age who remember Junior Achievement when they were in high school and so it has a very long standing here in Hawaii from teaching kids about financial management but also through some of the other programs which we'll get into later I'm sure about entrepreneurship and owning local businesses and things like that. I've had the honor of volunteering in a classroom to teach one of the Junior Achievement modules and coming from the education industry that curriculum is so amazing and they've really employed all of the different ways that kids learn so it really caters to all the senses and different ways of learning. Tell us about the classroom program. The classroom program is as you said the curriculum is amazing. It's so easy to follow as a volunteer just going into the classroom for the first time and it's so friendly so we have different curriculum designs for elementary, middle school and high school students. Everything from learning to become a part of your community, how to contribute as a citizen all the way up to financial like finance and what is credit, what is retirement and things like that more on the high school level and the kids that the volunteers get have everything from the reading material to the flyers to pass out to even like dice and things if there's an activity involved in the curriculum everything is together so it's a perfect way of like making it more accessible to the students and making it fun. There's activities, there are games, it's a good time. What I found that was really great about the program is that you can take a subject matter expert so someone who is a business owner or a business executive and they can pick up this curriculum and they can teach it because it's all prepared for them with all of the visuals, the worksheets, the posters and it makes it that easy to deliver the lesson and then they can impart their personal experience into that. Do you see that a lot? Yes, definitely. And it's like how do you teach students about credit? How do you teach them to save for retirement? These are foreign ideas. They were at least for me even graduating out of college I didn't really understand a lot of that stuff so making it accessible and putting it into a language that students can understand. I think it's a great way of connecting these high level volunteers from banks and other places and bringing them back down to hey, when you were a kid how would you understand this stuff? So as the interim president of Junior Achievement of Hawaii, is Junior Achievement just on Oahu? No, we actually have offices on the Big Island as well as Kauai. So how far is your reach? How many students do you affect? In 2017 we reached about 8,000 students. We had volunteers in around 340 classrooms and around 51 schools within the state of Hawaii. So how do you get into schools? Are there certain types of schools that are eligible? We go based on requests put in by teachers but a lot of times we have been servicing schools all over the island especially here in Oahu from Title I to Title VII all over. It's really based, right now it's based on teacher requests as of right now. And so how do they reach out and to have Junior Achievement come into their classroom? They can contact us by email or we have a website with an online form that they can request through. And tell me a little bit about how Junior Achievement partners with teachers. I mean our teachers have the hardest job managing classrooms with a few resources. How does JA partner with the teachers and how do we enhance what they're trying to deliver in their classrooms? Right, so for all of our curriculum they have a breakdown of the different requirements by the Department of Education that our curriculum fulfills and it's a good way that the teacher will be usually is in the classroom while the volunteers are teaching but it's a good way to kind of give the teachers a little breather, have the students working primarily more with the volunteers and as we covered before the kids have everything so the teachers don't have to worry about finding additional resources to implement these courses. And so is there a cost to bringing these programs into the classroom? There is no cost to the teachers. JA Hawaii takes care of all of the coordination of those costs so teachers don't have to worry about any of that. That's fantastic. And is there a maximum class size? I don't believe so, no we service them all. So which schools are you in? We're in a lot of middle schools and high schools where all over the place honestly Waianae High School, Roosevelt, but yeah McKinley, Farrington High School we've been partnering with them a lot for our entrepreneurship program which we'll talk more about later and Paola Elementary School just all over really. And so you mentioned that there are programs from elementary, middle and high school. What types of things do you teach to our elementary school children about financial readiness? It's for elementary school it's a little more basic, you know just making the ideas of money and saving more accessible to them in terms of understanding. So we do a lot of games and they're still learning these concepts of money in general but what does it mean to save and what ways am I a part of my community? These kids they see a lot they're constantly learning so teaching them about different occupations and what does that mean for your future but more at an elementary school level more at an accessible level. I think what's neat about junior achievement is that while we're looking to bring financial education to our children it also translates to career readiness and that's a topic that we've covered in past shows about the brain drain that happens in Hawaii where kids go away to college and they never come back and getting kids motivated to contribute have successful careers here or be an entrepreneur really serves our state's mission to keep our kids local, keep them home and have them contributing to our community. What do you feel about that? I mean how does junior achievement of Hawaii align to what our goals are as a state? Our J-Hawaii definitely we're in line with especially Governor Ige's push for 2025 in that we want to get these kids you know through college get an education but keep them here in Hawaii and whether it be small business owners or other startups or even just maintaining that talent here in Hawaii in that way we're aligning with Governor Ige's plan which is really good I think keeping that local talent people who have grown up here who have seen firsthand just the changes that are going on in our economy and keeping that sense of aloha you know and keeping that cycling through I think is so important and J-Hawaii is helping achieve that I think. We're going to go to a short break but when we come back let's talk about some of the people that are involved in junior achievement in Hawaii and how the local community and businesses have been supporting junior achievement we're going to take that short break this is business in Hawaii and we'll see you back here shortly. 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We are on at Thursdays at 4 p.m. and we hope we'll see you next time. Welcome back. This is business in Hawaii and today we have Tiffany Yoshida interim president of junior achievement of Hawaii with us. So before we went to break we're talking about the classrooms and the volunteers that make the classroom program happen. Talk to me about the volunteers. Who are they? Where do they come from? Yeah, we have around 300 volunteers here at JA Hawaii who have been contributing over 48,000 volunteer hours last year alone and they're from all walks of life from big banks, local banks here in Hawaii to just home school parents and University of Hawaii. We have volunteers from all over the state. And so I do know that some of the major banks, in fact all of the major banks in Hawaii are heavily involved with junior achievement of Hawaii, particularly on the volunteer side. Their employees get into the classrooms and they meet with our kids on all levels. Can you tell me about how junior achievement of Hawaii has partnered with these folks in the community to bring those programs? Yes, definitely. So we have volunteers from a lot of our local banks. So Bank of Hawaii, American Savings Bank, First Hawaiian Bank and even Central Pacific Bank. And we have volunteers from branch managers to even vice presidents for these banks going into the schools and delivering this curriculum. I've seen a couple videos of them, especially the VPs, like doing presentations for elementary school kids, which is awesome. I think we might have a couple of pictures of those classrooms where we had some of our volunteers interacting with our kids, we'll see if we can find that. But tell me about how they get involved. So a lot of them will contact our coordinator. You can also, if you're interested in volunteering, you can go to our website. We have a volunteer format you can fill out and we would contact you through that as well. So I know that there are some other interesting programs that junior achievement does. One of which is called Monotank, is that correct? Very similar to the television program, Shark Tank, right? Tell us about that. Yeah, so we have an entrepreneurship program specific to our high school students. We've been working consistently with a teacher at Farrington High School and his group of students and you can see the progression from a concept to a business plan all the way to presentation of their idea and their company. We have the Monotank event where students will pitch their idea to a bunch of local entrepreneurs here in the islands and it's a great first experience I think for students who are interested in possibly owning their own business someday or going into that startup entrepreneurship environment. So when does this happen? Right now we're kind of reorganizing the whole program but we try to deliver it in the fall as well as in the spring. And so is there a coach or a mentor that gets these teams together? Yes, yes, yes, we'll have mentors from our pool of volunteers, some of our local banks also provide that mentorship and support as well and we have our staff who will also contribute to that as well. I know that in learning about the past Monotanks that there's a mentor assigned to each team and so there may be a team or two from multiple high schools. There's a mentor who is usually a business person in our community that goes and coaches the team on their business plan, their marketing plan, the financial budgeting aspect of their business and from what I understand they actually go ahead and either produce the good or put out the service for public consumption. Is that correct? That is correct. It's a real money, seed money that is being dispersed to these student companies and they will actually purchase the raw goods to produce these things and same thing, same as a real business just keeping track of their expenses and as well as their revenues and getting that first hand experience, it's a really great program. What are some of the examples of the things that the students have done in those think tank type businesses? I know one of the highlight ones were earphones and they had marketed it towards their school putting in the logo of their school and I heard that was a really big item, a hot item that students really wanted. I know that the junior achievement of Hawaii programs on the neighbor islands also run a separate event, a mono tank, I don't know if they call it a mono tank in Hilo and then in Kauai but I've seen some products being sold from the Hilo company program that were quite impressive and they sell them right around Christmas. I do know that they went into the shopping malls, the local shopping malls during the holiday season which really got the students motivated and from what I understand some of them make some real substantial money which of course is the motivator for them to get interested into entrepreneurship. What are your success stories? Have you had a chance to speak with some of the graduates of junior achievement? I haven't personally had a chance to speak with them but everyone I've talked to in the community who have participated in this program have only great things to say, like good fond memories about their time. We have a couple of pictures from some of your activities, you want to tell us about them? Let's see. Yeah, so these are some of our volunteers, they're in the elementary school classrooms and as you can see it's a fun environment to learn about money management and it's taking away that scary kind of feeling towards money or whatever it may be and making it really accessible and engaging for the students. And it looks like it's very interactive and yeah, so they'll have a lot of games and again all of these materials are included in the kit that volunteers receive so there's nothing extra that a teacher would need to purchase as well as for the volunteer, it's all provided and the instructions are very user friendly. How long is a class session? They're usually around 45 minutes. Oh so yes, so here's some of our volunteers, the kids, it's just a great way to connect these people who are involved, who are business owners, who are VPs at banks or whatever it may be and connecting them back with the community in a way where they feel comfortable. It's talking about what they do for a living for the most part. So are the programs just a one-time 45 minute lesson or are there multiple modules? Depending on the school and the curriculum we'll have one-time visits for just 45 minutes to an hour and other times for more of the high school, more complicated curriculum it's maybe two or three visits. Nice. But it's a great way to build that rapport and build that relationship with the students I think. So the curriculum is designed to be 45 minute sessions, multiple sessions and is that the format for every grade level? For the more for the complicated stuff, for more of the elementary school curriculum it's a little more one-stop shop. And then when you get these programs into the high schools, do they actually take over classroom time? Yes, yes. We are in the classroom. The coordinator for our volunteers is really good and will lay it out exactly what period or what time, the days and everything. So it's really easy to get into volunteer experience. Very nice. So I know that Junior Achievement of Hawaii is looking to build their volunteer base, their sponsorship base. Tell us what you're looking for. We're always looking for organizations to partner with us, whether it be volunteers or resources as well. It's a growing concept and we're always looking for people who share that same heart and that same mission and vision with us and we just hope to continue to extend our reach in Hawaii. So for those folks who are interested in volunteering, tell me about the time commitment that you need from them. What does that look like? Right. Honestly, if you can even just give us a day, we're always open to new volunteers. Once you try it, I assure you the product sells itself. It is a great experience and you will have a good experience in my opinion. So I do know that volunteers will get the curriculum. Is it a couple weeks before they go into the classroom? Correct. You don't have to go in for training or anything. The kids are that good at explaining exactly what is expected and down to each detail, what to say, how to explain the activities and things like that. The kids are actually mailed directly to your place and so you don't have to go in for any long trainings or anything like that. Nice. So they'll get their kids, they can kind of get familiar with it and then they go into the classroom 45 minutes and that's fantastic. And you've just impacted a whole classroom of students. That's fantastic. I also know that junior achievement employees looking for some really great community sponsors for these classrooms. Tell us about that. We're looking for sponsorship for classrooms. I think that right now we are receiving sponsorships for a couple select schools here in the islands but we're always looking for more and your sponsorship will help us to get those kids into the hands of our volunteers and out to the students. Fantastic. We are just about out of time but will you tell our viewers how they can get more information about junior achievement or get involved if that's their interest level? Yeah, so if you're interested in working with us, you can go to our website at jahoawe.org. We have forms for you to fill out online if you're a teacher and want to bring our volunteers into your classroom and we also have a volunteer form. So if you're interested in volunteering with us then you can fill that out as well and our coordinator will contact you. You can also learn more about the overall junior achievement program or organization at www.juniorachievement.org. And of course if our company sponsors out there are interested in getting involved they can contact you as well. Yes. Fantastic. Thank you Tiffany for joining us today. Junior achievement is one of those things that we really can get passionate about because it's affecting our children and eventually they're give back to the community and I think it's just such a passionate cause. So I appreciate you being here. I wanted to thank the amazing production staff here in the studio. If you would like to be a guest on our show please email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com. Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at 2 o'clock and we look forward to seeing you here next week.


at six o'clock and I'd like to call to order the 18th regular meeting of the 2021 Common Council. Would the clerk please read the quote for the day? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Whatever is beautiful, whatever is meaningful, what brings you happiness may it be yours this holiday season and throughout the coming year. Thank you very much. Would the clerk please call the roll? Alderperson Bourne? Alderperson Bourne? Alderperson Donahue? May not hear us. Alderperson Felde? Here. Alderperson Ackley? Here. Alderperson Phillips? Alderperson Decker? Here. Alderperson Sorensen? Here. Alderperson Svoglio? Alderperson Felicky Paneski? Here. Alderperson Mitchell? Alderperson Bourne? Here. Alderperson Donahue? Here. Alderperson Phillips? Alderperson Svoglio? There are eight present. Thank you very much. Alderperson Svoglio and Donahue are excused. Donahue is here. Phillips and Svoglio are excused. Next is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand and join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next, I don't mind the agenda as the approval of the minutes from our 17th regular council meeting held on December 7th. Alderperson Sorensen. Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the minutes from our previous meeting. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Those minutes are before us. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the minutes as presented, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. The next item is public forum. City Clerk? There's no one this evening. Very good. Then we'll move on to a mayoral appointment. So I'll turn it over to city attorney Charles Adams. Appointment is submitted by the mayor, submitting the following appointment for your consideration. Andrew Jesus to be considered for appointment to the senior activity center commission. The fill of vacancy with the term expiring on April 17, 2023. That lays over. Next one is appointments from the mayor. I hereby submit the following appointments for your consideration to the Harbor Center Business Improvement District Board. Amy Horst, Eileen Simmons, Jordan Saunders, Jane Davis Wood, Paul Rudnick, Chad Palesik, all for appointments that would expire in December 31, 2022. That also lays over. The mayor hereby submits the following appointment for your consideration, Emily Rendahl Arajo, to be considered for appointment to the position of director of senior service. Thank you very much. Emily is with us this evening. Next item on the agenda is mayor's announcements.  Tonight I'd like to recognize assistant chief Charles Butler for his 26 and a half years of service to the Sheboygan fire department. I think that Chuck must have been one of those kids that received a fire truck and a fireman's hat from Santa one Christmas. And it's amazing to see the career that it shaped. He, his interest started in 1984 in the Volunteer Fire Service and Private EMS Service. Chuck started his career with the Sheboygan fire department on April 18th of 1994, serving as a firefighter and fire equipment operator assigned to fire station number three. And then he was also assigned to the same roles at fire at station number two. Let me have you excuse me station number one. He was then promoted to commander of research development and training in 2005 and served in that role until his promotion to deputy chief in 2010. Chief Butler was promoted to his current position of assistant chief in 2018. He served in the role of department's operations chief, EMS service director, and as the emergency manager for the city of Sheboygan. As EMS service director, Chief Butler oversaw the development and operation of the fire department's paramedic ambulance service for the city of Sheboygan since it began in 2008. As emergency manager, Chief Butler participated in planning, preparedness, and response to many local and regional events, and has fostered a collaborative working relationship with other departments, state and local agencies, private organizations, and the general public. He was also responsible for the development of the Sheboygan emergency plan. He also currently serves as chair of the local emergency preparedness committee and also the southeast wisconsin hospital emergency readiness coalition. Chief Butler has been a member of the Sheboygan county hazardous materials response team and also the Sheboygan county fire investigation team. Chief Butler received commendations from the department for his department in the development of the EMS in the fire department and also for his part in saving the life of Dr. Willis Wick involved in the flooding event that took place in 1998. Chief Butler is responsible for many of the accomplishments of the Sheboygan fire department over his tenure including the integration of the paramedic transport services, the expansion of knowledge in the equipment related to technical rescue, the continued integration of the department to MAVIS system including the MAVIS division 113 dive team and the continued technology upgrades within the department. I want to thank Charles Butler for his 26 and a half years of service to the Sheboygan fire department and I'm sure that he will continue to serve the residents of Sheboygan and Sheboygan county in some capacity in the future. So with a lot of pride and thanks I give him the certificate of appreciation from the city of Sheboygan. I is honored to present Charles Butler the certificate of appreciation and recognition of 26 and a half years of dedicated service and that's dated April 18th of 1994 through January 4th of 2021. Charles thank you very much. Thank you Mayor. Thank you for your gracious words Mayor, members of council. I just want to say it has been an honor and a privilege to work with the men and women of the Sheboygan fire department over the years and to serve the citizens of the Sheboygan community. When I moved here in 1990 to start a family it was my mission to go into this career and I had no idea where it would take me but it has been my ongoing mission ever since to improve the department to provide better and more efficient services to this community and I think we have done that the department is strong. Members of the community you can also know that your department is very strong it is very compassionate and it is very well trained and I believe as well very efficient. The addition of the ambulance service has made this EMS service in this town better than it has ever been and I can say that with all honesty. So I don't need to take more of your time it's kind of a bittersweet moment for me to be retiring from this department but I am going to stay in the community. I have more work to do but I just need to do it with a different hat and I thank you again for the years and a great career that I've had here and have a great evening. So thank you. One of our retired city clerks Lawrence Felton passed away last month or rather Monday morning December 7th at the Sharon Richardson Hospice. He was 94 years old and he had served the city of Sheboygan for 24 years first as deputy city clerk and later as city clerk until his retirement in 1989. I'd like you to stand and observe a moment of silence for Lawrence Felton former city clerk. Thank you. Next I'd like to review the COVID update for December 21st. Right now we have 10,894 positive cases that was up 513 from a week ago. We have 1,295 active cases and that's down 297 from a week ago. We have 9,515 recovered cases. Our hospitalization has gone from 21 down 3 to 18. There's currently 84 deaths that's up 5 from last week and there's 39,330 negative tests that were reported. The trajectory of the numbers since November was down 40% and we're pretty consistent through Thanksgiving with just a slight increase. The efforts of so many at this time reduced the strain of the hospital admissions that we had had previously. We're only four days away from the start of the Christmas and New Year's holiday season. We want to invite and encourage you to continue to wear a mask, wash and sanitize your hands often and maintain social distance and avoid groups of people that aren't in your family. Yes, even through Christmas and New Year's. These actions if follow will prevent the spike of the coronavirus in the next two weeks in Sheboygan. The Wisconsin National Guard is continuing their testing. Last week they had an average of 150 tests that were administered each day. There will be no testing although on this coming Friday, December 25th, nor on December 35th, New Year's Eve. Testing will continue on Wednesdays though at the Sheboygan County Aging and Disability Center in Sheboygan Falls. The spring election will include elections for mayor and alder person for the city of Sheboygan. Candidates for these offices are circulating nomination papers much be turned into the city clerk by January 5th. The election for aldermanic seats will be held in the odd number districts. Districts one, three, five, seven and nine and those are for two-year terms and due to replacement in 2020. There will also be an election for the aldermanic seat in district two and this will be for a one-year term. If you have any questions about running for an elected office please see the city clerk. I want to remind people that winter parking rules are in effect. Vehicles should be parked on alternate sides of the street between midnight and six o'clock in the morning. Please remember to park for tomorrow. I want to wish everyone a merry Christmas and encourage you to bring along non-perishable food items to support the Sheboygan County Food Bank while taking in the Christmas lights display and making spirits bright. Also the Mead Library Fountain has a special display and I want to encourage you to continue to shop local and support our retailers in Sheboygan. This holiday season Jupiter and the Sun will come together to form what some are calling a Christmas star. That will shine brightest tonight in the southwestern sky on this day the winter solstice. It's a little cloudy so we might have to wait till tomorrow or the next day to see this. But in a year marked with pandemic, political, and social unrest it's often felt dark. Now on this year's winter solstice when the day is the shortest and night is the longest, literally the darkest day of the year, Jupiter and Saturn meet to give us light. Whether or not you refer to it as a Christmas star I hope that you will take a moment to view it this week and perhaps be encouraged for brighter days ahead. Keep an eye out for moments of light and good in your world and better yet be a star that shines brightly for those around you. Merry Christmas. Next we'll go on with the Consent Agenda. That'll include items 2.2 through 2.14. All the persons sorenson thank you Mary move to receive and file all ROs receive all RCs and adopt all resolution and ordinances. Is there a second? Thank you. Those items are before us. Is there any discussion on the items on the Consent Agenda? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Under reports of officers item 3.1 and 3.2 will be referred to various committees going on to resolutions. Item 4.1 is resolution number 135 of 2021 by all the persons sorenson and Donahue authorizing the appropriate city officials to execute an amendment to the offer to purchase with martins trilling true value hardware ink. All the persons sorenson think you may ask for the suspension of the rules. Is there any objection to suspension? Seeing none please proceed. Thank you Mary move to adopt the resolution. Thank you for that motion and support. That item is before you. Are there any questions? Mayor this is uh Alderman Bourne I have a question. Go ahead. Thank you. I guess this would be for Chad. If I remember correctly this is the portion of the trilling hardware store property where they're going to be building that shelter for some of the stuff that they have now stored in their parking lot. That is correct. It's a parcel of land that kind of is a L-shaped parcel that goes around the Kiehl's auto service station and yes they would use portion of the property to build the storage building for their fertilizers. Thank you. The reason it's being suspended is because the current offer to purchase ends at the end of the year and we can't get information that we need from the DNR on the condition of the soils on that property. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll. Eat ice. Motion passes. Item 4.2 is resolution number 136 of 2021 by Alderperson Sorenson and Donahue authorizing the appropriate city officials to execute the first amendment to the agreement between the city of Sheboygan. Visit Sheboygan Incorporated and the Sheboygan area room tax commission regarding reimbursement of expenditures made by the city of Sheboygan related to the Blue Harbor Resort and Conference Center. Alderperson Sorenson, thank you Mayor, ask for suspension of the rules. Is there any objection to suspension? Seeing none please. Yes please go ahead. Okay. Object to the suspension. Need to be a motion to approve the suspension. Is there a second? Second. I'm not moving to suspend the rule. Alderperson Sorenson made the motion so he's looking for a second. Okay sorry I'm having trouble hearing this out of very bad connection tonight. My apologies. So I guess I'll ask for a point of parallel inch procedure. If there's an objection don't then you have to vote on the objection itself separately. Now we have to vote on this. Go ahead Charles. The mayor is able to proceed when there's not some motion just simply by asking for objection if there's no objection. The second and the vote is assumed but because there was an objection someone will need to second the motion that all their Sorenson has made and then there will be a vote and it does require a two-thirds vote. There is no debate and there's no amendment of of the motion. Is there a second to Alderperson's motion? Second. Thank you we have the motion on the floor to suspend the rules will the clerk please call the roll to allowing the suspension. Five eyes three nose. That's not too tight. It requires a two-thirds vote so that did not pass so the matter will have to lie over. Thank you very much city attorney. So I can I ask a question on that one so would that be then referred to a committee or can we refer to a committee instead of laying over? You can someone can make a motion to refer into a committee yes. I'll I move to refer this to the finance personnel committee. Is there a second? Very good. Any second? All in favor of this referral to the finance committee personnel please signify by saying aye. Opposed? Opposed? Motion passes. Mayor? Yes. Alderman Boren is it germane to ask why why the objection to for the document? City attorney I don't think we can do that on the current agenda track we're on can we? You know certainly it's really it relates to the item that was on the agenda so I think it can be answered if someone wants to answer it but it is all it was also a non-debatable motion so you can also just simply to choose to move on. If it's helpful I would be happy to explain my objections. I don't think we can allow that right now unless the city. As I said we could. City attorney can we allow that explained it's just not a debatable motion but it is related to the item that that has now been voted to refer. Thank you very much please proceed Alderperson Donahue. I don't mean to be troublesome but when I read the particular proposed contract modifications which seems to be reasonable I felt strongly that I certainly deserve much more explanation much more discussion and because we are putting off substantial payment to the city for a period of time and probably for good reason I think it would be helpful to have a smaller discussion with a smaller group with the head of Visit Shavuigan. I know Chad serves as chair I believe of that board and I don't know whether he would be speaking to the city or for Visit Shavuigan but I think that having that discussion will be helpful. I don't think it impairs the contractual rights of Visit Shavuigan otherwise I would not have objective suspension. I think this is something we can timely accomplish early in the next year. Thank you for that explanation. City attorney I have another speaker who'd like to speak can we engage in discussion on this? Pretty closely to the item that was noticed which was simply you know the resolution in front of us you can talk about it but again noting that you as chair do have the ability to say let's just move on but that's that's your decision. Thank you I'll allow Dean Decker to speak then. Okay that's go on then. All right item 4.3 is resolution number 137 of 2021 by Alderpersons Donahue Ackley Sorenson expressing gratitude for the skill efficiency and dedication demonstrated by the city clerk Meredith de Bruyne and her staff during the spring and fall election cycle. Alderpersons Donahue. I'll move adoption of this resolution. Second. Thank you for your motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Congratulations. Good job. Items 4.4 and 4.5 will be referred to various committees under reports of committees. Item 5.1 is RC number 212 of 2021 by the Public Works Committee. Tum was referred RC number 187 of 2021 by the Public Works Committee and RO number 97 of 2021 by the city clerk submitting a communication from Michael Thomas president of the Black American Community Outreach regarding Juneteenth Day celebration and recommends that the common council instruct the staff to prepare the appropriate document to waive the park rental fee for the Juneteenth celebration. Alderperson Decker. Thank you mayor. I'll make a motion to receive the report of the committee file the document instruct staff to prepare the appropriate document to waive the park rental fee. Thank you for that motion. Is there a second? Second. Very good. Any discussion on the motion? This is Alderman Bourne. I just have a question. Go ahead Jim. Thank you. Thank you mayor. Then the document that Public Works is going to produce regarding waiving the fee and the amount and everything that's going to come back to us for a final vote or as I see on I see later in the agenda we're creating an ordinance that gives the Public Works director discretion. Will we be voting on this again or will the Public Works director use his discretion if that ordinance is passed at the future meeting? City Attorney you want to take that one? Yes so the ordinance that you see at 6.3 which is getting referred to Public Works is the necessary document needed to waive the fee. It requires an ordinance due. It was sort of awkward phrasing by the committee in 5.1 but you will be voting on that and that you'll be able to review that at Public Works and then at council in two weeks. So then to answer my question Attorney Adams then at the end of the day it'll be Director Bevel that will use his discretion on whether to grant this then? He will use his discretion pursuant to the grounds that are set forth in the proposed ordinance if that ordinance is approved as written by Public Works and then again by council. All right thank you very much. Is there any other discussion? This is Likipaneski. I'm now confused. Are we doing an ordinance just for Juneteenth or are we doing an ordinance for discretion moving forward for all part rental? This would include all future. Yeah we could it would really be potentially problematic legally to just do it for one organization so it is a much wider ordinance than that. Any other discussion? And if that particular ordinance happened to come up because Juneteenth requested this so it got pulled together. But the underlying policy is we are now going to give discretion to Waving Park fees to our the head of CPW. If you vote for it you know that's what you'll be voting on in two weeks but the the policy that's contained in the proposed ordinance that has yet to be vetted by either the committee or by you would put that authority in the Public Works director but also put some fencing around that authority by saying here are the reasons for which that you can do it and here are the situations. Thank you. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.2 is RC number 213 of 2021 by the Finance and Personnel Committee to whom was referred resolution number 131 of 2021 by all the persons Donahue and Boren authorizing a transfer of appropriations in the 2020 budget and authorizing reimbursement for funds expended for the purchase of property located 1807 North A Street recommends amending the resolution by changing the address in the first paragraph to 1817 North A Street. All the person Donahue. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.3 is RC number 214 of 2021 by the Public Works Committee to whom was referred resolution number 132 of 2021 by all the persons Sorensen and Decker adopting the Sheboygan County, Wisconsin Hazardous Mitigation Plan for 2020-25 and recommends adopting the resolution. All the person Decker. Thank you, Mayor. Make a motion to receive the report of the committee and adopt the resolution. Is there a second? Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.4 is RC number 215 of 2021 by the Finance and Personnel Committee to whom was referred direct referral resolution number 133 of 2021 by all the persons Donahue and Boran authorizing retaining outside legal council to represent the city in the matter of Walmart real estate business trust versus the city of Sheboygan in authorizing payment for said services. All the person Donahue. Second. Thank you for your motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? The outside council that we are retaining own and well-use the expert is extremely reasonable and the results that she is able to obtain based on her expertise are good are very good and so we think that this is an appropriate expenditure of our of our funds and a good idea to retain her. Thank you for those comments all the person Donahue. Is there any other discussion? Mayor Alderman Boran please go ahead. Thank you Mayor. I would just second what all the person Donahue said and the reason why this works out well financially for the city of Sheboygan and other cities is that this attorney kind of packages these various lawsuits together and represents different municipalities as a group and that helps to keep down the the cost of this litigation with Walmart. Thank you. Thank you for that information. Please go ahead. This is the next in a very long line of lawsuits that we have faced from big box stores and for whatever reason there does not seem to be a legislative will to deal with this problem and it could be dealt with. So again I express my dismay that the legislature has not seen fit to act on the loophole that these big box stores climb through and cost local taxpayers a great deal of money. So I'm off my self box and I just wanted to say that. Thanks for that information. Seeing no other discussion will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.5 is RC number 216 of 2021 by the Public Works Committee to whom was referred direct referral resolution number 134 of 2021 by all the persons Decker and Sorensen authorizing the appropriate city officials to accept the quote from Oroho USA LLC for the purchase of components required to maintain the west influence screens at the wastewater treatment plant and to make other expenditures related to the maintenance of the west influence screen and the control of the east and west influence screens. Direct all the person Decker. Thank you mayor make a motion to receive the report of the committee and adopt the resolution or adopt the ordinance. Second. Thank you very much for that motion and second under discussion. Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.6 is RC number 217 of 2021 by the Licensing, Hearings and Public Safety Committee to whom was referred general ordinance number 26 of 2021 by all the persons Decker amending sections 118 through 276 and 118 through 279 of the municipal code relating to unlicensed vehicles and recommends adopting the ordinance. All the persons Sorensen. Thank you mayor move to receive the report of the committee and adopt the ordinance. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on this motion? Go ahead all the person Decker. I just want to say this is a great collaboration between the police department and the neighborhood committees and stuff that this is where this kind of came from. This is going to solve or help solve some of the neighborhood problems we've had with people parking cars doing taking out leaving junk cars all over the streets. We've had some issues in the Indiana corridor and the King Park neighborhood and I hope that you will support this. Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Eight ayes. Motion passes. Under general ordinances item 6.1 through 6.3 will be referred to various committees and next is adjournment. All the persons Sorensen. Thank you mayor. I move to adjourn and wish everyone a happy holidays and a very merry Christmas. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. All those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you for your time tonight.